Sign in Subscribe

A Year In Review: Lit Protocol in 2022

alt

• 6 min read
A Year In Review: Lit Protocol in 2022
image generated using dall-e.

Lit Protocol powers decentralized access control, encryption, and compute for web3 applications. At Lit, we are working to simplify the user experience across the dWeb. Our goal is to build cryptographic solutions that uphold the promises of a user-owned web and empower individuals with true data sovereignty while delivering the frictionless experience we are used to within our legacy systems.

Introduction

As 2022 draws to a close, so marks the end of our first official year in Web3!

We want to take a second to pause and reflect on the year at large, exploring some of our major milestones, areas where we think improvements can be made, and things to get excited for in the months ahead.

We would also like to take a second to recognize the invaluable contributions that have been made by our amazing community, you guys rock!! Without your constant support, feedback, and vision, none of what we are working on would hold any merit. From our team to each of you: thank you!

Now, without further ado, a look back at one year of Lit.

Major Milestones

Decentralized Access Control Goes Live

In January, we announced our seed round and decentralized access control officially went live, enabling developers to add private data to their web3 apps. Lit Access Control Conditions can be harnessed to provision decryption keys to users that meet certain on-chain conditions, such as ownership of an NFT from a certain collection or membership within a DAO.

Community Calls

In March, we held our very first community call, giving us a chance to connect to countless builders in the space hoping to pioneer the adoption of the decentralized Web. We are looking forward to continuing this in the year ahead, as well as find other exciting ways to connect with all of you! To stay updated, subscribe to our calendar here.

Conversations and Keynotes

Talks and presentations from the year at large:

Making Strides in Web3 Social

2022 was the year of decentralized social networking. We worked to bring private and permissioned data to several projects making innovations in the space of web3 social, empowering developers to create applications where users have greater control over their digital identity. Here were some of the highlights:

We are looking forward to continuing our work with these protocols and others in the year ahead!

Hackathons!

We had the chance to co-sponsor several hackathons this year, looking to help support the next wave of innovation and development in web3. This gave us the chance to work with countless amazing teams building platforms and applications that will CHANGE THE WORLD! Take a look at some of the projects that got started at the various hackathons linked below:

University Outreach: Partnering with Student Groups

In April, we had the pleasure of connecting with the Oregon Blockchain Group, exploring use cases for programmable privacy within on-chain (and off) ecosystems. In 2023, we are looking to expand on our university outreach efforts, collaborating with student organizations to help further the adoption of distributed technologies through education.

Lit Grants

In June, we announced the Lit Grants program. In the last six months, we have had the pleasure of working with some of the brightest folks in the space as we look to support those who are building Lit-enabled infrastructure and tooling that will make it easier for people to use and develop on the decentralized Web. We can’t wait to see what gets built in the new year!

Series A Funding Announcement

In September, we announced our Series A funding round led by 1kx. We are delighted to be backed by some of the most impactful companies and pioneers in the space, including 6th Man Ventures, Collab + Currency, Eniac Ventures, Figment, Filecoin, The LAO, Lattice, OpenSea, Balaji Srinivasan, Ryan Selkis, Baptiste Greve, and Stani Kulechov, among others.

Developer Preview: Programmable Cloud Wallets

Going alongside our Series A, we announced the future of Lit: Programmable Key Pairs and Lit Actions. These new product offerings are still very much in R&D and continuous developments should be expected on our path to mainnet.

We are excited to see what types of applications get developed using these new primitives, especially in the realm of account abstraction, web3 gaming, DeFi automation, and beyond.

Developing the Future of Lit: Ecosystem RFPs

In October, we unveiled our Ecosystem RFPs in an ongoing effort to work directly with our developer community as we continue to flesh out updates to the Lit network. Here, you will find a list of some of the projects that we are looking to fund through a Lit grant.

WalletConnect and Google OAuth

We have been working hard to add some new functionality to PKPs before the year-end. The first was adding support for Google OAuth, allowing users to mint a PKP with nothing but their Google account. Combining this with our new WalletConnect integration, users will now be able to use their PKP to connect to a wide host of supported dApps.

Introducing Spark!

We closed out this year introducing Spark, a collaborative content hub created for people passionate about building a more democratic and decentralized Internet for all. Aside from being the new home of all content produced by Lit, Spark will also be an open space for developers to collaborate on research and content aimed at advancing the field of cryptography and blockchain technology. If you are interested in contributing, reach out!

Challenges

Without a doubt, there have been some bumps along the road. Here are some of the things we are going to be focused on improving in the new year:

  • Clearer Guidelines for Integration — we will continue to improve the clarity of our developer docs and creating intuitive “quick start” implementation guidelines for teams and individuals looking to build with our SDK.
  • Community Management — we’d like to improve the quality of our support channels on Discord and make it easier for projects to integrate Lit-enabled infrastructure. In order to do so, we’d like help from members of our community. We are looking for individuals with a programming background (JavaScript, Rust, Solidity) and solid understanding of Lit who can help answer technical questions and make our server less chaotic for newcomers. If you’re interested in helping us with Discord support and moderation, please reach out.

Looking Ahead

2022 may be coming to an end, but we are just getting started 😎

Here are some of the current points of emphasis for the coming quarters:

Request for Startups — January ‘23

Building off of our Ecosystem RFPs, we will be releasing our Request For Startups beginning in January. These will be based off of some of the products we are most excited to see built and will provide teams with a chance to secure seed funding.

Release Wallet Interface for PKPs — January ‘23

In January, we will be releasing an interface for managing the assets in your cloud wallet. This will provide a home for viewing and sending your crypto and NFTs, “installing” dApps, and assigning arbitrary logic via Lit Actions. More on this coming soon…

Decentralizing the Network — Q1 ‘23

This will be a gradual process, beginning in the new year. We will start by distributing nodes to a whitelisted set of “trusted” operators. Eventually, the goal is for Lit to become fully permissionless, where anyone can spin up a node to help secure and run the network. We will be releasing more on what the decentralization of Lit Protocol will look like in the months ahead.  

If you are interested in running a node, get in touch.

Content Push: Educational Courses and Bounty Programs — Q2 ‘23

Education will be a big priority for Lit in the year ahead. We hope to continue to utilize our partnerships with some of the most exciting web3 education platforms to push out technical guides, example implementations, and bounties, hoping to provide developers with the resources they need to get involved in the ecosystem!

Hackathons & Conferences — Q1-Q4 ‘23

The team will be at ETHDenver and most of the ETHGlobal Hackathons this upcoming year, as we look to continue to support the development of new projects. If you’ll be around, send us a message on Discord! We’d love meet and explore ways we can build together 🙂

Resources — build with Lit

If you’d like to start building atop Lit infrastructure or want to get started with an integration, check out our developer documentation. Here you will find an overview of Lit-enabled functionality and our different product offerings, as well as detailed code demos and additional example implementations and use cases.

If you are looking to get inspired, check out our Request for Ecosystem Proposals page. Here you will find a list project ideas that we are looking to fund through our Grants program. If you have an idea that you don’t seen on here, get in touch by applying for funding!

For developer support or questions, join our Discord and say hi on Twitter.

Thank You

Once again, we’d like to extend a huge thank you to our amazing community of builders, ecosystem partners, investors, content creators, and everyone else who makes working in this industry so special. We wish everyone a safe and restful holiday season and happy new year, and cannot wait for what’s to come in the year ahead.

Until 2023 👋

Sincerely,

The Lit Protocol Team