## **Un cambiamento epocale in arrivo nel campo delle blockchain minabili**

Il panorama del mining di criptovalute Proof of Work sta per cambiare drasticamente. Entro la fine dell'anno, Ethereum ha annunciato che passerà da una blockchain Proof of Work (PoW) a una Proof of Stake (PoS). Ethereum e Bitcoin sono stati a lungo considerati i colossi delle blockchain minabili e l'abbandono di Ethereum del protocollo PoW lascia molti minatori a tempo pieno e hobbisti alla ricerca di una rete in cui poter dirigere il loro potere di hash. Se sei un minatore di Ethereum e stai cercando una rete per utilizzare le tue risorse minerarie, ecco diversi motivi per considerare Ergo.

**Resistente agli ASIC e compatibile con le GPU**
Se sei un minatore di GPU, il tuo hardware funzionerà abbastanza favorevolmente su Ergo. Il meccanismo di consenso implementato per il mantenimento della rete si chiama Autolykos v2 ed è resistente agli ASIC. Ciò significa che i computer ASIC utilizzati per il mining di Bitcoin non possono essere utilizzati per il mining di Ergo (ERG). Quelli con computer da gioco e/o impianti di mining GPU dedicati possono facilmente partecipare alla manutenzione della rete Ergo ricevendo i premi di mining. Inoltre, molti di coloro che hanno estratto sia ETH che ERG riferiscono spesso che il meccanismo di consenso di Autolykos v2 funziona a temperature più basse sulle loro GPU, riducendo l'usura del loro hardware.

**Piattaforma di livello 1 abilitata per Smart Contract**
La piattaforma Ergo rappresenta il culmine di alcuni dei progressi più singolari nella recente tecnologia blockchain. È modellato sul design UTXO di Bitcoin, ma offre anche la possibilità di implementare contratti intelligenti robusti ed efficienti. La combinazione di queste due caratteristiche significa che Ergo è etichettato come una blockchain UTXO estesa, il che significa che condivide lo stesso modello di libro mastro con la rete Cardano. Ergo offre anche l'uso di protocolli Sigma, NIPoPoW, Storage Rent, funzionalità di privacy opzionali e diritti/responsabilità di governance concessi ai minatori.

**Governance, EIP27 e Subpooling**
Ergo è progettato per essere una blockchain adattiva. Qualsiasi proposta fatta per adeguare gli aspetti della blockchain deve essere votata dai minatori e dai pool minerari: i minatori detengono importanti poteri di governance su Ergo. Ad esempio, c'è stata una recente proposta (EIP27) per adeguare il programma di emissione dei token ERG. Inizialmente, l'intera fornitura di ERG sarebbe stata estratta entro 8 anni dalla data di lancio della mainnet. Al fine di garantire il tempo necessario per sviluppare adeguatamente la sicurezza crittoeconomica necessaria per la longevità della blockchain, è stato proposto di estendere i premi minerari di EIP27. EIP27 ha presentato una riorganizzazione del programma delle emissioni (senza modificare la fornitura iniziale), ma affinché questa proposta passasse, ha richiesto alla comunità mineraria di approvare la proposta con un voto a maggioranza del 90%. Prima dell'approvazione di questa proposta, i pool minerari sono stati consultati e, per la maggior parte, gli amministratori del pool hanno indicato come avrebbero votato i rispettivi pool. Un pool (GetBlok), in realtà ha organizzato una votazione per i minatori sul pool tramite token NFT su Ergo. Da allora questo pool ha anche sviluppato il subpooling per i loro minatori, dove possono estrarre altri token nativi sulla blockchain di Ergo attraverso contratti intelligenti.

**Affitto di stoccaggio e ricavi minerari**
Quando si guarda a Bitcoin, una delle maggiori preoccupazioni è che un gran numero di monete viene definitivamente perso dalla circolazione. Ciò potrebbe essere dovuto a molte ragioni: computer smarrito, impossibilità di ripristinare un portafoglio, morte, ecc. Con Ergo, il protocollo Storage Rent è una caratteristica innovativa che impedisce che le monete vengano perse definitivamente dalla circolazione. Per qualsiasi scatola UTXO che non esegue una transazione entro 4 anni, verrà addebitata una piccola commissione per l'affitto di deposito a quella scatola. La tariffa per questa funzione è attualmente ~0,14 ERG (più le commissioni di transazione). Questo protocollo unico continuerà a fornire entrate per i minatori anche nel futuro, garantendo al contempo che nessuna delle forniture di ERG venga persa dalla circolazione. Per evitare questa commissione nominale, un titolare di portafoglio deve eseguire una transazione solo da quella casella entro un periodo di quattro anni. Per coloro che sono interessati a saperne di più su questo affascinante aspetto di Ergo, leggere Ergo Explainer: Storage Rent.

Man mano che Ergo cresce, ci saranno ulteriori flussi di entrate per i minatori. Coloro che estraggono e mantengono la rete guadagneranno anche ricompense da sidechain (NIPoPoW aiuterà a facilitare questo), infrastrutture di bridge e infrastrutture di livello 2.

**Ecosistema, ErgoHacks e sviluppo**
Sebbene i mercati delle criptovalute abbiano avuto una tendenza al ribasso negli ultimi mesi, lo sviluppo di Ergo ha continuato a crescere. Secondo Stack, Ergo è continuamente tra le più alte attività di sviluppo blockchain. Finora nel 2022, ci sono stati oltre 5700 commit su Ergo, rispetto alla media del settore di 408. La blockchain sta anche assistendo a un grande afflusso di nuovi sviluppatori, con oltre 180 sviluppatori che hanno contribuito a Ergo nell'ultimo anno. Ciò è dovuto in parte all'impegno della Fondazione Ergo di organizzare e ospitare regolarmente ErgoHacks (l'hackathon dell'ecosistema).

Ergo dispone già di diverse dApp (applicazioni decentralizzate) con importanti utilità per l'ecosistema:

ErgoPad è un trampolino di lancio di IDO che aiuta i progetti a raccogliere capitali assistendo nel contempo alla promozione e allo sviluppo.
SigUSD è un protocollo stablecoin non detentivo, sovra-collateralizzato e supportato da criptovalute. Non ha mai perso il suo ancoraggio all'USD durante la volatilità del mercato dell'ultimo anno, anche se il valore di ERG è sceso da $ 22 a $ 1,80. Se sei curioso di saperne di più su questa potente e innovativa stablecoin, visita il sito Web di SigmaUSD e questo recente articolo di notizie.

Queste sono solo due delle tante dApp che ora sono funzionanti nell'ecosistema Ergo. Per una panoramica completa delle dApp disponibili, visitare il sito Web Sigmaverse.

**Come minare ergo**

Se sei interessato al mining di Ergo, la Fondazione Ergo ha pubblicato diversi articoli su come partecipare al mantenimento della rete.

Estrazione di Ergo su HiveOS

Mining Ergo su Windows

C'è anche una comunità mineraria molto attiva su Telegram e le parti interessate possono accedervi tramite il canale Ergo Mining. Una volta lì, puoi anche accedere a diverse risorse, comprese le impostazioni di overclock suggerite per le GPU.

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Ethereum Mining Community e GPU Miners: il caso di Ergo dopo la fusione

ErgoRaffle, an incentivized crowdfunding platform, had the Ergo community buzzing long before it ever even launched. Winning first place at the inaugural ErgoHack (June 2021), it was apparent that this elegant protocol was set to bring “[novel solutions not seen before in the Ergo ecosystem](https://curiaregiscrypto.medium.com/ergohack-results-f7d72711a9db)” while adding “[a lot of value for future developers to learn from as well](https://curiaregiscrypto.medium.com/ergohack-results-f7d72711a9db).”

When it launched in beta in September 2021, it was immediately apparent that it was set to become a community favorite. In fact, while still in beta, twenty-one raffles were successfully completed for objectives ranging from supporting mining decentralization to philanthropic initiatives.

As Ergo Raffle left beta, more and more crowdfunding initiatives sought out this novel tool, and in the last few months over 4000 ERG has been raised.

Deco’s [first fundraising raffle](https://ergoraffle.com/raffle/show/d6941cb138ff2442d42a9636b8acf1ac06e2ca0665a884030e69499f0a2b139d) goal was set at 1115 ERG. Within days, this goal was met and surpassed thanks to the community’s enthusiasm and support for this initiative. The Ergo Foundation made a significant contribution and Ergo Raffle also endorsed this raffle by donating the 5% fee. 

So what is DeCo (short for Decentralized Collaboration), and why has it received such a massive outpouring of support from the community?

DeCo (previously ErgoLearn) is a grassroots, education initiative first conceived by the team behind ErgoLend. The purpose of DeCo is to organize and offer interactive courses for anyone interested in learning more about Ergo and ErgoScript.

The first cohort of Deco students graduated the “Layman Course Batch #0” on February 26th and are already helping the ecosystem grow and thrive. Some have dedicated their talents to teaching, while others, like the team behind GuapSwap, are working on deploying their dApps. In the wake of this success, Deco is already welcoming new students in its virtual classrooms and planning an even more ambitious curriculum.

