Welcome to the seventeenth edition of the Expanse Newsletter for 2018. This publication is a bi-monthly newsletter issued on the 1st and 15th of each month to share happenings within our community. Here are a few highlights in this edition:  

• The PEX Airdrop Happened. What now?
• New Expanse Luna Wallet Now Public
• New Chinese Expanse Website
• Gameboard – We Believe in a World Where People Want to Play
• Slips Partnership – A Winning Proposition for EXP-holders
• Call for Tokenlab Beta-Testers
• SomosExpanse our Digital Magazine in Spanish
• Community News – Current Crypto Market Conditions – What’s Happening?

The PEX Airdrop Happened. What now?

As you know, the EXP team just airdropped a new token, PEX,  to the Expanse and Tokenlab community. Airdrops are a straightforward way to bootstrap a user base for a new product, in this case, the Expanse Decentralized Exchange, EXPEX.

The airdrop piloted the Tokenlab Airdrop module, one of the applications that comprise the Tokenlab self-service suite of products designed for ICO management. It went off without a hitch. (If you have not found your PEX, email [email protected])

Expanse secured the services of an external development team to create EXPEX, and the final code has been delivered. We are in the process of branding the UI and will publish a launch date soon.  So, hang onto your PEX!

Read more detail here about how it all works:  https://expanse.tech/understanding-pex-token-utility/

New Expanse Luna Wallet Now Public

The new Expanse wallet, Luna, is now public and ready for download. The download links are on the Expanse.tech website or you can use this link:  https://expanse.tech/downloads/

The existing Expanse Mist wallet is a fork of the Ethereum Mist wallet. However, Luna is a wallet we developed with our own original code, and promises to be one of the most feature-rich wallets out there once all of the development is complete. For now, feel free to use either Mist or Luna. We will give you plenty of notice when or if we discontinue support of the Mist wallet version.

Many thanks to all of the Expanse Army 1st Lieutenants who participated in the beta-test. Please continue to report any bugs that may have not shook out during testing.

New Chinese Expanse Website to Launch October 1

Our Chinese marketing team, led by Community Manager Alex Zhao, is putting the final touches on the Chinese version of the Expanse website. They project a 10/1 launch date.

Some of their other accomplishments include:

• WeChat membership increased to 350.
• QQ group increased to 500 members.
• Submitted applications to two exchanges in China.
• Participate as active beta-tester for Luna wallet.

Gameboard – We Believe in a World Where People Want to Play!

Gameboard is an EXP.Grants partner. We asked their team to help us understand the gamification principles behind the Gameboard dApp. We learned that there are indeed scientific theories behind all of this play.

When talking about Gamification you automatically think about adding points to a platform to make it “fun.” However, there are many more factors that affect the degree of fun or interest in a game on the part of the players.

Many applications that have come onto the market use the basic principles of gamification as part of the design. We have covered them in other Expanse articles: Frameworks as Octalysis or 6D approach of gamification. It is important to establish that there are two important parts in the application of Gamification to a platform or system: Dynamics and Mechanics.

Dynamics consist of all the activities added to the game based on the actions of the players:

1. Discovery phase: Listening, reading, observing and navigating to generate interest.
2. Onboarding phase: In this phase, the user feels that he/she is advancing in a simple and orderly manner; he gets hooked.
3. Scaffolding phase: After the user is already immersed in the game, he/she then seeks to improve and win. During this phase, users develop the greatest amount of challenges and require constant feedback.
4. Endgame phase: Finally, we must give a closure to each activity. This is the end of the game, which is an important action—a huge challenge—that allows the user to feel that he/she has conquered the game. This phase is called Endgame. Just when the user is about to feel that he/she is finishing, we invite him/her to a new challenge, to a new objective—phase 2 or the next level.

In the design stage of a game (pertaining to the dynamics) the User persona is also established to model potential users. The needs, the objectives, the emotions and the feelings are also established during this phase of design.

I have the Dynamics, now what?

This is the part where Gameboard comes into play and where the mechanics are necessary. The mechanics allow for establishing the points, levels, badges, challenges and other forms of measurement. The activities within the gamified process are recorded in this part. Without this, we would not have analysis of the information.

Gameboard saves and stores the information generated by the dynamics so that it can be analyzed and collaborate in the decision making. Even more important, it allows for recordkeeping and control of the actions of each player.

The fact that users can receive rewards is one of the most important features, especially because it is the way of measuring performance in terms of

• Budget
• How much the company has improved in performance (assuming that this was the goal)
• Each award in time
• Objects that have direct involvement with money

The Gamification Playground on the Blockchain

By integrating Expanse blockchain technology, Gameboard safely stores each record of points earned by the player, these being value transactions that rely on the security and permanence of the blockchain to store and redeem points for the players.

There are two current lines of business for Gameboard:

• Custom – The customized approach is based on integrations into existing platforms created by other companies or ventures. If they already have a system, Gameboard is integrated into this system and keeps track of points earned.
• Standard – Add-ons, plugins or components in platforms that already exist in the market. We create these integrations to enter those markets. This will increase the number of transactions on the platform and users that interact in it.

