Earlier this week, Coil announced that its members get early access to Imgur Emerald, a tier that allows you to browse through the Imgur platform ad-free, earn trophies (like the ones I'm sporting in my header photo) and also to support Imgur. As an old-timer Imgur user I decided to give it a try and would like to share my thoughts.

https://twitter.com/Coil/status/1257739379033980930?s=20

My story as an Imgurian dates back to 2012, when I opened an account to host pictures online of some kitesurfing equipment I needed to sell at the time (the website where I needed to advertise it required a photo shared via URL ), and since then I've been kind of an on-and-off user not checking in too frequently. Now that I have rediscovered Imgur via Coil and checked out the website and app more in detail, I must say I have completely missed out on its great versatility and potential through the use of tags, and I will be checking in a lot more often.

The tags allow you to access a plethora of posts from memes, to GIFs, viral videos or ideas in a more focused and clean way.

Sneak Peek into Emerald

Just as I came across the announcement that as a Coil member I would be able to have a first look into Imgur Emerald, I went to their desktop website and connected my existing account to my Coil membership which was pretty easy to do.

In no-time I was browsing through hilarious memes ad-free, rediscovering Imgur. After some time getting lost in the depths of viral GIFs and memes (You could easily get lost hours in so much content!) I decided to check out the fun features my newly registered Emerald tier were all about.

The Avatars

The first thing I did was to change my Avatar into one of the Emerald exclusive ones. Now, I could show all of the exclusive avatars to you, but instead I'll let you discover these for yourself. As a teaser though, I will show you the one I picked. Meme fans of the world, rejoice 🤣:

My newfound Imgur identity. I hope I can change that lame point count by creating some cool memes 🧐.

Pro Tip: In order to be able to use the Emerald exclusive avatars, you have to make sure you have enabled your Beta user by accessing https://imgur.com/beta/enable. This will also earn you one of the trophies (Beta Tester).

The Trophies

“I hate trophies and badges” said no one ever! And actually trophies and medallions are a pretty nice feature in Imgur (and one that I hadn't seen until now). So once I knew that my Emerald status would earn me some trophies I decided to check them out (You can find these in the About section of your profile):

Connecting my Coil membership to my Imgur profile and signing up as a Beta Tester got me three trophies in one day!

https://media.giphy.com/media/hjeDVxBj6e7vi/giphy.gif

The Emerald Member trophy you sign by becoming a member, but the Emerald Founder one you can only get for a limited time if you activate your Imgur Emerald while it's in alpha. The Beta Tester trophy, you get as you enable your user as beta tester as explained above.

The Biggest Trophy

While I think the trophies and medallions you can earn by being a Coil Member in Imgur are pretty cool and are quite a lot of fun, I'd like to point out what I think is the biggest trophy of them all: The freedom of navigating through my favorite content on my terms.

If I had to pick a name for it, it would be perhaps Web-Monetization OG or Front-Row Seat to a new internet, one for which Imgur Emerald is a superb addition and constitutes one of the first signals of the birth of a new way of browsing the web.

Let's Connect

Are you posting stuff in Imgur? I'd like to check it out! Reach out to me on Twitter and let's join the party. My Imgur user is rarlop:

https://imgur.com/user/rarlop

Bottom Line

As a Coil Member, getting access to Imgur Emerald is much more than the member exclusive awards and the possibility of navigate through content ad-free in one more content platform. This is about seeing the vision of web monetization take shape. With around 300 million users, Imgur is giving the vision a leap forward.

Just like I remember how uploading my kitesurfing gear photos to Imgur in 2012 was a lifesaver to help me sell my gear back then, I can only imagine how I will remember my early days as an Imgur Emerald Founder another seven years from now. In the meantime, I'll be happy to support this vision through my Coil Membership. A token of appreciation from a returning long-lost Imgur OG.

Credit: All Screenshots taken from imgur.com for illustration purposes.

https://www.cinnamon.video/watch?v=313449569457276133

Last Friday, I was thrilled to join the Virtual XRP Community Meetup organized by @DiscordinCrypto. And although I didn't have to present anything like Wietse Wind, the first guest speaker of the evening did, I shared with him the challenge of attending the meetup with my headphones on just as my 10 month old son was peacefully snoozing right next to me 😅 (ICYMI, Wietse presented the latest on XUMM while rocking baby Quinn's crib. So much for multi-tasking!).

While the technical discussion in such events is always of interest, and for sure really exciting news were presented (I leave you with the suspense and invite you to watch the individual presentations to be uploaded in Cinammon), my idea for this XRPLORE special is to focus more on an equally important aspect that this type of event enables: Community Building.

Getting involved in community organized events is instrumental to maintaining a tight knit community, and to coordinate our efforts as these are great opportunities for us to hear first hand what the buidlers have identified as the next things that should happen, or the things we should help make happen. For example, my main takeaway from the event was something that Wietse mentioned: We need to help make XRP move instead of just hodling it. In other words, we should not be afraid to start using it for its intended purpose: Payments. Ever since, my mind has been running with ideas and I was even motivated to go and spend some zerps myself 😬. Anyway, let's hold that thought and come back later.

The Event

The meetup was announced on Twitter and although RSVPs were maxed out to its full 150 available slots, attendance to the event was actually around 50 pax, which in my opinion was a very good turnout for a first event but certainly I would like to see more of us join for the next ones.

The format of the event, held in Demio really fostered community interactions as the presenters held Q&A sessions answering questions directly emerging from the chats (By the way, the chat was a quite friendly and relaxed atmosphere, with everyone interested in contributing, in tune with the progress of the event).

The key objectives of the meetup, as presented in the slides were to foster engagement and learning within the XRP Community in the framework of the latest projects built on the XRPL, along with the possibility for XRP project founders to showcase their ideas and initiatives.

The meetup started sharp at 19:00 CET on May 1st and lasted a bit over two hours, as five guest speakers presented and took questions from the participants (There was also room for a short break and two giveaways).

Community Spirit: Helping Michael B Beat Cancer

Community meetups are also great to strengthen the community spirit and bring us closer together. The most noble gesture in this occasion came up when during the event, Michael B's fight against cancer was brought up in the slides, showing different ways to support him either via GoFundMe or XRP contributions to this wallet set up prior to the event for this purpose.

During the meetup, Sologenic pledged 500 SOLO to help Michael kick cancer:

Michael, know that the entire XRP Community is alongside with you in this fight. Stay strong!!

The Interview with DiscordinCrypto

@DiscordinCrypto, the host of the meetup was very kind to answer a few questions on the meetup, his opinion on such type of events and what we can expect in the next weeks.

RR- Hi Discord! First of all I'd like to thank you for organizing such an informative and well prepared event. Perhaps we can start off with you sharing with us how the idea of a virtual meetup was conceived?

DC- Hi Moncho. Thanks a lot for your questions and the positive feedback!

I planned for quite a while to host a physical meetup in Switzerland to target the German-speaking or even European XRP Community. Then Covid-19 hit and it was soon clear that such an event wouldn't be possible for the coming months. Then -as in business all meetings and events started to happen virtual- I had the idea to also virtualize this meeting, with the big advantage to target a potentially global audience.

Another triggering factor has been that over the recent months we “lost” many active members in the community, and there has been a kind of void since, where most online discussions evolved around price predictions instead of building an ecosystem and real-world applications.

Therefore the overall theme of this first meetup – and probably also the future ones – has been to both educate the community about the possibilities that the XRP Ledger offers but also highlight and showcase ongoing projects that already leverage these features.

RR- I think you are right on point on this. As a community, we need to bring back the discussion to what we can help build instead of just sitting waiting on how we can benefit from price action of XRP.

From the organizer's standpoint what were your conclusions from this first virtual meetup? Is there anything you specially liked and would keep or change for the next ones?

DC- What really amazed me was the positive feedback from the speakers that I have approached during the last weeks. Despite that, I haven't organized such an XRP-related meeting before and that I do not run a fancy YouTube channel or such, Wietse, Markus, Thomas, Jurgen, and Reza quickly signed-up as speakers and prepared relevant content for the community.

Another positive part has been a good vibe within the audience during the meetup. Everybody was in a good mood and really interested in what the speakers prepared. And we purely focused on a thriving ecosystem and not on price predictions.

What did not turn out so well was the rate of people actually showing up. We had 150 sign-ups but only 50 people attended the meetup live. That's kind of sad and I hope we will reach many more with the soon to be uploaded on-demand videos. The learning for me is to (1) push for more sign-ups in advance and (2) probably charge a small amount of money which will be used for a good cause but kind of forces people to only sign-up if they really plan to attend.

RR- Even though each of the presentations will be uploaded for on-demand viewing soon and these will allow the community to get up to speed, I am pretty sure these won't be as exciting as having attended live. It's like recording a really good football match to watch it later already knowing the score 😬. Nothing beats the real deal so for next time I'd like to see more community members joining.

By the way, I think charging a symbolic amount and raising funds for a good cause is a great idea.

Out of the participants, if I remember correctly from the survey at the start of the event, around 47% of the attendees of the meetup are Hodlers and not currently building on the XRPL or actively participating in the network. What would be a few words of advice towards us hodlers on how we can get involved and contribute?

DC- Actually, I was positively surprised regarding the rate of people in the audience that actively contribute to the ecosystem by developing on top of the XRPL or at least trying to educate themselves. Still, one of the largest challenges XRP is facing – also compared to other projects in the space like Ethereum, Tezos, or others – is the relatively small number of projects utilizing the XRP ledger. The number is now growing, especially since Xpring started but it is still not where I would want it to be.

One reason for this might be that too many people relied on Ripple bringing all the adoption for XRP to be a digital asset in high-demand but people have to be aware that Ripple is currently only focusing on a very specific use case (cross-border payments and remittances) and also a very specific target group (banks and remittance companies). There is so much more that can be built on top of the XRP Ledger, for example with the technically sound built-in DEX and this leads to the second reason: Many just don't know what the XRP Ledger offers and which use cases can be solved with the help of it.

Therefore I wanted to highlight projects like XUMM, XRP Toolkit, xrplorer, Sologenic, and XAGO.io – to give people an idea of what's possible and how well these applications are performing -also compared to applications running on slower, less scalable platforms.

RR- Personally I think this was a great line-up of projects bringing different perspectives and showcasing different features of the XRPL.

Do you have any scoops or sneak peek into what the next virtual meetup could be about?

DC- In my feedback form at the end of the meetup I actually asked the audience what they would be interested in and what content I should cover in future events. There is so much we would talk about but I broke it down to the following themes:

☑️ XRPL development and related projects

☑️ DLT in banking and finance
☑️ XRP and crypto-economics in general (analysis, trading, charting)
☑️ Exchanges and wallets

The feedback until now was to continue to focus on development happening on top of the XRPL but also the other themes generated some interest. In also thought about giving insights into the regional XRP and crypto adoption. For example, I found it very interesting what Jürgen had to report about adoption in Africa. So having people from all over the world reporting about the regional initiatives both private and governmental might be a great topic for one of the next meetups.

But everybody can approach me, who has an idea about an overarching theme, a specific session he or she wants to host, or if they want to see a special person giving a speech – I will happily try to make it happen!

RR- Thank you so much Discord, for such a detail insight on what was a really successful first virtual meetup (I hope the first of many). Personally, I learned a lot from the meetup and I would like to encourage the Community to seize the opportunity to attend on the next ones. As you can see, these events are really valuable not only to stay informed about the latest happenings in the XRPL but these also can bring opportunities where we can contribute to the growth of the ecosystem.

Header Photo by William White on Unsplash

One more month (no pun intended 😬) is now in the books. And although April was seemingly a quiet one for all the known reasons, a lot has been going on in the background of the One More Home XRP fundraiser to get ready to complete the $10,000 pledged investment in the framework of the projects enrollment in New Story's Architects Program.

One More Home goes XUMM!

Due to a recent turn of very exciting events which I need to keep as a surprise for the time being, the project now requires a reliable and secure, yet accesible access to many of the functionalities of the XRPL (Hint: For example escrows larger than 1000 XRP for the next 3 years, something that is not possible via the XRP Tip Bot.

To meet these needs, I couldn't think of a better set of tools than XUMM by XRPL Labs, in combination with Nixer's awesome platform Xumm.Community, so I proceeded to create a new XRPL account for One More Home powered by XUMM.

The new account, created via the XUMM app and activated on April 20th via the XRP Tip Bot with 100 XRP, will be used to manage the donations towards New Story Charity over the next 3 years, via a series of escrows. To do this, the funds will be eventually transferred from the XRP Tip Bot account.

The new One More Home XRPL address is: rNk42apzE1HgGWTYjUZZm5j2bkdRGKqFRy

By the way, I have already reaped the benefits of using XUMM.Community and managed to add the logo of One More Home to the wallet so it is now visible in explorers like Bithomp 😎:

Exciting times ahead! In the coming weeks I will be revealing more details about the new way of working for the project, aiming to showcase the many functionalities of the XRP Ledger to manage XRP donations.

One More Home in Figures

As every month, here are some interesting facts and figures around the progress of the One More Home campaign so far:

Micro-donations:

XRP via micro-donations and direct deposits:

XRP via ILP deposits (Coil streams and boosts):

Current XRP Balance Tip Bot: 52114.122891 XRP (US$11725.68)‬

Current XRP Balance XRPL Address:

Total XRP converted to USD:

USD via campaign page:

Total raised up to date worth

Which means, the goal of the project US$30000 is currently 50.57% funded.

The last couple of days, the whole crypto space has regained some of the lost ground in terms of valuation. This is also reflected on the numbers of the One More Home project, since the last XRP price pump has taken us back just over 50% funded status.

To close up this month's update, I want to thank each and every one of you for all your support, generosity and encouragement, as without it it would be impossible to go forward in these difficult times.

GIF by the one and only [@_JonnyLawrence](https://twitter.com/_JonnyLawrence)

Header Photo by New Story Charity

Today's edition of XRPLORE is a very special one, as it doesn't cover one of the XRPL projects per se, but it rather covers the latest about the community initiative that was created to support these:

In this post I don't intend to do a full write-up on the XRP Community Fund as the top writers of the XRP Community (See this post from Hodor) have already explained in great detail all the aspects of what is now the Community's registered non-profit organization. Instead, I'd like to help bring you up to speed on the latest state of the Fund by going over the current balance of the Fund's wallet, some exciting news on its latest donations and also by turning to one of its co-founders and Directors, Mr. H for a quick catch up.

But first, let's be reminded about the mission of the XRP Community Fund (from the official website):

The XRP Community Fund will be used to support the development of tools / apps / integrations / plugins that make it easier to use XRP for (consumer/small business) payments. We also hope to attract more developers to the community. Bounties will be available for developers working on tools requested over a longer period of time by the XRP Community.

Here is the latest list of bounties reflected on the Fund's website:

And don't forget you can check and add funding suggestions in the XRP Community Fund Canny.io page:

https://xrp-community-fund.canny.io/funding-suggestions?sort=top

A Glance at the Current Funding

After the amazing work done towards end of last year with the XRP Community Choice Awards, and strong support from the Community, the balance of the XRP Community Fund sits at an impressive 97593.86 XRP at the time of writing.

You can check out the wallet of the Fund (Link to Bithomp Explorer): rpEPpEr5ED6NzykYunBEJJoMdfjp1t3uf4

A Donation from David Schwartz: A Vote of Confidence

Among the donations received by the XRP Community Fund this month, there is one of particular relevance: A 30000 XRP donation sent by David Schwartz (Ripple CTO) to the Fund's XRPL address on April 1st.

There is no doubt that such a donation from one of the architects of the XRP Ledger is not only a generous contribution that will help fund different initiatives but is also a major endorsement to the XRP Community Fund and its team.

The Catch Up with Mr. H

Speaking of the team behind the XRP Community Fund, as mentioned, I had the opportunity to have an exchange with one of its co-founders and Directors, known as Mr.H.

RR- Hi Mr.H, thanks for the time to chat a bit about the XRP Community Fund. Can you walk us through what is happening around it?

MrH- Hi Moncho. It’s all coming together, the website is being built and we have our bylaws translated, now we are currently talking to various advisors. We have a lot of great ideas so we need to make sure we can execute them too, from a legal standpoint.

We started this adventure almost 2 years ago and we’re now placing the final bricks to make sure everything is set up perfectly!

RR- That's exciting! In the crypto space so many things can happen pretty fast. Have you had to rethink the original vision over these two years? or have you worked under the same baseline all along?

MrH- We’re still operating under the same baseline and same ideology. Originally the idea was to use the bounty funds we received to protect and to help grow the XRP ecosystem. I am very pleased with the current direction and the dedication of everyone, and humbled by all the help we’re getting from others to realize this.

RR- Speaking of help from others, you got a major endorsement from David Schwartz as he recently donated 30,000 XRP to the XRP Community Fund.

What does it mean for the XRP Community Fund to get such a vote of confidence from one of the XRPL Architects during these 'final bricks'?

MrH- Nice that you caught that 😀 David is awesome! As one of the most respected and valuable people in the XRP ecosystem, his personal support for our foundation in public means a lot to us!

Indeed, David is an awesome guy, and it is nice to see that he's got the back of the Developers in the Community.

The XRP Community Fund in Social Media

Following the XRP Community Fund in social media and helping raise awareness is a great way to support the effort. For example, did you know the XRP Community Fund is right here on Coil? You can check out their Coil profile and follow them if you are a subscriber here.

Also, don't forget to stay up to date checking out on the latest by following the XRP Community Fund on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/XRP_Fund

Photo by Sushobhan Badhai on Unsplash

If I told you that there is a local economy growing in the streets of the coastal village of one of the most beautiful beaches and best surf spots in El Salvador, where its locals are turning to Bitcoin (₿) to pay for things ranging from a haircut to their weekly groceries, would you believe me?

Well, you better! Enter Bitcoin Beach, a fascinating project started in late 2019 where the people from the village of El Zonte Beach leverage on Lightining Network to use Bitcoin in their daily lives.

When I came across its account on Twitter I immediately started following what they were up to, and was inspired by the fact that this is not a project to allow some hot-shot surfers to buy cold beer or pay their lodge with Bitcoin, but rather an initiative to validate the use case of Bitcoin as means of payment through well-thought philanthropic effort, aiming to boost economic inclusion for the unbanked.

Personally, I have been in El Zonte Beach in El Salvador quite a few times. Although the last time I was there in March last year, the project had not started yet, so I couldn't see it first hand (I would've loved to become a participant of this economy during my stay. Next time I am there, you can count on it).

Anyway, this amazing story has deeply inspired me to write a post for my INSPOtlight blog. For this, I reached out to them and had the pleasure to chat a bit (no pun intended) with Bitcoin Beach's founder Michael Peterson, who was kind enough to walk me through the initiative he started after moving to El Salvador from the US. As he explains:

Our project has set out to slowly grow a Bitcoin ecosystem in El Salvador in a way that truly improves lives. For the past 6 months, we have been using Bitcoin in the coastal village of El Zonte through a number of initiatives that all involve using BTC in real transactional ways.

The project has been divided mainly in two phases, where Phase 1 involved getting Bitcoin into the local community while simultaneously making sure there were local businesses where it could be spent.

Injecting the Sats

But how did enough Bitcoin to kick-start a local economy made it to the coast of El Salvador? Well the project scored a major win when it was backed by an anonymous Bitcoin early adopter, who wanted to see Bitcoin's stated purpose come to fruition benefiting those who need it the most:

Backed by the donation of an anonymous early Bitcoin adopter, we set out to prove that Bitcoin could have the biggest impact on the lives of those society often ignores.

