Opening Notes made by Darwinia Co-founders
Denny: “In 2021, Darwinia’s cross-chain bridge network will be more reliable and broader, laying a solid foundation for connecting more blockchain networks and assets. As more Polkadot parachain validators and bridge miners (Bridger) join the Darwinia network and community will be more decentralized, safe, and reliable.
At the same time, Darwinia will also keep communicating and collaborating with industry peers, such as working on the application of zero-knowledge proof technology in cross-chain bridges, and keep providing the industry with cutting-edge and more general cross-chain bridge solutions.”
Alex: “2020 was a fruitful year, in which we made great progress. We’ve launched the canary network Crab; The progressive launch of Darwinia mainnet has been a great success; Bridges to heterogeneous blockchains, wormhole application, cross-chain game Evolution Land, and other products are in the pipeline. Our community has been supportive and growing, we have been grateful for that. As we step into the year 2021 with great hope, the Polkadot ecosystem matures gradually and the parachain mechanism is around the corner, we believe Darwinia Network, together with the whole crypto industry will make even greater progress in the new year.”
Overview
Darwinia has been building a permissionless non-custodial bridge protocol, featuring efficiency, low cost, decentralization of cross-chain tokens and NFTs transfer, as well as other cross-chain operations.
Darwinia bridge solution integrates technologies, including super-light client, zero-knowledge, and optimistic verification mechanisms.
Darwinia bridge distinguishes from other bridges in terms of quality and how decentralized the bridge is, could carry high-value cross-chain asset transmission.
Darwinia was also included in the Cointelegraph research report as critical cross-chain infrastructure.
Darwinia and Polkadot
Polkadot Founder Gavin highlighted Darwinia in Polkadot 2020 Roundup.
Gavin: “China alone has over 30 teams building systems, projects, and components for the Polkadot ecosystem. Many of these are active in the community and household names in our Element channels including Acala, Phala, Crust, and Darwinia amongst others, contributing code, feedback, and encouragement for the entire Polkadot community.”
In 2020, Darwinia was written in Polkadot light-paper as one of the friends of Polkadot and Substrate.
Darwinia was also selected to joined Substrate Builder Program and Web3.0 Bootcamp.
Darwinia CMO Bree participated in Parity Sub0 Conference presenting on Darwinia Relay and Bridge chain.
Development in review
We are very excited to see that in 2020, we have launched a lot of new features. These features revolve around cross-chain interoperability and gradually opened the door of Darwinia’s cross-chain ecosystem.
Darwinia Tech Paper Preview Release
Mainnet launch and the bridges deployment
Darwinia Crab Network
Since the Crab network was launched in early May this year, except for some problems it has undergone at the beginning, it has been running stably since then.
Darwinia Crab Testnet is a canary network for Darwinia, The positioning of Crab is similar to Polkadot’s Kusama Network. Expect Chaos is a reasonable expectation.
Crab Network is not just a testnet, it will be a long-term network. Crab mainly provides simulation and test environment for Darwinia’s upgrade and application deployment, perform various radical experiments. The test environment includes not only the software operation environment and network environment required for testing but also the test economic environment. Crab has the same parameters as Darwinia Mainnet and uses the same Staking mechanism and inflation model. Crab’s tokens are cRING and cKTON.
As Darwinia’s canary network, it provides a reliable foundation for the running of Darwinia’s mainnet. Up to now,
On-chain data of Crab network for reference:
- Number of validators：28
- number of nodes：36
- On-chain accounts：20517
- Signed extrinsics: 63047
- Height：3427672
After running the Darwinia Crab network, we have gained a lot of experience and we launched the Darwinia Mainnet onSeptember 25. Darwinia mainnet launch is a progressive process, divided into 5 stages to unlock main functional modules.
