Happy 2023! One last update to uncover before we officially bid 2022 goodbye - Without further ado, let's review what happened over the past month in the Carbon and Zilliqa ecosystems!

1. Carbon

1.1. Mint USC for zero minting fees

Carbon's decentralized and over-collateralized Cosmos-native stablecoin - USC - is now available for minting on Nitron. Users can mint USC for zero minting fees by locking in their favourite assets as collateral, at low interest rates of 0.50%.

To maintain censorship resistance and bring about greater choice and flexibility, multi-collateral assets are supported. View the list of whitelisted assets currently supported on Carbon here.

Nitron is a decentralized and non-custodial money market where users can participate as lenders, borrowers and liquidators permissionlessly. For a step by step guide on how to mint $USC on Nitron, click here.

1.2. View list of acceptable collaterals on Carbonscan

Carbonscan is the blockchain's native explorer. With the launch of CDP module on Carbon, users can now view and track the list of whitelisted collaterals and their relevant parameters in just a few simple clicks via the explorer's intuitive and user-friendly interface.

1.3. Governance proposals

Allocating LP rewards to amplified pools

40% of block rewards on Carbon accrue to liquidity providers (LP). To maximize the utility of LP rewards, a proposal to allocate rewards for selected amplified Liquid Staking Derivatives (LSDs) and stableswap pools was passed. View the proposal here.

Some benefits include -

  • Allocating rewards to amplified LSDs pools empower users on Carbon to provide liquidity with greater capital efficiency and earn liquidity rewards, on top of staking rewards.
  • Allocating rewards to amplified stableswap pools enables users on Carbon to swap stablecoins 1:1 with minimal slippage and helps to facilitate more efficient trading for liquidity providers.

Addition of lend/borrow pools and whitelisting assets as collateral on Nitron Money Market

This proposal seeks community consensus to create lend and borrow pools for various assets on Nitron, Carbon’s money market on Demex - $stATOM, $stOSMO, $NEO, $JUNO, $EVMOS and $SWTH.

This will be rolled out in a systematic manner. Some benefits include -

  • First mover advantage for creating said lend/borrow pools, attracting more users over to Nitron by Demex and the wider Carbon ecosystem
  • More token utility & DeFi avenues for users

Click here to view the proposal.

V2.16.0 Software Upgrade

The upgrade will support Zion cross-chain bridge, amongst other improvements and bug fixes. View the Commonwealth Proposal here.

1.4. Leap Wallet Integration

Carbon is now live on Leap Cosmos Wallet! Users can download the wallet on Chrome here.

Leap Wallet is a crypto wallet for Cosmos blockchains, with a wide variety of intuitive features, from support to more Cosmos chains and ledger support to in-wallet governance and staking. This provides SWTH holders with an additional avenue to SWTH.

For more information on the specific userflow and features of Leap Wallet, check out the Twitter announcement above!

2. Demex

2.1. Launch of Amplified Pools

Amplified pools are now live on Demex! This provides deep, concentrated liquidity for liquidity pools.

In accordance with [CIP-25], liquidity rewards are awarded to the following amplified pools. Users can trade these tokens 1:1 with minimal slippage:

1. USDC/USC amplified pool

  • Amplification factor: 200x
  • Rewards: 2x

2. stATOM/ATOM amplified pool

  • Amplification factor: 5x
  • Rewards: 4x

3. stOSMO/OSMO amplified pool

  • Amplification factor: 5x
  • Rewards: 4x

Contribute liquidity to these pools here!

2.2. Top Gainers Perpetuals Trading Competitions #3

The latest instalment of Demex's monthly trading competition saw traders taking part in the Top Gainers Competition. The competition took took place from 1 December, 8AM UTC to 31 December, 8AM UTC, where traders can trade BTC or ETH perpetuals to compete for highest profit and loss % ranking -

  • To be eligible, traders have to tweet about the competition with a custom hashtag.
  • To register, participants have to deposit and have a minimum of 500 USDC into their account balance. This can be done at any point during the competition.

Winners stand to win from a prize pool of US$3000. For more information about competition guidelines, rules and prizes, click here.

Heartiest of congratulations to all winners! We will provide an update shortly on the status of the prize winnings. To view the list of winners, head on here.

2.3. Demex Twitter Spaces

Demex has partnered up with various protocols and community members in the Cosmos ecosystem to ramp up discussions on everything DeFi-related.

Catch the replay -

Demex also joined the Neo economy on a Telegram AMA, where a prize reward of 20,000 SWTH was up for grabs for 10 lucky winners!

2.3. Demex x Stride - Youtube Interview

Demex is powered by Carbon, and with the blockchain's integration with Stride Zone, the decentralized exchange can now support Liquid Staked Derivatives (LSDs) from Stride Zone.

