Topic: [ANN][PART] Particl ● P2P Anon Marketplaces ● RingCT ● v3 UPGRADE this summer! - page 3. (Read 3378 times)

Particl Desktop 3.3 — What to Expect



Read the full blog post on: https://particl.news/particl-desktop-3-3-what-to-expect/

Particl Development Progress Report (20-05-2022)



Read the full blog post on: https://particl.news/particl-development-progress-report-20-05-2022/

Great updates! Can't wait for Particl Desktop 3.3.

I'm very excited about the upcoming Particl BasicSwap decentralized exchange!

The fully private and decentralized cross-chain exchange for cryptocurrencies aspiring to set new standards.

Particl Development Progress Report (13-05-2022)

• Particl Desktop Progress Update
• Plans for Particl Desktop 3.3 🗒️
• New Major Development Cycle (Post-3.3) 🚀
• Marketing Strategy in Light of the New Development Cycle 📢

Read the full blog post here: https://particl.news/particl-development-progress-report-13-05-2022/[/list]

Keep up to date on the latest news here https://particl.news/

Particl Desktop 3.2 Testnet is Live



The long-anticipated Particl Desktop 3.2 update is now publicly available on testnet! You can now download and install the new desktop client and thoroughly test all the new additions and improvements.
User Messaging (Marketplace) 💬



You can now send messages to the seller directly from a listing's public chatroom

This new Particl Desktop client update introduces a new and major marketplace feature: user messaging. It lets sellers and buyers (as well as potential buyers) communicate with each other in a free-flow form.

User messaging is available in two different ways. On one end, each listing now has a "public chatroom" in which any user can ask questions to the seller. All messages posted in a listing's chatroom are publicly viewable, meaning anyone can see current and past messages sent this way. This function is likely to replace the "Reviews" functionality, although we would love to get your feedback and thoughts on the matter during Particl Desktop 3.2's testnet round.

On the other end, a private chatroom, only accessible and viewable to the seller and the buyer of an item, is opened up when placing an order. Communications initiated this way are entirely end-to-end encrypted and anonymous, and it is impossible for any third-party or middleman to intercept messages. Messages are propagated through the SMSG network and never go through any central server. Private in-order chatrooms are available from the Order section of the Purchases and Sell pages, depending on whether you are the seller or the buyer.

Read the full blog post on: https://particl.news/particl-desktop-3-2-testnet/

Particl Development Progress Report (29-04-2022)





With the week coming to a close, it's time for our weekly progress report! This week, we've got some exciting news to share we're sure you'll love in regards to Particl Desktop 3.2, so let's not waste time and get to it right away!

Particl Desktop Progress Update

This week, we've finally completed the integration of the new messaging system into Particl Marketplace! This new feature lets sellers and buyers (or potential buyers) communicate with each other in a free-flow form.



You can now send messages to the seller directly from a listing's public chatroom

This new update introduces user messaging in two different ways. On one end, each listing now has a "public chatroom" in which any user can ask questions to the seller. All messages posted in a listing's chatroom are publicly viewable, meaning anyone can see current and past messages sent this way. This function is likely to replace the "Reviews" functionality, although we would love to get your feedback and thoughts on the matter during Particl Desktop 3.2's testnet round.

On the other end, a private chatroom, only accessible and viewable to the seller and the buyer of an item, is opened up when placing an order. Communications initiated this way are entirely end-to-end encrypted and anonymous, and it is impossible for any third-party or middleman to intercept messages. Messages are propagated through the SMSG network and never go through any central server. Private in-order chatrooms are available from the Order section of the Purchases and Sell pages, depending on whether you are the seller or the buyer.

At this time, the messaging system is tied to the marketplace and isn't a standalone feature yet. We plan on isolating that feature moving forward to make it possible to open private chatrooms with individuals without having to use Particl Marketplace.




With the messaging system now ready for the marketplace, we are currently looking at a few minor issues raised within the last few days and, if there's any fix required, they'll be included in Particl Desktop 3.2.

Barring any issue stemming from the current round of internal testing, we'll be ready to release Particl Desktop 3.2 on testnet within the next 24 to 72 hours. Then, if all goes well, we'll be able to release it, on mainnet, a few days after that.

As always, we highly encourage you to come and help us test this new major Particl Desktop release to ensure that no edge case or environment-specific issue is missed by the team. Additionally, as we've mentioned just a bit above, we're also curious about your feedback regarding the deprecation of the Reviews functionality in favor of public chatrooms within listing pages.

Particl Core and BasicSwap Update

New Particl Core Version ✅
Release Particl Core 0.21.2.9 · particl/particl-core
Release Notes: https://github.com/particl/particl-core/blob/0.21/doc/release-notes-particl.md#02129Hashes56c899c09cb11948c9b81e92ff2599fbcf8cd18b10fd3e708064d37b1b1c4bbd particl-0.21.2.9-aarch64...
particl

Earlier this week, we pre-released Particl Core 0.21.2.9, a release focused on network stability, on Github. It includes a variety of SMSG network improvements and also improves the stability of the blockchain's connectivity by banning misbehaving peers more effectively. Follow this link for the full list of changes.

While this is still marked as a pre-release, meaning your cold staking nodes won't update automatically through Partyman, we encourage you to install this new version and report back to the team should you encounter any issues. It will be marked as a full release shortly.

Particl Electrum ✅

Release 4.2.1.5 Particl · tecnovert/electrum
https://github.com/tecnovert/electrum/releases/tag/4.2.1.5_particl
Hashesdb67abb00dc575a4270c88cbd36105ae72355f7edc1c21830865fd8f9769afcb ElectrumParticl-4.2.1.5-arm64-v8a-release.apkf8df945d44de292395cdc20452931fa12d2fd2a1fa9352a794e76be74ab8da15 ElectrumPart...
tecnovert

We've also pushed a minor cosmetic fix to Particl Electrum mobile which changes the display of staking transactions from a negative fee to a correctly marked staking reward.

To that effect, we pushed, a few hours ago, new mobile builds (.apk) for Android that fix this issue.

Core Codebase Maintenance 🛠️

https://github.com/particl/particl-core/commits/master
Commits · particl/particl-core
Particl Core integration/staging tree. Contribute to particl/particl-core development by creating an account on GitHub.
particl

As usual, various code adaptions and merges have been done as part of our ever-ongoing process of keeping Particl Core up-to-date with Bitcoin's latest version. You can always keep track of those changes by following this link.

As a reminder, while this task may appear "mundane" on the surface, it is vital for the deployment of certain functionalities that are critical to the success of our ecosystem.

