Community Update: May 22nd, 2020
COMMUNITY
May 22, 2020
Our community is taking roots!

The past two weeks have been as exciting as ever. After Ready Layer One we received lots of community input, ideas, and contributions, some of which we highlight below. Community contributions are critical to the success of NEAR’s ultimate community governed mainnet. A BIG shout-out to every community member who is making this possible. 

Join our community on Discord to be the first to receive our announcements and contribute to NEAR.

Ready to Rewind
Thank you to all 3903 participants who made this event possible. If you missed a talk or simply cannot get enough (neither can we -squeak-), head over to the recordings. 

Ready Layer One: Day 1
Ready Layer One: Day 2
Ready Layer One: Day 3
We would love to hear your thoughts on how we can improve on the next open blockchain week (if there is one).

Take the Survey

Validator Telegram Bot
Yes, we know what you think “Yet another bot”. BUT HOLD ON — this Bot is special. It is not only created by Vadim, one of our Contributors, but it also makes the life of our validators much easier. 

The Bot can send NEAR tokens to existing blockchain and Telegram users. It also provides account details, a validator list and allows users to delegate tokens to their staking-pool contract.

Wait — You haven’t heard of Stake Wars yet?
Stake Wars Episode II is here. If you’re looking for ways to get involved in validation and testing our network, now is your time. This post discusses the unique features of validation and delegation on NEAR, and the rewards for successful participation. 

Flux <> NEAR
Flux published their recap of the past 60 days since starting the Open Web Collective, “We have shipped over 16,000 lines of code over 214 commits. These commits include the launch of V0.2 of our protocol, the flux open-source app, and flux SDK.” 

Read the entire update here.

Events: Time to Shine
RL1 Hackathon

The RL1 Hackathon has ended with 52 projects submitted & 229 participants. $7,500 in prizes were awarded. We will announce the winners soon.

UW Hackathon

Are you currently enrolled at a University AND want to get started developing on Blockchain? Say no more, this is your opportunity to show your skills. We have partnered with the University of Washington Blockchain Society to host a 3-day hackathon.

Sign-up

To learn more about the experiences of participants in previous hackathons, have a look at our recap of the Future of Blockchain Hackathon hosted by StakeZero Ventures.

Engineering Update 
We published near-shell 0.24.0!

Highlights include:

Ledger support (‘–useLedgerKey’, ‘–newLedgerKey’) 
‘near delete-key’
Metrics opt-in only in ‘near login’ and near ‘dev-deploy’ (to avoid messing with scripts)
Content Highlight
Podcast by Outlier Ventures with Illia on onboarding 99% of developers into Web3
Blog post by Felix Machart from Greenfield One on NEAR’s developments
This is your chance to get started developing on NEAR with our tutorials on

Exploring AssemblyScript Contracts
Exploring Rust Contracts
Exploring NEAR APIs
How You Can Get Involved
Join the NEAR Contributor Program. If you would like to host events, create content or provide developer feedback, we would love to hear from you! To learn more about the program and ways to participate, please head over to the website.

If you’re just getting started, learn more in The Beginner’s Guide to NEAR Protocol or read the official White Paper. Stay up to date with what we’re building by following us on Twitter for updates, joining the conversation on Discord and subscribing to our newsletter to receive updates right to your inbox.