Over the past year, the XDC Network has observed a significant spectrum of innovation and adoption of its blockchain technology, ushering in a new era for the XDC Ecosystem and its dedicated community. Throughout 2022, the network became host to a number of key applications and supported the incredible achievements of many diverse network participants — a fitting encore to an impressive 2021. Growth of an XDC community that is larger and more vocal than ever, major technical integrations across the crypto industry, decentralized projects with real-world implications, and the launch of regulated security tokens and stablecoins all underscored the network’s usage across a variety of spaces and demographics this year.

The XDC Network is application/use case agnostic and does not target any specific market — but the teams that build on it do. In 2022, the network improved its position as a leading blockchain in trade finance by supporting a number of finance-related use cases and received unprecedented recognition. In March, the XDC Network became the first blockchain member of the Blockchain Supply Chain Association. In April, the network was one of only a handful of public blockchains mentioned in a World Trade Organization feature entitled, “The Promise of TradeTech: Policy approaches to harness trade digitization.”

In July, the TRADA Token was launched on the XDC Network. TRADA is the first fully regulated, trade finance-backed fungible security token, allowing both institutional and retail investors to participate in a previously hard-to-access asset class. Following the release of TRADA, the XDC Network was showcased at the ITFA Conference in Porto, Portugal.

Central to the growth of a blockchain network is its community, and the XDC community grew rapidly in 2022. This summer, XDC hosted its first hackathon. Not long after, the XDC community approved the XDC Network Improvement Proposal (XIP) process, which is focused on decentralized decision-making around the core protocol. In the months since that approval, a growing number of contributions have been published in Github as community participation continues to gain steam.

The year 2022 kicked off several exciting projects. In September, Securrency, a leading blockchain-based financial markets infrastructure and products company, announced that it will deploy its Digital Asset Composer on the XDC Network. A month later, Fluent and Impel announced that they will bring the regulation-driven US+ stablecoin to the network. STASIS did the same with EURS, the largest euro stablecoin.

As an Ethereum-compatible blockchain, dApps on the XDC Network are powered by developer-friendly smart contracts. There are now nearly 12,000 smart contracts deployed on the network — a 525% increase from 2021.

And we can’t forget the new hires at XinFin, creators of the XDC Network. Sunil Senapati was brought on as XinFin’s chief operating officer for trade and payments. Sunil boasts a long history in the trade finance industry, and most recently worked as head of business development at MonetaGo. Sunil has noted how XDC teams are working closely with the governments of UK and Singapore to support the adoption of the MLETR initiative.​ XinFin also hired Doug Brooks as a senior advisor of special projects and tokenization. Doug has over a decade of experience consulting and building strategies in the cash and payments space, working with banks, governments, and other parties.

Then there were the integrations, which are key to any blockchain infrastructure. Notably, XDC collaborated with Global ID and integrated with Fireblocks, Overledger, and Uphold in 2022 — just to name a few.

Other items of note in 2022:

• Dubai Multi Commodities Center, the largest free-trade zone in the United Arab Emirates, partnered with ComTech Gold to tokenize gold tokens (CGO) on the XDC Network, enabling blockchain-based trading of physical gold bars.
• XDC Network advisor, André Casterman, provided thought leadership around blockchain regulation. Notably, he was interviewed by Blockdata for their widely-published article focused on regulations boosting global trade. At ITFA Porto 2022, André, who is an ITFA board member and head of the Fintech committee, was instrumental in setting the conference agenda to include sessions on digital assets, NFTs, and the metaverse and their potential roles in global trade.
• Decentralized Exchange (DEX) volume continues to grow at a steady pace to support projects within the XDC Ecosystem.
• The XDC community provided leadership and engagement at key crypto and financial technology events — including FT Live, Mainnet, Permissionless, Coverge2022, Benzinga, CordaCon and GTR NY.
• The XDC Network was named a finalist in the 2022 Fintech Finance Awards.
• XDC had several all-time high (ATH) social engagements as measured by Lunar Crush. These ATH events occurred due to enthusiastic social discussions by the XDC community and an increased volume of activity on the network.
• A number of NFT marketplaces have been delivered to the XDC Network and XDC community in a decentralized manner through the efforts of content creators and small businesses.
• Members of the XDC community participated in numerous panel discussions and AMAs throughout the year with exchanges, projects, and industry-focused forums.
• New social accounts were created to generate discussions about the network and increase participation from developers and other community members.
• Leaders from the XDC community hosted a number of events, meet and greets, and educational seminars at Audi Field in Washington DC and, through a partnership with DC United, facilitated global brand awareness for the XDC Network as a blockchain technology solution.

The XDC Network made significant progress last year. However, scandals, loss of trust, and adverse market conditions, which negatively impacted the global blockchain industry, still had an indirect effect on the XDC ecosystem. These challenging events and associated contagion created a number of unforeseen obstacles for our industry. Due to these challenges, our priorities required some restructuring.

After careful consideration of relevant factors, such as utility, maintenance cost, and usage rate, a number of products, including the following, have been suspended:

- XDC Network Stats (an alternative to network stats can be found here)

- XDC Observatory (an alternative explorer can be found here)

- XDC Smart Contract Manager

These products will be reevaluated in the future.

Despite the headline-grabbing challenges the industry faced in 2022, we believe blockchain innovation and adoption are still in their infancy. While many notable names in our industry were forced to shut down last year, the XDC Network once again found itself in a better position at the end of the year than at the beginning. As the XDC mainnet observes the calendar change for the fourth time, there is a lot to be excited about moving forward.

We look towards a bright horizon awaiting the XDC Network knowing that 2023 will bring XDC 2.0, which will provide a truly revolutionary advancement in blockchain security. The most intricate update since the XDC Network’s inception, XDC 2.0 is a next-generation consensus protocol that will detect and identify master nodes conducting malicious behavior, verify with forensic evidence, and slash them almost immediately. That military-grade security coupled with 2.0’s masterful forensics capabilities will provide the confidence institutions are seeking in blockchain technology — security, transparency, reduced counterparty risk, and cost-efficiency. Read more about this exciting upgrade in the whitepaper.

A major website upgrade is also coming in Q1 2023. On the new XDC.org website, visitors will find more accessible pathways to access developer tools and resources, enhanced marketing and branding for network-related resources and information, and ample learning opportunities for XDC Network enthusiasts.

We look forward to many more ecosystem milestones on par with those of 2022.

Here’s to a fruitful 2023 — both the steps forward that we already know about and those that will catch us all by surprise.

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