Embracing Change & Celebrating Progress: UNCX’s 2023 Journey
Dear UNCX community, ecosystem, and partners,
As we close the chapter on 2023, I am filled with a profound sense of gratitude & pride for what we are collectively achieving in this dynamic and ever-evolving world of crypto and blockchain tech.
It has been a year marked by both challenges and triumphs, a testament to the resilience and innovation that lie at the heart of UNCX Network.
While writing this wrap-up, I also am reminded of Steve Jobs’ powerful words, ‘Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.’ This year, more than ever, UNCX has embraced this ethos, making its way into pioneering innovative solutions. 3+ years in a row!
And… Let’s dive in.
This year, our team successfully launched two notable product iterations. The first is our new LP lockers, designed for UniSwap v3 pairs (and other compatible AMMs). More details can be found here.
The second innovation is our advanced token minting factory. Both products made their debut in the summer of 2023, following approval from several security and auditing partners. More details here!
These offerings stand out for their innovative and unique features. While their development required considerable time and effort, the results have been gratifying.
ℹ️ The adoption of our UniSwap v3 lockers has lately been gaining extra momentum, as evidenced by the rising TVL metrics on our Defillama V3 locker section here.
Alongside the above product releases, we have undertaken a thorough revamp of our dApp suite, significantly enhancing user interfaces and experiences. This overhaul commenced with a front-end update for the UniSwap v3 lockers (which is already online) and is nearing completion with the migration of Lockers V2 and the token vesting services UI.
The update includes a back-end refresh, a more intuitive front-end, and major improvements in data management, now utilizing The Graph’s subgraphs product. These changes, essential for scalability and user experience, ensure our continued adherence to decentralized data standards, even if they might seem subtle to the average app user. More details about our Subgraphs live releases are available here and here.
ℹ️ UNCX currently stands as the most curated subgraph on the Ethereum chain, when checking the statistics on The Graph’s explorer. Not bad, not bad!
Further along in this annual recap, you will find information about our upcoming releases and developments.
In 2023, we experienced an extraordinary year of growth beyond just our core technology, aptly summarized in one word: BOOM.
From a business-to-business standpoint, our expansion has been remarkable. Our team engaged in discussions and explored use cases globally, marking our presence in various cities including… Austin at Consensus 2023, New York for Messari Mainnet, Miami at ETH Miami, Prague for ETH Prague, Paris during ETH CC (even co-hosting an event for the very first time!), Berlin at Web3 Berlin, twice in Barcelona for EBC and DextForce, Warsaw at ETH Warsaw, Istanbul for Devconnect, and Singapore at Token 2049.
Whether attending, sponsoring, or speaking at these conferences, a consistent theme emerged: expansion, increased brand recognition, and a steady influx of new users and customers for our protocols.
Separate from our physical presence, our online visibility has hit significant milestones. UNCX locks (for liquidity or vesting) are now trackable on a wider range of platform providers than ever before. This includes new charting websites (outside of DEXTools and DEXScreener, which we had been collaborating with for a longer time), various Discord and Telegram bots, and portfolio trackers such as Zerion and Debank, among others.
In terms of our partner ecosystem, it also is noteworthy that we received a grant from The Graph Foundation.
ℹ️ Additionally, keep an eye out for more exciting news — we have been granted financial support from another foundation, which we will reveal soon. Here is a hint: it is a grant coming from a prominent blockchain.
While 2023 has been a year of significant achievements, it is important to acknowledge that we also encountered challenges across various fronts.
Firstly, the very nature of our company’s ethos inherently brings its own set of challenges. Striving for innovation with each release naturally leads to a slower pace and can cause friction or impatience among our ecosystem’s stakeholders.
This is something I, as CEO, fully acknowledge and understand. It has become a clear realization for the whole UNCX team and is now a part of our 2024 objectives to improve drastically.
We aim to ensure more agile deployments, which should, in the short & longer term, lead to an increased speed in development. Further insights into our strategy for tackling these issues will be discussed later in the report.
Moreover, as a company primarily focused on B2B service provision, we have historically concentrated more on service users rather than end retail users, particularly those utilizing the ILO (launchpad) token utilities. Last year saw a notable scarcity in launches, largely due to market conditions and sentiment. Despite this, we recognize that we did not invest as much effort as our utility token holders and $UNCX stakers might have expected. While this approach was reasonable under the circumstances, we also realized that our level of communication was not sufficient (and as a whole, not just about this point).
Regarding external challenges, the year brought a series of interconnected issues — from companies slowing down due to layoffs, bridge hacks, and uncertainties in exchanges, to events like $USDC de-pegging.
These obstacles presented bumps along our path. However, they were external and we tackled them all effectively. Thanks to our careful and judicious decision-making, we managed to navigate without losing focus or being derailed.
Ah! UNCX Community. Whenever someone engages in our chats, (even tho predominantly used for technical B2B support), it does not go unnoticed.
Every message is seen and appreciated. On behalf of the entire team, I extend our heartfelt thanks for your consistent presence, especially as most of you have been with us since the beginning. Earlier, I mentioned our shortcomings in communicating with our members beyond service support. Well, we have exciting news for you!
