Hi everyone, we've got a very brief update for you today. We've been delaying doing our public test of our mobile digital item purchase process because we wanted to get a bug fix released on iOS, and it finally went through today. We are very excited to have that ready to go.

Follow @pylonstech on Twitter for a link to the free item tomorrow!

See you soon.

It's quiet around Pylons HQ today with our US-based team members enjoying the extended holiday weekend. We'll be back to it tomorrow!

We are very close to releasing our first item on the incentivized testnet. Our QA team (wooo, Tanya!) has signed off on the apps, and we're just waiting on the App Store to approve the last bugfix release.

Team Pylons is excited to be back working with the public and gearing up for Consensus next week. Stay tuned in the Discord to keep up with Pylons items as they're released!

Hey there Pylonians!

We have some exciting things coming this week! As you know, the team has been heads down and working hard behind the scenes making changes, fixing bugs, and getting the apps and everything else in-between ready for the incentivized testnet kickoff. We learned a lot from our test a few weeks back and it resulted in quite a few changes, so thank you to everyone who participated. We have been running testnet-3 with 80 validators for a few weeks now, and it's been smooth sailing, so we are declaring the start of incentive season!

Later this week you'll be invited to explore the Pylons app and participate in a series of bi-weekly drops featuring various Pylons artists. Each drop will be worth points in our incentivized testnet program, with additional rewards for the more you collect.  There will be lots of ways to earn points, and this is just the beginning. The leaderboard will be released at the conclusion of the challenge series, with top scoring participants being awarded something special from team Pylons.

To join in on the fun, make sure you've downloaded the Pylons app (available on iOS & Android) and watch our Discord channel for drop updates.

One of the changes we made after the last test was that we've recently rekeyed our systems from 24 to 12 key bases. If you currently hold a 24-word key, please reach out to us in Discord and we'll help move you over on top of granting you points for being an OG holder gift. If you have the latest version of the Pylons app installed and do not see 12 words on the recovery phrase screen, that's you, and you will need to migrate to a new key.

If you have any issues installing Pylons, ping our #support channel in the Discord.

The Pylons are lifting off. Hop in, it'll be fun.

Have a great week everyone!

Hello Pylons Community.

I am Joshua Kershner, Pylons General Counsel. I want to give you a brief overview on our strategy around regulation and risk, given the news this week.

The collapse of Terra UST and Luna has had a profound and disruptive effect on the blockchain community. First and foremost, Pylons HAS NOT been affected by last week's news. The company had no meaningful exposure to Terra UST or Luna. We remain in a strong position as we launch our incentivized testnet, and we will launch mainnet later this year. We recognize many cosmonauts are in a less fortunate position, and we are here for anyone who wants to talk, as are many others.

This cataclysmic event demonstrates the risk inherent in innovating with value on the line and how important it is to mitigate that risk. Over the next few years billions of people will interact with art and games through mobile phones, and will need a way to demonstrate ownership over the digital items they buy and sell. Pylons is building the mainstream, mobile-friendly infrastructure that is the future of digital property, and we are doing it with risk minimization at the forefront of the design.

Our approach, both legally and technologically, is fundamentally different than most other blockchain projects, and in particular, markedly different than Terra UST and Luna. Legal considerations play an important role in the development of the product itself.  Web3, blockchains, and cryptocurrencies exist in a space of regulatory uncertainty. Governments don't understand the technology and the mainstream public is afraid of the risk and newness. Developing a product first and then trying to figure out the legal strategy later is a recipe for disaster.

I advise Pylons on how to mitigate risk at every step. I'm an attorney with ten years of experience working for the United States federal government who mined Bitcoin on my personal computer in 2010 and returned to the space to navigate Pylons through legal uncertainty. The goal is for the company to hold nothing that a hacker could steal; push risk onto reliable partners, like Google Play, Apple Pay, and uStripe; and to create corporate infrastructure that meets regulators expectations, including registering tokens as securities, and having the capacity to respond to legal process and court orders.  Under this framework, we can scale up to a mainstream audience skeptical of the technology and afraid of the risk, and we can say, honestly and with a straight face: Pylons is different!

The Pylons are rising!

Have a great week, everyone, back to Mike again next Monday for a big announcement.

Short update this week, we have a lot in motion that is almost ready to announce but not quite. We are also a bit distracted by some of the other action in the Cosmos ecosystem!

First, the new branding has been applied to the website! There are still some things  that are imperfect, but we really like how it looks.

Second, our second user drop will be next week, after we test the latest version of the wallet. We are exploring some alternative methods for the purchase flow, we have both in-app purchase and IBC payment flows in testing. New activations with those flows are coming soon.

We are also working on plans for how the points tracking display will work, so you can see how you're doing in the game.

Have a great week!

A few weeks ago we invited validator teams to apply to validate the Pylons incentivized testnet, and we have been very happy with the response. The first new validators are already online and validating pylons-testnet-3; one put up a new explorer for validators because the Big Dipper instance that the Pylons team operates is primarily designed to support the user flow. It's been about four months since we last added validators, so we're excited to have the set growing again. We are at 70 validators producing blocks right now, and we expect that will continue to grow.

We'll be starting incentive challenges very soon! We are making sure that the major features we still need to deploy are ready to go first, in particular, integrations with iOS App Store and Google Play.

Here is a preliminary breakdown of the Phase 1 rewards structure. These percentages are still subject to change but this will provide you with guidance as to what to expect.

