2023 was a mixed year, we saw projects come and go, and despite the market doing poorly, Unique stayed stronger than ever! From a revamped NFT marketplace to attending various events like Polkadot Decoded, Unique’s Staking Hub going live and much more, we’ve never stopped working.

During this year, we focused on our product-market fit, increased community engagement and key loyalty programs to maximise growth and adoption within the Unique Network ecosystem.

Let’s take a trip down memory lane and adventure into our top 12 highlights of the year and see what’s to come in the New Year!

The Polkadot NFT Collective

The Polkadot NFT collective (initiated by the Unique Network team) is here to set Polkadot as the leading ecosystem for NFT-related applications by providing effective technology, support, business development and marketing efforts. To tackle this ongoing problem within the ecosystem, we've created a plan to unite all parachains.

This means moving from a fragmented ecosystem to a united front, enhancing our collective ability to attract attention and drive adoption for NFTs and all projects.

The NFT Collective focuses on 4 main aspects: Governance, Technical efforts, Business Development and Ecosystem Marketing.

We’re still looking for support, feedback and any comments on the proposal - your voice matters! Please share your thoughts as your participation is highly appreciated in shaping Polkadot’s NFT collective future.

Read more about the exciting NFT Collective Discussion here.

NFT XCM Proposal

We know how popular XCM has been ever since its initial launch and the mention of it by Gavin Wood. But there was only one problem: there was no support for an NFT XCM — until the proposal made by Unique Network’s CEO, Alexander Mitrovich came to fruition.

Now we’re excited to announce, in collaboration with Acala Network, a fully-working Proof-of-Concept cross-chain NFT transfer on the Polkadot Network - making it easier than ever to seamlessly transfer your NFTs.

Check out the announcement below:

Announced in September, NFT XCM aims to deliver something that Polkadot hoped to deliver from the whitepaper days; easy NFT transfers from parachains via XCM, strengthening interoperability, and key value propositions that Polkadot and NFTs offer to the ecosystem. And this year, we decided to take leadership on that and delivered the PoC

Read the full NFT XCM proposal here.

Bringing NFTs to Paris Fashion Week with DUNDAS!

One of our most exciting collaborations of the year saw us work closely with DUNDAS, Polkadot and UME to bring Unique Network NFTs to Paris Fashion Week. Each attendee (340) received Proof of Attendance tokens (PoAPs) named Dundas PFW, and minted using Unique Network’s advanced and carbon-neutral NFT infrastructure.

In short, the PoAPs enabled fashion enthusiasts to participate in DUNDAS’ brand narrative, providing access to the D24 collection and Peter Dundas' design inspirations, creating novel opportunities for authenticity, immersion, and a new Web3-powered DUNDAS community.

Check out the full Press Release (PR) on Forbes here.

image4.jpg

The Immersive Experience: Stay Alive My Son

In April of this year, we flew to Austin, Texas to attend the event of the year by CoinDesk: Consensus 2023! During this epic event, we joined Polkadot over at their booth and highlighted the immersive experience film “Stay Alive My Son” created by Vicvousis and UMEStudios. Also, this year, Stay Alive My Son premiered at SXSW 2023, the conference and festival that celebrates the convergence of tech, film, music, education, and culture.

Check out the best highlights and also the video in the post below:

Check out their premiere video at South By, SouthWest (SXSW) here:

Unique’s Revamped NFT Marketplace

In June of this year, we released the fresh, revamped Unique NFT Marketplace — designed for maximum NFT potential and usability. This marked an exciting point in the Unique Network development roadmap, adding more utility and versatility to your NFT creations. The revamped marketplace provides a truly immersive experience by enabling users to trade NFTs on Unique Network and Quartz Network seamlessly.

Not only that, the Unique NFT Marketplace empowers you to go above and beyond with just everyday NFTs; try out dynamic, nested and customized NFTs like no other before with the Unique Network Advanced NFT solutions.

