The Optimist #57

Thank you fellow readers to continue reading my research about Defi on the Optimism Superchain.

If you missed the previous newsletter, it’s just one click away from you HERE.

ZORA token generation event on 23/04, number of coins created on Zora exceed Solana for the 1st time, User Experience ready to onboard normies and compete with Web2 social networks, creator wins.

Step by step guide to enjoy yield farming on the superchain

DEFI is fragmented across more than 253 EVM chains (source: DefiLlama). But what if you could unify all these ecosystems in one layer ? This is what Soul Protocol aims to solve.

Supply anywhere. Borrow anywhere.

Built on top of top-tiers & battle tested lending protocols like AAVE or Compound, and using LayerZero tech, Soul Protocol is launching its incentivized testnet right before $ SO token TGE.

Testnet is now live, are you ready to try this new DeFi primitive ?

=> Click on this link.

🔴Optimism announced a partnership with OpenBlock, who created OB-1 AI agent that can look & serve tasks onchain

🟡 Mode launched Mode Trade, an AI-Perp dex with predictive data. Try it and participate into the current trading campaign with 2k$ per week of incentives

🌊 Ozean partners with Project Ola to bring retail housing financing

✖ Extra finance lending protocol XLend uses CoinbaseWallet features such as Gasless transaction & batched actions. Simple, Fast, Easy!

🟪 Avantis has launched Zero-fee Perpetuals where “users pay only if they win”. In addition, Avantis has built a protocol feature that guarantees SL & TP, doubled the point program for Liquidity Providers, and announced the end of the XP campaign and so Avantis token TGE 31st May

💿Soneium ACS incentives campaign has started its 7th season & launched a seperate event “the path of Soneium” with 1,4m$ for grab. Complete quests about Defi until 30/04 & follow the different seasons until 30/05.

Source: https://defillama.com/chains/Superchain?minTvl=1000000&maxTvl=

ZORA has sparked CT timeline based on 2 recent news that propelled the chain to another level.

1. $ZORA TGE on 23/04

2. Zora APP that rewards creator

But first thing first, let me remind you what ZORA is about if you’re not familiar with it.

ZORA is the web 3 social platform that can be compared to Tiktok or Instagram. Scroll your wall, and watch different type of contents published by creators such as animations, pictures, movies, song, etc…

ZORA’s goal is simple: “A social network where every post is a coin”

Each content is then tokenized and can be traded freely, or bought for your own collection.

ZORA is a layer 2 blockchain, built on the OP Stack, and part of the Optimism Superchain. Zora raised 62m$, with COINBASE as one of the main investor, which explains how strong Coinbase Team is pushing ZORA as it went closer to TGE.

Jacob HORNE is one of the ZORA’s cofounder, and is an ex-COINBASE employee (Coinbase Cartel is real… believe me):

ZORA is much more than a NFT platform, it provides a seamless UX where users can post, buy, sell, cash out without going onto a DEX, or having to experience the whole ‘painful) journey of DEFI. Just put some SPARKS (unit of value in ZORA app), and start trading content.

For example,“Base is for everyone” content has now a market cap of 6m$, and a total trading volume of 61.5m$. Creator of this content earned almost 100k$.

Each time a content is tokenized, the creator receives 1% of the token supply. Most of the tokens are then deployed on Uniswap V3 as liquidity paired against wETH, and some others go to ZORA app itself as revenue.

ZORA has taken 2 different snapshots to reward early users, I hope you made it fam!

$ZORA will be deployed on base, with a total token supply of 10 billions. I have already spotted ZORA address on Aerodrome:

And you can find below $ZORA tokenomics:

And here the token distribution schedule:

At an assumed 1b$ FDV, Airdrop will be worth 100m$… Let’s hope for it!

ZORA application can be used on Mobile, and the user experience is close to Instagram or Tiktok.

Activity on Zora surged on April 16 after Base posted this & reached 1m views on X.

And outperform SOLANA based on the # of coins created:

The FEE mechanism of ZORA is interesting as it drives a flywheel between creator & developer. Rewards are split in between TRADE reward & MARKET reward:

• Trade reward: When trade happens on ZORA app directly, ZORA takes 1% FEE and split it like this:

  

• Market reward: All the trades that happen outside ZORA app, there is still 1% fee split as-is:

  

At the time of writing, the total captured fees on Zora app = 409 $ETH (approx. 664k$) with >50% going to the creator.

I hope you’ve been interacting with ZORA since launch, either from minting, replying, trading or even creating. It will be interesting to see how ZORA will be able to maintain his growth after TGE & Airdrop to users and in which price zone $ZORA will trade. But one thing for sure, with COINBASE in the background, i only expect strong growth! Let’s keep an eye on it.

Uniswap has voted an insane incentive program worth of 45m$ to fuel growth of its protocol and unichain. Phase 1 started last week and phases are rolling every 2 weeks, check this out:

The following pools are being incentivized with a total of 2.5m$/week of incentives for phase 1. For future phases allocation, stay tuned I’ll keep you updated.

This has lead to an impressive TVL growth on Unichain from 10m$ to 340m$:

At the same time, Optimism launched a new point program SuperStacks focusing on interoperable assets like USD₮0, on the following chains OP mainnet, Sonieum, Ink, Base, Worldchain, Unichain. By doing so, you earn XP, and climb the leaderboard.

Optimism hasn’t disclosed the reward for this campaign, and even emphasized that it won’t lead to any airdrop … but that’s not what Soneium said:

Despite this, Optimism Superstack has already attracted 19m$ TVL

What if you could farm both?

ETH/USD₮0 is the only pool that is currently incentivized in both campaigns.

For uniswap campaign, rewards are being distributed in $UNI through Merkl website: https://app.merkl.xyz/?chain=130

• Go to “opportunities” tab

• Filter by chain: “UNICHAIN”

Here are some very nice farm without any impermanent loss and large TVL so that you can expect not to be diluted.

But the pool that interests show a yield of 120% with 14m$ TVL.

First, bridge ETH using Superbridge: https://superbridge.app/

Then bridge USD₮0 using official website powered by Stargate (tip: by having USD₮0 on Arbitrum, there is no slippage if you bridge to Unichain) : https://usdt0.to/transfer

Once you have both assets on Unichain, go back to Merkl, click on the farm, and check the incentives distribution requirements.

Rules: 98% based on fees accumulated, 1% based on the amount held of $ETH / $USD₮0. Only liquidity in range (i.e. active ticks) will be rewarded

Then click on “SUPPLY”, this will open Uniswap website. Click on add liquidity. Make sure that all the pool settings are correct, and choose the correct fee tier (check the merkl pool name), and click on Continue.

Then choose between “full range” or “custom range”, the tighter is the range, the lower will the yield:

Fill the amount of tokens you want to deposit, and click on deposit. That’s it.

Enjoy these very attractive yield farming opportunities, andkeep yourself updated for both Unichain incentives campaign, and Optimism Superstack future phases.

Stay safu.

You can have an edge against VCs and I will proove it to you.

While VCs have tens of skilled quants to analyze the market, a risk management policy that has been well proven, I can tell you that YOU have been doing better if you invested in $AERO one year ago.

End of 2024, using Nansen, i managed to find that Defiance Capital & Spartan Group market bought $AERO on the market:

Recently, i checked what these funds have done with so much $AERO. And the result will surprise you.

Using special feature from Nansen, called “Wallet profiler for Token”, you can access the chart with all buy & sell orders for the selected wallet:

Defiance Capital bought at around 1.38$/$AERO, and sold at 0.53$/$AERO resulting in a net loss of -2.42m$ 😱😱😱

What about Spartan Group?

They approximately sold at the same period March/April 25. Total net loss of 1.22m$.

So i hope the above gives you come clues that YOU can outperform VCs. Not saying you should counter trade them, no, but by being in the trenches & focusing on one ecosystem, you could have bought $AERO way before them and convert your investment into realized profit.

For info, I’ve bought $AERO early 2024, and have sold 100% on the way up. But $AERO keeps being on my shopping list for a new accumulation when things will get better. Work hard is the only way to outperform those guys, AND it’s possible.

Nothing above is a financial advice.

Disclaimer: Nothing in this content is financial advice. I may have some positions on the presented projects, however these articles are written in a non biais way so that you can make you own opinion out of it.

Do your own research before investing, and remember that Crypto is extremely volatile and risky. Be ready to loose everything you invest in.