Ecosystem Update #6: 10 October 2022
Scary good updates on new integrations, next steps, and upcoming events
Welcome to the spookiest month of the year — October! We’re hoping that the Bear Market crashes, hacks, and sanctions will be scary stories of the past, and the horror will stop long enough for us to go trick or treating on Halloween, October 31st. If you need costume inspiration…
Here are some scary good 2022 Crypto Costumes:
- Do Kwon going for a jog
- The guy wearing sweatpants with the chaotic, non-functional Rube Goldberg machine from this iconic tweet
- A dying, poorly-manicured hedge with 3 arrows sticking out of it. IYKYK. Also, apparently, hedge costumes are a thing, so it’s an easy one to put together
Yes, this year has been scary, but the Interlay community continues to look toward the future with positivity and confidence. We’ve had our heads down in build mode, and are excited to share some updates and Alpha™ with you. Your first clue? We studied a ghostly protocol for inspiration when getting ready to release something new and very much alive.
Highlights
One of the standout moments of the past month was using cash to mint iBTC in minutes with the Bitcoin ATM at the Bitcoin Conference in Austria. It felt like a glimpse into the future, where Bitcoin transactions are quick, transparent, accessible, and trustless. With Interlay, it is now possible for anyone anywhere to use their Bitcoin in DeFi in a truly decentralized manner.
We are forever bullish on an equitable, transparent, and censorship-resistant future of finance. Bitcoin is already all of those things but bringing the radical nature of Bitcoin securely to other chains opens a world of possibilities.
Turning fiat cash into iBTC in real time felt like a glimpse of the future we’re working towards.
Beamswap Integration (Moonbeam)
It’s officially Autumn, so we’re banning any more swimming puns. I know you were all drowning in them. Regardless, we launched a new pool this month.
The new farm pool on Beamswap, a DEX and DeFi hub on Moonbeam, is now live. The community voted for their preferred asset combo and the landslide winner was iBTC/USDC. BTC holders now have another way to farm yield with their Bitcoin and earn GLINT, INTR, and rTIDE rewards.
Read this article from Beamswap about the new integration:
Dive into the pool below! (If pool puns are wrong, we don’t want to be right)
Parallel XCM Channel Opened
Our XCM channel with Parallel Finance is now fully opened and tested. The community voted on which token pairs to start a DeFi integration with, and the results were mixed. Keep an eye on our Twitter and announcement channels on Discord and Telegram for news about the DeFi integrations with Parallel.
Next Steps — Roadmap Update
If you’ve been on a road trip, you know that regardless of how well you’ve mapped your journey, you will make detours, add stops, or change your route. If you’re driving through North Dakota and pass a sign for The World’s Only Corn Palace, you’d regret not stopping to check it out.
Our roadmap continues to change as our community and the needs of the entire DeFi ecosystem do. While we still have the same endpoint in mind, we’re adding another route that will open up more use cases, wider adoption, and hopefully, something as cool as the World’s Only Corn Palace to the Interlay ecosystem.
Astar Integration
Our next big integration will be with Astar and Shiden networks, on Interlay and Kintsugi respectively. You know what that means — we’re planning an INTR and iBTC pool launch on Arthswap, a DeFi hub and DEX built on Astar.
Arthswap Token Pairs
The community voted for the initial token pairs to launch on the Astar Dex, ArthSwap. Almost unanimously, iBTC and DOT won.
Parallel INTR and iBTC pool Soon™️
The Parallel XCM channel is now fully open and tested. Pending: Parallel will add iBTC and INTR assets to the UI. ETA: 3rd week of October. The pool will come only after this.
Next: Equilibrium XCM integration
Our next major XCM integration will be with Equilibrium, a DeFi cross-chain multi-tool. Get ready for the Swiss Army Knife of interoperable DeFi.
Events: Online and IRL
CIS AMA
We held our first CIS AMA for the Russian-language community hosted by OG Innovator GodsHunter with Interlay co-founder and CEO Alexei Zamyatin.
Check out the recording below:
Do you want an AMA in your language? Let us know! Also, join our Discord to jump into our active language channels in French, German, Turkish, Spanish, Chinese, and Russian.
Upcoming Events
Web Summit: Growth Track
Join us at the Web Summit on November 1st — 4th in Lisbon, Portugal. We’re excited to attend amongst the best and brightest minds building the future of technology.
