We’ve got a lot of news this month, so let’s dive in.
Moonbase Alpha TestNet Upgrade
We introduced the Moonbase Alpha TestNet three weeks ago, and now we’re releasing our first feature upgrade.
Announced yesterday, Moonbase Alpha v2 adds several new features, including publish-subscribe capabilities and precompiles.
This functionality is a big step forward in making our smart contract platform as similar to Ethereum as possible. By minimizing the changes needed to run existing Solidity smart contracts on the new network, Ethereum projects can simply replicate their dApp and deploy it to Moonbeam using Truffle, Remix, and other popular developer tools.
Pub/Sub
Publish-subscribe is an asynchronous messaging service that acts as a middleware between the publishers of messages, and applications that subscribe to them. Commonly referred to as pub/sub, this messaging pattern makes it possible for dApps, like wallets and block explorers, to receive updates about on-chain transactions, balances, and other critical data without needing to issue new queries.
Check out a recent blog that dives into this functionality in more detail.
Precompiled Contracts
Moonbase Alpha now includes some of the precompiled contracts that are natively available on Ethereum: ecrecover, sha256, ripemd-160 and the identity function. If you’d like to learn how to use them, I recommend this tutorial from my colleague Alberto.
You can find the full release notes for Moonbase Alpha v2 here.
SushiSwap Proposal Progresses to Next Stage
You may have seen our recent proposal to extend Sushiswap to Polkadot via Moonbeam. A Moonbeam-based SushiSwap deployment would make DOT, KSM, and other Polkadot-based assets available to users of the platform. We received significantly positive feedback on this proposal, and are progressing to the next stage.
For the unacquainted, SushiSwap is an Ethereum-based DEX that has created an amazing community, achieved significant market presence, and attracted a large amount of liquidity in a very short amount of time. We see SushiSwap as a testament to the power of blockchains to create and organize new kinds of grassroots-led communities.
The next stage will involve a Sushi-weighted community vote, followed by a grant and deployment milestones (assuming the vote is successful).
Welcome Aboard, Joshy Orndorff
If you’ve been following Polkadot for the past couple of years, you’ve likely attended a live or virtual event featuring Joshy Orndorff, a developer advocate at Parity.
We’ve been fortunate enough to bring Joshy into the fold as a Senior Blockchain Engineer for Moonbeam. While his main focus will be on development, he will continue to speak and present at ecosystem events. Feel free to drop him a line on our Discord server.
Speaking of which…
Upcoming Events
Our dance card is full for the next month. Here’s where you can catch us giving a behind-the-scenes look at Moonbeam.
Sub0 – October 15, 2020
Parity’s twice-yearly developer conference dedicated to the Substrate framework.
Join us for a workshop showcasing how to build an Ethereum-compatible blockchain on Substrate, including a deep-dive into the Frontier project which we helped build.
Web3 Forum – October 29-30, 2020
An in-person event (they still exist!) in Shanghai showcasing what’s happening in Web3.
Our CEO, Derek Yoo, will appear via video to talk about how Moonbeam is making it easier than ever to bring Ethereum applications into the Polkadot ecosystem.
TruffleCon – November 6-7, 2020
The premier event for blockchain developers dedicated to tooling and technology.
We’re sponsoring TruffleCon this year, and we’re thrilled to be hosting a talk on Moonbeam. Join us to learn more about how easy the path from Ethereum to Moonbeam can be (using Truffle).
You can keep track of which events we’re attending here: https://moonbeam.network/events/
Gitcoin Bounties: Hello World! By Polkadot
On Thursday, the Web3 Foundation team is kicking off the Hello World! By Polkadot competition on Gitcoin, offering DOT and KSM for completing up to 23 challenges ranging from beginner to advanced, including Moonbeam challenges!
Categories and Prizes
In total, there are 23 different challenges over four categories: 7 Beginner, 3 Intermediate, 4 Advanced and 9 Ecosystem. Ecosystem challenges include Moonbeam, Acala, Phala, and Plasm. All challenges will come with extensive resources to guide you along the way.
Each challenge has been capped at maximum 50 submissions, so move quickly to be in the first 50 valid submissions to get your prize. Prizes per challenge are as follows:
- Beginner – 3 DOT
- Intermediate – 1 KSM
- Advanced – 10 DOT
- Ecosystem Challenges – 5 DOT
There will also be an extra prize for the first 50 people that manage to complete 18 or more challenges: 150 DOT!
Head over to Gitcoin to sign up.
That’s it for this month! As always, you can keep in touch via Discord, Twitter, or our email newsletter (sign up below).
Subscribe to This Newsletter
Want to receive these updates via email? Enter your email below to sign up for our Moonbeam Monthly Dispatch newsletter.
