💸DeFi on the Tezos blockchain
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is a financial innovation brought by blockchain technology. By relying on smart contract technology—algorithms deployed on blockchains to ensure the execution of certain predefined tasks—DeFi aims to create a new financial system that is open to everyone and reduces the need for trusted third parties.
This document gives an overview of state-of-the-art DeFi applications available on the Tezos blockchain at the time of writing.
Automated Market Makers: Decentralized Exchanges
AMMs (automated market makers) are applications that allow users to exchange tokens without the use of traditional market makers and order-book models.
No central entity is required to gather buyers and sellers or to ensure successful transactions. AMMs rely on a set of smart contracts whose main components are liquidity pools ¹. Liquidity pools allow users to seamlessly swap tokens
on-chain—that is, exchange one asset for another on the blockchain—thanks to decentralized and non-custodial smart contract codes. In such pools, liquidity providers ² earn rewards corresponding to trading fees charged for each transaction. This amount is proportional to their contribution to the pool.
The most successful decentralized exchanges use the constant product market maker (CPMM) formula to ensure tokens’ parity within the pool over time:
where is the amount of a given token A, and the amount of a given token B. is a constant, which always remains the same and ensures the stability of the pool. When users interact with a liquidity pool, the product of remains the same. However, if a price discrepancy appears between a centralized exchange (external from the blockchain) and the pool of tokens, arbitrageurs3 can exploit such an opportunity to rebalance the pool with the market prices. Arbitrageurs may then take a profit.
Using liquidity pools involves certain risks. Apart from omitting the risk of smart contracts being hacked, which can be achieved with careful audits, a well-known risk of liquidity pools is impermanent loss. This is the difference in earnings between introducing liquidity into a given pool and simply holding the assets.
When a price discrepancy occurs, for example, one of the tokens within the pool increases in price, and arbitrageurs exploit such an opportunity and rebalance the pool. However, if the liquidity providers simply held the same assets, they could entirely benefit from the price increase.
Therefore, the more assets are correlated in terms of price to one another, the less impermanent loss is likely to occur as price movements are almost the same.
[1]: A liquidity pool is a pool of tokens locked in a smart contract that allows external users to swap assets within the pool.
[2]: People who bring liquidity to the pools to enable exchanges.
[3]: An arbitrageur is a type of investor who attempts to profit from market inefficiencies (e.g., price discrepancies).
Dexter
Dexter is the first Tezos AMM decentralized exchange (DEX) launched in Q4 2020. The main features of Dexter are:
Exchange token↔tez and token↔token.
Provide liquidity in token/tez pools and earn exchange fees.
Earn tez rewards, which are distributed by bakers of the different pools.
The project’s V1 has been reviewed and audited by Trail of Bits, and the V2, Formally verified by Runtime Verification.
Plenty DeFi
Plenty is a decentralized yield-farming/AMM set of smart contracts on Tezos that focuses on bringing more liquidity and users to the Tezos DeFi ecosystem.
Plenty introduced a $PLENTY token to reward users for providing liquidity on specific pools ⁸. $PLENTY tokens will also play a key role in Plenty’s future applications as a governance token. Liquidity providers are rewarded in $PLENTY tokens in their yield-farming application.
Plenty team recently deployed its AMM and is gradually adding new pairs to allow users to stake assets, provide liquidity, and exchange various token pairs.
In the future, Plenty aims to provide additional tools to enable interactions and create synergy within the existing ecosystem by providing:
A lottery.
A governance process and tokenomics.
A prediction market.
IFO (initial farm offering), a new way of financing projects by raising funds using the PLENTY-XTZ liquidity pool.
[8]: PLENTY, ETHtz, hDAO, USDtz, wLINK, and wMATIC (as of August 2021).
Figure: Plenty’s AMM.
Figure: Some of the Plenty liquidity pools.
Figure: Plenty’s farm pools.
This project has been reviewed and audited by Apriorit.
QuipuSwap
QuipuSwap is a decentralized exchange working with the constant product market maker (CPMM) formula. It offers additional governance features compared to Dexter, including:
Users can add new token pairs.
Users can vote for delegates of a liquidity pool or ban a “bad” delegate who doesn’t do the job.
Provide liquidity in token/tez pools and earn exchange fees.
Earn tez rewards distributed by bakers to the liquidity pools.
Figure: QuipuSwap's interface.
