Block is a renovation platform that is transforming the $400 billion renovation industry

Block Renovation

Hi everyone! My name is Michil Androsov and this is the second article in my series on the history of , where I offer an inside look at the creation of our unicorn company from the perspective of a simple developer. The first article is available . In it, I talked about how I joined the company, how we expanded the development team, and how we went international. inDrive here This article will cover the middle period of my career at inDrive—from about 2016 to 2020. At the time, the company was beginning to stand on its own two feet and rapidly develop in all kinds of new directions, which I'll discuss in more detail below. The Business After our first successful launches outside of Yakutsk, we were finally starting to recognize the power of our business idea. We began to wonder, "What if we really manage to take over the planet?" After all, living far up north, , you always feel quite separate from the rest of the world. It seems like everything's happening so far away, which actually gives us a pretty unique perspective. And at the time, all of our work with inDrive felt almost like a game to me. deep in Siberia Over this period, the company began to launch extensively. When we'd start operations in a new country, we might launch dozens of cities within a single month. We expanded beyond Russia and launched in Kazakhstan, where—despite a variety of obstacles—we quickly became the country's №1 ride-hailing service. To this day, Kazakhstan remains one of our top markets. When launching in a new city, we adopted a strategy of " ". As our CEO would say, if a city was ready for our service, it should be able to ignite from the smallest of sparks. So, if the grass in one city wasn't dry enough, we wouldn't try to soak it in gasoline. Instead, we'd just move on to the next one. This helped us expand quickly without spending too much money. burning dry grass In fact, a number of cities simply launched on their own. People would hear about this great new service, called inDrive, in a neighboring city. They'd download the app for themselves, and the city would launch without us. There were even a few self-launched cities that took off without any investment on our part. Of course, not all launches were a success. I remember our first back in 2018. We made all the preparations, recruited drivers, and advertised our service. At first, everything seemed to be working out, and our numbers were growing day by day. USA launch We were pleasantly surprised. Was it really that easy to launch in one of the world's largest markets? After all, if you can make it in the US, you can make it anywhere—at least, that's what I thought. But our joy quickly became disappointment: We were faced with a huge industry of fraudsters cashing out stolen credit cards and using them on our service. So, we decided to scrap our American plans and wait for better days—which finally came in 2023. We launched for the second time in the USA, with much better results. This launch is still ongoing. We are currently operating in Miami, and will soon expand to new cities. Looking back, we were being simple and naive. However, we continued to learn from our mistakes and push forward. The Product and Technology We've always believed that our service should be simple and fail-proof, like a . Of course, this has led to accusations that the app isn't "pretty" enough, despite being packed with features. Nokia 3310 In many countries, we had to adapt to local legislation and user needs. That’s why the inDrive app in Almaty might look completely different from the one in New York. Nevertheless, we have been working on making the app "prettier" in all countries over the past years, and I personally think it looks quite modern now. Outside of Russia, inDrive gained a range of new modules, starting with intercity rides and freight delivery, which are now available in countries across the globe. In certain markets, such as Kazakhstan, they are even more popular than our taxi vertical. During this time, our approach to product planning was simple: At the end of every quarter, our CEO would arrive back from his trips to our launch cities, open his laptop, and explain our goals for the upcoming period. Usually, these came from driver and passenger requests. We could have tasks of all different sizes, from introducing card payments to changing the color of the order button. Our CEO played (and continues to play) a crucial role in the development of the company. While he is both an excellent motivator and strategist, he’s also a skilled manager who understands how the product works. Even now, he personally flies to new launch countries, studies the market, conducts customer development, interacts extensively with users, and gathers feedback on the service. On the development side, we quickly realized that our existing code would not be able to support our rapid business growth. Soon, the app would start to lag and decline in quality. So, we decided to rewrite the more "complex" parts of the code. In addition to the PHP monolith, we eventually got ourselves a— —Golang monolith. The entirety of our infrastructure lay on the shoulders of two guys who knew all the inner workings of our enormous machine. If the service ever crashed, they were prepared to turn on their laptops and fix it at any time, day or night. ba-dum-tss We also got our first QA specialist for full-scale testing. This made our lives incredibly easier. Before our QA, we had been spending a lot of time and effort testing new functionality and updates by ourselves, and checking how they interacted with existing versions. Little by little, mobile developers began to join our team, albeit with some difficulty. After all, you needed Apple products to get into iOS development, and those could be difficult to find in Yakutsk. This meant that we struggled to recruit local iOS developers, and our iOS team would sometimes lag behind our Android team when it came to releasing new features. I remember one time in Kazakhstan, when our app was blocked at the government level. I won't get into the details, but to reverse the block, we had to introduce a number of different features, including user instructions, automatic address changes, proxies, and more. In the end, we restored our capabilities in the country and officially reversed the block after a few years. I remember writing to the CTO of a large CIS news site that had also been blocked in Kazakhstan, and asking how he had managed to keep business going. Many of our features were developed through a series of