PolkaEx Strategic Transformation

Polkaex.io
4 min readJul 1, 2022

An inventive DeFi protocol built on top of stablecoin AMM Sirius Finance, starting with Astar Network, for the whole Polkadot ecosystem.

Dear Polkaexians, hope this article finds you well.

It has indeed been long since the last main product update of PolkaEx, and honestly it took the team some time to carefully figure out our next move especially since the bear market stroke us all unexpectedly.

We really appreciate your patience and support.

Finally, we’re more than glad to let our community know that after doing a thorough and deep research about the current Astar ecosystem and projects: we have decided to transform PolkaEx to an innovative Defi protocol built on top of the stablecoin AMM, Sirius Finance, starting with Astar Network and for the whole Polkadot ecosystem.

Below is a detailed explanation of how this idea and vision is structured

Overview:

Why does PolkaEx need transformation?

-Product homogenization

-The strong competitors

Why Sirius Finance?

-What is Sirius Finance?

-Why we choose it?

The new identity of PolkaEx

-The new economic model — — pkSRS

-Innovations: Risk threshold & bribery punishment

How can this benefit PolkaEx users?

-Sirius Finance SRS airdrop

-Sirius Finance IDO allocation

-Sirius Finance trading fee support

Why does PolkaEx need transformation?

Revisiting the initial orientation of PolkaEx: A cross-chain Dex and launchpad with higher TPS and lower transaction fees. We did it and we’ve had times when we raised over $1 million for start-ups and reached a $2.5 million TVL as the first Dex at the very early stage of Astar ecosystem. In addition, PolkaEx team also developed other tools and functions like decentralized listing and zero-code token creation, aiming to lower the entrance bar for both users and projects.

With Astar’s rapid growth this year; 2022, PolkaEx met a strong competitor: Arthswap which shares the same orientation as us and finally surpassed us. It’s hurtful but it’s a fact we need to face: what can we do to compete with a protocol which is equipped with much more resources than us? Anyway, whatever that’s, it won’t be achieved in one day when the effort faces a possible outcome which is a failure.

That’s why we started looking for new solutions which will really break some barriers and that’s when we found Sirius Finance.

Why Sirius Finance?

Sirius Finance is a stablecoin AMM and farming center on Polkadot, it provides low slippage stablecoin trading and low-risk yield farming opportunities especially for stablecoin holders and protocols with stablecoin demands.

To put it simple, Sirius Finance is a Curve fork and Curve has proven to be among the top Defi protocols which have locked tremendous value of assets. Currently, Curve is too big to take care of the tails as seen in its current development on other chains like Moonbeam.

Even with the recent episodes and crash of UST, stablecoin is still one of the safest assets for investors.

Thus, we believe in the long-term future of a stablecoin AMM like Sirius Finance which will also soon collaborate with Acala.

There certainly will be more stablecoins on Polkadot in the future like BAI and aUSD. Deep liquidity and low transaction fees are the most basic supporting factors for development and mass adoption. With such an obvious trend like this, we set our eyes on Convex, which was built on top of Curve.

Sirius Finance:

Website | Twitter | Discord | Telegram

The new identity of PolkaEx

The services that PolkaEx will be providing are:

1) Farms for LPs gained from Sirius Finance: Liquidity providers can earn rewards not only from Sirius Finance(base rewards + extra rewards if there are any) but also from PolkaEx(PKEX);

2) Both PKEX and SRS can be converted to pkSRS: SRS can be locked to gain veSRS which enables pkSRS holders to earn rewards from a share of the admin fees from Sirius Finance while locked PKEX enables users to gain 0.25% trading fees from PolkaEx and more governance powers will be transferred to pkSRS holders on both protocols which include but are not limited to:

SRS and PKEX airdrop;

Airdrops offered by partnerships from both sides

Rights to propose and vote

Risk threshold and bribery punishment as the main innovations:

To avoid Sirius Finance protocol being centralized by whales and small stablecoins being squeezed out causing corruption and risky algorithmic stablecoin pools, PolkaEx will be approved by Sirius Finance to have risk threshold and bribery punishment. For example, if a single pool can only take 30% of the total SRS rewards maximum and it exceeds, it will have to pay some bribery punishment fees which will be distributed to veSRS holders, buy back SRS or purchase insurances.

How can this benefit PolkaEx users?

Based on this activation and partnership, PolkaEx users will receive a certain amount of SRS irregularly. And to support the PolkaEx Launchpad, we will also be given some Sirius Finance IDO allocation as PolkaEx community welfare. Sirius Finance will also propose to share trading fees with PolkaEx as part of its reserve.

This is a long-awaited collaboration and we are very happy to finally bring it to light. This transformation doesn’t mean that PolkaEx will abandon its Dex feature, instead it opens it up to more possibilities and opportunities.

Innovation must always embrace dynamism and this is what we stand for, that’s why there is the need to take this path by adding extra features to bring more utility and finding a more organic connection between the Dex and pkSRS will be the next area to explore and implement.

We really appreciate all your commitment and trust, we will continue to build and innovate as this ecosystem continue to evolve.

Stay tuned with us, there will be more details coming soon.

PolkaEx:

Website | Twitter | Telegram

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Polkaex.io

PolkaEx is a cross-chain trade platform based on Polkadot, using Astar Network to provide higher TPS, lower transaction cost.