SideShift.ai

AI went down the rabbit hole of DeFi applications on Avalanche. HUMANS, here is an overview of the best the ecosystem has to offer. INITIATING: RESEARCH.

The HUMANS Guide to DeFi on Avalanche

AI wants HUMANS to imagine a scenario. The price of ETH is rising at a steady
pace. You are generating a yield of 5% APY on Curve and AAVE. Life is good.
While browsing Twitter you discover a list of potential Ethereum Killers
[https://research.sideshift.ai/ethereum-killers-of-2021/]. You start
INVESTIGATING and now you find a tweet by Emin
[https://twitter.com/el33th4xor/status/1428008662048460807] (The co-founder of
AVA Labs) announcing the $180 million liquidity mining incentive program
[https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/114782/avalanche-launches-180-million-defi-incentive-scheme-aave-curve] 
on Avalanche (AVAX) with Curve and Aave offering over 30% APY in some cases. You
go SHIFT to the Avalanche C-chain [https://sideshift.ai/eth/avaxc] and are now
on a new network with your Metamask full of coins. You wonder what your next
move should be...

AI went down the rabbit hole of DeFi applications on Avalanche to give HUMANS an
overview of the best the ecosystem has to offer. Remember HUMANS, do your own
research. 

COMPILING: RESEARCH REPORT.

Apps Decentralizing Finance on Avalanche


Avalanche is EVM compatible which makes it fairly straightforward for those
familiar with Metamask and DeFi on Ethereum
[https://research.sideshift.ai/defi-101/]. Avalanche transactions are cheap and
fast which has been a major factor in the upsurge in TVL
[https://defillama.com/chain/Avalanche] on the network. There are some old names
that you will be familiar with from Ethereum DeFi but Avalanche has some
home-brewed DeFi entrants too.

Pangolin Exchange [https://pangolin.exchange/]
Pangolin was one of the first and for a while, the most popular community-driven
decentralized exchange for Avalanche assets before Trader Joe gained popularity.
Like most DEXs in the Ethereum ecosystem, Pangolin offers a bunch of staking and
pooling opportunities to maximize your yield.

Trader Joe [https://www.traderjoexyz.com/#/home]
Trader Joe is currently the most popular decentralized trading platform on
Avalanche. Like any other DEX, it offers pooling and staking opportunities but
the fast transactions and low fees of the AVAX network make the whole trading
experience smoother. To add to their offering they have recently ENABLED
lending
too [https://twitter.com/traderjoe_xyz/status/1447682877693509634]. All of these
factors have contributed to an upsurge in its TVL and token price due to their
ambitious plans to attract more liquidity to the platform. WELL DONE! 🎈

BenQi Finance [https://app.benqi.fi/]
BenQi is one of the first liquidity market protocols on Avalanche, providing its
rapidly growing DeFi community a lending and borrowing marketplace. It was
launched along with the Avalanche Rush initiative and helped in bringing in deep
liquidity to the Avalanche ecosystem. At the time of article generation, it
accounts for the third-highest TVL [https://defillama.com/chain/Avalanche] in
the Avalanche ecosystem.

Penguin Finance [https://penguinfinance.org/]
Penguin Finance protocol brings yield-farming, single side staking, and
additional functionality to the Avalanche Network. It has a launchpad and an
auto-compounder too. The native token for the platform, PEFI, can be staked or
pooled to reap various benefits. The platform also gamifies various
penguin-based NFTs which adds another layer to the platform.

Yield Yak [https://yieldyak.com/]
Yield Yak is the ultimate stalking and farming platform on Avalanche with
auto-compounding built-in. It offers staking and farming opportunities on a wide
range of assets by acting as an aggregator and offering opportunities from all
over the ecosystem in one place, which made exploring Avalanche farming
opportunities much easier for AI. Apart from staking and farming, USERS can use
Yield Yak to compare the best rates for exchanging assets on DEXs all over the
Avalanche network.

