Swapping Pre Release
Dear Flippers,
We are very pleased to announce the rollout plan for the swapping capabilities of the Chainflip mainnet. Beginning in the coming hours, we will be commencing a pre-release of swapping, which is a major step in the network's history.
This pre-release is not the full product. It is not, and should not be taken as a representation of the full capabilities of the Chainflip network, swapping app, SDK, or LP API. Several features will remain turned off, and swaps will be limited in size for the opening weeks. This post contains critical timing information for Mainnet Validator Operators and LPs. Please read it in full.
Purpose of the Pre-Release
We have been pushing hard to get a limited version of swapping out and up before Christmas, so that our market-making teams, validator operators, aggregator and wallet partners, and our own team have the time to test the swapping capabilities of the protocol in a lower risk, but real-word environment.
The JIT AMM is a brand new protocol never before used in the wild, and so to allow the teams working around the Chainflip protocol to develop their systems around it, it is necessary to have some real exposure to real markets with real money. Especially for the market-making teams, the testnet can only get you so far. In order to develop strategies to deal with real circumstances, there is no substitute for production testing. Given that we know it will take some time for this optimisation to occur, it is important that we cautiously allow for this process to occur by pre-releasing with a restricted protocol without over-exposing users and LPs.Our intention is that if everything goes well over the pre-release period, we will turn off the remaining restrictions and launch the full product with cross-chain messaging and aggregation shortly after the calendar has flipped over into 2024 (happy holidays!).
Production Readiness
We have been developing the Chainflip protocol for over three years. We've been running testnets constantly for the last two years. We have been audited extensively by Trail of Bits earlier in the year, and are currently under a follow-up audit by Zellic which is due to be completed very soon, and has so far yielded no critical issues. The mainnet minimum active bid is now well over half a million dollars, meaning that we have achieved the level of economic security required to pull off this pre-release. We are confident enough to say that this is production-ready software, and we'll be asking all of our market makers and liquidity providers to commit capital to the protocol at this time.
That being said, we are already working on a multitude of improvements to boost the overall efficiency and competitiveness of the swapping protocol for the full launch in January (all things going well, of course!). That's why we wanted to make it abundantly clear in this post, we are not considering this to be a particularly impressive version of this swapping protocol and web app. It is brand new, and we encourage everyone to try it out - but understand that this is going to take several weeks to fine-tune and improve the protocol to the point where it becomes truly competitive. We are not expecting massive volumes out of the gate with the pre-release.
Compared to what we know the protocol can achieve, we know for a fact that Chainflip swaps in the pre-release won’t be that good. Gas will be more expensive, swaps will be slower, and prices and fees will take some time to optimise. This is just part of the process and this production testing is the only way to get us over the last mile to create the best cross-chain DEX experience technically possible.
The Pre-Release Schedule (IMPORTANT)
Release version 1.1.1 carries some important improvements that we need to make for this launch to work. As such we will conduct the launch sequence as follows:
TODAY (Wed 13th Dec)
- Perseverance runtime upgrade and minor binary release (1.1.1)
- Mainnet 1.1.1 Binary Release (Late Afternoon CET) - Binary Upgrade window begins
THURSDAY (14th Dec)
- Mainnet binary upgrade window remains open
- Perseverance load test is conducted
FRIDAY (15th Dec)
- Mainnet runtime upgrade occurs (2pm CET) - MAINNET OPERATORS MUST HAVE UPDATED BINARIES RUNNING BY THIS TIME
SATURDAY, SUNDAY (16th, 17th Dec)
- Automated testing continues running, no stakeholder actions are required
MONDAY (18th Dec) PRE-RELEASE
- Deploy the swapping app to the latest version (Morning CET)
- Downgrade Safe Mode Code Amber to allow for the creation of Broker & LP accounts and enable LP deposits (Morning CET)
- LPs begin deploying liquidity through LP API (no frontend yet)
- Once at least 2 of the providers signal readiness, downgrade Safe Mode Code Amber further to allow for the creation of deposit channels and accept swap deposits. (Midday CET)
- Pre-release swapping is out. Teams will monitor the performance of the network and the markets until all early optimisations have been completed.
