Since its inception, Oikos has always had a clear goal in mind: bringing the best decentralized finance (DeFi) services to OKS holders and providing a platform which enables anyone, from unbanked individuals to seasoned financiers, to trade trustlessly. We have been working around the clock, coordinating efforts between our partners and initiatives to make this happen. Today, we are pleased to present an overview of our present state of affairs and what to expect in the upcoming months.
Milestones overview
Last year was great for Oikos, and we expect an even bigger 2022. Cryptocurrency markets, in particular the crypto derivatives market, have grown exponentially with the launch of a multitude of projects proposing innovations in areas like DeFi, interoperability, bridges, gaming, NFTs and L2 solutions. Following is a breakdown of key features we have incorporated into the protocol and a brief overview of what’s to come.
Migration to Binance Smart Chain
The first major achievement during Q1 was the migration from TRON Blockchain to Binance Smart Chain (BSC): a smart-contract-capable blockchain with cheap transactions and greater EVM compatibility. Deploying on BSC provided our team with a more robust testbed which allowed us to experiment with several DeFi composability tools, allowing us to develop a more advanced DeFi infrastructure for our users.
Following the migration, the protocol has seen sustained growth in its holders and stakers, onboarded users from different regions of the world such as Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe, while simultaneously experiencing an increase in organic trading volume.
Derive Finance partnership
Our partnership with Derive Finance, a trustless exchange optimized for trading of pegged assets, allowed the protocol to stabilize the oUSD dollar peg by increasing the depth for trades and creating arbitraging opportunities between existing markets. We are always excited to see composability implemented and to experience cooperation between different initiatives.
Stats Website Launch
As the protocol matured, we released our much anticipated Stats Website, with several sections available: Network, Staking and Trading Synths.
The dashboard offers a range of information about the inner status of the platform, both visually and numerically. This release has helped our users to keep track of the general health of the system and to better manage their positions.
Exchange V2 + BNB Collateral
Oikos Exchange V2 revamped the user interface and provided users the ability to obtain a loan (denominated in Synth oBNB) using BNB as collateral. As the protocol matures, our team will continue to integrate similar functionalities in order to attract more senior traders and increase our overall market reach.
Chainlink Integration
By integrating Chainlink we implemented stable price feeds which are crucial for network efficiency, securing access to fresh asset prices that are supplied directly on-chain in a highly reliable manner. The provisioning of fair market asset prices which reflect a volume-weighted average from all trading environments increased the reliability of Oikos.Exchange, our derivatives trading platform, by securing it from price manipulation attacks.
Liquidation Mechanism
Another milestone for the protocol was deploying the liquidation mechanism, an important component which plays a central role in the protocol’s stability. Apart from the issuance c-ratio, the liquidation mechanism ensures synth holders their assets are protected in case of a significant price shock. The mechanism consists of redeeming synths for staked OKS when the issuer collateralization ratio falls below 200%, ensuring intrinsic value for the Synths by enabling direct redemption of the underlying collateral. This gives synth holders confidence that the assets they hold can be directly exchanged for the OKS backing them, therefore helping to maintain the active collateralization ratio at the issuance ratio level. This, in turn, creates stronger incentives for users to maintain a healthy active collateralization ratio as other participants can actively improve the active c-ratio by directly redeeming undercollateralized Synths for OKS.
1inch Network Whitelist
The most exciting announcement of Q4 was likely the Oikos Network Token (OKS) whitelisting on 1inch Network for BSC. 1inch is the leading DEX aggregator, offering the most efficient swapping routes across top DeFi liquidity pools. Big thanks to the 1inch team for their cooperation and support in the whitelisting process ❤.
Moving ahead
Over the past year our team at Oikos has been focused on building and securing the architecture of the protocol. The numerous product improvements such as the launch of Exchange v2, the Chainlink integration, the liquidation mechanism, etc, make it evident that the vast majority of the team’s efforts have been aimed at reinforcing our infrastructure and ensuring the protocol is built to scale.
We are confident the system is robust enough to support a large number of daily users and volume. Therefore, during this new phase of the project, our efforts will transition to attracting new users and generating more volume to the protocol.
Here is a small breakdown of the upcoming product releases we believe will drive the next growth phase of the project; a detailed breakdown of each will be offered in future blog posts.
- DeFi User Guide
- Oikos Website v2
- Chainlink Keepers Integration
- New crypto synths
- Advanced order types
- Trading incentives
- Exchange interface enhancements
- Oikos DAO
- BNB/ETH/BTC/X? collateral
- Staker Delegation Mechanism
- Mobile interfaces
- And more!
The implementation of said features will ensure the protocol meets feature parity with leading derivatives exchanges while at the same time helping the platform become more decentralized, making Oikos Exchange one of the most attractive trading venues on the market. By incorporating even a small subset of the features mentioned above, Oikos will far exceed the functionality of centralized exchanges that dominate today. Many challenges lay ahead as we enter into a new chapter in the project, we are confident all of the effort and lessons learned since we launched the first contracts will now pay off. DeFi is here to stay and the momentum is unstoppable, 2022 will be the year of mass adoption.
Conclusion
We’ll be publishing more information about our roadmap in the following weeks, where we’ll break down upcoming features in more detail. Stay tuned for more exciting updates, and in the meantime learn more about Oikos by reading the Litepaper, visiting the website, following on Twitter, or joining the community on Telegram and Discord!