Soon this year (Q1 — planned to start in February 2024), we are launching a new initiative designed to empower our community with a genuine voice. The team will be selecting some of our most active members to lead this effort, allowing them to provide direct input on UNCX’s plans and ideas.
This will transform them into true UNCX Ambassadors, representing us on social media and earning rewards along the way. It is time.
While we do not disclose detailed financial figures on a quarterly or yearly basis, there are certain key insights about UNCX that we can share with those who are interested.
First and foremost, it’s important to state that 2023 has maintained our consistent record of profitability since the inception of UNCX. We are ‘in the green’, just like our logo!
This year, as expected, we have seen an increase in our operational costs. This is a direct result of our expanding team, enhanced infrastructure, increased marketing activities on the B2B audience, and notably, higher expenses in the platform security, particularly in audits. However, these costs are carefully monitored and dynamically adjusted, ensuring they align with our strategic goals and operational needs.
Our financial strategy remains conservative, prioritizing stability and preparedness for any unforeseen challenges referenced earlier. Although, in light of 2024 and its market conditions, we are preparing to adopt a more aggressive stance.
When it comes to revenue generation, it is entirely generated from the usage of our software services. It’s important to state that UNCX has never engaged in the sale of UNCX tokens as a revenue stream. This is not, and will not be, a component of our business model. This point merits emphasis, especially in light of common misconceptions (on social networks, and especially X/Twitter) suggesting that ‘ALL’ web3 companies rely on token sales (whether in open markets, over-the-counter, or through private funding) to finance their operations.
This narrative is a contrast to our business reality, and we encourage our community to correct this misconception in social media discussions.
For those interested in a more graphical view of our financial performance, I invite you to explore our revenue details on the Defillama tracking portal. This resource offers an in-depth look at our financial journey: here. We set it up earlier in 2023, and it gathers data daily.
Some usage metrics
- Liquidity Locks: we gathered a total of 38,000 locks during the year.
- Token Vesting: we gained 1,600 new customers.
- TVL Growth: we achieved an 85% increase over the year.
- Token Minter Usage: 770 tokens minted across all chains.
For our strategic direction in 2024 and likely into the future, we are centering our efforts around three fundamental concepts that I recently had the chance to discuss with the team:
Simplicity: This involves streamlining our app layout, making deliberate technology choices, and adopting a more straightforward, clear, and option-based pricing structure for the benefit of our customers (and accounting team!).
Iteration: Rather than diversifying into numerous products, our focus is on iterating and enhancing our existing products to scale their features effectively.
White-label Services: We’re gearing up to meet the rising demand for services-as-a-service, which is already showing significant traction.
Regarding our roadmap and upcoming feature releases, there are four key areas our technical team is actively working on:
UI Revamp & Services Migration
This involves the overhaul of our app’s UI, already discussed earlier in this report. The first release, nearing completion, will update the UI for token vesting and liquidity lockers v2, with a planned release in Q1 2024.
The second release, scheduled for Q2 2024, will migrate staking and farming customers to the new layout.
Crowdfunding Platform (ILO) & $UNCX Token Utility Enhancement
- ILO V7: Initially announced for Q3 of last year, the seventh iteration of our decentralized crowdfunding platform is being entirely reworked. Despite having a working model and product, we delayed its release to integrate more features, considering market timing. This revamped platform, with significant innovations tied to the $UNCX token utility detailed below, is expected to launch by Q2 2024.
- $UNCX Token Utility: In conjunction with ILO V7, it is an official comeback utility of the $UNCX token that is planned. The details are still under wraps, but we plan to introduce a new dual utility model, including familiar allocation concepts (relative to $UNCX stakers, on incubated launches) and an innovative concept (which we can not touch down on, although we can disclose it is related to participations) all set for a Q2 2024 release.
Stealth Launch Service
We are developing a new service to facilitate easy and compliant token launches. This service, designed to be user-friendly and compatible with platforms like UniSwap, is targeted for release at the end of Q1 or early Q2 2024.
UniSwap V4 compatible products
In preparation for the upcoming update of the UniSwap protocol, our team is actively engaged in identifying potential use cases and adaptations for our products. This will be an ongoing area of focus throughout the year.
Additionally, 2024 is a pivotal year for us to extend our services to Rust-compatible and Golang-compatible chains. Specific details are currently withheld as it’s still early in the process. Our recruitment strategy is being tailored to support this new initiative, aiming to meet the same high standards of feature flexibility, and ease of use that our customers expect from us.
Closing Remarks
As this year comes to a close at UNCX, I want to give a big shoutout to our team.
A huge thanks to our Sales, Product & Design, Development/Tech, Support, and Marketing teams for your work this year.
We are all set to blow it out of the water in the coming year together. I also would like to thank our external partners, legal team, suppliers, and more broadly anyone we could have interacted with within our ecosystem.
Finally, as it is kind of a habit to drop a small ‘alpha leak’ on our Medium, I would suggest our community be on the lookout for an upcoming collaboration announcement which has been signed off at the beginning of 2024. An article is being drafted to be released in the next few days.
We hope you will like it, and I also hope you enjoyed reading this report. The discussion is open in our regular channels if you have feedback!
Chav — CEO
🐦 Twitter: UNCX_token
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