Hey Riders,

WingRiders is thrilled to announce that today marks the first year of going live on the Cardano blockchain, and what a year it has been! In light of the anniversary today, it’s good to look back on the journey that led here.

WingRiders was developed as a platform built on the core values surrounding the commitment to the delivery of tech for the advancement of humankind. The project goal was to always deliver first, market later, and, if the community liked it, create the $WRT token to finance and facilitate the creation of a DAO based governance, including additional token utilities. The main reason for this is that the community should govern the direction and parameters of the platform’s development, growth, and features.

TLDR

• The DEX was built and launched in a matter of 7,5 months, with the 1st Testnet coming out of stealth with proof of capability after 3 months.
• Seed round token sale was done only after a fully functional testnet was public.
• Committed to decentralization the platform launched from day 1 with 100% of the ADA in liquidity pools (50% of TVL) auto-staked in pools defined each epoch based on Liquidity provider voting. The rewards go back to the pools thus benefiting the LPs.
• First DEX to provide Ledger and Trezor hardware support and direct Android mobile integration with the DEX (cable and Bluetooth)
• Retail token sale (done in 4 stages via 3 IDOs on 3 blockchains and Whitelist ICO on Cardano) was done after the DEX was live for multiple months on Mainnet with full features deployed. Those who liked the product could buy into the DAO governance tokenomics.
• The TGE and listing of the token happened 3 months after the DEX was a fully operational working solution.
• All this is based on the commitment to the value: Delivery first — Marketing later but always letting the product speak for itself.
• The project went through as the first adopting platform the 1st bridged forms of ETH, BTC, and Stablecoins (USDC, USDT) to Cardano and the challenges they later brought.
• Despite losing its market leader position and some project funds in the Nomad hack the project continued delivering, building a first fully on-chain DAO governance in Q3 2022.
• Last 6 months were the dawn of an even bigger upgrade with the build of Stableswap pools coinciding with the emergence of native stablecoins on Cardano. This effectively built on top of the Uniswap v2 AMM DEX model and additionally a Curve Finance type protocol. Effectively doubling the scope of what the project set out to do in the beginning.
• To sum up, WingRiders has over delivered on its initial scope by a large margin, and by direction of the DAO will keep improving and growing even further. Many new exciting features are in the roadmap that can propel the project to new heights with the start of the new bull market.
• Come and be a part of the WingRiders’ story to co-create and co-Govern the platform for the Cardano community!

The Beginning

It all started with just an idea, in the late summer of 2021, with no marketing and not even a name for the DEX. After the initial evaluations and coding, it was confirmed that it could be done with a Proof of Concept (PoC) of swaps vs liquidity pools. All this in just one and a half months, mainly for internal purposes to see if a protocol could actually be developed that adds value to the ecosystem. With the PoC completed in mid-September 2021, the whitepaper was written in anticipation of the Alonzo hard fork, which went live on 22nd September 2021, enabling smart contract capabilities on Cardano and the possibility for a DEX to be launched.

The DEX came out of stealth with the Minimum Viable Product (MVP), which was launched just another one and a half months later on 17th December 2021 and was operational on the first testnet, with the integration into the Nu.Fi wallet. This testnet showcased how the DEX could be integrated into a wallet. The second testnet went live weeks later, showing how the web-based platform would function. This is rapid development by any measure.

Once a working MVP was operational on the two testnets, the protocol started raising money from seed investors. This is in line with the transparency principle of the protocol and having a real product that can be seen by all. It has always been a case of developing and launching a feature or functionality, then communicating it. Once some initial funding was secured and the testnets signaled their readiness, the WingRiders DEX went LIVE on the Cardano mainnet on 12th April 2022.

Core Values of the WingRiders Vision

To look at the major development milestones the DEX has had in the past 12 months, it’s fitting to frame them against the core values that were set out in the lightpaper as a benchmark of how well we have performed. These values were created to guide the vision and direction of WingRiders. The five values are set out below.

THE DEX ON CARDANO

The belief is that to move the ADA ecosystem forward, the community needs not just a DEX but a robust exchange piece of infrastructure governed as a DAO. The aim is to support all projects that may require swap functionality.

The aim is to add new projects and tokens that get popular support easily and simply. A rising tide lifts all boats, and nowhere is this more obvious than in the crypto community.

To be approachable by projects, and know that the WingRiders philosophy means that it will do its best to support them if they bring value to Cardano.

TRANSPARENCY

The commitment to transparency is critical across the project, fees, details, and information — If it’s important, it will be communicated. This is the best way to communicate with the wider Cardano Community and all DAO members.

SIMPLE

It is WingRiders’ aim to help spur mass adoption of cryptocurrency in general and Cardano in particular, which can be achieved if the platform is easy to use and intuitive, which the design ethos hopefully reflects.

TRUSTLESS

From the ground up, building for a decentralized world. Not just a faceless organization running some DEX, the aim is to build it and hand as much of the running off to Agents, Liquidity providers and the DAO members. WingRiders will belong to the stakers, the agents, and the community.
The ultimate aim was achieved by moving to a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) where token holders will determine the future direction of the platform.

