2022 has been a bumpy year for the cryptocurrency industry.
Along with the tightening of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy and the FTX collapse, we have been pulled out in the harshest crypto winter ever, and the entire cryptocurrency market capitalization has fallen by around 70% compared to the beginning of the year.
Both organizations and individual investors have been experiencing a lot of pain. However, as a builder of the Ethereum scaling solution, we’ve been continuously building the Layer 2 ecosystem to bring better blockchain products to our users, undisturbed by any market volatility.
We completed the ZKSpace rebranding at the end of 2021 and are fully committed to building a full-featured Layer 2 protocol in 2022. We’ve launched four sub-products, ZKSwap, ZKSquare, ZKSea and ZNS, all powered by ZK-Rollup technology, and seen many thousands of new users using the platform.
Before we greet the new year and carry on building, let’s look back on the second year of ZKSpace and see what we’ve been working on and what we’ve accomplished.
🎉Highlights from 2022
Lower Layer 2 threshold
To make it easier, quicker and cheaper for users to use Layer 2 products, we launched the Eco Deposit mode in the first quarter, as well as the Fast Withdraw feature. We are glad to see that over 95% of our users are now using our new deposit/withdraw mode, which has seen a significant reduction in user cost and time.
In the second quarter, we launched a fiat deposit solution in partnership with Banxa, enabling users to purchase ETH, USDT and ZKS tokens with various Fiat currencies. We also partnered with Obiter for cross-Layer 2 deposit and withdrawal and with Layerswap for CEX-ZKSpace deposit.
In April, after noticing the reduction in gas fees on the Ethereum mainnet, we decided to lower rates across the ZKSpace platform, reducing most platform fees by over 50% and making user costs over 90% lower than the ETH mainnet.
Explore the NFT space
This year, we have been continuously building our Layer 2 NFT marketplace ZKSea, completing several rounds of user experience polishing. To name a few, we’ve added sort and filter buttons for you to easily find the items you desire. We’ve also added a page where you can browse all the collections created on the platform.
In addition to the basic functionality improvements, we also launched Layer 2’s NFT Mystery Box and NFT Auction features to support NFT primary market offering.
One example is that we were officially authorized by Colombian football superstar James Rodríguez to release 1500 James Rodríguez commemorative NFTs in Layer 2-based English auction (11 NFTs) + mystery box draw (1489 NFTs). We’re now ready to support more NFT issuance in both forms and are excited to cooperate with various brands and NFT artists.
Currently, NFT marketplace ZKSea has a total of 2,600+ users holding NFTs, with a total of 47,000+ NFTs listed and a total secondary market trading volume of $40 million+.
Layer 2 Pay
To provide fast and cheap token transfers with Layer 2 scaling, we have developed ZKSquare, a fast and trustless payment protocol leveraging ZK-Rollup technology.
On ZKSquare, we introduced a unique Layer 2 feature called Batch Transfer, which features up to 60 transfers with just one signature and minimizes user effort. It enables individual users and projects to make batch transfers and payments or distribute airdrops with neglectable fees.
We also offer a QR code/link payment function on the ZKSpace mobile APP. You can receive funds by simply displaying your QR code or sending a link. By displaying the code, people will be able to send money to your L2 account via L2 Transfer or Eco Deposit and to your L1 account via Fast Withdraw.
Domain name service: ZNS
ZNS is our industry-first implementation of Layer 2 domain names. It offers a smoother experience than ENS and can be used across the Layer 2 ecosystem including ZKSwap, ZKSquare, ZKSea and ZKSpace Explorer.
At the launch of ZNS domains, we received massive enthusiasm from the crypto community, and a total of 15,000+ whitelists were registered and 500+ domain registrations were completed in the first phase of the sale alone.
Mobile APP
This year we launched the ZKSpace mobile app for Android and iOS, which brings our Layer 2 DEX, payment and NFT functionality to your fingertips. Users can use the mobile app to perform almost any activity that can be performed on the ZKSpace web app, including participating in mining rewards events.
Marketing activities
On February 14, 2022, we celebrated the first anniversary of ZKSpace with our partners Footprint Analytics, Polinate, Duet Protocol, Winkrypto, NFKings, ATTA, Boom and FoxWallet, with a total of 10,000+ NFTs minted on ZKSea.
In terms of ZKSpace mining activities, apart from the ERC-20 token mining event we previously held, this year we innovatively developed several NFT minting, trading and liquidity mining events, allowing users who mint, buy and sell NFTs to earn specific rewards, achieving great success in our community.
We celebrate major holidays with our users. During the Easter festival, we held an NFT Easter Egg Hunt event, with many eggs found and nearly 500 NFTs minted on ZKSea. We also held NFT draws on Pizza Day and during the Christmas season.
During the 2022 FIFA World Cup, we launched a first-of-its-kind Football Metaverse Guess-To-Earn campaign with a full set of NFTs designed for each of the 32 teams in the tournament. Users could participate in football prediction by purchasing team NFTs to win a prize. In the end, 1,500+ NFTs were minted and all players shared a total of 2 million ZKS reward.
