
## What is Oxygen Protocol?

Oxygen is a DeFi prime brokerage service built on Solana and powered by Serum's on-chain infrastructure. Oxygen is built around Pools—baskets of assets that take collective actions. Starting with a borrow-lending facility, users will be able to earn yield and get leverage against their portfolios, setting the foundation for a vibrant and decentralised financial ecosystem. 

The project launched in late 2020 with the release of its mainnet alpha. Oxygen is headquartered in Switzerland and the core team is made up of people who are passionate about building the financial infrastructure of the future. They collectively have decades of fintech experience, with 15 developers located around the world.

Oxygen’s ambition is to transform our current model of finance into one that is more accessible, fair and powerful than once imaginable. The first phase of Oxygen is a borrow-lending via a pools-based infrastructure. We next plan to create volatility trading agreements and structured product functions, so that developers can create their own structured products. Our ultimate vision is to recreate marketplace-esque business units which exist within investment banks and make them accessible to everyone.


## What does Oxygen Protocol offer?

Oxygen’s first phase will be a borrow-lending protocol. Some key features distinguish Oxygen from its peers:

Market-based pricing: Oxygen is built around a pools-based infrastructure, wherein users can create a pool by depositing their assets and marking which ones to lend. Users set their lending parameters, including desired maturity and yield, whether as a market order or limit order. Oxygen will match borrowers and lenders with the Serum DEX on-chain order book (instead of through a pre-set, manually adjusted market model). Users thereby get a fair price for borrowing/lending.

Capital efficiency: Oxygen also allows for multiple use of the same collateral. Users can generate yield on their portfolio while borrowing other assets at the same time. Furthermore, users can utilize all of their portfolio across multiple asset types as collateral when borrowing (cross-collateralization). This should mean lower liquidation risk for user portfolios.

Streamlined in-pool trading: Since Oxygen allows users to interact with the Serum ecosystem and DEX directly from their pools (rather than having users continually deposit/withdraw from accounts), a streamlined trading process is made possible. 

Sophisticated products: Because Oxygen uses a general on-chain risk management engine evaluating each user’s pool rather than a fixed borrow/lending model, Oxygen can support arbitrary products: tokens, synthetic products, nonlinear assets, and more; all cross-margined in the same account.

Liquidity: Oxygen will also be seeded with the 140M registered users from Maps.me’s user base who will generate yield from their embedded wallets. This will jump start Oxygen as one of the largest fintech applications. We have other liquidity provisions in place too, including support from Alameda and leading HFT firms.

Scalability: Oxygen is also built on Solana blockchain, which can support over 50,000 TPS, with block times of 400ms and transaction costs of approx. $0.00001, meaning Oxygen has scalability as a completely on-chain P2P borrow-lending and prime brokerage protocol.


## Platform and Technology

Oxygen protocol is built on the Solana network. OXY will however be available as both an SPL (native) token and ERC-20, supporting full interoperability between Ethereum and Solana.

Oxygen will run on Serum DEX and Solana, which feature a fully automated on-chain order book and 50K+ transactions per second at a cost of $0.01 / 100 per transaction


## Team/Backers/Investors

Oxygen was co-founded by Alex Grebnev and Viktor Mangazeev. Alex Grebnev has over 16 years of investment banking experience (Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch). Viktor is a serial technology entrepreneur and has worked as CIO for a number of large companies. Oxygen’s strategic investors include and DeFi ecosystem partners include Alameda Research, Serum, Genesis Capital, CMS, MultiCoin, and other leading HFT firms.

## Target market (Geographical focus)

We are targeting a number of segments. Our main segment is the general DeFi market and users who are interested in order-book matched, fair borrowing and lending rates (in our first phase) and more sophisticated financial services sets (in our later phases). We are targeting DeFi users all around the world and are running a number of marketing and promotional campaigns across multiple regions to spread awareness of what we’re bringing.



Oxygen

Trust Wallet

MetaMask

SolFlare

Backpack

Phantom

Serum is a decentralized exchange (DEX) and ecosystem that brings unprecedented speed and low transaction costs to decentralized finance (DeFi). (DeFi).

