Talisman Dapp Staking Proposal

Astar Initiatives dApp staking applications
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Hello Astar community!

My name is William, and I work at Talisman. We would love to be part of the Astar Dapp Staking program and are submitting this application for your review.

Project Overview

Talisman (talisman.xyz) is a multi-chain wallet and web application that enables users to “Traverse the Paraverse” with ease. We believe in a future where everyone has freedom via true agency over their intentions and finances, and we believe that the Polkadot ecosystem will bring this to fruition.

For more on Talisman’s mission and approach, please see Nipsey’s talk at Polkadot Decoded:

Talisman: How Polkadot enables a trailblazing wallet stack | Polkadot Decoded 2023 - YouTube

Today, because of its early stage of development and complex multi-chain architecture, both Polkadot and Kusama are changing rapidly and the user experience (UX) can be confusing for end users. It’s our goal to solve that using design, storytelling, and engineering. We abstract away the complexity of underlying implementation and provide a friendly user experience when using Polkadot and a way to discover new applications and services available to end users, while keeping them safe and educated about the actions they are taking.

Talisman and Astar first announced Astar support in the wallet back in March 2022, and has Talisman has continued to integrate new features along the way:

  • Talisman Wallet supports portfolio management and viewing/sending of assets on Astar Wasm and EVM
  • Talisman Portal supports portfolio management of Astar Wasm and EVM assets, and allows you to connect via any wallet (Subwallet, Nova, Enkrypt, PJS, etc.)
  • Talisman Portal supports viewing of Astar EVM NFTs (Wasm NFTs in the future)
  • Talisman Portal supported the original Astar crowdloan, as well as the recent claiming of unlocked DOT from the original crowdloan
  • Talisman is frequently recommended as a wallet to use by Astar projects

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And now it’s time to take that to the next level! Dapp staking will fund Astar-related improvements such as those listed at the bottom of this post.

Our Mission - Make Polkadot Easy

We believe our mission in the Polkadot ecosystem is to design for the user, advocate for the user, and build for the user. This means staying on top of the complex multi-chain functionality being built in Polkadot today, but synthesizing it down to a great user experience that allows the user to understand and get their job done quickly and easily, while harnessing the full power of advanced functionality when necessary.

We believe that this user-focused approach is necessary for Polkadot to expand and flourish. Success is not only user feedback and appreciation for our ease of use, but ultimately we judge ourselves on our ability to enable liquidity to flow into Polkadot to the benefit of all in the ecosystem, and that rests on the user experience of Polkadot, across new users, advanced users, and teams.

We build in an open, community-driven way and we are committed to building for the community, including users, teams, institutions, infrastructure providers, and any other ecosystem stakeholder.

Security

Talisman has undergone a number of audits. Please see our webpage for more information: Talisman | Security. We are currently finalizing a new audit and will target publishing it within the next month.

Past Performance and Milestones

Since launching in early 2022, Talisman been able to achieve the following:

  • Talisman’s DOT Nomination pools driving by one click staking in the Portal web application have garnered over 3,700,000 DOT since launch, as of Dec. 2023.

  • Our wallet has crossed 40,000 active users, as measured by the Chrome and Firefox app stores

  • We have over 4700 users in our Discord community, as well as a highly engaged “Spirit Key” community with over 650 active contributors

  • Thousands of weekly users of Talisman’s web app (app.talisman.xyz), a dapp that works with multiple Polkadot wallets

  • Our users frequently mention that they would recommend Talisman to users new to the Polkadot ecosystem because alternatives, particularly Polkadot.js, are too complicated

dApp Staking Reward Usage Breakdown

We will use dapp staking revenues to fund Astar-based improvements to Talisman Wallet and Talisman Portal. This includes items like (in no particular order):

Support for Dapp staking in Talisman Portal

Talisman Portal has become an important destination for staking in the Polkadot ecosystem, with Talisman’s Polkadot nomination pools containing more than 3.7 million DOT. We are in the process of adding more staking possibilities here, and we believe there will be a “halo effect” as DOT stakers (and other Portal users) encounter Dapp staking in the same UI as what they are used to, so we believe there would be a win-win for Portal users and the Astar ecosystem.

Support for Astar zkEVM & the future Sony-based chain

Astar’s ecosystem is growing quickly! We believe with the unification of Polygon and Astar efforts in Japan, Astar zkEVM is positioned to dominate in Japan, as well as become a global powerhouse. And we are excited about Sony’s ability to bring existing entertainment (media, gaming, etc) IP into the blockchain world. Because of Talisman’s EVM and Substrate support, we are well positioned to enable access to these new chains for retail users, dapp developers, ecosystem participants and more.

Transfers and bridging among the different Astar chains and between Astar chains and external ecosystems

Talisman already has an easy-to-use XCM feature in Talisman Portal, and we are constantly adding new routes so that assets can flow around to different chains. As new routes open up for Astar assets, we will keep the app updated.

And more! We’d love to hear your suggestions: Talisman (upvoty.com)

Finally, we are very responsive to the community. Let us know what you would like to see.

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Hi Talisman team,

Glad to see your dApp staking proposal.
As Talisman is one of the user friendly wallets on DotSama, I should be one of the members welcoming Talisman :slight_smile:

Along with the application, it would be great if you can share your opinions with the following points.

  • in regard to the dApp staking support from Talisman portal. From the Astar Network portal, endusers select which dApp they would like to stake, so I am not sure how the support can be done easily on Talisman’s portal. Do you have any thought how it would turn out later or it will start once the dApp staking is approved?
  • I remember the Alpha key when Talisman was launched and I liked the concept. Would there be any such exclusive NFTs or plans for dApp staking stakers? It is not at all compulsory or so, but just curiosity.
  • We now have other user friendly wallets on DotSama, for example, sub wallet and nova wallet. Would you be able to emphasize any features that Talisman could offer to the endusers? :slight_smile:

Please let me know if anything should be more clarified.

Happy weekend.

Bests,
Pithecus

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I am a big user of yours since I started in the Polkadot ecosystem, I think you have an excellent product and when I learned about your integration with Astar, it encouraged me a lot.

Regarding the proposal, I think it is a great idea. Reading the document I see that its purpose is mainly to improve your product, which is excellent, users come first.

Very good proposal

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Hello Pithecus, and thank you for the welcoming message!

We have a product and design team that create the UX around the products, so I couldn’t say beforehand how it would turn out, other than given it would be integrated into the staking part of the portal (Talisman Portal), so the look and feel would be similar. On the flip side, I do understand that dapp staking is quite different and much more participatory than regular staking, so there should be some accomodations for that. Would love to hear what you or others think should be highlighted as we like to take feedback into account, especially from people closest to the ecoystem.

I think we are looking at expanding the NFT program in a way that is customized to each ecosystem, but I have no concrete announcements to give at this point in time. That being said, we do want to have a diverse and welcoming community, but also one that brings together ecosystems while retaining the individuality of each one.

Regarding features, we are also looking to push the envelope in the direction of UX. This started with a single view across multiple chains, which was one of our first contributions to Polkadot. Recently you may have seen our “folder” feature that lets you organize your accounts into different groups, which I believe is a first across all wallets (though I have not done an exhaustive search. In any case, we do think account management, portfolio management and security are important areas where we want to make things easier and more manageable for consumers.

  • William
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Hello Talisman community. In the past, I had the opportunity to collaborate with you on some campaigns, and as a Neurolanche team member, I love and take pride in working with you.

However, as an Astar Maximalist and Astar Ambassador, I have some challenging questions and curiosities:

  1. Many in the Astar Network ecosystem know you, achieving great things in the Polkadot ecosystem. As Talisman, how do you plan to attract new users to the Astar Network, and what innovations can we expect? (I’m particularly focused on users, not specific wallet projects; please consider this question in the context of all dApp staking projects.)

  2. We’re familiar with Nova Wallet, a dApp staking program I’ve enjoyed using daily. How will you contribute differently to the Astar Network ecosystem compared to them?

  3. Will you share your developments with the community? After making significant developments on the Astar Network, will you engage with us through forums to brainstorm and bring about innovations?

  4. Will you be an active developer? With our new dApp staking program having limited slots and a ZkEvm launch soon, will you contribute to projects joining our ecosystem on Layer 2? If not, besides funds from Polkadot, what other innovations will you bring to Astar?

I genuinely await answers to all my questions. Please share openly. Despite my fondness for Talisman, if I don’t get satisfactory answers, I will cast a negative vote.

Best regards,
Leo
Astar Network Agent

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I find Talisman one of the most user friendly wallets in the entire Dotsama ecosystem and the roadmap presented already solves some of the questions I wanted to ask you. Anyway I want to ask a few more:

  • I would like to know which are the plans to encourage users to switch to use Talisman and not the competitors. In addition to the other EVM/Native wallets, I now often see a multichain approach also made by wallets already known as Phantom (now also on EVM) and MetaMask (integration of Astar Snaps).
  • Will it be possible to have Talisman among the list of wallets available in the partner dApps of the zkEVM launch to increase its visibility?

Regardless of the answers, my vote is already very inclined towards a YES :smile: :handshake:

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Hey thanks for the proposal! You guys have such a nice product and UI.

I would like to understand how Talisman would make Astar bigger?
How do you guys thinks you can contribute to Astar improvement using dapp stking reward? I don’t see anything mentioned in the proposal about it.

I like the Polkadot approach, but dApp staking is more Astar centric! So, Making ASTAR easy would be a great approach to our community once we are expanding to different ecosystem and users.

That’s cool but how? It there any metrics, or it’s just an expectation? Are you guys planning to promote to users to swap DOT for ASTR and stake, or just add a button in the UI and leave it in there?

That tool already exists and other team which not provided dApp staking rewards use it. So, how Astar would get more benefit from it?

Thanks again, guys.

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Thanks Leo, have been playing Astar Strike since the first release and love the Neurolanche community that you have been building.

As Talisman, we like to see challenging questions because it means a community is strong and caring of its members.

  1. I think the main user growth will be via a halo effect from using our platform. Users come to the portal for portfolio management, cross-chain transfers, and to earn yield from staking. In fact, we are the largest Polkadot nomination pool by far (>3 million DOT staked), so users trust our brand and our products for that purpose. The users who stake DOT will see Astar dapp staking and will be able to get an introduction to the ecosystem that way.

  2. I took a look at Nova’s dapp staking proposal, and they state they will implement two astar-specific features in their wallet by Q4. We will of course implement different astar-specific features, given we are a browser extension wallet and web portal, and they are a mobile wallet, so I believe there will be no overlap.

  3. We are very open to discussion and responsive to feedback through many channels, including: 1:1 user interviews, feedback/satisfaction surveys, discord communities, forums, regular conversations with the Astar team, etc.

  4. We are an active developer, as you can see from our constant improvements. The job of a wallet includes supporting new chains, existing chains that upgrade themselves, token balances, cross-chain actions, etc. I believe we will support Astar zkEvm as soon as it launches, given we have great EVM support for other chains both within Polkadot and outside of Polkadot. We will bring all of our innovations to Astar, and we are focused on multi-chain usability. You may have noticed our innovative folder-based account management, which works just as well for astar-only users as it does for multi-chain users.

Thanks Leo, and would love to hear any suggestions that you may have.

  • William
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Hello Talisman team, glad to see your interest in dApp staking and creating a more tailored path for Astar Network. I’m highly optimistic about the Talisman project, and we already have pre-existing partnerships in the projects i’m involved in. Your team has consistently demonstrated technical prowess and a commitment to the growth of the ecosystems you engage with.

I will be fully supporting the proposal.

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Thanks VasaKing!

We hope everyone would use Talisman. We have been heavily in build mode over the past year(s), and that has resulted in the great product and usability improvements you’ve seen so far. But just building is not enough, and in the upcoming year, we additionally want to invest in growing more. In general, we like to think of it as growing the pie rather than taking share, as well as the halo effect, where we are able to introduce new products and services to those that maybe come to Talisman from just one initial chain. We believe our portfolio and account management features that let users manage multi-chain assets in a better way will be a good basis for a growth campaign.

We support any EVM network, and in fact the Astar zkEVM testnet is already supported. I’m in contact with the Astar folks to include us among the list of wallets. Thank you for that suggestion!

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Love Talisman wallets. Welcome.

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Thanks pitcoin777,

I think the primary mechanic will be the “halo effect” - where users come to Talisman from all corners to seek out ease of use and trusted staking, and then they discover Astar and get into the ecosystem, starting with a diversified staking portfolio and then moving to discovery of dapps, etc.

Astar itself will have multiple ecosystems, including Astar EVM, Astar (Substrate) and Astar zkEVM, and so our work simplifying across multi-chain ecosystems will bring ease of use to Astar as well.

Not to mention, we are frequently the first line of support for users who are confused about how to use their assets, locate them and use them for different purposes. Probably over 50% of users come into our support system and ask questions that don’t have anything to do with Talisman, and we help them anyways. This directly benefits Astar users who may be confused about the different Astar networks.

Regarding complex pipelines such as swapping and staking, or XCM into a staking position, it’s something we really want to do, but the technology is not quite there yet. We’d love to go from any asset to any other asset and then deploy it (i.e. stake it) in one transaction, because that would be the best for the user.

Similarly for bridging/XCM, there are certainly many different bridges and XCM pathways, and we actually want to take an aggregator approach rather than create just another bridge. So far we just support XCM routes, but in the future, the more pathways we can create via aggregation, the easier assets can flow into Astar.

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Hey @VasaKing - I have done some more checking and we support zKatana right now. I was able to use Talisman to:

  1. Mine sepolia eth from the faucet
  2. Connect Talisman to portal.astar.network, and add zKatana
  3. Bridge sepolia eth to zKatana, and have it show up in the wallet and portal

I believe we should be primed and ready to go for the mainnet launch! Let’s get Talisman added to the wallet list.

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Hello Talisman team,

Welcome to Astar, currently got no questions since my questions already represented by other Agents (ambassadors) above. So we wish you luck!

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Greetings Talisman, it’s wonderful to have you here. I’m pleased to hear that your questions have been addressed already, and I’m optimistic that we can collaboratively achieve significant growth. Looking forward to a successful journey together!

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To be honest, the Talisman user change. But that doesn’t mean I won’t support you. You are a working team, and many members of our community prefer it. I would like to see more competition between wallets, so I support you.

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Big fan of Talisman and the Paraverse universe, I will support your application!

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It’s fantastic to see Talisman’s dedication and progress in enhancing the user experience within the Astar and broader Polkadot ecosystem. The team at Talisman is clearly pioneering in making multi-chain accessibility user-friendly and seamless. Your approach of prioritizing user needs and continually evolving with the ecosystem is exactly what drives meaningful innovation in blockchain technology.

The integrations and features you’ve developed, especially around Astar support and EVM compatibility, are commendable. These improvements not only enhance usability but also significantly contribute to the liquidity and overall growth of the Polkadot ecosystem. Your focus on security, evidenced by multiple audits, further solidifies Talisman as a reliable and trusted platform.

Your future plans, particularly around Astar zkEVM support and bridging capabilities, are exciting developments. These efforts will undoubtedly expand Talisman’s reach and utility, making it an even more integral part of the user’s blockchain journey.

Your open, community-driven development approach is admirable and aligns perfectly with the ethos of decentralized systems. The Astar community is lucky to have a team like Talisman working towards a more interconnected and user-friendly blockchain experience. I fully support you, Keep up the great work!

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Thanks for the answers, ser! (=

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Hi William,

Thanks to Give answer for my Question.

Supporting :building_construction:

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