Welcome to our monthly API3 DAO newsletter, where we bring you the most recent project updates, developments, and achievements from our growing community.
This month we have exciting news — managed dAPIs are in their final stages of testing before they go live on the API3 Market. With managed dAPIs, we are about to accomplish a long-standing vision for API3 — being able to provide fully transparent, secure, and efficient data feeds, without having to rely on third-party intermediaries. These data feeds will be accessible to anyone through the API3 Market across a dozen blockchain networks. This is a significant milestone and we applaud all of the work our teams have put in to bring us to this threshold.
Next, we share some of the highlights from our ecosystem growth and development over the past month. Along with new partnerships and Twitter Spaces with some of the leading chains, we share a talk on OEV-Share from ETHPrague that is sure to inspire optimism in the potential of first-party oracles to transform the Web3 economy by boosting DeFi protocol performance.
Finally, in the What’s New and Governance section, we’ll keep you informed on the most recent developer guides, thought pieces, and governance proposals. By staying up-to-date on the latest developments, our community can continue to thrive and work together to build the future of API3 DAO.
Community Highlights
Welcoming our Newest API Providers to the API3 Alliance
This past month, we’ve onboarded some of the leading Web2 and Web3 API providers to the API3 Alliance. As the largest association of API providers in Web3, the API3 Alliance is dedicated to connecting real-world data directly to smart contracts straight from the data source.
These new providers further our commitment to first-party oracle architecture, which is integral to managed dAPIs. By using Airnode, real-time market data is served directly on-chain by the owner of the API, increasing flexibility in deployment and configuration, and ensuring data ownership.
Airnode enables these providers to publish data feeds to any on-chain dApp, completely eliminating the need for intermediaries. This first-party approach allows access to high-quality data directly from the source, fostering a transparent and decentralized oracle solution.
We are thrilled to welcome Coinpaprika, dxFeed, IEX Cloud, Finage, Finnhub, Kaiko, NCFX, Nodary, Twelve Data, and TraderMade. Each of them will use Airnode to serve real-world data directly to smart contracts on-chain.
OEV-Share Talk at ETHPrague
dAPI team lead Ugur Mersinlioglu presented the vision for how dApps can harness the power of OEV-Share to boost protocol performance at ETHPrague this past month. Ugur pointed out that most oracle solutions and dApps are largely unaware of OEV-related losses, or if they are OEV-aware they aren’t trying to significantly reduce value loss to third parties.
API3 is currently pioneering a solution with a specialized Oracle Flow Auction (OFA) design to capture OEV. The OFA functions by having oracle nodes update based on mempool deviation, auctioning off transactions upon user request, similar to pull oracles. This design maintains data feed security guarantees while allowing value that the oracle oracle flow auction generates to be auctioned off and captured.
The talk concluded with the potential of OEV-Share to dramatically enhance the performance, reliability, and sustainability of dApps. OEV-Share presents a promising path for boosting protocol performance, benefiting users, developers, and the broader DeFi ecosystem.
Watch the full talk:
The API3 QRNG Oracle Service Continues to Expand Reach of Web3
The API3 QRNG oracle service continues to see strong ecosystem adoption and growth and will soon cross over 250k total fulfillments in the next few weeks. QRNG is currently available to developers on 20 networks, giving projects access to a public good for DeFi dApps, NFTs, GameFi, and more. Visit the public QRNG dashboard for up-to-date usage and trends at monitor.api3.org.
Ecosystem Highlights
Mean Finance Utilizes dAPIs to Increase Variety of Token Listings
Mean Finance is a Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA) protocol that incentivizes diversification and simplifies users investment journey into the future of finance. By leveraging API3 data feeds Mean Finance will be able to expand their token selection while also ensuring secure, accurate, and sustainable sources of price data.
dAPIs are Empowering Payment Contracts on Moonbeam
We sat down with the builders at Moonbeam to discuss the potential of using dAPIs in payments contracts. Ecosystem Lead Ben Carvill gave an insightful talk on how API3 data feeds work and Vansh Wassan gave an in-depth demos on how dAPIs can be used in a real-world application.
Arbitrum Twitter Spaces on First-Party Oracles and OEV
API3 sat down with Arbitrum to talk about first-party oracles, API3 data feeds, and the opportunity to capture OEV to increase protocol performance.
Listen to the recording of the full talk.
Automate funding of multiple Self-Funded dAPIs with Gelato
In this guide, you’ll learn how to use Gelato Automate to fund multiple dAPI sponsor wallets. This is useful if you have multiple dAPIs that you want to use in your smart contract. Instead of manually funding each dAPI at regular intervals, you can use Gelato to automate the process.