QuipuSwap recently launched its governance token ⁴ $QUIPU. Early users of the platform received $QUIPU airdrops to reward them for their participation. $QUIPU will be used in platform governance and in a liquidity-mining program.
In the future, QuipuSwap aims at providing further tools:
Token-to-token pools.
A smart “router” service to help pick the optimal swap path.
A new front-end for a better user experience.
Public token listings as an alternative to the current white-listing procedure.
New enhanced smart contracts version.
This project has been reviewed and audited by Least Authority.
[4]: Governance tokens are associated with voting power on a blockchain project. With governance tokens, one can create and vote on governance proposals over a set of smart contracts that control an organization called a Decentralized Autonomous Organization or DAO.
Liquidity Baking
Liquidity Baking is a tez↔tzBTC single pair AMM voted through the Granada amendment.
The motivation behind such a contract—brought for the first time by an amendment instead of an independent set of smart contracts built separately from the protocol—is to increase the overall tez liquidity along with tzBTC, a wrapped ⁵ version of Bitcoin (BTC) on Tezos. How this DEX works is quite innovative:
A subsidy of 2.5 tez is minted and brought to the tez/tzBTC pool at each block. It increases tez volume in the Liquidity Baking contract over time.
Liquidity providers receive fees plus freshly minted tez proportionally to their share of the liquidity pool.
Bakers can vote to stop the Liquidity Baking contract from a protocol point of view.
An emergency escape hatch is provided if something goes wrong.
The smart contract used for Liquidity Baking is not specific to tzBTC and can be used for any arbitrary tez↔token Tezos pool.
This project has been reviewed, and formally verified by Nomadic Labs.
[5]: A wrapped token is a token pegged to the value of another cryptocurrency. The original asset is put in a wrapper (represented by a digital escrow contract) that allows the issuance of the wrapped representation. It allows users to benefit from other blockchain features (scalability, security, etc.).
Decentralized Fundraising
Decentralized fundraising is a new financing method allowing project creators to raise funds in a decentralized manner. In the same way that start-ups receive capital before launching, projects using the decentralized fundraising process can receive funds both from institutional and individual investors. Unlike an initial public offering (IPO), investors never own any equity in the project. A major difference compared to classic fundraising is much lighter legal requirements, which makes the whole process easier.
By participating in decentralized fundraising, investors receive tokens proportionally to their investment. These tokens play a key role in the new applications and protocols built.
1. Initial DEX offerings
An initial DEX offering (IDO) is a fundraising process whose purpose is to finance DeFi projects using decentralized exchanges as an alternative to centralized exchanges that involve heavy and permissioned fundraising processes.
IDOs offer new projects the opportunity to create and list their token to finance their future business.
To perform an IDO, projects create a public coin on a DEX and receive funds from various investors. IDOs are the decentralized versions of initial exchange offerings (IEOs) where crypto projects launch their token and raise funds via a centralized exchange.
Rocket launchpad
Rocket is a decentralized IDO platform that allows project creators to finance their business and investors to participate in future successful fundraising.
Rocket uses a system based on $RCKT (Rocket token) holding to allow users to participate in presales of new Tezos-based projects and stake their tokens.
All projects are vetted through a submission process to ensure the best projects launch.
To ensure the most decentralized approach possible, smart contracts are used so Rocket never handles any funds.
Figure: Rocket’s launchpad interface.
This project is currently being reviewed and audited.
Instaraise
Instaraise is the first decentralized IDO platform built on the Tezos blockchain.
The platform allows token-based projects to raise funds by setting up a swap pool based on a fixed purchase rate. These so-called “Fixed Swap Pools” have many advantages for token sale investors over traditional fundraising models like initial coin offerings (ICOs), IEOs, and IDOs (Initial DEX Offerings). Fixed Swap Pools will maintain the token price throughout the sale until the initial supply is bought.
With Instaraise, Tezos projects will be able to raise and exchange capital cheaply and quickly, and users will be able to participate in a secure and compliant environment. Instant liquidity provisioning (in QuipuSwap) is facilitated securely thanks to smart contracts.
Anyone can use the presale infrastructure and the owner console to start their presale. Instaraise deployed the $INSTA token to allow presale facilitation and create benefits for users such as liquidity mining (a program that rewards users of a given service), staking rewards, discounted sales with white-listed addresses, and airdrops.
Figure: Instaraise’s interface.
This project has not been audited as of August 2021.
Hybrid Cross-Chain Exchange
A cross-chain exchange is a type of decentralized exchange where people can trade assets from different chains using a technology called an atomic swap.
An atomic swap is an exchange of assets occurring in a decentralized manner, without any central authority needed to ensure the exchange’s success. It is called “atomic” because either the entire exchange occurs or nothing happens and both parties involved get their assets back. It is useful to:
Swap two different tokens from a single blockchain.
Swap two assets from two different blockchains.
Atomex
Atomex is a multicurrency wallet allowing cross-chain atomic swaps whose features include:
Cross-chain swaps between Tezos (tez), BTC, Ethereum (ETH), Tether (USDT), WBTC, TBTC.
On-chain swaps between Tezos, KUSD (kUSD), TZBTC (tzBTC).
Cryptocurrency purchases by card.
Portfolio monitoring.
Figure: Atomex wallet—cross-chain exchange interface.
This project has been reviewed and audited by Least Authority here and there.
Tokens
Blockchains allow digital assets representation through tokens, defined by smart contract standards. These assets can be exchanged in the same way that native tokens ⁶ are. Token standards facilitate the tokenization of applications in a blockchain.
In this section, we will focus on a small sample of tokens deployed on the Tezos blockchain so far (for more detailed information, visit https://teztools.io/).
On the Tezos blockchain, token standards are written in the Tezos Interoperability Proposal (TZIP) format. To understand the current state of token standards in Tezos, let’s look at the three main standard proposals:
TZIP #5: Financial Application 1 (FA1)—Abstract ledger (fungible tokens).
TZIP #7: Financial Application 1.2 (FA1.2)—Approvable ledger to represent fungible tokens with specific rules (maximum supply of the token, issuance conditions, etc.).
TZIP #12: Financial Application 2 (FA2)—Multi-asset interface to represent fungible and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
[6]: A native token is the unit of account of a given blockchain, such as BTC for Bitcoin, tez for Tezos, etc.
Stablecoins
A stablecoin is an asset class that attempts to offer price stability. It represents an asset, and its price is supposed to replicate its underlying value. Stablecoins have gained traction as they offer almost instant processing, security, privacy of payments, and a volatility-free valuation of fiat currencies.
Of all the kinds of stablecoins, three are the most widespread:
Fiat-backed stablecoins: The most widespread type of stablecoin, they rely on a reserve of the underlying fiat currency. For each stablecoin issued on the blockchain, the issuer claims to hold the equivalent amount in fiat currency in a corresponding bank account (e.g., US dollar (USD) Coin USDC for USD).
Crypto-backed stablecoins: In most cases, to issue such a stablecoin, a cryptocurrency is put in an escrow smart contract as collateral. The use of such collateral relies on a game theory design and the exploitation of arbitrage opportunities to incentivize participants to keep the price stable.
Algorithmic stablecoins: These rely on algorithms and smart contracts to manage the supply of the stablecoin and thus maintain the peg to the underlying asset (e.g., USD, euro, etc.) by creating incentives to either buy or sell the stable token.
Kolibri: kUSD
Created by Hover Engineering, kUSD is the first crypto-backed stablecoin issued on the Tezos blockchain. It uses a collateralized mechanism and a price liquidation option to guarantee the price stability of the kUSD.
To get kUSD, users owning tez can create ovens, escrow tez, and borrow kUSD with respect to a limit enforced by the protocol. It is also possible to swap tez (or other tokens) for kUSD on a decentralized exchange (e.g., Quipuswap XTZ/kUSD pool). kUSD complies with FA1.2 standard.
Figure: Kolibri’s stablecoin web interface.
A dedicated liquidity pool has been created recently to prevent under-collateralization. Users pool kUSD and get 1% rewards on each liquidation performed.
Figure: kUSD liquidation pool.
kUSD governance is expected to be fully managed soon by the Kolibri DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization, defined below), and its governance token kDAO.
Figure: Example of swap between wrapped UNI and kUSD on QuipuSwap.
USDtez
USDtez (symbol: USDtz or USDTZ) is a USD-pegged stablecoin based on a fungible Tezos community standard—the FA1.2 token standard—created and issued by Stabletez. USDtez is pegged to a formally verifiable measure (USDtez reserve is audited monthly by Armanino LLP) of value (1:1 parity) between itself and the USD. It provides a solvent and scalable source of liquidity that allows low-fee Tezos-based asset trading.
Figure: USDtez logo.