Serum is the only high-performant DEX designed around a fully on-chain central limit order book and matching engine. Ecosystem partners can compose with Serum’s on-chain orderbook to share liquidity and power their trading features for institutional and retail users.

In light of the popularity of DeFi and the growth of DEXes on Ethereum, users and developers are limited by high gas costs and slow transactions. Serum aims to resolve these traditional problems of DeFi, as well as issues of centralization, low capital efficiency, and liquidity segmentation.

The SRM utility and governance token enables users to receive discounts on protocol fees and voting rights; 100% of exchange fees flow back to SRM via buy-and-burn, staking rewards, and ecosystem grants.

Serum

Bonfida

Raydium is an automated market maker (AMM) and liquidity provider built on the Solana blockchain for the Serum decentralized exchange (DEX). Unlike any other AMMs, Raydium provides on-chain liquidity to a central limit orderbook meaning that funds deposited into Raydium are converted into limit orders which sit on Serum’s orderbooks. This gives Raydium LPs access to all of Serum’s order flow as well as their existing liquidity.
RAY is the native utility token used for:

Staking to earn protocol fees

Staking to receive IDO allocations

Governance votes on protocol decisions

Raydium

Kin is a decentralized cryptocurrency that was created in 2017 by Kik Inc.

Kin was initially launched on the Ethereum blockchain. In 2020, Kin migrated to the Solana blockchain in order to achieve lower transaction fees and greater scalability.

Notably, Kin has zero inflation. The Kin supply is fully distributed and no additional Kin tokens will enter circulation.

In 2020, Kik Inc agreed to a mutual settlement with the United States SEC in which Kin was not required to be registered as a security, making it one of the few cryptocurrencies with such regulatory clarity.

MIR is the governance token of Mirror Protocol, a synthetic assets protocol built by Terraform Labs (TFL) on the Terra blockchain.

Mirror Protocol is decentralized from day 1, with the on-chain treasury and code changes governed by holders of the MIR token. TFL has no intention of keeping or selling MIR tokens, and there are no admin keys or special access privileges granted. The intent for this is to be a completely decentralized, community-driven project.

Mirrored assets are blockchain tokens that behave like "mirror" versions of real-world assets by reflecting the exchange prices on-chain. They give traders the price exposure to real assets while enabling fractional ownership, open access and censorship resistance as any other cryptocurrency. Unlike traditional tokens which serve to represent a real, underlying asset, mAssets are purely synthetic and only capture the price movement of the corresponding asset.

Mirrored assets provide the following advantages:

Global Accessibility: In most markets outside of Europe & North America, access to foreign equities and forex markets is highly limited. Crypto allows global accessibility without entry barriers.

Fractional Orders: In traditional finance, to execute a fractional order, multiple fractional orders are bundled together to execute a unitary transaction. The process of gathering all the orders into one requires additional waiting time. By utilizing the blockchain, orders volume is simply represented as a number on the blockchain, so there is no need for the intermediary bundling process.

Nearly-Instantaneous Order Execution: Oftentimes due to the lack of liquidity (price-time-priority order book algorithm), orders can take up to a day to fully execute. Given the fact that Mirror relies on liquidity provided by each individual asset pool, orders can be executed as fast as the blocktime of the network (~ 6 seconds).

Mirror Protocol

Audius is a decentralized music streaming protocol initially built on POA network, but now living on Solana. Audius was launched to remedy the inefficiencies of the music industry, which is plagued by intransparent music rights ownership and intermediaries standing between artists and their audience.

Audius aims to align the interests of artists, fans, and node operators through its platform powered by its native AUDIO token. Artists can upload music, stored and distributed by content and discovery nodes, that fans can listen to for free. Currently, Audius rewards content creators through rewards like featuring in the weekly trending lists. In the future, it plans to integrate stablecoins for artists to offer paid content, as well as artist tokens that give fans the ability to access exclusive content, potentially cooperating with platforms like Rally.