Ever since, thousands of millions of Satoshis have been injected into the community in different ways, including youth work programs to help improve the local environment, like cleaning El Zonte River, which runs by the village into the Pacific.

https://twitter.com/Bitcoinbeach/status/1174328900375273478?s=20

Proof of how dynamic this local economy is becoming is that the young team in charge of cleaning the river, used their Bitcoin to buy pupusas (El Salvador's delicious national dish) without exchanging it to fiat prior:

https://twitter.com/Bitcoinbeach/status/1174330306926645249?s=20

Other ways Bitcoin has been injected to this project include:

✳️ Educational grants to students staying in school,

✳️ BTC grants for university students

✳️ Universal Cash (BTC) Transfers to the elderly and poorest families in the community

✳️ Community construction projects (contractor, workers, and supplies all paid in BTC.)

According to Michael, another key motivation inherent to the project is the possibility of knock out some stereotypes and growing assumptions about the use of Bitcoin as means of payment:

Bitcoin Beach decided to challenge the growing assumptions that Bitcoin would never be used for daily transactions like buying a cup of coffee, and the assumption that Bitcoin would be used more by the wealthy than those looking to get to the first rung of the economic ladder.

By empowering the population of a coastal village in El Salvador, Bitcoin Beach has set out to create a sustainable Bitcoin economic ecosystem, where the majority are unbanked and the local businesses don't meet the requirements that would enable them to accept credit cards.

Empowering the Community

Parallel to injecting Bitcoin to the local economy of El Zonte, Bitcoin Beach, as per Michael, the project also involves educating its population on how to handle Bitcoin, while promoting its adoption by the small businesses in the village:

As we injected the BTC into the community we also taught local businesses how to accept Bitcoin and helped educate them on the advantages (and drawbacks) of accepting Bitcoin. We currently have several stores, 2 restaurants, 2 hardware stores, a hair and nail salon, and even 2 local water directives accepting Bitcoin.

After around 6 months in place, with approximately 5 BTC in circulation, the project has now 150+ users who have set up their Bitcoin wallets and are using Lightning Network “for everything from buying a $1 bag of tortillas to paying for a $3 haircut.”

I could go on and continue to write about all the exciting things about this project I have found out, but let's have a look at some of these first hand directly from their Twitter timeline instead:

https://twitter.com/Bitcoinbeach/status/1236142047138111488?s=20

A key part of the project involves training the people of El Zonte on how to pay and accept payments in Bitcoin.

https://twitter.com/Bitcoinbeach/status/1224813452851666944?s=20

The first BTC ATM has been installed in El Zonte

https://twitter.com/Bitcoinbeach/status/1231442588168785920?s=20

A Bitcoin Training Center/Homework center for the kids in the community being built with materials and contractor being paid in ₿.

https://twitter.com/Bitcoinbeach/status/1248394124664827904?s=20

https://twitter.com/Bitcoinbeach/status/1253405065613840385?s=20

Bitcoin Beach on how Bitcoin is helping the most vulnerable in a coastal village in El Salvador to get through the economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

As you can see, this project is going places and it is incredibly dynamic. To check out on all what Bitcoin Beach is up to, I really recommend you to follow their Twitter account:

https://twitter.com/Bitcoinbeach/status/1173987360259940352?s=20

Insights from the Founder

As I've mentioned several times here in my blog, I think Twitter is a wonderful place. It didn't just made me come across this project but also allowed me to reach out to

RR- Can you walk us through behind your vision for Bitcoin Beach?

MP – From the early days, Bitcoin promised to allow us to bank the unbanked, and return power back to the individual from governments and financial companies. In the decade since the Bitcoin whitepaper was released, Bitcoin has remained full of potential but lacking concrete examples of how it would actually ever achieve these purposes.

Bitcoin has remained primarily the domain of speculators, with disappointingly little real world transactional use. Sadly, we have not seen Bitcoin become a vehicle for the poor and unbanked to utilize in order to better their lives.

So we decided to challenge the growing assumptions that Bitcoin would never be used for daily transactions like buying a cup of coffee, and the assumption that Bitcoin would be used more by the wealthy than those looking to get to the first rung of the economic ladder.

RR- That's amazing! You have given us great insight on phase 1 of the project. Could you hint what phase 2 will bring for the project?

MP- Yes. We are now working on phase 2, which will focus on helping locals receive international remittances from their relatives in the US.

RR- Most of us who get in crypto have a notion of technology once we stumble upon but here we are talking adoption by unbanked individuals.

