The Saddle Roadmap

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Thank you to the community for a successful launch of Saddle, a specialized AMM for pegged value crypto assets. As we’re looking back at the first few weeks of Saddle being live, we also want to look ahead at what’s to come for the project and the community. Across the core protocol, dApp, and operations, here’s what lies ahead for Saddle:

Core Protocol:

• V1 & V2 Virtual Swaps. In November 2020, we shared our vision for using Synthetix Virtual Swaps to unlock deep on-chain liquidity in our presentation at the DeFi Alliance Liquidity Demo Day. We recently completed our V1 implementation which enables large, low slippage trades between any type of asset supported by Saddle. The code is currently being audited and we expect to launch in the near future. We’re also working on an improved version (V2) which will support atomic settlement. Atomic settlement will eliminate the time for users to retrieve funds, allowing seamless integration with aggregators while also lowering transaction costs.
• Optimism L2 Support. We’ve started porting the Saddle smart contracts to support execution on the Optimism Layer 2 network. With Saddle on Optimism, users will experience instantaneous transactions and greatly reduced fees. This also means Saddle will be co-located with Synthetix, so Virtual Swaps will be viable for smaller trade sizes.
• Permissionless pool creation. We are experimenting with using Minimal Proxy contracts to allow anyone to inexpensively deploy custom Saddle pools. New pools will direct a portion of their fees to the community multisig to start building the protocol treasury.
• LP Token Pools. We’re working on a special pool type where one of the assets is the LP token of an existing Saddle pool. This allows new pools to utilize other pools’ liquidity while controlling risk exposure.

dApp:

• V2 Improvements. David Hamme recently joined as our frontend engineering lead, and has been spearheading several improvements around best practices and quality of life. These improvements include performance optimizations, functional atomic code, first class testing, better async state and error handling, and migrating to a unified design system.
• Updated swap page design. The current swap page isn’t well suited for supporting many assets, which will become problematic as Saddle adds additional pools. We’re redesigning the swap page to provide a better user experience as the protocol grows.
• Virtual swap support. As protocol development rolls out V1 and V2 virtual swaps, dApp users can begin leveraging virtual swaps to trade between types of pegged value crypto assets with low slippage.
• Improved notification system. We mapped out the dApp’s information architecture and have refined how different notifications and errors are surfaced to users. We expect to roll these changes out over the next few weeks and believe they will significantly improve the dApp user experience.

Operations:

• Launching additional pools. Saddle launched with a single tokenized BTC pool. In the coming months, we’ll be rolling out stablecoin and tokenized ETH pools — followed shortly by pools for other pegged value crypto assets.
• Integrations. We’re pursuing integrations with aggregators, analytics sites, and other tools. Big shoutouts to our community member Luc who submitted a request for Zapper to add Saddle support, and to DeBank who quickly added Saddle TVL and KEEP rewards tracking.
• Community calls. Keep an eye out! This quarter, we’ll be launching regular community calls to update everyone on improvements to the protocol, answer Q&As, and receive any feedback about recommended improvements.

We’re looking forward to an active quarter! Join our Discord to stay in touch with the team and the community.