Hummingbot Community, 7 Dec 2022

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From YouTube: Hummingbot Monthly Community Call 011 | 7 December 2022

Description

Meeting Info:
- Schedule: 7 December 2022 : 11:00 AM EST / 3:00 PM UTC / 11:00 PM HKT
- Duration: 60 minutes
- Location: YouTube Livestream

Agenda:
- Metrics: volume, proposals, fees earned, bounties
- v1.10 Release Highlights
- v1.11 Release Highlights
- Bounties
- Governance Updates
- AMA

A

Hello, hello, hello, hello, I think, hopefully you can see me now: um well, okay, one second, okay, okay, all right, I! Think I! Think, uh hopefully you can hear me now. um Yes, okay, sounds good. Sorry, uh it was a. This is uh um a new setup for us here at tummybot, we're uh yeah now now we're trying to get these live streams uh a bit more um coordinated on Monday basis. Okay, so let's get started uh so now uh we can finally get started with the monthly call.

A

I have a little presentation here that I'll go through and uh but it should be pretty fast. But overall, this is a chance for the community to ask questions about how it works. What a roadmap is and all the things we have going on, hopefully um in the next in the next few minutes. So um so, let's get started with um with the presentation.

A

My sound is actually in the back I'm losing myself in the background here: okay,.

A

All right, um okay, welcome everyone. uh So uh today, where the agenda is we're, gonna go over some some things from the um the the the metrics from the Past release um and uh in the past month, look at how hummingbird has grown since uh the the launch of the foundation um and and we'll also look at what was what's new in the last release.

A

What we launched in hummingbot uh discuss, what's upcoming in the next release and there's actually some upcoming changes to the governance process that we're gonna spend a bit more time on today. So let's go into it so in terms of metrics, um so we try to track the the daily volumes that are reported by everyone using hummingbot on on a daily basis and that's reported on an anonymized basis to us and that's what allows us to publish this, uh this real-time dashboard of hummingbot user activity.

A

So this is helpful for us because it allows us to see what exchanges people are using hummingbot on and how much volume they're doing on a daily basis. So you can see that in the past month, we've seen a big drop off in volumes collectively across a user base. As a result of the FTX situation, so uh back in the beginning of November, we were seeing volumes about 200 million per day as Market volatility.

A

Kind of caused people to you know like take more Arbitrage opportunities and, to um you know, find more chances to trade more using hummingbot. However, as the month progressed- and there was, uh you know a risk uh deleveraging where people took money off of exchanges, uh you know people were running fewer Bots because of concerns about uh which exchanges might be safe or not safe. We have seen a big drop off so now we're seeing, probably on average collectively across the user base.

A

Something like 30 to 40 million per day of volume and most high volume is not surprisingly, is starting to concentrate more on the top exchanges uh binance in particular um and uh and and we're also seeing kind of like there's also been so some of these small exchanges. The volumes are probably in the earlier parts of the month, but these days we're seeing volumes on binance, really kind of, like you know, take over and and be used a lot more by everyone else in the user base uh one.

A

Second, let me just uh sorry it's hard for me to see audio here so I'm, trying to make sure that I'm actually responding to comments or things like that in the channel. So please um so right now we're just kind of transitioning, so you can put your comments in the community called chat channel on Discord, uh but also in the future. We'll probably try to use. um You know YouTube more, so the live chat here is also going to be available. So so this is the volume.

A

So we track this, but uh we we actually don't get paid directly by this. We get paid by The Exchange themselves, who we have Partnerships with. So um traditionally our revenues have been. uh You know in the beginning of the year they're about 40 50k per month from these exchanges they have dropped off significantly uh because Vibes overall and crypto have been down, and so um this is what our Revenue picture looked like in October.

A

uh So obviously, you know we want to make sure that the foundation is sustainable, won't break even so we're looking we've been looking at ways to improve our Revenue situation, which is why we're starting uh bot Camp uh our first developer boot camp, but uh in October, uh so we made 16k. This is primarily off the exchange fee share Partnerships.

