Expanding Particle Network: Growth and Development Recap

2023 was the year Particle Network cemented itself as a leading infrastructure player in Web3.

With a rapidly growing, interconnected ecosystem, we’re not just evolving: we are paving the way for millions of users to improve their interactions with the decentralized web; and for developers to create better, mass-market-ready dApps.

In this article, we’ll give you a rundown of how Particle Network is growing to become the universal Access Layer of Web3, reflect on some of the milestones reached along the way… and, of course, give you some hints on what’s to come for us. 

We’ll look at this expansion from a few perspectives, all representing different breakthroughs for Particle Network.

Breakthrough #1: Exploring new horizons with our products

Incursioning in the BTC ecosystem

We recently unveiled BTC Connect, an EVM-compatible AA protocol for developers building in the Bitcoin and Ordinals ecosystem.

We also assembled a world-class set of partners to join us in this mission, including some of the leading projects in the new wave of Bitcoin builders. They are:

• Unisat Wallet: The first open-source browser extension wallet for Bitcoin NFTs and Ordinals, featuring a marketplace for Inscriptions.
• BitMap Explorer: A Metaverse on Bitcoin incorporating social and trading features using on-chain Inscriptions.
• BRC420: An Ordinals protocol that enables the creation of composable modules through inscriptions and deploying modules with tokenization
• MAP Protocol: A Bitcoin Layer-2 for peer-to-peer cross-chain interoperability. It aims to provide the essential infrastructure for interoperability among blockchain-based assets, storage, and computing.
• BEVM: The first fully decentralized EVM-compatible Bitcoin L2 using BTC as gas. It allows all dApps that can run in the Ethereum ecosystem to operate on Bitcoin L2.
• B² Network: A Layer-2 solution that bolsters transaction speed and broadens application diversity for Bitcoin. B2 is the first zero-knowledge proof verification commitment rollup on Bitcoin, also enabling privacy on the network.
• ZKFair: The first community zk-Rollup based on Polygon CDK and Celestia DA, a fully community-run project.
• BitLayer: A community-driven EVM-compatible Bitcoin L2.
• Bitsmiley Labs: A decentralized stablecoin protocol based on the Bitcoin blockchain under the Fintegra framework.
• UXUY: A leading decentralized exchange based on MPC wallets, offering security and ease of use.

BTC Connect is just one of the many advancements leading up to the release of Particle Network’s upcoming product ecosystem.

There are multiple news coming to support this release. To learn more about BTC Connect, go to our recent article. 

Bootstrapping the largest Inscription community and developing its ecosystem at light speed

One of our goals for 2024 was to reward Web3 believers for all their support and dedication throughout the 2022/2023 bear market. To fulfill this mission, we assembled an Alliance of 50+ partners, including top projects like Polyhedra, 1inch, DODO, and many more, worth a total of $10B, to jointly conduct The People’s Alliance Inscription.

This Inscription was a massive success, as together we:

1. Created a bot-proof system where 120 thousand unique users managed to Inscribe $ALLY on the Linea blockchain, making it the largest and most widespread Inscription community ever.
2. Set up the first Account Abstraction-powered Inscription Campaign, with 300K+ smart wallets and 1.5M UserOperations resulting from this campaign. This turned Linea into a leading player in the account abstraction field, making it the second chain with the highest UserOp processing.
3. Managed to drive $3M in gas fees in Linea.

Furthermore, and as we keep saying, the Inscription was just the beginning. With a core community of true believers holding $ALLY, and with full support from Linea, we released the first-ever Linea Inscription Marketplace. This platform then quickly accrued impressive volume, with $150K+ trading on its release day, and an accompanying Launchpad also on its way.

With this core infrastructure set up, Particle Network will continue helping coordinate the Alliance, collaborating with other projects to set up dedicated rewards and special programs for $ALLY holders.

Spreading Wallet-as-a-Service and Account Abstraction adoption

Our Modular Smart Wallet-as-a-Service stack has reached 56 chains, providing account abstraction support in 35 of them.

We’re firm believers in AA’s future as a long-term fix to Web3’s many UX problems, and are focused on expanding its reach, facilitating infrastructure for developers to access its benefits across the EVM ecosystem. As detailed below under our Usage section, this has led to millions of AA UserOperations across multiple chains.

