The Baking Sheet - Issue #144

March 31, 2023

Welcome to Mumbai!

Welcome to this week's issue of the The Baking Sheet, your weekly newsletter for all the latest and greatest in the world of Tezos.

We have entered the Mumbai era One of the most significant upgrades for Tezos has officially happened introducing cutting edge features that firmly places the Tezos blockchain far ahead of its competition. Additionally, it was one of the smoothest transitions, thanks to the incredible dev work and Bakers to updating their node to Octez v16.1

So what does Mumbai mean for Tezos? — Let's dive in!

The 13th Tezos Protocol Upgrade: Mumbai

The Mumbai upgrade introduces Smart Rollups, a groundbreaking Layer 2 scaling solution built directly into the protocol, which positions Tezos at the vanguard of optimistic rollup technology.

Unprecedented Scalability with Smart Rollups

Smart Rollups enable decentralized applications (dApps) to take advantage of dedicated hardware resources for processing a vast number of transactions. The Tezos main chain, or Layer 1, guarantees the integrity and security of the Smart Rollup. With this approach, the Tezos ecosystem will be capable of surpassing the landmark of one million transactions per second in 2023 without sacrificing decentralization.

Smart Rollups come with state-of-the-art technical features, such as:

- Fully decentralized and open interactive fraud proofs that ensure rollup security and integrity, provided there is at least one honest participant in the rollup validation.

- A WebAssembly (WASM) execution environment, which allows developers to use general-purpose programming languages like Rust, C, and C++ for creating diverse applications, from tailor-made business solutions to public open platforms, including an EVM-compatible chain on top of Tezos.

- Advanced rollup features that streamline interactions, such as broadcasting from Layer 1 to all rollups, calling Layer 1 smart contracts from Layer 2, or transferring assets across layers.

- Custom data channels that support new data availability solutions for interfacing with data providers external to the Tezos blockchain.

Faster and More Responsive Blockchain

Mumbai also brings improvements to Tezos' Layer 1. Block time is reduced from 30 to 15 seconds, thanks to pipelined validation. This change decreases network latency and offers a more seamless user experience.

The protocol upgrade includes updates to existing features like Tickets, which become more versatile by allowing direct transfers between users.

Community-Driven Evolution

Tezos' Mumbai upgrade has been validated and approved by the community through its on-chain governance process, underscoring the blockchain's commitment to decentralization.

The activation of Mumbai is the result of extensive collaboration between developer teams and the broader Tezos community. Contributions from Nomadic Labs, Marigold, TriliTech, Oxhead Alpha, Tarides, DaiLambda, and Functori have paved the way for this update, which ushers in a new era of scalability and sets the stage for an array of innovative applications on the Tezos blockchain.

Join us for a special event at NFT.NYC

Tez Art Connect, sponsored by Tezos Commons, brings together over 100 talented artists for an unforgettable night in New York City. The event will be held on April 11th, from 7-11 pm at the stunning @TheNFTGallery4.

The event will showcase the artwork of various artists, while also providing a live and in-person Tez Talk space. Co-hosted by @LeslieASpurlock and @aaronvick, the event promises to be an evening of stimulating conversation, immersive art experiences, and networking opportunities.

Several special guests are scheduled to attend the event, including @LaurenceFuller, @a_tchuca, @itsltlthings, @klickdotdev, and @NaiboVisuals. The evening will serve as an opportunity for artists, collectors, and enthusiasts to connect, and exchange ideas.

Don't miss the chance to be a part of this extraordinary event at @TheNFTGallery4 in New York City. Join Tez Art Connect on April 11th and experience firsthand the transformative power of art and technology — RSVP here

The Tezos NFT Summit

The Tezos NFT Summit is set to take place in New York City on April 12th and 13th, offering participants an opportunity to engage in discussions about the future of NFTs and Web3 on the Tezos platform. The summit will feature an NFT competition, portfolio review workshops, and a packed agenda, making it a must-attend event for artists, collectors, and enthusiasts alike.

The online NFT competition invites creative geniuses to showcase their talents in three different tracks: profile picture (PFP), music, or generative art. Participants have the chance to win up to 5,000 XTZ in prizes, along with the promotion needed to launch their NFT projects. Enter the Competition here

Portfolio review workshops will offer budding artists the opportunity to receive valuable feedback and ask questions in an informal setting. Established artists and art experts will be on hand to offer their insights and advice. Reserve a spot at the workshops

The Tezos NFT Summit will feature several distinguished voices from the Tezos ecosystem, including Arthur Breitman, co-founder of Tezos; Mason Edwards, CCO of the Tezos Foundation; Kaloh, a generative art thought leader and writer; Brian McAlister, co-founder of Objkt.com; and Paul Schmidt, Growth at fx(hash).

