DeFi Liquidity Protocol Kyber Network Crosses $1 Billion Trading Volume Mark
In recent days, the Kyber Network liquidity protocol has accounted for almost 15% of all decentralized exchange (DEX) transactions atop Ethereum.
That’s certainly an impressive statistic, but this week the Kyber community is happily celebrating a different milestone.
That’s because on Thursday, May 14th, the Kyber Network team confirmed their protocol had finally eclipsed its first $1 billion USD worth of trades. The new record comes after Kyber Network reached its first 1 million ether (ETH) in total transaction volume last summer.
We're happy to announce a major Kyber milestone:
Kyber has crossed US$1Billion worth of trades and almost 1Million transactions, performed entirely on chain!
@ethereum #ethereum #DeFi pic.twitter.com/H06qcgYtAD
— Kyber Network (@KyberNetwork) May 14, 2020
Kyber Network has plenty of room to grow from here, to be sure, just as the wider DEX and DeFi scenes do, too. With that said, the protocol’s first $1 billion worth of trades shows the project is well on its way for now.
“We crossed our first billion US$ in total trading volume, but looking to cross the second, third and more in 2020,” Kyber Network co-founder Loi Luu said on the news.
2020 has been shaping up well for Kyber so far, then. Back in February, U.S. crypto exchange giant Coinbase rolled out support for Kyber Network Crystal (KNC) trading on Coinbase Pro and then on Coinbase.com a few days later.
Unsurprisingly, the legitimizing “Coinbase Bump” has helped to raise the profile of the Kyber Network ecosystem ever since.
Katalyst Is Coming
As Kyber Network continues to gain traction with users, stakeholders are all eyes on Katalyst, a coming upgrade that’s set to seriously reconfigure the economics around the liquidity protocol.
First announced last December, Katalyst was introduced to optimize Kyber’s ecosystem and to “encourage participation for key stakeholders,” namely liquidity providers and KNC token holders.
For liquidity providers, Katalyst will enact “reserve incentives,” which will pay out transaction fees proportional to how much volume providers facilitate. Moreover, Katalyst will enact a staking system for KNC, Kyber’s native asset, that will allow stakers to also reap a share of Kyber Network’s transaction fees.
Another major wrinkle that’s coming along with Katalyst is the launch of KyberDAO, which will allow Kyber Network’s users to decide among themselves how to steer the protocol’s fees going forward. As for participation, KNC tokens will serve as the DAO’s governance token, much like how MKR tokens are used to govern the MakerDAO DeFi lending project.
More on KyberDAO
In April 2020, the Kyber Network team published an update on the project’s DAO effort, therein noting that the DAO will start out being steered by Kyber’s specialists while still giving way to the community over time:
“We believe that this progressive decentralization achieves the main goals of broad representation, transparency, resilience, and network stability — and we would love to work with the community to continuously improve both the on-chain and off-chain processes as we continue to evolve.”
In another update posted in May, the Kyber Network team explained it was preparing to cater to so-called “pool operators,” which could represent factions of KNC voters:
“KNC holders who are willing to stake their tokens but do not have the resources to regularly participate in voting in every epoch (about 2 weeks), have the ability to delegate their voting power to another Ethereum address or a ‘pool’ to vote on their behalf. Projects or developers that set up and manage this voting pool are called ‘pool operators’.”
Toward the Novel
Kyber Network’s been gunning to set itself ahead of other DEXes in recent times.
For example, Kyber’s associated KyberSwap DEX rolled out a fiat-to-crypto gateway last fall. Just a few weeks prior to that, the decentralized liquidity protocol rolled out non-custodial limit orders for traders who want to remain in control of their funds at all times.
As such, Kyber’s clearly trying to set the tone when it comes to UX in the DeFi arena.
The post DeFi Liquidity Protocol Kyber Network Crosses $1 Billion Trading Volume Mark appeared first on Blockonomi.
OhNoCryptocurrency via https://www.ohnocrypto.com/ @William M. Peaster, @Khareem Sudlow