Happy New Year Zilliqans!

2021 ended off with a blast as we announced our ambitious entry into the metaverse space with Metapolis. December also proved to be a fruitful month with plenty of updates to our ecosystem, including the enabling of token swap for those who missed it previously, XCAD Network’s DEX launch and our curator-led NFT marketplace announcement. Recap below:

Major News and Announcements

Metapolis Announced

December was headlined by the announcement of Metapolis, our cutting-edge, customisable extended reality (XR) metaverse platform! Metapolis will be a paradigm shift in Zilliqa’s positioning as a top-tier blockchain. The metaverse will unlock a whole new layer of engagement, for both crypto-native and all others, and will be the way forward for mass adoption as brands understand the power that an immersive extended reality platform brings to them. The functionalities that Metapolis provides, coupled with our blockchain’s underlying technical strength will drive greater adoption of Zilliqa as an L1 for brands and consumers alike.

Token Swap for Frozen ERC20 ZIL to Native Tokens (ZRC2 ZIL)

With the help of ZILBridge, we have enabled the token swap process for ERC-20 ZIL holders who did not swap for mainnet ZIL previously. To recap, ZIL was initially issued as an ERC-20 token prior to the mainnet launch. A minority of ERC-20 ZIL holders missed the first token swap in 2020. The ZILBridge has enabled us to set up this token swap process to help out these token holders.If you still have ERC-20 ZIL, head over to the token swap page to get your ZRC2 ZIL. This tutorial should help you as well!

Curator-Led NFT Marketplace

Another key driver of adoption announced in December was the curator-led NFT marketplace. The marketplace will be the central hub for artists, curators and art collectors on the Zilliqa blockchain where we will onboard renowned and emerging artists. A key pillar of our creator economy — the marketplace will help create value sustainably for everyone involved in the value chain. At the moment, gZIL holders are in the midst of deciding the name of the marketplace, so if you’re a gZIL holder be sure to check out our governance portal, and contribute.

Ecosystem Project Updates

XCAD DEX launch

On New Year’s Eve, XCAD Network launched their DEX, making it the second Automated Market Maker (AMM) DEX on our blockchain! Within the first 24 hours of the DEX launch, they’ve managed to amass $25m in TVL. At the time of this writing, XCAD DEX has also become the DEX with the highest TVL on Zilliqa! With single asset staking on your XCAD and high APRs being offered, the DEX is surely one that you’d want to check out.

Sneak peek on ZILSwap v2 and more

ZILSwap has been consistently building and improving their product. They’ve built a reward distributor that streamlines the process of liquidity rewards distribution for projects with liquidity pools on their DEX. If your project wants to onboard the reward distributor, check out their docs.

Also, ZILSwap shared on Twitter that details on ZILSwap v2 will be coming really soon. It’s also been hinted that features such as borrowing and lending, a tokenomics revamp and rewards claiming on any block will be implemented, so keep your eyes peeled for that!

DeMons 3rd NFT Sales: The CyberMyths

The sale for DeMons’s 3rd series of NFTs is currently underway, with a new sale mechanism in place to ensure fairness for the community and prevent sniping from bots. Holders of $DMZ tokens are able to lock up their tokens to participate in the sales and stand a chance to be allocated a CyberMyth after the lockup period. The CyberMyths marks the third of their six series of DeMons NFTs, we’re really looking forward to seeing their progress as they get closer to realising their vision of the DeMonverse!

Binance joins our family of SSN Operators

Binance has joined Zilliqa’s family of Staked Seed Nodes with their own SSN for users to stake on! Users are now able to stake with Binance’s nodes on our staking site. To celebrate this, Binance has introduced a locked staking program for its users to earn higher yields.

Presently, the Binance SSN has over 570million ZIL staked on it. With their SSN, Zilliqa’s staking will be made more accessible to people who want an easy solution to staking!

Community Updates

Our CEO’s End Of Year Letter to the Community

Zilliqa CEO Dr. Ben Livshits also addressed the community in an end-of-year letter. The letter outlines our plans for 2022 and reflects on the recent successes that Zilliqa achieved.

Interview with Valkyrie Investments

President of Zilliqa Amrit Kumar joined Valkyrie Investments’ COO James O’ Brien to discuss Zilliqa 101, where he broke down the basics of Zilliqa in terms of the tech and vision of our blockchain.

Network Stats

December saw a slight dip in on-chain activity. On-chain activity is still healthy at almost 1.6million transactions for the month. With more dapps like XCAD DEX’s end of month launch, January will be an interesting month to keep a close eye on for on-chain activity!

Also worth mentioning is the amount of adoption that LunarCrush’s dApp is bringing onto the blockchain. In just two months from their launch, the LUNR token has already seen almost 390,000 transactions with approximately 40,000 token holders. Check out their dApp here if you’re interested in gaining an edge in gathering and understanding social sentiments in crypto.

Language and Platform Updates

The ScillaJson library has been released with the aim of simplifying the way developers construct Scilla JSON data. Developers can now use the library to write unit tests for their Scilla smart contracts. We’ve used the library as part of our unit tests for ZRC-6. We’d recommend you check this out if you’re a Scilla developer!

Our tech team has also been actively working and testing Scilla external library integration into the core protocol in the past month, so look forward to this being rolled out in the near future. With the external library, developers are now able to write external libraries that contain user defined ADT (abstract data types) or library functions and allow other smart contracts to use it. We intend to roll out an updated version of the Scilla external library on our testnet and release it onto the mainnet in time to come.

Buckle Up For 2022!

We’ve ended off the year on a good note with major announcements and more developments from the ecosystem with more dApps like XCAD’s DEX being deployed on our blockchain. 2022 will be an exciting year as we start seeing these developments come into fruition, so strap on in and buckle up for the ride as we push towards fulfilling our vision of becoming the creator’s blockchain of choice!