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On 6/19/2024 at 5:00 p.m. (UTC), an AMA session was held on Avalaunch Telegram group with Gavin Hasselbaink — Co-founder & CBDO, DeltaPrime, to dive into the inner workings of the protocol and explore what they envision for the future of DeFi.

Below we present to you an excerpt from AMA with questions and answers.

Avalaunch

Hello everyone and welcome to another exciting Avalaunch AMA! Today we are joined by DeltaPrime co-founder, Gavin Hasselbaink — how are you doing today?

Gavin | DeltaPrime

gmgm doing well, thanks for having me!

Avalaunch

Awesome! Ok let’s get right into it 🙂 We’d love to know a bit about yourself and how you came to build DeltaPrime!

Gavin | DeltaPrime

For sure! I’m Gavin. And I’m one of three DeltaPrime cofounders. I met the rest of the founding team back in December 2021, while solo-traveling Europe (bull market throwbacks). I was supposed to leave Sicily after a week, but got stuck for a month due to unforeseen circumstances. On the second to last day I met Piotr and his group of friends on a rooftop bar. Since I was living off of DeFi and Piotr (DP CEO) recently started working on a new web3 idea, the conversation quickly moved to DeFi and lending. Everyone knew that overcollateralized lending was extremely inefficient, and lots of people were trying to solve it. Avalanche was doing great due to it’s capital efficiency, which allowed us to use smart contracts as escrow accounts (otherwise extremely expensive). So the idea of DeltaPrime was born, aiming to leverage exactly that 🙂

Avalaunch

Nice! That’s a cool origin story. Could you tell us more about the team behind DeltaPrime?

Gavin | DeltaPrime

Yess, founding team consists of three people, Piotr (ceo), Kamil (cto) and me (cbdo). My background is primarily in communication, although I had been trading anything from stocks to forex to crypto before I met the others. Then there is Kamil. He is CTO at DeltaPrime, due to his extensive experience (he started coding at 7). He led a 20-headed team at HSBC before founding DeltaPrime. Lastly there is Piotr, CEO. He came previously from Redstone, where he, together with Redstone’s founder fantasized about a new type of lending. He has both extensive development experience (mainly frontend) as well as business experience, and is a bridge between the worlds of me and Kamil. There are 13 other teammembers, each of which provide insurmountable value to the protocol.

Avalaunch

Wow a solid all-rounded team! You guys have achieved so much with DeltaPrime and it’s only the beginning. DeltaPrime is playing a key role in shaping the growth of DeFi, can you give us an overview into the core goals of the platform?

Gavin | DeltaPrime

Thanks! Our core goal is to unlock liquidity from overcollateralized lending protocols. The capital efficiency of a overcollateralized protocols like Aave, leads to billions of dollars being trapped from almost every chain, Avalanche too, still has a ton of liquidity being unused. On DeltaPrime we allow users to demand capital, without being forced to lock extra capital up. This leads to higher cashflow throughout the whole ecosystem, as well as deeper liquidity in partnerprotocols like Trader Joe, in turn allowing for larger trades with lower slippage to be made on the chain.

Avalaunch

Amazing, DeltaPrime is solving a lot of challenges in DeFi and is doing a big part in taking decentralized lending/borrowing a step further. Since your deployment on Avalanche in January 2023, you’ve attracted $42M+ in TVL and unlocked $20M+ in liquidity — an amazing achievement! Can you dive into your strategy to building TVL and how you plan to continue this impressive growth?

Gavin | DeltaPrime

It has been some time hasn’t it 😄 At the end of the day we have two types of users, and we tailor our product to their unique goals and expectations: Depositors and borrowers. Depositors have two main goals: 1. Security, 2. Simplicity. We have invested heavily in the security of our platform straight from day one. https://docs.deltaprime.io, under the header security, shows a range of security features we have (including 7 audits, insurance pools, oracle & no-oracle solutions). Borrowers want to have freedom of investment: The more protocols we integrate, the more strategies that can be created. DeltaPrime is created in a way we can scale infinitely, so the value of DeltaPrime will exponentially scale as we develop.

Security docs – docs.deltaprime.io/protocol/security

Avalaunch

Yep simplifying DeFi and making it accessible to all users is super important. On DeltaPrime, users can deploy their collateral and borrowed funds into a wide range of DeFi protocols. Can you explain what some of the requirements are for a project to be whitelisted and integrated to the platform?

Gavin | DeltaPrime

Yeah so as you might have guessed from the previous answer, first and foremost: security. While we can’t guarantee an underlying protocol will never be exploited, we do have an extensive security audit, requiring, amongst other things: code audits, multisigs, timelocks as well as the assets staying liquid. Second up is user demand. We recently created a channel in our Discord, allowing users to share with us what they want to see in DeltaPrime. If there there is a ton of demand for a product or integration, and it’s safe, we are very likely to integrate it.

Avalaunch

Great, and making sure protocols put security first also creates a benchmark for the wider DeFi ecosystem. Your economic model has been designed to enable the protocol to sustainably grow whilst rewarding loyal supporters. Can you share more about the PRIME token and its role within the ecosystem?

Gavin | DeltaPrime

Diving into PRIME: PRIME itself is the base token. An ERC20 necessary to create sPRIME. It’s demand therefore also primarily flows from the demand of sPRIME. There is a lot I can say about both tokens, but focusing on sustainable growth + rewarding loyal supporters, I’ll zoom in on Community Owned Liquidity (COL) + locked sPRIME airdrops.

COL is liquidity that is put up as DEX liquidity by the protocol. It allows larger players to enter with lower slippage. This liquidity is community owned with a 30d timelock, and will only be used to create locked sPRIME, if the PRIME price moves up. The majority of this COL (which turns into AVAX) will be matched with new PRIME and airdropped to users based on hitting certain milestones. It can be used for a wide variety of usecases, except redeeming it for the underlying, ensuring it will keep providing liquidity on the market benefitting the wider ecosystem.

Good to note: The existence of locked sPRIME does not mean all airdrops necessarily will be locked. While this is the most sustainable, we do have plans for unlocked airdrops, but only for our real users pushing the platform 😉

And in the future I definitely expect governance to decide that what initially was locked sPRIME will now be airdropped as unlocked sPRIME. Those with the voting power (not the team) will have to make that decision though. (more on voting power as well as tokenomics can be found in our docs at https://docs.deltaprime.io/tokenomics )

Avalaunch

Thanks for the insight on PRIME (Avalaunch IDO currently live!) How do you see the DeFi space evolving and what are some of the biggest challenges that must first be solved?

Gavin | DeltaPrime

I would love for different verticals to come better together in the future. The way DeltaPrime is used right now for example, is solely within the DeFi ecosystem, but ideally you’d be able to get a loan for a Schrapnel weapon skin, or some metaverse villa. You know, the things you are happy to pay for. Before we get there though, either the whole space needs to use its liquidity more efficient, or we need to get a lot more normies educated about DeFi in order for them to put liquidity in (as the main reason we can’t expand to NFTs and Gaming yet is just a lack of liquid markets).

Avalaunch

Interoperability across verticals, loads of things that could be built there. Thanks for your take on that, great to hear it first hand from the DeltaPrime team!

Ok so now we move onto the community section of the AMA! We’ve chosen 10 questions that our community want to know the answers to!

Avalaunch

First up we @uyenlunan — have DeltaPrime uses Dedicated Smart Contracts (DSCs) for managing borrowed funds. Can you detail how DSCs work and their role in the protocol’s security and liquidity management?

Gavin | DeltaPrime

Yessir: Each DSC (Prime Account) is a separate smart contract that is the effective owner of both the collateral as well as the borrowed funds. While solvent — only the DSC owner is able to interact with the contract. This enables us to avoid mixing users’ funds, clear on-chain accounting, easy verification that you know exactly where your funds are as well as more effective active anti-exploit monitoring of individual Prime Accounts and the protocol as a whole.

It acts essentially as an escrow: you can use the DSC to interact with a variety of protocols, unless your account becomes insolvent, then liquidation bots can access the DSC to liquidate funds

Gavin | DeltaPrime

Difference between DSC and the Prime Account (PA) being that the PA essentially is the visual representation of your DSC.

Your DSC you can find and monitor on-chain.

Avalaunch

Now we hear from @Drtrader08 who wants to know — How does DeltaPrime plan to collaborate with other projects within the Avalanche ecosystem? Are there any upcoming integrations or features that the community should be excited about?

Gavin | DeltaPrime

If you know DeltaPrime, you know that we focus extensively on partnerships (with now 2 “Months of the partnership” behind us). We partner up with any protocol that’s safe, in demand and that we can therefore integrate into the DeltaPrime platform. While we have a couple very exciting partnerships coming up, I’m racking my brain rn, thinking of which ones we have announced already…

Ah! Most exciting one right now on Avalanche is definitely with Gogopool!

It’s missing an “n”, but you get the gist. They’re incentivising ggAVAX on DeltaPrime right now with 500 GGP per month 🔥: Tweet the published just now:https://x.com/GoGoPool_/status/1803476759196975277

We’ll announce some more over the next weeks 😉

Avalaunch

Very nice 😀

What specific advantages does the Diamond Beacon Proxy pattern offer for DeltaPrime’s scalability and future-proofing, and how does this pattern function within the protocol? From @VictoriaLuther199

Gavin | DeltaPrime

The Diamond Beacon Proxy (DBP) pattern allows DeltaPrime to add an unlimited number of integrations and to manage/remove current/old ones effectively. It also allows us to innovate and deliver new functionalities (not strictly with integrations only) without the need for major V1->V2 upgrades that would require users to move to a new version to get new functionalities in (think for example about allowing GGP to get their incentives in easily). Additionally, it allows for lower gas usage when setting up your Prime Account.

Within the protocol itself each tx to your PrimeAccount gets routed through the central Diamond contract that serves appropriate implementation contract. The implementation contracts are shared between all Prime Accounts guaranteeing same experience for all of our users whilst maintaining the PrimeAccount DSC separation so that each PA holds only the funds belonging to a given user.

ELI-Niels: scale fast, scale infinite (allowing us to move into those other verticals within the same PA if we wanted to)

If you are technical, check out this video from our CTO btw. It was on Avalanche Summit II that we found out he has a hidden talent for public speaking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB3f-DueXHc&t=2s

All about the DBP.

Avalaunch

Got it, thanks for that!

We have a question from @gamblecat297 – What is your vision for Delta Prime and how do you see Avalanche’s future?

Gavin | DeltaPrime

I’d revert to my previous answer: DeltaPrime is to:

1. Become the central bank in DeFi, allowing different forms of leverage and strategies that right now aren’t available anywhere else (making great progress there)
2. migrate into other popular verticals. The DBP allows us to go pretty much anywhere, so it gives us a ton of flexibility for whatever the next hype is gonna be.

