Zilliqa Monthly Newsletter - Jan 2024

As we kickstart the new year, I am thrilled to share the exciting updates and developments from January, which serve as a small taste of what to expect from the productive year ahead for the Zilliqa ecosystem.

The biggest highlight from the last month was the announcement of the launch of Web3War's native token and in-game currency, FPS. It is great to the massive interest in the initial offerings for the token on exchanges and launchpads. 

Congratulations to the team from Roll1ng Thund3rz for continuing to deliver on their vision for the future of Web3 gaming - I can't wait to see what comes next for this Zilliqa Group venture and their debut title, Web3War. 

I’d like to thank Bradley Laws, Zilliqa’s Head of Investor Relations, for his instrumental role in supporting the Web3War token launch. I would also like to thank the infrastructure team for their hard work at the beginning of what is sure to be a busy year from a technical standpoint. 

We are building momentum towards the launch of Zilliqa 2.0, and we continue to improve the network and prepare the blockchain for the exciting new features we have developed. 

As we embark on another year together, I am inspired by the growing potential offered by the Zilliqa ecosystem and network. The recent rollout of applications like Plunderswap, Web3War, Ionise, and Avely’s liquid staking make Zilliqa a more exciting space than ever before. I’d like to invite our community, both old and new, to get involved with these new features and applications, and to actively participate in governance. Your support is the driving force behind our continued progress and success.

January was a fantastic start to the new year, but look out for more news on Zilliqa 2.0 and other game-changing announcements coming soon - it is going to be an unforgettable year for Zilliqa.

Matt Dyer
Zilliqa Blockchain CEO

Check out all the highlights from January 2024 below:

Zilliqa network upgrade to v9.3.0

January was a productive month for Zilliqa from a technical standpoint, with the network being upgraded to version 9.3.0.

This update brought a number of changes, one of the most important of which was the desharding of the network to improve efficiency and reliability as we progress towards the rollout of Zilliqa 2.0.

Zilliqa 2.0 will feature an improved sharding architecture that will offer greater scalability and flexibility while also featuring unprecedented customisation. 

Ahead of the implementation of this new sharding model, a proposal was passed through Zilliqa’s decentralised governance platform to deshard the network to improve efficiency.

Read more about the upgrades to the network introduced in Zilliqa v9.3.0.

Following the desharding of the network, we also conducted an analysis of mining rewards on the network and confirmed that the average profitability for miners has remained at the same level.

Adjusting staking rewards for sustainability

January saw the technical team continue to prepare the network for its upcoming migration to Zilliqa 2.0. In addition to the Zilliqa v9.3.0 upgrade, an adjustment was also made to staking rewards.

This adjustment sees the share of total rewards allocated to Staked Seen Nodes (SSNs) adjusted from its previous level of 34% to 25% at a rate of one percentage point each month until October 2024. 

The decision to adjust staking rewards was made to improve the long-term sustainability of the Zilliqa network with the goal of reaching zero inflation. This was proposed on the Zilliqa governance forum and voted on by gZIL holders, where the proposal was passed with an overwhelming majority and 112% of the required quorum.

As we move towards Zilliqa 2.0 and an overhauled, more efficient network architecture, it is great to see our community participating in governance and enacting the changes that will ensure the sustainability of Zilliqa and the ZIL token ecosystem.

Read more about the changes to staking rewards on Zilliqa.

Web3War IDOs and launchpads for token offering

The first month of 2024 was marked with building excitement in the Zilliqa ecosystem as Web3War announced the opportunity for fans to back the project and reserve its upcoming in-game currency, $FPS.

Created by Web3 entertainment and gaming company Roll1ng Thund3rz, Web3War is a multiplayer first-person shooter with powerful Web3 features that revolutionise the gaming experience, and the $FPS token is at the core of its innovative Skill2Earn reward system.

In January, Web3War announced that it had partnered with several exchanges and launchpads for the launch of $FPS, including popular platforms such as DAO Maker, Gamestarter, Gate.io. 

This announcement gave Web3 gaming fans several opportunities to back the project early and reserve their allocation of the in-game currency for Web3War, which will be used to unlock exclusive rewards, ranked gameplay access, new features, and so much more.

Visit the Web3War website to learn more and start playing today.

AMAs and ecosystem news

The Zilliqa ecosystem was buzzing in January with the news of the $FPS token offering for Web3War.

Matt Dyer joined Roll1ng Thund3rz Co-founder Valentin Cobelea for an AMA on the launch of $FPS, giving the community exciting insights into the utility and opportunities provided by the token ecosystem.Zilliqa’s Head of Ecosystem Kevin Meyer also participated in AMA last month, joining Coin Gabbar to discuss the future of dApps and the Web3 ecosystem.

Additionally, Matt Dyer announced he will be a featured speaker at Blockstart Scotland later this year, where he will explore how to overcome the common challenges faced by Web3 businesses.

On the ecosystem and developer side, the year began strongly with the launch of the Zilliqa Rust SDK, which allows developers to easily build dApps on the Zilliqa network using Rust.

Projects across the Zilliqa ecosystem continued to thrive, with PlunderSwap seeing continued growth as the first EVM DEX on the network and Torch publishing a tutorial series on how to use the powerful features of its Smart wallet.

Stay tuned to our socials and subscribe to the Zilliqa blog to stay up to date with the latest news!