Jekyll2021-12-31T07:37:12+00:00https://www.dotspot.io/feed.xmlDOTspotWelcome to the DOTspot. A Polkadot community driven project that aims to give an open place for ecosystem projects to share their latest news on Polkadot, Kusama, and Substrate projects.Learn PolkadotPolkadot’s Hidden Gem: True Online Freedom Of speech!2020-10-20T00:00:00+00:002020-10-20T00:00:00+00:00https://www.dotspot.io/applications/2020/10/20/PolkadotsHiddenGemThatPromotesTrueOnlineFreedomOfspeech!<p><img src="https://github.com/ideplo/polkadotspace/blob/master/images/freedom_of_the_press.png?raw=true" alt="Freedom" width="70px" /> Freedom of Speech sounds good, but have we ever witnessed true online freedom of speech before? I mean, something like a blog post, tweet, or some type of audio or visual recording that has true staying power. Staying power in the sense that, a particular piece of content will still exist and stay on the platform instead of being taken down.</p>
<p><img src="https://github.com/ideplo/polkadotspace/blob/master/images/Control.jpg?raw=true" alt="Control" width="70px" /> Why does content get taking down anyway? Is it because the platforms’ governance body deems that the content does not reflect their perspective or doesn’t align with their political stance? But the platform is open, come one come all! Maybe there’s no stance initially but certain truths or dislikes tend to birth pressures that exceed the platforms comfortable tolerances. These pressures have powerful influences from sources that unfortunately carry more weight than the touted platform’s un-bias posture. True social expression is therefore muzzled by way of influential bias’s and in most cases, the content permanently gets removed. I can understand this type of control from corporate or governmental facing platforms and other platforms where the bias is understood. But where are the true censorship-resistant social network platforms?</p>
<p><img src="https://github.com/ideplo/polkadotspace/blob/master/images/SocialMedia.png?raw=true" alt="Social Media" width="70px" /> What about the top social media platforms of today? We’ve heard and may have witnessed maybe first hand ourselves where content gets deleted. Most times when something has been deleted the reasons why sometimes are never known. The content creator usually never gets the courtesy of an explanation. I’ve heard stories where user accounts are just locked or shut down. When the user attempts to make an inquiry they usually get no response. Could it be that, if the reasons were explained as to why the account was closed, this would start exposing the platform bias’s even though they claim to be un-bias-ish?</p>
<p><img src="https://github.com/ideplo/polkadotspace/blob/master/images/Skynet.jpg?raw=true" alt="SkyNet" width="70px" /> Let’s say that the platforms’ governance body as a whole is as un-bias as some may think. If that’s true, how and who removes the questionable content? Hmm, maybe it’s tiny robot monkeys with an agenda working for Ceasar getting ready for the fourth installment of the Planet of the Apes? Or, maybe it’s something a little bit more sinister like SkyNet? Today’s technology in some cases seems to be outpacing Hollywood’s imagination and creativity, I mean look at Blockchain. So a SkyNet type of situation is not as far fetch as depicted in the movies. I just hope we’re typed cast in the right sequel and that the T-800 (Terminator) is on our side! If not, we all are doomed if we don’t have the John and Sarah Connor skill sets to survive. Without those skill sets, we know how that situation turns out.</p>
<p><img src="https://github.com/ideplo/polkadotspace/blob/master/images/Centralize_Fade.jpg?raw=true" alt="Control" width="70px" /> Ok, ok, let me get back to the purpose of this article before I start making other movie references. Those Neo types who understand the significance of Blockchain, you know the red pill takers aka The One’s, they could be the Woke Protagonist in this ever so real Matrix! See I just can’t help it! Anyway, how does the content get removed and why? If it’s not monkeys or SkyNet, is it a group of people sitting at a desk reading every post and tweet that gets pushed onto the InterWeb? This would mean that there is central control overseeing everything that is posted. Man, that’s a tremendous task. How many people does it take to pull that off? Maybe 10 to 20 years ago that was the de-facto protocol but it is hard to believe that’s the case today.</p>
<p><img src="https://github.com/ideplo/polkadotspace/blob/master/images/AI.png?raw=true" alt="AI" width="70px" /> Get ready here comes the buzz word of the day, AI. Yep, Artificial Intelligence! That’s the computer overlord overseeing all. But AI itself is just a computer program, except for <strong><a href="https://openai.com/blog/openai-licenses-gpt-3-technology-to-microsoft/">GPT-3</a></strong> which is more SkyNetish than anything I’ve read or seen! AI doesn’t care about politics nor do its feelings get hurt when it reads posts stating that you like dogs over cats. So if AI doesn’t care, how does it determine what gets deleted or taken down? The fact that it makes that type of decision seemingly on its own (wink wink), would mean that AI is all about that Bias life! I won’t try to go deeper into AI systems that think on their own because I don’t have the knowledge to do so. But I will say that the bias comes from the programming. These programming instructions are called algorithms. Algorithms just happen to be programmed by people! Therefore we are back at the same place essentially, is there true online Freedom of Speech?</p>
<p><img src="https://github.com/ideplo/polkadotspace/blob/master/images/Polkadot_dark.png?raw=true" alt="Polkadot" width="70px" /> We need a platform that will allow “<strong><a href="https://polkadot.network/Polkadot-lightpaper.pdf">individual sovereignty over centralized control</a></strong>”. Within the Polkadot ecosystem, there is such a platform where you, the creator have total control! Introducing Subsocial. “Subsocial is a set of Substrate pallets with web UI that allows anyone to launch their own decentralized censorship-resistant social network aka community”.</p>
<p><img src="https://github.com/ideplo/polkadotspace/blob/master/images/SubSocialBlack.png?raw=true" alt="Subsocial" width="70px" /> Subsocial is a new and exciting Blockchain based on <strong><a href="https://www.parity.io/substrate/">Substrate</a></strong>. The team continues to improve and develop new features and are constantly pushing out updates. The potential for this innovative technology is huge! I can see Subsocial paving the way for similar future applications throughout this space. The great thing is, you don’t have to come up with the implementation on your own, just use a little bit of this and a little bit of that, meaning, Polkadot and Subsocial can be a great starting point. You can learn all about Subsocial here <strong><a href="https://subsocial.network/">Subsocial</a></strong>.</p>
<p><em>MHoward (IDEPLO)</em></p>MHoward (IDEPLO)Freedom of Speech sounds good, but have we ever witnessed true online freedom of speech before? I mean, something like a blog post, tweet, or some type of audio or visual recording that has true staying power. Staying power in the sense that, a particular piece of content will still exist and stay on the platform instead of being taken down.Short Recapture2020-10-12T00:00:00+00:002020-10-12T00:00:00+00:00https://www.dotspot.io/applications/2020/10/12/shortrecapture<p>The last three months I have been following the Kulupu Discord and Telegram chat quite closely. I also participated in governance via voting on different referenda. Here’s a short recap about the things that happened and why.</p>
<p>Kulupu as a Proof of Work Blockchain faces some unique challenges that other Substrate based chains don’t face. A lot of these have to do with the different type of system that PoW is as opposed to Proof of Stake. The community differs too and is made up of three actors, namely in order of magnitude: investors; miners and finally the developer. Kulupu is a side-project of Wei Tang and he mainly, with the help of Shawn Tabrizi, does all the dev work.</p>
