Category: Defi Projects

Plenty has become a key part of Tezos. The Plenty Labs team has been working hard to make a safe, reliable financial market for traders, liquidity providers, and developers. Since Plenty V1 and V2 came out, we’ve seen the Tezos DeFi system grow and get stronger. We’re close to making a big leap forward, and we are excited to share our latest developments!Live on Ghostnet: the Plenty RollupPlease welcome the Plenty Rollup, our brand-new showcase of a lightning-fast, efficiency-focused transaction rollup system! This exciting glimpse into our technology underscores just how dedicated we are to trailblazing DeFi solutions on Tezos. Hold on tight, because this is just the beginning!Plenty Rollup Key Features:Instant: Experience lightning-fast transactions with zero gas costs.Scalable: The Plenty Rollup achieves approximately 2000 transactions per second, potentially increasing tenfold with further optimizations.Secure: No reliance on multisig wallets, and fraud proofs are available from day one, ensuring secure and orderly transactions.Want to try out the Plenty Rollup? Click here to experience the speed and efficiency of our new Rollup.Update on Uniswap V3 DevelopmentsUniswap V3 brings forth an array of compelling features and improvements, from concentrated liquidity to multiple fee tiers, creating a highly flexible and efficient DEX. In line with these developments, we’ve been actively working on integrating these features into our ecosystem.Highlights:Concentrated Liquidity: With Plenty V3, you gain granular control over capital allocation to specific price ranges, leading to a more efficient utilization of your funds.Multiple Fee Tiers: We’ve introduced varying compensation levels for Liquidity Providers (LPs) based on the risk associated with different assets. This guarantees that you’ll always receive risk-adjusted returns that are appropriate for your level of investment.Plenty V3 SDK: We’re proud to be pioneering the very first Uniswap V3 SDK on Tezos. This innovative tool will empower developers to craft their own arbitrage and liquidity position management bots, fueling the next generation of DeFi solutions.Open Source: Our SDK and smart contracts will be made available in an open-source format. This move will unlock the door for fellow Tezos builders to craft solutions that are faster, stronger, and simply better.Plenty V3 Analytics: Get a crystal clear understanding of your investment performance with our advanced analytics feature. This tool will provide real-time insights, tracking your financial journey in an easy-to-understand format.Demos, Tutorials, and Live Sessions: We’re not just about providing the tools; we want to ensure you understand them too. We’ll be offering demos, tutorials, and live sessions to educate our users about the latest features and how to maximize their benefits.Support and Documentation for our Oracles: To further streamline Tezos DeFi, we’re offering comprehensive support and detailed documentation for our Oracles. We’re dedicated to ensuring your journey with Plenty V3 is as seamless as possible.Migration Portal: A few weeks after launch of V3 we will introduce a migration portal which will facilitate a seamless transition from Plenty v2 to the new system, allowing LPs to specify a fee tier and price range for their allocated liquidity.Future PlansWe believe in the power of community and the importance of transparency. Here’s a glimpse into our plans for the near future:Plenty V3 Mainnet Launch: We are working diligently towards launching Plenty V3 on Tezos mainnet.Rollup R&D + DeFi Rollup: After the successful launch of V3 on our mainnet, our attention will shift towards the development of Rollup technology, aiming to provide faster and more cost-effective transactions. This line of research and development will subsequently culminate in the creation of a DeFi-specific Rollup tailored specifically for the Tezos network.Developer Engagement: Our team is gearing up to support developers intending to build on top of Plenty V3 platform, with documentation, an SDK, bot framework, and real-time support on our Discord channel.Continued Support for Plenty v2: We anticipate the advantages of our v3 system will gradually draw liquidity and volume away from v2, but we are committed to maintaining support for Plenty v2.Create a unified brand for Plenty: We are set to rebrand ‘naan’ to ‘Plenty Wallet’, marking a significant step in our branding strategy. Our mission will remain focused on fostering a singular, cohesive brand identity that will stand out and be easily recognized across the web3 ecosystem.FAQWhat happens to Plenty v2?Plenty V2 will remain functional and available for use as long as Tezos continues to exist.Do I have to migrate my liquidity?You are not required to migrate your v2 liquidity if you so choose. However, it may be advantageous to migrate liquidity as we expect a majority of trading volume — and, consequently, LP fee