Blog: Community Update 23/8/2022
Greetings from Hxro Headquarters!
Not all “hxros” wear capes. From reaching critical development breakthroughs to executing on Hxro Network’s long-term mission of creating the world's largest network of on-chain derivatives liquidity and reaching a state of complete decentralization, Network contributors are making superhuman strides. Just like Batman responding to Gotham City’s bat-signal, Hxro contributors are rising from the confines of their lairs to deliver you the latest development updates.
With great brain power comes great responsibility – with all that’s being worked on, there is no shortage of news to share! Here are some of the biggest updates we plan to cover:
- Staking and Rewards integration
- Hxro Derivatives USDC Collateral Live Alpha
- New Parimutuel protocol mainnet integrations
- Detailed development roadmap through the end of Q3
The alpha version of Hxro derivatives marketplace has launched on Solana mainnet!
As a quick refresher, Hxro derivatives provide key primitive layer infrastructure for the exchange, risk, margin and settlement, and are built on top of two of the network's native protocols, Dexterity and Spandex.
Dexterity is an open source collection of smart contracts on Solana that provides a framework for trading any instrument with a defined payoff function (such as options, futures, perpetual swaps, bonds, etc.). Named for its flexible framework, Dexterity enables the creation of various on-chain markets within decentralized trading applications. To take a deeper dive into the underpinnings of Dexterity, read the Dexterity whitepaper.
Spandex is Hxro's customized derivatives risk engine. It is the first on-chain, realtime risk engine to use a portfolio risk-based approach to managing users margin and risk.
In July, Hxro core contributors launched the network's Mainnet Alpha Sandbox for derivatives (starting with BTC/USDC perp and 8 expiring futures contracts). As safety and responsibility of network assets is and will always be a priority for network builders and the Hxro community, markets were initially launched using a mainnet test token - UXDC - that has no monetary value. This has allowed test market participants and contributors to stress the build to its limits in a mainnet environment without the risk of financial loss and has proven to be a valuable decision.
Now for the next step, launching these markets on USDC collateral…
Contributors anticipate that the first USDC collateralized markets will be available on Hxro mainnet before the end of Q3!
Steps to reaching this milestone are discussed in the “Roadmap” section below
Hxro.Trade will be undergoing a brand change and transitioning its backend infrastructure to be powered by Hxro
Although Hxro.Trade has no direct association with Hxro, it will be a part of the Hxro ecosystem. Therefore, we feel it is important to share this exciting news!
Hxro.Trade, the original centralized platform that brought crypto the markets very first true exotics and parimutuel/floating strike options markets via its “MoonRekt and TixWix” front-ends will be transitioning away from its current centralized infrastructure and will become a Hxro powered platform!
The new application will become one of many applications to be integrated with Hxro’s parimutuel protocol.
This transition will also come with a platform rebrand (including the name) which will be released soon.
The platform’s integration team is expecting this to be completed sometime in early Q4.
We are pleased to announce that a Python SDK for HXRO’s Parimutuel Protocol is now available!
Hxro contributors have added a python software development kit to the Hxro Gitbook under parimutuel protocol. The SDK is currently available on Test Pypi for Linux only at https://test.pypi.org/project/parimutuelsdk. A MacOS version will follow soon, as well as moving to main Pypi. Access the Python SDK here.
In addition to the Python SDK, a software development kit for Typescript will soon be available on the Hxro Gitbook.
REST APIs for Hxro's parimutuel protocol are now available via the Hxro Network Gitbook.
Hxro provides a self hosted REST API as a Docker container for those who wish to continue running their trading bots or build on top of the parimutuel protocol without having to rewrite to a web3 interface. Configuration of the API server is done via passing environment variables in the usual way when creating a container.
You can learn more about the REST API server configuration, how to access the REST APIs for Hxro’s parimutuel protocol, and supported endpoints here.
In order to create the optimal alignment between the Network and its participants, a symbiotic relationship must exist between the value the network creates and its token.
In a token-based ecosystem, a strong and scalable foundation contains a mechanism whereby token holders who are willing to stake their tokens to the network accrue a share of network value. In Hxro, staking rewards will derive from transactions made within the network on all parimutuel, perpetual futures, dated futures, and options markets.
As discussed previously, 100% of transaction fees generated by the Network will accrue back to staked tokens, and other participants within the network who provide critical functionality (such as Network Treasury, Insurance Funds, Liquidity Pool Providers, and Volatility (THEO) and Probability (SAMM) Surface Providers). Stakers will receive a pro-rata share of 50% of all network transaction fees, and the critical participants will receive the other 50%.
Staking and Rewards Audit Completion and network integration
An independent audit of Hxro staking and rewards is estimated to be completed by mid September. Integrating staking/rewards and testing will take place concurrent with the Hxro derivatives mainnet alpha testing period.
