We’re excited to announce today that LytePay — the decentralized finance platform for the gig economy — has partnered with Simple Token, OST, to launch a branded cryptocurrency token for their growing economy.

LytePay’s current core service is invoice factoring for freelancers, such as online influencers and web designers. Lytepay is currently in closed beta and it has achieved initial validation, processing more than $400,000 in transactions over the last 3 months. LytePay hopes to build the industry-standard decentralized finance platform for the gig economy as freelancers are expected to make up more than 40% of the global workforce by 2020 and their needs are not being met by current financial institutions.

https://medium.com/simple-token/announcing-lytepay-the-decentralized-finance-platform-for-the-gig-economy-powered-by-ost-5355a8fc1fba

We’re Buying up to 10M $OST to Invest in More OST Projects

We have three priorities at Simple Token, “OST,” for 2018:

1. Build a great OST workplace.
2. Launch high-value OST solutions that further mainstream adoption of blockchain technologies.
3. Foster an ecosystem of OST powered projects and success stories.

Read more on Medium:
https://medium.com/simple-token/were-buying-up-to-10m-ost-to-invest-in-more-ost-projects-d8451f6df9e5

ostFeb — $OST Monthly Roadmap Update

Here is our monthly OST roadmap update for February 2018. We’ve been heads-down this week making progress on a number of fronts including preparing a series of new partnership announcements for the coming weeks as well as our primary focus on shipping ostKIT, the complete blockchain toolkit for business.

Please note: All dates provided are directional and subject to change based on business requirements and macroeconomic conditions. While we intend to provide the community with detailed and highly transparent updates, information on some projects may be withheld due to confidentiality agreements or competitive market dynamics.

https://medium.com/simple-token/ostfeb-ost-monthly-roadmap-update-30e91dd064a3

OST Invests in Unsplash — To Create the New Currency for Photography

Today is an exciting day for Simple Token, “OST” — and for the entire blockchain community — as we are announcing OST’s investment in Unsplash, the world’s leading photography platform.

Unsplash is the largest professional photography platform on the planet: serving more than 5.4 Billion photo views in January, up more than 300% from 12 months ago. A photo featured on Unplash gets more views than anywhere else, including Instagram.

Together we are going to tokenize these billions of photo events, bring blockchain to the mainstream, and create the new currency for photography.

https://medium.com/simple-token/ost-invests-in-unsplash-to-create-the-new-currency-for-photography-ost-unsplash-5e531bcce8b9

OST, aka “Simple Token” today announces our 23rd partner company, Wooshii, who will be using OST to deploy a branded cryptocurrency safely, simply and securely to the video production sector.

Wooshii is the video production management solution powering the world’s video teams, for corporate clients including Google, eBay, Virgin, Merck, eBay, British Airways and more.

https://medium.com/simple-token/welcome-wooshii-developing-the-new-currency-for-video-production-with-ost-3183b828c2c4

Join the OST KIT⍺ Early Adopter Rewards Program — Earn $OST!

We have created an Early Adopter Rewards Program to thank the first 1,000 people who pre-register and use OST KIT⍺. In total we are giving out up to $200,000 worth of $OST to thank the community for helping test and provide feedback!

https://medium.com/simple-token/join-the-ost-kit-early-adopter-program-earn-ost-2961e136b0a

Please be aware of scammers ⚠️

👉 Simple Token team will NEVER message you directly.
👉 Simple Token team will never call you.
👉 Simple Token team will never provide you with any offers over Telegram.
👉 Simple Token team will never provide an ETH address over.

Our Telegram channel Word Cloud from 26 December to now!

Update on OST KIT alpha launch: We’ve had about 40 testers thus far in a closed alpha, minting Branded Tokens on OpenST side blockchains and simulating thousands of transactions, in the OST KIT⍺ dashboard and via APIs. It’s going quite well!

One of the interesting technical challenges we took up with OST KIT⍺ is enabling thousands of people to simultaneously mint branded tokens and run thousands of simultaneous transactions. This has taken some significant innovation and optimization from our team.

We want to make sure that OST KIT⍺ scales to thousands of simultaneous companies and company-users, and that anyone anywhere can easily sign-up, mint Branded Tokens, and simulate transactions, via the OST KIT⍺ dashboard and via the developer APIs without significant latency.

IRL it's less likely that thousands of companies will all mint Branded Tokens simultaneously on day 1 (and even in hour 1 of our launch), but with alpha we already have thousands of testers lined up and ready to stake, mint, and run transactions immediately.

To ensure the performance and experience we desire, we have decided to take a few more days to optimize and fine tune OST KIT in closed alpha, before opening OST KIT⍺ up to the public for anyone to use. Our focus with OST KIT⍺ is on getting it right, and learning and building for the future.

So, for those who have been looking forward to testing OST KIT⍺ this week, thank you for your continued patience as we take a few more days to get it ready for widespread public use.

The Early Adopter program and rewards remain in place for the public OST KIT⍺ and will run from OST KIT⍺ public launch until 23 March, 2018.

We’ll let everyone know as soon as OST KIT⍺ moves from private alpha to public alpha and is ready for the world!

And when we do launch OST KIT public alpha, we hope you hammer the heck out of it, provide ample feedback, and help us build the most valuable blockchain management toolkit for all!

