On November 18, 2020 the Oasis mainnet transitioned to a fully permissionless platform with ROSE tokens becoming transferable on the network. This constitutes a major milestone for the Oasis ecosystem and we are proud to be part of the initial 75 validators that made this possible!
Oasis and its privacy-preserving technologies allow developers to build entirely new types of applications in which users remain in control of their data enabling a better Internet and a responsible data economy.
Coinciding with the official mainnet launch, we are excited to announce that we have finished our Ledger integration of Oasis in Anthem enabling ROSE holders to transfer and delegate their tokens to earn staking rewards to initially earn up to 20% APY (more on the economics here).
Connect your Ledger device or try out Anthem’s portfolio feature with any Oasis address at: https://anthem.chorus.one
At Chorus One, our goal is to improve non-custodial participation in the staking economy to strengthen decentralized networks and help them deliver on the promise of an open and transparent financial and user-owned Web3 ecosystem. Anthem is a tool geared towards helping users participate in these emerging networks.
To support our work, delegate ROSE tokens to our node and safely earn rewards. Learn more here: https://chorus.one/networks/oasis/
PS: A recent Chrome update is resulting in the Ledger integration not working on Chrome and Brave for some users. To fix it, you will need to go to chrome://flags#new-usb-backend and disable that flag.
Chorus One is offering staking services and building protocols and tools to advance the Proof-of-Stake ecosystem.
Chorus One is a grantee of the Oasis Foundation and a genesis mainnet node operator on the Oasis network. Learn more about us in our Node Operator Spotlight.
Website: https://chorus.one
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chorusone
A better internet is only a matter of time. The Oasis network is trying to fix what’s broken by giving users back control of their data using a combination of secure compute and a proof-of-stake blockchain.
Website: https://oasisprotocol.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/oasisprotocol
Originally published at https://blog.chorus.one on November 26, 2020.
Today, we are excited to announce our partnership with German-based, regulated custody provider Finoa. Our integration with Finoa will enable retail and institutional customers that use Finoa’s custody solution to utilize Chorus One’s staking services starting with support for Polkadot. Other networks that are part of the portfolio of both companies such as Oasis, NEAR, Centrifuge, and others will follow shortly after.
This partnership signifies a larger movement towards adoption of cryptoassets by institutional players. We are excited to help enable access to the vibrant ecosystem of yield-bearing staking assets to newcomers and established crypto investors alike.
We are constantly increasing the product and service offering to our customers. With Chorus One, we add a leading and innovative Staking provider with a wide array of protocols to our portfolio. Especially for the Polkadot ecosystem, Brian and his team provide innovative, yield-optimizing Staking solutions.
Henrik Gebbing, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Finoa
Our partnership with Finoa goes beyond purely providing infrastructure to participate in decentralized networks. In the past few weeks, we have developed capabilities to improve the user experience and returns for staking users on Polkadot through a first version of what we refer to as a “staking agent”. The staking agent is an API that algorithmically manages staking participation on behalf of DOT holders . It makes use of a proprietary algorithm and Polkadot’s key management design that allows the delegation of staking-related rights without giving up custody of funds.
The staking agent enables Finoa users that want to stake DOTs to improve their staking reward APR by continuously updating their nominations across supported validators while requiring no intervention by the user.
We have been impressed with the professionalism and vision of Finoa, who is quickly becoming one of the industry’s leading custody providers. We are also excited to make a first foray into the area of staking yield optimization and to be able to offer this to Finoa’s customers.
Brian Crain, Co-Founder and CEO of Chorus One
We will soon have more information about our staking agent and its benefits available. For now, if you are a DOT holder, wallet provider, or custodian interested in using or integrating the staking agent, please reach out to us at hello[at]chorus.one.
Finoa is a regulated custodian for Digital Assets, servicing professional investors with Custody and Staking. Reference customers include the world’s most renowned Venture Capital firms, large corporations and financial institutions. Finoa was founded in Berlin in 2018, is a qualified crypto-asset custodian (§64y Para. 1 KWG) and supervised by the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin).
Website: https://finoa.io
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/finoabanking/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Finoa_Banking
Chorus One is providing staking services and developing cross-chain communication technologies for Proof-of-Stake blockchain networks.
Website: https://chorus.one
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chorusone
Telegram: https://t.me/chorusone
Background picture by Ben Neale on Unsplash.
Originally published at https://blog.chorus.one on October 7, 2020.
