Community Spotlight — May 2019 Edition
May is a wrap! We at ARK are proud of our determined and bright community, and
our monthly Community Spotlight newsletter will keep you apprised regarding
notable community activities. Let’s dive into just some of the ways the ARK
community shined in May 2019.
ARK Deployer Community Contest
On May 28, ARK Deployer was premiered to the world! Now, people can use an
effortless graphical user interface coupled with battle-tested guides and
procedures to design, customize, and launch a standalone blockchain, even if
they haven’t worked with blockchains before. This video should get you up to
speed:
In the community, Reddit user **‘ka-ant’ **graciously decided to run a contest
for deploying a blockchain for a creative purpose. The deadline to deploy and
report is June 30, 2019. The prize? 1000 ARK! Check rules and details
here.
Win 1000 ARK! See details here:
Ka-ant’s Community Deployer Contest
Rules
FEATURED COMMITS
As they say, the best things happen with help. That’s why ARK runs monthly
bounty programs for coders who contribute to our codebase on the ARK Ecosystem
GitHub. Independent programmers can work side
by side with our international team and make the ARK toolkit even more powerful
and stable. ARK is awarded to GitHub participants by way of the ARK GitHub
Bounty Program. Learn more about the bounty program
here.
The community Spotlight Newsletter only includes three featured commits, but
you can see all the hard work of our GitHub participants at
blog.ark.io!
- Delegate ‘dated’ implemented an ‘export wallets’ feature. This creates a
list file of wallet addresses and lays the groundwork for a ‘mass import’
feature of wallet addresses if you for example wish to move your desktop wallet
activities to a new machine. - Delegate ‘dated’ also performed a lot of chores regarding the vendor field.
The vendor field is a text field that allows memos, code, or instructions to be
injected into an ARK transaction, and plays a role in ARK SmartBridge
technology. Recently, the vendor field length has been increased to 255 bytes. - Github member ‘danielstc’ updated and improved Italian translations for the
ARK Desktop Wallet. Molto bene!
Multiple coders are contributing to the ARK toolkit 24/7, and you can too — it’s
fun, rewarding, and you can earn ARK as well!
This guide will show you how to get started with coding for
ARK.
If you don’t know how to code, but you have ideas to improve ARK open source
projects, use this video to help you let developers know.
You can also now push issues onto ARK GitHub repos without a Github account
using the Ark.Party Discord
Bot.
NOTABLE REDDIT POSTS
The Ark Ecosystem Subreddit is a great
place to seek ARK knowledge, and you can always find new and engaging content
there. New to ARK? Check out my Welcome to ARK Reddit
Post
with simple instructions to follow.
Here are some notable May posts:
- A question about ARK Deployer example
projects - A request for
ideas
using the ARK Deployer - A question about creating a private
bridgechain - A reminder to
vote
for delegates you believe in - ARK ranked 14th on a recent China
report - A question about the possibility of a DEX
plugin - A list of current
projects
built with ARK technology - An interesting statistic showing ARK real-time block
size - An enlightening chart showing weekly thread comment
counts - A discussion about listing ARK on more
exchanges - A question about the role of
ARK
now that Deployer is completed - An article showing the ARK Github is highly
active - A discussion regarding the concept of spend and
replace - A meta-discussion about the possibility of banning price
discussion
in the weekly thread. TL;DR no action at this time. - A question regarding ACES and smart contract
development
You can browse more content and contribute your own voice to the ARK Subreddit-
who knows, you may even receive an ARK tip from a community member using
Delegate Cryptology’s intuitive ArkTippr Reddit
tipbot.
MAY 2019 PODCASTS
ARK Crypto Podcast #037 — ARK Team In Paris April 2019
Breakdown
ARK Crypto Podcast #038 — Keys To Freedom Syndication & ARK Marketing
Interviews
ARK Crypto Podcast #039 — Consensus NYC 2019
Presentation
COMMUNITY SERVICE SPOTLIGHT
Some members mentioned in the community newsletter are ARK delegates, who secure
the ARK network and provide community services. Their inclusion in the
newsletter is in no way an endorsement from ARK.io to vote for specific
delegates, and you should always do your own research and consider all the
options when choosing a delegate for whom to vote.
ARK.io does not run the ARK network.
Here’s the May 2019 Community Service Spotlight:
- ArkTrends has returned with new community stats this
month.
ArkTrends is now managed by ‘Jorma,’ who also maintains the ARK.dog Roadmap
Tracker. - ‘Jorma’ also runs ArkDirectory.com, and
implemented a new feature showing recent additions by month. Here’s May’s
additions. - Delegate ‘Biz_Classic’ continued running their ARK
faucet, which awards free ARK to its
visitors. - Delegate ‘Del’ also continued operations of their ARK
faucet. - Delegate ‘Fun’ continued to run ARK games
online with daily ARK prizes. - Delegate ‘Alessio’ continued combing through ARK
code
to locate and repair vulnerabilities. Delegate ‘Alessio’ runs under a
Forging for Security model, similar to ‘Jarunik’s former Forging for
Contributions model. - Delegate ‘Rising_Sun’ ran general bounties for
Spring.