Token2049 Polkadot Meetup
We’ll be at Token2049 in London on November 9th and 10th. We’ll be participating in the Polkadot Meetup that’s running in tandem with the Token2049 conference. Stay tuned in our Discord, Telegram, and Twitter for updates closer to the conference.
Adopting Bitcoin: A Lightning Summit in El Salvador
We’re excited to announce that Interlay co-founder and CEO Alexei Zamyatin will be speaking at the Adopting Bitcoin conference, a Lightning Summit at none other than El Salvador, the first country to adopt Bitcoin as a national currency.
Read more on their site and grab tickets:
Salvadoreños: Por favor, escriba un correo electrónico a info@adoptingbitcoin.org para obtener un billete con descuento.
¡Hasta luego!
Upcoming Online Events
Join us for these online events from anywhere in the world.
AMA with Interlay and Beamswap
Join us for a joint AMA with Jay, Business Development for Beamswap, and Alex, the Interlay Product Manager. We’ll be live streaming the chat with audio and video while streaming the audio as a Twitter space at the same time!
Click here to RSVP for the Twitter Space on Wednesday, October 12th at 11 am UTC. More details on watching the live stream coming soon.
Community Calls
We missed chatting with you all, so we held our first community call in a long time on Discord on September 21st. We talked about Interlay’s DeFi Integrations with DeFi and Exchanges Development Lead Henry, hosted by our Community Manager Remy, with fire GIFs dropped throughout by Liv, our Social Media Manager.
We’ll be having our Community Calls fortnightly (Shakespeare’s way of saying every 2 weeks). Our next one will be on Wednesday, October 12th at 4 pm UTC / 6 pm CET. If you’re not in our Discord yet, get in there so you can join the next conversation.
Evolving Bitcoin — DOT, Cosmos, ETH!?
Join us next week for Interlay’s community call where we’ll be diving into different ecosystems and how Bitcoin can play a key role in each one. Join our discord below to join the conversation!
Call to Action
Want to get involved? Here’s how to get started.
Join DeWork and Get Started with the Innovator Programme
Do you want to contribute your talents to the Interlay community? Begin with our starter tasks and unlock paid bounties. Start here!
Join Our Community Calls
Come hang out! Every other Wednesday at 4 pm UTC we’ll be meeting on the Community Stage in Discord to chat about a different topic each time. The next call is on Wednesday, October 12th — we’ll be talking about evolving Bitcoin to other chains like Cosmos and Ethereum, and how being built on Polkadot enables us to do that.
Join Discord to attend our Community Calls and vibe with us.
From the Team
Updates from the Interlay core team
Team Retreat
In the last week of September, our global remote team met in person, many for the first time. It’s hard to describe the true power of Web3, but being in a room with the most talented, funny, interesting, intelligent, and multi-dimensional people you’ve ever met and realizing what a privilege it is to work with them made the feeling very tangible.
Our small team spans 15 countries in 5 of the 7 continents. We speak more than 10 languages and that’s not counting all the coding languages our talented Dev Team is fluent in.
We knew we were a great team before but after the retreat in person, it became clear that we were unified on a common goal: to change the future of DeFi by bringing Bitcoin to any chain. The future of money is decentralized, accessible, and open, and we’re going to be building it together. Are you with us?
New Section: Mention of the Month
We have a new segment in our monthly Ecosystem Update. Mention of the Month! We’ll highlight one tweet in our mentions that stood out to us. Our inaugural tweet is from Polkadot OG Robinson Burkey.
Closing Thoughts
This year has put the entire Crypto ecosystem through the wringer, but we remain optimistic. After spending time together in IRL, we’ve confirmed what we already know. The Interlay team includes the best and brightest in Crypto with one of the strongest communities out there, and we’re building big things. We’re heading to unexplored territories with endless possibilities. We hope to see you there.
About Interlay
We envision a future where blockchains seamlessly connect and interact: anyone can use any digital asset on any blockchain, trustless and without limitations. Interlay works with Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polkadot, Cosmos, and others to expand interoperability, capital efficiency, and openness.
Our flagship product is iBTC — Bitcoin on any blockchain. A 1:1 Bitcoin-backed asset, fully collateralized, interoperable, and censorship-resistant, realizing the true free nature of BTC and decentralized finance.
Follow both Interlay and Kintsugi on Twitter, join our Telegram, and hop in our Discord to keep up to date with daily updates from the team.
