Decentralizing the Future: Insights From Wilson Duarte of Hercules

I recently spoke with Wilson Duarte, the Founder of Hercules, a DEX on the Metis network. Wilson has a background in computational applied mathematics and a master's in numerical simulation in applied Geophysics. During our discussion, we touched on the Metis blockchain, the increasing traction of decentralized exchanges, and the essential security steps these exchanges must implement.

To start, can you please share the origin story of Hercules, and elaborate on the significance of HerculesDEX's launch within the Metis ecosystem?

Hercules is a friendly fork of the very successful Camelot model on Arbitrum; Hercules uses all of the same enhanced tokenomics mechanisms and core principles while still planning to expand on the model such as concentrated liquidity and a fair launch platform for new projects coming to Metis.

We aim to solve a few problems for the Metis ecosystem. Namely, it will act as a proper home for native Metis assets and offers a range of liquidity products, a launchpad, and a sustainable tokenomics model that offers consistent, but generous rewards.

What key benefits do decentralized exchanges offer compared to traditional ones, contributing to their growing popularity?

Decentralized exchanges, and more broadly, DeFi allows a user to have greater control over the management of their own assets. Meaning they can choose how they earn, they can facilitate their own swaps, they can establish their own investment strategies, and manage risk however they see fit. The upside of this is that the user also realizes 100% of the profits of their work.

In addressing security concerns, what measures can decentralized exchanges implement to safeguard against the increasing incidents of hacks and vulnerabilities?

It is important to work with trusted protocols, and Hercules has partnered with some of the most trusted names in the space: Li.Fi, Synapse, Open Ocean, Gamma and others.

In addition to audits, another important factor is what you can call the battle test. The battle test simply means that a smart contract has been deployed and in use for a considerable amount of time without being exploited. Hercules also has the benefit of forking a well-established product that has been heavily battle-tested.

What future updates or new functionalities can HerculesDEX users anticipate?

Hercules will continue to expand on the Camelot model. Most notably, we are working with a few of our bridge partners to bring in cross-chain swaps and cross-chain zaps meaning you can take one asset from another chain and simply zap it into a LP pool on Hercules.

On top of that, we are collaborating with RoboLabs to build a new product that will leverage Hercules and Aave's farming incentive programs to provide sustainable yield for users who do not want exposure to volatile assets.

Of course like any ambitious decks we have much more in the pipeline, but for now, we will continue with our launch and immediate rollout.