Ecosystem Update - March 2024
Alex Stoicescu
Apr 17, 2024
4 min.
Greetings, Request Network community!
Welcome to the Request Network ecosystem update for March 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
Documentation for new Chain Deployments
We updated our documentation in March to reflect the newest deployments: Base, zkSync Era, Core, and Sepolia. You can find out more here.
Rolled out new Gateway URLs
We updated our gateway URLs to ensure the latest changes are more visible to everyone.
New: https://gnosis.gateway.request.network ✔️
Old: https://xdai.gateway.request.network ⛔
Read more about our node gateways here.
Rolled out new infrastructure
We simplified the infrastructure used to host the Request Node Gateways. In doing so, we reduced operational maintenance and costs. We implemented an improved monitoring system to alert us when production services become unavailable or errors occur.
Released new RN SDK & Request Node Image versions
Request Network SDK 0.46.0: https://github.com/RequestNetwork/requestNetwork/releases/tag/0.46.0
Noteworthy changes:
Support payment detection on Base, zkSync Era, Core, & Sepolia
Improved the way payment network types are handled
Removed old dependencies like ipfs-unixfs and lodash
Added support for native USDC on L2s while maintaining support for USDCe (Bridged)
Added support for Sepolia USDC
Fixed subgraph default block filter for TheGraph decentralized network
Fixed isSolvent util
Request Node Image 0.33.0 https://hub.docker.com/layers/requestnetwork/request-node/0.33.0/images/sha256-b7b5b7dccbb7fb47c6f860dc4110ad90e9f58429548e2c805ccda09239d237c3?context=explore
Highlights from March
New grant recipient
Congratulations to intrXn for securing a $60k grant from the Request Network Foundation 👏
intrXn is a decentralized invoicing application with integrated subscription payments and e-commerce capabilities. Our integration allows intrXn to securely create and store invoices in a decentralized and immutable manner while paving the way for other use cases, such as accounting, lending, and RWA (real-world assets). On the other hand, intrXn will become a new data source in our ecosystem, incentivizing other builders to read and use this data for their products.
Follow intrXn on X, Linkedin and Youtube.
ETHBucharest
The first-ever ETH-focused conference & hackathon in Romania took place last month, and we’re thrilled to be part of the initial supporters ✨ As sponsors of the whole event, we had a booth on the booth floor and a bounty worth 4000€ for the hackathon participants. There was lots of activity at the booth, with Alex Stoicescu and Francisco Pinto collecting over 50 high-quality leads!
Moreover, we also had a couple of thought-leadership opportunities, such as a main stage panel focused on new web3 user onboarding or side-event panels.
As for the hackathon, Request Network offered a bounty to whichever team managed to build the best implementation of our infrastructure. Find out which projects won from this thread.
ETHSeoul & BUIDL Asia
Around the same time as ETH Bucharest, two other ETH-focused events took place in Seoul, South Korea: ETH Seoul and BUIDL Asia. We were lucky enough to have Alex Popescu on the ground to represent Request Network at both of these events, and he’s made over 20 great contacts he’s already followed up with!
Backdrop program final
The latest Backdrop program ended with the following results: 1300 builders from 88 countries, 24 projects that chose Request Network as a potential integration, and 15 other projects that developed a financial service or product. We contacted everyone interested in building using our infrastructure and the other 15 projects to offer our support. Results are to be seen in the next couple of months, but all in all, a very good opportunity to expand our ecosystem.
New hires
Last but definitely not least, the Request Network team has almost doubled in size in the past month! Let’s give a warm welcome to our most recent hires:
Mariana Rodrigues, as a business developer, has an engineering background that will facilitate new opportunities and relationships as well as the overall growth of the protocol. Follow her on X and Linkedin.
As senior full-stack developers, Aimen Sahnoun and Stefan Stefanović will help build interesting proofs-of-concept, improvements for the protocol, and developer resources to make onboarding easier. Here are their socials:
Protocol usage in March
Request Network transactions (i.e., creation, approvals, and/or rejections of invoices) are illustrated in the above visual.
March 2024 is yet another record-breaking month, with transactions reaching 13,677! The number of individual transactions was 19,343. The February projections indicated that we should have passed 20,000 individual transactions in March, but an increasing number of batched transactions prevented us from establishing another record. We are, however, looking forward to April!
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.
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!
Website | Blog | Twitter | Linkedin | Discord | Github
