Step Update #9 — Step 2.0
Today we are introducing an app-wide refresh with our new UI we are calling Step 2.0. You’ll notice many areas of the app have been improved, consolidated and standardised on desktop and mobile breakpoints as we prep for the second half of this year and much more data focused development. But first, a little history lesson…
Humble beginnings
Step started in February 2021 from a Solana hackathon and has since grown into one of the most well featured and detailed portfolio managers of any blockchain, well beyond what we first imagined it would be. Back when we started there was only 2 AMMs and maybe 1 or two other yield farm related projects already onchain. The initial scope then for us was “make a dashboard to show you your positions in these few apps” however as Solana caught on with mega traction in 2021 the number of new projects launching was immense with almost everyday being some new pool or protocol going live.
Our job then became expanding the size and specificity of the app. We needed to expand the number of individual modules from 2 (LP positions and Token balances) to over 13 currently with close to 50 individual project integrations often spanning 1–3 modules and thousands of individual markets. With the market growing so rapidly we often needed to use the fastest ways to get the integration done and working and then move on, this was the only way to handle the user demand and growth.
When the market decided to enter a downturn this year we also saw the number of new projects launching drop and demand for yield farms (the most requested part of a portfolio) also drop accordingly, this gave us some breathing room for a while to work on much needed performance enhancements and tech debt. As we had grown, many custom solutions, work arounds, quick fixes had accrued in support of all these new protocols including non-standard UI elements across the app.
Today we are standardising all the tables, buttons and other elements in the app, reducing a lot of unnecessary code, cleaning up tech debt behind the scenes which will enable us to work quicker as we move forward into the next iteration of Step.
Other Changes
Further to our recent post about deprecating the Step AMM slowly over time, the first elements of that are coming in todays release too- namely limiting new deposits into AMM LP pools. We are delighted with the uptake and efficiency of the new STEP Orca Whirlpools. They are often 200–300% efficient in terms of Volume/TVL and have improved onchain pricing for STEP immensely- dropping average price slippage on a 10k USDC buy from 2% to 0.2% all while having high, unsubsidised APRs.
Making these pools more obvious in the Step UI will be coming soon. Our Q2 work continues into the end of this month with referrals and the first small historical data indexing starting soon.
Step Data Insights Newsletter
We also recently launched the Step Data Insights newsletter which is a fortnightly publication by the amazing @page_analyst who will be discussing trends, observations and investigating the onchain data available in the Solana ecosystem. The newsletter is there to be a basis for informing the community about how data driven insights can give you new and interesting perspectives of what’s happening in the ecosystem, market movements, trends and helps establish Step at the forefront of such things. If you have any particular requests you’d like to see more of in this newsletter do let us know !
Follow https://twitter.com/StepDataInsight for updates!
