Green Roads Ahead
Unification’s work has been progressing strongly in a very linear path over the past year. Since the announcement of wFUND, which is weeks away from final deployment, we’ve seen two significant upgrades of our core blockchain and improvements of all products such as the introduction of OoO 2.0 (bringing further utility and demand for xFUND) and have witnessed the impact of our lead consultancy with major scalability L2 solutions for leading EVM projects.
Successful Network Upgrade & FUND Across the Cosmos
On Wednesday, October 19th, 2022, following the successful passing of Governance Proposal 6 (full details at https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmYiLM8vbbZZbzrkqsqyf6N2u6t6J6RJ77tip9vqjsqWK5), the Unification Network successfully upgraded to Cosmos SDK v0.45.x branch, integrating several improvements and fixes for the BEACON, WRKChain, and Enterprise modules as well as implementing IBC v3, which enables the wFUND upgrade to occur smoothly.
DeFi-ing Gravity
As a part of the recent upgrade, we proudly look forward to integrating with and contributing to the larger Cosmos community in the coming months.
While the community has long provided support for internal upgrades and proposals, it was a truly momentous time to see the passing of proposals 82 & 83 on our partner network Gravity Bridge, and to see the power of the community by having the proposals as the most supported across the entire network!
https://commonwealth.im/gravity-bridge/discussion/7329-add-fund-metadata-to-gravity-bridge
https://www.mintscan.io/gravity-bridge/proposals/82
https://www.mintscan.io/gravity-bridge/proposals/83
These proposals are the first step to including Unification’s FUND on Gravity Bridge and have passed with the highest support we’ve seen for an external project to date!
The support of this proposal showcases the impact and importance of the Foundation’s work in the greater Cosmos community & future integrations with Gravity Bridge, Backspace and beyond.
wFUND on ERC-20
The ERC-20 contract for Wrapped FUND has already been created following the passing of the proposal and can be seen at: 0xe9B076B476D8865cDF79D1Cf7DF420EE397a7f75
Following the proposal, we have two additional governance votes required on the respective networks to finalize the wFUND launch:
The reason for these additional requirements is due to an additional requirement of IBC protocol (Inter Blockchain Communication) to ensure a sustainable, secure, and future-proof version of this channel.
IBC requires notifications to inform the respective chains that the IBC channels are still in use which are usually automatically embedded within IBC Transfer transactions, such that channels are kept open just through regular usage and transfers between the chains.
Since we have effectively been in a “pre-release” phase while the previous governance proposals have been active, the channels have not seen much general transactional and transfer use, and the relayer application we have implemented paused.
Thankfully, this issue is common and has been experienced by several chains in the past & the connection can be re-established via Governance, as evidenced by previous similar “client update” governance proposals not only on Gravity Bridge, but other chains such as Osmosis.
The passing of these proposals will establish the transfer across Gravity Bridge, allowing a two-way bridge transfer for FUND/wFUND between Cosmos and Ethereum, thereby increasing access/utility and liquidity to all members.
It’s encouraging to know that both proposals have already tipped the scale to pass with overwhelming majority of votes in a very short period of time
To eliminate the chance of similar issues in the future, we have taken multiple steps and put in place several processes to mitigate this and prevent any future similar occurrences. These processes include:
- Setting up multiple IBC relayers, such that if one experiences issues, there are several others to take over. We also invite the community to set up IBC relayers. As with the chain (more nodes = healthier network), more relayers = healthier IBC network.
- Scheduled tasks on a dedicated host with the sole purpose of sending hourly on-chain updates to both chains, independent of any relayer application or IBC transfer. This will keep channels open during periods of relative quiet when IBC transfers may be infrequent
- The development of a custom application dedicated to checking IBC client statuses on the respective chains, and sending update notifications when required. This will be published to our github repos when ready & shared/made available to all members of the Cosmos/Gravity Bridge community.
Binance’s Entry & xFUND/OoO upgrades in the plan
With all the upgrades of the network, it’s important to recall and remember one of the main underlying reasons for Unification’s work on Ethereum, which is to provide open, unbiased, permissionless services to users.
As champions of Oracles, we have always been excited to see innovations and additions to the space, and to have projects validate the need for service, such as Binance’s latest entry into the space.
Binance’s Oracle is currently permissioned and seems to be available for a limited number of dApps on Binance Chain, but we are excited to see where it is heading.
However, as with many other entries into the space, we are proud to have Unification’s OoO services as the true leader in Permissionless & Programmable Oracles.
It’s always important to showcase the importance of these tools, such as the latest announcement of Binance’s Oracle service:
In the next phase of The foundation’s development, Unification members and blockchain partners can anticipate to see/hear the next steps of our plan to expand OoO (and accompanying xFUND exclusive utility) to continue to remain the leaders of Permissionless, Programmable Blockchain Oracles to serve ALL projects/products across all chains, including but not limited to expansions of L1.
Network inflation, eFUND, wFUND
With renewed interest in Unification from many users/partners, there have been questions of network inflation and how wFUND may affect supply.
It’s first and most important to clarify that the total supply of FUND will NOT change/be altered with wFUND, which will simply serve as a way to increase access/utility and liquidity to all members.
Any FUND transferred through future wrapped versions are effectively frozen to allow for constant supply. Further technical information on this process can be found at the Cosmos IBC Academy
The growth of the network only comes through organic usage of FUND through purchases of Enterprise FUND (eFUND) by enterprise partners.
eFUND can also be thought of as FUND that is locked, purely for the initial usage of beacons/WRKchains on the Unification Network. Through the process of usage within these tools, the tokens will unlock/transfer to the Validators (and delegators) as rewards and enter the total supply.
eFUND resolves the issue of price fluctuations and allows enterprise partners to hedge against massive variability by acquiring locked tokens.
The total possibility of new eFUND created is limited to less than 10,000,000 annually, although it has been lower in previous years. However, given the upgrade of the network, we have already seen a number of beacon renewals and anticipate more as new projects onboard following future OoO and other tool upgrades.
Wen L2? Sewn!
Among all the important projects of the Unification Foundation, our work with the Shibarium team remains our core external project for the year and is moving forward with great strength.
Although the question of the release date of this project is something we hear and consider on a daily basis, it’s much more important for us to work with and support the team to ensure the most secure, usable vision and accompanying product possible.
The internal alpha continues to be optimized daily to be ready to fulfill the requirements and the sheer scale of the audience waiting for it. As a result the core team has been moving fast and furiously with our advisory and is close to a public beta release.
The Wen is soon and we are as excited to support, develop, and release a public update on the product shortly!
Green Roads Ahead
The Unification family and Foundation is proud to continue to walk a solid path down green roads and to achieve the plans/dreams of building tools and providing consultancies to key Blockchain projects to improve the blockchain and larger technical worlds in the following years to come.
The reality of wFUND, in the coming weeks, followed by upgrades of OoO and accompanying xFUND exclusive utility, and the release of our partner projects in the coming weeks/months will continue to realize the reality of these green roads!