For example, Taproot, which is now available on Particl, is poised to become an important feature of the upcoming BasicSwap DEX. By not keeping the Particl Core codebase up-to-date with the ongoing Bitcoin developments, integrating such a major feature would not only be very messy and time-consuming, but it would also potentially be unsafe as it would be missing important dependencies.

What keeping up with the Bitcoin codebase allows Particl to do is to leverage all the new exciting updates, features, and functionalities of Bitcoin and integrate them, when and if needed, into our wider ecosystem in a timely and safe manner.

BasicSwap 📈

We do not have anything in particular to mention this week on BasicSwap other than what was mentioned in last week's report. We are still working on finalizing the DEX's user interface and it is the current main focus of our designer and lead UI/UX, Gerlof van Ek.

Exclusive Episode of the Super Dangerous Club

https://youtu.be/djuRy7TZvtY

You're probably already aware of the Super Dangerous Club, the weekly show by Particl advocates Dr. Kap and e-commerce expert Joe Fisher. They talk about various topics touching on technology, geo-politics, futurism, and more.

Last week, they focused their episode on the Particl project and Particl Marketplace. If you're a fan of Particl, then this one is an episode you must not skip.

While the episode itself is not yet released anywhere other than on Clubhouse, we thought of sharing it here in advance for our weekly progress update readers only.


Every week, the show is broadcasted on all your favorite platforms. But to really get into the action, we invite you to come and speak your mind directly with our two wonderful hosts on Clubhouse's live episodes.

To see where the SDC is available, follow the linktree below!

https://linktr.ee/superdangerous

Read the full blog post on: https://particl.news/particl-development-progress-report-29-04-2022/

Particl Development Progress Report (22-04-2022)



The week has come to an end and you know what that means; it's time for our weekly progress report!

This week, in addition to the development update, we've also included a link to the team's funding allocation report. If you're interested in this data, make sure to scroll down to the bottom of this article for a link to it.

Now let's jump into the crux of this update!

Particl Desktop Progress Report

This week, we've made considerable progress on the in-market messaging system. We have, in fact, completed its initial integration.

Thus, we've spent a good portion of the week testing it in a live environment and have identified three issues that we are now working on resolving, with one being likely fixed already (testing of the fix is ongoing at the time of this writing). We hope to resolve the other two issues by the end of this coming weekend, or early into the coming week.

Once these issues are resolved, the new messaging system for the marketplace app will be ready, which means Particl Desktop 3.2 will also be ready for its testnet round. We are aiming, barring any unforeseen issues, to begin the process of getting the testnet builds ready for release by mid or late next week. We will keep you updated about the process.

Read the full blog post for extensive updates on:

• Particl Core and BasicSwap Progress Report
• Frozen Heart Exploit ❄️ 💔(we're safe)
• Cold Staking Pool Bug 🪲 (fixed)
• BasicSwap 📈
• Core Maintenance and More Onion Seeds 🧅
• SoonTM Development Ltd Spending Report

Read the full blog post now on: https://particl.news/particl-development-progress-report-22-04-2022/

Particl Development Progress Report (15-04-2022)



With the week coming to an end, it's time for our weekly progress report. And boy has this week been a busy one with the release of several updates both to Particl Core and Particl Desktop.

So let's not waste any time and jump right into the crux of this update!‌

Particl Desktop Progress Report

This week has been championed by the release of two very important updates to Particl Desktop. Indeed, an odd issue surfaced in which marketplace listings were not being received and decrypted by other peers of the network. While this did not affect the sellers' ability to publish listings, it caused products not to show up for other users creating the illusion of an empty marketplace.

Particl Desktop 3.1.3 Released
https://particl.news/particl-desktop-3-1-3-released/

After relentless troubleshooting and debugging with some of our current vendors, the root cause of the issue was identified and Particl's desktop developer Arnold Bansemer pushed out a fix that resolves this issue.

Although the Particl Desktop 3.1.2 fixed a significant portion of this issue, the patch was later completed with the release of the 3.1.3 versions which fully fixes the problem for good. Because this bug causes significant issues to the marketplace's user experience (you can't see listings), this update is necessary for anyone that wants to use Particl Marketplace.

And so, although we hoped to be done this week with the in-market messaging system, the major issue mentioned just above created delays in its completion. We can, however, report that it is almost complete by now. Once fully ready and internally tested, we'll be ready to issue testnet builds for the Particl community to test out the new major feature thoroughly.

Particl Core Progress Update

As for Particl Core, this was a very busy and productive week as well. We've also seen two releases for the two most popular Particl codebases; Particl Core 0.19 and 0.21. ‌
New Particl Core Releases Available
https://particl.news/new-particl-core-releases-available/

These two releases fixed an array of bugs, notably one that prevented some anon outputs from being properly displayed within the Coin Control menu. It also introduced a few improvements like Particl's 0.19 codebase now having the same default ring size as all other maintained codebases as well as Particl Desktop. This improves the level of privacy of people making anon transactions using the 0.19 codebase by unifying the default value across all environments.

Note that, since these two releases were in pre-release mode, Particl's cold staking application doesn't automatically update to them yet. This is normal. In fact, ever since the release of 0.21.2.8 earlier this week, the build has been updated to deal with a specific issue regarding peer selection and banning. Since then, the 0.19.2.20 has been made into a full release, therefore, Partyman should be able to update.

Additionally, we released today, a new build in pre-release for Particl Core 22.0 (note the change in nomenclature that comes with Bitcoin's latest codebase version).
Release Particl Core 22.0.2 · particl/particl-core
Release Notes: https://github.com/particl/particl-core/blob/22.x/doc/release-notes-particl.md#2202Hashesa4bbfa6322ec52272be567c39c54f543d2c06fb30827d5526c252c5c144f3d6c particl-22.0.2.0-x86_64-l...
particl

Particl Core 22.0.2 introduces a wide variety of improvements and bug fixes from Bitcoin's upstream code, which can be seen by following this link. If you're running a 22.0 node, we highly recommend updating and reporting back to the Particl team if you encounter any issues!

Read the full blog post here: https://particl.news/particl-development-progress-report-15-04-2022/

Particl Development Progress Report (08-04-2022)



The week is coming to an end, and with it comes our usual progress report! This week, we've got some exciting development on the side of Particl Desktop, with its new version finally nearing the beginning of the testnet round of testing!

Let's jump right in and get into these details!


Particl Desktop Progress Update

This week we've seen significant progress with the upcoming messaging system that will be added to the marketplace. Dare we say that it is...right around the corner? 😅

In fact, it is now nearing completion, with the majority of the work in Particl Desktop being now completed. As it stands now, there are only a couple of issues that still need to be addressed and one or two additional features that still need to be implemented relating to the messaging. Still, those are minor compared to the work that's already been done on that end.