COMMUNITY

Having a vibrant, engaged community is critical for widespread adoption. WingRiders sees itself as a Co-DEX (Community DEX) . Even the batching agent will eventually be open to anyone to run when security challenges with new version deployment are solved.

WingRiders LIVE on Mainnet

Having gone live with the two testnets and raised the needed capital from the pre-sale seed round, the move to the mainnet was planned for Q1 2022. The aim was to go live with the best possible combinations of digital assets, the best pools, farms, and depth of liquidity, and technically, the DEX was ready, but in order to achieve this, there were dependencies on external partners, and as such the launch was postponed to Q2 2022. In line with the transparency values, this was communicated in a blog to the community. As mentioned before WingRiders is firmly committed to the ethos of delivery first — Marketing later, and always letting the product speak for itself.

In March 2022 WingRiders’ developers put on their white hats and uncovered a vulnerability in competing DEX/s contracts, and prevented $195m worth of liquidity provider assets from being drained.

The partnerships that were being worked on for the mainnet launch were with Milkomeda and Flint wallet, and their implementation of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (“EVM”) on the Milkomeda sidechain protocol, which would run on wADA (“wrapped ADA”). This partnership was key as Cardano had no stablecoins or large volume non-native tokens. This partnership allowed the flow of liquidity from other chains into Cardano, from stablecoins like USDT and USDC, and later BTC and ETH in their bridged formats. This was a big milestone for the whole Cardano ecosystem, with clear benefits.

With everything set and the Certik audit completed, WingRiders went live on mainnet on 12th April 2022, with Cardano native asset pools, farms, and two stablecoin pools and their corresponding farms. This wonderful day came with its own challenges as the price of stablecoins on Wingriders was 5–10% off from the market price. The reason for this unfortunate situation mainly arose from the fact that the bridge that was bridging the stablecoin assets was not publicly available yet, and therefore there was no inflow of stablecoins to execute arbitrage on the pools. With the public launch of the bridge, this issue was resolved, and the DEX continued to be fully functional with no glitches. Another feature that was very beneficial for the community was that liquidity providers would continue to get ADA staking rewards as well as their share of trading fees and farming rewards in all pools that used ADA. This was another first in the ecosystem. 100% of all ADA on the DEX has always been auto-staked from the start, with rewards returned to the pools.

With all engines at full throttle, the next major milestone was the public token sale. With that in sight, it was revealed that WingRiders is fully focused on enabling a full-fledged Decentralized Organization (DAO), with the members steering the platform’s path forward. Also, the first tokenomics were revealed, paving the way for public sale. With the publication of the tokenomics, it was revealed that there would also be a 3% allocation to the WingRiders Ecology Fund, something very close to the core values of the project. The fund intends to help projects that are making a real difference in preserving and protecting the natural environment. Frustratingly, given the bearish market conditions at the time, it was decided to preserve this donation for when market conditions improve, thereby maximizing the benefits for the recipient organizations, which was communicated via an updated blog.

With everything in place, it was time to carry out the public sale. It’s important to note that the public sale was only conducted after full features of the DEX had been deployed and running for three months on the mainnet, again adhering to the ethos of transparency and the notion of “try before you buy.” The sale was conducted via three platforms DAOmaker, Occam Finance, and Vent, and a whitelist ICO through the platform itself, using three blockchains, Cardano, Milkomeda, and Binance Smart Chain to achieve a fairer token distribution to multiple segments and to really drive adoption from not just Cardano but other ecosystems so our Cardano family grows.

While the sales preparations were underway, major tech innovations were still being deployed on a regular basis. Before the sale, support was provided for the Ledger hardware wallet and direct integration via an Android phone, another first, that took the safety and convenience of using the DEX to the next level. Also in this period, multiple order types such as Market, Flexible Limit, and Limit Orders were deployed to the swap functionality. Another community-centric feature, Stake Pool Voting went live, where from now on liquidity providers could vote on which pool operator they wanted their ADA delegated to. Another first and major move towards decentralization of the platform.

In early June 2022, the Token Generation Event (TGE) kicked off. Guided by WingRiders' unwavering commitment to the ultimate goal of decentralization, the $WRT was sold through four independent sales channels and distributed via three blockchains. The sales channels were selected after consultation with the community, and from there we used a whitelist, as the protocol’s first sales channel and three IDO platforms; DAO Maker, OccamRazer, and Vent Finance. The aim of the whitelist was to support the early adopters and those who got behind the project from the start. All four sales were successfully conducted. The distribution also took three different approaches: airdrops, vesting contracts maintained by us on Cardano, and the proprietary DAO Maker vesting platform. This also took some technical wizardry and close partnerships to enable this form of distribution, as the token had to be adapted to make this possible so it could happen on Binance Smart Chain, Milkomeda Side Chain, and Cardano. We achieved the movement of tokens across these different chains with the help of our partners Milkomeda and Celer using their bridges to make it as seamless as possible.

The TGE also required the listing of $WRT on two centralized exchanges; Gate.io and MEXC Global, and of course on the Wingriders DEX itself. This was also a crucial piece in the TGE to enable the trading of the token and initiate the price discovery phase. The listing on the centralized exchanges was also interesting from a technical and user standpoint, as they had to enable acceptance of deposits of the $WRT token from both Cardano and Binance Smart Chain to make it as convenient as possible for users wishing to trade.

In terms of the execution of the token distribution itself, the team, through rigorous and tight optimization of the code and script, managed to distribute to over 6,000 wallets in under six minutes, giving everyone a fair chance to participate in the first minutes of trading. The users that went from the Binance Smart Chain were able to deposit their tokens directly into Gate.io and MEXC Global without having to use any of the bridges, which may have made the process slower and less convenient. All in all, this method of distribution is rare and not often seen, and it proves that, despite WingRiders being a Cardano native project, it can support other blockchains as well and attract new users from multiple chains.

The partnerships with the ecosystem continued with the introduction of the first double-yield farm with DripDropz, a variant. This type of farm rewards liquidity miners with two types of tokens instead of one, increasing their gains even further.

With the release of the token, the utilities and governance role for $WRT were disclosed to the community. Also, the first iteration of the Governance UI went live where users could better understand their $WRT holdings across the DEX, be it in Farms, their wallet, Liquidity pools, or in Vesting contracts.

Shortly after one of the major utilities of $WRT was enabled through the Boosting Vault. The release of the Boosting Vault functionality marked the realization of one of these major utilities, which is “Holding WRT impacts yields” meaning by holding WRT tokens you will be able to farm higher yields than without them. Again a new functionality to increase gains on WingRiders.

On 2nd August the cryptocurrency world was shaken by the hack of the Nomad Bridge. This exploit affected users of many DeFi projects, mainly on the Milkomeda, EVMOS, Moonbeam, and Cardano blockchains. Though an unrelated third party, this incident affected the WingRiders’ liquidity providers using the bridge and resulted in the loss of their assets. At this time, WingRiders was the leading DEX on Cardano, and the consequent loss of bridged assets severely affected the TVL of the platform. A truly sad day for all those affected by the exploit, across all the chains. Given the interconnected nature of the crypto ecosystem, these unfortunate events happen, and WingRiders needed to brush off the dust and continue, taking a big dent in its TVL. The team continued to develop and put the incident behind them, as in any situation such as this, there is no other choice but to move forward.

As mentioned before, from the start, the vision was to become a full-fledged Decentralized Autonomous Organization. Development of the Governance Platform came to fruition in the autumn of 2022 with the release of the beta voting mechanism and link to the Community Improvement Portal. The portal allows any WRT holder who is a DAO member to discuss and submit proposals, vote on-chain for those proposals, and audit the results on-chain. Once again no need to trust any intermediary. This has been the goal from the git-go to build a DEX for the community governed by its members.

Riders who provided liquidity and were farming on the platform in the early days of the DEX were rewarded with a First Rider Fungible Token (FT) as a badge of being among the first Riders helping the platform grow. In November 2022 the utilities of these FTs were revealed that by holding them, these riders would get even more gains on the platform.

At the beginning of 2023, another major development was StableSwap pools. StableSwap is an automated market maker (AMM) function focused on swapping between two stable assets with minimal slippage and more efficient trading for liquidity providers. The concept was pioneered by Curve Finance and has majorly impacted the DeFi ecosystems. Having successfully completed the CertiK audit of the contracts, and with the launch of Djed, an Algorithmic stablecoin, and coupling with iUSD, a synthetic stablecoin by the Indigo Protocol, the first stablecoin StableSwap pool went live on Cardano. With this development, WingRiders became the first protocol on Cardano to launch a stable swap pool, making the platform a cross between Curve Finance and Uniswap V2.

With this development, WingRiders became the first protocol on Cardano to launch a stable swap pool, making the platform a cross between Curve Finance and Uniswap V2.

WingRiders DEX Milestones over the first year since the mainnet launch

These have been some of the major highlights of the year WingRiders has been live on Cardano, and we intentionally left out many other developments to provide a snapshot. But just to give you a glimpse of some other developments, There are currently over 333 pools, and 27 farms, with 11 of them being double-yield ones, and more coming online. The platform supports nine wallets in total — out of which two are hardware wallets. WingRiders is the only DEX on Cardano, providing ADA auto-staking with rewards auto-compounding back to the liquidity pools. WingRiders DEX farms support double farms, farming boosting, and up to sextuple rewards.

On this celebratory day, we want to give a big thank you to the WingRiders’ amazing community and all the other supporters that have helped propel the platform to what it is today.

In the coming days, WingRiders is planning three gifts for the community. The Light mode functionality, the switch of all asset prices between ADA and USD, and one more that will be revealed shortly for those more advanced users out there.

Interested to learn more about WingRiders? Join one or more of the communities
below:
Twitter-> https://twitter.com/WingRiderscom
Discord-> https://discord.gg/t7CdyhK8JA
Telegram-> http://t.me/WingRidersChat