For both options, Gameboard provides information analysis, progress, behavior and motivation across any of the different platforms. Gameboard respects the anonymity of the players, so it does not store sensitive information about its users.

Currently, we have finished the Gameboard base engine, the API that allows integration, and the user and administration platforms. Each section of the system is customizable so that it has the look and feel of your company or platform.

We are very close to launching the new functionalities including the integration with Expanse’s technology. So, stayed tuned!

We believe in a world where people want to play!!

Slips Partnership – A Winning Proposition for EXP-holders

We continue to be excited about the potential of the Slips project, which was one of the first batch of projects to receive grant funding from Expanse.

Did you know that straight out of the gate, EXP (Expanse) is the only payment option for the Slips platform? When the platform launches, people will only be able to make real money bets with the EXP token. Now would be a very good time load up on Expanse in advance of their launch!

As one community member surmised, “This is a great example of what makes the Slips partnership so awesome—Slips gamers will have to settle bets in EXP. People who have never had any interest in crypto won’t have a choice but to buy EXP if they want to use the platform for something that has already been demonstrated as a need in the online gaming community.”

We look forward to the launch of their dApp on the Expanse network.

Call for Tokenlab Beta-Testers

Per the dev team, we are close to releasing some of the applications that comprise the Tokenlab self-service suite of products designed for ICO management. Recently we put out a call for testers to try out the beta versions of the Luna wallet. The response was overwhelming, and we qualified nearly 40 testers. These same testers have access to the private channels for Tokenlab beta testing. If you did not apply and want to test Tokenlab, complete the application form here

Beta-testers receive a promotion to 1st Lieutenant in the Expanse Army.

SomosExpanse. Our Digital Magazine in Spanish

Spanish is the second-most spoken language in the world. The market continues to grow—especially for the Expanse community. To that end, we have created SomosExpanse (We are Expanse).

SomosExpanse is a digital magazine whose purpose is to inform and educate about blockchain technology. The project is born from a motivated community, integrated and growing. To accomplish this, we have added a dedicated Spanish-speaking communications team to the Expanse infrastructure.

All of the Expanse project content routinely created in English (news, blogs, newsletters, social media posts) is translated and placed on the SomosExpanse platform. We also integrate articles  from reliable sources, such as Criptonoticas and CoinCrispy, in order to offer more robust content.

We are focused on creating an interactive media strategy with valuable content, as well as constant updates about Expanse and the world of the blockchain. We developed a progressive APP for you to have it directly on your phone with notifications and amazing content.

This strategy is complemented by postings to social networks, including Diiscord, Instagram, Twitter and Steemit. We invite you to follow (and like) us on these social networks:

• SomosExpanse.com
• Twitter: @somosexpanse
• Instagram @somosexpanse
• Steemit: @ExpanseEnEspanol
• Discord: #spanish-channel

We have plans to replicate this communication strategy in many other languages, including Chinese and Japanese. We invite you to participate by suggesting other languages for the concept or by serving as an ambassador to help provide content. If you are interested or have any suggestions, please write to [email protected]

We are Expanse.

Community News

Usually, we provide a list of compelling quotes gathered from community discussions. This time, we decided to feed back a narration of an important discussion that took place last week regarding the current crypto market conditions. In case you missed it, I’m sure you’ll agree that we have one of the most insightful, clever communities around.

Current Crypto Market Conditions – What’s Happening?

“What’s happening to crypto?” “What’s causing the prices to tank?” These are obvious questions on everybody’s minds these days as prices begin to tumble. Bitcoin lost close to $1000 in the last 10 days and Ether has lost almost 25% of its value in the last month. The situation is even grimmer for other altcoins. So what is really happening?

The Expanse Discord channel, if you know, is one of the most vociferous and active crypto communities out there and most of its members are astute students and passionate followers of the crypto phenomenon It was only fair that similar questions arose during an avid round of discussions and there were some interesting points of view from across the aisle regarding what was happening.

It started with a member saying that he thought that the end of crypto is near. He was worried that too many scams had taken their toll on a fascinating and promising phenomenon that has the ability to change our lives forever. However many projects gave false hopes and people lost a lot of money and in turn, their faith. The negativity that is being experienced in the market was a result of this disappointment and people trying to cash out their crypto assets as fast as possible. This would probably signal the collapse of a lot of altcoins. The member went on to predict that most coins will stop all development or activity before the year is over because cryptocurrencies just won’t be able to hold their value and people are seeing this more clearly with each passing day, fuelling the circle of fear and mass dumping.

To this, another member had an interesting observation. He said that what was currently happening to crypto is similar to what happened to dotcom in 2000. After the “dotcom bubble” burst, what was left were companies with real value, like Google that came out with  a few bruises but emerged winners. Many companies followed what Google had done – build real value, rather than hype – and made a fortune for themselves, while transforming the industry.

A member observed that nobody is buying anything and he was surprised people are still selling at these prices. He thought it was kinda late in the game to think people are going to save what they have left.

