The April 11th Ecosystem Call, hosted by advisor Michael Mouradian, explored Raindex and Hypernative’s advancements in DeFi security and innovation.
We also gained valuable updates from the Flare team. CEO Hugo Philion, DeFi Analyst Dhruv Shah, and Senior Developer Luka Avbreht joined the call to discuss the Flare Time Series Oracle upgrade (FTSOv2).
Introducing Raindex
Josh Hardy introduced Raindex, an intents-like DEX that allows users to implement customized trading strategies like stop-loss and copy-trading in a decentralized manner.
By “intents-like”, Josh explains: ‘So intents are a new way of thinking about user transactions. Traditionally, swapping tokens involves navigating platforms like Uniswap or Enosys on Flare, finding the right pool with the desired tokens, waiting for a favorable price, and then manually executing the trade.
With Raindex’s intent model, users simply specify their goal: “I want to swap this token for this other token, at least at this price.” Raindex then automates the process, finding the best execution to fulfill the user’s intent.’
Under the hood, Raindex facilitates this trade by acting as a matching venue for buyer and seller intents. This frees users from manual order placement and constant market monitoring.
The Raindex app utilizes the intuitive Rainlang smart contract language, giving anyone the ability to design, write, deploy and manage customized token trading strategies, while leveraging Flare’s native decentralized price oracle, the FTSO, for reliable and secure asset price triggers.
So how easy is it to set up a trade in Raindex?
While Raindex offers the power to design complex trading strategies with its Rainlang smart contract language, getting started is surprisingly accessible. Josh Hardy from Raindex uses an analogy: “We believe if you can build a spreadsheet formula, you can learn Rainlang.”
Even without coding experience, users can leverage pre-built strategies available in the Rainlang.xyz documentation. These strategies utilize Flare’s FTSO price oracle and can be easily customized with just a few parameter adjustments.
To put your skills to the test, Raindex will be hosting a trading competition kicking off in late April (exact date TBA) with a total prize pool of $12,000. There will be a first prize for the best overall strategy, alongside other categories including best use of the FTSO. Join their Telegram to learn more.
Hypernative: Proactive security for DeFi
Flare recently onboarded Hypernative, a leader in proactive institutional-grade web3 security. Hypernative’s unique architecture provides “always-on” monitoring across various activities, including on-chain, governance, financial, and security aspects. This allows for preemptive detection of many risks and attacks before they cause damage, giving clients time to take action and mitigate losses.
Misconceptions about web3 Security
Hypernative identified several common misconceptions regarding web3 security:
- Security audits Are enough: Many believe a single security audit provides sufficient protection. However, audits often miss emerging attack vectors and can’t cover all code at once.
- Hacks happen in a single transaction: In reality, attackers often prepare for hacks with multiple transactions before stealing the bulk of funds.
- Lost funds are irrecoverable: Contrary to this belief, Hypernative has successfully helped projects recover stolen funds in some cases.
Hypernative leverages advanced machine learning and graph heuristics to detect attackers before they strike. They identify early warning signs of malicious activity, both on and off-chain. This allows for preventative measures to be taken, potentially stopping attacks before they occur.
Here are some key takeaways for protocols to consider when choosing a security monitor:
- Proactive approach: Think about potential risks and desired actions (automatic or manual) before an incident occurs.
- Coverage: Evaluate the breadth of the monitoring solution and the specific risks it addresses.
- Accuracy: Understand the methods used by the security monitor and its effectiveness in detecting threats.
Through this collaboration. Projects building on Flare gain access to Hypernative’s monitoring and prevention capabilities. This includes receiving alerts, identifying necessary actions, and getting assistance from Hypernative in the event of an attack. For more information or to get started with Hypernative, reach out to them on X at @HypernativeLab.
Why is consensus learning exciting?
The promise of consensus learning lies in its ability to address the limitations of traditional machine learning models. As Hugo pointed out, traditional models often suffer from shortcomings like insufficient data or bias.
Consensus learning offers a solution by enabling collaborative AI on the blockchain. Here’s the exciting part: participants can keep their data and models private while still working together to achieve demonstrably better results than any single model could achieve alone. Consensus learning has the potential to improve the accuracy and robustness of AI models significantly.
Hugo added, “AI with blockchain is possibly as big, if not ten times bigger than DeFi.” Want to hear more insight about AI? Hugo will be doing a keynote on “The Value of Decentralizing AI” at Token 2049. Learn more.
Flare Time Series Oracle (FTSOv2): Scaling and Fast Updates
FTSOv2 is a significant upgrade for Flare. Here’s a breakdown of the key points discussed in the call:
What are the big changes with v2?
Massive scaling: FTSOv1 supports 18 token pairs. FTSOv2 can handle up to 1,000 with a Merkle tree approach that reduces blockchain data storage. This reduces gas costs and allows for many more price feeds.
Fast updates: FTSOv2 offers significantly faster price updates happening every 90 seconds compared to the previous version. Additionally, FTSOv2 offers on-demand even faster updates, providing near real-time data for chosen assets every block (1-2 seconds).
How does the FTSOv2 handle scaling to 1,000 data feeds?
FTSOv1 posted all prices directly on-chain, reducing scalability. FTSOv2 posts the Merkle tree hash. This allows efficient verification of posted prices without storing all the data on-chain.
What kinds of data feeds can the FTSOv2 add?
The initial focus will be on expanding cryptocurrency pairs, fiat money (e.g. British Pound, Japanese Yen) and commodities (e.g. gold, platinum).
The long-term vision includes exploring data feeds beyond prices, including real-world data such as weather.
What distinguishes the FTSO from other oracles?
Customization: “We can essentially help you find what price feeds you want, integrate it into the FTSO and provide it to your protocol.” This stands in stark contrast to some existing oracles where you’re limited to predefined data feeds.
Decentralization: “Some centralized oracles could single-handedly bring down an ecosystem… It’s just straightforwardly dangerous.” By enshrining the FTSO onto the Flare blockchain, the FTSO inherits the network’s decentralization and security, eliminating a single point of failure and contributing to a more robust and secure DeFi landscape.
What next for the FTSO?
Fast Track Updates Vote: A governance vote is coming for Fast Updates.
Implementation of FTSO Scaling is already underway.
Exploration into relaying FTSO price feeds to other networks and implementing a charging model to generate revenue for FTSO infrastructure providers and delegators.