We are excited to announce support for the Oasis mainnet release candidate Amber on Anthem! Starting today, token holders on the Amber network can track their account and transaction history by pasting in their address.
Try it out on https://anthem.chorus.one
Anthem is an essential tool for staking users on blockchain networks. Our goal is to improve non-custodial participation in the staking economy by giving users access to historical data about their investments, as well as allowing them to stake tokens and vote in governance on supported networks.
On Oasis, Anthem allows you to connect any address and access historical portfolio and transaction data with a focus on staking rewards. Token holders can display their balances in different fiat currencies (for Oasis this feature is not available yet). In addition, users can export account data as a CSV file and transaction data as a JSON file, enabling them to easily get the correct data for tax compliance or analytics purposes.
Try out Anthem for Oasis today and feel free to ask us questions on Telegram or through the live chat feature!
After Anthem has been live for a couple of months for the Cosmos Hub, adding Oasis marks the first step towards the multi-network experience we are aiming towards. We expect to soon add Celo and Terra, as well as expand features to improve participation for token holders in Proof-of-Stake networks such as Oasis in the near future.
Chorus One is providing staking services and developing cross-chain communication technologies for Proof-of-Stake blockchain networks.
Chorus One is a grantee of the Oasis Foundation and a genesis mainnet node operator on the Oasis network. Learn more about us in our Node Operator Spotlight.
Website: https://chorus.one
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chorusone
A better internet is only a matter of time. The Oasis network is trying to fix what’s broken by giving users back control of their data using a combination of secure compute and a proof-of-stake blockchain.
Website: https://oasisprotocol.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/oasisprotocol
Originally published at https://blog.chorus.one on June 30, 2020.
Chorus One has received a grant by the Web3 Foundation to develop parts of a bridge that will enable Substrate and Cosmos SDK-based blockchains to interoperate as part of the fifth grant cohort.
Such interoperability will allow, for example, a user on a Cosmos SDK blockchain to move TerraUSD coins to Substrate chains to take advantage of applications in the Polkadot ecosystem.
A core piece of Chorus One’s vision is the ability to freely transfer value and information across sovereign blockchain networks and applications. The Polkadot and Cosmos ecosystems have both been at the forefront of cross-chain interoperability.
We are excited to contribute to bridging these two ecosystems with this initial project that will enable Cosmos SDK blockchains to keep track of consensus updates on Substrate-based networks.
Polkadot combines the versatility of heterogeneous blockchains with the security and convenience of a single security pool and validator set. This is one of the most daring and promising visions of the blockchain space and could unleash unparalleled innovation. The Polkadot ecosystem is consistently shipping great software to advance that vision. We are incredibly excited to help bridge the flourishing Polkadot and Cosmos communities.
Brian Fabian Crain, CEO of Chorus One
A Substrate light client that’s compatible with the Cosmos SDK is a great first step towards bridging the Polkadot and Cosmos ecosystems. We’re excited to see the results of this work and eventually a complete bridge between both networks.
Dieter Fishbein, Head of Ecosystem Development at Web3 Foundation
This grant-funded project lays the groundwork for a bridge between Polkadot and Cosmos. The current project code consists of three parts: a relayer implementation that allows necessary information to pass between two blockchains, a Substrate-IBC module for the Cosmos SDK that is geared towards handling Substrate data, and a Substrate client consisting of WebAssembly bytecode to verify BABE and GRANDPA consensus information on Cosmos chains. In order to have a fully functional bridge, a second follow-on project that allows Substrate chains to validate Tendermint messages is required.
Our WebAssembly Light Client design for Substrate on Cosmos SDK can be extended to support any other blockchains whose light client logic is compile-able to Wasm. One key advantage of the design is the ability to upgrade the Substrate light client, which is derived from the canonical Rust implementation, on Cosmos SDK chains without requiring a full governance process and hard fork for each upgrade. Additionally, the design may be able to easily handle consensus algorithms and allow them to interoperate with the Cosmos ecosystem via IBC. Find the full details and technical description of our approach here.
We are excited to contribute to realizing a world of interconnected blockchains. If you are interested in working with us on this, reach out to us via the channels linked below.
Chorus One is operating validation infrastructure and building tools to advance the Proof-of-Stake ecosystem.
We will offer staking on Polkadot when the network goes live. You will be able to support our work and earn staking rewards by nominating our validators with your DOTs.