generation — to take place on v3.Is there a v3 liquidity mining program?There is no v3 liquidity mining program scheduled at launch. The vote escrow mechanism of Plenty v2 will be introduced over time.Is there appetite for a Uniswap V3-style AMM on Tezos?We are currently engaged in collaborative efforts with various Tezos protocols, all of which have expressed substantial interest in the upcoming Plenty V3. The forthcoming version of Plenty is set to become the default liquidity engine for the Tezos network. However, its relevance extends beyond just benefiting Tezos DeFi. It is also poised to serve as a foundational element for further advancements in gaming and NFT development on Tezos.Stay tuned for more updates, and as always, we appreciate your continued support and engagement with Plenty. Here’s to a thriving future for DeFi on Tezos! 🍻About PlentyThe Plenty team is building an all-in-one decentralized platform on Tezos. Plenty allows swaps on uncorrelated assets, and low-cost, near 0 slippage trades on tightly correlated assets. Plenty also features a built-in bridge from Ethereum and Polygon to Tezos.Website: plenty.networkRollup: rollup.plenty.networkDiscord: discord.gg/plentynetworkTwitter: twitter.com/plenty_networkDev Update: Tezos Rollup Demo, Plenty V3 Update, and Future Plans was originally published in Plenty on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

GC Drop — VPokerOur first Layer 2 DApp is LIVE!First of many.Hello Geniuses, and all who follow the SalsaDAO ecosystem. Today is a very important day for both GC and for the Tezos ecosystem. We’ve been deep in the lab, and today we are excited to bring you VPoker!Can’t wait? Play VPoker on testnet now.VPoker is a Vegas-style video poker game that runs on Layer 2, using a custom rollup kernel that we have developed in-house. With Tezos’ innovative enshrined rollups, gameplay is decentralized and we have implemented instant-play for turbocharged gameplay speeds! Tezos L2 technology is perfect for gaming, and VPoker is the perfect use-case to show it off.If you are interested in the technology behind VPoker & Tezos L2, read Project Oxide I, II, & III. This article will be the main information repository for VPoker. Let’s dive straight into VPoker.Lookahead APILookahead API enables instant-play.The release of VPoker is incredibly important because we have designed and developed a working Lookahead API, enabling the instant-play described above.In the last article, we described how we use this API for instant-play. Read more.If we only used L2 rollups with no extra infrastructure, we would have benefited from increased TPS and scalability, but not increased speed. This is why we did the extra work to release the Lookahead API with VPoker.GameplayUsing L2 & rollups, we have made major breakthroughs in gameplay speed. We can now offer the fastest decentralized gaming experience on blockchain, not just on Tezos. With this evolution comes new UX that will feel different than interacting with your favorite Layer 1 DApp.The first thing you will notice is that there are no wallet interactions required, meaning there is no dealing with counters, storage limits, or 15 second block times.This is one of the major keys to L2 & rollup technology, and completely changes the DApp experience. Let’s get into VPoker gameplay.Get TokensThis is the one time you will need to call an L1 contract. This action will pay 1 XTZ to deposit 10 tokens into the rollup for betting. In the future we plan to use Tezos tickets to represent rollup assets, but for now we will use a generic internal token.Once you have tokens, the New Game button will light up.Press PlaySTART PhaseWhen you press New Game, a signing operation will be automatically initiated. Under the hood, our custom messaging system is composing a message to the rollup, saying that you’d like to start a new game.HOLD PhaseAt this point, our RollBot will pick up your new game and deal 5 cards to you. This setup is similar to the SalsaDAO Gaming Hall on L1, where our HouseBot detects new games and handles them. The big difference here is that you will receive your cards in near-instant time.When cards are received, you may immediately click or tap on cards to HOLD them.After clicking Hold 4 Cards, all unselected cards will be discarded and you will receive new cards.If this game were built on L1, it would take 15 seconds for each turn plus time for indexing and network latency. On Layer 2, users can complete games as fast as the network can transfer data.Game Complete. Lucky!Once your game is complete, you can see the result on the big display, or in the history.Payouts: Royal Flush 250x, 4Kind 80x, Straight Flush 50x, Full House 9x, Straight 4x, 3Kind 3x, 2Pair 2x, Pair 1xLimitationsWe’d like to advise and warn users that this is truly the first L2 DApp on Tezos!We’ve worked tirelessly to bust through blockers and find solutions to get this to a playable state. That being said, this is nowhere near the final state of L2 DApps on Tezos and there is still work to do. We’d like to outline some known limitations and bugs that will require time to fix.