For example, the ability to save a label, like a name or an identifier, to a particular chat address still needs to be added to the desktop client; a feature that should take no time to add.

In addition, there are still a couple of non-messaging issues that we've come across that need to be looked at. By fixing these, along with the now-quite-impressive number of improvements and bug fixes since our last desktop client update, you can guess that Particl Desktop 3.2 is going to have a much better user experience and feel much smoother, especially for vendors who've submitted a non-negligible list of feedback, comments, and suggestions! Thank you all for your constant reports; they help immensely in improving Particl!

With all of the above in mind, the focus for next week will be to complete all of the messaging-related changes (final desktop client implementation issues and final additional features) and do the final internal testing of the entirety of the messaging implementation. We'll also strive to finish off the other non-messaging issues.

And so, we hope to be able to initiate the building process for Particl Desktop 3.2 towards the end of next week or early into the following week. Regardless of when that process starts, expect a thorough update on the matter in next week's progress report!

Particl Core Progress Update

This week on Core, we've rebased the PartPayServer based on a request from a potential new partner to use the latest version of Particl Core. That means the payment server is now compatible with Taproot!

For those who don't know, PartPayServer is a payment module that can be integrated into any website to accept both Bitcoin and Particl payments. The payment module can be integrated onto almost any website or platform or be added to any WooCommerce shop using the BtcPayServer plugin (cross-compatible with PartPayServer).

If you would like to accept Bitcoin or Particl payments on your website or online shop (not hosted on Particl Marketplace), we recommend getting PartPayServer here.
GitHub - tecnovert/btcpayserver: Accept Bitcoin payments. Free, open-source & self-hosted, Bitcoin payment processor.
Accept Bitcoin payments. Free, open-source & self-hosted, Bitcoin payment processor. - GitHub - tecnovert/btcpayserver: Accept Bitcoin payments. Free, open-source & self-hosted, Bitcoin pa...
tecnovert

You'll find all the required documentation on setting it up here. Additionally, if you want to install and run the WooCommerce plugin, refer to this document here. Although the documentation is made for BtcPayServer, PartPayServer is completely cross-compatible with the plugin and will work without issue. Just make sure to enable the Separate Payment Gateways setting to accept PART and get to the api key from btcpayserver by going to: Account -> Manage account -> api keys. It's listed in the next section after automatically setting up the api key. Finally, for this to work, you'll need to set up your own store and wallets in PartPayServer.

Aside from this rebase, the rest of the focus has gone towards keeping the Particl codebase up-to-date with Particl Core, as is usual.

Broadcasting Lower Market Listing Fees

As most of you know, the size of the Particl Marketplace listing fees is dependent on what the network wishes to see. Anyone who stakes PART can broadcast their fee preferences and influence the rate with which the marketplace bases its listing fees.

Since the fee broadcasting feature was fixed and re-enabled on our last hardfork, the community has lowered listing fees significantly. Indeed, we've seen a 66.6% decrease in listing fees, going from a target fee rate of 20,767 to 6,935 at the time of this writing. So how does that translate into real-world data? Let's check it out.

For this example, let's assume a seller sells 100 items over 30 days. He averages three high-quality images and a reasonable description length in each listing. Thus, this example assumes an SMSG message size of around 0.5 MB. In total, after a month's worth of listing with PART's value set at $0.80), the seller would have paid $83.22 in total. Note that because there is no sales fee or any other eCommerce-related fee on the platform, that is all the seller will pay, regardless if sales are made or not. However, the fiat valuation of the listing fee does change depending on the PART price.

With this data on hand, now you're in a better position to judge whether or not you want to broadcast lower or higher fee target rates. If you'd like to change your preferences, we invite you to read the blog post on the topic here and change your preferences accordingly!

Adjusting Marketplace Listing Fees

Adjust the Particl Marketplace listing fees using your staking power https://particl.news/adjusting-marketplace-listing-fees/


As always, we thank you immensely for your passion and dedication to Particl and what it's working towards achieving. None of it would be possible without you all!

We wish you a great weekend we'll see you all back on Monday! 👋


Read the full blog post here: https://particl.news/particl-development-progress-report-08-04-2022/


Particl V3.1.1 is Available now on Mainnet - Download from the official Particl website:  particl.io

Particl Development Progress Report (01-04-2022)




Yet another week comes to pass, which means it's time for our weekly development progress report! This week, we've had the pleasure of seeing the long-anticipated release of Particl Electrum and have been making steady progress on the various components that make our current primary focus.

Let's get into the details right away!

Particl Desktop Progress Update

This week regarding Particl Desktop, has seen its focus split into two fronts.

On the in-market messaging front, we're continuing to make progress on the inbox system. We're currently nearing completion of its integration into the ordering process (buy flow), and once that is complete, we'll start on its listing-based integration.

Aside from work being done on the new messaging system, we've received a few issue and bug reports from some of the vendors currently operating on the marketplace. This has led to the discovery of a couple of issues in the marketplace codebase, as well as the addition of additional functionalities.

For this reason, we've seen a temporary decrease in the number of listings currently published on the marketplace as some of the sellers, some of which have encountered similar issues, are waiting for them to be resolved before relisting. In some cases, the changes can be made locally, and so we expect some more listings to come back up even before the next release of Particl Desktop 3.2.  

BasicSwap and Particl Core Progress Update

This week has seen the long-anticipated release of Particl Electrum, the light wallet which lets you manage your PART wallets without having to sync the entire blockchain. As such, two releases have been made this week with the second one adding the ability to cold stake funds stored on Electrum using Partyman as well as introducing the ability to send funds to stealth (private) PART addresses.


https://particl.news/particl-electrum-4-2-1-4-available/

Particl Electrum 4.2.1.4 Available
Cold stake funds held on Particl Electrum using Partyman and send funds to stealth addresses.


But as mentioned, managing funds through the Particl Electrum client is merely scratching the surface of what we intend to do with it. Indeed, its back-end codebase provides light services that can be used to make distributed applications more accessible. In Particl's case, it becomes notably useful for future web and light releases of BasicSwap and the marketplace.

Additionally, large merges have been made from Bitcoin's upstream code into Particl Core. You can see a list of the most notable additions since the new Particl Core 23.0 update by following https://github.com/tecnovert/particl-core/blob/41d2a75f89f80ecc6ed35a642b83db0d61a9f44e/doc/release-notes-particl.md#next-major-version. As always, these changes are critical to keep Particl's code as secure and modern as possible.

