Airdrop is Dead, Long Live Merit-Drop
How many airdrops have been distributed this year?
Over $4 billion has been handed out by mid-2024, with even more lined up for the second half.
But is this massive airdrop frenzy truly benefiting the ecosystem?
The answer is no.
So, how do we fix this?
Enter Merit-Drop 🧵
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— 📌 Why OG Airdrop is Broken?
Massive airdrop distributions and liquidity mining with oversized incentives attract token hunters rather than genuine ecosystem contributors.
Based on research, about 70% of these tokens are dumped within the first week, and governance participation drops to below 10%.
While airdrops may generate buzz, they ultimately harm the ecosystem, similar to the fleeting high from drugs.
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— 📌 Merit-Drop
@eo_network has introduced the concept of merit-drop for their decentralized oracle network, but what does this entail?
Picture this: instead of relying on superficial statistics or carrying out trivial tasks, the airdrop amount will be determined by actual usage metrics.
That's right, no more sybil attackers or opportunistic farmers.
dApps, chains, and RaaS will receive airdrops based on their sustained use of oracle services.
This establishes a virtuous cycle that enhances the value of eOracle, with tokens being distributed according to adoption metrics, thereby encouraging ongoing utilization and expansion.
Consequently, Merit-Drop creating a sustainable ecosystem growth, better governance, resistant to attack and reduced selling pressure.
Besides this, Merit-Drop aims to incentivize adoption to shift from monopolistic oracles.
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— 📌 About eOracle
eOracle is revolutionizing oracle infrastructure with decentralized, permissionless oracle solutions.
EO-Chain from eOracle aggregates and verifies data for seamless on-chain computation. This enables anyone to access the data marketplace and launch Oracle Validated Services (OVS) permissionlessly.
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— 📌 Shifting The Power
Despite blockchain's decentralized ethos, the Oracle provider market is largely monopolized.
For example, 88% of Arbitrum's TVL is secured by ChainLink. This concentration poses a potential risk to the entire ecosystem and can be mitigated by distributing oracle services among multiple providers.
What causes this disparity?
Many issues and factors come into play, but a key one is the incentive mechanism tackled by the Merit-Drop initiative.
Merit-Drop introduces a two-fold strategy to boost adoption:
➡️ Ownership - dApps, RaaS, and chains gain partial ownership of oracle services by utilizing eOracle services.
➡️ Flywheel Value Accrual - These stakeholders in the eOracle ecosystem drive higher usage, which in turn boosts eOracle value and yields greater incentives, making long-term use both lucrative and cost-effective.
eOracle, as part of @eigencloud AVS, significantly reduces the overhead costs of bootstrapping network security. These resources can be reallocated to incentivize genuine users.
By implementing this, there is no reason to continue using centralized oracle providers, as the better incentives are a good enough reason to switch.
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— 🔴 | Disclaimer
The information provided in this post is not intended as professional financial or tax advice, and we strongly recommend conducting your own research and consulting with a qualified advisor before making any financial or tax-related decisions.
$QNT is in the spotlight at EBADay once again!
This is Manuel Klein.
He's the Market Manager of Digital Currencies & Blockchain Solutions @ Deutsche Bank & even cofounder of the Digital Euro Association
Listen to how he references Agora & the RLN.
This comes right after discussing on stage with Gilbert & execs from HSBC and Citi on tokenization and CBDCs.
Sounds like he's pretty convinced on the future of this vision enabled by the projects that Quant's now involved with building.
Don't forget that Citi's Tony McLaughlin had also stated that both Agora & UK RLN would work together.
Safe to say that Quant's involvement in CBDCs will be at the heart of EBADay once again this year.
Things are certainly getting exciting!