DeFi Weekly Vol. #4
Arbitrum Goes Down, The NFT Wars, & Vitalik Disapproves of Cross Chain!
Welcome back DeFi Maxis!
It has been a wild 24-hours let alone entire week, with Arbitrum going down, unscheduled maintenance from Opensea being met with a vampire attack from LooksRare, releasing a community focused competitor to their NFT marketplace, and Vitalik giving Cross Chain apps a thummbs down, Crypto Twitter is losing their minds.
Let’s get into it.
Opinion Piece
Our opinion piece this week comes from our own Chief Maxi @Cryptoucanz writing on the launch of LooksRare, their airdrop, and the NFT Wars.
This article has been copied from his own personal publication here.
LooksRare vs. Opensea: The NFT Wars
Current State of Affairs
After 24 hours+ of Opensea having this warning message as a banner on their site: "Our site is currently under maintenance which may result in delayed collection data." we once again (as if we hadn't already realised this) come to the conclusion that there needs to be a better option.
Although sites like Rarible exist, in terms of transactions, user base, and marketshare Opensea has commanded a near monopoly since the beginning. The issue is Opensea doesn't appear to care about the users, they are a centralised business that acts more in the spirit of web2.0 than they do as a web3 app connecting people in the greatest opportunity and art revolution since the renaissance.
Having multiple bouts of downtime with little to no updates for their user base, sometimes lasting an unacceptable length causing projects to lose traction and creators to miss out on the spotlight they deserve for the hard work that goes into their NFT projects, just isn't the way to instil trust into your community. When you mix this with their lack of giving back (Opensea airdrop when?) it all comes to the conclusion as said before - we NEED a better option.
The Challenger
During the recent "Maintence" that caused many projects who were on an up streak to have their stats glitched and show a lower floor price, causing the project to slow and drop, LooksRare entered the conversation!
LooksRare is a new NFT marketplace claiming to be "By NFT people, for NFT people" - exactly what we need if they can live up to it.
Turning heads with a grand entrance looks rare did an airdrop of $LOOKS tokens in the form of a vampire attack against Opensea, following in OpenDAO's footsteps offering free tokens to Opensea users. Anyone who has spent 3ETH or more on OS is eligible for the airdrop (also available to buy, at the time of launch they could be acquired by swapping on UniSwap).
Off the bat $LOOKS tokens offered utility, LooksRare giving the option to stake $LOOKS on their site, earning WETH and LOOKS tokens (more on this in a moment). LooksRare also allow users to earn $LOOKS by buying and selling on the website
A strong start when up against an organisation that does not give back to their community in any way, but how is it possible? Well 100% of the trading fees form the website are sent to people staking their $LOOKS tokens, allowing the community to essentially fund its self, and rewarding those who believe in the project.
It does need to be said from this writers opinion LooksRare launched this early to capitalise on Opensea's failure as parts of the website are not fully functional (Broken links, incomplete pages etc.), but the main site - buying/selling and staking are all working as planned.
The Tokenomics
LooksRare appears to have a solid plan for their tokenomics, Keeping 10% for their founding team, 10% for the treasury, and distributing the rest of the supply between their airdrop, strategic sales, liquidity management, volume rewards, and staking rewards. The largest percentages going towards Volume rewards (44.1%), Staking rewards (18.9%), and the Airdrop (12%).
Their current token release schedule can be found on the link above.
With this much needed change in the industry towards giving back to community in the way only web3 can and all projects should, we've seen a number of figures within the NFT ecosystem claiming that they will ONLY be using LooksRare from this point onwards.
Look-ing forward
It is far too early to say whether LooksRare is going to be the OpenSea competitor that we need or if it is another Rug looking to capitalise on a community who are desperate for any real competition but one thing is clear, if LooksRare can deliver on what they have promised, they are in the best possible position to make it happen.
All eyes are looking at you LooksRare, we are hopeful and would like to see better infrastructure and community, can you provide?
DeFi News
Out first stories comes in as a topic our team here at Maximal DeFi have very strong opinions about. Writer Samuel Haig cites research that just 1000 full-time devs are maintaining the DeFi ecosystem, the rest working part time or on a project to project basis. Although our staff here are of mixed opinions if having full-time devs when working with DAOs and other open structures is necessary, we are HUGE advocates on more people making the switch to working within DeFi.
Which is why we also run the Maximal DeFi private job board updated with hand curated jobs from the DeFi ecosystem, helping you find the right role.
Devs Flock to Ethereum But Fulltimers Still Sorely Needed as DeFi Expands
just 1,000 full-time devs are maintaining the entire DeFi sector, which currently represents a combined total value locked of more than $200B.
A Story of Scammers, or How Not to Get Scammed
With crypto on the rise and so much attention in the space, scams and scammers are only on the increase.
What happens is you hear about a coin that is new and doing well, and because of FOMO you want to get in on the game. This is exactly what scammers look for and try to exploit.
As with all things in life, it sometimes pays to take a step back and double check what you are getting into.
SPELL Token to Eliminate Emissions
Abracadabra Money ($SPELL), the brainchild of Daniele Sestagelli, is pursuing a model to drastically reduce emissions with the ultimate goal of being a Zero-Emission protocol.
Looking Forward to a Greener Ethereum in 2022
Ethereum developers recognized early on that Proof-of-Work would not be sustainable as the network grew beyond a certain size, and so a multi-year plan to transition Ethereum to a more efficient Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism was set in motion with the launch of the Beacon chain in December 2020.
Top 5 Crypto Moments in 2021
Crypto in 2021 is a year that will go down in the history books.
From the roller-coaster ride in May to new all-time highs in the fall, emotions were constantly shifting. We can also say that 2021 is the first year Crypto was truly introduced to the masses, bringing millions of people into the space.
Creature Toadz & SwampDAO
Born as simply an art project aimed at connecting two different NFT projects, or as the creator Semper Augustus admits "CreatureToadz started as a meme", now is making a hard pivot head first into an Ohm fork, joining the DeFi party with "A plan to unify the NFT community under the vision of financial freedom".
Arbitrum Goes Down Citing Sequencer Problems
Arbitrum, a scaling solution designed to both quicken and reduce the costs of Ethereum transactions, went offline for roughly 10 hours on Jan. 9, according to an administrator in the project’s Discord.
5 NFT-based blockchain games that could soar in 2022
NFTs look ready to rule 2022, and the recent pivot toward NFT utility in P2E gaming could make blockchain gaming this year’s sector darling.
Crypto regulation concerns make decentralized stablecoins attractive to DeFi investors
The threat of stablecoin regulation and USDT and USDC centralization are making decentralized stablecoins like MIM, FRAX and UST attractive to DeFi investors.
Vitalik Buterin gives thumbs down to cross-chain applications
Ethereum's co-founder cites "fundamental security limits of bridges" as the key reason for his disapproval.
Tweets from Crypto Twitter:
