Padlock Launch AMA
On 12th August 2021, we conducted an AMA for the launch of our Testnet, Padlock.
Shane Benjamin: [00:03:33] We’re super excited today, as we launch Padlock, the first version of our Testnet have been working on this for awhile. We have a number of features that are already properly integrated.
If you’re a developer, we’ll really be happy to have you join us and get involved. I think I’ll just take this moment to also talk about our Ecosystem Grant program.
Now the Testnet is launched. We will jump into some of the questions.
Nora was asking about the NFT marketplace and so on. We’re planning to bring out a number of projects and a number of products. Once the platform is completely launched and NFTs are definitely something that we have an interest in. It’s um, a space that we’ve seen in is growing very well, and it’s very accessible to the general public.
And if anyone knows about Porta, our target is actually to grow the use of blockchain across the world. We want to accelerate that transition from web3 to web3. NFTs, we believe is a great place to start launchpads and so on. We’re also working on that. NFTs just kind of has a special place in our heart right now.
Yvonne Kagondu: [00:06:32] The next question is how do we see that a Padlock is live, where do we go to see it?
Shane: [00:06:44] Yes. Padlock is live, I will share a link to our console. That way you can see the transactions each one second, I will drop that in the chat.
And we have 26,000 finalized blocks at this point. Developers, you should be able to use our documentation. You’ll see that on the console page in the Wiki, and you can just click on that and you’ll be able to see our documentation and also our Github.
If you’re looking for the code for the blockchain itself. Our getting started guide is for all of the people. I want as many people to get involved in the development of the platform. And yeah, you can definitely just jump into it, start writing some code or seeing how it works and probably launching your own node and joining our network.
Yvonne: [00:08:36] How do you participate in the Testnet and what are the prerequisites?
Shane: [00:08:46] Well, it depends on what you wanna do.
If you want to run a node or if you want to be a developer. If you wanna run a node, you can get started here. Then you’ll see that we have a specific section setting up a node if you’re interested.
And if you want to go more into the developer section, you can just go over to smart contracts. And that just breaks down how to install and deploy smart contracts. For smart contracts, I don’t know who was able to have a look at our blog, but for now we’re going to be running with Ink as a smart contract platform.
The reason why we’re going, the reason why we’re going with Ink for smart contract is that that we believe that long-term, Rust and Ink are going to be the best for the blockchain. Solidity is amazing but when we look at it, Rust itself has a lot of pre-built integrations. That will be amazing for the future of the blockchain, where solidity is still, in its very early stages of development with a small developed wealth.
There are a few other technical reasons that we’ll be happy to get more into detail. If someone’s interested, you can go ahead and drop that in the chat. And I’ll happy to go into more detail about the differences.
We believe the long time the long-term pros of Ink are more valuable than the current cons to running Ink. So that’s the direction we took, but hey, if we notice that there are more people asking for solidity, maybe we can transition.
We’re just trying to do what’s best for the long-term longevity of the project as opposed to immediate trends.
Shane: [00:12:39] Yeah, sure. Um, let’s pass it up to Emmanuel. So you can touch a bit on the grant program that I wasn’t supposed to talk about.
Emmanuel Aremu: [00:12:51] It’s like the first, you know, the first part of our foundation as we built out an ecosystem, which kind of ties in perfectly to, our ecosystem grants.
And essentially we really want to fund, Rust project, which are looking to expand, Porta ecosystem.
Particularly going to be focused on like early projects. The deadline is 19th Sept month. As Yvonne already said, you know, join the Discord. Follow our Telegram, follow our News Channel, follow Twitter account as well, so that you don’t miss a single thing.
In terms of categories, we look forward to seeing a lot within the whole crypto ecosystem. Such as the likes of gaming, security, NFTs, DeFi, lending and bridges, I think that’d be really interesting to build within the Porta ecosystem.
That’s what the grants will be looking to support. Obviously we will be heavily promoting and profiling the projects as well.
Shane: [00:15:12] We’re really looking forward to seeing what you’re going to build on Porta. And we’re just really working on creating a great platform and educating everyone and allowing for great documentation and access.
We want to build Porta is build an ecosystem. That’s super easy for developers and new and old within blockchain. As of right now, they can have siloed products, that doesn’t necessarily integrate super well with each other. And you’re just trying to figure out how to make it work. If you look at Ethereum and that’s kind of how it is right now, but then hundreds of companies around that have built out different parts of it.
