Happy 2022 to everyone! This is our first update of the year.
We will briefly cover some of the updates since our last report, but with our focus being on getting the blue papers from the API+ and Wallet+ working groups released, the updates are few. So instead of leaving the post rather bare, we’ll also dive in to what we anticipate 2022 will bring from our team.
Projects for 2022
With our team growing and many of our projects hitting a stable level of operations, we wanted to share the projects we’re excited about and are planning on making progress on this year.
- Unicove: Our goal with Unicove is to build an incredibly easy to use web wallet. If someone wants to get started on an EOSIO blockchain, it’s our goal that all they’ll need is a link to the site and be provided with everything they need to get started. We also plan to start working on some block explorer functionality, with our goal always having been “easy to use wallet with block explorer functionality”. We hope to establish some collaborations with other teams as well to help us with these initiatives!
- Anchor: This year we would like to tackle a complete rewrite of Anchor on Desktop to bring it in to alignment with the mobile versions. Anchor is a secure signer and key manager that’s meant primarily to serve a similar purpose to a password manager. All the interfaces from Anchor Desktop you see today will be refined and moved into Unicove, which will allow users of Anchor on both desktop and mobile to access the same interfaces and do the same activities. We also have design experiments ongoing to expand the functionality of the mobile versions, which the desktop would also adopt. The goal is to create a similar Anchor experience no matter which device type you use.
- Robo (Roborovski): This is our custom API solution that’s been powering our EOS and WAX APIs for the past few years, with a new name. We anticipate a lot of development on this project as we release it for general use and show how it’s efficient indexing strategies can be used to offer EOSIO-based data in efficient ways we haven’t seen before. New API services can leverage this service to build and distribute APIs for specific applications.
- New (d)App: A new project will likely be released this year to service all EOSIO networks and serve as both a source of verifiable truth and a discovery engine for applications. We have been internally talking about the need for this application (for use in Anchor and Unicove) for years now and this might be the year it happens. The details of this new app will be proposed within the Wallet+ paper.
- New SDKs: One of the major projects that will be presented in the Wallet+ paper is new SDKs. We have worked with hundreds of developers integrating Anchor and have seen where they struggle, oftentimes due to the capabilities of the SDKs they are using. If approved, we plan on building a new suite of SDKs for EOSIO that will bring web app development for these platforms to the next level.
- New APIs: Another major project coming out of the working groups, this time API+, is to establish new standards and software for applications to access the blockchain. If approved we will be working with key stakeholders in the ecosystem to create the next generation of API services that help power EOSIO applications and bring the blockchain to the masses.
- New EOSIO Standards: There’s a few things people have long requested of our products that we haven’t managed to solve up to this point, at least in a universal approach. The Wallet+ paper will include a few of these ideas and we expect to make progress and release some of these throughout the year.
We are excited with what 2022 can potentially bring!
Existing Project Updates
Working Groups (API+ and Wallet+)
We have tied up a lot of resources in these working groups since November. The team has evaluated a large chunk of the blockchain industry when it comes to both how users interact with these chains and how data is provided to the applications that people use. We have hundreds of pages of content generated at this point and are in the process of distilling that information down into something presentable to the EOSIO community.
These research papers will include project proposals for things we’ve identified as critical needs for the ecosystem. Developing successful apps is hard, and it’s our hope that the things we’ve identified will help ease the adoption for both users and developers alike.
To give you a sense at the contents of these papers, we’re talking about new API standards, easier access to data, integartions with industry standard tooling, new SDKs to help developers build applications, and EOSIO enhancements to improve the user experience.
Anchor - Android
The Android version of Anchor has been struggling with in-app purchases over the past few weeks as we work to resolve some KYC/AML issues on the Play Store, which stems from some taxation issue with our distribution in Brazil. Because of this, account creation via in-app purchases has been unavailable. We have followed up with Google multiple times and are just awaiting their billing teams to verify that we are in fact not Brazilian citizens and are compliant with their new policies.
Due to this situation, we will soon be releasing an update to the Android version that is capable of redirectiong users who wish to purchase an account to https://create.anchor.link, which is our web version that you can use as an alternative. We have no control over when in-app purchases are halted due to administrative issues like this, so the app being intelligent enough to re-route users is a priority.
Aside from these issues, development hsa been going rather well and we will soon be releasing an update that contains many bug fixes as well as a rewrite to the “security” module within the app. The SDKs we were using for biometrics didn’t allow for much customization, so one of our developers has been working on building a custom one that meets our needs. This new module will allow pin codes to be set and more flexible options for using the hardware security elements of the device.
Unicove
The redesign from the “Untitled” web wallet to Unicove is well under way. A live preview of this work is available in a preview branch and we are excited where this new branding will take us.
We are also hard at work designing the look and feel of a bunch of new features which will come online after the rebranding efforts are complete!
Misc
- Updates have been made to the anchor-link library to update dependencies and bring alignment between it and eosio-signing-request and ual-anchor.
- We are investigating ways to optimize a few libraries to reduce the overall bundle size of ual-anchor. There’s overlap between it and a few other UAL plugins which hopefully modern bundlers will be able to leverage.
Team Expansion
Over the course of the last month we have continued our recruiting process and evaluating how we grow the team. Starting in February we will be bringing in our new systems admin full time to help manage operations. We continue to look for people to both help us build our products/services as well as administrative staff to help us keep things moving along.
Greymass is expanding for the first time in years. We are looking for people who have experience taking charge in areas related to development, management, support, and marketing. If you think you have the knowledge and skills to help, and are interested in exploring opportunities, please reach out to us at team@greymass.com!
Analytics
November was a month of growth, followed by December which ended up being fairly flat for all metrics except account creation. This is understandable with our lack of promotion and development, as well as considering the various holidays that likely pull peoples attention towards spending time with friends and family.
Account Creation
Account creation statistics have declined due to issues with the Google Play Store in December and a few days of problems with the Apple App Store. Account creation in Android has been offline for a few weeks as we work with Google’s billing support team to resolve the issues, which has been delayed both due to the state of the world and the Google staff taking time off during the holidays.
Anchor (Android)
Active Users (opt-in)
Device Acquisition
Anchor (iOS)
Active Users (opt-in)
Device Acquisition
Unicove Usage
Previous Report
Our previous report can be found here: