Highlights
- As mandated by the governance proposal we released rFOX support for FOX to WETH LP tokens on Jan 28 ahead of the rewards go live for February 1st. Happy staking!
Lowlights
- Woody has moved on from the engineering workstream and joined the team over at Venice.ai. We are grateful for his contributions to the team and wish him success in his new role.
- The launch of FOX wif Hat has been delayed due to concerns over timing with the ongoing turbulence with Thorchain. All engineering work is completed and we are awaiting the ability to launch this pending approval from Product and Marketing.
Last Month
In January the team completed work on and launched the ability to stake FOX <> WETH LP tokens on Arbitrium in order to receive Rune rewards based on the affiliate revenues from the DAO in accordance with SCP-186. This work included deploying a second set of smart contracts for the LP tokens, expanding the CLI-base accounting scripts to segregate the second staking pool, and updates to the in app UI to allow staking to and visualization of the new pool. The team also delivered all needed functionality for the FOX Wif Hat initiative. Smart contracts were developed to generate the new token and allow claiming using a merkle proof. The merkle tree was generated and uploaded to IPFS from the csv provided by marketing. The UI was updated to allow users to easily claim their tokens, benefit from trade discounts, and view an explanatory overview of the decaying discount structure.
A significant amount of time was also spent investigating the Base blockchain stability issues with Blockbook ahead of a potential Fox Wif Hat release. After several different attempts adding additional logic to reduce the number of RPC calls to the underlying node(s) smoothed out the issues and we have noticed drastic improvements since these changes have been made. Similarly, we worked with NowNodes to resolve their issues with the Avalanche blockbook instances and were able to restore functionality to all avalanche users.
In the swapper we rolled out a number of improvements and new features as well. Base blockchain support was added for Thorchain and ChainFlip DCA (Dollar Cost Averaging) support was released. A countdown timer was introduced to display the estimated time to completion after signing a swap, improving transparency for users. The swapper interface can now also be prepopulated via URL encoded parameters, making it easier for marketing efforts and user-generated trades to be shared. Additionally, the Limit Order workflow was updated to leverage the latest swapper trade components, and the default setting for approvals was changed to unlimited to prevent execution failures due to insufficient token approvals. A new fee and savings summary was also introduced into the trade flow to educate users on the benefits of holding FOX
The wallet connection user experience was refined to reduce clutter as the number of supported wallets continues to grow and Shapeshift native wallet users now have access to all of the Solana based functionality in the app as well. The deprecated Zapper REST API was removed, with all related DeFi queries now routed through Portals. As Thorchain navigates defaulting and bankruptcy restructuring, new user warnings were implemented to explain the state of affected DeFi products. Granular flags were introduced to provide more precise control, allowing deposits to be toggled off while still enabling users to view their positions.
The team also focused on fixing bugs and making small improvements across the platform. The swapper countdown timer was improved to gracefully handle long-running bridges that take multiple days. Various edge cases in Limit Orders were addressed, resolving errors that could arise under specific conditions. A bug causing the sell amount to temporarily display as NaN due to division by zero was fixed. Error messages for failed attempts to switch active chains in connected wallets were improved to provide clearer guidance to users. Additionally, transaction signing issues when using WalletConnect were resolved. Global search functionality was refined to prioritize assets by market cap and user balance, making it easier for users to find relevant tokens by deprioritizing spam tokens. Custom token import support for Solana was added. The platform’s asset selector now utilizes better heuristics to determine which assets to display. Finally, excessive network fee fetching after the initial trade execution steps were eliminated, reducing unnecessary API calls and improving efficiency.
This Month
In February, the team will focus on developing a new application to support “memo-less” Chainflip based swaps that can support users swapping from literally any wallet that supports basic sends. Additionally, the Product and Engineering workstreams are working closely on going a level deeper into polishing existing user flows, de-prioritizing experiences in the app that are affected by the deprecation of Thorfi, and considering simplifications to both in app UX and therefore the required code to support it. Our intention is to reduce the maintenance burden of features that aren’t well loved by users, freeing additional resources for future work that may include the introduction of ai-agent based workflows.