8 DeFi protocols with potential (airdrops, yield, GF)
Hello, friends!
Happy Monday.
Here are some DeFi protocls that might have potential if you’re looking for airdops, yield, or points programs.
Trying to make this research piece weekly from now on as it helps me stay even more updated in the space.
Let’s go.
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8 DeFi protocols with potential (airdrops, yield, GF)
Here are some protocols with untapped opportunities like yield, Airdrop, etc that you can explore today, consisting of potential projects from different networks either Evm, Non-Evm, or cosmos in a wide range of Defi sectors like derivatives, Yield, Dex, and many more. These projects are highlighted due to their prominent backing, yield opportunities, etc but none of it should be considered as financial advice do well to also do your research before interacting.
Let's sail the sea:
1/ dAppOS
It is an intent execution that empowers chains & dApp to be intent-centric by creating a 2-sided marketplace, what's unique about dAppOS is that it makes interactions with dApp seamless, user friendly and save time. Imagine that you need $100 Usdc on Arb to trade on GMX. Still, your capital is stretched thin across chains like this: 50 Usdc on Arb, 30 Usdc on Bnb, and 20 USDC on Eth you'd need to bridge, spend time and gas on Eth and BnB to get your funds on arbitrum to trade on GMX this is where dAppOS came in, with just a click all your funds will be available on arbitrum you don't need to worry about the distribution, nor the specific token used as gas fees all done within a few minutes through its interface which potentially protecting users from smart contract risks. They also have a lineup of notable investors like Polychain, Binance Lab, and Hashkey Capital with $15.3m funding rounds at $300m valuations.dAppOS V2 is integrated in perp Dex like Gmx, KiloEX, and you can check more dApps in their ecosystem:
V3 is rumored to come with TGE and not many people are talking about dAppOS even the last thread I found about it is dated back to last year with less than 100k impressions:
I interact with some Dapps in the ecosystem but a little trick is to be on the lookout for new dApp in the ecosystem as they launch a prize campaign for almost every new integration. A good example is the recently concluded 50k Arb trading competition with Aark following their integration.
2/ Symbiotic
Following the success of Eigenlayer, Being the tycoon of restacking sectors with over 18b TVL, Competitors like Karak emerged and reached over $1b TVL in a short period and the new baby in the sector is Symbiotic– with a different approach and techniques to stand out in the sectors, it's permissionless and modular which make any protocol to launch native staking for their token to increase network security, Symbiotic core contract is nonupgradable (like uniswap) which reduce governance power and the protocol can continue functioning even if the team leaves and the last but not the least it supports multi-asset from any chain which makes it more versatile Versus Eigenlayer that only support ETH and it's derivatives. Symbiotic secured a $5.8m funding round Co-led by Paradigm and Cyberfund (a firm founded by Konstantin Lomashuk (Lido founder) ) so the rumor that Paradigms and Lido funded eigenlayer competitors was true!
According to Blockwork's interview with symbiotic CEO Misha Putiatin, he said 'mainnet to be up and running for some network as soon as the end of summer's': we might suggest it coming with TGE which means symbiotic token would be live before $Eigen became tradable potentially stealing the restacking narratives from incumbent Eigenlayer and Guess what? Symbiotic has an ongoing point program but deposit caps are currently reached, the solution to this introduces us to another project Mellow — an LRT built on top of Symbiotic just like the way Renzo and Etherfi are to eigenlayer where you can earn both mellow and symbiotic points simultaneously. A good thread by Pendleintern on how to max yield by depositing on Pendle:
The second way is to deposit $mETH on symbiotic when the cap is lifted which gave 5x powder/day on methamorphosis Campaign for the upcoming mantle LRT ($cMETH) governance token $Cook while simultaneously earning symbiotic points.
3/ Elixir
One of the reasons why decentralized Orderblock Exchanges are lagging behind Cexes is liquidity. Even the largest derivatives by trading volumes—Hyperliquid was ranked number 29 with $440m OI which is relatively low compared to Binance's $15b OI at the time of writing.
The common unhealthy practices projects use to attract liquidity are airdrop programs which only attract mercenary funds where airdrop farmer rotate capital to another protocol after making a profit or they rely on a bunch of KOLs to shill their exchange etc this is where Elixir came in—Elixir is essentially a modular DPos network built to power liquidity in Orderblock exchange, the network serves as a crucial underlying infrastructure allowing for exchanges and protocols to easily bootstrap liquidity to their book. Elixir benefits both LPs and traders, LPs earn rewards via the Orderblock exchange incentivized program while traders benefit from tighter bid-ask spreads that the exchange can offer. This isn't another uniswap fork, as of the last report in May they've powered 40% of total liquidity in Defi Orderblock exchange with partnerships from sector leaders like Hyperliquid, Dydx, etc.
They've also raised a total of $17.6m at an $800m valuation from Hack VC, Arthur Hayes (who also funded another project with well-executed Airdrop this year and PMF–Ethena)
Mainnet is said to be in August and in anticipation of this, there's an ongoing campaign– Apothecary. Where users earn 'potion' for providing liquidity across a wide range of available pools. There are 3 strategies you can use to earn a reward, firstly by locking ETH on the mainnet until the network launch in August which gave a 50% bonus, by depositing on the orderly quantum program to earn 'deeds' which are powered by Elixir, last but not the least being active on the discord.
