Hacker News Reader

marekoon Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

Venmo for all.

We're used to Venmo in the US but many places in the world don't have an equivalent. Valora is a new Venmo-like mobile app that's built on the Celo blockchain, a new network where mobile devices can efficiency sync with the chain, with a native stable coin, and a decentralized phone number verification protocol.

Check out https://valoraapp.com and https://celo.org

marekoon Typical U.S. full-time salary would be $102k if wages had kept up with growth

This is good argument for increasing minimum wage. The federal minimum wage is still only $7.25. Inflation adjusted, it has been decreasing since 1968 [1]. Once you factor in rising healthcare spending, which has gone up by 5.5x in the same timeframe (inflation adjusted) [2], the problem is further compounded.

Given the high GDP growth in the same time frame, it feels like a big miss by the federal government.

1. https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/business/us-minimum-wag...

2. https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-spe...

marekoon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (September 2020)

cLabs is one of a number of companies working on Celo, an open-source permissionless platform that makes financial tools accessible to anyone with a mobile phone. Using a novel decentralized PKI, Celo lets you send cryptocurrency to phone numbers in a fully decentralized way. Additionally, Celo uses stable-value tokens pegged to fiat currencies, like the US Dollar, to minimize volatility, and crucially allows transaction fees to be paid with these tokens. To make sure that the platform is scalable and fast enough for day-to-day use, Celo uses a new Proof-of-Stake protocol with fast block times and one block finality. Further, it uses SNARK-based proofs to allow light clients to sync with the chain near instantly. The protocol is now live (run by hundreds of entities) and we are now working with organizations such as GiveDirectly on an open-source social payments app (Valora) that looks and feels like Venmo, yet is fully decentralized. Additionally, Coinbase Pro listed Celo today.

Investors: Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Polychain, General Catalyst, Coinbase, Reid Hoffman and Jack Dorsey, among others.

Stack: Typescript, Solidity, Go, React Native, Python, Android, iOS, Rust, zk-SNARKs

Team backgrounds: Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Square, Zcash, QEDIT, MIT, Stanford (~100 people today)

More about us here:

Code: https://github.com/celo-org/celo-monorepo and https://github.com/celo-org/celo-blockchain

Blog: https://medium.com/celoorg

Chat: https://chat.celo.org

Mobile App: https://valoraapp.com

Mainnet Stats: https://thecelo.com and https://stats.celo.org

marekoon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2020)

Fall 2020

marekoon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2020)

Great question! We will be opening up fall internship applications in a week or so :)

marekoon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2020)

cLabs is one of the many companies working on Celo, an open-source permissionless platform that makes financial tools accessible to anyone with a mobile phone. Using a novel decentralized PKI, Celo lets you send cryptocurrency to phone numbers in a fully decentralized way. Additionally, Celo uses stable-value tokens pegged to fiat currencies, like the US Dollar, to minimize volatility, and crucially allows transaction fees to be paid with these tokens. To make sure that the platform is scalable and fast enough for day-to-day use, Celo uses a new Proof-of-Stake protocol with fast block times and one block finality. Further, it uses SNARK-based proofs to allow light clients to sync with the chain near instantly. The protocol is now live (run by hundreds of entities) and we are now working with organizations such as GiveDirectly on an open-source social payments app (Valora) that looks and feels like Venmo, yet is fully decentralized.

Investors: Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Polychain, General Catalyst, Coinbase, Reid Hoffman and Jack Dorsey, among others.

Stack: Typescript, Solidity, Go, React Native, Python, Android, iOS, Rust, zk-SNARKs

Team backgrounds: Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Square, Zcash, QEDIT, MIT, Stanford (~100 people today)

More about us here:

Code: https://github.com/celo-org/celo-monorepo and https://github.com/celo-org/celo-blockchain

Blog: https://medium.com/celoorg

Chat: https://chat.celo.org

Mobile App: https://valoraapp.com

Mainnet Stats: https://thecelo.com and https://stats.celo.org

marekoon US travel firm $4.5M ransom negotiation open chat

I'm a little biased, but check out celo.org and valoraapp.com. Celo is a Proof of Stake protocol built to work efficiently on mobile, with stable value, and with phone numbers as identifiers.

marekoon US travel firm $4.5M ransom negotiation open chat

It's true that Bitcoin is a poor medium of exchange: it's not stable, has slow transaction times, does not work well with mobile devices, and has intimidating identifiers, but it did open the door to new ideas that will likely soon have a huge impact on exactly the uses you're describing.

