Welcome to the Q1 2025 Progress Report of the Komodo Compass, a monthly primer covering the developments in and around Komodo Blockchain and the larger crypto ecosystem we’re building with you!
This newsletter offers a guide to Komodo stakeholders by gathering the resources they may need. It highlights recent developments, ecosystem insights, food for thought, and more!
In this edition ⤵️
- Q1 Progress
- Quotes from Kadan
- A Day in the Life of a Komodo Team Member
- Contribute
- Komodo Events
- Crypto Quiz
- Historical Crypto Events
- Degen Glossary
⚙️ Q1 2025 Progress
KDF Team
WalletConnect
- Activation, withdrawals, and swaps completed on EVM/Cosmos chains (MetaMask & Keplr integration).
Cosmos Integration
- Implemented staking, delegation, and reward claiming functionalities.
Trading Protocol Upgrade (TPU)
- Successfully completed EVM swaps.
- Premium integration in orders is nearing completion; smart contract deployment is pending.
Protocol Version
- Added swap protocol versioning for improved backward compatibility.
Zero DEX Fee
- Implemented zero DEX fees for KMD trading pairs (awaiting TPU release).
KMD Burn
- Implemented pre-burn support for UTXO, Cosmos, and Pirate (ARRR) chains (awaiting TPU release).
SIA Testing Framework
- Successfully integrated CI testing framework, significantly enhancing test automation capabilities.
Pirate (ARRR) Swaps
- Introduced an automated testing framework.
- Ongoing efforts to resolve identified swap issues.
Liquidity Routing
- Progressing on routed swaps integrating atomic swaps and 1inch liquidity sources.
GUI Team
- Ongoing finalization of major HD wallet release; currently in advanced internal testing phases, alongside comprehensive security reviews by the OPSEC team.
- Launched the "Komodo Tick" initiative, showcasing Komodo Wallet functionality on smartwatches. Community members interested in testing can reach out on Discord for participation.
- Approaching completion and preparing for public release, pending final validation.
Core Team
- Performed extensive security reviews on Komodo Wallet and Komodo DeFi Framework; resolved critical security vulnerabilities.
- Successfully launched new chains (BCZERO, RAPH, and MDX) with complete delayed Proof of Work (dPoW) support.
- Transitioned to Litecoin Core v0.21.4 for dPoW, including necessary Iguana updates.
- Migrated Komodo Core Daemon to librustzcash 0.2.0, significantly enhancing performance and stability.
- Published KomodoOcean v0.9.1-beta1, resolving significant integration challenges.
💭 Quotes from Kadan Stadelmann
“...Trump’s crypto task force should work with as much enthusiasm as DOGE…”
Komodo CTO Kadan Stadelmann shared his opinion in an article about the Crypto market regarding USA .
🎙️ Who Am I? -Gcharang
I graduated with a B.Tech in Engineering Physics and love solving problems. When I find an interesting problem, I scour all the available information for possible solutions and don't rest till I either solve it or know that people with more time and smarts than me have tried and failed :D .
I first learned about Cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin specifically) in 2014, but didn't think much of it other than "Interesting tech!". Later, in 2018, I came across an article about the Mt. Gox hack and how Centralized Exchanges are security holes. Then, I started reading about alternative solutions and came across Atomic Swaps and DEXs, which led me to Komodo. After discussing the Atomic Swap tech with the team and community for several days, I was convinced this was the real deal and left it at that.
A few days later, I came across a discussion about the 51% attack problem, and there was Komodo once again, having solved it through dPoW. I was very fascinated and came back to the Komodo live chat server (Slack at that time) and started asking more questions and requesting links to documentation.
While I was reading the documentation, I found that while the tech was cutting edge and most of it documented properly, it was scattered across GitHub wikis of multiple repositories and various websites.
When I complained about this difficulty in access, I was offered the task of improving it 😃 , which I gladly accepted and completed. I was offered the job to maintain and add to the documentation a few days later (around May 2018).
Since then, I was a part of the Komodo Team and helped in various ways, including testing, documenting new tech, end-user support, maintaining backend infra for various websites, implementing new sites that are responsive and SEO optimized, etc. While Web Development, Support remain my major tasks today, I also created various tools that make testing and introduction to Komodo easier.
🍻 Contribute
A section on how the community can contribute to Komodo.
For Developers:
- Please check our GitHub issue tickets
- Choose one to work on
- Solve the issue or open a Pull Request (PR)
- We'll review from there (successful/solid contributions can almost guarantee a position or freelance work)
For Community Members:
- Visit the #contribute channel on Komodo's Discord Server
- Engage with our social media platforms
- Help spread the word about Komodo
- Create content related to Komodo
🕺 Events
🐉 Komodo Events
TaskOn
We joined forces with TaskOn to launch a marketing campaign with a $500 USDT prize. The recent campaign has ended, but we’ll continue to run campaigns via TaskOn.
🛫 Conferences
We're proud to be a Sapphire Sponsor at the Blockchain Forum 2025 in Moscow. The event will take place on April 23-24, 2025. Ticket prices will increase on April 15. If you’re planning to attend, we kindly recommend purchasing your ticket early to benefit from the current rate.
Get your tickets
🧩 Crypto Quiz
A fun crossword puzzle that tests Komodo and general crypto knowledge.
1- Solve it
2- Join our Discord
3- Share the answer at #general
🤯 Historical Crypto Events
The CryptoKitties Congestion (December 2017)
CryptoKitties was a blockchain game on Ethereum that let users buy, collect, breed, and sell virtual cats as NFTs. In December 2017, it unexpectedly went viral:
- The game suddenly consumed 15-20% of all Ethereum network capacity
- One digital cat sold for 246.9 ETH
- Transaction times slowed dramatically across the entire network
- Gas fees skyrocketed, making normal transactions prohibitively expensive
- Pending transactions backlogged from 5,000 to over 30,000
- Multiple ICOs had to postpone their launches
The incident became known as "the CryptoKitties congestion" and served as a wake-up call about blockchain scalability limitations. If a simple game about collectible cats could paralyze Ethereum, it wasn't ready for mainstream adoption. This event accelerated the development of scaling solutions and demonstrated the concept that would later fuel the 2021 NFT boom.
📖 Degen Glossary
A detailed explanation of a few crypto terms in each issue.
FEW
Few is short for "few understand". Like "probably nothing" it is polite FOMO. "MOMA bought a punk. Few"
FLIPPING
Flipping can have two distinct meanings in the crypto world.
- Short-term trading: This refers to buying assets like cryptocurrencies or NFTs at a low price and quickly selling them at a higher price for profit. It's a common strategy among traders looking to capitalize on market volatility.
- Market cap flipping: This occurs when one cryptocurrency's market capitalization surpasses another’s. A well-known example is the ongoing debate over whether Ethereum (ETH) could eventually “flip” Bitcoin (BTC) in terms of total market value. This specific example (BTC vs. ETH) is also commonly referred to as “the flippening”.
Be a Komodian!
We’ve never been more confident that the Crypto movement will drive the future of society. It has never been a more exciting point to get involved in Komodo and seize the DeFi.
If you are committed to DeFi and are interested in collaborating with or getting involved in Komodo, join our Discord now, and let’s connect!
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