Website: https://chorus.one
Anthem Staking Platform: https://anthem.chorus.one
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chorusone
Telegram: https://t.me/chorusone
Image on cover art by Aaron Burden on Unsplash.
Originally published at https://blog.chorus.one on May 5, 2020.
Today, we are excited to announce that Chorus One will join the Band Protocol ecosystem as a block validator and data provider.
Band Protocol is a data layer for Web 3.0 applications providing decentralized off-chain data to smart contracts through community-curated oracles. Band Protocol is backed by a strong network of stakeholders including Sequoia Capital, one of the top venture capital firms in the world, and the leading cryptocurrency exchange, Binance.
Band Protocol 2.0 introduces BandChain, a blockchain built on the Cosmos SDK to accommodate user-defined data requests and support data oracles across multiple blockchains. Dapps can use BandChain to query data from traditional APIs and send it to the smart contracts in a verifiable and secure manner.
We have seen how price oracles have the potential to cause chaos in crypto. Synthetix had a close call when their price oracle failed last year. Recent flash loan arbitrage trades have shown that automated market makers like Uniswap can be fragile when low liquidity is paired with leverage. Similarly Terra, where Chorus One also runs a validator, saw their stablecoin swap mechanism subjected to arbitrage attacks leading to an effort to continuously improve the robustness of their oracle implementation.
We believe Band Protocol has the capacity to help mitigate oracle risks through their novel incentivized model on BandChain that incorporates flexibility, customizability, and speed while also ensuring the security and integrity of the data.
“As a validator and data provider on Band Protocol we hope to bring additional decentralization and security to all blockchain applications that seek to safeguard against critical failures arising from dependency on any sole oracle solution”
- Brian Fabian Crain, CEO & Co-Founder of Chorus One
Here are some of the reasons why we chose to support Band Protocol:
As Chorus One, we strongly believe in the Internet of Blockchains vision, as espoused by Cosmos and others. We believe that there will be many blockchain networks that all interact with each other and that, over time, these chains will become increasingly specialized. These chains will use inter-blockchain communication, via protocols like the Inter-blockchain Protocol (IBC), to securely transact with each other.
One key problem for the Internet of Blockchains is that blockchains are unable to verify data that is created outside of their network. This is known as the “oracle” problem and technologies designed to solve this problem are called oracles. Financial contracts need market data, insurance contracts need IoT data, and gaming applications need provable randomness. The oracle problem is such a fundamental one, we believe there will be many competing solutions, all providing unique benefits and making various data feeds available.
So while we recently partnered with Chainlink, the current market leaders in this space, we also see Band Protocol playing a key role in the evolution of oracles in the Internet of Blockchains. In an IBC context, oracles can bridge the Internet of Blockchains to real world data. As the Band Protocol network is built using the Cosmos SDK, it can operate as a Cosmos “zone”. This means it will naturally fit into the world of chains communicating over the IBC protocol, bringing high-quality data feeds to other application-specific chains built using the Cosmos SDK.
We expect to see many applications choosing to partner with multiple oracle solutions to improve resilience, as per the recent bZx announcement, where bZx have decided to partner with both Chainlink and Band Protocol to improve their price feed oracles.
We will be available to answer any questions you might have on the Chorus One Telegram group at https://t.me/chorusone, where we will host an AMA with the Band team on the 16th of April at 5PM CET.
About Chorus One
Chorus One is operating validation infrastructure and staking services for Proof-of-Stake networks.
We will offer staking on BandChain when the network goes live in April. You will be able to support our work and earn staking rewards by delegating BAND to our node.
Website: https://chorus.one
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chorusone
Telegram: https://t.me/chorusone
About Band Protocol
Band Protocol is a decentralized oracle framework for Web3.0 applications. Band Protocol connects smart contracts with trusted off-chain information, provided through community-curated oracle data providers. Blockchains are enabled to connect to any web API with assured data integrity through dPoS economic incentives through one simple function call. Developers using Band Protocol will be able to easily build and manage off-chain oracles, reputation scores, identity management systems and much more.
To learn more about Band Protocol, please check out their website here: https://bandprotocol.com/
Telegram: https://t.me/bandprotocol
Medium: https://medium.com/bandprotocol
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BandProtocol
Originally published at https://blog.chorus.one on April 2, 2020.
We’re excited to unveil Anthem: a web application to track and manage your portfolio of Proof-of-Stake assets. Anthem supports staking on Celo, Cosmos, Oasis, Kava, and Terra.
