Letter from Mark Smargon, CEO Fuse Labs
2021 was a crazy ride, and an exciting year for Fuse which grew into a vibrant ecosystem. We are now a step closer to fulfilling the mission we started back in 2019 with the launch of Fuse. We always believed that blockchain technology would shape the future of money. When we started the network, our plan was to launch an EVM chain that would enable smart contract innovation for the payments industry. Our playbook is to bring partners around this vertical together to govern one transparent and open source ecosystem. A collaboration between hundreds and thousands of local and global companies can build better payment rails than players such as Visa, Mastercard and Stripe as well as lowering barriers to entry and transcending geographical borders.
Over a decade on since Bitcoin’s inception, and 6 years since Ethereum’s inception, we are starting to grasp how to use and power this new asset class for consumers. In 2022, we believe that, for the first time, there will be more emphasis on real world applications for payments, mobile adoption and ecommerce; all powered by decentralized and non-custodial tech.
Fuse wants to be at the forefront of this transformation and innovate on how people will interact with money on mobile. In 2022, Fuse network will continue to transition, as planned to a more decentralized governance structure, powered by delegated proof of stake. With the recent growth in liquidity and projects on the network, we are now becoming a fully fledged ecosystem.
From bootstrapping to growth
Some of the key performance indicators that we hit in 2021:
- Reaching 23 million network transactions to date.
- Strong staking and delegation numbers including
- 68 million + Fuse Tokens staked (50% participation)
- 2000+ individual staking delegates according to Staking Rewards
- Surpassing a $200 million market cap and entering into the top 300 crypto assets globally according to Coingecko.
- Reaching $20M in total value locked (TVL) according to Defi Llama with strong DEX and lending volume of over $50 million.
Our network is ready to move to a growth phase with an update to our tokenomics:
- A proposal to reduce inflation to 2% which will be voted on by validators.
- Allocation of a growth pool to replace the previous bootstrap pool
- The introduction of a foundation advisory board.
We saw major new partners join in 2021 along with new liquidity flowing to Fuse. We aim to grow the total value locked (TVL) to bring Fuse Network to the top 10 EVM chains by the end of 2022.
The future of cash is mobile
It’s important to remember, however, that growing a strong, secure network with diverse and rich liquidity is a means to an end. What gets us most hyped is seeing real products and services such as Fuse Cash, Peepl, Mystic Valley, CuraDAI, Flambu, GoodDollar and others develop and thrive on the platform.
Mobile technology continues to penetrate every corner of the world and we are obsessed with how this trend can be leveraged to bring the benefits of DeFi and payments to the masses. We learned a lot throughout the last years about how to merge crypto and mobile through trial and error. I believe that the expertise and infrastructure that we have built in this area puts the Fuse ecosystem in a market-leading position to provide, along with our partners, an experience that is unrivaled, priming us for mass adoption.
The Road Ahead
So, where do we go from here?
Our ultimate vision over the next few years is to have 1 billion + active users on Fuse Network taking advantage of a diverse range of applications in verticals including personal finance, sharing economy, events and hospitality, ecommerce and DeFi and NFT’s. Here is a spotlight on main areas of focus in our 2022 roadmap:
- Bridging and On-Ramping: Bridging Fuse to all networks, our goal is to add interoperability with all L1’s and L2’s and provide for the best bridging experience especially on mobile; Fuse dollar is available in 180+ countries including bank deposits in the US, Europe and 11 asian countries; Focus on adding South American, African fiat ramps in 2022.
- FuseX stablecoins: We have seen a recent surge in demand for our networks stablecoin Fuse Dollar and we are working hard on releasing V2 which will introduce new mechanics that will make it even more useful and allow the community to access it more efficiently.
- Decentralized app store: Studio revamp is planned in 2022 with a focus on making it easier to use and useful with an app store of tools and services. We will also be adding more developers tools and support as well as decentralized tools like DAO and treasury management.
- Ecommerce and NFT: We saw several NFT marketplaces launch in 2021 with games, wallets and tools deployed on Fuse and showing great demand. As part of the studio revamp, ecommerce support will be a big focus for 2022 allowing access to online tools for merchants and strong NFT support allowing users to mint and sell online without friction and high fees.
- DeFi meets mobile: Voltage.finance is almost ready to launch and enable a vibrant ecosystem for all things DeFi. 2022 already started phenomenally for Voltage and we can’t wait to enable more capabilities and ways to earn for Fuse Defiers.
- Scalability: On top of increasing chain capacity which will grow by 100% in 2022, Fuse is also working on a L2 roll-up that will be integrated to mobile and deployed during 2022 to scale consumer payments.
- Mobile upgrades: Our wallet stack will be adding big features like social recovery, NFT support, L2, Scaling. Our objective is to build the best wallet stack for any business that looks to build on a blockchain and reach customers without the friction of existing non-custodial wallets.
We will provide more detailed information on our 2022 roadmap in another article shortly.
Thanks to our Community
Fuse is above all a community-led project. Our success so far has been achieved thanks to a dedicated community of builders, entrepreneurs and tech enthusiasts.
Mark Smargon,
CEO at Fuse Labs
