September was a month we have been working toward for a very long time. Hydranet is now live on mainnet.

After years of development, testing, refining, and fixing everything we could find along the way, the platform has finally taken the large step into real-world operation. It is a major milestone for the project and also the beginning of a new phase.

Mainnet is live

On September 7, Hydranet went live on mainnet. The initial rollout is invite-gated, and there are good reasons for taking things slowly. While we have spent a long time testing the platform internally and with our testers, mainnet introduces a different environment entirely. Real users, real trading activity, and, most importantly, real user funds means we have to be extra cautious about bugs and inconsistencies.

A staged rollout gives us the opportunity to monitor the platform at a higher granularity, identify issues that may not have appeared during testing, and address them before opening access further.

That being said, the platform has been performing exceptionally well the first few weeks of mainnet!

Finding and fixing issues

Since going live, we have already identified and fixed a number of issues across the platform.

Many of these have been related to the API and the way different parts/services of the platform communicate with each other, with additional fixes made to the user interface.

So far, we have resolved 71 items, including 23 API-related improvements and 42 UI-related improvements.

Some of these issues were straightforward fixes. Others required a bit more investigation to understand exactly where things were going wrong and how to address them without introducing problems elsewhere.

One of the improvements made during the first weeks of mainnet concerns token allowances.

Previously, a wallet needed to hold the network’s native asset in order to submit a transaction authorising a token allowance. That creates an unnecessary hurdle in situations where a user holds tokens but no native asset to pay for gas.

We have now introduced token permits, so an allowance can be authorised through an off-chain signature”. The signed authorisation can then be submitted by another party, which covers the transaction fee.

In practical terms, this means a wallet holding only the token can now grant an allowance, fund a channel, and participate in a swap without first needing to acquire the network’s native asset simply to pay gas for the allowance transaction.

The change also introduces a sponsored deposit path where the service can submit the channel-funding transaction on behalf of the user, with the associated fee deducted from the deposit.

Another improvement made concerns fee estimates. Previously, certain fee estimates could return a value even when the wallet didn’t have enough spendable balance to actually fund the transaction. The transaction itself would have been rejected anyway, but the estimate was misleading. Estimates now fail when the requested amount plus the required fee cannot be funded, giving users a better experience.

Keep an eye on the right accounts

With mainnet now live, it is also worth repeating something we highlighted in last month’s recap.

Make sure you are following the correct official Hydranet accounts on X.

@HydranetX is the main Hydranet account, covering announcements, releases, platform updates, and everything DEX-related.

@HydranetDAO, formerly TheHydranet, is the DAO account, covering governance, proposals, votes, treasury updates, and DAO-related communication.

These are the only official Hydranet accounts on X.

As always, we will never DM you first, ask for your seed phrase, or direct you to a “claim” or “migration” page. If you come across an account impersonating Hydranet, please report it and let us know.

Following the numbers

With mainnet live, there is now something new to follow: actual trading activity.

Our stats page provides an overview of the platform’s trading history and activity, giving you a way to keep an eye on how things are developing as more users join. We’ll continue adding to that data as activity grows.

There is still plenty to build and improve. But for the first time, Hydranet isn’t just something we are preparing to launch.

It’s live.

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