As for Avalanche’s future, I remember Avalanche shining when Crabada turned the lights off. Smt similar had happened on BSC about a year before that, and that was only resolved once the BSC game had closed its doors, Crabada just needed to create their own subnet

Avalanche really shines when the bull is there. It’s amazing technology which just didn’t really have the chance to show its best self these past years. I expect that to change again as soon as the next bull comes

And whether that will be in Gamify, DeFi, points or a completely new vertical, we’ll be there 😉

Avalaunch

Yes a lot of technical innovation happening on Avalanche, we’re very excited!

Can you explain the concept and functionality of the Prime Account in DeltaPrime, and how it empowers users to manage their capital efficiently? From @BonitaLozano

Gavin | DeltaPrime

Ahh yeah so the PA is essentially the same as the DSC which I addressed here. The difference that we make is that the PA is your visual representation (the app you see) while the DSC is the contract you see on chain. But it comes down to the exact same thing.

The capital efficiency really comes from DeltaPrime, through the use of these escrow accounts, being able to liquidate liquidity, without having to trap it in some useless vault. Instead you can provide liquidity to our partners, benefitting both Avalanche and yourself. That’s why you experience it as undercollateralized (you put up $30, but yield on $80) while the PA just has $80 to secure $50 worth of debt

Avalaunch

A question from @SenaidHughes — DeltaPrime claims to enable users to borrow up to 5x their collateral. What are the underlying mechanisms that support such high leverage, and how does the platform manage the associated risks to prevent defaults and liquidations?

Gavin | DeltaPrime

It’s a combination of what I described above (coming down to:); All assets in the escrow can be liquidated to underwrite the risk, whereas in traditional lending markets only the ‘collateral’ can be used, while the borrowed funds are out of the platform’s control.

Together with management on individual assets and vaults. So not every asset has 5x borrowing power (amounting to 6x leverage). The borrowing power of an asset, or LP can be adjusted based on a combination of that assets:

– price feeds on the market
– liquidity within the ecosystem
– volatility over the past 365 days

Next to the Borrowing Power (BP), also the max exposure to either a protocol or the asset can be adjusted to manage risk

We also have some backup plans, take for example third party monitoring by hexagate or $2.3M+ insurance by DeltaPrime / Atomica, but so far (while it’s crucial we keep both), insurance has not been necessary for any real amounts.

Avalaunch

Thanks for breaking that down.

DeltaPrime’s team comprises individuals with diverse backgrounds in programming, business, and development. How do the unique skills and experiences of team members like Piotr Duda, Kamil Muca, and Gavin Hasselbaink contribute to the platform’s success and innovation? From @NilsaTellez50

Gavin | DeltaPrime

Right now we have been working together for almost 3 years. All of us have some programming experience, but Kamil is an expert on this topic. All of us have understanding of efficient communication (in one form or the other) but this is where my expertise lies. Piotr knows how to bridge the gaps.

We each have our own teams, but every important decision, we discuss together. Having worked together for this long, this intensely, we know each other’s strengths and challenges, allowing us to not waste time on unnecessary discussions, while still be able to challenge each other’s ideas, when necessary.

What does help is that we are extremely aligned in our thinking though. Honestly, for a team that came together as random as we got, it’s insane how much our values align😅

Avalaunch

It was meant to be!

A questions from @tripham8 — Will DeltaPrime’s token include extra functionality like staking or yield farming? Do you have a BuyBack scheme or a Token Burn plan in place to boost your token’s value and attract investors?

Gavin | DeltaPrime

Hahah reaaally tricky question legal wise

I honestly don’t think I should answer this. I’ll refer to our tokenomics: https://docs.deltaprime.io/tokenomics

Avalaunch

We understand!

Could you please share the key priorities outlined in DeltaPrime’s roadmap for the near future? From @Siddhant0811

Gavin | DeltaPrime

Ah, and I’ll recommend to read our ethos. Our main goal is sustainable growth of the platform, and we use every tool that we can to achieve that

As for this one:

Key priorities in our roadmap for the near future is growth and development. Next to the normal integrations, we have some major innovations that have not been seen in the web3 space before (including on DeltaPrime). We will partner up for this with some major protocols (at least 1 $1B+ protocol) to help us push this.

Short term that’s growth and development 😉

Avalaunch

Exciting stuff! Ok we’re onto our last community question and this one is from @Sandy_belcher_97 — Marketing is a significant factor for every project. What’s DeltaPrime’s plans for attracting users towards the project ecosystem?

Gavin | DeltaPrime

About 2 months ago we hired a Head of Marketing for DeltaPrime (can you believe we had no marketing team before this 🫠), who has been using the past 2 months to get up to speed and set up a 5-headed marketing team live today. They have been creating a ton of content, which is very closed to being pushed.

More long term I believe that marketing, while important, is not as important as a solid reputation. Our growth so far, while good, has been held back by massive whales “waiting and seeing” if we would be exploited. This is something that only time (and rock solid security) can solve.

So short term: bunch of marketing coming up; long term we attract users by keep offering what we have been offering for the past 1.5 years

Avalaunch

And there you have it, thanks so much for your insights! Big congrats again on everything you’ve achieved until now but it looks like you guys are just getting warmed up.

Avalaunch community — don’t forget to register for the PRIME IDO! ⏰

Thanks so much Gavin — it’s been a pleasure! And thanks everyone for tuning in. See you for the next one 🥳

Gavin | DeltaPrime

Whoop whoop! Thanks for having me 🙌

Lovish | Avalaunch

Interesting AMA, glad to have you here, Gavin.

Gavin | DeltaPrime

I’ll be sticking around btw, so feel free to ask follow up questions either here or in our Discord (link in FAQ on our landingpage)🫡

 

DeltaPrime Overview

DeltaPrime is a trustless lending and borrowing platform deployed on Avalanche and Arbitrum serving as a key pillar in the ever-evolving DeFi landscape. It allows users to borrow up to 5x their collateral to use in integrated DeFi protocols, acting as a unified gateway into the DeFi ecosystem. DeltaPrime greatly improves capital efficiency by enabling users to invest their borrowed funds together with their full collateral. This contrasts with traditional lending/borrowing platforms that require users to lock up their collateral, resulting in billions of dollars in TVL sitting idle instead of being put to use. With access to a wide range of integrated DeFi protocols, DeltaPrime empowers users to create custom strategies to match their risk/reward preferences.

Since DeltaPrime’s launch in January 2023 on Avalanche, it has integrated Avalanche’s top DeFi protocols, amassing an impressive $42.9M in TVL, whilst unlocking $20+M in liquidity. DeltaPrime is pivotal in creating a unified DeFi experience, empowering users and driving the growth of the DeFi ecosystem on both Avalanche and Arbitrum.

Key Features of DeltaPrime

DeltaPrime’s goal is to create a DeFi portal which gives users a highly flexible and intuitive experience which is underscored by its commitment to security. Its innovative architecture has several core features which contribute to the safety and efficiency of the platform.

Dedicated Smart Contracts

On DeltaPrime, a user’s borrowed funds are sent to a dedicated smart contract, which is solely owned by the user. At the same time, this unique setup allows DeltaPrime to safeguard the protocol through necessary liquidations, independent of the protocol the user is interacting with. With a dedicated smart contract in place, users have full control of their borrowed assets while ensuring that the protocol can have liquidation measures in place to remain solvent.

Liquidation Approach

A core feature enabled by having dedicated smart contracts is DeltaPrime’s liquidation approach. To provide users with flexibility while protecting the protocol’s health, DeltaPrime performs partial liquidations when a user’s collateral ratio drops below 20%. This restores the account to a secure margin. Unlike traditional lending protocols that fully liquidate positions, DeltaPrime offers users greater control of their assets and a more user-friendly experience.

Whitelisted Protocols & Assets

With security at the heart of DeltaPrime, users can only engage with whitelisted protocols that meet specific security requirements. To protect borrowed funds from default, assets are also whitelisted, ensuring they are liquid, stable, and protected from DEX manipulation.

By adopting a gated approach, especially during the early stages of the protocol’s growth, DeltaPrime provides an additional layer of security to protect users’ funds.

PRIME Token Utility

DeltaPrime’s economic design focuses on creating a sustainable business model which also rewards the protocol’s biggest supporters. To achieve this, sPRIME is used as the key mechanism to ensure long-term platform stability. Instead of simply staking PRIME, sPRIME represents a PRIME LP position on Trader Joe (AVAX-PRIME on Avalanche) or Uniswap (ETH-PRIME on Arbitrum).

sPRIME holders gain access to:

• 33% of the protocol’s revenue
• Governance power points to influence the protocol’s future as DeltaPrime transitions to decentralized governance
• Paying for Prime upgrades such as:
  • Lower fees
  • Additional leverage and token options
  • Improved performance tracking
  • And much more!

By requiring users to deposit into a PRIME LP position, sPRIME creates deeper liquidity which unlocks several benefits for the stability of the PRIME token:

✅ More efficient swaps with minimal slippage
✅ A liquidity buffer for unlocks, to absorb selling pressure with minimum price impact
✅ Increased stability

The ability to create deeper liquidity is crucial to providing a robust and stable economic foundation for DeltaPrime.

Team

Partners & Backers

Official Links

Website | X | Medium | Discord

DeltaPrime: Avalaunch IDO

DeltaPrime team on working with Avalaunch:

“For the past two years we have had many calls with both Dave and Mark about Avalanche, DeltaPrime and, most importantly, our tokenomics. Their input has been invaluable and significantly influenced the tokenomics as you see them today.”

— Gavin Hasselbaink, Co-Founder & CBDO of DeltaPrime

Funding Numbers

• Pre-seed: 700K USD – 1,866,667 PRIME at $0.375 USD — $15M FDV
• Bridge: 520K USD – 924,444 PRIME at $0.5625 USD — $22.5M FDV
• Public seed: 500K USD – 666,667 PRIME at $0.75 USD — $30M FDV
• Private seed: 700K USD – 700K PRIME at $1.00 USD — $40M FDV
• Launchpads: 500K USD – 444,444 PRIME at $1.125 — $45M FDV
  • Avalaunch: 300K USD – 266,666 PRIME at $1.125  
  • Other launchpads include Colony & AngelBlock

Supply Breakdown

Total Supply: 40,000,000 PRIME

• Community: 12,597,778 PRIME (31.49%) 
• DAO Treasury: 8M PRIME (20%)
• Team: 6.4M PRIME (16%)
• Advisors: 2M PRIME (5%) 
• Private seed: 700K PRIME (1.75%)
  • pre-TGE Contributors who receive a discount for locking and vesting their $PRIME over 12 months.
• Bridge: 924,444 PRIME (2.31%)
  • Both private and community contributors, supporting DeltaPrime in late 2023.
• Pre-seed: 1,866,667 PRIME (4.67%) 
• Grant: 226,571 PRIME (0.57%) 
  • A 300k grant has been provided by the Avalanche foundation in our early days. This came with an option to buy the token back at a discounted price up to the grant amount in the future. While there is no set date for this, we do reserve a part of the allocation for this grant.
• IEO: 571,429 PRIME (1.43%)
  • $PRIME used to bootstrap DEX liquidity at launch. This is matched with 100% of the launchpad proceeds and 50% of the Community Seed proceeds. 
• Launchpads: 444,444 PRIME (1.11%)
• Community Seed: 666,667 PRIME (1.67%)
• Bounties: 800K PRIME (2%)
• Ecosystem growth: 4.8M PRIME (12%)

The full supply breakdown can found in the DeltaPrime docs.