Go to https://anthem.chorus.one now, connect your Ledger or any address on the supported networks and see your personal staking dashboard! 📈
The core motivation to build Anthem arose from our own needs as a staking provider:
Currently, most accounting and tax regimes require you to recognize revenues at the time received. When staking on Cosmos, this means that revenues occur every single block, or around 400,000 times a month! So far, there has been no public tool allowing you to see your historical staking rewards. Anthem changes that.
Anthem provides stakers with a consistent, personalized dashboard that allows them to track, manage, and optimize how their staking assets are utilized across many different networks.
The rest of this post will walk you through the current functionality of Anthem:
When visiting Anthem for the first time, you will be presented with the landing page. Press get started or scroll to the login options. Here you have two options:
Sign in with Ledger: Use this option to automatically see information for your Ledger account. When connecting your Ledger device you can also transfer and stake assets, as well as (on Celo) participate in governance.
Sign in with Address: Use this option to track balance and staking data for addresses on any supported network.
This is the core piece of Anthem. Here you can see your portfolio development, past transactions, as well as your current balance.
Anthem visualizes historical data on your total portfolio including the ability to filter staked and available tokens, as well as the rewards that you accrued while staking. Anthem also allows you to export a CSV file that you can use for tax reporting or analytics.
There’s a variety of ways to customize settings in Anthem. You can choose different fiat currencies to use as a base currency, and you can change the language in which Anthem is displayed. We currently support Chinese, English, German, Korean, and Spanish. There’s even an evil dark mode! 🌙
We’re always looking for feedback, so please don’t hesitate to contact us through our website or hit us up on Telegram.
We are excited to announce that Chorus One is joining Chainlink as a node operator. Starting today, our Chainlink node will assist in providing highly available and reliable data feeds to the crypto ecosystem.
The Chainlink team is providing a core piece of infrastructure for blockchain applications by allowing them to handle off-chain data. On their own, blockchains are unable to verify “real world” data that is created outside their native network. This creates a conundrum, as many blockchain use cases need to stay informed about external events to trigger the execution of smart contracts. For example, financial contracts need market data, insurance contracts need IoT data, and gaming applications need provable randomness.
Not only do smart contracts need off-chain connection, but they need that connection to be as secure as the underlying blockchain. Hence, there needs to be a way for external data to be fed into blockchains in a secure and reliable manner. This is widely referred to as the oracle problem, and Chainlink is leading the effort in making integrating off-chain data, such as price feeds, simple, yet secure for decentralized applications.
Chainlink relies on node operators providing streams of data to the network from external sources. These Chainlink-powered decentralized oracle networks are live on the Ethereum mainnet with additional plans to become blockchain agnostic over time. At the moment node operators are vetted by the Chainlink team to maintain Sybil resistance in the early stages of the network. A staking incentive model is in the works that will allow LINK holders to stake their tokens with trustworthy node operators. This will help create a permissionless, decentralized network focused on reliably providing accurate data to be consumed by blockchain applications.
We have valuable experience in working with networks that rely on price oracles. The Terra stablecoin protocol allows anyone to exchange their stablecoins with the network’s native staking token Luna through an automated market maker. The Terra community has implemented an incentivized, stake-based oracle protocol in which validators provide price data on-chain in frequent time intervals. While this approach may be suitable for some large applications and networks; it appears that a general, customizable solution that works across blockchains and applications will be more scalable, reliable, and ultimately trustworthy, if designed with the proper incentives.
Following Chainlink’s progress over the last couple of months, it is our belief that the protocol has a good chance of becoming the standard for providing off-chain data to blockchain applications. Our thesis is further supported by the transition of several major decentralized finance projects on Ethereum to the Chainlink network instead of running their own oracle implementations. Examples include Aave and Synthetix, which made this decision after their early price reference feed was exploited by a trader.
We are excited to join the Chainlink community to help make blockchain adoption for real-world applications a reality. We will be supporting the network with our infrastructure and knowledge of staking systems and look forward to publishing further content around Chainlink and the planned staking implementation in the future.
Chorus One is building validation and staking infrastructure for Proof-of-Stake networks.
We will offer staking for Chainlink when it goes live. You will be able to support our work and earn staking rewards by delegating LINK to our node.
