June 2022 Recap

Published in

Alpaca Finance

7 min readJul 4, 2022

In June, we continued to add many new features to our protocol. We launched the new CAKE lending pool which allows users to lend as well as borrow CAKE to farm on three existing CAKE-paired pools with attractive yields. We also launched a surprise Easter Egg NFT for CAKE lenders and borrowers; The campaign will last through the end of July, so don’t forget to claim it here. On top of that, we launched the private access to high-leverage Automated Vaults, added 4 new high-leverage Automated Vaults (2 Savings and 2 Market Neutral Vaults), added a new Grazing Range partner, and completed 2 AIP votes.

We also introduced one of our promised utilities for Alpies NFTs which is Alpies Staking that will allow users to boost leverage on their selected LYF pools.

Lastly, we also created an Easter Egg NFT for all the Diamond-Hands Alpacas who staked their $ALPACA in the Governance Vault during the recent bear market. You can claim it here.

Read below for details of our developments this month.

🌾New Lending Pools and Farms

In June, we added the CAKE lending pool. Lenders can deposit CAKE for 20% APY and borrowers can borrow CAKE for leveraged yield farming.

Users can now borrow CAKE to farm:

CAKE-BNB (3x, PancakeSwapV2, BNB Chain) earning 28%+ APY
CAKE-BUSD (3x, PancakeSwapV2, BNB Chain) earning 93%+ APY
CAKE-USDT (3x, PancakeSwapV2, BNB Chain) earning 102%+ APY

We will continue to add new farms with our existing DEX partners (PancakeSwap, MDEX, BiSwap, SpookySwap) and future ones too.

🦙Alpies Staking

This month, we introduced the promised utility for Alpies NFTs. Alpies Staking will allow users to farm at higher leverage (3x → 4.5x) among chosen 16 pools (on Pancakeswap, Biswap, and Mdex) resulting in higher rewards.

On top of that, liquidation thresholds will be adjusted upwards to accommodate higher leverage for users who have Alpies staked. This means that, as an added benefit, users who stake Alpies will be less likely to get liquidated even if they don’t use higher leverage.

For more information, you can review our Docs here.

🏦Automated Vaults

In June, we added the private vault feature for xALPACA holders according to the AIP-6.1 and AIP-6.2 votes. With this new feature, only Governance stakers are able to invest in high-leverage (>4x) Automated Vaults. The allocation amount each staker can deposit are based on the xAlpaca amount each user has at the time of investment. Investors who had investments in the high-leverage vaults prior to this implementation can still farm in them. However, if they withdraw their investments, they’ll need to have sufficient xALPACA to re-enter the private vault again.

We launched 2 high-leverage Savings Vaults and 2 high-leverage Market Neutral Vaults:

We will continue to add additional low-leverage and high-leverage vaults as appropriate.

Finally, announced the Automated Vault Community Program, with instructions detailed here. Any community member can now submit an Automated Vault strategy to us. If the strategy is deemed safe and profitable after internal review, we will launch an Automated Vault using that strategy, while the creator of that strategy will earn some management fees. We hope the program will reveal creative strategies from our Herd members, while setting a new paradigm of community inclusiveness among DeFi protocols.

🔥ALPACA Buyback&Burn

Each week, we share our revenue and ALPACA burn statistics on Twitter. In June, 1,578,552 ALPACA (~$315,710) was burned over 4 weeks, or an average of 394,638 ALPACA per week. The total cumulative burn is now ~22.3 million ALPACA (11.8% of total supply).

ALPACA has been deflationary for 26 of the last 33 weeks. We hope to again refer our readers to this article by a community member, explaining ALPACA’s deflationary nature and how it will lead to a natural rise of the ALPACA token’s price over time.

🗽Alpaca Governance

Any user can stake ALPACA into the Governance Vault to (1)earn a share of our platform’s revenue, (2)get Grazing Range rewards, (3)receive xALPACA to vote on Alpaca Improvement Proposals (AIPs), and (4)have private access to high leverage (>4x) Automated Vaults. Currently, users can earn 25.4% APY on the BNB Chain and 20.1% APY on Fantom.

In total, 47.4% of circulating ALPACA has been locked (up from 44.5% last month), and we have paid over >$2Mn to ALPACA governance stakers. Read all about Alpaca Governance in our Part 1 and Part 2 Medium articles or visit our docs’ Governance section.

Users can now use the Early Withdrawal feature for the Governance Vault. The penalty for early withdrawal is 0.75% of the withdrawn amount per week of remaining locked time. More details explained here.

Alpaca Improvement Proposals (AIPs):

AIP-8.1 and AIP-8.2 voting have concluded. The community voted to increase AUSD utility by providing access to high-leveraged AVs with $1 worth of AUSD3EPS locked for $1 allocation.

