Loom Network Update Q3 2024

Much has happened since our last update, so let’s start off with a brief rundown of recent events, and then dive into our plans for the rest of 2024 and beyond!

CryptoZombies Wins Grant in Optimism RetroPGF

The year started off with a bang for our CryptoZombies team, as CryptoZombies qualified for a grant in the 3rd round of the Optimism Retroactive Public Goods Funding initiative. This is the second year in a row that CryptoZombies has been awarded a RetroPGF grant in recognition of the contribution our coding school has made to the ever growing Ethereum ecosystem. These grants help to ensure that CryptoZombies continues to provide an accessible entry point into the ecosystem for prospective blockchain developers.

zkLoom Sepolia Testnet Launched

At the end of March we launched the zkLoom Sepolia testnet to replace our first public zkLoom testnet. The new and improved zkLoom Sepolia testnet has a number of advantages:

• Better out-of-the-box development experience — Sepolia is now the recommended Ethereum testnet for developers. Most well maintained Ethereum tooling and wallets should already be pre-configured to support it out of the box.
• Ease of access — There are many faucets available for developers to obtain ETH for the Sepolia testnet, and that’s all you’ll need to get started developing on the zkLoom Sepolia testnet. Just bridge across some Sepolia ETH to the zkLoom testnet and you’ll be able to send L2 transactions right away.
• Multi-protocol integration — Most L2s like Arbitrum, Optimism, and zkSync Era have already deployed testnets that are paired to Sepolia. You can now build dapps that operate across multiple protocols, and transfer tokens and messages between different L2 protocols via Sepolia.

Looking to build a new dapp? You should check out our new testnet! Test out deployment today by following these steps, and then continue on with the zkLoom Quick Start tutorial.

CryptoZombies Apocalypse Revealed

Since it’s inception the CryptoZombies coding school has taught over 500,000 people the basics of blockchain development. The school owes it’s success to the fun, accessible, and perhaps most importantly — hands-on, courses. We’ve been expanding the curriculum over the years to keep it fresh, but the format has largely remained the same.

This year we’ve decided to shake things up a bit, and dial up the fun, by building a blockchain-powered Play-to-Learn game! Set in the CryptoZombies universe — CryptoZombies Apocalypse will be a fully fledged game in which players will design and develop their own programmable weapons and defenses in order to hold back the zombie hordes as long as possible. We think CryptoZombies Apocalypse will train up a whole new generation of developers by encouraging people to write lots of code while having fun! Check out the original announcement for more details.

First CryptoZombies Polkadot Course Published

In May we published the first CryptoZombies course covering the Polkadot protocol, the aim of this course is to help developers get up to speed with the basics of the ink! smart contract programming language — by using it to build a simple NFT-based Squid game. This course was in the works for a while, and was created in collaboration with Parity Technologies, the creators of the Polkadot blockchain protocol.

The CryptoZombies coding school started off with a curriculum targeted towards the Ethereum ecosystem, however, we believe the blockchain community at large benefits from the existence of a multitude of protocols that both compete and integrate with each other in various ways. That’s why over the years we’ve expanded the CryptoZombies curriculum to cover other protocols. Feel free to reach out to us at hello@loomx.io if you have an idea for a new course!

Developer Experience Improvements

While the zkLoom Sepolia testnet is now live and operational, we still occasionally reset the chain state as we upgrade various systems. We’ve held off on launching a public block explorer until things settle down a bit… Fortunately, that shouldn’t take much longer, so we plan to launch the block explorer next month.

Hot on the heels of the block explorer, we’ll be launching the zkLoom Dashboard. The dashboard will provide a simple web UI for developers to perform some common on-chain tasks like bridging assets between the Sepolia and zkLoom testnets, and transferring assets between zkLoom accounts. Of course these tasks can already be performed via CLI tooling and scripts, but the web UI will make it a bit easier to get things done.

We’ll also continue to improve the developer documentation for the new testnet, please let us know if you have specific topics you’d like us to cover. Drop by our dev chat on Telegram if you have any queries or requests related to the testnet.

