Hi everyone, I just wanted to share this video walkthru to update everyone
on the status of Alexandria!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHoWBLFxcng

TL;DR - it's in alpha right now, we're aiming for a private beta release in
6 weeks, and public beta with open source code on github about 6 weeks
after that. You can see the features that will be included in the private
beta in the video, and there is a full run-down of planned feature
development at www.Blocktech.com, where we are starting a crypto-only crowd
funding campaign today. This isn't a coin offering, as Florincoin is of
course already on the market, but a request for the community to contribute
toward the development of a product designed to be used and owned by all.

Devon

On Sun, Mar 8, 2015 at 7:25 PM, Devon Read <devon@???> wrote:

> undo crew,
>
> I wanted to let you all know that Blocktech is about to start the private
> beta for a cryptocurrency 2.0 app, Alexandria - a distributed library for
> sharing and preserving art, history and culture. You can think of it as
> essentially youtube or soundcloud, but by making use of various P2P
> networking technologies, the platform relies on no servers. Users can
> self-publish anything they'd like (videos, songs, books, 3d printables,
> recipes, etc) and they (and only they) have complete control of how their
> works are published. By integrating bittorrent technology, certain media
> types can be streamed in HD right in the browser, and because the service
> has no server or bandwidth overhead, we don't need to make users watch ads.
> And with a blockchain at its heart, a cryptocurrency payments layer is
> built right in. So content creators will be able to monetize their work in
> a variety of ways - from free access with optional tipping, to
> microsubscription streaming to pay-per-play. Initially only tipping will be
> available, but we are working with partners in the industry, including
> Rivetz Technology, to start implementing optional purchase-to-download
> mechanisms for our publishers.
>
> For our blockchain, we're currently using a 1 year old fork of Litecoin
> called Florincoin. The reason we chose it is because it is designed to
> store information in addition to transaction records. Each transaction can
> store 528bytes of extra data, which we've made use of as our permanent and
> unalterable publishing database. It also has a 40 second target block time,
> which makes our front end much more responsive in discovering new media
> submissions. We are designing the platform to be as blockchain agnostic as
> possible, so if sidechains turns out to be a good, workable idea, we can
> make use of them, but for now Flo is serving our needs best.
>
> We have a private beta list going, which we're going to start seeding to
> shortly - in perhaps a week or so, after we finish integrating a few more
> components into the client app. At the moment, users can run the app to
> browse the library and stream content in-app. When we release the beta,
> we'll have the wallet and torrent client fully integrated to make the
> submission process simpler, but at the moment, doing so requires running
> some terminal apps. If any of you would be interested in checking this out
> before the beta starts, please let me know. Also, we have a Slack chat
> going for some of our early users, so if anyone would be interested in
> joining it to chat directly with the developers, just drop me a line.
>
> Thanks so much,
> Devon
>