Looking back at our backlog, we can state that most of the goals set at the beginning of the sprint (August 27) have come to their logical conclusion before its end (September 9). These 14 days were full of interesting events and have laid the foundation for the next sprint. The backlog of Sprint 7 will soon be published, here we will focus on what’s been done in the last two weeks.
Technologies Development
There are several important steps we have made this sprint in the field of development. Mock objects — an emulation of several crucial components of the binary options platform — have been fully designed. We are switching efforts to the front-end aspect of Giant.Exchange. We are currently making the templates and graphics for traders. The authorization mechanism is also under active construction.
Now you are able to see the development process in real time! Here’s a little sneak peek of our work on Giant.Exchange (note that the final product will look very different):
The Giant blockchain developers have finished working on the Proof-of-Stake calculator which is now available in the Block Explorer. This Proof-of-Stake calculator will show your approximate stake reward wait time and even how much money you can make on staking. It is quite simple - just enter the number of Giant Coins you possess and the system will swiftly display the results based on the current block height, average block time, average PoS difficulty and current block reward schedule. There is no requirement to link your wallet with this service to use it.
And another good news: during the last days of the sprint, we have connected the JavaScript engine V8 to the wallet code. Now Giant team continues to work on the implementation of Giant smart contracts. The following tasks in this direction will change the transaction structure, adding fields to store the code of smart contracts, which will entail the refactoring of the transaction validation mechanism. Our developers have repeatedly stressed the importance of connection of V8 to Giant.Exchange in the past.
Design
The Giant website pages design and the technical task for Giant.Exchange interface makers have both demanded a lot of time this sprint. We have discovered that the Giant community wants any logo tweaks to actually improve the situation and reached a compromise: we used the font proposed by the winner of the contest on Discord together with the new logo we have made. The variant below has won in a vote of masternode owners. 
Business Contacts
The backlog of the recently-ended sprint has mentioned the importance of the promotion of Giant products on the market. The ongoing negotiations of Giant with the representatives of the crypto business have brought good results: we have reached a preliminary mutual partnership agreement with the Singaporean exchange called Cryptology. After some final clarifications about Giant blockchain specifications, we are to list Giant Coin on this platform (GIC/USD).
Communications have been established with Exmo, another cryptocurrency exchange. On Coinmarketcap rankings, this exchange is now 37th by the trade volume, neighboring the popular Poloniex (35th on the same list). In addition, we have received promising leads on the people experienced and popular enough to become Giant Advisors.
Educational Materials
As promised, we have prepared a material regarding the simultaneous launch of several masternodes on a single server - this has become possible thanks to the opportunities of IPv6.
Another article tells about the Giant Proof-of-Stake aspects. While this consensus algorithm is new, it already has several variations invented by independent teams. This algorithm description is strongly recommended to all who still have additional questions after our older essay on the PoS benefits in general.
The beta version of Giant.Exchange is coming soon on 1 October 2018. See Giant.Exchange Beta to learn what to expect and what may change in the full version.
Discord Community
On Discord, we have launched another chatbot telling about the latest price of Giant Coin in Bitcoin (GIC/BTC) and continue to communicate with the public on all the features of the project. If you have any questions about Giant, feel free to ask them in one of our chats.
All in all, the Giant.Exchange design and the programming of its interface have been the top priorities of this sprint and there were no sudden setbacks. The development team is focused on the minimum viable product (MVP) and on reinforcing the architecture of Giant.Exchange. The team has also assessed the first days of PoS - no errors which can threaten the system stability were found either.
Stay tuned for the backlog of the next sprint and more materials! Please let us know in the comments what aspect of Giant needs more coverage.
Damn guys, keep up this great work! This is one of my most interesting picks this year. #WeAreGiant