TCD Chronicle: September 2023

What’s New on Telos

A Word From the TCD’s Head of ZK Technologies — Alberto Garoffolo

In September, our team engaged in several key activities related to our work on the ZK scaling problem. These activities were organized as follows:

Internal Workshop:

Early in the month, we prepared and conducted an internal workshop with these primary objectives:

a. Present the ZK scaling problem statement.

b. Explain how our protocol addresses this problem.

c. Detail the design of our protocol.

d. Highlight the advantages of our approach compared to other ZK scaling methods.

Incentive Scheme Analysis:
As part of our ongoing research, we delved deeper into the analysis of two distinct incentive schemes. This exploration allowed us to gain a better understanding of how incentives can drive the adoption and success of our protocol.

Integration Strategies:

We also dedicated time to exploring various strategies for integrating our protocol into underlying blockchain networks. This step is crucial in ensuring seamless compatibility with existing systems.

Protocol Robustness Testing:

Our team continued its efforts to challenge and test various aspects of the protocol. This ongoing work is essential for verifying the protocol’s robustness and reliability.

Technical White Paper:

Towards the end of the month, we commenced the process of crafting the foundational content for the most well-established facets of our protocol. This marks the initial step in our journey towards crafting the comprehensive technical white paper, which will serve as an extensive reference document.

A Word From the TCD’s Head of Engineering — Jesse Schulman

For September the team focused on a lot of integration work as well as final issues surrounding the EVM 1.5 release and initial designs for 2.0

Integrations:
The Cloud Wallet is now integrated for both native and EVM, which brings a very web2-like experience for new users to onboard without the common friction of web3. This integration is the first of many, as we now are focused on getting our dApp partners to also integrate the cloud wallet. We hope that many of our existing and new partners will soon add support for the wallet so we can achieve our goal of being the home for blockchain mass adoption!

We also now have the Topper widget integrated, allowing on-ramp into TLOS from traditional payment systems!

EVM:

The team has been working on some challenging issues with the custom nodeos binary which is used for the 1.5 release. This issue, while difficult, is finally understood and a solution is expected soon. While the issue is sorted out, we have focused efforts on further comparison of our EVM against standard Ethereum clients (currently using the reth client from Paradigm). Via this comparison effort, we have identified and resolved a handful of issues with our RPC response behaviour.

The team has also added more features that need to be included in our upcoming EVM contract update. This includes the PUSH0 opcode which is required for the latest solidity compiler, and currently, the focus is on adding EIP-1559 transaction structure support.

We have also built a messaging API which will allow the EVM to send messages to the native network; this will complement the existing ability of native to call EVM functions and allow bi-directional communication between EVM and native networks. With this, we expect to provide reference implementations for projects to use for moving tokens in/out of the EVM in a single transaction without any oracle/bridge risk.

The design for 2.0 is becoming more clear and we are very excited to break ground on the initial implementation of it. It should bring 100% feature parity with the TelosEVM RPC and the leading Ethereum client RPC. Not only will it ensure full compatibility of all EVM tooling, but will also greatly simplify the requirements for node operators who only are interested in the EVM side of Telos. We are looking forward to sharing the details of the design once we have completed the necessary POC and feasibility research.

Telos Integrations —

Gaming

Elixir: Elixir is a PC Game launcher powering the next generation of indie games and players while driving blockchain adoption in the gaming sphere.

XLABEL: Amidst the thunderous roar of wild beasts and the rustle of dense jungle foliage, a new force has emerged… Tarzan: Lord of the Apes™. The 3D rigged ‘game ready’ character, is ready to conquer the world of Web3 gaming.

NFT

Bandit: Bandit Network is an ultimate web3 growth solution, turbocharging next-gen NFT and quest solutions. Seamlessly access NFT mints across diverse blockchains via their aggregator.

Crystal Clear Companions: Crystal Clear Companions (CCC) are digital partners designed to assist users in exploring the Telos Blockchain. They are part of an initiative that focuses on supporting and developing the art community within the blockchain space, by offering a platform for artists to showcase their work. As a CCC holder, you become part of a community that encourages creativity, innovation, and expression.

