The Puzzle Comes Together — Milestone Update 2022
LUKSO Landing: Part 1 of a 3 Article Series
2022 was a year for building! Over the last few months, LUKSO has had a series of developmental breakthroughs and changes, bringing us closer to the moment we have all been waiting for. Throughout the life of this project, our team has been steadily focused on initiating a brand new network with revolutionary solutions to power the creator economy. LUKSO is not only a Blockchain, but a whole new set of groundbreaking standards, tools and applications that will transform this space, making it truly accessible for all. Not just for one app or protocol, but for everyone building on LUKSO and beyond.
We know things took longer than our initial estimation, but we can now see the finishing line in front of us, and we are excited to share that we are approaching the final milestones leading us to launch LUKSO mainnet.
Development Overview
LUKSO’s Testnets and the coming of “Robespierre”
L14
L14 (2019) was LUKSO’s first testnet that served as an initial place for building and testing. The first Universal Profiles were created on L14. To date, over 15k Universal Profiles have been created by brands, designers and users around the world.
In 2021, The Dematerialised launched its first NFT sales on L14 with brands like Karl Lagerfeld, Vogue, RTFKT, MCQ and many more. This was the very first time people could experience how a pure smart contract account could look and feel. L14 is still the network holding these assets today, and we will migrate them after the launch to LUKSO mainnet.
L15
L15 (2021) was built with the goal to connect the Execution chain to the Consensus chain with a system we called the LUKSO Orchestrator.
The L15 testnet was not long lasting. After 2 weeks running, the chain stalled due to missing fork choice rules on the side of the Execution chain. At that time, Ethereum achieved the goal in connecting the Execution chain to the Consensus chain as well, and we decided to go the pragmatic route and use Ethereum’s implementation instead.
L16
L16 (2022) testnet came after a few months of getting the Ethereum setup running as a Proof of Stake Network from (almost) the start. The L16 testnet is still running today, but as King Louis XVI was the last of the sun kings to dictate France, L16 is meant to die and be superseded by the actual testnet, currently dubbed “Robespierre”, that will run alongside LUKSO mainnet.
The Core of the Creator Economy: LUKSO Standard Proposals (LSPs)
One of the most significant pieces we have worked on over the last 2 years are the LUKSO Standard Proposals (LSPs). They are the essence of all the new possibilities. These new standards are revolutionary and will change how the world interacts with blockchain. We knew we needed to get the core standards right from the beginning to avoid any changes later that would require the consensus of all users of Universal Profiles and could lead to fragmentation in these standards and adoption.
Testing and auditing these standards has been a time consuming process, but we are happy to share that we have completed 3 audits so far, and are in the process of finalising 2 more (see details below).
We took a security-first approach before engaging with the auditors by reviewing and auditing our code internally. We also ran several tools and applied patches and improvements on several sections of the code base.
The Heart of the New Web3 User Experience: Universal Profiles
The State of Universal Profile Tools
To make the above standards usable, developer tools are needed. These tools are necessary for developers of dApps or interfaces to interact with these new standards easily. There are also tools that users need to be able to interact with these new standards, such as the Universal Profile Browser Extension, Transaction Relay Services — which will enable gas-less transactions, and an account recovery service.
Visit universalprofile.cloud to see profiles of other users and many more.
The chart below shows some of the larger pieces being built and their state, a more exhaustive list can be found in our documentation.
Universal Profile Browser Extension and Mobile App
The user experience with blockchain technology needs to change, and the Universal Profile Browser Extension and Mobile App will be all a creator or user will need to be able to onboard into Web3 seamlessly. The Universal Profile Browser Extension and Mobile App will be the main gateway and tool to interact with dApps, wallets and other web3 experiences. This tool will allow you to control your Universal Profile, and will be the main way to manage it.
The Universal Profile Browser Extension and Mobile App will address the most common barriers faced with adoption of blockchain technology today. They will come with a Transaction Relayer Service, which allows for gas-less transactions, and users will have the ability to recover their Universal Profiles through a default recovery service, or add any (social) recovery system they wish to use later.
Our team started an audit process with Least Authority in November for the Universal Profile Browser Extension and this audit is scheduled to end in January 2023. In the upcoming weeks, we will be focusing on finalising all initial screens and pieces necessary for it to be fully usable.
Remaining Steps
Swiss Foundation
We are currently in the process of setting up a Swiss foundation that will support the development of the LUKSO network and ecosystem. This foundation will be one of the entities that will support a dynamic and decentralised ecosystem, and thus ensure the long-term success of LUKSO. The foundation will propose a genesis block to our community in order to start the network.
In the upcoming weeks, we will be focusing on setting up the foundation and making it operational. For a brief overview on our progress towards the foundation, please see the diagram below.
General Mainnet Update and Staking
We are working on the last milestones to launch LUKSO mainnet. Currently, we are in the process of testing the Mainnet Start Procedure with internal networks and building out all of the tools that are required for the mainnet launch including the Validator Deposit Launchpad, Node Starting & Management tools, and the LYXe Migration.
To stake on LUKSO, one will need to run a node, generate the required validator keys and deposit the required amount of LYX to the deposit smart contract.
We are currently finalising the Validator Deposit Launchpad. This will be the tool for users to become a staking validator on LUKSO. The Node Starting & Management tools we are building will allow a user, developer, or staking service to run LUKSO nodes in an easy way.
Finally, the LYXe migration is the tool many will be waiting for when the Mainnet starts, as it will allow you to migrate your LYXe to LYX on the LUKSO Blockchain.
The finish line is just the beginning
LUKSO’s mainnet is around the corner, stay tuned for our mainnet update on January 22nd!
We want to take this moment to thank our amazing community for their endless support and contributions.
We look forward to 2023 — the year of LUKSO mainnet!
Happy holidays LUKSOfam, the future of web3 is about to begin. 🪄💥
