PKT Town Halls have arrived and they’re here to stay! Expect a Twitter Space and a summary Newsletter to accompany it at the end of every month. A huge thank you to all of the speakers for keeping the PKT community informed on all the new exciting things in the works and to all the Pkteers that supported by listening in live!
Caleb James Delisle, lead dev of PKT, inventor of PacketCrypt and cjdns, kicked off the Town Hall with some updates on the Anode App, Internet sharing, pktd, and the PKT Mini.
First things first, be sure to check out the Anode VPN Android Walkthrough video on YouTube to get an exclusive deep dive into the Anode App before it launches!
The Anode VPN app on Android and iOS are both using PLD (Packet Lightning Demon) and they’re going to be migrating all of their wallets to be running on the PLD wallet core code base. This will give them the ability to start making lightning channels. PKT Cubes will also be slowly making the switch to PLD.
The Anode app used to have a GRPC-based interface for controlling the wallet, but it has been replaced with an HTTP interface. You can easily hit it with curl, as it’s self-describing and can help you if it’s asked. The team is trying to get PLD up to the point where it can be a compelling replacement for the PKT wallet.
The Anode app is currently deciding on a protocol that will allow users to connect the Anode VPN to the internet and ultimately, internet sharing. The team is going to spec the open-source protocol, and the PKT Mini is going to have the first software to implement it. Stay up to date with CJD and developer discussions by joining pkt.chat!
CJD also compared the PKT Mini to the PKT Cube to clarify their main differences. The PKT Mini is reported to have 2 radios, use less power, and come at a much lower price point (estimated to be less than $700 USD). The trade-off between the PKT Cube and the PKT Mini is that the PKT Mini mines less PKT when compared to its predecessor.
If you buy a PKT Mini, it will feature internet sharing capabilities, which will launch before being implemented on the PKT Cubes. Internet sharing means your neighbors can get online via WiFi sharing capabilities without subscribing directly to an Internet Service Provider (ISP). After connecting for the first time, your neighbor will be prompted to download the Anode VPN app. Then, they’ll be able to connect to a faster and more secure WiFi.
Think of internet sharing as something similar to connecting to airport WiFi (besides having to deal with that terrible UI). You can connect to a free but slower WiFi, or you can pay for faster speeds. The extra security provided by the VPN allows WiFi sharers to help people get online while having the peace of mind that no one is connecting to your IP address. This means you can safely become an internet service provider (ISP).
Josh Berger, the co-founder of PKT Pal and an early PKT community member, went up next to inform the community of PKT Pal’s updates. But first, what is PKT Pal?
PKT Pal’s mission is to help people get into the PKT ecosystem as easily as possible through turnkey software and hardware. They create products with the average consumer in mind, as most people do not have extensive technical knowledge.
The current flagship product PKT Pal offers is their PKT Cube. The PKT Cube is a plug-n-play 16-core miner preloaded with a PKT wallet and a custom operating system called the PkteerOS which ships globally. Simply plug the “whisper-quiet” cube in, connect it to the internet, and you’re mining PKT every 60 seconds. Discover the PKT Cube’s full capabilities on the PKT Pal Website. The PKT Mini (70% completed) will also come with a pre-loaded PKT wallet and PkteerOS.
But wait… What is PkteerOS anyway?
PkteerOS is a custom operating system that has a clean UI with clear metrics that make keeping track of your PKT extremely simple and easy. When you first register a PKT Cube or PKT Mini, you link your phone number and get a text to pair your number with the device. This allows you to access your PKT Cube anywhere in the world whenever you want. Whether it’s to check your balance, send money, or anything else, PkteerOS lets you do it all.
Shifting back to the hardware side of PKT Pal, the PKT Dish is currently in research and development to extend connectivity across great distances. Josh mentioned that PKT Pal is partnering with antenna and satellite companies to be able to integrate the large-scale equipment with PKT and the WiFi sharing tech. Starlink, the satellite internet constellation, could potentially be the source of the internet while PKT distributes connectivity in a mesh network to help get communities online around the world!
Greta Gurgenyan presented PKT Pal’s Bill Pay technology. Bill Pay is one of the first real utilities for PKT Cash. Bill Pay provides the ability for Pkteers to pay their utility bills using PKT. The platform is currently in a test net.
PKT Pal customers will get the honors of being able to test this utility first. If you aren’t a PKT Pal customer but would like to test Bill Pay, you can also be given access through the referral program! The referral program will help PKT Pal test functionality before rolling it out to the entire community.
To access Bill Pay when it becomes available, simply log in to your dashboard. From there, you can easily schedule monthly payments, check transaction history, and sign up for SMS and email notifications. You can also request a bill that you would like to be able to pay for in PKT with this system.
Every country has its own tax laws, so be sure to be aware of your local laws before participating in Bill Pay.