Figure: Buy USDtez on QuipuSwap.
USDS
USDS is a stablecoin created by Stably, built on the FA2 token standard, and issued by Prime Trust, a Nevada-chartered trust company that is also the regulated administrator for USDS. One of the particularities of USDS is that it allows fee-less transfers thanks to TZIP-17 implementation. Thus, the token transfer fee can be taken over by another account.
Figure: Stably’s logo.
Figure: Buy USDS on QuipuSwap.
Some other assets
Wrapped BTC: tzBTC
tzBTC brings BTC liquidity to the Tezos ecosystem, enabling BTC-backed use cases on Tezos.
Developers on Tezos can use tzBTC to enable novel financial applications on the Tezos blockchain. It replicates the value of the BTC on the Tezos blockchain. For each BTC sent to a specific smart contract, the equivalent in tzBTC is issued on the Tezos blockchain.
The Bitcoin Association Switzerland acts as a third party and mediator key holder, accountable for the 1:1 parity between tzBTC and BTC. The association agrees to use a standard contract for its role in the tzBTC ecosystem.
Figure: tzBTC logo.
Figure: Buy tzBTC on QuipuSwap.
Wrapped ETH: ETHtz
ETHtz is a token from Stabletez. Stabletez (Tezos Stablecoins) is a family of stablecoins that runs on the Tezos blockchain and adheres to the Tezos FA token standard, which is the universal Tezos token standard.
ETHtz replicates the value of the ETH on the Tezos blockchain. For each ETH sent to a specific escrow smart contract, the equivalent in ETHtz is issued on the Tezos blockchain.
Figure: ETHtz logo.
Figure: Buy ETHtz on QuipuSwap.
Wrapped Tezos: wXTZ
Wrapped Tezos (wXTZ) is a fully collateralized representation of XTZ initiated by StakerDAO (presented below) and conforming to the FA1.2 token standard—a collateralized staking position that unlocks the power of DeFi.
The idea is to combine XTZ staking with the possibility of trading the representation of the underlying asset. To mint wXTZ, users need to send XTZ to a vault. In return, they will receive a proportional amount of wXTZ. If they want to get their XTZ back, they need to send the wXTZ to the originated contract, which will burn the wrapped tokens and release the XTZ escrowed.
Figure: wXTZ logo.
Figure: Buy wXTZ on QuipuSwap.
Oracles
A blockchain oracle is a tool that connects blockchains with off-chain data (i.e., unavailable on the blockchain).
Blockchains, by their decentralized nature, allow the sharing of data across a network. But what about dealing with off-chain data?
Let’s imagine an application where people can bet on sports results. In that case, poor data can lead to a poor flow of funds.
The challenge is to feed actual and authentic external data representing the final sports results into the blockchain such that it becomes possible to execute particular actions using on-chain smart contracts.
That’s where blockchain oracles come into place: They aggregate data from different external sources (off-chain) to ensure that the most accurate information is brought on-chain.
Harbinger
Harbinger is a signed price feed on the Tezos blockchain, inspired by Compound oracle infrastructure.
Harbinger’s inner functioning requires separate entities to provide signed and post-price updates on-chain. The more entities participate in the price feed, the more decentralized the solution is. Harbinger gathers a set of smart contracts dedicated to receive price updates from a specific exchange of cryptocurrencies. The price feeds are normalized and then posted on-chain.
Harbinger stores information of price about assets under “candles” representation. Each asset in Harbinger price oracle contains:
start time
end time
open price
highest price
lowest price
close price
volume.
Figure: Harbinger infrastructure.
This project has not been audited as of August 2021.
Kaiko
Kaiko price oracle is a cryptocurrency market data provider that provides live tez price feeds on-chain.
Kaiko writes historical and live tez/USD and tez/Swiss franc exchange rates to each new Tezos block. The price from Kaiko price oracle is derived from Kaiko’s exchange rates data, which aggregates tez price data from dozens of exchanges.
Kaiko is also running its own Tezos node.
Figure: Kaiko Price Oracle on Tzkt.
This project has not been audited as of August 2021.
Ubinetic
Ubinetic is a Swiss company that builds tools dedicated to the support and creation of synthetic assets.
Ubinetic’s oracle application fetches prices from liquid markets, checks whether the source data is accurate, timely, and complete, and signs the data to ensure that manipulation can be detected.
To guarantee that the application runs independently, so-called data transmitters run the mobile devices that are responsible for collecting the data from various exchanges.
