Vampire Attack Completed
It was last December when the Enso liquidity migration event on 6 protocols was announced, an experience that was extremely exciting, and will remain as a fond memory with the team for eternity. 🚀
This article highlights the teams approach, learnings, key events, insights, and next steps.
A vampire attack initially seems aggressive. However, such strategy is used by many companies in web2 and even web3 indirectly — it’s a secret we all know. Web2 companies such as banks incentivize customers to move from Bank A to Bank B by offering a sign-up bonus, similar to phone providers offering a discounted rate in addition to a “free” mobile phone for customers who are willing to switch from Provider Y to Provider Z. Web3 attracts users by constantly offering higher APY on different platforms. Indirectly, all of these companies are “vampire attacking” each other on a daily basis. Platforms follow this strategy to promote continuous improvement, product innovation, and to test user retention models in a never-ending cat and a mouse game.
Soon after the vampire attack was made public, the question arose as to why the term “vampire attack” was chosen:
- without deploying a token
- without deploying token emissions contract
- with no disclosure of the APY
- or simply because it’s just moving funds from one platform to another.
The answer is simple: attention. For the first ever release of Enso, it was a form of raising awareness for the platform and a uniting experience for the whole team on many different levels. The attack tested the team’s ability in: smart contract deployment, frontend deployment, backend deployment, devops deployment, key management, community management, marketing strategy, communication strategy, and issue response time. Truly testing all of the aforementioned requires users, and to have users, one must have the attention. Doing a simple “zap” from one platform to another with neither an attention-grabbing strategy nor a visually exciting interface wouldn’t have been enough of a test to see the team perform and deliver under pressure. Going through this experience has allowed the team to be more prepared and understand how to deliver under pressure, allowing users of the Enso platform to have more trust in the core team behind the product and to have a better overall experience on the Enso platform.
Enso puts users first.
The so called “vampire attack” was not only a test for the Enso team, but also for the targeted platforms, with the intention to motivate other teams to continuously improve upon their index products within the DeFi space. Enso at its core is designed as a social trading platform, allowing anyone to create a strategy that can be yield farming, leveraging or simply holding assets in a basket represented by another token. Simply put, Enso could be used to build and manage an index if the user desires to do so.
DeFi offers so many possibilities that we mostly still aren’t even aware of. When the team’s developers started writing smart contracts 6 years ago, no one Ethereum developer was writing contracts to interact with other contracts. Everyone was writing isolated contracts. Only within the past 2 years have we seen the true emergence of composability within the space, leading to the question as to why we have not had the same innovation in the DeFi “index” industry. One reason could be that it’s been too easy. With multiple yield generating products being spun up every day, it’s an extremely competitive environment that forces teams to continuously iterate and improve their products. We have not seen the same within the DeFi index industry just yet. However, since the start of Enso’s vampire attack, a number of new index products popped-up and we have noticed improvements in previous index protocols.
On that note, we deem this “attack” for the purpose of uniting the Enso team and testing a production release successful. Many “victims” created FUD, which creates noise, enabling the team to grow by learning how to handle new situations — an experience that strengthened the Enso team, the protocol and its future users.
Fun Highlights
- Team member overheard 2 teenagers talking about the Enso vampire attack the day before launch at a restaurant in Zurich.
- Countdown for launch timer ticked over the amount, and then displayed infinite years.
- NFTs being minted weren’t the same ones as displayed in the cabin — just like in the early 1980s arcade games, where things would happen that you didn’t expect.
- “Victims” attempting a “political squeeze”
Key information
- Migration will occur this week after internal testing has been finalized.
- Claiming is possible after migration occurs on a contract level. It is recommended to claim only once the interface is live.
- Enso V1 Protocol interface will be released next week after interface testing with newly migrated strategies.
- Particular indexes that could not be migrated will be claimable back to the user, with additional rewards applicable.
Migration
Migration will occur this week after completion of further rigorous testing. Once funds have been migrated, the community will be notified through official discord and twitter. At this point, an Enso strategy token will be available for claiming, containing all the underlying tokens that were in the previously staked index.
💡 Please note: The interface for the Enso V1 Protocol will not be live at the time of migration, and will go live the following week. This is due to testing of the interface with a large influx of newly created strategies and in order to mitigate any issues on an interface level that may arise prior to public use. Users are still able to claim their Enso strategy token on the contract level if they wish to do so — however, it is not recommended, in order to avoid any technical challenges that may arise. Claiming will be easier through the interface that is being released the following week.
Claiming
The Enso V1 protocol will be launched next week with its respective interface. Once launched, the respective index on the Enso platform that was staked on the Vampire Attack interface can be claimed. To claim, simply press the “claim” button on the nav bar, and you will be shown a pop-up to claim the respective migrated indexes. The dialog will look like this:
Rewards
The $ENSO token will be retroactively distributed when live. A snapshot of all participants in the liquidity migration event has been taken. The $ENSO token will be released in due time based upon product adoption with the aim of integrating the token in the most valuable way for the longevity of the project.
Claiming unmigrated Indexes
A few indexes will not be migrated to the Enso protocol. The underlying assets in an index should have sufficient liquidity on a secondary exchange, and preferably a Univ3 pool. Having a Univ3 pool enables use of the twap (time-weighted average price) to prevent against front-running or sandwich attacks. Whilst the Enso Protocol has a solution to migrate, it was decided to have users claim these indexes back with additional rewards given in the future, allowing further testing of these tokens.
LEGAL DISCLAIMER
This article is neither an offer of nor marketing material for financial instruments, financial services or the native ENSO token. Enso Finance is not regulated under any financial market laws in any jurisdiction. It is only the developer and provider of the ENSO platform and protocol. Due to its decentralized nature, the ENSO platform and protocol is neither controlled nor operated by Enso Finance. Enso Finance is neither providing financial services nor offering financial instruments.
Nothing in this article constitutes an offer for sale of ENSO tokens in any jurisdiction where it is unlawful to do so. In particular, any ENSO token to be issued has not been, and is not intended to be as of the date of issuance of this article, registered under the securities or similar laws of any jurisdiction, whether or not such jurisdiction considers the ENSO token as security or similar instrument or not. Further, the ENSO tokens have neither been approved or disapproved by any regulatory authority in any jurisdiction, nor has any regulatory authority passed upon the accuracy or adequacy of this article.
Any liability is excluded to the extent permitted by applicable law.
