I typically don’t discuss Siacoin’s valuation or price in this post. This space is more importantly used for keeping the community updated on important info and sharing highlights from the past few weeks. But I feel like it’s important to note not only the amazing rise of our project, but the entire cryptocurrency/blockchain space. This year the mainstream media picked up our stories. This year made it clear that this is serious business.
In this update
Growing pains
Sia releases v1.3.1
Developer’s corner
Don’t get scammed
By the numbers
Me, in 2018
Growing pains
As with every project ever started in the history of mankind, Sia has had some growing pains. One especially recent and acute pain was as a result of the Sia network hardfork at block 135,000. In order to prep the network for the hash onslaught that ASIC mining will bring in mid-2018, the Difficulty Adjustment Algorithm was updated. A bug in the code caused a number of issues across our official app, Sia-UI, as well as the network. At the same time, our blockchain explorer was down. This meant that exchanges couldn’t reliably confirm whether or not transactions had been broadcast properly.
This meant issues for our users, like the inability to access funds, stuck transactions, and host downtime.
When you realize you have pain, you have that initial, instinctive reaction to cover or touch the affected area. This is what our amazing communities did. Across Discord, Reddit, and Facebook, there was an outpouring of help and instructions. Our more seasoned users were on top of their game as usual, assisting others and even creating their own guides. I saw new users returning to help people using solutions they had just learned themselves.
Of course, our developers were on top of addressing the issue as fast as they could. I created an official troubleshooting post so we could direct users to a single place for help with all issues. The core devs poured themselves into bugfixing and troubleshooting, leading into our next topic.
Sia releases v1.3.1, and other resolutions
This was always going to be a big update, filled with tons of fine-tunings and streamlined features. Then it also needed to pull double-duty and fix the aforementioned issues.
As you can see, 1.3.1 was a big deal. We’ve already seen it reduce the number of support tickets generated for Sia-UI launch issues to near zero.
Updates from the…developers
Over the past month, 57 new pieces of code were merged and 68 issues were closed. This was mostly in service of 1.3.1, and you can read the official release notes, but David’s message above contains all of the most important info.
As always, I highly recommend joining our Discord server to get these updates straight from user 
Becoming a contributor
If you’re interested in contributing to the Sia codebase, there are a number of issues waiting for community development. Please read the Guide to Contributing To Sia and comment on any issues you plan to work on.
Don’t get scammed
Scammers are as old as opportunity itself. During the American gold rush of the mid-1800s, a man named Fletcher created his famous “Gold-o-meter” that could find veins of gold ore in the ground. Eager miners paid him for his services as he scouted for veins with his device, but he would skip town after being paid. The Gold-o-meter was a stick with a ball stuck on the end.
There have already been multiple attempts to attack unaware Sia users. The latest comes in the form of siacoin-online.com, which appears to be stealing money from those who sign up. This website is not affiliated with Sia, even though they are using our branding and company info.
Always use best practices when dealing with financial transactions of any sort. Go through verified support channels and ask if a site is legitimate. Hop on the #help channel in Discord to get some advice. Be careful out there.
By the numbers
All of our channels have seen wild growth from last month. All crypto communities surged when Bitcoin neared $20,000, but this is really incredible regardless. Here’s the month over month breakdown:
Facebook: up 47%
Twitter: up 42%
Reddit: up 29%
Discord: up 67%
As we continue to grow, keep in mind that these are places to talk with and learn from your fellow users. Be respectful in these places, and we’ll build on the best community in crypto.
Me, in 2018
Good old Community Manager Steve will have an expanded role with Sia in the new year. For a project to succeed, a lot of things need to go right. You need the right team, the right product, and the right time.
At least, that’s the short version. You also need great resources, community development, proper support and a million other things. Doing any one of these right gives you a slightly better shot at making it. I’m going to do everything I can to help Sia succeed.
I’ll have a separate post detailing this soon, where I’ll wax poetic about the industry and all sorts of stuff. If you enjoy the idea of romance novels mixed with Michael Bay, you’ll love this.
It also might just be a nice little post about my new job.
