Tezos: A Conversation With Kathleen Breitman At TQuorum, A Closer Look At The Proof of Stake Alliance (POSA), Tezos Foundation Personnel Updates, Electeez — The First Tezos-Based Voting application, SmartPy Anniversary
Biweekly update 6th July — 20th July
Hello, and welcome to another biweekly recap on Tezos, highlighting news and events from the Foundation, teams, grantees, and operational entities. A lot has happened since our last update, so before going deep in the details — let’s have a quick overview!
Staking Rewards presented the most comprehensive staking data study ever made for the Tezos Blockchain — Blockwatch Data, the team behind the TzStats block explorer, shared a data-driven research report on the state of Tezos staking. The Foundation has begun work on the next biannual report and expect to publish it by the end of August 2020. Additionally, they announced that the audit with PwC for 2019 was successfully completed on time. Cryptonomic team released a new look for Nautilus Cloud, their cloud service for Tezos, which provides hosted blockchain and indexer nodes. They has also been working on a mobile counterpart of the popular Galleon wallet for Tezos. So they are now releasing the first public version of Galleon Mobile, a Tezos wallet for Apple and (soon) Android phones, allowing users to store, send, receive and delegate tez. Electis prepares Electeez, the first Tezos-based voting application for communities, so it will soon be ready to use.
Furthermore, an article giving a closer look into a new layer 2 privacy-preserving payment solution coming to Tezos was posted. This solution, known as “zkChannels” has been developed by Bolt Labs, a crypto based startup with ties to the founding scientists behind Zcash. Moreover, the team behind Tezos Domains announced that a developer preview of Tezos Domains contracts is now available on Carthagenet. It allows you to buy and renew domains, manage already owned domains (including subdomains), resolve domain names to addresses, and more.
Also, Baking Bad team added baker “Bonds” tab to their tezos explorer — now you can easily track how much balance is used/locked and how much you can safely spend. You can also check their fresh video-overview of TzKT — Baking Bad’s very own block explorer.
A TQuorum, this time virtually, has started on 15th of July. Alison Mangiero, President of TQ Tezos, sat down with Kathleen Breitman for a conversation that hit on Bitcoin, Smart Contract Platforms, Magic The Gathering, her company Coase, and many other topics. Find some highlights in the update and follow the TQuorum Twitter channel and website for the full interview posting soon. Tezos Commons hosted Nelly Chatue Diop, head of Tezos West Africa, on TezTalks. Also, to summarize the latest Tezos community updates, they posted issue #23 of the Baking Sheet. What’s more, the team published an article on smart contracts and dApp development on Tezos.
Tezos Israel and Stove Labs will organize a 2-day developer workshop to train developers on how to notarize digital assets on Tezos. Some other online Tezos events are planned. The community continues to grow in social networks and multiple chats steadily. For more details — read the update below!
Stay safe and keep Yourself updated!
Alert!
Development
For detailed GitLab developer activity click here.
A closer look into a new layer 2 privacy-preserving payment solution coming to Tezos. Earlier this month, the community received some exciting news about a new layer 2 privacy-preserving payment solution that is coming to Tezos. This solution, known as “zkChannels” has been developed by Bolt Labs, a crypto-based startup with ties to the founding scientists behind Zcash.
In this post, they go into more detail about why this development is significant, its potential applications, and more.
The team released a new version of SmartPy.io in SmartPy.io/dev marking the one year anniversary of SmartPy.io public version. This version contains many improvements both in the language, its tools and additional pages. The SmartPy Wallet is a new tool, embedded in SmartPy.io to improve key and address management. The online editor now has a Newcomer Mode that is enabled by default. It presents a few templates of interest for first time visitors.SmartPy CLI versions are now synchronized with SmartPy.io versions. Installation instructions can be found here. And more!
Citadel is a multi-asset non-custodial platform for the management and storage of crypto assets. In the initial release, users will be able to create public addresses for Tezos and other supported networks with one seed phrase, connect their ledger or trezor device, or import an address generated by another wallet. The analytical dashboard provides relevant information on wallets’ balances and networks’ main metrics. One of the main functions of the Citadel platform is participation in the PoS consensus — users can stake and delegate their assets, claim rewards, and follow the latest network proposals in the voting tab.
Previously it was introduced that the Tezos Domains project, talked about the overall design, and presented the plans for the future. Recently the team announced that a developer preview of Tezos Domains contracts is now available on Carthagenet. The basic logic is now in place and allows you to:
- buy and renew domains,
- manage already owned domains (including subdomains),
- resolve domain names to addresses,
- resolve addresses to domain names (reverse resolution).
Please note, that the interface is likely to change and no data is going to be migrated between iterations of the contracts on Carthagenet.
In addition to providing developers with various avenues to receive funding, Tezos is also equipped with multi-language support for both smart contract development and blockchain interaction via SDKs (software development kits).
When it comes to developer experience, Tezos is one of the leading blockchain platforms for developing decentralized applications for high-value and high-security use cases. With its stack-based Michelson smart contract language, formal verification process for reliably proving smart contract functionality, and wide array of development SDKs, Tezos has positioned itself as an extremely developer-friendly blockchain platform. Read more in an article above!
If you are a developer or an aspiring developer and want to build on Tezos, check out the dedicated development portal: https://developers.tezos.com
Did you know that BCD Explorer unexpands common macros so if you write in pure Michelson what you see on the code tab is almost equivalent to the source.
Also, Baking Bad team added baker “Bonds” tab to their tezos explorer. Now you can easily track how much balance is used/locked and how much you can safely spend. The most accurate and the most detailed data on http://tzkt.io
“Universities for e-voting” is a project creating a voting application for communities called Electeez, based on and powered by the Tezos Blockchain. It relies on a community of students and academics from 25+ universities around the world (more about the project).
The project started at the beginning of 2020 and was therefore presented with the challenge of putting together a project during a time of lockdown. But due to the nature of e-voting as a remote technology, the project could go ahead as planned. On top of that, the pandemic has proven the importance of remote voting technology overall.
Read about the Electeez features and release plans!
Nautilus Cloud, Cryptonomics’ cloud service for Tezos which provides hosted blockchain and indexer nodes, has a fresh look! Based on developer feedback, they switched to darker colors and a more intuitive layout with easier links to documentation, including the developer handbook they recently put together. The new interface lays ground for metering and billing functionality, which are both coming soon. Learn more in the article:
As it was promised in the last quarter, Cryptonomic has been working on a mobile counterpart of the popular Galleon wallet for Tezos. They are now releasing the first public version of Galleon Mobile, a feature-rich and secure Tezos wallet for Apple and (soon) Android phones, allowing users to store, send, receive and delegate tez.
Please remember this app is still very young so make sure you only store and transact very small amounts with it. Now go and find the app on the App Store!
Ecosystem Highlights by Tezos Foundation
The Foundation has begun work on the next biannual report and expect to publish it by the end of August 2020. Additionally, they are excited to announce that the audit with PwC for 2019 was successfully completed on time.
- Edukera released Archetype 1.0, a high-level Domain-Specific Language (DSL) to write secure smart contracts on Tezos.
- Elevated Returns received the green light from the Thai SEC to start operating ERX, its digital exchange on Tezos.
- Elevated Returns announced that it will migrate its Aspen Coin from Ethereum to Tezos this month.
- Equisafe released Mini NyX, a simplified version of the NyX security token.
- Madfish Solutions released the 4th update for its Solidity to LIGO transpiler featuring token conversion..
- Tezos Israel and Stove Labs will host a 2-day developer workshop to train developers how to notarize digital assets on Tezos.
- TQ Tezos published an Agora post on TZIP-15 token transferlist interface with a request for comments from the community.
News and Social Encounters
In case you missed it, Alison Mangiero, President of TQ Tezos, sat down with Kathleen Breitman for a conversation that hit on Bitcoin, Smart Contract Platforms, Magic The Gathering, her company Coase, and many other topics. Here are some highlights and stay tuned to the TQuorum Twitter channel and website for the full interview posting soon.
