Nimiq OASIS Update

With this blog post we would like to update the community about the current developments and next steps towards the launch of Nimiq OASIS and give you a short overview of the first weeks since the launch of our public beta.

Where we are now?

On February 18, 2021, after many weeks of testing and optimizing, Team Nimiq presented the first public beta version of Nimiq OASIS to the world, which has been used live successfully since then. Users can buy NIM and BTC for up to $1'000 per month without having to rely on a custodial third-party intermediary holding the exchanged funds. The system has been thoroughly tested and in total ~85% of all Atomic Swaps were successful. Most incomplete swaps occurred due to incoming bank wires not being near instant, so they didn't make it on time before the crypto HTLC portion of the Atomic Swap timed out.

Of the 15% failed swaps, 54% failed due to incoming transactions not being instant, 33% had the reference text missing or not correct (either people forgot or did a mistake copying the contract ID over to the reference field of their transaction in their online banking UI), 13% were above monthly limit, and for 3% the funding transaction was sent twice and thus refunded.

By design all funds of expired and failed swaps have automatically been refunded. The system itself has also been further improved, for example the liquidity provider Fastspot now runs a so-called 'watchtower service' monitoring the blockchain and ensuring swaps succeed even if the user loses internet connectivity or closes the browser window. Overall, we're very excited that within this early time of releasing the beta, OASIS has already processed 1'650 successful swaps with over $260'000 in volume during Q1 2021 and more than $375'000 until today!

What's to come?

Now that we have been able to gain further experience with OASIS over several weeks and have been able to make important improvements in almost all areas, it is time for OASIS to grow out of its earliest stage and finally lose its 'beta' label.

In the next step towards enabling the most decentralized and safest fiat on-ramp, we will launch the sell functionality of crypto against fiat and remove the initial $500 per-swap limit. Users will then be able to swap fiat for cryptocurrency and back again up to the established 30-day rolling window limit of $1'000. At the same time, we will publish the OASIS API including documentation and sandbox environment, so that other services can now also use OASIS and Fastspot as announced. The first exciting new partnerships are already emerging, which we will keep you informed about.

From this point on, the increase of limits beyond the registration-free $1'000 and the expansion of the OASIS technology to other fiat currencies will be our top priority. Our partner TEN31 Bank is already working on a KYC (Know Your Customer) solution that will enable higher swap limits in the future and Team Nimiq will support the bank in all aspects of this next step. As it is not yet determined when this KYC solution will go live, we have taken this as an opportunity to add a new milestone to our roadmap for 2021: Nimiq OASIS Pro, which will enable European users to perform non-custodial swaps between crypto and fiat with larger amounts after completing a KYC procedure with TEN31 Bank.

OASIS 1% Fee: Details on the locking procedure

Since the launch of the Nimiq OASIS Public Beta on 18th February until Thursday 1st April, Nimiq OASIS has collected a total of US$ 2'690.00 (2.263,27 €) in fees from the swaps that have been performed during the first quarter. As previously announced, these collected fees will be used to buy NIM off the market for at least the first 24 months, which then are held by the Nimiq Foundation to increase scarcity and for the future benefit of the project. As a result of this plan, the first 225'242 NIM have been purchased on 1st April and are now stored on the preliminary holding address NQ23 6CYY 7AJG AM08 Y5G5 MHGX 6U4U 270A 7SH0 that belongs to the Nimiq Foundation. Please note that the address that holds those locked funds will be changed to a multisig address at some point in the future. The next NIM from the 1% fees will be purchased and locked after the second quarter ended on July 1, 2021. The locked-NIM holding address will always be publicly visible in the Nimiq blockchain explorers and we'll keep the community posted on all future updates with regard to this matter.

OASIS Beta Launch: Press Coverage and Twitter Initiative

With the release of Nimiq OASIS Beta, the Nimiq Communications team worked on broader news coverage regarding the kick-off and features of Nimiq OASIS and Nimiq in general. With this initiative we targeted hundreds of thousands of crypto enthusiasts in the blockchain space with the aim to try out OASIS and learn about Nimiq. You can find all news articles and the latest influencer and community videos at http://nimpress.news, a dedicated press clipping and news overview website created by the Nimiq Community.

To promote the Nimiq OASIS Beta Launch on social media, we ran a special Twitter campaign to encourage users to spread the word about the beta launch. As the result of this promotion campaign, ten users who wrote about their first OASIS experience on Twitter using the hashtag #NimiqOASIS can now look forward to the refund of their swap! Today we are happy to announce the winners of this initiative: @ArMEnaK17, @NimiqManiac, @KlkQimin, @sam_atilola, @ionlarregui, @CryptoCappex, @Trymops @hssn13, @QR4World and @MaXi_N_Z. Congratulations to all of you and thank you once again for helping with the promotion of Nimiq OASIS.

We are already looking forward to the next steps and especially the full roundtrip release of Nimiq OASIS in the near future. Last but not least, we would like to express our special thanks to our large, worldwide community, which has always been supporting us so energetically not only during the testing phase but also iduring the roll-out of the OASIS beta.

We love you! 🧡

Pura Vida,

Team Nimiq