The month of May has been an illuminating time with recent events in the crypto space casting light upon the importance of building on strong foundations — steadily, safely, and with the broader community in mind. This is how we’ve been built from the ground up, and together with your consistent support, we’re confident we’re steering in the right direction.

  1. Demex Futures Trading Competition Update — Maker vs Taker

User protection is of utmost importance to us, and with the instability of the $UST previously, the ETH/USD and BTC/USD futures markets were disabled to protect traders from taking further losses. In line with this, the initial Maker vs Taker competition was suspended.

For users holding more than 100 UST at the time of the competition postponement, to extend support to the broader community during these trying times, the team at Switcheo Labs airdropped 50% of the amount held in $USDC by participants. Further, as an additional gesture of goodwill, a total of 1,200 SWTH was airdropped to all participants to compensate for their network fees.

Now, coming back stronger than before, the epic Maker vs Taker battle is live again on Demex — this time, with $USDC as collateral. The futures markets will be cash-settled in $USDC.  

The stakes remain; Participants stand a chance to win from a striking $20,000 prize pool. The competition will span across one month and end on 24 June 2022, 8am UTC.

For more information about competition guidelines, rules and prizes, click here.

2. New trading interface on Demex!

Demex is a fully decentralized trading platform that supports any cryptocurrency derivative product. It enables the trading of sophisticated financial instruments such as futures, bonds and options at scale. Built on Carbon, a custom Layer-2 blockchain solution, Demex is designed for speed, scalability, and security all while providing an intuitive and seamless user experience.

Holding fast to this vision, Demex will be rolling out a series of UI improvements for an enhanced user experience. Coming to you in phases, first and foremost, Demex has launched its new trading interface.

Be sure to keep a lookout for these features —

  • Multiple Order Types
  • Trading View charting features
  • Customizable layout
  • Trade triggers
  • Optimized for mobile

Since the launch of Demex, we have led the pack with multiple firsts, building towards truly decentralized markets. To date, Demex is interoperable with 6 chains (and counting), with 26 token pairs and 36 cross-chain markets available on the platform.

We’re just getting started; The team is constantly improvising and building up the power features to provide you with an unrivalled trading experience. With the upcoming market creation and token import UI on Demex, anyone can be empowered to create new trading avenues for their desired markets, regardless of blockchain and popularity.

As we embark on this journey, we look forward to unlocking new DeFi paradigms together.

Reimagine it all with Demex.

3. Zolar — Magic Hive, Guilds and Everything in Between

It’s been a thrilling time over at Zolar.

Since our last update, we’ve also hit over 7,000,000 $ZIL in all-time trading volume for our Metazoa collection on Arky. Whether you’re team Ursa or team Mino, one thing’s for sure — The enchanting power of $HUNY is attracting Metazoa everywhere.

At the time of writing, 70% of the Gen 1 Metazoa (510 out of 700) have been minted, leaving just less than 200 Gen 1 Metazoa up for grabs before the Gen 2 Metazoa are unleashed. Fastest fingers first!

P.S. Compared to Gen 1 Metazoa, Gen 2 Metazoa can gather 2000 $HUNY per day, twice the daily amount of $HUNY gathered by Gen 1 Metazoa.

3.1. Magic Hive V2.0

Magic Hive is a sacred vault where players can put $HUNY to work and earn rewards. As the Magic Hive V1.0 rewards dwindle, the newly enhanced Magic Hive V2.0 binds deposited $HUNY far tighter to its walls, intensely proliferating the $HUNY stockpile —

To withdraw $HUNY from the Magic Hive, players face a 5% sticky (withdrawal) fee; The fee is distributed proportionally among remaining Magic Hive depositors, and decreases 0.1% daily until it reaches 0.5%.

On claiming $HUNY rewards,

  • 20% of $HUNY is claimable immediately
  • 80% of $HUNY is sent to the refinery

This ratio decreases 1% every 3 days, as long as no claims are made from the Magic Hive.

For more information on reward curves and risks, make your way here.

Zolarians are gearing up steadily for a sweet taste of that cosmic gold, and you don’t want to miss out. To gather $HUNY, click here. To acquire $HUNY on ZilSwap, click here.

3.2. Operation Sticky Paws

Happening right now, over a time span of 15 days (until 2nd Jun, 2022) is Operation Sticky Paws, the absolute test of willpower and perseverance. Only two combatants with the stickiest paws will emerge victorious.

To stand a chance at victory, hold $HUNY or Metazoa across the duration of the operation —

  • For every 1,000 $HUNY held, players are awarded ONE chance at succeeding in the operation.
  • For every 1,000 $HUNY staked in the Magic Hive, Zolar’s liquidity pool, players are awarded TWO chances at success, with a maximum threshold of 20 chances.
  • Finally, to obtain a 1.5 times chance at success, hold at least ONE Gen 1 Metazoa in battle.

And now for the sweet, juicy part — Your reward? A random Metazoa or a Mino!

3.3. Zolarian Guilds

That’s not all, for what are we without our team? A first in the wide metaverse — we are excited to be introducing the Zolarian Guilds, a place of solace amidst the cross-fires, where comrades gather in battle. On Zolar, Metazoa remain steadfast in their pledge towards victory, and this time, joining them on the frontlines, are their fellow comrades and like-minded Zolarians.

What’s interesting about the Zolarian Guilds is that they not only enable Zolarians to form their own communities, define their own rules and playing style, but by forming guilds, Zolarians can also embark on adventures and battle within Zolar together. We envision guilds to be a core part of missions and gameplay within Zolar in the future — Be among the first to found the societies of this new world, and be heavily rewarded with exclusive perks!

Teleport here to find out more about guilds.

Now, will you gather more $HUNY in the hopes of controlling the future of Zolar or will you choose to summon more Metazoa to aid you in the battlefield? The decision is yours to make, but one thing we know for sure — keep a look out as the stairway to Zolar continues to stretch far and wide!

4. Carbon v2.5.0 Software Upgrade

The team at Switcheo Labs is constantly innovating and thinking of ways to improve user experience. For our latest upgrade, we updated the expiry time for the futures markets and enabled futures markets with the same expiry time but different settlement (quote) tokens, amongst others.

For more information, click here.

5. Switcheo Research

The revelation of the $18 billion stablecoin, that is the UST, losing its dollar peg remains the talk of the town as communities everywhere grapple to wrap their heads around the news. In view of recent events, the team at Switcheo Research explores the stablecoin market and shines light on an up-and-coming project FRAX, the first fractional algorithmic stablecoin protocol.

Due to the decline of UST, it will be tough for users to trust a fully algorithmic stablecoin for the time being. The FRAX hybrid model is extremely innovative and we believe that they can take the spot of being the leader of decentralized stablecoins as they continue to build on the project.

Click here to read more about FRAX.