1st Anniversary of Crust Mainnet Launch

September 1, 2022 (EST time), the first anniversary of the Crust mainnet launch! In the past year, we have got many achievements and gained many partners and ecosystem developers.

1st Anniversary Review

For technological progress:

After the mainnet launch, Crust has fully improved developer tools and cross-chain storage solutions and is committed to creating an out-of-box, seamless, original-ipfs-oriented decentralized storage experience. Crust also made full use of on-chain democracy to actively improve the protocol layer and create a cheaper and more practical storage market.

1. [Cases] Launched Crust Dev Toolkits, including JS SDK, Github Actions, Shell Scripts and IPFS Scan, to meet the integration preferences of different Web3 projects for decentralized storage. Currently, Dev Toolkits have been integrated into Web3 projects such as Uniswap, AAVE, Polkadot Apps, Liquity, XX Messenger, RMRK;

2. [Assets] Launched multiple asset cross-chain bridges, including decentralized asset bridges from Crust mainnet to Ethereum, Elrond, and Crust preview network, increasing crust token’s utility. It also provides the fundamental layer of Crust’s cross-chain storage solution;

3. [Protocol] In terms of the protocol layer, after the Crust mainnet went online, it immediately supported IPFS CID v1, and completed the design of DSM3.0, realizing a seamless upgrade, which greatly improved the processing ability of order files. Up to now, 1.2mi independent files have been stored on the Crust network, ranking first in the field of decentralized storage

4. [xChain Storage] launched a decentralized cross-chain storage solution with IPFS W3Auth Gateway, IPFS W3Auth Pinner and Storage Smart Contact as the core technology, and supports all EVM-Compatible blockchains, including Ethereum, Polygon, BNB Chain, OKX, also this solution supports nonEVM-compatible blockchains, including Solana, Near, Chainlink, Aptos, Avalanche, Elrond and Flow. This solution provides a smart contact-driven way to access Crust’s IPFS storage resources; it helps these ecosystem users and developers store data natively, rather than interacting with the Crust blockchain.

5. [Parachain] Launched the Kusama parachain Crust Shadow, designed and developed a cross-chain storage module xStorage pallet based on XCMP, and opened message channels with multiple parachains including Moonbeam, Acala, Phala, Biforst, Oak, Darwinia, etc. Provide storage function for the entire Polkadot ecosystem

6. [Application] Launched the first decentralized dropbox in the Web3 world — Crust Files (crustfiles.io), based on the Crust cross-chain solution, which supports account login and storage for most ecosystems

For ecosystem cooperation:

Crust’s partners span various fields and together have become an important part of the Web3 ecosystem. The following will select some of them by month.

2021.9

• Polygon announced the integration of Crust, which will provide Polygon users and developers with a decentralized storage experience with more than 6,000 nodes and 2,000 PB of storage capacity. This time, Polygon will integrate three typical applications of Crust, namely Files for file storage, Pins for NFT metadata, and Hosts for Dapp deployment, to better help developers build applications on Polygon.
• Heco announced the integration of Crust, and the Heco ecological user wallet can log in and sign to use Crust for storage!
• Near announced the integration of Crust, and the Near ecological user wallet can use Crust for storage!

2021.10

• Cooperated with UniArts to provide storage services for it.
• Crust Shadow successfully photographed the Kusama parachain to provide storage services for its ecosystem.
• Cooperate with SwitchSwap, a one-stop NFT platform, to store NFTs.
• Cooperate with Elrond, the largest public chain in Europe, to provide storage services for its ecology.

2021.11

• Launched low-threshold Web3 storage tool CrustFiles.
• Reached a partnership with RMRK to provide storage services for its NFTs. At the same time, Crust also sponsored the RMRK hackathon, encouraging developers to build NFT DAPPs on RMRK and Crust.
• In cooperation with BSC, Crust will provide decentralized storage services for BSC ecological users.
• In cooperation with Flow, Crust launched a distributed storage solution for its ecosystem.

2021.12

• Reached a partnership with Solana to provide storage services for it.
• The v0.2.0 release of AAVE is announced to be supported by Crust Network.
• The 166th issue of IPFS Weekly Report includes the decentralized Pin service developed by Crust. https://blog.ipfs.io/weekly-166/
• Cooperate with OKExChain to provide its users with convenient one-click storage services.
• Ecological cooperation with NFT project Metaprints.

2022.1

• Crust held a Hackathon with Darwinia, DoraFactory, MEXCPioneer and DoraHacks to jointly promote the ecological development of Web3.0. An additional $2000 USDT bonus reward from Crust.
• On January 11, Crust distributed Kusama slot auction rewards. The rewards will be distributed in two batches. The mainnet CRU rewards have been distributed, and the CSM rewards will be distributed after the Shadow network runs smoothly.
• Crust is listed on the LATOKEN exchange, and the CRU/USDT trading pair is open.