trials and errors—or stumbled upon by chance—although they might seem completely obvious in hindsight. Take our call-free ride-hailing system, for example. If you haven't read the , I'll quickly summarize it here. first article Previously, when an inDrive passenger would create their order, a driver would see their request in the orders feed and call them right away. And this wouldn't be just one driver either; these orders were being sent to anyone nearby. Of course, this led to situations where multiple drivers would see an order and try to call the passenger at once. Typically, the first person to contact the passenger would get the order. Here's where the problem came in: Drivers would click on a ride without reading the order details, and then all try to call the passenger at the same time. So, we created something called a "buffer." When drivers press the order button, there's a short delay, which gives us time to collect all potential offers. This way, drivers don't have to rush, and they have time to read the order details in full. Then, based on the drivers' ratings, the system selects which of them will be able to call the passenger first. This was a significant improvement to our old version. Although the call-free system is now used by practically every ride-hailing app, we actually came up with ours by chance. In 2016, we launched in Yekaterinburg and introduced the "Guardians," who were specially selected drivers that could accept orders that typical drivers couldn't. We would send them special push notifications about exclusive orders. However, we soon realized that these push notifications weren't working very well because they were easy to miss. And that's when we remembered one of our existing features, called "personal orders," which allowed the passenger to simply select the closest driver on the map and send the order straight to them. We decided to use this feature when sending orders to our "Guardians." It took off immediately and worked so well that we then decided to expand it to all drivers. Of course, the personal orders feature might seem obvious now, but we discovered it through a series of trials and errors. The Team Up until 2019, our team was fully made up of Yakutsk locals. At the time, we wanted to help our homeland grow — and the local people along with it. inDrive had always held a strong mission and values. These values resonated with each employee, and we strived to uphold them. This was a period of powerful drive and energy. Every day, I would wake up in a good mood, knowing that my friends and good coffee were waiting for me in the office. That and plenty of interesting work, of course. inDrive was known for being a social company. Our team was young and carefree, which meant we worked hard and played hard. Every year, we'd take a company trip abroad, whether to Egypt, Thailand, Kazakhstan, or somewhere else entirely. Imagine an entire plane of colleagues escaping the –50-degree Celsius weather in Yakutsk to visit sunny +35-degree Thailand! It was great at the time, but unfortunately, these big company trips aren't possible anymore with a workforce of several thousand employees. By 2019, we hit a hiring roadblock. Business was booming, and any professionals in Yakutsk capable of handling the tasks and workload were already working for us. So, we decided to open a development office in Moscow. As the head of the iOS team, I was charged with opening the Moscow branch. We had a lot of flexibility during this time, and employees were free to contribute to the company in any way they saw fit, as long as it benefited the business. I entered a new phase in my life. I moved to Moscow and started the process of opening the new office, from choosing a business center to installing special lights with the company logo. Now that a few years have passed, I can look back at that time fondly. But back then, I would often think: "Why did I do this to myself? Why'd I take on all this renovation work?" Our main problems had to do with the company in charge of the renovation. At one point, they were so behind schedule that I even had to help them install the electrical wiring in the workspaces. I remember one specific evening, when we stayed late to assemble furniture. I could see that my colleagues were tired and depressed, so to lighten the mood, I asked " " At the time (and to this day), Belorusskaya was one of the most expensive areas in Moscow, like Times Square in New York. It was also home to a number of impressive IT offices. Of course, we just laughed and got back to work. Why the long faces? Cheer up! Next year, we're opening an office on Belorusskaya! By the end of 2019, we had our first developers at the Moscow office. Sometimes, it would seem like they were from another planet. During their interviews, they'd say things like, "We work in sprints. I finished all my tasks, then came here" (and it'd only be Thursday afternoon). Or they'd say, "We work three days from home and two days from the office." That was something completely new for me. inDrive was entirely office-based at the time, and everyone was expected to contribute fully. We weren't working with any kind of Kanbans, scrums, story points, or sprints. Conclusion We entered 2020 with a lot of optimism. Our new development office in Moscow had opened, and we were working with a great team. I was living in the capital, business was growing, and investments were on their way! When the company received investments, we would conduct a cashout, meaning employees could sell a small portion of their stock options for real money. Everything seemed to be going our way, like we were living in a movie. Unfortunately, though, this is the point in my story where things get a little darker, like in the Harry Potter movies. Suddenly, we were faced with a huge challenge. In 2020, the world was shut down by the coronavirus. inDrive closed their offices and we started to work from home—something we had always been firmly against. Life took on new rules and we had to quickly find our footing. We developed new processes, took our first online calls, and sent laptops home to new employees. Then, in mid-2020, I became the CTO of inDrive. It was a surprise even for myself. I was placed in charge of 50+ developers, 4 distributed teams, and the two offices in Moscow and Yakutsk. Of course, there were plenty of challenges, which I'll discuss in more detail in my next article. My joke about our office on Belorusskaya quickly became reality. At the end of 2020, we opened an office in one of the best business centers in Moscow, right on Belorusskaya Square, alongside other cool IT companies. P.S.

