**August brought significant strides for Xelis.** Development accelerated across core infrastructure, major upgrades were landed, and ecosystem updates took center stage. Key highlights include: Ledger integration, dynamic transaction fees, Forge DEX advancements, Silex encryption enhancements, and more. 🔒💪🚀
Here’s a look at some of the notable accomplishments from August:
**Ledger Integration:** A major milestone was reached with Ledger hardware wallet support. Tritonn developed a working application with key functionality already live: keypair generation, address derivation, and secure transactions. The app is compact (estimated ~80KB) and prioritizes user security. Additional features will be added in future updates.
**Dynamic Transaction Fees:** To fight spam while maintaining scalability, Xelis introduced dynamic transaction fees. This system automatically adjusts fees based on average block size, ensuring a less congested chain and combating spamming. This update has already shown positive results by reducing spam pressure. The team is actively working to further optimize its functionality.
**Silex Smart Contracts:** Xelis’s custom smart contract language saw significant enhancements. Ristretto Points and Scalars were added, enabling complex cryptographic operations for privacy-focused applications like private DeFi, zk-KYC systems, auctions, mixers, and privacy pools. Silex’s speed and efficiency at Layer 1 make it ideal for advanced blockchain development.
**Forge DEX:** The Forge DEX team made significant progress, with key developments in backend, charting, and smart contract layers. Indexer improvements now provide real-time data capturing, while the charting system is under active development, incorporating live candle charts and EMA indicators. Silex Studio updates bring a more streamlined and efficient environment for developers.
**Community & Ecosystem:** Xelis continued to focus on building its ecosystem by welcoming four new team members: Tritonn, Cyber, Dalkson, and Codehalo. These contributions have already strengthened the ecosystem with their expertise in hardware wallet support, marketing, smart contracts, and Silex development.
**Exchange Update:** Xelis is actively working on strengthening its exchange partnerships to ensure fair and organic market operations. XT Exchange was removed due to values misalignment, while Biconomy’s promotion for XEL holders was independent of Xelis, demonstrating a commitment to transparent markets. SafeTrade discussions are underway to potentially integrate market-making and arbitrage tools.
**Looking Ahead:** September promises to bring more exciting developments: Smart contract refinements, continued Ledger integration, improved Explorer and Genesix interfaces, optimized Dynamic Fee system, Forge DEX front-end integration, and continued market growth.
**The Vision:** Xelis is actively building a performant, confidential, Layer-1 ecosystem with tools that rival and surpass existing platforms.
**Next Steps:** The team continues to finalize the implementation of dApps on Xelis’s testnet. Before transitioning to mainnet, we will ensure key functionalities like a decentralized exchange are ready for launch. This approach helps us quickly identify necessary improvements in practice rather than relying solely on theory.
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**Thank You:** We are grateful for the contributions of our developers, contributors, and community. Together, we will build a new standard for privacy, DeFi, and usability!