Q1 2024 brought many updates and new features to UwU Lend. Multiple new markets have been added to the platform, as well as a new buyback and staking rewards system. Many upgrades have been occurring behind-the-scenes to improve the technical elements of the protocol. Meanwhile, all platform fees continue to be returned 100% to the community of stakers.
New Markets and Updated Flywheel
The UwU Lend market offerings are more diverse than ever with the addition of several markets now supported by our platform. Adding CRV offers users of the Curve protocol more opportunities to utilize their governance tokens. With a market size of ~$30mm after only 2 months, this addition has seen strong support from users.
One new stablecoin market, crvUSD, currently offers ~26% APR for depositors. Additions such as sDAI, a yield bearing token, grows our collection of supported vault assets and enables high yield strategies while keeping the underlying assets safe. sDAI has garnished favor with users as one of our highest utilized assets since its addition.
The protocol rewards flywheel has been updated to support the market price of UwU with strategic buybacks and a newly established auto-compounding asset, xUwU. With this new feature, 10% of profits are now being distributed to a separated multisig wallet that performs UwU token buybacks. The bought back tokens are then being added to the new staking contract and distributed amongst stakers.
This new feature enables us to perform targeted buybacks in order to offer long term price support. The single sided UwU staking also features the implementation of a points and ranking system. This offers a metric with which to reward loyal users in future partnership airdrops, giveaways, events and more. Read more about xUwU here.
- Buybacks to date: $19,892.47 was used in Q1 to buy back 3.46k UwU tokens.
- Current ratio xUwU:UwU 1:1.36
Technical Updates
Q1 2024 has been a productive one for our tech team with many areas seeing improvement. One such area of focus has been on reducing the gas fees for using the platform. The cost for claiming rewards was optimized by allowing users to select only the assets they would like to claim, rather than forcing a user to claim all assets in one large transaction, or creating multiple transactions to claim each of the assets they chose.
Our team also made several behind-the-scenes improvements to reduce vesting costs. Through a more effective filtering of assets and the exclusion of those offering dust UwU rewards, we have significantly lowered the cost of vesting. Depending on users’ positions, this reduction in vesting costs can be as much as 50% less expensive!
Another element that saw improvement in Q1 is our liquidations system. Our liquidation bots received a full overhaul and are now configured to perform liquidations more efficiently, ensuring a reliable process.
Much focus has been given to upgrading the User Interface of the dapp. Some pages have experienced a complete redesign. All pages have seen an improvement in information display accuracy, making the dapp more user-friendly. All UI elements have been modernized this quarter. The mobile version of the dapp has seen UI enhancements and an improvement in responsiveness. The UI continues to be an area of focus for further refinement and improvements in order to provide the best user experience possible.
Branding and Outreach
Our beloved UwU kitty mascot has received a well-deserved makeover, enabling us to use a more aligned graphic style throughout UwU Lend media publications and improve brand recognition. Further adjustments are planned to ensure a strong, recognizable brand image.
Efforts to promote the new markets and enhance awareness with the Curve market specifically have shown success. What started as a DeFi exclusive platform aimed towards experienced users looking for higher yield and unique collaterals is evolving to become more user-friendly for beginners. The addition of an ELI5 article series aims improve users’ knowledge and comprehension, allowing anyone to utilize our platform with confidence. Official documentation continues to receive updates with each new addition or platform upgrade.
Our social platforms receive more frequent updates on important announcements, and preparations have been taken to expand to other social platforms soon. Stay tuned for more details!
Revenue and Expenses
- Current treasury value (excluding UwU tokens): $2,185,411
- Net increase: $45,215
- Q1 protocol fees: $1,410,500.10
- Daily average: $15,500.00
- Q1 protocol revenue via LP stake share: $162,365
- Operational expenses: $117,150
Revenue continues to exceed expenses, resulting in another profitable quarter. The expenses are split as follows:
- UwU Lend development and infrastructure costs which encompass developer salaries (front-end, back-end, UI/UX, smart contracts), servers, liquidation bots, security, monitoring, and operational costs such as gas deployments for contracts etc. Q1 2024 total: $108,000.
- Marketing costs for outreach and brand development which includes targeted and general marketing, graphic materials, marketing campaigns, market research and statistics monitoring. Q1 2024 total: $9,150.
A Promising New Quarter
Behind the scenes, the UwU Lend team continues to work on the next supported market additions, platform improvements, partnerships and communication expansion. Stay tuned for future announcements!