Building a Unicorn: The inDrive Tech Journey from Local Startup to Global Phenomenon 

ইউনিকর্ন তৈরি করা: স্থানীয় স্টার্টআপ থেকে গ্লোবাল ফেনোমেনন পর্যন্ত ইনড্রাইভ টেক জার্নি

Aufbau eines Einhorns: Die inDrive-Tech-Reise vom lokalen Startup zum globalen Phänomen

Construyendo un unicornio: el viaje tecnológico de inDrive desde una startup local hasta un fenómeno global

Construire une licorne : le parcours technologique d'inDrive, de la startup locale au phénomène mondial

यूनिकॉर्न का निर्माण: स्थानीय स्टार्टअप से वैश्विक घटना तक इनड्राइव टेक यात्रा

ユニコーンの構築: 地元のスタートアップから世界的現象への inDrive テクノロジーの旅

유니콘 만들기: 로컬 스타트업에서 글로벌 현상까지의 inDrive 기술 여정

Construindo um unicórnio: a jornada tecnológica do inDrive, de uma startup local a um fenômeno global

Создание единорога: технологическое путешествие inDrive от локального стартапа к глобальному феномену

Bir Tekboynuz Yaratmak: Yerel Startup'tan Küresel Fenomen'e inDrive Teknoloji Yolculuğu

Xây dựng kỳ lân: Hành trình công nghệ inDrive từ khởi nghiệp địa phương đến hiện tượng toàn cầu

打造独角兽：从本地初创企业到全球现象的 inDrive 技术之旅

ATOLLS OR LAGOON-ISLANDS

A world full of Blind Excess

The lead image for this article was generated by HackerNoon's via the prompt "a father and son in a barren wasteland" AI Image Generator The Plague covered the world like a sunrise in a cloudless sky. Nothing could hide from it, but we tried. Of our family, all who remained were my son, Leo, and I. In my heart there were mere memories of hope, fantasies of some far-off fortified bunkers where my sisters and friends lived sparsely, yet untouched by the horrors of the outside. The idea was doubtful, impossible, but I never told my son so. I couldn’t forbid his dreams. He needed them and I needed him to have them. Storm clouds loomed over the trees and broken streetlights. Although, it wasn’t the lights that were broken, but their roots that connected them to the world. Dark streets. Dark skies. We took shelter in an abandoned hospital and it took us a day to search the entire building. We were lucky. There were none of them in the building. No infected. None. Save for the Creature we had bound to a bed in a room at the end of the hall, whose snarls were muffled under the duct tape I wrapped over his mouth. Leo lay asleep on a hospital mattress we had lain on the floor. The moonlight revealed his weathered adolescent face, whose twelve years might as well have been a hundred, aged not by time, but by circumstance. I thought it was best to take care of the Creature before Leo woke, as if he hadn’t seen me do it countless times already. I left the room, letting the door click softly to a close behind me. I pulled the 45-caliber pistol out of my belt and cocked it, making sure there was a round in the chamber. In my mind there was nothing left in the infected that even resembled humanity, but I still hated putting them down. We took to calling them Creatures and I made Leo repeat the name over and over again. I couldn’t let him see any humanity in them. I had to turn him into a killer, a survivor. Although there was nothing left in their hearts but rage, no kindness in their eyes, I still couldn’t shake the fact that there had once been a person in their infected shells. Their angry blood used to flow through a mother who wanted nothing more than her child’s happiness or a child that wanted nothing more than an ice cream on a sunny day. I walked the halls slowly, in dread of what I had to do before the sun came up, before Leo could wake and see the blood on my hands. As the sound of my footsteps echoed through the abandoned hospital, I wondered whether I had been a good father before the world had become a nightmare. I wondered if I could still be one, so I thought back to what my father had taught me and all the questions I’d asked him and all the questions I’d never have the chance to. This is an interview with my father that spans across 34 years of my life. Am I going to die? Ever since I was a child, I’ve always had a strong fear of death. I don’t know why, but I like to think it’s because I developed a strong appreciation for life at a young age. At the slightest cut, bruise or scrape, I’d go instantly into survival mode. Once, when I was four years old, my mother’s spindle of thread fell from a high shelf and landed right on my big toe. I started crying and crying, as my toe bruised black. My father got a thin needle and told me not to move. He pushed the point of the needle into the black spot on my toe and dark blood oozed out of it. Am I going to die? I asked him, tears filling my eyes. He laughed, No, you’re not going to die. We just need to get the dead blood out. I stopped halfway down the hall and heard the muffled snarls grow louder and louder. Other than the room that held the monster captive, we left the rest of the doors wide open, so that whatever light the moon and stars provided could spill into the hallway. The backup generator that had once powered the hospital in times of emergency had long since died. When the sun went down, all we had were the moon and stars to guide us in the night. Survival in the new world meant preservation, something we’d known little of before The Plague. Every drop of water, every morsel of food, every milliampere-hour of electricity and every bullet meant the difference between life today or death tomorrow. We learnt that lesson quickly after we had discovered that the source of The Plague had been the majority of our sources of freshwater. Somehow it didn’t affect wildlife at all. They could be carriers of the infection, but for the most part, no animals experienced any symptoms of the virus, save for a few rare cases involving bonobo chimpanzees. It was as if we were a poison the world was trying to get rid of, and the antidote it created had been ferociously effective. Were you poor? I’d often ask my dad about The Philippines, where he grew up, and what his life had been like. I wanted to know about where we came from, how our family lived in that foreign place I knew almost nothing about. We were eating breakfast one day and he told me about how he and his brothers used to hunt birds with their slingshot when they got really hungry. I told him I didn’t believe him. Were you poor? I asked. he said. Really poor, Why can’t we have a dog? You’re too young to take care of it, he told me. I begged and I pleaded, but he knew better than to give in to my whining. my father went on. I had a dog growing up, Actually, it’s been so long that I’ve forgotten what we used to call him. I wish I could remember. He wandered out onto the road one day and got hit by a car. Before that day, I didn’t know dogs could scream. The car didn’t stop. They never did for so small a thing. I was the only one who saw it happen. My brothers and sisters were nowhere to be found. His hind legs were bent the wrong way and he whimpered with every shallow breath he took. He cried and I put my hand lightly on his head. Then he cried louder and I wondered if it was because of the pain or because he knew he was dying. I walked in to one of the empty hospital rooms and stared out the window, looking up at the stars. The night sky had become brighter and more beautiful ever since our lights had gone out. When in truth, nothing up there had changed. No new planets hovered in orbit. I simply saw what had always been there, what we were too busy to notice while spending our lives on progress rather than presence. What’s wrong? While my father’s childhood was spent in poverty, mine was spent in luxury. At least in comparison it felt so. I never had to worry about going hungry, everyday we had food on the table. One day when I was fourteen, I walked into the kitchen expecting to hear the AM radio blasting the morning news as it always did, but instead all I heard was the pop and sizzle of the frying pan. I saw my father with his back turned to me. His hand trembled, as it gripped the metal pan and he shook the scrambled eggs in the oil. I noticed that his shoulders were shaking as well. He was crying, just like I had as a child whenever I woke from a bad dream, only there was no bad dream for him to wake from. Tears fell from his eyes, wetting his hands and falling onto his white, oil-stained apron. What’s wrong? I asked, my voice as uncertain and afraid as I was. Are you ok? Never in my life had I seen my father cry. It was like finding out that super heroes could bleed. He didn’t answer for some time. he said, his voice shaking. It’s my mom, She’s in the hospital. My mom she — she had a stroke. Not knowing what to do or say, I asked, Are you ok? A stupid question. he said, hurriedly wiping his eyes, as if he had forgotten he was crying and didn’t want me to see. But I saw, and never would I forget. Yes, yes. I’m ok, When Leo was just six or seven years old, he told me he wanted to jump off the roof of our house and fly. I laughed and told him that if he believed in himself and worked hard, he’d be able to do anything one day. I realized minutes later, after hearing a crash in the backyard, that I should have chosen my words more carefully. Half the neighbourhood had heard his cries and his mother had been furious at me. Leo had broken his leg, trying to jump from our roof onto the trampoline. Although it could have been much worse, it took days of grovelling and a few promised home renovations for her to smile at me again. I watched her as she sat on the foot of his bed before the surgery. She told him that bones grew stronger after being broken. He had never undergone any type of surgery before and had been restless and scared in the moments leading up to it. In truth, so was I. Although I knew it was a common low-risk procedure, I worried about everything that could possibly go wrong. Even though she was still angry with me, she hugged me and I held her while we sat in the waiting room. It was then that I realized although I was a decent parent, she had been the rock on which our family was built. A few words from her was all Leo had needed to be brave and believe that everything was going to be ok. The warmth of her touch was all I ever needed to believe the same. Losing her had left me broken, and had left a hole in Leo’s heart that I could never fill. When we lost her, I wanted to jump off the roof myself and fall into oblivion. When’s the flight? my dad replied. First generation immigrants had an odd sense of home. There was the home they were given and the home they had chosen. Should board in about thirty minutes, For my parents, the home they were given was in some far-off land across the oceans, and the home they had chosen was in Winnipeg, Canada, home of the cold winters and the land of endless opportunity. However, all that meant to them was a minimum wage higher than the Philippines’ $2.50 per day for the average worker. Whenever my father spoke of visiting The Philippines he always referred to it as going home and that always confused me. Had we, out of a need to be supported, taken the homes of our parents away from them? For a better life, was always their answer when I asked why they had chosen to move, but it had always hurt me to know that the one difference between my parents’ given and chosen homes was money. When it was time for my grandma to board, we walked over to the gate and stood around her wheelchair in a half-circle. Mother to eight of us and grandmother to ten, she sat expressionless and we stood still and quiet, wanting the moment to last forever. I was the first one to break the silence. I stepped forward and bent down, hugging her softly, with my arms wrapped around her chair, afraid that she’d break if I held her too tightly. I kissed her on the forehead and said, I love you, grandma. I backed away, my eyes never leaving her. Everyone else followed suit, some hugs lasting longer than others, some kisses on the cheek, some tears. Then suddenly she began to cry, sobbing out loud like a newborn. She hadn’t spoken a single word, nor made any sound louder than a grunt in almost two years. After her stroke, we always doubted whether she remained conscious of the world around her, but all our doubts were crushed by her cries. She knew. We all knew the truth that none of us wanted to utter out loud — that this was the last time we would see her. That this was our final goodbye. We stood stunned and saddened, but when I turned to look at my father he was smiling. He walked up to her and stroked her head. It’s ok, he said. He was happy, happy that she was still here and that her mind had not yet gone. Happy that she was here for us to say goodbye. Unable to stall any longer, I walked over to the closed door at the end of the hallway. Twisting the handle, I opened the door and closed it behind me. If my father had taught me anything in life, it was to be strong, because he was one of the strongest people I’ve ever known. Sons look up to their fathers, and every day of my life I’ve worried about falling short. I walked over to the Creature and stared at him. and I gently tore the duct tape off his mouth. He snarled I stared at his bloodshot eyes, remembering the man that had once lived in this body, the father that sat in the stands at my basketball games and in the pews during my high school graduation. The father that told me I could be anything and do anything. He jerked his head forward and snapped his teeth at me. I love you, I told him, hoping some piece of him heard me behind those angry eyes. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the times I cried at night. I’m sorry for my unrelenting stubbornness and all the fights we didn’t need to have. I’m sorry that I took for granted the strength and sacrifice it took for you to raise me. Did I do OK? His answer was a snarl behind bared teeth. Were you proud of me? He shrieked and growled. Are you still there? and I had to pull my face back, a single tear fell from my wet eyes onto his bloody nose. He snapped his teeth at me I picked two pillows up off the ground and pushed them against my father’s face, and he squirmed while I smothered him. I brought my pistol up and dug it into the pillows, making sure the barrel lined up with his forehead. His last wish was that I not let Leo see me do it when the time finally came. I’m sorry. I pulled the trigger and the pillows suppressed the blast. From our room at the other end of the hall Leo couldn’t have heard more than the sound of a light pop. The writhing stopped and I collapsed over my father’s body, letting myself cry. After a few moments, I heard movement behind me and turned with my pistol raised. Leo stood in the doorway. Dad? he said, still disoriented from his sleep. Are you ok? I lowered the pistol and stepped toward him, trying to block his view of his grandfather’s corpse. I said, hurriedly wiping my eyes, hoping he hadn’t seen. Yes, yes, I’m ok. But he saw, and never would he forget.

