GM Digest #89

Gm with Valuable Alphas / Insights — Make Sure to DYOR. All of This is Not Financial Advice. Ape at Your Own Peril

Oct 18, 2023

Uniswap Controversy

• @haydenzadams, founder of Uniswap announced that the protocol will be implementing a 0.15% swap fee on their web app and wallet interfaces (for the first time)

• Only a certain set of tokens will be affected by the new fee, including ETH, USDC, WETH, USDT, DAI, WBTC, agEUR, GUSD, LUSD, EUROC, and XSGD

• The widespread backlash is seen across CT with some pointing out the mismatch between equity holders (VCs) & Token holders (community). VCs enjoys the swap fee and wants the fee switch turns off. Community would like to see the fee switch implemented, offering value accrual to $UNI

• A case of pure chaos / misalignment between equity & token exacerbated by the 0.15% swap fee (Equity draining value from token)

• Uniswap v4 hook also sparked debate due to its ability to allow users to undergo Know Your Customer (KYC) verification before participating in token pools with many believing that this is the path towards centralization more than decentralization

Thoughts: The way it’s currently structured really incentivizes the shareholders of Uniswap more than the token holders even though the concept of “fee switch” kept on being teased for token holders. It’s why people who buy & hold $UNI keeps on buying & holding — it’s their hopes & dreams. Fee Switch proposal did not pass, the newly introduced 0.15% fees further moved the value accrual that should’ve been for the community to the shareholders.

dYdX Won’t Siphon Value from Token Holders

• dYdX Trading, the company behind dYdX will not earn trading fee revenue from its upcoming v4 platform as it has moved to become a public benefit corporation

• The team is serious about aligning the incentives with the community. It won’t charge any fee like Uniswap. It has been very profitable for the past years and has over 6 years of runway

Thoughts: Gud…

HMX HLP Composition Adjustment

• @HMXorg decided to adjust the HLP composition from 90% GLP → 50% GM (ETH) 40% GM (BTC)

• The move comes after the reduction in GLP yields since the launch of GMX v2. APR has been flowing into GMX v2 GM Pools because of the increase in trader activity on GMX v2 (due to better fees structure)

• GMX v2 GM Pools will get more attractive given the recent Arbitrum STIPs that’ll incentivize GM Pools with 6m ARB (~$5m). Once ARB is deployed, we’ll see a significant uptick in GM Pools APR, further cannibalizing the yields from GLP

• The composition adjustment for HLP will allow liquidity providers to capitalize on GMX growth, earn more organic APR, and more ARB incentive rewards from the STIP

• The change will be implemented ASAP as soon as HMX’s engineering team finishes finalizing the code with GM pools

Thoughts: The move makes it more attractive to provide liquidity on HLP due to the potential increase in APR from traders’ activity on GMX v2 & the ARB STIP rewards. Over the long run, this could be beneficial to $HMX holders as well as HMX emissions can be toned down since the organic HLP / GM Pools yields are high enough to attract liquidity providers

Bracket Labs’ Passage on Testnet

• @Bracket_Labs_ is an Options Trading Platform on Arbitrum that offers structured products for longing or shorting volatility with leverage

• Their 'Passage' product is currently live on Testnet, accompanied by a trading competition. Passage allows traders to take positions on volatility within specific price ranges. For instance, you can choose a range of 28K to 28.5K for BTC and decide whether you believe the price will remain within that range or break out

• Traders who bet on price action staying within the range make a return that increases the longer BTC remains within that range. On the other hand, traders who bet on a breakout make a return if the asset breaks out of the range more quickly

• The counterparty for all these trades is the liquidity vault. Other depositors can add liquidity to the vault and receive a share of the fees in return

• The trading competition will start on Oct 17 and run for two weeks. By participating, you have the chance to win prizes in USDC. Moreover, being an early user may qualify you for additional rewards in the future

Thoughts: Options & DOVs industry have been declining since early 2022 due to the reduction in volatility across markets. Sophisticated market makers tend to buy options to hedge against volatility risk especially during bull market. Since nothing is happening in the market, there’s less demand for Options.