Audius

Anchor Protocol is a lending and borrowing protocol offering up to 19.5% yield on stablecoin deposits. Lenders can deposit their UST and earn attractive rates on their investments while simultaneously benefiting from low volatility. Borrowers can turn their LUNA collateral into productive assets without giving up control of it.

Anchor Protocol can thus attract risk-averse investors looking for high-yield, low-volatility investments and increase demand for UST. This advances the adoption of UST as a stablecoin and subsequently the adoption of the Terra project in DeFi. With the increasing adoption of Terra, whose founders are behind the launch of Anchor Protocol, the price of LUNA will increase.

Anchor Protocol

Band Protocol is a cross-chain data oracle platform that is able to take real-world data and supply it to on-chain applications, while also connecting APIs to smart-contracts to facilitate the exchange of information between on-chain and off-chain data sources.

By supplying reputable, verifiable real-world data to blockchains, Band Protocol unlocks a range of new use cases for developers to explore — since they can now use any type of real-world data as part of their decentralized application (DApp) logic, including sports, weather, random numbers, price feed data and more.

Band Protocol initially launched as an ERC-20 project on the Ethereum blockchain in September 2019, but transitioned to the Cosmos network in June 2020 with the release of Band Protocol 2.0. The new protocol is built on BandChain using the Cosmos SDK. Oracle nodes on BandChain not only relay data but are also involved in block production/validation, giving them a dual role.

BAND is the native token of the Band Protocol ecosystem and is used as collateral by validators involved in fulfilling data requests, as well as the main medium of exchange on BandChain — being used to paying for private data.

Band Protocol

Covalent leverages big-data technologies to create meaning from hundreds of billions of data points, delivering actionable insights to investors and allowing developers to allocate resources to higher-utility goals within their organization.

Instead of painstakingly sourcing data from a small handful of chains, Covalent aggregates information from across dozens of sources including nodes, chains and data feeds. The Covalent API then sources end-users with individualized data by wallet, including current and historical investment performance across all types of digital assets. Most importantly, Covalent returns this data in a rapid and consistent manner, incorporating all relevant data within one API interface.

Having achieved product-market fit, we are now planning to execute the next phase of Covalent, which is a progressive decentralization that will enable the Covalent Network to be owned and operated by its users. Of course, a critical piece to this is CQT.

CQT is the native token of the Covalent Network. It has three primary purposes:

CQT is a governance token, whereby token holders vote on proposals to change the system parameters.

CQT is a staking asset. Validators will earn fees for answering queries.

CQT is a network access token that fulfills data queries for users of the API.

Developer resources include:

Covalent Knowledge Base for extensive guides on how to use the Covalent API. 

Covalent API Documentation.

Covalent

Frontier is a chain-agnostic decentralized finance (DeFi) aggregator. The project aims to add DeFi support to several blockchains, including BandChain (BAND), Ethereum (ETH), Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and Harmony (ONE).

Frontier’s applications allow users to manage staking, DeFi positions, best-rate asset swapping, liquidity mining, and collateralized debt position (CDP) creation and monitoring.

In a nutshell, Frontier is bringing the core functions of DeFi to users, regardless of the platforms they use.

Frontier began development in April 2019, and the beta platform launched in November 2019.

Frontier

Reef is a Reliable Extensible Efficient Fast Layer-1 Blockchain for DeFi, NFT & Gaming. Built using Substrate Framework, it provides high scalability, enabling almost instant low-cost transactions, and supports Solidity and EVM, allowing developers to seamlessly migrate their DApps from Ethereum without any change in the codebase.

Reef Chain is the most advanced EVM-compatible blockchain. It's self-upgradable and has on-chain governance. Its infrastructure also allows for EVM extensions which allows for native token bridge, scheduled calls (ie. recurring payments), and smart contract in-place code upgrades. In the near future, it will support additional VMs which will allow developers to write code in multiple programming languages. The network runs on a Nominated Proof-of-Stake (NPoS) consensus mechanism, which offers scalability and low fees.