An Interview with My Father At The End of the World

The year 2018 proved to be quite polarizing for hodlers. The price of rose to a record of 20,000 USD before coming crashing down a little while after, losing more than 80% of its value. Most cryptocurrencies followed suit, giving rise to mixed emotions and opinions all-through 2018, from even the most seasoned investors. Blockchain technology, on the other hand, made massive strides in terms of being recognized by corporations, governments and organizations worldwide, with many of them recognizing the scope and potential of this technology. Furthermore, many blockchain companies attained proof-of-concept with their innovative services being adopted by the mainstream public. There is enough reason to be optimistic about the future of the technology and currency, with a number of new and disruptive projects being developed and put into motion. There is a lot to look forward to in the world of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency this year. Below, is a list of 12 exciting things that we can expect in the crypto and blockchain space, in 2019. Bitcoin 1. The Rise of Security Token Offering (Or the end of the era of ICOs) For people following news related to blockchain and crypto, s are not something new or beyond the realms of understanding. This means that they would also be aware of how problematic ICOs have proven to be in the last couple of years. With little to no regulation on these fundraisers, firms and companies have taken advantage of hodlers to make easy money through ICOs without fulfilling any promises that were made upon announcing the ICOs. ICO Scams worth millions of dollars were conducted through ICOs in 2018, which also ruined prospects for upcoming blockchain and crypto firms that actually had a viable product or solution to offer. Enter Security Token Offering Security Token Offering or STOs are emerging as the next big thing in the world of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. STOs improve the functionalities and capabilities of the blockchain along with making the aspect of committing fraud significantly harder, an aspect at which ICOs failed terribly. In the case of hodlers, STOs offer a safer investment and can be assured of their legitimacy with major corporations like Apple and Tesla publicly showing interest in STOs. This is a visible sign of how bright the future is for STOs. 2. Even more Adoption Though virtually all cryptocurrencies went into a downward spiral after January 2017, with Bitcoin and Ethereum leading the way, the rate of adoption wasn’t adversely affected. A lot of people were met with disappointment upon witnessing the market crash. However, that was also the time when the ‘hype’ behind cryptocurrencies was at its zenith. Almost everybody, from corporations and governments to common folk were talking about cryptocurrency. Furthermore, governments around the world who were against the very idea of cryptocurrencies were finally starting to reconsider the stance that they had previously taken. Acceptance of cryptocurrency by government spells more adoption, sometimes even bailing people out of hyperinflationary environments where government policy failed to stabilize the economy. 3. The Impact of TRON Arcade outdid itself in November 2018 when it announced the establishment of a sizeable blockchain gaming fund. The fund will invest an upwards of 100 million USD into projects which will revolutionize blockchain and gaming. TRON Creators will finally the resources they needed to make their dream games into reality and use the full potential of what blockchain has to offer to give people a gaming experience that has never been heard of before. The gaming industry is already close to going entirely into its next generation — with augmented reality and virtual reality set to be a significant part of it — and blockchain based games can become a substantial part of what is about to come, and TRON arcade will definitely play a role in that. The gaming industry is already entering its next generation with augmented and virtual reality set to become an essential part of the experience. TRON arcade will play a major role in combining the worlds of blockchain and gaming. 4. Recognition of Cryptocurrencies by Governments around the World Governments around the world finally started acknowledging cryptocurrencies as a legitimate medium of exchange and a store of value, where fiat and paper currencies have been failing for some time now. Furthermore, they have been moving away from the notion that cryptocurrencies are mostly used by fringe techies or dark web dwellers. Some countries were unsure in their outlook of this digital phenomenon, whereas others outrightly rejected it. The situation involving the latter made life hard for hodlers living in such countries. This, however, started changing in 2018 with the global mood towards crypto leaning to a more positive outlook. The United States of America took big step by creating an agency within its to exclusive monitor and regulate crypto. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) We can expect more countries to re-analyze the stance that they had previously taken against cryptocurrencies, and create similar agencies to monitor and regulate crypto in their respective jurisdictions. Some people won’t be happy with the rules and regulations being imposed on cryptocurrencies, but most people will welcome it over banning digital currencies altogether. 5. NASDAQ and Bitcoin futures, Ethereum Upgrade, Cardano 2018 was the most turbulent year for cryptocurrency market. Start of the saw good promise, but the end saw an approx 400% drop in cryptocurrency prices. But. 2019 may be the year in which you can see some huge advancements in crypto market. Some of the developments to look forward in 2019 are, The start of 2018 saw positive developments for the crypto market, but in the end — there was a 400% drop in the value of cryptocurrencies. The fall did not spell the end of cryptocurrencies, with upgrades and advancements being made even as we speak. Here are some developments to look forward to: NASDAQ’s listing of Bitcoin futures It has been confirmed that NASDAQ will be listing Bitcoin futures. This will pave the Bitcoin’s mainstream future. Ethereum Upgrade will undergo two major upgrades in 2019 — one of them will be ‘Constantinople’ in January and other, later in the year. Constantinople is designed to improve the efficiency of the blockchain, reduce block reward for miners, and make the blockchain more ASIC-resistant. The later upgrade will include the implementation of Casper Protocol and Sharding. Ethereum Cardano Cardano which was the second most developed cryptocurrency of 2018, is expected to release the features of the Shelley phase in 2019. Shelley is a phase in the development of Cardano aimed at making the project fully decentralized and autonomous. Also, Cardano is expected to deliver on advanced smart contract capabilities suitable for enterprise usage, especially with reference to the speed of transactions. 6. Reduction in Mining Energy Consumption Mining is an activity that requires nodes that can lead to a high level of energy consumption. The costs associated with mining can often hinder the level of profits for miners. Apart from high energy consumption, mining cryptocurrencies generates large amounts of heat. This requires mining rigs to be kept at low temperatures by using high capacity fans for cooling. The fall in the price of Bitcoin saw a massive reduction in energy consumption. The reason is — when the price of Bitcoin reached 19,500 USD, there was an incentive to mine Bitcoin. However, with the drop in prices, this incentive was reduced significantly. Mining rigs that were used to mine Bitcoin are being decommissioned. If the trend continues in 2019, we will see a marked reduction in energy consumption. 7. Crypto Lending business boom There are two primary reasons for investors to consider . During the 2017 bull run, investors put up their cryptocurrency holdings as collateral to take out cash loans to pay bills or complete home renovations. Investors can obtain cash in this manner without having to fully cash out on their holdings. crypto-related lending The other reason for collateralizing crypto assets is for short selling. Short sellers collateralize their cryptocurrencies to essentially place a bet over the assumption that the price of a crypto asset will decline. When the open short is closed, the investor who placed the bet will receive either cash or an additional sum of cryptocurrency depending on how the contract is settled. Should the price increase while a short is open, a portion of the collateral will be lost. With the introduction of crypto supported credit cards, we will see this trend of crypto lending increasing. 