ATOM Outperforms Major Layer-1s Amid Market Drawdown

🌅 Welcome!

FTX US won the auction to purchase the assets of bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital, and Cosmos entered its next phase of development with the announcement of ATOM 2.0.

There’s an exodus of C-suite executives from Celsius, ATOM has been outperforming other layer 1s, and our Research team takes a look at the fundamentals of Uniswap.

This is the Delphi Daily. Let’s dive in.

🚨 In Case You Missed It

• Cosmos releases a new whitepaper with a new issuance model for ATOM and revamped Cosmos Hub.
• FTX US wins the auction to buy assets of Voyager Digital for $1.4 billion. Elsewhere, Brett Harrison steps down as President of FTX US.
• California, New York and 6 other US charge crypto lender Nexo for offering unregistered securities.
• Alex Mashinsky steps down as CEO of bankrupt Celsius Network. Ashwin Prithipaul is also resigning as CFO after a 5-month term.
• Binance will use fees from LUNC spot and margin trading pairs to buy and burn LUNC.

📊 ATOM Outperforms Major Layer-1s Amid Market Drawdown

• In the midst of a macro-driven bear market, major layer-1s are still battered. When compared to their previous ATHs in November 2021, the majority of layer-1 tokens are deep in negative territory. While the bearish sentiment persists, ATOM has gained more than 95% in the last 3 months.
• ATOM’s relative outperformance can be attributed, in part, to the announcement of Cosmos 2.0, as well as the build-up to the annual Cosmos conference which took place yesterday.
• Cosmos Hub is a blockchain that acts as an intermediary between all independent zones or blockchains created within the Cosmos Network.
• The long-awaited release of interchain security allows Cosmos app chains to rely on the Cosmos Hub for security, which may result in increased ATOM usage and staking.
• Currently, more than 66% of all ATOM is staked or delegated to validators. ATOM stakers are subject to a 21-day lock-up period.
• With the announcement of ATOM 2.0 and an updated whitepaper, the project also proposes a new issuance schedule for ATOM and the introduction of liquid staking. It no longer requires exponential ATOM issuance to drive adoption.
• For more on the Cosmos ecosystem, you can read our unlocked Delphi Pro report here.

⚡ Do Fundamentals Matter in Crypto Markets?

• Uniswap has generated a total of ~$370m in revenue over the last 180 days — all of which was distributed to liquidity providers (LPs).
• There is a fundamental understanding that Uniswap generates this revenue because of LPs, and LPs deposit capital to the DEX knowing this fee-based revenue will accrue to them.
• In terms of token rewards, Uniswap is unique as it does not reward its LPs with its own token (UNI). Instead, it solely relies on fees to incentivize liquidity provision. Over 50% of UNI’s token supply was retroactively airdropped to users, and the current circulating supply is ~76% of its max total supply.
• All the revenue generated by Uniswap is organic and real. None of the generated revenue is due to token incentives, which suggests that the user base is sticky.
• Since all protocol revenues go to LPs (and not token holders), one could argue the UNI token itself does not have an immediate value accrual mechanism. So, even though there is no token inflation, there’s no direct advantage for those who own UNI.
• Talks of turning on the fee switch have ravaged the UNI community as the conversation has devolved into controversy, with small-to-medium token holders harboring a degree of animosity towards the team and larger token holders.
• If this fee switch is turned on, it will be an immediate catalyst for UNI. But until then, UNI’s merit rests on its potential future value rather than tangible cash flows.
• For more on the fundamentals of crypto dApps, Delphi members can read our Delphi Pro report here.

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