marekoon New slats make the Golden Gate Bridge sound like a David Lynch movie

Could you be hearing one of the many foghorns in the bay?

https://youtu.be/jJWd5eHeFY4

marekoon Gravity assist maneuvers in space

This would be true if the planet were stationary, but since it's orbiting the sun, you can either take some of its momentum, or give it some momentum, by doing a gravity assist in the direction of the planet's orbit, or in the opposite direction.

marekoon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (February 2020)

C Labs is one of multiple companies working on the Celo protocol, an open-source permissionless platform that makes financial tools accessible to anyone with a mobile phone. Celo is first and foremost mobile-first. It uses SNARK-based proofs to allow light clients to sync with the Proof of Stake chain near-instantly. Secondly, Celo has a stablecoin platform built-in. Starting with the Celo Dollar, the platform allows the community to launch new stable currencies pegged to local fiat that are all collateralized by the same crypto-asset over-collateralized reserve (critically, transaction fees can be paid in these stable assets). Finally, Celo uses a novel decentralized PKI that lets you send cryptocurrency to phone numbers, even before the recipient has installed a wallet. For Celo's first product, we are working with organizations such as the UN World Food Programme and GiveDirectly on a social payments and cash transfer app that looks and feels like Venmo, yet is fully self custodial and decentralized.

Investors: Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Polychain, General Catalyst, Coinbase, Reid Hoffman and Jack Dorsey, among others.

Stack: Typescript, Solidity, Go, React Native, Python, Android, iOS, Rust, zk-SNARKs

Team backgrounds: Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Square, Zcash, QEDIT, MIT, Stanford (~60 people today)

More about us here:

Blog - https://medium.com/celohq

Repos - https://github.com/celo-org

Mobile App (alpha release): https://celo.org/app

Incentivized Testnet: http://celo.org/stake-off

marekoon Mutexes are faster than Spinlocks

If you're interested in very efficient MCS style reader writer locks, check out this paper:

https://people.csail.mit.edu/mareko/spaa09-scalablerwlocks.p...

marekoon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (January 2020)

Yes! We just added them. Here's the one for SF:

https://jobs.lever.co/celo/2daceba4-1258-4445-9e8f-a96d79690...

marekoon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (January 2020)

C Labs is one of the multiple companies working on Celo, an open-source permissionless platform that makes financial tools accessible to anyone with a mobile phone. Using a novel decentralized PKI, Celo lets you send cryptocurrency to phone numbers in a fully decentralized way. Additionally, Celo uses stable-value tokens pegged to fiat currencies, like the US Dollar, to minimize volatility. Anyone can participate in the network and earn Celo currency, even with just a budget Android smartphone (by sending verification text messages). To make sure that the platform is scalable and fast enough for day-to-day use, Celo uses a new Proof of Stake protocol with fast block times and one block finality. Further, it uses SNARK-based proofs to allow light clients to sync with the chain instantly. For Celo's first product, we are working with organizations such as the UN World Food Programme and GiveDirectly on a social payments and cash transfer app that looks and feels like Venmo, yet is fully decentralized.

Investors: Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Polychain, General Catalyst, Coinbase, Reid Hoffman and Jack Dorsey, among others.

Stack: Typescript, Solidity, Go, React Native, Python, Android, iOS, Rust, zk-SNARKs

Team backgrounds: Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Square, Zcash, QEDIT, MIT, Stanford (~60 people today)

More about us here:

Blog - https://medium.com/celohq

Repos - https://github.com/celo-org

Mobile App (alpha release): https://celo.org/app

Incentivized Testnet: http://celo.org/stake-off

marekoon Two British companies confident of nuclear fusion breakthrough

If you're having trouble viewing the article, try the following URL:

https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEKJPHMAPoObMlCFZNuqovjs...

marekoon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (December 2019)

Celo is an open-source permissionless platform that makes financial tools accessible to anyone with a mobile phone. Using a novel decentralized PKI, Celo lets you send cryptocurrency to phone numbers in a fully decentralized way. Additionally, Celo uses stable-value tokens pegged to fiat currencies, like the US Dollar, to minimize volatility. Anyone can participate in the network and earn Celo currency, even with just a budget Android smartphone (by sending verification text messages). To make sure that the platform is scalable and fast enough for day-to-day use, Celo uses a new Proof of Stake protocol with fast block times and 1 block finality. Further, it uses SNARK-based proofs to allow light clients to sync with the chain instantly. For Celo's first product, we are working with organizations such as the UN World Food Programme and GiveDirectly on a social payments and cash transfer app that looks and feels like Venmo, yet is fully decentralized.

