Boxmining v2

Category: Coin Guide

There are several thousands of cryptocurrencies out there, known also as altcoins. These coins and tokens all have their own unique features and uses, for example, some are used to help decide the direction the creator company should take, others give you discounts or access to special features. The Coin Guide is a concise summary of the aims and technology behind a certain cryptocurrencies. Insight is crucial in this field. Many projects disguise their progress through complicated jargon, making it hard to distinguish those who are building something meaningful from those who are not.

  • Polkastarter ($POLS) – Kickstarter for Cryptocurrencies?

    Polkastarter ($POLS) – Kickstarter for Cryptocurrencies?

    Polkastarter ($POLS) is a cross-chain decentralised protocol, powered by Polkadot, that allows start-ups to raise funds in a decentralised and interoperable environment.

    In 2020, the decentralized finance ecosystem (DeFi) recorded encouraging figures in the number of DeFi protocols, as well as the number of funds locked in these platforms. On the number of protocols, the platforms addressed different spheres such as lending, trading, and insurance.

    Unfortunately, not many protocols touched on revolutionizing conventional fundraising models such as initial coin offerings (ICOs), initial decentralized exchange offerings (IDOs), and initial exchange offerings (IEOs).

    However, projects like Polkastarter are on their way to bring a sigh of relief to startups looking for innovative ways to attract funding. Before we dig deeper into the project and what it brings to startups, let’s take a look at the group behind it.

    Background

    Daniel Stockhaus and Tiago Martins are the top brains behind Polkastarter. As project co-founders, Stockhaus is the CEO, while Martins is the CTO. Notably, the two have vast experience spanning from tech entrepreneurship to software development.

    Other members of the team include Danilo Carlucci and Matthew Dibb. Carlucci is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor, while Dibb is a strategic advisor.

    What is Polkastarter?

    Polkastarter is a decentralized platform enabling startups and other projects to attract capital through token auctions and inter-blockchain token pools. As you would have guessed from its name, the project is built on the Polkadot network that sits on Ethereum.

    Polkadaot Network

    Stockhaus settled on Polkadot because of the network’s major strengths in scalability, speed, interoperability, upgradeability, and governance. To elaborate, Polkadot surpasses Ethereum and Bitcoin transaction speed thanks to its use of parachains, which power horizontal scalability, and Grandpa consensus mechanism, which drives vertical scalability.

    Polkadot’s Proof of Stake consensus, GRANDPA (Source: Polkadot Wiki ‘Polkadot Consensus’)

    Polkastarter taps into these strengths to enable governance through community voting and staking. The network also relies on Polkadot to drive liquidity mining.

    Using these features, the project scores better than existing decentralized exchanges and swap protocols such as Uniswap, Bounce, and Primablock. For instance, these networks don’t support cross-chain pools, while Bounce and Primablock support a limited array of virtual assets.

    Polkastarter’s Use Cases and Major Features

    Polkastarter expands outside the fundraising space to crowdfunding and allows participants to benefit from discounted sales. Additionally, the protocol can increase privacy to over the counter deals by enabling password protection during such trades.

    The network differs from other similar projects since it allows:

    • Inter-chain swaps
    • Fixed and dynamic swaps
    • Community voting on critical governance issues
    • Decentralized and permissionless token listing
    • Comprehensive Know your customer (KYC) procedures
    • Users to spot scams from a distance through a built-in anti-scam feature

    Notably, combining these features brings low-cost transactions, fast cross-chain token swaps, the ability to move virtual assets across decentralized platforms, and a user-friendly design.

    How Polkastarter Handles Fixed Swaps?

    Fixed swaps pools are significant components of the network. Unlike with automated market making, fixed swap counteracts price volatility. Also, fixed swaps provide a greater level of transparency on the amount raised during fundraising.

    Polkastarter employs fixed swap pools instead of AMM swap pools. This approach solves, among other challenges, the risk of private investors artificially inflating the price and dumping their holdings and the cost of token offerings.

    Additionally, fixed swap pools ensure a fair distribution of tokens while eliminating the risk of rug pulls in a liquidity pool.

    Note that instead of using a bonding curve approach to determine token prices in a pool, Polkastarter sets a fixed price when swapping tokens. As such, it’s possible to add other parameters, such as how much a single user can contribute to a project. Additionally, it’s easier to set more parameters to ensure transparency and fairness on new token holders.

    Immediate advantages of using fixed swaps are:

    • The amount raised and tokens sold can easily be calculated.
    • It attracts investors distributed both demographically and geographically.
    • Token holders are given a chance to acquire tokens at a standard price.

    Polkastarter’s Native Token ($POLS)

    Tokenomics

    The network has a native token called $POLS, which it uses for various sections on the platform. POLS’s total supply is 100 million tokens. Exactly 42.5 percent of the tokens were sold during the seed sale, private sale, and Uniswap listing. Other tokens went to the marketing fund, team, advisors, and foundational reserve.

    $POLS Token Distribution & Utility (Source: Polkastarter Docs – What are the Tokenomics?)

    Funds raised during the sales periods went into legal/accountancy (5%), ecosystem growth (20%), liquidity/exchanges (30%), and product development (45%).

    POLS is used on the Polkastarter ecosystem as a utility token. Among its major uses are governance and fees.

    As a governance token, its holders can vote on crucial matters such as protocol features and tokens to be displayed on the network. On fees, transactions on the platform are paid using the native currency.

    Other Utilities

    • Staking – The token can be staked to earn staking rewards on various fronts. For example, it can be staked to receive pool rewards or for pool access. Note that the option to stake POL for pool access is solely upon pool creators. However, the choice is ideal for giving top liquidity providers private access to high-end pools.
    • Liquidity mining – Additionally, Polkastarter’s native currency can be staked to participate in liquidity mining. Rewards are distributed to entities providing liquidity on the secondary markets, among other subsections.

    Two Key Partnerships With Polkastarter

    Although Stockhaus and the team have inked many partnerships with reputable decentralized platforms, two stand out.

    Polkastarter and Covalent

    Covalent is a platform capable of fetching intricate details about a crypto wallet. As such, it allows Polkastarter and its users to check the trustworthiness of a token contract. The users have access to the token contract age, verification, transaction volume, among other details.

    Polkastarter and DIA

    Decentralized Information Asset (DIA) is a platform that provides distributed oracles on Polkastarter. Thanks to the exceptional qualities of its oracles, DIA helps Polkastarter provide warnings against massive price slippage.

    Other partnerships involve Moonbean, Shyft, and Orion Protocol.

    Conclusion

    By using fixed price swaps instead of AMM, Polkastarter sets the bar higher in decentralized funding. It adds the transparency and fairness aspect that has been missing on similar platforms. The projectl’s partnerships with Covalent and DIA gives its users peace of mind knowing that they can pick a suspicious project from the crowd and avoid price slippage.

    Furthermore, Polkastarter’s native token opens the door to distributed governance while giving its holders an extra way to earn rewards through staking.

    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.

  • WAX ($WAXP): The King of NFTs?

    WAX ($WAXP): The King of NFTs?

    WAX Protocol ($WAXP) stands for Worldwide Asset eXchange. They are one of the safest and most convenient ways to create, buy, sell and trade virtual items i.e. non-fungible tokens (NFTs) through an integrated DPoS blockchain platform designed to work hand-in-hand with a microservice layer to improve the digital goods market’s infrastructure. Obtaining WAX knowledge has enabled innovators to develop a highly-connected and sophisticated marketplace that has brought a lot of value in digital goods projects.

    This information here will help you learn how to incorporate the WAX Protocol within the WAX Platform and how the two tools complement each other. It’s worth noting that the WAX Platform is composed of the WAX Protocol and a microservice layer.

    Learn more about WAX with our interview with Evan Vandenberg, Director of Business Development at WAX.

    Profitable digital collectibles and blockchain gaming (with WAX blockchain)

    Background

    The WAX platform was founded by William Quigley and Jonathan Yantis, together they have vast experience in blockchain technology. Quigley is also the Managing Director of Cashel Enterprises, a cryptocurrency-focused investment vehicle which has incubated and invested in over 40 blockchain and cryptocurrency projects. Meanwhile, Yantis also works as WAX’s CEO.

    The global growth of the digital goods marketplace has experienced enormous challenges for the past decade, but WAX technology has helped in finding solutions that spur the development of the sector. Although some users think that the technology has arrived late when challenges are already overwhelming, it’s actually the perfect time since blockchain has matured enough to satisfy the requirements for the WAX system to succeed.

    As the digital goods market continues to expand, it’s essential to acknowledge that tokenized consumer products and virtual items have played an instrumental role in blockchain growth. Virtual items like in video games alone have generated more than USD$140 billion for the market. On the other hand, tokenized consumer products have realized over USD$1.8 trillion.

    Considering that WAX attempts to offer remedies for a marketplace with a combined market value of over USD$2 trillion, it’s easy to realize the magnitude of the problem. The first year of incorporating WAX Protocol operations on major players like VGO and dApps has realized over USD$150 million worth of trading volume.

    What is WAX?

    Wax is a marketplace for digital assets, serving more than 400 million online players that sell, buy, and collect in-game items. Their suite of blockchain-based tools allows people to trade digital or physical items instantly and securely to anyone in the world. WAX’s platform brings together a community of collectors and traders, buyers and sellers, creators and gamers, merchants, creators of dApps and even game developers.

    Examples of what WAX can do include buying and selling gift cards to people across the globe, or building your own online store using the B2B tools created by WAX. WAX also allows people to create NFTs and send them to others.

    WAX Blockchain

    The WAX network works on a consensus model that relies on various WAX Guilds to enhance blockchain production. WAX utilizes Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS), which depends heavily on WAX Guilds to ensure success in blockchain generation.

    The WAX ecosystem has witnessed considerable growth due to the incorporation of the WAX Token Model, which is designed to ensure success in various aspects such as voting, staking, and rewards. The Wax Staking Reward is a feature that has encouraged community participation because it allows users to vote and access rewards.

    With WAX tokens, users have immense options to explore. For instance, if staked WAX tokens haven’t been placed, a token holder will require platforms such as Scatter and Lynx to automate the process.

    WAX Tokens ($WAXP)

    WAX tokens ($WAXP) power the entire WAX ecosystem. They are used to reward participants in the chain and enable contributors to receive ten times the number of tokens purchased. This strategy makes it easier to calculate all microtransactions on the platform.

    One benefit of owning WAX tokens is that you get to earn even more tokens by voting for WAX guilds. This is called the WAX staking reward. This process is hassle-free and takes just a minute or two to join. Furthermore, you can unstake your tokens at any time.

    WAX and DeFi? WAX’s new tokenomic model explained

    In a recent announcement, WAX mentioned they will have a new tokenomic model hoping to capitalise on the rapid growth and popularity of NFTs and decentralised finance (DeFi). Their plan is to link the value generated from creating, selling and trading NFTs to Ethereum. WAX considers it different from other DeFi platforms because they consider these activities to be able to provide a sustainable source of value to stakers.

    How the new WAX inter-blockchain tokenomic model would work is that the operational functions of NFTs would still be done on the WAX blockchain, whilst Ethereum will become, “…the capital vault of the WAX NFT empire”. There are 4 components to this new tokenomic model, namely:

    • WAXP to Ethereum bridge: this new bridge will enable WAXP token holders to convert their tokens into WAXE.
    • WAXE: WAXE is a new Ethereum ERC20 utility token. Participants of the WAX tokenomics will need to burn their WAXP tokens to get WAXE tokens via the Ethereum bridge. They would then stake the WAXE in the Ethereum Distribution Contract.
    • WAXG: WAXG is a new Ethereum ERC20 governance token which will be distributed to WAXE stakers based on a set timetable and proportionate to their percentage of the WAX Economic Activity Pool. Token holders will be able to govern the allocation and distribution of economic value on the platform.
    • WAX Economic Activity Pool: This is a smart contract which will accumulate a percentage of generated WAX fees to be converted to ETH for distribution to WAXE stakers or given to WAXG token holders that decide to burn their tokens.
    WAX tokenomic process
    WAX tokenomic process (Image credit: Medium)

    For full details of WAX’s new tokenomic model, check out their article on Medium.

    WAX Guilds and Rewards

    A WAX blockchain contains 21 WAX Guilds that qualify to earn a reward. Remember, blocks can only be produced after the chain meets the threshold to earn rewards. The rewards are awarded depending on the number of blocks that every WAX Guild can produce. Standby Guilds are considered as backup operators that help to generate a chain on request.

    WAX Performance Metrics

    WAX has been configured in such a way that it releases two blocks per second. It’s worth noting that each WAX Guild can only produce one block at a time. If a block fails to come out at a specific time, other blocks will jump the queue to ensure a continuous process.

    A block that has been skipped will contend for a space in the memory pool to compete for guilds’ inclusion in the next turn. More than 3000 blockchains are usually transacted each second in the WAX system. The transaction rate is two times swifter than the VISA system can procure in the same period.

    The Future of WAX technology

    WAX Platform doesn’t only work to offer remedy for the current problems but also offers a roadmap for future operations. WAX Developer Hive is tasked with the duty of technical service provision, tutorials, and other simulations. Besides, WAX developers equally provide vital resources that make implementations successful.

    The technology has also incorporated features that will make it convenient to evaluate whether the system passes the transparency test among communities.

    Also, there’s room to allow interoperation with other chains to enhance performance. NFTs are among the candidates that need microservices and can thrive with the WAX Platform.

    Conclusion

    Gamers from across the world can substantially benefit from its secure and decentralized digital items marketplace. As WAX Platform continues to provide more improvements, developers will find several ways to create features that would better serve gamers in terms of digital goods trading.

    The platform is also expected to play an instrumental role with digital media and is set to welcome over three billion users in the coming five years.  

    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.

  • Poolz.finance ($POOLZ): boosting the potential of cryptocurrency projects?

    Poolz.finance ($POOLZ): boosting the potential of cryptocurrency projects?

    What is Poolz.finance ($POOLZ)?

    Poolz.finance ($POOLZ) aims to be the bridge between cryptocurrency projects and early investors.

    Poolz.finance has already integrated Ethereum, Polkadot and Tomochain. Projects can simply sign up with a simple Google form on the Poolz official site and they would help launch token sales on the Poolz platform.

    In addition to launching token sales, Poolz can also help projects fundraise flexibly by allowing them to specify lock-in periods whereby only after the specified period expires can investors receive tokens for their swapped amount. On the other hand, pools of tokens camn also be created for a project’s token so investors can get immediate access to the project’s tokens.

    To catch up with the yield-farming craze, Poolz also provides staking-as-a-service, allowing projects to set up staking for their token. And with that of course also brings concerns for security, which Poolz does recognise and therefore can allow projects to request token audits.

    Check out our interview with CEO and Co-founder Guy Oren.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efMxFtJLTY8&feature=youtu.be

    Poolz decentralized NFT auction house

    Poolz is also capitalizing on the popularity of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) by allowing cryptocurrency projects to auction their NFTs on the Poolz auction house. Poolz has integrated the ERC-721 standard, which allows developers to code the owners’ identity and address into the NFT- making each token unique and ensuring that each NFT only has one owner.

    During this initial phase, projects can sell their NFTs for ETH and DAI. However, it is expected that more payment methods will be accepted in the future, such as the project’s native cryptocurrency or other stablecoins.

    $POOLZ token holders get exclusive benefits on Poolz’ NFT auction house such as price benefits and special access to the “last call” feature. Poolz’ “LastCall” feature comes after the conclusion of the “open” auction phase. Once the “open” auction for the NFTs are closed to the public, the “LastCall” phase opens whereby the NFT pool is exclusively open for POOLZ token holders to make their bids- thus increasing their chances of getting a winning bid before the auction finishes.

    What is the $POOLZ token and its uses?

    $POOLZ is Poolz Finance’s native ERC-20 token. $POOLZ token is mainly used as user incentives, governance, staking, token burns and project development.

    Incentives. include exclusive benefits in the NFT auction house and better swap ratios for pools running on their platform.

    Governance. The Poolz platform will implement the Proof of Stake (PoS) mechanism. This allows POOLZ holders to have voting rights when they stake their tokens in specific wallets.

    Staking. According to the Team, POOLZ token holders can get passive income from staking them in particular ERC-20 wallets. In return, these token holders will get staking rewards.

    Token burn. Poolz will use 16.67% of its daily earnings to buy $POOLZ tokens from the market and burn the same, subject to an upper limit of 20% of the POOLZ supply. This keeps the supply of tokens low.

    Project development. Poolz has reserve tokens that are allocated for future development such as marketing, exchange fees for listings, and long-term liquidity.

    $POOLZ tokenomics

    1/3 of the total $POOLZ token supply is locked and will be released over a period of 10 years. The Poolz team believes this model will ensure a low supply and keep prices high, and to show that they intend to stay with this project for the long haul.

    The allocation of $POOLZ is as follows:

    • 2.2M POOLZ (44%): Public and private sale
    • 800,000 POOLZ (16%): Staking rewards. This will be circulated in the form of average annual yields to those who stake their tokens in a compatible wallet. 80,000 POOLZ will be released each year for 10 years (i.e. 1,539 tokens per week).
    • 800,000 POOLZ (16%): Swapping rewards. These will be rewarded to liquidity providers on the participating pools on the platform. 80,000 POOLZ will be released each year for 10 years (i.e. 1,539 tokens per week). This may be subject to change via governance decisions.
    • 600,000 POOLZ (12%): Reserve. This will be for future initiatives and to support the community.
    • 375,000 POOLZ (7.5%): Team. For incentivizing the Poolz team and will be distributed over 6 months of equal vesting after a lock-in period of 1 year.
    • 125,000 POOLZ (2.5%): Advisors. Given to advisors as incentives over 1 year of monthly vesting.
    • 100,000 POOLZ (2%): Liquidity fund. This is for providing liquidity on Uniswap and other exchanges.

    $POOLZ token sale

    • Total Supply: 5,000,000 POOLZ
    • Initial Market Cap: USD $423,500
    • Fully Diluted Valuation: USD $3.5M
    • Private and public sale: 2.2M POOLZ (44% of total supply) will be allocated for private and public sales.
    • Pre Seed: 100,000 POOLZ at USD $0.35: 3 months initial lockup, then 8.33% released monthly.
    • Strategic Round: 400,000 POOLZ, at USD $0.455: 10% released upon Token Generation Event (TGE), then 9% released monthly over a period of 10 months.
    • Private Sale 1: 700,000 POOLZ, at USD$0.47775: 20% released upon TGE 20%, then 20% released monthly.
    • Private Sale 2: 900,000 POOLZ at USD $0.50050: 25% released on TGE, then 25% released monthly.
    • Auction Pools: 100,000 POOLZ at USD $0.7: no lockup period.

    The USD$1m private sale of POOLZ has already been completed and was oversubscribed by 25x. More details on the private sale.

    POOLZ token release schedule
    POOLZ token release schedule (Image credit: Medium)

    $POOLZ public token sale

    On 15th January 2021, $POOLZ will do a public sale by way of an Initial DEX Offering (IDO) and Uniswap listing.

    The IDO will be held on the Poolz platform itself so that after it goes live, you can directly buy $POOLZ from their own platform. Afterwards, $POOLZ will be available on Uniswap. There is no minimum purchase amount for this IDO.

    Note the IDO has sold out in 18 seconds

    How to buy $POOLZ on Uniswap

    The $POOLZ token will be listed on Uniswap from 15th January 2021 onwards, meaning that users will be able to buy $POOLZ on Uniswap. Buying $POOLZ can be done in 4 easy steps:

    Step 1:On Uniswap, select which cryptocurrency you want to trade $POOLZ with in the “From” row. Note that Ethereum is set as the default.

    Step 2: Set to swap for $POOLZ tokens. In the “To” row, enter the correct Poolz address. Be very sure that the address is correct or else you could risk losing your funds.

    Step 3: Enter the amount of $POOLZ token you want to obtain. Once you’ve entered the amount of $POOLZ token you want to buy, double-check the swap details and click “Confirm swap”.

    Step 4: Confirm purchase on MetaMask. After confirming on Uniswap, you will be taken to MetaMask to confirm the payment. Click “confirm”. Once the payment is processed you will receive $POOLZ tokens in your MetaMask wallet.

    Is Poolz safe?

    Poolz Finance engaged Arcadia for an independent security audit of its smart contracts. Poolz reports that Arcadia did not find any issues with their smart contracts.

    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.

  • Enjin (ENJ) Explained: Blockchain Gaming Platform

    Enjin (ENJ) Explained: Blockchain Gaming Platform

    Enjin is a blockchain gaming platform focused on the creation of digital collectible items that are truly owned by the user. The platform offers methods for creating digital assets (known as ERC1155 tokens) for use across multiple Video Games. Their uses include collectible art or even in-shop coupons. Blockchain gaming allows gamers to have true ownership of their in-game items and trade them for value.

    Enjin Platform uses Blockchain technology for these key benefits:

    • True item ownership – with transactions that cannot be censored powered by the Ethereum blockchain.
    • Convenient Exchange of value – digital items can be traded or sold instantly. The Enjin Wallet also allows users to access decentralised exchanges such as Kyber Network and Changelly.
    • Reserve Value – unwanted digital items can be “melted” into the Enjin Coin cryptocurrency.
    • Single Wallet for all items – the Enjin Wallet users to keep all digital assets in one single location.
    • ERC-1155 Token Standard – a superior version of the ERC20 and ERC721 token. Its transaction bundling and multi-send features mean it will save users’ costs.

    What is Enjin Coin (ENJ)?

    Enjin coin’s (ENJ) value comes from its use case as a stored reserve value in every item created on the Enjin Platform. $ENJ is locked up when items are created and released when items are destroyed.

    Items store (lock up) a certain amount of ENJ, with items such as the infamous “Monolith” storing 1,155,777 ENJ. ENJ from items can only be extracted by destroying the item (“via the melting process”). This creates a situation where more and more ENJ is locked up and overall supply is reduced as the platform is used by more games.

    #meltismurder
    Popular meme “Melt is Murder” discourages the destruction of items

    In terms of economics ENJ is a scarce resource and each game acts as a “value trap” for ENJ – locking up ENJ reserve and increasing the scarcity of $ENJ. With a limited supply of 1,000,000,000 $ENJ, this cryptocurrency acts as a form of “Digital Gold” – its value determined by the dynamics of supply and demand within the game’s ecosystem.

    Enjinx showcases all valuable assets and games on the Enjin Plastofrm

    Cross-game items – Enjin Multiverse

    One of the unique advantages of Blockchain gaming is the ability to create items that can be used across different games by different developers. This means players can carry their items between games like it is a single world (also known as the Multiverse).

    Multiverse items are possible because assets are stored on a decentralised blockchain – so independent developers can all access the item. To encourage the development of cross game items, Enjin announced its newest asset the Stormwall. It is an example of what we can expect with its gaming assets. Stormwall is a shield that moves across Enjin’s Multiverse of games.

    In the below video we see Stormwall being as a playable item in 32 different games including 9Lives Arena, Age of Rust, Cats in Mechs and more.

    Why is a Multiverse Beneficial?

    One of the biggest questions asked about cross-game items is – why is it beneficial for game developers and players? For developers, supporting cross-game items mean that they gain the benefits of additional exposure from games participating in the multiverse and increased retention from players who want to test out the item. This is especially important in this age as player attention is extremely valuable and having players “check out” how an items works in a different game drastically improves player interest.

    For players, having cross-game items mean that their items are naturally move valuable, especially long term value. This means that the effort used to earn valuable items are not wasted if they can be used in new upcoming games.

    The Enjin Coin Ecosystem

    Enjin have created an entire ecosystem where you can create, store, trade and use these items.

    • Enjin Wallet – Cryptocurrency wallet to safely store cryptocurrencies, blockchain gaming assets and exchange value. For more information check our EnjinWallet review.
    • EnjinX – Blockchain explorer to view transactions and items
    • Unity Plugin – Allows game developers to directly implement and issue items in games on multiple platforms like iOS, android, PC and MacOS.
    • Marketplace – buy and list items with the safety of smart contracts that independently facilitate the trade.
    • The Enjin Ecosystem

    Enjin for Mobile Games

    One of the biggest use case for non-fungible tokens is in mobile games. Mobile gaming is currently valued at $63.2 billion USD globally and growing on a year by year basis (Source: newzoo). Enjin has a direct partnership with game engine Unity which hosts the Enjin SDK which allows for easy integration of Blockchain assets directly into the game.

    Enjin Partnerships

    Enjin has a strategic partnerships with increase the rate of adoption of Blockchain Gaming and growth of the ecosystem. On the gaming side there is a partnership is with cross-platform game engine Unity with the introduction of the SDK

    The Enjinwallet has recently become the first wallet to offer full Binance Chain and all BEP-2 (Mithril, ChangeNow) based tokens.

    Enjin and Samsung Partnership

    Samsung’s s10 presentation at MWC Barcelona 2019 that broke the internet

    Enjin has been partnered with smartphone manufacturer Samsung Electronics to as a technology provider. Enjin Wallet directly interacts with the Samsung’s Blockchain Keystore, a trusted zone on new Samsung devices which is specifically designed to key cryptographic private keys safe. Samsung will also support Enjin’s ERC-1155 token standard and increase the adoption of Blockchain based non-fungible tokens.

    Enjin and Microsoft Partnership

    Microsoft Azure Heroes using Enjin ERC 1155
    Microsoft Azure Heroes using Enjin ERC 1155

    Microsoft has chosen Enjin as technology provider with the deployment of Azure Heroes, a program that will directly use ERC-1155 non-fungible tokens as a reward. This Blockchain-based reward will be given to contributors who help produce material for the Microsoft Azure platform, with participants given cute badge(r)s. For example, makers that contribute to the developer community or content heroes will be given rare badgers.

    These collectable badgers are a proof of achievement as an Azure Hero which you can show off on your social media. As these are tokenized assets on the blockchain, they cannot be faked. So no fake achievements or heroes here!

    https://twitter.com/AzureHeroes/status/1310851813164412928

    Enjin has entered the (DeFi) game

    Enjin Coin (ENJ) is now supported by the Aave Protocol. This means users can deposit ENJ in the Aave Protocol and earn interest whilst others borrow your ENJ. The Aave Protocol protects your deposits as it is controlled by immutable and transparent Ethereum smart contracts. Your ENJ is also secured by other cryptocurrencies left on the Protocol as collateral.

    How to connect Enjin Wallet to Aave Protocol

    Now with the Enjin-Aave partnership, you can directly interact with the Aave Protocol with your Enjin Wallet (which in our opinion is the best mobile wallet EVER). Here’s how: On the Enjin wallet, go to “DApp Browser”. On the search bar, go to app.aave.com. Click “Browser wallet” and when asked to choose your market, choose “Aave Market”.

    Connect Enjin Wallet to Aave Protocol
    Connect Enjin Wallet to Aave Protocol

    Enjin and BMW

    After much speculation, Enjin has confirmed they are partnering up with BMW to integrate Enjin Coin token swap into BMW’s Vantage App. The Vantage App is a Korean customer loyalty app for car-owners. Users can use the app to pay for goods/services such as gas, highway tolls and parking fees. There will also be referral rewards for dining and shopping.

    Purchases on the BMW Vantage app are rewarded with BMW Coins which can be used as spending for various activities and be swapped for ENJ.

