Zilliqa’s Vision: 2022 and Beyond

Dear Zilliqans,

The Web3 revolution is upon us. The world of gaming, DeFi, NFTs and metaverse are being disrupted and reimagined. Today, even cornerstone industries have dared to change the way they engage with their consumers, and we have a massive opportunity here to unlock the decentralised world for all. As a leading layer-1, we’re at the heart of it all — and the exciting thing is, we’ve barely scratched the surface.

At Zilliqa, we believed it would be prudent to spend the last quarter of 2021 and first part of 2022 reflecting on sustainable value-creation. We sought out this value in technological upgrades, sourcing the best talent, the kind of partners we brought on board, and in the imaginative creator economy platforms being built from the ground-up. Zilliqa is at the centre of these game-changing economies.

Of course, achieving sustainability is as much a technical endeavour as it is a commercial one. Zilliqa is taking steps to be an eco-conscious blockchain. We aim to be a carbon-neutral layer-1 and in fact, efforts on that front are already underway with the implementation of ZRC-6 and ZRC-7 token standards for the creator economy.

Our Tech and DeFi Plans

Our technical roadmap for the year is laser-focused on Speed, Compatibility and Interoperability. Specifically, we’re working towards EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) support, which will be a breakthrough easing the migration to Zilliqa going forward as well as LLVM support for Scilla (which will dramatically enhance Scolla’s execution speed). EVM will in turn help attract more projects to bridge seamlessly onto the blockchain. EVM support will help developers and dApps migrate onto Zilliqa quickly.

We have a solid plan to expand DeFi products within Zilliqa, as that is the bedrock of growth. Our focus is on infrastructure and interoperability. We will be upgrading the ZILBridge, and expand it to multiple EVM and non-EVM networks for both fungible and non-fungible tokens.

To increase competition for DEXs on Zilliqa, we will upgrade ZILSwap and introduce new DEXs, amplified liquidity pools, single-side liquidity AMMs, arbitrary token pairs, and cross-chain swap solutions and routes. To create new use-cases and boost activity, liquid staking and borrow-lending protocols with on-chain rewards with real-time claiming are also on our pipeline.

Providing fast and reliable infrastructure remains our top priority. And last but not least, we work closely with promising projects to encourage and support the creation of robust DeFi projects, and usability, on Zilliqa.

Renewed Business Focus and Team Expansion

Moving on to our operational highlights: We’ve welcomed over 10 new seasoned industry experts in the last two months alone (more to come!). Each person adds unique technical and commercial value that will help us accelerate the next phase of our growth.

An important segment of this growth is Web3 — encompassing the creator economy, NFTs, metaverse, and the like. Our early-access Metapolis event hosted in Miami earlier this month — which welcomed over 500 cross-industry experts — was in response to this growth. We have steadily received incredible feedback on our Metaverse-as-a-service offering and the potential it unlocks for brands, businesses and creators.

Platforms such as these, which are bridging the virtual and physical worlds — are attracting a myriad of industries from gaming, esports, entertainment, music, real estate, finance, fashion who have all recognised that Web3 is here to stay. In 2022, we will continue to prioritise meaningful partners with whom we can bring new innovations to life — via either real estate in Metapolis, P2E strategies, token launches, NFT activations and much more.

Gaming is one such industry we’re prioritising. Having already made significant headway on collaborating with world-class entities in this space like MAD Lions, Ninjas in Pyjamas, and RRQ, we’re ready to level-up, and make Zilliqa a leading blockchain for gaming. In fact, our experts have already begun building tools to facilitate onboarding of gaming studios who want to build on Zilliqa, and plan to make strategic investments in this space. You’ll be hearing more on this soon.

Seeing how new industries are entering the space, bringing blockchain from the borders and into the mainstream — communities cannot be far behind!

Part of our growing team includes experts who are leading global community expansion. This involves activations with ecosystem partners, community moderation across all channels, activation of GameFi and DeFi activities on Zilliqa City — to name a few. We’re also growing our Ambassador programme, which is aimed at encouraging meaningful global engagement and welcoming new voices into the arena of conversation, decentralised governance and participation. This will be a global undertaking as Zilliqa increasingly expands its footprint across Europe, US, and Asia.

The new head of marketing has already begun strengthening the team with influencer relations, copywriters, social media and PR experts to build on our brand presence across these key regions. He’ll be positioning Zilliqa as a top layer-1 — undisputed in the security and technical foundation it offers and commercial services as we seek to apply features like tokenisation and DeFi into economies of the future.

Much like our commercial approach, our marketing will be more data-driven so that we can understand the gaps in the ecosystem and follow, find and fund promising projects that plug them innovatively.

The future is here — be part of it!

As for the token that powers it all — our market infra teams have taken strides in making $ZIL more accessible not just to users, but also institutional investors who recognise its potential. You will see more strategic listings with the likes of fiat on-ramp aggregators and alternative financial services firms.

Some have called Zilliqa a ‘sleeping giant’ — on the cusp of an awakening. We’ve already seen it enjoy stellar performance in 2021 and a solid stream of strategic partnerships! As we stretch our wings and apply blockchain to both the real and virtual worlds, our imagined projects are coming to life and 2022 is serving as proof of this!

Want to get involved? Join our Discord and find out how.