On the crest of Waves / Monthly digest / January 2021
By: Waves Tech
Tags: Waves, Wavesprotocol, Digest

Hi Waves community,

We are excited to introduce the first issue of our monthly digest, in which we’ll be sharing with you the Waves ecosystem’s major news and updates.

The Waves ecosystem differs from other projects in the crypto space because it has a mixture of base-layer protocols and specific products built on those protocols. We don’t wait for other developers to start building on our protocols — although we certainly encourage that. We create end-user solutions as examples of what our protocols are capable of, exploring the most promising and innovative ideas in the crypto industry.

In this digest, we’ll explain to you what we are doing, what new products are in the pipeline and what areas of the crypto space we find worth exploring.

As this is the first digest and, following a quite successful 2020, we have many new users, we’ll start with some basic recap of the Waves ecosystem. The old community might be interested too, because sometimes we may appear a bit too complex:)

Waves has always been clear about its goal of fostering wider blockchain adoption and building an all-encompassing infrastructure with cheap and fast transactions, unbreakable security and top user and developer experience. “Blockchain for the people” has been our motto.

Combining all that was a challenging task, and making sure that products complement each other and interact with protocols and ecosystems outside Waves was even more challenging.

But we have quite a lot going, including Neutrino enabling assetization, Gravity providing inter-chain communications, Swop.fi and Waves.Exchange offering profitable financial tools.

Now that the concept has been explained, you may wonder about what Waves’ strategy is at this point and what we are trying to achieve.

Over the last few years, the industry evolved, and the Waves ecosystem has evolved, as well. Currently, decentralized finances (DeFi) are all the rage, and we are focusing quite heavily on DeFi solutions. But the core principles that we’ve stuck to remain unchanged, no matter what. Our approach is the same: offering the end-user simple, secure, cheap and fast products that could work equally well for crypto veterans and newbies in the space.

With the help of our beloved community, we are creating a comprehensive yield-generating DeFi ecosystem operable in multiple chains (InDeFi), with unique products and mechanics that cater to investors, traders and developers — “the Lego blocks” of digital finance. So, our motto could be rephrased as “DeFi for the people.”

To learn more about Waves Tech’s strategy and vision, check out these interviews of Waves team’s key members:

And now — to the latest news and updates!

Boosting utility

Our ecosystem is growing out, with WAVES tokens getting listed on new exchanges and new Waves-based projects popping up across industries.

Recently, WAVES was listed on SimpleSwap, while WAVES deposits and withdrawals were enabled on Crypto.com.

It’s always nice to see Waves-based projects grow and increase their user base. And, since digital art is considered as one of the most promising areas for blockchain applications, we are especially happy to see that SIGN Art, the brainchild of Christophe Verdot, has been making good progress! SIGN Art was recently launched on the mainnet. Congratulations! Want to learn more about the project? Check out its explanatory video!

Developers’ comfort

We’ve always been serious about developer experience, coming up with user-friendly and efficient tools for developers. This will never go away!

Inter-chain communication is likely to be one of 2021’s hottest topics, and, as we are going ahead with the Gravity protocol, we’ve published a detailed explanation for developers on adding a new blockchain to Gravity. If you want to learn more about it, see this story.

And we are open to all kinds of developer proposals that could make our services more efficient and user-friendly. Have an idea? Visit our forum and make an enhancement proposal. Or you can just browse the developer libraries.

In focus: Neutrino

An efficient combination of an investment tool and a connecting link between Waves Tech’s many elements, Neutrino remains the Waves ecosystem’s crucial element.

The market cap of Neutrino USD (USDN), the protocol’s flagship stablecoin, is approaching $127 mln, while the USDN pool on Curve has almost hit a $200 mln mark.

If you are still surprised with such results, learn why USDN is special and how it differs from other stablecoins, like Dai, from this article.

The Neutrino team is working hard on adding more utility and new use cases. In January, it was announced that Neutrino protocol will integrate the Chainlink Proof of Reserve oracle network to enable seamless transfers of USDN and other tokens between the two blockchains.

Speaking about Neutrino it’s impossible not to mention the protocol’s crucial element and stabilization tool — Neutrino Token (NSBT). It serves as the protocol’s governance token, also yielding high staking rewards. With the Moon Factor activation, NSBT became an even more attractive investment asset.

By the way, since January 2021, Gate.io users have had an opportunity to trade NSBT along with Waves.Exchange, Mooniswap, Tidex and Uniswap and Swop.fi.

And we hope that the Binance community will soon support the listing of NSBT! In the meantime, the exchange is running an airdrop campaign for NSBT. All Binance users who have a balance of at least 10 WAVES are eligible to claim some of 5,000 NSBT tokens.

Meanwhile, we’ve made another step towards making Neutrino stablecoins truly inter-chain tokens. In early January, the Gravity protocol team launched pools for WAVES-based tokens on PancakeSwap, the first AMM and yield farm on Binance Smart Chain.

And, finally, users can now ask questions and discuss protocol updates on the forum.

Redefining financial services

Our goal is to make DeFi service accessible to the widest possible audience of regular users. Until recently, one major element was missing in the Waves ecosystem — an automated market maker (AMM). So, Swop.fi was launched late last year, a vital — but by no means final — addition to the growing DeFi segment of our ecosystem.

Apart from convenient crypto swaps, Swop.fi offers attractive incomes from providing liquidity and yield farming.

In mid-January, Swop.fi launched a USDLP/USDN liquidity pool. On February 5, SWOP, the project’s utility and governance token was launched and users who sent their share tokens to farming in advance collected early-bird rewards in SWOP tokens. Want to learn more about the SWOP token? Check out this article! And this post will help you get an idea of what SWOP’s market price could be.

We’ll have more Swop.fi news for you next month!

Waves.Exchange also offers user-friendly and convenient tools for a mass audience, combining the advantages of centralized and decentralized exchanges. To make the exchange more convenient for regular users, Waves.Exchange recently introduced authentication by email.

Those looking for high-yield investment tools are likely to appreciate the new staking opportunities — USDT and USDC.

In addition to offering a diversity of products and constantly improving user experience, Wave.Exchange often makes it to lists of the safest crypto exchange across the world, like this one compiled by Chart Attack.

That’s it for now. We’ll be back with more Waves ecosystem news and updates next month. Stay tuned!