April 2022 Recap: Shifting Into High Gear
Message From the CEO
The past month has been an exciting one for Telos, filled with new hires that have the ground running!
We were fortunate to fill gaps by onboarding, several new staff members. We have welcomed The Big Gooey as our in-house NFT curator, Jordan James helping out on DeFi and NFT initiatives, and Nathan Duft joining TF/TCD in dev relations. Vanessa Tang also came on board to lead our community growth efforts, and Ken Castle signed on as a Senior Content Editor/Writer.
We did it! The Telos Spark Hackathon is now officially in the books, and we’re celebrating 25 completed projects from over 100 hacker participants. We want to give a special shoutout to Kluest, an AR Metaverse Game, and the Telos Spark Bridge — two of the many outstanding projects submitted.
The Business Development team has been killing it. We’ve onboarded several outstanding apps/services onto the Telos network, and our team had strong showings at three important conferences: Bitcoin Miami, Ethereum Dev Connect- Amsterdam, and Crypto Bahamas. The Community team also successfully carried out its plan to expand its ambassador/influencer network behind the scenes, which will help us reach more people in the coming months. Finally, I’d like to give a special shoutout to our Telos Core Devs. They have been instrumental in all of these efforts, and they continue to grow and professionalize at an incredible pace.
I am immensely proud of the team we’re building, the hard work happening behind the scenes, and the future of the Telos Blockchain. We’ve accomplished so much in such a short time; so many product teams have joined, so many validators are working together to build a better blockchain community, and it has been amazing to watch.
As we move into May and June, we head into a period of unprecedented exposure. Our big showing at Consensus is fast approaching, along with many other conferences and high visibility events. The world is on the verge of discovering our world-class EVM and blockchain, and our tremendous progress over this short period is primarily thanks to your commitment to growing our platform and unleashing the true potential of Telos.
Justin Guidici, Telos Foundation CEO
Exchanges and Liquidity Team: Pump Up the Volume
Our first quarter momentum has propelled us into Q2 as we actively improve our liquidity and volumes across different TLOS markets. In April alone, we added some initial bootstrap liquidity to OmniDex Lending to encourage the adoption of our first lending protocol. In addition to this, we are actively working to fundamentally improve accessibility for our community by securing new top-tier exchanges and on/off ramp integrations for TLOS tokens.
Since the inception of this team and with the support from Telos validators last year, responsibilities have evolved from simply managing funds and signing multisig to making decisions on where and how liquidity should be grown and distributed.
In light of these added duties, we are working on expanding the current team by adding new members from our ecosystem with interest and experience in DeFi. We also plan to have a working group made up of representatives from DeFi platforms to ensure a constant feedback loop. If anyone you know or yourself is interested in joining our team, please reach out to sukesh.tedla@telosfoundation.io
Sukesh Tedla, Exchanges and Liquidity Team Lead
Community Relations Team: Building Bridges
Community Management hit the ground running in April 2022 with a solid push to optimize regional community efforts, bolster community growth, and set up Telos to land on the permanent radar of new and diverse audiences worldwide. These audiences include not only end-users but also developers, NFT creators, investors, and many more communities. We expect the fruits of our labor to blossom as we progress into May with the addition of key hires that will bring their invaluable professional experience in the crypto industry with them to the Telos Foundation.
One of the priorities for May 2022 and beyond is to expand on promotional partners to make Telos even more known on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Furthermore, together with frequent exciting news about new projects built on and/or backed by Telos, Community Management aims to gamify activity and engagement across all channels and manage great exposure of Telos in alignment with major Marketing and Business Development campaigns.
Thomas Schmied, Head of Community Management
Telos Foundation Operations: Maximizing Efficiency on All Fronts
As highlighted previously, the Telos Foundation team has homed in on putting the pieces of the puzzle in place in terms of hiring and skillsets for our core teams (Marketing, Business Development, Community). Although we will continue to grow these teams slowly and carefully fill in any skill gaps, we will also prioritize optimal execution and team effectiveness to ensure departments across every sector are firing on all cylinders. Cross-team collaboration has increased significantly, which has allowed us to extend the reach and impact of each initiative. These results have been evident in the effectiveness of onboarding applications and the improvement in rollout quality of new initiatives. Each team lead is now fully ‘up to speed’ and collectively driving the Telos network forward at a rapid pace.
The Telos Foundation continues to be mainly focused on growing the quantity and quality of builders that we have in our ecosystem. We believe focusing on developers, creators, etc., is the key to building a robust ecosystem for the Telos Community and one that application users can benefit from. As a result, the Telos community can look forward to a significant and fast increase in the number of available applications and projects built on the tEVM and Telos Native.