Investors: Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Polychain, General Catalyst, Coinbase, Reid Hoffman and Jack Dorsey, among others.

Stack: Typescript, Solidity, Go, React Native, Python, Android, iOS, Rust, zk-SNARKs

Team backgrounds: Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Square, Zcash, QEDIT, MIT, Stanford

More about us here:

Blog - https://medium.com/celohq

Repos - https://github.com/celo-org

Mobile App (alpha release): https://celo.org/app

Incentivized Testnet: http://celo.org/stake-off

marekoon California Live Fire Maps

I've found the maps based on satellite data to be the most informative as they show you where the fire is actively burning and not just the permimeter. Here's a good one for California:

https://fsapps.nwcg.gov/afm/data/activefiremaps/cgb2019300_1...

Hoping for the best and sending best wishes for all those affected!

marekoon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2019)

It is market adjusted, but still competitive.

marekoon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2019)

Celo is an open-source permissionless platform that makes a Venmo-like (lightweight bank account) experience accessible to anyone with a mobile phone. Using a novel decentralized PKI, Celo lets you send cryptocurrency to phone numbers in a fully decentralized way. Additionally, Celo uses stable-value tokens pegged to fiat currencies, like the US Dollar, to minimize volatility. Anyone can participate in the network and earn Celo currency, even with just a budget Android smartphone (by sending verification text messages). To make sure that the platform is scalable and fast enough for day-to-day use, Celo uses a new Proof-of-Stake blockchain protocol with fast block times and one block finality, and has a novel light client protocol that uses SNARK-based proofs to sync with the chain quickly. For Celo's first product, we are working with organizations such as the UN World Food Programme and GiveDirectly on a social payments and cash transfer app.

Investors: Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Polychain, General Catalyst, Coinbase, Reid Hoffman and Jack Dorsey, among others.

Stack: Typescript, Solidity, Go, React Native, Python, Android, iOS, Rust, zk-SNARKs

Team backgrounds: Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Square, Zcash, QEDIT, MIT, Stanford

More about us here:

Blog - https://medium.com/celohq

Repos - https://github.com/celo-org

Mobile App (alpha release): https://celo.org/app

SDK: https://docs.celo.org/celo-sdk

marekoon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (September 2019)

The salaries are market-adjusted but still competitive.

marekoon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (September 2019)

Celo is an open-source permissionless platform that makes financial tools accessible to anyone with a mobile phone. Using a novel decentralized PKI, Celo lets you send cryptocurrency to phone numbers in a fully decentralized way. Additionally, Celo uses stable-value tokens pegged to fiat currencies, like the US Dollar, to minimize volatility. Anyone can participate in the network and earn Celo currency, even with just a budget Android smartphone (by sending verification text messages). To make sure that the platform is scalable and fast enough for day-to-day use, Celo uses a new Proof of Stake protocol with fast block times and 1 block finality. For Celo's first product, we are working with organizations such as the UN World Food Programme and GiveDirectly on a social payments and cash transfer app.

Investors: Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Polychain, General Catalyst, Coinbase, Reid Hoffman and Jack Dorsey, among others.

Stack: Typescript, Solidity, Go, React Native, Python, Android, iOS, Rust, zk-SNARKs

Team backgrounds: Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Square, Zcash, QEDIT, MIT, Stanford

More about us here:

Blog - https://medium.com/celohq

Repos - https://github.com/celo-org

Mobile App (alpha release): https://celo.org/app

SDK: https://docs.celo.org/celo-sdk

marekoon Ask HN: What are you working on?

You've probably heard of Libra. I've been working on a permissionless version of Libra for the last two years. We are called Celo (https://celo.org), and we are committed to advancing financial inclusion using an open decentralized protocol.

marekoon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (July 2019)

It really depends on the role and office that you applied to, but the recruiters work hard to respond within a day or two. If you don't hear back quickly, feel free to email me. I'm available at my first letter at our domain :)

marekoon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (July 2019)

Celo is a mobile-first PoS stable cryptocurrency working to increase financial inclusion in developing markets, aka a permissionless Libra :) Using a novel address-based encryption algorithm, Celo lets you send crypto to phone numbers in a fully decentralized way. Additionally, Celo uses stable-value tokens pegged to fiat currencies, like the US Dollar, to minimize volatility. Anyone can participate in the network and earn Celo currency, even with just a budget Android smartphone (by sending verification text messages). For Celo's first product, we are working with organizations such as the UN World Food Programme and GiveDirectly on a social payments and cash transfer app.

Investors: Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Polychain, General Catalyst, Coinbase, Reid Hoffman and Jack Dorsey, among others.

Stack: Typescript, Solidity, Go, React Native, Python, Android, iOS, Rust, zk-SNARKs

Team backgrounds: Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Square, Zcash, MIT, Stanford

More about us here:

Blog - https://medium.com/celohq

Hello from Celo - https://medium.com/celohq/hello-from-celo-34bf195cb99

marekoon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (April 2019)

Celo is a mobile-first stable cryptocurrency working to increase financial inclusion in developing markets. Using a novel address-based encryption algorithm, Celo lets you send crypto to phone numbers in a fully decentralized way. Additionally, Celo uses stable-value tokens pegged to fiat currencies, like the US Dollar, to minimize volatility. Anyone can participate in the network and earn Celo currency, even with just a budget Android smartphone (by sending verification text messages). For Celo's first product, we are working with organizations such as the UN World Food Programme on a social payments and cash transfer app.

Investors: Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Polychain, General Catalyst, Coinbase, Reid Hoffman and Jack Dorsey, among others.

Stack: Typescript, Solidity, Go, React Native, Python, Android, iOS

Team backgrounds: Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Square, MIT, Stanford

More about us here:

Blog - https://medium.com/celohq

Hello from Celo - https://medium.com/celohq/hello-from-celo-34bf195cb99

marekoon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2019)

Celo is a mobile-first stable cryptocurrency working to increase financial inclusion in developing markets. Using a novel address-based encryption algorithm, Celo lets you send crypto to phone numbers in a fully decentralized way. Additionally, Celo uses stable-value tokens pegged to fiat currencies, like the US Dollar, to minimize volatility. Anyone can participate in the network and earn Celo currency, even with just a budget Android smartphone. For Celo's first product, we are working with organizations such as the UN World Food Programme on a social payments and cash transfer app.

Investors: a16z, Polychain, General Catalyst, Coinbase, Reid Hoffman and Jack Dorsey, among others.

Stack: Typescript, Solidity, Go, React Native, Python, Android, iOS

Team backgrounds: Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Square, MIT, Stanford

More about us here:

Blog - https://medium.com/celohq

Hello from Celo - https://medium.com/celohq/hello-from-celo-34bf195cb99

marekoon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (February 2019)

Celo is a mobile-first stable cryptocurrency working to increase financial inclusion in developing markets. Using a novel address-based encryption algorithm, Celo lets you send crypto to phone numbers in a fully decentralized way. Additionally, Celo uses stable-value tokens pegged to fiat currencies, like the US Dollar, to minimize volatility. Anyone can participate in the network and earn Celo currency, even with just a budget Android smartphone. For Celo's first product, we are working with organizations such as the UN World Food Programme on a social payments and cash transfer app.

Investors: a16z, Polychain, General Catalyst, Coinbase, Reid Hoffman and Jack Dorsey, among others.

Stack: Typescript, Solidity, Go, React Native, Python, Android, iOS

Team backgrounds: Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Square, MIT, Stanford

More about us here:

Blog - https://medium.com/celohq

"Hello from Celo" - https://medium.com/celohq/hello-from-celo-34bf195cb99

"The Next Adjacent Possible" - https://medium.com/celohq/the-next-adjacent-possible-bed9a14...

marekoon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (January 2019)

Absolutely! We can apply for visas for both our US and Berlin offices.

marekoon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (January 2019)

Founded by serial entrepreneurs, Celo is a mobile-first stable cryptocurrency working to increase financial inclusion in developing markets. Using a novel address-based encryption algorithm, Celo lets you send crypto to phone numbers in a fully decentralized way. Additionally, Celo uses stable-value tokens pegged to fiat currencies, like the US Dollar, to minimize volatility. Anyone can participate in the network and earn Celo currency, even with just a budget Android smartphone.

Investors: a16z, Polychain, General Catalyst, Coinbase, Reid Hoffman and Jack Dorsey, among others.

Stack: Typescript, Solidity, Go, React Native, Python, Android, iOS

Team backgrounds: Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, MIT, Stanford

We tried to make applying fun: 'Mine' your application form to create an applicant blockchain at the bottom of our jobs page: https://celo.org/jobs

More about us here:

Blog - https://medium.com/celohq

"Hello from Celo" - https://medium.com/celohq/hello-from-celo-34bf195cb99

"The Next Adjacent Possible" - https://medium.com/celohq/the-next-adjacent-possible-bed9a14...