DeFi Updates

As the DeFi space expands with new products around trading, lending and borrowing, we’re also starting to see the assets held within these products split into a dizzying array of specialized ‘sub-assets’.

Primary example is DAI and the dozens of derivatives built off it to provide various granular services. As of last count, there were over 20 different DAI variations in existence (cDAI, rDAI, iDAI, gDAI, dDAI, yDAI, zkDAI, xDAI, etc, etc) with each performing a niche function, showing us just how programmable programmable money can be.

Our friend Kyle from bZx has written a great primer on all these DAI variations and what they do and how they perform here and we highly recommend reading it. We won’t go into the details, but instead we’d like to highlight three variations of DAI that use Kyber that have sprung up in just this last month alone:

PoolDAI is a donation protocol that allows users to pool their money together and automatically donate the interest to a cause of their choosing. The system “pools DAI, converts it into Compound DAI, and sends the interest to a beneficiary. Users putting DAI into the pool receive Pooled cDAI (pcDAI), an ERC20 token which is 1-for-1 redeemable for DAI at any time.” Kyber integration allows pcDAI to be minted or burnt using any ERC20 or ETH instead of just DAI

gDAI is a service that allows users to send DAI without having to hold ETH to pay for gas. It combines the Gas Station Network, Fulcrum/Compound, and Kyber to receive interest by lending out user funds, and using that interest to pay for gas costs.

Our very own Jacob gets a firsthand demo of gDAI from Sergey (Cryptomanaics) at ETHBoston

Tribute — Although Kyber integration with Tribute hasn’t gone live just yet, it’s cool enough we wanted to introduce them anyway. Tribute is an abstraction UI layer built on rDAI and Compound that allows users to direct portions of the interest generated from their cryptoassets to pay for metered content, utility bills, or charity contributions.

Want access to a video game or paid streaming service? Point your Tribute interest towards the service so the developer gets paid your interest while you play or consume the content. Switch off the interest when you’re done with the content. We can easily see such a unique payment model adopted at a wider scale.

Other New DeFi Integrations

SpiderDex — SpiderDex is a decentralized exchange for blockchain game assets. It brings into one UI digital assets from 48 different Ethereum games including Decentraland, CryptoKitties, and Axie Infinity. Kyber integration allows for a quick swap of ERC20 tokens to ETH to buy these assets.

SpiderDEX UI

CoTrader — CoTrader is a simple to use ‘non-custodial crypto investments funds marketplace’ . Users can shop around funds and pick from multiple strategies ranging from higher risk ones to more conservative ones and easily invest in them.

Gary’s Hype Fund

Overall Kyber-DeFi Growth

Our DeFi table has a new leader for the first time in eight months! Fulcrum has been showing strong growth ever since it launched in late May, and with a 91% growth in ETH volume since August, it now takes up the top spot on our DeFi chart, making up 47% of all DeFi traffic passing through Kyber Network.

Reserve Manager and Token Metrics

With the expansion of the DeFi ecosystem leading to increasing liquidity needs, and DEX aggregators sourcing liquidity only from the best priced DEXs, liquidity providers are in strong competition between themselves to lower their spreads and improve their prices.

At Kyber we’ve continuously focused on providing the best possible price and we do this by both improving efficiencies at a protocol level (our pipeline always contains technical smart contract updates), and improving the Kyber Reserve Manager’s performance.

September saw the Kyber Reserve Manager focus on improving the USDC/ETH pair, and scaled up its liquidity to a level where it can comfortably service single trades as large as $20k.

This month also saw BTU Protocol and Monolith join Kyber Network as Automated Price Reserve Managers to provide liquidity for the BTU and TKN tokens respectively.