The EXP token has also bore the brunt of this haphazard volatility. Market and volume patterns suggest that someone is buying EXP from the sell side just to sell into the buy side to strip the market of its BTC. Unfortunately, this strategy seems to be working pretty successfully.

A member, however, dismissed that people were specifically targeting EXP and said that while he agreed that there was a repeating pattern, it was market-wide. Most of the top coins have already lost around 88-95%of their January high values and many coins, especially the lower value ones, are hitting their introductory prices or even less.

He went on to further say that some people were dumping not just Exp, but everything from the lowest coin on the list all the way up to Ethereum. He called this action as a “purge” because it is likely that some of the projects will fail economically or just fail completely. To understand the severity of the situation, consider this. A project that raised $10M worth of Ethereum in an ICO in January 2018, now only had around $1.2M if they didn’t liquidate immediately. Most projects held their Ethereum reserves and have seen a severe erosion of their funds. Likewise, the value of the projects coins themselves are becoming worthless.

If you look at wallet balances on most projects, the top 100 wallets hold well over 90% of the total coins in any given project. Keeping in mind that some of these wallets are exchange wallets, that is still a little disheartening. The bitcoin whales are alive and are absorbing this tirade pretty well. They have so much BTC, they can’t cash it out so for them it is more of a game.

A member had an interesting take on the scenario. In his opinion, manipulators periodically use BTC to harvest altcoins from weak hands. Blockchain IS the future and some of them will become zillionaires sooner or later. Since blockchain is the future, there probably are governments, 3-letter agencies, armies, secret societies, hackers and criminals involved. In his opinion, anyone mining EXP currently and selling it is obviously a moron!

To this a member added a personal experience that he stopped mining EXP in April, because at the current price, with 1.1GH/s, he made 90¢ per day, after paying for electricity costs. This is obviously unviable. So the question he had is that if everybody bought EXP at a higher rate, who’s selling them at these rates? It is quite likely that they are selling at a huge loss.

There, apparently, are people who sold recently at 8¢ on the dollar to exit the market completely. They are done. They think the crypto market is dead. This was what is known in financial terms as “market capitulation.”

By definition, capitulation means to surrender or give up. In financial circles (from Investopedia), this term is used to indicate the point in time when investors have decided to give up on trying to recapture lost gains as a result of falling stock prices. Suppose a stock you own has dropped by 10%. There are two options that can be taken: you can wait it out and hope the stock begins to appreciate, or you can realize the loss by selling the stock. If the majority of investors decides to wait it out, then stock price will likely remain relatively stable. However, if the majority of investors decides to capitulate and give up on the stock, then there will be a sharp decline in its price. When this occurrence is significant across the entire market, it is known as market capitulation.

The longer a market stays in a state of capitulation, the longer it takes for investors to regain enough trust in that market to jump back in. This is what causes recessions. Once a recession has run for an extended period and market confidence is still low, it becomes a depression. This is when people like Warren Buffet would swoop in and buy anything and everything people were selling. His now famous adage says, “Be fearful when people are greedy and be greedy when people are fearful.” While it is difficult to agree with his brand of investing, but when it comes to financial advice, this one line reigns supreme. And this is exactly what’s going on right now.

One member found it funny when BTC purists say that BTC was created to replace the “corrupt” fiat system. They then look down at altcoins but at same time practically beg investors like Goldman Sachs or Buffet to invest in crypto. BTC forums are full of people like that, and you even get 50 merit points for simply saying “BTC rocks, all alts are shitcoins!”

At the end of the discussion, there was some sage and positive advice from a veteran – “Just gotta keep developing. Eventually crypto will have utility, it’s just taking forever because it’s so new. Right now people are buying on promises. We need promises to be kept in this space so that people have to buy out of necessity.”

Another member ended the discussion saying that while the crypto markets certainly look grim right now, everybody needs to understand that all markets move in cycles. What goes up will come down and judging from previous cycles, the crypto markets will certainly go back up again. Of course, not everything will go back up, but projects like Expanse, that have active development and goals they are working toward, will. The question is how long are you willing to wait?

Join our Discord

		Expanse Discord is live and kicking! Discord is a great communication platform, better than Slack. Join our growing community on Discord and you can also speak directly with the Expanse team or others in the Expanse community. Sign up for Discord today!. Thank you. https://Discord.me/expanse
		The Expanse Ambassador Program is designed to provide support and guidance for those of you who would like to help us spread the word about Expanse by hosting local meet-ups—wherever you are in the world. Getting involved is easy. Simply download and complete the Ambassador Program application at this link: https://expanse.tech/join-the-ambassador-program/ The Expanse team are available to answer your questions and will also assist you by: Providing Expanse-branded apparel for the meet-up host (the ambassador). Guiding you through the process of selecting a location. Supplying Expanse giveaways for drawings or contests. Assisting with presentation materials. Providing a small allowance for food and libations for your meet-up guests. Expanse is thrilled to have you in the Expanse Army. Be sure to join Discord if you are not already part of it at this link: https://Discord.me/expanse – and grateful to all who would like to join the Ambassador Program!