Ecosystem Overviews

Swim Protocol

Sep 1, 2022 • 7 min read

When we first kicked off our ecosystem overviews we aimed to provide Swimmers with helpful resources and information across our supported chains. As our network grew bigger and bigger, our users gained access to various opportunities across several new chains, and this got our team thinking - many of our Swimmers are very familiar with one or two of our supported chains but miss out on opportunities existing on chains they are less familiar with. This realization is what led our team to create Swim's Ecosystem Overviews.

While we don't delve into all eight supported chains here, our team looked for resources across chains that would be most useful to our readers. We hope that these ecosystem overviews serve as a starting point for anyone looking to venture into new waters and explore the various opportunities existing across chains.

Solana Ecosystem Overview

Experiencing tremendous growth over the past year, Solana has a ton to offer new users and developers.

So what makes Solana so special?

Where do we even start?
• High throughput and transaction speeds
• Remarkably low cost of transactions
• Highly scalable network
• Strong community and team

Orca

• Orca prides itself on being the most user-friendly DEX on Solana, allowing users to trade SPL tokens and provide liquidity in a capital efficient manner
• Recently surpassing $30 billion in trading volume, Solana’s apex predator shows no sign of slowing down in their pursuit for greatness

Project Serum

• Serum’s on-chain central limit orderbook allows ecosystem partners to share liquidity and power markets-based features for institutional and retail use
• The Serum team recently announced the launch of Vybe Dex, a new trading interface powered Serum’s CLOB and matching engine

Solend Protocol

• Solend, an algorithmic and decentralized lending and borrowing protocol, offers users the ability to earn interest or take collateralized loans against their assets on Solana
• Solend recently introduced their highly anticipated Permissionless Pools, which allow anyone to permissionlessly launch their own Isolated Pools on Solend’s platform

Marinade Finance

• Marinade, the leading liquid-staking platform on Solana, simultaneously unlocks the world of DeFi for users while their SOL tokens are staked and earning yield
• While Marinade stakes your SOL, they provide the staker mSOL in return. mSOL is a collateralized version of SOL that is widely accepted across the Solana ecosystem

Avalanche Ecosystem Overview

Avalanche aims to deliver a scalable blockchain solution that maintains high levels of decentralization and security, while delivering lower costs and fast transaction speeds.

As a EVM-compatible L1, Avalanche allows both users and developers to enjoy EVM tooling with the added benefit of 1000's of TPS, sub-second finality and low fees.

Trader Joe

• Trader Joe is the largest DEX on Avalanche and also offers other DeFi primitives including farming, lending, and launching new tokens
• Joe recently introduced their new protocol: Liquidity Book

The wait is finally over….

Introducing: Liquidity Book 🌊📘

A next gen AMM protocol that is highly efficient, flexible and built for #DeFi https://t.co/6l2FoaJ0xo
— Trader Joe🔺 | New AMM Soon 🌊📘 (@traderjoe_xyz) August 22, 2022

Platypus

• Platypus provides a capital-efficient model to swap stablecoins and other pegged assets with minimal slippage
• Their single-sided AMM design, enables their “open liquidity pool”, and constructs a single-variant slippage curve instead of using invariant curves

Benqi Finance

• Benqi offers borrowing/lending services for $AVAX, $BTC, $ETH, and stablecoins
• Users can also use Benqi for liquid staking - stake your $AVAX to earn $sAVAX, a yield-bearing token

Yeti Finance

• Yeti allows allows users to put up their yield-bearing and staked assets, such as $sAVAX and $sJOE, to mint $yUSD
• $yUSD is an overcollateralized stablecoin which can be swapped for additional assets or looped to leverage further

Aurora Ecosystem Overview

Aurora, an EVM-compatible L2 built on top of Near, is centered on bringing scalability and low fees to the Ethereum experience, while even using $ETH for gas!

The Aurora/Near ecosystems come equipped with their own native stablecoin, $USN, with USN 2.0 having recently launched.

