Blockstack Pauses App Mining Pilot Due to Challenges in Running Program

Published on by Cointele | Published on

Privacy-centric computing network and app ecosystem Blockstack has paused its App Mining pilot due to a range of challenges.

Rolled out in 2018, the App Mining project is designed to incentivize developers to build apps on Blockstack.

Although the startup has ostensibly seen a healthy app growth throughout 2019 - from 46 to more than 400 apps so far, - it admitted an array of challenges in running a program of increasing size and complexity, according to a Feb. 10 blog post.

Three key challenges to be solvedAs such, Blockstack has decided to pause the pilot until it resolves key issues, which include objectively fair distribution, privacy-preserving analytics and decentralization.

Blockstack expects to produce better ranking metrics used to reward apps that provide high-quality user experience and put users into control over their data and privacy.

Such quality metric would help Blockstack identify how successful an app is.

Finally, the company is faced with the task to determine what potential independent entity or tool can fairly distribute Stacks tokens to App Mining participants.

"Blockstack PBC will no longer run the App Mining program. We're calling for a major overhaul of the App Mining program and not incremental improvements. Any new version of App Mining will be driven by individuals or entities other than Blockstack PBC and likely will not launch until Stacks 2.0 is operational," the post pointed out.

Blockstack's recent developmentsLast August, Blockstack partnered with Lambda School to enable students enrolled in the program to learn how to code Blockstack apps and earn monthly revenue through its App Mining Program.

Each student-developed, decentralised app was set to be subject to reviews and comprehensive user-testing videos.

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