👻 Ghost GamesSometimes our rollup node receives messages to its inbox, but the injection fails. With this bug our API may possibly report that a game is in progress, and then this “Ghost Game” disappears after around 1 minute.Problem: Ghost GamesSolution: WaitGC TODO: Develop Message Retry System➿ Double GamesSometimes our rollup node receives messages to its inbox but the injection “fails”, but actually it didn’t fail.The rollup node then sends the message again, resulting in two games started on the front-end. In this case, you can simply play through each game and the active game will be detected for you. The UI may look a bit confusing in this case.Problem: Double GamesSolution: Play through itGC TODO: Kernel Update🎲 Card RepeatsThe deck that is used doesn’t destroy the used cards, so you can technically get two of the same card if the RNG comes back like that. We’ll fix it in the future.Problem: Card RepeatsSolution: Play moreGC TODO: Better Deck Logic🖥️ API JittersThis architecture relies on signed messages being passed around very quickly to many different parties over the web. We request your patience with any API jitters and hiccups that may arise. This is also a stress test of our infrastructure, and we have no data to help with setting capacity. We’ll adjust as we move forward.This also means that, at this point, you may not get every game performing perfectly instant. As we move forward and scale up using WebSockets, these issues will disappear.Problem: API JittersSolution: Report Issues & Be NiceGC TODO: Monitor & PatchWe appreciate your patience. This is truly a new paradigm, so the road may be bumpy at the start. Report all bugs and issues on our Discord in the VPoker testing channel.Enjoy VPoker!—The Future of GC & L2FounderJabba here.This project confirms GC’s status as the fastest movers & one of the leading innovators in the Tezos space. My conviction about Tezos L1 & L2 technology has never been higher, and I believe that this L2 rollup system is the right platform for GC.Almost a year ago, I released our plans to build SalsaDAO.io and use Tezos L2 as the underlying technology. Nothing has changed, things just feel a little bit more concrete as I’ve completed the first L2 DApp on Tezos.After building one L2 DApp from end-to-end, I fully believe that I can use Tezos to bring SpiceWorld, SalsaStrike, and a true L2 Casino to life just as I’ve described in the litepaper. These apps will live on the future GeniusChain, which will be a fully functional sidechain on Tezos L2.I’m extremely excited to start the L2 journey on Tezos, and to that end I’d like to announce the final Land Sale fundraiser.Good DApps need investment, we all know it. Layer 2 DApps need more investment than normal, and I’ll be using another Land Sale to raise funds for L2 development. From rollup bonds to audits to support to marketing, L2 projects will require experience, leadership, and funding.I’m here to see if the Tezos ecosystem would like to help get this built.This Land Sale will run exactly the same way as the last one, except the prices will be higher to protect early investors who believed in the project. We will also be selling Land Shares again, so users with less buying power can still invest.If you don’t remember, Land Shares (1/100 of Land) will be used to co-invest with other land share owners on full land parcels.I would humbly like to announce that this will be the final Land Sale, and the result will have a direct impact on my work on Tezos moving forward. If we don’t meet the minimum funding range, we will be returning sale funds and halting all rollup development on Tezos.This doesn’t mean we’re leaving! If the rollup tech isn’t funded, then GC will be focusing on marketing and maintaining our existing L1 offerings with a special focus on ArtDEX, as the main user-base on Tezos is currently centered around art & NFTs.I’d truly love to build L2 tech on Tezos, but bills need to be paid.With that said, posted below are the target ranges for the Land Sale. Each category shows what I can build with the funding.Land Sale begins in 1 week. Follow our Twitter for updates.Thank you for reading. Go play VPoker!GC