A

um We have 43k of expenses, so this is the Staffing of the 12 people we have at Foundation working full-time and therefore we had a negative 27k of p l in October um and and so what the what sustain this is right now is essentially our balance sheet, so we have a grant from our parent company Quinn Alpha. uh This number started at 500k, um and so collectively we still have a good amount of Runway through the remaining of 2023. Even if we uh kind of like don't you know are, are not breaking even.

A

However, the goal for us is to build a sustainable organization, which is why we're starting bot, camp and other initiatives uh during next year, and we believe by the end of next year.

A

um You know before we we finalize that we we kind of use up this, grant uh the the foundation will be profitable and will be sustainable going forward. So that's really the goal for us and the way we do. That is, we think the best way we do, that is by educating uh and growing the hummingbot user base, because the more people that use hummingbot um the more people are going to be.

A

You know, uh trading volume on exchanges and giving us more fee share and the more people will be taking bot camp and learning how to to use hummingbot and more effectively. So that's why we think education training are our biggest levers, which is why uh we're starting kind of you know a few and a bunch of initiatives to teach the community how to make more use of honeybot, uh obviously bot camp, but also during the weekly Dev calls.

A

We have every week we're going to be going through various topics that allow the people people out there to to learn how to really extend and to use more features in hummingbot. So we started this initiative uh last month, so we had um talks about the Perpetual connectors.

A

uh Last month we talked about the pre-processing tool of of where people can analyze uh the trades, using the community tools repository afterwards uh today, we're actually doing the community call, and- um and so next next week, we'll probably get into this part, uh basically using uh looking at kind of like uh scripts with uh you know, Sexes and dexes, and also um next month, we'll be getting to more of these other more advanced features in these weekly uh Community calls.

A

So uh last month we this this month we published uh release uh 1.10.

A

So uh let me spend a few minutes and talk about what's in 1.10 as well as what's coming up uh in the following release, so um in 1.10 we actually launched a lot of new stuff in in that in this release, uh we had something like um seven or eight new connectors, so included uh two new Perpetual, connectors, gate.io and bitget, as well as substantial improvements to the dydx connector.

A

We also added new connectors for whitebit lbank and BTC markets, um and that's only on the central exchange side on the decentralized exchange side, we've added Integrations to BNB chain uh and Pinky, swap near protocol and refinance on near as well as vvf and mm Finance, which are dexas on Chronos, as well as support for the Chronos chain itself. So we've we've we've been pretty busy, as you can see, um you know, and actually I should mention.

A

We also added um in a community strategy called cross exchange mining, which is uh kind of like a variation of the uh the cross, Exchange Market making strategy, um and we also added examples that people have uh created as a result of taking botcamp as well. So uh this is a lot of stuff and I think this. On one hand, this is a testament to um how we are uh kind of starting to to Really uh kind of like turn into community-based project.

A

You know a lot of these uh poor class were created not by us but by um members of the community uh training firms like coin Alpha, but also you know, individuals out there who picked up bounties and who are working on uh these things. So because of that, um you know it's something that we want to uh kind of go ahead and do um the the other thing that uh so so, but but for the next release going forward.

A

It's hard for us to maintain this kind of you know Pace, because um you know as something about grows, there's more and more exchanges that it supports, there's more strategies and sports, and and it's like the maintenance becomes like a larger and larger portion of our time. But um for us like we don't really make money off of Maintenance, it doesn't sustain us, and so there are, we kind of have to like spend more of our time on things that are going to actually bring us.

A

You know kind of like basically bring us, um uh brings revenues and allows us to survive. So uh we still want to spend a lot more time. We still want to spend a lot of Maintenance, but it's more like we want the put them a process that allows a community to um help us decide how we allocate our maintenance bandwidth. So it's not unlimited.

A

You know, because if we're spending all our time on just maintaining code base adding connectors, then it doesn't allow us to really improve the code base going forward to make it more powerful and flexible and better for users. So that's why we. This is the main reason why we proposed um something in the in the Discord Channel under um under, like the a new approach toward governance.

A

So let me spend some time describing uh what that is, uh and uh it's something that will be kind of like you know, rolling out uh in the next month.

A

So the way we're planning to work- uh oh so I should explain. First, we um we've explained how this works in a Discord uh page, I'm. Sorry in uh in a notion page, um it's it's a bit vague right now, but let me just pull up uh the notion page and uh I. Can I can share the link uh later on in in Discord uh with everyone?

