TL; DR
- 📣 $100MM Ecosystem Fund
- 👷 $50k Gitcoin Hackathon 🍂Falling for DeFi on Findora 💟
- 🥩 Staking on Mainnet X Stage 2 Frontier Campaign still open for registration
- đź§Ş EVM live on Forge Testnet
- 📺 Findora in Decrypt, Cointelegraph, Coindesk, & multiple podcasts 🎙
- 🧑‍🌾 The Discreet Labs team continues to grow
- đź‘€ & more!
📣 $100MM Ecosystem Fund
One of three big announcements on October 27th, the Findora Foundation announced a $100,000,000 Ecosystem Fund (read about it in Decrypt and Coindesk), committing up to 20% of FRA total supply as part of a multi-year community-led commitment to support Findora ecosystem research, development, infrastructure, and liquidity projects building upon Findora’s privacy-preserving technology.
To qualify for grant funding:
- Projects must build a protocol or DApp directly on the Findora blockchain
- Projects must impact the Findora ecosystem in a meaningful way
- Projects should utilize Findora’s privacy technology such as zero-knowledge proofs
Read all about it here.
đź‘· Hackathon
Findora Virtual Hackathon on Gitcoin
The first-ever hackathon on the Findora blockchain officially kicked off on October 29th and will run for five weeks, concluding with a demo day on December 09th.
Titled “🍂 Falling for DeFi on Findora 💟,” the hackathon is hosted virtually on the Gitcoin platform, focusing on DeFi and EVM compatibility on Findora’s Anvil Testnet. Interested participants can still register.
There are three tracks to choose from:
- Liquidity Track
- Tools Track
- Cryptography Track
All 🍂 Falling for DeFi on Findora 💟 can be found here. Still have questions? The Findora Discord is the place for all hackathon discussions.
📢 Protocol Updates & Releases
Staking Now Live on Mainnet Beta & Stage 2 Frontier Campaign on Anvil
After three-plus months of adversarial and stability testing on Findora Anvil Testnet, staking and delegation is now live on Findora Mainnet Beta through the release of Findora v0.2.0.
Validators on Findora Mainnet Beta can contribute to consensus, participate in future governance, and act as stewards of the organic evolution of the Findora public network. Validators also earn rewards for their efforts.
FRA token holders can also choose to delegate their stake directly to other validators to support the public network without technically running a validator. Delegators can download the Findora desktop wallet to stake their FRA tokens directly.
Staking Stage 2 Frontier Campaign
To help validators and delegators better understand Findora’s staking model and rewards mechanism, the second stage of Frontier Campaign was launched with 1,000,000 FRA rewards, not only for validators to spin up a node server but also for delegators. There are also bug & blog bounties for all the creatives and enthusiasts in the community.
Stage 2 Frontier Campaign is still open for registration, if you are interested in running a node or delegating on the mainnet, you are strongly recommended to register and learn about the process on Anvil testnet first.
Findora EVM on Forge Testnet
Deployed on Findora Devnet at the end of September, Findora EVM now makes the move to Findora ForgeTestnet. But not before becoming a major hit with the Findora community of developers first: devs in the Findora community have prototyped quite a few demo projects including Uniswap v2, CryptoKitties and Loot by simply changing the rpc endpoints. Huge shoutout to the endeavor and talent of this community for expanding Ethereum DeFi and metaverse to the Findora blockchain while providing great user experience leveraging Findora’s fast finality and low gas fee
With so many different blockchain projects for developers to build upon, Findora stands out as having a purpose rooted in the spirit of the original cypherpunks to promote programmable privacy using advanced cryptography.
📺 Media and Events
Always getting the word out about Findora, and there was no shortage of appearances in October.
 — — — — —
Findora x Cointelegraph
“The crypto industry royally screwed up privacy
Sadly, there are several reasons why the blockchain community has fallen short in making privacy a tier-one priority, and that must be changed.”
Discreet Labs’ VP of Product, Warren Paul Anderson penned this widely-read and widely-shared article on how the crypto industry made one glaring omission since Satoshi’s original whitepaper.
 — — — — —
Crypto Current Podcast, Episode 218
Warren joined host Richard Carthon for a broad discussion on Findora and programmable privacy.
 — — — — —
BeondTV: Using Technology To Protect Your Privacy On The Blockchain
Warren tells Lauren Sivan about what programmable privacy and digital identity really means. He explains there is a fallacy in the world of blockchain that what you do is anonymous. Spoiler alert: it’s not anonymous.
🧑‍🌾 Ecosystem Contributors
Discreet Labs continued its recent growth with the addition of Ching-Hua Kuo, Head of Ecosystems Engineering and Lead Solidity Developer. He will be leading the Solidity development engineering efforts
He has exentive experience leading EVM and Solidity development teams on forking and building various Dapps (most recently leading development on the Thundercore blockchain) — like Automated Marketing Makers (AMMs), lending protocols, and also stablecoin swaps.
We’re excited to have him on the team!
 🙌 Discreet Labs and Findora Foundation are Hiring!
Findora Foundation and Findora ecosystem developers, including Discreet Labs, are hiring now for many positions available in areas such as Engineering, Community, and Marketing.
🔮 Looking Ahead
Discreet Labs continues making the rounds on the blockchain circuit, talking all things programmable privacy and, of course, Findora. Keep your eyes peeled on Twitter and wherever you get your Findora news for links to all these conversations and videos!
About Findora
Findora is a public blockchain with programmable privacy and full EVM compatibility. Originally conceptualized as a university cryptography research project in 2017, and finally launched to the public in 2021, Findora utilizes the latest breakthroughs in zero-knowledge proofs and multi-party computation, to allow users transactional privacy with selective auditability. For more information, please visit findora.org.
Social Media and Channels
Discord | Twitter | LinkedIn | Website | Medium
Resources
Whitepaper | Github | Newsletter | Testnet
Mainnet