EDG Developer Update: Dec 18th - Jan 1st, 2022

Status updates

• Councilmember Remz continues to work on the ERUP5 upgrade. With a few prerequisites which Remz has done. This is to update our substrate repo and update our frontier repo. This would re-enable the ORML pallet for Edgeware which is for NFTs "Tentatively". As well, bring us to a more recent version of vanilla substrate.

This upgrades to a recent substrate version (commit 50ab759f7a3194173ce8da0937ec2d888dee10e0) and (tentatively) re-enables the previous ORML pallets.
Before considering merging this PR, it is necessary that:
1/ both this substrate PR and this frontier PR are reviewed and merged first
2/ the code is pulled and built with the upgraded substrate and frontier to generate a new Cargo.lock to add to the PR.

• Community Validator JelliedOwl and Jaco sourced out the types issue for not being able to stake EDG on https://polkadot.js.org/apps/ It is still possible to stake EDG with https://www.edgeware.app.

• Cohort Session 6: We're looking for ambitious learners that would like to grow with Edgeware, and become a core part of our community. The Edgeware cohort program is a new program that will educate individuals on the structure and operations of Edgeware, Substrate, and blockchain technology, and provide the skills necessary to contribute to the evolution of Edgeware's ecosystem. The  next one is January 5th, 11:00 AM EST in the Voice-Builders voice channel on the Edgeware discord. This will be the last session of Round 1. Round 2 will start after.
• You can listen to the fifth cohort session here!
• During the Sub0 conference, the Edgeware agency took notes! You can check them out here. You can read through and get the main points and the slides of each presentation. It is not fully completed we will add to it over time as we finish watching the intermediate and advanced presentations.

Ecosystem Headlines

Substrate

• Our friends at Supercolony are planning a virtual WASM conference. No official date yet but will probably be around the end of February

Community & Ecosystem

• If you missed the Polkadot Parachain Launch Party, you can watch a recording here.
• The Substrate Stackexchange area has received enough commitments to be created. The launch is expected soon.
• Jonas Gehrlein, a researcher at Web3 Foundation, has published an analysis of the first five parachain auctions on Polkadot.
• Polkadot: Behind the Code, Episode 3: The Ecosystem has been released.

Core

• Contracts pallet is getting storage deposits. This is an alternative to storage rent which was removed months ago.
• The preimage pallet has been added to the runtimes of Parity-run chains, making it possible for other pallets to reference the hash of a previously stored preimage.
• Polkadot-JS Apps UI version X is out, finally fixing the style bug in the asset dropdown.