Under the new model, $USN is 1:1 backed by and redeemable through $USDT and offers yield obtained from NEAR staking rewards!

Trisolaris

• Trisolaris is the largest DEX on Aurora and offers the ability to swap $USN and many other ecosystem assets, on top of yield farming and staking opportunities
• The $TRI token can be used to earn enhanced yields in TRI-based farms and staked to earn additional APY

Bastion Protocol

• Bastion introduces the borrow/lending primitive to Aurora, while also offering stableswaps
• Users can lend out their assets to earn interest or collateralize them to borrow other assets

Metal Pool

• Meta Pool allows you to stake $NEAR and receive $stNEAR to simultaneously accrue staking rewards and unlock liquidity to participate in DeFi activities on NEAR and Aurora
• Users can get $stNEAR directly from Aurora by liquid staking $wNEAR with Meta Pool using their MetaMask wallet

Fantom Ecosystem Overview

Fantom is an open-source Proof-of-Stake Layer 1 blockchain integrated with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Some advantages that Fantom has to offer over other L1s include scalability, speed, and low fees.

Transactions on Fantom reach finality in less than a second and typically cost a fraction of a cent, all while boasting ~10K TPS.

Spooky Swap

• SpookySwap is an automated market maker (AMM) that allows users to swap assets, provide liquidity, and single-side stake
• $BOO is the native token of Spooky Swap and is used for governance. $BOO can be staked to receive $xBOO, which compounds interest from trading fees

Tarot Finance

• Tarot Finance ($TAROT) is a decentralized lending protocol that allows users to participate as lenders or borrowers in isolated lending pools.
• Recently, Tarot introduced “The Other”, a new DeFi primitive for liquidity providers.

Beefy Finance

• Beefy Finance ($BIFI) is a multi-chain yield optimizer that offers consistently high APYs on crypto holdings
• Beefy’s main product are the ‘vaults’, where users stake their tokens and increase their deposited token amount automatically

Polkadot Ecosystem Overview

Polkadot aims to enable interoperability within its ecosystem through parachains - parallel sidechains that rely on the core relay chain for security. The parachain model offers many advantages including scalability, security and privacy.

Moonbeam Network

• Moonbeam Network is a fully Ethereum-compatible smart contract platform built on Polkadot
• This compatibility allows developers to deploy existing Solidity smart contracts and DApp frontends to Moonbeam with minimal changes

1/ 🚀 Moonbeam is LIVE on @Polkadot! 🔥 We are excited to announce that Moonbeam is the first fully operational parachain on Polkadot. Moonbeam will bring many new integrations, activity & users to light up Polkadot’s ecosystem. ⚡ #MoonbeamLightsUp https://t.co/yBhgyWwaRn
— Moonbeam Network (@MoonbeamNetwork) January 11, 2022

Acala Network

• Acala Network is an EVM-compatible all-in-one DeFi hub, allowing swapping, borrow/lending, and staking
• Acala comes with its own stablecoin $aUSD, an overcollateralized asset backed by a basket of cross-chain assets

Astar Network

• Astar Network is a dApp hub on Polkadot that supports Ethereum, WebAssembly, and layer 2 solutions like ZK Rollups
• Astar aims to be a multi-chain smart contract platform that will support multiple blockchains and virtual machines

Astar mainnet is launched on @Polkadot! Developers are able to build their #dapp on Polkadot with our developer tools. Transactions and #EVM is enabled! @OKEx @HuobiGlobal @gate_io listed us to support our launch.

Let's stake $ASTR this week! pic.twitter.com/WDBJ2BEEzM
— Astar the Future of Smart Contracts for Multichain (@AstarNetwork) January 17, 2022

Statemint

• Statemint serves as a “common good” parachain that allows for the deployment of assets
• Some suggested use cases for Statemint include minting NFTs and CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies)

We hope that this article has enlightened you to more opportunities in DeFi that Swim enables you to use. Of course, this just highlights a few protocols that we have found particularly interesting, but there are so many more out there. Please as always DYOR and share anything we've missed in our Discord with the rest of the community!