Welcome to another week of Validator digest! I've been compiling a list of new L1s that have yet to launch (it's an old habit back from my stakefish days). I wanted to share one interesting number: 42%. That's the percentage of new L1s that are launching using CometBFT and/or Cosmos SDK.
This is validation of Cosmos' efforts in building out a protocol stack that can be deployed with extreme ease. At this point, all of the basic ecosystem toolings (monitoring, explorer, wallet, RPC, etc.) have been built out that you as an L1 have everything at your finger tips to ship a blockchain. Unfortunately, I do think this level of ease has also led to some teams taking shortcuts in their roadmap. So, we'll have to wait and see the majority of these new L1s using the Cosmos stack really live up to their promises.
Protocol updates
Astria
Astria's mainnet is finally here. Along with this announcement, the Astria team also launched Flame, a DeFi focused EVM network that is powered by Astria and Celestia underneath.
Elixir
Elixir mainnet Phase 1 has launched with a genesis set of validators. They will open up the validator set to the public in a future phase. I couldn't find public information on who are in this genesis set. If you know where I can find this information, please do share!
Elixir’s Mainnet Phase I is live
The network is now run by a genesis set of institutional validators
1,559
MANTRA
MANTRA has launched their mainnet. After the launch, they have swiftly voted to increase the total validator set to 13 (https://www.mintscan.io/mantra/proposals/1/). The majority of the set is still operated by the foundation, so hoping to see this change soon.
Stacks
Stacks Nakamoto upgrade is finally live after much anticipation. Here is a good analysis of the Nakamoto upgrade by the Luganodes team.
The Stacks Nakamoto Upgrade is live
1. Stacks transactions once confirmed are now at least as irreversible as Bitcoin's.
2. A significant reduction in transaction times.
3. The technical foundation for sBTC launching later this year.
Learn about what's next
1/2
Story
Story protocol has just wrapped their Validator Race Two (their incentivized testnet). Congratulations to the winners! Story is now moving to their next testnet, Odyssey. On the staking side, Odyssey introduces some interesting new features: rewards vary depending on staking period and validators with high participation rates get higher rewards. The exact parameters have yet to be revealed, so we'll have to see these in action on November 7, when the testnet goes live.
The Chainflow team has been covering the weekly validator calls that have been happening. So, make sure to check out their latest notes to stay on top of these calls.
Random ramblings
This trend is accelerating quicker than I anticipated. Token Terminal has announced their partnership with First Set. I believe the motivation of this partnership is similar to Nansen's acquisition of Stakewithus. Integrating and maintaining Token Terminal and Nansen on new protocols is no easy feat. They rightfully will require some financial incentive to follow through with integrations. From a protocol's perspective, it is much easier politically, legally, and financially to strike delegation deals rather than grant deals. This will be bad news for vanilla validator shops and small independent validators who will likely be pushed out to make room for strategic partners.
Kiln has put together a nice post on what stakers can expect from the Pectra, the upcoming Ethereum upgrade.
Valuations of newly launched chains have been struggling as of late. Grass (L1) and Scroll (L2) have been hovering near or below the $1 billion fully diluted valuation mark. This does not bode well for all the new protocols that are in the pipeline right now. $1 billion is no longer a guaranteed threshold and this will factor into future fundraises. This has ramifications for validators as well. Operators will need to carefully reassess which protocols to support from early on.
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