Vesting Following TGE

The cliff for every category starts on July 1st. 

• Community: Fully unlocked at TGE
• DAO Treasury: 12 month cliff, 12 months linear vesting
• Team: 12 month cliff, 24 months linear vesting
• Advisors: 12 month cliff, 12 months linear vesting
• Private seed: 8 month cliff, 8 month vesting
• Bridge: 8 month cliff, 8 months linear vesting
• Pre-seed: 8 month cliff, 8 months linear vesting
• Grant: 12 month cliff, 12 months linear vesting
• IEO: Fully unlocked at TGE
• Launchpads: No cliff, 6 months weekly vesting 
• Community Seed: 6 month cliff, 6 months linear vesting
• Bounties: Fully unlocked at TGE
• Ecosystem Growth: Fully unlocked at TGE

ℹ️ Please note: The TGE for PRIME will take place on July 1st – please stay tuned for further updates from the DeltaPrime team on the exact TGE time.

Other Info

• Initial Market Cap (excl. liquidity): $6M
• Initial Liquidity: $6.75M
• Initial Circulating Supply: 4,571,429 PRIME (11.43%)

DeltaPrime IDO Schedule

Registration Schedule

Registration Opens: Friday, June 14 at 3:00 p.m. (UTC)
Registration Closes: Sunday, June 23 at 6:00 p.m. (UTC)

Sale Schedule

Validator Round Begins: Monday, June 24 at 6:00 a.m. (UTC)
Validator Round Closes: Monday, June 24 at 3:30 p.m. (UTC)

Staking Round Begins: Monday, June 24 at 3:30 p.m. (UTC)
Staking Round Closes: Tuesday, June 25 at 6:00 a.m. (UTC)

Booster Round Begins: Tuesday, June 25 at 6:00 a.m. (UTC)
Booster Round Closes: Tuesday, June 25 at 10:30 a.m. (UTC)

How to Participate

To participate in Avalaunch sales, users will have to:

• Complete their KYC Registration | Tutorial
• Stake XAVA to secure their allocation | Tutorial
• Register for the sale when Registration opens | Tutorial

Claiming your allocation

ℹ️  Important info: At TGE (July 1st), participants will be able to claim their PRIME allocation from the DeltaPrime claim portal. Please stay tuned for official announcements.

About DeltaPrime

DeltaPrime is your prime broker on a mission to unlock the full potential of DeFi. We do this by providing secure undercollateralized loans, redistributing assets with a focus on maximum capital efficiency. Being built on the strong foundation of the Avalanche and Arbitrum networks, our Prime Account holders know they get fast and reliable transactions for their most important investments.

About Avalaunch

Avalaunch is a launchpad powered by the Avalanche platform, allowing new and innovative projects to seamlessly prepare for launch with an emphasis on fair and broad distribution. With its values deeply rooted in the early Avalanche community, we are able to offer projects confident, informed users who are aligned with the long-term goals of the rapidly expanding application ecosystem. Leveraging Avalanche’s scalable, high-throughput, and low-latency platform, Avalaunch is built by users, for teams, to help grow strong communities.

On 5/7/2024 at 9:00 p.m. (UTC), an AMA session was held on Avalaunch Telegram group with the Arrow Markets team to learn more about the powerful features being built on Arrow, which users can look forward to in its upcoming V2.

Below we present to you an excerpt from AMA with questions and answers.

Kirbee | Avalaunch

Hello everyone and welcome to another AMA, this time with Arrow Markets! We’ve got the Arrow team here today and we’ll be diving right in. How are you today?

Viking | Arrow Markets
Heyyy, doing good, excited to answer some questions 🫡

Kirbee | Avalaunch
Awesome, let’s get right in! Can you give us a brief intro of yourself and how you became involved with Arrow Markets?

Ed | Arrow Markets

Hey Kirbee, really excited to be here and answer the community’s questions!

I am one of the two co-founders of Arrow markets. As for my background, I was a PhD candidate at Cornell University doing research at the intersection of financial economics, blockchain, and AI. Cornell was a great place to be at for all three and I even had the pleasure of taking Emin Gun Sirer’s one and only PhD course on blockchain before he left to create the avalanche protocol!

The seed of the idea of Arrow markets came out of the IC3 hackathon back in late 2020. Patrick and I came from an academic background and had some professional experience in TradFi. In TradFi, options are massive and dwarf spot markets. We did not see the same traction in DeFi with options and wanted to create a platform that would provide transparent creation and settlement of options on-chain.

Viking | Arrow Markets

Hey! I’m Viking, marketing lead and community Lead at Arrow. I have been trading full-time crypto for a bit over 4 years now, so very crypto native and bit of a DeFi degen myself. Been trading perps for awhile and got excited about options about 1 year ago -that is how I ended up connecting with Arrow. Been around in Arrow for around a year, doing everything Growth and Community related, so if you have been around for awhile you have probably seen me at some point in tg/discord or twitter.

Kirbee | Avalaunch

Wow that’s awesome, a very impressive background from both of you. I’m sure the audience would love to know more about the rest of the team behind Arrow Markets — could you tell us more?

Ed | Arrow Markets

Other than myself and Vikingcrypt, the Arrow Markets team has deep expertise from top institutions. Our other cofounder Patrick Kiefer has a PhD in finance/financial economics from UCLA and Cornell (ABD, on-leave) and also has experience from industry in different areas of quant finance.

Our CPO Dheeraj Chakilam has a CS Masters from Cornell and worked at Jet/Walmart as a software engineer focused on options platform UX.

The team combines strong academic credentials in finance with real-world experience across quantitative trading, macro investing, software engineering and product design — giving us a unique position to build a superior options platform.

We also have respected advisors from the options market making industry and AI backgrounds providing invaluable guidance.

To learn more about the team please visit https://www.arrow.markets/about

Kirbee | Avalaunch

Quite the powerhouse team you have there, we are in good hands 🙂 so Arrow’s vision is to become the go-to platform for retail options traders — can you share more insight on your approach?

Viking | Arrow Markets

Absolutely! Our vision is to democratize options trading and be the premier platform tailored for retail traders. A few points on our approach:

1 — User-centric design is our core. Our “Lite Mode” interface guides beginners through complex strategies, lowering barriers to entry. Even those that have never traded options before can execute complex options trading strategies using our Lite Mode.
2 — Education is prioritized with testnet, trading competitions, social integration to learn in a risk-free, engaging manner.
3 — Robust technology like our innovative RFE system ensures competitive pricing and liquidity on par with centralized platforms.
4 — We’ll offer options on a wide range of crypto assets beyond just BTC/ETH to cater to diverse trader needs.
5 — Our team combines finance, quant trading, product design, and engineering expertise to deliver an exceptional user experience.

The goal is to bridge simplicity and sophistication — empowering retail traders with powerful tools while maintaining an intuitive, accessible platform.

Kirbee | Avalaunch

Great to see you are putting so much focus on educating users and a really clean UX, that’s so important for onboarding new users. With V2 coming out, you’ve shared that it will include a powerful Request-for-Execution system — can you explain why this is such a game changing feature?

Viking | Arrow Markets

The Request-for-Execution (RFE) system is a true game-changer for our V2 platform. Here’s why it’s so powerful:

– Traditional RFQ systems have stale quote risk — market makers must honor quotes over a time window, leading to wider spreads to account for this risk. Our RFE flips this on its head. It requests a reference quote from makers, which the user can then execute against within their set slippage tolerance. This allows makers to provide much tighter quotes since their risk is limited.
– It gets better — RFE masks the user’s slippage tolerance and quickly pings makers for final quotes, accepting the best one within that tolerance range and rejecting any stale prices. This creates a win-win — makers face less risk so can quote tighter spreads, while users get superior pricing within their own slippage control.
– Coupled with KPI-driven maker incentives, RFE ensures the options liquidity and execution rivals centralized platforms.

It’s a true innovative breakthrough.

Kirbee | Avalaunch

That’s really exciting to hear — congrats on the amazing work! On top of all the innovations, you have a strong focus on making options trading more accessible to more traders, how have you gone about this? And why was this such an important goal for Arrow?

Ed | Arrow Markets

Making options trading truly accessible to a wider range of traders has been a core mission for Arrow from day one. A few key elements of our approach as briefly mentioned before:

1. The “Lite Mode” UI guides beginners through complex strategies step-by-step, removing much of the intimidating complexity.

2. Educational tools like testnet, trading competitions, social integration let traders learn in a fun, risk-free environment.

We believe the immense potential of options has been limited to professionals/institutions due to opacity and high bars to entry. By democratizing access, we can unlock innovation and new use cases.

Options are powerful risk management and trading tools — our goal is to empower all traders to leverage them intuitively. This accessibility drive is central to our vision of a truly decentralized options economy.

Kirbee | Avalaunch

Making options more accessible is so important for the future of DeFi! You’ve been building in Avalanche for 3 years! Why did you choose to build on Avalanche in the first place and what has this journey through the years been like? Any insights for teams who are undecided on where they want to build?

Ed | Arrow Markets

Two words: CONSENSUS MECHANISM 🤝. From the moment we read the Avalanche whitepaper, we were super impressed with the innovation behind the consensus mechanism. Why’s it important — it allows for cheap and lighting fast txns while still maintaining a good degree of decentralization among the validators.

Avalanche is a great place to build and we think the team at Ava labs has been really supportive. Our advice for those building out a product is to create a pitch and a simple proof of concept and reach out to the Ava labs team to see how they might be able to support you as a builder.

Kirbee | Avalaunch

Very helpful for emerging teams, thanks for the insight! Community is a key part of building a successful product in the Web3 space. What strategies have you implemented to build the Arrow community in the Web3 space, and what have been your main areas of focus?

Viking | Arrow Markets

Completely agree that community is a key part of building a successful product on DeFi!

We have seen a lot of growth in our community in the last few months and we are constantly trying to host different events and come up with interactive ways to engage our community. We can quickly highlight V2 Mainnet waitlist, the different milestones campaigns to advance in the waitlist, multiple testnet trading competitions and other social campaigns.

We will continue to host different campaigns that help us interact with our community, and try to innovate new and fun ways to engage with Archers. Once V2 Mainnet is out, we will also continue to host events on Testnet to ensure that everybody gets to participate, without gatekeeping events and rewards to those that are already familiar with Options Trading. As highlighted before, we put a lot of emphasis on Education and encouraging our users to experience a risk-free environment to leverage a great tool like Options!

Kirbee | Avalaunch

That’s a lot to look forward to and many ways to get involved! Everyone is hugely excited about Arrow V2 — is there any V2 alpha you can share with the Avalaunch community?

