3 Years of AngelBlock: Development Summary & Monthly Updates - April & May, 2024
01 Jun 2024 · 10 min read
AngelBlock Anniversary
AngelBlock Anniversary
Development Summary
Development Summary
Monthly Update
Monthly Update
As we celebrate three years of AngelBlock, we want to express our heartfelt gratitude to our team and partners. Alongside these thanks, we also aim to provide an objective recap of the lessons we've learned in developing our platform for on-chain crypto fundraising with important events calendarium. This is for our dear friends, community members, and newcomers alike.
Our Journey and Key Insights
Crypto fundraising is a tricky term. It's an area that has been messy for some time, needing more transparent and smooth mechanisms. While it’s better now compared to 2023, challenges remain. Rug pulls are still a risk, and with the upcoming bull run, we can expect both booms and investors' tears.
From our experience in the crypto space since 2016, building other projects before AngelBlock, we noticed a glaring need to address the friction points in crypto fundraising. Drawing from traditional fundraising lessons and applying them to our DeFi protocol has been key.
Since our raise started in 2021, we've faced numerous challenges, not only from the market but also from VCs and startups we admired. Identifying these challenges early on, even before product development, allowed us to address them in our protocol features and improve the deal flow between crypto startups and investors. Even after four on-chain raises (already!), we still see much to clean up in this space.
Addressing Challenges
We recognized a pressing need to address the challenges of fundraising within the crypto space. Each bull market brings numerous centralized token distribution platforms, known as "launchpads" and "starters." However, we approached the issue from a unique perspective.
The platform leverages smart contracts to automate the fundraising process, providing a trustless and transparent solution for both investors and projects.
As our Founder and CEO, Alex said:
AngelBlock is not the custodian of any funds, we're a protocol that provides a system of decentralized interaction between individual contributors and projects raising. We do not ask for / have any tokens to dump on retail. It's not our model and it will never be our model.
AngelBlock implements a unique milestone-based token distribution system. Startups define a series of milestones during the fundraising process, and investors can vote on the achievement of these milestones as funds are only released upon the fulfillment of agreed-upon milestones. This mechanism allows the community to actively participate in the platform's governance, providing an additional layer of protection for contributors' funds.
What’s concerning is many people misunderstand that being listed on launchpads doesn't guarantee a successful raise or capital distribution to the startup (they’re essentially a black box). So, this is where our role begins, and it’s more complex than we initially assumed. No complaints though – we love to advise and review all the startups applications. 😉
Dispelling Myths, Highlighting Benefits & Combating Deception
We believe there's much to explore and highlight, not only from the perspective of successful raises on AngelBlock but also in terms of the advantages this journey presents to each party involved. Technology can help tackle fundraising challenges and the crypto 'greenwashing' we see daily. We're here to unmask all those crypto fundraising myths, and that hasn't changed since we launched our MVP in October 2022.
Some projects with strong missions deserve recognition beyond those merely using the term 'decentralization' or boasting inflated raise amounts. These claims often come from launchpads with diluted prices and numbers presented to their communities (sometimes even lying about the scale of the raise).
Recognizing Valuable Projects
With hype around memecoins, it's essential to highlight underrated projects that bring real products and infrastructure to the market, not just tokens. This can be achieved by focusing on our product functionalities, such as startup milestones voting open to investors, token vesting, staking, and other features we offer. The application process of a startup for a raise is complex, as explained in our last AMA video.
Sharing knowledge and presenting such protocols helps create more safety and accountability in this space. People still don’t know how to invest and stay safe, especially when entering the world of DeFi without recognizing the issues problematic in TradFi.
Our path to decentralized fundraising
Let’s look at our calendarium and see what happened throughout the last 3 years of AngelBlock development:
2021
- Building and raising throughout 2021…
2022
Q1
- Partnership with Aleph Zero established.
- Hard work on smart contracts and our NFTs collection.
Q2
- First article about AngelBlock on Medium came to light.
- 1st batch of AngelBlock NFT was released
- The platform underwent security audits with Hacken and Zokyo. The NFT smart contracts were audited by Omniscia.
- Updated tokenomics in the second blog article presented.
Q3
- Staking mechanism introduced.
- The AngelBlock multichain thesis presented.
- Preparations for the platform launch and TGE.
- Startup Grant Program announced. (Over 300 startups have expressed interest in listing on our platform!)
Q4
- Oct 31: The AngelBlock protocol MVP for token-based raises released.
- Nov 16: Early Access to our native token Tholos ($THOL) enabled.
2023
Q1
- Our CEO Alex spoke at the 8th European Blockchain Convention in Barcelona.
- Feb 16: $THOL IDO on Uniswap.
- Launch of a community validator node for Aleph Zero.
