SF Newsletter - May Issue
The dip, Staking Rewards on the 'Beach, Internet Computer Launch, Parachains and much more!
Welcome to our May issue!
The past few weeks have been intense, to say the least. If this is your first cycle, welcome to the crypto roller coaster! Markets have mostly recovered from the meltdown, but one thing remains the same: an incredible drive to build.
While the volatility of digital assets will most likely accompany us for a while - unlike traditional finance, Markets are open around the clock and are accessible for everyone with an internet connection - we believe that this cycle is different than the ones before:
For one, many big names from the 'traditional' world are either voicing a strong interest to enter the space or have done so already - see the likes of Carl Icahn, Bill Ackman, Kevin O'Leary, Ray Dalio, Marc Cuban, etc.
The same holds for big institutions such as BlackRock, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, Amazon, Facebook, etc. - the list goes on.
Furthermore, in this cycle, we have stablecoins. Hence people do not need to convert back to FIAT or traditional products that offer close to zero yields, but can instead stay within the ecosystem and put their funds to work there.
While DeFi remains the largest driver for adoption, we see people waking up to the concept of NFTs, DAOs, and token economics in general. The years ahead will be fascinating, so get comfy in your front-row seat and enjoy the ride!
Remember, speculation and investing are only a tiny part of the next evolution of the internet, there is so much more to discover - so let's jump right into our NL!
Composition of USD amount staked at Staking Facilities
The composition of staked assets denominated in their USD value remains largely the same. Solana continues to make up the largest chunk. It’s interesting to note that the share of Ethereum more than doubled since our last issue. With the ‘Merge’ coming closer each day, this comes as no surprise - more token holders are waking up to the concept of productive assets and are willing to lock up their tokens in order to obtain yield.
Percentage staked across each network
The share of staked tokens (in % of the Circulating Supply) across the whole network for each of our portfolio projects continues to remain largely unchanged as well. For Polkadot and Kusama we can see a slight decrease. Especially for Polkadot, this could be due to the recent Polkadot upgrade, which drastically lowered the minimum amount of DOT one needs to stake in order to obtain rewards. Since this threshold now resides at 1 DOT (the ‘Existential Deposit’), some nominators might have decided to undelegate some of their tokens in order to have increased liquidity for their funds.
Nominal vs. Real APY of each network
This chart compares the Nominal & Real APYs across our portfolio networks as well as how these figures have changed since the last issue. For most of the networks, we provide you with a precise reward calculator, which you find on the subpage of the respective network on our homepage. Please note that the calculator is not available on mobile devices.
Hello, Internet Computer
Dfinity, a smart contract platform often dubbed ‘The Internet Computer’, hosted their Genesis Launch event for their Beta Mainnet, Mercury, on May 7th. The team behind the project is set out to build a scalable, decentralized, cloud-like computation platform that supports data storage and community-driven governance through locking $ICP tokens. These launched on May 10th, the same day on which the Dfinity Foundation open-sourced its’ source code, which put an end to the ‘black box’ narrative that has evolved around Dfinity in the months leading up to Mercury. To learn more about the utility and mechanics underpinning $ICP as well as how token holders can earn voting rewards through locking their $ICO into ‘Neurons’, check out this blog post.
We are ramping up our Graph Indexer operations
We ramped up our indexer operations to support three additional subgraphs next to PoolTogether, namely Audius, mStable Protocol, as well as RAI Mainnet. Audius is a music streaming dApp that was able to attract popular artists such as Deadmaus and recorded more than 4 million monthly users in March. mStable is a permissionless protocol for unifying, securing, and governing tokenized assets and already integrated with e.g. Aave and Compound. RAI is a non-pegged, algorithmic stable asset-backed by ETH and powered by autonomous controllers. Furthermore, we are upgrading our infrastructure to the new indexer release (0.15). This will bring Scalar, a scalable microtransaction solution for fast and cheap GRT query fees to the decentralized mainnet. Word on the block is that curation is just around the corner now. Additionally and in case you were active in The Graph ecosystem early on, you might be able to claim a custom, limited NFT that shows your engagement! Check out this blog post for more.
Parachains are coming & Polkadot Hiccup
With the release of Polkadot version 0.9 by Parity Technologies, the final phase of Polkadots’ phased launch has started. The update introduces parachain functionality so that these can be released through slot auctions or crowdloans, ultimately marking the end of the Relay Chains' sole existence in Polkadots/Kusamas multichain universe. As usual, everything will be tested out in the open on Kusama, and a full external audit, which is currently ongoing, needs to be completed before one can expect parachains on Polkadot. In this post, Gavin Wood shares more insights on the launch of Parachains. If you want to learn more about Parachains, check out this post by Gilbert Bassey.
On May 24th, just two days before the first anniversary of Polkadots' genesis block, the networks' state transition function crashed due to an out-of-memory error just before the start of the new era. This caused the network to stop producing blocks for roughly 70 minutes. We tip our hats to the core team and validator community for the quick turnaround and resolution. As a nominator, no action is required. Check out the postmortem in case you would like to learn more about this incident.
Hydra & Basilisk - Liquidity for everyone!