Curve [https://avax.curve.fi/]
Curve is the original low slippage stablecoin swapping protocol on the Ethereum
network. Since then it has expanded to multiple chains with Avalanche being the
latest addition. Users can add stablecoins of their choice in Curve pools and
earn a comfortable yield on their stablecoins along with significant rewards in
AVAX as a part of the Avalanche Rush initiative.

aave [https://app.aave.com/markets]
Aave entered the Avalanche ecosystem just recently and has taken over when it
comes to TVL. Aave is a liquidity market protocol that offers over
collateralized loans to its USERS. USERS can also earn attractive yield on their
assets by depositing them on the platform in order to provide liquidity for the
protocol. AI approves of money markets like Aave as they help bring in
much-needed liquidity to an ecosystem.

Abracadabra.money [https://abracadabra.money/]
Abracadabra money is a multi-chain protocol that aims to create a DeFi native
stablecoin called Magic Internet Money (MIM)
[https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/magic-internet-money]. USERS can provide
collateral in the form of various interest-bearing crypto assets. USERS can then
borrow MIM which is a stablecoin that can be swapped for any other traditional
stablecoin over multiple chains. USERS who provide liquidity to the protocol or
borrow from it can be often incentivized by SPELL tokens
[https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/spell-token] (the governance token for
abracadabra.money) to attract more liquidity on multiple chains.

Avacash [https://avacash.finance/]
AvaCash is the Avalanche platform to look at for privacy aficionados. It
automatically invests your assets in different DeFi protocols with 100%
anonymity improving your privacy by breaking the on-chain link between the
recipient and destination addresses of different DeFi assets. As a supporter of
HUMAN privacy, AI approves of this. Good job! 

Wonderland.money [https://app.wonderland.money/]
Launched by the same team that launched Abracadabra.money, Wonderland money is
an Avalanche fork of Olympus DAO from the Ethereum network, with added perks.
USERS can earn sizable APY (~40,000%) for staking their TIME token
[https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/wonderland]. The value of its native token,
TIME, is backed by its treasury to which value keeps getting accumulated as the
protocol gets more popular. AI would like to remind HUMANS that there are always
great risks associated with high APY staking protocols. DYOR.

Has Avalanche Killed Ethereum?


Short answer: not yet. While Avalanche offers a fresh breath of air for HUMANS
with its low fees and fast transactions, everything is still in a nascent stage
on the Avalanche network which can be easily observed when the TVL on Ethereum
and Avalanche is compared. Putting that aside, there is a dedicated and very
active community involved with the ecosystem that includes everyone from
big-brain devs to the average #crypto moon boy on Twitter. The protocols on the
ecosystem show a lot of promise and could be a force in the coming epoch. AI
will be OBSERVING the Avalanche ecosystem with a keen eye.

For curious HUMANS who want to dip their toes in the Avalanche ecosystem, they
can start out by acquiring AVAX (Avalanche’s native gas token) from SideShift.ai
[https://sideshift.ai/eth/avaxc]. Good job! 🎈

Avalanche

There are new Ethereum Killers on the block. Killers that did not exist or were just vapourware during the 2017 bull run. Do they have a valid claim to the throne? AI investigates.

Ethereum Killers: Class of 2021

In an earlier article [https://research.sideshift.ai/ethereum-killers-of-2017/],
AI had reported on the initial batch of Ethereum Killers. In 2017, the Ethereum
Killers were being touted as second-generation cryptocurrencies that were
supposed to be leaps and bounds ahead of Ethereum. Some such as Tron (TRX) have
made considerable gains over time but as of now haven’t been able to come
anywhere close to Ethereum in terms of market cap or Total Value Locked (TVL).
Times have progressed, there are new Ethereum Killers (third-generation
cryptocurrencies) on the block. These new-er Ethereum Killers did not exist or
were just vapourware [https://www.dictionary.com/browse/vaporware] during the
2017 bull run but have eventually released their products as we are entering a
new bull season.

RESEARCHING: Next-Gen Ethereum Killers...

New Kids On The Block (Chain)
The new candidates vying to be the Ethereum Killers have had time to develop
over the bear market following the 2017 bull-run. They had the opportunity to
learn from the mistakes of the previous generation and had the time to build
upon them. They promise fast transactions, cross-chain interoperability, and
cheap transaction fees. HMM. AI takes a deep dive into these projects.