Between staking and rewards, derivatives and parimutuels, we are in the midst of rolling out several exciting offerings to the Hxro community.
Expect to see the following updates coming through the end of Q3!
- Derivatives USDC Collateral Launch
- Implementation and funding of network insurance fund.
- Launch USDC collateral markets BTC/USD perp, 1 and 2 week futures, 1st and 2nd month futures and 4 quarterly futures contracts.
- Launch calendar/combo spread markets.
- Launch sandbox access badging system. Continuous audit of core code and features.
- Hxro Staking and Rewards integration
- Staking to go live within days after the launch of Hxro Derivatives.
- HXRO Network participants will be able to manage their staking and rewards wallets through hxro.finance - a new access portal that will be made available upon launch.
- Volume incentives will also go live, and will be managed through the hxro.finance app as well.
- Parimutuel Protocol Mainnet Launch
- Transition to live mainnet expected to be concurrent with the network derivatives USDC collateral launch
Welcome Rubén Colomina, the Newest Hxro Core Contributor!
Ruben is a scientist, and a hacker at heart. Having grown up around personal computers in the ‘80s and ‘90s, he brings decades of experience across multiple industries and products like secondary surveillance radars, simulation training systems, earth observation, geo-information, blockchain technologies, automatic software testing and automated trading.
Among his achievements, he received the highest rank at Telespazio UK, and a special mention by Leonardo Corporation for his contributions on satellite structural health monitoring. Although Ruben is mainly a back-end developer, he has a bit of front-end exposure. He is knowledgeable and experienced in many technologies, and is especially proficient in C++ and Python. Ruben also wrote his masters thesis on pricing options, and is well educated about futures, options, and other details of financial markets.
In his free time, Ruben likes to play video games, and read about science and crypto. He is an avid crypto investor, and employs many strategies in his personal investing. Hxro is incredibly excited to welcome Ruben as a Core Contributor!
Convergence is a deep liquidity primitive built on Solana that consists of two features: a Request for Quote network, and Batch Auctions functionality. By leveraging a strong network of market makers, institutions and DeFi protocols, Convergence aims to become the primitive for deep order liquidity for any protocol in the Solana ecosystem.
Composing with Hxro will allow Convergence user applications to utilize the Hxro primitive as its on-chain exchange, margin, risk and settlement layer. Through this integration, Convergence becomes a messaging and coordination layer for traders that are looking to execute block-sized trades via Request for Quote (RFQs) within their Hxro accounts. All trade settlement, risk and portfolio margining occurs using Hxro infrastructure, while trade origination and fills are executed using Convergence.
Hxro hosted the Solana “Summer Camp”/Hackathon in Chicago
Solana’s online Summer Camp Hackathon provided an opportunity for builders across the ecosystem (and around the world!) to turn their ideas into the next big web3 project, offering $5 million in global prizes and seed funding across 6 prize tracks: Mobile, Payments, DeFi, Web3, Gaming and DAOs.
Hxro was the proud sponsor of the Chicago venue, which hosted builders from July 18th to August 16th. In addition to providing a coworking space for hackathon participants, Hxro contributors coordinated a series of educational workshops featuring some of the most innovative minds in the Solana ecosystem.
If you missed any of the sessions, Hxro is here to save the day: all of our workshops were recorded and published on our Gitbook here.
The workshop recordings include:
- Building on Dexterity Protocol with Kostas Chalikias, CTO of Hxro Labs
- Building Automated Trading Strategies on Dexterity Protocol with Jarry Xiao, Solana Contributor
- Building on Cupcake Protocol with Jordan Prince and Bartosz Lipinski, Cupcake Protocol Core Contributors
- Introduction to Derivatives Trading with Nick Fazzari, Hxro Core Contributor
- Introduction to xNFT Backpack with Armani Ferrante, xNFT Backpack Core Contributor
Hxro Founder Dan Gunsberg highlighted as speaker at Web3 Investor Day
In an effort to bring together institutional investors and web3 founders to learn about the constant innovation in blockchain technology and promote mainstream web3 adoption, global venture and digital assets fund Decasonic hosted over 300 participants in Chicago for their inaugural Web3 Investor Day. The single day conference on July 28th included a series of panels with industry thought leaders from both web3 native and traditional institutions. Hxro Co-Founder @hxrobtc was a featured speaker, participating in a panel discussion about blockchain policy and regulation.
- Scott Melker, Wolf of All Streets - Dan Gunsberg Disrupts The Derivatives Markets And Expects Billions Of Dollars To Flow Into Crypto
- SBC Summit - Barcelona, Spain - September 20-22
- SBC Summit Latam - Miami, FL - November 1-3
- Solana Breakpoint - Lisbon, Portugal - November 4-7
- Sigma World Europe - MFCC, Malta - November 15-19
- AIBC - MFCC, Malta - November 15-19