Request Ecosystem Update March 2023

Greetings, Request Network community!

Welcome to the Request Network ecosystem update for March 2023.

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, network usage, and community events.

Request Finance is the first successful application built on the Request Network protocol to generate, track and pay invoices, serving more than 2,000 companies, DAOs, freelancers, and web3 native projects such as The Sandbox, Aave, and The Graph.

Are you interested in integrating our application? Take a look at Request Finance in numbers, a monthly update that focuses on reviewing the Request Finance application’s usage metrics, an example being the cumulative value of crypto payments made through the app.

Ecosystem Update

Tech Update: Stability Improvements

This past month, we merged and deployed a couple of stability fixes that allow any Request Node and the Request Create dapp to handle a larger number of simultaneous users.

Some quick context: A Request Node is used to persist payment requests. It does this by using a combination of decentralized off-chain storage and on-chain smart contracts. The Request Network Foundation runs a few public Request Node gateways that we offer to our builders for test purposes. The Request Node gateways are what the Request Create dapp uses to persist new payment requests.

There was a spike in usage of the Request Create app and our Request Gateways during ETHDenver 2023, likely caused by Huma Finance’s MVP launch. This spike revealed two issues that we have since fixed:

1️⃣ The Request Gateway would fail to persist new requests any time a chain reorg occurred. This was fixed by increasing the number of block confirmations required before confirming that a request persisted.

2️⃣ The Request Create dapp would effectively DoS attack the gateway when under heavy load. This was fixed by adding an exponential back-off policy when polling the gateway for confirmation. Thank you to Huma Finance for submitting the pull request!

ETH Porto

The past month Request Network had the pleasure of participating at ETH Porto 2023. From the 16th to the 18th of March, Francisco and Umar met with partners, organizers, builders, and hackers.

People showed a lot of interest in the newly acquired capabilities of the network to provide invoice factoring services through our builders. Moreover, we reinforced ourselves as the decentralized network where builders can create interconnected financial services in the web3 space.

All in all, ETH Porto 2023 was great from multiple points of view, so a round of applause for the smooth organization of the event is in order 👏

Major News and Announcements

New Communications & Community Manager

There is a new addition to the Request Network team as Alexandru Stoicescu joins the company in the role of Communications and Community Manager. His main focus is to act as the bridge between the core Request Network team and the community around the protocol.

Alex has previous work experience in the payments and entertainment industries, having contributed to the success of one of the largest Ubisoft development studios in the world.

He is passionate about anything tech, games and gamification processes, science-fiction books (his favorite series is the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons), and labradors.

You can expect (a lot) more details in an upcoming Meet the Team post.

Network Usage in March 2023

Request network transactions (i.e., creation, approvals, and/or rejections of invoices) are illustrated in the above chart.

The month of March 2023 ended with a total of 11067 transactions, an increase of 8.8% from the previous month. April is shaping up to be a very exciting month as we are getting very close to our all-time record of 11352 transactions from May 2022.

Congratulations to our top builder Request Finance for achieving a fantastic milestone this past month – $300 million in cumulative payments have been paid to businesses, web3 native startups, DAOs, and freelancers around the world.

If you’re interested in an all-in-one platform to generate, track, and pay crypto invoices, then check out the app here.

About Request Network

The Request 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 the Request Network and build an ecosystem of financial applications together that is open source, seamless and interoperable.

We’re building a network that connects businesses around the world, giving them ways to make business at the speed of the internet.

🖖❤️
Request Network team