To be the leader in Bitcoin-based financial platforms, you need adoption, and to get adoption, you need utility, features and ease of use. While we have a number of innovative projects being launched using the Master Protocol as it has been developed over the past year, we still need enhanced features, additional flexibility and robust security to the users.

A proposal for distributing application-level metadata in a global format has been proposed,
which if implemented would reduce the amount of metadata storage required for Smart Properties on the Bitcoin blockchain (and slimmer is better for the whole ecosystem). Please read this and provide comments.

Asset issuers have been asking for more control over the assets they create. Not only the ability to create assets on demand, but also the means to manage those assets, and transfer ownership of those assets. The learning curve on decentralized financial assets is pretty steep, we’re finding that people are now starting to “get it” – and the foundations that have been built are exactly what issuers need to build upon and make the next killer app.

The MetaDEx is getting closer to release, taking oodles of input from experts and making it beautifully simple to execute.

The Over-under

Prepping a new software release brings the contributors together to determine the best fit for new changes, discussion surrounding caveats and edge cases, and what the changes will impact going forward.

Next week we will release the next tagged release of Master Core for integrators, version 0.0.7.

This will be the last tagged release before we build and distribute the next beta of Master Core that will include the front-end user interface for the downloadable wallet (and, of course, multiple platform support). This tagged release is to provide integrators with the most up-to-date protocol enhancements and to make sure they will be ready for the users using the forthcoming beta.

The deep

In preparation for next week’s new tagged release of Master Core, this week the team has been busy merging in the remaining code and running unit tests and black box testing against the critical functions.

So far, we’ve tested and approved p2sh multi-sig and manual issuances after thorough testing on Bitcoin testnet. Re-org protection was merged yesterday and today (and throughout the weekend), we’ll be making sure that the daemon remains stable and accurate (as it has been up to now). The re-org protection allows Master Core to recover better from a blockchain re-org, whereas the prior builds provided a warning to the user, but did not automatically reparse.

A side-refactoring of the file structure of the code was also made yesterday to allow for smoother merges of new features in the future.

The skinny

Omniwallet got some major updates this week, and over the weekend will be getting even more, related to Master Core integration, the new database backend, and front-end UI updates. Part of getting the new builds of Master Core out have been to assist in getting the old underpinnings of Omniwallet removed and replaced with the reference client. The same is happening for masterchest.info, which by next week will also be running against Master Core. All of this in preparation for new asset types, faster and more responsive services and more detailed data to be presented to the end-user.

Next week integrators get a lot. Shortly thereafter, the UI will be ready, and everyone will be able to see it.

See areas of improvement? Have any questions? The more masterminds the better! Join the project. Ask me anything!

Craig Sellars

CTO, MSC Foundation

craig (at) mastercoin.org