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:
Dr Klaus - chatting ETH Merge on CoinDesk
Research AMA - Surprise Guests & Bi-Weekly Quiz
How does Liquidity work on Vega? - Last week’s blog
Vega Bug Bounties - Improving things together
Fairground Trading (Dodgems) Incentive - Next Week
ZK Rollups - First Article Written & Published by Vega+
Mainnet Update 0.53 - Tech Update next Monday
Barney - speaking DeFi derivatives on Web3 Innovators
A masterclass of educational blog posts 🧐 Here’s the latest at Vega:
1. Dr Klaus - chatting ETH merge on CoinDesk 🦖 📺
Dr Klaus, Vega’s Blockchain OG, was live on CoinDesk’s latest “Community Crypto” episode and gave his perspectives on the upcoming Ethereum Merge. The Ethereum Devs pencilled the date for September 15th for Ethereum’s long-awaited transition from its current Proof of Work network to the fully operating Proof of Stake network aka The Beacon Chain. Many are referring to the Merge as the biggest event in crypto history, which comes along with many complexities — listen in to Dr Klaus.
“I’ve always seen Proof of Work as a transitional scene - the genius in PoW was creating the business case - when Bitcoin started nobody cared about it, as the rise in value for bitcoin grew so did the interest to mine and the mining infrastructure needed to support it… However, there is no autorhrity in bitcoin to say ‘yes we do this’, which Ethereum has. The future is in PoS, more energy efficient, but there are also other things that PoW could never do; more diversity enforcement at the protocol level, competing MEV — definentely see the future in these network and where they evolve into”
2. Research AMA - Surprise Guests & Bi-Weekly Quiz 🤩
The weekly Research AMA just got juicier! 🥤
But first, what is the Research AMA?
Every Wednesday, 12pm GMT+1 come and hang out with Vega Research Team Klaus (yes the Klaus mentioned above) Witold, and Daigan (me)) + special guests. It’s is a chance to ask questions about the design of the protocol but also anything else in a relxed discussion where the audience can join the stage!
Please ask questions in the Discord #🧪research channel throughout the week, as it helps the team to gauge if there's any particular topic that they should focus on during the Research Hour 🔎
There are 2 new things to keep an eye on in the next few weeks:
Witold is on holiday so we have his colleague - Quantitative Analyst Jiajia - stepping in to answer questions. We had a huge attendance last week and she was a rockstar in discussing the intricacies of testing the Vega chain both before and after updates hit Fairground. Jiajia will be around again on August 24th!
There’s a new bi-weekly Vega Quiz that takes place at 1pm GMT+1, right after every other AMA - join on Discord to compete around topics discussed & have a chance of winning some VEGA governance tokens! The next quiz takes place August 31st!
3. How does Liquidity work on Vega? - Last week’s blog 🤿
Last week’s blog provided more insight on how Liquidity works on Vega — if you have any questions hop onto the Wednesday Vega Research Office Hours, so you can have fun picking the brains behind it!
Amongst all the complexities of building a trading/derivative exchange, automating liquidity provision is one of the toughest challenges facing exchanges, both in CeFi and DeFi. Attracting and pricing liquidity is critical to the successful launch and growth of new markets — permissionless market creation needs efficient liquidity management! Learn what liquidity mechanisms Vega is building in order to create a truly decentralised liquidity marketplace.
& if you’re looking to dive deep into more of Vega’s key concepts, THIS is the place to start!
4. Vega Bug Bounties - Improving things together🐞☣️
This week’s blog goes out to all of the wonderful “white-hat” hackers out there! Help Vega identify security bugs or vulnerabilities! On Monday, Vega officially announced the Vega Bug Bounty Program! The program allows anyone to submit reports of bugs or vulnerabilities for a chance to earn rewards. For full details on how to securely submit your findings, check out the bug bounties website page.
5. Fairground Trading (Dodgems) Incentive - Next Week 🎠
Sooo, if you turned up the Research AMA, you might’ve heard some talk of the next Incentive. Things are a little hush-hush right now but a little birdy told me that it’ll be taking place early next week. If you’re ready to ride, keep an eye on the #announceemnts channel in Discord, and check out Fairground.wtf for the rules when it all goes down!
6. ZK Rollups - First Article Written & Published by Vega+ 🎸
In a big moment from the Vega+ Ambassador Community, Senior Ambassador Tony Nnamdi has gifted us with a written version of Danny’s talk from EthPrague 2022! The article provides a little more depth and includes the embedded video of the talk for those that want to read Tony’s insights whilst following along with the source material.
Check out the article → HERE
7. Barney - speaking DeFi derivatives on Web3 Innovators 📈
Barney Mannerings, Vega’s numero uno, is featured in the latest episode of Web3 Innovators, led by Conor Svensson, Founder and CEO of Web3 Labs.
The conversation digs into:
The infrastructure required to create on-chain derivatives
How Vega approaches leverage and risk management
The role of Vega’s community
What still is missing from DeFi
“Vega is very much designed to have incentives for liquidity provision, sharing the fees on the market, and the ways the shares are calculated are based on growth as well. If you provide liquidity and commit liquidity early on in a market, the amount of the fee/revenue gained is higher compared to the same amount of liquidity submitted later on in the lifecycle of the market - bit like being a seed investor vs a Series A investors - getting in early and creating the market, you take on the risk for a higher return.” Barney 2022
In this interview, Barney shares his views on privacy, performance, margins and all sorts of DeFi-related nuggets. This one above ties in really well with the Liquidity blog — but I’ll let you figure out more for yourself! Watch the video or, if you are driving, working or on a run, listen to the podcast!
8. Mainnet Update 0.53 - Tech Update next Monday 💾
Quick update → The source code for 0.53 was released to validators earlier this week leading to a successful upgrade of the Vega Mainnet! A lot was covered (smart contracts, wallet codebases, decentralised validator selection) and the full release notes can be read → HERE
The Tech August Tech Update is now complete with far more details and will release on blog.vega.xyz Monday 22nd!
🌱 When the sun hides, the Vega North Star arrives; Alpha Mainnet H2 2022 🌱
- Daigan 🍊 + Edo 🥝