Wrap-up — Week #19

Ahoy pirates! There is no better time than an unchained raging hurricane to dive into summaries of the Firebird AMA and latest Deck Talk.

Firebird AMA

Could you introduce Firebird and the team behind the project?

Firebird is a DeFi aggregator. The platform started as a yield aggregator on Polygon and diversified as an aggregator because it could deploy quickly on any EVM chain and therefore move liquidity around where it is required. We are now present on seven chains, including Fantom, in which our product is the most optimized one.

How do you make your onboarding decisions?

We do both inbound and outbound sourcing for new token integrations. We have built a very sophisticated system to measure some key metrics that allow us to stay competitive in our selection. For example, we monitor token listing priority through in-depth trading volume analysis. This helps us to catch where the volumes are and therefore generate more fees.

Could you tell us more about Firebird Application Programming Interface (API) and its benefits?

By utilising Firebird API, protocols can integrate routing as part of their products to make sure they get the best slippage and the best price in order to bring savings directly to their customers.

The most common use case is for compounders. The protocol can use our API to have a more efficient outcome. We may also help other protocols that provide swap services to users directly on their front-end.

What are the next integrations on your roadmap?

We launched LP token conversion on Fantom with SpookySwap and SpiritSwap but unfortunately we stopped any improvements on this product due to the low demand for it. As well, the current low demand for stop-limit orders prevents us from developing our own product, but we keep our ears out for it.

On the other hand, we are considering multi-chain swaps as the natural evolution of our current service thanks to our multi-chain presence. It is a long-term project and we are allocating resources to its development accordingly.

Are you going to release a token for the project on Fantom?

It will most likely exist. Even after the crazy weekend, we still see Fantom as the strongest network to release it on. We already have some idea of tokenomics and methodology, but it ended up not being safe enough. We turned on a fee collection on the Fantom network for people using our aggregator. Currently, half of the fees generated are used to run the server and the team. The other half is intended to build Firebird protocol owned liquidity.

Have Firebird been audited?

We have already performed three audits with Certik, Hacken and PeckShield. They cover different aspects of the contracts including routing and swapping.

Deck Talk Summary

Forewords

• Last batch of Liquid Driver NFTs has been sent and addresses for the next one have been collected.
• Always protect your wallet, get a hardware wallet from an official source (Ledger.com).
• Stay safe while leveraging, might not be the best time for degen strategies.

$LQDR wrappers

Currently, 95% of the profit generated by the platform are distributed to xLQDR holders whereas most other platforms with veTokenomics would distribute at maximum 80% APR. Hence, creating a wrapper around Liquid Driver is appealing for other protocols.

Protocols that want to interact with xLQDR need to be whitelisted. Any protocol can apply for a whitelisting as long as it has a consistent plan detailing:

• Tokenomics of the wrapped LQDR
• Acquisition strategy
• Mechanics / planned actions to maintain the peg either in normal or stressed market conditions
• Functionalities and value added to the community

Last but not least, protocols that create wrappers will become partners: As we grow, most rewards will be in the form of wrappers ($linSPIRIT, $liHND, …), and having sell pressure on them is not beneficial. Having a good relationship is mandatory in this, so we can ask when we need them to lower the sell pressure on one of our wrappers, create a new product with it, in order to create value at the ecosystem level.

In the near future the whitelisting process will be transparent and submitted to a vote. The community will be able to discuss any whitelisting request on a specific Discord channel.

Law of diminishing returns

Number of $LQDR wrappers doesn’t really matter, what does is the quality of the relationship. The Curve-Convex relationship is a good example of how a harmonious ecosystem can benefit users. Platforms may also have different goals and a lot of protocols currently want to wrap xLQDR with the full release of V3.

APR may decrease in the next few years as the industry comes to maturation. As well, the revenue sharing vault might get diluted by protocols that automatically lock $LQDR at the maximum duration. But on the other hand, the buying pressure will rise to the same extent, protecting LQDR holders.

Shadow Farms — The market conditions are still playing against us

The first cohort of Shadow Farms have been ready for weeks now. Only one button needs to be pushed. In the meantime, this product needs a strong initial traction to deliver the expected APR and TVL. We are also waiting for the Spirit Swap V2 launch to create a strong synergy between our both platforms and in order to have a smooth launch.