Tag: Defi

Polygon zkEVM (MATIC) Token Airdrop Guide: LIVE NOW!
Polygon recently launched its own zkEVM mainnet, and co-founder Sandeep Nailwal hinted on Twitter that there could be a MATIC airdrop for users! In this article, we will briefly explain what Polygon zkEVM is and what you can do to position for a potential airdrop.

Polygon zkEVM Airdrop Step-by-Step Guide

Here’s how to get the Polygon zkEVM Airdrop:
1. Add Polygon zkEVM to MetaMask
2. Bridge to Polygon zkEVM
3. Interact with Polygon zkEVM DApps
4. BONUS: trade on Satori Finance
5. DOUBLE BONUS: Join in the zkEVM saga with Intract x Polygon to get free NFTs
See below for more in-depth details!

What is Polygon zkEVM?

Polygon zkEVM is a Layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum that leverages the scaling power of zero-knowledge proofs while maintaining Ethereum compatibility, similar to zkSync and Linea. Developers and users on Polygon zkEVM can use the same code, tooling, and apps that they use on Ethereum, but with much higher throughput and lower fees. This allows Ethereum-based DApps to scale more efficiently, which is critical for mass adoption of DeFi.

What’s the Difference Between Polygon zkEVM and Polygon?

The original Polygon functions as a sidechain that runs parallel to the Ethereum mainnet, whereas Polygon zkEVM uses a ZK-Rollup architecture that is built on top of Ethereum. The key distinction is that Polygon is EVM compatible but Polygon zkEVM has total EVM equivalence. The latter is focused on being a near-perfect replica of Ethereum’s execution environment, which means it uses ETH instead of MATIC for gas fees.

Is There an Airdrop for Polygon zkEVM?

Yes, it is very likely there will be an airdrop for Polygon zkEVM users. Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon, strongly hinted on Twitter that there will be a huge MATIC airdrop for zkEVM users. He also compared the current development of Polygon zkEVM to Arbitrum, which took more than a year to mature. This means that we are currently at the early stage, allowing users plenty of time to perform on-chain activities that would qualify them for the airdrop!

How to Get the Polygon zkEVM Airdrop?
The best way to get the MATIC airdrop is to interact with the Polygon zkEVM mainnet. Here’s a step-by-step guide:
1. Add Polygon zkEVM to MetaMask
  Go to ChainList and add Polygon zkEVM to MetaMask. It is launched on Mainnet Beta, which means you will need ETH for gas fees.
2. Bridge to Polygon zkEVM
  If you have funds on the Ethereum network, you can bridge ETH from Ethereum to Polygon zkEVM via the Native Bridge.
  
  Alternatively, if you have funds on Arbitrum and/or gas fees are too high, you can also use other third-party bridges recommended by Polygon, such as Orbiter Finance. Using Orbiter Finance, in particular, refunds 60% to 70% gas fees back to you.
3. Interact with Polygon zkEVM DApps
  Here are the top DApps in Polygon zkEVM ranked by total value locked (TVL). Try to perform transactions consistently every week as frequency of smart contract interaction is an important criterion to qualify for the airdrop:
  
  Decentralized Exchanges (DEXs):
  1. Quickswap
  2. Kokonut Swap
  3. Dove Swap
  4. Mantis Swap
  
  Lending Protocol
  1. 0vix
4. Interact with Quickswap
  Here’s how to interact with Quickswap. First, connect your wallet to Quickswap Exchange. Make sure you have switched the network on Polygon zkEVM. Then, go to the Swap section and (1) Swap ETH for USDC; and (2) Swap the same amount of ETH for WETH. Afterwards, go to their Pool, select ETH and USDC tokens as the token pair, approve the tokens and add liquidity.
5. Interact with Kokonut Swap.
  Here’s how to interact with Kokonut Swap. First, connect your wallet to Kokonut Swap. Make sure you have switched the network on Polygon zkEVM. Then, go to their Swap page and swap ETH to USDC.
6. Interact with Dove Swap
  Here’s how to interact with Dove Swap. Connect your wallet to Dove Swap and make sure you are on the Polygon zkEVM network. Then, swap ETH for USDT.
7. Interact with Mantis Swap.
  Interact with Mantis Swap by going to their website. Then, connect your wallet and make sure you are on the zkEVM network. Finally, swap USDC to USDT.
8. Interact with 0vix
  To interact with 0vix, connect your wallet to their website and make sure you are on the Polygon zkEVM network. On the Supply Markets, supply a small amount of ETH and click “Supply”.
9. BONUS: Trade on Satori Finance
  Satori Finance is a protocol on Polygon zkEVM (as well as zkSync, Linea and Scroll). To trade on Satori Finance, connect your wallet to https://satori.finance/, making sure that you are on the Polygon network. Then, go to “Portfolio” and deposit some trades. Next, go to the “Trade” tab and do some trades.
10. DOUBLE BONUS: Join in the zkEVM saga with Intract x Polygon to get free NFTs
  Connect your wallet to the Quest Page and complete the tasks to get a free NFT. Tasks include signing messages, following social accounts and posting Tweets. Finally, click “Get your NFTs” and follow the instructions on your wallet to mint your free NFT. Note you will need to pay gas fees in ETH
Airdrop Review

When reviewing an airdrop, there are several factors to consider. First, the likelihood the project will even do an airdrop in the first place. Then, to look at how many tokens the project intends to allocate towards airdrop campaigns, as well as the difficulty in participating in their airdrop. It is also important to look at the utility of the token so that there will be an actual use and purpose in participating in the airdrop in the first place. Finally, a factor to consider when reviewing an airdrop is whether the airdropped tokens are subject to any lockup period.

Likelihood of Airdrop: Although not confirmed, it is very likely there will be a MATIC airdrop for Polygon zkEVM users, according to Sandeep Nailwal.

Airdropped Token Allocation: There is no confirmation on the token allocation, but Nailwal said that it would be a “massive” airdrop.

Airdrop Difficulty: Simply bridge to Polygon zkEVM and interact with QuickSwap and other high TVL DEXes. You will need real ETH to perform these tasks.

Token Utility: MATIC is the native token of the Polygon blockchain. Although Polygon zkEVM uses ETH for gas fees, it is likely MATIC will be airdropped as rewards.

Token Lockup: No mentions of token lockup.
December 6, 2023

Ledger Nano S Plus Hardware Wallet Review

The increasing popularity and adoption of cryptocurrency has expanded the wallet market. Now that many well-known traditional and crypto brands accept crypto as a payment option, enthusiasts are constantly on the lookout for safer ways to store their digital assets.

Ledger is one of the most popular hardware crypto wallets in the sector. Since releasing the Nano S in 2016, Ledger has become a household name in the cryptocurrency space. To date, Ledger has launched three models of hardware crypto wallets, the Nano S, Nano X, and most recently, the Nano S Plus. The Ledger Nano S Plus retails for USD$79.

CLICK BELOW TO BUY!

Check out our previous Ledger reviews here:
Ledger Nano X review
Ledger Nano S review

Table of Contents

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What is the Ledger Nano S Plus?

The Nano S Plus is Ledger’s third release from its Nano series, a line of pocket-sized hardware crypto wallets. Ledger’s Nano S Plus has all of the features of the original Nano S but with a few upgrades, including support for NFT storage and management. Additionally, the Nano S Plus has built-in support for interacting with various DeFi (decentralized finance) apps and services. (thetelegramnews.com) The wallet is an effective option for people looking to manage crypto, NFTs, and other decentralized services in one place.

New features of the Ledger Nano S Plus

Ledger introduced the Nano S Plus with an exciting list of features and improvements over the two previous releases. Some of the major new features on the Nano S Plus include:

Bigger display. Same display size of the Nano X but on a smaller device!
Expanded cryptoasset support. The Nano S Plus doesn’t just hold cryptocurrencies, but also NFTs and is the first Ledger device to have DeFi app integration.
Industry-leading security. The Nano S Plus uses the same industry-leading security with CC EAL5+ certification.
Easy setup. USB plug-and-play feature means owners can begin using the device in minutes.
Low cost. The Nano S Plus comes at an affordable price of US$79, making it an attractive option for all levels of crypto traders.

Security features: is the Nano S Plus safe?

The Nano S Plus uses the same certified secure chip (CC EAL5+ chips) as the Nano X to protect users’ assets. This chip employs state-of-the-art technology that guarantees high-level security and asset protection against phishing and other asset extraction schemes. Additionally, the wallet has industry-standard security features, including a security phrase, PIN code locks, transaction confirmations, password encryption, and more.

To learn more about the security features of the Nano S Plus and Nano X, click here.

5/5 Security Rating

Cryptoasset support

A major Nano S Plus feature is the huge roster of supported crypto assets and apps. The Nano S Plus supports over 5,500 assets and can accommodate up to 100 different apps. Some supported assets include:

Bitcoin (BTC)
Ethereum (ETH)
ERC-20 tokens
Dogecoin (DOGE)
XRP
BNB
Cardano (ADA)
Polygon (MATIC)
Litecoin (LTC)
Tron (TRX)

The Nano S Plus has 1.5MB of storage and with that can run over 100 apps simultaneously. On Ledger devices, an “app” refers to the app required to be installed to access a cryptocurrency on the device e.g. in order to access your BTC on the device you need to install the app on the Ledger first. Meaning that, unlike the Nano S which can only run 3 apps simultaneously, users are not required to delete apps in order to access other cryptocurrencies which do not have the apps already installed.

But what is truly unique about the Nano S Plus is that it is the first Ledger device to offer NFT support. Users of the Nano S Plus can securely hold, send, and receive NFTs via the Ledger Live app. Ledger has made this process user-friendly, as owners can authenticate transactions right from the wallet’s interface.

Users of the Nano S Plus can also access several DeFi applications through the Ledger Live user interface. Anyone can securely buy, exchange, lend or stake crypto assets.

The NFT support and DeFi app access give the Nano S Plus an even bigger boost in features compared to the Nano S and for that reason, we rank this category even higher than the Nano X.

4.8/5 cryptoasset support

Hardware design

Similar to the Nano S, the Nano S Plus also has two hardware buttons located on the top of the device.

The Nano S Plus has a much larger screen than its predecessor, which makes usage very easy. Same as the Nano X, the 128 x 64-pixel screen makes operating the device simple and helps users navigate the product’s features. The main benefit of the larger screen is that users can see the entire wallet address clearly displayed as one line on the screen. The screen also blends well into the rest of the device, adding to the Nano S Plus’ aesthetic appeal. And whilst the screen size on the Nano S Plus is the same as the Nano X, the Nano S Plus is a much smaller device overall.

The Ledger Nano S Plus’ measurements are smaller than the Nano X at 62.39 x 17.40 x 8.24 mm, and weighs in at only 21g. The wallet is about the size and weight of an average USB flash drive and is easy to carry around.

4.5/5 for hardware design

4.5/5 for ease of use

What’s in the Ledger Nano S Plus Box?

The Nano S Plus wallet comes with the following inside the box:

The Ledger Nano S Plus hardware
A Type-C USB cable to connect the Ledger to a computer
An orange box with three notepads for the Secret Recovery Phrase
A purple box with the manual instructions
A key-holder chain with a Ledger logo

Final Verdict

The Ledger Nano S Plus is a great option for enthusiasts looking for a secure, reliable, and easy-to-use hardware wallet. It offers the same features as the original Ledger Nano S and adds a lot more. Furthermore, users looking to upgrade from the older Ledger Nano S can quickly move their assets to the newer S Plus.

The Ledger Nano S Plus is one of the best hardware wallet options on the market for crypto and NFT enthusiasts who currently own or plan to purchase NFTs or get involved with any DeFi project.

The Ledger Nano S Plus retails for US$79.

CLICK HERE TO BUY!

Ledger Nano S Plus worth it?

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Product Specifications (Technical Specifications)

Ledger Nano S Plus Product Specifications:

Processors
Compatibility	64-bits desktop computer (Windows 8+, macOS 10.8+, Linux) excluding ARM Processors.Also compatible with smartphones Android 7+.
Connector	USB-C
Security Certification	CC EAL5+
Size	Size: 62.39mm x 17.40mm x 8.24 mm Weight: 21g
Supported assets	5,550+ digital assets plus NFTs and DeFi app access

May 16, 2023

MantleSwap ($MANT) Token Airdrop Guide: LIVE NOW!
MantleSwap is a decentralized exchange built on the Mantle Network, an Ethereum Layer-2 protocol developed by BitDAO, one of the largest DAOs and a partner of Bybit. The MantleSwap Incentivized Testnet recently launched, and early users could potentially earn token airdrops in the future!

MantleSwap ($MANT) Token Airdrop Step-by-Step Guide

Here’s how to get the MantleSwap ($MANT) token airdrop:
1. Claim Goerli ETH from Faucets
2. Add Mantle Testnet to MetaMask
3. Mint $BIT Test Tokens
4. Bridge $BIT to Mantle Testnet
5. Claim Test Stablecoins at MantleSwap Testnet
6. Swap Tokens
7. Provide Liquidity
8. Complete Zealy Tasks
See below for more in-depth details!

What is MantleSwap?

MantleSwap is the premier decentralized exchange (DEX) built on the Mantle Network. It offers a suite of DeFi products for Mantle users, including an automated market maker (AMM) exchange, staking services, launchpads, lending, and GameFi.

At its core, Mantle Network is a technology stack for scaling Ethereum and EVM-compatible blockchains. Mantle has been built with a modular architecture that uses an optimistic rollup with data availability solutions. This allows Mantle to inherit security from Ethereum and offer cheaper and more accessible data availability.

Does MantleSwap Have a Token?

Yes, MantleSwap plans to launch its native token $MANT. Details of its tokenomics, emissions rate, and contract address will be announced soon.

Additionally, the MantleSwap team has hinted on Discord at a potential $MANT airdrop. They encourage community members to interact with the incentivized testnet and stress-test the network.

How to Get the MantleSwap ($MANT) Token Airdrop?
The best way to get the $MANT token airdrop is to interact with the MantleSwap Incentivized Testnet. These steps are also part of the Mantle Network ($BIT) token airdrop steps, which means you can potentially earn double the rewards! Here’s a step-by-step guide:
1. Claim Goerli ETH from Faucets
  You will need Goerli ETH to mint $BIT test tokens and bridge them to Mantle Testnet. You can use the Alchemy Faucet or Goerli PoW Faucet.
2. Add Mantle Testnet to MetaMask
  Add Mantle Testnet to your MetaMask wallet via ChainList.
3. Mint $BIT Test Tokens
  Mint $BIT test tokens at the Mantle Testnet Faucet. The network is on Goerli Testnet.
4. Bridge $BIT to Mantle Testnet
  Go to the Mantle Testnet Bridge, and transfer your $BIT from Goerli to Mantle Testnet. This process might take a while.
5. Claim Test Stablecoins at MantleSwap Testnet
  You can use your $BIT to claim more test tokens at MantleSwap’s faucet.
6. Swap Tokens
  Use the Swap feature, and swap some $BIT to $MANT. You can also swap between other available tokens.
7. Provide Liquidity
  On the Swap page, click the Liquidity tab and deposit a token pair to provide liquidity. You can see your liquidity positions at the Pool page.
  
  You can also deposit liquidity into a stablecoin pool.
8. Complete Zealy Tasks
  Join and complete Zealy tasks to unlock roles at MantleSwap’s Discord. These roles can help you earn more rewards in the future!
Airdrop Review

When reviewing an airdrop, there are several factors to consider. First, the likelihood the project will even do an airdrop in the first place. Then, to look at how many tokens the project intends to allocate towards airdrop campaigns, as well as the difficulty in participating in their airdrop. It is also important to look at the utility of the token so that there will be an actual use and purpose in participating in the airdrop in the first place. Finally, a factor to consider when reviewing an airdrop is whether the airdropped tokens are subject to any lockup period.

Likelihood of Airdrop: Although MantleSwap has not yet officially announced a token airdrop, it is typical for incentivized testnets to reward early users upon the launch of the native token. Additionally, the MantleSwap team has hinted on Discord at a potential $MANT airdrop.

Airdropped Token Allocation: The airdropped token allocation is yet to be announced.