8. Expansion of Crypto based credit cards Recent years saw a huge acceptance of cryptocurrencies, even though in some countries the regulations may have stalled the trading. Many people are now accepting cryptocurrencies and this trend is going to increase. Due to frequent fluctuations in the crypto market, people do not want to spend their cryptocurrencies, but rather save them. And hence, many people are looking to invest their cryptos and/or loan them. And hence, here comes the concept of . It allows you to have your crypto as well as use it in the form of fiat currency. crypto-based credit cards 9. Blockchain in trade finance Digitization of international payments has proven to be far more of a daunting task than one can possibly imagine. In particular, communicating and verifying data for a large number of variables and information present in cross border transactions have lead to numerous complications along the way. Hence, a decentralized ledger was proposed as the most efficient way, going forward — to create the necessary disruption that the trade finance industry has been crying out for decades. However, despite the fact that there has been an unprecedented number of ventures proposed, tests and pilots for the digitization of trade finance in the years gone by — will 2019 truly be the year when blockchain comes of age in this space? Operating as an irrefutable, encrypted, and transparent decentralized network; the blockchain protocol provides each participant with end-to-end visibility and a clear view of the entire supply chain mechanism. The parties to the transaction will also be able to track the progress of the goods in question, in transit. Relevant documents can be shared in a matter of seconds via the digitized ledger, as opposed to the long drawn out process of manually sharing them. Furthermore, no single participant can modify or delete any record without first receiving the consensus from the others on the network. This provides for improved visibility, efficiency and security. 10. Institutional cryptocurrency As we head into 2019, a number of important questions remain to be answered in regards to the future of cryptocurrency investing: Will there be an overarching framework, covering a consistent set of standards for the industry to adhere to? What are the various market opportunities for cryptocurrency? Will regulation play a pertinent role in the institutional crypto? How will the market find ways to employ digital assets The investing landscape is ever changing and evolving. Cryptocurrency has grown out of its infancy — in which it was essentially a no man’s land serving as a ground for novices, amateur speculators and self-declared ‘crypto gurus’. Today, it transformed into an high-functioning asset class in which large financial institutions and funds seek to invest in. In fact, and AML policies are looking to be put in place to help monitor the space. This will be among the first steps to regulation. KYC Despite recent developments, there is still a long way to go before crypto is accepted as a mainstream asset class operating and trading at the same level as stocks and bonds. However, there is hope for the future as large banks are aggressively moving to venture into this space. For example, Goldman Sachs which is among the largest banks in the world has recently started offering a Bitcoin trading product. Furthermore, the New York Stock Exchange has also reportedly become involved with the Bitcoin futures market. 11. Crypto Exchanges to be registered and impose compliance for security The promise of an asset class based on was met with tremendous enthusiasm in its initial stages. Investors envisioned currency that could not be manipulated by a central authority, remained unaffected by inflationary or recessionary environments and had no single point of failure. However, the furor has since been replaced with skepticism by many of it’s strongest supporters as cryptocurrency scams and exchange hacks with fraudulent ICOs running rampant in recent times. This has lead to a consensus that in order to be recognized as legitimate, some form of regulation is necessary. However this has been met with the question, ‘how does one go about with regulating cryptocurrency?’. decentralized protocol The main issue with regulating cryptocurrency is one of it’s biggest strengths — it’s decentralized nature. Due to this, no single authority can create and impose the standards for governing it. A global system approved by all countries, consisting of a panel of experts on the subject may be required to outline the framework presiding over this unique asset class. Furthermore, authorities should outline the possible risks and rewards in detail so that all investors are informed about the space and how to navigate investing in it. While regulations are shrouded with bureaucracy and the framework may prove to be complicated to be designed, there is no doubt that they are required. International regulators are working on solutions to make this a reality while not hampering the fabric of the blockchain mechanism itself. This will help investors differentiate legitimate blockchain companies and cryptocurrencies from the fraudulent ones and help usher in an era where faith is restored in the space while helping the asset class maintain its independence, autonomy and unique nature. 12. Will international regulators work together to make the crypto space more efficient? Regulation is perhaps the word a lot of crypto investors and blockchain companies fear the most. Blockchain technology, famously christened as a decentralized public ledger free from government interference and regulation, initially thrived on that concept. However, amongst the vast array of scandals in the recent past, it has become increasingly clear that basic regulations are vital for the next stage of growth in the cryptocurrency industry Fraudulent ICOs and blockchain companies, created with the objective of scamming investors, have run unchecked in the past few years causing many investors to shy away from cryptocurrencies. This widespread skepticism has stifled the growth of the industry and hampered its progress, leading to investors doubting the validity of even the most legitimate companies. Hence, laying down the foundation for basic regulatory framework could help the crypto industry tap into its largely unfulfilled potential and usher in a new era of disruption and innovation, as funds and resources will be made freely available due to the increased trust placed in the industry. Some traders even believe that if everything goes smoothly, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will introduce a bitcoin exchange-traded fund. Blocktrade.com, a new exchange platform which is expected to roll out shortly and trade several cryptocurrencies, aims to adhere to the recently implemented MiFID II framework. This legislative framework was formulated by the European Union to regulate financial markets and improve protections for investors with the objective of restoring confidence in the financial industry. It is important to note that several industry experts are of the opinion that — in the future, an unlicensed cryptocurrency exchange will be the equivalent of an unlicensed bank, and simply won’t be practical or secure for investors. Hence, it is safe to conclude that as the regulatory landscape becomes clearer, exchanges that are compliant with regulations will rise above the rest, as they will be deemed more trustworthy and transparent by both institutional investors and the general public alike. While 2018 was an interesting year for crypto, 2019 is shaping up to be a worthy successor. The only real question is — will it be able to surpass 2017 and become the best year of crypto of all time? Link to the original article can be found here on blog.bankofhodlers.com About Bank Of Hodlers Created by our Head of Design — Asaithambi Vajaravelu is a Blockchain based firm that provides services in terms of ensuring security against Crypto thefts, providing Crypto credit cards and Crypto backed loans. Bank of Hodlers We are on the verge of releasing our product soon. Visit our website to be a part of the next big thing in the Crypto world or join our Telegram community for daily updates . This article was written by our Content Team Writers- Haroon Beg, Noah Adrian Burges and Rohit Baviskar.