### DeCo Curriculum

1. Two “Layman eUTXO design” [courses](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bxHRvr9vN2yTw5nfb0nve9BXNaevo6bl/view) (the list below is quoted from the curriculum overview). These are geared towards novices and cover:

   * Basics of eUTxO
   * Concepts of Boxes, Transactions, Registers and its utilities
   * Designing of Transactions (Simple, Real-life, eUTxO)
   * Basic concepts of Tokens, Script hashes for box retrieval
   * Mindset for designing these systems
   * Group projects to work on
2. One “ErgoScript Developer” [course](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bxHRvr9vN2yTw5nfb0nve9BXNaevo6bl/view) (the list below is quoted from the curriculum overview), focusing on:

   * Basic Functional Programming and ErgoScript Language Syntax and Usage
   * Guard Script design framework
   * Evaluation of existing contracts
   * App kit and its utilization
   * Working with Explorer and decoding transaction data
   * Concepts of Scalability and Design patterns 

### DeCo Fundraiser on ErgoRaffle

To continue and sustain their growth, [Deco has organized their second fundraising raffle](https://ergoraffle.com/raffle/show/419c4109318843950d71ccd9273d2b9ee21e032c50b5e96c09ab1234ddad5126), set to end near the end of April. While the raffle goal is higher than the previous ErgoRaffle, so are the needs of DeCo as the influx of students and breadth of classes offered steadily increases.

The raffle’s 7064 ERG goal is based on the estimate to cover the following costs:

* Education costs which cover syllabus, homework, class materials, student assessments, teaching of the classes itself. Additionally, there is a 500 USD bounty to be given out for the video recordings of each class, for a total of 11000 USD.
* Operations, including planning, scaling, marketing, community management as well as bounties to reward community contributors for a total of 11000 USD.
* Projects for the future sustainability of DeCo. 10000 USD will be awarded to the team that presents a plan for the future sustainability of DeCo.

It has been mentioned on numerous occasions in the weekly AMA’s that education is essential to Ergo’s promotion. Ergo is novel with its native language and Sigma Protocols. It will take detailed and thoughtful education materials to assist in onboarding new developers and community members to help Ergo reach its fullest potential. As a community initiative, DeCo is helping to lead the charge, providing a platform for new Ergonauts to learn about the tools that can help unlock their creativity as they help build the future of blockchain.

DeCo and the Power of Community Initiatives on Ergo

# The first official Ergo community in Italy

Ergo was born on April 8th, 2019. At 8:41 p.m. the first block was mined, the first cry of a child screaming: Revolution! The birth of an ecosystem where cryptocurrency is conceived as a tool "*that must enrich human value rather than subjugate humans to surveillance and systems of control*". An ecosystem built through collaboration and sharing of those rights and values ​​that see the human being -ordinary people- at the center, under the banner of the division of labor, solidarity and mutual aid. Not a treasure map but an instrument of liberation, a way of life aimed at building a better future, not only through coding and programming languages, but also through education and sharing of these important discoveries. It can initiate those small daily revolutions that are able to shape our world, *ergonomically*.

![](/img/uploads/pow-to-ppl.jpeg)

On January 25th 2022, at 21:00 UTC + 1, the first Italian Ergo online community is officially born. From the enthusiasm of the Italian Ergonauts, an idea that has materialized into a virtual meeting point where you can get to know and experience the innovative potential of the ecosystem. A community made up of people looking to share a little-known tool, but of great usefulness and depth. Among the thousands of crypto projects, something extremely revolutionary was born. It has cypherpunk philosophical roots and values ​​the legacy of bitcoin without upsetting it, it is more than two years old and was born and survived a ferocious crypto winter where many other projects have not made it. If you actively participate in the life of the community you will be immersed in this fantastic world that uses BlockChain technology, and supported by the solid principles that from Bitcoin onwards have characterized the free and decentralized opensource ecosystems. “Ergo was the first blockchain on the market with a functional extended UTXO smart contract model. So far, the Ergo blockchain has been the first chain to release Dapp, Dex, Stablecoin, Oracle Model, NFT, and native assets in extended UTXO. Ergo's extended UTXO model uses functional programming, Ergoscript, a subset of Scala. " Unfortunately, these news have been slow to hit Italy- could the Alps be blocking them?

By registering to [Ergoitaly.it](https://ergoitaly.it), Ergo's headquarters in Italy, it will be possible to consult the extensive official documentation. The articles on mining, the manifesto and real-time market trends are already available, while white papers I, II and III, which are in translation, will soon be available on the website. Not an Ergonaut yet? No fear!

You can register for free, quickly and easily.

[Ergo Italy](https://ergoitaly.it) is waiting for you!


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Ergoitaly.it was born

We got a ton of great submissions for the new Ergo Foundation logo to celebrate its incorporation as a legal entity.

Thanks to everyone who submitted. There were several high-quality contenders, but after much deliberation, we are pleased to announce the winner!  They also managed to garner enough upvotes to become the [highest upvoted post of all time on r/ergonauts!](https://www.reddit.com/r/ergonauts/comments/q5gni1/logo_proposal_ergo_foundation/)



Ergo Platform is an open ecosystem launched with no initial coin offering (ICO), no private funding, and no pre-mined coins for the founders. A group of developers and users have grown around the network in a grassroots effort to build a system that offers financial tooling and use cases for the ordinary person. 

The Ergo Foundation was created to handle points of business that are required to drive market adoption - a simple DAO with a multisig voting mechanism to manage the small treasury allocation ([4.43% of the total supply taken over the first two and a half years](https://ergoplatform.org/blog/2019_05_20-curve/)).