<p>The emission of the coin was 1 KLP per second, similar to Grin. With the surge in interest during the Polkadot launch came a surge in price. Investors were concerned by the enormous creation of coins per day. These concerns were addressed by a halving of the block reward, the emission was reduced to 1 KLP every other second and a reward lock. Miners are unable to dump their coins on the market, their reward is locked for a period of 100 days and slowly vested in batches of 10% during this period.</p>
<p>To make the coin even more attractive to buyers, a cap on the total amount is currently being proposed. In a couple of years the block-reward will be reduced to 8 KLP. If the blocks that are created are half full, a zero-sum is met between burnt transaction fees and block reward. Note that transaction fees are always burnt, otherwise miners would have an incentive to do fake transactions.</p>
<p>Miners are in charge of the safety of the network. To reduce 51% attacks on the network Wei implemented signed mining. This makes renting hash-power anonymously impossible. Pooled mining is not possible though too. The hash-rate is quite high at the moment and the network seems to be dominated by one miner.</p>
<p>Furthermore a voluntary taxation of 20% was introduced and miners are able to decide whether it’s burnt or donated to the treasury. That’s where my current proposal on https://commonwealth.im/ of Gitcoin integration comes in. Like Polkadot and Kusama I think it’s a good idea to spend funds on further development and thus grow the userbase.</p>
<p>Kulupu lacks a roadmap to prevent speculation. The https://corepaper.org/ website gives an impression what is to be expected. The main focus will be enabling actor-based smart contracts. These mitigate the risk of front-running.</p>
<p>To be frank the currency had quite a pump and dump and this caused frustration on all sides. Most short-term investors have difficulty understanding the tentative approach of governance and do not care to participate. But as we can see the demands of investors were and are certainly addressed. On the other hand the market clearly desires more use-cases. On chain governance and forkless upgrades alone do not suffice. Acala, Reef Finance, Mantra Dao and other DeFi projects in the Polkadot ecosystem will have to integrate KLP.</p>JunteThe last three months I have been following the Kulupu Discord and Telegram chat quite closely. I also participated in governance via voting on different referenda. Here’s a short recap about the things that happened and why.Polkadot’s Substrate 2.0 integrates oracles at a protocol level2020-09-26T19:34:30+00:002020-09-26T19:34:30+00:00https://www.dotspot.io/substrate/2020/09/26/Polkdot_intregates_w_Substr<p>The Polkadot team released on Wednesday a major milestone for its Substrate blockchain framework, which now provides a way for blockchain applications to interface with the outside world without relying on external oracle providers.</p>
<p>Substrate is the name used for Polkadot’s blockchain building framework. It provides developers with a variety of tools to design their custom blockchain for a variety of possible applications. The blockchains can then be launched stand-alone or integrated in Polkadot’s network of shards, or “Parachains.”</p>
<p>The most important feature of Substrate 2.0 is the “off-chain worker,” a development module that lets blockchains perform advanced computations or make their own web requests to the outside world.</p>
<p>Off-chain workers leverage Substrate nodes to perform operations that would normally be outside of the blockchain’s capabilities. In a blockchain like Ethereum, a particular computation has to be quick and limited enough to fit into a block of instructions. This excludes many types of operations that are either non-deterministic — for example web requests that may fail — or are just too complex for the resources available. Substrate 2.0 allows developers to unload these operations to the nodes running the network, which are able to perform web requests, encryption and decryption, signing of data, random number generation and other CPU-intensive tasks.</p>
<p>This system would allow Polkadot developers to build complex systems like price feed providers entirely on-chain, removing some of the elements of trust involved. The issue of finding reliable data sources — the core of the “oracle problem” — would still remain, but developers would have maximum flexibility in the design of their DApps and blockchains.</p>
<p>By contrast, oracle systems like Chainlink have their data gathering logic entirely off-chain. Smart contract developers can only access the final data submitted by the oracles, necessitating a certain degree of trust in these providers that these types of solutions try to minimize.</p>
<p>Substrate 2.0 also introduces a variety of other developer-friendly tools in the form of Pallets, configurable modules that greatly simplify certain actions. For example, the “Democracy” pallet provides a simple way to introduce on-chain voting, while the “EVM” pallet replicates Ethereum’s Virtual Machine to let developers port its smart contracts to Polkadot.</p>
<p>While Substrate appears to be a significant technological leap forward over some existing solutions, it remains to be seen if developers and users will make the jump to Polkadot. The Web3 Foundation, which supports Polkadot, has been busy funding teams to build the infrastructure of the blockchain, ranging from <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/a-new-polkadot-to-ethereum-bridge-could-enable-cross-chain-defi-composability">bridges to Ethereum</a> and other blockchains to <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/eos-defi-project-sets-up-shop-on-polkadot">in-house decentralized finance projects</a>.</p>
<p>A key part of Polkadot’s value proposition is sharding, which would let Substrate blockchains communicate with each other. However, cross-shard communication is <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/polkadot-launches-testnet-for-sharding-cross-communication">still at the testing stage</a>.</p>Learn PolkadotThe Polkadot team released on Wednesday a major milestone for its Substrate blockchain framework, which now provides a way for blockchain applications to interface with the outside world without relying on external oracle providers.The Web3 Foundation Will Pay You to Build on Polkadot2020-09-25T19:34:30+00:002020-09-25T19:34:30+00:00https://www.dotspot.io/web3%20foundation/2020/09/25/web3article<h2 id="polkadots-treasury-is-beginning-to-disburse-money-to-developers-as-the-battle-for-smart-contract-supremacy-heats-up">Polkadot’s treasury is beginning to disburse money to developers as the battle for smart contract supremacy heats up.</h2>
<p>The Web3 Foundation, Polkadot’s equivalent of the Ethereum Foundation, announced a wave of funding for projects creating infrastructure and development tools for the ecosystem. With this move, Polkadot is ensuring future developers and users have a better experience building on the protocol.</p>
<p><img src="https://cryptoslate.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/polkadot-1024x538.jpg" alt="Polkadot" style="zoom: 50%;" /></p>
<h2 id="get-paid-to-build-on-polkadot">Get Paid to Build on Polkadot</h2>
<p>Creating sound infrastructure is a pre-requisite for a healthy blockchain network. Most smart contract platforms have a not-for-profit organization that helps fund the development needed for this infrastructure. Polkadot is no exception.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://web3.foundation/">Web3 Foundation</a> is beginning its first-ever grants program. The categories being funded include infrastructure deployment, operations projects, and software development proposals. While this means DeFi projects cannot apply yet, teams building interoperability solutions, like <a href="https://cryptobriefing.com/polkadot-will-soon-tap-ethereums-billions-thanks-interoperable-bridge/">SnowFork</a>, are eligible.</p>
<p>Redspot (testing and development environment), Centrifuge and Substrate client (API provider), Polkascan (blockchain explorer), and Encointer (identity protocol) are the first four teams to submit their proposal for funding to the Web3 Foundation.</p>
<p>Teams building tools for Polkadot are strongly urged to apply for a grant to build out their idea.</p>
<p>Though excluded from this round, DeFi projects on Polkadot have had little funding issues these days. Acala, a Maker-like competitor, just <a href="https://cryptobriefing.com/investors-bet-7-million-that-defi-will-move-polkadot-network/">raked in</a> $7 million round of seed capital to build out its network.</p>