Ed | Arrow Markets

We will be dropping some alpha with some research we have been doing for our upcoming margin system. We are super pumped about the results around capital efficiency relative to CEX options margin systems and Arrow’s is even able to support cross-margining. Stay tuned! 👀📺

Kirbee | Avalaunch

Very exciting stuff! Arrow V2 will mark a pivotal milestone for DeFi — can you share what else you have planned in the future for Arrow?

Viking | Arrow Markets

As discussed a bit earlier we are very excited about productionizing our margin system and integrating that into our version 2. We are also excited about opening up some options markets ($AVAX 👀🔺) on the platform!

Kirbee | Avalaunch

👀 this is the last question from us before we move onto the community questions. Arrow Markets is significantly expanding the possibilities in DeFi, as there hasn’t been a solid choice for options trading until now. Where do you see the future of DeFi heading, and what will Arrow enable to be built?

Ed | Arrow Markets

In general we like to think of the future of DeFi being all the possibilities that arise from ‘open finance’. Open finance in our mind is similar to open source technology. DeFi enables easy composability between protocols, in a transparent and accessible way. Furthermore, open finance also allows real cool future innovations like on the fly stress testing of a whole interconnected DeFi ecosystem in real time — not something that we can do in TradFi because of how closed that system is.

In addition, I personally am very excited for how DeFi will enable the future development of AI algorithms and allow users/traders to participate in real time in the upside of development of new AI tools. 🤖

Finally for what Arrow will enable to be built, we think that in the medium term, the goal of getting more and more options trading on-chain in a more transparent system is a big step in the right direction of having a fully functional open financial system and we’re super pumped to be making it happen in real time!

Kirbee | Avalaunch

A future of unlimited possibilities! Right now we’re onto our community questions, first one is from @kieule0701 — How can beginners utilize the Arrow Markets platform? Is there a guide available for newcomers?

Viking | Arrow Markets

For beginners, we offer a “Lite Mode” that simplifies executing options strategies with just a few clicks. We also have a testnet, trading competitions, and periodic social campaigns with web3 communities to learn in a fun, risk-free way. You can check out more about how our platform works by visiting our docs: https://docs.arrow.markets, and also by testing it out on Testnet at https://www.arrow.markets/!

Kirbee | Avalaunch

Next one is from @Nicolassteam — Can you share the backstory and challenges that motivated the development of Arrow Markets?

Ed | Arrow Markets

The seed of the idea of Arrow markets came out of the IC3 hackathon back in late 2020. Patrick and I came from an academic background and had some professional experience in TradFii.

In TradFi, options are massive and dwarf spot markets. We did not see the same traction in DeFi with options and wanted to create a platform that would provide transparent creation and settlement of options on-chain.

Options allow users a huge amount of flexibility in how they can express their market views, however, in part, because of this flexibility they are complex. Other than the purely technical side of programming options contracts on-chain we also wanted to create a platform with great UI/UX as well as plenty of opportunities to paper trade options.

Kirbee | Avalaunch

@ducluong27 would like to know — Has Arrow Markets undergone any security audits by third parties? What measures are in place to safeguard the community from potential threats?

Viking | Arrow Markets

Yes there have been third party audits of different aspects of the platform from our v1, to v2, to our $ARROW token contracts. We are currently in the process of auditing our token staking contracts. Please be on the lookout for more details to be released in our docs!

Kirbee | Avalaunch

Awesome, @tripham8 has a great question — How does Arrow Markets plan to strengthen its community and foster ongoing support? Are there regular community events, and could you provide examples?

Viking | Arrow Markets

As mentioned earlier, we have held multiple community events in the past — we can highlight Arrow V2 Waitlist that included completing different milestones to advance in the waitlist, lots of testnet trading competitions, and different social campaigns using tooling like Galxe.

Going forward we will continue to host different community campaigns — both on Mainnet and Testnet so everybody can participate -. To mention some, Trading Competitions, Sweepstakes, overall different incentives and ways to get the community involved. Would stay tuned for a new campaign starting soon 👀

Kirbee | Avalaunch

Can you share the inspiration behind the name “Arrow Markets” and any meaningful story associated with it? from @TamekaHopson

Ed | Arrow Markets

The name Arrow Markets actually comes from the famous Economist Kenneth Arrow. He was the first economist to show that having a rich enough set of options in a free and open market would allow participants in the economy to maximize their ‘welfare’ and attain an ‘efficient market equilibrium’.

To learn more about this great economist please check out this article: https://www.nature.com/articles/543624a

Kirbee | Avalaunch

Very interesting! We’ve got a very good question from @JammieDelagarza — In traditional options markets, the role of a writer is crucial. How does Arrow Markets innovate this process by enabling users to buy options without relying on a middle-man, and what benefits does this decentralization bring to traders?

Ed | Arrow Markets

Arrow markets directly connects users to market makers in our v2. In addition, we have a KPI driven system in place for how market makers are compensated. This approach allows users to get the most competitive prices for options. Finally because of the fact we are a DeFi protocol, composabiliy between us and other platforms is completely open.

Kirbee | Avalaunch

Awesome, thanks for that. Now we hear from @AllenaGivens — Can you discuss how Arrow Markets leverages options contracts to construct a wide variety of derivatives and structured products, and provide examples of the diversity of products that can be created using the platform?

Ed | Arrow Markets

Excellent question on the versatility of our platform! Options are the building blocks that allow creation of an incredibly diverse range of derivative and structured products.

For example, using our platform:
1. You could create a call spread by combining a long call at one strike and another long call at a higher strike, participating in upside gains up to a cap at the higher strike.
2. Construct a put spread by combining a long put at one strike and another long put at a lower strike, hedging downside risk below the lower strike.
3. Iron condors are also possible by combining the above call spread and put spread, allowing traders to bet on high or low market volatility.

The permutations are practically limitless when you have the right options market infrastructure, which is what we’ve built with Arrow Markets.

Kirbee | Avalaunch

There’s really so much innovation that can be built on Arrow — excited to see how it will all unfold. An important question from @Alonzowhitworth20 — Did Arrow Markets consider community feedback and requests during product development to incorporate fresh ideas? Who is the ideal consumer for your project, and how do you ensure alignment with their needs?

Viking | Arrow Markets

Community feedback has been crucial in the process of building Arrow V2. We have held multiple user interviews with both experienced options traders and people who have never traded options before, to gather opinions and thoughts on the overall UI and UX. We are strong believers in taking a user-centric approach when building, so we are constantly seeking feedback and iterating on it, ensuring that we are fully aligned with our users. We invite everybody to test V2 out and let us know of any feedback they have! By offering a Lite Mode, more focused on novice traders, and a Pro Mode, more focused on experienced option traders, we cater to a wide range of users.

Our community feedback has been super important in getting the V2 product to where it is, so huge shoutout to everybody who has submitted feedback 🫡

Kirbee | Avalaunch

Great to hear that the community has played such a key role in the development of V2! An excellent question from @SaranMarlow as we near the end of the community questions segment! Looking back at the successes of 2023, what key milestones or achievements stand out for Arrow Markets, and how do they set the stage for the anticipated launch of Arrow V2 Mainnet in 2024?

Viking | Arrow Markets

There have been a lot of milestones throughout 2023 and even 2024 already. To highlight some of them,

a) In early 2023 we opened up V2 Waitlist which saw a ton of interest and signups — over 28k signups with verified socials
b) We saw thousands of Testnet Users participate in the different campaigns we held — the Milestones campaigns being a huge success!
c) We held multiple Testnet Trading Competitions which saw thousands of signups, the last one having over 5k users competing for $15K Prize Pool
d) Successfully tested Arrow V2 Mainnet internally and later on-boarded some OGs to try Mainnet out

All of these really setting up the stage for a highly anticipated Arrow V2 Mainnet — its great to see community to be as excited as we are!

Kirbee | Avalaunch

Wow, that’s amazing — congrats Arrow team! And yet you still have so much more lined up 🥳 we’ve come to our final question from @DaphineCroft — Can you elaborate on the process of signing up for the V2 Waitlist, including the criteria for participation and the benefits for users who join the waitlist?

Ed | Arrow Markets

Bit of alpha here but the opened V2 Mainnet is coming out this week, so there is no need to sign up for V2 Waitlist anymore — will be able to trade on mainnet directly as soon as it goes live. So keep an eye for that announcement! 🚀👩‍🚀

Kirbee | Avalaunch

A big bit of alpha there! What an exciting week it is for you guys — congrats on everything! Thanks for such an informative AMA — really eye-opening as to what Arrow Markets will unlock for the DeFi space.

Less than 2 more days to register for the Arrow Markets IDO!

Thanks to the Avalaunch community for tuning in!

Get ready for Arrow V2 🥳

Viking | Arrow Markets

Thanks Kirbee and everybody who tuned in! 🫡

Ed | Arrow Markets

Thanks Kirbee and big hugs 🫂 to the whole avalaunch community — lfg

Kirbee | Avalaunch

Thanks Vikingcrypt and Ed for your time!

Arrow Markets is revolutionizing options trading by harnessing the power of Avalanche’s infrastructure. Their innovative approach combines the efficiency of centralized platforms with the transparency of blockchain technology, offering the most cost-effective and streamlined trading experience in the Web3 space. Unlike traditional platforms that require intermediaries, Arrow Markets operates on-chain, eliminating middlemen and passing the savings onto its users and liquidity providers – a significant advantage in an industry where yearly profits run into billions.

Arrow Markets has placed a deep focus on building a highly intuitive platform which is accessible to all options traders. Its user-friendly options trading tools empowers users to design custom strategies aligned with their market outlook, whether for speculation or hedging purposes. For sophisticated options traders, Arrow offers a state of the art platform with the most innovative tools, designed to enhance their trading efficiency.

Arrow Markets allows users to buy and sell options directly, without the need for a middleman, on popular assets like AVAX, ETH, and BTC. It offers a broad range of possibilities for creating financial products on top of Arrow Markets – from covered calls and variance swaps to different types of options spreads. These can all be constructed through Arrow’s flexible and composable architecture.

Arrow Markets is currently gearing up for its V2 launch on Mainnet, which will introduce game-changing features designed to provide users with the best possible pricing and liquidity. This update underscores Arrow’s commitment to fulfilling the pressing demand for a superior options trading platform in the DeFi ecosystem and to further enhancing the range of financial instruments available. Options play a key role in limiting risk, and Arrow is at the forefront of expanding these essential tools that will shape the future of DeFi.

By choosing to build on Avalanche, Arrow guarantees high throughput, near-instant finality, minimal transaction fees, and resistance to front-running, positioning Arrow to lead the next generation of decentralized derivatives markets.

Arrow V2: Innovation Meets Accessibility

As part of its upcoming V2, Arrow Markets is introducing a pioneering RFE (Request-for-Execution) system that provides options traders with the best prices. This system leverages an incentive model for market makers and an API that seamlessly delivers quotes on a wide range of underlying assets. With its RFQ product, Arrow positions itself as a go-to solution for retail traders by offering the most competitive prices and a refined user experience that rivals the efficiency of centralized exchanges.