With the recent appreciation of the treasury, the incorporation of the Ergo Foundation will help us when applying for exchanges and marks the beginning of our formal expansion and restructuring strategy as we expand bounties, grants and other community incentives while building up the internal teams and protocols. 

Funding has been allocated, and the wheels are in motion for branding campaigns, marketing pushes and new hires to help us make Ergo more accessible. Several ergonauts who are respected in their fields have even stepped up to help out by offering their time and services.  

We welcome everyone to join us on the [community marketing telegram](https://t.me/ErgoSocials), [discord](https://discord.gg/TBFXMzha7X), and/or the [ergo forums](https://www.ergoforum.org/) and help us continue building true grassroots finance. 


## The Ergo Foundation

Ergo Platform’s primary focus is to provide an efficient and secure way to implement financial contracts, the most widely used application of blockchain technology. This focus is recognised and supported by the Ergo Foundation.

The Foundation is a community-driven entity committed to;

- Promoting non-breaking development of Ergo Platform protocol;
- Promoting the widespread adoption and use of Ergo Platform and its native token (ERG);
- Developing the ecosystem around the Ergo Platform;
- Promoting the use of Ergo Platform and blockchain technology for social good;
- Supporting truly decentralised infrastructure, and;
- Supporting privacy as a basic human right.

Many types of decentralised applications are possible on top of Ergo, and many are still undiscovered. Lots of people will build on Ergo. There will be lots of stablecoins, lots of DEXs, and lots of things we haven’t even thought of yet. The Foundation's activities include fundraising, research, maintenance of Ergo Platform, improvements for Ergo Platform, marketing and events and anything it can do to achieve those goals above.



## Ergo
The cryptographic part of ErgoScript is based on sigma protocols and naturally supports threshold m-of-n signatures, ring signatures and more. Keeping all this in mind, we expect ErgoScript and Ergo’s design to make it uniquely useful as Contractual Money with countless applications possible. 
For more fundamental changes Ergo follows a ‘soft-forkability’ approach --- if an overwhelming majority of the network accepts a new feature, it is activated, however, old nodes which do not upgrade continue to operate normally and just skip over this feature validation. Thus disruptive hard forks should not be required in Ergo.

Ergo mining will always be stable, unlike Bitcoin and other PoW currencies, in which mining may become unstable after the emission period. Second, state size growth becomes controllable and predictable, reducing hardware requirements for Ergo miners. Third, by collecting storage fees from outdated boxes, miners return lost coins to circulation over time, preventing a steady decrease of circulating supply due to lost keys. To achieve survivability, Ergo provides economic improvements in addition to the technical ones, most central of which is a storage fee component that plays an important role in Ergo‘s stability.

All cryptocurrencies rely on contributions from the scientific research community. [Ergo brings this in its core!](https://ergoplatform.org/discover/#Documents/) 







The Ergo Foundation Logo Results

Ergo believes that people should take as much control of the ecosystem as possible to support decentralization and hopes to develop the crypto community and ecosystem through grassroots movements. The Ergo ecosystem is growing at a rapid pace in terms of both development and user base. We build in collaboration thanks to all the Ergonauts who support and take control of the ecosystem.

Alex (Kushti) Chepurnoy [recently posted](https://www.ergoforum.org/t/good-whales-grant-fund/2779) a proposition from a big Ergo investor named *Good Whale*. In their desire to support Ergo research & development, Good Whale is offering grants up to $20,000 SigUSD (each!) This is not a contract job, so developers who apply for this grant will also control the products created and any resulting income flow.

Good whale’s fund is mostly interested in the following topics:

* developing a standard for NiPoPoW-based certificates for NFTs 
* developing contracts and UI for Ergo Name System (alternative for Namecoin, Handshake, Ethereum Name Service)
* developing applications on top of ErgoDEX, such as DexyUSD [Dexy USD - Simplest Stablecoin Design](https://www.ergoforum.org/t/dexy-usd-simplest-stablecoin-design/1430), token sales with buyback guarantees [New Ergo Smart DEX Orders with buyback guarantees | Ergo](https://ergoplatform.org/blog/2020-12-02-new-ergo-smart-dex-orders-with-buyback-guarantees/) etc
* developing standard DeFi stack: lending applications, financial instruments (futures, options), etc
* [Mixicles](https://research.chain.link/mixicles.pdf) and other private DeFi applications
* Mutual credit systems, targeted microloans, savings cooperatives and other community-powering DeFi

These are initial categories, and interested developers are free to propose their own!

Please note that this is an additional fund to help promote and speed up Ergo ecosystem bootstrapping. There are bounties up for bugs, tutorials, and new applications on the [grow-ergo](https://github.com/ergoplatform/grow-ergo/issues) repository. There are also more than 4k ERG in the DarkFund0, reserved for privacy-preserving applications.

The Ergo Foundation is always interested in viewing all grant proposals.

If you are interested in building with Ergo and supporting development, please send your proposals to team@ergoplatform.org.

