Dev Updates, New Website, Particl Academy, New Coins, and More! 🤯

In the past few weeks, Particl has been going through what can only be described as the “calm before the storm”. The Particl team, along with a few outstanding community contributors, have been working tirelessly in preparation for the release of Particl’s biggest update to date: Particl Desktop 2.4.0 (Infinite Markets). How does all that work translate into real-life?

  • A significantly bigger release than initially expected — more user-friendly, more features, and a more efficient back-end
  • Groundworks laid for outreach at scale
  • Ease the community into marketing Particl at scale
  • Support sellers and help them recognize Particl as an additional sales channel that can benefit their business

Not only has development been progressing very well, but the last few weeks have also been very instrumental in laying solid foundations that will make Particl’s adoption as easy as it’s ever been.

In this update, we’ll break down everything that’s been happening. It is also the perfect opportunity to reveal a few surprises that have been in the works for some time now. So get ready, because this Project Update is going to be a cool one!

Table of Contents (Click Me!)

Development Update

To refresh your mind, here are the most noteworthy items that are going to be introduced in Particl Desktop 2.4.0.

  • Listing fees reduced by 80% or more
  • Infinite Markets & Market Management
  • Identity Management and seller profiles
  • Significant performance boost
  • More lightweight Particl Desktop client
  • The marketplace now enabled by default on first startup
  • Various user-interface and user-experience improvements
  • (NEW) A surprise feature currently being integrated (roadmap item)

In the last Development Update, it was mentioned the new market codebase was mostly ready and going through various rounds of testing designed to find any issue within the code. Well, a LOT has happened since then and there’s a lot to say about it, so without further ado, let’s dive right into it.

Marketplace

New Marketplace Overview Page (WIP)

As you already know, the market codebase has been going through a major refactoring process since the last Particl Desktop update. And while the integration tests have been generally positive, they have highlighted a few key opportunities to add more components and improve on the new ones before going live.

The team has immediately started working on these items which are resulting in more changes being made to the codebase. The end result will be a much more efficient and future-proof foundation that will make features better and easier/faster to integrate.

It will also translate in a much bigger update than initially anticipated.

These new changes are necessary for Particl to move forward and quickly tackle its roadmap. Case in point, it’s already enabling a few surprise features that were initially planned for much later during Beta.

It’s unclear yet exactly how many of these surprise features will be ready in time for Particl Desktop 2.4.0, but stay alert because you might be impressed at how fast they’ll end up going live.

For now, what they are will remain a mystery, but watch out as they might be revealed very soon in one of the now regular development updates (keep reading for more info on this).

Particl Desktop

Market Browser — Empty (WIP)

As mentioned in the previous Development Update, Particl Desktop is also being completely re-written from scratch. That means all of its back-end code is now different and, quite frankly, much more modern than any previous Particl Desktop version. That means it will now look slightly different, be more responsive, faster, lighter, and just overall better!

The progress made on the development of the new Particl Desktop client is actually quite far ahead. The codebase has been complete for a while now and the “wiring” of the front-end client to the back-end (the market codebase) is progressing smoothly.

Tweaks and minor improvements to the user interface are still being made at this time and will be ongoing up until the mainnet release of Particl Desktop 2.4.0.

In-App Swap Engine

Changes have also been made to the in-app “exchange module” to easily allow new coins and exchanges to be added or removed on the fly without requiring any Particl Desktop update. The update is currently being tested and the team is putting the final fixes to the engine.

These changes are mandatory for what comes next for Particl. Keep reading this Project Update to learn more about when new coins and exchanges will be added to Particl.

Note: For simplicity, Particl’s in-app “exchange module” is now going to be referred to as the swap engine, or in-app swap engine.

ETA for Testnet Release

Wallet Overview Page (WIP)

Since the last development update, a significant amount of additional work has been accomplished by Particl’s developers and there’s more left to be completed. That only means Particl Desktop 2.4.0 will be a much bigger update than initially anticipated. It will be faster, lighter, and pack many, many more features and functionalities.

For all these reasons, it’s difficult to estimate exactly how long it will still take for the testnet build to be ready. As it stands today, internal builds of the new Particl Desktop client, with the marketplace, are working well for the most part. However, it may still take a few weeks before the testnet build is ready for community-wide testing. This, of course, ultimately depends on how the various code testing rounds go.

But don’t worry, it only means good things. While it may take longer than expected to see the release of this update, the many changes currently being made to Particl will allow some of the roadmap items that were planned for later during Beta to be integrated much faster. That means it will significantly reduce the time between the release of future feature updates and make the overall user experience of the marketplace better, something that definitely helps with user adoption.

So hang tight! Every day brings us closer to the testnet release. This will be a moment that will profoundly change the game for Particl, and one that might have just as much impact, if not more, as the first-ever mainnet release of the marketplace.

More Frequent Updates

In recent months, the Particl team has made the decision to start developing Particl in private repositories to protect its work from copy-cats and scam projects. What this means is that, while all of Particl’s released code is publicly available (minus the Particl Desktop client), the unreleased code is now kept private.

Unfortunately, it also means that it’s now almost impossible to track the development progress by yourself. Whereas Particl’s Github used to be buzzing with activity, it is now pretty quiet…publicly quiet at least (remember, it’s the calm before the storm!).

