This is not financial advice.
During the last two weeks Loom Network illustrated average level of social activity. Firstly, any LOOM token holder can now become a delegator and support validators in securing PlasmaChain. PlasmaChain is a high-performance DPoS sidechain that acts as a bridge between multiple chains and Ethereum. Loom network is still in the process of onboarding more validators each month in order to further decentralize the network. Also PlasmaChain saw its first major decentralized hard fork — a huge milestone for the chain. All validators voted and agreed to activate the new functionality, which enables Mobile Wallets and signing on PlasmaChain using Ethereum private keys. Further updates will follow!
Development
PlasmaChain staking for delegators is officially live. That means any LOOM token holder can now become a delegator and support validators in securing PlasmaChain.
PlasmaChain is a high-performance DPoS sidechain that acts as a bridge between multiple chains and Ethereum. It supports EVM smart contracts, offers sub-second confirmation times and high-throughput, and Plasma Cash for securing on-chain assets.
How Do I Become a Delegator?
- Create an account
- Generate a private key
- Log in to your MetaMask wallet
- Deposit LOOM tokens onto PlasmaChain
- Choose validators to stake with
What’s in it for Me?
PlasmaChain will have a pool of guaranteed block rewards that are released over time to the network validators. Up to 20% of Loom Network’s remaining token pool will be paid out to validators each year.
Validators can choose to share a portion of their rewards back to their delegators each reward cycle — but this is entirely up to the validator.
The percentage each validator shares will be published on the PlasmaChain Dashboard to ensure full transparency, so that users can make informed decisions prior to staking.
For additional info on validator rewards, see this post on validator and staking economics.
PlasmaChain Validators
PlasmaChain validators need to run and maintain the server hardware that processes all the transactions on PlasmaChain. They ensure the health, performance, and security of the network — a huge responsibility.
Here is the current list of the best ones to do that:
Mythos is a crypto investment company, investing directly in cryptoassets as well as running infrastructure services to operate the underlying crypto networks themselves.
Bitfish is quickly emerging as one of the leading staking projects in the space. They are creating a platform that will let anyone stake their crypto, contribute to network security, and share in the value being created.
MW Partners / Stake.With.Us is a Singapore-based investment firm focusing exclusively on early stage blockchain-enabled projects — and they’re one of the best in the game.
Chorus One is building core infrastructure for blockchain protocols, supporting open access and permissionless innovation. They operate validating nodes and staking services for Proof-of-Stake blockchain networks.
ShipChain is using the blockchain to disrupt the transport and logistics industry and become the underlying platform for every logistics transaction — maritime, air, truck, and rail.
Block Matrix is developing quality applications and infrastructure that interact with blockchain technologies, while delivering the right mix of performance, scale, stability and security.
For further reading on validators, staking, lock-up periods, and other details, check out the PlasmaChain Delegators FAQ section.
You can stake your LOOM tokens by using MetaMask or Ledger via staking dashboard. Besides support for mobile wallets on the latest release of the dashboard is now available. Cobo Wallet will add native LOOM staking to their mobile wallet. So you can now deposit and delegate LOOM tokens to your favorite validator directly from your Cobo Wallet.
Over 142 million LOOM have been staked by the community — and that’s JUST with desktop support.
Since Cobo Wallet is spearheading the ability to delegate LOOM directly from its mobile wallet — this is going to make token delegation even simpler, and more accessible to more people.
If you are curious about the benefits of staking your LOOM tokens — please take a look at the economics of staking first. Then you need to learn how to stake your LOOM tokens.
Social encounters
What is Crypto Changing in Gaming?
Crypto will bring some unique capabilities to the gaming market — expand it, change the gaming experience, and potentially shift the power away from corporations to gamers themselves.
Expanding the Market: without crypto, gaming business models require some type of bank account. In the first world, this means that children rely on their parents’ credit cards. Elsewhere, billions of people are unable to access large parts of the gaming economy because they are unbanked. With crypto, this barrier could be removed and, as we will see, different monetization models for game developers may emerge that weren’t feasible before.