Don't miss out on the panel discussion between the two teams on the partnership and what this entails for them below.

3. Nitron by Demex

3.1. Launch of Nitron on Mainnet


There's a new kid in the block - Powered by Carbon, Nitron by Demex is now live on Mainnet!

At launch, Nitron supports $ETH, $WBTC, $USDC as collateral, along with their corresponding lend and borrow pools. The money market have since expanded the list to include $OSMO, $ATOM, $stOSMO, $stATOM and $bNEO. We share more about these new additions below.

Don't miss out on any of our important updates - Follow Demex socials here and here.

2.1.1. Additional rewards for ETH and WBTC borrow pools  

In line with [CIP-24], the $ETH and $WBTC borrow pools are each incentivized with $5,000 worth of $SWTH tokens, over a period of 1 month. Grab the APRs while you can!

2.1.2. Giveaway to celebrate launch of Nitron

To celebrate Nitron's launch, a giveaway of 15,000 SWTH to 3 winners was held. Congratulations, @lemcosmos, @mlazaro881 and @itscryptojc!

2.1.3. Nitron Liquidations

Users who have their assets liquidated have to pay an additional liquidation fee to the liquidator. Traditionally, liquidations are done by people who write bots, enjoying a monopoly on liquidation fees. In the spirit of decentralization, anyone can participate in liquidations (i.e. bid for liquidations) on Nitron.

For more information on how liquidations work, click here. To find out how to become a Nitron liquidator, click here. To participate as a Nitron liquidator and buy liquidated assets at a discount, click here.

2.1.4. Blockhunters x Nitron: Introductory video to Nitron

BlockHunters runs a scalable validator operation in non-custodial staking within the Cosmos ecosystem. Watch the Youtube video by BlockHunters introducing Nitron and its exciting features below!

2.2. Nitron x Stride: Liquid Staked Derivatives (LSDs)

Nitron by Demex is the first money market in the Cosmos ecosystem to enable support for LSDs and currently supports stATOM and stOSMO as collateral, along with their corresponding lend and borrow pools. stATOM and stOSMO are the liquid staked versions of ATOM and OSMO powered by Stride Zone.

This means that users will be able to

  • Lend $stATOM and $stOSMO to earn lending fees
  • Lock $stATOM and $stOSMO as collateral for borrowing other yield-generating assets
  • Lock $stATOM and $stOSMO as collateral to mint $USC

2.2.1. Additional rewards for stATOM lend and borrow pools  

The $stATOM lending pool on Nitron is incentivized with $1,000 worth of SWTH. By loaning out your $stATOM tokens, you can

  • Earn staking APY
  • Enjoy lending APY
  • Receive additional $SWTH incentives

This grants you higher APR on your staking rewards!

That's not all - the $ATOM borrowing pool on Nitron is also incentivized with $4,000 worth of SWTH.

Enjoy lending/borrowing/minting!

2.3. Nitron x Neo N3: Listing of $bNEO as collateral and lend/borrow pools

$NEO is the governance token of the Neo N3 blockchain. $bNEO is the divisible NEP-17 version of $NEO, and can be minted from $NEO and redeemed to NEO 1:1.  

With Nitron's support for $bNEO, users can now lend $bNEO to earn lending fees, or lock their $bNEO tokens up as collateral to borrow other assets/mint $USC.

P.S. $bNEO incentives for lending and borrowing $bNEO is now live!

2.4. Tracking of Nitron on DeFi Llama

Users on Nitron can track the money market's TVL on DeFi Llama.

In just 3 days since launch, Nitron has crossed a quarter million dollars in TVL. To date, Nitron has crossed 2.4 million* in TVL, a testament to the money market's raring success (*at time of writing).

Nitron TVL as tracked on Defi Llama

Nitron is included under the list of chains on DeFi Llam's Borrow Aggregator feature as well, which helps users to calculate the optimal lending route given a list of asset parameters.

4. Zolar

4.1. Form a Guild

In Zolar, we envision building bonded communities in the ever-expanding Zolarverse. That's what Guilds are about - a safe place where alliances are built, relationships are forged and strategies are played.

Create your own guild at http://zolar.io/guilds!

4.2. Game Mechanic Updates

The commanders have spoken and the following adjustments have been made:

  • Resource Delivery Fees will no longer be reduced for longer staking periods. Check out the new formula here.
  • The floor price of resources to be sold to the ZOMG store have been removed.
  • Commanders can assign their Metazoa additional Stats with their Level Points.

5. Switcheo Research

In this month’s updates, the team at Switcheo Research deep dives into Nitron and how its budding potential -

6. What's next?

It's been an amazing year. We'll be releasing our 2022 Year in Review shortly, where we also delve deeper into what we have in mind for the coming year.

Adieu, friends - till our next update!