April started on a lot of momentum from Q1, and its end result is one of excellent news! The opening paragraphs of these recaps tend to mention several appealing updates that are elaborated upon deeper in the article. April’s centerpiece update is so significant that it deserves to stand on its own: Hydranet DEX is nearing the end of its final stage of pre-release development, and there is an internal target to reach mainnet by the end of Q2 2023.

This 12th edition of the monthly recap marks a full year of consistent updates regarding the team, the DAO, their plans, their proposals, their roadblocks, additions to the team, their solutions for funding, and the development of Hydranet DEX. The very first recap, published this time one year ago in 2022, commemorated the very first launch of the team’s public product. Lazarus, the proof of concept for stage 1 of Hydranet DEX, debuted publicly at the very end of April. 8 months later, Atlas, the PoC for stage 2, debuted just in time for Christmas.

The writing staff would like to commend our fine team for their fast progress and a full year well done. Our team always delivers something interesting, excellent, or urgent to write about at length. We have reason to believe we have the easiest job, and we haven’t yet been replaced by a bot who can write Shakesperian novels in 5 seconds. That is the real power of teamwork.

DEX Updates

There were a total of 4 updates for Hydranet DEX released during the month of April.

• Linux Support Returns — After a long hiatus, Hydranet DEX is once again available for Linux! DEX development was focused on a single platform (Windows) over the course of late 2022 and early 2023 as the ETH Merge and a few integral components of the DEX needed major, necessary reworking. These targets have since been reached and sorted. Now that we’re nearing mainnet, the Linux build has been made current and up-to-date.
• Vortex Powers Up — It was also announced at April’s start that Vortex, Hydranet DEX’s bot trading interface, reached a 99.86% Swap Success Rate — 1382 orders processed, 2 failed! This is over 5% higher than the swap success rates seen at the end of Q3 2022 (94.6%) and almost 2% higher than the results from the end of Q4 2022 (98%). The major bugfixes that started in late Q3-Q4 of 2022 have proven to be quite successful.
• Mainnet Service Provider(s) — We are actively researching a reliable service provider to host the DEX Hub in mainnet.
• Auto-Update Bugfix — The Auto-Update feature of the DEX previously had an existing bug related to special characters that made it break. This has since been patched, guaranteeing much better stability going between builds.
• Additional updates include: an auto-resolver for expired Connext transfers, additional validations for channel rentals, and improved network stability against Connext-centric timeouts.

With the April 21 release of Phoenix, all the major bugs standing in the path of mainnet have been fixed, and the 3rd stage of the DEX has moved into its finishing stages.

HDN Tokenomics Update

In preparation for mainnet, DAO Proposal #19 was published with a solution to simplify the existing DEX NFT (DNFT) Tokenomics strategy to allow for faster implementation of a workable incentive. Anyone who holds HDN in a Hydranet DEX wallet will benefit from reduced trading fees. Here is a chart detailing percentage-based discounts on trading fees by amount of HDN held:

As DNFTs have a degree of technical complexity to them that could cause delays to mainnet, and they are not considered a requirement for a mainnet launch, the team has opted to delay on any further DNFT development until after launch.

Updated Smart Contract

A new smart contract, currently in development on Tenderly, seeks to make 2 significant changes to the current one:

1.) Only the multi-sig team will be able to update or modify an existing smart contract.

2.) A maximum supply of 300 million HDN will be set.

These contracts are slated to be in public testnet in May, and mainnet shortly after.

DAO Update

An update from the DAO was published on April 2 to confirm the following:

• HDN is the new ticker name, replacing HDX, after the decision to rename was proposed with Proposal #18 and won a majority of the vote.
• Arbitrum Delegation Is now available: Delegating voting power to Hydranet allows the DAO and the project to play a bigger influence in Arbitrum’s decisionmaking
• HDN/ARB pool is now open on Uniswap: Progress is being made on making the trading pool exceed $60k so that the metrics will be as accurate and up-to-date as they can be.
• HDN Bonds now support ARB token, following its launch in March.

Support Ticket System Added to Discord Chat

Our Discord once again has a support channel for troubleshooting and inquiries related to HDN and Hydranet DEX. The channel consists of a one-button ticketing system that ensures total privacy to any user who needs help. Legitimate questions have a process that allows them to be answered by support staff in a timely manner, and scammers get filtered out.

We are excited for mainnet, we have plenty more to come for May, we look forward to sharing it!

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