Mintpad: Mintpad, founded by the creator of the Doge Pound NFT collection which boasts over $100M in secondary sales, is a creator tool designed for ease. It empowers anyone to launch their own NFT collection without technical hurdles.

DeFi

Jump DeFi: A one-stop platform lowering the barrier of entry to DeFi for users and developers. Jump DeFi includes: Jump Swap Automated Market Maker, Liquidity Pools & Farming, Jump Pad token launchpad, Jump <> Telos Bridge and Unique tokenomics.

RedStone Oracles: RedStone is a Modular Oracle offering flexible data feeds in 3 tailored data consumption models (Pull, Push, Perps). Usually, it resonates with Lending Protocols, Perpetual DEXes, Derivatives, Synthetics protocols and projects looking to get a competitive edge.

Symbiosis: Symbiosis is a cross-chain AMM DEX that pools together liquidity from different networks: L1s and L2s, EVM and non-EVM. With Symbiosis, you can easily swap any token and move your assets across different networks.

Sendtokens: A self-custody wallet streamlining crypto management and transactions. Effortlessly connect your digital assets.

Network Performance

As part of an ongoing effort to provide more visibility into network statistics, the TCD has been tracking key metrics. This will enable us to identify potential trends on-chain. More metrics will be added over time.

TCD September Development Updates

Executive Summary

Throughout September, the Telos Core Developer team witnessed robust contributions and updates across several key repositories, including the Telos EVM Docker, Telos Wallet, Telos EVM RPC, Teloscan Indexer, and Open Block Explorer. Key efforts included improvements in reliability, user experience, and platform functionalities.

Key Development Updates

Telos EVM Docker:

• Introduced an API for additional Nodeos parameters, enhancing control.
• Resolved restart-related issues and implemented protective measures against container removal during restarts.

Telos Wallet:

• Implemented notifications modifications, and incorporated Telos Cloud Wallet support.
• Addressed display and performance issues.
• Completed the staking page feature and introduced a new Telos Cloud submenu.

Telos EVM & Telos EVM RPC:

• Enhanced software version tracking, improved compatibility, and optimized empty account handling.
• Implemented basic JSON responses for specific endpoints and improved system performance by addressing logging and formatting concerns.

Teloscan Indexer:

• Addressed issues related to variable handling, RocksDB, and ERC1155 balance fetching.
• Improved account transaction querying, 1155 indexing, and addressed account approval routes for ERC721 tokens.

Open Block Explorer:

• Resolved configuration and network-related issues.
• Disabled live transactions on the transaction page and fixed account-related issues.

Other Repositories:

• Telosevm Translator witnessed the addition of a stall detector and other enhancements to improve user experience.
• The Token List repository saw updates to the telosevm.tokenlist.json.

Current Telos Core Developer Team Priorities:

Throughout the month, the TCD team consistently focused on:

• EVM 1.5 and its related support and documentation.
• TELOS ZERO and its components.
• Enhancing the EVM Web Wallet with UI/UX improvements on the login, staking, wrapping and digital collectible pages.
• Telos Cloud Wallet integration and associated functionalities.
• Ongoing EVM 2.0 development and Governance Change backlog.

Conclusion:

September marked a period of significant development and progress for the Telos Core Developer team. Their concerted efforts across multiple repositories highlight their commitment to refining and expanding the Telos ecosystem. As the team navigates through its outlined priorities, the broader Telos community can anticipate continued advancements and enhancements in the coming months.

To explore repos being actively worked on, maintained or being explored by the TCD visit: https://github.com/telosnetwork

TCD Developer Spotlight

Getting to Know Thomas — A TCD Full Stack Developer

Intro: Meet Thomas, a passionate developer whose curiosity was sparked at just 15. With a journey that began with HTML, JS, and C#, he eventually co-founded a company post-college. Thomas has since ventured into diverse projects, from handling high-traffic social media sites in France to optimizing e-commerce platforms. His current focus? The dynamic world of blockchain.

Work History and Experience:

Can you share a brief overview of your journey as a developer? How did you get started in this field?

I’ve always been curious and love to figure out how things work, I started playing around with code at 15, mainly HTML, JS and some C#. So it was pretty much a give-in for me to pursue a software engineering degree. During my last internship, I met an entrepreneur with whom we eventually decided to set up our own company right after college.