<p>But the importance of infrastructure funding cannot be <a href="https://cryptobriefing.com/death-fat-protocol-thesis-is-bearish-ethereum/">understated</a>. Building a robust application layer is essential, but without an equally strong infra layer, applications will not scale. Hence, the foundation’s decision to place foremost focus on funding this sector initially is in the best interest of Polkadot.</p>Learn PolkadotPolkadot’s treasury is beginning to disburse money to developers as the battle for smart contract supremacy heats up.Acala Selected for the DeFi Alliance Accelerator2020-09-24T00:00:00+00:002020-09-24T00:00:00+00:00https://www.dotspot.io/applications/2020/09/24/acala1<p>To Help Build, Deploy, and Grow the DeFi Hub of Polkadot</p>
<p>Written by <a href="https://medium.com/u/8d475d21e811?source=post_page-----c1526008963e--------------------------------">Bette Chen</a></p>
<p>Acala is honored and thrilled to be one of twelve teams selected for<a href="https://medium.com/@lmrankhan/defi-alliance-announces-cohort-2-liquidity-launchpad-5bbaf76cde32"> the second cohort of the DeFi Alliance accelerator program</a>, out of more than 100 applications. We are joined by the following teams innovating in the decentralized finance space: <a href="http://pods.finance/"><em>Pods</em></a><em>,</em> <a href="https://paraswap.io/#/"><em>Paraswap</em></a><em>, Saddle,</em> <a href="http://notional.finance/"><em>Notional</em></a><em>,</em> <a href="http://tokenlon.im/"><em>Tokenlon</em></a><em>,</em> <a href="http://vega.xyz/"><em>Vega</em></a><em>,</em> <a href="https://derivadex.com/"><em>Derivadex</em></a><em>,</em> <a href="http://perp.fi/"><em>Perpetual,</em></a> <a href="https://loopring.org/#/"><em>Loopring</em></a><em>,</em> <a href="http://deversifi.com/"><em>Deversifi</em></a><em>, and</em> <a href="https://mcdex.io/"><em>Mcdex</em></a><em>.</em></p>
<p><img src="https://miro.medium.com/max/700/0*7SxlrlyVQIduIxF5" alt="" /></p>
<p>The <a href="https://defialliance.co/">DeFi Alliance</a>’s inaugural cohort hosted some of the top DeFi teams including 0x, dYdX, Kyber Network, IDEX, Opyn, Set Protocol, and Synthetix. The program helps connect the cohort participants with a network of experts and resources, with a particular focus on designing liquidity mining programs and onboarding liquidity providers to bootstrap liquidity.</p>
<p>We look forward to learning from the mentors and Alliance members including firms such as Jump Trading, DRW/Cumberland, CMT Digital, Volt Capital, Alameda Research, ParaFi, Spartan Group, Framework Ventures, Gauntlet, Aave, Compound, Kyber Network, Synthetix, Mechanism, and many other trading firms, venture investors, legal experts, and alumni of the accelerator program.</p>
<p>The DeFi Alliance also launched a potential game-changer <strong>Liquidity Launchpad program,</strong> partnering with <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/teller-finance-announces-october-launch-130000981.html">Teller Finance</a> to source institutional liquidity for DeFi protocols and lower barriers for wider consumers to access DeFi products. Acala is excited to partake and contribute to growing the ecosystem together, and thanks to the DeFi Alliance team for such an opportunity.</p>
<hr />
<p><strong>About Acala</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://acala.network/">Acala</a> is the decentralized financial hub of Polkadot that makes it fast and easy to use or build financial applications, improving trading efficiency and saving valuable time. The platform offers a suite of financial primitives: a multi-collateralized stablecoin backed by cross-chain assets like Bitcoin, a trustless staking derivative, and a decentralized exchange to unleash liquidity and power financial innovations. Acala is the de facto open platform for finance applications to use smart contracts or built-in protocols with out-of-the-box cross-chain capabilities, security and financial optimizations.</p>
<p><strong>About DeFi Alliance</strong></p>
<p>The <a href="https://defialliance.co/">DeFi Alliance</a> (originally known as the Chicago DeFi Alliance) was jointly founded by TD Ameritrade, Cumberland, CMT Digital, DV Trading and Jump Capital, plus venture capital firm Volt Capital and the DeFi startup <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/defi-startup-compound-finance-raises-25-million-series-a-led-by-a16z">Compound</a>. Read about DeFi Alliance in <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/chicagos-trading-firms-look-to-defi-with-new-alliance">CoinDesk</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://medium.com/@danreecer?source=follow_footer--------------------------follow_footer-----------"><img src="https://miro.medium.com/fit/c/160/160/2*i91uAO2tRhdRe3O-AE5L4w.png" alt="Dan Reecer" /></a>WRITTEN BY<a href="https://medium.com/@danreecer?source=follow_footer--------------------------follow_footer-----------">Dan Reecer</a>Follow</p>
<h4 id="community--growth-polkadot-and-kusama--web3-foundation-advisorconsultant--acala">Community & Growth, Polkadot and Kusama @ Web3 Foundation. Advisor/Consultant @ Acala.</h4>Learn PolkadotTo Help Build, Deploy, and Grow the DeFi Hub of PolkadotAcala’s Testnet Parachain, New Funding Round, Smart Contracts and Ethereum-Compatibility2020-09-14T00:00:00+00:002020-09-14T00:00:00+00:00https://www.dotspot.io/applications/2020/09/14/acala1<p>It’s time for the September 2020 version of <strong>Building Acala</strong>, and if you’re new to Acala, welcome! <a href="http://acala.network/">Acala</a> is the decentralized financial hub of Polkadot that makes it fast and easy to use or build financial applications, improving trading efficiency and saving valuable time. Looking back on August, it was a month highlighted by major milestones with the Acala parachain beginning to function and successfully complete token transfers on the Polkadot testnet, a new round of investors and strategic partners, and the unveiling of smart contracts and Ethereum-compatibility on Acala. Continue below for all the happenings around the Acala ecosystem, and afterward, we invite you to come join us on <a href="https://twitter.com/acalanetwork">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://t.me/AcalaOfficial">Telegram</a>.</p>
<p><img src="https://miro.medium.com/max/800/0*rPcIWxu2NiMMUEpU" alt="Image for post" /></p>
<h1 id="development-updates"><strong>Development Updates</strong></h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Acala Unveils Smart Contracts and Ethereum Compatibility for Polkadot DeFi</strong> <a href="https://medium.com/acalanetwork/acala-unveils-smart-contracts-and-ethereum-compatibility-for-polkadot-defi-588b3891e53d"><strong>(Medium)</strong></a><strong>:</strong> Acala now supports the EVM and ink! pallets on Substrate, enabling Solidity and Wasm-based Smart Contracts for developers.</li>
<li><strong>Acala Launched First Parachain on Polkadot Testnet</strong> <a href="https://medium.com/acalanetwork/acala-launches-the-1st-parachain-on-polkadot-testnet-682c02bad08b">(<strong>Medium</strong>)</a>: Acala has launched its parachain on Polkadot’s testnet in preparation for mainnet deployments on Kusama and Polkadot.</li>
<li><strong>First successful cross-chain token transfer and trade in Acala DEX</strong> <a href="https://twitter.com/AcalaNetwork/status/1297851737525481473?s=20">(<strong>Twitter</strong>)</a>: Acala has enabled a full DeFi suite on a testnet parachain: test DOT can be transferred to the Acala parachain trustlessly, used as the underlying fee token, and used to participate in DeFi e.g. use DeX to trade, or collateralize for USD credits.</li>
</ul>
<iframe src="https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2FuAYnTQfE4us%3Ffeature%3Doembed&display_name=YouTube&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DuAYnTQfE4us&image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FuAYnTQfE4us%2Fhqdefault.jpg&key=a19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07&type=text%2Fhtml&schema=youtube" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" width="854" title="Acala parachain on Polkadot test & Cross-chain DeFi" class="ac ae af ew w" scrolling="auto" style="box-sizing: inherit; width: 680px; position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; height: 382.188px;"></iframe>