GC Alpha — Project Oxide IIIPart 3. A look at Rollup DApps.Hello Geniuses, and welcome to the final Project Oxide update! In our previous article we took a dive into the product side of optimistic rollups, and what architectures are possible when building out an L2 project on Tezos. If you missed that article, find it here.Today, we’re going to take a look at the end-to-end user experience of interacting with an enshrined rollup on Tezos. We want to use this article to prepare users for our first rollup DApp, coming to testnet soon.Rollup DApp AnatomyHow does it work?When interacting with a Layer 2 DApp, the simple goal is for the user to sign messages and send them to the smart rollup. When compared to normal smart contract calls, L2 messaging is more flexible because there are multiple ways to send a message to a Tezos rollup.This messaging flexibility is the killer feature that allows us to build games with instant response, and finally break free of 15 second wait times.We will dive into the pros & cons of different messaging styles later in the article. First and most importantly, you’ll need a rollup address!Rollup Addressestz1 or tz4, dealers choice!You may have heard some noise around tz4 rollup addresses in the past few months on Tezos. The tz4 address has certain cryptographic qualities that make it a good fit for use on a rollup, but this is not the only type of address that can be used on Tezos rollups.Depending on the project architecture, a rollup DApp can still use a normal tz1 address and work fine. In our initial Custom Execution rollups, we will be relying on tz1 addresses. Onboarding with a tz1 addresses is much simpler because of the availability of signing infrastructure that exists for them.The tz4 address is better for rollups that use a sidechain, like the upcoming EVM rollup. Users on the EVM rollup are going to need the ability to batch multiple ether transfers or Solidity contract calls in one message. The tz4 address makes it simple & cheap for the rollup node to verify the BLS signature for the batched message.We aren’t going to dive deeper into the cryptographic magic behind these addresses. Just expect to use tz1 addresses in the short-term, and tz4 addresses on future rollups that contain sidechains (EVM, GeniusChain, etc). Let’s now focus on what these addresses actually do.Layer 2 MessagingIt’s time to sign & send messages to the rollup.At this point in the journey, it’s time for you to use your Tezos wallet to sign messages and send them to the rollup. Messages can be posted directly to the Tezos L1 or, more commonly, sent to a rollup node for batched message posting. By using a rollup node, we unlock a very important feature of optimistic rollups: Lookahead Messaging.Lookahead Messaging means that the DApp can provide an instant response once the message is signed and delivered to the rollup node. The DApp essentially looks ahead at the queued messages and considers them to be valid, rather than waiting 15 seconds for the messages to hit the L1 chain.The messages will eventually get posted to L1, but they sit in an offchain queue on the rollup node until the whole message batch is posted to L1. In this case, the DApp will read the messages in its queue and optimistically assume that they will go through. The messages have already been signed, so from the optimistic rollup perspective: it’s as good as onchain.Lookahead Messaging is an important part of adding instant-play to our Layer 2 games.Without lookahead messaging support, users will have to wait until your message hits the L1. This will bottleneck a DApp with 15 second update times, but users still benefit from increased TPS and the ability to execute complex runtime environments on top of Tezos, like EVM.In the EVM example, being able to offer full Solidity support on Tezos is still massive even without lookahead messaging.From L2 to L1.When we get into Lookahead Messaging, there is a larger conversation about (de)centralized sequencers and who decides which transactions came first. There are many paths to implementing decentralized sequencers, and we will be researching all options on how to add this technology to our future GeniusChain.With that said, we will follow the classic route and use a centralized sequencer to keep our initial focus on delivering instant-play DApps. In this initial stage, users will be required to use our sequencer to benefit from our instant-play features.Our DApps will still be fully available to use via direct L1 messaging; this provides a balance for those who don’t want to use our sequencer. The only drawback with direct L1 messaging is the loss of instant-play.Play & Enjoy!Sign, send, repeat.At this point, the DApp operator should have everything they need to deliver a fun experience to the user. As you can see, interacting with L2 DApps on Tezos will mostly involve message signing and data retrieval from the rollup node.One major use-case for Layer 2 is gaming, and we’re going to show off Tezos L2 technology with our upcoming game: L2 Video Poker. Our rollup kernel is already written and deployed on testnet; work is underway on UI.We are going to show the Tezos ecosystem the power of instant-play.—Today’s update should give you more knowledge around how DApp interactions will feel on Tezos Layer 2.This is the last Project Oxide update, L2 Video Poker will be the subject of our next article. Get ready!GC

