Callisto Rollout!

Ivan Poon
Switcheo
Published in
5 min readOct 29, 2018

We’re really close to general availability of our new trading platform. Here are the details about how we intend to roll out this update, and our plans for the rest of the year.

Rollout Details

Soft Launch Date

An invite-only closed beta testing session will be taking place this week (starting 29 Oct). We are currently targeting availability of the platform to the public on 8th Nov 2018. The new platform will first be available on our beta website, before being pushed to the main trading website a few days later together with our official launch announcements.

ERC20 Token Listings

We have a long list of 22 ERC20 tokens lined up for our initial listing. These tokens will be listed in incrementally larger batches as we become more confident of the stability of new blockchain integrations.

We will initially launch with just three of the selected tokens, and quickly scale up from that.

The initial pairings on launch will be:
DAI/ETH
OMG/ETH
MKR/ETH

Fee Structure

On launch, we will be doing a manual purchase and burn of at least 70% of fees for non-NEO blockchains. This would translate to a larger usage of tokens than in previous quarters. We will not yet be supporting cross-blockchain swaps of SWTH to be used as discounted fees, because the user experience for doing a trustless payment of fees on the NEO blockchain atomically with trades on other blockchains does not yet meet our standards.

We hope to bring back this feature by the end of Q4, using an additional or upgraded NEO contract, plus a new feature which will allow the purchase of SWTH tokens with ETH. This will re-enable SWTH discounts, while ensuring that all trades are trustless without compromising on user experience. More details on future work is described in the last section of this article.

In the mean time, Switcheo will be subsidizing all blockchain transaction fees (except for deposits) on behalf of users, as a limited-time trading fee discount!

Please also take note of the new fee percentages previously described here.

Trading Changes

As part of the Callisto update, we have made some changes with regard to the maximum precision for order price and amounts. This will result in a larger minimum spread on our order books, which we feel will encourage more market makers to partake in trading. On top of that, minimum order amounts have been increased slightly, to make sure each trade is of actual significance.

In general, the values are set for each market’s minimum amount to fall between US$0.10 — US$1.00, while each market’s price tick has a target of about US$0.01. These values are subject to change at a later time. API developers please take note of the new restrictions, which will be returned in these endpoints.

Legacy NEO Contracts

Legacy NEO contracts will no longer be available on the Callisto UI. For users that need to withdraw from V1 or V1.5 NEO smart contracts, we will provide a legacy URL to access the old UI.

Qtum

The Qtum wallet integration will not yet be available immediately on launch, as some more work needs to be done.

What’s Next in Q4

SWTH/ETH

We’re aiming to provide the capability to purchase SWTH tokens with ETH through atomic swaps as soon as possible. This will allow non-NEO users to use our fee discounts more easily, and also give better price discovery for SWTH tokens.

Neo V3

NEP-8 was finally released to the NEO MainNet two weeks ago as part of NEO v2.9.0. The team is considering releasing a new NEO contract which will give the following advantages:

  • Dropping of token whitelist / improved dynamic invocation safety
  • Support for certain non-standard NEP-5 tokens
  • Parallel withdrawals for same token (current contract processes one withdrawal for each token / address combination at a time)
  • Faster withdrawals (full support for paying more network fees during congestions)
  • Better burn tracking (transferring total SWTH to a separate address so it can be seen more easily on a block explorer)
  • Cross-chain atomic swaps for SWTH (or other tokens) from contract balance
  • Usage of signed structured data to let wallet providers provide better security and user experience
  • Splitting of smart contract into a Vault / Broker contract, which will allow:
    1. Upgrading of the trading contract without requiring users to withdraw and deposit again (this is only now possible, since NEP-8 is finalized)
    2. Arbitrary burning of SWTH from contract balance for payment of non-trading related matters (e.g. for a Switcheo webstore)

Note that allowing SWTH/ETH cross-swaps is not dependent on a new contract as it can be done as an additional smart contract. However, this will definitely allow a much better user experience until we implement full cross-chain support.

Fiat Onboarding

We are confident on providing an interface for purchasing Ethereum with fiat currencies by the end of the year. With this, new users will be able to easily make their first cryptocurrency purchase without leaving our trading platform.

Qtum

We will finish up work on the Qtum wallet integrations.

Additional Ethereum / NEO Wallet Providers

We’ll initially be launching with only the MetaMask provider for Ethereum. We want to expand our range of wallet integrations to:

  • Trezor
  • Brave Browser
  • Ledger (without going through MetaMask)
  • Mobile Ledger (for Android Chrome)

Documentation Updates

As part of the Callisto update, we have implemented multiple new API endpoints and a stable websocket API. We’ll be updating our docs to give API traders and exchange aggregators a simpler integration experience as well as a more robust feature set.

Cross-Chain MVP

We’ll be beginning work on our cross-chain trading sidechain.

Technical Updates

We’ll be updating our whitepaper and share more about the technical architecture of our cross-chain project as promised.

Bonus!

We are preparing a surprise for Switcheo supporters and NFT fans!

That’s all the details we have for now. Remember to stay tuned to our official announcement channels for more updates.

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