Author: Apex Protocol
Introduction to Apex Protocol
ApeX Protocol is a decentralized multi-chain derivatives trading platform incubated by Davion Labs, a subsidiary of Bybit. As an incubator focusing on the blockchain and cryptocurrency fields, Davion Labs has been committed to the discovery of high-quality projects in the Web3 field. In addition, ApeX has also received investment and support from many well-known investment institutions such as Dragonfly Capital, Mirana Ventures, Tiger Global, Jump Trading, Kronos, CyberX and M77 Ventures.
Multi-chain order book dex based on ZK
As a dex, ApeX Pro achieves an efficient trading experience for users by providing a perpetual contract trading model with an order book model. At the same time, the trader's assets are completely on the chain, and the trader controls the private key. ApeX ensures the security of user assets through non-custodial assets. And relying on the ZK Rollup expansion and security solution, ApeX achieves data consistency and complete verification on and off the chain, ensuring the security and privacy protection of user transactions. It is a complete multi-chain application product in the ZK track. Compared with similar products dYdX and GMX, ApeX has added mechanisms such as mining reward repurchase and recommendation rewards, as well as provided more favorable transaction rates, and its development potential cannot be underestimated.
APEX token and mining token BANA
APEX tokens are the governance tokens of the ApeX protocol and have a total supply of 1 billion. 23% of the tokens are allocated to the core team and early investors, and the remaining 77% are used for participation rewards in platform construction, ecosystem construction and liquidity incentives. APEX holders have the right to participate in the governance of the platform and share the incentives of the agreement.
BANA is the reward token of ApeX Pro, which is earned through transaction mining (one mining cycle per week). During the transaction mining activity, a total of 25 million APEX locks are minted into BANA, and the locking time is 12 months ( During the lock-up period, BANA can be traded for USDC, but cannot be exchanged for APEX). Currently, traders can choose to add LP from the BANA-USDC pool to increase trading mining income. After mining is completed, that is, in November this year, the platform will exchange BANA for $APEX according to the redemption rate after BANA is repurchased and destroyed.
Introduction to APEX Token Staking
Pledge tokens and directly participate in platform dividends
ApeX Pro recently launched the Staking function. 5% of the handling fees generated by ApeX Pro will be allocated to Staking participants (will increase to 30% in the future). Users who pledge $APEX/$esAPEX tokens can directly obtain USDC. Current official data shows that the APR of staking in the first week is as high as 40%.
Compared with similar products, dYdX has a market value of 350 million U.S. dollars, GMX has a market value of 500 million U.S. dollars, and APEX’s market value is now only about 10 million U.S. dollars. However, DYDX does not have a Staking mechanism. GMX allocates 30% of platform revenue to Staking participants, and ApeX passed the token The staking model binds more project income to token holders.
ApeX staking plan core value proposition:
No restrictions. Users can start and cancel staking at any time, and of course the longer a user stakes, the greater the rewards, so every ApeX player can plan and customize their portfolio strategy according to their preferences on ApeX Pro.
Suitable for all types of traders. Simply stake esAPEX and/or APEX tokens to earn rewards.
Staking rewards not only take into account the staked assets, but users’ trading activities will also increase their earnings. The staking reward formula takes into account the scores of “t2e” activities to bring additional benefits to staking users.
Based on its design principle, the APEX staking reward calculation formula can be divided into three parts:
Pledge quantity
The APEX or esAPEX invested by the user is the parameter that calculates the largest weight of the staking reward, and is also the cost component of the user's participation in staking activities.
Staking duration
The calculation method of this part is simple to understand. The user's cumulative staking time (number of days)/365 is the user's staking time score. It will continue to accumulate as the staking time increases. After staking for two years, the maximum value can be obtained at 2.
transaction score
The average T2E Score obtained by users in the last 4 mining cycles is the Average T2E Score, so the greater the score obtained by T2E, the higher the pledge score of this part. It is worth noting that after the average mining score exceeds 500, the transaction score factor triggers the upper limit of 2 and no longer affects the staking rewards.
When calculating the total pledge factor, the three are additive:
Since the staking duration can only be obtained through time accumulation, if staking users want to increase their personal rate of return (obtain more staking reward distribution ratios), working hard to increase their personal transaction scores can increase more profits.
For example, a staking user in the picture below has increased his personal average t2e score to 500 (fixed), so his staking yield has increased by 200%, and the staking pool APR is 40% (current reward amount/total value of staking pool APEX and esAPEX *52), but its personal APR is 120%, which is the effect of working hard to increase the t2e score.
User pledge APEX yield data
User pledge APEX pledge score data
In-depth analysis of APEX token staking
Currently, the total number of APEX and esAPEX pledged is 4.3 million, worth US$1.29 million, which is in the initial stage of the Staking plan. Compared with the Staking plans that exist on the market, in addition to the rewards brought by staking tokens, participants can also enjoy ApeX’s original calculation method of staking rewards linked to transaction mining results, which creates a flywheel effect for Staking and t2e. Participants also You can get the following additional benefits:
Transaction costs are close to 0
According to existing statistics, users who participate in ApeX Pro transaction mining can get a minimum reward of 45% of the transaction fee. This part can be regarded as transaction rebate. The current common transaction rebate ratio in the market is 40%, and In Apex Pro, you can get a minimum of 45% refund;
If you form a small amount of LP and invest about US$200 when the price of BANA is low, the mining reward can account for 70% of the transaction fee. This is a rare commission ratio in the market, and the transaction cost is greatly reduced.
The launch of the Staking plan allows users to obtain additional staking rewards while receiving transaction rewards. This will allow users to obtain total rewards that can almost cover their transaction costs. Currently, there is no derivatives platform in the entire cryptocurrency market that can provide all users with The total transaction cost is close to 0, and derivatives trading users are extremely sensitive to transaction costs, so ApeX Pro’s appeal to contract traders is further enhanced.
USDC rewards are more stable
Staking rewards for various Tokens are usually the same type of pledged Token or a separately issued reward token, which has the common problem of price instability or passive lock-in in the medium and long term. At the same time, the release of staking rewards may also bring additional selling to the native Token. Pressure causes the price of tokens to fall, causing APR to continue to fall. The value of tokens pledged by users drops, and users leave and sell tokens, thus forming a "negative cycle" in price, resulting in serious losses of users' principal.
In order to avoid the above-mentioned common problems of Staking plans in the current market, ApeX Ecosystem distributes rewards in the form of USDC. USDC is the most reputable stablecoin in the cryptocurrency market. Participants do not need to worry about the changes in staking rewards as the token price changes. This avoids This eliminates the risk of the Staking plan causing token prices to fall into a "negative spiral".
APEX lock-in effect
The current circulation of APEX tokens is 70 million, and 4.3 million have been locked in the Staking plan, with a locking rate of 6.15%. Compared with the market average staking rate of about 15-25%, this level is low, mainly due to Staking The program has just begun, so there is plenty of room for growth in this ratio.
The current APEX token price is US$0.31. If the above pledge rate is increased to 15%, 6.3 million APEX in circulation on the market (currently worth US$1.89 million) will be locked into the pledge plan. Combined with the APEX in the past month on Bybit Transaction data, this will push the price to rise above $0.6 (usually the sell order * 10 in the market Orderbook is the actual expenditure of the buyer to push the price to a certain position).
Therefore, the Staking plan not only has a lock-in effect on the circulation of APEX, but as the plan continues to advance, it will also have a great promotion effect on the price of APEX tokens.
The flywheel effect is highlighted
As mentioned above, the connection between the staking plan and transaction mining comes from the design details of a transaction mining: after the transaction mining ends in the 52nd week, BANA can be redeemed according to the redemption rate at the end of the period (because BANA will be repurchased and destroyed. , so the redemption rate will be greater than 0.001 at the beginning of the period, currently 0.00105), converted to APEX, no matter what the price of APEX is at that time. So transactional mining participants have a “real” reference for mining earnings:
When the BANA price is lower than the APEX price *redeem rate, choose to hold BANA and wait for the price to be re-linked before selling or waiting for the exchange window;
When the BANA price is higher than the APEX price *redeem rate, sell APEX directly to obtain excess returns;
Therefore, the price of APEX tokens is the value basis of the entire ApeX ecosystem, and the development of the Staking plan has created a "flywheel effect" for the entire ecosystem.
ApeX ecological flywheel effect diagram
The increase in APEX price will increase the value of BANA. The increase in BANA value will increase the transaction mining rewards. After the transaction mining rewards increase, the profitability of mining participants will attract new users to enter transaction mining activities, thus promoting the ApeX pro platform The fee income of the platform will increase accordingly, and 5% of the platform's fees will be allocated to Staking participants. The Staking reward APR will also increase accordingly, thus attracting more users to join the Staking plan, resulting in a continuous decrease in APEX circulating in the market. At the same time, Staking participants The buying behavior further pushed up the price of APEX tokens, and the ecological flywheel completed a complete cycle.
In summary, ApeX’s Staking plan not only adopts the advantages of the staking plans in the current market, but also makes important innovations based on the characteristics of its main business of derivatives trading, allowing a seemingly independent Staking plan to activate the value effect of the entire ecosystem. With the support of the flywheel effect, the investment value of the ApeX ecosystem is even more prominent.