<ul>
<li><strong>First successful cross-chain stablecoin transfer from Acala to Laminar on testnet</strong> <a href="https://twitter.com/bettechentt/status/1298768242333237248?s=20">(<strong>Twitter</strong>)</a>: Acala has been integrated with the <a href="https://www.laminar.one/">Laminar</a> parachain testnet for trustless cross-chain token transfers and DeFi functionality. Demo video:</li>
</ul>
<iframe src="https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2Fk2L9RaH9EUI%3Ffeature%3Doembed&display_name=YouTube&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dk2L9RaH9EUI&image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2Fk2L9RaH9EUI%2Fhqdefault.jpg&key=a19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07&type=text%2Fhtml&schema=youtube" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" width="854" title="Polkadot Cross-chain DeFi: Acala x Laminar" class="ac ae af ew w" scrolling="auto" style="box-sizing: inherit; width: 680px; position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; height: 382.188px;"></iframe>
<ul>
<li><strong>Acala built and released the *xtoken* pallet for token transfers in the Polkadot ecosystem</strong> <a href="https://github.com/open-web3-stack/open-runtime-module-library/tree/rococo/xtokens">(<strong>Github</strong>)</a>: Any parachain using the xtoken pallet, built by Acala, can now integrate with Acala for token transfers. Xtoken was released as a common good library for any parachain to use.</li>
<li><strong>Acala built and released code to help any Substrate-based chain to become a parachain on Polkadot or Kusama</strong> <a href="https://github.com/AcalaNetwork/Acala/pull/362">(<strong>Github</strong>)</a>: Check out this PR above along with an ongoing refactoring effort (<a href="https://github.com/AcalaNetwork/Acala/compare/rococo-rc6"><strong>Github</strong></a>) to support chains running as independent Substrate chains or parachains.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Other upcoming development updates:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Acala’s next testnet release will enable smart contract capability on Acala with guidelines on the production readiness process</li>
<li>Watch for more cross-parachain and cross-blockchain integration coming up soon</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h1 id="ecosystem-updates"><strong>Ecosystem Updates</strong></h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Acala Raises Additional Series A for Polkadot DeFi Hub Ahead of Upcoming Parachain Launch (</strong><a href="https://medium.com/acalanetwork/acala-raises-additional-series-a-for-polkadot-defi-hub-ahead-of-upcoming-parachain-launch-22fdee9c2be9"><strong>Medium</strong></a><strong>)</strong>: Acala has raised an additional round of funding, along with partnerships for DeFi expertise, liquidity provisioning, and risk management (<a href="https://twitter.com/bettechentt/status/1299497896207773696?s=20">Twitter</a>).</li>
<li><strong>What We Learned from Acala’s Extreme Testing Simulation</strong> (<a href="https://medium.com/acalanetwork/what-we-learned-from-acalas-extreme-testing-simulation-5ef5769a0902">Medium</a>): Acala’s 3-week testnet campaign has concluded, highlighting the importance of a Canary Network and leading to several technical improvements to the network.</li>
</ul>
<p>Some of the stats we saw during this community testnet campaign:</p>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>✅ 14,500 + new accounts</td>
<td>⛓️ 140,000 + meaningful transactions</td>
<td>💰 $52 million locked total value</td>
<td>💲 $25 million aUSD issued</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Award highlights are as follows and full results published on <a href="https://github.com/AcalaNetwork/Acala/wiki/W.-Contribution-&-Rewards#season-3-prize-giving">Github</a>:</p>
<p>😎 Week 1 awards went to 2,105 users out of 10,525 qualified</p>
<p>⌛ Week 2 awards went to top 10 traders with an average return of 24,200%</p>
<p>🌋 Week 3 awards went to 200 users</p>
<p>✍️ 10 bloggers/vloggers awarded</p>
<p>🐞 45 bug hunters awarded</p>
<p>🤖️ 1 code bounty awarded</p>
<hr />
<h1 id="acala-in-the-press"><strong>Acala in the Press</strong></h1>
<p><img src="https://miro.medium.com/max/30/1*v2Ndsw3UwNTj0EhQNbFykw.png?q=20" alt="Image for post" /></p>
<p><img src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1288/1*v2Ndsw3UwNTj0EhQNbFykw.png" alt="Image for post" /></p>
<p><a href="https://www.coindesk.com/acala-polkadot-defi-7m-pantera-saft">CoinDesk</a></p>
<p><img src="https://miro.medium.com/max/30/1*z4iztwspAQT0KgfGt4jp_w.png?q=20" alt="Image for post" /></p>
<p><img src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1281/1*z4iztwspAQT0KgfGt4jp_w.png" alt="Image for post" /></p>
<p><a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/polkadot-based-defi-project-acala-092543143.html">Yahoo Finance</a></p>
<p><img src="https://miro.medium.com/max/30/1*ZA2JHJmNc15TXwClrwE_GQ.png?q=20" alt="Image for post" /></p>
<p><img src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1137/1*ZA2JHJmNc15TXwClrwE_GQ.png" alt="Image for post" /></p>
<p><a href="https://cryptobriefing.com/acala-network-polkadots-makerdao-comes-ethereum/">CryptoBriefing</a></p>
<hr />
<h1 id="events"><strong>Events</strong></h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/AcalaNetwork/status/1295477682214338560?s=20">Acala participated in a Cross-chain DeFi AMA with Acala, Laminar & Ren for 650+ people</a></li>
<li>Sep 16–18: Acala will speak at The 3rd China International Blockchain Business Future Development Summit by Chain News and inkrpto</li>
<li>Acala Co-founder Ruitao judged the first Kusama hackathon, Hackusama, and Acala supported as technology and education partner (<a href="https://medium.com/acalanetwork/hackusama-ea1ddf3e945a">Hackusama with Acala</a>). Although this hackathon is over, the building continues! We are looking for excellent teams building DeFi or Finance related products. Come build with Acala (<a href="https://github.com/AcalaNetwork/Acala/wiki/U.-Build-with-Acala">Github — Build with Acala</a>).</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://miro.medium.com/max/30/0*qMAanMu2kGLUXByX?q=20" alt="Image for post" /></p>
<p><img src="https://miro.medium.com/max/679/0*qMAanMu2kGLUXByX" alt="Image for post" /></p>
<h1 id="join-us">Join Us</h1>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://acala.network/">Website</a></td>
<td><a href="https://twitter.com/AcalaNetwork">Twitter</a></td>
<td><a href="https://github.com/AcalaNetwork/Acala">GitHub</a></td>
<td><a href="https://github.com/AcalaNetwork/Acala/wiki">Acala Wiki</a></td>
<td><a href="https://discord.gg/vdbFVCH">Discord</a></td>
<td><a href="https://t.me/acalaofficial">Telegram</a></td>
<td><a href="https://riot.im/app/#/room/#acala:matrix.org">Riot Chat</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>To keep up to date with progress on the Acala parachain launches on Polkadot and Kusama, subscribe to the <a href="https://share.hsforms.com/1X9RxkXk-R62I0VNbATaDXw4h8qc">Acala Newsletter</a>.</p>
<hr />
<h1 id="about-acala"><strong>About Acala</strong></h1>
<p><a href="http://acala.network/">Acala</a> is the decentralized financial hub of Polkadot that makes it fast and easy to use or build financial applications, improving trading efficiency and saving valuable time. The platform offers a suite of financial primitives: a multi-collateralized stablecoin backed by cross-chain assets like Bitcoin, a trustless staking derivative, and a decentralized exchange to unleash liquidity and power financial innovations. Acala is the de facto open platform for finance applications to use smart contracts or built-in protocols with out-of-the-box cross-chain capabilities, security and financial optimizations.</p>
<p><a href="https://medium.com/acalanetwork?source=post_sidebar--------------------------post_sidebar-----------">Acala</a></p>
<h4 id="acala-is-the-decentralized-financial-hub-of-polkadot">Acala is the decentralized financial hub of Polkadot.</h4>
<p><a href="https://medium.com/@danreecer?source=follow_footer--------------------------follow_footer-----------"><img src="https://miro.medium.com/fit/c/80/80/2*i91uAO2tRhdRe3O-AE5L4w.png" alt="Dan Reecer" /></a>WRITTEN BY<a href="https://medium.com/@danreecer?source=follow_footer--------------------------follow_footer-----------">Dan Reecer</a></p>