Good Whale’s Grant Fund

This resource serves as a starting point for anyone interested in learning more about the Ergo community. For more detailed information, please consult the most comprehensive handbook on the Ergo Ecosystem,[ergonaut.space](http://ergonaut.space).

## Ergo Blockchain

Ergo is an Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) based Proof of Work blockchain for Smart Contracts that is built with its own unique language, ErgoScript. The language is built with Sigma Protocols, allowing for the use of a secure and flexible sub-class of zero knowledge proofs. Ergo’s approach to UTXO (called Multi-Stage Contracts) introduces time-weighted data, read-only inputs and the implementation of Non-Interactive Proofs of Proof of Work (NIPoPoWs) - enabling light clients and cross chain interoperability. The mission for Ergo is to develop all the necessary tools for a decentralized finance ecosystem. Ergo is a partner of Cardano and Emurgo and a member of the Blockchain Privacy, Security & Adoption Alliance.

The lead developer of Ergo, Alex (Kushti) Chepurnoy, has been in the blockchain sector since 2011. He has built various projects such as smartcontract.com (old Chainlink), NXT, Scorex and he is a researcher of IOHK with over 20 papers under his name. Academia and peer-reviewed research are paramount to Ergo’s success in building a robust blockchain.

## Ergo Tokenomics

Ergo’s Proof of Work is based on the Autolykos v2 consensus algorithm which is a GPU mineable cryptocurrency. Ergo did not hold any ICO in the launch and the genesis block started fairly without any VC funding. Ergo first went live on Waves and was mineable as the Ergo First Year Token (EFYT).

There were no pre-mined coins reserved for the Ergo Foundation. Ergo’s ecosystem is funded through a distribution model that designates  10% of the mining rewards to the Ergo Treasury until the [end of 2nd year](https://ergoplatform.org/blog/2021-07-07-2nd-ergoversary-wrap-up/) (of the mainnet launch). From this point onwards, the Treasury allocation will be halved every month for 6 months, afterwhich the Treasury will cease to receive any further allotment from the protocol. At the end of the distribution schedule, the Treasury funds represent only 4.37% of the total ERG supply. This model helps to build full decentralization.

The total coin supply is hard-capped at 97 million ERGs with an emission schedule of 8 years. This timetable, which is contrary to Bitcoin’s never-ending emission schedule, might seem very brief. However, Bitcoin is programmed to distribute 75% of its supply during the first 8 years, so Ergo’s emission design is not too far-off from Bitcoin’s. Rather than develop a protocol that continually mints coins as rewards for building the blockchain, Ergo has adopted a new and novel incentive for miners in the form of [Storage Rent](https://ergoplatform.org/blog/2021-07-09-cryptocurrency-fees-a-solution-to-unreasonable-state-growth/).

Token emission graphic can be seen below.

![](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/Bmru3HhP0QFKYnZQdxKHp8OZ8BsssasgVRlpcdLZ7MzB5D6rqANR9MjVUAvFHtbGM0Y3-H77QemWqrONKxpygBkpE6sZ8eLcU5dD9ljiwU6iVrRamgIDfeimYx7ZLdfQP8vOBnHH)

The ERG coin is the base layer currency for building and using smart contracts. 

Every type of transaction such as NFT minting, smart contract deployment, and swaps will essentially be signed with ERGs. The circulation of coins therefore will be boosted even with other ecosystems choosing to use the Ergo Blockchain. With more DeFi services such as cross-chain DEX and oracle pools, the future sustainability of Ergo tokenomics will be secured.

## Ergo Ecosystem

**Sigmaverse:** [sigmaverse.io](http://sigmaverse.io) is the decentralized applications hub of the Ergo Ecosystem.

**Oracle Pools:** Oracles are the messengers of blockchain networks. They connect off-chain and on-chain data and create the backbone of DeFi systems. Ergo has an UTXO based approach to oracles with [oracle pools](https://ergoplatform.org/blog/2021-04-27-chainlink-oracles-vs-ergo-oracle-pools/) that will be cheaper and easier to access for decentralized information.

**SigUSD:** [Ergo’s algorithmic stable coin](https://sigmausd.io/#/) application is based on the AgeUSD protocol. Smart contracts secure SigUSD’s peg to the US dollar by backing it with SigRSV reserve coins.

**ErgoMixer:** UTXO based systems have strong privacy features and [ErgoMixer](https://github.com/ergoMixer/ergoMixBack) is a tool for people who want to protect their digital anonymity.

**Ergo Auction House:** Ergo’s NFT marketplace can be accessed at [ergoauctions.org](http://ergoauctions.org). Users can trade visual and audio NFTs easily with a non-custodial wallet.

**ErgoUtils:** Community made multi-purpose tool [ergoutils.org](http://ergoutils.org) is where users can mint NFTs, create custom tokens and use mixer-hops for privacy needs.

**Zero-Knowledge Treasury:** Ergo’s [zero-knowledge vaults](https://github.com/anon-real/DistributedSigsServer) are for mutual expenditure and multi-signature wallets; it's a decentralized on-chain version of a collective bank, or an organization.

