The per token USD value of Yearn.Finance (YFI) token recently rose above the price of Bitcoin, and then screamed on to the moon as it grew to be worth multiple BTC. As would be expected, the clones were right behind fighting to name themselves as closely as possible and steal some of that spotlight. Meanwhile in the world of UniSwap clones, the race to copy each other's success by naming themselves after yet another food continues. While the battle of the clones drones on with no real innovation, the smart money has started looking forward to the next emerging wave of DeFi innovation. Cross chain interoperability and tokenized liquidity provider rewards are taking over the DeFi landscape. Not surprisingly, early entrants are coming from the world of staking, where tokenization has been the standard for years.
The tokenized staking rewards experts at Sesameseed have announced their entrance into this race with their Unifi Protocol. Sesameseed has been tokenizing staking rewards on multiple blockchains for over two year. After receiving a grant to develop and tokenize alt-chain DeFi, Sesameseed unveiled uTrade and the larger Unifi Protocol. uTrade is live for public review on Testnet and will be launching on Ethereum, Harmony, Ontology, and TRON in days.
Because Unifi is a multi-chain DeFi protocol, it required two tokens. Each one has different advantages and allows users to yield farm between them to maximize returns and minimize the chances of impermanent loss.
Juliun Brabon, CEO of Sesameseed, stated he would confirm that Unifi has at least one investment partner with connections to exchanges and media outlets. “We expect UNFI and UP to generate a lot of attention. Sesameseed has been tokenization experts in one of the most competitive token markets out there for well over two years. We brought that all expertise to UNFI and UP.” Brabon went on to explain the custom built protocol is not a clone of anything currently existing, and can easily be scaled and deployed on several more blockchains without very little development required.
UP token is earned by liquidity providers on specific blockchains and captures the fees and revenue generated by the Unifi protocol and rewards it to liquidity providers. As a nod to their elaborate, yet simple to use style of tokenomics, Unifi was able to convey their main message right in the name of the token. UP’s collateralized value simply goes UP every time a trade occurs. The minting process is controlled by a smart contract, making everything verifiable on chain. UP also absorbs other fees generated by the protocol, further increasing the value of UP.
The UNFI token is Unifi’s global governance token and a direct competition to the likes of YFI. But even YFI has limitations since it only represents one platform on Ethereum. UNFI promises to unlock not only the DeFi market on Ethereum, but combine that with its expanding number of alt-chain DeFi markets. The UNFI white paper explains having UNFI as an Ethereum token allows UNFI to be “...the representation of the entire multi-chain protocol, UNFI is the public face of the UniFi protocol to be listed on major exchanges.”
In a recent AMA about Unifi posted on YouTube, Nick White, CEO of Harmony, commented on this change in DeFi token structure. “(UP) is not a governance token that’s promising future value capture, it actually already has value.” uTrade is already developing uTrade on Harmony.
“Community governance is one of the core values Sesameseed was founded on. 300,000+ SEED token holders know we also believe in creating interesting tokens that have a wide range of features and uses. It is great to be able to bring the kind of tokenomics innovation Sesameseed is known for to the DeFi space.” WIth an emphasis on tokenomics, it's not surprising to see Unifi even incentivizes traders by rewarding SEED to the user with every trade.
In the clone plagued world of DeFi, token driven incentivized liquidity rewards are sure to be the future. Unifi may just be that next DeFi leader that everyone else is racing to clone.
Unifi References:
Unifi Whitepaper: https://medium.com/@unifiprotocol/introducing-the-unifi-protocol-2ad67bc8435
Sesameseed References:
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