Figure: Ubinetic oracle architecture (Youves is a DeFi protocol; more here).
The process of collecting and posting data is as follows:
An application on several mobile phones run by several independent data transmitters fetches data from liquid markets (e.g., Coinbase, Binance, etc.).
At the same time, the application checks whether the source of the data is accurate, timely, and complete, and signs the data to ensure that manipulation can be detected. The combination of certificate pinning and a verifiable tamper-proof execution of the specific application allows the data transmitter to confirm data accuracy.
The application periodically posts the data to the Ubinetic Aggregator, which verifies and stores the attestations, collects signed data for an interval, and publishes the data to the Tezos smart contract. The data normalization smart contract calculates the volume-weighted averages of the data from the different exchanges.
This project has not been audited as of August 2021.
Decentralized Autonomous Organization
A DAO is an organization that uses open-source smart contract codes to automate and facilitate decision-making.
Using a DAO may help prevent human error or manipulation since the decision power is no longer in the hands of a few trusted people. Rather, it is automated distributively and written as an immutable code deployed on the blockchain.
Using a DAO is not risk-free: Recall the DAO project where coding errors led to $50 million of funds being lost.
StakerDAO
StakerDAO is a DAO governed by a community of blockchain and finance enthusiasts who vote to make decisions and govern to build cross-chain financial assets. The process of governance is as follows:
StakerDAO’s ecosystem comprises Staker Politicians (individuals involved with governance—a requirement is to hold 1% of $STKR, StakerDAO’s token—and qualified to submit proposals), STKR token holders, and the Staker development team.
STKR holders vote on proposals on the StakerDAO platform with their wallets. The ones that reach the quorum of “yes” votes are approved.
Approved proposals are built and deployed by community members.
Figure: An overview of StakerDAO’s governance platform.
This project has been reviewed and audited by Runtime Verification.
Cross-Blockchain Bridges
A cross-blockchain bridge is a connection that allows the transfer of tokens from one chain to another. The particularity is that both chains usually have different protocols, and the bridge provides a way for them to interoperate.
To create a bridge between two blockchains in practice, we need to create a set of smart contracts that will allow users to escrow funds on one side and mint the equivalent token amount on the other side. It is possible to operate on one or the other chain, depending on users’ needs.
A cross-chain bridge is indistinguishable from the concept of wrapped tokens. Indeed, as users need back-and-forth interaction, tokens must be wrapped on one side in an escrow smart contract to guarantee that the newly minted tokens represent existing assets. When a particular user decides to go back on the original chain, they can burn the wrapped tokens and thus unwrap their initial stake.
Bender Labs bridge
Bender Labs is a wrapping protocol that created a bridge between Ethereum and Tezos. The protocol supports ERC20 and ERC721 token wrapping. At the time of writing, it is possible to wrap the following tokens:
Binance USD (BUSD) into wBUSD.
Bitfinex LEO token (LEO) into wLEO.
Celsius Network (CEL) into wCEL.
ChainLink token (LINK) into wLINK.
Compound (COMP) into wCOMP.
Crypto.Com coin (CRO) into wCRO.
Dai Stablecoin (DAI) into wDAI.
FTX token (FTT) into wFTT.
HUSD (HUSD) into wHUSD.
Huobi token (HT) into wHT.
Maker (MKR) into wMKR.
Matic token (MATIC) into wMATIC.
OKB (OKB) into wOKB.
Paxos Standard (PAX) into wPAX.
Suchi token (SUSHI) into wSUSHI.
Tether USD (USDT) into wUSDT.
USDC into wUSDC.
Uniswap (UNI) into wUNI.
Wrap governance token (WRAP) into WRAP.
Wrapped BTC (WBTC) into wWBTC.
Wrapped Ether (WETH) into wWETH.
When users wrap tokens on Ethereum using Wrap Protocol, the equivalent wTokens are minted on Tezos 1 hour after the wrap initiation as a security measure against chain reorganization ⁷.
Initially, users who wrap tokens will be rewarded with extra $WRAP governance tokens for their participation. Once tokens are wrapped, they can be traded easily on DEXes (like QuipuSwap) or unwrapped using the reverse process.
Note that the wrapping/unwrapping process requires connecting both Ethereum and Tezos wallets to sign operations.
Figure: Wrapping process AAVE token on Ethereum→wAAVE token on Tezos.