Any community member can earn and win ARK for their creative expressions each
month. Here’s how it
works.
They also generously agreed to provide some ARK each month to the ARK Community
Committee for various project maintenance. Winners were
announced
during May. - Delegates ‘Goose’ and ‘ArkMoon’ continue their service, ARK CSV
Generator and Income
Estimator,
to aid in trading and income reporting. You can input public keys to ARK
addresses and get a report including fiat values. The resource does not
constitute formal tax advice. - Delegate ‘Jarunik’
(website)
runs a continuous coding and non-coding general bounty service, with
opportunities for both smaller and larger projects. Get involved
here. - Community member ‘bootstr8’ published an
idea
to collaborate with their music channel on Youtube. The community liked it and
some sponsors came on board. Listeners can win ARK every day for thirty
days,
but then it was extended to 60
days,
and then the prizes
tripled.
Here’s an
update.
Here’s another
update. - I shared a video from Keys to Freedom entitled “Why I Wish More Crypto Projects
Behaved Like ARK.” Diggy did a great job:
- Delegate ‘The Golden Horde’ released version 2 of
Arkvatar.com,
a service designed to create unique avatars derived from ARK addresses. Nice! - ‘reConNico’ released
Swark,
an ARK payment gateway for Shopware. This project was funded by the ARK
Community Fund. Very cool! - Reminder: custom physical ARK cold storage
wallets
are still available. - ‘Major League Hacking’ hosted an ARK
workshop
in May. - A community member is looking for a photo
model
for ARK swag. - Delegate ‘Cam’s Yellow Jacket’ launched a funding
campaign
for their third video. Their second video is completed and premiered this month!
TEAM IN THE COMMUNITY
The ARK team has been sighted in the real world in May. Here are just some of
the activities:
- In late April, a large portion of the ARK Team made their way to Paris, France
to hold a General Assembly of the ARK business entity, listen to presentations,
and meet with various arms of the French government. ARK is incorporated in
France as an SCIC, the first of its kind for crypto in the country. In May, the
ARK Adventure video premiered detailing ARK’s activities. Check it out below:
- Also in May, ARK traveled to New York City to attend the Magical Crypto
Conference, attend Consensus NYC, and give a special presentation on ARK. You
will learn more about this soon as there will be a separate blog post with a
new ARK Adventure video, photos, and breakdowns. For now, check out our
Consensus presentation here:
- On May 8th, the second Developer Roundtable meeting occurred, where ARK CTO
Kristjan Košič communicates with the community, fields questions, and gives
updates. Check out the full meeting here:
GET INVOLVED
Watch this video on how to get involved with ARK, all skills welcome.
ARK COMMUNITY COMMITTEE
The ARK Community Committee creates and deploys community resources through
anonymous and sponsored ARK donations.
- The ACC’s first completed project is
ArkTimeline.com. ArkTimeline now supports URL query
string, to create links leading to custom
views!
Delegate ‘Rising Sun’ assists ArkTimeline maintenance by providing some ARK
each month to the maintenance team. - The ACC completed and released its second project
ArkThoughts.com. This ARK resource has information
on 30 ARK concepts and over 60,000 words from community members like you. It is
the result of the 30 Days of ARK Campaign that ran in December 2018, sponsored
by Delegate **‘Jarunik.’ **Here’s the launch
article. - In May, I began working with a community member to improve our whitepaper at
whitepaper.ark.io. When those revisions are
complete, we’ll be holding what we’re calling the Whitepaper Crunch Contest,
where participants will answer basic questions about the new ARK Whitepaper to
win Arkmoon commemorative coins courtesy of Delegates Arkmoon and Jarunik,
Ledger Nano S devices from ARK.io, and more. Stay tuned! - I have also recently seen some results from the ACC Dev Team and their efforts
to overhaul ArkStickers.com with a facelift and live ARK Pay integration. Looks
great so far! It will be live soon.
To join the ACC, locate me on Discord.ARK.io which by
the way, just increased its powers
significantly
with new bots, features, and feeds, courtesy of CMO Travis Walker’s oversight.
ACC Projects are funded after the fact and pay is not guaranteed (fun is,
though).
ARK COMMUNITY FUND
If you have an idea for an ARK project, large or small, and you are looking for
funding, consider submitting a proposal to the ARK Community Fund for review.
The ARK Community Fund started as a community initiative, and the elected board
reviews ideas and projects that enhance ARK. Their website is
ArkCommunity.Fund.
The opportunities that ARK Ecosystem provides are ever growing, and there are
many ways you can get in on the action. To reach me, you can contact me on the
ARK Slack or
Discord: @ Justin (doubled1c3).
Looking forward to June!
Follow us on social media ( Twitter | Facebook | Reddit | YouTube), join our community ( Slack | Discord ) and stay tuned to our blog on Medium.