For those who participated in voting, the NFTs for AIP-8.1 and AIP-8.2 are now available to claim on Galaxy. Visit our Governance Forum to read about, discuss, and vote on these AIPs.

Grazing Ranges: Users who stake ALPACA in our Governance Vault can earn Grazing Range tokens. Grazing Range tokens are tokens of protocols we have a close partnership with (bold indicates new partners this month):

15,500,000 GQ (~$200k USD; from 5/12 to 7/7)
3,000,000 BTH (~$93k USD; from 5/12 to 7/7)
303,000 GYMNET(~$91k USD; from 5/19 to 7/14)
23,300 PSR (~$90k USD; from 6/30 to 8/25)

Users who stake at least 500/5000/50,000 xALPACA (3 tiers) during the first 4 weeks of a Grazing Range campaign can earn a Grazing Range NFT. In June, the TINC, GQ, BTH, and GYMNET NFTs became claimable on Project Galaxy. Details of each Grazing Range campaign are available on our Medium.

👨‍👨‍👧‍👦Community Events

We host several community events each month, where users can earn NFTs, community badges, and tokens. We make these events easy to participate in, so spend a few minutes to claim these rewards!

Alpaca of the Month

Congratulations to the community members — Tripaw, CL, Xnova, Napaca Mathrio — for winning Alpaca of the Month for June! They received these great custom avatars from @MerZair:

To win Alpaca of the Month, just be active in our Discord or Telegram, helping other users or contributing to the community. Details are here.

📃Platform & UI/UX Updates

We made UI improvements:

Updated vault naming on AV page
Added link for how APY is calculated in APY tooltip on AV page
Added gear for Slippage setting on AV invest&withdraw and open/adjust/close farm pages
Added underlying position info on AV strategy detail page
Private allocation tracking online. Can see allocation when clicking Invest from an AV detail page
Added filters on AV page
Show early withdrawal ALPACA amount on Gov page
Added tooltips for private AV on Farm page
More text on private AVs to lock ALPACA for allocation
Portfolio Savings Vaults now show in native token values
AV Portfolio now has tooltip for Amount

👨‍👨‍👦Twitter Spaces Fireside Chats and Podcasts

We released 3 podcasts in June. Listen to insightful thoughts on key blockchain developments with our Head of Business Development James, our Head of Strategy and Marketing Sam, and our Head of Institutional Growth Pete:

20th Fireside Chat (June 8th, 2022) — $USDD lesson, Downturn effect on crypto companies, Treasury management, Increasing regulation, ETH testnet merge, GameFi in bear market, and NFT bullish case
21st Fireside Chat (June 22nd, 2022) — Lessons from 3 Arrows Capital event, DAO, Reasons from the market crash, Law compliance with CEX, and the future market direction
Cryptopacas Episode 6 — listen to James and Pete discuss the hottest trends in crypto

Charity

Donated amounts in June include:

Donated $5,000 to Alma Bonita Animal Rescue, a small animal sanctuary in Morgan Hill run by the lovely Sheila

Donated $7,000 to Serendipity Alpaca Farm, a family-run farm in Ontario

Donated $4,000 to Olympic Peninsula Llama/Alpaca Rescue, a safe haven for camelids in Port Angeles

📰Other News

alpacafinance.com now forwards to alpacafinance.org

Kriptomat, an EU-based and licensed exchange, has now listed $ALPACA on their platform — https://twitter.com/kriptomat/status/1534139087388565505

Alpaca Finance has one of the top developers ranks with a score of 98 rated by Stack, the Digital Asset Research organization — https://twitter.com/StackDotMoney/status/1533936024568594433

Alpaca Finance was featured on Altcoin Buzz News — https://www.altcoinbuzz.io/bitcoin-and-crypto-guide/how-to-use-the-alpaca-finance-platform/

DeFi Watch, a leading performance tracking tool, has integrated Alpaca Finance — https://twitter.com/defi_watch_/status/1529477391537557506

Careers

Alpaca Finance is expanding and hiring! Please go to https://docs.alpacafinance.org/join-the-herd-alpacareers/were-hiring to see available positions.

Feedback

We greatly value our users’ feedback, which you can give at: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1QGY4wJUvYdYWe6TQn460m0A7H07xMUcBGEnU-pUXyg4/viewform?ts=61e8ce4e&edit_requested=true

Next Steps

We will continue to build and meet the list of goals detailed on our roadmap. The updates that should be looking forward include GameFi Developments and more AUSD utility, which we cannot wait to share with you soon. We’ll also be adding additional Automated Vaults — both high and low-leverage.

Updates will be first announced on our Twitter, so follow us and be the first to know!