Figure: Unwrapping process wAAVE on Tezos→AAVE token on Ethereum.
This project has been reviewed and audited by Least Authority.
[7]: A chain reorganization takes place when a node receives blocks that are part of a new valid chain. The node will deactivate blocks in its old valid chain in favor of the blocks that build the new valid chain. This process allows individual nodes across the network to agree on the same version of the blockchain.
StakerBridge
StakerBridge allows to exchange tokens between the Ethereum network and the Tezos network, and the Ethereum network and the Algorand network.
StakerBridge is governed by the StakerDAO organization. STKR token holders can submit a proposal to bring new tokens into the bridge protocol.
Currently, StakerBridge allows Ethereum and Tezos to interoperate with:
BLEND token (BLND): A token that tracks a managed basket of vetted Proof-of-Stake assets.
Staker token (STKR): Governance token of StakerDAO.
Wrapped XTZ (wXTZ).
Using this bridge requires connecting both Ethereum and Tezos wallets to sign and approve transactions on both chains.
Figure: An example of bridging wXTZ from Ethereum to Tezos.
This project has not been audited as of August 2021.
TezEx Bridge
TezEx is a cross-chain bridge on the Tezos blockchain and a non-custodial decentralized exchange for both traders and liquidity providers.
TezEx Bridge (Beta) is now live and allows users to trade USDC for USDtz as well as ETH for ETHtz, and back.
Soon, TezEx (Beta decentralized exchange) will be launched and embed TezEx Bridge. TezEx will include more cross-chain swaps (including Tether) as well as swaps between Tezos tokens and Tez. Additional features will be added over time.
Figure: TezEx Bridge—cross-chain exchange web interface.
This project has been reviewed and audited by Apriorit.
Yield Farming
Yield farming is a DeFi-specific feature that refers to the various ways users generate rewards with cryptocurrencies by providing liquidity to liquidity pools and participating in DeFi protocols.
Whereas staking is about securing the network while earning rewards for doing so, yield farming focuses on earning a competitive yield using smart contracts, decentralized exchanges, token minting, liquidity-mining programs, etc.
Bender Labs
Along with its wrapping protocol, Bender Labs has created a farming protocol with which $WRAP token holders can stake their coins to be rewarded with wTokens (wrapped ERC20 tokens on the Tezos blockchain).
Each time users wrap and unwrap ERC20/ERC721 tokens, fees are collected by the protocol in wTokens. For example, if a user wraps BUSD tokens (to wBUSD), they will pay fees in wBUSD. $WRAP token holders who use the wBUSD farming pool will get a portion of the wBUSD fees generated during the wrapping process.
Figure: Some of the Wrap farming pools—Wrap protocol.
This project has been reviewed and audited by Least Authority.
Youves
Youves is a decentralized, self-governing, and non-custodial platform dedicated to the creation and management of synthetic assets that are secured by eligible collaterals.
Users can become minters by posting and locking tez as collateral in a vault and creating synthetic assets. The first synthetic asset will be a stable token, the $uUSD.
The stable tokens can be sold or transferred to other parties. Minters have the opportunity to leverage their cryptocurrency exposure as they can sell their stable tokens against cryptocurrencies, which increases their exposure to the relevant cryptocurrency price. Holders of stable tokens can diversify their volatile cryptocurrency asset exposure without having to access the fiat currency world.
The self-governing aspect will be managed by a governance token, the $YOU. Youves currently offers three services:
Minting: Users can mint new synthetic assets and be rewarded in YOU tokens and new freshly baked tez. As of August 2021, only uUSD is available at the mintery and the trade marketplace.
Saving: uUSD can be bought in a marketplace and locked in a savings contract to earn interest in uUSD.
Staking: When staking YOU tokens, users are rewarded in uUSD. YOU tokens offer the possibility to participate in the YOU platform governance.
Figure: Youves’ protocol web interface.
This project has been reviewed and audited by Least Authority.
NFT Marketplaces
An NFT ⁹ (Non-Fungible Token, under the “FA2” standard on Tezos) is a digital asset that represents an asset whose main feature is to be unique. It can represent a fully digital asset or the certification of a real-world one, such as a piece of art.
At the time of writing, the NFT market is expanding rapidly and we are witnessing increasing interest for this new blockchain use case. NFTs on Tezos are unique in that they are cheap and environmentally sustainable thanks to the Liquid Proof-of-Stake-based consensus algorithm of the Tezos blockchain.