<h4 id="community--growth-polkadot-and-kusama--web3-foundation-advisorconsultant--acala">Community & Growth, Polkadot and Kusama @ Web3 Foundation. Advisor/Consultant @ Acala.</h4>Learn PolkadotIt’s time for the September 2020 version of Building Acala, and if you’re new to Acala, welcome! Acala is the decentralized financial hub of Polkadot that makes it fast and easy to use or build financial applications, improving trading efficiency and saving valuable time. Looking back on August, it was a month highlighted by major milestones with the Acala parachain beginning to function and successfully complete token transfers on the Polkadot testnet, a new round of investors and strategic partners, and the unveiling of smart contracts and Ethereum-compatibility on Acala. Continue below for all the happenings around the Acala ecosystem, and afterward, we invite you to come join us on Twitter and Telegram.Acala Unveils Smart Contracts and Ethereum Compatibility for Polkadot DeFi2020-09-10T00:00:00+00:002020-09-10T00:00:00+00:00https://www.dotspot.io/applications/2020/09/10/acala1<p>By: <a href="https://medium.com/u/241f963260c9?source=post_page-----588b3891e53d--------------------------------">Bryan Chen</a></p>
<p>Polkadot is designed both to easily integrate with other blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum (via bridges like Interlay and RenVM), and to host a number of heterogeneous (aka independent and customizable) but interconnected chains, called parachains. Polkadot is more like a layer-0 infrastructure chain, providing the underlying trust layer that comes with shared Proof of Stake (PoS) security and cross-chain communication. The parachain chains are more likely to be domain-specific chains optimized for their use cases and solving specific domain problems, where Acala occupies the domain of decentralized finance. We offer a suite of out-of-the-box DeFi primitives such as a stablecoin (aUSD), staking derivatives (e.g. allowing you to redeem tokens (LDOT) on staked/locked DOT) and a decentralized exchange to power more DeFi innovation. We’ve also open-sourced common utility modules such as an oracle, multi-currency, generic monitoring framework for teams to use.</p>
<p><img src="https://miro.medium.com/max/800/0*-4rCl6SjqDKz7eBh" alt="Image for post" /></p>
<p>Substrate-based parachains like Acala will enjoy the full-tech-stack provided by this framework ranging from low-level technical infrastructure (RPC, web-assembly runtime, peer-2-peer communication etc.), to application-layer modules that enable EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) and Smart Contract capabilities. This means in the foreseeable future chain-level innovation and technological advancements will happen at an unprecedented speed with large scale; new capabilities will be plug-and-play via forkless upgrades across all Substrate-based chains easily and seamlessly (see examples on <a href="https://marketplace-staging.substrate.dev/">Substrate marketplace</a>).</p>
<p>That said, Acala has now enabled Smart Contract capabilities in the following fashions:</p>
<ol>
<li>Acala supports the EVM pallet (aka runtime module), which is essentially an Ethereum Virtual Machine implementation on Substrate so that Solidity contracts can be deployed and run on Acala.</li>
<li>Acala also supports the ink! contract pallet, which enables Wasm (Web Assembly) based Substrate native Smart Contracts written in Rust.</li>
</ol>
<p>This update is driven by both technical progression and community interests. Acala is helping a number of protocols exploring cross-chain DeFi deployments on Polkadot, the mechanisms of which we will unpack in this article, and Smart Contracts is certainly one of the important avenues to explore. Hereafter Acala will be more actively collaborating with <a href="https://www.parity.io/">Parity</a> and others in the ecosystem such as <a href="https://moonbeam.network/">Moonbeam</a>, <a href="https://www.plasmnet.io/">Plasm</a> and <a href="https://edgewa.re/">Edgeware</a>, and contributing to the EVM and smart contract development.</p>
<hr />
<h1 id="we-will-now-go-into-depth-on-the-following-topics">We will now go into depth on the following topics:</h1>
<ol>
<li>Cross-chain Liquidity via Bridges</li>
<li>Ways to deploy on Polkadot</li>
<li>Ways to deploy on Kusama</li>
<li>Ways to deploy on Acala</li>
<li>The current state of Smart Contracts on Polkadot</li>
</ol>
<h1 id="cross-chain-liquidity-via-bridges">Cross-chain Liquidity via Bridges</h1>
<p>Bridges are interoperable technology to cross assets and messages between two economically sovereign and technologically diverse chains e.g. between Polkadot and Ethereum or Bitcoin. There are different flavors of bridges ranging from centralized and trusted to more decentralized and trustless.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Custodial solutions</strong>: using multi-sig or Proof of Authority (PoA) types of setup, they are relatively easier to implement and are available to use right now. <a href="https://chainx.org/">ChainX</a> as Bitcoin bridge and <a href="https://chainsafe.io/">ChainSafe</a> as Ethereum bridge are examples of this type, with roadmaps to become more decentralized over time.</li>
<li><strong>Trustless solutions</strong>: using economic and/or cryptographic guarantees to transfer assets to/from two blockchains; they are trustless, but could be expensive to users, and also are still under research and development due to technical challenges of its trustless nature. <a href="https://medium.com/interlay/bitcoin-on-polkadot-proof-of-concept-for-trustless-bridge-shipped-6fb8e549bef0">Interlay</a> as a Bitcoin bridge and <a href="http://www.snowfork.com/">SnowFork</a> and <a href="https://darwinia.network/">Darwinia</a> as an Ethereum bridge are examples of this type.</li>
<li><strong>Hybrid Custodial/Trustless solutions</strong>: then there’s the <a href="https://renproject.io/">RenVM</a> solution that is permissionless with great UX and popularity with a clear pathway towards decentralization, but right now much trust has been placed on the Ren team.</li>
</ol>
<p>Acala is neutral with regards to approaches to bridge solutions, as different flavors of bridges may satisfy different user preferences of trustlessness, convenience and costs, and there are good reasons for various types of bridges to co-exist and serve various needs.</p>
<h1 id="deploying-on-the-polkadot-relay-chain">Deploying on the Polkadot Relay Chain</h1>
<p>As mentioned, Polkadot is a Layer-0 cross-chain infrastructure chain (called the <a href="https://wiki.polkadot.network/docs/en/learn-architecture#relay-chain">Relay Chain</a>). Applications and protocols hence cannot be deployed directly on the Relay Chain but rather via the following mechanisms provided as fabrics of the Polkadot network, each with its own trade-offs:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Deploying as a parachain</strong> — This option has the highest degree of customizability and flexibility both technically and economically. It has more ‘permanent’ access (within the parachain lease period) to Polkadot’s shared security and cross-chain communication facility. It does have a higher cost to set up, and require much more effort to bootstrap and maintain the network as well as the community. You can get a taste of this by <a href="https://github.com/AcalaNetwork/Acala/wiki/1.-Get-Started">exploring Acala</a>.</li>
<li><strong>Deploying as a parathread</strong> — it’s similar to parachain technically, but uses a pay-as-you-go model for security and communication access, hence less overhead upfront and cheaper to run. If a chain cannot get a parachain slot, it can fall-back to parathread to continue its operations.</li>
<li><strong>Deploying as a DApp on an active parachain/parathread</strong> — for teams who want to access the Polkadot ecosystem but don’t want to build and maintain a blockchain, or who want to try things out without much upfront commitment, then deploying on an existing parachain might be a good option. Especially for DeFi related DApps, you can treat Acala as a landing pad (such as in <a href="https://medium.com/acalanetwork/bringing-btc-to-polkadot-acala-x-ren-e7959855d5aa?source=collection_home---4------6-----------------------">Ren’s case</a>.) and a technical-know-how Polkadot-buddy when exploring the space.</li>
