Hello fellow Kyberians!
We hope the shortening days and the colder autumn weather hasn’t affected your mood too much. If you are part of the Ethereum world, you have a lot to be excited about as the next few months bring dramatic changes to our blockchain. First with the introduction of multi-collateral DAI and all its implications for DeFi, and then with the launch of the Eth2.0 Phase 0 Beacon chain, we are pushing Ethereum’s boundaries to new heights in the very near future!
At Kyber, we’re doing our part to bring liquidity wherever it’s needed across the Ethereum ecosystem. Over 70 different dapps now have access to a pool of liquidity deep and competitive enough that single $150k DAI orders can be executed with less than 0.4% slippage. Kyber Network, our liquidity protocol, and KyberSwap, our DEX UI, have come a long way since we first launched in February 2018 and we look forward to continuing building on this growth together with you, the Ethereum community.
Kyber Network Stats
From your feedback on these ecosystem blogs, you’ve let us know you love the monthly stats we provide and therefore, we dove back into our analytics tools to see what new information we could bring you. This month we present you with:
Stats for October 2019:
5,701 unique addresses (up 17% over September) have swapped with Kyber, a new record for our network. Note: integrations like Nuo and Fulcrum count as single addresses and therefore their users are not included in this unique address figure.
3,274 first time addresses that had not previously swapped with Kyber (up 24% over September)
2,771 addresses trading multiple times throughout October (up 21%)
41,350 total trades for the month for an average of 1,378 trades per day (up 71%)
$838 (or 4.68 ETH) average size per trade (down 26%)
Looking at monthly volume growth, we saw our third consecutive month-on-month ETH volume growth (193,521 ETH traded) after the mid-July dip. USD volume increased by 22% to $34.6M over September.
Note: compared to previous ecosystem blogs, we’ve adjusted the figures to remove WETH/ETH volumes from the above graphics. This pair accounts for roughly ~$3M to~$4M monthly volume
Most integrations saw positive volume growth in both ETH and USD terms with the top five fastest growing integrations include a mix of wallets, DeFi dapps and for the second consecutive month, KyberSwap’s Android app.
KyberSwap Limit Orders 2.0
Back in our 5th ecosystem report, we had introduced you to the KyberSwap Limit Order, a feature that allows users to sign orders for later execution at specified price points (quick refresher: a limit order is used to buy or sell a token at a specified, pre-determined price. The order is only executed if it hits or crosses the specified price)
Since that release, our Vietnam office has been heads down busy working on bringing even more features, and we believe our latest release makes KyberSwap one of the most fully functional and user friendly exchanges in crypto. Our new features include Advanced Trading Tools, Free Orders for KNC holders* (including free gas!), a brand new UI including an elegant dark mode, while of course maintaining our core non-custodial swap model.
You can deep dive into the new features here.
Kyber Debugger
It goes without saying that dapp, wallet, and DeFi developers are a cornerstone of our effort to provide liquidity across the length and breadth of the Ethereum ecosystem. To this end, we work with developers to provide documentation and tools to integrate their dapps to Kyber Network as easily as possible.
Kyber Debugger is one such tool designed to make dev’s lives easier by providing a simple UI to run a suite of checks on failed transactions. The 15 checks are designed to run through the various Kyber Network smart contract parameters to debug and pinpoint where exactly and for what reason the contract failed. It can be accessed here and as always, we are continuously on hand to provide direct dev support through our Kyber #developers channel on Discord.
DeFi Updates
Switching attention to the DeFi world, we see Kyber’s DeFi integrations managed to outpace overall Kyber Network volume growth in October with a 47% increase in USD terms over September (compared to 22% increase for Kyber as a whole) with Nuo accounting for a substantial part of this growth.
Nuo Network now reclaims its spot as the largest DeFi integration within Kyber with $5.1M worth of monthly trading.
Note: due to some dapp-specific integration methods, we do not have insight into all our DeFi integrations and hence why Set Protocol and a few other volume-bringing integrations are not represented in the data above. We are working to change this.
Welcoming Structured to DeFi
We recently highlighted a trend within the Ethereum ecosystem were dapps were integrating with DeFi dapps already integrated downstream with other DeFi dapps, thus creating unique value chains (ie. Deversifi →Fulcrum →Kyber Network) and this month we welcome another such chain.
