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Defi and how to

research a
Cryptocurrency

Sean Yu, Matteo Colledan

CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY

© 2021 London Blockchain Labs and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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LBL - EXECUTIVE SUMMARY


London Blockchain Labs (LBL) is a student-run social enterprise based at world-leading universities

We are the UK’s largest Blockchain student hub, educating a community


WHO WE ARE of 4000+, across UCL, LSE, Imperial and LBS.

Our aim is to be the spearhead of London’s Blockchain ecosystem and


OUR MISSION bring together a community of academics, businesses, and policymakers.

We engage with our community by hosting world-class events to


OUR COMMUNITY educate students on blockchain technology, businesses on its
implementation and policymakers on its regulation.

CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY

© 2019 London Blockchain Labs and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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So Exactly, what is DeFi? Why should I Care about it?

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© 2019 London Blockchain Labs and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Olympus DAO &
Wonderland Money

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© 2021 London Blockchain Labs and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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The Narrative Behind Olympus DAO

“Can we really call something a stable coin when the purchasing power of the currency backing it decreases over time at the will of central
actors?

Problem: Depreciation of dollar backing most stable coins

● We hold stable coins to maintain purchasing power over time and over come the tremendous volatility of the crypto market
● But, if you hold something that is equally valuable to FIAT money is not possible to maintain PP.
● By holding stable coins we are not only subject to supply inflation but also price Inflation.

The crypto industry attempt to experiment with some decentralised stable coin approaches:

● MarkerDAO’s stable coin, $DAI, used to have majority of $ETH as collateral. However, due to the volatility of the asset they
increasingly added USDC and USDT to their treasury, going back to the initial issue.
● $DAI is intended to maintain $1 pegged value which will depreciate in accordance to Federal Reserve’s policy

CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY

© 2021 London Blockchain Labs and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Olympus DAO ($OHM)


Olympus DAO proposed Solution: Decentralised Reserve Currency that maintains purchasing power over time.

$OHM is the native token of Olympus DAO

Built more than six months ago on Ethereum by a pseudonyms founder “Zeus”, it’s a new protocol that does not rely on centralised custodians or
inefficient collateralization.

● Olympus DAO is borrowing the main idea behind Central Banks to create a new asset class which in the long term serves as a stable reserve
currency for the DeFi sector and beyond
● $OHM is not pegged to the value of USD
● $OHM is backed by a baskets of decentralised assets (CVX, XSUSHI, WETH,FRAX,DAI)
● $OHM value is allowed to float above the value of those assets

Long-term goal: optimize for stability and consistency so that OHM can function as a global unit-of-account and medium-of-exchange currency
Short-term goal: optimize the system for growth and wealth creation (that’s why the APY is so high)

How does it work?

● To mint (generate) 1 $OHM the protocol must HOLD at least 1 $DAI


● The supply of $OHM is expanded as it accruals more capital to back new issuance
● the increased supply is distributed to the holders that support the project by staking

CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY

© 2021 London Blockchain Labs and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Some Data about Olympus

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© 2021 London Blockchain Labs and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Wonderland Money ($TIME) Staking & Bonding

Wonderland Money ($TIME) is one of the most successful forks of Olympus, deployed on Avalanche blockchain and created by Daniele Sestagalli
(Founder of $SPELL, $MIM, $ICE)

The main difference with Olympus is in the long-term goal of the DAO and the chain in which they are deployed

Like with Olympus, there are two main things you can do with Wonderland. They Introduced a unique economic and game-theoretic dynamics into
the market through staking and bonding

Staking:

● Given the extremely high yield of the protocol, any price depreciation will be offset over a certain time period
● Price is not as important as other protocols, as with Wonderland you are looking at the yield and the balance
● Rebase every 8 hours without having to raise a finger thanks to the auto-compound mechanism

Bonding (minting):

● Revenue generating process for the Wonderland protocol


● users are selling their assets in order to get cheaper $TIME
● rebase rewards come from bonding/minting and are distributed to all the Stakers based on their staked balance.
● LPs used to mint $TIME allows the protocol to effectively hold the majority share of these pools, generate the majority of the trading fees
and consequently increase the value of the treasury

CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY

© 2021 London Blockchain Labs and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Some Data about Wonderland

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© 2021 London Blockchain Labs and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Why OHM and TIME are not a ponzi scheme?

$TIME is backed by at least 1 $MIM; the current price of $TIME is $5500, so you might think that a pretty sharp fall ahead?

