We are saying goodbye to 2019 with nostalgia. I can’t help but use the only suitable word for the past year — ROCKING. And the most solid part of it was the development, of course. Not a surprise to anyone, I guess, when talking about the weiDex team — first develop and deliver, then and only then advertise, show off, clown around. And it was all worth it — weiDex slowly and gradually takes the form of a real decentralized ecosystem.
Looking up to the big players, we just couldn’t miss out to put together some last-minute-made timeline and to stare a bit at it with the pure feeling of satisfaction. Have a look at it — it is here to make you sigh. However, if you are here for the technology and you are (truly) interested in what we’ve built, visit our apps, play around with them and reach us for feedback.
1. weiDex v2.0
We released the second version of weiDex exchange. You will find there:
- updated smart contracts to the latest version of Ethereum;
- improved design and UI to bust the myth that DEXes are hard to use;
- simplified navigation through the website and a new Help section with How-to guides;
- a “Submit token” button and, most importantly, a “Submit Feedback” button. Don’t hesitate to use it — it is there for you to share your experience with the platform and to suggest improvements or to report bugs in order to help us build the DEX you would love to use.
- incentives for the Market Makers — no fees for placing orders; a 50% reward from the Taker’s fee
- referral link — if you invite a friend by your referral link you get 20% from his exchange trading fee.
(According to my humble math, that’s a 70% reward in total.)
2. Partnership with Kyber Network
We integrated Kyber Network, which provided liquidity to our exchange platform. How we did the “pull liquidity” implementation? In simple words, we added a proxy in our smart contracts that calls the Kyber’s trade function when traders request to take an order. You can read more here.
3. ShitDex — It’s not shitty, it’s the shit!
Inspired by the “shitcoin” trend in the middle of the hot summer and also by the complaints of all shitcoin hodlers, we decided to make another DEX to help them try and shit their tokens. An absolute DEX with absolutely no control over listing. A place where you can trade your shit coins, create a new one and list it to the platform all by yourself! The main rule is that there is no rule — anyone can list any ERC20 token. No submission forms, no review period, no permissions needed. Why? Just because we can. Just for the fun. The DEX is out there — beautiful in its shitty colours; fully functioning and open to anyone. And we somehow got more than 30 coins listed already — no marketing, no extra efforts.
4. Jelly Swap — a bridge to DeFi
At the end of November Jelly was born and it shouted out “Hello” to the big big World. Jelly has one goal — to make the cross-chain trading possible. Why is Jelly so brave? Because Jelly has found the successful formula for peer-to-peer transactions between different blockchains. OMG but how? By executing Cross-chain Atomic Swaps. Some would ask “what is this” — have a look here. Others would say “nothing new”. But have you seen any good implementation of atomic swaps that smoothly transfer assets from one chain to another? Then go to app.jelly.market . It reminds you of Uniswap — bingo! Jelly do swaps, just like Uniswap, but between heterogeneous blockchains.
What does it mean? This is a chance to expand the DeFi space by bringing all kinds of assets to it. For instance, you can now use your BTC directly into DeFi dApps and tools. At the moment we are working on the integration of Compound so that you can swap your BTC for ETH and deposit them directly into the Compound protocol. We will also soon implement DAI-BTC trading pair to help you benefit from all features of Maker.
Jelly is now in a test period and works on the testnet. You are more than welcome to try a swap. We’ve already implemented Ethereum, Bitcoin and Tron. Next to join are Aeternity, EOS and Locktrip. Jelly will continue to be our top priority in 2020. Hopefully, we will finally kick the middle man out of the game and will solve the interoperability issues between the different blockchains.
5. New investors — let the money flow in
In the past year, wieDex received seed funding from two VCs . We started 2019 with funding provided by Aeternity. In the second half of the year, we closed a deal with a Singaporean based VC. Next stop — series A funding.
6. DeFi — a buzzword or a working technology
2019 was definitely the year of DeFi. The amount of ETH locked into the ecosystem has grown up to $500M. Undoubtedly, DeFi will bring even more value in the near future. The DeFi movement is all about creating a money market that is more efficient. We all saw the great success of DeFi protocols such as Compound, Maker and Uniswap.
Together with our partners from Jarvis we initiated monthly DeFi meet-ups in Sofia in order to spread the word about this fast-growing movement. We bring together the developers and enthusiasts from the Bulgarian Blockchain Hub to create a group of like-minded people who discuss, share and help others in the ever-changing DeFi world.
7. Some big talks: Devcon 5 & Berlin Blockchain Week
It is time to get serious (or not). Everybody — bring out the memes!
And last but not least, we traveled. We went all the way from Berlin to Osaka to dive deep into the Blockchain community and to steal some knowledge and ideas from the veterans. Our key takeaways:
- No BS, only real BUIDLers — Fortunately, 2017 is long gone. We managed to get rid of the scams and hopium. Now it is time to build multiple solutions and products serving both users and developers. Moreover, they collaborate and help each other. Oh Got, I even start to miss the good old competition and the noise created by all shitcoins (uups!)- altcoins that were supposed to change the world.
- DeFi is all around — As we already said, DeFi is a promising trend with a few good and valuable projects already functioning. The recent Maker CeFi story caused eyebrows to raise but let 2020 prove whether DeFi will continue flourishing or will die out as the ICO hype did.
- DAOs are coming — One may think that everything starting with D is doomed to success — DeFi, DAI, DAO. We already see more than 700 DAOs in the Aragon ecosystem deployed on the Ethereum Mainnet. Time will say if they will turn into a successful model of governance.
- Bring out the memes — show the best of your sarcasm and bring all the rainbows, unicorns, pigs and creatures from your childhood. Wondering what gifts to buy for Christmas? Get some pinky unisocks — after all, we all struggle for some kind of everyday adoption, right?
To sum up
2019 was exciting. Now it is time to enjoy a cup of hot chocolate with my warm unisocks on, to turn on the lights of the Christmas tree, to overeat with some hommy mommy food and to cry my eyes out for the end of Silicon Valley (P.S. software can be a bitch — be careful!).
