Just wanted to give a quick update on some of the things we’ve been working on. Appreciate comments and ideas.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEVELOPMENT
Mobile Wallet
We just released a new APK for internal testing. So far everything smooth except some small cosmetic issues. The biggest remaining thing is restoration from seed which requires some additional work. We are also aware of another third party wallet building a Lelantus Firo mobile wallet as well.
FiroVM
While not officially a ‘core’ project, Poramin is building out FiroVM that would be a sidechain on Firo that would allow for smart-contracts with support for EVM.
Elysium
With our recent changes with InstantSend, some tests are failing in Elysium, and we are working on getting the automated tests working again. Main blocker is a nice GUI which is being designed but we can launch without a nice GUI if needed.
Lelantus Spark
Coding of the C++ library will start soon. Audits are going smoothly thus far. Doing some maintenance work due to some outdated dependencies before beginning.
Helsing
While not part of the Lelantus Spark protocol spec, we have worked out a way to do private staking using Lelantus efficiently. This won’t be deployed immediately with Spark but slightly later as an effort to reduce reliance on transparent addresses.
Optimized Header Sync
FiroPoW header sync can be rather slow so we are testing code to optimize this
MTP Data Strip
Code is complete and being tested.
QT Wallet Reskin
We have completed a reskin of our QT wallet to be more in line with Firo branding. This will be available in the next release.
ECOSYSTEM
BSC Farm
We are thinking of allocating around 1k FIRO per month from the Dev fund to incentivize provision of liquidity. This will get an APY of about 20-30% if it attracts 400-500k USD worth of liquidity. This will effectively double the available liquidity of Pancakeswap and have a 2% spread up/down of 20+ k USD.
We’re working with Arcadia to work out a simple staking site for this where people can stake their LPs and earn rewards. To encourage people staying in there will be cooldowns before people can withdraw liquidity (1 week? 1 month?) and a short vesting period for Firo rewards.
While BSC is not fully decentralized and offers no privacy, it offers a popular, no-KYC onboarding mechanism with cheap fees and can be converted to native Firo either through Binance Bridge, Binance or through AtomicDEX swaps.
We have successfully got our logos officially recognized by Pancakeswap and the BEP20 Firo listed on BSCscan and Coingecko
AtomicDex
Official integration is expected to be completed by end of month but we are working out on providing liquidity to the DEX for important pairs that that would allow at least a few thousand USD for most buys with not too much slippage.
The official integration would also be supported on mobile.
Market makers
We are in talks with a prominent market maker to explore better support of the Firo market. We are also exploring additional exchange listings that we aren’t at liberty to discuss.
Integration of Firo into other ecosystems
We are exploring the possibility of joining other ecosystems such as Avalanche / Symbol / Horizen and building a privacy chain there. This will only happen if there’s funding available for it since it would require new teams. Whatever decision is made we intend to reward Firo community members. The idea is for other chains to have Firo/Lelantus Spark ecosystems that can interact fully with their well funded and active ecosystems allowing for value accrual to the main project as well. This is at a discussion/exploration stage at the moment as we work out what is needed.
We are also in talks with some of these projects for officially supported bridges.
Thorchain
While this is possible, it would require quite a lot of monetary resources, a bet on RUNE and its ecosystem and maintenance to vote and to get on Thorchain (it only supports 100 assets iirc) along with introducing smart contract risk as we have seen from multiple vulnerabilities. We are not closing off this idea just not putting it as top priority at the moment.
TEAM
One of our developers Andrey Bezrukov would like a change of industry and he’ll be leaving the project in mid December. He was instrumental for many things including RAP addresses and InstantSend recently. We wish him the very best! We are looking to recruit 1-2 additional developers to fill in this gap and are interviewing potential candidates. We need a Core developer with strong C++ knowledge (math knowledge is a huge plus) and a second developer with Python and AngularJS knowledge to maintain Electrum, ElectrumX and Firo’s explorers. If you’re interested, please drop an e-mail to me at reuben [a] firo dot org.
MARKETING & AWARENESS
PR Firm search
We are looking for a PR firm with deep crypto connections to work for us. This is a big overhead which costs between USD15-25k/month but in return we would get much more access to interviews with influencers, news article coverage etc. Most firms are tied up and earliest they can begin is January. Minimum length is typically 6 months.
FinStreet and AltcoinBuzz
We are continuing our content work with FinStreet and Altcoinbuzz for education and regular coverage of Firo’s updates.
TikTok
Thus far our TikTok account has garnered quite a lot of views, with our latest video hitting 50+k views. We would be slowly moving content to Firo focused ones but are focused on building brand recognition and establishing Nina as a subject matter expert. This costs around 4.5 k USD a month.
NFTs
NFTs are a hot space and while we aren’t looking to build a NFT ecosystem, we are exploring some options to mint some collectible NFTs to show support for privacy and the Firo ecosystem for community building, generate buzz and some fun. We’re in talks with some artists at the moment and in the ideation stage.
FiroRunner
A base version of the game is now playable here. We are introducing anti-cheat mechanisms to the tournament mode before announcing it. We see this as a fun way to earn some Firo and get people talking about us.
