Tezos Commons :: Month At A Glance — August 2024
September 5, 2024Month At A Glance — August 2024
A quick rundown of the latest happenings and significant milestones within the Tezos ecosystem for August 2024.
Welcome to our latest issue, Month At A Glance (August 2028), where we give a quick rundown of the latest happenings and significant milestones in the Tezos ecosystem on a monthly cadence.
Like a repeating record, August 2024 was an exciting month for Tezos, with new releases and major development roadmaps for the Tezos ecosystem. Highlights revolved around the new Quebec proposals, Manchester United updates, Oobit and Tezos Foundation’s collaboration, Etherlink updates, and more!
Let’s break it all down.
Ecosystem Insights
Introducing the Quebec A and B Proposals!
As you may recall, thanks to the activation of the Paris B protocol, we were introduced to an entirely new staking mechanism. Along with the new staking mechanism came adaptive issuance.
The idea behind adaptive issuance is that a lot of tez was not locked or used to secure the network. At one point, this number was as low as about 7.5%. So, there needed to be an economic incentive introduced at the protocol level to ensure alignment on what new issuance is created by the Tezos protocol and where it goes.
The worst case is we continue to have more rewards and less tez securing the chain. To address this, earlier in the month, Nomadic Labs released a request for feedback on a new feature, adaptive maximum. The feedback they received was instrumental in shaping the upcoming Tezos upgrade proposal, Quebec.
As highlighted in the Tezos Agora post, Nomadic Labs has defined that two variants of the Quebec proposal will be released in the upcoming governance cycle. The following features are as follows:
Quebec A
A reduction in the minimum block time to 8 seconds.An update to the calculation of a baker’s minimum delegated balance within a cycle.A new definition of the adaptive maximum curve to address concerns previously raised.
Quebec B
Includes all features of Quebec A and also reduces the influence of delegated funds on baking power, lowering their weight from one-half to one-third of their nominal value.
For some color, the current block time is about 10 seconds. This reduction will shorten the time lapse between a new block being produced on the Tezos network by about 2 seconds. It may not seem like much, but when you factor in how many times block times have been reduced, it’s pretty amazing that there are even more optimizations to lower them.
A proposed change also updates the calculation of a baker’s minimum delegated balance within a cycle. Previously, users who delegate to bakers through a smart contract (KT address) would receive irregular payments following the activation of the Paris B protocol. The issue was described in further length here. Quebec A aims to fix this.
Additionally, there’s been much discussion around the adaptive maximum curve in Nomadic Labs’ initial request for feedback. Some key points brought up by the community were potentially implementing a decreasing linear curve or a 180-degree rotation of the original curve. With Quebec A, there is a new proposed curve that implements a better bound in both cases, as highlighted above.
Look for the injection of the Quebec proposals in the upcoming governance cycle, and voice your support or feedback!
Manchester United Updates
Launched in July, Manchester United’s collaboration with the Tezos ecosystem has grown to include player trading card packs for use in its Fantasy United game. The cards are sold in seven packs for £3, or you can purchase them with tez.
The cards come in classic, rare, and ultra-rare editions. Each card is uniquely hand-drawn and will be dynamically updated with real-time stats throughout the season. The neat thing about this dynamic update is that it helps introduce the other portion of the news: a Web3 fantasy football game using the Tezos blockchain, which was released in August!
By assembling squads of up to 5 players from player card packs, users can compete amongst each other in Fantasy United through mini-leagues, where your player cards will earn you in-game points across all competitions.
I’ve made a mini-league if you’d like to join it. Otherwise, pick up a few packs and join the Tezos League. You’ll probably do better than I have, but in the spirit of friendly Tezos competition, may the best lineup win!
Oobit x Tezos
In last month’s issue, we explored Baanx and its collaboration with Etherlink. I think it’s cool to see what they’re doing with non-custodial options for crypto payments. This month, we’ve seen another player emerge in this field: Oobit, a leading crypto payment platform.
With Oobit, in their iOS app, which allows you to “Tap & Pay,’ you can pay over 100 million different merchants with the crypto of your choice. Among their supported crypto assets, Tezos has become supported, and users can now use their tez to pay for everyday purchases.
Oobit has also enabled support from the Tezos Network for deposits and withdrawals on its platform. In a press release, Oobit CEO Amram Adar spoke on this:
Our collaboration with the Tezos Foundation represents a significant leap forward in our mission to make cryptocurrency a mainstream payment. We are not only expanding our payment options but also ensuring that our users have access to one of the most secure and innovative blockchains available today.
If you see a terminal or point of sale that offers Visa or Mastercard, load up some tez or the crypto of your choice to the Oobit app and tap to pay!
Etherlink Updates
Based on Tezos Smart Rollup technology, Etherlink provides a fast, fair, and cheap environment for a variety of blockchain applications. We’ve started to see quite a few emerge on testnet already. If you’d like a bit of a refresher about Etherlink or rollups in general, be sure to check out my latest thread.
That said, we’ve seen some exciting updates rollout to Etherlink in August. Most importantly, Etherlink has rolled out a new EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) bridge. Users can now bridge mainnet Ethereum (ETH) to Wrapped Ether (wETH). The process was actually quite fast. If you’ve ever tried to use a bridge, you’d know in some cases, your funds can stay stuck for 7–14 days.
Additional updates from the Etherlink team include a revamped website design. Make sure to head over to Etherlink’s website and explore the growing ecosystem around Etherlink, the new EVM bridge, and more!
Feedback on Adaptive Maximum Proposal
As you may recall, thanks to the activation of the Paris B protocol, we were introduced to an entirely new staking mechanism. Along with the new staking mechanism came something known as adaptive issuance.
The idea behind adaptive issuance is that a lot of tez was not locked or used to secure the network. At one point, this number was as low as about 7.5%. So, there needed to be an economic incentive introduced at the protocol level to ensure alignment on what new issuance is created by the Tezos protocol and where it goes.
The worst case is we continue to have more rewards and less tez securing the chain. Not to fret, Nomadic Labs has released a request for feedback on a new feature, adaptive maximum. As part of the Quebec (Q) protocol, an adaptive maximum issuance has been placed on all staked tez.
Refer to the Tezos Agora post for finer details, but the TLDR is there will be quite a high incentive to keep staking while rewards are high. Over time, as more tez gets staked, rewards will start to adjust and eventually reach a much more viable issuance threshold.
News From The Tezos Ecosystem: Quick Bits
TzKT has now updated its baker section!
Baking Bad has now updated the bakers section on TzKT, showing a clean new section for bakers that shows staking capacity as green next to a bakery. The blue represents the stake filled out of the total capacity for the baker. Thus, red indicates a baker is currently at capacity or over. Lastly, a red “X” indicates a baker is not supporting staking.
The Graph secures a grant from Tezos Foundation
The Graph is a decentralized protocol that simplifies accessing blockchain data by indexing and querying it. This makes it easier for users to retrieve information that would otherwise be challenging to query directly. The Tezos Foundation has granted The Graph a grant to expand to Etherlink.
Universal Health Token (UHT) is coming to Etherlink
Earlier in the year, we learned about UHT’s collaboration with the Tezos Foundation. UHT rewards holistic healthy living by gamifying activities like staying active, eating well, sleeping, meditating, tracking vitals, consulting experts, and storing health records. It’s been teased that they will utilize Etherlink.
Secret Network and Etherlink introduce builders program
Secret Network and Etherlink have partnered to support builders in their ecosystems. The Secret Builders’ Program, formally launching this month, offers comprehensive support for startups and web2 businesses integrating decentralized confidential computing (DeCC) into their dApps.
Unveiling Pandora from Functori
Pandora is a Smart Optimistic Rollup for decentralized record authentication. Built on Tezos, it offers a cost-effective, fast, and secure solution for blockchain notarization, combining efficiency with high security standards.
Events
Artz Friday w/ Retro Manni — August 2ndTuesday TezDay w/ Tezos Domains — August 6thArtz Friday w/ AMossguido — August 9thTezTalks Radio 84: World of Women | Chelsea ChungTuesday TezDay Community Call — August 13thArtz Friday w/ Lily White — August 16thTezTalks 94: Building Jstz on Tezos | BeataTezos Town Hall #2 — August 22ndArtz Friday w/ OBJKT team — August 23rdTuesday TezDay Community Call — August 27thTezTalks Live 95: StakeNow | Sign in with Tezos
Community Rewards Program
The Community Rewards Program (CRP) is a Tezos Commons Foundation initiative to foster adoption and support the Tezos ecosystem. Every month, up to 5,000 tez are rewarded to those who stand out in merit and act in the interest of the Tezos ecosystem as a whole.
The nomination form has been drastically streamlined to make it easier for community members to nominate their favorite contributors to the ecosystem. Now containing only three questions, submitting a nomination takes less than 30 seconds.
Don’t have 30 seconds? Tag any Discord message or tweet with #TezosCRP, and we will collect the messages!
The categories and nomination standards have remained the same. For more information, visit the refreshed landing page here. We’ve also announced the July 2024 winners, so check out the recap here.
About Tezos Commons Foundation
Tezos Commons is a non-profit organization that emphasizes building communities on Tezos and supporting the Tezos ecosystem and its members. By organizing several community-focused events, hosting infrastructure, and funding small projects, Tezos Commons has actively contributed to building communities on Tezos.
Learn more about Tezos Commons. Are you interested in becoming a Tezos SuperFan and hosting events? Click here and begin your journey.
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Month At A Glance — August 2024 was originally published in Tezos Commons on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
