Back in August of 2016, we announced that we had completed the initial alpha version of our stake-weighted voting software. Now, we’re letting the world know that we’ve successfully integrated our stake-weighted voting software with the BitShares blockchain. Our stake-weighted voting software serves as the foundation for the development of our more advanced and anonymous 1-person 1-vote blockchain voting system.

We decided to target the BitShares blockchain as the first public blockchain to integrate our blockchain voting software with because the BitShares blockchain runs on a high performance blockchain protocol known as the Graphene Blockchain Framework. We are also very familiar with BitShares’ blockchain protocol, as Follow My Vote’s CTO, Nathan Hourt, along with the Founder of BitShares, Daniel Larimer, were the chief architects of the Graphene Blockchain Framework. It goes without saying that our familiarity with this blockchain protocol was all the more reason to start with the BitShares blockchain.

It’s important to note that, when designing our stake-weighted voting system’s architecture, we designed it in such a way to ensure that our blockchain voting software was portable from one blockchain to another. If you are interested in learning more about the architecture behind our blockchain voting software, be sure to check out the diagram below for a closer look at our stake-weighted voting system’s architectural design:

Now that we’ve successfully integrated our stake-weighted voting software with the BitShares blockchain, we thought it would be best to create a tutorial on how you can get our software up and running on your device.

Steps To Get Follow My Vote’s Stake Weighted Voting Software Running On Your Device:

Anyone that wishes to run our blockchain voting software to conduct a stake-weighted poll on the BitShares blockchain can visit our open-source code repository on github.com and compile the software themselves, regardless of the device and operating system you are using.

If you are interested in doing so, here’s the link:

https://github.com/FollowMyVote/StakeWeightedVoting

For those out there that don’t have the technical skills to do this on their own, don’t worry. Help is on the way! In the days ahead, we will be developing binary files specific to all major operating systems, to include Linux, Mac, Windows, IOS, and Android.

Currently, we only support both Mac and Linux based computing systems.

DOWNLOAD AND INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS – FOR LINUX USERS

For those of you that have a Linux operating system installed on your computer, you can install our blockchain voting software by installing Follow My Vote’s Stake Weighted Voting snap package.

What is a snap package, you ask?

Snap packages, or ‘Snaps’, made their debut in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. A Snap is a fancy zip file containing an application together with its dependencies, and a description of how it should safely be run on your system. Snaps can run on other Linux distributions, including Arch, Fedora, Linux Mint, CentOS and Gentoo. As such, Snaps are quickly becoming the de-facto Linux app package format.

To install Follow My Vote’s Stake Weighted Voting snap package, all you need to do is open up a terminal and run the following command:

“sudo snap install –edge stakeweightedvoting”

Once you’ve installed Follow My Vote’s Stake Weighted Voting snap package, you should be able to find the application on your computer by searching for “Stake Weighted Voting”.

DOWNLOAD AND INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS – FOR MAC USERS

If you have a Mac, you can download Follow My Vote’s Stake Weighted Voting Mac binary file directly from our github repository at the link below:

https://github.com/FollowMyVote/StakeWeightedVoting/releases/download/1.0-beta/VotingApp.dmg

Once you’ve downloaded the Mac binary file, you’ll need to open the application using the DiskImageMounter. From there, you should see voting application listed as a device named “VotingApp by Follow My Vote” in the Devices section of the Finder.

LAUNCHING OUR STAKE-WEIGHTED VOTING APP

Upon locating the application on your computer, go ahead and launch our Stake Weighted Voting app. Then, you’ll need to open your web browser of choice and visit the following URL:

https://bitshares.followmyvote.com/#/connect/web%2Bbts%3A127.0.0.1%2F27073

The above URL will take you to a web-based version of the BitShares wallet configured to work with our Stake Weighted Voting app. You’ll need to export your keys from your existing BitShares wallet and import them into this new wallet. Once this step has been completed, the Stake Weighted Voting app should sync with the blockchain and load all of the contests that have been created to date.

NOTE: if you don’t already have a BitShares wallet, you can create one by visiting the following URL:

https://bitshares.openledger.info/#/create-account

Once you’ve reached this point, you should be able to vote on any of the existing contests or create a contest of your own. Please keep in mind, however, that when contests are created, the creator must choose an asset on the BitShares blockchain for which to weight votes cast in that contest. This means that in order to vote in a contest, you must hold the asset the contest pertains to in your BitShares wallet. Otherwise you won’t be able to vote in that contest.

