Tezos Commons :: Month At A Glance — February 2024
Month At A Glance — February 2024
A breakdown of the latest happenings and significant milestones within the Tezos ecosystem for February 2024.
Welcome to our latest issue of Month At A Glance, where we give a quick breakdown of the latest happenings and significant milestones in the Tezos ecosystem on a monthly cadence.
February 2024 was another big month, especially for development and adoption, with new developments introduced to the Tezos ecosystem, such as Oxford 2 going live, an exciting new game called BattleRise, tzBTC 2.0, and much more.
Let’s break it all down.
Ecosystem Insights
Oxford 2 Is Here!
On February 9th, 2024, the Tezos network activated the Oxford 2 protocol upgrade. The 15th network upgrade represents Tezos’ ability to evolve and continuously adopt the best-of-class technology in a well-defined way.
Key features include the following:
Adaptive issuance and the new staking mechanism from Oxford
1 is disabled.A new auto-staking mechanism designed to prevent over-delegation by using a newly designed staked funds API.Additional refinements to slash penalties and make penalties proportional to 5% of a baker’s stake as opposed to 10% in Oxford 1.Re-enabling of Timelocks.The introduction of private smart rollups, allowing developers to choose between permissioned or permissionless deployments.
I’ve made several information graphics that I would encourage you to check out in the following Twitter (X) thread located here if you’d like to learn more about the upgrade in an easy-to-digest manner. Nomadic Labs has also released a publication diving more in-depth into private smart rollups.
Tezos Gaming Is Getting Exciting
With games like Coinblast, StarSymphony, and Metapals, we can see Tezos gaming is taking it up a notch. This is evident in another new game support for Tezos, BattleRise: Kingdom of Champions.
BattleRise is a fantasy mobile role-playing game (RPG) developed by Sodigital Studios. Set in a mythical world, EOS, players can participate in turn-based combat with various game modes, such as Dungeon Run, Arena, and Adventure.
The game centers around a villain, Tiamat, the God of Death. The game aims to assemble a band of warriors and battle Tiamat’s soldiers as you embark on a quest to stop Tiamat from annihilating EOS.
One of the primary components of RPGs revolves around decision-making. Within BattleRise, this is no different, as within the Dungeon Run, the decisions you make along the way directly affect how your character’s battles turn out.
For instance, as you complete battles and progress to further levels in the Dungeon Run, you’ll encounter different shrines to inspect or have the option to select different blessings from gods. Based on your choices, they can help you complete the entire run or cause a setback.
The game is only available for mobile devices via the App Store and Google Play. However, it is compatible with some MacOS devices running the latest version of MacOS, as I was able to play it on my Mac desktop.
Utilizing Tezos, BattleRise will eventually leverage the Tezos blockchain for various things, such as trading in-game items like artifacts, weapons, and more. While these features have yet to be incorporated, the team behind BattleRise spoke on X about what the collaboration with Tezos means for players.
Get out there and create your team of champions today!
Tezos Ecosystem DAO Updates
In August 2023, Tezos Commons secured a grant from the Tezos Foundation to support the DAO’s initiatives further. The grant, exclusively intended for the Tezos Ecosystem DAO, was deposited into the DAO treasury, bolstering its potential for ecosystem grants.
In September 2023, we announced that Tezos Commons, alongside the other four multi-sig holders, would start reviewing the first batch of proposals for the DAO. Since then, the voting for the first batch of proposals has concluded. Two projects that submitted proposals were given funding.
TezIDTelegram Tip Bot
The second batch of proposals for the next voting round was decided in November 2023. There were five proposals under consideration, with one proposal getting approved.
In January 2024, one proposal was introduced by “TheTezosCommunity,” and the proposal was approved, which marks the end of the third round of proposals. In February 2024, the proposal received funding, and an MVP for the event calendar can be found here.
As iterated previously, later this quarter, the Ecosystem DAO will enable tez-based voting on polls to allow verifiable tez holders to provide input more directly. Just like the Tezos blockchain, the Ecosystem DAO is continually evolving.
The Tezos Ecosystem DAO is actively inviting participation from the Tezos community, including artists, developers, builders, gamers, and more, to propose ideas for funding. Those with innovative concepts, projects, or suggestions deserving of funding are encouraged to share their proposals on Tezos Agora. If you have an idea for something to help grow the Tezos ecosystem, apply for funding!
News From The Tezos Ecosystem: Quick Bits
Deploying a Tezos signer on AWS simplified
MIDL.dev has released a beta version of a suite of serverless apps to sign Tezos operations on AWS. The serverless apps are available in Amazon’s Serverless Application Repository; installation from the AWS web console can be completed in just a few clicks. Learn more about it here.
Octez v19.1 released
This release is essential for public RPC node operators (and similar public-facing infrastructure) and Smart Rollups node operators. See the changelog for additional details about the new release.
PK Lab secures a grant from the Tezos Foundation
PK Lab will focus on advancing the bridging infrastructure for Tezos Smart Rollups, including developing a comprehensive simulated bridge environment for testing and validation purposes. Learn more about PK Lab’s grant from the announcement here.
Mooncakes releases the Year of the Dragon collection
Mooncakes are a fun way to explore the Tezos blockchain and earn prizes. The latest collection is themed around the Year of the Dragon, offering several new quests and challenges for users to complete to earn mooncake NFTs. Head over to the site and get started, with the potential to become an early tester of the new mobile version of Kukai Wallet!
BattleRise secures a grant from the Tezos Foundation
BattleRise is a fantasy mobile role-playing game (RPG) developed by Sodigital Studios. Set in a mythical world, EOS, players can participate in turn-based combat with various game modes, such as Dungeon Run, Arena, and Adventure.
Utilizing Tezos, BattleRise will eventually leverage the Tezos blockchain for various things, such as trading in-game items like artifacts, weapons, and more.
Layer 3 secures a grant from the Tezos Foundation
Layer 3 is a platform that enables users to discover and learn more about digital assets through interactive and fun ways like quests and streaks. With support from the Tezos Foundation, Layer3 will provide design, development, and launch services for a 10-month-long campaign for Etherlink.
tzBTC 2.0 plans have been released!
tzBTC 2.0 is an evolved version of Bitcoin on the Tezos blockchain that aims to be more transparent, stable, compliant, cost-effective, and accessible. It includes improvements like gatekeeper optimization for easier minting/burning processes, keyholder automation for instant availability, and a plan for a multi-chain future to extend tzBTC’s utility beyond Tezos.
Events
Tuesday TezDay w Retro Manni — February 6thTezTalks Live #82: Kevin MehrabiThe Tie Tezos Q1 State of the Ecosystem — February 7thArthur Breitman x Token Terminal Podcast — February 8thTezTalks Live #83: Efe KucukTuesday TezDay Community Call — February 13thTuesday TezDay w Pronoia — February 20thTezTalks Radio #74: Anna Lucia & Gabriel Maria PlattNFT Paris Conference — February 23–24Tuesday TezDay Community Call — February 27th
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? You can tag any discord message or tweet with #TezosCRP; we will collect them!
The categories and nomination standards have remained the same. For more information, head over to the refreshed landing page here. We’ve also announced January 2024 winners, so be sure to check out the recap on that here.
About Tezos Commons Foundation
Tezos Commons is a non-profit organization emphasizing building communities on Tezos and supporting the Tezos ecosystem and its members. Through organizing several community-focused events, hosting infrastructure, and funding small projects, Tezos Commons has been actively contributing towards 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.
Stay in the Conversation, Stay in the Know
Tezos Commons hosts a variety of community-oriented events and content. You can keep up to date below and visit our events page!
TezTalks LiveTezTalks RadioX SpacesX ShortsThe Blockchain Evolved ShowBaking Sheet NewsletterTezos BulletinIn-Depth Articles
You can also contact us on X or via email at [email protected].
Month At A Glance — February 2024 was originally published in Tezos Commons on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