Structured is an Ethereum-based hedged portfolio generator that allows you to convert your Ether into fixed income structured products. These products include positions such as ‘Risk Averse Return, Long Ether’ (made of 90% Fixed Income with 7% APR and 10% 3x Leveraged ETH) and ‘80/20 Interest Long’ (40% USDC Interest, 40% DAI Interest, 10% 2x Long ETH, 10% 2x long BTC) amongst others.
Structured uses Fulcrum with Kyber Network, Compound, and Synthetix to create these positions with users maintaining custody of their funds at all times and without being subject to any lock-up periods. It’s great to see such teams pushing forward with building up the DeFi toolkit in new and innovative ways.
Kraken’s Cryptowatch & Totle
This month also saw the integration of Totle into Kraken’s Cryptowatch platform so that Cryptowatch users can query Kyber Network and other decentralized liquidity providers’ trade data.
The data provided will be real-time on-chain trade data with Loi adding that “this will improve users’ ability to blend decentralized and centralized trading strategies together”. You can read more in Totle’s blog and access the data directly on Cryptowatch.
Quick DeFi Landscape Recap
With so much going on in the DeFi space, we thought we’d also give you a quick update on notable events and announcements from across DeFi over the last month:
Aave launches uncollateralized loans: — In a first for the DeFi space, Aave announced the availability of uncollateralized flash loans. Users are able to take out uncollateralized loans as long as they can return them, with interest, within the same transaction. Thread
Multi-Collateral DAI Launch Date: — Rune Christensen, CEO of the Maker Foundation, announced that Multi-Collateral DAI will finally launch on the 18th of November. Blog
Plasma Group & Uniswap Optimistic Rollups: — These teams demoed a Layer 2 solution capable of running at 250 transactions per second while allowing for full Solidity smart contract interoperability with Ethereum.
New Dapps
EthKids — We love and fully support ideas that leverage the power of the blockchain to improve the process of charitable giving. EthKids is one such example where a dynamic bonding curve model is used to create a non-commercial decentralized protocol for charity donations for children.
This conceptually new donation mechanism uses Kyber to allow for donations to be made in any ERC20 token and the first round of donations are going to Chance.by, a charity that helps children with severe diseases raise funds for urgently required medicine or surgeries.
DexWallet — DexWallet is an easy to use crypto wallet with a native Kyber integration that allows users to swap one token to another directly from their iOS devices. The team are also active with xDAI development and recently participated in the Kyber DeFi Hackathon.
Axie Infinity — We were pleased to see Axie Infinity integrated into Samsung’s Blockchain Wallet (available on Galaxy S10, Note10, Fold, and A90). Users of the phones will now be able to trade and battle Axies straight from their Samsung Blockchain Wallets.
Like Decentraland, Axie Infinity is another project that used Kyber during its NFT auction period and it’s always exciting to see such projects expand their reach into mainstream applications. Enjin, another Kyber-integrated wallet, was one of the first dapps to make it onto the Galaxy S10.
You can read more on the integration here.
Reserve Manager and Token Metrics
In this age of multiple Ethereum dexes and multiple dex aggregators available to end users, it’s more important than ever for us to provide the most competitive rates to the Ethereum ecosystem. This is why we always push to improve the Kyber Reserve, and our most recent improvements, especially around DAI, are reflecting in our monthly data.
The Kyber Reserve saw USD volumes increase 63% , with SNX, REN, and the Melonport Reserves also seeing strong demand for their tokens and increasing volumes:
Our reserves keep pushing their boundaries! Liquidity on Kyber for $dai, $usdc and $wbtc just becomes the best among all Ethereum platforms, even as competitive as CEXs 🚀🚀🚀 $dai: 800 eth, <0.4% slippage $usdc: 500 eth, <0.3% slippage $wbtc: 15 wbtc, <0.3% slippage
In terms of traded tokens, we see stablecoins like DAI and USDC continue to dominate the top of the list with their extensive usage within DeFi dapps:
New Reserve: Woorton
This month we welcome Woorton to Kyber’s liquidity protocol. Based in Paris, Woorton is one of the leading European digital asset market makers and maintains bank-grade proprietary trading infrastructure to market make between crypto and over 30 fiat currencies.
