Nest: DAppNode Q3 Update–Infrastructure decentralization advances!!
In the last few months the DAppNode project has made a significant amount of progress in usability, UI and overall performance of the platform, as such we thought it would be a great time to give everyone an update.
Since our initial funding request was approved by the Aragon Nest program, we have been working closely with Aragon who is building software that will ensure unstoppable decentralized organizations, as we move forward we’re excited to continue our coordination with the Aragon team by providing the necessary hardware, to achieve the shared vision of a truly decentralized world.
In addition to Aragon’s grant back in July we have received 2 more chunks of funding. For the sake of transparency, these are the granted amounts.
Aragon Nest: $90,000
Ethereum Foundation: $250,000
Ethereum Community Fund:$ 40.000
We are humbled and grateful to the whole Ethereum community for the support they have put behind this project, only together can we achieve this shared vision of a decentralized world. The funding provided by these foundations not only helps us continue the development, it also shows the importance this project plays with the ecosystem of hardware decentralization.
As we move toward making this project a sustainable resource for users of all levels, we are exploring various strategies that will allow the project to become self sustainable. In the meantime we are very grateful for these grants given to us by the community to ensure the continued development of DAppNode.
If you still don’t know what DAppNode is, here’s a speedy overview!
DappNode is an operating system that allows you to host DApps in a truly decentralized way, eliminating the reliance on vulnerable third parties by adding an extra layer of incentivization that spreads adoption of the blockchain ecosystem, bringing the reliance on centralized parties to an end. When installed on the proper hardware you get easy access to censorship-resistant versions of your favorite Dapps, the ability to host your own nodes and shareable access for your family and friends thus creating a trusted network that enables a p2p economy. If you want to know more, you can have a look to our “genesis post” here.
Now that you know what it is we’re working on, let’s give you a brief synopsis of the various areas we’ve been making stellar progress!
Team:
Building a censorship resistant infrastructure layer needs lots of hands and minds, our community has brought us in touch a lot of people who truly want to contribute to development of DAppnode. On the core team front we have added a few new members to round things out support and dev-ops.
We would like to introduce:
Abel Boldú: Developer Operations, Maintaining Distribution, ISO, Installation scripts, Dynamic DNS.
Alex Casas: Community Support, Documentation, Testing.
Product development:
Without getting too technical these are the major progress points we have made so far:
- We have deployed the Aragon Package Manager (APM) registry contracts making them permisionless, so devs can more easily register their packages in the DAppNode registry, based on the APM in “yourpackage.public.dappnode.eth” thus fostering the use of Aragon in mainnet.
- DAppNode is much easier to install in any system either with an ISO image or script with just two commands.
- There has been a general performance improvement and a more robust operation thanks to code refactorization of the DAPPMANAGER and DNP Admin packages.
- Our SDK is ready to allow devs to install their packages on DAppnode which will allow other users to install them too, either with the IPFS hash of the package or with its ENS domain. This is a great step that gives more functionality and value to the users, in ETHBerlin Gotoma and Livepeer packages were developed using our SDK as a proof of concept.
- Users are now able to see logs of the DAppNode in the AdminUI, we believe it is important to give users access to these logs without being obliged to perform any task on the console, this also helps us to provide support as these logs can be easily downloaded in a JSON file to be analysed by our team.
- As one of the vital organs of DAppNode, Parity package (ETHCHAIN) has been upgraded to Parity V2.0.6 which has thrown some new challenges in the mix of making decentralized technologies accessible to everyone. The Parity WEB UI has been deprecated with this update, so there is little an average user can do now with Parity without entering the terminal. We prefer that users should not have to enter the terminal for anything.
- We have UPnP protocol compatibilty to smooth the installation process and operation without having to deal with ports. This makes it easier for non-techie users to install and use DAppnode.
- A major redesign of the ADMIN UI has been made to make it more user friendly and useful for Dappers.
- We have created some extensive documentation for advanced users that can be found here , and we’re also working on a Hardware Decentralization User Guide to offer average users less technical documentation that will help them when installing and using their DAppNode. (If you prefer an IPFS hash like we do, here you have it ): http://my.ipfs.dnp.dappnode.eth:8080/ipfs/QmUkecCDDFYd1pUku5mwsgSTcEppbEbMJdWPuWtYgZ6hZk
- As with every alpha, we had a forest of bugs that have been properly exterminated. And now we have a dedicated bug hunter to help out developers and improve the overall user experience.
We are also surveying which DApps and services people would like to have on the DAppstore, we truly want to hear the voice of the community during the progression of this project, if you want to add your voice go here and let us hear it!
At last the best thing you can do to be a part of this project is simply to install a DAppNode by going to DAppnode.io and getting your own version of decentralized hardware!
See you in the next update!!! In the meantime you can find us all over the interwebz and:
Connect with the team on: Riot
Install DAppnode on your machine: Download
Give us a gold star on: GitHub
Follow us on: Twitter
Hang with the Dappers in: Telegram
Support us with your Eth at https://dappnode.io/
All Q3 2018 Nest updates