Website: https://chorus.one
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chorusone
Telegram: https://t.me/chorusone
Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network that enables smart contracts to securely access off-chain data feeds, web APIs, and traditional bank payments. Chainlink is consistently selected as one of the top blockchain technologies by leading independent research firms such as Gartner. It is well known for providing highly secure and reliable oracles to great companies like Google, Oracle, SWIFT, and many other large enterprises, as well as many of the world’s best smart contract projects/teams such as Web3/Polkadot, Synthetix, Loopring, Kaleido, OpenLaw, Reserve, and many more.
Learn more by visiting the Chainlink website, Twitter or Reddit. If you’re a developer, visit the developer documentation or join the technical discussion on Discord.
We’re in the midst of a cambrian explosion of decentralized protocols. From peer-to-peer payments to non-state forms of money to decentralized organizational structures, blockchains are redefining human collaboration in the 21st century. But those new networks can’t rely on the enforcement of rules in the old, slow, fuzzy and nation-bound court system. Instead, they are embracing economic incentives and particularly the usage of cryptoassets as collateral.
At the forefront of this is Proof-of-Stake, which replaces the expensive mining process by using cryptoassets as collateral for enforcing consensus rules. In the last year, networks like Cosmos and Tezos have pushed Proof-of-Stake into the crypto mainstream. Today, we have ahead of us a wave of blockchain networks all launching based on the same design insight. To operate this infrastructure, a new industry of node operators has emerged. We went from theoretical protocols and academic papers to live networks with billions of dollars at stake. And even large exchanges like Coinbase and Binance are entering the fray and have begun offering staking to their customers.
But while it is clear that the Proof-of-Stake paradigm is upon us, it’s still very unclear how it will play out. When Satoshi created Bitcoin, he didn’t seem to have anticipated ASICs nor mining pools. Similarly, in the infinitely richer design space of Proof-of-Stake, we don’t know what the end state will be and what preconditions will lead to resilient, decentralized networks capable of sustaining censorship-resistance at scale.
One clear demand that is emerging is the ability to re-use and transfer staked collateral. If a user can borrow a stablecoin like Maker’s DAI against their interest-earning staked ATOMs, clearly those gain in value and utility. Similarly, the ability to transfer and sell tokens without going through an unbonding period has substantial value.
The centralized exchanges that have entered staking will easily be able to provide that and much more in their walled gardens. But in Proof-of-Stake, control over private keys means control over the consensus process. So can these networks sustain healthy communities and robust decentralization if token holders are driven to surrender custody to unlock additional capabilities and returns?
In the past six months, many approaches have been explored to unlock innovation around staked assets directly on-chain. These efforts can be subsumed under the term “ liquid staking”. One example of these efforts was built by Chorus One together with Sikka, when we implemented Delegation Vouchers as part of the Cosmos-SDK hackathon in Berlin. Since then, various other teams have risen to the challenge and came up with their own designs. Some examples include Everett, Stafi Protocol, Stake Capital DAO, and Staker DAO.
Today, we are proud to announce that we received support from the Interchain Foundation to form a working group and to produce a research report focused on approaches to liquid staking. The goal is to take a holistic look at the design space, evaluate the different approaches with respect to clear criteria and understand their impact on network security and sustainability. We will focus on aspects such as:
We will map out different paths for the future of Proof-of-Stake and hope to create a shared vision for how to ensure open innovation, sustainability and decentralization for Proof-of-Stake networks.
We’re inviting protocol designers, validators, token holders, and anyone else interested in working on this topic to join the working group and contribute to this crucial research and discussion. The publication of the final report is planned to happen by the end of April.
A core feature of the working group will be our bi-weekly community calls. Our first community call, which will serve as an introduction to the project, will take place January 15th at 5pm CET. During this call, you will be able to find out more about our plans and learn how to contribute. Sign up here to for the calendar invite to this first working group call.
In the meantime, you can find the Liquid Staking Working Group on Telegram and Github ( https://github.com/ChorusOne/liquid-staking), where we already began to gather relevant material. We want to thank the Interchain Foundation for realizing the importance of this topic and hope that our research will help inform stakeholders and improve Proof-of-Stake protocol design.
Your Chorus One Team
About Chorus One
Chorus One is operating validation infrastructure and staking services for Proof-of-Stake networks.
Website: https://chorus.one
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chorusone
Telegram: https://t.me/chorusone
About Interchain Foundation
The ICF is a Swiss foundation funding and pushing the frontiers of blockchain-related infrastructure.
Website: https://interchain.io
Twitter: https://twitter.com/interchain_io
Originally published at https://blog.chorus.one on January 9, 2020.
