Ecosystem Update - June 2024
Alex Stoicescu
Jul 24, 2024
4 min.
Greetings, Request Network community!
Welcome to the Request Network ecosystem update for June 2024.
The Ecosystem Update focuses on protocol usage and our vision to build an ecosystem of decentralized apps for payment requests. Here, you will find our ecosystem updates, major news and announcements, and anything else that interests the community.
The current ecosystem built around the Request Network protocol includes the following builders: Huma Finance (lending and borrowing), Joba Network and TalentLayer (future-of-work platforms), BSOS (supply chain financing), Copra Finance (lending and borrowing), FLock (machine-learning credit scoring), intrXn (payments and invoicing) and Request Finance (invoicing and payroll). If you’re interested in what we are building together with the previously mentioned companies and want to share your vision with us, don’t hesitate to apply to our grants program.
Tech update
Upgrade to the latest SDK packages
We recommend that all app builders upgrade to the latest Request Network SDK packages - version 0.48.0 as of this writing. This will allow you to continue creating requests and detecting payments without specifying custom (paid) Payment Subgraph URLs
In June, The Graph Hosted Service ceased operations. RN SDK versions before 0.48.0 used Payment Subgraph URLs hosted by The Graph Hosted Service by default. The latest Request Network SDK version uses a combination of Payment Subgraph URLs hosted by Alchemy and Subgraph Studio.
Deployed ERC20TransferableReceivable on Sepolia
We deployed the ERC20TransferableReceivable contract on Sepolia. However, Payment Subgraph support has not been deployed so payment detection doesn’t work yet. It will be deployed and fully operational soon.
Request Invoicing (Invoicing Template) changes
Renamed “Request Payment” (Invoicing Template) to “Request Invoicing”. Fixed several bugs:
Allow Issued Date and Due Date in the past
Improve responsiveness for all components on smaller screen sizes
Refresh the dashboard when switching accounts
Fixed a bug where the Invoice Dashboard loading skeleton would appear below the table
Migrate from Currency Map to CurrencyManager
Make dropdowns close on any outside click
Updated README to better describe the deployment process and required environment variables
Meta Payment Network
In June, Request Finance contributed the new “Meta” payment network, which allows a single request to specify multiple “sub” payment networks. Before this change, a given request could only specify one payment network, including one currency and one chain. After this change, a given request can specify multiple payment types, currencies, and chains in which it can be paid. For example, a single request could be denominated in USD but paid in USDC or USDT on Ethereum, Polygon, Optimism, or Arbitrum. This greatly increases the flexibility for invoice issuers and can lead to getting paid sooner by accepting multiple currencies across multiple chains.
Create Requests in React Native
In June, the tech team built a Proof of Concept that successfully created a request in an Expo (React Native) app.
New email address for security issues
We created a new email address for any Request Network-related security issues, ranging from smart contracts to frontend exploits. At least for the moment, there are no bounties associated with this. Anyone who’s found a potential security issue is more than welcome to email us at security@request.network.
Highlights from June
Request Network Summer Hackathon
The first online hackathon for which we were the main sponsor took place in June. It was hosted on the amazing platform built by our friends from DoraHacks. Over the course of two weeks, more than 140 hackers created 33 projects using our infrastructure. You can check out all the projects here.
To help hackers better understand what Request Network is and how they can use our infrastructure, we hosted a couple of online events, which are now available for anyone’s viewing pleasure:
Beginner-friendly workshop
Advanced features workshop
Another first is the number of tracks we invited hackers to compete in. Unlike previous hackathons, which took place over 2 days during various conferences or dedicated Web3 events, the Request Network Summer Hackathon lasted for 2 weeks, allowing us and the hackers to explore new use cases. These are the four tracks and the associated winning projects:
Build an invoicing app - $7500 prize pool
The winners of this track are PiperPay, ChainPay, and WaveIn.
Build a payments app - $2500 prize pool
No winning projects under this track, unfortunately, since the submissions were invalid.
Build an accounting app - $2500 prize pool
The winner of this track is Request-Accounting.
Build a lending app - $2500 prize pool
The winners of this track are Invoice Lending and Invisy.
Last but not least, we’re very happy that during this hackathon, hackers started building with more advanced payment types, such as Conversion, Swap-to-Pay, Transferable Receipt, and streaming payments. Looking forward to the next hackathons in Q3 and Q4 2024 👀
Vision & Values blog post
The Request Network brand has gone through a rejuvenation process in 2023. One of the most important things we discussed during our management meetings was the vision (and associated values) of the company. What is the problem our organization is addressing? Who is affected by this problem? What do we hope to achieve in 5 years? What about in 10 years? What changes must we make to help Request Network achieve its goals? These are just a few of the questions we had to ask ourselves before agreeing as a team to a shared vision and a set of values. Find out more from our dedicated blog post.
Discord game night
It’s no surprise that Request Network is working to attract more developers and founders to the current community, and you’re probably thinking of webinars, coding challenges, and technical workshops. Let’s not forget that Discord started out as a tool for the gaming community 🕹️ In the past months, we hosted a couple of trivia quiz nights on our Discord server, but this was the first time we’d done a gaming night, with Stumble Guys taking the front row. It was a lot of casual, fair fun, and we can’t wait to do it again! These events get announced in advance on the Request Network Discord server, so make sure to join and check your notifications 🔴 from time to time. Perhaps we’ll do a classic Counterstrike Dust or Inferno game next time 👀
REQ token burn
We performed a token burn worth $1,566.53, with 14,315 REQ tokens sent to the burn address.
This brings the total number of tokens burned to 374,488, according to the community-run dashboard.
Protocol usage in June
The above visual illustrates Request Network transactions (e.g., invoice creation, approval, and/or rejection).
Unfortunately, we’re unable to gather the total number of requests created in June due to an incident that is preventing the Request Network IPFS nodes from sharing files with each other. We haven’t determined a root cause yet, but we’re actively investigating. We’re suspicious of the Network Address Translation (NAT) routing between IPFS nodes hosted in GCP. Thus far, there is no evidence indicating data loss and it is believed that all IPFS files are stored. Based on the June batched transaction count and the previous month’s metrics, we estimate that there were 20895 individual transactions in June.
Note: a batched transaction can contain multiple individual transactions (such as in the case of a company’s payroll process). The token burn occurs once per batch transaction.
ABOUT REQUEST NETWORK
The Request Network Foundation’s mission is to re-invent accounting and finance by creating a decentralized network of interoperable apps that promotes transparency and real-time reporting.
We inspire and educate developers, partners, and authorities to use Request Network and build an open-source, seamless, and interoperable financial ecosystem.
We’re building a network that connects businesses worldwide, giving them ways to do business at the speed of the internet.
Be a part of tomorrow’s financial revolution.
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