Well… what a hectic fortnight. I deemed it appropriate to provide another update for anyone interested in our progress. In case you’re not familiar, I’m Gavin, a co-founder of Ethereum and one of the three executives (alongside Vitalik and Jeffrey) of Ethereum ÐΞV, the development organization driving Ethereum and all the related technologies.
After conducting some recruitment on behalf of DEV in Bucharest, aided by Mihai Alisie and the wonderful Roxanna Sureanu, I spent the past week at my residence (which also happens to be the Ethereum HQ) in Zug, Switzerland. During this period, I made progress on the initial prototype of Whisper, our secure identity-driven communications protocol, wrapping up with a small IRC-like ÐApp illustrating its simplicity. For those curious, additional details on Whisper can be found in the Ethereum Github wiki and a delightful screenshot on my Twitter feed. Furthermore, I’ve been assisting in finalizing the PoC-7 specification, preparing for PoC-8 (the final version). Lastly, during our brief meeting in Zug, Jeffrey, Vitalik, and I outlined our approach regarding identity and key management; this will be expanded upon in the upcoming weeks.
ÐΞVHUB Berlin
In Berlin, Sarah has been exceptionally busy with the builders preparing the hub. Here are a couple images showcasing the ongoing work at the Berlin hub. It may not appear impressive yet, but we’re on track to relocate by mid-November. I am particularly pleased with Sarah’s efforts to discover an authentic 70’s barista espresso machine (-:
I am thrilled to announce that Christian Vömel is joining the team in Berlin as the Office Manager of ÐΞVHUB Berlin. Christian possesses extensive experience, including work in an international setting and having taught office management! He will be alleviating some of the burden from our frankly overloaded company secretary Aeron Buchanan.
The Team Expands
We have finalized several new appointments over the past couple of weeks: Network engineer Lefteris Karapetsas will soon be joining the Berlin team. With significant experience in cutting-edge network traffic analysis and deep packet inspection systems, he will assist in auditing our network protocols; however (like much of our team), being truly multidisciplinary, he will also contribute to NatSpec, the code name for our Natural Language Formal Contract Specification system, a fundamental component of our transaction security model.
I am glad to share that Ian Meikle, the talented videographer who co-created the notable “Koyaanis-glitchy” Ethereum brand video, has transitioned to ÐΞV to assist with the communications team. He who will be referred to solely as Texture has also joined the communications team with Stephan to support strategy in the U.S. and coordinate the global meetup and hackathon network. It’s fantastic to see such a skilled and passionate designer on board; I know he has some exciting ideas for ÐApps!
Two additional hires under Stephan in the communications team include Ken Kappler, who will manage the developer education initiatives, hackathons, Ethereum curriculum, and university collaborations. George Hallam has also been brought on to promote Ethereum to startups and partners, enhance our formal network’s reach, and generally aid Stephan in raising awareness about what Ethereum is and how it can benefit them.
Jeff’s team has also been recently expanded; he will update you on his advancements in an upcoming post.
Additional Developments
Aside from the previously mentioned strides with Whisper and PoC-7, Christoph has been diligently progressing with the tests repository. Christian has made significant headway with the Solidity language, recently deploying the first Solidity-compiled application onto the testnet blockchain just a few days ago.
Marek has been meticulously transitioning C++ to a JSON-RPC and JavaScript front-end, fundamentally unified and linked to the Go client. Meanwhile, Alex has been tackling the C++ crypto back-end and has done an excellent job of minimizing bloat and unnecessary dependencies.
Recently, the communications team has some positive news brewing; they are in contact with several world-renowned educational institutions regarding potential educational partnerships and the establishment of a chapter network both in the UK and globally. Stay tuned for more updates (-:
Finally, our Polish partners at IMAPP (Paweł and Artur) have completed their first implementation of the JIT-compiled LLVM-based EVM approach. They are reporting an average speedup of 30x (with peaks as high as 100x!) for non-external EVM instructions when compared to the already best-in-class base C++-based EVM implementation. Outstanding work, and we look forward to further enhancements and optimizations.
And More…
So much is on the horizon; I have a couple of announcements (including a number of upcoming hires) that I’d love to make, but they must be finalized before I can share them here. Keep an eye out for the next update!
Gav (gavin.nospam.wood@ethdev.com).
