Greetings to all Loom lovers and followers! Have you noticed that the project hits a home run? Loom’s PlasmaChain has recently integrated with Binance Chain, which means users can now easily deposit and withdraw BNB between Binance Chain and Loom. Check out the guide written by the team which walks through the basics of building a simple web app that lets users deposit and withdraw BNB between Binance Testnet and Loom Testnet. For those who are a little behind of times, Loom’s PlasmaChain was also integrated with web3 providers Portis and Fortmatic, and with TRON, which means TRON developers can directly interact with all dApps built on PlasmaChain. That lets developers build dApps without extensions or downloads! Read about Loom plans to integrate BTC, TRON, and others into a Multichain DeFi ecosystem in their recent blog post. And check out their synopsis of the current DeFi space with Maker DAO, Uniswap, Dharma, Compound, and dYdX. A few days ago, Defiprime listed Loom Network. As for the social side, the team wasn’t very active during these two weeks. However, Loom CEO Matthew Campbell was speaking at the Blockchain Gamer & Pocket Gamer Connects event in Hong Kong. The room was so full and the audience was trully fascinated! Developers have been working exceedingly hard these weeks so many updates on ecosystem appeared. Alice app, first DeFi project on Loom, has officially released on Play Store and App Store. Experimental hosted tournament sponsored by OpenSea. Neon District redefines ‘Early Access’. Axie Infinity highlighted in Bloomberg Business and featured in Wizard of dApps podcast. The Loom community keeps growing. There is a constant slight grows in the number of token holders and subscribers of Loom social media channels. Stay tuned for Loom updates in the coming weeks!
Development
Github metrics:
Developer activity (from Coinlib.io):
The early preview of Loom’s Binance Chain integration:
Loom’s PlasmaChain has recently integrated with Binance Chain, which means users can now easily deposit and withdraw BNB between Binance Chain and Loom.
This guide walks you through the basics of building a simple web app that lets users deposit and withdraw BNB between Binance Testnet and Loom Testnet.
#Getting Started
The first thing we would want to do is to import a few things:
import {
Client, LocalAddress, CryptoUtils, LoomProvider, Address, createDefaultTxMiddleware
} from 'loom-js'
import BN from 'bn.js'
import Web3 from 'web3'
import bnbToken from '../../truffle/build/contracts/BNBToken.json'
import { BinanceTransferGateway } from 'loom-js/dist/contracts'
import bech32 from 'bech32'Next, they instantiate the client and configure the default middleware:
_createClient () {
this.privateKey = this._getPrivateKey()
this.publicKey = CryptoUtils.publicKeyFromPrivateKey(this.privateKey)
const writeUrl = 'wss://extdev-plasma-us1.dappchains.com/websocket'
const readUrl = 'wss://extdev-plasma-us1.dappchains.com/queryws'
const networkId = 'extdev-plasma-us1'
this.client = new Client(networkId, writeUrl, readUrl)
this.client.on('error', msg => {
console.error('Error connecting to extdev.', msg)
})
this.client.txMiddleware = createDefaultTxMiddleware(this.client, this.privateKey)
}#Instantiating the BNB Coin Contract
On Loom, your BNB get automatically deposited to pre-deployed contract. Let’s instantiate it using something like this:
_getLoomBNBContract () {
const bnbCoinAddress = '0x9ab4e22d56c0c4f7d494442714c82a605d2f28e0'
this.loomBNBContract = new this.web3.eth.Contract(bnbToken.abi, bnbCoinAddress)
}#The Loom Transfer Gateway Smart Contract
To withdraw BNB from Extdev to Binance Chain, we’ll need to instantiate the Binance Transfer Gateway smart contract:
async _getLoomBNBTransferGatewayContract () {
this.loomBNBGateway = await BinanceTransferGateway.createAsync(
this.client,
Address.fromString('extdev-plasma-us1:' + this.loomUserAddress)
)
}#Deposit BNB
You can easily deposit BNB from Binance. First, you will need to create a wallet by following the instructions from this page. Next, head over to the testnet faucet to add testnet funds to your account.
Now, your can transfer some BNB to the Extdev hot wallet address: tbnb1gc7azhlup5a34t8us84x6d0fluw57deuf47q9w. There’s something you must pay attention to: copy Extdev address and paste it into the memo field. The demo will generate a private key for you and compute the extdev address:
Just follow the instructions and you’re set.