● TIME = decentralised backed stablecoin. Backed meaning $TIME ≥ 1. Backed by a basket of different crypto assets which gives $TIME the
underlying value.
● MIM = Multi-Chain decentralised pegged stablecoin. Pegged meaning $MIM = 1.

if $TIME falls below $1 the Wonderland protocol buys back and burns $TIME to bring it back above $1 MIM.

What about the premium?

You might think the premium at which $TIME is currently trading is a ticking bomb about to explode. To understand why it’s not we have to take
a look at the treasury of the protocol and the current supply of TIME.

The treasury balance currently sits at $777 million dollars and total supply of $TIME is 307,554.89. Currently the risk free value (RFV) of each
TIME will be obtained by dividing the treasury balance by the total supply of $TIME, which will be $2527 per $TIME.

if thing go South we can stay assured that the treasury reserves can cover each $TIME up to this value.

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© 2021 London Blockchain Labs and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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How Does Wonderland Money avoid for things to go south?

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CONTACT US

LBL DETAILS SELECTED PERSONAL CONTACTS

Email: contact@londonblockchainlabs.com Rohan Khanna


Head of Business Development
rohan.khanna20@imperial.ac.uk
https://www.londonblockchainlabs.com/

https://www.facebook.com/londonblockchainlabs/ Matteo Colledan


Business Development
matteo.colledan20@imperial.ac.uk
https://twitter.com/LDNLABS

https://www.linkedin.com/company/londonblockchainlabs/

CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY

© 2019 London Blockchain Labs and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
HOW TO
RESEARCH
A CRYTO
1.What • Coins in a trending field (e.g. meme
coins in April 2021)
cryptos are • Coins that offers new solutions that
previously didn't exist (e.g. Rally,
worth Pylon, WOO X)

researching? Additional Tip:


* Coins that are not ranked in the top 20
market cap are usually not well covered
by institutions
Trending Coin

Meme Economy, April 2021 Play to Earn, September 2021


How to find a new trend
Follow the Read research
right people institute’s
on twitter reports

Dip your feet


into the water
New solutions

SocialFi – Creator economy Loss-less deposits, bond-like instrument Ultimate Liquidity, CeDefi
Most coins have competitors

Select the sector it belongs to


Narrow
things down
Scan up from the bottom

If a coin is out of the top 1000 marketcap,


skip
Searching for a potential breakout
Low trading
activity/Interest:

2. Market 1. heavily
Activities staked/locked up

2. The coin itself is


dead
What does it mean to be dead in
transactions?
• Volume/Market cap Ratio is important:
• < 0.015 - Dead
• 0.015 - 0.08 Normal
• 0.08 - 0.15 Active, could be both good and bad depending on
situation
• >0.15 Hyperactive, be very cautious
In most cases, we expect the coin to be listed on at least
1 of the top 10 centralized exchanges:

2. Market
Activities
https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowl
edge/other/cryptocurrency-exchanges/
Why is market activity important?
• Extremely low activity:
• low interests from the market
• unlikely to be a hidden gem given today's market

• Extremely high activity


• high swapping rate
• low market consensus
• Fomo? Or just transferring the wealth?
1. Directly to the website,
and read the codes
3. Quick
scan of the
project 2. Utilized 3rd party
research reports/ideas to
generate your own views
on the coin.
3. Quick scan of the project
Beginner Friendly :
Youtube videos

Pro combo (utilize all 3 websites):


Messari
Binance Research
ICO Drops

*Note down questions, discrepancies between the websites


What to look for

Key technologies utilized


Roadmap of the Project History of the project
in the project

Has there been any major


Tokenomics (Vesting
reformations/changes in
Schedule, Token Key individuals ( e.g. CEO)
the past of the project?
distributions)
(Could be a warning sign)
Example of Bad Tokenomic
If it's a token on Ethereum?
• Utilize etherscan
• Check for the top holders
• Usually, highly centralized crypto aren't ideal
Key individual's interviews, examine their
knowledge in both the technical parts of things,
and vision
Final tips Any questions you have/noted, check on the
project's website/documentation

Have more time? Read white paper!

Use news and histories to check whether a crypto


project delivers on its promises
Attendance
For the die-hard degens
• Key things to look out for:
• What this crypto does
• Team behind them
• Backed by who?
• How is their community?
• How does the crypto work?
• How is the UI/UX design/experience?
• Tokenomics (crucial for long term investors)
• Roadmap comparing to other competitors (when could they get to the
market?)
• What chain is it built on/ why is this chain useful potentially?

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