DIS Weekly #7
DIS Weekly covers developments in the space of decentralized infrastructure solutions.
If you’d like to submit your project updates or podcast episodes for the next round of DIS Weekly / DIS Moment, email us at dis@pokt.network or DM us at @DISweekly.
//NODE INFRASTRUCTURE//
Casa Node | @CasaHODL
CASA introduced Node Heartbeats and the Satsback Heartbeat reward earlier last week. Node Heartbeats provides a new way to check that your Casa Node is operating as intended from anywhere. Checks are done in a private and secure manner by utilizing TOR. The Heartbeat SatsBack Reward is a weekly 10,000 SatsBack reward for any Casa Node user that runs at minimum 5 Node Heartbeat checks in a week. This incentive gives Casa Node users the opportunity to earn Bitcoin by keeping their node online, supporting the decentralization of the network, and maintaining a healthy habit of checking the status of their node. The new Sats App with Node Heartbeats and SatsBack is live on both iOS and Android.
Oaknode | @OAKnode
OAKnode updated their RSK node, so users can now run v1.0.2 with one click / one command line.
Pocket Network | @POKTnetwork
Last week, Pocket released p-rep.community, a community tool for finding P-Reps that match your values. With this ultimate tool, community members will be able to do due diligence by filtering qualities, discover candidates, as well as, vote and comment directly on the site. The other day, all the P-Rep candidates were added to this dynamic tool. It’s a great way to get to know your P-Rep candidates before voting starts. A big shout out to Shane Burgett for developing and maintaining P-Rep.Community website.
Right in time for P-Rep Pre-Voting, the POCKETxFIGMENT P-Rep introduced ICON-DI, a fully decentralized infrastructure and reward system for ICON that rewards Citizen Nodes. Although ICON is a decentralized network, ICON DApps currently have to rely on centralized gateways. This means if a dedicated node gets compromised or goes down, the DApp will be offline until an update is made. With ICON-DI, DApps connect to the ICON through a decentralized network of Citizen Nodes. DApps are routed through random Citizen Nodes, ensuring there is never a centralized entity between their connection with ICON. Citizen Nodes that are part of the ICON-DI generate rewards (not just P-Reps) when they serve to decentralize ICON DApps.
//LAYER 2//
Connext | @ConnextNetwork
According to Arjun Bhuptani (on Discord), Connext v2 is going live soon! The team is currently in the final mile of transitioning over to v2.0. Indra-v2 code has been moved into the main Indra repo.
In other news, Connext Network has increased an average of ~110 DAI per day since the launch of MetaMask mobile with InstaPay.
Raiden Network | @raiden_network
The Raiden development team has been focused on making more progress towards their Alderaan milestone. According to their weekly update, several bugs and issues in the test infrastructure were resolved in the Raiden client repo.
In late April, Raiden announced the Raiden Trust, which manages 16 million RDN to fund and support projects helping to both build and grow the Raiden Network ecosystem. On June 21st, they began accepting applications for the first wave of grants. This round closes on Aug 31st. Projects that have been participating in hackathons and tackling Raiden bounties are encouraged to apply to grow their hacks into longer term projects.
//WEB3 TOOLBOX//
3Box | @3boxdb
Last week, Zerion, a trustless bank for DeFi, integrated 3Box profiles into their interface. Quite a bit of projects used the 3Box SDK and APIs during the hackathons in the Berlin Blockchain Week. Check out these innovative project submissions: SplitNetwork, You., ciao, Collector Hub, chow DAO, and Bob the Browser.
At the end of June, 3box announced they’ve closed a $2.5 million seed round led by Placeholder Ventures. Around the same time, 3Box spun-out of ConsenSys to form an independent entity 3Box Inc., to help them deliver on their mission of building connection and trust online through distributed data storage and identity. Since then, they’ve launched 3Box Docs and more.
Linkdrop | @LinkdropHQ
Linkdrop, a web3 marketing tool, shared on Twitter an internal demo from the Meta Cartel Demo Day. It showed a smart contract based Web Wallet connecting to the 0xProject Instant DApp after ERC20 tokens were claimed to the wallet with just a few clicks.
//WALLETS//
MEW | @myetherwallet
MyEtherWallet released MEW version 5.1.2, which contains UI fixes and other updates. This includes: fixing “MEW Connect” and “Buy ETH” buttons, adding a warning message to HTTP basic access authentication, upgrading web3.js to 1.2.1, fixing the scroll up animation glitch on mobile, and more.
MEW also published the 2nd installment of their Essential Wallet Guide! It discusses hardware wallets and hardware-like wallets, such as MEWconnect.
Portis | @Portis_io
Portis recently announced the launch of their own (D)App Store at apps.portis.io! Check out all the DApps that are using Portis. Speaking of one of those applications, earlier this month Morpher has integrated with Portis.
