#1 | An Introduction to Sai

2022-09-11 · 2 min read

Historical context: This post describes early Sai work as of 2022-09-11. Product details and launch plans reflect that period. See the Sai documentation for current trading and integration guides.

Nibiru is a decentralized platform, proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain, and member of the family of interconnected blockchains that comprise the Cosmos Ecosystem.

At the time of this update, the team was testing early Sai on devnet and onboarding users and validators for a private testnet.

We’re soon to release our alpha version.

Documentation / Litepaper

The initial roadmap for the protocol is outlined by the “Concepts” section on our documentation website. Expect frequent updates as we release tutorials and continue to optimize the content for usability.

Sai V1

Early Sai was an onchain perpetual swaps exchange. The initial design worked as follows:

Positions are (initially) settled in USDC.
The initial Sai testnet used AMM-based price discovery, similar to the designs used in Perpetual Protocol and Drift (Solana).
Sai can serve as a platform for bootstrapping leverage trading on all assets, whether inside or outside the Cosmos. Traders can open positions with up to ≈10x leverage on assets like BTC, ETH, and ATOM.

Product and Engineering Updates

① Web app: We implemented UI designs and features for the web application.

② Trading Bots: We developed automated trading bots to stress test our stack against different market environments. For example, the team made an execution stack for arbitrage trading between FTX and Nibiru.

③ Liquidation bots: Our liquidation engine is feature-complete and ready for external traders.

④ Explorer: We deployed a block explorer for the Sai testnet using the Juno implementation for BigDipper.

⑤ Faucet: The faucet is complete for the Nibiru testnet.

⑥ Oracle: Sending transactions to post prices in our oracle network became expensive for validators, so we implemented an upgrade to make that type of transaction gasless.

⑦ IBC Relayer: Deployed an IBC relayer for transfers between (test) chains of Nibiru, Axelar, and Osmosis.

Community Links

We look forward to sharing updates and receiving feedback in the coming weeks. Feel free to ask any questions on Discord or DM us on Twitter.