We would develop websites & tools for clients as well as our own internal projects using the Symfony Framework (PHP) and Javascript and also set up & maintain the underlying infrastructure. With the advent of node and Javascript framework, we also started working on full Javascript front ends such as ReactJS, NextJS and Vue.

What are some of the notable projects you’ve worked on in the past? Could you walk us through one that you’re particularly proud of?

We had one of the top social media based entertainment websites in terms of traffic in France, with a network of categorized Facebook pages that drove a lot of it. That was my first production setup of a fully loaded balanced network architecture, meant to handle the huge spikes we had at peak hour, back when we had way fewer DevOps tools. We hired up to 12 people working on this full-time.

We actually made most of our margin with real estate websites, driving traffic to our A/B tested landing pages and dispatching prospective clients to different big French promoters automatically, as that project didn’t require any staff. This made me familiar with big data and advanced analytics tools as well as things like media buying.

One client project I’m particularly proud of is the e-commerce subscription websites we developed for a medium company with multiple brands that were outgrowing their WordPress/Woocommerce. We chose a barebones framework and developed a solution to perfectly fit their needs that could scale efficiently. With the additional webmarketing services we provided we were able to 10x their website revenue in a year.

How do you stay up-to-date with the latest development trends in Web3?

The space moves so fast that it is a mix of a lot of things. I follow relevant people on Twitter, read press articles, and blogs, read Ethereum proposals & some of their GitHub discussions, as well as hang out in dev channels.

Life and Inspirations:

What motivated you to start working in blockchain?

As I stated earlier, I love to figure out how things work. But I also hate to get bored! Blockchain is a dynamic and innovative ecosystem that provides plenty of opportunities to learn and imagine new things.

What are your hobbies?

My main hobby for the last few months has been renovating my apartment. Otherwise reading, cycling, museums & expositions, hiking, and tv shows.

Current Projects:

Currently, what project or task are you most excited about working on, and why?

My current project I’m excited about is the EVM indexer and API that will let dApp developers query data that would otherwise require them to do their own indexing. Reducing the friction to developer adoption is always something to strive for! It also allows us to create faster frontends, such as our upcoming Telos Wallet and our new and improved version of Teloscan!

Could you provide insight into the technologies and tools you’re using for your current projects?

I use the usual tools of development from Visual Studio to Docker. Currently, one tool that has won me some time is Github Copilot and its awesome code completion feature. Speaking of AI I also often ask ChatGPT questions; it can be much faster to get an answer than using Google but it isn’t always right, you do need the experience so that it does not lead you down rabbit holes.

What strategies do you employ to ensure the codebase you’re working on remains maintainable and scalable in the long run?

Comments, comments, comments and readability. Someone who never touches the code should always be able to figure it out without too many headaches. If refactoring everything to one-liners seems like the goal to some, I don’t think it is always worth it. Your time might be better spent solving another problem.

Closing: As we delve into Thomas’s experiences and insights, it’s clear he embodies the spirit of innovation. From his early days of coding to the complexities of Web3, Thomas’ drive is evident. Whether he’s renovating his apartment or pushing the envelope in blockchain, Thomas’s dedication to growth, innovation and learning shines. To connect further, find him on X at @tomtomcrypto or Telegram as @tomearhart11.

About Telos Foundation:

As a decentralized, independent and not-for-profit organization, the Telos Foundation spearheads the advancement and governance of the Telos blockchain. Launched in 2018, Telos has an impeccable five-year record of uninterrupted service. With the introduction of the tEVM in 2021 — the fastest Ethereum Virtual Machine — Telos has demonstrated its commitment to cutting-edge technology. Now shifting its focus to becoming a Layer 0 network, Telos places paramount importance on scalability, security, and decentralization. The network’s impressive performance allows for 15,200+ transactions per second, all while maintaining near-feeless operations. Today, the Telos ecosystem boasts more than 100 partners, 250 dApps, 1.2 million accounts, and a rapidly growing community. Telos continues to propel the industry’s transition to Web 3.0 and pave the way for global adoption of decentralized solutions.