Through Arrow’s KPI-driven incentive program, its RFQ system enables multiple market makers to compete for order flow. This competition ensures that users are provided with the most competitive prices. Additionally, Arrow’s focus on accessibility means that the platform includes educational resources and a vibrant social community, further enriched by trading competitions and web3 social campaigns. Its dedication to democratizing these powerful financial tools transforms Arrow Markets into a hub for innovation and collaboration, setting new standards in the DeFi industry.

ARROW Token Utility

The platform is powered by the ARROW token, which, when staked, grants users several benefits:

• By staking ARROW, users receive a share of the fees generated from every options trade. These fees are distributed in USDC.
• The amount of ARROW staked, along with the duration of the stake, directly influences the proportion of revenue each user is entitled to.
• In the future, ARROW may be used in the following ways:
  • Protocol governance
  • Margin and option writing insurance
  • Discounts on platform trading fees

Team

The Arrow Research Group, established in 2020 by Patrick Kiefer and Edward Mehrez, who are both trained financial economists, serves as the foundation for Arrow Markets. The core team at Arrow Markets is made up of researchers and engineers with expertise in financial economics, mathematics, and computer science.

Partners & Backers

 

“We are excited to partner with Arrow to help fuel their growth of the onchain options market. Crypto options have been historically struggled to gain widespread adoption due to capital inefficiency and illiquidity. Arrow’s hybrid exchange aims to address these issues by enabling a fast, cheap trading experience while minimizing counterparty risk. Arrow’s design will simplify the options trading experience, making it easy for retail and institutions alike to trade any options strategy onchain.”

— Roy Learner, Principal, Framework Ventures

Official Links

Website | X | Discord | Telegram | Medium | Youtube

Arrow Markets: Avalaunch IDO

Arrow Markets team on working with Avalaunch:

“Avalaunch is the premier Avalanche platform for IDOs. It’s not a mystery why either: their team is fantastic at what they do. Everything from cultivating an amazing community of superfans to assisting on the ins and outs of a successful token launch — they are top notch.”

— Co-Founders of Arrow Markets, Patrick Kiefer and Edward Mehrez

DISCLAIMER

**ARROW MARKETS AND THE $ARROW TOKEN ARE NOT AVAILABLE TO USERS IN THE UNITED STATES OR OTHER PROHIBITED JURISDICTIONS. THE BELOW IS NOT INTENDED FOR VIEW BY ANY PARTICIPANTS IN A PROHIBITED JURISDICTION** 

The article is for informational purposes only, and is not legal, tax, investment, financial, or other type of advice. Nothing contained in this article constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell securities, financial instruments, or digital assets of any kind.

This article contains information that is of a general nature and does not address the circumstances of any particular person. Readers assume the sole responsibility of evaluating the merits and risks associated with the use of any information contained in this article before making any decisions based on such information.

Supply Breakdown

Total Supply: 72,000,000 ARROW

• Staking Rewards and Community Rewards: 23.760M ARROW (33%) 
• Foundation and Treasury: 15.672M ARROW (21.7666667%)
  • Including but not limited to marketing, partnerships, operations etc.
• Founders: 10.8M ARROW (15%)
• Seed sale: 6.84M ARROW (9.5%) 1.42M USD at .2083—15M FDV
• CEX & DEX Liquidity Provision/Market Making: up to 7.2M ARROW (10%)
• Private Sale A & B: 3.768M ARROW (5.23333333%) 3.925M USD at 1.0417 USD—75M FDV
  • (Private B to provide insurance funds to protocol)
• Pre-Token Launch Sale (in progress): 1.8M ARROW (2.5%) $1.875m USD at US$1.04166667— 75m FDV
• Avalaunch: 250k USD for 720K ARROW (1%)  at .3472 USD—25M FDV
• Polkastarter: 250k USD for 720K ARROW (1%) at .3472 USD—25M FDV
• Initial Marketing: 250K USD for 720K ARROW (1%)

Vesting Following TGE

• Staking Rewards and Community Rewards: Variable over 10 yrs
  • 30-day cliff 
  • Not exceed 8% of total supply in any calendar year
  • Any tokens not distributed will be turned over to a Community DAO for Treasury Management. 
• Foundation and Treasury: Variable over 5 Years
  • 3-month cliff 
  • To be deployed in concert with expansion
  • Not to exceed 6% of total supply in any calendar year 
• Founders: 1 year lock, linear quarterly vest over 3 yrs 
• Seed sale: 1 yr lock, linear monthly vest over 1.5 yrs
• Liquidity Provision: 50% at TGE, remainder contingent upon additional listings
• Private Sale A: 2 yr lock, linear monthly vest over 1 yr
• Private Sale B: 1 yr lock, linear monthly vest over 1 yr
• Pre-Token Launch Sale: 1yr lock, 6 month vest
• Avalaunch/Polkastarter: 25% unlocked at TGE, weekly vesting beginning immediately over 4 months (16 weekly unlocks with 4.6875% released each week)
• Initial Marketing: Monthly linear vest over 180 days

ℹ️ Please note: The TGE for ARROW will occur shortly after the sale concludes. Stay tuned for further updates from the Arrow Markets team regarding the finalized plans for CEX listing and the confirmed date for the TGE.

Other Info

• Initial Circulating Supply (excl. liquidity): 1.44M ARROW (+180k ARROW initial marketing)
• Initial Liquidity: Minimum 750K USD and 2.16M ARROW
• Avalaunch IDO: 250K USD at 25M FDV

Arrow Markets IDO Schedule

Registration Schedule

Registration Opens: Thursday, May 2 at 3:00 p.m. (UTC)
Registration Closes: Thursday, May 9 at 6:00 p.m. (UTC)

Sale Schedule

Validator Round Begins: Saturday, May 11 at 6:00 a.m. (UTC)
Validator Round Closes: Saturday, May 11 at 3:30 p.m. (UTC)

Staking Round Begins: Saturday, May 11 at 3:30 p.m. (UTC)
Staking Round Closes: Sunday, May 12 at 6:00 a.m. (UTC)

Booster Round Begins: Sunday, May 12 at 6:00 a.m. (UTC)
Booster Round Closes: Sunday, May 12 at 10:30 a.m. (UTC)

How to Participate

To participate in Avalaunch sales, users will have to:

• Complete their KYC Registration | Tutorial
• Stake XAVA to secure their allocation | Tutorial
• Register for the sale when Registration opens | Tutorial

About Arrow Markets

Arrow Markets (v2) is a Request-for-Execution (RFE) system that leverages an incentive system for market makers and an API that enables them to seamlessly provide quotes for option contracts on a rich set of underliers.

Arrow is the go-to solution for retail options traders. It offers competitive prices, a polished product that rivals centralized exchanges, complete with an educational section and social community.

About Avalaunch

Avalaunch is a launchpad powered by the Avalanche platform, allowing new and innovative projects to seamlessly prepare for launch with an emphasis on fair and broad distribution. With its values deeply rooted in the early Avalanche community, we are able to offer projects confident, informed users who are aligned with the long-term goals of the rapidly expanding application ecosystem. Leveraging Avalanche’s scalable, high-throughput, and low-latency platform, Avalaunch is built by users, for teams, to help grow strong communities.

On 3/21/2024 at 7:00 p.m. (UTC), an AMA session was held on Avalaunch Telegram group with Jojo Meylaerts — Co-founder & CEO of Castle of Blackwater, to dive into one of the most highly-anticipated social experiences in Web3 gaming.

Below you can read our insightful AMA with Castle of Blackwater:

Avalaunch

Welcome to another AMA brought to you by the good people of Avalaunch, your home for all the Avalanche. Today we are fortunate to have the founder of Castle of Blackwater, JoJo, ready to drop science and share knowledge for our rambunctious one-love community.

Jojo | Castle of Blackwater
Hello hello!

Thanks for having me on 🙂

Avalaunch
How are you doing today Jojo?

Jojo | Castle of Blackwater
Doing very well! It’s been exceptionally busy recently, but times are exciting

How about you Kirbee, how’s your day been?

Avalaunch
Excited for this AMA! Yes sounds like you guys have been extremely busy. Let’s dive in with our first question!

Can you give us a brief intro of yourself and how you ended up building Castle of Blackwater?

Jojo | Casttle of Blackwater

Of course

My name is Jojo and I am the cofounder and CEO of Castle of Blackwater. I have a background in economics, business and entrepreneurship, and also spent a few years working as a technology recruiter, where I learned to find the right people and bring them together around a centralized vision.

My cofounder, Remo, is a close friend of mine. We started Castle of Blackwater together in late 2021, out of a frustration with the play to earn games at the time. We were convinced that blockchain games needed to be more fun and more sustainable in order to become mainstream accepted.

Avalaunch

Wow a smart team and great that you’ve been able to go on this journey with your close friend! Love to hear that. Could you tell us more about the rest of the team behind CoB?

Jojo | Castle of Blackwater

What started out as a two man team, quickly blossomed into a thriving operation currently consisting of 15 hard working individuals. Besides my cofounder, who is an expert in UX/UI and complex mobile/app development, we now also have an experienced team of game developers, marketing support and blockchain knowledge in house as well. Our entire art production also happens in house with our own sound director, art director, artist and animator.

Everyone on our team is fully doxed, and you’ll be able to find their full names and faces in our whitepaper. Over the years, our team has grown to be incredibly close. We are all super passionate about the project and we really love spending time and working on this together.

Avalaunch

We can tell how much fun you are having building this game! It’s great to see. Can you give our audience an overview of the CoB gameplay? Especially for those who may not be familiar with the social deduction genre.

Jojo | Castle of Blackwater

Sure thing! It’ll be a long one tho

So Castle of Blackwater is a social deduction game. For those of you who haven’t heard of that genre, you’ve probably heard of the game Among Us, for example, which was a strong inspiration for what we’re trying to create. However, after playing countless hours of among us, we really thought that it was lacking replayability and strategic complexity, and those are exactly the things that we’ve been trying to add back into the unique gameplay that we have today.

Castle of Blackwater is played with 7 to 15 players, in an online multiplayer environment. When the game starts, each player is given a unique character with a unique set of abilities which define its playstyle. Your character will belong to one of three factions, the Protectors, The Satanic, or The Forgotten.

The Protectors are the good guys, they are the majority of players and they have no idea who the other Protectors are. Their objective in the game is to run around the castle, completing tasks which are like mini games and filling up an XP bar in order to escape.

To prevent the protectors from escaping, you have the satanic players in the minority. The Satanic players will know of each other, and will be able — and are expected to — work together. They will walk around the castle pretending to do tasks, but secretly there will be eliminating the other protectors and trying to get away with the murders. If the Satanic are able to eliminate all of the other Protectors, they win the game.

And finally we have the Forgotten, and they are like a chaotic, neutral kind of role. The Forgotten players can win or lose independently of the game being played between the protectors and the satanic. They usually have an individualistic win objective and their goal is to spread chaos and confusion and slip between the cracks.