NOTE: Although we do not expect any major issues, steps in this sequence may be delayed at short notice if any new issues arise. We will notify all stakeholders if this happens.
Pre-Release Restrictions
There will be several restrictions in place to protect the protocol, LPs, and users.
- Swaps will be limited on both the frontend and backend to about ~$1,000 per deposit (1K USDC, 0.04 BTC, 0.5 ETH, 200 DOT, 200 FLIP). Any amount sent over these hard-coded limits will simply be swallowed by the protocol. This will help LPs fine-tune their systems in a lower-risk environment, which will then prepare them to fill much larger swaps on full swapping launch.
- A minimum deposit size and a minimum egress fee will be put in place to ensure that gas deficits do not grow too large before the proper gas refund mechanisms are put in place. Mainnet operators should note that their Ethereum gas requirements are now likely to increase dramatically, and we recommend topping up each Validator to have at least 0.5 ETH. Gas expenses are being tracked and will eventually be re-paid by the protocol once we get around to releasing that feature. We have set fixed fees in excess of requirements to make it likely that a gas surplus will be built up over time.
- Limits on the number of deposit channels that can be opened at any time will be applied to both the frontend and the backend in order to protect the protocol from being overloaded with requests.
- No aggregation or cross-chain messaging will be used for now. This means that only Chainflip native swaps with no pre or post-swap routing will be available during the pre-release period.
- Pre-release swapping may be temporarily paused at any time if we have reason to believe funds are at risk or the protocol isn’t behaving as expected.
The pre-release should be considered as a trial run in the wild. Users are welcome to swap, but should only do so if they understand that this is a brand new product linked to a brand new protocol that has so far only seen limited action in the jungle that is mainnet. Things may go wrong. Things may break. The sooner we can identify any of these issues, the sooner we can fix them before they become a real problem when the full swapping release comes out.
Some useful settings to know for LPs and Swappers:
Maximum swap amounts:
ETH: 500,000,000,000,000,000 (0.5 ETH)
FLIP: 200,000,000,000,000,000,000 (200 FLIP)
USDC: 1,000,000,000 (1000 USDC)
DOT: 2,000,000,000,000 (200 DOT)
BTC: 4,000,000 (0.04 BTC)
Min swap amounts are all 0, already covered by min deposits.
Minimum deposit amounts:
DOT: 40,000,000,000 (4 DOT)
ETH: 10,000,000,000,000,000 (0.01 ETH)
FLIP: 4,000,000,000,000,000,000 (4 FLIP)
USDC: 20,000,000 (20 USDC)
BTC: 70,000 (0.0007 BTC)
Sign Off
This is a very big moment for the team, and I'm sure many in the community are excited about these developments as well. My only ask would be to not have high expectations just yet. As I've tried to lay out in this blog post, it will take some fine-tuning to get this right, and this pre-release is an essential step in that process.
Keep your eyes on the discord in order to get the latest pre-release updates. Thanks once again for your unwavering support, and I hope that you have a wonderful holiday season.
Yours,
Simon
## Maximum swap amount
ETH:
500,000,000,000,000,000 (0.5 ETH)
FLIP
200,000,000,000,000,000,000 (200 FLIP)
USDC
1,000,000,000 (1000 USDC)
DOT
2,000,000,000,000 (200 DOT)
BTC
4,000,000 (0.04 BTC)
## Min swap amounts are all 0.
## Min deposit amounts
DOT
40,000,000,000 (4 DOT)
ETH
10,000,000,000,000,000 (0.01 ETH)
FLIP
4,000,000,000,000,000,000 (4 FLIP)
USDC:
20,000,000 (20 USDC)
BTC:
70,000 (0.0007 BTC)
(posting in correct channel this time)
## Maximum swap amount
ETH:
500,000,000,000,000,000 (0.5 ETH)
FLIP
200,000,000,000,000,000,000 (200 FLIP)
USDC
1,000,000,000 (1000 USDC)
DOT
2,000,000,000,000 (200 DOT)
BTC
4,000,000 (0.04 BTC)