On the BasicSwap front, we've successfully finalized, this week, the integration of Tor into the DEX platform! That means that it'll be possible to activate the additional layer of privacy that Tor offers either when first setting up the client or later on by manually routing its connection through the onion layer. Along with this notable privacy update, we've updated the DEX's Bitcoin node to work over the more recent 22.0 version.

As for its user interface, we are still making steady progress, and it is the current main focus of Particl's designer Gerlof van Ek. We will keep you updated and will provide additional information about its release timeframe as soon as we are able to.



Read the full blog post: https://particl.news/particl-development-progress-report-01-04-2022/


Particl V3.1 is Available now on Mainnet - Download from the official Particl website:  particl.io

Warning: Verify all links & downloads.  Do not trust links just because they have been posted in this thread.

Particl Electrum Now Available!



Particl's new light wallet, Particl Electrum, is now publicly available for download!



You can get your hands on Particl Electrum and easily send, receive, and manage PART on your desktop or Android device without having to sync the blockchain anymore.

The new wallet also includes an array of advanced features such as multi-signature addresses, support for cold staking, coin control, and others.

Get Started

Download link: https://github.com/particl/electrum/releases/tag/4.2.1.3_particl

Warning: Verify all links & downloads.  Do not trust links because they have been posted in this thread.

Installation Notes

    If you are on Linux, please follow the installation notes available here carefully to ensure that you have the proper dependencies installed.
    To import an existing wallet, it must be in the bip39 legacy format.

Enable Cold Staking

To enable cold staking on Particl Electrum, there are a few steps that need to be undertaken. You can follow a step-by-step guide on how to enable cold staking by referring to the Particl Wiki https://particl.wiki/tutorial/staking/cold-staking/#connect-your-wallet.

Particl Electrum and Web Services

Particl Electrum is an easy-to-use and accessible light wallet that lets you send and receive PART, as well as manage wallets, without having to sync the entire blockchain.

Because it uses the SPV protocol first proposed by Satoshi Nakomoto in the Bitcoin whitepaper, all that needs to be downloaded are the block headers which are multiples of times smaller in size than the full blockchain. This is incredibly useful as an end-user wallet, but that is only scratching the surface of how Particl Electrum is intended to be used further down the road.

Indeed, Particl Electrum's back-end is poised to become a cornerstone of Particl's broader accessibility ambitions, notably by enabling applications and blockchain services such as Particl Marketplace or the BasicSwap DEX to be deployed on and accessed from the web.

With that in mind, this release is a significant milestone for the project and sets the stage for radically more accessible Particl applications; a necessity in order to ramp up their usage and adoption.

Read the official blog post here: https://particl.news/particl-electrum-now-available/

Particl Development Progress Report (25-03-2022)



Yet another week comes to pass, which means it's time for our weekly development progress report! This week, we've been trucking along the various components on our plate and have been making steady progress, bringing us closer to delivering on some major items.

Let's get into the details right away!

Particl Desktop Progress Update

We're happy to announce that we have finished up the marketplace-related code for the upcoming messaging system! What remains to be completed is the UI and the integration into Particl Desktop, which is currently the main focus.

In the coming week, we'll likely be finishing up the UI changes for the Orders-related messaging and then also work towards finishing up the UI for the listing-related messaging.

And so, with that in mind, it is safe to say that the more challenging parts of this significantly crucial new feature are now mostly done and behind us.

Additionally, we've been busy making minor fixes and improvements based on user feedback. As such, Particl Desktop 3.2 is expected to run much more smoothly and include a wide variety of improvements to the desktop client and the marketplace codebase. Again, thanks to all users taking the time to report bugs and feedback to the team; it is instrumental in making the product as good as possible!

    Note: As is usual for any major Particl release, Particl Desktop 3.2 will be released on testnet prior to going live on mainnet. This will make it possible for a larger pool of testers to play around with the new release and ensure that it remains stable under a wider range of environments.

Particl Core and BasicSwap Progress Update

This week on core, we've completed all development and testing for the upcoming light wallet Particl Electrum.



However, within the last 24 hours, an upstream update to one of the packages required to build the Windows client received an upstream update that broke the process. This made building the Windows client not possible until some point today where it was fixed by the Electrum team. With this issue now resolved, we will be able to launch the building process before the end of the day and release Particl Electrum once that is complete!

This is a great milestone for Particl because, as you may know by now, Electrum's back-end is intended to become a cornerstone of Particl's broader accessibility ambitions, notably by enabling Particl Marketplace and the BasicSwap DEX to be deployed on and accessed from the web.

In other words, using Particl Electrum as an end-user wallet is only scratching the surface of what it's intended to be.

Aside from this, we've been pursuing the work mentioned in last week's update regarding BasicSwap and the merging of Bitcoin 23.0 into Particl Core, as is usual.

Super Dangerous Club

As always, we invite you every Thursday at roughly ~2 PM GMT to tune in to the Super Dangerous Club where Particl advocates Dr. Kap and e-commerce expert Joe Fisher discuss various outside-the-box topics about the current trajectory of our society, politics, and tech.

Every week, the show is broadcasted on all your favorite platforms. But to really get into the action, we invite you to come and speak your mind directly with our two wonderful hosts on Clubhouse's live episodes.

To see where the SDC is available, follow the linktree below. Now, be there...or be square! 😉
@superdangerous | Linktree https://linktr.ee/superdangerous
🎙Meet Kap and Joe talk about anything outside 📦 of politics, society, tech 🤫


Read the full blog post here: https://particl.news/particl-development-progress-report-25-03-2022/


Particl V3.1 is Available now on Mainnet - Download from the official Particl website:  particl.io - Always verify your downloads!

Particl Development Progress Report (18-03-2022)



With the week coming to an end, now's the time for our weekly progress report. This week has once again been a continuation of the various components being worked on with steady progress being made on all fronts.

Without further ado, let's jump right in!


Particl Desktop Progress Update

This week, the upcoming marketplace messaging system that allows buyers and sellers to message each other has been the sole focus. While progress may seem slow on that end, it is steady, and we can report that the main hurdles are likely now out of the way.

Next week, we'll be making some related changes to the marketplace codebase and putting more focus and emphasis on the UI component of this messaging system.

The in-market messaging layer is currently the main focus and the last remaining major item before we can go live with the release of Particl Desktop 3.2.


Particl Core and BasicSwap Progress Update

Particl's upcoming light wallet, Particl Electrum, is currently in its last testing phase. We can report that no major issue has been encountered so far since we've started this final round of testing; it's been smooth sailing, and that is an excellent indicator. Particl Electrum should be ready to be released next week!

As for BasicSwap, we are making outstanding progress both on its user interface and codebase. Indeed, we're currently improving various aspects of the codebase but, perhaps more interesting for this update, adding Tor functionality to it as well.

