Preamble

Ahoy Pirates! We hope this newsletter finds you and your loved ones safe and healthy. April has been another eventful month for all, in every respect. We saw another instance of racism which has led to division of societies. We've seen riots and opportunistic looters. We're seeing central banks print money and steal the purchasing power of hard earned savings. In cryptoland, we witnessed the further hardening of bitcoin as a transparent store of value with another halving event. In the private digital currency arena, Pirate Chain has brought you yet another landmark achievement. In this month, we released the world's first mobile wallet with z-to-z, private-only transactions!

Project Updates

I2P Fundraiser update

What is I2P: I2P (Invisible Internet Project) is an anonymous, pseudonymous and decentralized network without servers. I2P can be thought of as an internet within the internet. Within the I2P network, any user can send emails, browse websites, blog, chat on forums, host websites, take advantage of decentralized file storage, engage in anonymous real-time chat, and much more. Importantly, all this can be performed anonymously.

I2P was designed to protect communication and resist monitoring by third parties such as internet service providers.

Info on I2P: https://geti2p.net/en/comparison/tor

Thanks to a generous donation from Fishyguts, the funding has gotten off the ground and work on I2p has started. We are still looking to raise a total of  0.8 BTC! Please consider donating towards this important project.

BTC: 1NPDRvwb1xrrjsZ54UiUXir1ceTyhUxMov

KMD: RN7RBFrBhmmYqpveYpttrJ9dzw3HpGH7BK

Weekly Meetings

Listen back to our weekly meeting updates. On May 13th, we launched a new format for our weekly meetings. Each session will start with announcements and updates from Captain Draeth, followed by a privacy focused topical discussion with a field expert.

• Link to 5/13 meeting, topic: CEX vs DEX. We had a very in depth discussion with Wolf about decentralized exchanges covering trust and risks, trading technologies, convenience. With contributions from Audo of Komodo and CrisF, we go into deeper detail with Atomic Swaps, AtomicDex and sub Atomic Swaps.

https://soundcloud.com/piratechain_arrr/pirate-chain-cex-vs-dex

• Link to 5/20 meeting, topic: What is I2P? The invisible internet project.

https://soundcloud.com/cryptoradio/pirate-coin-meeting-i2p-talk

Wallet Updates

World's First z-to-z, private-only mobile wallet

The Pirate Chain mobile wallet, Skull island was released for open beta testing on 5/27/20. During the first stage of public beta testing we had tremendous interest from users and found points of improvement in the mobile wallet. The wallet link was briefly taken down to incorporate the feedback from beta testers.

Through hard work and tireless nights, the team at Pirate Chain, in collaboration with the wallet creator, Forge from Zero, is proud to bring you the updated mobile wallet release!

Download the mobile wallet for android devices here now. https://github.com/PirateNetwork/Skull-Island

(credit Captain Draeth for the video)

The code will be ported for iOS devices soon. The Pirate Chain mobile wallet will be undergoing an independent third party audit. We welcome code audits from any interested developers. Important: Please note that we do not recommend storing a significant amount of funds on this wallet until it is fully audited.

Pirate Mobile Wallet Contest

To celebrate the release of the world's first z-to-z, private-only mobile wallet. Captain Draeth has sponsored a giveaway contest! Simply post a screenshot of your Pirate Chain Mobile Wallet home screen on twitter, tag @piratechain and talk about the mobile wallet! 25 people selected at random will win 100 ARRR! Learn more about the contest here on gleam! https://gleam.io/lk3bg/pirate-chain-mobile-wallet-arrr-giveaway

BPSAA is working on its own multicoin wallet that will include Pirate

The Blockchain Privacy, Security & Adoption Alliance (BPSAA) will be building a multicoin wallet for coins of all BPSAA members, including Pirate Chain. A team has been assembled and development has already begun. Check back for future updates on the progress of this wallet!

Ecosystem Updates

Pirate Point of Sale system

The BPSAA has undertaken the project to build a custom Point of Sale system for Pirate Chain. With a combined pool of over 40 researchers and developers, progress on POS will be developed much faster. Stay tuned for future updates on progress of this exciting project!