For this reason, and to strive for as much transparency as possible, Particl is now going to start making more regular development updates. That’ll allow you to track the development progress more pro-actively and understand more precisely the status of the project at any given time.

The new development updates will be published both here on Particl.news and on the #Progress-updates channel of Particl’s Discord server.

Particl Academy

Launching during the Particl Desktop 2.4.0 testnet phase and prior to the mainnet release, the Particl Academy is a new documentation hub containing all the information you’ll ever need on Particl from both a vendor’s and a user’s perspective.

It includes step-by-step user guides for everything, in-depth guides about some Particl’s core components, FAQs, troubleshooting, documentation, and all the basic instructions to get anyone started with Particl in no time.

Maybe more importantly, the Particl Academy is written in human language. Forget all the crypto technical mumbo jumbo, all that stuff is moving to Particl’s Wiki page. The Particl Academy is an easy to follow interactive user manual meant to explain what is Particl and how to use it in a way that anyone can understand, regardless of their “technical level”.

Pro-tip: When it goes live, it would be well advised to always link to the Particl Academy whenever trying to get someone new to try or look into Particl. That’ll allow them to quickly put the pieces together and get started in just a few minutes!

New Official Website and Messaging Strategy

Particl is refining its message using a three-pronged approach, and with that comes a few changes to where new users usually get their first point-of-contact.

The Official Website

In the first place, Particl’s website is getting a significant overhaul both in terms of content, look, and purpose. More than just a simple refresh, the new website will look and feel completely different and will now focus on the marketplace.

In fact, the website is usually what people usually first come across when searching for Particl. For this reason, it needs to quickly explain what Particl is and how it can make that person’s life better. This needs to be made as clear and straightforward as possible. The official website is all about what’s Particl and how it’ll make your life better.

Particl Wiki

In the second place, all the technical and crypto-focused information will be moved to the Particl Wiki to make room for a simpler and more effective message on the website. That means Particl’s Wiki page now becomes the main place to get all the deeper technical information that crypto fans might usually be interested in. The Particl Wiki is all about how Particl works and its underlying technologies (blockchain, P2P, etc).

Particl Academy

And finally, the Particl Academy comes in as the third and final piece to the puzzle. It’s the informative hub, the interactive user manual. It contains all the basic information and instructions required to use Particl to its full extent. It’s also written in a way that anyone can understand and is meant to make onboarding new users a much easier task. The Particl Academy is all about how to use Particl in a way anyone can understand.

With that strategy, it now becomes easy to redirect new people to the right place depending on a few factors such as their technical level or what they want to do/know about Particl.

The bottom line is…this methodical separation of the messaging into three main platforms will allow anyone in the community to spread the Particl word as efficiently as ever and see better results with fewer efforts!

Vendor Onboarding Program

The Vendor Onboarding Program (VOP) is a program designed to help make the process of onboarding new sellers easier and help them make their first steps in the world of decentralized eCommerce. It also provides all the tools required for anyone to actively participate in reaching out and getting new sellers to join Particl.

The “VOP” has two main objectives.

  • To help and support new sellers getting started on Particl
  • To make it easier and more efficient for anyone to reach out to online sellers

To help and support new sellers, the VOP will provide added benefits and perks to sellers who opt to register to the program. These include the funding of listing fees, the promotion of markets and storefronts, access to VIP channels, personalized support, more exposure within Particl’s community, and many more benefits that will be revealed at a later time.

All of these benefits are pre-packaged into an easy-to-join program that can be linked by anyone in the community. Combined with the Particl Academy, it completely takes away the burden of walking a new seller through the whole process of explaining what’s Particl, how it can benefit them, how to use it, where to seek for help, and etc. All that’s left for you to do is to find online sellers you think would be a good fit on Particl and point them in the right direction (the Particl Academy and the VOP).

Ultimately, a better and more structured onboarding process only leads to more sellers joining the platform, which inevitably means more products and diversity of choice on the marketplace.

More details about the VOP and how it will all work will be shared shortly with the community in a blog post of its own.

New Coins and Exchanges Accepted on Particl 🎉

The mainnet release of Particl Desktop 2.4.0 is an important milestone for the project. It is the completion of a multi-year long vision that initially aimed at providing a decentralized, trustless, and private eCommerce protocol that allows anyone to create its own market. And with the new shiny Particl Desktop going live on mainnet, now will be the time to finally show off Particl to the rest of the world!

As such, after Particl Desktop 2.4.0’s mainnet release, Particl will start adding new coins and exchanges to its swap engine, opening the marketplace to an unlimited number of cryptocurrency users and communities. In fact, it will now be possible to add or remove coins and exchange on the fly without requiring any Particl Desktop update.

Are there specific coins that you would like to use on Particl? Or maybe you think a specific cryptocurrency community might benefit greatly from decentralized eCommerce? Now’s the time to start thinking and talking about it!

Finally, we would like to thank the entire Particl community for all the recent efforts put into the many community-led initiatives and in spreading the word about Particl. Let’s just say this, getting more people to try Particl is about to get a whole lot easier for everyone with everything that’s coming up, including Particl Desktop 2.4.0, the Particl Academy, the VOP, the new website, and etc. All of your efforts are about to reap more results! 😀