Put your $ZOO to work!
Use Cases of $ZOO from ZooEcosystem
I am not a financial advisor.
So you bought some $ZOO… well what do you do with it now? There is a lot you can do with it! This is the list of current uses of the $ZOO token that I will discuss in this article: hold it, farm it, bridge it, bop it, twist it, stake it, wanlend, NFT trading, Zoogames. Here is a list of the important websites I will be referencing:
#1: Hold it
Right now there are only a handful of places you can purchase $ZOO. It is currently crosschained on two networks Avalanche and Wanchain. There are more chains planned for the future. The DEXs (decentralized exchanges) that it is on are TraderJoe, Pangolin, and Wanswap. The way you interact with these websites is with a wallet, typically a metamask wallet.
If you have any questions about how to purchase $ZOO and you already have knowledge about how cryptocurrency moves please reference this article below by the team:
If you have little to no idea about purchasing cryptocurrency especially from a decentralized exchange please reference this article I wrote below:
The tried and true method of cryptocurrency is to just hold (or hodl) your asset. Leave it in your wallet off major exchanges and go on about your life. This is nice to do, mainly for peace of mind. Thankfully, since you can only purchase $ZOO from a DEX right now you automatically get the $ZOO in your metamask wallet and you can keep it there. I don’t recommend this because there’s so much more you can have your $ZOO do for you, but things do get a little more complicated.
#2 Farm It
Farming $ZOO means you provide liquidity (usually $ZOO and another token pair in equal parts) so that other users can swap $ZOO for other assets. It’s the basis for how a DEX works. The reason you are able to purchase $ZOO on these exchanges is because someone else provided the liquidity you are swapping for. As a reward these individuals that provide liquidity for farming earn fees from your transaction and they also earn $ZOO as a “harvest” from the ZooEcosystem team as a thank you for providing liquidity.
You can access farming with the below website.
https://www.zookeeper.finance
The main risk with farming is impermanent loss. Below is a great youtube video that explains it in detail. General thing to keep in mind, if you are expecting a drastic rise in price in one token and the other token to stay the same price then it’s best to stay out of farming until the price settles down. If a scenario like that happens you would have made more money if you just kept your funds out of farming and in your wallet, just by sheer price increase. In a normal price fluctuation environment the amount you earn from farming rewards offsets the amount you lose in impermanent loss.
Another risk with farming is in order to get the highest APRs advertised you have to lock up your liquidity for 6 months. Meaning even if you wanted to, you couldn’t retrieve your funds because they are locked up in a smart contract. You have the option to select a shorter amount of lockup time or no lockup time at all at the time you provide liquidity.
*Side note — don’t forget to add a booster NFT onto your farming pool for increased rewards with the extra boost. Click the + when you provide liquidity* You can switch out boosters without messing with your lockup time while you are locked up. More on NFTs later.
Below is a screenshot of the farming pools on Wanchain. These pools on Wanchain will soon be removed because every added chain will only provide farming rewards for 2 years after it started. That time is coming for the Wanchain network and it is scheduled to end during the middle of May 2023. The other option is farming pools on Avalanche which are live currently. You can toggle between the two networks by selecting the desired network through metamask on the same website listed above.
Below is a screenshot of the farming pools on Avalanche.
The documentation here goes more in depth of the farming aspect of $ZOO https://docs.zookeeper.finance/manual/pool
Personally I like the farming aspect because you can harvest every day if you like and you can then take those farming rewards and use them for all the other great things ZooEcosystem has to offer.
#3 Bridge It
Bridging enables you to transfer your $ZOO from network to network without having to sell it for the network’s currency. Here are a few examples of how this could be used.
- Arbitrage. Say the price of $ZOO is more expensive on AVAX exchange as compared to on WAN exchange. You could in turn bridge your $ZOO from WAN to AVAX and sell it for a higher price, then use the money you sold it for to go back and buy more $ZOO on WAN until the price evens out.
- You are participating in the farming pools on Wanchain network and your funds are locked up for 6 months, but the APRs look really good on Avalanche. You could take your farming rewards from your pools on Wanchain and bridge it over to the farming pools on Avalanche and participate in the pools with higher payout.
- Say you are participating in the farming pools on Wanchain and there is a booster NFT that you want (more on this later) for sale on both Wanchain booster NFT marketplace and also the Avalanche booster NFT marketplace. Instead of them being the same price, the one on AVAX is cheaper than the one on Wanchain. You could bridge your $ZOO from WAN to AVAX and purchase the booster NFT, then you could bridge the booster NFT from AVAX to WAN and add it to your liquidity pool.
Bridging is done by clicking the “safe” tab on the zookeeper.finance website. https://app.zookeeper.finance/safe Then you click on the zoo bridge icon in the center of the screen.
If you are interested in bridging zoo and would like a resource from the team use this link https://blog.zoo.one/how-to-use-the-zoo-cross-chain-swap-9b8e6f60ed9c. Next we will discuss staking.
#4 Stake it
Staking is similar to farming how you take your $ZOO and put it in a smart contract for a return, but the difference is you don’t need equal parts $ZOO and another token. You only use $ZOO and lockup times are usually shorter or non existent depending on what your are staking for.
There are 2 things you can stake for with the Zoo Ecosystem: Chests and Elixirs.
Everything within the ZooEcosystem works together. The chests give you a chance to get boosters. Boosters are used in farming and also in the ZooRacers game to boost player stats. Elixirs are used in crafting (combining) boosters for better boosters and also elixirs will be used in ZooRacers game to increase your player’s stats.
#1 First is the NFT boosters. If you are lucky enough you can stake your $ZOO for a chest and when it comes time to open your chest you could earn one of these bad boys.
That Iced Matcha is on sale for 1.5m $ZOO or about $12,750 at current prices. Will it sell for that much? Unlikely. You can go to the insights page on zookeeper.finance and check the last selling price of all NFTs. The highest a zoo booster has ever sold was for 200,010 $ZOO and it is an Ultra Rare Class/Magic Class which is the highest rare category of boosters, and it’s the only one in existence so far. That category is so rare that the MAX booster in it’s category still hasn’t been unlocked yet and chests staking has been around for almost 2 years. Either someone gets another “Hey I’m ULTRA RARE!” and crafts it into the MAX booster or someone opens the MAX in a chest. More on crafting later.
Keep in mind, there’s another NFT market on Avalanche and also one on Openzoo.io (more on this later). It is best to research all for the best price.
The downside to staking chests is you are most likely going to end up getting a very low % booster like an apple or an orange. This can be demoralizing especially if you’ve been waiting 32 days to open the chest. The other downside is while you are waiting to open your chest you do not have access to your $ZOO because it’s locked up in a smart contract. Either way it makes staking fun because it’s randomized.
#2 Elixirs. Elixirs can be purchased as an empty bottle with a randomized shape, name, and liquid color for around 1,500 $ZOO. This $ZOO gets burned and you don’t get it back. Once you have the elixir bottle you need to fill it up. This can be done by staking your $ZOO to “start brewing” and it will slowly add drops to your bottle. When you are staking your $ZOO for drops you get the $ZOO back when you are done brewing. Once the bottle is full (100 drops) you can either upgrade the bottle to the next class or use it to craft boosters of the same class as the bottle. Fun fact: If you have around 170,000 $ZOO you can fill a bottle from 0 to 100 drops in about 24 hours. In less than a week and that much $ZOO, you could have a brand new empty normal bottle upgraded to a full ultra rare bottle. Just remember to upgrade it daily.
Elixirs can be used on Zookeeper.finance website and also attached onto your player in ZooRacers for bonus stats. The most interesting thing about elixirs is the ability to craft boosters together to make a better booster.
#3 Crafting. So you’ve been staking your zoo and you have opened two chests so far and you’ve received an apple in both. Don’t worry, even though it’s not that great of a booster you can take them and combine them together to make a better booster!
This is where things get a little complicated. You can only combine boosters that have the same “star” value and they can be any class of booster.
In the above example you would be able to combine these two boosters because they have the same star value. Even though one is a SSR and the other is a SR it will still work. However, in order to craft these two you would need an elixir that has been upgraded to at least the level of SSR, and you would need enough drops to complete the craft. Every craft requires a specific number of drops in the bottle. Once the booster receives a “MAX” star rating you can’t craft it anymore.
The upside to crafting is maybe you have a one star UR and a one star N. There is a chance, a small chance, that you could craft them together and end up with an UR 2 star booster instead of a N 2 star booster. Also, the safest bet is to combine two of the same boosters and you are guaranteed to know what the outcome is.
The downside of course is there’s a chance you could end up with the worse of the two combinations, but this is something that makes it fun.
If you would like some more in depth information directly from the team please navigate over to their article post here: https://medium.com/zookeeper-blog/an-introduction-to-nft-crafting-8d9c191d7e0c
#5 Wanlend
https://wanlend.finance is kind of a combination of farming and staking. You are providing your $ZOO as a supplier for someone to borrow your $ZOO, in return you earn a APR %. This is more in line with acting as your own bank, however, you don’t need to interact with the person that wants to borrow your funds. There are more assets on wanlend, but we will only focus on $ZOO for this article.
The above can be seen by clicking on the “market” button on the wanlend.finance homepage. What it shows is that there is 37.8M $ZOO that people have deposited onto wanlend in hopes that someone borrows it. It also shows that 28.01M $ZOO of the 37.8M $ZOO has been borrowed, leaving 10.16M $ZOO remaining for other borrowers to use. The supplier will earn 13.04% yearly and is paid out throughout the day, and the borrower will owe 19.35% yearly. You may wonder why would someone want to borrow $ZOO when it’s so easy to just buy it and use it yourself. Here lies the issue with wanlend and why most ZooEcosystem users and the team do not like wanlend.
Let me paint the scenario for you:
A supplier may like using wanlend because there is minimal risk and they don’t want to be exposed to impermanent loss in farming. So they park their funds in wanlend and earn a comfortable 13% on their investment and there is no harvesting or reinvesting required. It’s automatic. This is beneficial to the supplier.
A borrower on the other hand has a bunch of bitcoin that they don’t want to sell, or they have a bunch of USDC that they want to keep in USDC. Well the borrower can use that BTC or USDC as collateral and borrow $ZOO on wanlend. The borrower can then take that newly borrowed $ZOO and swap 1/2 for $USDT on wanswap and provide that liquidity to participate in the farming pool of Ivor on Wanchain earning a cool 92% return on their investment and they can pocket the difference from what they owe of 19.35%.
At face value this isn’t that bad — everyone wins, until you realize that the borrower has to pay back their loan. The way the protocol works is they can pay it back at any time. They will likely sell the $ZOO they earned in their farming harvest which will add more $ZOO into the market, which could decrease price. While they are at it do you think they will only sell the amount needed to cover the loan, or will they sell their entire farming rewards just to turn around and buy more BTC/USDC? It becomes obvious how a malicious player could hurt this amazing project.
This is why ZooEcosystem team and users do not like Wanlend. Wanlend was created by the Wanchain team. This wasn’t intentional from the Wanchain team, but just happened to be the case. This process inherently adds selling pressure to the ZooEcosystem and hurts the ones that care about the project’s success. Because Wanlend isn’t owned by ZooEcosystem there are no fees that goes back to the ZooEcosystem team funds and no burning of $ZOO occurs so there is literally no benefit to the ZooEcosystem except downward sell pressure.
Another downside to using Wanlend is there have been instances where you can’t get your $ZOO out immediately. In the above image there is 10.16M $ZOO remaining. This means that 10.16M can be borrowed and also 10.16M can be withdrawn by suppliers. Once that 10.16M is gone nobody can withdraw their $ZOO anymore until the borrowers pay off their loans or more $ZOO is added to the supply. The upside to this is your APR will skyrocket and it will no longer be beneficial for people to borrow the $ZOO and you will eventually be able to withdraw your $ZOO because they will pay off their loans, or more people will see the high APR and want to add their $ZOO.
Now lets talk NFT Marketplace.
#6 OpenZoo
Openzoo is ZooEcosystem’s NFT marketplace built on the Wanchain Network. Use your $ZOO as the website’s currency to buy and sell NFTs from many different categories and artistic backgrounds.
Openzoo hosts many artists which have amazing works on the platform. There is even a project that will have ZooEcosystem products incorporated into the new project’s offerings in the future. For example, Small Arms Syndicate (SAS) which is currently the number 1 collection of sales outside of the ZooEcosystem native products. There is an airdrop planned on April 24, 2023 for the $SAS token and you just need to have the $SAS NFT in your wallet before the airdrop date to participate in the airdrop. They will have their own exchange called RexDex and a farming rewards system which you will be able to use Zoo Boosters for increased farming rewards. Definitely a stellar up-and-coming project to research. Ryan over there is doing some great work.
Buy your SAS NFT with $ZOO at https://openzoo.io/collection/0xc2b3af0a56387d4ef095a80a174f493e9a0438a5
Only 10,000 SAS NFTs. Floor price is $6. The highest ever SAS NFT has been for $4,605.05.
Airdrop Info: Users will get ~15,000 $SAS for every SAS NFT you own.
The most important aspect of OpenZoo in my opinion is it’s where you can buy and sell ZooGenes. Right now there has been $374,450 worth of trades that occurred for ZooGenes with a floor price of $26. These ZooGenes will be playable in game characters where their rarity and attributes directly correlate to how they will be in game. For example if your ZooGenes has lightning surrounding it, when you’re playing the character in zooracers you will see it as you play your ZooGenes in their upcoming game ZooRacers. The NFTs look pixelated, but in game they will be nice and plump 3D characters.
Will the above Ultra Rare Zoogene (UR) sell for $21,320? Probably not right now, but I can almost guarantee you it will in the future, and that will be seen as a discount. This is because there are only 10,000 ZooGenes in existence and of those 10,000 only 354 are categorized as UR which is about 3.5% of the supply.
The highest sold ZooGene right now is Muenet the Wary Turtle which is currently on sale for $84,000 and has a last sold price of $5,675.
The $5,675 last sold price of this ZooGene is warranted, because not only is this ZooGene rated ultra rare it also has a ghost attribute. Only 1% of all ZooGenes even have the ghost attribute and of those there is only 22/10,000 that have UR also. The ghost attribute also makes the ZooGene invisible at the start of each life in ZooRacers which makes other players unable to lock onto you and shoot you like normal while you are invisible. Invisibility lasts about 10 seconds, sometimes that’s all you need to eliminate another player and steal his tokens before the time runs out.
According to the last beta version of ZooRacers Muenet has the following attributes in game:
HP: 72
Acceleration: 91
Defense: 100
Damage: 100
Steering: 37
Max Speed: 86
Regeneration: 100
Aim: 68
He will do very well in game as long as you are driving straight.
There are a few that outperform Muenet in my opinion.
There are many many great ZooGenes, you just have to do the homework to find them. Psst… there’s also a great excel sheet floating around that has all 10,000 ZooGenes and their attributes listed numerically and you can filter it and find the best deals on the market that way. There are people right now selling their ZooGene for way under what they could be charging for it based off it’s attributes, because they don’t realize how good of a ZooGene they have. It is better if they took it off the market and waited until lending comes available. Remember, just because you have an UR doesn’t mean it’s better than a SSR, it’s all about the number breakdowns. Not all attributes are used in ZooRacers. While most UR are better than a SSR, there are some SSR that will outperform an UR in game.
You may be thinking I can’t afford something like that! Well have no fear you can buy one of the cheaper “N” rated (normal) ZooGenes and it will perform better than the free ZooGene that is playable in ZooRacers by default. Those N ZooGenes can be purchased for the floor price of around $26. The nice thing with the free playable ZooGene in game is that anyone can play the game and there’s no barriers to entry with forcing people to pay in order to play.
Another aspect that the ZooGenes will provide in the future is their lending capability. ZooEcosystem team will developing a lending capability for ZooGenes owners to lend out their ZooGenes to other players. The official documentation hasn’t been released on how this will work, but the idea will be the same.
Say there’s a new user that knows having at least a SSR (super super rare) will greatly increase their chances of winning a round on ZooRacers, but the price of $75 (current prices) for one is too high. In the future you will be able to borrow a SSR for a period of time and pay the owner some variation of a portion of your winnings, an upfront fee, or some combination of both. You will be able to still play as if you own the SSR and then the smart contract will give it back to the owner when the terms of the agreement are up. Lending will be possible for all of the 10,000 ZooGenes.
This is great passive income for those who own ZooGenes. We will have to wait and see the specifics of the lending feature in the future, but it’s great to know it’s in the works.
I saved the best for last.
#7 Zoo.games
ZooGames is where the magic happens and will continue to happen. This is one of the most recent developments and still has more planned. ZooGames is a platform that will list other cryptocurrency games regardless of what network they are hosted on. All cryptocurrency games can be listed, and ZooGames will be a one stop shop for all gamers out there wanting to play cryptocurrency games. It’s similar to the game listing platform Steam for traditional games. There will be a way to review new games on ZooGames so that new players get to play the best crypto games out there.
The currency used on ZooGames is vZOO. This currency is an exact 1:1 value of $ZOO and doesn’t add any to the circulating supply of $ZOO. The team is creating a fiat on ramp to enable users to purchase vZOO without having to jump through all the hoops of going through exchanges. New users can directly purchase and play ZooRacers all through one website.
Right now there is only one game listed on ZooGames and thats ZooRacers. There are more ZooEcosystem games being developed currently. A card game similar to uno called ZooNo and a soccer game called GenesStrikers. There will be over 250 non ZooEcosystem crypto games listed on the platform, with more that that in the future. This is also in the works and we should see it before the end of the year.
Users will be able to use their vZOO to purchase crypto games on ZooGames and other packages they offer such as bundles or ZooGames chests.
I’m sure this list will continue to develop as times goes on, and more will be added.
It truly is amazing to see what all is planned for ZooEcosystem and it seems like nobody knows about it. I think this will change after the full release of the ZooRacers game is out. We should see it before the summer months. I hope this breakdown of the uses of $ZOO can benefit existing $ZOO users and and new users alike.
Thanks for reading.
-Adam
