January Community Call and Monthly Roundup
January was a jam packed month and we’re excited to share it with you here in our monthly roundup!
Happy New Year!
Now that the holidays are officially over and the new year has came and went, we are back to heads-down building. We hope you enjoy our January roundup.
Chain updates
In January we didn’t add any particular chain as we are slowing down our integration process. Previously, since the start of 2022 we were heads down focused on two chain integrations a month. Now that we are at that point, we have decided to slow down and go deeper into each ecosystem, only deploying on a new chain when necessary. If you have any idea of a chain that could benefit from Witnet, let us know.
With that being said, we expect to have a lot of users on Ultron mainnet, so we have begun the integration from testnet to mainnet. Additionally, we have been tapped by Ava Labs to consider an integration on multiple subnets. Fuse is a chain that is conducting the integration themselves, so we’re excited to be updated when this may happen.
Other chains we have been monitoring and considering are Obscuro, Starknet, Arbitrum mainnet (we’re live on testnet) and Fantom. Again, we are closely monitoring it and making the decision if we should deploy there.
Protocol and data feeds
This is the first month in a year that we’ve “gone down” in total data feeds. This is no cause for concern however, because we are consolidating and researching our on-chain usage for some chains that promised us protocols, and didn’t come through. These chains include Cube, Metis, SmartBCH, and OKX Chain. The contracts are still live on-chain, but the Witnet Foundation will not be paying for the updates until a project has expressed interest in us doing so.
The current statistics stand at 210 data feeds, 45 networks, on 24 chains. The total value secured is at 8.8 million USD via protocols like PangeaSwap, KPerp Exchange, and Bodh Finance. Of course because Witnet is permissionless, there are most likely dozens of protocols using the oracle without our knowledge- the TVS is most likely double or triple what DeFiLlama shows.
Lastly, QuickSwap is a large protocol that reached out looking for price feeds on Polygon for a lending protocol they are building. QuickSwap is a massive DEX and we’re excited to work with them to venture into lending and borrowing.
Network statistics
The network saw a nice surge in all tracked usages this month. There were 50,800 data requests for a new total of 1.12 million. This doesn’t include the 192 thousand HTTP-GET requests bringing this total to 4 million. There were 4.4 thousand HTTP-POST requests for a grand total of 30 thousand. In the month of January, we noticed 71 randomness requests for a new total of 2,100. Additionally, there were 21,400 value transfers and 68 million value transferred (denominated in WIT) for a grand total of 986k value transfers and 7.6 billion, respectively.
Busy month!
Grant program updates
Our grant program exploded in the month of January. The Witnet Foundation is in talks with a few different projects. Let’s explore together.
PocketDemons is a project on Cronos looking to build two separate games over the course of roughly 8 months. The first game is called Hell Trumps, and it is a trading card game similar to Pokemon but users can wager large amounts to win even larger amounts! This is possible because of the Witnet oracle. Take a more in depth look here.
Another project, CroDraw is building a lottery that is similar to Argo Finance that the foundation funded a few months ago. This protocol, also on Cronos is using the randomness oracle to decide the winner of the game.
Another project is exploring using Witnet to receive GitHub merges and pull requests for their DAO. The general concept is to use Witnet nodes to see if a “task” has been completed by a DAO member. If it has been the member will be authorized rewards from the DAO treasury. This presents a new use case for the oracle and we’re excited to work with DevopsDAO!
The lightwallet
The lightwallet is less than a month away! This wallet is highly anticipated by our community members and we expect it to have an impact on the use cases for the WIT coin. Members will now be able to transfer WIT and hold it directly on mobile, or for another instance of a desktop wallet.
This wallet is highly efficient. Whilst the user trades some privacy afforded to them with Sheikah, they are receiving a lighter version. This is because the lightwallet doesn’t need to connect to a full node and instead connects directly to the block explorer. The wallet is also fully open source and supports both desktop and mobile!
We’re so excited to bring it to the world in February.
Upcoming WIPs
There are five upcoming WIPs that are going to be voted on by the nodes on the Witnet network in the coming future. These are mostly the discussions that have been going on in our Discord and GitHub for quite a while. These include Number 22: Data request reward collateral ratio, Number 23: Burning slashed collateral, Number 24: Improved processing of numbers in oracle queries, Number 25: HTTP redirects in retrievals, and Number 26: Introduce new EncodeReveal RADON error.
All of these improvements would be hard forks for the network and will add much functionality along with extra security as we head deeper into the new year and begin to secure even more value than years prior.
We are going to be doing deep dives into each of these when it is time to do so. Stay tuned.
EthereumDenver
Witnet is sponsoring EthDenver! We’re super excited to head to the event in late February. We’re currently developing a new game to run the entire length of the conference that we’re calling “Witty Pixels.” This game is the largest collaborative NFT creation to date and is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for event goers.
Once the event is over, people will have a chance to mint the ERC-721 and transfer it individually as an ERC-20. The actual art of the NFT is determined by users interacting with eachother throughout the game. More information coming soon.
Final announcements
Our Developer Relations teammate, otherwise known as Parody_Bit in our channels will be joining the Reef chain team for a developer AMA on February 6th.
Check out the stETH pool where you can deposit your Lido staked ETH (stETH) and potentially win on a weekly basis. The next drawing is going to yield 0.04+ stETH.
Thanks for reading!
January was a busy month and we’re super excited to see what February holds as we will be in Denver for the EthDenver event along with continuing to build our user base.
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