Beyond this, there are many more rules and mechanics and structure in the game that really add to the excitement and strategic depths, and they’ll keep you coming back for more. However, if you want a deeper insight into all of the mechanics that we have available, you should check out this youtube video or read our wiki.

Tutorial video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8HZx3gCjVw&t

Wiki: https://docs.castleofblackwater.com/game-wiki/introduction

Avalaunch

Awesome, sounds like a very immersive experience indeed. With lots of unexpected twists… 😈 What specific aspects of Web3 have enhanced the CoB player experience? What is the most important thing for you when integrating these features?

Jojo | Castle of Blackwater

We are firm believers that Web3 features should enhance gameplay, not replace it. One area in which we are creatively using Web3 technologies is in the form of our cosmetic NFTS. Currently available on Sphere Marketplace, our cosmetic NFTS all get given a fixed supply whenever they get introduced into the ecosystem. This means that whenever we sell a collection of a certain cosmetic, whoever buys that cosmetic will know that no new NFT’s will ever be minted again, allowing them to lightly speculate on whether any specific cosmetic might appreciate in value over time due to increased demand and legacy status for example.

Furthermore, by offering early player incentives, such as in the form of the current Play to AirDrop campaign, we have been able to grow our early userbase and stress test our current beta build in ways that otherwise would have been very difficult for us to achieve the same amount of player liquidity, without a very large marketing spend. At the same time, we’ve been able to reward our most early fans and supporters, the people who have been with us since the early days, constantly helping us shape the game and making it become the amazing product that we have before us today.

Finally, and I do want to keep this a little bit high level, we have a very unique and innovative web3 game economy that we are pioneering in the space, that we think will go a long way towards solving the economical sustainability issues of the Plato earned movement.

Read more: https://docs.castleofblackwater.com/game-economy/introduction

Avalaunch

Thanks Jojo, you’ve certainly put a great deal of thought in the design. And it’s clear that the CoB community is really strong! Social deduction games are very popular, what is your approach in bringing over traditional players to Web3? How are you ensuring that they can be onboarded in the most seamless way?

Jojo | Castle of Blackwater

So we are firm believers of not trying to force anyone into the Web3 movement. It has to be a choice. We’re also fully aware that the current sentiment among mainstream gamers about Web3 games is far from positive.

Therefore, we’ve decided to create 2 versions of Castle of Blackwater, a casual Web2 game as well as a ranked/competitive web3 game.

The casual version of Castle of Blackwater will be just like any other free to play game with microtransactions and off-chain cosmetics. This version will have no issues launching on Steam on mobile, it’ll be super accessible and it will serve as our main user acquisition vehicle.

Then, for people who really enjoy the gameplay experience and want to take it to a deeper level, we will offer a Web 3 version of the same game in the form of a competitive setting. In this version, users will need an NFT in order to play, thus increasing the barrier to entry and gatekeeping a certain level of commitment and quality of play. This version will also have the on chain cosmetics as well as the intricate Web 3 gaming economy where incentivized play will be possible.

We’ll never force users to play one or the other. However, we will constantly try to gently nudge and incentivize our Web 2 user base to evolve into the Web 3 by showing them the benefits that they can claim by simply clicking and following a few steps. We’ll also make sure to use all of the wallet abstraction features that the Beam blockchain provides, and most of the players playing ranked will not even need to understand blockchain technology in order to maximise their experience.

Avalaunch

Really excited for everyone to explore the world of CoB! Love how there is something for everyone. What has been the most surprising aspect of player behavior in CoB games, considering that trust and betrayal are central to the game? Observing player decisions must be pretty fascinating.

Jojo | Castle of Blackwater

It has been really fun taking something that was initially in our heads that we then put onto paper and then finally releasing it into a live environment and watching actual people play the game. It really surprised us just how wrong some of our gaming hypotheses were, and how often we’ve had to be humbled and corrected in trying to understand real player engagement with our game. The first version of the game was unnecessarily even more complicated than what it is today, and we’ve definitely benefited a lot from removing some of this complexity.

For this current beta test that is ongoing, we have found out that players are much less willing to use the voice chat features that we have created that we had initially expected. This is now leading us to once again pivot on our voice chat focus strategy and currently building new systems to allow for a more smooth text and emoji chat experience for those who don’t feel comfortable speaking on voice.

One thing that I really enjoy about our game, and something that we’re always trying to double down on, is the concept of plausible deniability. Basically, this involves giving the satanic, the evil players, as many avenues as possible to construct these intricate lies by allowing them to manipulate game mechanics to create that layer of plausibility in their narratives.

Avalaunch

So you really never know who to trust.. Also emojis are pretty powerful stuff 😈🔪 There are 3 factions a player can be put into for each game. Can you share with us about the motives and characteristics of each faction?

Jojo | Castle of Blackwater

I’ve already talked a little bit about the facts in general, so instead allow me to demonstrate the actual characters that belong to them in the form of explaining their abilities and play styles.

So the Protector characters are all about grinding XP and solving murders. This is really reflected in some of their abilities, which usually help them in these two manners. On the one hand, for example, you have the Lumberjack and his ability revolves around getting bonus XP and completing tasks a lot faster. Another character, the Sheriff for example, is able to passively see bloody footsteps left by the killer of any player, as well as use an active ability which will direct him to any dead bodies that may be around the castle.

On the Satanic side, you have a lot of abilities that allow you to create chaos and confusion. For example, we have the silencer and as his name suggests, he is literally able to silence another player of his choice and that player will not be able to talk in voice or in chat for the rest of the active round. This allows him to silence one of his targets and then accuse him of something, and with that player not being able to defend themselves, that’s a pretty powerful ability.

And finally, for The Forgotten, we currently only have the werewolf character. The werewolf has his individual win objective that he has to both complete some tasks and he also has to kill 1 protector and 1 satanic character. He does this by staying out in the castle at night time and letting the moonlight hit his skin, turning him into the werewolf, and at this point he can run around and go on a rampage basically.

Avalaunch

So a lot of character strategies for players to develop, exciting! Registration for the CoB IDO is now open, users can get their hands on COBE — the game’s value accrual token. You’ve put a lot of thought into creating a balanced economy, having learned from the pitfalls of P2E. Can you break down the economic model and your process on how you came to this final design?

Jojo | Castle of Blackwater

Ooft that’s a loaded question!

Without copy pasting the entire 5,000 word manuscript of our economic thesis, I’ll try to give a high level overview. Essentially what it comes down to is finding a balance between value injectors and value extractors.

Value injectors are players who are willing to pay money to increase their enjoyment of their game experience. On the other hand, value extractors are those who play web three games with the sole objective of maximizing their returns and earning potential.

The Castle of Blackwater payout system will be based on the equilibrium that exists between these two player bases. Keeping the balance between them is a liquidity pool that is funded by the COBS token, which is our medium of exchange currency. Whenever one of the two player bases starts becoming disproportionately larger than the other, the economy will pull certain levers in order to disincentivize that player base in their economic activity. For example, by reducing game payouts or by increasing the circulating COBS token supply, we can control certain player groups behaviours, until an equilibrium is once again found.

Read more: https://fairplaycollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Using-an-AMM-to-balance-a-Web3-economy.pdf

Avalaunch

Wow that’s a lot to take in! Appreciate the insight Jojo!! Just one final question from us before we move to the community section. Which faction do you enjoy playing the most? Do you have a favorite character?

Jojo | Castle of Blackwater

This might surprise you, but I actually enjoy playing protectors the most. As much as people say that, I play a good Satanic, and this is mostly because I’ve played it so much and you know, over time you’ve really learned how it works, but it’s stressful.

I’m not the best liar out there and it takes a lot of energy to lie to people and especially to your friends. And I really hate that feeling of when somebody catches you in a lie and you know you have nowhere to go and that’s exhausting. Instead, I much prefer playing a protector and actually being the one to catch people. To try and, you know, put together the pieces of the puzzle. Yeah, that’s my much preferred role.

I think one of my favorite characters to play is The Vigilante. So he is a protector. He has the unique power to once per game shoot another player. However, if he accidentally tries to kill another protector, he actually ends up killing himself. So super high risk, but super high reward. And the tactic with this character is really to try to stay alive and remain until the end. And don’t shoot someone unless you are like 99% sure that the person is satanic.

Avalaunch

Very interesting! Now we move onto the the section where we’ve selected 10 community questions! First up we have @Dalila_Gough who asks — Can you explain the role of Merit Circle and the Beam gaming chain in the development of Castle of Blackwater, and how their involvement enhances the game’s potential?

Jojo | Castle of Blackwater

Merit Circle has been one of our biggest and earliest supporters in this whole adventure. We first got in touch with them in like April 2022 and we basically pitched them the game without knowing who they really were because we were new to the space. Not only did we pitch them on the game, but we pitched them on the vision of how blockchain gaming should be a lot better than it was at the time, where the focus on fun, gameplay mechanics and sustainable economics. This concept resonated so hard with their team that they decided to incubate us and really make sure that we get to a certain level of progress.

Since then, they have financially funded us through the entire bear market, making sure that our Lean Small team was able to keep building and keep iterating on our project. And now that we have entered this new phase in the market, they have supported us in additional fundraising support from other investors and are fully supporting us on marketing, on legal, on infrastructure support. It’s absolutely unexplainable just how much support they’ve given us, and they really see us as one of their own projects.

In exchange, Castle of Blackwater is building exclusively on the Beam ecosystem and in fact we have been right there alongside them as they have conceptualized and built that ecosystem to fit the needs of us as a developer on their platform. Merit Circle really understands where Web 3 gaming needs to go and they are very focused on creating the infrastructure to support that vision, and we’ll be using it to the maximum.

Avalaunch

We’re huge fans of the Merit Circle team, they are doing so much to push the space forward 🔥 now we hear from @LittleXiaYuann — About your NFTs, Can you explain further about the utilities of these NFTs within your platform? Are they meant to be held as simple collectibles or will they have additional benefits? Also, will you have your own marketplace to sell and buy your NFTs?

Jojo | Castle of Blackwater

Thanks for the question @LittleXiaYuann

So the purpose of Castle of Blackwater character NFTs is to allow future players to have a little bit more control over which character they get to play in the games. In the Web 3 version, by owning one of the character NFTS, you’ll be able to set a loadout and bid a certain amount of COBS tokens to increase your chances of getting to play that character in your next game. Essence. By participating in this mechanic, you become part of the Value Injector playerbase as you “pay for fun”.

Other players that may want to try one of the characters but don’t want to instantly buy one could opt to rent a character from another player. So there’s another rental marketplace spinning around that economic activity.

Next we have the cosmetic NFTS ranging from hats and backpacks all the way to a really cool death animations and pets that you can wear. These are all things that you can wear in the game on your anonymous ghost character to give yourself a sense of unique identity as your player.

Right now the collectables are all available on merit circles Sphere Marketplace, which we think is absolutely awesome by the way, many times better than Opensea. However, in the future it is possible that we integrate Sphere even deeper into the game and offer a similar experience within the game build itself.

