The Upfiring dApp — Mid-January 2018 Update

There’s a few topics that will be covered in this post, including:

• Exchange Listings, Cancellation of Contribution Period v2.0.
• Application Logistics, Advanced Functionality, & Seeding Protocol
• Source Code, Graphics, Development Frameworks
• Frequently Asked Questions

Exchange Listings

First, let’s talk about exchanges. UFR is now trading on the following markets:

• Cryptopia — UFR/BTC, UFR/LTC (paused), UFR/DOGE (paused)
• Etherdelta — UFR/ETH
• IDEX — UFR/ETH

Cryptopia has been overwhelmed by a huge influx of new users. As such, they have announced that they will be removing their Litecoin markets from the main site completely and opening a new sister exchange dedicated specifically to Litecoin pair trading. UFR/LTC will be traded on this exchange when it opens.

If everything goes as planned, Upfiring (UFR) will be listed for trading on another mid-sized (top 50 in terms of volume) exchange within the next 10 days. The trading pairs (BTC/UFR and ETH/UFR) have already been confirmed, but like many other exchanges they have recently been overwhelmed by new users. They are currently working to resolve some technical issues before resuming new listings. A huge advantage of this exchange is that, unlike Cryptopia, it is fully functional on all mobile and tablet devices. This will allow for faster and more efficient UFR trading.

Price Discussions

Given the recent growth of UFR and lots of posts from the community regarding future price growth, some friendly reminders need to be given. Price rises in the crypto space can be very exciting. When the price is rising (or falling) quickly, it’s easy to lose sight of the project and focus only the market. Just be careful. It is up to you to do your due diligence and assess all of the risks and potential benefits before buying and selling coins & tokens. Focus on the technology and what the project is trying to accomplish, assess what you think its value is, and remember that the market can always go in both directions. We are in a long-lasting cryptocurrency bull market right now, but that might not always be the case. Do not invest recklessly.

Cancellation of Contribution Period v2.0.

As outlined in the Whitepaper, 15% of the total UFR supply (3.6 million) was reserved for a potential Contribution Period v2.0. We have recently decided to rule this option out. A major component of our initial contribution period that differed us from many other projects was offering UFR at a single set price. There were no early-contributor bonus structures, private pre-sales, or any other unfair advantages offered.

Holding a Contribution Period v2.0. would not be fair to existing UFR holders because it would immediately increase the circulating supply by 3.6 million UFR, diluting the existing market. As an alternative, we are designating a small portion (1/3) of these tokens to be used to fund new exchange listings in the future, when necessary. The competition amongst projects asking for new listings — along with the huge recent growth of the crypto space—has driven the the cost of a new listing on many major exchanges into the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Since we did not anticipate this change in the market and none of the ICO funds were designated to be used for this purpose, allocating the UFR for this purpose is necessary if we want to expand our listings and make UFR more widely available in the future.

As such, the total circulating supply could increase by a maximum of 1.2 million UFR over the course of the next year or two — although it is likely that we end up using much less than that. Depending on the individual exchange’s policies, they may accept UFR directly or it may need to be sold very slowly. This increase in supply should not negatively affect the price in the long-run, and is similar percentage-wise to the supply increase that occurs as a result of mining & staking with other cryptocurrencies.

As it is not longer officially in reserve, CoinMarketCap will consider the entire 1.2 million UFR to be in circulation and the new updated circulating supply will be 15.6 million UFR. At this point in time, we have not had to release any new UFR into the ecosystem in order to pay for exchange listings, and the actual circulating supply is still 14.4 million. It will be announced, along with the listing, whenever UFR is sold to cover the cost of new exchange listings.

The final 2.4 million UFR that was designated for Contribution Period v2.0. will be held in reserve until a detailed plan is made for its use. The current thought is that it will be used to help form partnerships and create an affiliate program to help bring Upfiring into more mainstream P2P communities in the distant future (months or years after the application launches).

Application Logistics, Advanced Functionality, & Seeding Protocol

We have changed our initial stance and plan to support many of the same file types as popular P2P file-sharing applications — including several music and video file extensions — with the initial release of the application. In addition, we have decided not to allow direct searching within the application—Upfiring-generated links must be retrieved from external sources in order to download files within the application.

Upfiring Links and Seeding Protocol — How It Works

Upon uploading a new file, setting a UFR price for your file, and commencing seeding, you will be given a link. This link will allow others to download your file directly from you as long as you are seeding it. As the original seeder, you are guaranteed 50% of the total UFR earnings from your file. If others begin to download your file and seed it for the same price, they will evenly split the other 50% of the UFR earnings. This increases the number of peers for the given file, making it more stable and allowing for faster download speeds. More seeders/peers on your file means your file will be more attractive to downloaders (leechers).

At a closer look, this is one of the aspects that makes Upfiring so valuable compared to any other existing P2P file-sharing application. An artist can upload their original .mp3 file on Upfiring and become the original seeder, guaranteeing themselves 50% of the overall earnings. They can then promote their link, allowing others to easily download the file. If others reseed the file at the same price, they will become seeders of that artist’s file as well. As a result, these new seeders will benefit from all that artist’s promotional efforts and earn UFR whenever the file is downloaded. In turn, the artist benefits from more peers and faster (ever-increasing) download speeds.