#Withdraw BNB
To withdraw BNB, you should basically follow classic approve and transfer flow:
- Approve the Transfer Gateway to take the token:
await this.loomBNBContract.methods.approve(loomBNBTransferGatewayAddress, amountInt + fee).send({ from: this.loomUserAddress })2. Withdraw using something like this:
await this.loomBNBGateway.withdrawTokenAsync(new BN(amountInt - fee, 10), bnbTokenAddress, recipient)#Refreshing the BNB Balance
To automatically refresh the BNB balance, we’re listening to events like so:
async _filterEvents () {
this.loomBNBContract.events.Transfer({ filter: { address: this.loomUserAddress } }, async (err, event) => {
if (err) console.error('Error on event', err)
this._refreshBalance()
})
}Next, we refresh the balance with:
async _refreshBalance () {
this.bnbBalance = await this.loomBNBContract.methods.balanceOf(this.loomUserAddress).call({ from: this.loomUserAddress })
this.bnbBalance = this.bnbBalance / 100000000
EventBus.$emit('updateBalance', { newBalance: this.bnbBalance })
}#Demo Project
The team has built a small demo project to showcase this functionality. The source code is available here.
Social encounters
Enabling the Next Generation of Decentralized Finance with Multichain Collateralized Assets
by Matthew Campbell in Loom Network official blog
For those of you who knew Matthew before he was into blockchain, you know that he wrote software on Wall Street. So it’s only natural that he’d be excited to learn about the latest decentralized finance products out there. It’s been interesting to watch all of these concepts be brought into the modern area.
Right now, products like MakerDAO, Uniswap, Dharma, Compound, and dYdX are making such amazing advances in user experience for trading and leveraging assets or stable coins.
However, there’s one area we haven’t heard much about: multichain collateralized assets. Imagine you wanted to offer financial loans out of a combination of cryptocurrencies — utilizing an effective stable coin from collateralized assets such as ETH, BTC, BNB, EOS, and TRX.
This isn’t possible yet, since all of your assets have to exist on the Ethereum blockchain.
But the team wants to change that.
As they’ve written before about Loom Network becoming interoperable with major blockchains such as EOS and Tron, they now have interchain asset transfers between Tron and Ethereum enabled — and they will soon be adding Binance, Cosmos, and Bitcoin.
The team has also enabled universal transaction signing for seamless Layer 2 dapp scaling. That means Loom Network now has the ability to verify and accept transactions signed by native Ethereum wallets.
It’s the perfect storm of features that will enable the next generation of DeFi developers to build dapps around multichain collateralized assets.
What Are Some Cool Multichain Asset Use Cases?
MakerDAO
MakerDAO has one of the most popular stable coins out there — DAI. And many don’t realize it’s actually a complex stabilization system based on loans and collateralized ETH. In the future, they’ll be coming out with a system of multi-token collateralized debt, so you could see other tokens like BNB, LOOM, or others with ETH. It would be really interesting if someone built a multichain collateralized stable coin, so you could collateralize with Bitcoin, EOS, TRON, ETH, etc.
Uniswap
Uniswap is one of the most popular DEXs on Ethereum. Its simple-to-use interface is winning the hearts and minds of everyone. What would be cool is if people could also use BNB, TRX, or ATOM tokens on Uniswap — to swap with ETH and other ERC20 assets.
Compound Finance and Dharma
Compound Finance and Dharma are leading the pack in offering loans and interest on the blockchain. They do this by letting users lock up their tokens for interest so that other people can use the tokens in leveraged trades. Let’s say I’m a BNB user and I want to go long (or short) on DAI or ETH. I can now use my assets on Binance Chain to do this.
dYdX
dYdX is probably one of the coolest new projects for doing cross-chain asset-pool-based lending, leveraged trading, and algorithmic interest rates. Once again, just like above, we now have hundreds of new BEP2 Binance tokens, TRX tokens, and potentially a lot more from other chains. And this just keeps improving the liquidity between assets.
How Do Assets Stay Safe?
Loom Network is a Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) blockchain where there is a large distributed set of validators, similar to Cosmos and EOS. The validators must stake their assets to secure the chain, and someone would have to gain over ⅔ of the assets to actually be able to manipulate the chain. Because of this, your assets stay secure while being transferred between blockchains.
Loom Network allows pegged assets to different chains via their Transfer Gateway. It maintains smart contract wallets on Ethereum and Tron, and threshold-based multisig wallets on Binance, Cosmos, and soon Bitcoin.
This means they a diverse validator set that secures the chain and signs for assets on different blockchains. And in order to unlock a transaction, ¾ + 1 of the validator power must sign it. Thus, there are millions of dollars in secured assets protecting every transaction.
To learn more about Loom Transfer Gateway, try out their demo here.
