Highlights of Apillon and the Polkadot ecosystem — Q2 2023
Apillon’s new integrations, UX improvements, and the common good Proposal nicely complemented the Polkadot space expansion and charting of…
Apillon’s new integrations, UX improvements, and the common good Proposal nicely complemented the Polkadot space expansion and charting of new heights.
Halfway through the year, it’s time for the second quarterly retrospective of scroll-stopping news at Apillon and in the Polkadot ecosystem.
1 Apillon
Following the release of Closed Beta in Q1 and the first concrete layout of the direction the Apillon dashboard and its offering would go, a heavy focus was placed on bringing in more integrations, distilling them to Web3 services, and turning the platform’s UX up a notch.
The work of Apillon developers didn’t go unnoticed in the Polkadot community, thanks also to the team’s engagement in Web3 events and consistent outreach.
- 1.1 Platform integrations & Web3 Services
- 1.2 Adoption
- 1.3 Features & functionalities
- 1.4 Events
- 1.5 Community
Let’s start with how the product has evolved to this day.
1.1 Platform integrations & Web3 Services
The modular approach to creating interoperable and multi-chain dapps with Apillon expanded to few more dimensions.
🔗 Following the initial integration of Crust Network to provide Web3 Storage and Hosting services, the Apillon platform integrated Moonbeam Network to provide developers with smart contract service and Astar Network to deliver multi-chain smart contract connectivity.
🔗 The capabilities of Moonbeam and Astar smart contracts came to life in the newest fully-fledged service, the NFT module on the Apillon dashboard. The few-click-deploy NFT service lets anyone launch an end-to-end decentralized NFT collection in minutes.
🔗 Apillon also partnered with KILT Protocol to integrate a decentralized authentication service. The integration would allow users to offer wallet-based authentication in their dapps and equip digital assets with DIDs.
🔗 And, with the first use case using Phala’s computing logic together with Crust’s Web3 Storage and Moonbeam’s NFT smart contracts, Apillon developed the three-parachain Schrödinger’s NFT, an end-to-end decentralized decryption key to unlock private files.
📢 More partnerships with key ecosystem players will be announced soon, stay in the loop.
1.2 Adoption
The user flow of the first few months was seriously encouraging, but a steadier pace was to be expected once the developer crowd got a sense of the product and its role in their work.
Compared to Q1, the Apillon dashboard raked in 49% more users, while the frequency of new users rolling in took a steadier pace, at nearly 2 users per day, compared to more than 5 in Q1.
📊 Total users on the platform: 756
📊 New users per day on average: 1.9
That being said, what paints a clearer picture is what these users actually do with it. Having large crowds registered is pointless if they remain idle.
But they didn’t.
With 22.761 server requests, user engagement grew stronger in Q2. It demonstrated the utility of the offered Web3 Services range in developers’ work, topped with the possibility of being combined and merged in multi-chain Web3 projects.
Compared to Q1 (15.576 server requests), the Apillon platform users thus generated 46% more requests, with the tallest spike occurring right after the launch of the NFT Service in mid-May.
1.3 Features & functionalities
The Apillon platform was designed to deliver decentralized services to developers in a seamless, easy-on-the-eye, and clickable way, while retaining full flexibility and customization.
But to onboard users and projects to Web3, more options are needed.
🔑 Discord connectivity lets users link their Apillon account to Apillon’s Discord server so they can actively participate in future platform upgrades through community-first governance.
🔑 Web3Approved, a joint initiative of Apillon and Crust Network, offers free decentralized hosting for 100 years. At absolutely zero cost, projects can utilize IPFS hosting services via Crust’s decentralized infrastructure and take the first step to the Web3 space in minutes.
💪 And, as a nod to the team’s past work and future plans, Apillon got accepted into the Substrate Builders Program (SBP) by Parity Technologies. With Milestones 1 and 2 in the books, the development team is off to reach new landmarks. The Apillon platform was further reviewed with security confirmed in successfully passed pentest.
1.4 Events
Apillon’s streak of live appearances continued in Q2 when it navigated stages, booths, and after-hours venues from Ljubljana, Slovenia, to Copenhagen, Denmark.
📍 The fourth edition of Polkadot Meetup Ljubljana brought together top legal experts to discuss the current stage and future prospects of crypto regulation, particularly in the EU, and explore different legal angles of Web3.
📍 At BlockSplit, Apillon showcased a detailed demo of how the platform abstracts Polkadot parachain technology into API gateways and took the main stage in demonstrating its usability and multi-chain approach to the developer community.
📍 And, at Polkadot Decoded 2023, continued the drill — from Opening night in collaboration with WebZero, Crust, and Phala, and on-stage intro to Apillon’s multi-chain composability to day-long 1-on-1 presentations of the dashboard functionalities at Apillon’s booth and an exclusive sneak peek into the newest Schrödinger’s NFT decryption mechanism.
1.5 Community
In what is perhaps the most radical upgrade of the project, Apillon has added the plan to become an open-source platform to its roadmap.
📜 With Polkadot Bounty Proposal, Apillon seeks to foster Web3 adoption as a common good infrastructure solution on Polkadot. By delivering Web3 development modules as a common-good, fully accessible solution, the stronger onboarding of developers would exponentially spearhead the adoption of Web3 technologies, particularly of Polkadot.
Speaking of which…
2 Polkadot ecosystem
Polkadot Network, one of the leading actors in the Web3 industry, has reached some major milestones and demonstrated genuine care for the ecosystem, space democratization, and community empowerment.
- 2.1 Polkadot
- 2.2 Crust Network
- 2.3 KILT Protocol
- 2.4 Moonbeam Network
- 2.5 Phala Network
- 2.6 Astar Network
2.1 Polkadot
The Polkadot Network kept a strong pace in developer activity and active accounts. Every day, thousands of new accounts joined in, contributing to consistent space growth.
The v3 version of Cross-Consensus Message Format (XCM) was launched and delivered advanced features, including the ability to connect to external networks, multi-hop setup, cross-chain NFTs, etc. The on-chain XCM activity further proved the need for stronger interoperability across the Polkadot space.
In other news:
👉 OpenGov was released on Polkadot in mid-June to optimize the on-chain governance, bring more power to the community, and increase decentralized voting efficiency. By dissolving the Council collective and the Technical Committee, the OpenGov’s referendum mechanism allows for more flexibility and democracy in the voting process, including the decision-making on Treasury funds spending, while retaining the previously high security.
👉 The renewed vision of Polkadot as a space and technology provider was laid out by Dr Gavin Wood at Polkadot Decoded 2023. As a ubiquitous, multi-core supercomputer, Polkadot would surpass the relaychain-parachain architecture with more elaborated, flexible, and cost-effective blockspace. With a focus on building application-centric middleware, Polkadot would provide agile and different ways of connecting to the network, serving a range of projects with different Web3 needs. New functionality would be further introduced by ‘accords’, a type of opt-in agreements with several multi-chain use cases, ultimately delivering a more secure and seamless user experience than bridges and other third-party gateways. Read more
2.2 Crust Network
👉 Launched earlier this year, Crust Cloud, a Web3 storage tool suite, continues delivering decentralized storage functions, APIs, and tools, including IPFS Gateways, Web3 Storage Buckets, and IPFS Remote Pin. Read more or watch the tutorial.
👉 The Web3Approved initiative, launched by Crust and Apillon, allows any project, particularly Web2, to host a website on a decentralized network for free for the next 100 years, making it unstoppable with IPFS hosting services.
2.3 KILT Protocol
👉 The KILT blockchain will support reusable KYC credentials in a joint effort by Polimec, a decentralized funding protocol developed on Polkadot, and Deloitte Switzerland, to open up access to global fundraising of digital assets. The anchoring on KILT will provide an extra level of security, regulatory compliance, and data privacy. Read more
👉 KILT’s Decentralized Identity Provider (DIP) enables the creation of open identity infrastructure, allowing parachain projects to delegate identity management to other parachains that supply identity solutions. Thanks to XCM, DIPs can be easily integrated into systems that extend beyond the Polkadot space. With KILT’s DIP, decentralized identity reaches the real world and gives control of identity back to the person it belongs to. Read more
2.4 Moonbeam Network
👉 Moonbeam’s Routed Liquidity (MRL) allows for the easy flow of crypto liquidity into and across the Polkadot ecosystem from other ecosystems. And, thanks to the implementation of XC-20s, any ERC-20 created in the Moonbeam EVM becomes movable around the Polkadot ecosystem via XCM. MRL can thus route liquidity from external chains to any Polkadot parachain. Read more
2.5 Phala Network
👉 Phat Contract is live on Phala Mainnet, with a no-code application infrastructure. The off-chain program helps users to connect smart contracts anywhere while the app gains internet access. Phat Contract bridges the gap between Web2 services and the Web3 space and extends the blockchain capabilities to the off-chain world. Read more
👉 Phat Contract updated its tokenomics v0.9 with cutting-edge Stake-to-Compute Model. It lets developers use Phala Network and Phat Contract’s decentralized off-chain infrastructure without paying any fees. Read more
2.6 Astar Network
👉 Astar integrated with Injective, a leading DeFi hub in the Cosmos ecosystem. The direct connection between networks allows for cross-chain bridging of Astar and Polkadot assets to Cosmos IBC chain. Developers can also build inter-chain dapps across the Polkadot and Cosmos ecosystems. Read more
👉 Native staking on Astar became available on Ledger devices. ASTR token holders can engage with the network’s Build2Earn staking system directly via Ledger hardware wallets and in the WASM runtime environment. Read more
A more inclusive Web3, one dev (and user) at a time
More updates on the ecosystem, parachains, tools, and protocols will follow as the Apillon platform evolves and integrates them to its current stack and delivers them to the desktops of the developer fam.
Join Polkadot, the Web3 powerhouse, with Apillon, take your project to the decentralized heights, and make it valuable for your community.
⧓ About Apillon
The Apillon platform serves as a unified gateway to the Web3 services provided by linked Polkadot parachains. Following the multi-chain vision, Apillon powers the transition of developers to Web3, simplifying its adoption in the real economy, and expanding its versatility as the ecosystem grows. With Apillon, Web3 services are within reach for every developer, regardless of their background and experience with blockchain technology.
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