Woorton will manage a Fed Price Reserve for the Melon (MLN) token, and by redirecting liquidity bilaterally between CEXs and DEXs, it can provide a much better level of liquidity on Kyber.
WBTC
In the last few months we’ve been seeing a trend of WBTC gaining new trading pairs against non-Ethereum tokens. Switcheo recently announced the NEO/WBTC atomic swap market through its Switcheo Network Decentralized Exchange, and NebliDex soon followed by releasing the BTC/WBTC pair on its own DEX.
Note: we have not vetted either of the above projects and their usage, as with all projects highlighted in these ecosystem blogs, is done so completely at your own risk.
Kyber World
DeFi Hackathon
And it’s done! 308 of you participated in our Kyber DeFi Virtual Hackathon. Over 40 projects were submitted and we saw a diverse range of projects ranging from APIs to telegram bots, digital pets to charity solutions, and social wallets to all sorts of different DeFi products.
The voting period continues until the 7th of November so please be sure to browse the submissions and vote for them here. Again, thank you everyone for participating, its been a pleasure to see the innovation you bring to the table and we’ve greatly enjoyed trying out what you’ve built.
As soon as the winners are announced, we’ll have a full blog post covering the hackathon.
Singapore Blockchain Map
Singapore is a place dear to our hearts with many of us based here. It’s been very inspiring to us to see how much blockchain innovation has taken place in such a short time in such a concentrated geographic area, and this month, this was highlighted by Infocomm Media Development Authority, a Singapore Ministry of Communications and Information board.
Aimed with promoting awareness and adoption of blockchain technology, IMDA’s report sets out to map out the vast Blockchain ecosystem in Singapore. Kyber Network takes its place amongst other liquidity providers and exchanges like Binance and Huobi and you can read a summary of the various industries and key players in Fintech News’ article here or access the map directly here.
Asian Blockchain Review
Kyber was also extensively covered by Asian Blockchain Review with Loi giving an interview on how Kyber Network was conceived, how it stands out amongst other similiar protocols, and what our goals are for the future. You can read the full interview here.
Kyber On The Road
Devcon V — After months of anticipation we finally got to experience Osaka and Devcon V! In a nutshell, we had an amazing time, listened to great talks, learnt a great deal about where Ethereum is heading, and of course had a lot of great food. We’ve written a dedicated blog post just for Devcon V which you can read here.
Throughout October we also got the chance to answer hundreds of questions through the dapp.com and Atomic Wallet-hosted community AMAs. These Kyber-focused AMAs were a great opportunity for us to spread awareness about various aspects of Kyber’s liquidity protocol and you can catch some of the questions and answers here.
Upcoming Events
Between the 8th and 11th of November we’ll be participating in at the EthWaterloo hackathon, the birthplace of the ETHGlobal movement all the way back in October 2017 and where both Set Protocol was born, and Cryptokitties launched.
On the 13th of November we’ll be hosting a meetup with Maker, Gnosis, and PundiX in Singapore focused on understanding the decentralized finance landscape. You can sign up here
Again in Singapore, on the 14th of November we’ll be participating in The Meetup Exchanges, an event focused on the crypto-exchanges industry. Anton Buenavista, our Core Developer, will join Bithumb, Changelly, Deribit, OKEx, and other companies to discuss scalability, liquidity, user challenges, fake volumes, and CEX vs DEX. If you’d like to attend, you can sign up here (there will be pizza! 🍕🍕)
And finally, on the 24th of November, Loi will be sharing the stage with Microsoft, IBM, Amazon and others to present his ideas around decentralized trading protocols at the Genesis DevCon in Bangalore, India. Tickets for the conference can be bought here.
Conclusion
With another busy month behind us, we’re happy to see our space is pushing full steam ahead with no signs of a slowdown. These ecosystem blogs have documented a treasure trove of progress over the last 8 months and we feel the best is yet to come, so keep following us, keep using dapps as much as possible, and keep the decentralized spirit alive! Until next time 👋
Discord | Website | Blog | Twitter | Reddit | Facebook | Developer Portal | Kyber Tracker | KyberWidget Generator
Kyber Ecosystem Report #8 was originally published in Kyber Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
