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Pancakeswap was originally built on the BNB Chain and allows users to trade tokens without using a centralized exchange. It provides an array of products, such as:
An exchange to swap tokens
A yield farm to earn rewards
Syrup pools to stake CAKE tokens
Ethereum liquid staking (wBETH) and simple staking
Pancake Protectors game
v3 position manager (new feature)
A prediction market
Initial Farm Offering (IFO) token launches
A bridge to bridge CAKE to Ethereum and Aptos
A lottery
An NFT marketplace
Pancakeswap innovates quickly and ships new products regularly. In April 2023, PancakeSwap voted to transition to a deflationary token model called "Ultrasound CAKE." The protocol passed a proposal called CAKE Tokenomics v2.5 to create a structure combining real yield (no supply impact) and reduced token emissions. Over 102% of minted CAKE is burned weekly. This is intended to provide a multi-year runway for emissions and incentivize locking up CAKE, making the token more valuable long-term.
PancakeSwap has an anonymous team of “Chefs,” working in the PancakeSwap “Kitchen.” The platform is open-source and has been audited by multiple reputable blockchain security firms like Peckshield and Slowmist.
Although the bear market has impacted TVL and trading volume for the protocol, PancakeSwap still boasts an annualized revenue of $27 million, with 42% of CAKE is staked:
What Is PancakeSwap V3?
PancakeSwap V3 introduces several key innovations and features to improve capital efficiency, lower fees for traders, increase earnings for liquidity providers and enhance the overall user experience.
PancakeSwap V3 allows for capital concentration, enabling liquidity providers to focus their capital on specific price ranges rather than distributing it evenly across the entire price range. This concentration of capital where the majority of trading activity occurs can provide up to 4000x higher capital efficiency compared to V2, particularly for stablecoin pools. As a result, liquidity providers can earn significantly more fees on the same amount of liquidity.
Traders also benefit from lower trading fees in V3, as there are now 4 tiers of fees: 0.01%, 0.05%, 0.25% and 1% compared to the fixed 0.25% fee in V2. The tiers cater to the needs of different trading pairs based on expected volatility and trading activity. Concentrating liquidity in active ranges also reduces slippage for traders. V3 also implements a smart router to find the best trading route across V3, V2 and StableSwap pools.
For liquidity providers, the ability to choose fee tiers, customize price ranges, create non-fungible liquidity positions and concentrate capital provides more flexibility and potential to maximize earnings. V3 also introduces active liquidity farming, which rewards users in CAKE tokens when prices fall within the price ranges of their active liquidity positions. Other features include a VIP trading rewards program and position manager for easy single-click deposits.
One of the newest and most innovative features added to PancakeSwap is the Position Manager. It introduces auto-compounding of rewards, thus all fees and rewards earned by the liquidity position are automatically compounded back into the pool. This exponentially grows a provider's position over time through the power of compound interest. Furthermore, the Position Manager handles gas fees and position rebalancing automatically, mitigating the risk of impermanent loss. Providers can supply liquidity in concentrated price bands to maximize fees from high trading volumes and choose strategies optimized for their risk tolerance.
Ultrasound CAKE Tokenomics
In October 2023, PancakeSwap burned over 1.76 million CAKE tokens while only minting 1.42 million new tokens. This resulted in a net reduction of 337K CAKE, reducing total supply by 0.086%.
PancakeSwap has consistently dedicated efforts to transition CAKE to a deflationary token through strategic burning. The exchange has implemented several changes, driving organic trade volumes and activity, resulting in CAKE becoming ultrasound:
Reduced CAKE emissions from 40 per block originally to around 1.8374 per block currently. This is achieved by allocating less CAKE rewards to farms and pools over time.
Expected reduction in 750 million max supply cap for CAKE. With current circulation around 388 million and deflationary, CAKE will likely never hit the max cap.
Implemented burn mechanisms into various products:
0.001~0.23% of every trade made on V3
0.0575% of every trade made on V2
0.004%~0.016% of every trade made on StableSwap
100% of CAKE sent to the Dev address
100% of CAKE performance fees from IFOs
100% of CAKE spent on Profile Creation and NFT minting
100% of CAKE bid by winners during Farm Auctions
20% of CAKE spent on lottery tickets
20% of all profits from Perpetual Trading
8% of the Pottery prize pot distributed each week
3% of every BNB Prediction markets round is used to buy CAKE for burning
3% of every CAKE Prediction markets round
2% of every yield harvest from all the flexible staking positions in CAKE pool
2% of every NFT sale on the NFT Market is used to buy CAKE for burning
To align incentives and reward loyalty, PancakeSwap also introduced a revenue sharing program. A portion of trading fees is distributed weekly to CAKE stakers proportional to the amount and duration of their staked CAKE. The staked CAKE distributes shares (also known as rCAKE) to users, which are re-calculated based on:
The amount of the locked CAKE.
The remaining lock duration of their locked CAKE rounded down to weeks, and the maximum allowed lock time (52 weeks).
For example, staking 50 CAKE for 10 weeks out of the maximum 52 weeks would yield around 9.61 virtual shares in the revenue sharing pool (rCAKE). This provides CAKE stakers with real yield on their holdings. The longer the lockup, the higher the proportional share of trading fee revenues.
This mechanism of locking CAKE is reminiscent of the Curve Wars and how protocols like Convex Finance reward locking up CRV tokens. There are a few similarities between the two:
Both CAKE and CRV are governance tokens that give voting power when locked up for a period of time. Longer lockups grant more voting power.
Locking up both tokens provides additional rewards and benefits to holders. For CAKE, benefits include trading fee rebates and boosts to farm yields. For CRV, benefits include increased CRV rewards.
Locking creates scarcity and aligns incentives between the protocol and long-term focused users for both tokens.
However, there are a few key differences, where PancakeSwap compares favorably to Curve:
CAKE revenue sharing rewards loyal lockers with a portion of platform fees based on lock duration. CRV does not have a similar revenue sharing model.
Locked CAKE boosts initial farm offering allocations for their launchpad (IFOs) and farming yields. Locked CRV does not provide these specific benefits, only extra CRV rewards.
CRV is integral to Curve's liquidity pools and voting. CAKE is not required for providing liquidity on PancakeSwap.
PancakeSwap emission reductions have already put CAKE on a deflationary path. CRV emissions are still inflationary.
While both try to incentivize locking governance tokens, CAKE locking provides more varied benefits like revenue sharing. Thanks to its focus on rewarding the community and long-term development, PancakeSwap looks well-positioned to capture a sizable share of the growth of Ethereum L2 chains.
PancakeSwap’s Multichain Expansion
PancakeSwap has been pursuing a multichain strategy, which has seen the decentralized exchange and the CAKE token launch on different layer-one and layer-two blockchains.
Since the v3 launch at the start of Q2 (April 2023), the monthly volume and market share of PancakeSwap in terms of DEX volume have both increased. Total trading volume in Q2 grew 77% QoQ, while Q3 volume grew 11.2% compared to Q1.
Meanwhile, market share in terms of DEX volume grew 110% from Q1 to Q2, and Q3’s market share grew 92% compared to Q1.
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The live PancakeSwap price today is $3.01 USD with a 24-hour trading volume of $116,568,962 USD. We update our CAKE to USD price in real-time. PancakeSwap is down 1.68% in the last 24 hours. The current CoinMarketCap ranking is #116, with a live market cap of $860,368,549 USD. It has a circulating supply of 285,959,981 CAKE coins and a max. supply of 450,000,000 CAKE coins.