Findora’s 2022 Recap

Year in review

Year-End Summary

2022 was a tough year for the economy as a whole, including Web3. It saw the implosion of crypto companies like FTX, Celsius, and Terra/Luna, along with multiple bridge hacks. The year was a long, difficult road for Web3.


But like many other Web3 projects, Findora kept heads-down building.


Findora is set up for a year of explosive growth, especially as public attention turns toward zk technology. New leaders and executives are paving the way for partnerships. The validator community has taken off, and over 1 billion $FRA tokens have been staked.


Despite its challenges, 2022 was full of accomplishments and lessons for much of the cryptoverse. Looking back, the industry also catches a glimpse of where it needs to head moving forward – a greater focus on decentralization and transparency, the need for zk and confidentiality as well as permissioned auditability. Thanks to its engineering progress, Findora is poised to capitalize on these macro-trends.


At the end of this year, we thought we’d look back on the major accomplishments Findora achieved in 2022 across engineering, community, ecosystem developments and contributor growth.


Engineering Progress

Findora's First Improvement Proposals

FIP-2 and FIP-3 were both proposed in 2022, proposing important new features and abilities. .

FIP-2: Confidential On-Chain Assets

FIP-2 proposed auditable assets for token issuers that remained protected on-chain. A CEX or stablecoin issuer would be able to issue assets whose movements would not be publicly visible on-chain but whose movements can be audited by the token issuer. This would help token issuers like Circle, Maker DAO, and Tether comply with regulations while protecting user data and complying with user protection laws. 


Read More > 

FIP-3: Decentralized ID

FIP-3 proposed a system for Decentralized ID (DID) using Findora zero-knowledge proofs. The system would help give ownership of data to users and allow them to selectively reveal their personal information to third parties, protected by zero-knowledge proofs. 


For example, a user could prove the range of their credit score to a lending dApp like Forlend or Compound for a more favorable rate without sharing their exact score.


Read More > 


Holding FRA tokens and want to stake?

Use the Findora Wallet and follow our staking guide on docs.findora.org.


The EVM Layer Extends Findora's Reach

At the beginning of 2022, Findora’s EVM layer and Prism Transfer had just launched, becoming the first dual-chain network in Web3. The EVM layer allows Findora to extend zk functions to other ecosystems, and in 2022 it capitalized on the development.


The Rialto Bridge connects Findora to Ethereum and BNB Chain, Findora works with Ledger Wallet and MetaMask, and the first ecosystem dApps were launched through it. Discreet Labs is working to increase its efficiency before more dApps a deployed on it through the Grants Program.


v0.3.35 Deployed to Mainnet

To increase the efficiency and decentralization of the EVM, Discreet Labs worked with the community to deploy v0.3.35 to mainnet in December. The most significant upgrade of the year, v0.3.35 raised the number of validators participating in consensus (and earning rewards) to 100 and increased the TPS. 


The upgrade also prepares the network for features like EVM staking and zkNFTs.

Read More >


Developer Tools Arrive

Findora integrated multiple developer tools in 2022 including the Defungify toolkit and deploying a Graph Protocol Node.

Findora Network now hosts a Graph node. Graph nodes make it easy to index and query blockchain data, an essential tool for developers building dApps. It is part of Discreet Labs’ commitment to making it easy to build selective transparency through Findora.

Added in September, the Defungify toolkit makes it easy for Web3 game developers to deploy their projects to multiple chains. Its easy-to-use toolkit includes functions like NFT minting, a game launcher, testnet support, finding NFT metadata, and other handy features.

An initial zk SDK was also launched that will provide a way for solidity developers to easily to add zk functions and confidentiality using simple API calls without the need to deploy on the UTXO native chain.


Team Updates

In 2022, Discreet Labs added some very talented executives whose experience will prove critical for Findora.

Sam Harrison — VP of Growth


Sam Harrison has joined Discreet Labs as the VP of Growth, and will soon launch the new Findora Podcast. Sam combines a legal background with over 10 years of experience in marketing and strategic business development. You have probably seen his monthly recap videos for Findora; stay tuned for more high-value content from Sam!


Peter Abilla — Chief Business Officer

Peter comes with years of Web3 experience building relationships and strategic partnerships. Working at Amazon in the early 2000s, he had a hand in developing services like fulfillment by Amazon, Prime, and Marketplaces. He also worked as a director of operations at Ancestory.com and eBay. He brings an intuitive sense of community and ecosystem needs, and a strong vision for the growth of the Findora project.


Daniel Pagan — Head of Community and Communications


Daniel is a communications professional and will be helping to streamline messaging and community growth. In a short time, he helped grow a now-thriving validator community on Findora and worked to increase Findora’s social media reach. You can listen to Daniel’s Welcome AMA where he discusses zk, his work history, and tips for starting a career in Web3.