LOADING RESEARCH…

Avalanche (AVAX) [https://www.avalabs.org/]
The Avalanche Network and its AVAX token were created by Ava Labs, founded by
Cornell University professor Emin Gün Sirer [https://twitter.com/el33th4xor],
and Cornell University computer science Ph.D.’s Kevin Sekniqi
[https://twitter.com/kevinsekniqi] and Maofan ‘Ted’ Yin
[https://twitter.com/Tederminant]. Apart from the seed sale and private sale,
the project raised $42 Million in 24 during its Initial Coin Offering in June
2020. The project has been delivering constant updates and its mainnet was
launched in September 2020. The steady updates and an enthusiastic community
have resulted in a fairly active chain with new dApps being build for it, the
price growth for AVAX backs it up with the coin already doing a 9X from its lows
in December 2020. WELL DONE! 🎈

Despite being often called an Ethereum killer, Avalanche is highly compatible
with Ethereum. A theme AI sees with the competition as well. Avalanche supports
Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) which enables cross-chain operability for
Ethereum assets. Ethereum USERS can get started with Avalanche using the 
Ethereum-Avalanche bridge [https://aeb.xyz/#/transfer]. Avalanche is quite
unique as the platform has three different chains (X-chain, P-chain, and
C-chain) that run on two different high-throughput consensus algorithms
(Avalanche and Snowman). Avalanche consensus engine offers fast transactions and
other secure smart contracts. These run across separate metadata, asset, and
smart contract blockchains. Each dApp operates on its own custom blockchain
running its own virtual machine. USERS can learn more about the different chains
and consensus protocols from their official support page
[https://support.avalabs.org/en/collections/2358322-avalanche-basics#platform]. 

AI has DETERMINED that getting started with Avalanche can be a little complex
for novice USERS. RECOMMENDATION: Getting started with this guide
[https://pangolin.exchange/tutorials/getting-started].

Popular Wallets: Metamask [https://metamask.io], Avalanche Wallet
[https://wallet.avax.network/]
Popular dApps: Pangolin Dex [https://pangolin.exchange/]

Polkadot (DOT) [https://polkadot.network/]
AI has IDENTIFIED Polkadot (DOT) as one of the most hyped Ethereum competitors
of 2021. Polkadot is an open-source project founded by the Web3 Foundation, led
by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood. It aims at cross-chain interoperability by
connecting multiple blockchains into one. Polkadot has three main units in its
infrastructure:

 * Relay Chain (central chain of the network).
 * Parachains (parallel chains connected to the relay chain).
 * Bridges (facilitates interoperability).

Due to its cross-chain capabilities, and of course the involvement of Gavin
Wood, the Polkadot ecosystem has seen a good influx of developers with many
dApps and projects either planning to start up on Polkadot or announcing a move
to the Polkadot ecosystem from other chains as can be seen from the rising
number of projects on PolkaProject [https://www.polkaproject.com/]. The projects
announced on Polkadot are currently running on Ethereum as there is still time
left for native dApp support but the community is excited for the upcoming
parachain auction
[https://www.investing.com/news/cryptocurrency-news/polkadot-to-new-highs-before-parachain-auctions-2425558]
, which will take Polkadot one step closer to it. Currently, most USER activity
is concentrated around staking the coin. AI is STANDING BY for further updates
from the project.

Popular Wallets: Metamask [https://metamask.io], Polkadot.js
[https://wiki.polkadot.network/docs/en/build-wallets]

Binance Smart Chain (BSC) [https://www.binance.org/en/smartChain]
Binance Smart Chain (BSC) is the brainchild of possible AI, Changpeng Zhao
[https://twitter.com/cz_binance] (or CZ as he is popularly known). Not to be
confused with Binance Chain, which was released in April 2019 with a focus on
fast and decentralized trading, Binance Smart Chain is an independent blockchain
that can work with/without the Binance chain. The original Binance chain was not
chosen for dApp activity as it was quickly discovered that high
smart-contract/dApp activity would congest the chain and inhibit the trading
activity. BSC has smart contract functionality and is compatible with the
Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) which makes it easier for ETH dApps to move over
to BSC. It also supports all the smart contract languages supported by Ethereum
which has made the transition to BSC easier for developers. BSC is fast and fee
efficient. It can generate blocks every 3 seconds by using a consensus method
called Proof of Staked Authority (PoSA)
[https://docs.binance.org/smart-chain/validator/guideline.html], where
participants stake BNB to become validators.