Will 2019 be the Year for Crypto?

Blockchain Platforms: One Chain To Rule Them All?

Repairing broken teams. The story below shows that “the harder the team works, the more money the company will lose.” Assembly line once visited an of a company. He asked to return all the excessive work-in-progress parts to the previous process. The excess resulted in a mountain of pressed metal sheets returned to the press shop. These were the people who were producing more output than anyone else on the assembly line. It increased storage and maintenance costs. And it resulted in more costs for the hard work. Taiichi Ohno assembly line Broken Teams What is the job of a goalkeeper in football? Most people would say it is to prevent the opposite team from scoring. The real job of the goalie, as of every other player on the field, is to win the game. — Jeff Weiner An organization has yearly goals. These goals are assigned/picked by teams. The effectiveness in reaching the goal defines the success of the team. Business is successful if teams are successful in finishing their goals. Broken teams have a group of individually smart people failing in a group setting. Failing here means teams are failing to reach the goal. Diagnosis-driven prescription The first step is to understand the problem. We would have experienced people applying different solutions without understanding the problem. I have once seen a product manager suggest to me to double the capacity of quality analysts on the team, as there were complaints about the quality of the product. I refrained from doing that and eventually found that the problem was with the division of responsibility. A doctor does not prescribe different medicines to find or cure a disease. He/She checks the symptoms and diagnoses the condition. With successful detection, it becomes straightforward to prescribe the treatment. Diagnosis example Figure 1: Team is struggling to improve velocity Figure 1 shows a group trying to increase the pace to finish the goal. Without diagnosing the problem, the team adds more people to increase the productivity. Adding people slows the team. Figure 2: Zooming out the problem On further analysis by zooming out the problem, the team is trying to move against gravity. Therefore, adding more people is slowing them. Figure 3: Orienting the problem On further analysis, it shows alternate ways to increase the velocity. If the team follows the path as illustrated in figure 3, it allows the team to avoid upstream. It shows the importance of diagnosing the problem before solving it. How to diagnose? “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” — Lewis Carroll Diagnosis: teams Does the team understand the goal and have an agreed-on approach to achieving it? What is stopping the team from achieving the expected results? One approach to understanding this is through . A good coordinator creates a safe zone for discussion and follows up on agreed actions. retrospectives Diagnosis: individuals What is stopping the individual from contributing well to the team? A good solution to this is give-and-take feedback. We run an activity called Do people recognize their responsibility to achieve the result? feedback dating. Feedback dating In feedback dating, each member of the team, meets every other member for 10 minutes and keeps on moving. In each encounter, the person gives feedback for 5 minutes and receives feedback for 5 minutes. Each person will keep notes of the comments. After meeting everyone on the team, the person takes time to reflect on the notes. It gives a good platform to recognize and share individual blockers and enablers. Diagnosis shows the cause of symptoms — the problem. ― Albert Einstein “If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.” The 5 minutes is exciting. Repair size and approach Eisenhower “I have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.” — Repair size is categorizing the ineffectiveness in delivering the results. We are categorizing based on t-shirt sizes. The larger the size, lesser the efficiency. Repair size and approaches The team delivers on time. Sometimes, the team observes little hiccups. These are small problems which exist in groups. The team is resilient enough to recover from it. An example can be a key person in the team on medical leave for a couple of weeks which is affecting delivery. In construction analogy, this is like having a dirty floor, cleaned over time. XS (extra small): Resilience: Any building would require general maintenance. XS problems are common in teams. It is better to allow these issues to self-heal. If a particular issue is repeating, then it is better to size it as S. Repeating problems are like a room getting dirty frequently. The typical approach is to keep cleaning it. It is worth to find the source and eliminate that. The team misses a few deliveries. The team manages by putting some extra effort. An example can be a person leaving the team, which increases the load for the team. S problems require extra effort to solve them. They may be repeating XS problems. S (small): Repair: It is sometimes better to replace a leaking tap than to keep mending it. S problems are also common in teams. It is better to call out these issues and agree on action plans. Feedback dating and retrospectives are good platforms to learn the issues. The team has consistent delays in delivery. An example can be many over-promised features. The team struggles to finish the business commitments. M (medium): Restore: The default approach I have seen in a few teams is to add more people. We cannot patch a dam when it is getting flooded. One approach is to stop more water from coming, and another is to fork the source of water towards another direction. It gives us time to restore the dam. Adding more people to a stretched team will add more chaos. It is better to understand the core reason. Perhaps a fresh pair of eyes can bring better insights. Watch out for the different sources of trouble and turn one knob at a time. One option is to redirect new independent tasks to another team or form another team to address part of the issue. The team has significant problems with delivery. The group puts effort but does not deliver. It goes forward and backward. L (large): Renovate: We do not go and repair a fragile building. We renovate it. It is better not to fix multiple problems on a weak team. Fixing one produces another. It is costly too. It is better to give external support to the team and make it secure and apply changes after that. The job never gets done. XL (extra-large): Rebuild: When the foundations are weak, it is easier to reconstruct the structure. The state of the building is too fragile to repair it. XL problems have broken foundations. It is better to rebuild the whole team. Look for alternatives Avoid applying the first solution. Look for additional options. Avoiding the first solution is hard. With the first solution, we tend to fit the problem into the solution that we have experienced in the past. Bamboo boat We were traveling on a bamboo boat as shown in the picture above. It got stuck to one of the sunken trees. We started swaying harder to see if the pressure would loosen the block. One of the people stopped us and tried to find the exact place where the boat got stuck. Once he discovered that place, he asked all of us to walk to the other side of the boat, one after the other. As shown in the figure below, the weight lifted the boat on the other side. It released the jam, and the boat started moving freely. If we had put pressure, it would have cut the rope connecting the bamboos. Hold on to an solution before further analysis “Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem.” — Jiddu Krishnamurti Case study I joined a team of 14 people as a manager. I spent one month building trust, understanding history, knowing people and their styles, and noting my observations. The team had delays in deliveries — repair size was M. Once I was comfortable, I requested for a retrospective. The team was safe to call out the problems, and they matched my notes. Two issues stood out —unclear scope and longer meetings. As this was M repair size, the approach was to restore. I nominated myself as the scope cop. We agreed on our bandwidth and the scope that we could handle every . If any important task came in between, it could only be swapped with a current task of equivalent size. It took two months to restore. 1. Unclear scope: sprint I started with . They lasted more than 90 minutes on average. My target was to get them to less than 10 minutes. We experimented a lot. We were consciously calling out for more suggestions, even when we found a solution. I am sharing few that worked well for us. We were a distributed team, and it took first 20 minutes to set up the meetings. I started arriving 10 minutes early to have everything ready before the rest of the team got to the conference room. It saved us 20 minutes every day. The next 10 minutes was general warm-up small-talk — we talked about traffic, the weather, etc. I did not ask to cut down these conversations, but I did start the meeting by giving the team my updates, and the rest of the team presented theirs. We called out repeated discussions, which saved few minutes. It took us three months restore this habit. 2. Longer meetings: stand-ups “There are three solutions to every problem: accept it, change it or leave it. If you can’t accept it, change it. If you can’t change it, leave it.” — Unknown Summary In summary, whenever you see teams with inaccurate deliveries, it is a broken team. It is essential to diagnose the reason and understand the problem. Look the problem with the perspective of organization, team, and individual. Categorize the problem and determine the repair size. Choose the approach based on the repair size. Avoid applying the first solution. Learn the problem more and keep looking for alternative solutions. Experiment and turn one knob at a time. Get your flight back to normal. Also published in . linkedin

Renovating Teams

Revamping Long Short-Term Memory Networks: XLSTM for Next-Gen AI

দীর্ঘ স্বল্প-মেয়াদী মেমরি নেটওয়ার্কগুলিকে সংশোধন করা: নেক্সট-জেন এআই-এর জন্য XLSTM৷

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長短期記憶ネットワークの改良: 次世代 AI 向け XLSTM

장단기 기억 네트워크 개선: 차세대 AI를 위한 XLSTM

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Uzun Kısa Süreli Bellek Ağlarının Yenilenmesi: Yeni Nesil Yapay Zeka için XLSTM

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改进长短期记忆网络：面向下一代 AI 的 XLSTM

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