Perpetual Protocol Fosters DeFi Growth
Spotlight Analysis on Perpetual Protocol Grant Recipients (Part 1)
One of the more frequently used expressions in Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is “money legos”, which refers to tech stacks that allow different applications to fit (or be shoved) into other projects to enhance the quality of user experience of already existing applications. One doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel they can simply find what works and make it better (it’s nice that computers aren’t the size of rooms anymore). The three grant recipients discussed herein have accomplished this achievement of iterative growth.
The ethos of iterative development folds beautifully into an open source and permissionless blockchain because everyone can contribute to ameliorate the functioning of the overall system. Often such improvements are driven by protocols through grants programs, which give the opportunity to talented people or skilled organizations to build on top of protocols in pursuing their own designs. When new talent aligns with the protocol’s core team it becomes a net gain for the whole community.
Perpetual Protocol enabled this with its grants program, which started last summer. So far seven projects have been funded and are still ongoing. Six were tech-related, and one was educationally-focused (Bankless DAO). So on behalf of the bDAO, and in the spirit of education, let’s dive in on a few select grants and see how they aim to foster innovation within the DeFi ecosystem.
In Part I, we’ll cover the first three projects funded by Perpetual Protocol:
- Apex Win
- Perpetual Terminal
- Perpetual Community Bot
Apex Win — Decentralized Derivatives
APEX (Advanced Perpetual Exchange) is a decentralized derivatives trading platform built upon Perpetual Protocol. The APEX Win team has always shown a keen interest for Perpetual Protocol’s vAMMs. Currently, their trading venue provides advanced order types for Perpetual Protocol v1 on the xDai Chain, such as limit, stop, and trailing stop-loss orders. To date the Advanced Perpetual Exchange has contributed over $9M in trading volume to the protocol.
The aim of the new project is to overhaul the front end of APEX.Win and create a comprehensive decentralized trading site. More in detail, Apex Win’s project will strengthen the usability of Perpetual Protocol’s v2 — Curie, on the following diverse aspects:
- Leverage the interoperability of the protocol (e.g. user will buy arbitrum PERPs and options in the same place)
- Provide an alternative front end to Perpetual Protocol (in order to grant a more intuitive presentation layer)
- Increase smart contract functionality, e.g., sub accounts and managed accounts, synthetic cross margins, (all thanks to the open source nature of the perpetual smart contracts)
“Working with perpetual protocol has been absolutely fantastic, the team is really on the ball and super open to new initiatives.” — Apex Win Team
Perpetual Terminal — Vipin.eth
The second grants recipient project is Perpetual Terminal, championed by Vipin.eth, which will assist Perpetual Protocol traders to make more informed decisions by allowing access to various analytics, such as:
- Personal trade stats
- Public trade stats (to study the strategy of successful traders)
- Comprehensive volume, profits, and losses, and
- Frequency of trades across various time periods
Access to Perpetual Protocol stats, such as staking activity, fees collected, and number of traders per asset in the last 24 hours, will better assist traders in gauging the overall sentiment of the market.
In this regard, PerpTerminal is becoming the go-to analytics hub for Perpetual Protocol traders, who can now check the trading history of any address and dive-in.
It’s been really exciting to work with the Perpetual Protocol team. Now that v2 is around the corner, we are really excited to continue to collaborate and add new features to PerpTerminal. Throughout the process, they have been nothing but supportive and have always been just one message away.”
— Vipen.eth
Perpetual Community Bot — JamesCliffyz
Thirdly, for developing the Perpetual Community bot, a grant has been awarded to JamesCliffyz. His project aims to provide informative tools on Discord and Telegram to Perpetual Protocol’s users at large: traders, token holders and newcomers. Piping information into these crypto-popular applications is integral for seamless trading discussion and reading market pulse.
Technological automation will showcase the main protocol’s data. On both Telegram and Discord the user will have access to:
Funding Rates across all AMMs, over time through a chart and the rate for each AMM currently (which will help identify if there’s an opportunity for going either long or short)
Staking Rewards (vested and immediate). The information will help staked Perpetual token holders to see when their rewards become unlocked, the value of those rewards and the potential rewards they can earn in the future.
Market Bias (longs vs shorts) of new and current positions, including the notional value for both sides (useful to understand market sentiment across AMMs)
Trader’s Performance/Stats will show their PNL, most profitable trade, most common AMM to trade on, and their Perp/SPerp holdings
Help command will also assist users to know all the available bot commands.
Community Bot provides users with access to more relevant data occurring on the protocol, seamlessly woven into both Discord and Telegram. Wanna try it? Shoot the message “perp help” to the bot on their Discord’s funding-bot-plus channel or just link with them on Telegram. If this works well with Perpetuals Protocol we might expect to see it elsewhere soon. Here’s what the developer has to say about the experience:
The Perp community and team have been very supportive throughout the development of the project, even with many initial bugs and issues, everyone in the community was very encouraging! I am eternally grateful to the Perp Team and the Grants Dao for giving this opportunity and look forward to the future of building in the upcoming V2 Curie and beyond!” — JamesCliffyz
Perpetual Outlook
Perpetual Protocol’s grants program embraces the philosophy of the DeFi space. The protocol is becoming a springboard for interoperability and composability. In this framework, the developers’ creativity is the core component: everyone with a good idea may apply and start adding their own legos on an open-end and permissionless protocol.
Individual progress connected to a single project benefits all Perpetual Protocol users, and shedding light on fundamental data and re-tooling ways to access it may even bring advantages to the entire DeFi ecosystem. In this regard, Perpetual Protocol Grant’s program serves as an example and source of inspiration for other protocols wanting to enhance their user experience through both innovative tools and an improved access to data.
The three grant recipient projects covered discussed herein aren’t exhaustive of the grants administered by the Perpetual Protocol, but are a cumulative indication of the style and types of work that have been funded to date.
Additional grant recipients paving the road for the growth of decentralized finance will be covered in a subsequent spotlight, Part II.
BanklessDAO is the recipient of a Grant from Perpetual’s Grant Awards Program.
Authors’ Bios
Frank America is an active researcher, avid writer, and artist exploring the cryptosphere.
@eaglelex is a Law Professor interested in blockchain technology and DAO governance (twitter: eaglelex_eth)
Additional Bankless Resources on Perpetual Protocols:
📖 A RoadMap into Perpetual Protocol
📖 Perpetual’s v2 “Curie”: A Nobel Prize for DeFi Applications
Perpetual Merchandising:
Perpetual Protocol’s online merch shop!
This post does not contain financial advice, only educational information. By reading this article, you agree and affirm the above, as well as that you are not being solicited to make a financial decision, and that you in no way are receiving any fiduciary projection, promise, or tacit inference of your ability to achieve financial gains. You also affirm that the sole purpose of reading this article is for expanding your educational awareness and nothing more. Be also aware that leverage puts your funds at risk of liquidation at any time. Be sure you understand the risks of leveraged trading before proceeding.
