Origins — A DeFi Launchpad Built By the Bitcoin-Powered Sovryn
Origins (Sovryn Origins) is a DeFi launchpad with an ironically unique foundation. Unlike most IDO platforms, Origins is fundamentally powered by Bitcoin. That’s because it was forged in the fires of Sovryn, a decentralized trading platform built on a Bitcoin sidechain called Rootstock (RSK).
Sovryn — Going Against the DeFi Grain
We can’t really discuss the “meat and potatoes” of Origins without first biting into Sovryn a bit more. For those of you that are unfamiliar, Sovryn is a dApp that’s built with RSK ($RBTC) and is designed to facilitate various Bitcoin DeFi activities like trading, borrowing, lending, yield farming, and staking. It’s only one of a handful of DeFi protocols that are based on Bitcoin blockchain technology rather than Ethereum or other more recently created networks.
Sovryn was actually the first-ever DeFi project to utilize RSK, aka “the most secure smart contract network in the world.” It’s since become a robust marketplace for the completely decentralized lending and trading of Bitcoin. But what exactly are the “Origins” of Soveryn?
Well, it all starts with our old pal, Satoshi Nakamoto…
Just kidding… but actually, the birth of Sovryn is very much tied to the evolution of Bitcoin. Most of us can recognize how Bitcoin has slowly transitioned from its initial place as the “forefather of DeFi” to its current status as the “digital equivalent of gold”. Sovryn was designed as a sort of backlash to that evolution. Attempting to reconnect the pioneering cryptocurrency with its roots, Sovryn was built to offer a truly decentralized platform for trading, lending, staking, and farming the “father of all cryptocurrencies”.
Sovryn’s mission is to create a “Bitocracy”. That loosely translates to an “open, fair, and transparent financial system for the world”, centered around Bitcoin transactions. You can think of it as a counterbalance to the centralization of Bitcoin-based financial systems. While other tokenized versions of Bitcoin have attempted to accomplish similar functionality (i.e. wBTC and renBTC), Sovryn is the first to be launched on the actual Bitcoin blockchain (specifically Bitcoin Layer 2 with RSK).
Being powered by RSK, Sovryn is a “Bitcoin native” platform where $BTC is the “only gas you need to power it.” This allows participants to stake, trade, lend, borrow, and farm Bitcoin in a decentralized fashion without having to acquire altcoins to facilitate their transactions. Basically, Sovryn provides a more streamlined and secure way of exchanging $BTC while avoiding the covetous hands of a centralized authority.
Although the platform has a native token called $SOV, Sovryn clearly states that it is not required for transaction fees or designed to act as a currency. Instead, SOV tokens are meant to establish voting power within the platform’s “Bitocracy”. And it’s through the use of that voting power that the Sovryn Improvement Proposal #0035 (SIP-0035) was democratically passed in early November of this year. SIP-0035 officially established Origins as a distinct entity (subprotocol) within the larger Sovryn ecosystem.
The Origins of Origins
A short while back, we wrote an article about BabelFish ($FISH), a DAO that is designed to convert one stablecoin to the next in a trustless environment. That project ended up partnering with Sovryn to help establish its platform and launch its IDO. Given the recent success they experienced launching their own ecosystem, Sovryn saw an opportunity to help other DeFi projects like BableFish with their fundraising efforts. They proceeded to use the BabelFish IDO as a proof of concept for what would eventually evolve into Origins.
As we mentioned above, Origins was recently voted on to become an official subdivision of the Sovryn platform that has its own development team, subprotocol, governance model, and native token: $OG. According to the Sovryn dev team, the successful launch of BabelFish’s IDO using their platform led to a communal realization that Origins should become its own distinct entity. This would allow them to effectively provide launchpad services to other Bitcoin DeFi projects. Basically, they came to the conclusion that no one else is offering these services and that they’re in a unique position to help.
How Will Origins Work?
Origins is set to be the only launchpad on the RSK Blockchain Network, a first for the larger DeFi Bitcoin community. As with the Sovryn dApp, Origins will maintain a decentralized governance model that is “censorship-resistant” and “permissionless”. The $OG token will be used to vet and vote on upcoming projects, to govern the use of treasury funds, and to secure allocations via staking.
On its surface, Origins will function like most DeFi launchpads. The projects hoping to launch their IDO on Origins will pay a flat fee along with percentages of their listed tokens and the amounts that they raise. OG token stakers will receive 50% of these fees while SOV stakers will get 20%. An additional 20% will be directed to the Origins Treasury, of which all OG token holders have democratic control. And, lastly, the remaining 10% will be allocated for buying and burning OG tokens from the “OG/SOV bonding curve”.
$OG Tokenomics — The OG x SOV Bonding Curve
To clarify, the SOV and OG tokens are inextricably linked using a Token Bonding Curve. This is basically a smart contract that automatically adjusts the price of each token based on supply and demand. The price of OG and SOV will go up if there are more tokens being minted. The price will go down if more tokens are being burned.
Bonding curves are meant to establish stability and transparency during token distribution. It’s essentially a hard-coded version of market equilibrium. The prices of the tokens are transparently set and will go incrementally up or down depending on the mint/burn rate. This ensures that the tokens can increase in value while also having a theoretically unlimited supply.
Linking the SOV and OG tokens together with this type of smart contract will also incentivize SOV holders/stakers to participate in the new Origins platform. If more people use Origins, more OG tokens will be minted, and the price of both SOV and OG will increase. Of course, this kind of system would not really be possible in a decentralized ecosystem if it weren’t for the automated smart contracts that control it.
When Will Origins Launch?
The self-launching of the Origins launchpad is set to take place through a public sale within the next several weeks. At the time of writing this, there is still no set date for the official IDO launch. According to the Sovryn and Origins teams, we can expect the public sale to be announced sometime between now and the beginning of next year (Jan 2022).
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