George Vernon, Director of Operations
Marketing Team: Maximum Engagement Protocol Activated
Marketing roared into action during April and successfully tackled significant priorities such as positioning the Telos EVM with a new audience, awarding EVM hackathon winners, developing our DeFi credentials, and getting ready to relaunch Telos at Consensus 2022. We also added several talented individuals to our ranks, including the Big Gooey (crypto’s first NFT curator) and Ken Castle (a dazzling editor). These objectives allowed us to accelerate our outreach and expand our influence across our major social channels. But you don’t have to take our word for it — the proof is the numbers! We’re proud to announce that April saw our Twitter followers soar to 91K followers and an increase in engagement by an astounding 1.13mil impressions.
Green was also the color of the month — as it is every month! Our commitment to remaining eco-friendly brought forth a partnership with Plannet Zero, a leading carbon risk management firm. Through the advent of biochar, carbon is removed from the atmosphere permanently, thus eliminating the need to purchase emission avoidance credits. This has allowed us to create a dynamic carbon-neutral blockchain ecosystem that empowers our users and benefits the planet!
Our first Telos Spark EVM hackathon was a resounding success. Seven fantastic winners were selected, with Kluest, a cutting-edge AR/VR metaverse, leading the pack. Further, between 100-and 200 new developers were exposed to our EVM, most of whom were new to Telos. We also ran AMA’s on the Telos Core Development’s Q2 roadmap, the benefits of a collective $8m investment in EOSIO+ infrastructure, and looking forward to next week, we will introduce ‘the EVM super-node to a much larger developer audience.
April was also important for Telos validators as our Telos Block Producer summit allowed us to reconvene with a considerable number of block producers and standbys. During this gathering, plans presented by the Telos Foundation led to a healthy discussion of how both parties could best work together moving forward, with monthly meetings being agreed upon.
Finally, we started picking out our best summer-weather outfits in anticipation of our triumphant return to the June Consensus conference taking place in Austin, TX. It’s one of three events Telos is proud to be a Block 3 sponsor of, along with Dcentral and NFT.NYC. We’re committed to maximizing our presence across DeFi circles in the United States and beyond, with a profound commitment to upholding the highest standards of social responsibility and walking the walk when embracing ESG. As mentioned previously, a large part of this mission also includes being a leader in reducing our carbon footprint, as Telos has been carbon neutral since its inception. Ultimately, we plan to take Telos to the moon without crashing the planet along the way.
Paul Walton, Chief Marketing Officer
Business Development Team: A Bouquet of Partnerships
April showers bring May flowers unless you’re part of the Telos Business Development team! April was a month full of roses for us that paved the way for a diverse range of partners to build on Telos EVM across ESG, Metaverse, and other DeFi sectors. Here are the incredible teams that have joined the Telos ecosystem this past month alone:
- DIA — a cross-chain, end-to-end, open-source data and oracle platform for Web3.
- Rubic — a multi-chain protocol that allows swaps between 15,000+ tokens in a single click and a Telos Ignite recipient.
- Brokoli — a DEX and suite of eco-focused tools that allow users the choice to make a positive climate impact without added costs.
- ARize — an innovative 3D, AR & VR supplier for businesses, metaverses & NFT creators alike, and a Telos Ignite recipient.
- Kyte One — a platform that aims to provide a one-stop solution for all the growth hacking needs for crypto startups. Kyte One is yet another Telos Ignite recipient.
- Artik Finance — a platform where investors can suggest, discover and vote for early-stage projects with solid fundamentals and great potential for long-term growth.
We are thrilled to have these top-tier teams join our movement to create a more efficient, affordable, and environmentally friendly DeFi ecosystem. If you’re a founder or team building a project that aims to be a true market disruptor, connect with us through the following link today: https://ignite.telos.net/
A.J. Dinger, Head of Business Development
The Telos Core Development: Perpetual Motion
In April, Telos Core Development presented its latest and most ambitious roadmap yet. The team has been working relentlessly on further improvements to our block explorers, RPC performance, Docker scalability, and rollout. We have also hired additional full-time resources to support the development of EVM 2.0 as a significant milestone of our roadmap and will reach 17 associated resources by end of May which is a massive growth compared to early 2022.
We are in the process of making the fastest EVM even better! The team is developing a hybrid EVM “Super-Node” solution that will be easier to operate and integrate, offer top-notch history management, and combine it with the best available Ethereum clients. As a result, Telos Core Development will be ready to meet all incoming challenges head-on and propel Telos, and our valued community, to the forefront of the blockchain world.
Kersten Wirth, Program Manager on behalf of the Telos Core Development
About Telos
The Telos EVM is the most powerful and scalable Ethereum Smart Contract platform available today built to power Web 3.0. Telos features a robust, third-generation, ESG compliant evolutionary blockchain governance system inclusive of smart contracts, advanced voting features, and flexible and user-friendly fee models. Telos supports the blockchain ecosystem by serving as an incubator and accelerator for decentralized applications through development grants. Come build with us.
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