6 years ago
Letter from Daniel Peled, Orbs President and Co-Founder
The beginning of any year is exciting, but there is something uniquely powerful about kicking off 2019 with our launch just around the corner. Watching the process of building Orbs, and all of the work that has gone into it, has been both inspiring and exciting, recognizing the dedication of our team and the potential that our product has to make the blockchain promise a reality.
For me personally it reinforces the very elements that brought me to the industry in the first place. These factors motivated me to get involved, and now serve as guiding principles to help define the future we can take and the impact we can have.
Breaking Silos
There is a tendency in any movement to let the ideals run wild and to lose touch with the very elements that will help make the dream a tangible reality. For blockchain to take hold, we must create a path that leverages real world usage as a necessary predecessor to public blockchains with a clear path on how to make this process unfold. Because of this perspecti_ve, we have committed ourselves to being requirement driven in how we build our product and our company so that we don’t just speak to the potential of blockchain but play a fundamental role in bringing the technology to the masses._
We know that if we can get businesses on board, and bring value to users, we can make the technology fulfill its potential. This is why we focus so much on our design partners and the feedback we receive from business building real products on Orbs.
Building a Trust Based System
One of the fundamental promises of blockchain is to redefine how we work, collaborate, communicate and more with a system that is trustless. The result is a business and societal standard where exploitation is replaced with empowerment and knowledge. Where individuals are finally given a significant role within the value exchange and where fair competition is enabled.
In the words of Joel Monegro, “by replicating and storing user data across an open and decentralized network rather than individual applications controlling access to disparate silos of information, we reduce the barriers to entry for new players and create a more vibrant and competitive ecosystem of products and services on top”. 2019 will allow us to take a major step forward in realizing this vision.
The New Company
Blockchain doesn’t just bring a new technology, it enables the creation of a new type of venture. The alignment between an asset, a product and all of the players involved in the cycle of usage is a massive leap forward. With Orbs, we aren’t just creating an amazing product, we are creating a different type of business; one that we will build, support and drive forward, together.
So when we look back, and more importantly, when we look forward, we are grateful to the individuals and partners who have helped us get this far and are excited to add more individuals and partners to this journey moving forward.
To an amazing 2019 for us all,
Daniel Peled
President and Co-Founder, Orbs
Here’s some of what we’ve been up to for the past month and change (for dev news, scroll down to R&D Updates):
Kakao Investment Joins the Orbs Journey
South Korea’s internet and communications giant Kakao (of KakaoTalk) announced last month that it has partnered with Orbs! The investment in the Orbs product builds on an existing partnership with Kakao’s own blockchain subsidiary Ground X from just months ago. As part of the partnership, the two companies agreed to partner on blockchain applications, research and development projects.
In their own words: “Kakao Investment is focused on identifying key trendsetters and innovators in the blockchain sector and Orbs is a great example,” said Kris Park, Executive Director of Kakao Investment. “The company has developed an innovative business model and possesses unique technological capabilities, enabling us to support the company and maximize its potential.”
Exciting!
With tremendous excitement and after much anticipation and sleeplessness, we’ve launched Gamma, the local testing environment for developers preparing for the launch of the Orbs production platform. Gamma will create a local blockchain on each machine to allow developers to write and test smart contracts using the Orbs Smart Contract SDK.
As part of the exciting Gamma launch, Orbs rolled out the shiny new command line interface Gamma-CLI, the client developers need to interact with their personal Orbs blockchain and design partners to access the full testnet. Launching Gamma and Gamma-CLI constitutes a major step to the release of the full Orbs production layer of in early 2019 with which developers and businesses will begin testing the platform.
The emphasis throughout our creation of Gamma-CLI has always been on simplicity, user experience, and speed-speed-speed. In the words of Orbs President Daniel Peled: “Our focus remains on creating the optimal platform for building large scale applications and to help improve this process, we wanted to give partners and developers the time they need to test and learn on our system.”
Orbs’ dynamic product roadmap highlights several key updates to the project’s readiness, geared up for the full launch of a production ready platform. The period until launch will be used to work closely with partners and developers, helping them optimize their onboarding process ahead of the launch set for early 2019.
YES24, Korea’s #1 online book and records retailer has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on blockchain collaboration and co-development with Orbs.
Collaboration between YES24 and Orbs will focus on joint research and development for Blockchain main-network specialized for digital content. The deal is the latest in a series of successful, concerted efforts by Orbs to expand its already strong foothold in the blooming East Asian blockchain market.
Major progress last month was made by the Orbs core team:
Autonomous swap v0.5 — available on Orbs testnet for design partners.
To get early access, click here
To request early access, click here.
Orbs Autonomous Swaps enables a secure transition of tokens from Ethereum to Orbs, without relying on a centralized entity, while preserving a conversion rate of 1:1.
Gamma v0.5.6 0 — now available with connectivity to Ethereum
Stepping up the smart contract SDK documentation
Orbs’ new documentation website has been launched!
New client SDK in Python is now available (alpha)
By our design partners’ popular request, we’ve developed an additional client SDK in Python — open to the public. Grab it here.
Korea Events
At World Blockchain Summit Marvels Seoul 2018, our VP Marketing Ethan Chernofsky spoke on a panel on the Tech Renaissance in Blockchain.
Ethan presented the Orbs product and the critical perspectives that have helped the company gain traction already*.*
Japan Events
Tokyo was a blast! On December 18th, approximately 250 enterprise executives came via invitation to the DApp Summit event. Our very own Mayo Hotta presented Orbs’ solutions and vision on a solo stage to the members, expanding on the immediate potential of blockchain for business.
Later as part of a shared panel focused on “The technology challenge of DApp”, Mayo spoke about Orbs’ scalability by intelligence sharding and rPOS, and practical implementation of private blockchain to meet enterprises’ current needs.
Meanwhile at a private blockchain meetup in Tokyo, our VP Marketing Ethan Chernofsky spoke to an enthusiastic crowd of ~80 about Orbs business updates and market situation.
Ethan then answered audience answering questions regarding the upcoming product launch, token distribution and listing anticipated for early 2019.
China Events
You can read all about the Orbs at the BXA event in Shanghai here, where Orbs President Daniel Peled introduced Orbs practical blockchain solutions focusing on the application for enterprise.
England Events
Orbs delegates participated in a panel discussion on sustainable blockchain ecosystems at The Next Web — Hard Fork Decentralized event in London, sharing thoughts on what is needed in order to build practical, real-value solutions to business.
GREAT time at @iCapital_io speaking about building sustainable #blockchain ecosystems to crowd at @thenextweb , @HardFork Decentralized conference in #London , thank you everyone! pic.twitter.com/Dnkit3DnOP — Orbs (@orbs_network) December 16, 2018
The sold-out event was moderated by Agada Nameri of iCapital and included Ran Goldi, CEO of First Digital Assets Group, Liron Rose, Co-Founder and Chairman of Stellerro, Adi Ben Ari, Founder and CEO of Applied Blockchain, Jonathan Noam, CCO at Orbs, Jay Nemesis, Investor at eToro and, Martin Bartlam a Partner at DLA Piper.
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