What Will YOU Be Building on Loom?
With the tools available to create multi-token collateralized assets, the team can’t wait to see what kinds of dapps you build around this.
And to help usher in the next generation of decentralized finance, thry’ll soon be posting details for a new DeFi competition, with prizes for the best projects.
Developers will be able to easily port their apps, and the team will be giving technical assistance and funding to the best projects — the ones that want to move their apps to Loom Network and exploit this new functionality.
What’s more, in the coming weeks, you’ll learn about what DeFi stuff they’ll be building into the Loom Wallet. So let them know what you want.
Recent events:
July 17th: Loom CEO Matthew Campbell was speaking at the Blockchain Gamer & Pocket Gamer Connects event in Hong Kong.
Upcoming events:
No updates.
Finance
Token holders and the number of transactions dynamics (information from Etherscan.io)
There is a constant slight increase in the number of token holders these weeks.
Information from Coinmarketcap.com:
Roadmap
Top-Level Company Objectives:
- Staking: Maximize the percentage of the total LOOM supply that is staked on PlasmaChain
In the short and medium-term, improving staking metrics will be one of the primary focuses of the company, as it will have significant benefits in securing PlasmaChain and injecting more value into the network.
At the time of writing, Loom’s staking dashboard shows that around 30% of the circulating LOOM supply has been staked to validators so far. Loom plans to get this closer to 50%. Delegators are already earning up to 20% per year (minus validator fees) on their staked LOOM.
Future plans:
a) Integrate staking with all the major crypto wallets (including mobile)
In the coming weeks, Loom Network will be working with wallet providers to add native staking support for Trezor, Trust Wallet, imToken, and a few others.
b) Signing PlasmaChain transactions using Ethereum wallets — the smoothest cross-chain UX possible
PlasmaChain recently had its first decentralized hard fork, which added functionality for users to sign transactions on PlasmaChain using their Ethereum account. That means users can now sign PlasmaChain transactions using MetaMask or any mobile Ethereum wallet.
Loom Network is going to integrate this support into the staking dashboard, which will decrease the number of steps necessary to transfer and delegate tokens on PlasmaChain and massively improve the UX.
Whereas previously users had to save a new seed phrase for their private key on PlasmaChain, with this change, users will be able to simply use their existing MetaMask wallets to sign for and access their PlasmaChain account.
c) Other dashboard UI improvements
Loom Network has a number of other improvements under development that will improve the overall functionality and UX of staking, such as:
- Automatic re-delegation of rewards, so the rewards you earn from staking can be automatically re-staked
- Multiple delegations per user, so users can choose multiple delegation timelines with the same validator
d) Onboarding more validators
The team is in the process of onboarding a few more big-name validators in the space. Having a set of reputable validators securing our chain not only does a lot to legitimize PlasmaChain — but each of these validators also comes with their own community, their own reach.
And having a diverse set of properly incentivized parties trying to get more capital on board and staked to secure PlasmaChain is a major driving force in increasing the percentage of LOOM tokens staked.
- End-User Adoption: Make PlasmaChain one of the most widely used blockchains in existence, measured by DAU (Daily Active User) count and TVL (Total Value Locked) on chain.
Staking is important to secure the chain, and will help a lot to drive adoption in the short-term. But in the long-term, the success of any blockchain will be determined by metrics such as:
- the number of users interacting with that chain,
- the total economic value of tokens stored on that chain, and
- the value of fees generated by transactions on that chain.
Loom’s goal is to maximize these metrics, as these will be the factors that will determine the “staying power” of a blockchain platform in the long run.
a) Integrations with popular chains — adoption from the existing blockchain community
These integrations are such an important play, that they’ve dedicated an entire section of this roadmap below to discussing it in detail. But because one of the major benefits of these integrations is making PlasmaChain available to millions of existing blockchain users, it’s important to mention in this section about user onboarding as well. Loom network recently announced that it is building integrations with EOS and Tron in addition to Ethereum — and prior to that, Loom announced interoperability with Cosmos Hub. Integrating with these other blockchains means any user with an account on one of those chains — or any holder of that chain’s tokens — automatically has an account on PlasmaChain.
b) Developer onboarding
A blockchain is only as useful as the DApps it has running on it — so user adoption ultimately depends on developers building DApps people want to use. More apps are coming out of the woodwork each week.
These are totally independent projects who have one way or another discovered Loom and decided they’re the best platform available for their needs — not because they were paid money to build on Loom instead of the alternatives.