**ErgoNFTs**: A community made NFT display application where you can [check](https://ergonfts.org/) your own NFTs.

**NIPoPoWs**: Non-Interactive Proofs of Proof of Work provide side-chains with light clients and enable cross-chain computations. Ergo.Meta, which is a cookbook for sidechains, will be soon published by Kushti.

## Wallets that are endorsed by Ergo:

[Ergo Full Node Wallet](https://github.com/ergoplatform/ergo/wiki/Set-up-a-full-node)

[Yoroi Web Wallet](https://yoroi-wallet.com/#/)

[Android Wallet](https://ergoplatform.org/blog/2021-07-29-ergo-for-android-released/) (a mobile wallet on [Google Play Store](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.ergoplatform.android))

## Roadmap

Alex Chepurnoy’s [latest update](https://ergoplatform.org/blog/2021-07-13-updated-2021-roadmap-from-kushti/) offers insights into ongoing developments on the Ergo Platform.

Readers can also refer to the following infographic about Ergo Platform’s Roadmap.

![](/img/uploads/screenshot-2021-08-04-at-17.01.57.png)

After the overwhelming success of our very first hackathon, [ErgoHack](https://ergoplatform.org/blog/2021-06-19-ergohack/), we are pleased to announce that plans are underway to organize a second one very soon. 

## Exchanges

ERG is currently listed on gate.io, coinex, bitcoin.com, waves.exchange, swop.fi, biki TradeOgre, HotBit, and KuCoin. ErgoDex will be launching very soon and the Ergo team is continuing to work on additional listings with other exchanges.

#### Useful Links:

<https://www.ergoforum.org/>

<https://ergoplatform.org/discover/#Documents/>

<https://github.com/ergoplatform/ergo/wiki>

<https://discord.gg/kj7s7nb>

<https://t.me/ergoplatform>

The Ergonaut Handbook

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The Ergo Manifesto

*The competition prompted some great entries. 2,000 ERG in prizes were ultimately distributed via bids to the winners.*



Just over a month ago we announced the [Ergo Digital Art Competition](https://ergoplatform.org/blog/2021-02-12-2000-erg-in-prizes-to-be-won-in-the-ergo-digital-art-competition/), celebrating the launch of NFTs and the Ergo Auction house on the Ergo blockchain.



The competition resulted in some amazing entries, though sadly not all were eligible – either because they did not meet the guidelines, or were not identified as entries at all. For example, the creator of [this beautiful artwork](https://ergoauctions.org/#/auction/specific/b0f5fe8afc85f4eb50a9dc026aaf7bfe9d90011523727bf055b33291ec5467d9) would have won a prize for sure, but it was incorrectly labelled as being entered in the Animated category. (Fortunately, given that the same artist won the Crypto prize, we don’t think they will be too disappointed.)



Here are the winning entries for each category. Prizes have already been distributed by placing bids on the NFTs. Congratulations to the winners, and please remember that the judge’s decision – and more importantly, the blockchain transaction of each bid – is final in all cases. 



### Crypto: 1,000 ERG

The [Wizard of Ergo](https://ergoauctions.org/#/auction/specific/8be1b5e668f6f8921cf005f5d8ab66782847800b6072059f45ffe03f46deb195) took the prize for the Crypto category. Hopefully it should be clear why. One look at those rich robes, a beard that must have taken years to cultivate, and a very fine hat show that this is a man who can cast a serious smart contract.



![](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/OVmMiSdWXIdc3OC_U6DFAqQp8H1ijW3SZf0uUIuHRmBqmw_TNQfuSgTdxQvoUOST7J1NTi9skl51bqrffQIJz6VFFmluL9exp_hMkl7wPHAR1q8DlZA_7zPysGcPSnl_t3bG5OfA)

The Wizard of Ergo wins the competition.



### Algorithmic: 500 ERG

A personal favourite, [Only You Know What You’re Going To Do Next](https://ergoauctions.org/#/auction/specific/74d37399b78ba7a820465e01f03bea93bd547f503584db7360b71b1e9b3c846b) is based on a [creation by a Russian artist](https://t.co/xargZ4qm5O?amp=1). But the digital reimagination of the oil painting is staggeringly different to the original, having been processed by AI and modified in various other ways. Great job!



![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Ce9mW_MzzsSL6u6kBEpMNfK7IwbrG5J8mvwYAvIJTttbRnyXjekf1zhiT-Zir8to41nWhF70IQs_412zH3EbOMHKRnJxE19Pj0TcAAV3WGbcr5b7DEmadY2fmZa3BJhnDBVUdv34)![](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/8IYY39OdTurOi2h6xtNAtlhWrOJ4SFupb7_w2O_iEwI2tscsF1sLsHcQCXoHrTN2cGuDXNhnYya19Wko6wl1lrhMpJ0wRJOi35OnetQHLmjT76dCRPs5_tN8TCd53_kIAJUb9w1L)

The digital version vs the original.



