Welcome to the monthly Moonbeam Dispatch: an email newsletter with all our Moonbeam-related announcements and updates in one place.
Lots of excitement for the Moonbeam ecosystem this month! ? In April, we announced exciting upgrades to Moonbase Alpha, our TestNet and we also celebrated our great ecosystem! Our Illuminate/21 conference was a huge success and there are many more events to look forward to in the near future. In this newsletter, you’ll hear about our many new partners and projects building on Moonbeam, recent presentations (both technical & non-technical), and a preview of what’s coming next!
What’s New with Moonbeam
Illuminate/21:Creating Multi-Chain Projects on Moonbeam
On Tuesday, April 27, we hosted Illuminate/21 to celebrate Moonbeam’s vibrant ecosystem. More than 20 projects from the Polkadot and Ethereum ecosystems participated in a dual-track conference for developers and end-users. Speakers included Chainlink, Ocean, IDEX, Seascape, and many more. It was a great success, with over 3,000 attendees from all around the world. Learn more about Illuminate/21 and watch the presentations here.
Moonbase Alpha Upgraded to v7
We announced a new version of Moonbase Alpha, our TestNet! The Moonbeam team added many exciting new features in the TestNet that will significantly improve the experience of developers building on Moonbeam and strengthen the network’s stability and decentralization. These updates are an essential step forward toward the launch of Moonriver, which is expected to happen in the following months.
The Moonbeam team is continuously working to streamline the experience of Solidity projects that want to expand to Polkadot. Moonbase Alpha v7 includes significant upgrades that improve the experience even further, such as debugging and tracing node APIs, advanced block explorer support, and pre-funded accounts standalone dev node. Moonbase Alpha v7 also includes significant infrastructure improvements. The availability of these APIs opens the door for future integrations that will continue expanding Moonbeam’s growing portfolio of tools and integrations. The Moonbeam on-chain governance system is functionally complete with the Council and Technical Committee modules’ addition.
Read the announcement here.
New Parachain Staking Pallet, Consensus, and Expanded Collator Set
Moonbeam completed important technology initiatives that lay the ground for a successful launch of a decentralized, fully-functioning parachain. To make this possible, the Moonbeam team developed a custom parachain staking pallet, a new extension for the Cumulus consensus mechanism named Nimbus, and the enthusiastic participation of many third-party collators that plan to produce blocks on the Moonriver and Moonbeam MainNets. These initiatives already resulted in more than 300 running nodes!
The Moonbeam team highly prioritizes having a fully decentralized network. The active collator set on the Moonbase Alpha TestNet now has 16 participants and includes Blockdaemon, Chorus One, Stakefish, Figment, Ankr, OnFinality, Bware Labs, and Staking4All.
Read the announcement here.
New Partners & Projects Building on Moonbeam
Frax Finance
We announced an integration with Frax, a fractional-algorithmic stablecoin protocol. The Frax team will be deploying their protocol to Moonbeam so that their stablecoin can be minted natively on Polkadot. This integration will allow users and teams in the Polkadot and Moonbeam ecosystems to access highly scalable, stable, and on-chain money. The addition of Frax Protocol on Moonbeam continues to solidify Moonbeam’s rapidly growing DeFi ecosystem. Learn more here.
The Graph
We announced that The Graph’s hosted service has integrated their protocol onto the Moonbeam TestNet, Moonbase Alpha. The Graph is a widely used decentralized protocol for indexing and querying data from blockchains. By bringing The Graph to Moonbeam, developers who want to expand to Polkadot will be able to build, publish, and use subgraphs in a Polkadot-based environment. Moonbeam is a natural fit for The Graph’s multi-chain strategy, which targets chains that have significant developer activity. Polkadot has emerged as a key hub of developer activity outside of Ethereum, and within Polkadot, many teams are choosing to develop on Moonbeam given its Ethereum compatible approach and a broad set of tools and protocol integrations. Learn more here.
AirGap
We announced an integration with AirGap, a crypto wallet that allows users to store their crypto funds securely on a mobile phone. The teams will work jointly to add Moonbeam and Moonriver tokens as supported currencies on AirGap. This integration allows AirGap to support the Moonbeam & Moonriver tokens in the future, and Moonbeam token holders will be able to use and benefit from AirGap online/offline wallet features. With the Moonbeam integration, AirGap will be able to support a strong parachain in the Polkadot ecosystem as well as with the existing compatibility for Ethereum. Learn more here.
Covalent
Covalent decided to expand to Polkadot to allow for growing ecosystem interoperability capabilities. Moonbeam was chosen for the deployment as the settlement layer for the Covalent network due to its Ethereum compatibility and robust integrations portfolio. This greatly simplified the development of Polkadot-based blockchain applications as compared to implementing a full parachain or parathread. In addition to using Moonbeam as the settlement layer, the Covalent network will also be providing a full indexing solution for both Moonbeam and Moonriver. Learn more here.
Biconomy
We announced an integration with Biconomy, a multi-chain transaction platform that enables a simplified experience for Web3 projects. This integration serves as a great new resource for DApp developers building on Moonbeam, who can now quickly utilize Biconomy APIs to enable gasless transactions. Thus, their end-users will enjoy an improved experience without having to obtain Moonbeam’s underlying gas token. The Biconomy team selected Moonbeam as their expansion point because of its unmatched features and developer integrations. Moonbeam’s powerful Ethereum compatibility, including a full EVM, Web3 RPC, and compatible accounts, means that there are minimal changes needed to re-deploy Biconomy’s existing Ethereum integration to Polkadot. Using Moonbeam as a point of expansion also opens the doors for Biconomy to quickly tap into the rapidly growing developer base and end-users on Polkadot. Learn more here.
