29 Mar Symbol blockchain news update – 29/03/22

Very short Tuesday post as there were a few things that caught my eye this morning, then I need to replenish my news list so maybe tomorrow I will have a blog break 😊 If you do have any news then please feel free to tag me in posts or get in contact, I’d really appreciate it! Same goes for blog posts, if you want to tell the world about something Symbol or NEM related then I can set you up with a contributor account and you can publish your thoughts, projects or articles for all to see.

Coming soon to Symbol and NEM

Very interesting post from Hatchet in “The Deck” channel on Discord last night. It sets out the week’s priorities and there are a few exciting developments to pick up on here.

1. Symbol post opt-in is coming (back) very soon, The team are working on testing as well as documentation and a front-end for XEM holders at time of snapshot that have not yet claimed their XYM. We should be welcoming a few new recruits to XYM City in April.
2. Community merchandise – I guess that this is going to be print at home (or at least through an online service) T-shirts, mugs and other paraphernalia. Looking forward to getting some Symbol swag without paying a fortune for shipping from Japan! 😁
3. New community avatars! The emojis are a clue here but if you can’t guess (and don’t mind a spoiler) then check out the thread in the design channel on Discord.
4. NEM anniversary is coming later in the week and there will be an art piece to celebrate – looking forward to seeing this!
5. NEM website will be coming soon! Not sure how soon but soon, apparently it is in finishing up stage so I guess we are getting close, it has been a long time coming but great to see that the end is in sight. Then hopefully it will be full steam ahead for the Symbol site!
6. Perhaps most exciting for me is a secret project which apparently Hatchet is “incredibly impressed with” this will be added to the NEM website so I guess we will have to wait and see what this is. If Hatchet is impressed then I am guessing that this will be something pretty special
7. I had to Google what SOC1 and SOC2 were (here’s some more info). This is probably the least exciting for us regular folk but I guess it is important for some kind of legal things related to the setup of the various entities?
8. New hires – super important for us going forward and we will finally see the team expanding and new knowledge and skills coming into the team. Expect to see some new faces soon and significant progress in 2022

The wealth gap

Expect to hear more on this soon, I am not sure what is in the pipeline but it looks like it could be good news for us mere mortals and slightly less good news for the mega whales. This is bound to be a contentious issue so I look forward to some lively debate once the picture becomes clearer. Hatchet – I know you despise WordPress but I would love to publish your thoughts on this so happy to accept a Google Doc and I will write it up for you 😊

Still trying to maintain an exodus, but just as a heads up: we've been reading all of the comments around harvesting, Symbol, NEM, and the growing wealth gap between individuals and whales.

The wealth gap across both protocols is huge it is something we are committed to fixing.

— Hatchet (@0x6861746366574) March 28, 2022

From the way the tweet is worded it may be that this affects node owners too. We have had a lot of discussions on Twitter recently about the disparity in node importance and there really is a huge gap between the richest and poorest nodes. I think that it is important to keep or expand the number of nodes and if you are not covering your running costs then there is little incentive to run a node.

There is also a difference in opinions on the operational model of nodes, each offers something different. Some nodes give a percentage of rewards back to the harvester for instance whereas others (like mine) provide a service to the community and keep 100% of the node fee for each harvest. There are pros and cons to both I guess but it can be a contentious issue.

Balls

Never been a golfer but if I were then these would be the golf balls for me! I need to think up the weirdest thing I can think of to put a Symbol logo on 🤔 Is anyone making laptop stickers by the way? Just got a fancy new work laptop and I want to decorate it 😁

gm✨🧬 #Symbol $XYM pic.twitter.com/dLlYBOcM3p

— かのん🧬Symbol⭐︎XYM🧬 (@NA5GGYbQ9Nm0iLm) March 28, 2022

The metaverse

I mentioned @nemchan_nel and the new book in a recent post but I found this synopsis really interesting. It’s in Japanese but it translates well, maybe one day the book will be translated to English, I’d really like to give it a read!

noteがクリエイターに創作の裏側をきく #noteクリエイターファイル

🎤お話を聞いたクリエイター
バーチャル美少女ねむさん @nemchan_nel

普通のネットユーザーが、歌手に小説家、メタバースのエバンジェリストとマルチな活動をするVtuberに至るまでをお届けします。https://t.co/JAb4VJ6qKL pic.twitter.com/FpHqureaNR

— note (@note_PR) March 29, 2022

The internet is watching you 😱

Foil hat time, after mentioning KFC in my blog post yesterday I seem to be inundated with KFC ads everywhere I look. I haven’t had breakfast this morning and it is reminding me how hungry I am – I would see my soul for a KFC right now (can you have KFC for breakfast?). I blame you @TrendStream 😂

Stroll in hungry, strut out heroic.
Score 10 Mini Fillets for £5.99 and feel like a Big Deal.
Only at KFC.

— KFC UK (@KFC_UKI) March 7, 2022

Thanks!

Thanks for reading and for your support and kind words on Twitter. I just realised I have been going for over 9 months now, maybe I should think of something to do in June to mark Symbol Blog‘s first birthday 😊 Anyway, I will have a think about it and will be back soon with another update!

If you are a regular reader then please consider delegating to my node xymharvesting.net and supporting the blog 🙏