October ’21 Swingby Update + AMA
This post first appeared on Swingby’s Substack. Subscribe to our Substack for latest updates!
Hello there Swingby community!
October has been an exciting month for both crypto as well as the Swingby team and we’re excited to bring you:
- Our October updates
- Team Ask-Me-Anything
1. October Updates
As the Swingby community should know by now, the Swingby team’s main focus for the entire Q4 is on getting SkyPools to testnet launch. As described in our last article, our main focus is to enable smart contract interactions for SkyPools.
Here are some development updates that bring us closer to the SkyPools testnet launch:
- Updated TSS Library and Node-Installer
- Integrated Smart Contracts into the Skybridge nodes
- Currently testing SkyPools Smart Contract testing Ropsten network
- Currently undergoing internal QA and security review for SkyPools
- Almost completed SkyPools UI
Aside from SkyPools launch, the team has been improving the user experience by standardising our Navbars and headers on the Swingby main site and SkyBridge Explorer.
Also, we have improved our Beta message on our SkyBridge swap widgets, so that you have a less intrusive and more user-friendly.
2. Team Ask-Me-Anything!
Last week, we tweeted out an AMA post, asking for you (our community members) to ask us anything and we’ll answer them! Over the past weeks, we received over 70 replies to the Tweet and we’re going to answer the more salient questions today.
Among these 70 replies, 5 community members who asked questions will receive a 1000 $SWINGBY airdrop. To choose the winners for this giveaway, we were looking for the most well-asked or fun questions. Curious if you won the giveaway? Read on till the end where we’ll announce the winners!
Meanwhile, let’s get started with the Swingby October AMA.
General Questions 💡
1. What is Swingby?
Swingby is a trustless cross-chain bridge that empowers liquidity to move freely between Bitcoin and EVM chains (ETH mainnet & BSC currently).
As a product, Swingby is:
- Trust-minimised on all levels
- Simple to use
- Community-owned
For a more in-depth explanation of what is Swingby, you can read our article here on the Past, Present and Future of Swingby.
2. Who are Swingby’s intended users?
As a trustless cross-chain bridge in an increasingly multi-chain world, we want to target all DeFi users who want to move assets freely across chains to discover new DeFi and Web3 opportunities.
Living and breathing the Decentralised ethos of DeFi, they typically prefer true ownership of their assets and use decentralised, trustless and permissionless products instead of centralised ones (e.g. DEXes vs CEXes).
Looking Forward: Roadmap & Marketing 🚀
3. What is Swingby’s roadmap beyond Q4?
During Q4, we see ourselves staying laser-focused in launching, optimising and increasing the adoption of swaps via SkyPools. As an infrastructure to enable smart contract interactions across chains, it is not easy to build and launch something as complex and powerful as SkyPools. That’s why we’d like to spend our time being more careful and measured in our launch.
That said, once we have launched the infrastructure to do swaps, we will be in a much better place to use this as a foundation to launch other use cases. In 2022, when we have successfully launched and grew the adoption of SkyPools, there are some areas that we are really excited about, such as
- Extending SkyPools functionality towards other EVM chains
- Enabling SkyPools for other DeFi use cases such as lending, etc.
We are really excited about the future, but want to be measured in sharing what is to come in our product roadmap. Rest assured, we will keep you updated on the roadmap in the coming months when the SkyPools launch is on track.
4. Any plans for a BEP-20 to ERC-20 SkyBridge?
Yes, in line with our vision to connect the various chains in the increasingly multi-chain world, connecting the Binance Smart Chain and Ethereum ecosystem is definitely important to us.
However, in the meantime, we stay focused on launching SkyPools but will watch the space closely to observe any market needs for a BEP-20 to ERC-20 bridge. When the market need arises and we’re going to focus on that, we will surely update you then!
5. Can you tell us more about Swingby’s marketing plan?
As a team, we are focused on making SkyPools become a reality, hence even the marketing plan will surround the SkyPools launch. To support the SkyPools launch, we will be having :
- More articles & content
- Liquidity incentives to drive liquidity on SkyBridge
- Community engagement & activities
- Media & press outreach
Let us know how you think we can do better, and we’d love to incorporate your ideas into our plans.
6. With SkyPools launch, do you have any plans to increase swap volume & liquidity on SkyBridge?
Yes, when SkyPools launches, we are expecting there to be more volumes passing through both SkyPools and SkyBridge. The current liquidity today will not be sufficient to support the growth we want to achieve. Hence, we are working on more marketing and liquidity programmes to increase the SkyBridge volume.
As an educational point, for SkyPools to work smoothly, we will need to increase liquidity on SkyBridge and not SkyPools. This is because SkyPools taps on the existing liquidity pools on AMMs like Uniswap, Sushiswap and Balance via Paraswap.
