For the next quarter, we intend to set realistic yet impressive goals, and continue to achieve them. While the next quarter’s list is slightly shorter due to the focus on our first item — Switcheo Chain — it is definitely not any less meaty.

Q3 2019

Switcheo Chain Beta

Most of our engineering time is now focused on Switcheo Chain! The launch of the beta has been pushed back slightly — but we hope to be able to share it soon so that our to-be-validators can begin testing. In addition, work on our custom block explorer for viewing side-chain transactions has also begun.

Referral Program

We are launching a referral program for Switcheo Exchange. There will be two phases — and the first phase (Switcheo Account only) has a target launch date of late July / early August. Stay tuned to find out how you can earn rewards and win prizes for sharing about Switcheo!

Order History Revamp

Power users rejoice! We’re revamping our order history page to better support heavy users of the exchange.

The revamp would include:

Indication of open orders on order book and price chart

Sorting of order history by price

Filtering order history by date & side (buy / sell)

Expand & collapse feature for the order history tab

Cancel-All feature for current orders

Other miscellaneous improvements and visual design tweaks to provide better clarity and smoother trading experience for power users & “manual” market makers

Ethereum V2 Contract

Upgrading of smart contracts can be a hassle, and that is why we have designed our contracts to be extendable. As the ecosystem grows however, it is sometimes inevitable to want to replace a contract completely.

One of our primary goals for working on a new smart contract is to achieve cheaper network fees by optimizing gas usage. Transaction costs have been ballooning to >$1 per trade as the Ethereum network edges close to maximum capacity. This has sometimes resulted in delayed settlement when gas prices spike quickly.

As part of our side-chain research, we have been working on strategies such as transaction batching and reducing data storage through use of Merkle trees. We are also taking the opportunity to inline some new contracts we have added such as Atomic Swaps and Deflationary Token Deposits, further reducing gas costs. Together, these can reduce network costs dramatically (up to ~5x).

These same strategies have already been in the works for our side-chain architecture — however, we intend to fast-track them onto our current infrastructure first. Using these gas-saving strategies, we hope to make our transaction costs a lot more competitive in the mid-term.

On top of that, the new contract will add more scalability by allowing multiple coordinators, also acting as a proof-of-concept for our upcoming multiple validator model.

Additionally, we will support more token transfer methods specs (such as ERC-223 & ERC-777), as well as have better support for tokens with demurrage and deflationary transfer schemes (such as Algorand, Digix Gold, HalfLife), giving us a wider range of tokens that can be deposited and traded safely.

We will also take the opportunity to upgrade our transaction signing to make use of structured data signing (ERC-712) specifications which will provide a similar signing experience as to what is coming for NEO.

Structured Data Messages on Ethereum

Finally, we have been made aware that currently Switcheo coordinators are able to take slightly more user funds per transaction than expected by order makers. While coordinators do not trade against users, and abusing this is not economically viable due to the large number of transactions (and gas cost) required, we feel it does not represent the fully non-custodian trust model we promise. Therefore a new contract is the only way to remain truly trustless. We’ll release more details regarding this once the new contract is launched. Please note that no user tokens on Switcheo are at risk of being compromised!

New User Experience

We have been iterating on our Wallet Manager, and we feel there is still room for a little more improvement — especially for first time users. We want to keep highlighting the features of Switcheo Account, but also introduce the option of using 3rd-party wallets on a more equal footing. More importantly, we want to give a better introductory experience to new users who are curious in exploring how they can use such software or hardware wallets safely. Here’s an early preview of the new initial “login” screen: