Instructions for participating in the Balancer Liquidity Bootstrapping Pool (BLBP) for Merit Circle
We are less than a week away from opening our Balancer Liquidity Bootstrapping Pool (BLBP). Here, we’re sharing all the information you need to participate in the BLBP and acquire your own portion of $MC tokens. We’ll guide you through the required steps, parameters and offer an exclusive reward for the top 200 contributors.
Please note: the contract address will be shared through our official channels only; nobody will DM you nor can you purchase $MC tokens prior to the BLBP.
How does the Balancer Liquidity Bootstrapping Pool (BLBP) work?
In a recent announcement, we introduced the concept of a Balancer Liquidity Bootstrapping Pool (BLBP) for Merit Circle as this innovative mechanism allows projects like ours to raise funds in a fair way, removing the flaws of individual caps, whitelisting and bots.
To ensure everyone is able to participate in the BLBP, we want to provide a clear understanding of the process so you can make a considered decision about when, how and what to invest. Read on for answers to the most common and important questions regarding our BLBP.
Why did we choose a BLBP?
The three main building blocks of Merit Circle are exciting Play-to-Earn games, thriving economies and an incredible, vibrant community that continues to grow.
From day one, our community has been vital to Merit Circle’s success. We have an incredible army of supporters, which is why, when it came to deciding how to bring the $MC token to life, we felt that there was only one truly fair way: the BLBP.
With dozens of options available in terms of launchpads, staking pools etc, there’s no other way of making it work for everyone. You may have to purchase a large amount of tokens for the specific launchpool and meet the whitelisting criteria just to receive a tiny allocation, while bots and gas wars ruin the fun for everyone involved.
With a BLBP, however, anyone (except for Prohibited Persons as defined in the disclaimers below) can invest, big or small. Without the ability to run bots and scripts, there will be genuine price discovery happening across the 72-hour period the pool will be open. Tokens will be immediately tradable making it impossible for a large party to dump on smaller ones.
So why choose a BLBP? To truly give everyone a chance to participate in Merit Circle.
What are the possible outcomes?
Naturally, we can’t predict the exact outcome of this BLBP. By fundraising this way, we let the market decide what the eventual token price will be and, therefore, how much we will raise for Merit Circle’s treasury.
To understand a BLBP, it’s important to know what would happen to the token price if no one performs a swap to buy $MC tokens. In the image below, you can see what happens when there isn’t a single transaction over the 72-hour duration of the pool. In this case, the price of the $MC token slowly decreases to the final end price.
Given the response we have received so far, the above scenario is very unlikely and therefore we think it’s best to compare our upcoming BLBP with two recent launches that happened on Copperlaunch: KlimaDAO and GRO.
KlimaDAO — $aKLIMA
KlimaDAO is a project that’s building an ambitious carbon-backed digital currency and ecosystem. A little over a month ago, it took to the Copperlaunch stage for its public round. Its BLBP had the following parameters:
Starting weight: 96:4
Ending weight: 10:90
Duration: 72 hours
Initial AKlima: 120000
Initial USDC: 579500
In the image above, you can see how, over the 72-hour period, the price gradually dropped to later increase to its final price of $323.4271. When analyzing the graph, we can see that 11 hours after the opening of the pool, the price bottomed out to only go up from there. In the end, 4,056 people contributed to the BLBP, raising over $17.47 million for KlimaDAO with a volume of $33.5 million.
GRO — $GRO
GRO is a new way to earn yield safely or with leverage on stablecoins. At the end of September, it took to the Copperlaunch stage for its public round. Its BLBP had the following parameters:
Starting weight: 95:5
Ending weight: 50:50
Duration: 72 hours
Initial GRO: 5000000
Initial USDC: 2650000
In the image above, you can see how, over the 72-hour period, the price gradually dropped to steadily increase close to the initial starting price with a final $9.2808. When analyzing the graph, we can see that eight hours after the opening of the pool, the price bottomed out to only go up from there. In the end, 3,266 people contributed to the BLBP, raising over $18.31 million for GRO with a volume of $37.7 million.
Important takeaways
As you can see with both KlimaDAO and GRO, there’s no need to purchase at the very beginning of the period. The way a BLBP is set up, the price gradually drops and, therefore, it might be better to purchase after a couple of hours. It took 11 hours for KlimaDAO and eight hours for GRO to find their bottom prices respectively. On that note, there’s no blueprint for BLBPs; every single one is unique and will attract a different kind of investor plotting their own chart.
BLBP parameters
The Merit Circle Balancer Liquidity Bootstrapping Pool will have the following key parameters:
- Start Date: 2 November, 2PM UTC
- End Date: 5November, 2PM UTC
- Sale Duration: 3 days (72 hours)
- Platform: Copperlaunch.com
- Starting price: $1
- Ending price: $0,0433
- Initial MC pooled: 75,000,000
- Initial USDC pooled: 3,125,000
- Starting weights: MC 96%: USDC 4%
- Ending weights: MC 50%: USDC 50%
Follow these steps to participate
- Firstly, head over to swap.meritcircle.io or the Copperlaunch page created for the Merit Circle BLBP to be found here — To be added when pool is live.
2. You will then have to connect a compatible wallet to this page. This could be MetaMask, WalletConnect, Gnosis Safe or directly with your Ledger.
3. After you’re connected, state the amount of $MC tokens that you wish to purchase and select “Approve”. You should first approve the Merit Circle website (Or the Copperlaunch website) to spend your preferred ERC-20 token. After you have approved your ERC-20 token, select “Swap”.
When swapping, you have the ability to change your slippage tolerance by pressing the “Settings” button underneath the “Swap” button.
4. Your transaction will now start processing. After the transaction is confirmed on the Ethereum blockchain, you will receive your $MC tokens in your wallet. You will see the pop-up button below to confirm.
Important to know when swapping
- Copperlaunch is the main UI but only includes ETH, USDC, USDT AND DAI; therefore, we created a swap page ourselves (using the 1inch API) in case you want to use any other ERC20.
- Always make sure that you have sufficient ETH for gas fees in your wallet
- We have paired $MC with USDC. You can swap against any token you like but swapping with other assets could result in slippage depending on the routing of your order.
Exclusive Merit Circle BLBP NFTs
In the midst of structuring Merit Circle, setting up the BLBP and formalizing the internal framework, we have been working on something special. In collaboration with an Emmy award- winning animator, we are designing a unique line of NFTs. This wide set of characters, each with unique traits, will be part of an immersive experience that we’re gradually exploring.
To be among the first to receive one of these exclusive NFTs you will have to meet the following criteria:
- Top 50 contributors will receive two exclusive NFTs
- Top 51–200 contributors will receive one exclusive NFT
Please note that participants should have interacted with the BLBP contracts from their respective wallet and should still hold the $MC tokens at the end of the BLBP in that same wallet. We will take a snapshot at the beginning and at the end of the BLBP. People who buy and sell within the 72 hour period are not eligible.
We will release more concrete information about the NFTs later this year. Think utility within Merit Circle, looks, rarity, traits and vital information. We’re not trying to resemble current PFP projects, we’re creating NFTs that hold function within Merit Circle. Anyone who’s eligible will receive theirs in due course.
Frequently asked questions
We understand there must be tons of questions you want to ask. Here, we’ve tried to answer some of the questions that we have received while we’ve been setting up the BLBP.
Which wallets can I use to participate in the BLBP?
To participate in the BLBP, you must connect a web3 enabled cryptocurrency wallet to Copperlaunch. Currently, the available options are MetaMask, Gnosis Safe, WalletConnect and Ledger.
Which cryptocurrencies do I need for the BLBP?
In order to participate in the BLBP, you need two tokens: Ethereum (ETH) for gas costs and USDC (or any other preferred ERC-20 token) to exchange for $MC.
While tokens other than USDC will be accepted for the swap to $MC, we recommend using USDC directly. The moment you swap using other tokens, you are likely to face a higher price since the 1inch integration we’re using could cause slippage costs while converting your token to USDC.
At what price level should I start buying?
This is completely up to you. We can’t give advice as to how much, when or in what way you should be investing. Please note that the price will gradually decrease when no buys occur but it could also be the case that a large volume of buys causes the price to quickly increase.
That said, we recommend that you analyze what happened with previous BLBPs on Copperlaunch like KlimaDAO and GRO to see how their pools charted over time.
What is the minimum amount I can buy?
There is no minimum amount of $MC tokens that you have to buy. It’s completely up to you to choose how much you want to buy at the price that’s available at that time. However, participating in the BLBP does require you to perform multiple transactions on the Ethereum blockchain, one for approving your tokens and the other for swapping.
Please note that Ethereum transaction fees are fairly high right now, so expect to spend anywhere between $25 and $200 per transaction. Fees depend on how congested the network is and varies hour-to-hour. You can track this via Eth Gas Station or Etherscan.
Will there be a lockup period for $MC purchased in the BLBP?
$MC tokens purchased in the BLBP will be freely tradable immediately after the sale as they arrive in your wallet straight after swapping.
Are there any other unlocked tokens?
There will only be 10% of the retroactive rewards unlocked after the BLBP. All other tokens are vested ranging from 18 to 52. This will be fairly distributed among the earliest supporters of Merit Circle and amount to four million $MC tokens, which results in a total initial circulation of 79 million $MC tokens after the BLBP.
The initial circulating supply is based on the public distribution and 10% of the retroactive rewards. Community Incentives and treasury will be partly unlocked but not brought in circulation since these funds will only be moved upon DAO’s approval.
What can I do with my $MC tokens after the BLBP?
We aim to launch our staking module straight after the BLBP; anyone who holds $MC tokens will be able to stake their tokens for additional rewards. On top of that, the $MC token holds your voting rights in the Merit Circle DAO, which will come into play when the tokens are launched. Governance forum and voting will be launched in the near future, also.
I have more questions — who can I ask?
If you have more questions about participating in the Merit Circle BLBP, reach out on Telegram, Discord or Twitter and we will get back to you as soon as we can.
To stay up to date on our adventure, follow Merit Circle on these channels:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MeritCircle_IO
Medium: https://medium.com/@meritcircle
Discord: https://discord.gg/meritcircle
Website: https://www.meritcircle.io
Gaming platform: https://gaming.meritcircle.io
Governance forum: https://gov.meritcircle.io/
Snapshot: https://vote.meritcircle.io/#/
Seller of the MC tokens is Merit Circle Limited. This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, financial or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any digital assets and the use of finance-related terminology are for illustrative purposes only, and do not constitute any recommendation for any action or an offer to provide investment, financial or other advisory services. This content may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to purchase any digital asset referenced herein. There can be no assurance that the investments mentioned herein will be profitable. The digital assets referenced in this report currently face an uncertain regulatory landscape in several jurisdictions. The legal and regulatory risks inherent in referenced digital assets are not the subject of this content. The content speaks only as of the date indicated. Persons and entities from certain restricted jurisdictions are not entitled to participate in the sale, including US persons (including entities), or persons or entities (or entities controlled by persons) on sanctions list of the OFAC or any other US, UN, EU or other applicable sanctions list (“Prohibited Persons”).