What makes a public, proof-of-stake blockchain like Tezos particularly valuable for the gaming space?
There are a few different things. For one — being able to contract with someone in a game is obviously valuable, like if you are doing an RPG, where you are replicating real-world contracts because it is open-ended, loose, and you make it what you will. On the other hand, with a digital collectible card game, which is what we are approaching with Coase, what’s interesting is using a smart contract to work on secondaries markets in the game itself, which is what’s broken in other models. Also, in our particular instance, with a public blockchain, when you tie assets to a public blockchain, you allow people to experiment more. In traditional collectible card games, users will take physical cards and find new ways to create play patterns or rules, and more often than not, those become more popular than the original way that’s been dictated. So it’s about facilitating that same type of experimentation that allowed the physical format to thrive. With things like RPGs, obviously you can port your wallet and contract with other people that play the game but ultimately, I think that’s less compelling which is why I’m working on collectible card games. Collectible card games hit on a much more difficult issue that is more fundamental to the digitization of those products.
Over the past month, Tezos developers, community members, and enthusiasts came together to participate in the Tezos + CoinList Hackathon and this week, the winners for each Hackathon category were announced. 30 projects were submitted for the categories of DeFi, Games & Collectibles, Oracles, and a general Community Vote category. The hackathon was a remarkable demonstration of the continued global growth and interest in the Tezos ecosystem as development efforts shift from infrastructure and core development to end-user applications.
Discussion with Nelly Chatue Diop on Tezos West Africa.
In the fifth episode of TezTalks Radio, hosts Brian Li and William McKenzie sit down and discuss the Proof of Stake Alliance (POSA), BUIDL Labs new SmartPy training course, and more.
- Explainer Series by Tezos Ukraine
Part 2 out of three-part series on Tezos Ecosystem is here! Part 2 is covering Block Explorers and Baker Rating Tools. Read in:
- English
- Russian
- Ukranian
- How to Explore Tezos Blockchain : an overview of the TzKT Tezos Block Explorer
Tezos Explorer is a window to the blockchain. So Baking Bad made TzKT block explorer very useful, reliable, and informative for Tezos community. You can explore your tezos coins, Tezos bakers, smart-contracts, delegates, tokens, staking rewards, delegation status, total income, and other blockchain info, the way as easy as possible — with Tezos blockchain explorer TzKT. Check the video below for more!
Check a recap of recent Tezos-important news from late June to early July.
Upcoming events
Visit Tezos Foundation Events page to learn more.
TQ Tezos has announced that TQuorum Paris will be rescheduled, follow TQ Tezos on Twitter for future updates.
- July 22nd, 2020 — TezTalks Radio #6 — Tezsure and Tezos India with Bernd Oostrum
- July 22nd, 2020 — camlCase presents Magma & Dexter
- July 22nd, 2020 — Notarizing Digital Assets — Developer Workshop
- July 24th, 2020 — Tezos Commons x SimpleStaking AMA with Juraj Selep
- July 30th, 2020 — TezTalks Live #8 — AirGap x Beacon
Finance
Also see amazing Tezos Explorer by Baking Bad team — TzKT.
- The State of Tezos Staking by Blockwatch Data and Staking Rewards
Staking Rewards presented the most comprehensive staking data study ever made for the Tezos Blockchain. The research report is conducted by Blockwatch Data, who are leveraging their comprehensive data sets to explore delegator lifecycles and behavior, the impact of exchanges, and questions like:
- Are bakers and delegators able to build trustful long-term relationships?
- Do Delegators accumulate for compounding rewards or are they selling of stakes?
- What challenges for Tezos does the data suggest?
For this study, they used data from the TzStats Data API which drives the Tezos Block Explorer TzStats. Researchers look at all historic baker and delegator snapshots taken by the blockchain every 256 blocks (approx. 4.25 hours) to determine baking rights.
Some takeaways:
- Around 80% of the entire Tezos supply and 56k accounts (42k with more than 1 tez balance) participate in staking. This represents a growth of about 300% since May 2019 (~13.7k) and is the highest staking ratio in all major PoS networks at the time of posting.