GC Alpha — Project Oxide IIPart 2. Let’s focus on product.Hello Geniuses, and welcome to Mumbai! We’ve talked about the technology side of Tezos optimistic rollups, and there are many great tutorials and educational materials around new Tezos rollup architecture, nodes, and more.The truth is, most users will never need to know these implementation details. For example, most know generally that a Wi-Fi router helps connect them to the internet, but most don’t know (or care) how each packet of data is organized and sent to other servers.It’s time to focus on product, and start thinking about how rollups will be used to create useful DApps on Tezos. We want to use this article to demystify the future state of rollups on Tezos (XTZ).Rollup Experience on Tezoscreated by @mooon640Tezos’ optimistic rollup implementation sets it apart from well-known optimistic rollups like Optimism and Arbitrum. The Tezos L1 chain acts as the base for any number of rollups to be deployed, and also provides native interfaces for the key facets of Layer 2 architecture. Essentially, developers can now deploy their own Arbitrum on Tezos at any time.Going further, rollups like Arbitrum have zero native guarantees from the Ethereum L1. These rollups are centrally controlled by admin keys, and are only as secure as their Solidity smart contract. We’re not going to dive into all of the issues here, but one can easily note major risks in this popular architecture.We appreciate the efforts of these pioneering projects, but we believe Tezos enshrined optimistic rollups are the correct choice for serious Layer 2 developers.Types of Rollups on TezosWith Tezos open & enshrined rollup architecture, there are multiple ways to develop Layer 2 DApps. Let’s break them down.Public Good RollupsExample EVM Rollup/SidechainPublic good rollups are best used for popular use-cases, like the EVM rollup. The EVM rollup is the highly-anticipated rollup that brings EVM compatibility to Tezos. Users will be able to make transactions, deploy EVM smart contracts, and make contract calls by sending messages to this rollup.We call this a public good rollup because many users will be leveraging this publicly available rollup to deploy their own Layer 2 DApps. In this case, developers who want to use Solidity on Tezos will not need to write a kernel, deploy a rollup, or post commitments. This is a good thing; Layer 2 developers can simply use the existing rollup with their Solidity code.We expect the EVM rollup to be supported by the major players in the Tezos ecosystem, and other important rollups like the Michelson rollup will likely follow this pattern as well.From GC’s perspective, we want to try out these future rollups, but creating public good rollups like this is not our current goal.Custom Execution RollupsExample Custom Rollup EcosystemTezos’ smart rollups allow for arbitrary execution of any WASM-compiled kernel code. Confused? That’s OK. Basically, rollup technology on Tezos goes further than just creating Arbitrum-style clones.Custom Execution means that developers can make more innovative and futuristic rollup kernels that may serve only one specific purpose, rather than implementing a full internal blockchain & VM like the EVM rollup above.For example, imagine a smart rollup focused completely on creating a Layer 2 orderbook for trading USD & XTZ. In this case, the developers can directly code their business logic in a flexible and fast programming language like Rust, instead of needing to rely completely on Solidity or Michelson running on a public VM.Custom Execution opens up an entirely new frontier for Layer 2 developers. This type of rollup can provide benefits in gaming, high-frequency trading, and much more. They are also faster to develop & deploy since there is no need to add a full sidechain inside of the rollup.GC will be focused initially on making Custom Execution rollups so that we can get fast and fun Layer 2 DApps shipped to our users.Private/Custom SidechainsExample GeniusChain with DAppsWe define a Custom Sidechain as a rollup on Tezos that uses Custom Execution, but also implements an internal blockchain that runs on the side of the main Tezos L1. This final category is a hybrid of the first two types, and something GC is heavily focused on in our long-term goals.We plan to start our Layer 2 journey by developing Custom Execution rollups that support one game or feature. Our issue is that we have plans for multiple Layer 2 DApps, and they will each need their own rollup if we only use Custom Execution rollups.Our solution is to essentially make our own chain, which will run multiple GC-owned DApps.The GeniusChain will eventually hold the logic for flagship games on SalsaDAO.io like the Rollup Casino, SpiceWorld, and SalsaStrike. There is an expensive bond requirement for running rollups on Tezos, so combining them all into one sidechain will decrease costs for GC while showing off some of the most interesting gaming technology in the crypto industry.—We hope today’s development update gives some more clarity to users on what development of rollups on Tezos will look like.Next time, we’ll dive into the anatomy of a Layer 2 DApp on Tezos.GC