They’ve also started a monthly newsletter, which is a great way to stay up to date with developments from Portis.
Coinbase Wallet | @CoinbaseWallet
Coinbase Wallet has announced the launch of WalletLink. This let’s users play with DApps on any desktop browser while keeping their funds safe in their mobile Coinbase Wallet. In essence, it’s an open-source, encrypted bridge between your Coinbase Wallet and desktop browser. DeFi Protocols Compound, dYdX, and Maker already support WalletLink.
The launch was met with some controversy over the strikingly similarity between it and WalletConnect. Here’s a good twitter thread that dives into the differences of the two products.
uPort | @uPort_me
uPort has redesigned the UX of their application.
They’ve improved in three core areas:
1) Abstracting away direct blockchain references.
2) Focusing on the credential as verified data.
3) Creating a marketplace.
They’ve also released a new app capability that allows users to view which 3rd party services can access with their specific credentials.
//DEFI//
MetaMoneyMarket | @MetaMoneyMarket
MetaMoneyMarket held a poll on August 14th to see what protocol users would like to see supported in the next release. They’ve decided to add Fulcrum, which means that they’ll be able to offer max interest versions of 0xProject, WBTC, and Augur. As well as, higher interest rates for DAI and USDC. MetaMoneyMarket has also begun research on UniSwap Exchange, which received around one-third of the vote.
Sablier | @SablierHQ
In mid-April, Sablier publicly released their product roadmap on Notion. They’ve also switched to a new logo.
PoolTogether | @PoolTogether_
PoolTogether’s most recent pool was completed on August 19th, which was the last no-loss lottery pool on their V1 architecture. You can check to see if the winner was you at pooltogether.us/all-pools. The last pool winner won a total of 247.90 DAI! PoolTogether is currently in the middle of an audit process for V2, which launches in the next couple of weeks.
Betoken | @BetokenFund
The crowd-powered asset management protocol Betoken has recently made a couple of announcements. They’ve integrated with Blocknative to improve their user onboarding flow. Users can now access Betoken.Fund through these following Web3 Browsers: Trust Wallet, MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, Opera, imToken, and Enjin (with WalletLink coming soon).
Betoken has two big events coming up. The first huge event is the start of the intermission phase where users can deposit and withdraw funds on the Betoken DApp. The next big event is the end of the Betoken Trading Contest, in which the top 10 managers who generate the best monthly ROI will be awarded with a part of a 1000 DAI prize. There’s only a few days left! Winners will be announced on or around August 30th.
0x | @0xProject
Last week, 0x introduced Asset Swapper. It’s a tool that enables DeFi projects to automatically source liquidity from the 0x Network, pass it into their smart contracts, and fill orders at the best prices. The ability for smart contracts to programmatically swap tokens through DEXs by leveraging contract-fillable liquidity (CFL) will enable DeFi businesses to create services that couldn’t exist in the traditional financial system. With Asset Swapper, developers are going to be able to execute new trading strategies, improve their product UX, and launch novel financial markets by integrating it into their smart contracts or DApps. You may have already seen this in action through the function of rebalancing an index fund for Set Protocol or managing a CDP for InstaDApp.
Will Warren, co-founder of 0x, sums it up well: “0x is the liquidity API for DeFi”.
//PODCASTS//
POV Crypto Podcast | @POVCryptoPod
Ethereum 2.0 Progress with Alex Stokes
Software Engineering Daily | @software_daily
Crypto and OSS with Haseeb Qureshi, Joseph Jacks, and Alok Vasudev
Epicenter | @epicenterbtc
Dan Shin: Terra - The Stable Currency Tackling the Ecommerce Payments Market
Into the Ether | @ethhub_io
Fluidity: Bringing Real World Assets to Ethereum
Zero Knowledge | @zeroknowledgefm
Decrypt Asia | @DecryptAsia
Layer 2 Scaling with Jack O’Holleran, CEO of Skale Labs
Hashing It Out | @HashingItOutPod
//DIS MOMENT//
No. 1 https://twitter.com/i/moments/1135585470832893953
No. 2 https://twitter.com/i/moments/1146098208466178048
No. 3 https://twitter.com/i/moments/1150488847819710465
No. 4 https://twitter.com/i/moments/1151488370499104769
No. 5 https://twitter.com/i/moments/1154436794647289856
No. 6 https://twitter.com/i/moments/1156972138940829697
No. 7 https://twitter.com/i/moments/1159159593894854657
No. 8 https://twitter.com/i/moments/1161333702804344832
No. 9 https://twitter.com/i/moments/1163943379564150784
For more moments and tweets, follow DIS Weekly on Twitter at @DISWeekly.
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