Callisto Monthly - December 2022

Welcome to your January issue of Callisto Monthly, a look at what has been happening in the world of Callisto over the last month.

First, we start with a Happy New Year. 2022 was an amazing year of growth for Callisto, and this year promises to be even bigger as your blockchain expands in new directions. To that end…

Mo’ Money, Mo’ Better

Esports Innovation Group, or EIG, is doubling down on its investment in Callisto Network.

The Germany-based group first invested in Callisto last year when EIG’s founder, Michael Broda, joined Callisto as CEO. Now, EIG has made another “significant” though undisclosed investment in Callisto Network. In announcing the new investment, EIG said it believes Callisto “is the perfect protocol for the future of gaming and esports.”

EIG has plans to expand Callisto Network’s reach through esports and gaming and sees vast opportunities in the growth of the NFT market as a service on which businesses and sports clubs can build a host of products. In that light, Callisto Network aims to become the network and backend service provider on which third parties will offer an increasingly large variety of services to corporate users.

It’s the next step in a bigger and better Callisto Network.

The Tokenomics of a Callisto Masternode

Last year, Callisto unveiled its Masternodes, a distributed computing and networking infrastructure aimed at creating a new market of highly secure, distributed cloud-edge computing services. Callisto sees this as next-generation mining, in which users, instead of solving complex puzzle problems for validating transactions, provide hardware and networking resources that numerous applications can use.

To that end, Callisto recently announced Masternode tokenomics.

Callisto will initially allocate 5,791,000 SOY to Masternode owners, to be distributed annually as a reward. There are, at the moment 10 community-owned Masternodes that will share in 60% of the annual rewards. Callisto Network operates 11 Masternodes and will claim 40% of the rewards. (Callisto’s 11 Masternodes are simply to ensure security until the network reaches complete decentralization.)

If you want to read through the full tokenomics, you can find it here.

And if you have any interest in running a Masternode, you can find the prerequisites and a set-up guide here.

Hacks: The Legal Way to Make Money

Dexaran, one of the world’s foremost blockchain security experts, has begun offering bounty payments of 0.1 ETH to anyone who brings to him tips about an ongoing hack.

The effort is part of the Callisto Security Department’s push to build a name for itself in investigating the causes of hacks and the ways in which hackers infiltrate a network. That will allow the Security Department to expand its footprint in helping others prevent hacks in the first place.

To qualify for the bounty, the hack much be ongoing, it must have already drained a minimum of $500,000, and it cannot already have been reported on and deconstructed by a third party. If you know of such a hack, contact Dexaran via Telegram.

Along those lines, the Security Department performed a forensic analysis of the recent hacks of Binance and Helio.

The Binance hack occurred back in October and saw two million BNB tokens vanish. That’s about $550 million of BNB at current prices.

The flaw: Callisto’s security department found a bug in the proof verification model that the hackers exploited and which allowed them to deceive the Bridge, in turn causing the Bridge to “print” funds that should not have existed. The full Binance autopsy, if you wish to read it, is here.

As for Helio … the hack occurred in early December on the Ankr project, leading to a $5 million loss. The attacker exploited the Ankr protocol, while another attacker bought roughly 183,000 $aBNBc tokens using 10 $BNB. Those 183,000 $aBNBc tokens were then used as collateral on the Helio Protocol to claim 191,130 $hBNB tokens in return.

Helio's price oracle was not updated during the attack on $aBNBc, and because of this, the attacker borrowed 16 million $HAY, which was then used to buy 15.5 million BUSD. The full analysis of the exploit is here.

With All My Soul…

Keeping with Dexaran for a beat longer, along with being a world-class blockchain security expert, he’s also pretty good, it turns out when it comes to his main work as a developer.

He and the security department are finalizing a new Callisto Network SoulBound Token standard. SBTs, as they’re known, are the latest form of NFTs, and they represent personal traits such as an individual’s credentials, affiliations, and commitments. They are truly non-fungible and non-tradeable. Once you own one, it follows you everywhere you go and can never be sold, meaning they are best thought of as non-transferable tokens that can never leave your wallet.

Though SBTs are new to the crypto space, they are going to be a very big part of our future as identity documents such as a driver’s license, a passport, Social Security, and national identity cards move onto the blockchain in the very near future.

As Dexaran and the Security Department work to finalize the Callisto SBT standard, they’re giving away a personalized SBT designed by Dexaran himself. To participate, head over to this tweet on Twitter and describe what you would like to see are your personalized #SBT.

Dexaran will review submissions and award the best suggestions an SBT the winners can display in their wallet.

In other SBT news, Callisto’s Security Auditing Department will begin assigning SBTs to all smart contracts that the team audits. This way, teams can assure their community that their smart contracts have been audited and are safe.

Santa CLO Delivers NFTs

Over the Christmas holidays, Callisto Network delivered to CLO cold stakers a specially designed Callistonian NFT – Callisto’s way of saying “Thank you!” to those who have put their faith in trust in Callisto Network.”

The NFTs, designed by a Peruvian street artist known as Krudo, were part of a free mint Callisto dropped as a way to raise awareness of the new CallistoNFT Standard. That standard, which improves upon the existing NFT standard in several ways, aims to make NFTs more user-friendly as the industry prepares for mass market adoption of crypto and NFT technology.

Six versions of the Callistonian NFTs were produced -- three super-rares that were split between just 56 stakers, each with more than 2.5 million CLO staked, two rares split between 234 eligible stakers; and one common that went to each of 1,262 stakers.

Migrating to a Better Blockchain

As the crypto and NFT space matures, dApp builders are increasingly migrating between chains—what’s known as “going polychain.” That effort is aimed at appealing to as many consumers as possible since the cryptoverse of tomorrow is going to be defined by many unique blockchains.

Recognizing that fact, Callisto Network recently launched a migration service to encourage developers from other networks to migrate into the Callisto ecosystem, marked by one of the safest and most secure blockchains.

To encourage that move, Callisto is offering funding of as much as $100,000 to help teams migrate over to Callisto Network with their projects.

If you’re a developer interested in migrating to Callisto, or you know of developers/projects that would thrive on the Callisto Network, see this story on how to begin the application process.

And with that, we wrap up the January Callisto update. Here’s to a great year of growth at Callisto Network and across the entirety of the cryptosphere.