CryptoZombies Apocalypse Pre-Launch Events

Development on CryptoZombies Apocalypse is now underway. Pre-release versions of the game will run on the zkLoom Sepolia Testnet, while the final release of the game will run on the Basechain mainnet — after it’s migrated to the zkLoom protocol.

We’re aiming to get the first alpha release of the game to play-testers by the end of this year, with the beta release planned by the middle of next year. There will be a few community events happening over this period to get everyone excited about the game, and the first such event will be held next month!

If you don’t want to miss out on the exclusive rewards we’ll be handing out to our early supporters, then head over to the official game site and subscribe to the mailing list, and to be doubly sure you don’t miss any important updates follow CryptoZombiesHQ on X/Twitter.

Blob Transactions on zkLoom Sepolia

EIP-4844 went live on Ethereum’s Sepolia testnet in January this year, and then on the Ethereum mainnet in March. This long awaited upgrade made it possible for Ethereum L2s (e.g. Optimism) to submit L2 transaction and messaging data to Ethereum via blob transactions. Submitting data in blobs is considerably more cost effective compared to embedding it in the calldata of regular Ethereum transactions. This is mainly because pricing for blobs is determined by a separate Ethereum fee market, thus avoiding the highly competitive, and occasionally eye watering, pricing of the primary gas fee market.

We’ve now had a few months to observe the effects that EIP-4844 has had on transaction fees on both Ethereum and L2s, and by all accounts end-users have indeed benefited significantly from an overall reduction in fees. Unfortunately gas prices on the Sepolia testnet still frequently spike into the stratosphere, causing no end of frustration to developers.

The zkLoom protocol is already fully capable of utilizing the new blob transaction type, though this particular feature hasn’t been enabled yet on the zkLoom Sepolia testnet, we’ll be enabling it via an upgrade later this year.

Decentralized Proof Generation

Compared to the first public zkLoom testnet that we launched in June last year the zkLoom Sepolia testnet features a new and more efficient proof generation system — capable of running on less expensive hardware. This is an important step on the road to decentralization of the zkLoom protocol, as the reduced hardware requirements will eventually make it easier for a diverse set of third-party entities to play a part in the operation of zkLoom-based networks.

Work is still underway to allow multiple operators to participate in the proof generation system, which remains a prerequisite for the migration of the Basechain mainnet to the new zkLoom protocol. According to our current estimates most of the remaining work should be completed this year, so we’re fairly optimistic that we’ll be able to upgrade the zkLoom Sepolia testnet to a multi-operator configuration early next year.

Wrapping Up

TLDR; We’ve deployed a new public zkLoom testnet, and will soon be launching a new block explorer and dashboard to improve the developer experience. We’re also working on a new game — CryptoZombies Apocalypse, that will launch on our Basechain mainnet next year. Here’s the current roadmap for the next 12 months or so:

We’ll publish more details about the first CryptoZombies Apocalypse community event soon! In the meantime don’t forget to subscribe to the mailing list on the official game site, and follow CryptoZombiesHQ on X/Twitter.

Loom Network is building a Metaverse platform backed by an ecosystem of public blockchains to allow developers to create unique Metaverse experiences with blockchain-backed digital assets, virtual items and NFT-based privilege systems. A key part of this platform is our Basechain network — already live in production, audited, and battle-tested.

New to Loom? Start here.

Want to stake your LOOM tokens so you can earn rewards while helping secure Basechain? Find out how. You can also save a bunch in transactions fees by staking LOOM from Binance Smart Chain, more on that here.

Got experience running Linux servers, and interested in running a Basechain validator node? Reach out to us in our Telegram channel and we’ll tell you all about the current requirements.

Would you like to join us in building the core infrastructure of the blockchain-powered Metaverse? We’re always on the lookout for good Rust, Golang, Solidity, and Javascript/Typescript developers, so please email us at hiring@loomx.io if you’re interested.