2022.2

• ​​Polkadot Wiki has merged the Crust Storage entry.

https://wiki.polkadot.network/docs/build-storage#crust-storage

• CeramicNetwork has officially integrated Crust. Crust will provide a stable and efficient permanent pin storage service for Ceramic Network.
• On February 17, Crust launched the first DEX of Elrond Network ecosystem, MaiarExchange, and opened the $EGLD / $CRU trading pair.
• The Files module of Polkadot apps uses Crust for storage and is now available for all Polkadot ecosystem users, including relay and parachain users.

2022.3

• Sub.ID (http://Sub.ID ) supports $CRU and users can use $CRU tokens to get tips and donations.
• Crust has partnered with Subsquid to deploy and release the highly customized Squid API, bringing some new features to applications built on the Crust Network!
• Crust opens Crust & Elrond’s two-way bridge (and exempts bridge fees), and users can use the bridge to trade freely on the Maiar exchange.
• The Crust Shadow network has been running stably, and the Maxwell preview network now opens the CSM bridge, which can transfer CSM to the Shadow network.
• Crust NFT and NFTScan announced a partnership to build an NFT ecosystem!
• Crust NFT and FanzDAO announced a partnership to build a Web3 football ecosystem.
• Crust provides storage for Double-A-Chain to support its ecological development.
• BingX is now listing CRU/USDT trading pair: https://bingx.com/en-us/spot/CRUUSDT/
• Crust announced the integration of Darwinia’s Crab network, and also sponsors its hosted hackathon to jointly expand the Web3 technology ecosystem.
• Crust announced a partnership with Relationlabs to provide data storage solutions.
• Crust ecological application tool: IPFSScan, obtain IPFS ecosystem Grant.

https://github.com/ipfs/devgrants/blob/master/microgrants/accepted-microgrant-applications.md#surfing_woman-first-half-2022

2022.4

• Crust Shadow Network and KaruraNetwork open HRMP channel to support token transactions between Kusama parallel chains!
• Crust announced that it will be deployed on the OKC chain to provide decentralized storage services for its ecological users.
• Substrate apps integrate Crust storage, set the Files (IPFS) entry on its homepage, and can store directly through Crust, and add Crust storage introduction in the Polkadot wiki.
• On April 22, Crust opened the Social Hub Pass registration in SandboxGame, and the design was provided by Metaprints.
• Crust integrates Ankr’s endpoint service as a cross-chain storage service solution.
• On April 27th, Crust Shadow Network’s native token CSM was officially launched on the Acala Ecology Karura Swap, providing a total of 3,000,000 CSM + 10,000 aUSD as a liquidity mining reward!
• Crust announced a partnership with Encentive_io to provide storage solutions for it.

2022.5

• Crust Network integrates SubSquare to build a governance platform where anyone can participate in decision-making and guide the development of Crust Network: https://crust.subsquare.io
• On May 23rd, Crust Network reached the milestone of storing “1,000,000 valid files”!
• From May 30th to July 11th, the Polkadot Hackathon will be held in North America, and Crust will sponsor a $6,000 reward for the best Crust-based apps. At the same time, Crust will hold two online workshops on June 3rd and June 10th, and participate in the Polkadot Hacker House@NYC from June 23rd to 28th.
• From June 9th to June 12th, Crust sponsored and participated in Consensus2022 in Austin, Texas.
• Crust Shadow has partnered with Moonriver, and XCM has successfully allowed $CSM to be launched as xcCSM within the Moonriver ecosystem. This integration will eventually allow Moonriver developers to participate in Crust decentralized storage.

2022.6

• Chainlink announced a partnership with Crust, which provides external adapters for its network nodes, enabling Chainlink developers to seamlessly use the decentralized storage network.
• Crust integrates Cubechain, and Cubechain users can use Crust Files for storage for free.
• Invarch integrates Crust to bring a new model of decentralization to IP and NFT storage.
• Metaprints launches Crust Social Hub Pass, and it’s on sale for the first time.

2022.7

• Crust’s Kusama ecological parachain Crust Shadow announced the roadmap.
• Crust has partnered with Robonomics to provide storage services in the field of artificial intelligence.
• Crust has partnered with Meson to integrate its CDN acceleration service to pull and store data faster.
• Crust has entered into a partnership with Computecoin to provide decentralized cloud services.
• Crust Shadow’s native token CSM is listed on Kraken Exchange.
• Crust mainnet token CRU listed on Bitmart exchange.