A

um It is there's a discussion in here called hummingbot approach to connectors. um So sorry,.

A

uh So there's a long discussion uh and there's a form thread as well as a notion. Dock I think the notion dock is probably the best place to start for, if you want to like overview of how it works. So let me just go over that notion, Doc and explain in a bit more detail uh how how what we're planning to do here um and and how we think this will bring value to the community.

A

So uh the the main idea is that um we want to use voting to allow the community to tell us how we're going to prioritize our maintenance time and bandwidth on a monthly basis. uh So right now we have lots of different exchanges in the code base and we have lots of different strategies and there's lots of the code base is overall growing. uh You know more every single month, but but that incurs a burden, because every new connector, we add um implies that we have to, you know, make sure we add documentation for it.

A

uh We add unit tests for it. We check for security implications of merging in that code and we try to keep you updated because um you know if the the the the more bugs there are in the code base, the more the perception of quality diminishes as people use it. So uh so because of that, you know, but the issue is because it you know. As we looked at the the reported volumes, the majority of people are usually coming bot on their top exchanges.

A

You know so uh something like 85 percent of our volume comes from binance um and and 90 of our fee shares come from Biden to kucoin, so the I think the time that we're spending right now uh in terms of like a bandwidth, there's a bit of a mismatch between them, where the community is actually using hummingbot and where these exchanges are paying us versus. You know all the small exchanges that we're kind of spending, time merging and reviewing so there's a bit of a misallocation. This that's.

A

Why I think we need to try to put in a process that allows the community to tell us. Where, should we really be spending our time? Which exchanges uh which strategies and which issues should we fix? So the proposed solution is to allow um the community to vote on a regular basis for how we're going to allocate the the maintenance bandwidth so there's three types of votes uh that were proposal. The first one are for connectors.

A

So for exchange connectors, uh the vote happened every three months and the vote would essentially allow the community to rank the centralized exchange connectors and the decentralized exchange connectors and allow us to essentially focus on the top ones in each list.

A

So for each vote we believe there should be three tiers um for connectors, uh so it would be for gold. The gold connector would be the one that we, the foundation, take responsibility for maintaining um and improving, so uh so that would be essentially there'll be one gold, centralized exchange, connector and one gold decentralized exchange connector. So right now our connectors are pretty generic. We just map the kind of the trading functions that are available on each exchange, but today these these exchanges have grown a lot more.

A

So, for instance, on the central exchange side, binance has added a lot of like margin trading. uh You know perpetuals uh staking lending, there's lots of different endpoints that the platform has and right now we're only mapping a subset of them. Similarly, on the decentralized side uni swap has you know, grown a lot too they've added. uh You know more advanced uh LP functionality, there's a new approval flow right now, which makes it much simpler and they also added nft trading.

A

So the the you know, I think the um for us I think it's it's we better for us and our users if we are concentrating our time on improving the quality and the performance, the power of the top exchange connectors, um because that's that's essentially a set of templates for all the other connectors out there, which can be maintained by the community. So uh this is kind of we kind of already started doing this with like the concept of a gold standard connector.

A

Essentially, so uh the proposal is that we can extend that going forward and we we as Foundation. We concentrate our time on really improving, like the the top connectors on each side, which are selected by the community and uh and we'll actually try to add lots of different endpoints that they support, so that each connector becomes more powerful and then we'll add bounties to allow the community to maintain the silver ones, which would be the three. The next three exchanges in each tier now, of course, there's more exchanges in that in code base.

A

uh So we're not proposing that we kind of cut everything else out for the remaining exchanges in the code base. um They would be called bronze and the idea is that during every monthly vote, as long as a connector gets a more than 100 000 h-bot, which is pretty low, it's something that a lot of people in the community already have, then that connector will stay in the code base and it'll be maintained by the community. But it will not be kind of funded or tested by us.

A

So so that way, we believe this gives a pathway, for you know, for exchange counters to be kept in the code base and used by people as long as people. You know um they just allocate some. You know h-bot into voting for them. uh As long as the community says, there's a few people out there using the exchange, then we'll keep in the code base. But my sense is right: now there actually might be Exchange in the code base that almost no one's using you know from the datadog reporting that dashboard we're.

