Sharing updates from the Vega ecosystem and sometimes slightly beyond. To chat, learn and discuss more, see a full list of resources on LinkTree.
Contents:
Tech Update - January 2022
Fairground Jam - TheUprightOne
Fairground Jam - Vega GUI Wallet: Sneak Peek
Vega Educates - Derivatives Are Not Evil: Parts 1 & 2
Vega Explainer Video - Now in Chinese
Ambassador Program - Small Update
Fairground Jam Jam Jam Jam Jam 🍓! Here’s the latest on Vega:
1. Monthly Tech Update - January 2022 ⚙️
Have a look at our January Tech Update and Release Notes for 0.47.4.
This update is a big one. We've made a lot of improvements to checkpoints that are needed for network restarts.
VEGA is community-driven at its core and therefore we are proud that this release implements 'free from governance proposals', so the community can vote on feature requests and other things that are not part of the normal network parameters and configuration.
And another big stepping stone is the functionality of a validator score. The protocol calculates a validator score for each validator. This score is used to set their voting power in Tendermint and determine their reward amounts. The changes introduced in this release mean that the protocol no longer prevents users from delegating to any node, however, an overcrowded node will impact the validator score, thus affecting rewards. Further scoring of performance measurements in future releases will bring with it the mechanism to adjust rewards in reflection of validator performance in the network. This is another step in getting the network more decentralised, and open to new validators joining the network.
So if you are interested in governance, network features and decentralisation, this might be a good read for you.
2. Fairground Jam - TheUprightOne 🎨
On Thursday 13th 2022, TheUprightOne joined the Weekly Fairground Jam and it turned out to be one of the most interesting Jams we've ever had!
TheUprightOne made a name for himself in our community with his artwork on Discord. Join the Community Discord and have a look at #memes-pics.
It was a real pleasure to listen to all the thoughts and ideas that went into his artwork and how many deep philosophical concepts, mathematical ideas and concepts around finance can be discovered when looking closely at it. Art can go to places where words cannot. Enjoy!
3. Fairground Jam - Vega GUI Wallet: Sneak Peek 👀
Last week's Fairground Jam was a long time coming for the Community, but this week's Jam was a long time coming for many of Vega's active stakers! On Thursday 20th, we had Valentin and Matt from the Development Team give us a demo of the MVP release of the Desktop GUI Wallet. Together, they went through the current and proposed feature set, development priorities, and even answered common questions from the audience watching live! For a full recap and visual demo, watch the full video which is now on the Vega YouTube Channel.
4. Vega Educates - Derivatives Are Not Evil Parts I & II 📚
2022 is here and will be big for VEGA. A key goal is to make VEGA more accessible to the wider DEFI/crypto community. We've started an educational article series to explain the ins and outs of VEGA.
As it's stated on vega.xyz:
'Vega has designed fully automated processes for creating markets on and trading margined derivatives. Markets will be open and decentralised, with pseudonymous participants.'
So, the first step in our education is to explain what exactly derivatives are and why one might want to put them on a blockchain 🙂.
If money is a language to communicate about value, DeFi is the infrastructure for advanced concepts on top of it. Derivatives are flexible financial instruments with a long history. Check out our first two articles on derivatives that explains the four most common forms and the history of derivatives.
Part 1: The History of Derivatives
Part 2: The Benefits and Risks
5. Vega Explainer Video - Now in Chinese 🎆
In a broader effort to make Vega accessible to all cultures, we released the original Coinlist Video but dubbed it in Chinese. If you listen closely, you might recognise Jiajia's (Vega Community Team & Research Team) lovely voice. This year Vega's mission is to both launch the product but also to make Vega's key resources available in other languages. Expect to see more content like this down the line 🌎.
6. Vega+ Ambassador Program - Small Update 👑
2 weeks ago we mentioned the Vega+ Ambassador Program. Since then, many members of the Vega Community (and beyond) have reached out to help us craft the best possible program for the community that we’re trying to curate together. The support was appreciated and has gone into creating something that is far better than we’d ever envisioned. Applications will open in the near future (once we have put the latest version of the program together) and we’re looking to start the program itself no sooner than March 2022 (& possibly later). We want to get this right, so you’ll receive more info as we iterate and begin the application rollout 😁!
🍓 2022 is well on its way, see you again in Feb 🍓
-Daigan🍊 & Arne 🥦