## Min swap amounts are all 0.
## Min deposit amounts
DOT
40,000,000,000 (4 DOT)
ETH
10,000,000,000,000,000 (0.01 ETH)
FLIP
4,000,000,000,000,000,000 (4 FLIP)
USDC:
20,000,000 (20 USDC)
BTC:
70,000 (0.0007 BTC)
(posting in correct channel this time)
## Maximum swap amount
ETH:
500,000,000,000,000,000 (0.5 ETH)
FLIP
200,000,000,000,000,000,000 (200 FLIP)
USDC
1,000,000,000 (1000 USDC)
DOT
2,000,000,000,000 (200 DOT)
BTC
4,000,000 (0.04 BTC)
## Min swap amounts are all 0.
## Min deposit amounts
DOT
40,000,000,000 (4 DOT)
ETH
10,000,000,000,000,000 (0.01 ETH)
FLIP
4,000,000,000,000,000,000 (4 FLIP)
USDC:
20,000,000 (20 USDC)
BTC:
70,000 (0.0007 BTC)
(posting in correct channel this time)
## Maximum swap amount
ETH:
500,000,000,000,000,000 (0.5 ETH)
FLIP
200,000,000,000,000,000,000 (200 FLIP)
USDC
1,000,000,000 (1000 USDC)
DOT
2,000,000,000,000 (200 DOT)
BTC
4,000,000 (0.04 BTC)
## Min swap amounts are all 0.
## Min deposit amounts
DOT
40,000,000,000 (4 DOT)
ETH
10,000,000,000,000,000 (0.01 ETH)
FLIP
4,000,000,000,000,000,000 (4 FLIP)
USDC:
20,000,000 (20 USDC)
BTC:
70,000 (0.0007 BTC)
(posting in correct channel this time)
## Maximum swap amount
ETH:
500,000,000,000,000,000 (0.5 ETH)
FLIP
200,000,000,000,000,000,000 (200 FLIP)
USDC
1,000,000,000 (1000 USDC)
DOT
2,000,000,000,000 (200 DOT)
BTC
4,000,000 (0.04 BTC)
## Min swap amounts are all 0.
## Min deposit amounts
DOT
40,000,000,000 (4 DOT)
ETH
10,000,000,000,000,000 (0.01 ETH)
FLIP
4,000,000,000,000,000,000 (4 FLIP)
USDC:
20,000,000 (20 USDC)
BTC:
70,000 (0.0007 BTC)
(posting in correct channel this time)
## Maximum swap amount
ETH:
500,000,000,000,000,000 (0.5 ETH)
FLIP
200,000,000,000,000,000,000 (200 FLIP)
USDC
1,000,000,000 (1000 USDC)
DOT
2,000,000,000,000 (200 DOT)
BTC
4,000,000 (0.04 BTC)
## Min swap amounts are all 0.
## Min deposit amounts
DOT
40,000,000,000 (4 DOT)
ETH
10,000,000,000,000,000 (0.01 ETH)
FLIP
4,000,000,000,000,000,000 (4 FLIP)
USDC:
20,000,000 (20 USDC)
BTC:
70,000 (0.0007 BTC)
(posting in correct channel this time)
## Maximum swap amount
ETH:
500,000,000,000,000,000 (0.5 ETH)
FLIP
200,000,000,000,000,000,000 (200 FLIP)
USDC
1,000,000,000 (1000 USDC)
DOT
2,000,000,000,000 (200 DOT)
BTC
4,000,000 (0.04 BTC)
## Min swap amounts are all 0.
## Min deposit amounts
DOT
40,000,000,000 (4 DOT)
ETH
10,000,000,000,000,000 (0.01 ETH)
FLIP
4,000,000,000,000,000,000 (4 FLIP)
USDC:
20,000,000 (20 USDC)
BTC:
70,000 (0.0007 BTC)
(posting in correct channel this time)
## Maximum swap amount
ETH:
500,000,000,000,000,000 (0.5 ETH)
FLIP
200,000,000,000,000,000,000 (200 FLIP)
USDC
1,000,000,000 (1000 USDC)
DOT
2,000,000,000,000 (200 DOT)
BTC
4,000,000 (0.04 BTC)