These 5 stages are “Genesis Generation”, “Staking”, “Ethereum-Darwinia One-way Cross-chain Bridge”, “Ethereum-Darwinia Unidirectional Cross-chain Bridge / Transfer”, and finally “Multi-directional Cross-chain Transfer”. What is currently underway is the “Ethereum-Darwinia Unidirectional Cross-chain Bridge / Transfer”, the development of which has been completed and is being testing, and will be launched soon. Some data of the mainnet so far are as follows:
- Number of validators：69
- Number of nodes：89
- On-chain accounts：775
- Signed extrinsics: 23140
- Height：1470250
- Cross-chain transactions:
Counts: 1191
RING cross-chain flow: 64578578
KTON: 4157
RING: 48835601The Substrate to Substrate Bridge Proces
So far, the Darwinia and Ethereum interoperability bridges are almost complete, allowing users to transfer tokens between Ethereum and the Darwinia main network with confidence. Our focus will then shift to the Substrate-Substrate chain bridge, hoping that one day we can exchange tokens between Darwinia and Crab more easily. To achieve this goal, we will first build a bi-directional bridge based on the existing bridge component library parity-bridges-common and further optimize it to take advantage of the Darwinia network’s integrated MMR to build a lighter target chain light client.
Rococo Parachain Testing
The earliest 4 four teams connected to the Rococo V0 Testnet，ready to get connected to Rocco V1.
Darwinia Virtual Machine and Smart contracts
Darwinia Virtual Machine
To achieve a seamless Ethereum experience on Polkadot and Substrate, Darwinia delivered a smart contract solution based on Frontier, we name it Darwinia Virtual Machine(DVM). DVM is a compatible implementation of EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) in Darwinia Network with compatibility on the smart-contract level, and also supports Metamask.
We also launched a testnet Pangolin for dapp developers who want to test and play with DVM.
Users and developers are able to:
- Use Metamask
- Use Solidity to develop applications or games with DVM
- Use the Ethereum contract development tool, Remix
- Migrate existing dapp applications or games with DVM
DVM is also featuring:
- Recognizable EVM account to substrate account conversion
- Transfer balance between EVM account and substrate account without loss of accuracy
Darwinia Builder Program
In 2020, For the healthier and more prosperous growth of Darwinia’s ecology, Darwinia launched the Darwinia Builder Program.
There are several ways to participate in the building of the Darwinia ecosystem:
- Darwinia Bridge
Use Darwinia Bridge to cross-chain resources on one chain to another chain
Build bridges using Darwinia Bridge protocol- Darwinia Virtual Machine
Use solidity to develop applications or games with DVM
Migrate existing dapp applications or games with DVM- Darwinia NFT
Mapping different standards of NFT to Darwinia
Build more adaptersW3F Grants and Treasury Support
- Substrate RUBY API
- Multi-signature Management Tool
- Subscan Essential
- https://polkadot.subscan.io/treasury/22
- https://kusama.subscan.io/treasury/54
Community and Events
Events and Conferences
The Darwinia community’s bonds and strength kept growing through 100+ virtual events and offline meet-ups and conferences（cover 15+ countries and regions), together with our global community enthusiasts, partners, and friends.
The Web 3.0 Bootcamp
Web3 Foundation and Parity Technologies have teamed up with Wanxiang Blockchain Labs and New Chainbase in China and launched a six-month Shanghai-based Web 3.0 Bootcamp.
This Bootcamp selected and supported 15 teams building for Web3.0 with Substrate and Polkadot Network.
The Web 3.0 Bootcamp has been successful over 2020. Darwinia was one of the 15 teams who graduated from the program.
Darwinia CMO Bree presented Darwinia-Ethereum Bridge on Web 3.0 Bootcamp Demo Day.
Darwinia also made partnerships with other Bootcamp members.
Web3 Forum hosted by Web3 Foundation was one of the biggest events last year.
During the two-day gathering, hundreds of developers, big names from the blockchain field and the Polkadot ecosystem, and other renowned speakers gathered in Shanghai to share the latest trends.
Polkadot Founder Gavin also highlighted Darwinia as “Projects to watch.”