2022.8

• Crust Shadow integrates aUSD (Acala) as a parachain stablecoin to support placing orders for storage.
• Crust has reached a cooperation with OAK.
• Crust is going to participate in the auction of Polkadot slots, the parachain ID is 2008, and will provide a 20,000 $CRU crowd-lending reward. The third-party crowdloan platforms now include Parallel/Equilibrium/Gate, etc.
• Crust Shadow and Crab network open XCM channel.
• Crust has partnered with Integritee.
• Crust has partnered with XX Network to provide encrypted storage.
• HyperPay has listed CRU on the exchange and supports multi-currency transactions.

Roadmap

In the cryptocurrency bear market, we believe this is the best time to build the ecosystem and optimize the technology. Therefore, Crust adjusted the basic strategy and the future roadmap, committed to developing the developer community and providing more storage services for Web3.

In terms of marketing and community, Crust community council will improve the official website and collect slogans from the community based on the new positioning and roadmap. Funds, bounty, and free storage… will also be classified to the community in a clearer way.

Crust will continue to update the monthly YouTube community call, report the project progress to the community and hear from the community. Next, we will also enrich the content of the YouTube channel, including a series of technical workshop videos, providing a more convenient channel for understanding Crust technology and a better viewing experience. From time to time, in the form of Twitter Space, Podcast, etc., we’ll invite cooperating projects to discuss topics related to Web3 and storage, so as to provide more vision and inspiration for community members.

Crust community ambassadors will plan a series of marketing activities to retain content and expand potential market opportunities to ensure Crust’s global influence. In the next stage, Crust will mainly focus on North America, Europe, Japan, and other regions, cooperate with projects, carry out a series of offline activities and gather community strength.

In terms of protocol layer development, Crust is committed to adding diversified functions, making Crust a more open underlying storage facility to meet the needs of the Web3 ecosystem for storing valuable data. On the developer side, it will improve the usability of developers using Crust. The newly added functions mainly include data indexing service, data encryption and authorization service, identity aggregation and data labeling, MPoW storage proof upgrade, network expansion, etc. Data privacy and Identity Aggregation (DID) have certainly established Crust’s importance in the Web3 ecosystem, both of which will make it easier for any user to enter Web3.

These features will facilitate users to store more valuable data on the Crust network and also make Crust a more developer-friendly protocol. Crust will be able to be integrated by different projects with more services, expand the Crust ecosystem and application scenarios, and further enhance the value capture capability of CRU. These technological upgrades will also be reflected on the application side, greatly improving the user experience.

The detailed roadmap is as follows.

2018 Q3 — Team Founded

• Concept Design
• Key Technologies Validation

2019 Q2 — Proof of Concept

• Protocol Design
• Crust Chain Prototype

2020 Q1 — Rocky DevNet

• Open Source
• Initial Version of Crust Chain Implementation
• Launch Rocky DevNet and Open for Developers

2020 Q4 — Maxwell CC2 Open TestNet

• First Stable Version of MPoW and GPoS
• Launch Open TestNet and Incentivize External Nodes to Join

2021 Q2 — Maxwell Preview Network

• First Stable Version of DSM
• Launch Preview Network and Enable Cloud Storage Market

2021 Q3 — MainNet

• Polkadot/Kusama ParaChain Technical Readiness
• Promote for Use Cases and Get Applications Running on MainNet

2022 Q2 — Cross-Chain DStorage Interfaces

• Implement Crust-Based Web3 Auth IPFS Gateway and Pinning Service
• Provide Smart Contract Based Storage Interface
• Implement Polkadot XCMP-Based Cross-Chain Storage Solution

2022 Q4 — Crust Data Indexing Service

• Tag IPFS File System Structure with On-Chain Account
• Implement Data Indexing Service on Crust Chain
• Layer-2 GraphQL Support

2023 Q1 — Crust Data Encryption and Authorization Service

• Client-Side Data Encryption in Crust SDK
• Implement ZK-Based Data Sharing and Authorization Technology
• Authorization Lifecycle Management with On-Chain Transaction Integration

2023 Q3 — Crust Data Identity and Trading Service

• Aggregate Cross-Chain Identities and DID in Crust Accounts
• Manage On-Chain Data Identity
• Adopt Smart Contract VM for Data Trading and Processing Scenarios

2023 Q4 — MPoW Storage Proof V2

• Implement Decentralized TEE Attestation Mechanism
• Development Version of Zero-Knowledge Proof under MPoW Interfaces

2024 Q2 — Scaling Crust Network

• Support Off-chain Work Report Roll-up for Higher Scalability
• Support Sharding Network

2024 Q4 — MPoW Storage Proof V3 — ZKProof

• Implement ZK-Based Storage Proof Mechanism in MPoW
• Upgrade GPoS to Adopt ZK-Based Work Reports