HydraDX recently announced another step towards their mission of becoming the 'liquidity infrastructure of the future', namely the launch of Basilisk and its' native BSX token. Basilisk is a liquidity bootstrapping protocol that will live as a parachain on Kusama, Polkadots' canary network in order to cater to the long tail of assets. The roadmap for Basilisk is quite packed: Liquidity-Bootstrapping Pools (LBPs), auctions, bonding curves, AMMs, and even an NFT marketplace.
Track your Solana Staking Rewards on the Beach
If you are a delegator on Solanas’ Mainnet Beta, you can now track your staking rewards on Solana Beach. To do so, simply look up your Stake Account and visit the ‘Stake Rewards’ tab at the bottom of your Stake Account Details page. There you find your $SOL-denominated rewards on a per-epoch basis as well as the post-reward balance of your Stake Account and the percentage change that came through your rewards. This feature should prove to be quite useful for your next tax return because remember, nothing in life is certain except death and taxes.
Five Million in sight for Beacon Chain
Almost 5 Million ETH are now being staked on Eth2's Beacon Chain. Lido, an Ethereum 2.0 liquid staking solution, is used for a good chunk of that. At the time of writing, 422,678 ETH are staked through Lido. These are bullish signs for Ethereum 2.0, which is characterized, amongst other things, by its' transition from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake. This will significantly reduce the energy consumption of the overall Ethereum network, which, in times of climate change and blockchain FUD is drastically needed. In this blog post, Carl Beekhuizen from the Ethereum Foundation shares more insights on this topic.
Skale it up
Skale was able to record a 50x increase in $SKL token holders in just over four weeks. The amount of token holders now stands at one million and proves demand for the Skale multichain network, which is set out to help Ethereum dApps scale. This comes as no surprise as the recent NFT craze together with continued DeFi adoption has pushed Ethereum to its' limits, which was reflected in extremely high gas fees. After the successful Denali upgrade on which we reported in our last issue, we congratulate the team and overall community on yet another milestone.
Cosmos Interchain DeFi Ecosystem is heating up
The Gravity DEX testnet competition, which we wrote about in our last issue has commenced - congratulations to the winners and the ~ 21000 people who participated! Around $900 million in trading volume were generated during the competition, wow! Gravity DEX is expected to come to mainnet as early as July, ultimately propelling Cosmos' interchain DeFi ecosystem to the next level.
Tezos on the Racing Tracks
Tezos and Red Bull Racing Honda join forces for a technical partnership. Tezos was selected as the go-to blockchain for the launch of the Formula One racing teams' NFTs. According to Red Bulls' official press release, both Tezos and RB Racing Honda are looking for a long-term partnership.
Crypto Asset Conference presentation
Our CEO and co-founder, Wolfgang shared his take on the emerging narrative and growth of productive assets during his presentation at the 'Crypto Asset Conference'. The conference is hosted by the Frankfurt School Blockchain Center and takes place online from May 31st through June 2nd. Next to his presentation on Monday, May 31st, Wolfgang also participated in a panel about DeFi adoption and challenges on the same day.
Podcast with our Infrastructure Lead Gary
Gary, our Infrastructure lead sat together with the GRTiQ team for a podcast interview. During the sixty-minute conversation, a lot of ground was covered. Amongst other things, Gary and Nick talked about indexing & delegating in the face of subgraph migration as well as The Graph's essential role in a multichain future. GRTiQ proved once more that it constitutes an invaluable resource for The Graph community - thanks for having us!
Interview with our Marketing & Communications Lead Robert
In a recent interview for DezentralizedFinance.com, our Marketing & Communications lead, Robert sat together with Julian Richter from Tangany to talk about staking, our investment thesis and daily business, as well as the overall blockchain industry and the web 3 space. For anyone looking to get to know us better, the interview between Julian and Robert is a great resource to get started.
Blockchain & Sustainability
In the aftermath of some Tweets by Elon Musks & Tesla, the debate about blockchains and alleged lack of environmental sustainability was reignited. While one still finds quite a bit of FUD around this debate, it is a debate worth having, especially given the fact that mainstream media and blockchain fudders still often fail to make a distinction between Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake blockchains. In her blog post, Christina takes a look at the environmental issues surrounding PoW, how PoS dramatically reduces the carbon footprint of the blockchains powered by it and lays out how Cosmos fits into all of this. The blog post makes a great read and gets rid of some common misconceptions - definitely worth your time!
Binance & FTX Founders on the UpOnly podcast
Binance founder, Changpeng Zhao aka. CZ, and FTX founder, Sam Bankman-Fried aka. SBF recently joined 'Cobie' & 'Ledger', hosts of the UpOnly podcast for an episode. Both shared their paths to crypto and what drove them to build what later became two of the most successful centralized exchanges. Furthermore, the four talked about regulations, innovating in the dynamic blockchain sector, Ethereums' future, and much, much more. This highly anticipated episode provides listeners insights into the mindset and perspective of two of the most successful entrepreneurs and visionaries of the industry.
Interesting take on the exodus of Chinese' Miners:
https://blockworks.co/china-mining-exodus-seen-as-positive-for-bitcoin/
Terraform Labs hires experienced General Manager for Anchor protocol:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/matt-cantieri-crypto-lead-microsofts-130000695.html?guccounter=1
'Hopium Diaries - Dystopian Dreams' by rektTV: