Year in Review: What Happened at Changex in 2022

If you’re reading this, we want to start with a thank you — for being with us, and for supporting us as we close a very exciting first year for Changex. However cliché it might be, we could never have done it without you, and that’s the truth. 💖

If you’ve been following us throughout the year, then you know a lot has happened in 2022. From the project’s inception, to the first moments of public trading, and our very first CEX listing, Changex took to the road in a tumultuous time for the entire crypto industry, but has been going steadily ever since with no intention to stop building, growing, and creating a more accessible DeFi environment for users of all backgrounds, regardless of their technological knowledge.

We wrote this recap of the year, as it helped us to better reflect on our achievements (and what could have been done better), and we hope it will be an interesting read for you too. However briefly marked, the events are numerous, and we’re very proud of that. Happy reading.

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Beginnings

Jan 29 — Genesis

Hydra Project X is unveiled to the HYDRA community and voting on the brand and token names begin with the genesis post, made by HydraChain co-founder Nikola Alexandrov. Our story begins here.

Feb 2 — We have a name

The results from the community poll on the brand and token names are announced by our COO Petya Nankova. The Changex name is adopted after a majority of voters opt in for it, and our token is now known as CHANGE. Along with the name, our vision is also put forward — streamline the entire process of crypto investing through a simple and powerful UX, creating a hybrid personal finance ecosystem that puts crypto, DeFi, and banking under one roof.

Feb 28 — ICO begins

Four weeks after adopting our name, the first major event for Changex begins — the enrollment phase for our Initial Coin Offering (ICO) is announced and scheduled to end on May 31, 2022, with a starting price for CHANGE of $0.016. We also put forward the self-vesting mechanism that allowed investors to lock their bought tokens for a further release date, when more favorable market conditions were present. Close to 50% of all investors choose this option for their tokens.

Mar 25–100% subscription hit

The Changex enrollment phase concludes successfully with 100% subscription for the $2.4 million hard cap of the ICO, which officially enters into an oversubscription phase.

May 9 — Changex beta announced

The Changex app enters its closed beta phase, allowing users to participate in early testing. Users are chosen randomly, so as to keep the process as democratic and fair as possible. A week later, on May 16, the first invitations for the beta are sent out to users.

May 21 — Changex gets its advisory board

And not just any advisory board, but one made up of experts with past experience at some of the industry’s biggest players — Consensys, Citibank, and Merrill Lynch Asset Management. They have been aiding us with our corporate strategy and funds acquisition ever since.

June 1 — ICO subscription phase closes

With the start of the first of the summer months, the CHANGE ICO comes to a close with a 1.8x oversubscription level, entering into its final cycle — the commitment phase. If you’d like to revisit the data, you can do it here.

June 8 — Changex hits the App Store

After its debut on the Google Play Store, Changex made its way to the App Store as well, thus covering the two largest mobile operating systems in the world.

July 1 — CHANGE ICO ends

The ICO closed officially on July 1 with a $1,736,477.96 (72.35% of $2,400,000) total collected in funds — enough for the 24 months ahead! All in all, you and other investors bought a total of 105,943,452 tokens — nearly a quarter of the total CHANGE supply! The end of the ICO also paved the way for the Initial DEX Offering on the Hydra DEX in the days that followed.

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A new phase begins — CHANGE is now live

July 19 — CHANGE trading and staking launches

One of our biggest milestones through the year was the launch of the CHANGE token for public trading in the Changex app itself! Exactly 25 million tokens were allocated for trading on the Hydra DEX, while another 5 million tokens were available for trading on the UniSwap exchange. We not only launched the token for trading, but staking was also immediately available with a staggering initial APY of four figures that of course fell gradually as more and more CHANGE tokens were staked. Even so, the APY for staking CHANGE at the time of writing is 52%.

We also agreed that the unbought CHANGE from the ICO will be burned over the course of the 24 months that follow July 2022. This process has already begun, with 1,474 million tokens burned every month starting in October!

Aug 22 — KYC data purged

True to our promise of complete transparency and decentralization, all KYC records from the ICO were purged from our ICO panel database.

Aug 25 — CHANGE cross-chain swap operational

CHANGE on the HydraChain could now also be bought by using USDT and USDC on the Ethereum chain without resorting to the Hydra-Ethereum bridge and without leaving the app! The long-awaited integration of LockTrip’s LOC token in the Changex wallet also became a fact.

Sep 19 — More tokens added

The token roster in Changex expands further with the addition of Bitcoin Gold (BTG) and the UniSwap (UNI) token!

Trees bloom in the spring, but our work gave sweet fruit in the autumn

This is how we reach the last week of September, and it was not only crazy, but the culmination of several months of hard work on multiple fronts. These are just a few of the things that happened then.

Sep 27 — Dashboard comes online

We listened to you, our community, and simplified the way CHANGE data and all relevant information is tracked by creating our own dedicated dashboard, allowing for a comprehensive overview in a simple interface.

The dashboard displays the following CHANGE data in real time:

– Daily transaction volume of CHANGE

– The current price of CHANGE

– The total staked amount of CHANGE

– The number of addresses that stake at any given moment

– The APY with daily compounding

You can access and use it for all your statistical needs here.

Sep 28 — Listed on Staking Rewards

The CHANGE token was listed on the StakingRewards platform, which is one of the absolute best when it comes to aggregating and tracking passive income data for DeFi projects. Our token was thus exposed to a new community of experienced DeFi users and has been sitting in the limelight ever since.

Sep 29 — LTC and DOGE added

The following day saw us add LiteCoin and Dogecoin — two veterans of the crypto industry with massive communities and some wild stories surrounding them. This was the beginning of a series of new token additions to the app.

Sep 30 — New website and logo

Our new website hit the web with a fresh look and a redesigned logo, which better captures the essence of Changex and everything we’re building. We also adopted the “Money Matters Made Simple” slogan. Since then, we have not stopped working to improve our brand and look, and new features will be coming soon to the website. And the app too!

Sep 30 — First token release

Sep 30 was a very big day for us and everyone invested in the ICO phase of the CHANGE token. It marked the release of the unvested tokens to their respective owners. The remainder of ICO-bought tokens will continue to be released over the course of the 24 months following September 2022.

Oct 11 — Mirrored staking online

The multi-chain CHANGE token can now be staked on the Ethereum network, bypassing the need for having HYDRA in your wallet and instead using ETH as payment for network fees! This provided one more option for you, our users, to stake your CHANGE tokens exactly where and how you want them. The ChainLink token was also integrated in the Changex app, bringing the total number of assets to 14!

Oct 27 — Fiat purchases and ERC20 swaps

This day alone marked one of the most significant milestones for Changex, as it witnessed the integration of two major features into the app. Select coins and tokens could now be purchased via credit/debit cards and bank transfers in a headache-free way with just a few button taps. This facilitated how you could purchase your tokens, but there were some that were not supported. However, with the addition of ERC20 swaps, every ERC20 token pair could now be swapped, allowing for an easy way to acquire your favorite tokens.

Oct 30 — MEXC lists CHANGE for trading

First CEX listing since the inception of CHANGE! A long and very productive negotiation process culminated in MEXC Global, a top 30 exchange by daily volume with millions of users worldwide, listing the CHANGE token for trading, increasing our exposure, and paving the way for additional future partnerships. The impact of MEXC was felt immediately not only in terms of token trading, but also in terms of new business opportunities and contacts.

Nov 8 — Delegated HYDRA Staking comes to Changex

After months of preparation and setup, a second asset that can be staked entered the Changex lineup of coins and tokens. Almost immediately after HydraChain concluded their transition to a better, faster, and more secure Hydra 2.0, Changex enabled delegated staking for the HYDRA coin right in the app!

This was and is quite the development, because delegated staking takes the best of centralized and decentralized staking and merges them into something better, while keeping the whole process simple. Delegated staking offers higher security, a risk- and hassle-free experience, and guarantees that every staker receives their fair share of rewards by dramatically decreasing the luck factor. Delegated staking is explained in detail here.

Nov 8 — more tokens please!

The lineup increased again with more new tokens: MANA (Decentraland), PYR (Vulcan Forged), CRV (Curve DAO), AXS (Axie Infinity), and ENJ (Enjin Coin) were all made available in the wallet.

As you can see, we prioritize adding ERC20 tokens to the app so that you have many and easy options for investing and/or trading via our easy ERC20 token swaps.

Nov 15 — burning started

Remember those 35 million tokens that remained unbought from the ICO? We’ll be burning them over the 24 months following November 15, when the first batch of 1,47 million tokens were thrown into the fire. You can use the Hydra block explorer to go over all the transactions made until now (just two so far, but a lot more to be done in the near future).

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In December, winter came to Changex with a special proposition

🔥 Dec 1–0% commission HYDRA staking begins

We enter the last month of the year with a promotional campaign for HYDRA stakers by foregoing our 5% superstaker commission! Until 28 February, all new HYDRA stakers receive and will receive 100% of their staking rewards, with 5% in CHANGE tokens, which can also be staked to earn!

🔥🔥 Dec 15 — It’s suddenly cold

And yet the heat from the burnt tokens provides a special kind of warmth!

🐉 Dec 19 — HYDRA cross-chain swaps online

Ending the year on a high note, we delivered another important update to the app just before Christmas! In addition to some app improvements, the update brought cross-chain swaps for HYDRA, which can now be bought with BTC, ETH, USDT and USDC without the need for bridging. This is yet another step towards a simplified experience, and with lower fees because you skip the bridge.

🎄 Dec 23 — Ending the year on a lighter note

The last Changex update for the year saw the addition of our super heckin’ cool AI-powered image generator, which you can use to create and download images based on text queries. It is currently only available for Android users and you can also benefit from 10 free credits that give you one image each in order to get your creativity flowing!

🍾 Year’s end is upon us

And this is how 2022 unfolded for Changex. It was wild, it was busy, it was crazy at times, and it was all definitely worth it.

We stayed on track and delivered on our roadmap, working tirelessly to bring crucial functionality to the app, and we always kept one eye on the future, making solid progress on things that you can expect to see in the first months of 2023.

There will be positively huge developments which will completely change the app experience and what crypto means to you in your day-to-day life. We honestly can’t wait.

Until then, we wish you warm holidays, quality time spent with your favorite people, and the much needed renewal that the new year brings. Thank you being with us all this time.

From all of us here at Changex — Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! 💖💖💖