Avalaunch

That’s great, there’s so much for players to get involved with! Now @hauzf wants to know — What are the main enhancements included in the upcoming ‘Dead Ghost Experience’ upgrade, and how do they enhance the overall gameplay experience?

Jojo | Castle of Blackwater

So the Ghost experience is something that we developed from the feedback that we’ve received during the alpha build last September, and it’s currently live in the beta build. It turns out that one of the biggest frustrations that players at the time had was being one of the first to die, basically. Because in many social deduction games, when you die, you end up becoming a ghost left to just spectate the game that goes on without you. You could still win the game if your team wins, therefore you don’t want to leave. But you know, just spectating just isn’t that engaging. So with this feedback in mind, we decided to start brainstorming on how we can create new mechanics that will allow dead players to still participate and engage with the alive game that’s being played. And it works like this.

As a dead player, or a dead ghost, as we call it in our game, will be able to catch souls. Souls are like a currency in Castle of Blackwater that can only be spent by dead players.

These souls allow players to buy powerful power ups in the dead ghost shop, such as writing anonymous notes to the alive players, or some of the more expensive power ups even allow you to cast votes as a dead player. This mechanic helps ensure that the dead players still play an active role in the game being played.

Avalaunch

Awesome to hear you’ve given ghosts another chance. Ghosts are people too!! 👻 kinda. So @JonieVoss asks — What sets Castle of Blackwater apart from other social deduction games in terms of gameplay mechanics, storytelling, and player immersion, and how does it aim to redefine the Web3 gaming experience?

Jojo | Castle of Blackwater

Castle of Blackwater aims to take the best ideas from different social deduction games that exist today.

Our game has the freedom of movement and the exhilarating gameplay that among us provides, albeit with more fun and engaging mini games. And at the same time, we also have the strategic complexity, depth and replayability that games like Town of Salem and Deceit have, for example. At the same time, a large part of what makes Castle of Blackwater so special is the intricate back story and lore that lays the foundation of our gaming world. This really opens up a lot of future potential for us to explore different mediums of storytelling, perhaps through visual animated series, or through merchandising, etc…

Anyone that is interested in learning more about the back story of the Castle of Blackwater, and how this mystical structure came to be. Feel free to check out our Medium page, where most of it is written out:

https://medium.com/@Blackwater_Town

Avalaunch

Watch out Among Us, CoB is coming for you!! A question from @TradeCrypto_44 — Could you explain the role of character bidding in Castle of Blackwater and how it contributes to the game’s economy and player experience?

Jojo | Castle of Blackwater

Touched on this a little bit in a previous question, but character bidding really allows players to gain more control over their fun perception in the game in exchange for them acting as the Value Injector role in the player base. This creates this unique balance where players looking to buy this control contribute economically and other players that are willing to relinquish this control over their fun will be able to be more financially incentivized.

Avalaunch

How does Castle Of Blackwater involve the community in project development, and how is a strong global community built? from @VictoryBuiTR

Jojo | Castle of Blackwater

We have been extremely community oriented from the very beginning. In fact, I would even say that this game has not been built for the community, but with the community. There is no one secret to building a strong global community, but if there was, it would be showing up, being there, being honest and being transparent.

What really sets the Castle of Blackwater community apart in the Web 3 gaming space is that you will find members of the core team, including myself and my cofounder, active on the Discord every day, responding to tickets, talking about suggestions and feedback, and I think that really makes a difference in making the community feel heard and involved.

Avalaunch

A standout trait of an excellent team 😎 @Rebbecacamp1993 wants to know — How has the creative process behind Castle of Blackwater evolved over time, and what challenges and breakthroughs have shaped its development?

Jojo | Castle of Blackwater

I will say that in the beginning we were a lot more stubborn about our ideas and pushing our vision onto the players and just thinking they would understand what we were trying to do.

However, over time, as we started hearing feedback and realizing just how many of our game hypotheses were not actually correct, we’ve really adapted to allow ourselves to be more open minded and upfront about what we were thinking. This in turn motivated the community to be more communicative with us, and it really became a constant game of ping pong where we were pitching ideas, the community was shooting them down and the other way around.

So that realization of building it with a community and shaping the game to their pleasure… Once we accepted that as fact, we really started improving our turnaround speed and reducing the amount of wrong turns that we made along the way.

Avalaunch

Very interesting! Onto our next question from @MEHEDIIA — What inspired the theme of Castle of Blackwater, and how has it evolved since the inception of the game?

Jojo | Castle of Blackwater

It was really simply just sitting down for a few hours and brainstorming ideas of what could make a great theme to build a game upon. Ever since I was young, I’ve loved storytelling. I’m a big fan of magic in any genre, so we knew that that was going to be a core theme within our game. And to add on to that, I really love the medieval era and anything to do with knights and sword fighting. So combine that with magic and you get the Castle of Blackwater.

Avalaunch

Nice! In what ways does Castle of Blackwater prioritize player enjoyment and provide opportunities for both casual and dedicated players to thrive within the game? from @VietphamV

Jojo | Castle of Blackwater

I touched on this pretty extensively in a previous question, but the differentiation between the casual Web 2 experience and the ranked competitive Web 3 experience is really going to allow different types of players to enjoy different types of playing experiences.

In fact, I think one of the cool things about this approach is that some players of social deduction complain about the lack of quality in their games, often being in lobbies with children.

By creating this separate competitive environment, which requires an NFT to play, we’re kind of gating access to a more high level quality of gameplay where players will take the game more seriously because there are financial incentives potentially involved.

Avalaunch

A very thoughtful approach! Now we’re onto our final community question from @PhucNguyenu — What unique events and rewards does Castle of Blackwater offer through its Play2Airdrop Beta Campaign, and how do these initiatives aim to attract and retain players during the beta season?

Jojo | Castle of Blackwater

Final one lets goo

So the main goal behind the Play2AirDrop campaign is really to attract an initial level of play liquidity. The goal being to stress test the systems that we have at scale, as well as get another huge round of feedback and improvements from a community outside of our own.

Of course, we are aware that a lot of people playing right now are doing so because of the incentives and not all of them will stay around. However, we are convinced and have been told by people coming in for these incentives that some of them are sticking around.

You’d be surprised at how many players came in looking for financial incentives but have now flipped around and bought one of our NFT’s because they’ve gotten involved in the project and they actually like the game. And I think that’s one of the interesting aspects of Web3 that is only barely being uncovered.

Avalaunch

And there’s still time to get involved with the P2A campaign! Now that’s a wrap, that was a jam-packed AMA from our friend Jojo — thanks so much for sharing your insights with the community! We learned a lot. Everyone — just under 3 more days to register for the Castle of Blackwater IDO! 📣

Thanks again Jojo, you deserve a rest now! 😀

Jojo | Castle of Blackwater

More than welcome. Thanks for having me on and listening to my rambles

If ya’ll don’t mind, I’m going to go put some ice on my fingers now 🥲

Avalaunch

Thanks Avalaunch community for tuning in. We’ll have a recap up on our blog for everyone to read tomorrow 🤩

Article Updated – 3/28/2024

Receiving your COBE

For the Castle of Blackwater IDO, participants will receive their allocation on the Beam Subnet via airdrop directly to their IDO participation wallet.

All IDO participants have been airdropped BEAM on the C-Chain as well for transacting on the subnet. Please note, this BEAM must be bridged over to Beam using the Beam Bridge.

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Important TGE Information

The first portion of your allocated COBE will be airdropped on the Beam Subnet on March 29, 2024 at 15:10 (UTC). The CEX and DEX trading will begin at 15:00 (UTC), 10 minutes prior to the airdrop.

Please allow the team this 10 minute grace period to make sure their contracts designed to combat bots and sniping are working correctly.

All IDO participants across all platforms (Avalaunch, Seedify, NeoLaunch), as well as any private investors, will receive their tokens at the same time: 15:10 (UTC). 

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COBE Liquidity

The CoB Team will be providing:

• $250K of COBE and $250K of BEAM liquidity on Beam Swap
• $250K of COBE and $250K of ETH liquidity on Uniswap (Ethereum)

Please note that the liquidity on Ethereum will be provided before the liquidity on Beam. Both pool should be open within 2 hours of each other. Therefore, if you wish to trade the COBE token immediately, it is recommended the you bridge your COBE from Beam to Ethereum using the Beam Bridge, and trade on Uniswap or one of the CEXs listing the COBE token.

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Beam Airdrop

To transact on Beam, users will need BEAM – the native gas token.

Again, All IDO participants have been airdropped BEAM on the C-Chain. Please note, this BEAM must be bridged over to Beam using the Beam Bridge.

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COBE Vesting

For participants in the Avalaunch IDO, their allocated COBE tokens will be distributed directly to their wallets on a weekly basis during the vesting period. No action is required from the users’ side.

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Connecting to Beam

Follow this simple guide on adding the Beam network to your wallet (ie. Metamask or any other EVM-compatible wallet).

ℹ️Here you will find a one-click setup to add Beam to your wallet.

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Summary

1. Avalaunch IDO Participants will be sent their initial COBE allocation (in accordance to the vesting schedule) at the time of TGE. This will take place on the Beam network.
2. Your IDO participation wallet has been airdropped 5 BEAM on the Avalanche C-Chain. You must bridge this to the Beam subnet to use the swap and Bridge you COBE to Ethereum.
3. Go to Beam Swap to trade your COBE (Beam network will automatically be added when connecting your wallet). Users can also bridge their COBE over to Ethereum with Beam Bridge to trade on Uniswap or a CEX.

We have made sure that the process is as easy and secure as possible for Avalaunch IDO participants. If you encounter any issues or have questions, please join our Avalaunch Telegram group and our support team is always ready to assist.

Castle of Blackwater is a thrilling social deduction game on Beam, merging a mysterious world of trust and betrayal, with powerful Web3 features that rewards players for their skill and engagement. It elevates the social deduction genre by intertwining innovative gameplay with an ownership-driven social experience, allowing players to deeply engage and form a passionate community around the intrigue and magic of Blackwater Town.

Trust or Treachery: The Battle Within Blackwater Castle

Set in the perilous confines of Blackwater Castle, up to 15 players are cast into one of three distinct factions, each offering unique play styles and strategies for victory. Players must navigate alliances and deception in a high-stakes battle between good and evil, with only one side emerging victorious.

Each containing a set of diverse characters, the factions are:

• The Protectors: Emblematic of teamwork, compassion, and trust, this faction embodies the forces of good. Their goal is to collaboratively complete tasks assigned by the castle.
• The Satanic: A group of malevolent scholars intent on overthrowing and ruling through sabotage and blood sacrifice. Their tactics revolve around gaining the castle’s favor by deceiving the other factions.
• The Forgotten: These are the most selfish individuals of the party, made up of scholars on the brink of madness due to information overload, losing loved ones to the castle or social alienation. They navigate the game by manipulating both allies and enemies, embodying a wildcard element in the gameplay.

