As we mentioned in the previous newsletter (October 2018), I (@Mandica) met up with @Tek in London to discuss Spectrecoin, future plans and development. This is the first ever meet-up of any Spectrecoin team members. We discussed the history of Spectrecoin, where we are today and what we plan to do next. We also met with a future collaborator. Full details will be included in the November 2018 newsletter.

The Development Fund

As you all know the whole cryptocurrency ‘ecosystem‘ is in a depression and both trade volume and price is suffering and hence the Spectrecoin development fund is also suffering. Although we have a steady stream of XSPEC coming in from the network, given the current XSPEC value, the dev fund is not sufficient to sustain the current pace and momentum of development and cover all the costs. That is, if we are to retain @Tek and @Helix in a near full time capacity over the next few months and be able to do a proper marketing push. It is therefore vital that we all contribute to the value of Spectrecoin and keep the interest high. If the price hits $1.5,- or more it makes a significant difference to the development fund and would allow a sustained high level of development to continue. Therefore, we need a more defined strategy to create value and interest.

So, in order to be able to move Spectrecoin forward and create increasing value and obtain the trust of investors and industry, we must continue with an agenda of professionalisation, transparency and accountability. We also need to be extremely focused on creating brand awareness and make Spectrecoin known and obviously deliver excellent technology. Below, we outline what we propose to do in order to achieve this and ensure that the development fund will sustain the growth of Spectrecoin and the retention of key team members to put in the required work.

Not-for Profit Organisation

As mentioned in the previous newsletter, we are considering options around establishing a legal entity for Spectrecoin in the UK or in Switzerland. As we are aiming to operate as a not-for profit organisation, we are seeking to establish a tax exempt entity. This may not be possible in the UK and I am currently in talks with a Swiss law firm around setting up a so called Swiss ‘verein‘ for Spectrecoin. This is now a high priority. In addition to that we expect that all Spectrecoin core team members will become public with our real names during this process of creating a foundation. This will ensure increased transparency and accountability when dealing with industry and investors. We believe this is the first and crucial step in establishing Spectrecoin as a serious project with future potential and growth.

We expect full details of this in the November 2018 newsletter.

Marketing

It has become apparent that Spectrecoin needs some serious marketing efforts beyond the usual forums and posts. We believe that we have some unique technology and some very competent developers but the world needs to know. We are making efforts to find a way to increase the awareness of Spectrecoin. We will be looking into partnering with a marketing agency to focus our branding and increase awareness of Spectrecoin. We are seeking to add an additional marketing person to the Spectrecoin team.

Roadmap

In addition to the organisational efforts to establish Spectrecoin as a foundation we also need to keep the technical development going. We can promise some exciting news over the next few weeks, but some details will have to wait until the November 2018 newsletter.

New collaborators

@Tek and me met with a couple of industry experts (cryptographers) in London on Saturday. Their principle research areas are around stealth address technology, ring signature and information security. We secured a long term collaboration that will include a code review, in particular around the implementation of cryptographic functions such as ring signatures and other cryptographic features of the code. They will also test the Spectrecoin code against a range of possible attack vectors and seek to improve the security of the code. This will also involve looking into strategies for future proofing the code. We expect this to result in Spectrecoin being able to deliver the best possible transactional privacy. I expect to finalise the details this coming week and full details will be in the November 2018 newsletter.

December 2018 mandatory update

We have decided to release Spectrecoin v3 which is a consensus changing update in December 2018. This update will be mandatory and will contain a few very important updates to the anonymous coin system. We will set the minimum ring size for anonymous transactions to 10. This is to ensure that smaller ring sizes are banned by the network as a ring size of 1 for example poses a serious risk to privacy. The network currently contains sufficient anonymous outputs to support this change. We will also align the fees for public and private transactions. There will also be bug fixes and other smaller updates. Full details with a date for the update will be announced in due time.

Simplified UI

We realise that many new Spectrecoin users may be unfamiliar with cryptocurrency software and we can see how the Spectrecoin wallet may have too many options and possibilities available. This causes confusion, also among experienced users and may prevent people from using the anonymous transactions. We will therefore work on a simplified UI with fewer options that is easier and more intuitive to use and this will also reduce the risk of mistakes. For example, when you want to send coins, you should be able to choose between a “normal” transaction or an “anonymous” transaction with the simple click of a button. The rest should be handled automatically by the software. This together with the December release of Spectrecoin v3 and further security updates will ensure that you can trust that the transactions are as private as they can be. You need not worry about ring sizes or anything else. We will strive for a simple and easy to use UI. There is no specific time frame for the release of an updated UI but we are saying that this will be put on the roadmap.

Stealth Staking

Stealth Staking is coming. We aim to release an expanded section in the next release of the Spectrecoin white paper with a lot more details around how we will implement stealth staking. We will aim to have the full details of stealth staking, the ring size update and more in the next white paper due for December 2018. We aim to have stealth staking running on the testnet by the end of March 2019. In respect of this, it’s important to remember that @Tek is vital to make this happen and he has a full time day job and has been working really hard lately as you all know with Spectrecoin.

Mobile

Spectrecoin will have a mobile app as we believe this essential for future growth. We will work out a ‘proof-of-concept‘ for a mobile platform and aim to get that into the next version of the white paper due for December 2018.

Next 6 months (what to expect…)

Stealth Staking (“proof-of-stealth“).

Significant code updates related to privacy and security.

Cryptographers collaborating with core team and working on the code.

Spectrecoin Foundation / company formed.

Spectrecoin core team will no longer remain anonymous.

Increased marketing efforts.

Details of Spectrecoin mobile platform.

Maybe a couple surprises still on the drawing board…