Deploying $DOWN pt.1

I think it’s safe to assume that if you’re reading this newsletter, you’ve seen or heard me mention $DOWN, my new ‘social token’ at least once or twice. If not; there will be links at the end of this post for more information.

The initial allocations as expressed in the technical whitepaper and previous announcements will be getting a minor adjustment; based on the direct-to-dex launch of the token that this post will explain; but the changes will be in favor of the community, not in favor of myself or advisors/partners.

Launching $DOWN

Maybe no one else will appreciate the irony in the way that I do; but it’s almost poetic that $DOWN launches into a market that’s universally down; meaning realistically the only way it has to go is up. While launching into a bear market was neither planned or necessarily intentional; I think it provides some unique benefits. The first; and potentially the most significant, is that it caused me to reconsider the planned IDO launch. With most IDO’s, even those with vested token releases, it draws participants who have no real interest in the token or the project beyond the discounted rate at which they can acquire it, and then arbitrage the profit once the token is listed. Another advantage, as mentioned above, is that with the majority of all tokens currently valued below what most participants in the space agree that they’re worth, means that we’re pre-emptively creating deeper liquidity, as the collateral and tokens will become more valuable when the market recovers further. The third advantage, and the one that is primarily the subject of this post; is this: by launching into a bear market, without an IDO, it creates a base layer of trust and proves my commitment to the nascent $DOWN ecosystem. Instead of launching an IDO and capitalizing on the emotional turmoil that could lead to irresponsible levels of ape’ing in the hope of quick gains; I (quite literally) put my money where my mouth is and created an LBP on Balancer (Polygon). If you’re not familiar, an LBP is a ‘liquidity bootstrapping pool’, allowing for multiple tokens to be pooled together at configurable ratios; which are better explained in Balancer’s docs found here.

The first pool launched is comprised as 80/10/5/5 ($DOWN/$ETH/$USDC/$DAI) with an initial pool of ~$20000. As $DOWN is purchased, the…