Last week the mandatory upgrade for the Oxen Service Node network was completed, it went off without a hitch, the primary patch in that release was properly enforcing the small contributor rules for Service Nodes, which is now complete! The Session team is continuing its efforts on theming, onboarding and an overhaul to the Settings menu. The Lokinet team has finished packaging Windows and Mac releases and final work is happening the the Lokinet GUI designs to make sure users correctly understand when Lokinet is on/off or in exit mode. 

Dev

Oxen Core

• Continue work on Oxen logging refactor

Session

Session Android

• Add leave open group button in conversation

• Use streams and collectors supported below API 24 in StaticEmojiPageModel

• Fix issue which was motification settings to be changed without user input 

• Fix blinded ID moderator checks in emoji reaction popup

Session iOS

• Ongoing work on settings menu and onboarding redesign

• Ongoing work on theming

• Standardise quoting behaviour

• Increase call connection time from 30 to 60 seconds

• Disable typing and message requests in open groups if no "write" permission

• Updated open groups to filter the mentions list based on blinding

Session Desktop

• Increase notification count maximum and update notification colour (Thanks to community contributor IanMacd)

• Remove ability to show recovery phrase after initial account creation (Thanks to community contributor IanMacd)

• Left align outgoing messages with incoming messages (Thanks to community contributor IanMacd)

• Retitle messages pane (Thanks to community contributor IanMacd)

• Add external link icon in settings menu

• Increase emoji reacts display width

• Disable typing and message requests on SOGS without write permissions 

• Integration test fixes

• Do not show nonbinded ID prefixes

Lokinet

• Final work to get everything working on Mac/Windows/Linux for upcoming release

Marketing

Hello everyone! Happy merge week! Obviously the Ethereum merge doesn’t have any direct influence on Oxen, but we’re always happy to welcome a new member to the PoS club. To celebrate one of the biggest things to happen in crypto for some time, we have been building content that talks about proof of stake, spruiks the Pulse system, and explaining why we’ve been long-term supporters of PoS. 

In line with our transition towards more short-form video content, we made some videos that were posted on TikTok and Reels. That’s only the beginning of a wider push towards short-form video content, which is where a lot of the organic growth and reach comes from in the modern social media landscape. 

We’re also testing out a new video format which you might be familiar with — ‘X explained at multiple different levels’. As you might expect, our debut for the format offers an explanation of Proof of Stake at three different levels. Wes went to a lot of effort to up the production value of this particular video, and it’s the most tracks he has ever had to handle on a video edit — you should be able to see the fruits of his hard work soon.  

The whole team has been hard at work to improve the onboarding experience for Session, including bolstering (or potentially re-designing) the way we communicate key concepts like the Session ID and the Recovery Phrase. This week Alex worked on some copy for these concepts which will be A/B tested in focus groups over the next couple of weeks to try and find the right approach for a wide audience.

We’re continuing to ramp up for our upcoming German campaign, this week Alex, Cam, and Wes teamed up on some of the ad creatives as well as some localisation work for the App Store and Play Store listings. 

Things have also been busy on the OPTF side of things, the Framed by OPTF newsletter was released, we did some prep for our involvement in the WEDF (including a tech-check on their streaming platform), and we also published the first article in the OPTF’s new series about cyber laws (covering proposed SIM registration laws in the Philippines). 

And before we finish — Cam also came through with this Session tweet gaining a lot of traction — it garnered over 12,000 impressions and 1,200 engagements at an impressive 10 per cent engagement rate.

See ya next week ✌️