Monthly Update (March 2022)
We are hiring for the following roles:
Announcing Chorus Ventures ($30m fund)
Over the past 3 and a half years, we have developed unparalleled expertise in decentralised networks through launching and operating some of the most used protocols in the space. We have provided input on token economics, mechanism design, node operation and key management solutions, validator relations, governance structures and GTM strategies. We value projects that we work with and always make sure to contribute in an impactful way. For this reason, we announced Chorus Ventures, which will be a $30m fund that is investing in outstanding decentralised networks, protocols and related products over 3 years. Chorus Ventures will be managed by our Research and Ventures Lead (Xavier Meegan), with oversight from Felix Lutsch and Brian Crain. To date, we have made 26 investments in this space.
Chorus Ventures is investing in Proof-of-Stake networks, interoperability, and middleware protocols and products. Both The Block and CoinDesk covered the Chorus Ventures announcement, which can be read here and here.
Risks and rewards for validators in Proof-of-Stake Ethereum
To make sense of the opportunities presented by staking, we explored the risks native to Ethereum and how said risks stack up versus the offered rewards after the Altair upgrade. We released an article to clarify why and how ETH rewards can vary from small changes in state or from bigger events, and also showed how staking is a profitable business to take part in the long term on Ethereum. Our analysis found that the profit of a single validator is around 1.7428 ETH per year, or if we prefer to see it in terms of percentage, this corresponds to a 5.44% APY.
Chorus One Podcast - March 2022
Lex Avellino - Founder, Passage | Chorus One Podcast #51
Network Data
Assets staked with Chorus One: $3,188,178,816.50
Solana is moving forward with NFT development. The BurntFinance Ignition Launchpad will be used to produce, launch, and mint the Serum NFT Ecosystem. Additionally, SolanaNFT’s are coming to Opensea in April as well as PUBG battle royale has announced that they are starting to build games on Solana. Solana Pay has shown promising activity following last month’s launch, featuring a payments track with a $50,000 first prize. Lastly, an insightful Energy use report has been published for March.
Cosmos got the month off to a good start by approving the transfer of the Gravity DEX from the Cosmos hub. B-Harvest proposed moving the Gravity DEX technology to a different blockchain, Crescent Network, in order to fully achieve the DEX's potential to benefit all Cosmos users. Crescent Network is reserving 50% of its Genesis supply for ATOM stakeholder airdrop distribution.
Ethereum is getting closer to the PoS Merge. Kintsugi merge testnet has proven to be an invaluable testing environment for The Merge. Kiln's execution layer, like the Ethereum mainnet, was launched using proof-of-work in tandem with a Beacon Chain using proof-of-stake. On 15 March 2022, the Merge occurred on Kiln. The network is now totally based on proof-of-stake. Kiln is intended to be the last merging testnet produced before upgrading current public testnets. Additionally, the Ethereum foundation has published the Vulnerability disclosures for transparency.
Chainlink continues to grow where its Data Feeds have delivered 2B+ data points on-chain, making them the industry's first choice for secure and accurate data. Chainlink has now announced that Horizon Protocol, a DeFi protocol for the issue and trade of borderless synthetic assets, will integrate Chainlink Keepers on the BNB Chain mainnet. Horizon Protocol will be able to safely and cost-effectively automate the transfer of Horizon Exchange fees and staking rewards to HZN stakers in Horizon Genesis using Chainlink Keepers. Furthermore, TypeScript is now supported by the Chainlink Hardhat Starter Kit. TypeScript is an object-oriented coding language that was created as a superset of JavaScript to help with code complexity in big projects. Lastly, Stakin will assist expand the fast-developing smart contract economy by operating a node on the Chainlink Network.
Lido is now available on Polygon. Lido on Polygon is a liquid staking solution for MATIC created with Shard Labs. Phase 1 of Lido on Polygon has a $1M deposit maximum. Phase 2 of Lido on Polygon will begin in April. When staking MATIC using Lido, you get stMATIC tokens in return. Following the vote, Aave has also approved Lido's stETH as a collateral asset on its platform. Users may now borrow assets against their stETH while keeping their Ethereum staking profits while using stETH as collateral.
By creating The Graph AdvocatesDAO, the Graph community is taking an exciting move towards decentralising ecosystem activities and grants. In addition to overseeing the Graph Advocates Program, the DAO manages community grants. For its first launch, the DAO acquired $250000 worth of GRT from The Graph Council, which was part of the original Advocates Program cohort. The Graph is now home to 160 Indexers, 2500+ Curators, 8,600+ Delegators, and 282 subgraphs.
Sponsorlive has launched the first NFT rugby marketplace on Tezos, called FanLivecards. Separately and also powered by Tezos, WAC Lab has presented We Are Museums in collaboration with TZ Connect and the Blockchain Art Directory 2.0.
Popular Terra dapps such as Anchor, Astroport, Mars can now be connected with LEAP. The goal is to allow users to swap through Astroport, invest in Anchor, one-click stake through Stader. To support this, the team will build tech infrastructure that allows protocols to develop mini-apps inside the wallet and in wallet staking. Further, as the multi-chain vision for UST starts playing out, Leap’s team will integrate with cross-chain bridges to support the import and export of assets from Terra, as well as integrate with new multi-chain protocols that emerge.
The new network continues to take steps. After a successful launch, Agoric is now available on Keplr mobile. The Delegation Program Stats now portray 35M BLD delegated by Agoric with 90M total BLD staked, consisting of 9% of all tokens.