Particle’s mission has also led us to form strong partnerships with some of the main AA ecosystem contributors, such as Alchemy, Biconomy, Openfort, etc. As our partners, they have all also acknowledged Particle’s contributions to AA, featuring us extensively in their documentation (particularly Alchemy), as you can see here [1] [2] [3].

Furthermore, as we’ll explore below, we are also elbow-deep in collaborations with the different public blockchains with which this tech stack is compatible.

Debuting in the Zero-Knowledge and Intents ecosystems

This year, we also announced the expansion of our product ecosystem. To complement this, we have begun growing our presence within these highly technical, booming fields.

Beyond developing our core technology, we have a great interest in establishing Particle’s authority and presence within these fields. To this end, we have hosted two Intent-dedicated meetups, labelled Intent.WTF, in Bangalore, India, and Istambul, Turkey. These have featured the participation of several key names in the Intent field, such as CoW Swap, 1inch, Essential, Enso, Blocto, and Brink Trade.

Intent.WTF is also a recurring platform on X Spaces, hosting discussions on the technical and philosophical components of Intent-Centric design. To get notified about the next emission, follow us on Twitter!

As for zero-knowledge, we also hosted a ZK Mixer in NYC, accompanied by OP Crypto, Manta Network, Mantle, and Polyhedra. As our involvement in the ZK and Intent scene grows, we will continue to bring different ecosystem players together and showcasing Particle Network’s developments!

Breakthrough #2: Expanding our user base

More wallets, more users, more devs

As its ultimate goal, Particle Network’s Wallet-as-a-Service product line aims to make Web3 onboarding easier and faster. Because of this, we measure our success by three key metrics:

• Number of projects integrating Particle Network: With almost 900 projects utilizing our services, we are proud to say we are growing our partner ecosystem. This, in turn, increases the value of our solutions, sparking network effects.
• Total users: Particle Network has onboarded 17M users through Web2 login-powered wallet activations, a milestone that reaffirms Particle’s role in the ecosystem. Considering 10 seconds saved per user in onboarding (a very conservative estimate considering the challenges of private key management), this means we’ve saved users a cumulative 47,000 hours!
• Total developers and SDK downloads: Particle Network’s tools and solutions have become a staple of the industry, with 45K developers conducting 300K+ monthly downloads across its 33 SDKs.

Industry leaders integrating Particle 

We’re determined to make 2024 the year Particle Network’s onboarding solutions are used by the most prominent products in Web3. In particular, our target is set on mass market-friendly applications, such as those on SocialFi, Web3 Gaming, and DeFi.

We’re already reaping the fruits of this labor with partnerships with 4 out of the top 6 SocialFi products: Galxe, Dmail Network, Hooked, and QuestN.

In the GameFi realm, we’re also proud to collaborate with gaming studios like Project 12 and Xterio. The latter takes advantage of multiple Particle Network products to bring the most advanced experience to their trading, launchpad, gaming, and marketplace features. 

Some of these integrations are featured either on our blog or on our website’s “Case studies” sections. In there, you will find unique statistics, such as MetaMerge’s 25% increase in revenue, 150% increase in user activity, 45% decrease in onboarding time, and 35% decrease in user inquiries, to name a few. In these sections, you’ll also see examples of Particle’s AA stack being used for gasless trades in DeFi (e.g., Apex Exchange), NFT projects, and more. 

Collaborations with top chains

Particle’s Modular Smart WaaS solutions are compatible with 56 chains, and we are always looking to let developers in these ecosystems know about how Particle can help them with onboarding and Web3 interactions. Furthermore, we ongoingly work on tightening our links to these chains, keeping open communication channels with them.

This has so far yielded impressive results. To name a few, Linea not only directly supported The People’s Alliance (as seen above), but also integrated it into its own loyalty campaign. We also held multiple activations with major blockchains, focusing on showcasing Particle Network’s products.

