Monthly Update: August 2022
Dear Panthers,
September has just arrived, giving us a chance to look back upon August and shine a light on the progress we have made. Given the most recent changes in the privacy and crypto space, this has also been a time for us to go back and review several aspects of our roadmap and targets. Nonetheless, there has been no change to our ultimate commitment to enabling privacy and trust in crypto and DeFi.
Now, let’s jump right into this month’s update!
Tech and Product
Advanced Staking
Most logic-level fixes and other standing issues detected by the third round of Advanced Staking testing were ironed out throughout this month. We also finished internal testing of Multi-Asset Shielded Pools’ initial NFT capabilities this month at a smart contract level. The next step regarding shielding NFTs is to test the user interfaces, which will be initiated shortly.
Similarly, the fourth and final round of Advanced Staking testing took place with a small group of testers providing feedback upon the previous rounds’ findings. After this, all final pending merges on the contracts’ side were completed successfully. These smart contracts were shipped for an audit, the recommendations of which we’re currently working on. We’re currently in a back-and-forth process with our auditors that, when completed, will allow us to push Advanced Staking live.
Along with the above, Panther’s UI was updated according to a new design. We are also debuting new tools to track internal testing that should empower Panther to test its products in a better way.
Progress towards v1
Advanced progress is crucial to the implementation strategy for Panther’s v1. As a part of the discussions sparked by recent events, next milestones, features and priorities related to disclosure and compliance tools have been determined and ranked.
Planning and careful, well-informed design are vital to Panther’s development. Along with the release of Advanced Staking, these determinations should provide clarity to developers and architects alike about Panther’s direction, both at a smart contract- and UI-level.
Community
Final $ZKP distribution
Panther completed the seventh and last distribution of vested $ZKP for Public Sale purchasers in the first week of August. The $ZKP from our Public Sale is now entirely in circulation, in its owners’ hands!
Telegram AMA
On August 26th, Panther’s Head of Marketing Mike Chan and our Product Managers DeFinci and Andrew Zaichenko hosted a Telegram AMA with the Panther community. They were able to discuss building during a bear market, our approach and stance regarding compliance, and the next steps to further empower the Panther DAO.
In a direct quote from Mike, “decentralization is an ongoing process that we're constantly thinking about. We're starting small and then iterating on that.” We also described multiple concrete undertakings in the works to make governance more heavily community-focused.
Check all of this out on our Panther Blog.
ZKoffee
One day before Stanford’s Science of Blockchain Conference 2022, we organized ZKoffee, a delightful gathering in Lutticken's Deli over coffee and breakfast for privacy enthusiasts to talk zero knowledge, DeFi, security, and more.
Panther in the media
Anish Mohammed, Co-Founder and CTO of Panther, was invited for an interview on the Blockchain DXB Podcast centered around the Tornado Cash sanctions and what they mean for privacy in blockchain. A nuanced subject like this needs careful analysis, and that is precisely what Anish had to offer to the podcast’s listeners.
Hirings
Our Angel.co page lists several open positions for those eager to join the fight for privacy in Web3:
- Applied Mathematician
- Blockchain Architect
- Cryptography Researcher (Zero-Knowledge Proofs)
- Head of Quantitative Analysis
- Full-Stack Developer
- Lead Front-end Developer
- Machine Learning Internship
- Graphic Designer
- Social Media Manager
This month, we also hired new contributors for several key positions.
If you wish to work with us or know someone who might be a good fit, please follow the links above!
September Calendar
A lot is lined up for September! The following events have already been announced through our social media platforms. However, we’ll be participating in many more of them, so stay tuned for the Panther team visiting an event near you.
Twitter Spaces with Zprize
This Thursday, Head of Product Saif Akhtar and CTO Dr. Anish Mohammed are taking part in a Twitters Spaces with our partners, Zprize. The Spaces will take place at 10 AM PST, and will revolve around Panther’s contribution to cutting-edge cryptography.
The Zprize competition is aimed at employing private funds to accelerate the advancement of zero-knowledge prover technology. Teams that manage to solve important problems for the advancement of ZK tech are rewarded thanks to this competition.
Dr. Anish Mohammed at NEARCON
Our CTO, Anish Mohammed, will be a speaker at NEARCON, the flagship event of the NEAR ecosystem, taking place in Lisbon from September 11th to 14th.
CEO Oliver Gale visits Zebu Live
Panther’s CEO, Oliver Gale. will be in London on September 23rd for Zebu Live, a conference on Web3 with 120+ speakers and over 1200 leaders in the Web3 space. He will be speaking about privacy in Web3 and how to best regulate it.
Sponsoring zkSummit
As experienced builders and researchers in the field, it was only natural for Panther to sponsor zkSummit’s 8th edition this September. The Zero Knowledge Summit is the most important conference on cryptography and zero-knowledge in blockchain. The event will take place in Berlin on September 15th, attended by developers, founders, academics, and cryptographers working on zero knowledge for talks and workshops.
Continued success in CoinMarketCap’s Community Rankings
Our community is one of Panther’s greatest strengths. CoinMarketCap has been releasing its Community Rankings weekly. On them, Panther has consistently figured as one of the top projects by engagement growth!
Once again, we’re proud to be in the hands of such an active, engaged community.
Stay tuned
August wasn’t an easy month for privacy in crypto and DeFi but, as builders, we rest assured that Panther is following a long-term approach.
Our ultimate goal is to enable privacy and trust in DeFi. The way we choose to do this is by creating tools that are compatible with law enforcement and that enable users to stay on the law’s good side at all times.
As always, we invite you participate in the communities linked below and to keep an eye out for upcoming updates. We can’t wait to see your reactions to the upcoming Advanced Staking launch and everything we have on the pipeline!
About Panther
Panther is a decentralized protocol that enables interoperable privacy in DeFi using zero-knowledge proofs.
Users can mint fully-collateralized, composable tokens called zAssets, which can be used to execute private, trusted DeFi transactions across multiple blockchains.
Panther helps investors protect their personal financial data and trading strategies, and provides financial institutions with a clear path to compliantly participate in DeFi.