A

Seeing that there's, probably a few connectors that you know. Frankly, you know no one's using or the exchange might even be dead, and so I think it would make sense to have a regular pruning process to remove those exchanges from the code base.

A

uh Similarly, we want to try to do something similar for strategies because strategies, you know, there's a few core strategies that a lot of people are using, but there's also a lot of other strategy people- probably not using. So um we think that we do something similar for strategies have also have a vote every three months and allow the community to select the five. You know kind of car five core strategies, then uh the foundation can focus on maintaining them and for the other ones that are, you know not a part of the core strategies.

A

We would consider them Community strategies and similarly to exchanges as long as they receive more than 100K h-bot, we'll keep them in. But if a strategy doesn't get you know enough votes, uh then we would want to remove them from the code base.

A

Finally, um the last type of voting is a more regular process, uh which is we're calling issue voting, and so um this is a regular process where, every month the community can tell us which issues we should focus on resolving and which pull requests, we should focus some results on merging in so this process will be in addition to the kind of the existing kind of pull request proposal process where someone can, you know, propose and get a issue, get a proposal uh to get a proquest reviewed uh and approved.

A

However, um you know this one. We think we think it could be like a general vote that just allows the community to select the top five issues and PRS for us on a monthly basis.

A

So the way this would work is that uh first, we would create a thread and Discord that allows people to nominate issues in PRS once people have nominated them over the course of a week uh after that, we'll create a poll and snapshot that lists all the different issues that people have nominated uh and then there's one week to vote, uh and so after that week to vote, we take the top five issues selected and those become the focal points for the next month's release.

A

uh So that way, you know if there's a bug that the community really feels like we should fix, or if there's a pull request that the community feels like. We should really. You know like review and merge in then this is kind of offers, a a regular process that uh they can help us. Do that.

A

So um I think that uh we we have tried to do something similar to this before with certified exchanges. But um looking back, it didn't quite work because we didn't really differentiate these certified versus the non-certified exchanges. You know like there's no changes in the code base uh the docs. You know it wasn't clear which ones were certified certified so because of that there was no teeth to it and exchanges. You know didn't really kind of pay attention so this time around um I think we've learned that lesson.

A

So that's why we're announcing this now because we'll be spending a lot of the next month, um incorporating these changes into the hellingbot website, uh the docs and the client itself. So some of the changes we're going to do is we're going to build a governance page on the hummingbod.org site. This will show kind of like the past results of governance, as well as any upcoming votes, we'll try to use the snapshot API to kind of show.

A

Real-Time information from snapshot um we'll also try to change the documentation site to try to differentiate like the the gold and silver exchanges from the bronze ones um and and overall try to make the documentation side kind of fit this Paradigm a bit better and then, finally, on the clients, uh we'll be adding more uh kind of commands, changing the layout of the commands so that uh it's really clear uh what exchanges are gold and silver which exchanges are bronze and also showing kind of the core versus the community strategies.

A

So, in terms of timeline, um we think this is a pretty important change to make and the main reason is because we're starting this new botcamp initiative, we're really excited about uh that. We've had an amazing level of of traction already.

A

um You know we, we all, we offer 20 kind of slots uh available for the first cohort and they were filled up in a matter of days, and so we already have a waiting list for bot camp for for next for the next cohort and uh we're just really excited about teaching everyone in the world.

A

um You know how to really do Market making how to do Arbitrage and how to basically take all the lessons that people have been doing Quant trading and make them available to everyone. But but in order to do about camp we have to you know limit what we're doing the maintenance side, because if we're spending 100 of time on maintenance, then we don't have a chance to actually you know: teach people well to improve the code base.

A

So that's why we're starting this new governance effort, because we think that um the the scarce commodity in the hummingbot ecosystem is really the the presence actually getting into the code base, and you know more importantly, you know having that quality in the code base that allows people to really use something bot um and so I think by you know, pruning the code base and keeping it like a well-maintained garden.

A

Then um we we can actually make it useful going forward and we can allocate more of our time to improving the code base and teaching people how to use it. So that's why we think this governance process is really important in order to um you know. Allow us to be sustainable going forward, so that's probably the main thing we'll be focusing on uh between now and in January and and for the the next release.