For further examples, our dedication to showcasing the benefits of account abstraction also led us to join forces with chains like opBNB, Scroll, ZetaChain, Starknet, and COMBO, among others. The numbers don’t lie: These campaigns, co-promoted by the chains themselves, have led to hundreds of thousands of both social media and on-chain interactions, spreading the awareness and usage of Particle’s solutions and driving activity.

While integrating our AA stack into different blockchains, we’ve built the habit of actively collaborating with their teams to spread the word about it, especially whenever Particle Network becomes the first or only AA provider on a given chain. We support these efforts with demo repositories, video tutorials (of which there are plenty on our Youtube channel!), and articles.

Some public chains even go out of their way to showcase the ability to integrate Particle’s solutions to developers via their documentation. This has been the case for Polygon, Moonbeam, Gnosis, and Mantle, among others. As always, more on the way!

Breaking records in Account Abstraction adoption through the Particle Bundler

Right before The People’s Alliance’s Inscription, we proudly announced that The Particle Bundler crossed 1 Million account abstraction UserOperations. However, after the success of our smart account-powered Inscription, this number has catapulted to nearly 4.4M across 35 chains! 

Importantly, our proprietary Bundler is a crucial component of Particle's Modular Smart Wallet-as-a-Service infrastructure, packaging multiple UserOperations from multiple sources to be executed. Its adoption through different campaigns and activations (such as the ones mentioned above) has helped put Particle Network under the ecosystem’s spotlight while spreading the word about the benefits of AA. 

This hasn’t gone unnoticed by the chains’ teams, who have highlighted the accomplishment as well!

Breakthrough #3: Strengthening our organization

Not all changes have been public-facing, but certainly most have been for the better. 2023 was a key year for Particle Network, seeing us pick up great momentum at a company level.

As we validated our products and developed an ambitious roadmap, so have we expanded our team, capturing top talent from all corners of Web3. 

This ongoing expansion will be hugely beneficial to Particle Network as we set out to tackle many different, all equally exciting projects at once.

Breakthrough #4: Building a global community

Developers are the life and blood of Particle Network. We are uniquely positioned to help them create the best possible solutions for their end users, and as such, we regard them as core partners in creating the future of Web3.

Because of this, we have also greatly upscaled our involvement in developer-facing activities, including:

Events and hackathons

The Particle Network team works hard to always be present wherever the most important Web3 infrastructure discussions occur. We also do our best to host dedicated events, talks, and hackathons centered around our core vision, joining forces with our partner ecosystem. 

When it comes to events, we also put a high emphasis on driving a diverse, elevated level of partners and attendees. This has had the benefit of introducing us to many of the top teams in Web3, always in a spirit of collaboration to serve what we know to be our core audience. 

If you’re interested in partaking in one of these events or just want to be informed whenever there is an upcoming one, keep an eye on our X profile! Here’s the flyer for our currently ongoing hackathon

Online events, content, and media

One of our goals was to wrap up 2023 with a bang, increasing both the quality and quantity of our content. To achieve this, we have extensively worked on creating online demos, tutorials, talks, X Spaces, podcasts, and blog posts, as well as improving our product documentation.

Some noteworthy examples of this are:

• All the content you see in our blog and newsletter (subscribe using the button on this page if you haven't!), covering aspects from the technical design of our products to ecosystem developments.
• Our upcoming re-vamped documentation (coming next week!) and all the developer-oriented tutorials and demos we create on an ongoing basis. 
• The dApp Dialogues podcast, hosted by our Content Manager, Carlos Cano, where we interview the minds behind the latest wave of Web3 applications.

• X Spaces, such as the Intent.WTFsessions covered above, among many others, where we foster Web3 infrastructure discussions or participate as guests.

Coming soon to a dApp near you

As we reflect on the past year and what’s to come, we are amazed at how action-packed this update turned out to be. Day in and day out, we focus on expanding and improving Web3’s infrastructure, and are proud of seeing the fruits of this effort come to life. 

Our journey in 2024 will be marked by the emergence of our different ecosystem components, more valuable partnerships, and enthusiasm to keep nurturing our dedicated community. 

Stay tuned for more updates on our journey!

About Particle Network

Particle Network powers chain abstraction, addressing Web3's fragmentation of users and liquidity. This is enabled by Particle's Universal Accounts, which give users a unified account and balance across all chains.

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