The primary goal of phase 1 is usability. Points will be divided among technical/coding challenges, documentation challenges, and user challenges.

• Find and fix bugs - 50%
• Add features - 25%
• Write documentation - 15%
• User challenges (Art creation, NFT purchases, gameplay trophies) - 10%

The points will be weighted across each of the technical products within the Pylons system:

• The node code - 40% - Written in Go, built on Cosmos SDK, the core code for the Pylons blockchain creates new accounts, and accepts and executes the recipes that make up Pylons experiences. It also handles integrations with other chains via IBC and with authoritative payment and oracle systems via a system of transaction authorization via receipt submission. Read more about recipes in the Pylons whitepaper.
• The mobile SDK - 20% - Written in Dart, the SDK allows mobile apps to interact with the Pylons chain without needing to do any account management or transaction signing themselves. The SDK provides access to identity, wallet contents, and responses to submitted transactions all directly on the user's mobile device
• The recipe creation tool (not yet public) - 15% - Written in Go and using starport, this tool allows creators to write the experience flows that are often called smart contracts.
• The consumer block explorer website - 15% - Currently available at http://wallet.pylons.tech, the explorer provides landing pages for users who follow Pylons links without having the Pylons app installed, provides high level overviews of what is happening on the chain (new art!) and provides the backend for social card creation when items are shared.
• The static website (not yet public) - 10% - A very stylish way to show what Pylons is that will soon replace the pylons.tech site design.

The easiest way to get started is to look at our demo apps, Easel and LOUD (not yet public), and play around with the SDK. You will probably have lots of ideas, and lots of ways to improve the documentation. We want to fix all our simple bugs and get everyone familiar with the system before we start phase 2, which will be scalability and spam mitigation (this is when you'll get rewards for knocking the chain over.)

Have a great week everyone!

Welcome everyone! It's time to share the link to our celebration NFT. The incentivized testnet will launch soon, but you can start getting points now. Holders of this NFT will get a small reward after the incentivized phase, so Grab on to the spaceship!

Testnet Rewards Spaceship

Launch spaceship for the Pylons incentivized testnet. Holders of this item when the first testnet is shut down will receive incentive points in the up...Price: 10 STRIPEUSD

Built on Pylons

To buy this, click the link on your mobile, download the Pylons app, and enter a Stripe test credit card, 4242 4242 4242 4242. Any future date, CVV, and zip code will work.

If you have any trouble please let us know in the Discord support channel!

Hello, happy Monday! I'm excited to announce that the Pylons team has selected the first round of 50 new validators for Phase 1 of the incentivized testnet. We received more than 500 applications and combing through so many great candidates was a challenge.

We will be reaching out over the next few days to notify each of the selected validators to discuss the KYC and onboarding processes. With only 50 slots, we couldn't possibly include everyone, but there will be more opportunities to contribute and to earn points in the incentivized testnet. As we move through the phases of the testnet, we will also expand the validator pool. Preference will be given to validators who contribute to code, testing, and documentation during the testnet.

Pylons is a user-first, mobile-first zone, and the Pylons testnet is a user-first, mobile-first testnet. We will have validator challenges, but we will also have user, artist, and developer challenges. We believe that users need to come first, and that includes during the testnet. So our first testnet reward is for users, which you can earn even before the incentivized testnet launches.

Tomorrow at noon Pacific time we will have a special update with the claim link to our launch NFT. Download the Pylons app (Android and iOS) now if you want to be ready and try to snag a low issue number!

We are lifting off. Hop in, it'll be fun.

Hi from sunny Alberta, where I'm speaking at the NFT Gathering in a few days!

First, as we move towards launching our next testnet, we want to thank the validators who made the first testnet possible. This testnet enabled us to build out our explorer, test our upgrade protocols, develop our apps, and learn how our system would work at scale. All validators in the current testnet will receive points towards rewards at the conclusion of the incentivized testnet. Thank you, all.

Phase 1 of the incentivized testnet will focus on usability, which means trying out the apps and SDKs, reporting bugs, and writing/improving documentation. The testnet has a set challenges for anyone who wants to participate, so head out to your local app store (Android and iOS) and download the Pylons app to join in. We'll share ways to earn points using the app starting next Monday. If you have any issue installing Pylons, ping our #support channel on Discord.

Things are moving fast! We can't wait to announce the details of the testnet and more about our apps this month.

Today's update is something that has been in progress for a long time, and that I've been waiting to be able to say: The Pylons chain repository is now public on Github.

A lot of people have worked on this repository over time, at least three distinct teams, in its journey from the creation of Pylons, LLC through today. It has been updated through several versions of the Cosmos SDK, it has gone through several testing and deployment paradigms, it's been running with 40 validators since the end of last year, and now you can go check it out.

We believe that it does things that are both unique and necessary, and will be transformative for the space, enabling more direct payment processor integration, and a gas-free mobile blockchain paradigm that will make digital items accessible to the masses. It's a dream we've been building toward in private for a while, in many ways swimming against the current of the blockchain conventional wisdom and we are ready to show it to you. It always feels like a project could use just a little more polish, of course, but now is the time to get more eyes on it. Starting from today, we are building in public.

Next up, if you want to see me speak in Banff next week at https://www.thenftgathering.com/ you have afew hours left to secure tickets. Go, go go!

As always, jump on http://discord.gg/pylons and say hi, or ask questions, or anything else. We love to hear from all of you beautiful chipmunks. And we are hiring for senior devs.

See you next week!