Community & Conferences
We now have over 150k supporters from different parts of the world! At the time of writing, we have:
- Twitter: 131k+ followers
- Discord: 7.7k members
- Telegram: 36k+ members
This year, despite the ramping Covid-19, we’ve been trying our best to meet other builders and our community across the world by sponsoring and attending blockchain conferences. You may have met us at Paris NFT Day on April 12, the Blockworks Permissionless in Austin, Texas on May 17–19, the 6/9–6/12 Coindesk Consensus in Austin, Texas and the 6/20–6/23 NFT.NYC in New York.
Research & Publications
To inform and educate Web3 newcomers, we’ve published 100+ ZKSpace-related articles and news during the past 12 months, and you may want to know more about ZKSpace or our opinion by reading these posts:
ZKSpace: A Complete Guide to Layer 2 Swap and NFT Minting: https://beincrypto.com/zkspace-a-complete-guide-to-layer-2-swap-and-nft-minting/
ZKSea versus Immutable X: A Comparison of the Two Top Ethereum Layer-2 Scaling Solution for NFTs: https://crypto.news/zksea-immutable-x-comparison-two-ethereum-layer-2-solution-nft/
Transparency, Security & Decentralization — After the FTX Scandal: https://medium.com/zkswap/transparency-security-decentralization-after-the-ftx-scandal-1099cf1532cc
How does ZKSpace face the Ethereum Merge: https://medium.com/zkswap/how-does-zkspace-face-the-ethereum-merge-8b4a29c432f9
The evolution and current progress of Layer-1 public blockchains. An analysis of differentiated L1s and why they may outperform in the next bull market: https://medium.com/zkswap/the-evolution-and-current-progress-of-layer-1-public-blockchains-29533780af23
Exploring the social graph: value, web3 implementation with current protocols, and its future: https://medium.com/zkswap/exploring-the-social-graph-value-web3-implementation-with-current-protocols-and-its-future-e9c884f55abb
Looking forward to 2023
Since September 2022, Layer 2 trading volume has gradually overtaken the ETH mainnet, suggesting that Layer 2’s time has come. Looking ahead, as the Federal Reserve’s monetary tightening policy draws to a close, the industry is bound to rebound and recover. In the new year, our team will continue to bring you rich and efficient Layer 2 products with ZK-Rollups scaling technology, and expand the ZKSpace Layer 2 ecosystem on all fronts.
L2 Wallet
L2 Wallet is the cornerstone of the Layer 2 ecosystem. We will continue to safeguard user assets and make further efforts in the following areas:
(1) Seek more cooperation to further lower the threshold of Layer 2.
(2) Further improve the token wallet, NFT wallet and ZNS wallet user experience to build an excellent infrastructure for the Layer 2 ecosystem.
NFT
As the cryptocurrency and NFT market picks up, more project owners & users will flock to the Web3 world, and we will be committed to providing them with high-level NFT services.
(1) Work with more partners to issue NFT. Provide users with the most secure, extremely fast and low-cost NFT trading marketplace.
(2) Provide users with NFT market analysis tools to facilitate primary and secondary trading.
(3) Introduce more innovative ways to offer NFTs based on Layer 2’s advantages of fast trading and low gas.
ZNS
As crypto users increase and the domain name service becomes an essential part of Web3 and metaverse, we’ll keep building ZNS as the digital identity for users on ZKSpace. We plan to:
(1) Enhance the liquidity of ZNS and open up the secondary market.
(2) Create social features based on ZNS to build a Web3 identity system according to users’ needs.
(3) Deploy ZNS domain names to the ENS protocol, making ENS-compatible scenarios on Layer 1 available for direct use.
…and more!
We will continue to explore more Layer 2 use cases and make Web3 services available to everyone in a secure, low cost and fast manner. Our future developments are not limited to the following directions:
(1) Cooperation with Lido for ETH 2.0 staking services.
(2) Decentralised derivatives/contract trading/options, etc.
(3) Layer 2 stablecoin (synthetic asset or algorithmic stablecoin).
(4) Deployment to other new public chains (Aleo or Filecoin).
Wrapping up
We wouldn’t have made these strides in our second year if it weren’t for the support and contributions of the entire ZKSpace community. Let’s continue to work together in an uncertain 2023 to build innovative and reliable blockchain products and unlock the many potentials for Ethereum scaling!
If you have any questions or suggestions about our protocols and products, do not hesitate to talk to us by joining the ZKSpace community via the links below. Also, follow our social channel to keep up with the latest developments of ZKSpace.
A huge thank you to all ZKSpace astronauts, and see you next year!
ZKSpace team
About ZKSpace
The ZKSpace (formerly ZKSwap) platform consists of three main parts: ZKSwap, the first Layer 2 AMM DEX utilizing ZK-Rollups technology, payment service ZKSquare supporting fast and cheap Batch Transfer, and an NFT minting center and marketplace ZKSea. ZKSpace has been running since February 2021 with hundreds of function iterations, and no security incidents have ever occurred. With innovative NFT L1-L2 transfer, unlimited token listing, cheap and smooth deposit & withdrawal, and a Layer 2 domain name system ZNS, ZKSpace aims to implement EVM-compatible ZK-Rollups and bring the community more Layer 2-based products.
Stay Tuned
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