Then you have Apple, which built out most of the platform and then they gave you the platform to build across all of their OS. This is a similar mindset that we’re operating with at Porta. We really want to create a platform that makes it easy for you to build for everyone.
We’re not just building the Testnet, we’re building the Porta Wallet, we’re going to build a NFT marketplace and then we’re going to integrate all of these things super well. Our vision in the future is also to make it possible for, other developers to integrate with all of these solutions.
For example, we would like to create an API that would allow you to integrate directly into our wallets and have your application. The application will work in our wallet as if it’s a part of our wallet. That was just one of the ideas that we have in the pipeline. That’s what we’re building towards.
Products steeped in being well-designed is a focus for us. That is at the base of everything that we do.
Yvonne: [00:17:50] The question is the testnet incentivized or none incentivized?
Shane: [00:17:59] I’m not going to speak on that just yet, because we don’t really have anything like that in place. But now since you brought it up, we’ll definitely take it into account. We’ll have a discussion with the team and see how we can incentivize people to run some notes for us. I think that’s a great idea. [Note: we launched Padlock Validator rewards to incentivized for running a node]
We’ll definitely look into how we can incentivize people. We’ll definitely look into that.
Yvonne: [00:18:52] Another questions how many nodes validators can I have?
Shane: [00:18:57] On our console page at a shed, you can simply go over. Right now we only have our personal validators that are running. You can see all of the running nodes, it will probably be easier for you to go to Polkadot JS, and then connect to our web socket. And you’ll be able to see all of their running nodes from there. If not, I’ll probably just share it in the chat. In a bit so that you can go ahead and check that.
As of right now, we have three running nodes.
Happy to have you as an extra node and we can figure out how we can incentivize that.
Yvonne: [00:20:23] I think that’s the last question that we have.
Shane: [00:20:28] Okay, great. Pardon me? I’d you already covered your section or is anything else that you want to talk about?
Emmanuel: [00:20:44] We have Ecosystem Grants coming up next. Obviously the focus will probably shift towards our NFT product, which I actually say you should probably talk a little bit more about like
Shane: [00:21:21] Let’s just say NFTs and Portanauts. Um, or to an astronaut design, like, I don’t know if that’s enough as a tease.
Emmanuel: [00:21:49] We want to make sure there is high quality, for both, creators and collectors as well. There’s some really cool stuff we want to do on-chain to really accelerate that and kind of point people in the right direction when it comes to NFTs.
I think the community around NFTs and obviously the artist’s objective is really fascinating. When we start to test the products with our Beta Program and Super Fans to try things out.
Shane: [00:22:35] That’s the direction we are going. We also, so that’s where everything goes with the NFT marketplace as well. We want to make it so that other people can build on that and create their own NFTs on our platform.
Shane: [00:23:21] yeah, I think, uh, Shaikh wanted to speak,
Shaikh: [00:23:27] Hello guys. How are you?
Shane: [00:23:29] Oh, hey, we’re doing good. Wow. A speaker. How are you doing?
Shaikh: [00:23:36] I’m from India. Okay.
Shane: [00:23:41] We have India in the group. Nice. Well, welcome to the chat. Welcome to the community and happy to have you on board. Are you a developer by any chance?
Shaikh: [00:23:51] I’m waiting for theplan for the new NFT product.
Shane: [00:24:17] We have new projects that we’re building out. We’re building out in an NFT space first off, and then we’re going to expand into some other projects.
Shaikh: [00:24:25] I’m waiting for a f*cking go to the moon!
Shane: [00:24:29] You’re not the only one!
Shaikh: [00:24:39] You have the community 1,000 online out 11,000 people in here.
Shane: [00:24:44] Yeah we have a number of people in the group. Thank you all for your support. Like people come into the chat and like ready to have a chat, that’s really cool.
Shaikh: [00:24:59] Jen and I, and coming to a journal what’s happening here. I want to be here.
Shane: [00:25:05] When that happens to have you in the community. Yeah. Happy to have a chat. I think with that, we’re going to close. Soon to the moon, that’s the goal right now, trying to pass the moon.
Shane: [00:27:17] Thank you all for coming to the chat.
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