Loom Network is going to focus on revamping its developer documentation from the ground up to make it even easier for developers to get started building their first DApps on Loom, with clear examples of the most common use cases.
The goal is to take any developer who understands the basics of Solidity and deploying DApps with Truffle, and have them be able to deploy their first DApp to PlasmaChain and make it available to users on every major blockchain.
Loom is also going to open up PlasmaChain mainnet for any developer to deploy to in the near future. Due to this fact developer adoption is going to become a major focus of Loom’s over the rest of this year.
c) Bringing DeFi to PlasmaChain
DeFi is an area that has garnered massive interest recently, and is only growing over time. Loom will be shipping it in mid-2019.
The goal of these services will be to incentivize users to transfer and store their tokens on PlasmaChain — because having a lot of economic value stored on a blockchain increases its network effects, makes the platform more desirable to third-party devs, and solidifies the chain’s staying power vs. new chains that may spring up in the future.
d) Viral user onboarding through games — a trojan horse to being one of the most widely utilized blockchains
The major issue facing blockchains right now is making DApps good enough that people really want to use them. And lowering the UX barrier enough that there’s no onboarding friction for the average user.
Loom Network team wants PlasmaChain to be the most obvious choice for those developers to build on. And the best way to do that is to be the chain with the most authenticated users with accounts.
The best way to see thousands of users is gaming.
In the medium and long-term, games will help build PlasmaChain up to a critical mass of users with cryptocurrency available to spend, making it the most tempting platform to build on for developers of any type of DApp.
- Interoperability: Integrations With All Major Existing Blockchain Networks
This will give LoomNetwork an edge by allowing developers on PlasmaChain to access the user bases of all major chains. Why choose to develop your DApp for only one platform, when you can develop it for all platforms simultaneously?
If standalone blockchain platforms follow Metcalfe’s law, then a platform that integrates with and connects multiple blockchain platforms gets to take advantage of the network effects of all these platforms combined.
Interoperability brings additional value to each chain that is part of the network — and the hub that connects these chains will itself capture an immense amount of value.
Over the next year, the team’s focuses in this area will be:
a) Building out initial integrations with Tron, EOS, and Cosmos. These integrations are already in progress, and will be released one by one over the next few months.
b) Seamless wallet integrations on all platforms — sign with your native EOS / Tron / Ethereum account
As mentioned about, this means any Ethereum, EOS, and Tron user will be able to interact with any PlasmaChain DApp simply using their existing browser plugin or mobile wallet. Plus PlasmaChain DApps will be able to let users log in and authenticate using their existing Ethereum, EOS, or Tron accounts, rather than needing to sign up for a new account.
c) Integrate with any other networks in the future that reach a critical mass of user adoption
Different blockchain platforms may wax and wane in popularity as time goes on, and it’s possible new platforms will spring up to capture a significant portion of market share in the future. If new networks pop up that reach a critical mass of adoption, they’ll integrate them into PlasmaChain as well.
- On-Chain Fees: Generate additional on-chain fees to further incentivize PlasmaChain validators and stakers
For PlasmaChain, Loom plans to generate fees for validators both from DApp hosting fees, as well as from some core services built into the chain that all DApps will share:
a) DApp hosting fees
Loom will charge fees to DApp developers to host their DApps. A major difference between PlasmaChain and Ethereum is that with PlasmaChain, developers will pay a monthly fee to host their DApps as opposed to requiring every user to pay a fee each time they interact with a DApp.
b) Core chain services that generate fees
There are several core services Loom is going to offer on PlasmaChain, which will generate fees for validators/stakers.
One of these is the Loom Marketplace, which is an exchange for NFT assets.
Even for games building on Loom Network on their own separate DAppChain, they will want their in-game assets to be on PlasmaChain. This allows them to take advantage of the shared liquidity of the Loom marketplace, as well as the large number of Ethereum/EOS/Tron users authenticated with PlasmaChain who have funds to spend.
For each transaction on the marketplace, a small commission will go to the PlasmaChain validators — so as the number of popular games on PlasmaChain increases, so will the commissions earned by validators and stakers.
c) Fractional validation of child chains
Loom is envisioning a system that allows PlasmaChain validators to opt-in to use their spare hardware capacity to validate for child DAppChains that connect to PlasmaChain. For validators, a large part of their cost of operations is the manpower to monitor their hardware 24/7 to make sure it does not go offline. Thus, it’s somewhat trivial for a validator to spin up more hardware to validate for additional networks once they’re already validating PlasmaChain.
This setup would give validators opportunities to earn extra fees by validating additional chains — and pass a portion of those rewards on to their LOOM stakers. This effectively captures the value of the entire network of independent DAppChains back into the LOOM staking pool.
