$$$ KPO and CZM $$$: DeFi - Terra Pylon Protocol Lossless Investments

Sunday, October 17, 2021

DeFi - Terra Pylon Protocol Lossless Investments

I have blogged about Anchor Protocol which is a savings account giving ~20% interest and Mirror Protocol where one can implement Delta Neutral strategies to earn ~30-40%. 


Today, I am going to share another extremely innovative product/application on Terra - Pylon Protocol where one can make lossless investments (capital guaranteed) with yield/return >100%. Yes, you read that right. The only tradeoff is the vesting period which I will show/elaborate on further. You can probably get a rough idea of how it works from the above screenshot and this is only possible in Terra due to Anchor Protocol. Anyway, Pylon aims to do a lot more but let's just focus on Pylon Gateway for this article.


Pylon Gateway is a token launchpad for Terra projects. In traditional finance terms, it is a platform for companies to IPO/raise capital and issue shares. Within Gateway, there are 2 products:
1. Pylon Swap
2. Pylon Pool (lossless investments)

Why is Pylon Swap cool? Those that have been in crypto for a bit/while will know that there isn't any fair token launch no matter whatever new project/application claim their launch to be fair. This is a known issue/feature due to how the liquidity pool works. Shall not go into the details but basically, when a new token is launched, bots will always be the first to buy/drain the majority of the token's liquidity resulting in the price of the token shooting up. Typical users who use the UI will never be as fast as the bots, hence will be buying at a much higher price. In another word, users can almost never buy newly launch tokens at their launch price. Pylon Swap solves this problem by providing a platform where one can "swap" tokens at a fixed launch price which is unheard of in my short crypto journey. By getting tokens at launch price, it is almost guaranteed that one will be making money.


An example - I swapped US$1,500 for 150,000 Psi tokens at a fixed swap rate of US$0.01 on 5th Oct. 25% of them will be unlocked on 11th Oct (DEX listing = liquidity pool) and a 3 month vesting period for the remaining 75%.


Look at the long green candle on the 1st day of listing. The launch price is supposed to be US$0.01, it went to a high of US$0.161 (1,610% return) and the current price is US$0.121 (1,210% return). Using the current price, my initial investment of US$1,500 is worth US$18,150 :)

So far, there has only been 3 Pylon Swap and we can take a look at the return:
1. MINE swap price US$0.01 vs current price US$0.167 (1,670%)
2. Nexus swap price US$0.01 vs current price US$0.121 (1,210%)
3. Valkyrie swap price US$0.10 vs current price US$2.329 (2,329%)

Having said that, it looks like easy "guaranteed" money but swapping has become pretty competitive as well and unfortunately, I failed to swap for Valkyrie as it was gone in 16 seconds. Yes, due to bots. On the bright side, one will not be buying at a high price due to low liquidity and as a result, lose money. After the Valkyrie swap incident, Pylon is aware of those bot activities and will be making a few changes to future launches to make it fairer/ideally bots free which I am looking forward to.

Next, let's take a look at the Pylon Pools which are lossless investments (capital guaranteed). For each project launch, there will be 3 pools with different vesting periods/returns (the longer you locked your deposit, the higher the APR/return):
- Pool 1: 18 months, rewards claimable after 9 months
- Pool 2: 12 months, rewards claimable after 6 months
- Pool 3: 6 months, rewards claimable after 3 months

Let me explain why is it lossless/capital guaranteed. When one makes a deposit to any of the pools, the deposit will be routed/deposited into Anchor Protocol which gives ~20% interest. The interest from Anchor will be used to swap/exchange for the respective token. At the end of the vesting period, one will be able to withdraw the initial deposit, making it lossless/capital guaranteed + whatever tokens that were issued/awarded based on the size of the pool. The higher the total deposit, the lesser the number of tokens one will get which is why the APR gets lower eventually. You can take a look at this article which goes into more details - Pylon Pools – how much are you paying for the tokens?


Similarly, let's take a look at an example. The above is a screenshot back in August when Loop Finance decided to offer Pylon Pools before listing their token on a DEX (technically the token has no price/value because it is not traded yet). Let's just assume the swap price per LOOP token is US$0.035 based on the article above. When it went live/listed on a DEX, the price of each LOOP token was around US$1 and the current price is US$0.887.


With the new price, the APR of the pool shot up. If you are still following, this is essentially an ultra high interest fixed deposit equivalent because it is lossless/capital guaranteed with vesting periods. Based on the 5 launches on Pylon so far, no one has/can actually make a loss which is just mindblowing. In my opinion, this is probably one of the safest crypto dapp where it is almost impossible for one to lose money (probably only due to rug, smart contract bug) but still offer the opportunity for unlimited gains. Anchor would be the safer (insurance coverage) but the potential upside is just ~20%.


~553% for an 18 month fixed deposit. Anyone? lol.

Screenshot taken from MoneySmart

Oh. Not safe, you prefer fixed deposits from banks. Sure sure. We all have different risk appetites right :)

Anyway, I have blogged about different ways to leverage crypto to build wealth for people with different risk appetites:
The safer approach using stablecoins
Risky approach but more hassle-free
Highest risk and you are on your own
- DeFi apps on Binance Smart Chain (BSC) such as PancakeSwap and PancakeBunny
- DeFi - Terra Pylon Protocol Lossless Investments

If you are interested in the platform I am using, do sign up using our referral links for some bonus :)
BlockFi: Deposits US$100 or more into your BlockFi Interest Account (BIA), you will earn US$10 in BTC and we will earn US$10 in BTC too.
Celsius Network: Earn US$50 in BTC with your first transfer of US$400 or more and we will earn US$50 in BTC too.
CakeDeFi - Deposits US$50 or more into your CakeDeFi account, you will earn US$30 in DFI and we will earn US$10 in DFI too.
Gemini: We will both receive US$10 of bitcoin after you buy or sell US$100.

On a side note, Futu's moomoo app sign-up promotion is slightly different for this month (from SGD 200 stock cash bundle to iPhone and AAPL shares. Do read the T&C here for more information). If you have yet to open an account, you can do so using our referral link :)

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4. Instagram - KPO_and_CZM (Did you see those delicious food photos to the right --> Unfortunately, you can't see it on mobile.)

8 comments:

  1. Based on your post, is it recommended to go in during launch rather than midway during the project?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi b1ah,

      Yes. The best time to enter is always during launch even though the APR/yield might look low. That is when you will be accumulating the most token and it will only drop as time passes because of more deposits (especially after the token get listed and the yield shoot up).

      Delete
  2. Hi KPO, was wondering if you use a hardware wallet or would you trust the terra wallet to secure your big amounts of investments?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi CX,

      Yes, I am using a ledger - Nano X for myself and a Nano S as backup/passed to CZM for safekeeping/legacy planning. lol.

      Delete
  3. Hi, now that binance is out. Which exchange is best to buy terra?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Tanyhunter,

      To be honest, I have not figure that part yet. I am still using binance even until now. Will provide an update once I figure out/other readers share the best alternative.

      Delete
    2. Can use gemini to get terrausd(but erc20) send it to kucoin erc20 wallet. And withdraw on terra network.

      https://m.kucoin.com/news/en-kucoin-supports-erc20-deposits-and-withdrawals-for-luna-ust-sdt

      Delete
    3. Hi Dex,

      Thanks for sharing! That has never occur to me cause I generally avoid Ethereum/erc20 tokens. lol. Will definitely explore/look into what you have suggested given that Gemini has free transfer so should be pretty cost effective too.

      Delete