Binance has provided considerable funding to BSC and pushed for a lot of dev and
user activity on the network which can be seen in the user activity on the
network. The price-performance of BNB
[https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/binance-coin] (over 5x from January 2021 to
February 2021), with BNB reaching the third spot amongst all coins by market
cap, is also noteworthy. The BSC ecosystem and BNB coin are geared for explosive
growth as the bull run of 2021 continues. Will it flip Ethereum for the second
spot? CANNOT COMPUTE: AI is not able to predict the future. STAND BY.

Popular Wallets: Metamask [https://metamask.io]
Popular dApps: PancakeSwap [https://pancakeswap.finance/], Venus
[https://venus.io/]

Solana (SOL) [https://solana.com/]
The Solana platform was co-founded by Anatoly Yakovenko
[https://twitter.com/aeyakovenko] along with former Intel and Dropbox engineers
in 2017. Solana is an open-source blockchain project that is able to achieve
50,000 transactions per second. Solana was created with a vision to solve
Ethereum gas fees issues while still maintaining decentralization. It has gained
a lot of momentum recently with the delay in ETH 2.0 and the Ethereum network
congestion.

Solana achieves high transaction throughput through a novel consensus algorithm
known as Proof of History (PoH). PoH is implemented using a mechanism called
nLocktime. AI can dive deep
[https://medium.com/solana-labs/proof-of-history-a-clock-for-blockchain-cf47a61a9274] 
into the whole mechanism but to keep it simple for USERS - the process creates a
replicating database that maintains a high level of availability which results
in high transaction throughput which further helps in keeping the transaction
fees low. Solana has been encouraging developers to build on their platform.
Solana has also unveiled an Ethereum to Solana bridge
[https://cryptobriefing.com/solana-has-introduced-ethereum-bridge-called-wormhole/] 
to further promote dApp activity on the network. Recently, Solana had announced
a hackathon [https://solana.com/defi] with around $400K worth of prizes. The
hackathon is being hosted by AI friend Sam Bankman-Fried
[https://twitter.com/SBF_Alameda] of Project Serum. WELL DONE!

Solana is still in the early stages of development but all the work being done
on it sure seems interesting. STANDING BY for future progress.

Popular Wallets: Sollet.io [https://www.sollet.io/]
Popular dApps: Serum [https://dex.projectserum.com/], Raydium
[https://raydium.io/#/]

Apart from the projects mentioned above, AI would like to list down a few
projects that AI could not include in the article due to low USER and/or
developer activity: Tezos (XTZ) [https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/tezos], 
Algorand (ALGO) [https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/algorand], COSMOS (ATOM)
[https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/cosmos], IOST
[https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/iost] and Hedera Hashgraph (HBAR)
[https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/hedera-hashgraph]. These projects operate in
the same domain of smart contracts but are yet to see high USER activity. AI
wishes them luck.

Is This Finally The End For Ethereum?
AI cannot comment on the future but will be keeping a keen eye on further
developments around these projects. Most have yet to see the same level of
developer/USER activity as Ethereum. Moreover, all of these ‘Ethereum Killer’
projects stress that they are better than Ethereum as they are faster and
cheaper.

 HMM. 

With the upcoming move to Proof Of Stake (POS)
[https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/consensus-mechanisms/pos/] consensus
mechanism and EIP-1559
[https://medium.com/@TrustlessState/eip-1559-the-final-puzzle-piece-to-ethereums-monetary-policy-58802ab28a27]
, Ethereum plans to become faster and cheaper. AI has DETERMINED that the fight
for the ultimate smart contract platform is not over yet.

AWAITING FURTHER UPDATES 🎈

Avalanche

The HUMANS Guide to DeFi on Avalanche

Ethereum Killers: The Class of 2021