</ol>
<p>Apart from technical and economic considerations, one shall also think of composability. The degree and sophistication of composability may vary depending on where you land — DApps on one parachain would naturally enjoy a higher degree of composability within that chain (read Ren’s integration <a href="https://github.com/AcalaNetwork/Acala/wiki/T.-Cross-chain-DeFi#ren">here</a>), cross-parachain DApps may have reduced composability and atomicity of transactions (read Laminar’s integration <a href="https://github.com/AcalaNetwork/Acala/wiki/T.-Cross-chain-DeFi#laminar">here</a>), and bridges may have even lower composability as they are mostly focused on value transfers and certain specific message passing across designated blockchains.</p>
<h1 id="deploying-on-kusamas-relay-chain">Deploying on Kusama’s Relay Chain</h1>
<p><a href="http://kusama.network/">Kusama</a>, similar to Polkadot, is a Layer-0 cross-chain infrastructure chain with a core <a href="https://wiki.polkadot.network/docs/en/learn-architecture#relay-chain">Relay Chain</a> that provides security and interoperability. Kusama is meant to be a development environment for teams preparing for deployment on Polkadot, or for teams who want to build exclusively on Kusama for lower economic barriers to parachain slots and for faster governance cycles. Developers have the same options with Kusama as they do with Polkadot, with a few caveats:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Deploying as a parachain</strong> — Teams can build a parachain on Kusama for three primary reasons. First, parachains can be deployed to Kusama after passing testing on the Westend testnet in order to fine-tune their technology before a full deployment to Polkadot. Some teams, Acala included, will choose to operate parachains on both Polkadot and Kusama to serve both communities. Third, teams (e.g. new startups) may also choose to stay exclusively on Kusama if the cost for a Polkadot parachain slot is out of reach or if they prefer the risk-taking and fast-moving nature of Kusama. The Kusama parachain option is also customizable and flexible both technically and economically.</li>
<li><strong>Deploying as a parathread</strong> — Kusama will have the same parathread functionality as Polkadot, which is a pay-as-you-go model for security and communication access, leading to less overhead and expense to run. One tradeoff is that parathreads come with less frequent block submissions to the Relay Chain, so it may suit some use cases better than others.</li>
<li><strong>Deploying as a DApp on an active parachain/parathread</strong> — DApps can be built on Kusama parachains or parathreads. DeFi DApps for example can be built on Acala’s Kusama Network, as well as many other use cases like gaming, communications, social media, or DAOs.</li>
</ol>
<p>In the next sect we will explore different ways to deploy on Acala parachain.</p>
<h1 id="deploying-on-the-acala-parachain">Deploying on the Acala Parachain</h1>
<p>You can treat Acala as the DeFi landing pad on Polkadot and Kusama, and your technical-know-how builder-buddy. There are currently three ways you can deploy on Acala:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Deploy runtime modules (aka pallets)</strong> — this enables the highest level of customizability, and access to Acala’s chain logic for a more sophisticated integration. It does not have the fail-safe sandbox environment that smart contracts enjoy, hence it requires security audits and requires governance permission. It suits better for infrastructure and common-good protocols. The <a href="https://github.com/AcalaNetwork/Acala/tree/master/ecosystem-modules/ren/renvm-bridge">RenVM bridge module</a> is a good example of this. A brand new account with only freshly minted renBTC, can perform any transactions on Acala without needing a fee token. Thanks to Acala’s FlexFee feature, tokens like renBTC are integrated natively as one of the default fee tokens alongside ACA, aUSD and DOT.</li>
<li><strong>Deploy Solidity smart contracts</strong> — for those who want to migrate part or all of their existing Solidity smart contracts to Polkadot without re-writing all the code, this can be a good starting point. As an example, some teams would use a bridge to cross their tokens from Ethereum to Polkadot, then deploy on Acala for faster, cheaper transactions and better user experience.</li>
<li><strong>Deploy ink! smart contracts</strong> — this is Substrate’s native, Rust-based Wasm smart contract, read more on how it compares to EVM <a href="https://substrate.dev/docs/en/knowledgebase/smart-contracts/ink-fundamentals">here</a>.</li>
</ol>
<p>As a disclaimer, smart contract modules are close to but not yet (to Acala’s standard) production-ready, and we will be working closely with Parity and others in the ecosystem to finalize them. We outline the caveats and current state of the development in the next section.</p>
<h1 id="the-current-state-of-smart-contracts">The Current State of Smart Contracts</h1>
<h2 id="evm">EVM</h2>
<p>While Solidity and EVM-compatible contracts can be deployed and run on Substrate-based chains like Acala, much of the tooling is still being developed so that it’s compatible with existing development tools such as Truffle and Remix etc. SDKs are also being developed to be compatible with existing web3.js and other libraries. Acala will also focus on improving the composability of smart contracts and runtime modules to accelerate cross-chain DeFi innovation.</p>
<h2 id="ink-smart-contracts">Ink! Smart Contracts</h2>
<p>Rust-based ink! smart-contract language is still under development, as are its development tooling (cargo-contract and <a href="https://github.com/patractlabs/redspot">Redspot</a> — Truffle for Ink!) and SDKs (polkadot.js).</p>
<h1 id="next-steps">Next Steps</h1>
<p>Acala now supports EVM with the <a href="https://github.com/paritytech/frontier">Frontier</a> Substrate-Ethereum compatibility layer. We can now run unmodified Ethereum DApps. Next, we will be deploying more complex (real-life) Solidity contracts, testing out tooling supports including Metamasks, and implementing pallet (runtime module) integration to improve compatibility, and to become compatible with ERC20 and other token standards.</p>
<p>Consider this your official invitation to <a href="https://github.com/AcalaNetwork/Acala/wiki/U.-Build-with-Acala"><strong>Build with Acala</strong></a>, where we support and help teams create valuable cross-chain DeFi projects with Polkadot and Kusama.</p>
<hr />
<h1 id="join-us">Join Us</h1>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://acala.network/">Website</a></td>
<td><a href="https://twitter.com/AcalaNetwork">Twitter</a></td>
<td><a href="https://github.com/AcalaNetwork/Acala">GitHub</a></td>
<td><a href="https://github.com/AcalaNetwork/Acala/wiki">Acala Wiki</a></td>
<td><a href="https://discord.gg/vdbFVCH">Discord</a></td>
<td><a href="https://t.me/acalaofficial">Telegram</a></td>
<td><a href="https://riot.im/app/#/room/#acala:matrix.org">Riot Chat</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>To keep up to date with progress on the Acala parachain launches on Polkadot and Kusama, subscribe to the <a href="https://share.hsforms.com/1X9RxkXk-R62I0VNbATaDXw4h8qc">Acala Newsletter</a>.</p>
<h1 id="about-acala">About Acala</h1>
<p><a href="http://acala.network/">Acala</a> is the decentralized financial hub of Polkadot that makes it fast and easy to use or build financial applications, improving trading efficiency and saving valuable time. The platform offers a suite of financial primitives: a multi-collateralized stablecoin backed by cross-chain assets like Bitcoin, a trustless staking derivative, and a decentralized exchange to unleash liquidity and power financial innovations. Acala is the de facto open platform for finance applications to use smart contracts or built-in protocols with out-of-the-box cross-chain capabilities, security and financial optimizations.</p>
<p><a href="https://medium.com/acalanetwork?source=post_sidebar--------------------------post_sidebar-----------">Acala</a></p>
<h4 id="acala-is-the-decentralized-financial-hub-of-polkadot">Acala is the decentralized financial hub of Polkadot.</h4>
