February Newsletter - We've arrived at Ari station 🚅

The OmiseGO Developer Program (ODP) is an initiative that is part of the product development process. The objective of the ODP is to systematically and carefully facilitate usage and thorough testing of Proof-of-Concepts (PoCs) and early stage products in order to gain feedback for improvement. The program is aimed towards those who would like to build their own products, such as games, financial service applications, and education platforms on top of the OMG Network. Applicants of the ODP will fall into the developer category and are willing to work with unpolished and early stage codebase.

Early testers and integrators are given early access to the new products OmiseGO rolls out. Those in the program will also have opportunities to interact with each other and with the engineering team.

ODP application timeline
The ODP is an ongoing program and applications are accepted on a rolling basis. The goal is for ODP participants to participate as Alpha testers for roll-outs before they are released to the public in Beta. What this means is that there is no real definite timeline or start and end dates.

While we have no definite dates set, here’s what we have planned out within the next three months:

End of February to beginning of April 2019:
1. Whitelisted access to the Alpha release of the OMG Network with integration guide
2. Access to a JS Starter Kit to start making transactions quickly on browsers
3. Communication channel established with OmiseGO Engineers
4. Early access to a ‘Getting Started Guide’ to the OMG Network

Aside from this expect other supporting services and libraries in other languages to be rolled out as well.

Beyond the alpha and beta Releases of our network, participants can expect interactive discourse with the product and engineering team at OmiseGO, including opportunities to share your opinions on what product and features you would like to see and build that will make your life as an integrator easier.

Given that acceptance to the ODP will happen on a rolling basis, the acceptance criteria is subject to change with each phase of development. Applicants who have applied and have not gotten accepted can still expect to be contacted in the future.

Vansa Chatikavanij, OmiseGO Managing Director, blogs about her start at OmiseGO and how the developments in Q1 2019 contribute to OmiseGO’s mission of enabling people to access financial services that are fast, fair and secure.

Read more about the road ahead on VANSA'S BLOG.

Catch-up on all the latest developments that happened in February 2019. A four minute read that summarizes our tech updates for the eWallet and Plasma, the lowdown on OmiseGO-related news, the events we've been to, and events to look out for in the months to come.

Pwolf88 has been an active member of the community since 2017. A regular contributor to the OmiseGO subreddit, Pwolf88 and the team at OMGPool have created valuable resources for the OMG community like the OmiseGO News Feed, his explanation of Plasma, and the staking rewards calculator. This month, we get to know Pwolf88 and how the OMGPool team work together for the good of the community.

Question: First of all, are you a developer?

pwolf88: I used to be. As a child, I was already living with a father and two brothers that were all obsessed with computers and technology. In college, I studied programming but after a couple years of experience, I soon realized I was more interested in the business and analytical part of things. I learned to program in Solidity though, but that was more to get a feeling of the technologies. I leave the actual coding to the experts.

Question: What got you interested in blockchain, how did it start?

pwolf88: A friend of mine told me about Ethereum in the summer of 2017, but mostly from an investment point of view. At that time, the whole concept of cryptocurrencies was just a big casino to me. I quickly decided to learn the fundamentals behind it, before losing even 1 dollar on it. Soon™ I discovered the enormous potential of smart contracts and Proof-of-Stake consensus networks, which led me to research OmiseGO. After getting involved in the OMG community, I was offered to join the OMGPool team, as it is developing in a very organic way with members of the community.

Q: How does your team work together?

pwolf88: We all have different backgrounds and skills, and are all working in the same direction so each task is dispatched quite easily. We are also a small team, so we can adapt quickly to our needs. It’s amazing how people can cooperate almost effortlessly, when they all believe in the same thing and have the same goal in their mind.

Q: What projects have your team completed and are proud of?

pwolf88: The Staking Rewards Calculator on our website is often referenced in the community for rewards speculation and it will be even more useful when staking is live to estimate revenue for stakers, just like mining calculators do for miners. But the thing we’re most proud of is how we’ve integrated with the community and can respond to the needs that various members may have. For instance, we implemented the OMG News Feed because we believed that there was just too much ‘fud’ on Reddit and other social networks that could kill the interest of new people wanting to learn about the fundamentals of OMG in a healthy manner.

Q: What OmiseGO technology are you excited to develop on?

pwolf88: We’re most excited about the entire reason OMGPool exists: Proof-of-Stake. It’s a superior incentive model to Proof-of-Work, both in its economic model and its technical sophistication. We hold the belief that over time, Proof-of-Stake systems will become the dominant crypto platforms because of their practicality and accessibility, especially through the use of smart-contract-enabled staking pools where you still hold true ownership over your assets, as opposed to entrusting them to a custodian.

Q: What use cases are you looking forward to see using the white label eWallet?

pwolf88: One day I would like to experience the opportunity to collect loyalty points from local and online businesses I use as a customer, or to cash out my crypto assets to fiat money in a local shop.

Q: What inspires you when writing for the community? What brings about interest in doing so?

pwolf88: I love to write about topics that are so new and groundbreaking. If I think about the potential of blockchain in this digital revolution we’re living in, it feels like we’re way overdue and we need this more than anything to really get started with things like smart cities, machine coordination, and virtual reality. To me, the digitalization of payments is crucial, but it’s only a first step towards this bigger world we’re about to see.

See what pwolf88 and OMGPool are working on by visiting their WEBSITE and MEDIUM PAGE. Stay in the loop by subscribing to their EMAIL LIST and TELEGRAM GROUP.

xxx

We've rounded up and answered the most popular questions the community had to ask.
Click on the buttons below to cycle through February's weekly AMA.

Get with the Program
– The OmiseGO Developer Program

The Road Ahead for OmiseGO

February Roundup

pwolf88

Community Spotlight