Don't miss out on the chance to be a part of this groundbreaking event, where art and technology intersect to create new opportunities for creators and collectors.

This Week in the Tezos Ecosystem

SIWT.xyz is now LIVE

SIWT.xyz, the Sign-in-with-Tezos platform, is now live, offering a seamless solution for access control in the Tezos ecosystem. The platform aims to simplify and secure user and developer experiences by integrating standardized message signing and usage policies. Developers, app creators, and Discord community managers can all benefit from the robust features and seamless integration SIWT.xyz provides.

SIWT integration streamlines access control for both users and developers, allowing for a smooth, secure experience. The platform ensures that users meet access control requirements by verifying their Tezos wallets, providing an additional layer of security.

Discord communities can also leverage the power of SIWT to enhance server customization and security. The SIWT Discord bot enables exclusive access to channels based on users' Tezos wallets, allowing community managers to create tailored experiences for their members. To discover how SIWT can improve your Discord server, visit http://siwt.xyz.

One of SIWT's key features is its message signing capability, which streamlines the process of obtaining user consent for usage policies while verifying Tezos wallet ownership. This added layer of security and consent ensures a transparent and user-friendly experience for all parties involved.

Explore the power of Sign-in-with-Tezos and revolutionize your app's access control by visiting SIWT.xyz today.

Stables is now Sold OUT

Congrats to the Stables team for selling out their highly anticipated NFT drop — Built by PMU, one of France’s largest and most successful gambling brands, Stables is a horse fantasy game which intersects the 'equiverse' with the real world. The 6666 NFT horses are associated with a real life horse that tracks the performance and enables users to earn rewards.

Tezos Domains: Quarterly Update Q1/2023

The Tezos Domains team has announced several new features and partnerships for its decentralized domain name service built on the Tezos blockchain. New features include bulk registrations and sorting listings by price.

In addition, Tezos Domains is preparing a governance pool that incentivizes long-term participation in decision-making, and the team is working with Mailchain to integrate messaging services. Tezos Domains is also in talks with a launchpad partner to offer a small portion of the Tezos Domains token in a pre-sale. The team is postponing the previously announced airdrop to launch everything closer together.

Onepoint becomes a Corporate Baker

onepoint, a consulting firm specializing in the digital transformation of organizations becomes Corporate Baker on Tezos. Tezos is a public Open Source blockchain project with French roots created by Arthur and Kathleen Breitman. Tezos enables the exchange of value and the creation of decentralized applications. onepoint's primary role as Baker will be to create, validate and secure blocks on the blockchain. The consulting firm also strengthens its involvement in the governance and evolution of the Tezos protocol, having voting rights proportional to tez (Tezos tokens).

Involved in the blockchain ecosystem since 2017 and particularly in foodtech and finance, onepoint has notably accompanied in their development players such as IZNES, LiquidShare and Société Générale-Forge. Committed to better education on Blockchain technology, onepoint experts host numerous conferences alongside their clients and partners (Carrefour, Engie TEO, La Maison du Bitcoin or SolarCoin).

This Week in Tezos Development

Functori believes that SORUs represent a giant leap forward for blockchain decentralization and mass adoption, paving the way for a brighter future for Tezos technology. The highly scalable and secure layer 2 solution offered by SORU will help to bridge the gap between Web2 and Web3 and enable Tezos to remain at the forefront of innovation in the blockchain ecosystem.

LigoLang has released a new version, v0.63.2, which includes the deprecation of 'mutate_ast' and the introduction of new functions in the 'Set' and 'List' modules of the stdlib. More details can be found at https://ligolang.org/docs/next/intro/changelog?lang=jsligo. It's worth noting that the 0.63.0 / 0.63.1 versions were not released due to technical reasons.

The goal of this project is to create PoC of a permissioned application-specific rollup enabled with Tezos VM.

Now Streaming

Tune into our next TezTalks Radio episode featuring Valerie Whitacre from Trilitech!

We are thrilled to welcome a very special guest: Valerie Whitacre, who is at the forefront of scaling the Tezos art ecosystem as part of her work at Trilitech (http://trili.tech/). Valerie will share her extensive knowledge and expertise in the field, and provide valuable insights into how Tezos is being used to create new and exciting opportunities for artists and creators.