Airdrop Difficulty: Simply claim $BIT test tokens and bridge them to Mantle Testnet. Swap tokens and provide liquidity at MantleSwap as frequently as you can.

Token Utility: The MantleSwap team will soon publish details about the utilities of $MANT.

Token Lockup: There is no tokenomics yet.
April 24, 2023
Arrakis Finance ($SPICE) Token Airdrop Guide: LIVE NOW!
Arrakis Finance is one of the largest liquidity management protocols for leading DeFi projects. The team will launch its native token, $SPICE, and has confirmed an airdrop for the community. In this article, we will briefly explain what Arrakis Finance is and how you can position yourself for the airdrop.

Arrakis Finance ($SPICE) Airdrop Step-by-Step Guide

Here’s how to receive the $SPICE airdrop:
1. Connect your wallet to Arrakis Finance
2. Provide Liquidity to Vault
See below for more in-depth details!

What is Arrakis Finance?

Arrakis Finance is a liquidity management protocol used by leading DeFi projects to bootstrap liquidity for their tokens across multiple blockchains. Some of the top DeFi projects that have adopted Arrakis vaults include Aave, MakerDAO, and Synthetix. At its peak in July 2022, the platform had $1.83 billion in total value locked (TVL).

Arrakis aims to solve pain points that many projects in web3 are facing today. Traditional Uniswap v2 automated market makers (AMM) provide a one-size-fits-all liquidity solution. While being simple, they lack efficiency and are costly to subsidize liquidity programs. Next generation AMMs like Uniswap v3 provide liquidity efficiency improvements, however at the cost of added complexity and risk to liquidity providers (LP).

The multichain landscape made liquidity increasingly fragmented and the operational overhead of managing liquidity exponentially higher. Projects are forced to spend an unnecessary amount of time and resources on complex topics such as active liquidity management, cross-chain liquidity provision, and modeling expenditures on market making programs. Arrakis solves these issues by creating a curated marketplace of novel tokenized LP strategies that facilitate deep liquidity and optimize LP earnings.

Does Arrakis Finance Have a Token?

Yes, $SPICE is a token that Arrakis Finance uses to add transparent governance and new incentive mechanisms to its protocol. The Arrakis DAO manages its tokenized strategies with its curated list of automated strategies. The protocol takes a 25% commission on fees earned from all liquidity under management as protocol revenue.

Projects get optimized liquidity without the management overhead and access to liquidity gauge emissions of $SPICE. These emissions provide additional incentives for LPs and attract liquidity to vaults. They also double as a bootstrapping mechanism for distributing governance power over the Arrakis protocol by vote locking $SPICE for non-transferable $xSPICE.

Will there be a $SPICE Airdrop?

Yes, the Arrakis team has confirmed an upcoming $SPICE airdrop on Discord, and they will announce further details soon. Moreover, if you locked $GEL tokens as part of the Gelato Network Lockdrop Program between May and June last year, you will receive $SPICE airdrops when the token launches. The Gelato Network is a web3 automation network that helped incubate Arrakis Finance.

How to Get the $SPICE Airdrop?
The best chance to get the $SPICE airdrop is to provide liquidity on the Arrakis Vaults. The protocol is live on four mainnets: Ethereum, Polygon, Optimism, and Arbitrum. So you will need real funds to qualify for the $SPICE airdrop. Here’s a step-by-step guide:
1. Connect Your Wallet to Arrakis Finance
  Connect your MetaMask or other supported wallets to the Arrakis Finance Vault page. Switch the network to Ethereum, Polygon, Optimism, or Arbitrum, depending on where your funds are located.
2. Provide Liquidity to Vault
  Select a liquidity pool you want and deposit your token pairs. Each pool has different rewards and fee tiers.
  
  If you want to minimize impermanent loss risk, stablecoin pair LPs are a safer choice.
Airdrop Review

When reviewing an airdrop, there are several factors to consider. First, the likelihood the project will even do an airdrop in the first place. Then, to look at how many tokens the project intends to allocate towards airdrop campaigns, as well as the difficulty in participating in their airdrop. It is also important to look at the utility of the token so that there will be an actual use and purpose in participating in the airdrop in the first place. Finally, a factor to consider when reviewing an airdrop is whether the airdropped tokens are subject to any lockup period.

Likelihood of Airdrop: The Arrakis team has confirmed on Discord that there will be a $SPICE airdrop. More details to be announced soon.

Airdropped Token Allocation: The token allocation for Vault liquidity providers is yet to be determined. However, those who participated in the $GEL Lockdrop Program last year will split the 30 million $SPICE airdrop pro-rata.

Airdrop Difficulty: The steps are straightforward. You just have to provide liquidity to the Arrakis Vault. However, keep in mind that real funds are used, as it is deployed on the mainnets.

Token Utility: $SPICE is the native governance token of Arrakis Finance that adds new incentive mechanisms to its protocol.

Token Lockup: The tokenomics of $SPICE is not yet finalized.
April 17, 2023
ChainHop Token Airdrop Guide: LIVE NOW!
ChainHop is a composable omnichain liquidity aggregation protocol that enables one-click, cross-chain swaps with the deepest liquidity and the best rate. The project has hinted at launching its own token. Early users who’ve used the platform to do cross-chain swaps may get an airdrop!

ChainHop Airdrop Step-by-Step Guide

Here’s how to receive a potential ChainHop token airdrop:
1. Connect Your Wallet to ChainHop
2. Perform Cross-Chain Swap
See below for more in-depth details!

What is ChainHop?

ChainHop is an Open API that allows swapping tokens between different chains by using liquidity from various DEXes and bridges. It does this by leveraging cross-chain message passing, allowing the protocol to aggregate multi-chain liquidity sources. It also offers white label solutions for DEXes, NFT platforms and marketplaces, Wallets, GameFi projects, and much more.

Over the past six months, ChainHop has been audited by leading blockchain security firms PeckShield and SlowMist.

Partnership with Celer Network

ChainHop has partnered with Celer Network to build inter-chain messaging. The ChainHop project has been drawing liquidity from the biggest DEXes in the crypto industry coming from 7 different blockchains: Ethereum, Polygon, BNB Chain, Fantom, Optimism, Avalanche, and Arbitrum. The partnership between ChainHop and Celer Network will enable developers to easily access the cross-chain liquidity protocol to build cross-chain DeFi, NFT marketplaces, IDO launchpad platforms, and more.

Does ChainHop have a Token?

ChainHop does not have a token at the moment. However, they have mentioned in their user document that they might launch one in the future. Additionally, early users of the protocol can potentially qualify for an airdrop.

How to Get ChainHop Token Airdrop?
The best chance to get the ChainHop Token Airdrop is to perform cross-chain swaps on their platform. Here’s a step-by-step guide:
1. Connect Your Wallet to ChainHop
  Visit the ChainHop Exchange App and connect your MetaMask or other supported wallets. There are seven mainnet chains to choose from. Make sure you have enough funds to cover gas fees.
2. Perform Cross-Chain Swap
  Select a source chain and the token you want to swap, then select a destination chain and the token you want to receive. Confirm the transaction and you’re done!
  
  You can also swap tokens within the same chain, but we recommend swapping on different chains. The more chains you interact with, the more on-chain evidence you generate that could qualify you for a potential ChainHop token airdrop.
Airdrop Review

When reviewing an airdrop, there are several factors to consider. First, the likelihood the project will even do an airdrop in the first place. Then, to look at how many tokens the project intends to allocate towards airdrop campaigns, as well as the difficulty in participating in their airdrop. It is also important to look at the utility of the token so that there will be an actual use and purpose in participating in the airdrop in the first place. Finally, a factor to consider when reviewing an airdrop is whether the airdropped tokens are subject to any lockup period.

Likelihood of Airdrop: ChainHop does not have a token at the moment, but could launch one in the future. Early users can potentially qualify for an airdrop.

Airdropped Token Allocation: There is no tokenomics yet.

Airdrop Difficulty: All you have to do is swap tokens between different chains. Keep in mind that they are mainnets, which means you will need real money to swap and cover gas fees.

Token Utility: There is no token yet.

Token Lockup: There is no tokenomics yet.
April 11, 2023
Opyn Token Airdrop Guide: How to Qualify for Potential Snapshot
Opyn is an options trading platform built on Ethereum. It currently does not have a token, but the team announced on Discord that they will consider launching one as the protocol matures. As early users, we are in an opportune position to potentially earn massive token rewards. In this article, we will explain what Opyn is and what you can do to position yourself for the airdrop.

Opyn Airdrop Step-by-step Guide

Here’s how to receive a potential Opyn token airdrop:
1. Connect Wallet to Opyn
2. Trade Squeeth (oSQTH Token)
3. Deposit on Crab USDC Strategy
4. Deposit on Zen Bull ETH Strategy
5. Provide Liquidity on Uniswap V3 SQTH-ETH Pool
See below for more details

What is Opyn?

Opyn is a DeFi options trading protocol that allows users to buy, sell or create options on ERC-20 tokens. It is powered by Squeeth, short for squared ETH, which is a derivative contract that tracks the index of ETH². This allows traders to make a leveraged bet on ETH, while also having protection from losses and not needing to worry about being forced to sell.

Does Opyn have a Token?

As of now, Opyn does not have a token yet. However, the team announced on Discord that they plan to launch one down the line as the protocol becomes more decentralized. Moreover, they also mentioned that most of the tokens will be distributed to the community, DAO, or in the form of grants. This means airdrop opportunities for early users of the protocol!

How to Receive Potential Opyn Token Airdrop?
The best chance to receive a potential Opyn token airdrop is to trade Squeeth (oSQTH token) or use deposit strategies on the platform. It is on the Ethereum mainnet, so you will need some ETH for trading and gas fees. Here’s a step-by-step guide:
1. Connect Wallet to Opyn
  Go to opyn.co and connect your MetaMask or other supported wallets. Switch the network to Ethereum, and have some ETH ready.
2. Trade Squeeth (oSQTH Token)
  Use ETH to buy oSQTH at opyn.co/squeeth. You can enter a long or short position, and it will tell how much your profit/loss and breakeven point is if ETH price goes up or down.
  
  You can see all of your open positions at opyn.co/positions, and close them anytime.
3. Deposit on Crab USDC Strategy
  You can earn yields on your USDC on opyn.co/strategies/crab. It is worth noting this strategy favors sideways market conditions for ETH, hence its name.
4. Deposit on Zen Bull ETH Strategy
  You can earn yields on your ETH on opyn.co/strategies/bull. This strategy favors low volatility markets where the price of ETH trends upwards.
5. Provide Liquidity on Uniswap V3 SQTH-ETH Pool
  You can provide SQTH-ETH liquidity at Uniswap via opyn.co/lp. It gives you exposure to ETH 1.5x leverage, but you give up some of your Squeeth in exchange for trading fees.
Airdrop Review

When reviewing an airdrop, there are several factors to consider. First, the likelihood the project will even do an airdrop in the first place. Then, to look at how many tokens the project intends to allocate towards airdrop campaigns, as well as the difficulty in participating in their airdrop. It is also important to look at the utility of the token so that there will be an actual use and purpose in participating in the airdrop in the first place. Finally, a factor to consider when reviewing an airdrop is whether the airdropped tokens are subject to any lockup period.

Likelihood of Airdrop: Opyn doesn’t have a token yet, but the team mentioned that they will launch one as the protocol grows in the future.

Airdropped Token Allocation: The team mentioned that most of the tokens will be distributed to the community, DAO, or in the form of grants. This means airdrop opportunities for early users of the protocol!

Airdrop Difficulty: The steps are easy to complete, but it will require ETH.

Token Utility: Token utilities are unknown.

Token Lockup: There are no available tokenomics yet.
March 26, 2023
Sentiment Token Airdrop Guide: How to Qualify for Potential Snapshot
Sentiment is a lending and borrowing protocol built on Arbitrum. It does not have a token, but the team mentioned on Discord that they did not rule it out. As such, if the airdrop is confirmed, early users of the protocol can potentially earn massive token rewards. In this article, we will explain what Sentiment is and what you can do to position yourself for the airdrop.

Sentiment Airdrop Step-by-step Guide

Here’s how to receive a potential Sentiment token airdrop:
1. Connect Your Arbitrum Wallet to Sentiment
2. Mint a Margin Wallet
3. Deposit Assets on Your Account
4. Swap Tokens
5. Lend Out Tokens
6. Borrow and Repay Tokens
7. Use the ETH Wrapper Feature
See below for more details

What is Sentiment?

Sentiment is a liquidity protocol that enables undercollateralized borrowing and lending. This means that borrowers can create leveraged positions without the need for overcollateralization, which is the more common practice in DeFi. Despite providing capital efficiency and flexibility, the undercollateralized model is challenging in crypto due to the volatile nature of the market. In the event of a default, there is nothing to back the lenders’ fund.

Sentiment aims to solve this issue by assigning a proxy contract that holds the borrower’s collateral and borrowed assets. This means that the borrower never has custody of the loaned assets in their wallet, but they are allowed full control over deploying these assets, as long as it meets the requirements of the system’s risk measures.

Project Funding and Audits

In September 2022, Sentiment successfully raised $2.4 million in a seed funding round led by Archetype Ventures, with participation from Castle Island Ventures, Maxtriport Ventures and numerous angel investors.

Sentiment’s smart contract code has been reviewed and audited by Web3 security firms Arbitrary Execution and Sherlock. Additionally, the team is insuring the first $10 million of total value locked (TVL) on Sentiment in the case of any smart contract vulnerabilities.

Does Sentiment have a Token?

As of now, Sentiment does not have a token. However, the team mentioned in Discord that they have not ruled out the possibility of a token launch. Additionally, DefiLlama has listed Sentiment as one of the tokenless protocols that may have an airdrop.

How to Receive Potential Sentiment Token Airdrop?
The best chance to receive a potential Sentiment token airdrop is to interact with the protocol. On-chain activities are essential to be included in the snapshot for the airdrop. Here’s a step-by-step guide:
1. Connect Your Arbitrum Wallet to Sentiment
  Go to arbitrum.sentiment.xyz and connect your Arbitrum wallet. If you have MetaMask, switch the network to Arbitrum.
2. Mint a Margin Wallet
  Click “Mint A Margin Wallet” on the top right side of the screen. You will need some ETH to cover gas fees.
3. Deposit Assets on Your Account
  Once you set up your wallet, you’ll see your account assets and debt on the main page dashboard. You can deposit some stablecoins, WBTC or ETH to begin using the protocol.
4. Swap Tokens
  Once you deposited your assets, you can swap tokens at arbitrum.sentiment.xyz/trade. You can also select which protocol like Uniswap or Curve to use.
5. Lend Out Tokens
  There are several liquidity pools at arbitrum.sentiment.xyz/invest. You can click “invest” to lend out your tokens for APR rewards.
6. Borrow and Repay Tokens
  You can borrow and repay tokens at arbitrum.sentiment.xyz/borrow. There is a health factor which shows the safety of your deposited assets against the borrowed assets and its underlying value.
7. Use the ETH Wrapper Feature
  You can wrap some ETH or unwrap WETH at arbitrum.sentiment.xyz/wrapper.
Airdrop Review

When reviewing an airdrop, there are several factors to consider. First, the likelihood the project will even do an airdrop in the first place. Then, to look at how many tokens the project intends to allocate towards airdrop campaigns, as well as the difficulty in participating in their airdrop. It is also important to look at the utility of the token so that there will be an actual use and purpose in participating in the airdrop in the first place. Finally, a factor to consider when reviewing an airdrop is whether the airdropped tokens are subject to any lockup period.

Likelihood of Airdrop: Sentiment does not have a token, but the team mentioned on Discord that they did not rule it out.

Airdropped Token Allocation: There are no token distribution information yet.

Airdrop Difficulty: You will need some ETH on your Arbitrum wallet to cover gas fees. Other than that, the tasks are relatively straightforward.

Token Utility: Token utilities are unknown.

Token Lockup: There are no available tokenomics yet.
March 26, 2023
The Flippening: Will Ethereum Overtake Bitcoin in 2023?

The Flippening Narrative: Bitcoin vs Ethereum

The concept of the “Flippening” has been increasingly gaining traction in the crypto space. It refers to the hypothetical moment when Ethereum (ETH) surpasses Bitcoin (BTC) as the most valuable cryptocurrency by market capitalization. The Flippening is important because it would signify a major shift in the overall direction of the crypto landscape, signalling a change in investor sentiment and adoption patterns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lQ8bz9QRBo

While the Flippening is not set in stone, there are compelling data that indicate it is coming, and sooner than you think… Here’s why:

The Case for Bitcoin

Being the world’s first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin has maintained its throne on the crypto market since its genesis block in 2009. It is often considered as the safest digital store of value by investors, with its limited supply structure similar to the scarcity of gold, hence its nickname “digital gold.” As such, Bitcoin is usually the primary choice of cryptocurrency for financial institutions looking to get involved. As far as mainstream adoption goes, Bitcoin has led the way so far.

However, Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus model is highly energy-intensive, sparking criticisms of the network’s impact on the environment. Additionally, the usage of Bitcoin is only limited to exchanging and storing value. This is where Ethereum has much more to offer.

The Case for Ethereum

As the second most valuable cryptocurrency, Ethereum is designed to be used as the foundation of a decentralized, blockchain-based internet — an idea that is become known as Web3. Apart from exchanging and storing value, Ethereum introduced smart contract functionalities that allows developers to do all kinds of innovative and creative things on the network. This brought about a proliferation of financial products that have enabled a much broader range of investors.

Ethereum earned its nickname “digital oil” because it is a utility-based asset like oil, fuel or gas, and its value is largely dictated by supply and demand mechanisms. Similar to how the world’s global supply chain is fueled by crude oil, Ethereum lays at the heart of the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) space as well as GameFi and Non-Fungible Token (NFT) market. And as the Web3 landscape progresses, demand will increase as more and more people are recognizing the potential of a decentralized internet. It is only a matter of time when Web2 evolves to Web3, and Ethereum is at the centre of that.

Do “Ethereum Killers” Hinder the Flippening?

It is worth noting that Ethereum faces competition from other prominent layer-1 blockchains such as Aptos, Cardano, Solana, BNB Chain, Polkadot, and Avalanche. There is a trending “Ethereum Killer” narrative in which user adoption will be distributed amongst these blockchains instead of focusing on Ethereum only. However, most of these blockchains in fact depend on Ethereum, as one way or another they are associated with the network’s smart contract. As shown in the image below by Cryptowatch, all of the top layer-1 blockchains are closely correlated with Ethereum’s price action.

Source: Cryptowatch

Comparing Market Share between Bitcoin and Ethereum

As of 11th January 2023, Ethereum’s market share increased by 3% among global crypto assets, signalling its dominance on the rise. According to Coinmarketcap, Ethereum’s market dominance is at 19%, valued at around $856 billion. On another note, Coingecko’s metrics were slightly different, indicating Ethereum’s dominance at 18.3%. But both aggregation websites show that Bitcoin’s market dominance is decreasing, from 40% to 38%.

It is unclear whether this trend will continue, but according to data sourced from Blockchain Center, the Flippening has been on an uptrend since July 2021. And we are nearly halfway for it to happen. It is also worth noting that Ethereum came closest to the Flippening in 2017, when Bitcoin’s market dominance’s dropped by 40.6% and Ethereum took over 32% of the market amidst the situation.

Source: blockchaincenter.net

In reference to the data provided by Blockchain Center, there are also other metrics apart from market cap that determines the Flippening. As of now, Bitcoin is still by far superior in trading volume, which is a crucial metric for adoption usage. However, Ethereum has Bitcoin beat in active addresses, transaction count and volume, and total USD transaction fees.

Outperformance of Ethereum will be primarily driven by the strength of its post-Merge fundamentals. The upcoming Shanghai Upgrade will significantly reduce the risk and opportunity cost of staking ETH, which is likely to attract participation from more crypto users.

Key Takeaway

Despite Ethereum’s increasing adoption and market dominance, Bitcoin still reigns supreme in the crypto space. In fact, Bitcoin saw significant adoption in 2021-2022 from retail and institutional investors, public companies, and even countries. As of now, El Savador and the Central African Republic (CAR) have adopted Bitcoin as a legal currency. This is a monumental step towards mainstream adoption.

But that is not to say the Flippening will never happen — it is certainly a possibility. After all, both Bitcoin and Ethereum have different visions. Bitcoin aims to become the global reserve currency, whereas Ethereum aims to become the infrastructure of a global digital economy. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) applies to both assets, but it all comes down to supply and demand mechanisms. If demand in digital money is higher, then Bitcoin dominates. But if demand in utility-based asset in building out a decentralized ecosystem is higher, then Ethereum is generally favored.

January 12, 2023
The Graph ($GRT) – The Next Level of Decentralized Apps
What is The Graph?

The Graph ($GRT) is a decentralized and open-sourced indexing protocol for blockchain data. Developers can build and publish different APIs, which are referred to as subgraphs, and perform queries through the GraphQL.

The platform can easily be used to look for any Ethereum data conveniently through simple queries. This addresses the common problem faced by a lot of other blockchain indexing platforms.

Blockchain applications face difficulties in keeping properties like finality, chain reorganization, and security in their process of fulfilling query tasks. These are also potential complications that applications usually address, but unfortunately make the process of querying time-consuming. The Graph has a workaround for this, and it is built exactly for that purpose.

Through “subgraphs,” The Graph indexes blockchain data, which users can access via the GraphQL API. According to the team, they will make it fully decentralized in the future, where more nodes will be involved and made responsible for maintaining the index.

The interest for the platform is steadily growing. In fact, they hit over a billion queries last June 2020. This was right at the time when decentralized finance was also gaining much institutional attention.

The Graph’s Daily Query Volume (Source: ‘1 Billion Monthly Queries’ medium articles)

Background

Yaniv Tal, co-founder and CEO of The Graph, together with his team, has created an indexing protocol meant to ease the process of accessing blockchain data. Tal and his co-founders had personally witnessed themselves how difficult it was to actually create new applications on the Ethereum blockchain.

Thanks to their experience on applications, they have found out that there is actually no decentralized indexing and querying softwares yet for blockchain. The problem back then was that developers had to come up with their own method to gather data and transform them from different sources.

The mission of the platform, which Tal and his team developed, is to help create applications that require no servers and make Web3 accessible to everyone.

How Does The Graph Index Data?

To index Ethereum-based data, The Graph uses the “subgraph manifest.” This refers to the description of a subgraph containing data about smart contracts, blockchain events, and the procedure in mapping event data with one another, before they are all kept in the platform’s database.

The flow of the data from transactions, subgraph manifests, and the database follows a particular structure. All of it begins with decentralized applications that are adding data to the Ethereum blockchain through the help of smart contracts.

All of that data will contain a record of all events and transactions up until the point that they have achieved finality. Then comes the Graph Node, which scans the whole blockchain database, gathers new data, and filters out those that are relevant to the queries that users make. To make the indexing much easier, it identifies every information that answers the questions from subgraphs.

GraphQL is the link between blockchain data and the application that a user wants to provide it with. But then again, it is through the Graph Node that users can deliver searches to the platform. After the whole process, users can finally look at the results of their query from their applications.

Basically, this is how the cycle of data query and indexing works in the platform. Users can refer to the Graph Explorer to scan through the subgraphs that are already in the platform. Each of these subgraphs have a playground where users can perform queries through GraphQL.

How the Graph Works? (source: https://thegraph.com/docs/introduction#how-the-graph-works)

As of latest, The Graph can support the indexing of data coming from Ethereum, IPFS, and PoA networks. There are more networks that the platform will support in the future. But right now, they already have more than 2,300 subgraphs deployed, which developers for applications utilize. Some of these applications are AAVE, Aragon, Balancer, DAOstack, Uniswap, Synthetix, and many others.

There is a lot of institutional support for The Graph network. Michael Anderson of Framework Ventures, said in a press release that they “couldn’t be happier to back Yaniv and the team, and we look forward to helping grow the decentralized network when it launches.”

Hayden Adams of Uniswap also shared how useful the platform was for their analytics needs: “As a company we don’t manage or run our own databases. … Right now it’s pretty difficult to get historic data from the Ethereum blockchain in an efficient way.”

Their plan, apart from expanding to other blockchains soon, is to make it community-owned and governed in the future. This is also in response to the shift of many blockchain applications to a decentralized model of governance.

Key Roles

The platform’s whole ecosystem is composed of the following:

The Graph’s Protocol Roles (source: The Graph Network In Depth)
- Consumers – These are the users who pay indexers for their searches. It could also be web services or any other software linked with The Graph.
- Indexers – These are the nodes that maintain the indexing function of the platform.
- Curators – Using GRTs, curators identify to the subgraphs the information that is valuable for the platform’s index.
- Delegators – These are other stakers who delegate their GRT to existing indexers and earn a portion of the rewards run by nodes.
- Fishermen – They check whether the network’s response to queries is accurate.
- Arbitrators – They decide whether an Indexer is malicious or not.
The Graph Council

The Graph plans to decentralize its governance in the future. This will most likely be similar with MakerDAO and Compound. At the point of the protocol’s maturity, the team plans to launch a Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO) that would allow core interest groups to participate in important protocol decisions.

Similar to other DAOs, the Graph Council, which will be the governing body for the technical parameters of the protocol, is also in charge of how The Graph Foundation allocates its native, utility tokens.

Among their basic functions include decisions on allocating grants and ecosystem funding, protocol upgrades, protocol parameters, and other emergency decisions.

GRT Token ($GRT)

The Graph Token, or $GRT, is its native ERC-20 based token, which can serve as a medium of exchange and the reward distributed to community participants who function as Indexers, Curators, and Delegators.

GRT token distribution (Image source: The Graph)

GRT also has a vesting and distribution schedule ranging between 6 months to 10 years depending on the bucket. Around 12.5% of the total token supply (i.e. 1,224,999,438 GRT) is expected to be in circulation at launch. However this figure is exclusive of stakeable but locked tokens.

GRT token distribution at mainnet launch

The Graph launched its mainnet at 9:00a.m. (PT) on 17th December 2020. Upon launch, GRT has been distributed to all of the participants of the public sale. Members of The Graph’s Curator Program also received an initial USD $1,000 worth in rewards, with the remainder to be distributed to them on a quarterly basis based on their contributions to the Program.

The Graph Foundation also received around 20% of the supply for the future development of The Graph. In particular, contributors who want to help building on The Graph can apply to their Grants Program, around 1% of the total supply of GRT will be allocated to support these participants in 2021.

Here’s a graph showing the GRT circulation over the course of 5 years from the date of launch (i.e. 17th December 2020 at 9:00a.m. PT)

5-year GRT circulation schedule by Bucket (Image source: The Graph)

Indexers that assisted during the Testnet phase have also ben rewarded between USD$10,000 to USD$100,000 in GRT as a reward for their contributions.

In addition, around 2% of the total GRT has been granted to several Education Programs and loans totalling around 2.5% had been made to independent ecosystem partners.

Indexer Staking

In order for users to stake in the nodes that operate the whole platform and sell their services in the query market, they have to lock their GRT. In return, they are given financial rewards. If the indexers work maliciously, like altering data intentionally, the GRT that they staked will be slashed.

Mainnet now live!

The Graph Network launched its main net on 17th December 2020 after 3 years of development! According to the team the mainnet launch includes the following components: Deployment of The Graph Network contracts on Ethereum mainnet, deployment of the GRT contract, distribution of GRT to takeovers, launch of the Bug County Program and new docs for network roles.

With the mainnet launch, Indexers will first stress test and improve performance before supporting real query volume, which will be upwards of 5,000 queries per second. Of course, there will be rewards for Indexers who will now begin earning on-chain indexing rewards and query fees.

Graph Roadmap: What’s next?

Now that mainnet has launched, The Graph will continue building. The Team has stated that the Graph Foundation will work on building a production-ready Graph Explorer dApp and Gateway that will support all network contributors.

The Graph is also open to any individuals or third-parties that want to build for the network and as mentioned previously, they an apply to the Grants Program or collaborate with other community contributors.

Conclusion

Looking at the current boom of the DeFi space, we can see how important it is for developers to be able to freely access blockchain data. Making the process faster and less difficult for everyone could potentially influence the growth of the space as well as its reliability, security, and capacity.

Everyone saw the need to create a bridge of information between applications and blockchain data. The Graph sought out to answer that.

And with the deployment of smart contracts that depend on user data, The Graph has proven itself to be easy to use, cost-efficient, and fast. The platform is seen as a promising tool to empower everyone in the community, especially those who are developing more use cases for the blockchain.

Decentralised Finance (DeFi) series: tutorials, guides and more

With content for both beginners and more advanced users, check out our YouTube DeFi series containing tutorials on the ESSENTIAL TOOLS you need for trading in the DeFi space e.g. MetaMask and Uniswap. As well as a deep dive into popular DeFi topics such as decentralized exchanges, borrowing-lending platforms and NFT marketplaces

The DeFi series on this website also covers topics not explored on YouTube. For an introduction on what is DeFi, check out Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Overview: A guide to the HOTTEST trend in cryptocurrency

Tutorials and guides for the ESSENTIAL DEFI TOOLS:
More videos and articles are coming soon as part of our DeFi series, so be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our Youtube channel so you can be notified as soon as they come out!

Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.
January 1, 2023
Yearn.Finance merging the DeFi Ecosystem
The decentralized finance (DeFi) space has grown to include platforms in various sectors such as spot trading, derivatives, and futures. Interestingly, some networks such as Yearn Finance support yield farmers and liquidity providers through an aggregation service.

Instead of offering spot trading, lending, or borrowing functionalities, it allows users to deposit funds, then it distributes it based on projected returns and the risks involved.

However, this isn’t enough to drive meaningful DeFi adoption. Therefore, Yearn followed the partnership route to expand its ecosystem and to improve interoperability between DeFi systems.

In this article, we look at the most impactful partnerships in the Yearn ecosystem:
Table of Contents

Toggle
Yearn + SushiSwap

Partnership with Cream Protocol

Akropolis and Yearn

The PowerPool Partnership

The Cover Merger

Pickle and Yearn

Conclusion

Decentralised Finance (DeFi) series: tutorials, guides and more
Yearn + SushiSwap

Yearn x SushiSwap (source: Yearn x Sushi 行ってきます medium article)

On November 3, 2020, Yearn’s creator, Andre Cronje, took to Medium to announce the coming together of his platform and Sushiswap. The connection between the two platforms meets as Sushi improves its automated market-making (AMM) outlooks while Yearn digs deeper into aggregating formulas. These qualities brought a need for cooperation between them, leading to:
- A combination of development resources.
- A rise in the total value locked (TVL) on each platform.
- Working together to develop and launch Deriswap, a platform bringing together spot trading, derivatives, and futures trading.
- Introducing Keep3r Network, an on-chain price oracle on the second iteration of Sushswap.
- Additionally, liquidity providers on Sushi provide collateral for the Sushi money market.
Partnership with Cream Protocol

The DeFi aggregator platform partnered with Cream, a lending network similar to Aave, in developing the system’s second version. With the partnership, the Yearn and Cream team created Cream V2, which introduced or enhanced leverage and lending features. Notably, the new platform enables yield farming using leverage.

Yearn x Cream Protocol (source: Yearn & Cream v2 merger medium article)

Additionally, Cream V2 acts as a springboard to power stable credit and yet-to-be-built lending functionalities. Apart from merging resources allocated towards development and seeing a rise in individual TVL, the partnership saw shares in Yearn Vaults qualify to provide collateral in Cream.

One feature added to Cream’s new version includes rotating multi-signature keys in order to improve deployment, iteration, and testing. Unchanged features include those that touch on governance and native tokens.

Akropolis and Yearn

Yearn x Akropolis (source: μα τον Δια! Yearn x Akropolis medium article)

The partnership is rather a unique one. Why? It aims to bring out the best in each platform’s team. Therefore, each team continues with their previous journey but leans on the other if they need help.

Furthermore, Akropolis users can access Yearn and a host of other networks such as Cream and Pickle. In return, Yearn investors benefit from Akropolis’s investment strategies and a pool of institutional networks. The partnership between the two platforms brought with it improvements on Akropolis.

For instance, there was a development of new vaults, an institutional application, some strategies, and a rotation of multi-signature. In addition, Akropolis’s native token was upgraded to be able to track losses.

