Counterparty Newsletter 05/02/2018

Introduction

May’s Counterparty Newsletter features a few brief but exciting updates from the Counterparty community. Check them out below!

Ecosystem Updates

Spells of Genesis has had a busy month with quite a few exciting new updates alongside their regular monthly campaigns. Firstly though, their ‘May’s Dawn’ campaign, allowed users who had completed the first star of Spells of Genesis’ 30th level - the Dark Creator - the opportunity to win further rewards. Future campaigns will be available to all players who have completed ‘the Orc’ campaign.

“I am the dawn of May. With my breath, I pull you from the brink of death and return you to the spring. You, the flame, frozen by the wintery night.”

In their latest version update - 1.2.15 (released May 1st), the Spells of Genesis team updated the gaming interface to reflect the inclusion of daily rewards. Players who log in to the game daily - and consecutively - will increase the value of their reward. In turn, missing a day will result in a reset in value.

In another move, the Spells of Genesis interface has been updated so that Daily Quests and Daily Rewards are now located elsewhere and together - on a new screen for players to access.

In another new mode, available to all players now; challenges aka ‘Infinity’ mode allows players to continually engage in battle rounds until their team is defeated - with the battle difficulty increasing with each round.

Outside of the gameplay, the Spells of Genesis community will also experience one-day flash sales throughout May, allowing players the opportunity to get Legendary cards.

IndieSquare Wallet is excitingly drawing nearer to the release of their newly developed API. The ‘WebXCP’ standard “will allow any 3rd party developer to create a web-based app that can link with the user’s Indiesquare wallet” says developer Christian Moss. Pending its release, it will also feature some simple Rare Pepe games that integrate the user’s collection.

Sarutobi Island draws closer to concluding development on chapter 3 of the RPG (Roleplay) based blockchain integrated mobile game. In a new addition, developer Mandel Duck has announced plans to add a turn-based battle system wherein monsters with allocated ‘types’ can fight one another.

Development for the upcoming fourth chapter of the game focuses on cross-collaboration between other XCP projects such as Age of Chains.

Age of Rust has sadly made the decision to move their Rustbits token to Ethereum by Q3 this year, but the game’s core premise seems to still offer key BTC rewards to players throughout gameplay; alongside other cryptocurrency rewards available throughout other XCP projects.

In their April development update, the Age of Rust team importantly discusses a key change to the game’s aesthetic; in a move from text adventure gaming to 3D. This follows user insight and demand to make the game more visually accessible.

[embed]https://twitter.com/SpacePirate\_io/status/985690817435058176 />

Augmentors has recently updated their projected roadmap to reflect the way in which they intend to release the final version of their game.

Also changing, the Augmentors team has refocused their efforts in recent weeks on UI design, to assist newer players of the game’s earlier releases. As a result, the latest updates from the team include the intention to add an in-game tutorial to the game - that pairs with the updated UI (user interface) - to help teach new players about the basic concept of Augmentors.

The Augmentors gameplay will also be upgraded to include additional features such as relics and potions to aid players in battle with additional strategy. This is intended to help players with the new skill system wherein players will be ranked on a performance level in-game. To learn more, check out the latest update here.

FoldingCoin celebrates having a total of 15 team members on board of the project this month - having added 3 new developers recently. In a highly anticipated release, the FoldingCoin team has officially released their Merged Folding platform, allowing for even more tokens to be earned from the Folding@home distributed computing project. As part of their collaboration with Tokenly, other projects are now able to distribute their tokens via the platform and its estimated 2000 users (approximately per month), to learn more click here.

TheFoldingCoin team would like users to remain aware that Merged Folding is still in BETA and users should be aware that the platform still requires BTC dust per transaction. There have also been some issues with some Folders being dropped from distributions.

Bugs should be reported to rross@foldingcoin.net. Tokens can be distributed here. FoldingCoin hosts monthly public hangouts over on youtube - join them May 5th for the next one.

Mafia wars recently announced their project on Twitter and began Airdrops earlier this week. Similar to other projects in the XCP community, Mafia Wars is an idle game of accumulation with a mafia theme, where the goal is to accumulate MAFIACASH. Distributed on a monthly basis, the amount is proportional to the amount of Mafia Wars ‘Family Tokens’ and in-game performance.

You can view the full roadmap over at mafiawars.io.

[embed]https://twitter.com/mafiawars\_io/status/991463790817480705 />

Counterparty in the News:

In Counterparty news this month, the BitCrystals Ecosystem recently released a glossary featuring Counterparty. For those looking to get more versed in the terminology surrounding cryptocurrency that you may encounter throughout various projects in the Counterparty community, then this is the place to go to!