Encryption Protocol

Encrypting files serves two main purposes. First, it effectively works to keep your files private from anyone not involved in your transactions. Files transmitted across the network will be unreadable by anyone other than the downloaders and seeders involved. Another advantage of the encryption protocol is that downloaders cannot bypass the UFR requirement by using other P2P sharing applications. If a file is downloaded outside of the Upfiring application, it will remain encrypted and thus be useless to the downloader. This mandates that seeders get rewarded for their work.

The UFR Wallet

Upon downloading the application, users will be able to create a new UFR wallet within the application. This wallet can hold both UFR and ETH. In order to download files, users will need to have both UFR and a small amount of ETH in their wallets. Ether is needed to cover the transaction fees of sending UFR across the Ethereum main network. Initially, UFR can be loaded into your wallet from an exchange or earned by seeding a new file.

Ensuring Seeders Earn UFR

UFR is sent to seeders when a file download is completed. With this said, there is the potential for users to immediately close the application upon receiving the downloaded file and prevent UFR from being sent from their wallet to the seeders. In this case, that user will no longer be able to use the application (or their current wallet) to download new files until that transaction is completed and the seeders are rewarded. This system ensures that users cannot continuously bypass the UFR requirement.

The Results Are In — UFR Will Be A Requirement Within the App

First and foremost, thank you all for your amazing responses to the community poll regarding whether we should allow free seeding within the application (see here). After reading the responses and deliberating the premise a bit more, we have determined that setting a UFR price will be a requirement (free seeding will not be allowed). Even if the UFR amount required to download a file is extremely small, it is necessary to fuel the incentivized environment we are aiming to establish. There were a few posts regarding “Freemium” models or having periods where free seeding is allowed, but these options are not truly feasible with a decentralized application. Once the application is released, we will only be able to upgrade certain protocols. We will not have any centralized control over the application itself, so we cannot enable/disable specific seeding options remotely.

Source Code, Graphics, Development Frameworks

With the current development schedule, some of the application’s source code and graphics will be available and ready to be shared with the community for review by early-mid February. More code and graphic design work will continue to be shared through early March as it is developed and improved. Our current estimate is that the earliest version of the Upfiring application will be available for download at the end of March 2018.

Development Framework

The application is currently being developed with the Electron Javascript framework. This will allow the application to be cross-platform and function on Windows, MacOS, and Linux environments. ElectronJS is open-source and you can learn more about it — as well as some of the applications built on it (you probably use a few) — on their Website and Github.

More Information and Frequently Asked Questions

Development Team Information

This question has been addressed many times via email and on our communities, but we want to reiterate it and go into some further detail. Due to the nature of the project, the Upfiring development team will remain publicly anonymous. This means that — as with many other P2P file-sharing applications — the team will not be posted on the homepage. If you have been given some information regarding the team, we also ask that you do not post about it on our social media pages for the protection of those working to make this project a success. We have no problem with people discussing this topic privately (Discord, Telegram, Reddit PMs, etc).

We understand keeping the team private is not ideal, but it is a part of the project and we hope to gain the communities trust by excelling in other ways — such as providing some development code, application graphics, and being active on our social media platforms. If you do not feel comfortable holding UFR until the application is further along in development and more source code can be provided to the community for evaluation, it is understandable.

If someone is seeding a file for 0.5 UFR, can’t I just download it and reseed it at 0.3 UFR?

Yes. However, this will be considered a new file and you will have to distribute the new download link yourself. If you seed the file at 0.5 UFR, it is treated as the same file and you (and all the existing seeders of that file at 0.5 UFR) will be rewarded with UFR every time that file is downloaded. This also adds to the number of peers and increases the download speed, making it a more attractive option for downloaders. Lastly, you and each of the other seeders will all mutually benefit from one another’s promotional efforts (such as posting the link on forums, Twitter, etc). As a result, it is not always in your best interest to reseed a file for a lower price.

Can I search for files within the application?

No. When you seed a new file you will be given a link. It is your responsibility to promote and post your own link. These can be posted on existing P2P file-sharing sites, or there may be communities formed in the future specifically designed for sharing Upfiring links.

Why would anyone want to use Upfiring over existing P2P file-sharing applications? What advantages does it offer? Why would anyone pay for something that is currently free?

The correct question to ask is “Why would anyone seed and share their files on a P2P network when they get absolutely nothing in return for it?” That is the current state of all existing P2P file-sharing applications today. Because seeders gain nothing in return for their work, they have no real incentive to go out of their way to make new files available to others. This can make finding desired files with enough peers next to impossible on many existing P2P networks.

With Upfiring, file-availability will never be an issue. Because seeders are passively rewarded with UFR for seeding on the network, they will actively aim to seed new files and promote them whenever possible in order to earn larger incentives. In addition, those who download files will want to seed them afterwords in order to earn a share of the total UFR earnings for those files.

If you have any further questions about the project, feel free to post on our community pages or send us an email at [email protected]. Come join us over on Reddit, Bitcointalk and Twitter as we continue our mission to change the future of P2P file-sharing.