- In the past 2 years of existence, Tezos went through three generations of growth. Researchers call them the Early Bakers (Jun’18 — Mar’19), the 2019 Boomers (Apr’19 — Oct’19), and the Brrrr Generation (Nov’19 — now).
- “Churn rate” in Tezos — the rate at which delegators leave their current baker each month. Delegator churn in Tezos is surprisingly low at only 2 to 10 percent, suggesting delegators stay between 10 to 50 months on average.
- What do loyal delegators do with their rewards? Delegators can be split into two groups — accumulators with a steadily increasing balance who never spend their original stake nor their rewards, and opportunists who from time to time sell off some stake. Out of all active delegators with a balance larger than 1 tez, the vast majority of 31k (72%) are accumulators and only 12k (28%) are opportunists.
An increasing share of Tezos delegators is showing considerable confidence in their respective bakers and the network overall. As staking activity grows, the number of less knowledgeable delegators is rising which leads to increased early break-ups and higher than necessary churn. Improved user interface design and more education can help younger delegator generations better understand Tezos staking in general and payout delays in particular. What’s more important is that the community has to embrace the fact that Tezos forms social relations on top of a technical system. Like in any good relationship, communication is key.
Read the research for more precise and extensive information!
Partnerships, integrations and team members
Check an overview of the Proof of Stake Alliance and the need for regulatory clarity on the tax structure of various PoS based blockchain networks like Tezos.
In summation, one can ascertain the regulatory landscape around Proof of Stake is still nascent. However, with an alliance such as POSA working toward reducing legal and regulatory uncertainty around the PoS industry — we can all hope to see greater clarity among these principal issues.
Following a recent Council meeting, the Tezos Foundation was proud to announce that Danny Masters, Co-founder of the CoinShares Group, has been appointed as a non-executive Council Member of the Tezos Foundation.
Danny is a pioneer in the asset management industry, having co-founded Global Advisors, one of the first investment management companies to professionalize commodities investments in 1999. After getting bitten by the bitcoin bug, he created the Global Advisors Bitcoin Investment Fund Plc (“GABI”) in 2014, which was the world’s first regulated bitcoin investment fund and a highly profitable hedge fund.
Danny is co-founder and Chairman of the CoinShares Group, an investment firm that manages hundreds of millions in assets on behalf of a global investor base, and serves a trusted voice in the digital asset ecosystem. Danny’s wealth of experience in commodities, investment management, and financial technology will help guide the strategic direction of the Foundation in executing on its mission to foster the growth of the Tezos protocol and to strengthen the global Tezos community.
Social media metrics
Tezos community continues to grow. There is a constant increase in the number of subscribers of Tezos social media channels.
There is also Tezos Riot chat and YouTube channel.
The graph above shows the dynamics of changes in the number of Tezos Facebook likes, Reddit subscribers, and Twitter followers. The information is taken from Coingecko.com.
The Tezos Foundation is committed to supporting organizations that contribute to the growth of the Tezos community and ecosystem. They are especially interested in supporting regional organizations and university-based groups focused on Tezos and the larger blockchain ecosystem.
Check out some of the community organizations that compose the Tezos ecosystem:
- Tezos Ukraine: Website, Twitter
- Tezos Commons Foundation: Website, Twitter
- Tezos Korea: Website, Twitter
- Tezos Montreal: Website, Twitter
- Tezos OCaml Michelson Institute: Website, Twitter
- Tezos Detroit: Twitter
- MyTezosBaker: Website, Twitter
- Tezos Luxembourg: Website, Twitter
- Tezos Turkey: Twitter, Telegram
- Tezos Geneva: Twitter, Meetup
- Tezos Rio: Website, Twitter
Learn about key operational entities
- Nomadic Labs: Website, Twitter
- Tocqueville Group (“TQ”): Website, Twitter, Wiki
- Tezos Japan Foundation: Website, Twitter
- Tezos Korea Foundation: Website, Twitter
- Tezos Southeast Asia Association: Website, Twitter
Bake your Tezzies with us — tezocracy.com
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