To sum up, over the next 6–12 months, it’s likely that there will be many more changes in the market and it’s difficult to predict them and Loom Network will need to shift to accommodate.
Partnerships and team members
No updates.
Ecosystem
Alice has officially released!
How to benefit from 8% of annual interest rate right now
Alice app has officially released on Play Store and App Store! (Android, iOS).
What Alice offers Right Now
DAI Saving
Start saving DAI at 8% of annual interest rate. There’s no limit on the amount or the period. It’s completely up to you. You can withdraw some or all of the amount at any time!
How is it possible? The answer is written on smart contracts that are open to public. The interest rate is precisely calibrated by Alice’s smart contracts.
As more amount is saved, interest rate goes down. It’s solely controlled by supplies and demands of the money market. There’s no central authority who manipulates the interest rate or other policies. You don’t have to trust anyone!
Ethereum Wallet
Alice is backed by DPoS PlasmaChain developed by Loom Network. PlasmaChain is fully compatible with Ethereum Network and so is Alice! After installing Alice, you get your own Ethereum Wallet. You can send and receive tokens conveniently. Alice’s UX is at best level compared to other wallet apps :)
alice.js
Alice offers a JavaScript library for developers who want to integrate with its financial services. It supports interchain token transfer using TransferGateway, and starting/withdrawing savings for Alice.
Any exchanges, decentralized apps can utilize Alice on their own. Alice is permissionless, and it’s open to everyone!
You can check the repository here.
What will come next on Alice
Instant Loan
Because Alice is working on DPoS PlasmaChain, every transaction is confirmed in one second. With the help of the chain, Alice’s very next feature, Instant Loan, is revolutionary in its speed and usability!
Here’s how you can benefit from it. First, deposit tokens as collateral which you believe whose price will increase. Then, you will get paid for your DAI tokens. Use your DAI and pay it back whenever you want!
It will come at the end of July, 2019. Stay tuned!
Exchange
Alice was originally started with an idea of a decentralized exchange. That’s why we chose DPoS PlasmaChain which guarantees sub-second confirmation. After Savings and Loan grows in some point, we’ll release a decentralized exchange which is super fast and easy-to-use. Unlike centralized exchanges, your asset is your own. No one can control your tokens!
Conclusion
Alice’s goal is clear: a decentralized finance app that anyone can use without trust. Up until now dApps were slow and inconvenient to use. Users even needed to learn how to use it.
Once you use Alice, you won’t even notice that it’s backed by blockchain. And you will be surprised that a dApp can be so easy and fast. You can download it now and experience it!
Klaytn Announces Mainnet Launch: Asia’s Largest Enterprises Including LG and UnionBank Join Klaytn Ecosystem: Axie Infinity highlighted in Bloomberg Business.
NonFungible Heroes #2: Nicolas Julia from SoRare: SoRare interviews with NonFungible.
Episode 10: Axie Infinity with Jiho: Axie Infinity talks to Wizard of dApps:
He talked about: the nft-DeFi intersect, community building, layer 2 solutions + a lot more!
Blockade Games Redefines ‘Early Access’ with Founders Program: Neon District redefines ‘Early Access’.
Experimental hosted tournament sponsored by OpenSea.
Rumors
Twitter:
Justin Sun and CZ have their own game cards that are located on the blockchain through a non fungible token by Loom Network #PGCHongKong #blockchain #games #nft @loomnetwork @justinsuntron @cz_binance
Happy #NationalVideoGameDay. Can’t wait to see how @loomnetwork continues to change the gaming world with #Ethereum. http://loomx.io
- Matthew Campbell Retweeted:
Reddit discussions:
How will Relentless TCG compete with Gods Unchained?
What are differentiators and similarities between Loom and Matic?
Other:
3 Promising Crypto Project From Top 200 That Can Soon Enter Top 100 on Coinmarketcap: Loom Network mentioned in publish0x article.
Here’s What June’s Most Active ERC-20 Dapps Have Been Working On: Loom selected as top 10 project by Santiment.
Deploy Your Dapp to the Loom Plasmachain Mainnet on What The Func? Youtube channel.
Social media metrics
Social media activity:
Social media dynamics:
The charts above illustrate an increase in the number of Twitter and Reddit followers.
The graph above shows the dynamics of changes in the number of Loom Network Twitter followers. The number of Twitter followers increase constantly. The information is taken from Coingecko.com.
Loom Network Telegram channels:
🇺🇸 @LoomNetwork