## Min swap amounts are all 0.
## Min deposit amounts
DOT
40,000,000,000 (4 DOT)
ETH
10,000,000,000,000,000 (0.01 ETH)
FLIP
4,000,000,000,000,000,000 (4 FLIP)
USDC:
20,000,000 (20 USDC)
BTC:
70,000 (0.0007 BTC)
(posting in correct channel this time)
## Maximum swap amount
ETH:
500,000,000,000,000,000 (0.5 ETH)
FLIP
200,000,000,000,000,000,000 (200 FLIP)
USDC
1,000,000,000 (1000 USDC)
DOT
2,000,000,000,000 (200 DOT)
BTC
4,000,000 (0.04 BTC)
## Min swap amounts are all 0.
## Min deposit amounts
DOT
40,000,000,000 (4 DOT)
ETH
10,000,000,000,000,000 (0.01 ETH)
FLIP
4,000,000,000,000,000,000 (4 FLIP)
USDC:
20,000,000 (20 USDC)
BTC:
70,000 (0.0007 BTC)
(posting in correct channel this time)
## Maximum swap amount
ETH:
500,000,000,000,000,000 (0.5 ETH)
FLIP
200,000,000,000,000,000,000 (200 FLIP)
USDC
1,000,000,000 (1000 USDC)
DOT
2,000,000,000,000 (200 DOT)
BTC
4,000,000 (0.04 BTC)
## Min swap amounts are all 0.
## Min deposit amounts
DOT
40,000,000,000 (4 DOT)
ETH
10,000,000,000,000,000 (0.01 ETH)
FLIP
4,000,000,000,000,000,000 (4 FLIP)
USDC:
20,000,000 (20 USDC)
BTC:
70,000 (0.0007 BTC)
(posting in correct channel this time)
## Maximum swap amount
ETH:
500,000,000,000,000,000 (0.5 ETH)
FLIP
200,000,000,000,000,000,000 (200 FLIP)
USDC
1,000,000,000 (1000 USDC)
DOT
2,000,000,000,000 (200 DOT)
BTC
4,000,000 (0.04 BTC)
## Min swap amounts are all 0.
## Min deposit amounts
DOT
40,000,000,000 (4 DOT)
ETH
10,000,000,000,000,000 (0.01 ETH)
FLIP
4,000,000,000,000,000,000 (4 FLIP)
USDC:
20,000,000 (20 USDC)
BTC:
70,000 (0.0007 BTC)
(posting in correct channel this time)
## Maximum swap amount
ETH:
500,000,000,000,000,000 (0.5 ETH)
FLIP
200,000,000,000,000,000,000 (200 FLIP)
USDC
1,000,000,000 (1000 USDC)
DOT
2,000,000,000,000 (200 DOT)
BTC
4,000,000 (0.04 BTC)
## Min swap amounts are all 0.
## Min deposit amounts
DOT
40,000,000,000 (4 DOT)
ETH
10,000,000,000,000,000 (0.01 ETH)
FLIP
4,000,000,000,000,000,000 (4 FLIP)
USDC:
20,000,000 (20 USDC)
BTC:
70,000 (0.0007 BTC)
(posting in correct channel this time)
## Maximum swap amount
ETH:
500,000,000,000,000,000 (0.5 ETH)
FLIP
200,000,000,000,000,000,000 (200 FLIP)
USDC
1,000,000,000 (1000 USDC)
DOT
2,000,000,000,000 (200 DOT)
BTC
4,000,000 (0.04 BTC)
## Min swap amounts are all 0.
## Min deposit amounts
DOT
40,000,000,000 (4 DOT)
ETH
10,000,000,000,000,000 (0.01 ETH)
FLIP
4,000,000,000,000,000,000 (4 FLIP)
USDC:
20,000,000 (20 USDC)
BTC:
70,000 (0.0007 BTC)
(posting in correct channel this time)