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Why Pangolin is One of the Best Stories in Crypto

by Ben Knaus February 22nd, 2022

Too Long; Didn't Read

Pangolin is a community-controlled DEX (Decentralized exchange) that was created by AVA labs to be handed over to the community. Unlike most projects where teams and insiders can own up to 60% of the supply, the core team retained no personal tokens. The core team in a sense works for the community and operates in the best interest of the community. Community wins over profits which is a rarity in our space. The PNG token is used as a governance token; you can't have a community owned project without some notion of ownership. Users who provide liquidity are rewarded in the PNG token.

featured image - Why Pangolin is One of the Best Stories in Crypto

Like the Big Mac with its secret sauce, there are some things in life that are key ingredients to longevity and retention. In my eyes Crypto's secret sauce is community. I've found that in Pangolin, a community-controlled DEX (Decentralized exchange).

*In full transparency I own and stake PNG, but as you'll discover that was never my plan.

From the Oxford dictionary community is "a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals."

Pangolin is a community-owned DEX, that was created by AVA labs to be handed over to the community. Unlike most projects where teams and insiders can own up to 60% of the supply. The core team retained no personal tokens.

The protocol was built using the AMM (automated market maker) model that Uniswap pioneered. Pangolin was designed to let users farm liquidity as well as swap hundreds of tokens most of which are Avalanche native assets.

"Pangolin is adamant not to repeat the sins of enterprise and corporate institutions. The community aspect drives the core team to ensure the benefits accrue to the community. The core team encourages developers to be creative and build truly innovative solutions. Not to be driven by Legacy KPI's that kill innovation." - Justin Trollip - Chief Herder of Pangolin

How was the core team put in place?

Early on community members contributed to Pangolin's development through discord and aiding in reviewing code. Ava Labs set the governance structure in place, and community members could make a proposal to be the core team.

Teams needed to gather about 1 million PNG to submit an on-chain proposal to be the core team behind Pangolin. The vote elected the core team of Justin, Leo. and Brandon. The team has grown much larger to this date.

How is the core team rewarded? The Core team was granted access to a budgeted Multi-Sig wallet to use to pay for expenditures and salaries. The core team in a sense works for the community and operates in the best interest of the community. Community wins over profits which is a rarity in our space.

PNG Token - The PNG token is used as a governance token; you can't have a community-owned project without some notion of ownership. users who provide liquidity are rewarded in the PNG token. Users can use the PNG token to participate in on-chain votes.

Currently during this bearish downturn PNG still holds a Market cap of over $25 million USD. A project with an amazing upside, and amazing community incentives (*not financial advice). A major tokenomics overhaul is coming that will reduce the max PNG supply by 57%, implement a more strategic emissions schedule, and add deflationary attributes to the PNG token

Governance

Some of the votes that have already happened on chain with Pangolin are picking market makers
determining reward allocations for different pairs
picking the core team
Some voting has been done off chain by snapshot voting system. This gauges sentiment for voting that doesn't require users to pay gas to vote on topics.

Anyone can submit a proposal, as long as thresholds are met.

You need 1 million PNG to make a proposal
Community members can delegate their voting rights to others they trust
Members generally submit proposal ideas via the community forum, or via discord
As of now, there is a one-day heads up of an upcoming vote, with a 3-day voting window

Staking PNG

New Staking rewards, inspired by sushi, .05 % of trading fees go towards the pangolin treasury. All those fees are now being converted to tether and every 2 weeks the proceeds are used to buyback PNG to reward single side stakers. Now PNG stakers are rewarded from Pangolin's entire ecosystem revenue stream just by staking PNG.

Inception of Super-farms

A new version of yield farming that allows users to earn PNG and other tokens simultaneously. Allowing projects to bootstrap liquidity.

The total amount of partner project tokens flowing into the Pangolin ecosystem will be multiplying over the next few months. Partners are stepping up to the plate to jointly incentivize Pangolin’s TVL and volume. In exchange, they receive exposure to Pangolin’s incredible community and the support of Pangolin with co-marketing and business development teams.

"Super farms are going to explode TVL and volume by compounding the ecosystem’s incentive program with the full strength of all of Pangolin’s partners.” -Stephen, Head of Strategy at Pangolin

Exchange stats

Pangolin has had over $13.69 Billion USD in total volume.
They currently house over $249 Million USD in total liquidity.
Earn up to 1346%
UST/USDC farm has over $38 Million in liquidity

Features & Benefits Summary

Moonpay integration- users can now utilize Moonpay to buy 6 assets on Pangolin with a using a Credit or debit card, this makes Defi onboarding easy
Partnership with NFTrade.com ,
Limit orders on V2- First AVAX native DEX to allow limit orders for any token on the platform
Becoming multi chain by launching on NEAR protocol, which means more community
UX UIR update, which shows PNG rewards per day when staked
Centralized exchange listings like gate.io Bitmart , and more to come
Burn mechanism and deflationary attributes to reduce the total supply by 57%
Super Farms to allows liquidity providers to earn more than one Token at once
Earn a percentage of the protocol revenue stream by staking
participate in governance

The F.A.B list above is sure to grow with time. But in my opinion, it's tough to find a project that's strictly driven to benefit the community as a whole. This is the secret sauce I think many projects will try to replicate. However, the true sense of community is what creates network effect.

When the users get more value out of a network than they put in, the users are likely to stay for the long haul- this creates network effect. I believe Pangolin has a two-sided network effect. For example, more Uber riders does not necessarily improve my Uber experience, but it does attract more drivers, which will improve Uber services overall. I believe when it comes to Pangolin, we will see this two-sided network effect in the following areas: Super-farms, Liquidity providers, Users, and listings.

Pangolin was supposed to be a bus stop for my funds, quick hit yield and out was my plan. But as mentioned above I got far more value out of the exchange than I was putting forth. I've stayed for the community/vision/value and yield.