Anichess Alpha Registrations Open

• @AnichessGame is a free-to-play chess game with spells and additional game mechanics aiming to deliver a more modern and immersive experience

• They are a subsidiary of Animoca Brands and have a strategic partnership with Chess . com

• Early Access registration begins on October 17 and closes on October 27. The EA will be available to 2000 players, selected from the pool of registrants based on tickets. Each applicant can have multiple tickets, obtained by sharing your referral link and having people register, or by holding 'Orbs of Power', which are NFTs available for purchase on Open Sea or redeemable with XP earned from completing Zealy quests

Thoughts: Although blockchain games haven't gained significant traction yet, the potential to attract a large number of gamers is evident. Therefore, it might be wise to have exposure to some of the GameFi projects out there. I like this one in particular because of the partnership with Chess . com which boasts over 100 million users currently

NerdBot Reaches 20,000 Users

• @0xNerdBot is a trading and analytics bot on Telegram that you can use to track wallets, receive real-time alerts, and manage your portfolio

• When comparing this bot to its competition, what stands out is the integration of on-chain research features that are supposed to help you make more informed decisions when apeing from your phone

• First, there's the 'On-chain Radar' feature. It provides valuable information on the movement of 'Smart Money', the fastest growing pools, and the top tokens bought by fresh wallets. Next is 'Token Xsight', which offers useful insights on a token, including Mcap, supply, liquidity, contract age, top holders, and similar info. Lastly, there's 'Wallet Analytics', which provides detailed information on wallets, such as win rate, PnL, balance over time, etc.

• The native $NERD token will have a public sale on Oct 23 and you have to be on the whitelist to participate. $NERD will have a total supply of 100M and 10% will be on offer on the sale (10M $NERD) with an initial launch price of $0.065. At TGE 50% of public round will be unlocked and 20% of the airdrop, which should put it at a valuation of around $390K

Wintermute Partners with USDM

• @MountainUSDM is the issuer of USDM, the first regulated & permissionless yield-bearing stablecoin, regulated by the Bermuda Monetary Authority

• Wintermute has partnered with stablecoin issuer Mountain Protocol to strengthen liquidity for USDM. The partnership will let users redeem USDM for USDC at any time via Wintermute's liquidity provisioning while avoiding banking risks to USDM reserves

Thoughts: After witnessing the depeg of USDR last week, it is good to have Wintermute partnering with USDM and backing it, allowing USDC redemption directly. However, it is good to note that this doesn’t guarantee redemptions a 100% and it is still at the discretion of Wintermute

Reddit Sunsets Community Points

• Community Points first launched in 2020 as a way to reward users for constructive activity in certain subreddits, such as receiving a large amount of upvotes for a comment or post, with the goal of augmenting user engagement and communities

• Reddit is pulling the plug on its blockchain-based reward service Community Points three years after its rollout

• The reasoning behind this is due to difficulty scaling and a tough regulatory environment for cryptocurrency projects

Thoughts: The Reddit token $MOON dumped by 85% in the last 24 hours following the news. I feel this is super irresponsible of the Reddit team to launch a token and to discontinue support for it. But this should be a good reminder for everyone that even Reddit could rug you

Misc News

• @AvailProject a modular blockchain announces incentivized testnet

• @Roblox accepts $XRP as payment

• @FantomFDN linked wallet hacked for $550K

• @Platypusdefi recovers 90% of assets that were lost in an exploit

• @Immutable extends 125M $IMX vesting for developer rewards for another year

• @STFX_IO new feature: shareable PnL card

• @vela_exchange 25% trading fee discount on all crypto assets until Halloween

• Everscale token price drops 20% as team says large number of EVER tokens were stolen

• @PythNetwork unveils tokenomics

• Fantom Foundation employee loses at least $7 million of crypto in exploit

• BNB Chain Launches Greenfield Mainnet

Additional Alpha / Random af

• Pixelmon first game, Kevin the Adventurer is launching Oct 24 on Base. You can pre-register HERE

• Staked ETH has grown 17% in Q3 23 with centralization still being the core issue as Lido holds 1/3rd of the entire market share. LST with DVT emerges to support more efficient and decentralized staking

• Mantle, the first L2 building on EigenDA is building out $mETH Mantle’s LSD built on top of EigenLayer (LRT)

• Money Mates is LIVE with $10k TVL

*Reminder to Size Your Entry for Degen Plays and Take Your Principal Out (Take Profits) Whenever You Hit Your Target*

0xJeff’s Substack

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