Want to check out the marketplace? Look no further:

image1.jpeg

Get Ready for Spark Fest!

This year we saw the fantastic launch of Spark Fest: Our own community-engaged contest, driving community participation with fun and unique tasks (and not to forget, incredible rewards in the process!). During Spark Fest, we saw incredible momentum and participation from over 600 people attending the 1st campaign and 300+ participants in the 2nd campaign.

Spark Fest aims to bring the Unique Network community closer through community activities, NFTs, social interactions and fun quests. In the process, you can be in the chance of winning in a $1000 DOT pool and unique special prizes.

Our latest contest wraps up the year with the Christmas Edition. We will be sure to have more Spark Fest campaigns in the new year - stay up to date on our social media (scroll below for all the links!) so you don’t miss out on the next one.

Unique Welcomes iOS and Android Developers!

As we grew the Unique Network Development tools within the ecosystem, we knew that it was crucial to not forget about our core iOS and Android developers. That’s why we launched the mobile SDK and integration into iOS and Android dApps!

With this SDK integration, developers can focus on the application logic and user experience without worrying about the underlying blockchain infrastructure or getting stuck for hours on blockchain code.

Check the iOS Unique SDK docs here, and the Android Kotlin SDK docs here.

Unique Network Introduces the Staking Hub!

In April of this year, we released the Unique Network Staking Hub - enabling users to stake UNQ and QTZ for APY rewards. The User Interface (UI) enables users, such as yourself, to easily stake your tokens, earn rewards and support the overall Unique Network ecosystem.

This proved to be a monumental achievement, as it allowed for our community members to further support us, in addition to receiving benefits for holding their Unique and Quartz tokens.

Check out the Unique Staking Hub here.

New EVM-Coder in the House

Did we mention we also released a unique tool called the EVM-coder? This tool enables developers in the ecosystem to streamline their development needs and make coding easier by allowing blockchain developers to write smart contracts in the Rust language without prior knowledge of Solidity.

An EVM coder is a tool that simplifies writing Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) precompiles by abstracting the encoding and decoding tasks, allowing developers to focus on writing Rust logic.

A few unique use cases include:

  • Implementing Pallet logic into EVM
  • EVM compatibility for Ink! contracts
  • Task analysis and indexing

Interested in checking out the coder yourself? Check our GitHub for technical details.

Bringing Game Devs to Unique with the Unique Unity SDK

This year, it was non-stop development for us at the Unique Network team. Not only did we release a mobile-ready SDK for iOS and Android developers, but we also developed and released a brand new Unique Unity SDK for web3 game developers building their games on blockchain. This SDK makes it easy for any game dev to plug and play blockchain without having to go through the real nitty-gritty of learning complex blockchain code. This streamlines development processes by providing pre-built components, libraries, and tools for efficient blockchain integration for game development.

For NFT games, the Unity SDK simplifies creating and integrating NFTs into Unity-based games while providing game designers with tools to develop NFT-based games.

Want to start using the Unique Unity SDK? Check out our technical documentation here.

Polkadot Hackathon: APAC 2023

It wouldn’t be a Unique Year without a Polkadot Hackathon! The Unique Network team travelled to Asia, more precisely, Singapore in mid-September to attend Token2049. During this team, our attendees were able to enter in a NFT Substrapunk raffle, receive exclusive Unique Network merch and chat with the team.

Not only that, at the booth, the winner of the Unique Network track at the Polkadot Hackathon, Josep from MusicMoon (prev: LoopNFT), joined to create and mint live music NFTs.

Check out Josep play his music live at the event:

Revamped Unique Website

Last, but certainly not least, the Unique Network website had a brand new revamp, stepping into a new re-design with a more thought-out and intuitive design and experience.

Whether you are looking for details about our Web3 or next-generation NFT solutions, want to learn about dApps development, or want to stay up-to-date with the first NFT chain on Polkadot and Kusama, this updated website is interactive and gives better access to everything you need.

Check out our video highlighting the new website here:

Conferences, Community Events, Partnerships and Media

This year, Unique was everywhere - we attended conferences, community events, side events and travelled to different countries worldwide, spreading NFT adoption and our passion for Polkadot.

Our major attendances include:

  • Token2049 in Singapore.
  • Participated in the Polkadot Relayers Incubator 2023.
  • ETHDenver 2023 in Denver, US.
  • Consensus 2023 in Austin, Texas.
  • Polkadot Sub0 in Lisbon, Portugal.
  • Polkadot Meet-Up in Singapore.
  • Polkadot Decoded, 2023 in Denmark.
  • Co-hosted Polkadot Decoded Viewing Party in Singapore.
  • Attended AAG (Attempts At Governance) community calls online.
  • Hosted a range of Community Call X (Twitter) Spaces.

We sure did a huge amount of travelling during 2023! We cannot wait to see where we end up next. Stay tuned over on our social media, such as on Twitter, for more information and to stay up to date with everything Unique!

Notable Partnerships

As we continued to grow in all aspects within the Unique Network ecosystem, we teamed up with various partners, brands, and projects to further strengthen our relationships and build ever-lasting memories with Unique Network tools and products.

A few of the key partnerships we’ve had this year include:

  • Partnered with DUNDAS to bring POAPs to Paris Fashion Week.
  • Partnered with Director Victoria Bousis to bring her award-winning film to life at the XR/Film Festival using limited edition POAPs at SXSW.
  • Collaborated with MadBunny, an interactive Web3 game to bring Customizable NFTs and more advanced NFTs to the MadBunny world.
  • Collaboration with DEGA by integrating their platform to enable users to access streamlined fundraising and community engagement mechanisms.
  • Collaboration with JokeRace, binding a no-code smart contract platform and hosting contests/campaigns, and enabling 100s of different Web3 projects to utilize the Unique Network chain to engage their community.
  • Partnered up with AngelHack to create Unique NFTs for the 2023 Polkadot Hackathon in APAC.
  • Worked closely with Homesy and Forever Has Fallen, both winners of the Polkadot Hackathon APAC, 2023.
  • Collaborated with Acala Network to bring the first-ever cross-chain NFT transfer on Polkadot.

The Future Look Ahead: Getting Ready for 2024

As we bid farewell to the remarkable year that was 2023, filled with challenges, triumphs, and groundbreaking achievements, we now turn excitedly towards the future.

The Unique Network community has been our driving force, propelling us through a year of innovation, collaboration, and exploration, and for that, we thank you very much for supporting us throughout the year.

As we step into the future, with unique opportunities and endless possibilities, Unique Network invites you to join us on this exciting journey. Whether you're an experienced developer or someone with a dream, our ecosystem is designed for you. Create, mint, customize, and share your NFTs with the world.

Wishing everyone joyous Holidays, a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year from the Unique Network team!

Build with Us!

We’re the number 1 next-generation NFT chain for Polkadot & Kusama, providing the necessary tools and platforms to achieve your dreams with no code or blockchain experience needed.

Unique Network empowers you to step right into the world of web3 with NFTs 2.0, complete with unlimited advanced NFT features built for today and for the future.

Are you interested in diving into the world of digital assets and exploring what Unique has to offer? We encourage you to check out our ecosystem, where you can create, mint, customize, list and share your work with the rest of the world – the opportunities are truly endless.

Join us on our NFT journey and be part of the thousands who are currently using Unique for their dream projects:

Stay Up To Date

Follow Unique Network to get all the latest information, and join us to start your own unique, development journey:

  1. Follow us on Twitter @Unique_NFTchain
  2. Join our community Telegram
  3. Join our community Discord
  4. For Developer Queries: [email protected]
  5. For Any Other Queries: [email protected]