In other news, the Augmentors team drew a mention in an article published by cryptobitgames. The article highlights first and foremost, that Augmentors is a Counterparty project, and one of the first to bring Augmented Reality to the Blockchain. Offering a concise insight to the game for those unfamiliar with the project, the article mentions the keen aspects of the game such as, “players start off the game with a free unique creature that they can train to become stronger in battle. The more battles you win, the higher the level the creature will attain.” The article goes on to discuss the game’s cryptocurrency elements and crowdfunding base - you can check it out in the hyperlink above!

In two new pieces from Joey Chiappetta this month, the Rare Digital Art discussion continues. The first piece ‘Rare Digital Art cruises to new frontiers’, discusses the latest card to be added to the BitCrystals ecosystem and Book of Orbs Wallet.

Dubbing the process of adding digital scarcity to art as ‘blockchainization’, Chiappetta thanks Everdreamsoft for the namesake, before moving on to mentioning them and Book of Orbs as ‘Crypto Art Market Mavericks’. Finally, Chiappetta goes on to list 5 innovative traits of a rare digital art ecosystem - check it out here.

Chiappetta’ssecond piece briefly discusses the concept of art and what assigns it value, implying that his favored ‘blockchainization’ is key to the design process.

Finally, in an article from CryptoSlate, it is argued that whilst Blockchain has a mainstream position in the marketplace due its transparency and auditability, its place in the art market is a whole new ballgame for the platform. Noting that there are more 1500 cryptocurrencies, this journalist’s conflicted opinion does not prevent him from endorsing artist creativity via the blockchain. Ending with a segue into how blockchain art has since made strides into video games, the piece is a notable read - check it out here.

Counterparty Development News:

At the beginning of this month, Dan Anderson held a Counterparty meet up in New York.

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We’d love to hear from anyone who was able to attend over on our social channels.

Last month we received a pledge from Indiesquare for developmental support towards upcoming CIPs pending the release of the above-mentioned API. We have since had offers for similar support from FoldingCoin and are extremely thankful for this outreach of support. We look forward to progressing with the Counterparty CIPs and moving the protocol forward in the near future.

Going forward, development status on future CIPs are as follows:

CIP 10 and CIP 6 are still subject to peer review and unfortunately, have no ETA. There is no ETA at this time for CIP 15 (segwit) but things should be moving forward given the above pledges - and it is welcome for review. You can stay up to date with current and future CIPs, as well as links to relevant GitHub pages via the Counterparty donate page.

CIP 6 - P2SH data encoding

P2SH data encoding will allow Counterparty to utilize more space for transactions. CIP 6 will be beneficial to large transactions and is a prerequisite in supporting some of the more advanced send types, such as multi-peer-multi-asset (MPMA) and Multiparty Counterparty Aggregate Transactions (MCAT).

CIP 10 - Multi-Peer Multi-Asset Sends (MPMA)

Multi-Peer Multi-Assets sends will allow many assets to be sent to many peers in a single transaction, simplifying batch transactions, and reducing transaction fees even further.

CIP 15- Segwit Support

Enabling Segwit support within Counterparty will enable users to spend less on transaction fees and enables potential future enhancements. Updating Counterwallet will allow users to choose if they want to send assets to a segwit enabled address or a traditional address.

CIPs planned for release this year:

CIP 13 - Multiparty Counterparty Aggregate Transactions (MCAT)

MCAT will allow Counterparty users to group their transactions with those of other Counterparty users, to reduce their sends costs considerably. Most users will be able to utilize this feature to send transactions for less than the cost of a single bitcoin transaction.

CIP 13 will also allow Counterparty users to utilize MCAT nodes, to send assets across the Counterparty Network, and pay for the transaction fees in an asset other than BTC.

Counterparty is an open-source, community-funded project which progresses solely through the generous time and monetary donations of others.

Again, please visit ourdonations page to stay up to date on the current bounty and development status of any CIPS, and consider making a donation to support their continued development. Alternatively, pleaseshare orRT Counterparty CIPs on social media so we can help fulfill them faster!

Counterparty hangouts are currently withheld until CIPs are next implemented, however, you can find our previous hangouts Counterparty.io shortly thereafter.

We have also recently opened up a press channel for any media inquiries and would ask any media outlets to contact press@Counterparty.io.

Please join the@Counterparty_XCP group on Telegram for breaking news and real-time Counterparty conversation!

Disclaimer: This newsletter is sent as an informational piece, and no part of it should be taken as financial advice.