Indeed, once initially released, it will be possible to launch BasicSwap and route it either through "clearnet" or through Tor. Furthermore, this option is available right from within the installation process. That means you won't have to launch BasicSwap first to adjust this setting, allowing you to avoid deploying your node on either clearnet or Tor if you need to avoid doing so (i.e., in some countries, you may want to avoid simply connecting to the Tor network).

About the user interface, we fully intend on making it as user-friendly as possible so that most people can get started quickly and reap its benefits without needing to be an "advanced user". This is a common mistake with cross-chain DEXes that often leads to a lack of adoption. To that end, we are working on making the user interface expand on BasicSwap's core functions and bring the user experience to a level more similar to what you would expect from "traditional exchanges".

We'd also like to mention that, even though we are calling this upcoming launch an "open beta", the release will be fully functional and let you easily swap assets like Bitcoin, Monero, and Particl on their respective mainnet networks. Don't be fooled by the "beta" status of BasicSwap; we are calling it this way because we have a much broader vision for it going into the future. Its first beta release should already be smooth enough to become your go-to exchange.

Finally, we've also made good progress on bringing the Particl code up-to-date with Bitcoin's latest version (23.0), and we should have a release ready for it, with the new guix framework, quite soon. As always, this is an ever-ongoing task but still requires a fair amount of effort every week.
Super Dangerous Club

As always, we invite you every Thursday at roughly ~2 PM GMT to tune in to the Super Dangerous Club where Particl advocates Dr. Kap and e-commerce expert Joe Fisher discuss various outside-the-box topics about the current trajectory of our society, politics, and tech.

Every week, the show is broadcasted on all your favorite platforms. But to really get into the action, we invite you to come and speak your mind directly with our two wonderful hosts on Clubhouse's live episodes.

To see where the SDC is available, follow the linktree below. Now, be there...or be square! 😉

https://linktr.ee/superdangerous

Read the full blog post here: https://particl.news/particl-development-progress-report-18-03-2022/

Opt-in or Opt-out Privacy, that's the Question!

Clarifying our stance on Particl's privacy setup and the reasons for it.





Every once in a while, the question of why PART, Particl’s native currency, isn’t anonymous by default comes up. As you can imagine, this topic can rapidly lead to fiery debates on the level of privacy certain protocol implementations offer and as to why a certain currency was designed the way it is.

We’d like, today, to clarify our position on this topic and detail why we’ve decided to follow this particular path.

    Note: In this article, we often refer to RingCT transactions as “anon transactions". These are used as synonyms.



Table of Contents

    About Particl's Native Currency; PART
    What are Particl Distributed Apps
    The Need for Public Balances
    About Particl’s Privacy
    How Does RingCT Work?
    Leveraging Particl Applications to Boost Privacy
    New Privacy Boons Abound
    So, Should PART Become Private-by-Default?
    Particl Desktop Privacy Improvements on the Way!
    Synergy and Collaboration, not Tribalism and Exclusion


About Particl’s Native Currency; PART

Before we get into the nitty-gritty details as to why PART uses an opt-in privacy setup rather than mandating all transactions to be private, it’s important to understand the context of PART's existence and know what is its purpose within the wider Particl ecosystem.

Taken at face value, PART is a proof-of-stake privacy coin that uses the same privacy protocol as Monero (RingCT) but uses the Bitcoin codebase instead of the more rigid Cryptonote one.

This difference in codebases makes a world of differences. Indeed, leveraging the Bitcoin codebase enables PART to benefit from the sheer strength of the entire Bitcoin ecosystem and developer community. That means more developers auditing and contributing to the code (Taproot, LN, etc), more stability, and more products and releases to benefit from (Copay, Electrum, etc). But perhaps more importantly, that also means much more flexibility.

And that’s where PART shines uniquely and really sets itself apart from other privacy coins. While it uses the proven-effective but typically rigid RingCT and CT protocols, it possesses all of Bitcoin's flexibility; massively expanding its utility as more than just a private currency.

This added flexibility makes it possible to use the coin in simple Bitcoin-style smart-contracts and multi-signature contracts. But don’t get fooled by the word “basic”, what can be done with “simple smart-contracts” is pretty astonishing in itself as demonstrated by distributed apps like Particl Marketplace (decentralized e-commerce) and the recent Taproot developments. More on that shortly.

What is PART’s Real Intended Purpose?

When we, the Particl team, first envisioned and designed the Particl project, we had a very clear mission in mind: building an ecosystem of distributed applications that respect your rights and freedoms. This is our primary focus and all further design decisions follow that guiding line.

We are building these applications for everyone—freedom seekers, the persecuted and censored, big and small online sellers, online shoppers, the “typical internet user”, and, among many other types of people, privacy enthusiasts too.

In that sense, building a privacy coin that only serves as a medium of exchange isn’t our objective. PART is a multi-purpose, privacy-focused currency that is more akin to a tool than only a currency. By design, it needs to be flexible enough to accomplish various functions within the Particl ecosystem, which is achieved by leveraging the benefits of the Bitcoin codebase.

It is with this need for both multi-purpose flexibility and privacy that we’ve designed PART’s privacy setup and why we’re confident that it’s doing exactly what we intended it to do in the first place.


What are Particl Distributed Apps

To give you a better idea of our vision, let's take one of the distributed applications of the Particl ecosystem. Particl Marketplace is a decentralized and private-by-default online marketplace that lets you buy and sell anything online with no restriction. Think of it like an eBay, but without any middleman, data mining, restriction, or sales fee/commission.

This marketplace is made possible thanks to many pieces fitting together: the flexibility of the Bitcoin smart-contracts, the use of a custom and unique P2P messaging layer (SMSG), the privacy benefits of the RingCT protocol, a distributed governance system, the anonymity of the Tor network, and the smart-contract capabilities of the Bitcoin-based CT protocol.

As PART itself directly powers some of these functions (i.e., content moderation), its multi-purpose nature becomes clearer. And as some of these functions cannot work using anon balances and transactions, the debate on whether we should mandate private transactions or not suddenly becomes more nuanced.

The Need for Public Balances

RingCT transactions are, by design, quite rigid as their outputs are not programmable. This prevents anon balances to be used in more complex scenarios, on various platforms, and for certain use-cases. To circumvent this limitation, Particl leverages both public (Bitcoin-like) and CT transactions. This “protocol flexibility” is one of the coin’s most important strengths and expands its utility beyond what it could be if it was working exclusively using RingCT.

What are Public Balances Used for?

