Sia Community Update – August 2018
Hey everyone! This is an exciting post for me. Partly because August was busy and there’s lots of good info about Sia in here, but also because this is the 12th community update that I’ve written. This closes out one full year of writing these posts and keeping our users updated on the latest at Sia.
Over the year, these posts have accrued over 72,000 total views, and have covered topics like development updates, exchange info, insight to our support center, info about new hires, and whatever else I can glean from news, social media, and the community.
It’s been an absolute pleasure to be able to write these for you and create a single source for information on Sia. I hope you continue to find them useful, and I’m incredibly excited about the future of the project.
That’s out of the way, now on with the show!
In this update
Developer’s Corner
The Ledger Nano S app
Sia v1.3.4
The Fork Proposal
The Exchange Situation
By the numbers
Updates from the…
Over the past month, 2 Nebulous repos were updated. 6 issues were closed, 25 were created, and 12 pieces of code were added to the core codebase. We have a snapshot of updates here, but tbenz’ and hakkane’s official updates can be found weekly in the #announcements channel in Discord.
Notable updates:
Eddie fixed how the estimated dates for contract renewals are shown in the UI.
Matt squashed a bug where files with blank names could be uploaded.
Chris added a check on unapplied changes on the write-ahead log (WAL) to avoid mismatches on the revision number (which would cause the renewal to fail).
And Luke updated the Ledger app to beta. More on that in the next section.
Sia on Ledger Nano S
Luke has released the beta version of the Sia Ledger Nano S app. His original post from Reddit has a great breakdown:
This version adds a crucial feature: the ability to calculate transaction signatures entirely on-device. Previously, users had to calculate the transaction hash using a (potentially compromised) computer, and then instruct the Nano S to sign that hash.
In v0.2.0, the transaction is sent directly to the device and displayed on its screen, much like other Ledger apps. With this feature in place, I now consider the Sia app to be secure — it should be safe to use even if the computer it is connecting to has been compromised. (See the “Security Model” section of the README for a more thorough discussion.)
However, there could be bugs in my code that compromise security. For that reason, this is still a beta release; v1.0.0 will be released when myself and others have conducted a thorough review of the code.
You can view the latest updates and download v0.2.0 on GitLab.
Sia v.1.3.4
Sia version 1.3.4 just saw what will likely be the final release candidate go out in the #contributors channel of our Discord server. This version — RC3 — adds support for parallel streaming, fixes renter’s financial reports and corrects multiple bugs.
The Fork Proposal
Just a quick update on the community proposal submitted by FaustianAGI on Reddit about a month ago.
As of right now, the Sia and Obelisk teams are both in favor of forking, and the Sia core devs are working on a detailed proposal. That’s it for now. (sorry!)
The Exchange Situation
Adding to our ever expanding list of ways to get Siacoin this month is SwitchMyCrypto, a new instant crypto exchange based out of India. SwitchMyCrypto provides a list of currencies to exchange in and out of, doesn’t require a user account, and has 24 hour customer support.
As with any new listing from a lesser known exchange, perform a handful of small test transactions to ensure the service is working, and that you understand how the service works.
Also, Poloniex just added a SC-USDT trading pair. If you’ve got a Polo account, go check it out.
The List
By the numbers
Twitter, YouTube, and Discord all ticked up, with Discord finally hitting the 20,000 user number. This is a big milestone, especially as the server turned one year old this month.
It’s allowed for a high degree of interaction between our team and the community, and offers us real-time insight into issues, requests, and the thoughts of our users. If you haven’t joined up already, come on by and let us know what you think.
It’s time to…
As we dive into the final third of the year here, I think we’ll have lots of exciting news. I’m pretty sure we’ll get the full 1.3.4 release out for September, but don’t quote me on that. We should also see the full release of the Sia Ledger Nano S app, and I’m working on overhauling major sections of the support center.
Thanks for hanging in there with us, and we’ll see you next month! Or you know, in a few minutes if you hang out in Discord.
Steve
steve@sia.tech
@steve on Discord