NFT marketplaces enable collectors, artists, and art amateurs to share their common passion: Art. On those marketplaces, it is possible to trade and collect art pieces smoothly and effectively. [9]: For more information about NFTs, visit: https://adoption-support.nomadic-labs.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/NFT-2.pdf
Hic et Nunc
Hic et Nunc is currently one of the most active NFT marketplaces in the world. It has a very engaged community that selected Hic et Nunc and Tezos because its members care about sustainable art.
At the time of writing, more than 233,000 art pieces have been minted on Hic et Nunc since its creation in early 2021.
Figure: Hic et Nunc marketplace.
During Hic et Nunc’s first 45 days, NFT traders won $hDAO tokens for interacting on the marketplace.
Hic et Nunc’s platform charges a 2.5% fee on each $hDAO transaction to maintain the platform and support its developers. In the near future, $hDAO tokens will be used to increase artwork visibility and perform artwork trades without using tez.
Figure: Minting an artwork on Hic et Nunc (limit 40MB).
Minting an art piece on Hic et Nunc costs 0.08 XTZ ($0.30 on June 11, 2021). Royalties are chosen by artwork issuers. Hic et Nunc ensures sustainable earnings by charging fees each time an artist’s work is exchanged on the secondary market.
This project has not been reviewed and audited as of August 2021.
Kalamint
Kalamint is another popular NFT marketplace on Tezos.
It has the same core principles as Hic et Nunc but requires a sign-up process to access the service. Artists and collectors can trigger and participate in auctions.
Figure: Kalamint’s platform.
Figure: Kalamint’s minting process (limit: 50MB).
Minting artworks on Kalamint costs approximately 0.2 tez.
Figure: A Kalamint artwork sheet.
Creators choose whether to list their artwork. Once an artwork is listed for sale, the creator can delist it at any time (a feature also available on Hic et Nunc).
This project has not been audited as of August 2021.
Objkt
Objkt.com is a secondary market of NFTs that provides art auctions and aggregation of NFTs from various platforms including Kalamint, Hic et Nunc, tzColors, Interpop, and BazaarNFT. It also makes it easier for the Tezos community to buy and sell artwork from the Hic et Nunc marketplace. Henceforth, collectors can gather their collections in one place.
The platform currently offers two kinds of auctions:
English auctions.
Dutch auctions.
Figure: Objkt’s web interface.
In the future, Objkt.com plans to create an independent marketplace with its own infrastructure.
This project has not been audited as of August 2021.
Games
1. Interpop
Interpop is a company that forges the future of digital fandom with comic, game, and collectible NFTs minted responsibly on the Tezos blockchain.
The team behind Interpop builds games and entertainment brands using true digital ownership to redefine fandom through digital collectibles and experiences.
Figure: Interpop applications.
To date, Interpop has built four projects, three of which are available at the time of writing:
Play with BRIO
Play with BRIO is a Solitaire game allowing players to play against each other and earn tez.
Players connect themselves with their social accounts, link their tz addresses, or purchase tez directly on the platform using Ramp bridge and then play the game.
Figure: Brio’s dashboard.
Figure: XTZ purchase with Ramp interface.
This project has not been audited as of August 2021.
Interpop Comics
Interpop Comics allows users to build digitally native comics differently with true digital ownership of their titles, using NFTs. It is possible to sell or trade digital comics just like people would with the physical ones they bought in a comic store.
It is also possible to enjoy comics for free in the e-reader, then buy the whole issue as an NFT. With this ownership comes the ability to engage with the content and have a hand in directing the story’s outcome.
Readers will have power over decisions that range from the cosmetic to the cosmic through voting. Which costume do you like best? Does the hero stop to read this message? Who should join the team? Who was most responsible for a character’s death? These choices will have real consequences and a lasting impact on the outcome.
Figure: Interpop Comics’ interface.
This project has not been audited as of August 2021.
MinterPop
MinterPop is an NFT art and collectibles marketplace built on the Tezos blockchain. It is possible to buy and collect NFT art from a curated roster of contemporary and pop creators, as well as trade NFT users’ own art on MinterPop’s user-to-user marketplace.
Interpop believes that buying and owning NFTs should be easy. Creating an account is as simple as registering email or social media accounts and logging in. MinterPop also creates a web wallet for users when they register.
Figure: MinterPop’s interface.
This project has not been audited as of August 2021.
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