Waves Developers Present First Version of Testnet

19.04.2016

Blockchain platform Waves has presented a testnet so that investors and other supporters could access the system’s prototype. Moreover, the release would enable investors to participate in development, for instance, by providing their feedback which is of utmost importance at early stages of any project.

“Functionality is currently limited, but what we have seems to work well. We’d like to invite everyone who is interested in our progress to help out by testing out what we’ve got so far and letting us know what they think,” commented WAVES founder Sasha Ivanov.

The team strives to develop a decentralized blockchain-based system for crowd-funding campaigns and issuance of user crypto-tokens. The platform would feature fiat currencies, such as USD, EUR, and CNY. Algorithm for fiat currencies is said to be completely different from that of Ripple and Stellar.

“WAVES is based on the open source Scorex platform, developed by Alex Chepurnoy and financial services innovation company IOHK, though there is no formal relationship between WAVES and IOHK. The 2.0 system is designed to address several key issues in cryptocurrency, including ease of use, scalability and use of fiat tokens on the blockchain,” the platform’s official blog reads.

Waves managed to raise in excess of $1 million during the first hours of the campaign. By the end of the day, the overall amount of raised funds exceeded $2 million. Currently, public ICO address of the project shows 5,258 BTC (around $2.522 million).

Waves’ team features developers formerly engaged in NXT, one of the first generation 2.0 platforms. Back in March, when launch of Waves had just been announced, Sasha Ivanov told ForkLog:

“In technological terms, our aim is to do to cryptocurrency tokens what Ethereum does for smart contracts that had originated in Bitcoin scripting. The platform will provide the widest range possible of cryptocurrency token applications, namely issuance, transfer, decentralized exchange, a reputation system, and a decentralized voting system”.

The project’s goal, according to a press release, is to bring decentralized crowdfunding to mass audiences, which find existing platforms too difficult to use, as they are mostly intended for advanced users. Waves team seeks to encourage people to join by providing different user interfaces, including a node client with a full copy of blockchain and a lightweight Chrome extension, which might be preferable to regular users.

“Our primary users will be crowdfunding projects in the first place. The system will allow them to launch a fundraising campaign in just a few minutes. The system will also use tokens pegged to real-life currencies with payment system and bank backing. At the next phase of the system’s development, we will encourage real businesses to issue their stock on Waves blockchain. We pay much attention to compatibility between the technologies and regulation. Our aim here at Waves is to create an ecosystem fully compliant with the regulations for stock and remittances,” Ivanov described the project’s strategic vision back in March.

Waves system’s design implies Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm based on 100m digital tokens. The model uses the team’s earlier experience with NXT, which, as they say, has proven that digital tokens are less prone to troublemaking than smart contracts when it comes to regular users.

“With a wealth of experience in real-life applications of crypto-technologies, the Waves team sees real ways of their wide propagation. We place emphasis on ease of use and providing end user with a familiar interface of centralized services like crowdfunding platforms, online banking services, and broker accounts,” Ivanov said.

The testnet code is publicly available on GitHub, one might be also interested in checking out the Waves’ block explorer for the testnet.

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Tags: altcoins, cryptocurrencies, Scorex, Waves