Barring any unforeseen challenges, we anticipate opening up OST KIT⍺ to public alpha users later this week. We hope you hammer the heck out of it, provide ample feedback, and help us build the most valuable blockchain management toolkit for all!

https://medium.com/ostdotcom/ost-march-2018-ost-monthly-roadmap-update-da3e77ead153

Hi everyone! We have updated OST KIT⍺ Early Adopter Program dates and details:

https://goo.gl/5oQ34s

Today we’re excited to launch OST KIT⍺, the public test version of OST KIT, the complete blockchain toolkit for business.

With OST KIT⍺ anyone can create their own Branded Token economy on OpenST Utility Blockchains, set up transaction types and users, and run simulations.

In OST KIT⍺ users mint Branded Tokens on OpenST test utility blockchains, by staking OST⍺ on Ethereum testnet. OST⍺ is a test version of the $OST cryptocurrency that tracks the public market value of $OST.

https://medium.com/ostdotcom/ost-launches-ost-kit-public-alpha-release-of-the-complete-blockchain-toolkit-for-business-211416488d2

Thanks $OST Community for super successful first 24 hours of OST KIT⍺. You guys crushed it! You minted 1k Branded Token communities, ran millions of transactions on OpenST testnet, & hammered the SaaS & APIs.

That's exactly what we needed! and Exactly what we hoped for with the first phase of public alpha.

We're pausing over the weekend- resume next week.

We'll be improving performance and optimizing several aspects of OST KIT⍺ before resuming the alpha testing next week.

We'll follow up with some further data in a bit as well on the first 24 hours.

OST KIT⍺ - 19 March 2018 - available for further testing!

After reviewing the usage data from the initial public release of OST KIT⍺, we have implemented the following performance improvements:

- increased the number of database servers, augmenting IOPS;
- refactored certain database actions and optimized certain database queries;
- added additional application servers;
- enabled rate-limiting by public IP address to 100 transactions per second; and
- established a two-track system for API calls by API Key:
- a fast queue for rates at up to 2,000 transactions per two minutes; and
- a slower queue to process transactions at higher rates, subject to the overall rate-limit of 100 transactions per second.

Additionally, OST VIEW was enhanced to reduce latency. OST VIEW, our custom-built block explorer for analyzing transactions on the OpenST network of side blockchains, is not a part of OST KIT⍺. However, OST VIEW is a powerful tool that will help you to leverage the strength of OST KIT⍺; even more so thanks to its recent user experience improvements.

Thank you!
https://kit.ost.com/

Thanks to the OST community, the initial public release of OST KIT⍺ was super successful, with over 1,000 Branded Tokens deployed and over 2,000,000 token transfers executed. We learned a great deal in the initial public release, including from direct feedback. We hope these improvements underscore our commitment to enabling mainstream adoption of blockchain technology and to earning your confidence as the blockchain platform of choice for forward-thinking businesses.

We would love to know how these improvements impact your experience of OST KIT⍺, so be in touch! https://help.ost.com/support/discussions

Update on OST KIT⍺

We were scaling quite nicely and learning a lot based on the 17 million token transfers undertaken in alpha thus far.

Earlier today we started experiencing requests increasing at significantly higher rates than our normal scaling limits.

We took a call today to pause OST KIT⍺ to upgrade to Geth v 1.8.2 "Frost," the latest new version of Geth that was only merged to github in the past couple weeks.
https://geth.ethereum.org/downloads/#announcements-only

Thanks for the community's patience as we take this pause to upgrade on-the-fly to the latest Geth technology. We'll let you know when we're ready for you to test again.

We have decided to take through the weekend to add further performance optimizations and improvements to OST KIT⍺. We'll be back early next week with an update both on further availability of OST KIT⍺ as well as on extending the Early Adopter program. Thanks for your patience and understanding as we incorporate learnings from the 18.3 million transactions run to-date in alpha. Your feedback and support fuels the project.

Update on OST KIT⍺

Thank you to the entire OST Community for your participation in OST KIT⍺ Phase I.

OST KIT⍺ Phase I, open to the public from 15 March 2018, was intended to stress test the performance of an early public version of OST KIT⍺.

1627 unique branded tokens were created within 7 days, with more than 18.8 million completed token transfers.

We received several hundred points of community feedback, and we’d like to thank our Early Adopters for their participation.

Read more on Medium:
https://medium.com/ostdotcom/announcing-ost-kit-phase-ii-developer-proofs-of-concept-4df5b06c8694

Three New Startups Team Up with OST to Change the Way We Discover

From private city tours to exploring quaint towns to finding like-minded people: We welcome Touriocity, Traipse and Twilala to the growing OST family! In today’s post we’re introducing our three new Partners, bringing the number of official OST Partners to 26!

https://medium.com/ostdotcom/touriocity-traipse-and-twilala-join-ost-3cbf2960f55

Two Marketplaces Partner with OST to Change the Way We Consume

One marketplace is all about shopping consciously, whereas the other restores your faith in humanity: A warm welcome to our new Partner Companies, The Brightly and Fainin. Partner count to date: 28 companies!

https://medium.com/ostdotcom/two-marketplaces-partner-with-ost-to-change-the-way-we-consume-b5abd7b69c30

OST KIT⍺ Phase I Early Adopters Program rewards have been distributed to the participatns. Thank you all for stress testing the system. There will be more public testing in the future.

Meanwhile, there’s less than 24 hours left for registering for the OST KIT⍺ Phase II: Developer Proofs of Concept:
https://medium.com/ostdotcom/announcing-ost-kit-phase-ii-developer-proofs-of-concept-4df5b06c8694