Development
Three new highly skilled developers have been hired as part of the Loki development team, as per the planned growth for this period. Two developers were deployed on Lokinet and the third is working on Loki Messenger. Operation Glue has progressed well. While Lokinet and Loki Messenger have not been combined yet, we are getting close to a point where this will be possible. Loki Messenger has been reskinned and is successfully operating on an internal test network. Lokinet has reached ‘Kuz Yolo’ release 0.3.1. This release is available for public download and we are currently testing it on multiple private servers. Our testing has been extremely successful – Lokinet is very close to a minimum viable product on Linux and has the ability to stream Youtube videos.
Network Infrastructure and Performance Testing Services
We have been hosting vital websites and maintaining network infrastructure for the Loki Project. Some sites have been shutting down intermittently over this period. We are unsure if the website outages were due to DDOS or capacity related issues. In response, we have enabled Cloudflare to mitigate potential DDOS attacks and have also upgraded our servers. We have no further issues with website outages since taking these actions. During this period we also operated and maintained servers that host test networks for ongoing work on Loki Messenger and Lokinet to improve performance, squash bugs, and conduct QA. We are hosting a range of things including, but not limited to, the new Service Node dashboards, Lokiblocks.com, other side projects and tests for the network for greater network transparency and public usability.
Marketing Services
We have been approved for Facebook and Google ads and have been running mini campaigns to test out these options as avenues for further community adoption. We designed and developed a month long competition to coincide with the Festive Freya software release. This competition ran through December, bringing many of our social platforms together with new puzzles and challenges everyday for the month. We have provided 24-7 community support and technical assistance to multiple global communities, in over 12 languages.
Media Services
The ‘This is Loki’ video which was released in the August – September period has been well received and is the most highly viewed video that we have released to date. We have commissioned a new video to explain Lokinet and have been working closely with an animation studio to ensure that the animation is accurate. We expect the video to be completed in time for the release of Lokinet in 2019. We have continued to create and publish videos, images, memes, and development articles on multiple platforms each week to increase awareness and update the community on many aspects across the project. Published media can be found on Loki’s Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, blog, Medium, Telegram, Linkedin, Youtube, Bitcointalk, and Discord channels. The highest performing platforms between November – December are Reddit, Youtube, Twitter and the Loki.network website. Media and marketing delivery strategies are created and implemented on a weekly basis to ensure they are responsive to the latest developments in the Loki technology and community need. These strategies are aimed towards sustainable growth and interaction with Loki’s global communities.
Documentation Services
We have been updating and developing documentation designed to assist people using the Loki software, including educational tools and ’How to’ guides on Github as well as the actively updating the Service Node guide page. Loki Docs, an in-depth guide to Loki, has gone live. This covers a vast amount of beginner subjects while also diving into the advanced aspects of Loki. The document will be continuously updated as Loki evolves and can be found at this link: https://loki-project.github.io/loki-docs/. Applying to major exchanges requires pages of detailed documents about the project. An exchange application is generally more than 6 pages, with legal documentation required on top of that.
PR Services
Wachsman has continued to increase Loki’s broader reach by introducing the project and the team to global news outlets and media, promoting Loki through a range of publications and alternative avenues. We have been working closely with Wachsman to deliver cutting news and PR strategies.
The PR strategy for November-December was synced with our marketing and advertising efforts to elevate Loki’s visibility in mainstream and trade media, as well as pushing awareness of the project globally. A number of interviews and op-ed articles in the November-December period have helped to gain the Loki executive team deserved recognition as industry leaders and forward thinkers, allowing Loki to continue to position itself as the number one product when it comes to browsing and interacting privately online.
In the November – December period, Loki was featured in a number of publications offering expertise on a variety of topics, including in Nasdaq, Jaxenter, CoinRivet, Finder.au, and the Tech Blog Writer Podcast.
Conference Attendances & Promotional Services
Our promotional activity had a strong local focus over this period as there were no global conferences that were deemed to be valuable to Loki. We delivered a number of presentations on Loki during this period, including:
- To a group of international students at YBF Ventures;
- At a hackathon at UNSW;
- As part of a panel discussion at the Blockchain Centre in Melbourne; and
- At a blockchain conference in Noosa, QLD.
Research & Development Services
We have been undertaking ongoing full-time research into the architecture of the Loki Network, Service Node capabilities, and potential improvements to the Loki Network. We conducted critical and non-critical bug squashing which was summarised in our weekly Dev Update blog posts. As expected, we spent a substantial amount of time merging upstream changes from Monero. Testing and integration of the upstream changes will continue to consume more resources due to the difference in code and extra features Loki integrates over time. In relation to Lokinet, Snapps and Exit Nodes are working, however they are quite buggy and will require more UX, QA and fine-tuning before release. Further detail on the development of Loki can be found in the weekly Dev Update.
Data Analytic & Market Research Services
We have continued to analyse social media information to guide future social media global growth. We have noticed that there has been a significant increase in social media interaction from India. The interest of other countries is on par with previous months. We have enlisted some social media bot checking services.
Administration & Bookkeeping Services
We have assisted the LAG Foundation with legal and accounting advice, as well as completing documents and organising information to hand over to third parties for auditing and tax purposes. We have stored and organised documents for the LAG including, but not limited to, IP, tax, legal, and trademarking. All financial documents for the 2017 – 2018 financial year have been supplied to the relevant parties and we are waiting on them to finalise the LAG’s tax requirements. Bounty payments, prize payments, and other financial services have been organised and facilitated for the LAG Foundation. We have commenced research on long term investment opportunities for the LAG but have not confirmed our recommendations yet.