Darwinia Co-founder Alex Chien was invited to join the panel discussion at the Web3 Forum.
Binance & Darwinia Community event
Binance & Darwinia held a joint community event and gave out 10,000 USDT Rewards to the community.
Global Blockchain Eco-Conference
At the 2020 Global Blockchain Eco-Conference hosted by Alchemy Pay held in Shanghai, Darwinia CMO Bree Yin gave a keynote speech.
This Global Blockchain Eco-Conference brought together more than 30 local and international industry-heavyweight speakers.
Mr. Chen Weigang, Supervisor of the Board of Directors (Financial Institutions) of China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, Mr. Changpeng Zhao “CZ,” Founder of Binance, Mr. David Chaum, “Father of Digital Currency,” Rene Reinsberg.
Interviews with global blockchain KOLs
Darwinia Highlight video recap
Snapshot video for updates of Darwinia without the need to go through all the Darwinia social media channels.
Ambassador Program
We have received about 236 ambassador applications from the global community since launched the Darwinia Ambassador Program in September 2020. Up to now, 30 ambassadors are from 11 counties have joined the Darwinia team after applying for application, email interview, and completion of the specific task.
The ambassadors spontaneously formed a community guard team, have been building buzz and educating users on social media platforms in various communities to help more people understand the Darwinia Network.
In the past three months, Darwinia ambassadors have completed no less than 400 tasks in these four categories: content creation, community building, online activities, and technical support.
1. We are building overseas local communities. Darwinia has established 10+ various local groups in the following countries. Welcome to join us!
2. They have created videos, articles, translate copywriting, infographics, and promoted on social media based on their hobbies and skill set combined with Darwinia’s vision.
3. With Darwinia ambassadors’ help, we have organized online webinars, AMA, and meetups in Spanish, African, Pilipean, respectively.
4. They also provide technical guidance for community members and help test products or apply issues on Github.
Thanks again for Darwinia ambassadors: Gerardo Croda, Samuel, Furqan, Max, Guido, Paul, Amir, Dodik, Adi Dwi Permadi, IyanuOluwa Emmanuel, Chen Chiangrai, Peter, Memo, Olga, Alex, Vlady, Matt, Megan, Revis, Dustin, Josiah, Chloe, Keiko, Abraham, Parsa, Matthew Donnellan, Christian, Elliot Greyson, Muxailo, Hoang Nguyen. (In no particular order)
In the future, we will pay more attention to the growth of ambassadors and listen to the community’s voice. Let us work harder to create a vibrant, open, and transparent Darwinia global community. Please do not hesitate to join us here.
Darwinia Ecosystem
Subscan Explorer
- In 2020, 8,420 independent users from 116 countries and regions viewed data on Darwinia and Crab networks through Subscan, with a total of 123,983 visits.
- Subscan supported Darwinia’s early testnet Icefrog (offline) and long-term support for Darwinia’s canary network, Crab, and Darwinia’s mainnet, providing high-quality explorer services.
- Customize KTON module for Darwinia, support multi-token data display.
- Provide Darwinia with free APIs, chart tools, multi-signature tools, address conversion tools, and other peripheral services.
- Darwinia DVM (Darwinia Virtual Machine) module is adapted to provide infrastructure support for Darwinia smart contracts.
Cross-chain Game Evolution Land
- Defi+NFT Gamefi Mining system
- Launch new UI to bring smoother game experience
- Integrate Chainlink VRF for new reward mechanics
- Opening new continent on Darwinia Canary network Crab soon will greatly improve users’ on-chain transaction experience
- https://evolutionland.zendesk.com/hc/zh-cn
Partners and Friends
In 2020, Darwinia made significant cooperation and partnership with Ankr, Bondly, Chainlink, Crust, Math Wallet, Reef, and many other great teams and projects.
In 2021, Darwinia is going to keep working collaboratively with all Darwinia friends and Web3 builders.
Looking Forward
Roadmap 2021 and Website Update