Do you want to see more pools up and running and to further decentralize PKT? So does PKT community member Tomas Leite de Castro. FasterCrypt was proposed to and accepted by the Network Steward to help advance PKT mining for GPU.
Starting and operating a pool is expensive and you have to use a custom code that could be exhausting to create. FasterCrypt’s goal is to create the best GPU mining code possible so that anyone who wants to host a pool can do so easily and with serious power. Progress on GPU mining has not been widely released yet, but you can keep up with Tomas and FasterCrypt on the PKT Blockchain Discord.
From the brilliant mind of KuzuDR comes Minr. Minr is a new app for Windows, Mac, and Linux that provides a graphical interface for PacketCrypt mining with the PKT Cash mining software.
Minr combines a simple mining experience with a friendly UI to help PKT achieve mainstream accessibility. The mining app allows for maximum performance without the need to get your hands dirty in the command line. Even installation is a breeze as it comes with an installer for Windows and a .dmg for Mac OS. With just a few clicks from download to mining, the barrier to entry for the average person has been lowered significantly.
Minr is currently in beta and has all basic functionality. Additional features are in the works, including creating multiple mining configurations and scheduling.
The app will be open source and published on GitHub. You can keep up with him on Discord for further updates! The Minr creator also hopes that PKT veterans also try the beta out as you can use your self-compiled PacketCrypt as well. So whether you’re an expert or a newbie, check out Minr!
KuzuDR also has a calculator to check mining profitability. KuzuDR is always in need of more CPU performance reports from the community, so don’t hesitate to reach out. The reports will help make performance estimates more accurate and assist new miners, or guide your next mining rig build. So if you’re already mining, please take a few seconds to fill out a report in the link above!
KuzuDR was also responsible for adding a feature to PacketCrypt that made it possible to set mining settings using a config file or remote API instead of CLI.
Dylan Knight, of Seaquake, is the operator of Pktpool and creator of the beautiful pktpool.io dashboard. The dashboard has a clean and comprehensive breakdown of his pool’s analytics, which includes a fascinating.globe that shows where all their pool’s traffic originates from. Want more info on other pools? A unified pool data collector is also in the works to get a breakdown of all of the pools’ data!
Not just a VPN company, Anode is also working on a mobile wallet for PKT. Adonis Gaitatzis filled us in on everything we need to know for the iOS app that has been over a year in the making.
The team has been focused on making this PKT mobile wallet as consumer-friendly as possible, focusing on solving common pain points for mobile wallet users. These include things like pin setup, password input, and seed phrase workflows. Extensive QA checks for processes like PKT transaction confirmations and onboarding workflows are currently taking place to ensure the smoothest app rollout.
The mobile wallet has been built from scratch, which allowed the Anode team to guarantee features like native currency references, transaction history, and a contact manager be included. The contact manager enhances the social capabilities as you’ll be able to save contact names to PKT addresses. The Anode team is pulling out all the stops to give Pkteers an enjoyable experience when accessing their PKT from their handheld devices. Make sure you don’t miss the official launch by joining the PKT Telegram chat.
Lights. Camera. ACTION! Create quality video content about PKT and get paid up to once per week. The Evergreen Video Initiative (EVI) was created to not only increase the reach of PKT on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram but also to increase accessibility. More content in any language will help new Pkteers around the world understand and navigate the PKT ecosystem with ease.
Airdrops will go out to eligible content creators every week based on a points-based reward system. The system includes a set criteria plus a bonus community vote for extra points. The guidelines as well as community voting you can participate in can be found in the PKT Blockchain Discord in #video-initiative.
If you’d like to submit a video now or in the future, please bookmark this link to the EVI Submission Form.
PKT Pal is focused on building the PKT Network and expanding awareness through marketing efforts. A generous amount of revenue from the company goes back into marketing in order to help increase awareness for PKT and grow the community. PKT Pal has also offered airdrops from the PKT Pal treasury to generate excitement, and has been developing the PKT.Cash website and supporting the various public social channels.
Josh Berger, co-founder of PKT Pal, has been busy traveling to a plethora of crypto conventions worldwide to get the word out and get people invested in PKT. Josh has also been building out marketing funnels to help with technical understanding and attract new Pkteers. Make sure to follow and interact with PKT Cash socials to help the project gain as much exposure as possible!
A Weblike-GUI Wallet is being developed by SaveData. The new wallet is described as “an extension for the official PKT CLI wallet that was started with the intention of providing a visual PKT wallet interface while retaining the functionality of the CLI wallet.”
You can read up on the wallet’s details in this pastebin, but to summarize, its other purposes are to store PKT, handle transactions, and localize data. SaveData can be found in #developers in Discord if you have any questions!
That’s all for PKT’s June 2022 Town Hall. Make sure you don’t miss the next ones by following our socials! Thank you for being part of the PKT community as the project is built by Pkteers like you. Hope to see you at the next one!
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