As a final note, we wanted to you know that we’ve created a demo video of our blockchain voting software so that you can see it in action. Enjoy!

About the author: Adam Ernest is the CEO of Follow My Vote.

The post It’s Alive! …Follow My Vote Launches Blockchain Voting Software On The BitShares Blockchain appeared first on Follow My Vote.

What is basically happening here is that CCEDK has created a system with all of the advantages and benefits of cryptocurrency with the universal acceptance of well known credit cards. Open Ledger will serve as a gateway into the cryptocurrency market for several forms of fiat currency.

OpenLedger will operate hand in hand with BitShares 2.0, an industrial grade smart contract platform. As you may know, BitShares is a partner of Follow My Vote. Consequently we have been highlighted in the news for using blockchain technology and associating with Bitshares.

The OpenLedger team has also secured other blockchain partners including diversified cryptocurrency group Banx Capital, data center backed Bunkershares, the Beyond Bitcoin Show, music platform Peertracks, identity-focused cryptocurrency Identabit, voting platform Follow My Vote, and others to diversify its services and products as a fintech exchange and platform.

We encourage you to check out OpenLedger and watch for their future growth and success.

Source: CoinTelegraph
About the author: Will Long is the Marketing Manager of Follow My Vote.

The post Follow My Vote Highlighted With The World’s First Decentralized Fintech Exchange Launch appeared first on Follow My Vote.

Dan Larimer, founder of BitShares, gave a keynote speech called “Bitcoin and Beyond”. In his speech, Larimer highlighted reasons why delegated proof of stake is likely the future of blockchain transaction processing and why BitShares uses it, as opposed to proof of work (which Bitcoin is based on). He urged the Bitcoin community to persuade the major mining pools that control the network to pivot to the proof of stake model to allow for decentralization, as proof of work is a method of the past that has proven to lead to centralization of the network, the antithesis of what Bitcoin was meant to be in the first place.

Larimer also introduced BitUSD, a market asset issued within the BitSharesX Decentralized Exchange, which is pegged to the U.S. dollar. By owning BitUSD, you can hold crypto-currency that is truly a currency and not equity. The price remains steady and does not experience the same volatile fluctuations that Bitcoin and other alt-coins experience. The same concept has been concept has been applied in countries such as Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, which have pegged their countries’ currencies to the U.S. dollar, except now BitUSD changes the game as it is the first stable blockchain based currency. In fact, by holding BitUSD, you can actually gain 5-10% interest on the value of your BitUSD, which is better than the average savings account you’d get from your bank, Larimer explained.

Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com gave his keynote titled “The Next Decentralized Frontier of Cryptosecurities,” during which he announced a partnership between Counterparty and Overstock. Byrne, an avid supporter of Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies, hopes to establish a Bitcoin based stock market. This “New Wall Street,” as some have called it, would take out the middle men from the stock exchanges and make it easier for startups and other companies to issue their own stock. Although some question the partnership, being that it is based on Bitcoin (a proof of work blockchain model), most see it’s further validation for the crypto-currency industry as a whole. Regardless of the camp you are in (proof of work vs. proof of stake), it’s good to know that they will carry the bulk of the load and pave the way through bureaucratic regulations for others to follow, like the first snow plow to hit the streets after a huge snow storm. Read more on the partnership here.

Bobby Lee, CEO of BTC China and an active board member of the Bitcoin Foundation, gave a speech on the tremendous rise of the Bitcoin industry. His speech was very fascinating as he brought a perspective that is synonymous with many Bitcoin advocates in China.

In addition to the keynote speeches at the Inside Bitcoins conference, outside of the auditoriums, companies sponsored booths to showcase their products and services as they relate to Bitcoin and the crypto-currency industry as a whole. There was even a Bitcoin ATM at one of the booths, which was fascinating to see in person. We also talked to several individuals and investors who were very excited to find out there is a company working on blockchain based voting that has the potential to revolutionize they way elections are being hosted today.

When it was all said and done, Follow My Vote created some serious buzz at the conference with respect to the online open-source voting platform we’ve been working to develop. Hopefully the connections we’ve made at Inside Bitcoins will bring us that much closer to free and fair elections here in the United States and abroad.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas…

unless the whole world hears about it!

The post Inside Bitcoins Las Vegas appeared first on Follow My Vote.

Our aim is to restore faith in the democratic process by developing an online open-source voting platform that provides end-to-end transparency into elections hosted here in the United States and other democratic societies throughout the world.

Please stay tuned to our website and social media accounts for future updates!

For more information on BitShares, please visit their site.

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