Welcome to our August issue,
We hope your summer was as sizzling and eventful as crypto has been (again). After our brief summer siesta, we're back, and there's so much to share.
Ethereum saw Curve facing an unexpected hack, while PayPal decided to make waves with its new stablecoin. Larry Fink (Blackrock CEO) has been testing the waters as CMO for blockchain tech, and it seems like the SEC is having quite the season, with back-to-back courtroom tussles against both Ripple and Grayscale. Did you catch wind of the new entrant, Worldcoin? And the chatter around the watercooler is that this might just be the year for spot ETFs, if the analysts are to be believed.
Phew! And that's just scratching the surface. We've got a medley of company and network updates to dive into. So, let's jump right in and unravel this edition together - great to be back!
Open positions - Join Our Team
At Staking Facilities, we're not just a team - we're a collective of passionate individuals from around the globe. While Munich is our home base, our mission isn’t tied to a city. We're united by a shared vision of a web3-powered, inclusive, and secure economic system. Are you ready to make an impact? We're actively looking for a Systems Engineer (Node Operations & Infrastructure), Head of Marketing, Chief Financial Officer, and a keen Working Student for People & Operations. Explore the roles further on our careers page.
TUM Blockchain Conference – Tech Meets Tradition
On Sept 22-23, 2023, we’re delighted to be supporting the TUM Blockchain Conference at the renowned Deutsche Museum in Munich. The event boasts +1000 attendees, +50 enlightening talks, and +8 hands-on workshops. And as a Munich bonus? Oktoberfest serves as a fun side event. Imagine this: deep-dive tech discussions by day, followed by hearty Oktoberfest cheers in the evening. From Blockchain novices to pros, there's something tailored for everyone. Dive in, whether you're looking to learn, network, or simply be a part of web3’s burgeoning future. Secure your spot here and join us in shaping the decentralized tomorrow.
Staking Summit - A Stakeholder’s Delight
Join us on the 10th and 11th of November as we sponsor the Staking Summit in Istanbul. This two-day event, expertly curated by Staking Rewards, is where stakeholders (pun absolutely intended) of the ever-growing PoS industry come together to advance the overall ecosystem. Eager to meet some real-life faces from the Staking Facilities team? We’ll be there in full swing. Ensure you're part of the conversation by securing your tickets here. Come stop by our little booth if you’re around, we’d love to chat!
ETH Munich - Pack Mas!
A massive shoutout to PretzlDAO for orchestrating the inaugural ETH Munich Hackathon. As sponsors, we were genuinely impressed with the talent that converged to explore and enhance Ethereum. Quick numbers: 340 hacker applications, 192 attendees, and 142 dedicated hackers who powered through a marathon 39-hour session, all vying for over 20k USD in prizes. The outcome? 25 noteworthy project submissions. Curious about who came out on top? Dive into the winners' thread here.
ReFi Hackathon Wrap-Up
We recently sponsored the ReFi Hackathon and the results were truly inspiring. Over 10 projects showcased their vision on regenerative finance. Cheers to our co-hosts - Superteam DE, Sunrise Stake, Crypto Girls Club, HerDAO, Soonami, FemmeCapital, and FoundanceDAO. This event was more than just coding, bringing non-developers closer to the web3 space. For a deeper dive, explore the projects here. Thank you to everyone who participated.
Solana Berlin Hacker House - Aftermath
A few of our Staking Facilities team members recently soaked in the vibrant atmosphere at the Solana Berlin Hacker House. Our CEO and co-founder, Julius, shared the stage with representatives from Circle, Ultimate Finance, and Membrane Finance, discussing the nuances of 'MiCA and the travel rule'. The consensus? Thoughtfully crafted and evolving EU regulations could act as a positive catalyst for our sector. Meanwhile, Robert joined forces with Alex from Marinade for enriching lunch-and-learn sessions on staking intricacies. A huge shoutout to Superteam Germany and the Solana Foundation for hosting such a remarkable gathering. And echoing Kash's sentiment: the talent pool in Berlin? It's astonishingly stellar!
We made sure to hook up many folks from the Solana ecosystem with our fleece, missed us or the swag? No worries, we’ll be back in Berlin for the Build Station in October!
A New Dawn for Solana Beach
We're incredibly proud of our journey with Solana Beach, having nurtured it from its inception as Solanas’ premier community tool, evolving it from a basic dashboard to its first explorer, all with the commendable support from VGNG. Through the highs and lows of the Solana ecosystem, we've persevered. Now, we're elated to announce that the future of Solana Beach is in the capable hands of our trusted partners at Crypto Tech Munich. They’ve been Solana stalwarts from the beginning and share our passion for its health and growth. Under their guidance, Solana Beach will transform into a program explorer, presenting invaluable perspectives on Solana's products and programs.
Ethereum
Reasons to celebrate. Hats off to Ethereum for turning eight on July 31st! It feels like just yesterday when it took its first steps, and now it's already commanding a staking ratio of 20%. But the festivities don't stop there. The cherry on top? Visa has introduced an experimental solution to sidestep those pesky gas fees. Imagine seamlessly using your credit card to handle gas costs – talk about smoothing the path for web2 users hopping aboard the Ethereum train! Time sure flies when you're revolutionizing the digital realm.
Rated. According to Rated.Network, we're leading the pack as Ethereum's top-performing Node Operator, boasting an all-time APR of 5.18%. Not just that, our setup shines bright with one of the most diverse client portfolios in the node operator landscape. Shoutout to the team at Rated - your dedication in providing valuable insights for Ethereum stakers is highly appreciated.
Layered. Coinbase has unveiled its shiny new Ethereum Layer 2 solution, Base. Crafted atop the Optimism stack, Base aims to deliver Ethereum's renowned security and scalability, but at pocket-friendly costs. Touting four foundational pillars: Ethereum's security, Coinbase's empowerment, affordability, and open-source accessibility, it aspires to actualize the "Superchain" vision for enhanced L2 ecosystem interoperability. For a deeper dive, Miles Deutscher's thread is gold. As Coinbase jumps into the "L2 wars" (a term borrowed from this enlightening thread), they join a formidable lineup including Polygon, Arbitrum, and Optimism, with more contenders like ZkSync, Starknet, and Scroll on the horizon.
Solana
Shopify 🤝 Solana. In a notable stride for crypto adoption, Shopify has integrated Solana Pay, enabling instant USDC payments at a mere cost of $0.00025 per transaction—a stark contrast to the 1.5% to 3.5% fees seen with traditional credit cards. With Shopify driving roughly 10% of U.S. e-commerce and amassing a $444B global economic footprint, this alliance not only amplifies the relevance of blockchain in e-commerce but also offers merchants swift settlement times and cost-effective fees. Additionally, this partnership paves the way for Shopify merchants to establish innovative NFT loyalty schemes, potentially enticing users with discounts for using Solana Pay.
EVM 🤝 Solana. In a significant move to bridge Ethereum and Solana ecosystems, Solana Labs has unveiled Solang—a Solidity compiler tailored for the Solana network. Unlike an EVM, Solang allows developers proficient in Ethereum's Solidity language to seamlessly craft "programs" (Solana's term for smart contracts) on the Solana blockchain, benefiting from its speed and cost-efficiency. While Solana’s original smart contracts are written in Rust or C, Solang ushers in compatibility with Solidity 0.8 and Solana's native functionalities. This development doesn't replace the previously launched Neon EVM but complements it, as emphasized by Austin Federa from Solana Labs who likened the relationship between Solang and Neon EVM to running Windows programs natively on Mac.
Up(time) only. In July, the Solana Foundation unveiled their latest Solana Network Performance report, highlighting notable improvements in the network's performance during H1 2023. Key metrics, such as uptime and the ratio of non-voting-to-voting transactions, have showcased positive trends. Following critical upgrades like the stake-weighted Quality of Service (QoS), the network enjoyed a stellar 100% uptime in Q2 2023. These enhancements have paved the way for faster block production times and increased transaction speeds. Dive deeper into these advancements in the detailed thread here.
Tendermint
StableSeptember. Tendermint's TOKI collaborates with Progmat to introduce a yen-pegged stablecoin to the Cosmos ecosystem, in line with Japan's stablecoin laws. Separately, Noble plans to bring Circle-issued USDC natively to Cosmos. This partnership will harness advanced IBC technology for fluid asset transfers. With the yen stablecoin set for a spring 2024 launch and TOKI's mainnet in Q4 2023, the stablecoin scene is set for significant transformation.