Q2
- Apr 12: $THOL was listed on MEXC.
- Staking Contract Audit reported
- Badges introduced
- Startup Grant Program Vol.2 relaunched.
- We hosted a webinar for European Tech School students & European Blockchain Convention audiences.
- Our CFO Leith spoke at the Web3 Conference in Berlin.
- AngelBlock joined the Aleph Zero Ecosystem Funding Program.
- June 29: The inaugural seed round raise was hosted: Stabble (formerly SOLA-X).
Q3
- Partnerships announced: The European Tech School, ETH Warsaw, and Nicholas Merten, popularly known as the founder of DataDash.
- AngelBlock became an Indexer on The Graph. Read more here.
- AngelBlock Ambassador Program oficially announced.
- Stabble (formerly SOLAX) had its 1st milestone vote approved – showcased the proof of the working mechanism of governance power of users of the protocol.
- Crosschain raises for Avalanche and Polygon projects underwent testing.
Q4
- Our CEO Alex spoke at Zebu Live in London and the 9th European Blokchain Convention in Barcelona
- Thanks to the integration with LayerZero, AngelBlock protocol became capable of hosting fundraises on more than 30+ chains
- A comprehensive guide of THOL and its tokenomics released.
- Second successful raise for Script Network was hosted on December 5th (closed and sold out in just two days). More information here.
2024
Q1
- The next raise and the first Aleph Zero project on AngelBlock – DRKVRS, announced.
- THOL Airdrop for users who invested in at least one startup listed on AngelBlock in 2023
- Aleph Zero Bridge audit completed with a positive review from auditors
- The first token-claiming event took place via the AngelBlock platform. This claim event occurred on the BSC network, demonstrating that AngelBlock is fully cross-chain capable.
April Monthly Updates
Product
$THOL deposits and trading are officially open at BitMart exchange
Raises
The Script Network 2nd token unlock occurred on April 20th.
Community
- March AMA Episode released: CEO, Alex along with Martin Stepniak (CPO), discussed the process of onboarding startups for raises, protocol development and brand new product – OTC.
- AngelBlock Ambassador Program renewal announced.
- Data Dash supported us with another video about our platform on his YT channel.
May Monthly Updates
Raises
Lingo:
Our third successful raise for Lingo was conducted on May 15th, reaching its hard cap of $100k in just 1h25min!
Delta Prime:
The 4th AngelBlock raise for Delta Prime started on May May30th, and reached its soft cap on the same day. The raise will last until June 6th, 2024.
Script Network:
2nd Milestone Voting Results. Script investors have given their approval to the 2nd milestone, releasing 31.68% of the raised funds.
Milestone 2 – Goals:
- Hit 65,000,000 minutes watched on the platform
Milestone 2 – Results:
- Votes: 19,636/50k
- Approved milestone: 94% of votes
- Rejected milestone: 6% of votes
Script has delivered its milestone as promised, unlocking 31.68% of the funds raised, totalling 15,840 USDT.
The 3rd token claim for $SCPT tokens occurred.
Reminder:
- Next $SCPT claim: 18 Jun 2024
Stabble:
After the successful rejection of Stabble's Replanning vote on Snapshot, a refund has just been issued for 65% of the total investment. The funds have been sent to Investor wallets (the same wallets used to participate in the sale). This means that once Milestone 4 is rejected, investors will be able to claim back the remaining 35% of the initial investment using our platform.
Community
- April AMA episode released. Alex (CEO) and Marcin Majchrzak (CTO) Talked about: Relaxing milestone requirements, New Product Launch: OTC, Why some projects from feedback forms don’t list on AngelBlock?, Fees, Staking & APY.
- AngelBlock Bday Giveaway for platform users released on May 16th. More information here.
- New AngelBlock ambassadors were introduced to the current ones on Telegram. You can expect a big intro in the coming days on the official channel.
Team
- We organized our annual integration trip for the team. We were not only celebrating the 3 year AngelBlock anniversary but also our third successful raise on the protocol.
Photo by: Properly Studio
Staking Metrics Update
THOL Staking
- Total staked: 59,797,372 $THOL
- Stakers: 715
- NFTs staked: 1149 (Current market value per NFT: 1,018.08 $THOL
- THOL staking rewards pool: 22,881.47 $THOL
You can stake here: https://angelblock.io/staking/
Aleph Zero Validator Node Update: 2.86M AZERO Staked
With 2.86M AZERO staked, our validator node has achieved a commendable 96,871% uptime. The slight shortfall from 100% uptime has been addressed, with ISP issues identified and solutions implemented to restore full uptime.
Stay tuned for more updates soon.
Again, Happy 3 years Anniversary, AngelBlock Protocol! And thank you all for being with us on this journey!
Written by: Kate Pergol
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