Revelo Roundtable - LTIPP Edition #5 with Pear, Contango, and Gains

In this episode of Revelo Intel’s Twitter Spaces on June 21, 2024, Kirk hosted Huf from Pear Protocol, Kamel from Contango, and Vesnushki from Gains Network to discuss Arbitrum DAO’s new incentive programs, LTIPP and STIP, innovative strategies these projects are employing to retain users and grow within the Arbitrum ecosystem. Read our notes below to learn more.

Background

Kirk (Host) – Head of Business Development at Revelo Intel

Huf (Guest) – Founder of Pear Protocol

Kamel Aouane (Guest) – Co-founder of Contango

Vesnushki (Guest) – Contributor at Gains Network

Pear Protocol – a protocol addressing the inherent inefficiencies and complexities when pair-trading cryptocurrencies

Contango – a protocol that lets you loop anything on-chain

Gains Network – a protocol that enables on-chain leveraged trading on spot prices

Arbitrum DAO Incentives: Insights from Pear Protocol, Contango, and Gains Network

Huf introduces himself as the founder of Pear Protocol, the first and only pair trading platform. He shares his background in investment banking and his transition to running money in crypto. Huf explains that Pear Protocol allows users to trade pairs like ETH/BTC and mentions they received 350,000 $ARB from the LTIP program, which they are using as trading incentives.
Kamel from Contango introduces himself, describing Contango as the looping layer of DeFi, offering one-click looping strategies for recursive borrowing and lending on money markets. He highlights their receipt of the Arbitrum grant, which allows them to incentivize various markets including Silo, Aave, and Mycelium. Kamel explains the two ways users can benefit from the grant: trading correlated assets for lower APR and non-correlated assets for higher APR.
Vesnushki from Gains Network introduces himself, sharing his background in marketing, graphic design, and crypto. He explains that Gains Network operates gTrade, a leveraged trading platform on Arbitrum and Polygon, offering high leverage on 178 pairs including crypto, forex, and commodities. Vesnushki mentions they received 2.25 million $ARB from the STIP Bridge, with 85% allocated for trading incentives, 15% for liquidity incentives on partner protocols, and 5% for integrators building on top of gTrade.

Arbitrum: Choosing the Right Deployment Platform

Huf explains that Pear Protocol chose Arbitrum for its initial deployment because of the need for liquidity. He notes that Arbitrum is a hub for perps trading with platforms like GMX and Vertex. Huf mentions that Offchain Labs was instrumental in connecting them with key players in the ecosystem, making Arbitrum a natural choice for their platform.
Kamel from Contango shares that they also deployed on Arbitrum early on. They wanted to avoid Ethereum L1 due to its limitations for derivative trading and found that Arbitrum had the best liquidity and ecosystem for their needs. Despite being multi-chain now, a significant portion of their volume and open interest remains on Arbitrum.
Vesnushki from Gains Network talks about their journey from Ethereum mainnet to Polygon, and then to Arbitrum. They moved to Arbitrum to provide a better trading environment for high-leverage scalpers, as Arbitrum’s block times are faster and more reliable. He highlights the strong support and partnerships they’ve found on Arbitrum, making it a very welcoming and advantageous environment for their platform.

Strategies for User Retention on Arbitrum

Kirk congratulates Vesnushki on Gains Network’s precise launch timing and moves on to ask the panel about strategies for retaining users on Arbitrum. He highlights the importance of retention in a competitive environment where liquidity is often mercenary.
Huf from Pear Protocol shares that their LTIP incentive program was designed as a trading fee rebate, encouraging users to trade to earn. This approach aimed to attract new users to try pair trading at a low cost and to retain them through a strong focus on UI/UX and active community engagement. Huf emphasizes the importance of data and analytics in tracking user retention and maintaining ongoing communication with their community.
Kamel from Contango discusses their strategy of educating users about opportunities with non-correlated assets. He explains that while their platform supports high leverage trading with money markets, they aim to highlight the cost advantages and rewards available through non-correlated asset trading. By offering higher incentives for these trades, they hope to attract and retain users by demonstrating the benefits of their unique trading opportunities.
Vesnushki from Gains Network explains that they have implemented an epoch system for their incentives, with each epoch lasting one week. They experimented with different reward categories, such as fee rebates, P&L rewards, and loyalty bonuses. They found that fee rebates were the most effective in retaining users, as it essentially provided subsidized trading. For the new STIP Bridge incentives, they plan to focus heavily on fee rebates to maximize retention and encourage more users to discover and stay with Gains Network.

Arbitrum’s Retention Focus: Roadmaps and Exciting Features from Pear Protocol, Contango, and Gains Network

Kirk asks the panelists to discuss their roadmaps and upcoming exciting features for their protocols.
Huf from Pear Protocol outlines their focus on scaling pair trading by adding more assets, increasing liquidity, and introducing new tools like copy trading vaults. They aim to improve UI and UX to retain users and provide a seamless trading experience. He explains that their V2 will integrate with an intent-based architecture for perps through sim, allowing for faster asset listing and flexible trade execution while maintaining options for different liquidity venues.
Kamel from Contango mentions their plans to expand partnerships, integrate more tokens, and focus on liquid staking, especially with the rise of competitors like EigenLayer. They are also preparing for their token launch, focusing on seeding liquidity and conducting an LBP (Liquidity Bootstrapping Pool) for Contango.
Vesnushki from Gains Network talks about their recent V8 upgrade, which refactored their entire code base to implement the diamond pattern, making integration with other protocols easier. Their upcoming V9 release will introduce features like partial profit-taking and partial collateral addition for open positions. They emphasize staying agile and responsive to market needs. Vesnushki also shares some alpha, revealing that they are listing $ZK and $ZRO pairs soon, anticipating high interest from traders.

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Show Information

Medium: Twitter (Audio)
Show: Revelo Intel Twitter Space
Show Title: Revelo Roundtable – LTIPP Edition #5
Show Date: June 21, 2024