2023 in retrospect - new leadership, new roadmap, new strategy:
While the entire #web3 sector went through a harsh #CryptoWinter and global events escalated to cause uncertainty on a macro level, we focused on what is important and overcame adversity.
With hard times came the need for transitions and big changes, so we doubled down, and focused resources on what is most important, Building.
Our amazing developers never stopped shipping upgrades, improving interoperability of smart contracts and IBC, resolving vulnerabilities, and launching Privacy as a Service with key primitives to both #CosmosIBC networks and the #EVM.
The community, #SCRTAgents, and marketing teams from Secret Foundation and Secret Network Foundation moved to focus on builders, workshops, and hackathons. Using IRL and virtual events to bring awareness and innovation into the ecosystem.
We launched our first online Hackathon in the spring which had 233 registrants with participants from 42 different countries and 6 community sponsors. Secret Agency organized 10 developer workshops and in the end, 33 developers divided into 13 teams submitted projects, with one project being further funded by Secret Labs to be brought to mainnet. 2 brand new developers entered full-time on Secret, and 2 of our most veteran devs brought new projects to mainnet! HackSecret will be even better in 2024!
We traveled across the globe creating partnerships, raising awareness, bringing new talent to our community, and building up the ecosystem, with events and hackathons in 24 countries including Spain, Germany, Estonia, Denmark, Greece, Canada, Poland, Turkey, Paris, Hong Kong, Singapore, Mexico, Brazil, Canada, USA, Nigeria, Rwanda, Kenya, India, Italy, Turkey, UK, Czech Republic, and Israel!
Many of these areas had more than one visit and multiple events each visit. With many additional University workshops in smaller locations.
We gained big talent in new leadership during the transition to the Secret Network Foundation, with Lisa Loud becoming the Executive Director bringing incredible experience from giants like PayPal, Apple, and ShapeShift.
Upon taking the reins of SNF, Lisa jumped right into the spotlight at the Paris Blockchain Week events and has been traveling the globe for IRL events ever since, while also restructuring the Secret Network Foundation core team.
Meanwhile, we gained Alex Zaidelson as the new CEO of SCRT Labs, an OG developer in the web3 privacy space as the former CEO of Beam. Alex has jumped right into the hackathon and dev workshop events with both feet, starting with Cosmosverse, ETH Rome, and others while speaking at major events like ETHRome and #NearCon2023 and relaunching the developer grants program, and SCRT delegation program.
An updated Development Roadmap was published, putting a strategic focus on expanding Secret to other ecosystems, starting with EVM. The Roadmap also announces a number of important improvements in the core Secret Network technology, as well as public goods, allocations and tokenomics changes.
🔗
We also announced the launch of Confidential Computing Constellation - an association of confidential computing projects offering solutions for various privacy tradeoffs and giving developers the widest possible flexibility.
Secret is on a mission to lead the privacy and confidentiality on Web3, becoming a distinctive chain-agnostic confidentiality layer that can be used on any ecosystem. With Secret, developers on any chain can create new privacy-enabled dApps or enhance existing apps with minimal effort.
The transition and the spirit of renewal have created a more cohesive and supporting environment for #dApp builders in the ecosystem. We are positioned better than ever for future success, and we see our amazing builders starting to launch and add to roadmaps!
The Secret Dashboard has improved throughout the year.
@AlterDapp has just published their 2024 roadmap.
@admirariDAO is launching main-net in Q1 2024.
@Shade_Protocol has made waves in the DeFi market this summer with SCRT Surge and has an impressive roadmap published for 2024.
@SerenityShield_ just launched on main-net with Secret smart contracts used on Binance Smart Chain.
@ActiList_Dapp is set to launch in Q1 to Q2 2024
@oct_network is set to integrate adaptive IBC between @NEARProtocol and Secret Network at the beginning of 2024
And there are many more in the works that are still a secret, but stay tuned for the alpha 😉
We did all this and more during what many call the worst bear market in crypto history. So we are very excited to see what we achieve one year from now as the sector shifts into positive market dynamics and more teams launch on main-net!