7. How is the Swingby team’s runway looking like?
The Swingby team has sufficient funds and a healthy runway to sustain ourselves for around 2 years. As a team, we are committed to spending our resources in a practical and sustainable manner, so that we can make an impact on the multi-chain future.
Token Talk: Governance, Network & Metanodes 💰
8. Are there any plans to use the Swingby token for governance?
Yes, with the launch of SkyPools, we are planning to give Swingby token holders a bigger role in the governance of the Swingby ecosystem. We are still working out the details, but potentially, you will be able to decide on things like SkyPools parameters and how we launch Skypools.
Stay tuned for more updates!
9. Are there any plans for token burns?
We have done token burns in the past before, and are open to doing more in the future. However, given the launch of SkyPools and the upcoming introduction of Swingby governance, we do not want to risk any implications on the tokenomics, governance and network security.
That said, if we plan for any token burns, the community will be the first to hear of it!
10. Can you tell us more about the Swingby Chaos Nodes?
Swingby Chaos Nodes are priming Metanodes that were meant to bootstrap the network. They are run by a select group of strategic investors and community partners to secure the network. These Metanodes do not receive any staking rewards.
As priming Metanodes, they have a low bond amount, reducing any barriers for community members like yourselves to run your own Metanode to secure the network. As more community members start to set up your own Metanodes, these Chaos nodes will be less relevant in securing the Swingby network.
On the flipside, these Metanodes are also set up as a safety net, in case any Metanodes stop securing the network suddenly. Instead of having a ‘power vacuum’ where the network security and decentralisation drops drastically, these Metanodes will step in to secure the network, ensuring security and continuity of the system.
11. Will there be any changes to the number of Metanodes? How would that affect Metanode operators?
At the current volumes and liquidity, our team’s calculation and economic modelling has shown that having 50 Metanodes is more than essential in securing the network. For now, we do not foresee any changes to the number of Metanodes and Metanode requirements.
We are actively monitoring our volumes and growth, and will inform the community and Metanode operators if there are any changes to the Metanodes requirements.
Community ✨
12. Can we expect a live AMA sometime soon?
Yes. We are planning a live AMA as we get closer to launching SkyPools. When we have passed the technical hurdles of launching SkyPools, we definitely look forward to hanging out with you guys again.
13. How can the community help to add value to Swingby?
Great question! There are many ways that the Swingby community and token holders can contribute to our cause.
The easiest way would be to subscribe, follow, share our articles when we publish them. We’d also invite you to join us in Discord to hang out with us and discuss just about anything.
If you’ve more time, we’d love if you can become community stewards to welcome new members, answer their questions and just ensure everyone’s having a good time in the Swingby community. That would definitely make things a lot easier for Jacob, Ferreira and Sagar.
Finally, if you’ve more resources and would like to help secure the network, you can try spinning up a Metanode yourself and also earn rewards at the same time!
Just for Fun 🎲
14. What is something invisible that you wish people could see?
Perhaps Covid-19? That’ll probably make things a lot easier around the world
14. It’s now 2030 and Bitcoin has taken over the global economy. Does the Swingby community go to the Moon or Mars?
Senga: By then, we’ll end up going to both the Moon & Mars. You can probably purchse land on Mars and the Moon with crypto. But who knows? Let’s ask Elon
15. Ferreira and Sagar work day-and-night 7-days-a-week. Do you plan on giving them a Christmas bonus? If not, why the hell not?
Yes, for sure! Meanwhile, do give them some love in Telegram and Discord yea?
16. It seems like Jacob enjoys going to pubs. In the future, does he have plans of starting his own pub? Will Swingby holders get a discount?
Jacob: As a Brit, I do indeed love frequenting the pubs! Some of my favourites include “Oyster Shed”, “Wetherspoons” and “The Walrus”.
One day, when Swingby reaches the moon, I’ll definitely launch my own franchise named “SkyBar”, Swingby holders can pool liquidity to earn 20% APR (paid in beer and steak pies)”
Announcing our 5 winners 💎
We hope that October was as fulfilling for you, as it was for us. As promised, here are the winners for the Twitter AMA giveaway. Congratulations to the following 5 Swingby community members for asking great and fun questions!
Please DM us on Twitter with your ERC-20 address, and we will airdrop the 1000 Swingby tokens to you over the next week.
We hope you enjoyed this AMA & Dev Update and look forward to sharing more updates in the future! 👋
Have more questions? Hang out with us & ask away!
- 👋 Hang out with us on our Discord server
- ✉️ Subscribe to our Substack
- 💬 Join our Telegram
- 💬 Follow us on Twitter
- 💵 Swap Bitcoins on Swingby SkyBridge