Orion Protocol
Orion’s code has been successfully migrated to the Polkadot ecosystem via Moonbeam, and is underway with building out the UI/UX for integration into Orion Terminal. Orion’s Protocol integration with Polkadot via Moonbeam gives them immediate access to the many integrations already integrated, including projects in the DeFi and NFT space, while opening the doors for Orion to access other assets on Polkadot’s fast-paced, growing ecosystem. Polkadot and Moonbeam developers will be able to use Orion’s decentralized gateway to access major CEX, DEX, and swap pools in one place. Learn more here.
0.Exchange
Through this integration with Moonbeam, 0.Exchange will be able to offer an initial raise, initial listing, and initial farming ALL from the same platform on Polkadot and Kusama, as well as, across multiple chains with built-in bridge access via the Zero Bridge. 0.Exchange will leverage Moonbeam’s Ethereum compatibility features to quickly port with minimal effort to Moonbeam, which will ultimately provide access to DOT, KSM, and the many other assets being created in the Polkadot ecosystem and by other teams building on the Moonbeam platform. Learn more here.
Icon Foundation
The ICON team is working with parachains in the Polkadot ecosystem to integrate the Blockchain Transmission Protocol (BTP) interoperability solution, including Moonbeam. Since Moonbeam offers the most complete Ethereum compatibility and the largest number of live integrations, it was a natural choice.
The first phase of the integration has been completed by merging the necessary precompile contracts with Frontier, the Polkadot EVM project (for which the Moonbeam team received a grant from the Web3 Foundation). This puts all the necessary pieces in place for ICON to connect to any Frontier Pallet parachain. Learn more here.
New on the Moonbeam Blog
What is Uniswap?
Uniswap is a decentralized exchange (DEX) and automated market maker (AMM). Our recent blog post will introduce you to Uniswap and guide you through the process of porting Uniswap V2 to the Moonbase Alpha TestNet (as an example, not for ongoing use). Learn about what Uniswap is, how to use it and how to use Uniswap V2 on Moonbeam.
Deploying an Example Application (Uniswap) to Moonbeam
As a follow-up to the previous blog post, follow this guide to learn how to deploy applications to Moonbeam using Uniswap v2 as an example.
Upcoming Events
Here’s where you’ll find us speaking and demonstrating Moonbeam.
Moonbuilders Workshop: Querying the Moonbeam Network with the Covalent API
? May 5
Join Covalent’s co-founder, Ganesh, to build your first wallet and portfolio tracking application in just a few lines of code. Covalent provides a Unified API to pull balances, positions and historical transaction activity for the Moonbeam network.
Polkadot Decoded: A Dispatch from the Front Lines of Multi-Chain Deployment by Derek Yoo
? May 19-20
Moonbeam will be featured as a speaker at the biggest Polkadot event of the year. Our CEO, Derek Yoo, will highlight three major multi-chain deployment patterns, including the benefits, challenges, and opportunities that come with each. He will talk about specific projects and the approach each is employing in their multi-chain deployment to Moonbeam and Polkadot.
Consensus by CoinDesk
? May 24-25
Consensus by CoinDesk is a worldwide virtual experience highlighting the development and progression of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. This four-day event will have over 10,000 attendees with engaging panels, workshops, keynotes, discussions, and more.
Moralis Hackathon
? Accepting submissions | April 18 – June 15
Moralis Hackaton, officially sponsored by Moonbeam, continues through the month of May and the start of June. The 2021 Moralis Hackathon allows developers to build their dApps using Moralis. Moralis makes it easier to develop Web3 applications and dApps by giving access to a fully managed backend. Contestants in the hackathon will compete for a total prize of $50,000.
Talks You May Have Missed
PolkaFrance Live AMA
Alan, Moonbeam VP of Engineering, participated in our first AMA for the French-speaking community. Learn more about the Moonbeam Project, its fantastic ecosystem, and the project roadmap! Rewatch the presentation.
Moonbuilders Workshop: Using ChainSafe’s ChainBridge on Moonbeam
Greg Markou, CTO at ChainSafe, participated in the second episode of Moonbuilders workshop series and showcased the ChainBridge integration on the Moonbeam Platform. Learn more about ChainBridge’s features and how developers can leverage them to bridge their value, information, and assets across multiple chains. Rewatch the presentation.
Crypto Jazz: Polkadot & Moonbeam
Moonbeam Ambassadors from the Spanish-speaking community organized a panel to discuss the Polkadot and Moonbeam networks that are revolutionizing the world of blockchain. Rewatch the presentation.
AMA Moonbeam Ambassadors with Derek Yoo
An ambassadors-exclusive live AMA with Derek Yoo, Moonbeam Founder. This was an excellent opportunity to learn more about Moonbeam, its Ethereum-compatible technology, and the project roadmap. Rewatch the presentation.
AMA Odaily with Derek Yoo
A live AMA with Derek Yoo, Moonbeam Founder. This was an exciting discussion in Chinese for the cryptocurrency community in China. Rewatch the presentation.
You can keep track of which events we’re going to be attending in the future on the events page.
Subscribe to This Newsletter
Want to receive these updates via email? Enter your email below to sign up for our Moonbeam Monthly Dispatch newsletter.