<p><a href="https://medium.com/@danreecer?source=follow_footer--------------------------follow_footer-----------"><img src="https://miro.medium.com/fit/c/80/80/2*i91uAO2tRhdRe3O-AE5L4w.png" alt="Dan Reecer" /></a>WRITTEN BY<a href="https://medium.com/@danreecer?source=follow_footer--------------------------follow_footer-----------">Dan Reecer</a></p>
<h4 id="community--growth-polkadot-and-kusama--web3-foundation-advisorconsultant--acala">Community & Growth, Polkadot and Kusama @ Web3 Foundation. Advisor/Consultant @ Acala.</h4>Learn PolkadotBy: Bryan ChenWhat We Learned from Acala’s Extreme Testing Simulation2020-09-03T00:00:00+00:002020-09-03T00:00:00+00:00https://www.dotspot.io/applications/2020/09/03/acala1<h2 id="acalas-3-week-testnet-campaign-has-concluded-highlighting-the-importance-of-a-canary-network-and-leading-to-several-technical-improvements-to-the-network">Acala’s 3-week testnet campaign has concluded, highlighting the importance of a Canary Network and leading to several technical improvements to the network</h2>
<p><img src="https://miro.medium.com/max/800/1*lGVbzGOgp5M3DqCPtAds8A.jpeg" alt="Image for post" /></p>
<p>By: <a href="https://medium.com/u/8d475d21e811?source=post_page-----5ef5769a0902--------------------------------">Bette Chen</a></p>
<p>The Acala <a href="https://medium.com/acalanetwork/acala-mandala-festival-season-3-d0a6f155c154">Mandala Fest Season #3</a>, a 3-week testnet campaign, was successfully concluded on the 17th of August. It was a great way for us to demonstrate our development progress to the community by testing the system and protocols under heavy loads and extreme situations while providing rewards to participants.</p>
<p>We have been overwhelmed by the support, enthusiasm, and participation from the community. Here are some of the stats we have seen:</p>
<p>✅ 14,500 + new accounts</p>
<p>⛓️ 140,000 + meaningful transactions</p>
<p>💰 $52 million locked total value</p>
<p>💲 $25 million aUSD issued</p>
<p><strong>Award highlights are as follows and full results published</strong> <a href="https://github.com/AcalaNetwork/Acala/wiki/W.-Contribution-&-Rewards#season-3-prize-giving"><strong>here</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p>
<p>😎 Week 1 awards went to 2,105 users out of 10,525 qualified</p>
<p><a href="https://emojipedia.org/hourglass-done/">⌛</a> Week 2 awards went to top 10 traders with an average return of 24,200%</p>
<p>🌋 Week 3 awards went to 200 users</p>
<p>✍️ 10 bloggers/vloggers awarded</p>
<p>🐞 45 bug hunters awarded</p>
<p>🤖️ 1 code bounty awarded</p>
<p>We have also learned some valuable lessons, some of which reaffirmed our preconceptions while others have led to improvements.</p>
<h1 id="the-importance-of-a-canary-network">The Importance of a Canary Network</h1>
<p>Traditional blockchain development consists of only testnets and full production environments. However, we believe a blockchain cannot be properly tested without real economic conditions. From the Mandala testnet campaign, it is evident that with sporadic rewards (mostly via lucky draws for participants), while functionalities and usability to a large extend can be tested, the economic dynamics, liquidity efficiencies, and risk tolerance cannot be fully explored in a no-value testnet like Mandala.</p>
<p>Similar to Polkadot’s canary network <a href="http://kusama.network/">Kusama</a>, Acala has implemented the <a href="https://github.com/AcalaNetwork/Acala/wiki/1.-Get-Started#acala-trilogy-networks">Karura</a> canary network. Both networks bear real economic value, but a lower than that of the primary network (Acala in our case). Karura Network has economic value represented as its <a href="https://github.com/AcalaNetwork/Acala/wiki/V.-ACA-&-KAR">KAR</a> native network token; it will be launched as parachain on the Kusuma network and provide financial primitives to the Kusama ecosystem such as accepting KSM as collateral for stablecoin credit lines.</p>
<iframe src="https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2FLpNf7_2CPlM%3Ffeature%3Doembed&display_name=YouTube&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DLpNf7_2CPlM&image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FLpNf7_2CPlM%2Fhqdefault.jpg&key=a19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07&type=text%2Fhtml&schema=youtube" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" width="854" title="Acala Black Thursday & Emergency Shutdown Drill" class="ac ae af ew w" scrolling="auto" style="box-sizing: inherit; width: 680px; position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; height: 382.188px;"></iframe>
<h1 id="lessons-from-black-thursday-simulation--liquidity-is-king">Lessons from Black Thursday Simulation — Liquidity is King</h1>
<p>We may now have come to the realization that the financial risk tolerance of a decentralized (blockchain-based) financial system is by and large determined by the capacity and technical constraints of the underlying ledger. We have outlined the fundamental issues that led to MakerDAO’s 12th March Black Thursday incident <a href="https://medium.com/acalanetwork/regaining-confidence-in-decentralized-stablecoins-bd98ba8e3c83">here</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li>The performance bottleneck of the underlying network</li>
<li>The ineffectiveness in liquidating risky collateralized loans or CDPs</li>
<li>The inefficiency of keepers & liquidity crunch</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="we-have-implemented-the-following-improvements">We have implemented the following improvements:</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong>Quality of Service for oracle operations:</strong> oracle transactions are prioritized and are always included in the block so price feeds are up-to-date and not affected by network traffic</li>
<li><strong>Auto liquidator</strong> using <a href="https://www.parity.io/substrate-off-chain-workers-secure-and-efficient-computing-intensive-tasks/">Off-chain Workers</a>: external actors like Keepers are required in protocols like Maker only because Ethereum or similar technology cannot provide a safe and secure auto-scheduler on a blockchain node. Acala implemented an auto-liquidator that can efficiently assess loan positions in every block.</li>
<li><strong>Hybrid liquidation mechanism with DEX and auction:</strong> the system will automatically liquidate collaterals on the DEX if price and slippage are favorable, to avoid price inefficiencies on auctions.</li>
<li><strong>High throughput and specialization:</strong> Acala has unoptimized throughput of 1000 tps; in Polkadot’s multi-chain universe, each shard/parachain is likely to be optimized for its use case. For example, Acala will be the financial shard optimized for DeFi operations, while another chain might specialize in gaming or breeding cats. The real throughput of Polkadot would be 1000 tps multiplied by the total number of shards/parachains connected.</li>
</ul>
<p>During the campaign, Acala ran a Black Thursday drill to simulate severe price volatility resulting in liquidation of risky loan positions, followed by a system Emergency Shutdown. While under heavy load, the system performed as expected, and eventually all loans were processed and collaterals were returned to users.</p>
<p>📉 14,400+ loans were liquidated</p>
<p>⚡️ $1.37 million of assets were liquidated</p>
<h1 id="the-power-of-cross-chain-liquidity">The Power of Cross-chain Liquidity</h1>
<p>Acala is the finance hub of Polkadot’s multi-chain universe. It provides a suite of financial primitives including a multi-collateralized stablecoin, trustless staking derivative, and a decentralized exchange. These primitives are offered via Acala’s DApp directly to the end-users and also as SDKs for more DApps to be built upon. We see a more interconnected, autonomous, sophisticated, cross-blockchain finance ecosystem on the cusp of emergence.</p>
<p>We have integrated with Ren and Laminar and showcased the power of cross-chain liquidity:</p>
<p>₿ 1,403 renBTC was minted</p>
<p>👨🌾 $1.4 million worth of renBTC traded on DeX, $5.5 million used in lending</p>
<p>🌈 $4.3 million aUSD crossed to Laminar for synthetic asset (forex, gold, synthetic BTC & ETH) margin trading</p>