4/ Mitosis
Surges of chains & protocol have been a major bottleneck for Retails LPs as you've to keep up with the news to find the best possible yield, incur a loss when moving assets from one chain to another and most LPs got tramped in a point system where their fates lies on vague guesses with no exact formula to calculate the reward this is where Mitosis came in by introducing a novel liquidity model called Ecosystem owned liquidity (EOL) that enable both LPs and protocol to adapt to Multichain environment with Multichain yield exposure without manually allocating funds into it, with a clear reward system that allows LPs to choose the best available option Mitosis raised $7m funding round led by amber group & Foresight Venture.
Their ongoing campaign—Expedition supports Etherfi LRT weETH upon deposit you earn staking Apr + Restaking Apr + Eigenlayer points + Etherfi points + Mitosis Points and of course depositing on tokenless L2 like a scroll, Linea, and blast (season 2) also positioned you for their future drop.
The campaign has amassed over 45k stakers which comprises of large % of shrimp stakers that deposit within ranges 0–1 weEth and depositing between 1 weETH above will put you in the top 3k
5/ Infinex
Some of the problems hindering crypto mainstream are the bad UX and learning curve newbies face, they need to learn about wallet, bridge, security, and the list goes on from here, Infinex abstracts all this complexity to accelerate mainstream adoption by unifying decentralized ecosystem and application under a single UX like CEX build specifically for web2 audience while staying completely decentralized. Imagine a scenario where newbies don't need to learn crypto jargon like transaction, gas, etc before they transact Onchain just like CEX but 100% decentralized that's what Infinex is building. Infinex is built by the team behind the Ethereum OG project synthetic→Consistently Top 10 derivative protocol, there were no raises announced but according to a Blockwork interview with Kain (founder of Synthetic), he has invested $25m into building Infinex which shows his commitment and conviction on the project.
They have an ongoing program called craterun where users earn 'crates' but wait this isn't your typical deposit and earn point campaign but with a twist, Kain stated the reason behind this approach:
Craterun is the final campaign that runs for 5 weeks (ending on July 30)after the first campaign has amassed over $100m in 10 days. 5m crates are up for grabs, every crate has a 50/50 chance to win 1000 patron NFT, 5000 patron passes and a $5m prize pool with many more rewards so you aren't just farming crates but for actual rewards, you can deposit assets like USDe, stETH, wstETH, and ezETH to earn two rewards at the same time
6/ Hyperlane
It is the first universal and Interoperability layer built for the modular blockchain stack. What differentiates Hyperlane from an array of interoperability protocols like wormhole and Layerzero is that they only support EVM and Non-Evm like Solana while Hyperlane supports EVm, Non-Evm, and cosmos Blockchain like Tia, Inj, etc and it allows anyone to permissionless deploy Hyperlane to any blockchain environment, allowing that chain to communicate seamlessly on another chain hyperlane was deployed on. They have a lineup of notable investors like Circle and Kraken Venture, that funded it with over 18m at an unknown valuation.
Farming interoperability/bridges have tended to do well because it's one Defi sector with real PMF and they are making a profit, a recent exhibit is Wormhole which is well distributed, and even upon the backlash Layerzero faced it was a cook for the farmer, Using this as an inspiration I believe hyperlane will follow their trajectory, to max farm you need to do opposite to what other are doing so here is some strategy to use: most people focus on evm to evm transactions and neglecting cosmos chain like tia, as we’ve seen this play out with wormhole as everyone with interaction with non-Evm got a boost on their final allocation it might replicate on Hyperlane, you can use their official bridge– Nexus to transfer non-Evm—Tia between chains or use the one integrated with their partner projects like Renzo, nautilus, forma, and complete ongoing Layer3 tasks.
7/ Shogun
Berachain is one of the over-hyped projects of 2024 and it is seen as memecoin-centric like Solana, currently in testnet which I believe Mainnet to experienced surges in token deployment due to this general perspective, one of the very crucial tools in degening is telegram bots as they make it effortless to swap, snip launch at a fast pace and more Vs normal Dex UX which relatively slow and inefficient. Shogun is building an intent-centric platform that broadcasts orders to any Blockchain for fulfillment starting with Berachain, an aggregation layer between chains, and eliminates the need for multiple swap UI through their intuitive telegram bot. Shogun raised undisclosed funding rounds from Binance and $6.9m led S-Tier investor Polychain.
They are waiting on Berachain Mainnet to start operations, there's not much to do right now other than vibing on their discord if there may be roles in the future and joining their telegram beta
Version.
8/ Infinity Pool
According to Binance Lab, in last year's report, traders lost a whopping $892m to oracle-related exchanges due to their vulnerability to manipulation where exploiters drive up the price of low liquidity tokens on targeted dApps before swapping their inflated tokens for other tokens.
Imagine a decentralized exchange that offers unlimited leverage on any asset with no liquidation, no counterparty risk, and no oracles that’s the breakthrough Infinity Pools is building, it’s built on uniswap V3 with concentrated liquidity, by utilizing the LP position as a source of credit and the repayment of the asset can be made with any LP assets. They are backed by notable names like Dragonfly, Coinbase Venture, and Wintermute. Infinity Pools is also the winner of Blast Bang Bang competitor, the mainnet isn't yet live you can On notifications for their Twitter and Discord for future updates.
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That’s it for today, anon!
Hope you enjoyed this piece.
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