A

uh We we are going to see some a few uh bug fixes, especially to the Gateway side, um but uh we we don't think there'll, be any bigger huge changes upcoming in the uh in the 1.1 release.

A

So so those are the topics I want to cover uh in this call today. um Oh one thing I should also mention. Is that um as one final footnote, we finished the trading competition with gate.io, and uh so we just asked the blog, but unfortunately there was misunderstanding with Gates, because you know when they told us about this.

A

They said that the prize pool will be up to 16 000, uh but uh they said it would actually comprise 10 of the fees that were paid by users over this competition period and these fees they thought, would be up to sixteen thousand the actual amount of fees that people incurred. During this period times, ten percent turned to be 499 dollars.

A

So um so this was uh pretty surprising to us, because you know we thought the price will be bigger.

A

We thought maybe these nfts a gate would be providing would be worth a lot more, um but uh so so so um honestly, we feel pretty bad because um I I don't want to, like you know, point fingers, but unfortunately, I feel like we actually advertise something that um that that you know that we wouldn't be able to pay out on uh because, like you know, gate only gave us 500 to pay out as a prize pool for this competition.

A

So what we've done instead is we've decided to give all 12 winners of this competition, uh the the first prize, which is the voucher to attend uh bot Camp. um We know this is you know, might become, becomes a surprise for the folks who are participating in this. um But uh it's it's. It is we're trying to kind of do the best we can to make it up with users, which is why we're giving everyone um the the bachelor bot Camp um there are there's only aluminum receipts every month.

A

So we do think this is valuable um and uh but uh overall I would say yeah it's it's! um You know we, we yeah we're very sorry for for kind of advertising this this way. uh But uh you know it's: it was a kind of misunderstanding with gate and uh we're trying to make it up. Do I use this for it.

A

So, uh finally, um if there's any questions you can put them either in the YouTube chat, which I'll check now uh or on Discord uh in the community call uh chat channel here.

A

Okay, all right um so so, hopefully um yeah. If you have any questions, I'll I'll stay on a few minutes to um to um yeah kind of see if a horse is coming but uh yeah. If there's no questions, we can just end the call for this week.

A

A

Well uh thanks. Everyone uh like I hope this was helpful for people. uh You know watching uh and uh we have any more questions about hummingbot or how we operate. You can always put them in the community or in the in the general channel on Discord, and we have an active support team. So so please um yeah, like uh hopefully uh stay safe and uh we'll see you next month.

A

Oh sorry, I I saw um the current boot camp biting site, says November cohort um yeah, so so there might be some um some labels we have to change in in bot Camp, uh but right now, essentially, the November cohort has started uh it's it's uh going right now and and I think um yeah. What, if you're signing for botcamp right now, you're essentially signing up for the January cohort already uh so right now, sorry! This is sorry.

A

This is actually the wrong page for about Camp, oh yeah, I think I think the problem is some people might still be going to this landing page, um which we have we've actually stopped using uh so yeah.

A

So actually we will change this button here, I think, um uh but but overall I would say the the main thing is: we've started to use the um a bot Camp landing page on on our website, so um so yeah so I think that we probably need to do just make sure that the old links we have out there.

A

People are aware that this is a new link and if you click on this link here, there's actually an application form uh which which you'll need to fill out, because we've kind of realized that there's we've had an overwhelming amount of demand for this. So we don't want people to just like just to pay and and kind of you know get in there, because we want to make sure there's a high quality batch of students every cohort. So we've changed botcamp so that now there's an application process.

A

um Where you, you kind of fill this out and and then afterwards, our community lead Michelle will contact you if she thinks you're a good fit and then we'll, then we can kind of talk about the tuition for the program, which is one thousand uh dollars, but because of like the demand we've had for this, we want to make sure that people kind of go through this application process so that we have um the the cohort we have, which is only going to be 20 people is is, is, is really high quality and everyone kind of is wanting to learn for the right reasons.

A

So that's why we're trying to change the approach, but but thank you for pointing that out, because I do think that um there's, probably some um there's, probably some features uh yeah. We probably need to kind of clean up that the communication process a bit more um all right. Everyone, uh thanks for joining and I'll talk to you later bye.