    Note the token swap feature is not available on the Vantage App yet and according to Enjin, more details will be available once it is live.

    Enjin putting property on NFTs with LABS Group partnership

    Enjin is helping LABS Group put property on NFTs and the blockchain with its partnership.

    LABS Group will be using Enjin’s NFT minting platform to tokenise real estate on the blockchain. LABS Group will be offering fractionalized deeds of real estate for as low as USD$100, allowing retail investors (particularly millennials) to finally enter and invest in the real estate market.

    The range of real estate on offer will include buildings, hotel rooms and apartments. Trades will all take place securely through the regulated LABS Security Exchange.

    This marks the introduction of blockchain into the world’s oldest and largest asset class, valued at approximately USD$228 trillion.

    Enjin enters Japanese cryptocurrency market

    Enjin will be the FIRST gaming cryptocurrency to be listed on Japanese cryptocurrency exchanges. And it is going straight for the top with one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges- Coincheck.

    Enjin ($ENJ) will be listed on Coincheck from 26th January 2021.

    This is a significant first step for Enjin into the Japanese market. Enjin’s aims are twofold- for ENJ to be approved by Japan’s finance regulators and to promote adoption of the Enjin Platform in the Japanese gaming industry.

    This listing was one and a half years in the making, having to pass the rigorous auditing and monitoring of the Japanese Virtual Currency Exchange Association (JVCEA)- formally recognised by Japanese financial regulators, the Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA). The approval process for cryptocurrencies in Japan is notoriously difficult, with only 15 cryptocurrencies (including Enjin) being approved for listing on Coincheck.

    Japan also has a fiercely competitive cryptocurrency exchange market with over 20 exchanges in operation. Coincheck is one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in Japan based on volume, founded in 2014 with over 1.7m users and counting, and prides itself on being the top downloaded cryptocurrency app in Japan.

    As Enjin now has its foot in the door of the Japanese market, the Enjin team is now in discussions with various domestic companies and projects. With Japan being the pioneers of the gaming world (think Super Mario, Pokemon and Final Fantasy), it will be interesting to see what innovations Enjin can bring to the space.

    See Enjin’s official announcement on the Coincheck listing.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    Does it cost ENJ to transfer tokens on Enjin Chain?

    Enjin isn’t a blockchain, rather it’s a project built on Ethereum. In order to transfer Items (non-fungible tokens), you’ll need to use ethereum (similar to how ERC20 tokens work). In the future Enjin is explorer additional scaling options (Efinity) to allow for free item transfers.

    What is the most EXPENSIVE item on ENJIN

    The Monolith is the most expensive item on ENJIN, with 1,155,777 ENJ locked in the item. At the time of writing, this item is worth $168,000 USD!

    What makes ENJIN valuable

    ENJIN is a scarce resource, used to lock value into ever item created on the ENJIN platform. This means as time progresses and more games create items on ENJIN, more and more $ENJ will be locked up creating scarcity in supply

    Where can I buy Enjin

    $Enj is listed on all major exchanges, such as Binance.

    Other Resources:

    EnjinX – Blockchain explorer that tracks the Ethereum Blockchain, ERC-20 and ERC-1155 items
    Egamers – Enjin Games news website
    Everything Enjin – Great site covering Enjin Related News
    Multiverse Era – Telegram Channel about the Enjin Multiverse
    Castle Crypto – Coverage of Enjin games
    AsiaCryptoToday – cover of Enjin Platform

    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.

  • DAO Maker ($DAO): can retail investors become venture capitalists?

    DAO Maker ($DAO): can retail investors become venture capitalists?

    One notable challenge for every startup is finding the required capital to set up businesses. This is where concepts like venture capital help such businesses to meet the required level of capital to help them blossom. However, this has traditionally been a field accessible by funds and institutions with ample resources.

    DAO Maker is here to improve the process for both parties by respectively creating growth technologies and funding frameworks for startups, and reducing risks for investors.

    Background and Team

    The Founder of DAO Maker is Christoph Zaknun who entered the cryptocurrency space in 2017. The idea of private permissionless money and the gains associated with cryptocurrency lured him further into the creation of ICO DOG, a platform that allowed for investing in token presales.

    His Co-founder, Giorgio Marciano, also acts as DAO Maker’s CTO. Marciano has over 16 years of experience in developing software and products.

    Other notable team members include Hatu Sheikh, who has overseen over 35 crypto assets marketing campaigns, and Malte Christensen, who works as the COO and Head of Sales, Dima, who works as the Head of Visual Communication.

    What is DAO Maker?

    DAO Maker is a provider of a participation framework that allows retail investors (small-scale investors) to participate in global retail venture capital. Essentially, the primary goal of DAO Maker is to raise a fundraising platform that would allow for equal participation of crowd equity and tokens.

    The reality is that most of these small-time investors are likely unable to afford to invest large sums of money in venture capital. DAO fills the gap by enabling the average man on the street an opportunity to grow his own capital. This creates a win-win situation, the business is able to effectively provide a new source of funding while at the same time helping to improve the lives of many.

    Achievements of DAO Maker

    The platform has over time proven itself to retail investors. In the last 2 years, over 70,000 unique retail investors were signed up and allowed to participate in the funding of early-stage ventures. Apart from attracting investors, DAO Maker has also been able to attract startups with enormous potential to join the burgeoning ecosystem.

    Advantages of DAO Maker

    One major reason these startups join the DAO Maker ecosystem is simple: it provides them a safe, decentralized, and free environment that allows them to reach their potentials. In addition, the platform also has one of the leading solutions that would allow for the growth of these companies.

    As a result, the ecosystem has seen a marked increase in the demand for its services, which enabled them to begin working on a permission version.

    DAO Maker’s approach to fundraising stands out since not only does it connect startups with funding, it also assiduously works to assist them in facing challenges in the initial stages of their development.

    This is why the track record of the fundraising platform has defied many market cycles.

    DAO Maker’s Venture Bond

    DAO Maker’s new flagship product is Venture Bond. It allows startups to issue bonds that users can access, whilst users benefit from close to zero-risk venture investments.

    Venture Bonds work as follows:

    • startups issue Venture Bonds;
    • users purchase these bonds, giving the startups a principal sum of money;
    • startups then use the principal sum generated by bond purchases to generate interest through insured margin funding activities in decentralised finance (DeFi) or centralised finance (CeFi);
    • the generated interest serves as the funding for the startups;
    • the startup will then deposit tokens/equity to the Venture Bond holders; and
    • when the Venture Bond matures, the principal sum is returned to the buyer, so they are left with both their initial funding and also any newly acquired tokens or equity.
    DAO Maker's Venture Bonds
    DAO Maker’s Venture Bonds (Image credit: DAO Maker)

    Other DAO Maker Services

    Other notable services of DAO Maker are Refundable Strong Holder Offering and Dynamic Coin Offering.

    Strong Holder Offering

    Strong holder offerings are designed to build a community that would actively participate in providing an increased level of awareness for a company, and at the same time, induce confidence by imposing a strict refund policy.

    DAO Maker strong holder offerings
    DAO Maker strong holder offerings (Image credit: DAO Maker)

    Dynamic Coin Offering

    For dynamic coin offerings, 100% of the circulating supply is backed by a notable portion of the funds raised during the sale.

    DAO Maker then escrows this fund through a trusted and insured custodian, allowing the platform users the opportunity to claim a refund within a specified period.

    Social Mining

    One of the earliest offerings of DAO Maker is Social Mining, which has played a pivotal role in the successful launch of some tokens in the space. The software was conceptualized in 2018, and since then, it has seen various upgrades and usage, which made it an essential part of the DAO Maker community.

    What social mining does is simple; it enables any project to create token-based incentives that encourages community members to offer value. In other words, it helps energize a project’s community to participate in its growth and development.

    The first use of this software was with LTO Network, where it served as a core component in the community creation of the project, and subsequently enjoyed tremendous growth despite the bear market of 2018. Despite the notable success of this first project (LTO), there were still some notable lapses like the dependence of the software on centralized involvement, which negated the core idea of building a decentralized and self-organizing community in the first place.

    However, since then, the team of developers have developed the software to allow pluggable DAOs and also allowing for stake-based voting. The voting allowed the community to determine the value each token holder contributed to the project. This voting system became a quite effective distribution network that was decentralized as token holders were the ones in charge.

    As it stands, work has already begun on the two key pathways social mining is being geared to: granting permissionless support for tokenized startups and permissioned access for equity startups.

    DAO Maker Token ($DAO)

    DAO, the protocol’s native token currently allows its holders to stake in the platform and enjoy governance power in submitting proposals, as well as vote on them.

    By participating in governance, stakers would also receive a part of the fee generated from the source. And in order to promote long-term participation, the staked DAO tokens are locked for a period of time.

    As can be seen below, more utilities for the DAO token are in the works.

    Conclusion

    The idea behind DAO Maker is to create a platform where startups can enjoy early stage exposure from retailers. Thus, DAO Maker could be a single platform that elevates the capabilities of ordinary retail investors. The platform would also enable them to be issued with equity, while others are issued with tokens. All in all, the platform will enable varying levels of downside protection as early-stage startups face inevitable risks in their early days.

    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.

  • DODOEx ($DODO): A Revolutionary On-Chain Liquidity Provider

    DODOEx ($DODO): A Revolutionary On-Chain Liquidity Provider

    DODO Exchange ($DODO) is a platform that supplies on-chain liquidity in order to support the Proactive Market Maker algorithm (PMM) to provide everyone with pure and contract-fillable liquidity on the blockchain.

    Overview

    The dawn of decentralized exchanges (DEXs) and decentralized finance (DeFi) brought with it automated market-making (AMM). Unlike in centralized exchanges, AMM doesn’t rely on buyers and sellers for a trade to take place. Instead, smart contracts sit at the center of the trade with liquidity pools providing the reserves.

    Unfortunately, in the DeFi scene, the AMM approach has faced challenges as to how to address issues such as slippage and impermanent loss effectively. As a result, platforms such as DODOEx are using a fined-tuned formula known as proactive market maker (PMM) which provides minimum slippage and improved fund utilization. Here, we take a close look at DODOEx, its contribution to the DeFi world, as well as what makes it unique.

    Background

    DODOEx, founded by three veterans in the blockchain industry, who has huge influencing power in China’s DeFi Community – Mingda Lei, Qi Wang and Diane Dai.

    Mingda Lei, he is the architect behind this new market-making algorithm for the protocol. He was a Physics PhD dropout from Peking University. He used to worked for a China-based DeFi project called DDEX as the key developer of the project. The second co-founder is Qi Wang. He is the founder of DOS Network, a China-based layer two oracle project. Before entering into the crypto industry, Wang used to worked as a software developer for firms like Pure Storage and Oracle. The third co-founder, Diane Dai, she started the first subscription-based WeChat channel that focuses on DeFi in China called DeFi Labs.

    Apart from the influencing team, DODOEx is also backed by many prominent investors such as Framework Ventures, DeFiance Capital, Pantera Capital, Binance Labs, Coinbase Ventures, Alameda Research, SevenX Ventures and more.

    What is DODOEx?

    Simply put, DODOEx is a decentralized liquidity provider using a new market making strategy. Notably, the new algorithm differs greatly from the AMM approach common with popular DEXs and/or DeFi platforms such as Uniswap and Curve.Finance.

    For example, instead of spreading funds uniformly over a price range, PMM allocates funds with close respect to market prices. One disadvantage of equally allocating funds is that only those funds with a close connection with the market price get utilized in trades. Therefore, in an AMM scenario, there’s a huge difference between the liquidity provided and the liquidity that is actually in use.

    DODO Exchange
    DODO Exchange (Image credit: DODO Exchange Website)

    How DODOEx Uses PMM to Beat AMM

    Compared to Uniswap’s AMM, DODOEx’s PPM has a better trading amount-vs-price curve. Why? Because, being a proactive formula, it reacts to the changes in the market price to effectively shift the price curve in a similar direction. Consequently, the section around the market price is considerably flat, ensuring sustained liquidity provision and utilization.

    DODOEx-Proactive Market Maker
    DODOEx – Proactive Market Maker (Image credit: “DODO: A Revolution in On-Chain Liquidity” Medium Article)

    Furthermore, apart from shifting the curve, DODOEx unlinks the base currency from the quote currency in a trading pair. Interestingly, this results in less risk and allows liquidity providers (LPs) to use the token at their disposal.

    For instance, if it’s an ETH-DAI trading pair, the LP has to deposit either ETH and DAI. Under these circumstances, DODOEx presents numerous advantages to traders and LPs

    Advantages of DODOEx to Traders

    • Although the protocol is decentralized, DODOEx traders have enough liquidity close to what is offered by centralized platforms.
    • There’s a possibility of having price differences between other exchanges and DODOEx which can be commercialized by arbitrageurs.
    • Liquidations, auctions, and other on-chain activities powered by smart contracts can utilize liquidity from DODOEx.

    Advantages of Using DODOEx as an LP

    • By unlinking the base and quote tokens, LPs can use any asset type at their disposal.
    • No minimum restrictions on deposits.
    • LPs share the network’s transaction fees.
    • LPs don’t incur price risks when depositing their own tokens.
    • They can use their coins to create trading pairs.

    DODOEx’s Native Token ($DODO)

    DODO is an ERC-20 token and forms DODOEx’s native currency. DODO is the platform’s governance token. DODOEx’s governance structure consists of three decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO); admin, risk control, and earn.

    The admin DAO is responsible for overseeing all the decisions made on the DODOEx ecosystem. Being the administrator, it has a considerable influence on the other DAOs.

    The risk control DAO, as the name suggests, deals with the system’s risk features. Earn, on the other hand, governs how incentives are shared on the platform.

    DODO token distribution
    DODO Token Distribution (Image credit: “Announcing the DODO Token and Initial DODO Offering” Medium Article)

    DODO’s total supply is 1,000,000,000 tokens which are allocated to the core team (15%), investors (16%), initial liquidity provision (1%), operations/marketing (8%), and lastly, the DODOEx community takes 60%.

    DODO’s Initial DODO Offering (IDO)

    The IDO was held on 29 September 2020 on DODO Exchange platform. DODO Exchange has listed the DODO-USDT trading pair. 1% of the total DODO supply is locked in the DODO liquidity pool and the initial offering price is $0.10 per token.

    Earning DODO: Staking and Mining

    The DODOEx system provides two ways to earn DODO tokens; staking and mining.

    Staking

    This involves locking your present DODO token holding and acquiring more tokens in the process. This can be done by:

    • Accessing the exchange through app.dodex.io.
    • Connecting your wallet through MetaMask.
    • Click “mining” on the upper far right corner.
    • Select DODO.
    • Click stake (note that there’s no way to edit the stake or unstake amount. Therefore, you can either stake or unstake your entire DODO balance).
    • Confirm your option on the exchange and on the wallet.

    Mining DODO 

    It involves providing liquidity in any supported trading pair using the pool tab. To access the pool option,

    • Visit app.dodoex.io.
    • Connect your wallet through MetaMask.
    • Select “Exchange” from the top right.
    • Click on “pool” and select your preferred pair. Note that you can deposit any coin on the trading pair. For example, if it’s the ETH-UDSC pair, you can deposit either ETH or USDC.
    • Click “Deposit,” define the token amount you wish to deposit, and select “Confirm.”
    • Access your wallet to confirm the transaction after which you click the “mining” button on the top right corner.
    • Approve the transaction and confirm it in the popup window that appears. In effect, another approval is required since you are now dealing with DLP tokens allocated from depositing your cryptocurrency on the above steps.
    • In the last step, confirm and stake.

    Core Components of the DODO Contract Framework

    A set of smart contracts powers the DODOEx protocol. However, for optimal interaction, these smart contracts are divided into three core components. They include:

    The Core – This holds all the ecosystem’s data and logic. It consists of the transparent proxy contract and the logic implementation contract.

    DODO contract framework
    DODO Contract Framework (Image credit: DODOEx ‘Smart Contract Framework’ Github)

    The Entrance – The entrance contract helps in streamlining activities on the transparent proxy contract, which is associated with oracles and fine-tuning parameters. Consequently, it helps mitigate the losses for users.

    The Helper – This section of the DODOEx ecosystem holds contracts that are meant to help remove the complexity of the platform away from its users.

    Conclusion

    The network’s next-generation liquidity provision algorithm ensures high fund utilization and ensures LPs don’t lose value between depositing and withdrawing, commonly known as impermanent loss.

    In addition, DODOEx is beneficial to both traders and liquidity providers. For example, it provides enough liquidity for traders and LPs share a section of the system’s transaction. Also, DODO mining and staking enable investors to increase their token holdings.

    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.

  • Coin DeFi($COIN): Cross-chain P2P DEX powered by AI?

    Coin DeFi($COIN): Cross-chain P2P DEX powered by AI?

    Coin DeFi ($COIN) aims to disrupt finance services by democratizing the industry, returning financial sovereignty to the people via decentralized Finance (DeFi). Through Coin Protocol, anyone can make cross-border and peer-to-peer transactions with ease and convenience, without incurring expensive fees. It also offers greater profit-generating opportunities through its stake-based incentive program.


    Background

    Coin DeFi is a project founded by Damon Nam (also the project’s CEO), who worked with Microsoft for 16 years, and has more than 20 years of experience in the tech industry. The team’s CTO, Byron Levels, also worked with Microsoft for 8 years.

    A group of advisors coming from different fields of expertise is supporting the development of the platform. These are professionals who have been known to work on blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), and marketing initiatives, such as Christina Apatow, founder of FetchyFox, Pete Cashmore, founder of Mashable, Alex Mashinsky, founder of the Celsius Network, and Jeremy Gardener, founder of Augur.

    What is Coin DeFi?

    Coin DeFi is an Ethereum-based DeFi platform designed to facilitate a peer-to-peer transaction system that implements a community-based governance model. Through the platform, users can conveniently conduct cross-border money transfers, purchase cryptocurrencies, and earn additional profit from their assets through staking.

    There are two main components to the Coin ecosystem, namely, the COIN protocol and COIN token.

    COIN Protocol

    The COIN protocol is the project’s blockchain platform powered by smart contracts. The deployment of smart contracts enables the network to achieve greater performance and scalability while facilitating peer-to-peer transactions without the need for any third-party oversight.

    The COIN token is the backbone of the protocol’s economy. It is the platform’s native cryptocurrency asset that primarily functions as a medium of exchange as well as a staking token. It is also required for the execution of smart contracts on the platform and in backing the incentive scheme for the protocol’s liquidity providers. More details on this later.

    COIN Exchange

    The platform also features a non-custodial, peer-to-peer crypto-assets exchange. COIN Exchange is a cross-chain, decentralized wallet and exchange supported by smart contracts that enable atomic swaps complemented with AI technology.

    Some of the digital assets that can be traded in the protocol are Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and a selection of ERC-20-compliant tokens. Since the platform features cross-chain atomic swaps, a user can trade any token with another digital asset through the platform, even if they belong to different chains.

    To facilitate these peer-to-peer trustless, and cross-chain swaps on the exchange, it utilizes Hashed Timelock Contracts (HTLC). Basically, this is a system that requires transaction recipients to first acknowledge payments by way of a cryptographic proof within a defined time period, which is also the same technical framework implemented in Bitcoin’s Lightning Network.

    Liquidity

    Liquidity is a common concern amongst many decentralized exchanges (DEXs). To address this, COIN partnered with Coinbase to leverage their order books. This is facilitated by a matching algorithm that combines the liquidity in COIN and Coinbase order books.

    What the platform earns from transaction fees, they use for their COIN buyback programs and pool deposits. Here, half of what they earn is redistributed to liquidity providers and market makers as a reward. The rest is allocated to buy COIN tokens back to support its supply of liquidity and staking reserves.

    Governance Model

    The governance of the platform follows the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) model, one that is community-driven.

    In this framework, COIN holders are considered the protocol’s stakeholders. Developers on the platform can propose protocol amendments, upgrades, features, and other changes, which stakeholders have to vote on before they are deployed. If the community doesn’t agree with any proposed modification on the protocol, it can be rejected by the community if it doesn’t garner enough votes.

    Coin DeFi’s Native Token ($COIN)

    COIN is the platform’s native utility token. Apart from functioning as a medium of exchange, the token can be used to pay for the platform’s transaction fees, staking, and voting. The incentive system of the platform also utilizes COIN tokens as its rewards.

    COIN is also a network access token, which means that the token is required to execute smart contracts, represent their voting rights, and compensate liquidity providers.

    $COIN Buybacks (Source: CoinDefi Pitch Deck)

    Staking

    $COIN can be used to supply liquidity to the platform. Furthermore, there are smart contracts designed to enable staking functions on the protocol. COIN holders only need to deposit their tokens and lock them in smart contracts. In return, they can earn additional COIN tokens as a reward.

    The reward for stakers is in proportion with the amount that they staked, prevailing interest rates, and the duration of their stake.

    A portion of the COIN tokens deposited on staking smart contracts goes to the platform’s staking reserve. This is used to supply funds that are redistributed to long-term COIN stakers. Around 25% of all COIN tokens in circulation fills the supply of this pool.

    $COIN Distribution (Source: CoinDefi Pitch Deck)

    Coin DAO

    The protocol also enables the implementation of a DAO, through a stakeholder model represented by COIN tokens, which enables the community to gain better control over the direction of the platform, including the introduction of new products, amendments to the existing protocol, and other forms of protocol modification, through a stake-based voting system.

    COIN holders can deposit tokens in the governance smart contract within the platform. The amount of tokens that holders lock in these contracts guarantee them an equivalent voting power on the platform. For example, a user who has locked 100 COIN tokens gains an equivalent of 100 votes as a consequence.

    Conclusion

    There are a lot of DeFi projects in the cryptocurrency space today. While Coin DeFi’s objective is a promising alternative away from the traditional financial system, it certainly comes with a lot of other competitors in DeFi offering the same financial products and services as well.

    From where the project stands today, it still has a lot to prove when compared with the more prominent DeFi platforms and exchanges. Perhaps its biggest strength is its AI assistant implementation to support platform users, but we have yet to see how that will be developed for the benefit of its user base. As a relatively young DeFi project, how it will grow its own community in the months ahead is going to be a significant factor in assessing how successful the project can be.

    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.

  • Atari ($ATRI) – Powering the Gaming Industry

    Atari ($ATRI) – Powering the Gaming Industry

    Atari, the pioneer of the videogame industry, is venturing into the crypto space by creating their own token, Atari Token, ($ATRI), to power the future of the interactive entertainment industry. The global entertainment and media market is projected to be worth approximately $2.2 trillion by 2021. Interestingly, gaming is continually accounting for a more significant chunk of the industry’s value and is projected to be worth $200 billion within the next few years, according to Statista. With the integration of blockchain technology and the Atari Token, the company believes that this will revolutionize the global gaming industry.

    Background

    Atari token is developed by icons in the gaming scene, Atari. The firm has over 200 games under its name. If you are a gamer, their titles would not be able to you as games like Pong, Missile Command, and Roller Coaster Tycoon were once very popular.

    Atari has been developing games since 1972. Therefore, its knowledge of the interactive has been enjoyed by gamers through generations.

    Notably, to be alive from 1972 means that the company has been able to adapt to the changing needs in its environment swiftly. It’s this open-mindedness that has seen the introduction of the Atari Token. Frédéric Chesnais leads the project as the CEO, with Manfred Mantschev heading the business development division.

    Atari's Partners
    Atari’s Partners (Image credit: AtariChain Website)

    Additionally, the project has partnered with notable firms in the cryptocurrency and blockchain fields. They include the Litecoin Foundation, Arkane Network, Chain Games, and Blockchain Game Alliance (BGA).

    What is the Atari Token ($ATRI)?

    Atari Token ($ATRI) is a blockchain-based currency aimed at streamlining payments in the interactive entertainment space. The token is developed using Ethereum’s ERC-20 standards and is powered by the Ethereum blockchain.

    However, before expanding to the entire area, the token sought to first make an impact on the gaming ecosystem. Although the project is driven by a blockchain system with a relatively low transaction speed (around 20 transactions per second), the network is exploring a layer-two scaling solution to enhance the network speed.

    With the token, the Atari team is keen on removing the barriers presented by other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. For example, instead of limiting themselves to particular use cases, the cryptocurrency can be used in a wide range of use cases in the long run.

    Simply put, the Atari team is keen on developing a token that can be used in everyday activities even outside gaming.

    Atari Token ($ATRI)
    Atari Token ($ATRI) (Image credit: AtariChain Whitepaper)

    Despite being an in-game currency, ATRI can be exchanged for real-world items. Also, it can be converted to fiat.

    ATRI is stored in an ATARI Omni wallet that’s available on iOS and Android-powered mobile devices. The wallet has notable functionalities such as:

    • Support for human-readable addresses.
    • Chat support.
    • Ability to send payments through SMS, Email, and chat.
    • Ability to initiate crypto-based payments via a credit card.
    • Support for government-issued currencies such as the Euro or Dollar.
    • Also, with the right regulatory approvals, the Atari Omni wallet can swap crypto for fiat.
    Atari Ecosystem
    Atari Ecosystem (Image credit: AtariChain Website)

    ATRI occupies a critical role in the Atari ecosystem. For instance, the token is used to power activities on smart contracts. In addition, it acts as a medium of exchange on supported platforms. As a start, the token forms a key pillar in the Atari system that has the Atari Casino, Atari Exchange, and Atari Betting.

    Atari ($ATRI) Public Sale

    The public sale of the Atari Token will begin on 29 October 2020 on Bitcoin.com Exchange. The price per token is set at $0.25 per token with a hard cap for the public sale of $1 million. The Atari Token will be listed on the Bitcoin.com Exchange following the completion of the public sale. For more information, please refer to their telegram or twitter.

    Atari Tokenomics

    The circulating supply of Atari Token is 65,389,000 and the total supply is 7,771,000,000. Atari Chain applies a token burn/buyback economic policy that aims to track network growth, demand and usage with the emission of new tokens into circulating supply. Any unsold tokens during the Private or Public Sale will ultimately be burned.

    Atari Tokenomics
    Atari Tokenomics (Image credit: Atari Tokenomics)

    Atari Token Governance

    Since it’s a community-focused project, the governance of the token is done through a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). But, the basic rules have to be developed before welcoming community involvement. Therefore, the project will smoothly transition from centralized to decentralized governance.

    However, after decentralization, the Atari network will have 12 distributed parties that will oversee consensus among the Atari community.

    Advantages of ATRI

    Within such an expansive industry, such as interactive entertainment, the token has a wide range of advantages. Top among them include, but not limited to:

    Easy Integration

    The token is built to be the universal token on gaming platforms. For this reason, the fact that it is based on the Ethereum protocol puts it at its rightful path, considering that the blockchain platform has more than triple the number of developers compared to other decentralized networks.

    High Liquidity

    ATRI banks on attracting liquidity from a multitude of internet-based entertainment platforms. Notably, the coin will be integrated on platforms that are secure, as well as with high transaction volumes.

    Auditable

    The cryptocurrency industry has been filled with scams and poorly secured platforms for a long time, leading to security breaches and loss of investors’ funds. ATRI solves this by opening up to independent audits. This powers secure smart contracts and prompt the use of standardized safety policies. (https://www.srmfre.com)

    ATRI Use Cases

    The token can be used by gamers and developers alike. For gamers, the ATRI is ideal for making micro-transactions inside games, making digital representations of avatars, and allows participation in casino games centered around cryptocurrency.

    Atari’s Vision (Image credit: AtariChain Website)

    Developers, on the other hand, enjoy an enhanced payment process during development and an incentive to build blockchain-based games. For example, developers can easily integrate in-app purchases and collaboratively program, test, and translate their work.

    Conclusion

    In an industry expected to reach a valuation of 2.2 trillion US dollars, putting those who matter, gamers and developers, at the heart of the growth is the key to foster a motivated community and a vibrant interactive entertainment industry. This can only be achieved through innovative solutions like the Atari token.

    From powering in-game purchases to facilitating chat-based payments, ATRI sits at the core of the gaming sub-industry and forms a core pillar in the entire internet-based entertainment sector. Through its key partnerships, easy integration, high liquidity, and openness for auditing, the Atari token is ready to conquer all the sectors of crypto-based online entertainment.

    Importantly, its success in these realms would naturally lead to its adoption for daily uses outside the entertainment space.

    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.

  • Yield ($YLD): An Incentivized P2P Lending dApp?

    Yield ($YLD): An Incentivized P2P Lending dApp?

    Yield ($YLD) is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency lending/borrowing platform with incentivized mechanism. Decentralized finance (DeFi) has opened new profit-making avenues for people who have additional funds to spare. Instead of just keeping assets in their wallets, DeFi has introduced several models in facilitating peer-to-peer lending and borrowing. Holders of digital assets can now earn interest income from supplying their funds to those who are willing to borrow. Yield introduced an individualized lending pool for each user who wants to earn interest income from their assets.

    What is Yield?

    Yield is an Ethereum-based, peer-to-peer cryptocurrency lending platform. It connects available lenders to borrowers without the need for any third-party to permit the approval of loan requests. Lenders can also conveniently place their offers on the platform which will then link to current requests.

    Yield Lending Page (Source: Yield ‘Lending’ Beta App)

    Loans made on the platform can be repaid anytime the borrower wishes to. Furthermore, lenders receive a fixed and guaranteed interest income which starts with 2% of the principal amount of the loan.

    The borrower also earns YLD as a reward for paying their loans. As of now, the reward for borrowers stands at up to 350 YLD.

    Yield Lending Page (Source: Yield ‘Borrowing’ Beta App)

    This peer-to-peer set-up for a lending platform is cheaper and more profitable for both the lender and borrower, as opposed to the traditional system of lending. After all, in conventional financial firms, looking for available borrowers who will not default on their loans is difficult. On the other hand, borrowers also find it difficult to pass the rigorous financial standards imposed by traditional banking institutions for their lending instruments.

    The Yield project is still in its Beta stage. There are no recent updates yet as to when the program will be launched on the mainnet.

    With Yield, the power to leverage on one’s assets is vested to the owner. Not any bank nor any other financial institution.

    How does Yield Differ from Other Crypto-Lending Platforms?

    Loans made on Yield do not follow the money-market model in supplying funds to borrowers. What does this mean? Let us first take a look at how its competitors do it.

    The biggest crypto-lending platforms, MakerDAO or Compound Finance, for example, have their own pool of funds for specific digital assets available for lending. This is what users see from dashboards that reflect a list of ERC-20 assets, or whichever asset the platform is supporting.

    The pools from these platforms come from users who lock their tokens in smart contracts that are designed to supply the requests of borrowers. The supply of these tokens and the number of its borrowers affect the calculation of its annual percentage yield (APY). So normally, the change in the depth of the pool also impacts its APY.

    While the commonly employed method of lending in most platforms ensures that lenders earn interest from their idle assets and borrowers have funds to access, there are some disadvantages as well.

    One disadvantage that Yield is trying to address is the potential volatility in lending APY. Since the APY for asset pools are automatically computed, lenders do not have control over it. This affects borrowing rates and the amount of profit lenders can earn from supplying funds to a pool.

    And most of the time, borrowers lose out on these market shifts, specifically because this can lead to higher collateralization requirements and risks of liquidation.

    Personal Non-Pooled Loans

    Loans made on Yield are individualized. This means that the supply of a particular asset that you are offering will not be affected by other loan offers since it is not pooled. There are no supply-to-borrower dynamics that will drive wild fluctuations in a lender’s expected APY as well.

    In these loans, borrowers stand to benefit from the transaction too. Yield rewards good peers: those who pay their loans through its native token $YLD. This is expected to incentivize lending and borrowing, a feature that not all crypto-lending platforms have.

    $YLD Token

    $YLD token is the platform’s native utility token. Interest fees on any asset borrowed from the platform are paid in YLD. Transaction fees also use $YLD.

    According to the team behind the project, the purpose of these fees is to discourage malicious actors from taking advantage of the platform and incentivize user activity.

    YLD’s token supply model is deflationary, which means that each time YLD is used to pay for transaction fees, the YLD is burned.

    Additionally, holding YLD gives them benefits such as a 25% discount from transaction fees, an increase in YLD rewards for borrowers, and lower collateral liquidation ratios for borrowers.

    Yield Garden

    Yield has also set up a liquidity staking pool. Through the Garden, users can stake their YLD and earn rewards in doing so. Available staking pairs are YLD-ETH and YLD-RFI.

    Yield Garden (Source: Yield website – The Garden)

    According to the team, the Garden is powered by a slightly modified version of the smart contract from Ampleforth’s (AMPL) geyser. There is a cooldown period for stakers (the time that stakers are not yet allowed to unstake or withdraw) which is set at 7 days.

    Unstaking also incurs 0.75% unstaking fees if it is done earlier than 14 days since the initial stake, 0.5% after 14 days but before 27 days, and 0.35% after 27 days.

    As of now, there is already a total of $2,456,403.31 staked in the platform.

    Conclusion

    While the DeFi space is still relatively young, it certainly has a lot of potential in helping cryptocurrency holders make the most out of their assets. There are a lot of projects today in the space that aims to provide passive income to asset owners and Yield is among those. As new as it is, the approach of the project in the business of crypto-lending seems positive and promising.

    However, how this new approach will work in maintaining a steady supply of funds for borrowers to tap remains to be seen. As of today, Yield’s individualized pooling method on loan supply cannot assure that there will be enough assets to borrow every time. Even with all things considered, Yield is still definitely a project that the DeFi community has to watch out for.

    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.

  • Keep3r Network ($KP3R): Everything you need to know about Andre Cronje’s latest experiment

    Keep3r Network ($KP3R): Everything you need to know about Andre Cronje’s latest experiment

    Keep3r Network ($KP3R) (“Keep3r”) appeared out of nowhere on 28th October 2020 with a Medium article by its creator, Andre Cronje. It is described by Cronje as an “…agnostic, easy to implement, incentivization layer for routine ecosystem maintenance.” Cronje is arguably the the “Father” of decentralised finance (DeFi) and Yield Farming, being the creator of the widely successful yEarn Finance ($YFI) which eventually spawned multiple clones and projects inspired by YFI. Keep3r is another one of Cronje’s experiments, and as per his usual “I test in prod” approach- he will launch the product FIRST, then do the necessary testing etc. Despite Cronje’s repeated and clear warnings on this, many still hope for a quick profit and thus throw their cryptocurrencies at the product as soon as it goes live.

    Background

    As mentioned in the introduction, Keep3r Network had small beginnings as a Medium article and subsequent Twitter post by creator Andre Cronje. Owing to his reputation in this space (his first project YFI grew from USD$0 to USD$300 in market capitalisation in a mere 2 months and spawned the current DeFi wave), many see that whatever Cronje touches turns into gold and so “aped” in by buying up the KP3R token as soon as it listed on Uniswap. Immediately upon launch, prices of KP3R were going up at the rate of around USD$1 per minute. This of course resulted in the word being further spread around social media, and more people decided to join in because they did not want to miss out on this opportunity.

    What is Keep3r Network ($KP3R)?

    Keep3r Network ($KP3R) can be described as a “job matching” network for Job posters looking for “Keepers” to do tasks for them, together with an incentive mechanism for all the parties involved.

    What are Keepers?

    Keepers are persons/teams with technical knowledge who are able to take up Jobs, for example, flash liquidation, providing Uniquote price feeds, collecting harvests, and Metawallet batch executions. These are simple manual tasks but can be tedious as it needs to be done regularly. For example, collecting harvests from yield farming is something that generally needs to be done every day. These tasks are usually done by the programmer i.e. Cronje himself, but it would be time-consuming for them to do.

    What are Jobs?

    In the Keep3r Network, anyone can add a particular Job for someone to do. Jobs are smart contract calls that want an external entity to perform an action in good faith and without any malicious intent or outcome. So they would register themselves as a Job on the Network and provide the relevant documentation and details such as job name, address etc.

    The Keeper i.e. the person/team would then register themselves as being able to perform the job and execute on the Job’s contract. Keepers have the freedom to set up their own DevOps, infrastructure and create their own rules to complete the job.

    This process is all done on-chain, and the advantage of this is that everyone can confirm that a particular task has been done.

    The Keep3r Ecosystem

    Having discovered that the Keep3r Network has the potential to be more than a job registry, creator Andre Cronje has decided to combine all of his projects under the Keep3r ecosystem to be one large liquidity ecosystem: options liquidity mining (olm), fixed forex and some other v3 liquidity incentives Cronje has in the works as follows.

    Keep3r Eden

    Keep3r Eden is a rule set to order transactions within a block in a way that is fair and transparent. This is important for the Keep3r Network since it prevents keepers and jobs from being front-run yet giving them priority access to block space.

    Keep3r is partnered with Eden Network. Through Keep3r’s acquisition of 602,409 EDEN, Keep3r is able to guarantee that it will be an anchor slot tenant. This allows Keep3r jobs to by default have the benefits of MEV and front running protection, as well as priority block inclusion. And if users use the Eden RPC, they also have private transactions.

    Keep3r’s Fixed Forex

    Fixed Forex aims to bring forex markets into DeFi by allowing for deep on-chain forex liquidity- this provides an alternative to USD denominated stable coins (i.e. USDT, BUSD etc).

    Keep3r’s Fixed Forex is a liquidity incentive and fee claim system for Iron Bank’s Fixed Forex. The IBFF and veIBFF tokens will be merged with the KP3R and vKP3R tokens. At the same time, the fee claim of approximately $60k/week will move to vKP3R.

    Fixed Forex is partnered with zarp.cash, their token ZARP is a cryptocurrency pegged to the price of the South African Rand (ZAR) on a 1:1 ratio. For security, ZARP tokens are stored in a treasury account and are independently audited by Kempen Audit. Therefore, according to the team, “ZARP is the only fully backed, transparent and audited stablecoin for the South African Rand”. ZARP is intended to be used as a representation of the Rand in DeFi. Other currencies such as EUR, KRW, GBP, CHF, AUD and JPY.

    Keep3r OLM (Options Liquidity Mining)

    Keep3r’s generalized OLM platform for projects allows them to have an instant options-based reward incentivization program. vKP3R holders benefit from this platform as 1% of all exercised option fees will go to them- this will mean around $100k/week in fees will go to vKP3R holders.

    Keep3r v3 liquidity incentives

    There is a liquidity mining program launched on Keep3r v3 for Uniswap v3. Liquidity providers (LPs) will be able to deposit their UNI v3 NFT positions and earn KP3R. 50% of fees earned will be distributed to vK3PR holders.

    Keep3r wonderland

    Keep3r Wonderland (also known as DeFi Wonderland) is an activist fund that provides capital and developmental support to protocol development projects.

    What are $KP3R tokens?

    $KP3R is the native token for the Keep3r Network and having more KP3R represents a higher “reputation” in the Network. As an example, say a Job requires someone to collect a harvest from the YFI contract. This task could impact the prices of different cryptocurrencies and lead to people front running. So you want the person completing this task to act in the interests of everyone and not be selfish.

    This is where the KP3R token comes in. Those who complete tasks are rewarded with KP3R, this will be equivalent to the gas spent on the transaction plus a premium, the amount of which depends on the complexity of the Job. The more KP3R tokens you have, the higher your “reputation” in the space and as a result you can take on higher-end jobs. It is also worth noting that there is a mechanism for slashing your bonded KP3R if you are found to be a malicious actor.

    By default, this is in the form of bonded KP3R but you can unbond it to become normal KP3R.

    Advantages and disadvantages of keeping bonded KP3R

    Advantages of keeping bonded KP3R include:

    • Higher bonds increase the types of Jobs Keepers can qualify to do;
    • only bonded KP3R grants voting rights in governance; and
    • bonded KP3R cannot be exploited. This is in case a Job introduces an exploit.

    Yet the disadvantage of keeping bonded KP3R is that you cannot immediately recoup ETH for Keeper transactions. Meaning that Keepers had to keep an unbond days amount of ETH as a float. A solution to this is MetaKeep3r (see below).

    What are $rKP3R tokens?

    rKP3R are redeemable KP3R tokens. They are wrapped KP3R tokens that have the option to be exercised as a KP3R CALL option at a 50% discount at any time. Note however that once created, you only have 24 hours to exercise the CALL, failing which the option will simply expire.

    rKP3R can be earned by providing curve.fi/factory. liquidity to ib forex assets or uniswap v3 liquidity to KP3R/ETH (with more pairs to come soon). Furthermore, all distributed KP3R rewards will be in the form of rKP3R for composability with Curve Gauges, Sushi Onsen, etc.

    Holders of rKP3R can redeem for the KP3R CALL by selecting “claim” on fixedforex.fi/options. It will then display under “strike” the USDC amount you would have to pay for the amount of KP3R should you choose to exercise the option and the expiry date. If you wish to exercise this option, simply click “redeem”. The amount of USDC would be transferred to the treasury address which then distributes all fees to vKP3R holders.

    Keep3r tapped into Chainlink’s highly secure and fault-tolerant oracles to advance its services. Although the two have similar functionalities, they serve different target markets.

    For example, Chainlink serves companies that require loads of always-online, secure, and fault-tolerant data i.e. the Fortune 500 companies.On the other hand, Keep3r is developed for apps yet to become a Fortune 500. That is, companies still in the research and development stage. Therefore, the coming together of the two protocols smoothens the process of switching to Chainlink when an application’s off-chain data needs to increase.

    Most importantly, the cooperation allows Keepers who have already done a substantial number of jobs to become eligible to be part of Chainlink’s node operators running critical jobs. When Keepers upgrade to become Chainlink node operators, they will transition from using K3PR to using LINK for payment and staking.

    $KP3R prices

    $KP3R launched at around USD$1 per token. However, due to speculators rushing in after hearing of a new Andre Cronje project, prices for the token shot up by 27x within 40 minutes- at around the rate of USD$1 per minute. As word quickly spread about KP3R, more people bought in for fear of missing out, resulting in prices skyrocketing even higher.

    Prices reached an all-time high of USD$1,385.62 on 11th November 2021.

    Keep3r how-to guide and tutorial

    For more details, please check out the Keep3r Network documentation.

    How to register as a Keep3r

    On Keep3r Network, connect your Metamask wallet. If you don’t have one yet, check out our Metamask guide.

    Create a bond by clicking “add”, input your amount of KP3R (you can even join without any tokens by inputting “0”) and confirm by clicking “add” again. After 3 days you will be able to activate your Keeper.

    Create a bond
    Create a bond

    How to perform jobs

    Currently available jobs are listed on the main page. You can click on them to find out more details about the job such as the relevant documentation and the credits (in the form of KP3R) you can receive for the job.

    Job details
    Job detail

    With the newest update, you can also use OpenZeppelin Defender with Keep3r Network. OpenZeppelin Defender is a wrapper for smart contract developers to automate maintenance tasks such as calling specific functions to manage the protocols on these contracts. This is helpful to developers as traditionally they would have to periodically do these tasks manually. Furthermore, the underline layer is written by the OpenZeppelin team (a security audit firm) which would bring stability to the DeFi ecosystem.

    How to register a Job

    Jobs can be any system or task that requires external execution. Jobs can be registered in 1 of 2 ways, either through governance or the contract interface.

    Registering a job through governance is probably the easiest method as it only requires you to submit a Governance proposal which includes the relevant contract as a job. No further action is required if your governance proposal passes. Cronje has stated in his interview with Synthetix that currently, it is relatively easy to pass this proposal as the quorum requirements are not high.

    The other method i.e. contract interface is slightly more complex and requires calling the add liquidity to job function on the Keep3r contract. However, you must not have any current active jobs associated with the account to do this and you can only create a Job through this address every 14 days.

    How to collect credits for Jobs?

    As seen in the Job interface, completing Jobs gets you credits in return. To collect these credits you will need to provide KPR-WETH liquidity in Uniswap, and you will be given an equal amount of KPR tokens in return. Note you are not required to purchase KPR tokens.

    By default, this is in the form of bonded KP3R but you can unbond it to become normal KP3R.

    MetaKeep3r: How Keepers can instantly recoup their gas fees

    According to Cronje’s Medium article, MetaKeep3r keeps the “maintenance” of Keepers to a minimum. By using MetaKeep3r with OpenZeppelin defender, Keepers can instantly recoup their spent gas in the form of ETH. This is really important considering there had been previous “gas wars” when DeFi fever was at its highest- basically any benefit that could have been derived from a particular transaction was less than the amount of gas fees which was required to execute the transaction.

    As mentioned previously, Keepers that complete Jobs are rewarded with KP3R. By default, this is in the form of bonded KP3R, and whilst keeping bonded KP3R has its advantages, one issue is that ETH cannot be immediately recouped.

    Now with MetaKeep3r, you can immediately get ETH in return for trading bonded K3PR. How this works is that MetaKeep3r would keep the bonded KP3R and swap it for ETH as compensation for gas spent on Uniswap.

    Note however that a minimum bond of 100 KP3R is required for MetaKeep3r.

    Special thanks goes to Alvin and Crypto Warrior from our Telegram community for their valuable input into this article!

    Further resources

    Videos

    Boxmining explains Keep3r Network and his story with KP3R
    Synthetix discussion about Keepers with Andre Cronje from Keep3r.network

    Articles

    Andre Cronje Medium
    Keep3r Network documentation

    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.