Distributed Digest: Wednesday, February 20, 2019

February 20, 2019 7:08 PM

Your daily distillation of crypto news for Wednesday, February 20, 2019:

Parity <> UN World Food Program

Gautam Dhameja, solutions architect at Parity Technologies, posted an update yesterday regarding the company’s involvement in the United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP). Parity has been involved in the project for almost two years and has created a Parity Ethereum-based private blockchain network for the program so that it could account for balances without an intermediary, thereby reducing bank fees. This private network is part of the WFP’s Building Blocks initiative.

Dhameja noted that so far, over 100,000 refugees have been served monthly as part of the project. Further, because of the private network, the UN has been able to save over $40,000 monthly in bank transfer fees.

While the WFP’s Building Blocks project started as a private proof-of-authority network with one authority, Dhameja said other UN agencies have expressed interest in joining the initiative. The first agency to join is UN Women.

ProgPoW Merged Into Parity Ethereum

Earlier today, Parity’s Afri Schoedon merged an implementation of ProgPoW into the master branch of the Parity Ethereum client on GitHub. This action comes after André Silva added the label “looks good” to the pull request’s conversation.

Although the pull request has been merged, it only means the code is ready to activate if necessary. A redditor noted that WASM and proof-of-authority pull requests have also been merged into the Parity Ethereum client, but they are not currently used on the Ethereum network.

Other commenters questioned why Schoedon would merge the request after he reportedly quit Ethereum, to which another individual responded, “Please don’t speculate too much about this.”

“Pitchforks Are for Hay Not Hate”

Golem’s María Paula Fernández posted a statement on reddit to promote positive, nonviolent collaboration within the Ethereum community. The letter discusses the recent debacle involving Afri Schoedon and brings up other instances of community members being targeted, such as Lane Rettig for his post about increasing Ethereum diversity and Taylor Monahan during the birth of MyCrypto.

The statement has been signed by a swath of Ethereum stakeholders, including Hudson Jameson, Nick Johnson, and Martin Holst Swende. In closing, the letter encourages individuals to join the conversation during the Fellowship of Ethereum Magicians’ Council of Paris in March. There will be a ring at the gathering dedicated to preserving Ethereans’ integrity.

Dani is a full-time writer for ETHNews. He received his bachelor’s degree in English writing from the University of Nevada, Reno, where he also studied journalism and queer theory. In his free time, he writes poetry, plays the piano, and fangirls over fictional characters. He lives with his partner, three dogs, and two cats in the middle of nowhere, Nevada.

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