The PowerPool Partnership

PowerPool is a decentralized protocol accumulating governance strengths in systems built on the Ethereum blockchain. In short, it brings together governance tokens from a wide range of DeFi protocols, such as Compound and Balancer.

Yearn x Powerpool (source: Yearn Finance Newsletter #13)

The partnership with Yearn Finance connected YFI, the governance token on Yearn, with PowerPool’s PowerIndex. PowerIndex provides a DeFi index inspired by distributed exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The index exudes meta-governance functionalities and contains eight tokens, including YFI.

Note that the meta-governance aspect rides on concentrating user tokens from different DeFi platforms into a single contract. Next, the tokens’ voting weight is delegated to a group consensus. Notably, the contract generates a token that its holders can use to decide the other tokens’ fate in the pool.

So, what does the partnership bring to Yearn?
- Having a share of the index gives DeFi lovers a share in Yearn.
- It increases participation in YFI governance issues.
- PowerIndex supports swapping. Thus, anyone can exchange another platform’s token with YFI and vice versa.
- In return, Yearn benefits from more liquidity. Additionally, pooling YFI helps stabilize its price.
The Cover Merger

Although Cronje formally announced the partnership on November 28, 2020, the two platforms have been collaborating since Cover’s launch. The marriage between the two opens doors to advanced features targeting optimization, among other aspects.

The partnership allows Curve to provide backstop coverage to products built on Yearn. Their coming together allows Cronje’s network to enjoy Cover’s range of coverage known for supporting multiple collaterals. Yearn can mitigate risks for users through vault coverage. That’s not all. Underwriting coverage on Yearn becomes more profitable.

Yearn x Cover (source: Yearn & Cover merger medium article)

Fortunately, the benefits aren’t one way. For Cover, it’s hoisted to expand its wings to unchartered money markets. Additionally, it’s empowered to seek a bigger share of perpetual coverage and other products in the market. However, components such as the native COVER currency remain intact.

Pickle and Yearn

Yearn x Pickle (source: Pickle & Yearn ferment co-operation dill medium article)

This is another key partnership in the Yearn ecosystem. Its uniqueness emanates from the fact that it’s supposed to eradicate duplicate works among the two teams. Doing so lets each team and individuals within a team work on what they’re extremely good at.

As a result, Pickle will launch new features such as reward Gauges. Governing members on the Pickle ecosystem receive DILL tokens when they lock their tokens for governance-related purposes. DILL holders share Gauge performance, withdrawal, and deposit fees.

On the other hand, Yearn users, especially Vault depositors, are incentivized to interact with Gauges through Vault shares. The depositors also receive more rewards by setting aside Pickle tokens to receive DILL. (www.chronicpainpartners.com)

Others benefits originating from the partnership include:
- A merger of the platforms’ TVL.
- Pickle finds its way into the Yearn ecosystem.
- Pickle enjoys Yearn’s security, among other features.
- Pickle’s reward Gauges rake in incentives from Yearn depositors.
- The two protocols’ teams work together on strategy creation and split profits from the strategies.
- There’s an overall increase in rewards for users in both circles.
Conclusion

By expanding the Yearn ecosystem, Cronje and his team seek to build an inter-connected DeFi world. With everything connected to everything, DeFi adoption naturally sets in.

Apart from interconnection and adoption, the partnerships focus on, for example, reducing the duplication of roles within teams working on DeFi projects. This encourages the birth of new products and features to help drive growth in the space.

In the process, DeFi enthusiasts benefit from enhanced products and yields, which further encourage interaction with DeFi-focused systems.

Decentralised Finance (DeFi) series: tutorials, guides and more

With content for both beginners and more advanced users, check out our YouTube DeFi series containing tutorials on the ESSENTIAL TOOLS you need for trading in the DeFi space e.g. MetaMask and Uniswap. As well as a deep dive into popular DeFi topics such as decentralized exchanges, borrowing-lending platforms and NFT marketplaces

The DeFi series on this website also covers topics not explored on YouTube. For an introduction on what is DeFi, check out Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Overview: A guide to the HOTTEST trend in cryptocurrency

Tutorials and guides for the ESSENTIAL DEFI TOOLS:
More videos and articles are coming soon as part of our DeFi series, so be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our Youtube channel so you can be notified as soon as they come out!

Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.
January 1, 2023
Duck Liquidity Pool (DLP) by DuckDAO ($DUCK)
Duck Liquidity Pool ($DUCK) is a DeFi Market Maker protocol, developed by DuckDAO, one of the biggest cryptocurrency community that provides funding and marketing support to early-stage crypto projects.

The boom of decentralized finance (DeFi) in recent months has ushered in a new profit-making strategy for crypto traders, beginners and advanced alike. Decentralized exchanges (DEX) rely on liquidity pools to help power their market-makers. While the Duck Liquidity Pool is a new entrant in DeFi, it has already captured the attention of many users in the space thanks to its high APY and token burning model.

https://youtu.be/8MNKafDgW0o

What is the Duck Liquidity Pool?

The Duck Liquidity Pool (DLP) is DuckDAO’s own market maker. The funds that supply its pool came from the sale of pre-mined tokens and can be accessible in many other protocols and exchanges. In the meantime, projects that are supported by DuckDAO will be the first to be able to tap the pool. The ticker for the pool is $DUCK.

The unique feature that distinguishes DLP from others is its “unilateral burn” strategy, or the one-sided token burn model. It is designed to burn 50% of all earned rewards (more on this later).

The APY level for DLP is high and its suppliers can receive as much as 50% of the profits from market making, airdrop of incubated project tokens, as well as non-fungible token (NFT) campaigns. Such a feature enables yield farmers the ability to earn profit by just providing liquidity to DuckDAO’s market maker.

To participate in the DLP, users have to lock their cryptocurrency holdings by depositing their funds in the pool. In return, they receive DUCK tokens as a reward for supplying funds to the pool.

Duck Liquidity Pool – How it works? (Source: Duck Liquidity Pool (DLP) Blackpaper)

DuckDAO’s Native Token ($DUCK)

DUCK token is the DuckDAO’s native utility token, which also powers the incentive model for the Duck Liquidity Pool. The token has the following use cases:
- Yield farming on Uniswap pools – Staking tokens help contribute liquidity to DUCK and DDIM pools. For this, they earn profit through DLP.
- Reward token for market-making profit – Half of the profit from the market maker is returned to the community who belong to the liquidity pool. If the performance of DLP is good, the profit for the yield farmers grows in proportion as well.
- Project token airdrops
- Non-fungible token as reward
Deflationary Farming: “One-Side-Burn”

This is touted by the team as “Yield Farming 2.0,” which is designed to support a deflationary, unilateral burning of tokens. To understand how this works, we must first look at how the current yield farming mechanism works.

The Usual Scenario for Most Liquidity Pools

Commonly, yield farming pools in the DeFi space look very advanced for the average trader. Not only does this create a psychological barrier to entry, but it also makes profit-making a little more difficult for someone new to yield farming.

Another issue that traders face is the inflationary structure of the incentive mechanism in most liquidity pools. This is because, in order to provide rewards to yield farmers, mined tokens have to be released into the market. This model isn’t designed for long-term effectiveness since with more reward tokens in supply over time, we can expect its value to depreciate as well.

Duck’s Unilateral Burn

$DUCK, on the other hand, is designed to support long-term yield farming strategies. Even beginners on liquidity pools can just stake and earn a part of the profit that DuckDAO’s market maker gets.

$DUCK One-Side-Burn Deflationary Model (Source: DuckDAO website)

One-Side-Burn is a deflationary model that is designed to burn 50% of the carry pair as soon as the liquidity provider decides to cash in a portion of his stake.

What happens in such a situation is that users lose one side of their liquidity as the tokens are burned. And when someone decides to exit the pool completely, his entire liquidity is also burned and further lowers the DUCK tokens in supply.

While this model may seem counterintuitive for profit-earning at first, over-time, the value of the tokens is going to be greater than what it was when a user has staked in the pool. That is why DLP’s design appears to be much better in the long run.

Duck Liquidity Pool Market-Maker Models

Project Token Purchase

DLP purchases tokens in order to facilitate buy and sell liquidity.

Duck Liquidity Pool Business Model – Project Token Purchase (Source: Duck Liquidity Pool (DLP) Blackpaper)

Project Token Borrow

DLP loans tokens against collateral in order to facilitate buy and sell liquidity.

Duck Liquidity Pool Business Model – Project Token Borrow (Source: Duck Liquidity Pool (DLP) Blackpaper)

Fixed Fee Model

The protocol can charge a fixed service fee for listings that have decided to provide buy and sell liquidity on their own.

Duck Liquidity Pool Business Model – Fixed Fee Model (Source: Duck Liquidity Pool (DLP) Blackpaper)

Conclusion

DeFi has enabled the birth of new profit-making strategies for traders in the space. However, whether existing liquidity pools can support long-term yield farming models is another question altogether. DLP’s model, which is powered by the ‘unilateral burn’ design, appears to be more promising.

To be fair, like many other pools, the profit it can generate for stakers is also influenced by the number of users joining the pool. This is why it is important to look into that as well before deciding to lock your tokens and supply liquidity to the pool.

Decentralised Finance (DeFi) series: tutorials, guides and more

With content for both beginners and more advanced users, check out our YouTube DeFi series containing tutorials on the ESSENTIAL TOOLS you need for trading in the DeFi space e.g. MetaMask and Uniswap. As well as a deep dive into popular DeFi topics such as decentralized exchanges, borrowing-lending platforms and NFT marketplaces

The DeFi series on this website also covers topics not explored on YouTube. For an introduction on what is DeFi, check out Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Overview: A guide to the HOTTEST trend in cryptocurrency

Tutorials and guides for the ESSENTIAL DEFI TOOLS:
More videos and articles are coming soon as part of our DeFi series, so be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our Youtube channel so you can be notified as soon as they come out!

Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.
January 1, 2023
Unido ($UDO): Crypto Banking and DeFi for Enterprise
Unido ($UDO), powered by Polkadot, provides enterprises crypto-asset management solutions, that specialize in governance, security, and interoperability within the crypto banking sphere guaranteeing the satisfaction of all users.

Background

Powered by Web3 blockchain Polkadot, Unido was founded by Chris Weddle who has over 20 years of experience within the blockchain sector. The project was initiated in 2017 and is anchored by an experienced team of finance experts, software developers, and blockchain developers. They all come from well-known financial and development firms such as Goldman Sachs, Wipro, and Macquarie.

Unido’s Founder: Chris Weddle (Source: Unido website)

Through the Unido project, the team has successfully managed to solve security and accessibility challenges with its distinct and dynamic implementation of a blockchain-based management tool that facilitates the handling of crypto assets.

What is Unido?

Unido is a technology ecosystem that addresses the governance, security, and accessibility challenges of decentralized applications, and enables companies to manage crypto assets and capitalize on DeFi.

Unido’s distinct protocol facilitates investment in DeFi by leveraging its efficient proprietary and multi-sig key signing technology. Furthermore, users have the unique capability to manage crypto banking operations in complete security.

Under the decentralized platform, assets management enterprises and crypto native companies are ensured agility and efficiency for the custody of their respective digital assets. This creates a strong bridge for firms and organizations to interface with DeFi networks as they remain compliant with licensing and regulatory requirements.

The platform’s algorithm works best by leveraging, as well as supplying clients with a great deal of crypto trading, payments, and banking solutions.

Through Unido’s user-friendly protocol, participants essentially have access to three main features all responsible for the system’s special implementation of the blockchain, namely, Enterprise Crypto Banking Suite, DeFi Vault Access, and Governance/Security features.

Unido Features (Source: Unido website)

Enterprise Crypto Banking Suite

A business banking portal, through which firms can manage day-to-day operations and capital expenditure. This feature empowers users with a multi-user wallet management protocol that creates, assigns, and manages clients’ wallets.

Additionally, it is equipped with user governance tools providing access to rights and access requirements unique to the blockchain solution. Overall, this business banking portal is a simple and intuitive instrument with an interoperable, modular architecture that provides analytics on DeFi transactions, activities, and trends.

DeFi Vault Access

The vault access is a multi-signature enterprise wallet or DeFi vault used to store, manage, and invest digital assets in an efficient and safe manner.

The team behind the wallet describes it as a secured and most importantly, a well-integrated bridge into several prominent DeFi investment solutions such as UniSwap, Yearn Finance, and Balancer. Additionally, the vault provides users with a complete overview of investment opportunities within the DeFi space, as well as potential returns and benefits within specific DeFi networks.

Supported by a portfolio performance dashboard, this feature facilitates the management and investment of digital funds.

Governance and Security

Through this blockchain-based feature, the Unido enterprise platform (EP) provides users with an array of security and management instruments ensuring the safety of all funds within the platform.

The Unido platform guarantees blockchain-based security and agnostic architecture, rendering it versatile and applicable to any given on-chain use cases. Powered by a key signing technology, Unido EP ensures flexible and trustworthy governance, which provides assets access only to permitted entities and parties.

Unido Token ($UDO)

The platform’s utility token, $UDO, is the fuel behind Unido’s efficient implementation as it is used to drive network access, ensure transaction security, governance, and network management. Overall, the token is built on a trustworthy smart contract algorithm guaranteeing the development and expansion of the Unido network in the future.

Furthermore, the token facilitates access to the platform’s variety of products to all users, including institutions and developers. UDO has three main use cases, being network access licenses, consumption fees, and DAO Governance.

$UDO Tokenomics

Total Supply: 115,000,000 UDO

Initial Market Cap: $487,813

Seed/Private/Pre-Public Sale Fundraising: $1,400,000

Seed Sale: $0.04, 0% TGE, 20% monthly unlock

Private Sale: $0.05, 25% TGE, 25% monthly unlock

Public Sale:: $0.06, full unlock

Deflationary Economics:
- Phase 1: From consumption fees, 60% burn, 20% to EDF, and 20% into reserve. Phase 1 when token supply is reduced by 20%.
- Phase 2: After enterprise products take off, 50% of fees to be invested into EDF & 50% into reserve.
UDO Use Cases

Network Access License

All applications and Unido EP features will only be available via a license purchasable with the UDO token. Once the license is bought, the tokens are removed from circulation and placed into a secured smart contract until the license eventually expires.

Companies are provided with annual licenses for the Unido platform, where fees are determined by the volume of usage for the target clients and the number of users.

Consumption Fees

All fees and consumption charges within the Unido ecosystem and auxiliary platform will be based on the volume of usage within the platforms. Additionally, UDO will be used to authenticate each transaction within its parent platform.

All operations from developers will either be charged under a subscription model, Freemium model, paid model, or In-App model, all depending on the user specifications and needs.

DAO Governance

In general, the DAO will oversee Unido’s Ecosystem Development Fund (EDF) and allow for the subsidizing of new applications implementation and development, which will contribute to the diversification of the platform.

Unido Ecosystem (source: Unido one-pager)

Conclusion

Unido EP aims to be a leader within the blockchain space by spearheading the race toward mass adoption; especially within the traditional financial sector. The platform’s drive to provide secured banking management tools is a great boost for wide DLT acceptance.

Overall the Polkadot-based platform is a dynamic implementation of decentralized technology, which guarantees total accessibility and security through key features lacking in most solutions of its genre on the market.

Unido Enterprise Platform is ahead of the curve as it provides a sure connection with blockchain giants, ensuring its growth and development in the future. Unido will likely become a leader within the blockchain given the protocol’s current algorithm and products.

Decentralised Finance (DeFi) series: tutorials, guides and more

With content for both beginners and more advanced users, check out our YouTube DeFi series containing tutorials on the ESSENTIAL TOOLS you need for trading in the DeFi space e.g. MetaMask and Uniswap. As well as a deep dive into popular DeFi topics such as decentralized exchanges, borrowing-lending platforms and NFT marketplaces

The DeFi series on this website also covers topics not explored on YouTube. For an introduction on what is DeFi, check out Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Overview: A guide to the HOTTEST trend in cryptocurrency

Tutorials and guides for the ESSENTIAL DEFI TOOLS:
More videos and articles are coming soon as part of our DeFi series, so be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our Youtube channel so you can be notified as soon as they come out!

Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.
January 1, 2023