REEF is the native token that is used for:

Fees for processing transactions and storing data.

Running validator nodes by staking REEF tokens.

Nominating which validator nodes should be part of the network.

Reef is backed by multiple leading funds and venture capitalists including NGC, QCP, Bitcoin.com, Kenetic Capital, LD Capital, TRG Capital, Krypital Group, Genesis Block, Woodstock Fund and others.

Reef Chain development tools include:

Remix and EVM integrated development environments for uploading and deploying smart contracts.

Reefscan blockchain explorer to assist with deploying validators, bonding and nominating validators, debugging contracts, and understanding network performance.

Reef command line tools that allow developers deploy applications from local environments.

Reef wallet for accessing and interacting with the blockchain

Reef

Orchid (OXT) is the native token of Orchid, a cryptocurrency-powered virtual private network (VPN).

Launched in December 2019, Orchid describes itself as the world’s first incentivized, peer-to-peer privacy network.

Its aim is to overcome internet freedom limitations by using cryptocurrency payments to allow anyone to purchase bandwidth from any participating provider. This is done using so-called probabilistic nanopayments, which occur using OXT, an ERC-20 standard token on Ethereum.

Regular payments to providers occur off-chain, allowing Orchid to avoid problems with congestion and gas fees on the Ethereum network.

The service is pay-per-use, meaning that users only have to contribute funds when they actually connect, instead of paying monthly or annual fees.

Orchid

Stella is the leveraged strategies protocol with 0% cost to borrow. Stella’s mission is to redefine how leveraged DeFi works. DeFi needs a good leverage system in order to drive more usages on DEXes and money markets, the fundamental building blocks of DeFi. With growing usages on these fundamentals, more protocols and new innovations can arise and tap into the deep liquidity and robust foundation.

Stella strives to become the go-to destination for DeFi users to access maximum yield potential. Whatever on-chain strategies that users want to use on leverage (and safe enough to be supported), then Stella will support at 0% cost to borrow.

The protocol is made up of two parts: Stella Strategy and Stella Lend.

Stella Strategy: Users can access multiple selections of leveraged strategies with 0% borrowing interest for the first time and get yields on leverage.

Stella Lend: Lenders can lend assets to the lending pools on Stella and get real yields. Yields generated from Stella Strategy are shared to lenders.

Stella

RARI

Ren (REN) is an open protocol built to provide interoperability and liquidity between different blockchain platforms.

To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of Ren.

Formerly known as Republic Protocol, Ren launched RenVM, its virtual machine mainnet, in May 2020, having completed a $34 million initial coin offering (ICO) in 2018.

The protocol’s native token, REN, functions as a bond for those running nodes which power RenVM, known as Darknodes.

Ren aims to expand the interoperability, and hence accessibility, of decentralized finance (DeFi) by removing hurdles involved in liquidity between blockchains.

Rally

QuickSwap [Old]

Linear is a decentralized delta-one asset protocol capable of instantly creating synthetic assets with unlimited liquidity. The project opens traditional assets like commodities, forex, market indices and other thematic sectors to cryptocurrency users by supporting the creation of “Liquids” — Linear’s synthetic asset tokens.

The protocol consists of various products like Linear.Buildr, a DApp used to manage Liquids using Linear (LINA) and other tokens as collateral. The exchange is specifically created to enable trading of a variety of Liquids with rapid confirmation times and robust security.

LINA is an ERC-20 token built on the Ethereum network whose main purpose is as collateral for Liquids (using Buildr) and for community governance of the protocol. All token holders have access to the Linear DAO, enabling them to vote on different initiatives and proposals, helping to shape the development of the Linear ecosystem.

The main goal of Linear is to provide a superior user experience with better scalability and greater speed thanks to the cross-chain capabilities of the protocol. Linear Finance intends to provide a simple solution for users that want exposure to traditional assets while still benefiting from the features enabled only by blockchain technology.

