🐻⛓️, Sudoswap, EigenLayer, Airdrops, and More (2024-01-12)

--- by D. Petkovski ---

Some readers liked to read my day in the life of a crypto investor, so here’s another edition of it.

Today, I was also exploring the depths of DeFi and I’ll share my activities.

Disclaimer: the things I’m doing aren’t necessarily my strong convictions nor I’m promoting them. I’m just sharing how I spent my day.

Table of Contents

Berachain Artio Testnet 🐻⛓️

Berachain launched their testnet. I immediately ventured into their ecosystem and started learning more about it.

A short introduction to the project: it’s an EVM compatible L1 with $BERA as a gas token. They implemented something called “proof of liquidity”. It’s a variation of the proof of stake consensus mechanism, but with a major twist:

You can’t buy the governance token ($BGT).

The only way to get it is to earn it by liquidity providing.

This is an interesting concept – it doesn’t prevent whales from flooding the pools, but it also puts a “time value of money” into it. An early liquidity provider with less money may have more voting power than newcomers with big bucks. It’s a nice way to reward early participation.

You can always exit $BGT by burning it for $BERA. This is an one-way process – you can immediately get out, but you can’t get in quickly (without LPing for time).

If you’re into the finer details of upcoming narratives, learn more on Berachain’s docs.

Back to myself though. Today, I got some testnet tokens from their faucet, swapped and provided liquidity on BEX (their testnet DEX) to earn some $BGT, and minted their stablecoin.

It’s never certain whether testnet activity will lead to an airdrop, but regardless, I want to be prepared for their mainnet.

And when they go live, I’ll be there waiting with heavy bags of cash to LP with.

Sudoswap Investment Thesis

I looked into sudoswap‘s automated market maker (AMM) approach for NFT trading. It was quite an interesting concept.

Personally, I don’t like speculating on jpegs, but this looked like a good opportunity to get exposure to the market.

At least it definitely looks undervalued at a $6M market cap.

It seems reasonable to expect major influx of users during bull markets, especially once more people understand the value proposition of it. I already see some Berachain enthusiasts preferring it over OpenSea, based on the volume of ecosystem’s NFTs being traded there.

Tokenomics wise, ~40% of it was dropped to $XMON holders (source). But given the price action since TGE, it seems it was distributed across the market throughout 2023.

Now, whether an increase in usage strongly correlates with a price increase of a governance token? Not necessarily.

Is it a good asymmetric bet to take? Not necessarily but definitely looks like one!

Too much analysis for throwing a $1000 to a microcap with utility?

… I got in.

EigenLayer Unpause Planning

EigenLayer will open restaking again on 29th of January.

As part of this cycle, they’re also adding new LSTs: $sfrxETH, $mETH, and $LsETH.

I was investigating the airdrop opportunities for each liquid staked token to decide how to prepare for the unpause.

I’m already big on the restaking narrative (5 figures deposited into EigenLayer) but willing to add another $ETH or two if there’s a good double airdrop opportunity. Like on the last cap raise – I restaked $swETH due to the Swell + EigenLayer combo (as documented in this post).

I still haven’t made my mind up and the conclusion might deserve a post in itself.

Bundled Airdrop Activities (zkSync, Manta, Scroll, Linea)

OrbiterFinance announced their collaboration with Manta Pacific, distributing 50k $MANTA tokens to users that bridge to and from the network.

I used this opportunity to ramp up my volume and transaction count of other Ethereum L2s that I’m expecting airdrops from (zkSync Era, Scroll, Linea, Base…).

This brought my Orbiter points to >1000 on one of my wallets (with 100+ transactions) and my zkSync tx count to above 400. Sounds crazy when I think about it… But what can I say? I love venturing the world of DeFi!

Also, Manta Pacific treated me well recently with their New Paradigm campaign. Based on my onchain activity, I got a nice airdrop of NFTs. I was surprised by their prices and sold some, but still hold “The First Modular L2” (worth > 1 $ETH at peak) for its high probability to be an airdrop criterion.

I also liquid staked some $ETH using Mantle’s LST $mETH and bridged it to their mainnet. I also did some lending while there to increase my miles on the Mantle journey, although I’m not sure what it’ll result in, as $MNT is already live for a while. However, $MNT is up 35% on the monthly chart, so that’s amazing.

Transferred some stablecoins to Arbitrum via Stargate’s LayerZero bridge and deposited them as $GRAI in Gravita Protocol‘s liquidity pool.

Other Projects I’m Keeping an Eye On

I check Cosmos airdrop trackers frequently:

Cosmos Airdrops dot io
This Glideapp airdrop tracker
CosmosPug

Recently I got Celestia‘s $TIA airdrop (worth thousands) and delegated it.

As a $TIA delegator, I’m now eligible for the upcoming $DYM airdrop, so I’m excited to receive it in near future. Crypto is as close to alchemy as it gets.

Anyway, airdrops aside, here are some positions I’m keeping an eye on:

I have a 4 figure lock of $BTRFLY 🦋 on Redacted Finance and keeping an eye on dips to maybe strengthen my position a bit. However, it’s 30% up this week, so I didn’t buy more.

I’m also keeping an eye on Syncus’s $SYNC. Considering exiting partially, as I’m already up 300+%. Found them early on X and took the bet. It’s a decentralized ponzinomics play (their words) that strive to be “the Olympus of 2024” and “the $HEX of 2024” (again, their words). I chuckle each time but love their aspirations.

Disclaimer

A significantly disproportionate amount of my net-worth is in Bitcoin and stocks than in DeFi.

At the same time, as a software engineer, new technologies spark my interest. And as an investor, they start to excite me! In other words: the things I did today aren’t necessarily strong convictions of mine… Just a way to make an extra $100k or a few throughout the year… Potentially and allegedly.

Probably I’ll end up broke and homeless.

Let’s see!

Author

D. Petkovski

📓 Author Husband & Father
Software Engineer StrengthCentric
Bitcoin Hodler DeFi Veteran
🌍 Everything Enthusiast 🔥 Optimist

Revolutionizing ideas. Simplifying complexity. Sharing knowledge.