True Digital Asset Ownership: instead of owning a representation of an asset on some game company’s centralized database, crypto brings real digital ownership with assets residing on a decentralized blockchain. In Loom’s case, game assets (NFTs) are issued on Ethereum before they move to the network’s PlasmaChain, where they can be traded and interact with games on the Loom Network at scale, all while assuring owners stay in control of their digital assets via Plasma Cash.
Native In-Game Economies: crypto allows already existing in-game economies to unleash their true potential. Instead of buying assets, skins, etc. from a centralized game operator who controls them, real cryptographically secured digital assets can now easily be issued by game developers and traded directly between players, an early example of this is Loom’s Zombie Battleground Marketplace.
Power to the Gamers
Exchangeable digital assets that exist independently of a game are key regarding the disruptive potential of crypto in gaming. They blur the border between games. It is now possible to carry over assets from one game to another. Ultimately, this enables a shift in business models for game developers by fully transferring monetization to in-game assets. This is essentially a natural extension of the huge trend of free-to-play games with in-game purchases (e.g. Fortnite) towards a fully integrated decentralized game economy.
The core realization in this context is that gamers decide which assets they value and in which world they want to use them. With digital assets residing outside of a centralized game studios database, you can imagine having different versions of a game (multiverse) with gamers deciding in which of these game versions (universe) they want to use their assets. This is akin to forking in the blockchain context, and ultimately it shifts the decision power to gamers themselves. Now, game developers are competing on whose assets gamers value.
Gamers extending and modifying (“modding”) their favorite games has always been a huge part of the gaming industry. An example is the “World Editor” in Warcraft III that brought “Defense of the Ancients” to life, adopted by two of the currently most popular games, Dota 2 and League of Legends. In this new paradigm, the original creators of the “Defense of the Ancients” map could have monetized their in-game assets, a powerful business model that crypto uniquely enables.
See also:
Upcoming events:
Ethereal Summit returns to New York City, continuing upon a strong tradition of championing those building the infrastructure and applications driving blockchain tech, in addition to providing a platform for the cultural and humanistic aspects of the decentralization movement.
May 10–11, 2019
159 Pioneer Street
Red Hook, Brooklyn
Finance
The staking ecosystem has grown tremendously over the past few months. Earning yield from Proof-of-Stake based protocols seems to be the hottest trend at the moment. Metrics such as Total Locked Value (Fiat value of total tokens staked), Staking Change Rate (Difference in token staked on a day to day basis), Average Delegator Timelock (To determine distribution of delegation timelock), etc., have been developed as benchmarks to determine the robustness of a staking network.
Loom Network: more than 140 Million Loom tokens staked.
A total of 15/21 validator slots taken.
The amount of staked Loom tokens inch upwards everyday. As of now, approximately 18% of the circulating supply and 14% of the total supply are staked to secure the network.
Staking is also now enabled on Cobowallet, allowing you to stake Loom tokens on the go. Support for Trustwallet, Imtoken and Trezor should be coming real soon.
Loom Network integrates with top 100 ERC20 (including STABLECOINs) as well as Cosmos, EOS and TRON.
Implementing support for top 6 major stablecoins (USDC, TUSD, DAI, PAX, GUSD, EURS) will eliminate volatility and is everything lightning network wants to achieve. The problems that remain unsolved would be i) seamless fiat-on/off ramps, and ii) ideas to simplify UI/UX for transferring ERC20 tokens without ETH. The first people to solve these problems in a compliant manner will accrue users, and value, on an unprecedented scale.
Roadmap
- An updated version of the roadmap coming soon
Partnerships and team members
No updates
Rumours
No updates
Social media metrics
The charts above illustrate an increase in the number of Twitter followers and Reddit subscribers. In general, Loom Network foundation experiences average level of social activity.
The graph above shows the dynamics of changes in the number of Loom Network Twitter followers. The information is taken from Coingecko.com.
