The Baking Sheet - Issue #93

April 01, 2022

Welcome to the TenderBake Era

Welcome to this week’s issue of The Baking Sheet!

Protocol Upgrade 'Ithaca2' has activated! Tezos keeps evolving and growing at a rapid rate.

In this week’s issue, we’ll discuss the features of Ithaca 2 (notably Tenderbake) and what scaling will look like for Tezos in the next few quarters of 2022.

Ecosystem Insights: Year of Scaling

Ithaca2 activation is underway, at the time of publication - it will be activated autonomously! 2022 is rapidly shaping up to be a promising year for Tezos.

The most looming of all benefits/features is Tenderbake. Bringing deterministic finality to Tezos is a big deal, for a few reasons.

Not only does Tenderbake bring absolute certainty that transactions cannot be reversed after two blocks but - replacing the consensus mechanism is in itself a major undertaking. This defines the rules by which Tezos bakers decide the state of the ledger – a core function of a blockchain.

Truth be told, how many blockchains have you heard of replacing the current consensus algorithm in a seamless, democratic way to end up activating autonomously?

It was rhetorical, but there’s not any.

That said, Nomadic Labs shared an interesting post detailing scaling plans for Tezos in 2022. As much as you can grow out L1, there comes some costs that make L2 solutions a priority.

Thus we reach the current focus on optimistic rollups, an L2 scaling solution.

From Nomadic Labs announcement:

  • Transaction rollups are expected to be part of the upcoming “J” upgrade proposal. They can handle account-to-account transactions of assets, but won’t be able to run smart contracts. This allows for a simpler design and faster implementation.

  • Smart contract rollups are targeted for later this year. The chosen approach is inspired by proven designs for rollups, but tailored to Tezos. They are designed with a generic structure that is not limited to Michelson smart contracts, but can be adapted to support environments like WebAssembly or EVM, the Ethereum Virtual Machine.

This isn’t a new pivot, it’s been something in the works for awhile. We had the chance to chat with Gabriel Alfour of Marigold awhile back where he laid out some more motivation for the move towards creating L2 solutions.

From my point of view, it has been my thesis since the beginning. Most of the activity on blockchains will move to layer 2. Because, the whole point of layer 2 is to have the same warranties with blockchain but with better scalability. We can already see blockchains that are basically a layer 2 system with it built in essentially from the beginning. The flow blockchain is an example, it is essentially one big rollup.

Most things will go towards this direction. I have a vision that is very centered around web3 and the goal is to make this work on Tezos. There are no other teams working on this kind of stuff right now, so we want to be the team that makes this a reality.

2022 will be an exciting year for Tezos as we move towards further scaling improvements and the long awaited deterministic finality offered via Tenderbake.

This Week in the Tezos Ecosytem

DOGAMÍ, the top mobile play-to-earn game on the Tezos blockchain, secured $500,000 in funding from the Tezos Foundation. It marks another significant milestone for the popular Petaverse project.

Press Release -- DOGAMÍ continues to build strong momentum in the blockchain gaming industry. The team noted a highly anticipated NFT sale and a successful $DOGA token listing. Leveraging the strengths of the Tezos blockchain has proven beneficial to the virtual pet companion game and attracts more attention from investors. The Tezos Foundation has acquired an equity stake of the DOGAMÍ ecosystem through a $500,000 capital injection.

The backing from the Tezos Foundation is a crucial development for the DOGAMÍ team. Moreover, it strengthens ties between the two teams, as DOGAMÍ and the Tezos Ecosystem work together to ensure mass adoption of the popular blockchain game. In addition, the game brings much attention to the Tezos blockchain ecosystem, with meaningful activations to be announced shortly.

“We are proud to support the highly successful project which has repeatedly shown to be a truly trailblazing project from its inception. DOGAMÍ combines gaming and NFTs to create an engaging play-to-earn experience. It is a great entry point for gamers new to blockchain gaming to enter the Tezos community, and by doing so, to expand it.” Roman Schnider, President, Tezos Foundation Council

DOGAMÍ envisions a Metaverse where players can raise and train virtual pet companions. In addition, players can interact with their companions in the virtual world, allowing DOGAMÍ to achieve a much more meaningful level of immersion.

Previously, DOGAMÍ successfully launched its $DOGA token — which offers utility and access to the Petaverse and is essential to achieve widespread adoption and participation. The $DOGA token can be used to pay for NFTs, accessories, and consumables in the DOGAMÍ ecosystem.

“We are thrilled to bring this kind of attention to the Tezos ecosystem, it is well deserved. The Tezos Foundation has been a strong sponsor of the DOGAMÍ project since its inception! It felt natural to confirm their participation in our equity.” Bilal El Alamy, co founder & CTO of DOGAMÍ

DOGAMÍ pet avatars are the hottest NFT commodity on the Tezos blockchain. The collection surpassed 1.2 million XTZ in volume within the first few weeks of trading on the OBJKT marketplace, making it the fastest sold out and most popular Tezos project ever.

QuipuSwap Launches Tezos Farms

Farming on the main Tezos DEX, QuipuSwap, has just gone online.

At launch QuipuSwap will host QUIPU/TEZ and single-asset QUIPU farms. Check the APR and take action while it's early in the farming season.

Note that different farms have different rules. Pay attention before you commit your funds.

Read more on farming rules and the team's future plans in their blog

This Week in Tezos Development

Yun-Yan Chi, developer at Marigold, shares his knowledge about bigmaps and explains how are they used for and why it is a very practical structure in Michelson.

Octez 12.2 support is included

Now Streaming

A discussion with Joab Garza, Co-Founder of Gif.Games. Gif.Games are the creators of popular Tezos-based NFT games like Tezotopia and have recently joined forces with Gavin Maloof to build out "Metzopia".

Trending on Tezos Agora

Version 12.2 of Octez has just been released! Version 12.1 introduced a limit on the size of metadata in the store. This change causes some RPCs to return “too large” in some cases.

Dear Tezos Community,

We’re happy to open the floor to new questions for the Tezos Foundation! Feel free to share your question here, and we’ll do our best to answer it shortly.

The most frequently asked questions will…