April Update

Hey Noots! It's been a while since our last devblog post; here's what we've been working on:

• Whitepaper release
• Staking site improvements
• RPC Upgrades
• Graveyard Updates
• Lore Updates
• Artist in Residence

Whitepaper Release!

The Pesky Penguins whitepaper was completed and released at the end of March! There's a ton of great content in there, including our vision and mission statement. If you haven't already, go ahead and check it out!

https://whitepaper.pesky-penguins.com

Staking Site Improvements

In March, we implemented a number of improvements to help combat network instability.

Transactions will attempt to automatically resubmit for two minutes if the network doesn't accept them, and large staking operations will batch penguins into groups to facilitate submissions. We solved a number of issues around creating new staking accounts, and staked penguins are now sorted by how much money they've earned, making it easier to find pesky outliers with fat stacks!

RPC Upgrades

Earlier this month, we pushed up some changes to add oauth security headers to the GenesysGo nodes we rely on, which allows GG to shut out bad actors.

These changes are part of ongoing efforts of builders throughout the Solana ecosystem to improve network performance and capacity in the coming days and weeks. As we roll into 2022's Solana Summer, I think we'll start seeing the buttery-smooth Solana experience we took for granted in the Golden Age of Fall 2021.

Graveyard Updates

The Graveyard page was updated to better capture the scope of the damages that Garglon has wrought. We now have some quick stats at the top to quantify the number of Snowballs that have rolled, the total number of casualties, and the total amount spent on reducing the collection size. We've also organized Snowball data into a table, not only because it's easier to scan, but because the scope of damages is just too dang high. 🥲

Lore Updates

Those of you hanging out in Discord have been able to enjoy new lore updates! We've been fleshing out background stories for all members of The Decemvirate, and we'll be rolling out updates for the lore page on the website soon to better organize past and future lore events into Chapters and Biographies. Stay tuned for more lore updates; we're just getting started!

Artist in Residence

We're very pleased to announce that we have signed on an Artist in Residence; please welcome JUE to the team!

Jue is working on artwork for our branding, lore, and storytelling initiatives. The image at the top of this post is JUE's handiwork! We're very pleased to have his help, and we're looking forward to all the fun things we'll build together!

Going Forward

As Pesky Penguins continues to mature, we want to make sure that our branding evolves with it. Our investments in storytelling, artwork, and website upgrades are being made with our core mission in mind:

Drive adoption of the Solana ecosystem.

The dev team and the DAO leadership are in lock-step and meeting regularly, and we'll have some GREAT things to share with you in the coming weeks; stay tuned!

❤️ NOOT NOOT

--NFP