Dr. Weikeng Chen – Chief Scientist


Dr. Weikeng Chen has also joined Discreet Labs as Chief Scientist, where he will be leading cryptography research and development. Weikeng recently completed his Ph.D. at U.C. Berkeley’s world-renowned Security & Applied Cryptography Group, where he focused his research on systems and applications of ZKPs and multi-party computation (MPC) with an emphasis on efficient implementations.

Giv Parvaneh — VP of Developer Relations at Discreet Labs

Giv has worked as a CTO and founder with experience successfully growing ecosystems. A former leader in Harmony’s developer growth, he aims to establish Findora as one of the most developer-friendly platforms in the Web3 space. He brings over 20 years of experience as a Software Engineer, Technical Architect, and team leader.


Ecosystem and Community

FRA Now Listed on Three Major Exchanges

Thanks to the Findora Foundation’s efforts, FRA is more available than ever and has been listed on three major exchanges: Kucoin, BitMart, and Gate.io.

Get FRA

On Gate, users have the option to purchase UTXO FRA, but on Kucoin and BitMart, at the time of this writing, only EVM FRA is available. Be careful to use the correct network when sending FRA as sending EVM FRA to a ‘fra…’ address or sending UTXO FRA to a ‘0x…’ address can result in the loss of your FRA. 

In other words, when buying FRA from Kucoin or BitMart, be sure to send it to your MetMask address. Use Prism Transfer in the Findora Wallet to transfer FRA to the UTXO side for staking and confidential transfers.


A Flourishing Validator Community Sprouts on Findora

In the last year, Findora has attracted an active validator community that has put together some amazing tools. Patrick from Easy Node has put together an amazing validator toolkit, and David from the Fortune Validator created a powerful tracking bot.

EasyNode’s validator toolkit offers validators a guide to adding an existing Findora node, migrating to a new server, and a quick start guide for power users. He also helped the team put together a Validator Guide for beginners, which can help you spin up a brand new node. You can find Findora validator support communities on our Discord.

David from Fortune Validator created has created a telegram bot called vStatsFindora that has proved essential for many validators. It can alert you, in real-time, when your node is offline, give you a validator summary, list your delegators, and more. To start using the vStatsFindoraBot by messaging it on Telegram.


Thanks to a strong and growing validator community, Findora was able to reach its milestone of over 1 billion FRA staked on the network in the first year:


Key Partnerships Formed

Findora formed key partnerships through business development efforts and Web3 events. Some new partnerships include OmniX, San Sound, and Bitkeep Wallet.

San Sound is a music-centric ecosystem featuring a Listen-to-Earn model. Fans can listen to music, earn governance, and promote artists they enjoy. SAN plans to use Findora’s zero-knowledge platform to guarantee user information will be secure and protected on-chain.

OmniX is creating a new omni-chain NFT protocol, and by partnering with Findora, can create the first confidential and interoperable network for NFTs. As NFTs take on more and more use cases, a robust, next-generation infrastructure becomes more and more important.


Events

Findora had a presence at many significant events this year including Crypto Bahamas, SBC 2022 and many others. Here are some the events at which Findora had the most presence:

EthDenver

From February 11-21, Discreet Labs was in Denver to unofficially kickstart the conference season for 2022. It was clear that zero-knowledge proofs and on-chain protections were top of mind for many people and would continue to be so at other events.

Consensus 2022

Findora was also a core sponsor of Consensus 2022 in Austin. At the event, Findora hosted an exclusive ZK BBQ that allowed projects to talk to Discreet Labs engineers about integrating Findora’s selective confidentiality.

NFT NYC

Findora held another ZK event at NFT NYC that allowed for more partnership opportunities. Discreet Labs CEO Warren Paul Anderson also gave a talk at the conference about the importance of zk.

EthCC

At EthCC in Paris, Findora hosted a hackathon scavenger hunt! Hackers got the chance to build for Findora from cafes around Paris and were challenged to explore and enjoy their surroundings a little.


What's in Store for 2023

We might not know what 2023 has in store for everyone but one thing is certain – Findora will be focused on building and ecosystem growth.

The Grants Program is set to relaunch with a target of attracting over 20 high-value dApps by year’s end. Technology breakthroughs will allow Findora to to keep the source and destination address in a transaction confidential on-chain. Findora will refine its zkSDK, allowing Web3 developers to integrate confidentiality into their project, and increase its presence at Web3 conferences to attract more partnerships. 

All of this combined with increasing interest in Web3 toward ZK-projects will further raise the project's profile even further!

Be sure to sign up for Findora’s newsletter and follow us on your favorite social media channel to see the growth yourself. 


We're Hiring!

Findora is always looking for top-notch talent, whether developers, engineers, community managers, or marketers. Please, if you're interested in Findora or think you'd be a good fit, see what's available, or reach out via Twitter DM to start a discussion!