Gateway. At Osmoscon 2023, the Wormhole Foundation introduced Gateway, an application-specific blockchain developed using the Cosmos SDK. It connects 23+ blockchains to the interchain through a unified IBC liquidity router, offering seamless asset transfers like Solana's $SOL token to chains like Osmosis, without extra bridging fees. Gateway aims to boost security, elevate transparency, and enable free flow across multiple blockchains within the Cosmos ecosystem.
Substrate
Outage. On September 1st, an unexpected dispute in a finalized block triggered Kusama parachains' automated safety protocols, momentarily halting their block inclusion. This led to an immediate offline period for the Kusama parachains. In response, Referendum #263 was promptly initiated and voted upon. While many parachains resumed operations seamlessly, a few needed client updates or database reversions. A post-mortem is to be expected in the coming days, Simon from our team made sure the DotSama community was well informed and updated during the incident vis this thread.
From 0 to 1. On July 19th, we witnessed the landmark release of Parity’s Polkadot node v1.0.0, marking a symbolic transition for the network's development landscape. While the 1.0 era was characterized by the realization of the 2016 whitepaper, primarily driven by engineers from a singular entity, the dawn of the 2.0 era beckons a more decentralized approach. Now, a diverse collective of developers will design and build transparently, in a dance of competition and collaboration. Notably, Parity has shifted from maintaining the codebases for Polkadot or Kusama runtimes, transferring their contents to a Fellowship repository. As always, decisions regarding code upgrades remain under OpenGov's purview.
Decoded. Was full of exciting announcements In a notable collaboration, Polkadot parachain KILT joins hands with Deloitte and the emerging ecosystem team, Polimec. Together, they're pioneering reusable KYC credentials, streamlining digital asset fundraising globally. The credentials, exclusively shared with Deloitte, present a more efficient and secure KYC alternative. Elsewhere in the industry, aviation gets a tech boost. David Palmer from Vodafone shared plans to integrate sim cards, linked to the Aventus chain, into airline cargo tracking pods. This integration aims to combat the annual loss of 10% of these pods, which costs the aviation sector $400 million. On top of this, the renowned blockchain security firm OpenZeppelin is gearing up to delve into the Polkadot realm. Their plans include kickstarting dialogues with the Polkadot community and leveraging their vast experience from the EVM-compatible chains, setting the stage for dedicated full-time support to Polkadot-based projects.
Network quick takes
The elephant in the room. We're thrilled to announce our collaboration with Elli Wallet, enhancing their wallet experience through our white-labeled validator infrastructure. For those keen on staking SUI tokens, we've crafted a straightforward guide using the Elli Wallet browser extension, available here. It's an exciting time for the Sui ecosystem, which has recently celebrated a milestone of 5 million active accounts. With the Elli Wallet's impressive UX, navigating this rapidly growing ecosystem becomes even more seamless. Give it a try and feel free to leave a lil’ delegation with us - as always, highly apprciated.
Aptos 🤝 Microsoft. Aptos Labs has teamed up with Microsoft to amplify web3 adoption through Azures’ OpenAI Service. The collaboration introduces Aptos Assistant, a tool bridging web2 to web3, making blockchain navigation natural for users. Additionally, the partnership will explore asset tokenization and Central Bank Digital Currencies while Aptos runs validator nodes on Azure for enhanced security.
Community call the shots. The Graph Foundation has unveiled the Chain Integration Process (CIP), a community-led initiative for incorporating new chains into The Graph Network. Building on the momentum from the Migration Infrastructure Providers program, the CIP allows for rapid multi-chain growth, letting anyone suggest chains for integration and prioritizing those already backed by the hosted service. This strengthens The Graph's web3 presence, enabling indexers to diversify and profit from an expanded chain variety. For a deeper dive, visit their official blog post.
Automatic. Wormhole has introduced Automatic Relayers, simplifying cross-chain communications for developers. Traditionally, "Relayers" have been pivotal off-chain processes facilitating message delivery across blockchains. These were essential for transferring verified actions from one chain to another. With Automatic Relayers, developers can now seamlessly bridge chains using a decentralized network, eliminating the need for custom relayer setups. This results in reduced operational costs, streamlined integration, and allows developers to concentrate solely on their dapp's business logic. Learn more from their official blog post.