Reach — December Update
It’s been another positive month. We doubled the previous month in growth which is amazing. We have gained many new passionate community members, our team is growing, and we continue to improve Reach. What more could you ask for? As always I recorded this with video if you would rather hear me talk about it than read it.
Product Update
Algorand in the Browser
Last month we let everyone know that Reach works with Ethereum in the browser. Great news for Algorand fans, Dan worked hard and Rock-Paper-Scissors now works in the browser using AlgoSigner. It’s still not perfect, but it’s working and now we just need a few more features to be pushed by Algorand and AlgoSigner before it’s ready for everyone.
Check out the video demo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z8OgHYrLy
Browser Tutorial
Last month we finished the integration with the browser, and this month we built it into the tutorial. Now by the time you finish the tutorial in the docs, you will know how to integrate your application to the browser.
Parallel Reduce and Containers
The major feature we started working on last month is well underway. This feature is going to allow for NFTs and a dynamic number of participants in contracts. It will allow for applications like auctions, crowdfunding, decentralized exchanges, and many other exciting applications.
We are still planning on having this feature complete by the end of the year, and having example applications ready by early next month.
Cardano EVM Compatibility
We’ve been working with the Cardano Foundation for a long time to figure out when we will build the Plutus integration. The good news is that the Cardano Community doesn’t need to wait for that to happen to launch Reach applications on Cardano. Cardano announced they are launching an EVM sidechain, and since we are already integrated with the EVM things should seamlessly just work.
This means that developers that want to build on top of Cardano can start building on Reach today and launch to Cardano on day 1.
Removed the 16 Variable Limit for Ethereum
Ethereum has a frustrating problem with only allowing 16 variables coding with Solidity. This is an issue that is brought up quite a bit. This month Jay optimized the Reach compiler to remove this limitation. This is just a quality of life improvement, but one that should be mentioned because it has been such a pain for Ethereum developers.
Business Update
Popular Dex is Coming to Reach
Reach has closed a contract with one of the largest decentralized exchanges on Ethereum. Per our partnership, we aren’t allowed to mention who it is until Q1 of next year, but we started work on the project and we are stoked about the partnership!
Over 100 Developers
We now have over 100 active developers on Reach. That means they have downloaded the platform and built their first Reach application. I am so grateful to our community, and so surprised that we’ve grown this quickly in the last 3 months. This is just the beginning, we are going to start bringing more traditional developers into the space, moving towards our goal of becoming the hub of all blockchain development.
Chris Nevers Started
Chris started a couple of weeks ago and has hit the ground running. He has already made several improvements to the codebase, and we are ecstatic to have him part of the team. Jump into the Discord community and say hi.
Mentor Shout Out
Konstantin Richter from Block Daemon and Ethan Buchman from Cosmos have been meeting with me every week to talk about growth and partnerships. They have given us great advice, and I am so happy they are part of the team.
Community Member Shout Out
We are appreciative of all of our community members, but I wanted to take a minute and give a shout out to both Kwame Bryan and Eric Lau. Kwame has been rolling out tutorials for the Algorand Developer Network, and Eric has added new features to our VS Code plugin. Thank you to both of you.
Algorand Developer Portal
Algorand has spent a lot of time building development materials to build projects on top of Algorand, and thanks to Kwame, Reach now has a solid presence. So go and check it out, and let us know what you think.
https://developer.algorand.org/
Accepted into Gitcoin Kernel
Gitcoin created the Kernel program to help build camaraderie between builders in the Ethereum ecosystem and we are pleased to announce that we will be part of the next Cohort starting early next year. We are excited to grow closer to the Ethereum community and to do our part to help it continue to grow.
Gitcoin Grant Matching
Round 8 of the Gitcoin Quadratic matching has started, and we once again have a grant available for people to donate. So if you have a spare Dai please head on over to donate. The best part about Quadratic matching is that the number of people that donate to us matters more than the total amount. So any amount helps. We plan on using this money to hire someone dedicated to developer relations so they can continue to build learning materials, and help us reach out to more developers.
https://gitcoin.co/grants/194/reach-platform
Next Month
Layer 2 Integrations
Ethereum has a gas and speed problem that some applications don’t want to deal with. You could either launch your app on an entirely new chain like Algorand, or you could launch your app on a Layer 2 Scaling Protocol. We plan on first working with Offchain Labs because we’ve been friends with them for a while, but that is just the start. Just like we believe in a multi-chain world we believe in a multi-protocol world too. Developers need options, and the more options they have the better this ecosystem will be.
Finish Parallel Reduce and Containers
We started this project last month, and we plan on finishing it this month. Jay has been doing some amazing work so far and is on pace to have it finished on time.
