Phase two of our token portal rollout is live! 🐀 Starting today, badge holders will have first-class access to Ratspeak infrastructure across the network by enrolling in optional perks: - Increased offline message limits Without a cloud, there is no offline messaging. To solve that, the network uses "propagation nodes", which are the stack that enables messages to be delivered to users while they're offline through an encrypted store-and-forward concept. The issue is that propagation nodes can sometimes be unreliable, and even if reliable, often have strict limits to prevent abuse. Ratspeak already provides propagation nodes running on dedicated servers as a public good, however, starting today badge holders will receive a size limit bump for messages, from 2MB -> 10MB compared to regular network participants. - Priority offline message storage Typically, messages stored offline in a propagation node have a policy to evict messages under certain constraints, such as time or under heavy load/usage. For badge holders across all of our offline inbox infrastructure, messages stored have a relaxed eviction priority, so when typical standard messages are culled under heavy-load or certain network conditions, prioritized messages are the last ones to be replaced. Message storage time is also increased for badge holders, from 30 days -> 60 days*. *Limited to the badge-holder only propagation node. - Mailbox Alert System With mailbox alerts, badge holders can receive a friendly alert letting them know they have messages waiting for them. Typically these sync automatically, however it's useful under certain network conditions when auto-syncing may not be desirable. In addition to that, holders can check if they have messages waiting for them directly through the onchain portal section of the website. Accessing the content messages from the website or knowing the sender of the message are not accessible through the portal - our infrastructure has no technical capability to obtain that info due to the cryptographic nature of the protocol. In the near future, alerts will be expanded to consider things like e-mail notifications for convenience, onchain activity alerts, and other useful things - all opt-in of course. - Future Perks The above is the early utility perks for badge holders. As we move forward, we will continue to elevate these and evaluate what perks we can make possible without creating barriers-to-entry for the network. This will be an on-going effort, alongside our long term effort, which is constant exploration and R&D into network incentives and other areas where the token may play a more critical role in securing and growing the network.

We like to build more than we like to tweet, but the rats need an update, so here's the top ones that come to mind over the last month or two: - Channels/groups Finally, communication is expanded beyond just peer-to-peer. Users can host their own community hub and spawn channels within it, where anyone can join and communicate as a group. These work closer to IRC because of no-cloud constraints, and ensuring MCUs/SBCs can remain citizens of the network, as they always should be able to. - Voice messages/memos While voice calling has been introduced for months, voice messaging is finally here. Just like your favorite messaging apps, you can record short voice messages rather than type things out like a dinosaur. This is mobile/desktop only, but will soon be extended to handheld devices like the T-Deck and those with microphones/speakers. - UI/UX improvements Font scaling, themes, and general cleanup has been added. We've been asked several times from those who wear readers that they need the text bigger, well, now they can crank it up so no glasses are needed, while enjoying the cool colorful theme of choice. - iOS nearing If you're in our Telegram, you probably are aware of the frustration with getting the iOS distro launched. Well, it's finally under review by Apple, so as soon as that comes through iOS will be opening up for a public beta, which allows up to 10,000 testers, no need for your e-mail, and we'll share the link here and elsewhere of course. - Token updates If you've followed up until now, you'll know the origin of the token. It was launched unexpectedly, and unfortunately, it meant token holders not getting daily dopamine hits like the crypto ecosystem thrives off. I'm literally writing this tweet so I can reply to the latest moonboi in chat with this post. Nevertheless, some progress there has been made. The network is still very early, and cryptocurrency is high risk for poisoning the well (both from a technological POV as well as from a social/community one), so we're taking a slow and smart approach with the token and its R&D. We'll start by offering services from Ratspeak as a utility for holders. Things like hosting services for channel hubs for those who don't want to leave their computer or RasPi running 24/7, propagation node hosting service for holders (this is what allows for messages/data to be delivered when recipients are offline, if you missed the whole cloudless mesh network part), vanity upgrades like roles/tags for holders in official Ratspeak channels/servers and within the app. And going forward, we will continue to build in a way that considers the token, holders, and how to incorporate it within the ecosystem, while at the same time ensuring we never compromise the beauty of our goal, which is resilient and alternative communications for any human. - Handhelds/radios/nodes There's been endless invisible work on these over the last couple months - those with handhelds like the LilyGo T-Deck, T-Pager, Heltecs, and other ESP32/RAK devices will soon see a new suite of firmware that aligns everything under the Ratspeak roof (in the backend, as opposed to sprawling outward to microReticulum or other libraries that weren't in-house and caused some issues). - Endless backend stuff This is a user-facing update, so, not gonna go into all the backend stuff that's been touched on in the last month, which is more than all of the above and then some. We will never tweet for the sake of keeping users happy, so we apologize if it's felt quiet. We have been nearing a point where we're ready to scream to the world about what has been built, but we haven't reached that point. We are confident in what we are building, and what is to come, that we haven't been concerned personally - but recognize that the community does want to hear from us. We'll start to pick up communications heavily once we reach that point in the coming weeks, but until then, join our Telegram for the quickest communication and enjoy being a beta tester on Android, Windows, Mac, or Linux: And watch the network grow: