Ren Project (REN) Monthly Report September 2020
The past 30 days have been exciting for Ren and the whole DeFi ecosystem in general.
The Total Value Locked (TVL) has consistently been rising to new all-time highs being at ~$189M as of today (September 3, 2020), an 11x from our latest report ($16.4M).
At the same time, the value of the protocol token REN has increased in value from $0.20 to around $0.48.
We have also seen significant growth in the Ren ecosystem.
Let’s take a deeper look at what has been happening around the project.
Recent News
Multichain
The Ren Project team has open-sourced multichain, Ren’s blockchain API standard. The next steps will be to open-source the transaction execution engines. Read about the team’s announcement here.
Ecosystem Update
The Ren Ecosystem had many impressive updates recently. We are going to list some of the highlights here.
- Ren will be running an Automated Price Reserve for the renBTC token on Kyber Network.
- Chainlink’s REN/ETH Price Reference Feed is live on Mainnet.
- The REN token is now available on Synthetix’s new binary options trading feature.
- The REN token has been listed on the lending protocol Aave with a Market Risk score of C+ 50% LTV, 65% liquidation threshold, and 10% liquidation bonus.
- The REN token was successfully voted to be added as a collateral type in the MakerDAO Ecosystem.
- MyEtherWallet adds support for Ren.
Read the full official Ecosystem Update here (for July) and here (for August).
Network Highlights
RenVM
Total Volume Transaction (TVT) via RenVM is about $457M as of today.
The total value of all digital assets currently minted on Ethereum by RenVM (Total Value Locked, TVL) is about $168M, its ATH.
Darknodes
The number of darknodes contributing to the Ren Network has increased from 1103 to 1197 for this epoch. 7 darknodes will be added when the next epoch starts in 17 days.
As of today, 11.97% percent of REN’s circulating supply is bonded to run darknodes. An increase of almost 24% since our last report on July 21st.
In the former epoch, rewards of $132,545.42 have been distributed among 1103 contributing darknodes. That equates to $120.17 per node on average in the third epoch since the mainnet launch. Essentially, a 6x to epoch 1 ($21.32) and 3x to epoch 2 ($41.87).
In the current epoch, rewards of $139,092.95 have been minted to be distributed among darknodes thus far.
Extrapolating this to the end of the epoch, this value will reach about $354,000 among 1197 contributing darknodes. That equates to $296 per node in the current epoch.
These numbers show a ~150% growth in return over the period of one epoch.
Integrators
Mainly, there are two integrators responsible for a majority of the volume (~77%) on the Ren Network.
RenBridge, a dApp developed by the Ren team to mint and burn native asset tokens onto the Ren Protocol, has processed $178.6M (~44%) of transaction volume since mainnet launch.
Curve Finance, a decentralized exchange for stablecoins, has processed $171.2M (~42%) of transaction volume since mainnet launch.
Find live data on all network stats in Ren’s mainnet portal here.
Token Metrics
Token Holders
There are currently 19,252 REN token holders.
2.5x Price Increase
In the last 30 days, the REN protocol token has seen explosive growth, along with the protocol usage, the token itself has multiplied in value.
Many DeFi tokens have seen the same growth during the same period but REN is one of the few with a live protocol and growing traction.
Ren Multisig Wallet
1.4M REN has been transferred out of the team’s multisig wallet on August 17.
Release Schedule
Currently, around 91% of REN protocol tokens have been unlocked, including all private & public sale tokens (in Feb 2018) as well as team tokens (the last vesting ended in Feb 2020).
The remaining 9% is the company’s reserve tokens, to be released at “yet-to-be-determined” future date.
In / Out Of The Money
66.30% of REN token holders are in the money. This indicates that most wallets last moved their REN tokens when the price was lower, therefore are in profit since acquiring the token.
Bull vs Bear
Bull
The tokenization of bitcoin has been one of the most popular DeFi narratives in the last 30 days.
WBTC has now 2x its minted supply of bitcoin to have a total of 30k WBTC minted.
The hyper-growth of WBTC has brought attention to renBTC which has also experienced even more explosive growth going from 1.5k to 16k renBTC minted in the same time frame (16x growth).
The utility of bitcoin on Ethereum is showing no signs of slowing down with lending applications, and decentralized exchanges hitting all-time high KPI records.
At the current growth rate, renBTC may overtake WBTC. Succeeding in this major milestone will cement the Ren Project as one of the most trusted and decentralized methods for bringing BTC to the Ethereum blockchain.
This would create further recognition and create FOMO for the REN token in the closely watched DeFi market.
Bear
In the last 30 days, the REN’s token value has hit almost a 200% return. Making this run up one of the most successful months yet for the token.
The quick run-up may be attributed to a single application, Curve, that has created a rush for BTC holders to chase the farming yields from this protocol.
The dependency of the renBTC token velocity on this single application can create a problem if the HYPE dies down.
The protocol’s volume may stabilize with no new BTC minters for the system. This can have a negative effect on the REN token since many short term buyers can move on to the next HYPE.
The opinions expressed during the Bull vs Bear series are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of Multi.io and its employees. The goal is to present a view from both sides of the market.
Upcoming News & Events
Ren is currently in the “sub-zero phase”. During this phase, the codebase will be open-sourced, the Greycore will be expanded to include more node operators, and the governance of Greycore membership will be handed over to the community. Community nodes will be responsible for P2P networking and storage.
As mentioned earlier in the article multichain has already been open-sourced. The next steps will be to open-source the transaction execution engines. With the next release, the Ren team is aiming to include support for Acala, Binance Smart Chain, DigiByte, Dogecoin, Filecoin, Solana, and Terra.
By the end of phase sub-zero, RenVM will be semi-decentralized, the Greycore will be responsible for consensus and the execution of cross-chain transactions.
Information & Data Sources
Ren Mainnet Portal — Dashboard providing network statistics and metrics.
Ren Open-Source Roadmap — The Ren open-source roadmap is available on their GitHub.
Ren Medium Publication — Follow Ren Project on Medium for roadmap and ecosystem updates.
Ren Roadmap — Roadmap and technical milestones for Ren Protocol.
