Dec 31, 2021
Here’s looking at you, 2021
The end of the year is a time where many look back on their goals, celebrate their achievements, and reflect on what they would consider a win in the past 12 months. To say it’s been quite the year for Automata Network is an understatement.
Read on as we recap the 2021 moments that moved the team.
We made real-world strides towards Web3
Act 3 of the Internet may be the most dynamic and polarising one yet. On one hand, cryptography unlocks a new wave of possibilities: economic freedom, self-sovereignty, true ownership. And yet, its limitations are also embedded within its own creation with transparent and traceable interactions on the blockchain. That’s also part of the reason why we launched mev.tax as a free service for the public to detect front-running.
This year, we are very proud to have inked 16 partnerships with leading projects to address new challenges in our evolving industry. Beside introducing off-chain governance to protocols including Polkadot parachains such as Moonbeam Network and Astar Network, Polygon and Avalanche with Witness, we have also embarked on fair NFT launch auctions with Conveyor, as MEV continues to erode trust even in the metaverse.
We delivered our technical vision
We launched Automata Network with a simple mission — to advocate and articulate a fair-minded Web3. That goal has not changed since we made our hello-world introduction on the Polkadot Decoded mainstage. It wasn’t only about introducing ContextFree, our Canary Network, or the Automata Mainnet, but how we approached our network launch with thought and care. The response to the Canary Games, an incentivized competition, was extraordinary, with more than 450 nodes showing up and taking part in our Node Championships.
This year, we became an alumni of Berkeley Blockchain Xcelerator, and also had the privilege to join Rust Foundation as a Silver Member. Excitingly, we have also completed our first milestone under the prestigious Substrate Builders Program. To round it off, Automata has emerged as a category winner in the recent Asia Pacific Polkadot Hackathon.
We built a committed, global ecosystem
For a blockchain project to succeed is never a matter of chance. We are taking conscious steps to propel the space forward and establish Automata as the go-to privacy middleware platform for Web3. This year, we introduced our USD$20 million Ecosystem Incentive Program, and partnered with Polygon, one of the most active blockchain ecosystems today, to announce the Polygon Track. It was a pleasure to introduce XATA, an Automata ecosystem project, as one of the first projects selected.
Besides welcoming our inaugural batch of Automata Ambassadors, we were also kept busy with more than 8 local communities set up on the ground. We have been supported by so many of you on our social platforms, crossing the 160K mark on Twitter, over 10K on Blockfolio, and more than 6K strong on our newsletter. In fact, our campaign with CoinMarketCap reigned with over 3.7 million people participating in the airdrop, making it the most popular in 2021.
We are present and looking ahead
2021 was a defining year, but we are only scratching the surface of what’s to come. 2022 is almost upon us, and we’ve got big plans.
Get ready.