<p>Learn more about Acala cross-chain DeFi use cases <a href="https://github.com/AcalaNetwork/Acala/wiki/T.-Cross-chain-DeFi">here</a>; come and create the next killer DeFi project using our framework, DeFi primitives and SDKs. Our offerings are production-grade and production-ready. We were also an educational partner in Kusama’s recent Hackusama event, and you can learn more about building with Acala <a href="https://medium.com/acalanetwork/hackusama-ea1ddf3e945a">here</a>.</p>
<h1 id="join-us">Join Us</h1>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://acala.network/">Website</a></td>
<td><a href="https://medium.com/acalanetwork">Medium</a></td>
<td><a href="https://twitter.com/AcalaNetwork">Twitter</a></td>
<td><a href="https://github.com/AcalaNetwork/Acala">GitHub</a></td>
<td><a href="https://github.com/AcalaNetwork/Acala/wiki">Acala Wiki</a></td>
<td><a href="https://discord.gg/vdbFVCH">Discord</a></td>
<td><a href="https://t.me/acalaofficial">Telegram</a></td>
<td><a href="https://riot.im/app/#/room/#acala:matrix.org">Riot Chat</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>To keep up to date with progress on the Acala parachain launch, subscribe to the<a href="https://share.hsforms.com/1X9RxkXk-R62I0VNbATaDXw4h8qc"> Acala Newsletter</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://medium.com/acalanetwork?source=post_sidebar--------------------------post_sidebar-----------">Acala</a></p>
<h4 id="acala-is-the-decentralized-financial-hub-of-polkadot">Acala is the decentralized financial hub of Polkadot.</h4>
<p><a href="https://medium.com/@danreecer?source=follow_footer--------------------------follow_footer-----------"><img src="https://miro.medium.com/fit/c/80/80/2*i91uAO2tRhdRe3O-AE5L4w.png" alt="Dan Reecer" /></a>WRITTEN BY<a href="https://medium.com/@danreecer?source=follow_footer--------------------------follow_footer-----------">Dan Reecer</a></p>
<h4 id="community--growth-polkadot-and-kusama--web3-foundation-advisorconsultant--acala">Community & Growth, Polkadot and Kusama @ Web3 Foundation. Advisor/Consultant @ Acala.</h4>Learn PolkadotAcala’s 3-week testnet campaign has concluded, highlighting the importance of a Canary Network and leading to several technical improvements to the networkWeb3 Builders Moonbeam Using Substrate to Enable Ethereum Compatibility on Moonbeam2020-08-29T00:00:00+00:002020-08-29T00:00:00+00:00https://www.dotspot.io/parachains/2020/08/29/moonbeam1<p>Written by: Katie Butler, Director of Marketing at PureStake</p>
<p>Moonbeam is a developer-oriented blockchain that strives to provide compatibility with the existing Ethereum developer toolchain and network. It does this by providing a full EVM implementation, a Web3-compatible API, and bridges that connect Moonbeam to existing Ethereum networks. This allows developers to deploy existing Solidity smart contracts and DApp frontends to Moonbeam with minimal changes.</p>
<p><img src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1382/1*_W7Ud83WyXIo3Q_CMpvihQ.png" alt="Image for post" /></p>
<p>http://moonbeam.network</p>
<p>Moonbeam will also be a parachain on the Polkadot network. That means that it will get shared security from the Polkadot relay chain and will be able to integrate with other chains that are connected to Polkadot (once that functionality is available on Polkadot).</p>
<p><strong>Why We’re Building on Substrate</strong></p>
<p>Substrate is a good technical fit for Moonbeam. By building on top of this framework, Moonbeam is able to leverage the extensive functionality that Substrate includes out-of-the-box, rather than needing to build it ourselves. This includes peer-to-peer networking, consensus mechanisms, governance functionality, an EVM implementation, and more.</p>
<p>Overall, using Substrate will dramatically reduce the time and implementation effort needed to implement Moonbeam. Substrate allows a great degree of customization, which is necessary in order to achieve our Ethereum compatibility goals. And, by using Rust, the platform benefits from both safety guarantees and performance gains.</p>
<p>The Polkadot network is also a good fit for Moonbeam. As a parachain on Polkadot, Moonbeam will be able to directly integrate with — and move tokens between — any other parachains and parathreads on the network. It can also leverage any of the bridges that are independently built to connect non-Polkadot chains to Polkadot, including bridges to Ethereum.</p>
<p>Polkadot’s interoperability model uniquely supports Moonbeam’s cross-chain integration goals and is a key enabling technology to support the Moonbeam vision.</p>Learn PolkadotWritten by: Katie Butler, Director of Marketing at PureStakeWeb3 Builders Gantree An All-in-one Infrastructure Toolkit for Substrate Blockchains2020-06-03T00:00:00+00:002020-06-03T00:00:00+00:00https://www.dotspot.io/infrastructure/2020/06/03/gantree1<p><strong>By: Alexander Ramsey, CEO of Gantree</strong></p>
<p>The Gantree team are developing products that will democratise participation in the peer to peer economy by making it easy for organisations to create and operate their own node infrastructure. Our mission is to empower any organisation to grow and cultivate a peer to peer economy and we see reliable and configurable node infrastructure as critical to the success of that mission and Web3 attaining permanence.</p>
<p>We believe that to ensure a robust and healthy edge computing ecosystem it must be easy to operate node infrastructure with business-grade reliability and mass-market simplicity. Operating business-grade node infrastructure is a craft and if you don’t know this craft it requires hiring key personnel with specific knowledge or paying for an expensive turnkey solution which doesn’t give you the control you need.</p>
<p>Gantree’s initial product is an all-in-one infrastructure toolkit for Substrate-based blockchains. With Gantree you can:</p>
<ol>
<li>Easily spin up, configure and tear down Substrate-based blockchain nodes on your preferred cloud provider or any machine you have SSH access to by using our CLI and a single configuration file, or our point and click web application.</li>
<li>Instantly spin up a dashboard to view telemetry and monitor various statistics about your nodes.</li>
<li>Monitor key metrics about any application specific blockchain and configure real-time alerts for these metrics.</li>
</ol>
<h2 id="if-youre-building-with-substrate-and-gantree-sounds-useful-wed-love-to-hear-from-you-we-want-what-we-build-to-help-teams-save-money-and-ship-faster-you-can-reach-myself-and-tom-at-our-flex-dapps-emails">If you’re building with Substrate and Gantree sounds useful, we’d love to hear from you. We want what we build to help teams save money and ship faster. You can reach myself and Tom at our Flex Dapps emails:</h2>
<p>📭 Alexander Ramsey — CEO: <a href="mailto:alex@flexdapps.com">alex@flexdapps.com</a></p>
<p>📭 Tom Nash — CTO: <a href="mailto:tom@flexdapps.com">tom@flexdapps.com</a></p>
<p><strong>You can find the Gantree Github repository to get started here:</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://github.com/flex-dapps/gantree-lib-nodejs">flex-dapps/gantree-lib-nodejsLibrary at the core of Gantree Substrate is built on the core belief that the future will be multi-chain. In the past…github.com</a></p>
<h1 id="demo">Demo</h1>
<p>You can find a helpful video about how to leverage Gantree here:</p>
<iframe src="https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2FfQDwd8lOMqQ%3Ffeature%3Doembed&display_name=YouTube&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DfQDwd8lOMqQ&image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FfQDwd8lOMqQ%2Fhqdefault.jpg&key=a19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07&type=text%2Fhtml&schema=youtube" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" width="854" title="Gantree Sub0 Demo" class="ac ae af ew w" scrolling="auto" style="box-sizing: inherit; width: 680px; position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; height: 382.188px;"></iframe>
<h1 id="-sign-up-for-gantrees-upcoming-crowdcast-webinar">👇 Sign up for Gantree’s upcoming Crowdcast webinar:</h1>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>[Web3 Builders: Gantree</td>
<td>An All-in-one Infrastructure Toolkit for Substrate Blockchains - CrowdcastGantree is an all-in-one infrastructure toolkit for Substrate blockchains.www.crowdcast.io](https://www.crowdcast.io/e/web3-builders-gantree)</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<ul>
<li></li>
</ul>Learn PolkadotBy: Alexander Ramsey, CEO of Gantree