Sia Community Update — August 2019
August was a big month. In addition to the regular work we do on Sia, we also made progress on other huge initiatives: a light wallet entered (very) early testing, and file and folder sharing with other Sia users was (gently) hacked together. A hotfix was released, and another is on the way. The community was also busy, issuing updates to popular third-party apps and dropping completely new pieces of software to expand the Sia ecosystem.
David conducted an outstanding interview, the Sia network hit an all-time high, and much more. This momentum will carry us into the final four months of the year and beyond, and I’m so glad we get to share the journey with you all.
In this update
Dev updates
David Vorick’s interview with Jane King at Nasdaq
Community Spotlight
The new Sia network all-time high
Sia on the move
Updates from the…
Hotfix(es)
Sia v1.4.1.1 has been released. This is a hotfix version with a number of bug fixes, including a download corruption bug and one that would stall uploads. This is a recommended upgrade for all Sia users, especially those renting on the network.
Another one, v1.4.1.2 is on the way as well. This one will address a transaction propagation issue that has been impacting the network lately.
Help us help you
Sia now has a responsible disclosure policy, courtesy of Marcin.
Luke’s light wallet
Luke has been developing a light wallet for Sia, and offered brave testers the opportunity to try it out in August.
The wallet is currently CLI only, and we’ll get into it more next month. But you can a sneak peek at everything here. Hit up Luke on Discord — nemo#4926 — if you’re interested in helping test it out.
Other updates
The full list of Sia’s merged code can be found here, but these are some of the highlights from the month.
Chris and David completed an initial MR on file and folder sharing between Sia users. This feature is still being developed and won’t be released until it’s stable.
Luke completed an initial MR implementing a barebones read-only FUSE layer on top of Sia. This would allow users to read files off Sia as if they were mounted as a drive on their computer. This should be very exciting to those of you who have been waiting for a Sia Plex integration.
Chris fixed a small but nasty bug that caused a small number of downloads to be corrupted. We also wrote a regression test to ensure this type of bug doesn’t happen again. This was fixed in hotfix 1.4.1.1.
Matt identified and fixed a bug related to file repairs being stalled if a large number of file chunks were being unstuck.
Chris keeps working on one of the key features of a future Sia version, Partial Uploads, which will enable, among other things, uploading efficiently files smaller of 40MB without adding padding to the file (as it currently happens).
External contributor evanjinlin added to the Readme file of Sia an alternative way to build the software from the code source.
Eddie fixed a UI bug that was wrongly displaying large negative transactions in wallets not synced.
David Vorick’s interview with Jane King at Nasdaq
Nebulous CEO and Sia lead dev David Vorick sat down with Jane King at Nasdaq to talk Sia and the state of cloud storage.
“Every time you put data on the cloud, you are trusting someone else with it. We started out with the aim to put data on the cloud without giving up control.”
“I don’t like the direction that technology is going in right now, where corporations are gaining more control over people’s lives. We want to push back and see individuals have control over their lives and over their data”.
Community Spotlight
The Sia community is alive and well. Thriving, in fact. As I was preparing this list, I was amazed how many updates to existing apps and new releases went out in August.
Sia is open source and development is held on GitLab. Dozens of individuals have contributed either to the core code or apps built on top of the platform.
We have a wonderful community that we hope you’ll find your place in! Check the #contributors channel in Discord to say hi, ask questions, or get opinions on your Sia-related code or app.
Sia Host Manager
Contributor Rezant recently released Sia Host Manager by Sia Central, a powerful and user-friendly host management tool that features better connection monitoring, rich financial info, details about contracts, and the ability to peg the storage pricing to USD and other currencies!
He published a guest blog post that introduces Sia Host Manager and walks through the recommended setup process.
Organizing your Sia wallets and seeds
Danger published the second in his series of articles for Sia users. This one focuses on organizing and securing your Sia seeds, including examples of his best practices for seed storage and password creation.
Siasync v1.0.1
Tbenz released an update to Siasync, a utility that will monitor a folder and synchronize its contents to the Sia network. As new files are created or removed it will keep Sia in sync with the local source folder.
Siasync also supports more advanced features like only syncing certain file extensions, or excluding certain file extensions, or archive mode which won’t delete files from Sia even if they are deleted locally. Best of all, it works on Windows, MacOS, and Linux.
My Sia Story
Discord user @Tutemwesi published a blog post narrating his personal experiences being a Sia community member over the last years, switching from being just a miner to operate one of the top hosts of the Sia network.
sia-cloud.tech goes all out
Third-party development team Sia-Cloud.tech released the English translation of their website, together with a lite desktop app and an API for developers. Sia-Cloud is a storage and file sharing solution using the Sia network after a monthly FIAT payment.
Blocknet demo
A proof-of-concept integration with Blocknet was demonstrated. Read more about the integration here.
The new Sia network all-time high
The Sia network reached just under 477 TB of stored data in August (and we’re even higher now). We nailed this number on the final day of the month, solidifying a new all-time high for the network.
This also represented a 12.7% increase in stored data for the month of August, and a 54% increase in the network over the past three months.
Use Sia now. When you upload files to Sia, you’re promoting the sovereignty of data by using the most secure, decentralized network.
Sia on the move
The Sia team is attending multiple conferences and meetups in the upcoming months.
The Sia team sponsored and participated in the Decentralized Storage Summit during the Berlin Blockchain Week, including the workshop “Storing Data on Sia using the API” and a Sia meetup after it.
You can check out David’s intro to Sia during the Decentralized Storage Summit:
The Exchange Situation
Siacoin was listed for trading on stealthex.io, a convenient and user-friendly instant cryptocurrency exchange with no sign-ups and unlimited exchanges.
The List
Here’s the current list of exchanges that support Siacoin. I keep this up to date, but if you know of any additions or removals please let me know.
It’s time to…
I think the final months of 2019 will be more sprint than jog, as we continue work on 1.4.2 and deliver commits to other impressive features. Where will the Sia network be by December? How much used storage will be on the network? As more third-party projects see the light of day and our core updates get even more impressive, the Sia ecosystem becomes more robust, inviting, and useful.
As always, see you next month!
Steve
steve@sia.tech
steve#4381 on Discord