### Animated (500 ERG)

Finally, [ERGold](https://ergoauctions.org/#/auction/specific/769103950c6c017fc054bd71f80548f8cde5de57063da4c7cabe14390cca2dbc) wins the animated category, with its mesmerising shifting patterns (static version below).



![](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/o-i2NSEebpaBIT3CGzmJzdwNLsd1d1bXrZP1WEXSk61YdWk9iMNCU-6qH14CBWEZFXopeaTMFglbw9BV6agbdaZOYQZkwdxE5RYr79Uf3GN-OtOItEMl8SgReHLPEtJn2Hv6ra0L)

ERGold’s textures and shifting patterns win the animated category.



### Also worth a mention...

There were, of course, many other entries that couldn’t win, much as they deserved a prize. One worth a mention is this [proof of concept for the Cryptnids NFT card game](https://ergoauctions.org/#/auction/specific/b99eb58f42e2366a3d423265e95c682cb61fc028944564fadebd6b3fb6d1029b). It has a fun, almost CryptoPunk-like quality to it. Although the prizes were already allocated, this one got a cheeky bid of a few ERG too, just for the chance of winning a slice of what could turn out to be crypto history. Good luck with the project, guys, and we look forward to seeing how the game develops.



![](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/CAb2Megan2uqYlZU83hbR3ZUfrt6pepprXwDEF37MO639VBCzAs4vAm2sHAlo7oAEwWa9ViSEgMXHxU3AzOIjoCoRDrtxYottSyxlHZCct3ITcOJZB9nprCtFR-Hotjju42wPbOU)

*King Krypto Kame Klose* 



Again, a big congratulations to the winners. And remember, there’s nothing to stop other buyers coming in and making higher bids, so the prizes already allocated are the minimum the artists will receive.


Ergo art competition: Winners Announced!


With the recent launch of the bootstrap period of the SigUSD stablecoin, the Ergo community participation rates have exceeded our expectation. This can be clearly seen by the total value locked (TVL) of over 6 million dollars worth of Ergs within the dApp as of writing. We at the Ergo Foundation have been closely monitoring how the community is using the SigUSD dApp, understanding the mechanics, and all of the different factors at play.

## Front-running Identified

Shortly after the dApp went live, we noticed a large whale was going in and out of SigUSD at a semi-regular schedule. After doing some research into the patterns this whale was using, it was identified that he was front-running the oracle price in an attempt to profit.

This type of oracle front-running has happened before in the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem, and is a factor at play because oracle datapoint updates can never be 100% immediate. There must always be some amount of delay before a datapoint is accepted into a block, which opens up the ability for frontrunning to exist.

In our scenario, the whale was taking advantage of this by minting SigUSD early during the “Live Epoch” period of the oracle pool (once it was reasonably clear what the upcoming new Erg/USD datapoint would be) and would profit on the price difference once the oracle pool finalized the datapoint. You can take a look at the whale’s address here (who appears to be an early miner in the Ergo ecosystem: https://explorer.ergoplatform.com/en/addresses/9hyDXH72HoNTiG2pvxFQwxAhWBU8CrbvwtJDtnYoa4jfpaSk1d3) 

## Pre-Launch Front-Running Mitigation Strategy

When designing the protocol underneath SigUSD (named the AgeUSD protocol), it was understood that frontrunning could be an issue. As such, a mechanism was put in place in the protocol to combat this; that being fees for minting and redeeming. In short, the fees for minting/redeeming SigUSD act as a barrier which prevents front-running from being profitable. This front-running barrier can be calculated by simply adding the fee for minting SigUSD plus the fee for redeeming SigUSD.

For the deployed SigUSD dApp the fees were set to be a low 1% per mint/redeem by the deployer (DarkSideBrrrrr) to provide the community a seamless experience for acquiring SigUSD/SigRSV without having to pay a lot extra. This decision for low fees however also made it more attractive for a greedy whale to abuse and attempt to front-run the dApp for profit. With only 1% fee on each action, this means that the front-running barrier ends up being 1% + 1%.

With an up-and-coming Blockchain like Ergo with a decent amount of price volatility, these 1% fees have been shown to be insufficient by the whale. Thus it was agreed upon that this front-running issue needed to be addressed immediately.


## Post-Launch Front-Running Mitigation Strategy

In order to protect Erg holders from being gamed by the front-running the whale was performing, the oracle pool was stopped in order to have the most fair way possible to upgrade the protocol. This means that the oracle rate for Erg/USD has been frozen at $3.16143 as can be seen in the [SigmaUSD web dApp](https://sigmausd.io/#/stablecoin).

This allows all SigmaUSD and SigmaRSV holders to redeem their tokens for Ergs safely. If the rate was not frozen, then the users who read this post first would be able to exit cleanly at the cost of other users who would continue to be negatively affected. As such, all SigmaUSD holders can redeem their tokens immediately, which will also allow all SigmaRSV holders to redeem their tokens as well.