**In the coastal village you may have come across part of the population that are not familiar with this type of technology at all. How difficult has it been to bring someone from zero to hero in tech aspects, to be able of handling BTC ?
**

MP- Initially we started thinking that training and explaining Bitcoin had to come first. We quickly realized that we had it backwards. First thing is to get someone transacting in BTC. Once this happens they take the initiative to start learning more about it.

We help with this but we try to not focus too much on it. We believe that BTC will follow in footsteps of lots of other technology in that with wide adoption the technical aspects will be made more user friendly.

We are currently using Wallet of Satoshi which is amazingly easy to use. We are waiting for Ln_Stryke app to exit Beta to roll out a program encouraging family to use BTC to send remittances.

RR- This is outstanding. I really wish this project much success and now I can't wait to go to El Zonte and buy myself some pupusas and pay for them in Bitcoin.

RR- I can't close this article without asking: why El Zonte?

MP- I bought a house in El Zonte 15 years ago and we have lived here for the past 6 years. We were already working the community so it was natural place to start.

Living in El Zonte, Michael? Really?...well that makes me a bit (more like a lot) jealous...

https://media.giphy.com/media/GnFBKXaMJ1wYM/giphy.gif

Header photo by me.

Header photo by Linda Xu on Unsplash

If you're a data junkie like me, you will most likely have already welcomed @XRPL_Charts to your Twitter timeline and will have explored their beautiful coil-enabled website. If that's not the case, don't worry, I got you covered in this edition of XRPLORE.

XRPL Charts, leverages on a range of different endpoints from Ripple’s API allowing its users to generate different visualizations on XRP burned in fees, ledger closings, account creations and more. Its sleek website gives the user a very intuitive and straight-forward experience, exactly what the doctor ordered for mainstream adoption.

Burn Data 🔥

In XRPL Charts you can visualize different time frames (also how much XRP is burned per ledger closed), values and amount of data points around the XRP being burned in transaction fees that will never come back.

Among the values you can put into charts are the average, total or maximum XRP burned per each given time frame (day or hour) or ledger closed. The spike you see in this chart was someone (most likely accidentally) burning thousands of XRP in a transaction.

Another really cool feature about the burn data is on the lower side of the page, giving you the chance to calculate how long will the remaining XRP last depending on the amount of XRP burned per day in fees (depending on the XRP burned value you enter):

I did a quick check with 1 XRP per day and this would give XRP a “lifespan” of 273,947,883 Years 🤯

Ledger Data 📒

The ledger closure data displayed in XRPL charts allows you to visualize the average time taken (in seconds) for each XRP Ledger to close over the selected period (Either hours, days or weeks) and also allows you to change the amount of data points to visualize.

Account Data 💳

This chart allows you to easily visualize how many new XRP addresses have been created either per week, day or hour showing different amounts of data points. This is really useful to keep the finger in the pulse of the XRP ecosystem growth.

XRPL Charts on Twitter #️⃣

To take your daily XRP data fix to the next level don't forget to follow XRPL Charts on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/XRPL_Charts

In line with the website content, XRPL Charts Twitter account posts visually appealing daily stats on ledger closures, new accounts created and burned XRP in fees:

https://twitter.com/XRPL_Charts/status/1250936670335221771?s=20

Having been released in January this year, XRPL Charts is a relatively new project from one of the most prolific devs from the community, XRP Tap, but it has quickly proven to be a powerhouse of XRPL data that any XRP enthusiast should closely follow.

Photo by Isaac Smith on Unsplash

Dear Readers,

The most common denominator I have found among XRPL developers is that they work really hard not only to build awesome applications but also to help the XRP ecosystem grow.

Most of these projects are web monetized via Coil, so if you subscribe to Coil, you have the opportunity to support these hard-working devs and their work.

And don't forget, Coil subscribers also get access to exclusive content in the Coil platform. Today, I have included an exclusive interview with Tap, the creator of the XRP Tap, the XRP Tipper and XRPL Charts.

Wishing that you stay safe and stay healthy,

Sincerely,

Moncho

Header Photo by Lisheng Chang on Unsplash