Read Gelato’s Developer tutorial for a step-by-step guide to the implementation:
USDC Paymaster Tutorial with API3 dAPIs
In this zkSync tutorial, we explore zkSync Era’s native account abstraction implementation, which introduces programming primitives to smart contract applications. This tutorial primarily focuses on creating a custom paymaster, an entity that covers transaction costs, which allows users to pay fees using a mockUSDC ERC20 token. This process offers a more streamlined, efficient approach for handling transactions, ultimately promoting improved trustworthiness and efficiency within the blockchain ecosystem.
What’s New
dAPI Team June 2023 Report
The dAPI Team is edging closer to the completion of the Phase 2 launch of managed dAPIs. The majority of the milestones for this phase have already been achieved or are on the brink of completion. As a result, their focus for the next few weeks will be heavily centered around rigorous testing before managed dAPIs go live on the API3 Market.
The dAPI team is also on the lookout for talented developers to help us scale further. Blockchain expertise is not a necessity — they welcome developers from traditional backgrounds, be it FE, BE, or FS. If you are interested in joining our mission, please send your profile to jobs@api3.org. Let’s build the future of dAPIs together.
Defi Oracles broken
API3 Research Lead Doge_bull introduced OEV-Share, a novel Order Flow auction (OFA) designed by API3 as a way to capture Oracle Extractable Value (OEV). The article explains the reasons why existing OFAs are inadequate and how OEV-Share provides an oracle-specific solution. It also discusses the benefits of OEV auctions for DeFi protocols, including potential savings for users, improved borrowing experiences, and the opportunity to attract more liquidity, all of which could fuel a positive cycle for lending protocols.
Build Your Own On-chain Roulette Game with API3’s QRNG Oracle Service
This comprehensive developers tutorial by Vansh Wassan provides a step-by-step guide for how to build a Solidity-coded roulette game powered by the public good API3 QRNG oracle service. With this tutorial you will be fully equipped to explore the frontier of blockchain gaming, where quantum unpredictability becomes the standard for fair online games of chance.
Connecting the Dots: Blockchain and a Web of Decentralized Applications
In this issue of Connecting the Dots, Marcus decodes core concepts and principles of blockchain technology, how DApps and smart contracts sparked the growth of DeFi, and the role of oracles in bringing real world data on-chain.
Using automations to manage self-funded dAPIs
In this tutorial, Billy talks you through how to use Gelato’s smart contract automation to ensure your self-funded dAPIs remain topped up.
Governance
API3 to use ARB Tokens to Subsidise Self-Funded and Managed dAPIs on Arbitrum
API3 recently received 75k ARB tokens from Arbitrum as part of their airdrop to eligible DAOs. This proposal aims to use these tokens to fund self-funded data feeds and their subsequent upgrades to managed dAPIs on Arbitrum. The tokens will be transferred to a joint multisig wallet, controlled by members from the BD and Ecosystem subteams. The tokens will be converted to ETH and used to fund various feeds. The proposal also includes a process to prioritize which feeds will be funded based on operational costs and expected users. While this is just a signal proposal, if passed, the dAPI team will initiate the transfer.
Understanding and Improving the Governance Participation in API3 DAO
DeepDAO is proposing a data-driven approach to improve voter participation within the API3 DAO. They aim to segment $API3 token holders based on interest and activity patterns to inform more effective onboarding strategies. The strategy involves studying governance activity across various DAOs, identifying key areas of interest, and introducing initiatives that align with these interests to boost engagement. Their deliverables will include a comprehensive report analyzing API3 DAO’s governance participants and a report detailing $API3 token holders’ category interests. The ultimate goal is to use these insights to foster a more vibrant, engaged community. DeepDAO requests a total of $15,000 in funding, to be distributed across two milestones.
API3 Ecosystem Proposal Cycle #4
The Ecosystem Proposal Team reflects on their journey and outlines the team’s plans for the future. After working across several aspects of the DAO, the team now focuses on improving the developer experience and ecosystem growth, having already made significant strides in developing essential content and organizing informative workshops. The recent launch of self-funded dAPIs has been well-received, especially in the Polygon zkEVM ecosystem. Their focus for the next cycle includes expanding dAPI tutorials in partner documentation, working to enhance developer experience, participating in future hackathons, and strengthening relationships with network partners. The team also intends to support API3’s general marketing efforts, working on establishing a brand collateral kit and onboarding a marketing manager to introduce proactive campaigns.
Call to Action
- Follow us on Twitter.
- Join us on Discord and catch up on our monthly Community Call on July 24th. Stay up-to-date on the launch of managed dAPIs, recent governance proposals, and participate in our Q&A.
- Join us on our first data provider Twitter Spaces on July 18th to get to know the API providers in the API3 ecosystem.