At this time, here’s a list of some components of the Particl ecosystem that require public balances to function:

    The Particl Proof-of-Stake (PPoS) consensus mechanism, including cold staking and cold staking pools. There is, however, an option to receive all staking rewards using RingCT or CT transactions for those looking for that extra layer of privacy. To learn more about how to do this, please refer to this article.
    Particl's decentralized treasury which funds community initiatives.
    The community governance system which allows stakeholders to vote on important decisions with their stake weight.
    The Particl Marketplace community moderation system which lets the users moderate undesirable content off of the marketplace and fight off spam on the platform.
    The mobile wallet Particl Copay.
    The light wallet Particl Electrum (desktop and mobile) which is expected to power future mobile and web releases.
    Hardware devices such as the Ledger Nano S and the Trezor.

And, although Particl Marketplace’s two-party escrow system doesn’t rely on public transactions, it still requires CT transactions to link RingCT outputs together to provide its anonymity. You can read more on how this is done by checking out this article.

As you can see, many critical components of the Particl ecosystem entirely rely on public balances and transactions. Making PART private-by-default or outright mandating private transactions would cause a significant setback and even force the project to abandon some of its core components. This would go in direct opposition of our mission.

What About Exchanges?

Another downside associated with having a private-by-default cryptocurrency has to do with the ever-evolving legal landscape of the blockchain industry. As is becoming more evident by the day, regulations are tightening, notably around the use of “privacy coins”. As a result, a lot of leading exchanges have resorted to delisting and/or not entertaining adding privacy coins as a way to protect themselves and ensure that they remain compliant.

With Particl’s relatively precarious presence on exchanges, having the main transaction type be transparent is a definite upside.

And even though exchanges could, in theory, change the type of transactions they accept if Particl were to switch to a private-by-default model, they may not be inclined to do so purely based on the fact that PART itself has relatively low liquidity and volume. The effort involved with implementing that change at the exchange level, coupled with the legal uncertainty of accepting privacy coins, may simply not be worth it for exchanges. This could lead to a delisting and reduction of accessibility to the PART coin; something that cannot be neglected as the coin needs to be as accessible as possible for Particl to accomplish its mission.

Auditing the Circulating Supply

Everything in life has trade-offs. With cryptocurrencies that mandate private transactions like Monero, the added privacy is counter-balanced by the fact that the circulating supply cannot be properly audited with full certainty. And although the reasons that may cause supply inflation are usually considered more theoretical than practical, they are real risks nonetheless.

By having public balances on which people hold funds and stake from, you can determine, with more accuracy, whether or not the total number of coins in circulation is as expected. As the Monero team best wrote it: “(…) the use of transparent fund migration means that an attempt to move enough exploited funds through the transparent Zcash pool could be detected (…)”. On that note, we highly recommend reading Monero’s well-thought-out response on the topic of supply auditability, how it relates to private (“opaque”) cryptocurrencies, and the trade-offs involved with this.

In our particular case, supply auditability isn’t the main reason why we’ve opted against mandating private transactions, but it’s certainly an appreciable benefit.

Transaction Speed

One non-negligible benefit of having public balances is the faster speed of transaction settlements on Particl. While both public and anon transactions use block confirmation times of 2 minutes, public balances are usable after 1 confirmation (~2 minutes) while anon balances can only be used once the funds it contains have reached 12 confirmations (~24 minutes).

This speed is handy in many situations and straight up required in others, notably in the context of certain Particl applications where the public balance holds a key role (i.e., moderating marketplace content).
About PART’s Privacy

Although PART is a multi-purpose coin that accomplishes different functions within the ecosystem—and, as we’ve just seen, some of these functions cannot work over anon (RingCT) transactions—its privacy is still one of its most important selling points and development priorities.

When debating whether or not PART should be private-by-default, are we asking the right question? Is the entire debate misdirected?

At its most fundamental level, this debate seeks to find out whether or not PART’s current privacy capabilities are good enough to keep people anonymous. Whether or not PART mandates RingCT transactions or not is irrelevant as long as the user privacy is solid enough.

Is Particl private-by-default?

Let’s first clear this question out of the way. No, Particl isn’t “private-by-default”, but it is heavily focused on anonymity nonetheless.

Keep in mind, Particl’s mission is first and foremost to provide an ecosystem of applications that respect your rights. The race to the top for the absolute most private cryptocurrency in the space is not our primary focus and purpose. That being said, PART absolutely qualifies for a spot within the top privacy coins as we are just about to find out.

Keeping our mission in mind, PART is not dedicated exclusively to privacy maximalists but also to a much wider range of audiences that also include people that may not care as much about this specific aspect but more about others, like cutting off the middleman from their e-commerce operations, for example.

But is opt-in privacy, rather than mandated, an actual threat to the quality of that privacy? Let’s see how RingCT works in the first place so that we may be able to answer that question after.

How Does RingCT Work?

RingCT is a combination of the Confidential Transactions (CT) and Ring Signature privacy protocols. CT keeps transacting amounts private and ring signatures keep the identity of the participants private.

Whenever you make an anon transaction, the transacting anon outputs are pooled up with other anon outputs on the network (ring signatures). These other outputs pose as "fake transaction participants" and merely serve the role of being plausibly deniable decoys to hide amongst.

For an outside party looking into the transaction, it is theoretically not possible to tell, with certainty, which of the “participants” actually participated in the transaction, meaning that neither the value of the amount transferred nor its participants can be traced. And while academic and theoretical attack vectors do exist, as in every privacy protocol, RingCT has proven time and time again to be one of the most robust out there.

What Contributes to Greater Privacy?

To keep things simple, more anon transactions on the network mean more privacy, and that privacy gets even better when there’s a constant flow of new legitimate transactions being created. But let's break that down in more detail.

How private a transaction is, at the protocol level, mainly depends on two factors. On one end, the sender of an anon transaction can increase or decrease the level of its privacy by using a greater or lesser number of "ring signatures". More ring signatures means more decoys participating in a transaction and thus, in simple terms, greater expected privacy.

On the other end, the total number and diversity of these decoys matter greatly. Because RingCT's privacy is obtained by hiding among decoys, its effectiveness increases when there are more of them, and more of them coming from different sources, to pick from.

To understand this better, imagine that you are the sender of an anon transaction that contains 8 ring signatures. Out of these, 2 of them are real participants (the sender and the receiver) and 6 of them are decoys. If the identity of 4 of these decoys is known to an outside observer (i.e, an exchange, a blockchain tracing company, etc), that really only leaves you with 2 decoys to hide among, making it easier, in theory, for the real participants to be identified.

That's why having a large number of outputs and transactions on the network improves your privacy. It gives the protocol more decoys to work with, and more diverse ones, effectively reducing your chances of picking up compromised ones.

On the topic of the diversity in the source of these outputs, it is also very important as it reduces the chances of picking up decoys known to third-parties collecting data on large numbers of outputs from a single source (i.e., an exchange keeping tabs on all the Monero outputs of its users). Note that this becomes a much bigger problem if and when these parties start collaborating together and sharing their collected data with each other.
Opt-in Privacy and the Human Factor

At the protocol level, RingCT's privacy isn't directly affected by whether or not it is mandated or the default transaction type of the blockchain.

If, for example, Particl’s RingCT layer had a similar number of transactions per day as Monero, it would have a somewhat comparable level of privacy at the protocol level. But, in practice, it gets a bit more complicated because, as mentioned earlier in this article, everything has trade-offs.

In the case of opt-in privacy, the trade-off is the human factor. Having the ability to switch back and forth between public and anon balances opens the door to human errors and sub-optimal protocol usage. As with all cryptocurrencies, including private-by-default assets like Monero, there are some considerations and best practices to keep in mind to maintain a good level of privacy.

    Note: The risks typically associated with the human factor are mostly applicable to normal peer-to-peer anon transactions between two users. Using Particl applications, like the marketplace, significantly reduces the risk of human error by automatically applying some of the recommended best practices.

Leveraging Particl Applications to Boost Privacy

As previously mentioned, the Particl project is much, much more than just a cryptocurrency. It's an ecosystem of distributed apps that respect your rights, with one of these rights being the right to privacy. And that's precisely where lies Particl's mind-blowing privacy potential; in its apps!

To understand why that is, let’s take the Particl Marketplace app as an example once again. It lets you buy and sell anything online with no restriction. It is private by default, meaning that all payments for goods and services have to use RingCT. For sellers, there's the option to pay for their listing fees (listing an item for sale on the marketplace) using anon transactions.

And thus, each item listed on the marketplace generates at least one transaction, meaning that a seller who wants to list 100 items will generate 100 unique anon transactions alone plus two other anon transactions per sale (as both the buyer and the seller have to make an anon transaction to complete the escrow private smart-contract).

As is self-evident, simple usage of the Particl apps like the marketplace dramatically scales the number of real, "high-quality" anon transactions per day on the network up. To get an idea, simply think of how many e-commerce transactions happen every day on the web. How many items are listed online. Sure, that's an unfairly large segment to compare Particl to, but just think of how many transactions happen just within the still-very-niche decentralized marketplace segment (i.e., OpenSea).

    "To hide the signal, you must generate noise" - Kewde, Particl developer

As a reference, Monero does around a solid 16,000 transactions per day at the time of writing this piece. Could usage of Particl Marketplace general similar numbers? The jury is still out but one can speculate.

And the cherry on top? Particl Marketplace, and all future Particl applications like the upcoming BasicSwap DEX, is entirely decentralized and trustless. There's no central party able to collect any data about you, your anon outputs, or those of other participants on the network; a very unique advantage of Particl over other privacy coins.

In other words, using Particl applications not only increases the number of anon transactions and outputs on the network, but it also does so in a way that improves the quality and effectiveness of available decoys. As current and future Particl applications gain more adoption, so does the the level of on-chain privacy as well.

New Privacy Boons Abound

Particl is fortunate to be built on the Bitcoin codebase. Indeed, contrary to what many think, the Bitcoin codebase is evolving rapidly and is going through a particularly innovative phase. That is especially true of recent progress made on the Lightning Network and Taproot, both of which innovations are available on Particl and enhanced by an extra RingCT bridge for added anonymity.

Not mandating RingCT transactions gives us the ability to leverage and combine these breakthrough developments from the Bitcoin community to massively improve Particl's privacy and make its applications better for all.

Complex and Private LN-based Smart-Contracts
Indeed, recent developments have made it possible to run complex smart-contracts on the Lightning Network. These smart-contracts can even be deployed using CT to keep the amounts transferred confidential. This is a significant development for the Bitcoin community as it dramatically improves your privacy and opens the coin up to even more use-cases. But there is a small caveat; blinded smart-contracts don't hide the identities of people using them; only the transacted amounts remain confidential.

If that smart-contract was powering the escrow of some hypothetical marketplace, it could be possible to tell the identity of the seller and the buyer of a given transaction. On Particl, the additional layer of RingCT would keep both the buyer and the seller private by letting them enter and exit the Lightning Network without leaving a trace.

Taproot Scripts

With Taproot now being enabled on Particl, new on-chain scripting options have become available. Taproot enables more advanced, but also more private, complex transactions by combining multiple keys and signatures into one. With it, you can pre-emptively program payments within a group of people and trigger them following a set of pre-defined conditions. The resulting transactions look just like any other regular transaction on the blockchain and neither the conditions nor the identities of the participants are exposed.  

This opens a ton of opportunities, like for example entering and exiting the Lightning Network more privately, making Particl's treasury entirely decentralized, making BasicSwap DEX swaps with Bitcoin-based currencies look just like a normal transaction, or even making some core components of Particl quantum-proof. And that's just to name a few of the possibilites...

    Note: In both the cases of LN and Taproot, it's important to note that RingCT transactions are not directly merged with LN and taproot, but rather run upon entering and exiting the L2 network to break the history.

So, Should PART Become Private-by-Default?

Ultimately, there is no right or wrong answer to this debate. With both options, there are pros, cons, and trade-offs. There is no perfect solution; it all depends on the purpose of a specific cryptocurrency and the mission it’s trying to accomplish. However, we are highly confident that Particl's current privacy setup strikes the optimal utility/privacy balance for what it seeks to accomplish and for who it seeks to accomplish it for.

And although PART can be said to be less private than competing privacy coins such as Monero, an obvious statement considering the difference in the number of transactions between the two networks at this present time, its privacy potential is just as solid, if not even better, assuming decent usage of Particl's distributed applications and that best practices are followed by users.

PART's public addresses provide a lot of capabilities that are key to Particl's ecosystem and they cannot be readily dismissed. For this reason, and for the other reasons mentioned earlier in the blog post, the Particl team does not plan to switch to an exclusively private-by-default model of transactional privacy in the foreseeable future. We want to reiterate our strong confidence in our current model and are focusing on building applications that will organically raise the diversity and number of anon transactions and outputs on the network.

That being said, we remain open to adjusting our position on this matter in the future depending on how things evolve.

Particl Desktop Privacy Improvements on the Way!

The fact that we embrace an opt-in privacy setup doesn't mean we can't work towards reducing potential mistakes caused by the human factor.

As such, Particl Core contains a few improvements in the RingCT implementation that mitigate some of the risks introduced by the opt-in nature of PART's privacy setup.

Also, in the next few Particl Desktop updates, you can expect new privacy-focused UI additions and improvements that seek to reduce the risk of human errors to a minimum. For example, a simple "churning function" that automatically churns your anon outputs (generates privacy-enhancing transactions (send-to-self) and creates more noise to hide within) to improve your privacy and everyone else's as well. Stay tuned to our weekly development updates for more information.

Synergy and Collaboration, not Tribalism and Exclusion

Particl's purpose is to build an ecosystem of apps that respect your rights and is as inclusive as possible. The race to the top for the most private features on a cryptocurrency is something we keep in mind without prime focus, although we fully believe PART can eventually become as such once the adoption of the Particl platform grows.

As part of this vision, we are working on a cross-chain and private decentralized trading exchange (BasicSwap DEX) that lets you swap different cryptocurrencies without the use of any third-party.

That means you can easily enter and exit the Particl ecosystem using your favorite privacy coin such as Monero, for example, and enjoy the benefits of both chains at the same time.

By combining Monero's private-by-default currency-focused approach and Particl's app-focused vision, you can reach strong levels of privacy few people thought were possible. The trade-offs of using an opt-in privacy coin (Particl) can then be offset by using an opt-out one (Monero) on the platform, just like Monero can offset its trade-offs (lack of distributed apps and more rigidity) by bridging into the Particl ecosystem using BasicSwap. A win-win situation for both blockchains and a major victory for the people.

Once the DEX is integrated into Particl desktop client, Particl Desktop, the synergy it creates with other privacy coins will take the entire privacy enthusiast community to the next level. You'll be able to use distributed and private applications without making any security or privacy compromise and by using your favorite coin.

Indeed, synergy, not tribalism, is how we see the privacy coin space evolving to the direct benefit of the people. There are many different approaches to privacy and it’s difficult to say which one is the best because, in part, use-cases and target audiences differ so much. And so, why not combine different options and work in unison towards bringing more privacy to the average joe? That's what we set out to do with Particl, and what we'll keep giving our blood, sweat, and tears to day after day!


Read The Full Blogpost here: https://particl.news/opt-in-or-opt-out-privacy/

Particl V3.1 is now Available on Mainnet - Download now from the official Particl website:  particl.io

Particl Development Progress Report (04-02-2022)




The week has come to an end and, as always, that means the time for our weekly update has come. This week, we've successfully fixed a bunch of issues and bugs and released, earlier today, Particl Desktop 3.1.1. Those that have reported issues should see them as resolved after updating to the latest version.


Particl Desktop 3.1.1 Released!

Particl Desktop 3.1.1 is now available and fixes various bugs and issues with the marketplace.

As always, we invite you to download and install this new version and report any issue, bug, or improvement feedback directly to our Github page over here.
Particl Desktop Progress Update

With the Particl Desktop 3.1.1 update out, efforts on bringing new marketplace features will resume starting next week.

As such, the next planned feature for Particl Desktop 3.2 is the ability for sellers and buyers to communicate directly with each other straight from the platform and without having to resort to using different means of communications like email addresses or instant messaging. This messaging feature is powered by Particl's own SMSG network and is entirely decentralized and private.

We'll keep you up-to-date with its progress as part of these weekly development progress reports.

Particl Core and BasicSwap Progress Update

As for Particl Core, this week has been focused on beginning the integration of Particl into Blockbook—a feature-packed blockchain explorer that will provide many useful benefits to the project, notably related to the "web framework" that would allow Particl applications like Particl Marketplace to be used on the web.

Other than that, work has gone towards merging code (and cleaning it up) from Bitcoin's master branch. This is part of the ever-ongoing effort to keep Particl Core in sync with Bitcoin's latest version.

As always, we thank you immensely for you passion and dedication to Particl and what it's working towards achieving. None of it would be possible without you all!


Read the full blog post here: https://particl.news/particl-development-progress-report-04-02-2022/

Team Funding Request #2 Results




On Sunday, the 30th of January, 2022, the second team funding request has been officially approved by Particl stakeholders with an impressive approval rate of 99.36%! This marks an important milestone for the project as this funds the team to develop, promote, and expand the Particl ecosystem for a duration of 6 more months, after which the team will submit a renewed funding request.
The Results Are In!
Team Funding Request

The Team Funding Request #2 proposed attributing funds from the network's decentralized Treasury Fund to the Particl team to support the development, promotion, and expansion of the Particl ecosystem. The proposal requested 35,250 PART per month from the treasury for 6 months, after which a new funding request will need to be pushed by the team and approved by stakeholders.

We are happy to report that Particl stakeholders have approved this proposal with an outstanding 99.36% approval rate (minimum required was 60%) and a 68.61% participation rate (minimum required was 20%). The vote lasted for 5,040 blocks, with 3,436 of them voting in favor of the proposal and 22 voting against it.


Read the full blog post here: https://particl.news/team-funding-request-2-results/

Team Funding Proposal #2





With the first team funding cycle coming soon to an end, we are proposing, today, a second funding request to fund the development of the Particl project and the team’s various operations. This blog post will detail the proposal and briefly lay down the team’s objectives for the first few months of 2022.

The funding proposal is now published on the CCS platform and is in its discussion phase. The proposal’s voting period will begin shortly and last for 5,040 blocks (approximately one week); you'll be notified of the block number that will trigger the voting period a few days in advance. To read the proposal and comment on it https://github.com/particl/ccs-proposals/pull/12


Read the full blog post: https://particl.news/team-funding-proposal-2/

Particl Development Progress Report (14-01-2022)





With the week coming to an end, the time has come for our development progress report. This week, a lot of focus has been put on adding seemingly small but quite useful features and improvements to Particl Marketplace.

Other than that, a good amount of focus has also gone into fixing a few minor issues and adding general improvements based on various feedback obtained from Particl Marketplace users.

Read the full blog post: https://particl.news/particl-development-progress-report-14-01-2022/

Particl Desktop 3.1 Live on Mainnet

The long-anticipated Particl Desktop 3.1 update is now available on mainnet!





Particl Desktop 3.1 is now live on mainnet! Indeed, you can now download and install the new desktop client and enjoy all the new features, improvements, and bug fixes!

Notably, this release introduces adjustable escrow ratios (sellers can decide how much they require buyers to put into escrow) and better inventory management for sellers. It also includes a wide variety of bug fixes, general improvements, and quality-of-life tweaks that makes the user experience much better and hassle-free. Check out the full list of changes on https://particl.news/particl-desktop-3-1-live-on-mainnet/ .



Read the full update on: https://particl.news/particl-desktop-3-1-live-on-mainnet/