Social Media

Gains Associates Telegram AMA

https://medium.com/gains-associates/pirate-chain-telegram-quiz-ama-may-2-270af717062

Both Draeth and DreamTim fielded questions from curious crypto enthusiasts about Pirate Chain. Here's a sample of the live ask me anything session.

Q — Twitter user @eljovan: Can you tell us the motivation and advantage of Pirate Chain for investors in the long term?

[DreamTim:] The long term value of Pirate Chain lies in its ability to anonymize financial transactions as well as other data such as text through private messaging. With the loss of consumer data (financial and other), an ever-increasing problem, and with most blockchains being public, all transactions are also public.

So, in a way we have gone from cash and bank accounts to a fully recorded ledger of all possible transactions with no privacy and no anonymity. This means that anyone that can link you to an address knows exactly how much funds you have and how and where you are spending it. This is not secure nor desirable by most people.

Pirate Chain solves this problem and this will ensure the increase in popularity and usage in the long term. So, when you are investing in Pirate Chain the bet you are placing is that privacy and anonymity will become so important to everyone that this will increase value, adoption, and subsequently the price...

Game of Bitcoins AMA with Pirate Chain

https://www.publish0x.com/crypto-amas/ama-recap-pirate-chain-x-game-of-bitcoins-xzzmdv

Here's an excerpt from the ask me anything session:

Q1. We all know that $ARRR is a solid stack-able privacy coin and the first choice for real Pirates. But besides that, what sets $ARRR apart from other privacy coins? 

[Captain Draeth:] What sets ARRR apart from the rest of the privacy coins is ... is the privacy ecosystem we are building. We have built the first iteration of of our operating systems (GhostShipOS), which allows users to have a USB with the operating system and wallet on it so that they can use their funds in an environment that is safe and secure (more so than windows, mac, etc), I can dive more into this later if you wish. We are continually building more things for our users to use to protect their privacy because we truly believe in it, the most notable is the Point of Sale system that we are developing that will not only allow merchants to accept Pirate Chain as a payment, but also their native fiat while preserving the privacy of the person purchasing goods.

Nonkel Roge review of Pirate Chain

Nonkel Roge (SmartEmployee and self-acclaimed "most politically incorrect guy on YouTube") reveals his due diligence research on Pirate Chain and why he pulled the trigger on buying ARRR. He previously reviewed Pirate in 2019 and he published his update here. He provides his thoughts on the need for privacy today, his deep dive research on the protocol, the community and the coin metrics. Nonkel shares his past experiences in crypto, where he got burned with ICOs and how this has made him wiser with his project selection.

As Nonkel points out, we certainly recognize the challenges facing Pirate, particularly ease of use and number of exchange listings. Our team is constantly working on simplifying usage and adoption of Pirate Chain, with step by step video guides and upcoming developments will feature one-click installations. Our exchange listing team, is constantly in contact with exchanges. We work closely with exchanges to help them understand the nuances of listing a z-only blockchain. We are working in a step-wise strategy towards getting ARRR listed on major household exchanges. Thank you, Nonkel! We appreciate your feedback!

Learn from Nonkel's valuable insights and support his channel!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C76oALEZPf0&has_verified=1

Crypto Rich review of Pirate Chain privacy ecosystem

In his latest Pirate Chain video, Crypto Rich analyses the ARRR price and shares his opinions on price levels. He also shares his thoughts on Atomic Swaps and the Turtlenetwork DEX, and why these are important to the privacy. Find out more about Crypto Rich's thoughts and support his bittube channel here.  https://bittube.tv/post/def6e9f2-8fc4-460d-adad-5afdb22231d6

Exclusive Pirate Chain interview with Blockchain Invest

Last interview on my blog. One of the best projects in the anonymity sector. I advise you to closely monitor this team and this community! Thanks to @PirateChain & Draeth for taking the time to participate! https://t.co/y7TZVUYA6p @ARRR pic.twitter.com/whElzzpWbu

— Crypto-lowcap (@CryptoRowenta01) May 6, 2020

In this exclusive interview with Captain Draeth, Rowenta goes beyond the coin metrics and gets a deeper dive into the underlying reasons for mining parameters, the reasons for the historical Sapling upgrade, Pirate Chain's collaborative relationship with Turtlenetwork, governance and discussions about the Pirate Chain name. Read Captain Draeth's responses to these questions and more on Rowenta's Blockchain Invest blogpost!

https://block-chain-invest.com/exclusive-interview-piratechain/

Sir Crypto Review

Sir Crypto talks about why Pirate Chain is an important contribution to the digital currency world with its mandatory privacy protocol in conjunction with the release of the world's first z-to-z, private-only transactions mobile wallet!

https://youtu.be/JPsKqbU8tDs

ARRRmada update

Kryptika joins the Pirate ARRRmada

Kryptika.net is a Crypto Platform, which offers various services and merchandising articles through its own shop.
From Mining Hardware, Pools, Asic-Hosting, up to Wallet and Exchange offers as well as T-Shirts, Sweaters and others. Learn more about Kryptika here! https://arrrmada.com/kryptika/

Riddle

BPSAA Member corner

For the past couple of months, in place of the merchant/social media influencer-of-the-month section, we have been introducing each BPSAA member and highlighting some of the ongoing collaborative efforts. We got a glimpse of the important work of Turtle Network in February, Sentinel in March and Ether-1 in April. In this update, we will learn a about another partner of the BPSAA, Ergo.

Ergo

Ergo is a blockchain platform offering smart contract solutions for the decentralized finance sector. Based on Sigma protocols, Ergo’s highly customizable applications are easy to implement right out of the box. This methodology harnesses the power of zero-knowledge proofs and enables ring and threshold signature functionalities. With these fundamentals, Ergo has built a trustless, non-interactive mixer for coins and tokens.

Ergo utilizes a decentralized governance system to ensure key blockchain updates without controversial hardforks. Ergo uses the Autolykos Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm, with block rewards ending after 8 years and a maximum supply of 97,739,925 coins. The algorithm offers a novel storage rent feature which provides miners with long-term revenues. To ensure economic viability, project development and marketing are funded in part, by a nominal portion of the mining rewards. This is managed by the Foundation and will continue for the first 2.5 years.

Last Words from the editor

There are many mobile wallets in crypto. But none are as monumental as the Pirate Chain mobile wallet. The biggest reason for a mobile wallet is not about a convenient form of storage. In fact, mobile wallets should not be used for long term storage of large hodl sums. The benefit of a mobile wallet is that it is a keystone to adoption of a currency for daily use. In fact, the launch of the world's first z-to-z, private only mobile wallet will benefit Pirate Chain more than any other digital currency in the world. Why? Because a currency for daily use needs to be private, just like spending cash, no one else besides you and the counterparty knows of the transactions. Pirate Chain is the most anonymous cryptocurrency in the industry. There are 2 reasons why Pirate Chain is the most anonymous currency:

(1) ARRR uses zk-SNARKs technology, it is the most anonymous code in the industry, even Fluffypony of Monero has said so. The anonymity set of Pirate has been lauded to be the best in crypto, tweeted out by both ZCash and Monero teams.

(2) Pirate Chain enforces z-to-z only, mandatory private transactions, which means all addresses and transaction details are unknown to everyone else besides the sender the receiver. The second point is important, as we were recently reminded by the Chainanalysis blogpost ( https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/introducing-chainalysis-investigation-compliance-support-dash-zcash ): "only 0.9% of all Zcash transactions" are shielded, based on the metadata of public addresses and transactions, chainanalysis was easily able to decipher "the transaction value and at least one address for over 99% of ZEC activity."

Pirate Chain has all the ingredients of a digital currency for everyday use: a private currency with programmed scarcity (200 million zk-SNARKs protected ARRR), and Convenience of Spending (mobile wallets). With the imminent digital currency era, it is inevitable that Pirate Chain becomes the most commonly used private digital currency. Not a matter if, but when.