Stakin — Bi-Weekly Newsletter Vol. 15
ICON 2.0 Testnet Gangnam is here, and we tell you all about it! Together with exciting Stakin news, the NEAR Protocol, and more…
Hi Readers👩💻,
I hope you all had a lovely Halloween! If you were participating in the Stakin Halloween Lottery, you might’ve even gotten some Blockchain Halloween treats. Our 15th newsletter is here — time flies when you’re having fun — and this week, we’re discussing:
E-Money Upgraded To E-Money-2
Stakin Lossless Lottery Included In MyIconWallet
Stakin Tezos Fee Change
DeFi Project Balancer To NEAR Protocol
ICON 2.0 Testnet Gangnam
ICON Contribution Proposal System
Eth 2.0 Deposit Contract Launch
E-Money Upgraded To E-Money-2
On the 4th of November 2020, the E-Money Protocol successfully launched their Mainnet Upgrade. Initially, the E-Money Mainnet launched with an NGM asset that wasn’t fully transferable and liquid, but that has now changed. You will be able to transfer and trade NGM easily and without any fuss on both centralized exchanges and the e-Money DEX.
Side note: The NGM token is e-Money’s staking token, which will inflate at a rate of 10% a year, with the newly minted tokens distributed pro-rata to staked NGM tokens only. So if you own 2% of the staked NGM tokens, you will receive 2% of the newly minted NGM as staking rewards.
Other improvements on the Mainnet are related to auditing, network parameters, and improving the DEX. Check out the full article here.
Stakin Lossless Lottery Included By MyIconWallet
We’re excited to announce that the Stakin Lossless Lottery is now available as a DApp on the MyIconWallet. We’re happy to share our step-by-step guide to joining with the wallet here, which you can check out to see if you’d like to give the lottery a try.
Stakin Tezos Fee Change
In other Stakin announcements, we’d like to let you all know that we will be adjusting our baking fees for the Tezos network starting December 1st, 2020. The baking fees will increase to 10%, and the minimum delegation amount will be 20 $XTZ.
The reason behind this % fee change is that our #Tezos baker is almost over delegated, and we cannot keep up with adding more bond, as such our performance (still AAA) has been declining these past cycles.
DeFi Project Balancer To NEAR Protocol
The Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ecosystem continues to grow and bloom, so we were happy to hear that the DeFi Project Balancer will be coming to NEAR Protocol. Balancer is an automated market maker that provides users with financial building blocks that can be used to build DeFi products and services. As the name suggests, Balance is created by Balancer Labs; the protocol is currently the third-largest decentralized exchange (DEX) on Ethereum (by monthly volume).
ICON 2.0 Testnet Gangnam
In other good news, the ICON 2.0 Testnet Gangnam is launched! Gangnam is the Testnet that will enable the Java SCORE and provides developers an opportunity to test ahead of the ICON 2.0 launch. Additionally, it will let you immediately start developing Java SCORE on the testnet using Goloop CLI Tools. The launch of ICON 2.0 came for many as an exciting surprise, and it is great to see how much is already going on with the network.
For more technical information about Testnet Gangam, please click here.
ICON Contribution Proposal System
But the ICON 2.0 Testnet is not the only exciting news from the ICON Foundation. It seems that the Contribution Proposal System created with the iBriz-Iconosphere P-Rep team is getting close to its Mainnet launch as well. The Foundation mentioned that they aim to target to launch for the end of November or early December as the user interface is nearly complete.
Over the next few weeks, the team will be working on completing development and testing the entire system. We look forward to seeing what this innovative funding mechanism will do for the ICON Network.
Eth 2.0 Deposit Contract Launch
Then some exciting Ethereum 2.0 news, the Eth 2.0 Deposit Contract Launch, to be precise. The web-based portal allows individuals to sign-up as a validator on the Ethereum 2.0 network, which is expected to launch later this year. The launchpad is a collaboration between ConsenSys Codefi, DeepWork Studio, and the Ethereum Foundation.
To become a validator, you will have to put up a stake of 32 ETH, locked into a one-way deposit contract. That gives the validator the right to run a validator node, earn rewards, and participate in securing the Ethereum 2.0 network. Check the platform out here.
DISCLAIMER — This is not financial advice. Staking, delegation, and cryptocurrencies involve a high degree of risk, and there is always the possibility of loss, including the loss of all staked digital assets. Additionally, delegators are at risk of slashing in case of security or liveness faults on some protocols. We advise you to do your due diligence before choosing a validator.