In Castle of Blackwater, players must leverage their faction’s strengths and exploit their opponents’ weaknesses, using deduction and strategy to survive and escape with their lives intact.

The game progresses through a series of recurring cycles, made up of a day cycle, a night cycle, and a voting round. During the day, players must choose from an endless list of tasks, presenting an extensive array of challenges. As nightfall envelopes the castle, shadows lengthen and darkness creeps into every corner, rendering visibility almost nonexistent. In this veil of obscurity, the castle becomes a Satanic playground, allowing for unseen forces to eliminate victims with chilling precision. Finally, in the voting round, accusations fly and fates are sealed. Those deemed guilty are mercilessly executed by the castle.

Crafting the Optimal Web3 Economy

Castle of Blackwater integrates Web3 features to deepen player engagement and establish ownership over in-game items and the economy, to allow for aligned incentives. By leveraging Beam, Castle of Blackwater provides a frictionless introduction to these Web3 features for fans of the social deduction genre.

The game represents an evolution of the Play-to-Earn (P2E) model that has significantly impacted Web3 gaming. It aims to develop a sustainable economy across diverse game modes to appeal to all players, whether they are just playing for fun or wish to maximize their earnings. By offering both casual and ranked modes, Castle of Blackwater is able to cater to a wide spectrum of player types. Each game mode is designed with its own economic framework and balancing mechanisms, to ensure that Castle of Blackwater can accommodate player growth whilst maintaining a healthy economy.

For competitive players, ranked mode introduces a dual-token system, consisting of the COBS utility token and COBE, the value accrual token. This intricately designed Web3 economy carefully balances value creation and extraction, strategically finding an equilibrium between the two.

By separating the two tokens, Castle of Blackwater is able to implement specialized balancing mechanisms to ensure the game’s scalability and sustainability. This approach also aligns players more closely with the game’s growth and differentiates speculative activities from genuine in-game utility. Castle of Blackwater’s deep focus on its rewards and utility system showcases their pioneering efforts in establishing a sustainable economic model for Web3 games to flourish.

COBE Utility

• Earned through official tournaments and community events – players are rewarded for their skill, with increasing incentives for high-skilled players. This approach fosters long-lasting player relationships and ensures rewards cannot be farmed.
• Buying premium assets such as ranked characters and cosmetics.
• Buying future exclusive land plots and living spaces in Blackwater Town.
• Governance voting rights on topics such as product development priorities and the allocation of COBE collected from marketplace sales.

Team

Partners & Backers

“Remo and Jojo are entrepreneurs pur-sang. I haven’t met many people who can get so much done with such limited resources. They have domain expertise in so many areas due to sheer willpower and the ability to pick up new skills very quickly.

It’s incredible how much passion they have for this project and for the game they are building. I am confident they will grind for as long as its needed to make this a success.

They have also built a great team around them in the past year. Displaying both good leadership and management skills. In part because the resources were initially limited, they positively selected people who have a passion for the project & game itself, without sacrificing skill or competence.

Rarely do we see teams with the web3 know-how and the actual game-building know-how combined across the team. CoB has this. They have already proven they can harness web3 elements successfully and foster a web3 community. While they are now also proving they can build a comprehensive game and integrate the two worlds into each other.

Social deduction is an underserved genre in our opinion, one that can be very suited for web3 mechanics.

At Merit Circle we are very excited to have entered into a very close partnership with CoB. We have big expectations for the project and we will do our part in making it a success.”

— Tommy Quite, Merit Circle

Official Links

Website | Game | Twitter | Discord | Youtube

Castle of Blackwater: Avalaunch IDO

Castle of Blackwater team on working with Avalaunch:

“Since our very first meeting, the Avalaunch team have been nothing but professional, supportive and friendly. Their understanding of the AVAX ecosystem, and how to run a successful IDO campaign, is both admirable and reassuring. We look forward to our continued collaboration.”

Funding Numbers

• Seed Round – 750K USD – 10M COBE at 0.075 USD
• Strategic Round – 1M USD – 10M COBE at 0.1 USD
• Private Round – 600K USD – 4M COBE at 0.15 USD
• Public Round* – 1.3M USD – 6.5M COBE at 0.2 USD

Total Raise: 3.65M USD

*Avalaunch IDO – 400K USD  - 2M COBE at 0.2 USD per token

Supply Breakdown

Total Supply: 100,000,000 (COBE)

• Community Initial Distribution: 1M COBE (1%)
• Creator/Builder Fund: 5M COBE (5%)
• Tournaments: 5M COBE (5%)
• Marketing: 5M COBE (5%)
• Player incentives/rewards: 16.5M COBE (16.5%)
• Treasury: 10M COBE (10%)
• Team: 15M COBE (15%)
• Advisors: 5M COBE (5%)
• Seed Round (Incubation): 10M COBE (10%)
• Strategic Round: 10M COBE (10%)
• Private Round (Holders): 4M COBE (4%)
• Public Round: 6.5M COBE (6.5%)
• Liquidity: 7M COBE (7%)

Note: COBE tokens allocated for the Creator/Builder Fund, Tournaments, Marketing, Player Incentives and the Treasury will not necessarily be brought into circulation at once when they reach their respective unlocks, as these tokens will only be utilized to benefit the game when relevant.

Vesting Following TGE

• Community Initial Distribution: 100% unlocked at TGE
• Creator/Builder fund: 12 months cliff, 12 months linear vesting
• Tournaments: 12 months cliff, 24 months linear vesting
• Marketing: 36 months linear vesting
• Player incentives/rewards: 60 months exponential vesting increasing with 1.6% monthly until fully vested
• Treasury: 12 months cliff, 36 months linear vesting
• Team: 12 months cliff, 36 months linear vesting
• Advisors: 12 months cliff, 36 months linear vesting
• Seed Round (Incubation): 6% unlocked at TGE, 6 months cliff, 20 months linear vesting
• Strategic Round: 8% unlocked at TGE, 6 months cliff, 18 months linear vesting
• Private Round (Holders): 15% unlocked at TGE, 4 months cliff, 8 months linear vesting
• Public Round: 20% unlocked at TGE, 1 month cliff, 7 months linear vesting
• Liquidity: 50% unlocked at TGE, 6 months cliff, 4 months linear vesting

Other Info

• Initial Liquidity: 200K USD and COBE
• Initial Circulating Supply: 4.30%
• Initial Market Cap: $860,000 (excluding liquidity)
• Avalaunch IDO: 400K USD  - 2M COBE at 0.2 USD per token

Castle of Blackwater IDO Schedule

Registration Schedule

Registration Opens: Tuesday, March 19 at 3:00 p.m. (UTC)
Registration Closes: Sunday, March 24 at 6:00 p.m. (UTC)

Sale Schedule

Validator Round Begins: Tuesday, March 26 at 6:00 a.m. (UTC)
Validator Round Closes: Tuesday, March 26 at 3:30 p.m. (UTC)

Staking Round Begins: Tuesday, March 26 at 3:30 p.m. (UTC)
Staking Round Closes: Wednesday, March 27 at 6:00 a.m. (UTC)

Booster Round Begins: Wednesday, March 27 at 6:00 a.m. (UTC)
Booster Round Closes: Wednesday, March 27 at 10:30 a.m. (UTC)

How to Participate

To participate in Avalaunch sales, users will have to:

• Complete their KYC Registration | Tutorial
• Stake XAVA to secure their allocation | Tutorial
• Register for the sale when Registration opens | Tutorial

About Castle of Blackwater

At its core, Castle of Blackwater is a next-generation social deduction game, where players are caught in a magical castle of mystery and deception. With its thrillingly suspenseful gameplay, and innovative blockchain-powered game economics, Castle of Blackwater seeks to prove how web3 technologies can best be applied in the world of social gaming.

About Avalaunch

Avalaunch is a launchpad powered by the Avalanche platform, allowing new and innovative projects to seamlessly prepare for launch with an emphasis on fair and broad distribution. With its values deeply rooted in the early Avalanche community, we are able to offer projects confident, informed users who are aligned with the long-term goals of the rapidly expanding application ecosystem. Leveraging Avalanche’s scalable, high-throughput, and low-latency platform, Avalaunch is built by users, for teams, to help grow strong communities.

With March underway, we are excited to present the next 2 upcoming IDOs on Avalaunch! Our commitment lies in introducing the highest quality projects to the Avalaunch community — projects at the forefront of innovation and creativity within the Web3 space. These upcoming IDOs represent some of the best work being done across DeFi and Web3 gaming in the Avalanche ecosystem and we are thrilled to be able to share them with our community.

Castle of Blackwater

Castle of Blackwater is building one of the most high-anticipated games in the Beam ecosystem. This enchanting social deduction game blends traditional gameplay with powerful Web3 features, fostering a community-driven social experience where players have true ownership of their in-game assets.

In a thrilling game of trust and betrayal, players will find themselves trapped in a perilous castle, filled with danger and deception. You have one mission – do anything in your power to make it out alive. Whether this requires you to form strategic alliances or deceive your friends – you must prioritize your own survival above all else.

Focused on creating a sustainable economy, Castle of Blackwater caters to a wide range of players. Whether engaging casually for entertainment or aiming to optimize earnings, the game’s meticulously designed economy ensures balance and inclusivity. Castle of Blackwater is playing an instrumental role in advancing the Web3 gaming movement, delving into the economic models initiated by the play-to-earn concept. Being deeply committed to sharing its success with a dedicated player base, this is an opportunity to be part of one of the most exciting games coming to market.

Are you prepared to navigate the treachery, deceit and secret alliances that lie deep within the castle’s walls?

Arrow Markets

Natively building on Avalanche since 2021, Arrow Markets is dedicated to revolutionizing the options trading market. At its core, Arrow is focused on creating a highly streamlined user experience. In doing so, Arrow Markets aims to make options trading accessible to a broad audience. It empowers users to learn and develop their own trading strategies, thus lowering the entry barrier for beginners while also catering to the sophisticated demands of professional traders.

By operating on-chain and eliminating the need for any intermediaries, Arrow is able to offer a trustless platform for options trading, ensuring that value is directly returned to its users and liquidity providers. This approach positions Arrow as the most cost-efficient platform in the industry for options trading, providing users with the best possible prices in the market. As a foundational layer in the DeFi space, Arrow paves the way for the creation of innovative derivatives and structured products.

With the upcoming launch of Arrow V2, users can look forward to experiencing the enhancements brought about by its RFQ (Request for Quote) system. Arrow Markets has chosen to deploy on Avalanche due to its high throughput, robust security and low transaction fees, aiming to explore new opportunities in options trading and further enriching the DeFi ecosystem.

IDO Dates

Castle of Blackwater

Registration: 3/19/24 – 3/24/24

IDO: 3/26/24 – 3/27/24

Arrow Markets

ℹ️ Please note that the Arrow Markets team have decided to reschedule their IDO to a date in April – we will make an official announcement when dates have been finalized.

Registration: TBD

IDO: TBD

Stay tuned for the release of full IDO details for each project, including detailed IDO schedules and funding information.