It’s a common misconception that revenue needs to be greater than incentives for veDEXs.
This is not the case.
The reason why is that the revenue goes only to veLockers and not everyone locks.
See $UP and $AERO for the case study.
Let’s say there’s $100 of incentives and $65 of revenue like in UP’s case.
Incentives goes to places like the veUP autocompounding vaults and emissions for LPs.
Revenue goes directly to veUP lockers and voters.
So if let’s say total UP supply is 100. And there’s 65% of locked veUP. Then for each 1% of veUP, the lockers earn $1.
This is not even counting the gains from locking incentives and the uneven voting rewards. Voters on low APR pools will get less rewards while voters on high APR pools get more.
This is why it’s a (3,3) tokenomics.
Long term lockers win the most if the protocol grows.
Mid term investors that LP can still win.
Short term traders that hold spot UP gets diluted.
Of course UP can adjust the incentive levels down too, but we actually want emissions to be higher than revenue to grow the protocol.
Again, it doesn’t mean dilution for veUP lockers but rather for UP spot holders.
It’s a bit more complex for beginners so that’s why people think the model is bad.
$AERO proves that this model works. Their cumulative incentives is much more than cumulative revenue. But, the protocol is still thriving.
UP is just making it better with features like dynamic emissions on day one.
If you read this carefully, you already know more about veDEXs than 95% of the space.
People think Robinhood chain becoming like Base is a bad thing (one of the most popular way ppl fud RH).
But, they don't even know that Base is the #2 chain by DeFi TVL right now.
Sure, a lot of Base ecosystem coins dumped. But to be fair, a lot of them don't have good products or don't generate sustainable revenue.
People love to focus on the bad stuff while there are coins like $AERO and $VVV that are still crushing it.
It's going to be the same way for Robinhood chain this bull run imo.
When we're in full bull, RH eco will get a ton of attention and capital. It's the fastest growing chain in the history of crypto.
A lot of great alts like $PONS, $DELTA, $UP, and $ZZZ will pump imo. But, so will a lot of other not so good alts.
Then when the market gets hard again, only the good ones will survive into the following bull.
People are too focused on short term data, what we should be looking at is at least 6-12 months into the future imo if you are positioning for larger pumps like I am.
Some investments can take years to really take off.
Much higher into the bull for RH eco imo.