Today is the last day of 2020, a good moment to look back at the most significant events of the year. 2020 was challenging and transformational for many, and Ankr is not an exception.
Opting for a simpler, yet more efficient operational model that puts more emphasis on the end user, consumers as well as enterprises, we have evolved from a distributed cloud computing platform to a node hosting platform with proprietary infrastructure and an array of tools on top.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted our lives as individuals and operations as a company. We are blessed to be able to continue working in a globally distributed team and crypto markets, providing best-in-class infrastructure, node hosting and staking solutions to our clients worldwide.
Meanwhile, we were able to make many connections in the space and team up with buidlers, such as blockchain teams, exchanges and data analytics platforms all over the world to heavily expand our client base and ecosystem.
In the following overview, we take a look at our core milestones in each quarter of 2020.
Q1
- At our last in-person event before COVID we launched our first node hosting campaign with LTO with over 50 nodes at the “Blockchain Beyond the Hype” event in Amsterdam
- We supported COVID-19 research with BOINC Rosetta together with Binance, LTO, Matic, Harmony and Vite
- In April, Ankr launched Harmony Open Staking testnet campaign which reached over 300 testnet nodes deployed on Ankr
- ANKR token was listed on Gate.io for more liquidity on the Chinese market, and on WazirX for the Indian market
- More node hosting campaigns launched with our partners Vite and Pchain
- We announced support for Ethereum 2.0 nodes
- Ankr partnered with IOST, Oasis and the Celo Alliance for Prosperity to bring node hosting solutions to their communities
- Ankr joined the Web3 Bootcamp to contribute to the Polkadot ecosystem
- We participated in the Elrond Battle of Nodes
- Ankr created API solutions for easy Binance Smart Chain and Compound integration for developers
Q3
- In July, DIA, Coinone and Ferrum integrated Ankr as enterprise clients
- Ankr presented Polkadot nodes and added further Polkadot ecosystem integrations with Acala, Bifrost, ChainX, Darwinia and Kusama
- As the summer of DeFi kicked in, Ankr teamed up with various DeFi protocols to work with them on node hosting solutions: Compound, Stafi, Plutus DeFi and Meter
- We launched BINANCE Smart Chain Validator and BNB staking, and participated in Binance Smart Chain Stake Wars
- We partnered with Waves, SKALE and KardiaChain to bring node hosting solutions to their communities
- Ankr announced Stkr: decentralized Ethereum 2.0 staking solutions and launched Ethereum 2.0 Medalla testnet node
- We Participated in Binance Build for Bharat DeFi Hackathon
- ANKR was listed on Huobi
Q4
- On December 1st, Stkr launched on mainnet. As of today, over 30,000 ETH have been staked!
- We upgraded our infrastructure and core system for the Stkr release
- Curve.fi was announced as first threshold KMS partner for Stkr
- Stkr integrated with TrustWallet, Imtoken, ONTO and Bitkeep wallets
- We partnered with Blockstack, UniLend, Nuls, PlotX and Gather to bring node hosting solutions to their communities
- Launched MATIC Validator, Avalanche Validator and NuCypher Worker Node
- An array of full nodes was launched for developers including Bitcoin, Dash, Decred, Elastos, NEAR, NEO and Qtum
- ANKR was listed on Crypto.com
- Coinbase Custody announced that it is exploring support for ANKR
Looking forward to 2021
Our main goal for 2021 is to make Stkr the go-to protocol for Eth2 staking. We will focus on providing infrastructure for the fast growing Polkadot ecosystem such as API service and nodes.
We will continue working with the most relevant protocols to support their nodes and infrastructure.
… and of course we will always be on top of the trends and the market to offer the most innovative and relevant blockchain infrastructure and DeFi services!
Happy New Year, friends! Let it be full with joy, health and prosperity!
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