Linear Finance

Balancer is an automated market maker (AMM) that was developed on the Ethereum blockchain and launched in March 2020. It was able to raise a $3M seed round by Placeholder and Accomplice. Balancer protocol functions as a self-balancing weighted portfolio, price sensor and liquidity provider. It allows users to earn profits through its recently introduced token ($BAL) by contributing to customizable liquidity pools.

To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of Balancer(https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-balancer.

The protocol operates a few types of pools:

Private pools give the owner governance over the pool, and make the person the sole contributor of liquidity to the pool. Also, all the parameters are mutable by the owner.

Shared pools are for those who want to become liquidity providers (LPs). The LPs are rewarded with the Balancer Pool Tokens (BPTs).

Smart pools are similar to private pools but are controlled by a smart contract. They also reward using BPTs and allow anyone to contribute liquidity to the pool.

Balancer

FTT is the native cryptocurrency token of the crypto derivatives trading platform FTX that launched on May 8, 2019. On Nov. 11, 2022, FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S., and is currently undergoing proceedings. Some of the information below may not reflect the current standings of the FTX exchange, please proceed with caution when interacting with the FTT token.

The team behind FTX comprises some of the largest crypto traders over the past few years who, having found issues with most mainstream crypto futures exchanges, decided to launch their own platform. FTX claims that it stands out due to such features as clawback prevention, a centralized collateral pool and universal stablecoin settlement. FTX is a centralized crypto exchange launched by Sam Bankman-Fried in 2019, backed by significant trading companies in the industry, including Almeda Research, OTPP, Temasek, BlackRock, Coinbase Ventures and Sequoia Capital. As of 2022, the platform has over a million registered members, and the daily trading volume has reached billions of dollars.

In regards to clawback prevention, a significant amount of customer funds on other derivative exchanges have been claimed by socialized losses. FTX reduces this by using a three-tiered liquidation model.

On existing crypto futures exchanges, the collateral is fragmented across separate token wallets; this can be difficult for traders as it prevents positions from getting liquidated. On the other hand, FTX derivatives are stablecoin-settled and only require one universal margin wallet.

Another feature of the FTT are leveraged tokens, which allow traders to put leveraged positions without the need to trade on margin. If a trader wants to short Bitcoin with 3x leverage, they can simply buy a 3x short Bitcoin leveraged token on FTX. These tokens are ERC20-compatible and can be listed on any spot exchange. FTX currently offers XRP, BNB, TRX, BTC, ETH, EOS, USDT and LEO leveraged tokens.

A year after its founding, FTX Exchange introduced the exchange token called FTX Token or FTT. The FTT coin is an ERC-20 standard token that is actively used by ecosystem participants.

Initially, FTT was established as a reward for exchange transactions; however, over the years the list of functions has grown:

FTT is applicable in the creation of leveraged tokens on the FTX Exchange; users can receive VIP discounts in the form of FTT depending on the number of coins they own, and it’s possible to earn rewards for providing liquidity through futures positions.

In order to maintain its value, the exchange regularly buys back and burns its tokens, spending on the purchase of FTX: 33% of trading fees, 10% of the reserve fund, and 5% of other commissions.

FTT Token use cases:

1/3 of the commissions received from transactions on FTX are utilized to buy back FTT. Tokens redeemed in this way are burned;

FTT tokens are used to reduce trading fees and to secure futures positions;

Profits from massive market movements are distributed among the holders;

By purchasing a white label version of FTX’s OTC portal and futures market, institutions and investors pay expenses in FTT tokens;

By creating leveraged tokens, projects can pay listing fees with FTT;

Users can stake FTT to benefit from discounts, bonus votes, and blockchain fee waivers.

One benefit of FTX Token (FTT) is commission discounts. Members pay a low fee and obtain tighter spreads. Traders use FTT as collateral, and those who are active on FTX Exchange see percentage differences of up to 60%. Traders get insurance protection, which ensures a net profit in moments of market volatility, then makes it possible to continue trading even without a margin call.

In addition to the fact that FTT is useful for opening positions with leverage, FTT staking also offers perks: discounts, the opportunity to win NFTs, participation in airdrops, bonus votes and IEO tickets.