Moving forward, this provides us with an opportunity to strike a new balance for SigmaUSD and address these issues with a multi-pronged approach.

The Ergo Foundation is recommending that community member DarksideBrrrr issues a new deployment of SigmaUSD with a 2% fee. This will double the barrier for all types of frontrunning any whale may wish to try to take advantage of.

Furthermore, the goal is to prevent the currently used risk-free front-running in its entirety. As such new oracle pools will be deployed with a “hardening upgrade”.

The first part of this upgrade involves setting a cap for price variations between datapoint updates. In other words, because front-running will be prevented by 2% fees (a 4% front-running barrier), datapoint updates can now be smoothed-out to only move up/down in 4% increments. (With very sharp movements allowed as to not prevent real major market movements from taking place). This change prevents the front-running technique that the whale was using.

Furthermore we also want to do even better and improve the experience for all oracle-based dApps while we’re making such large changes. As such we will be doubling the speed of the oracle pool datapoint posting. Originally being 60 minutes, the posting schedule is being sped up to 30 minutes.

This naturally works in tandem with the smoothed-out price updates thereby providing higher quality, fresher, and more useful on-chain data points.


## Going Forward
 
With novel updates to both oracle pools and the SigmaUSD dApp, the ecosystem and all Ergonauts are able to feel assured that the ecosystem is moving forward in the right direction.

The current plan is to launch the new oracle pool update within the next week, and we expect DarkSideBrrrr to be able to deploy a new instance of SigmaUSD shortly after that.

The Ergo community is one of the most valuable assets that we have, and we intend this transition to go as smoothly as possible so that everyone can get back to enjoying using SigmaUSD and SigmaRSV. We will keep you up to date as things progress in the coming week.



Finding The Right Balance


Since the launch of the Ergo mainnet half a year ago, there has been an incredible amount of development and progress in the Ergo ecosystem. Auction smart contracts, crowdfunding, zero interest loans, privacy preserving protocols, and much more. 
Every week or two there's some truly novel idea or development put out, however if you're just an average blockchain enthusiast it's likely you haven't heard too much.

## Why is that?

The reason is that the Ergo ecosystem is making incredible strides forward in the technology side of things, however there is a distinct lack of content to consume for the average user who is interested. Great, Ergo has NiPoPoW support, but what the heck does that mean and why does it matter?

To aid in mending this, I am proud to announce the launch of the [Ergo Cast](https://ergocast.io).

The Ergo Cast is the Ergo ecosystem's premier podcast where we dive into the nitty-gritty details in a fun and approachable format.
The goal is to bring life to the technology by explaining why it's so unique while showing off the distinct personalities behind the avatars who are developing it all.

I, Robert Kornacki, am the host of the podcast and will be guiding you through understanding Ergo one episode at a time with the help of other key members in the community who will come on.

A lot of time was spent in getting this project from a mere idea in the back of my head, all the way to now being publicly released so that we could have this as a small Christmas present for the community who have been very supportive of the project as a whole.

The podcast will start out on a monthly schedule and is available via Youtube, MP3 RSS Feed, and Itunes Podcasts, all of which you can easily find by going to [https://ergocast.io](https://ergocast.io). Each episode has time stamps so that you can easily skim through and learn about all the topics that you actually care about.

In, [Episode #1: Understanding Ergo And It's History ](https://ergocast.io/episode/ergo-cast-episode-1-understanding-ergo-and-its-origins/), I was joined by Alex Chepurnoy who is one of the core developers and as a matter of fact, the original person who came up with the idea of building Ergo in the first place. We went in depth on why Ergo matters, why it was a necessity that it came to be, what are some of key differentiating benefits of Ergo, and we even covered the history behind what caused Alex to start an entire new cryptocurrency project from the ground-up.

If that got you interested, here is a list of all of the topics we hit during the whole episode:

- The Science Behind Ergo
- Ergo Smart Contracts At A High Level
- Ergo's ASIC & Pool Resistant PoW Algorithm
- Summary Of Numerous Innovations Ergo Implements
- Ergo Smart Contract Implementation Successes
- What Inspired You To Create Ergo In The First Place
- How To Join The Ergo Community
- Biggest Roadblock And Success In Launching Ergo
- Who Is Ergo For?
- Local Currencies On Ergo (Kenya Ex. Potential Use Case)
- Blockchains Actually Becoming Useful & Why Ergo Exists
- Closing Remarks

All of the topics above are linked timestamps so you can jump right in by going to the [Ergo Cast Website](https://ergocast.io/episode/ergo-cast-episode-1-understanding-ergo-and-its-origins/).

I'll be looking forward to helping break down Ergo into digestible episodes month-by-month, and hope to hear from you, the community, on what you'd like to see in the following episodes.

Hope you enjoy [the episode](https://ergocast.io/episode/ergo-cast-episode-1-understanding-ergo-and-its-origins/) and have a great Christmas holiday,

-Robert Kornacki
