Stakin — Bi-Weekly Newsletter Vol. 12

Hey Readers👩‍💻,

In our 12th bi-weekly newsletter, we’re having a look at:

• Kava’s Cross-Chain Money Market
• Staking lossless lottery launch approaching, audit in progress
• Stakin a part of Akash and NEAR Mainnet
• ICON 2.0 Batang
• SKALE Completed Token Sale & Mainnet Launch
• Stafi Mainnet Is LIVE!
• Cosmos Stargate 2

💫Kava’s Cross-Chain Money Market

The Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platform Kava announced its intention to host a cross-chain money market on its Cosmos blockchain to capitalize on DeFi opportunities, reported Cointelegraph on September 19th.

Kava will be building an application called Harvest that will let users borrow and lend digital assets such as BTC, BNB, KAVA, and USDX. Additionally, customers are paid interest in Harvest’s governance token HARD. The platform will integrate the Kava price-reference data from Chainlink to facilitate cross-chain transfers. The aim of Kava will release more applications leveraging its blockchain for DeFi products.

🚀 Stakin Lossless Lottery Is Approaching!

In other good news, the long-anticipated Stakin Lossless Lottery launch is approaching as we are currently auditing the progress. We’ve already conducted multiple test rounds on our testnet version of the Dapp. Additionally, we’ve also started auditing the smart-contract with the ICON audit system. Besides testing, we’ve introduced a new feature which will allow users to sponsor the final prize amount.

The Stakin Lottery is built on the ICON blockchain thanks to the support of our voters and VELIC Financial. It will be available for all $ICX token holders to join. The ICON protocol currently offers an annual reward rate of around 13%, making it an attractive staking asset for our risk-free lottery project.

The launch is targeted for October. Join the waitlist, so you don’t miss out on any launch prizes, which will be sponsored thanks to a grant from ICON Foundation.

• Join the waitlist at https://lottery.stakin.com/, already 1,500+ joined.

For more information about lossless lotteries, click here.

🤩 Stakin a Part of Akash and NEAR Mainnet

In more good Stakin news, we’ve just become a part of the Akash Genesis Mainnet. At Genesis, users can bring their validator node online — and we’re excited to be a part of this fantastic new development in the validator community!

Additionally, Stakin is now also a validator for the NEAR Mainnet, about which we’re very excited. At this point, the Mainnet is entirely operational and doesn’t have any restrictions. Validators and delegators are now responsible for the continued operation of the network and deciding to upgrade. Track all progress here.

🧑‍🚀 ICON 2.0 Batang

And then, the ICON Network announced their next significant technical advancements with ICON 2.0 BATANG, a new blockchain software architecture based on Go. Batang means foundation in Korean, and the ICON networks see ICON 2.0 as the base technology that will support the entire network’s future growth.

Currently, the ICON Mainnet is built on Python and was the first attempt to create and experiment with a public blockchain network. The ICON Foundation states:

“We were proud that ICON became one of the top blockchain networks, but we knew we could do much better now with more experience under our belt. Therefore, about a year ago, ICON’s core developers started to completely redesign the existing loop chains architecture to prepare us for the future. Now, ICON 2.0 is built and ready to go.”

ICON 2.0 will be a brand new software aimed to be faster, more stable, and a scalable, high-performance blockchain that will inherit the current ICON Network. ICON 2.0 will come standard with interoperability features to support and power cross-chain DeFi solutions. At launch, the ICON Foundation will deploy all necessary smart contracts on high-profile blockchains and run the relayers.

• Check all info here

🎂 SKALE Completed Token Sale & Start Delegating!

A lot of great news from the SKALE network, that on September 24th, will start the staking and delegation for public token sale participants after a completed token sale. Those wondering about the SKALE network aim to solve the blockchain scalability problem by implementing an open-source effort that combines cryptography and decentralization with technology innovation from the big data world.

The network will be running millions of smart contracts and transactions per second, facilitating an optimized interchain between DApps and blockchains. And on that note, the network’s Mainnet Phase 2 will be launched on October 1st, where live staking and the proof-of-use period begins for tokens delegated and confirmed by validators before the end of September.

• Keep an eye out for our article on staking SKL! Which will be published soon.

🎉 Stafi Mainnet is Live!

The newsletter is filled with Mainnet news this week, as Stafi has also launched its Mainnet on September 7th. The Sitara incentive Testnet initiative was successfully concluded on the 26th of August. During two months of testing, Stafi completed an essential Testnet plan with 600 strong participants, over 400 validators, and three rounds of tests of stepwise difficulties. We’re excited to see where this new Mainnet goes!

⭐️ Cosmos Stargate 2

On September 10th, 2020, the Cosmos Network announced that after a successful Stargate 1 Testnet, number 2 has now also launched. So, what is new for this release? First, it is supposed to fix the issues with Legacy Amino that were noticed during Stargate 1. Furthermore, the Testnet will be used to test wallets, exchanges, and block explorers against the legacy Amino REST interface.

And it will allow node operators and validators to test their integrations against a work in progress version. Lastly, new Stargate features, including IBC, will be introduced; however, real testing of IBC will wait on Akash updating the Relayer and maybe even the future testnet.

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.