The Cosmic Atlas glows and beckons deep within Astroport’s core. Contributors can access it and carve ideas into its multifaceted surface. These etchings then give us a glimpse of a possible future for the protocol.
Ideas are not fixed. They might not come to fruition at all, in fact, but they represent the current obsessions of each contributor and what they’d like to build.
To date, explorers have unearthed seven facets of the Cosmic Atlas:
CA1: The rise of vxASTRO
Status: Under development
The ASTRO token is the most powerful weapon in Astroport’s arsenal. And the bulk of that power comes from “emissions.” Emissions are the rewards that LPs receive for depositing liquidity on Astroport (for example, 100,000 ASTRO could be granted to LPs in the ASTRO-USDC pool for 30 days).
When a pool receives ASTRO emissions, it boosts the APY for any LP in that pool. Higher APYs attract more LPs. That deepens liquidity in the pool, which attracts more traders (often through aggregators like IBC.fun or TFM.com) who generate even more fees for Astroport LPs.
Currently, every adjustment to the ASTRO emissions schedule requires a governance vote. That will change with the rise of Voting Escrow ASTRO (vxASTRO). vxASTRO holds godlike powers over liquidity flows throughout the Cosmos. To get it, ASTRO holders must first stake, then lock their tokens for a minimum of two weeks in exchange for vxASTRO.
With so much power over liquidity flows in the Cosmos, vxASTRO is expected to rekindle the AstroWars. Several protocols have already publicly announced they’re accumulating ASTRO including Neutron, Persistence, Eclipse, and Apollo. Each protocol in the wars races to accumulate ASTRO, stake and lock it, then vote for their native token(s) pools to receive ASTRO emissions. If they’re successful, those emissions should offer tantalizing APYs to attract other potential LPs.
The AstroWars take on a new meaning with Astroport’s cross-chain design, too. Whereas previously it was Terra protocols fighting to incentivise their token, now it’s also L1 blockchains like Neutron, Osmosis, Terra, Sei and Injective that are strongly incentivized to ensure their outposts have deep liquidity.
CA2: The Tributes Protocol
Status: Upcoming development
Every two weeks, vxASTRO holders gather to vote on which pools they believe should receive ASTRO rewards. These votes help determine liquidity flows throughout the Cosmos. That’s because the more ASTRO rewards a pool receives, the higher its APY is for LPs. Higher APYs attract more liquidity, which then attracts more traders (and fees, which boosts APYs even more!). It’s the ultimate virtuous cycle.
What if you could influence which pools receive ASTRO rewards without having to hold vxASTRO? With the Tributes Protocol you can.
Instead of buying, staking and locking ASTRO, you can simply donate tokens (i.e. OSMO, NTRN, ROIDS, ASTRO or any other token) to any vxASTRO holder who votes for your chosen pool(s).
To illustrate, imagine a user who wants ASTRO rewards to go to a NTRN-OSMO pool. If the user doesn’t hold vxASTRO, she could encourage vxASTRO holders to vote for that pool by donating tokens (i.e. “paying tribute”) to NTRN-OSMO voters.
Then, any vxASTRO holder who does vote for that pool would be able to claim a pro rata share of the accumulated tributes.
vxASTRO holders win by getting a new source of rewards. And tribute payers win by influencing ASTRO emissions without having to spend more money buying, staking and locking ASTRO themselves.
This change alone does more than any other to give users a reason to hold, stake and vote with the ASTRO tokens, and we imagine it could lead to the rise of voting protocols built on top of Astroport.
CA3: Duality DEX integration
Status: Upcoming development
With Duality’s DEX module now integrated, Neutron features one of the most powerful DEXes in all of crypto.
Specifically, Duality’s tech lets market makers recreate almost any strategy, from expiring limit orders to AMM-like range orders. These advanced tools are designed for and should attract the world’s most sophisticated market makers.
Astroport’s more passive pool types are the perfect complement to Duality’s liquidity primitives. Astroport logic can be encoded into vaults that simplify liquidity management and can be incentivized by protocols. In particular, Astroport’s specific pools for liquid staking tokens, weighted pools, and concentrated liquidity strategies can be compiled and run on top of Duality, without recreating complicated trading logic each time.
This combines the best of both worlds: aggregating liquidity from sophisticated, active market-makers as well as decentralized, passive strategies into a single venue.
An Astroport integration with Duality is a massive win-win for the Neutron ecosystem. Liquidity deployed on Duality protects Neutron from liquidity fragmentation. It reduces the ecosystem’s reliance on complex, expensive order aggregation and routing. Astroport LPs in turn receive more order flow from the network effects of traders using Duality. Finally, aggregated liquidity results in better execution for the most important users of all: traders.
CA4: Composable LP Tokens
Status: In Audit
Today, when users provide liquidity on Astroport, they receive cw20 LP tokens. This legacy standard is difficult to integrate with third-party protocols. To make them useable/composable across other DeFi protocols, LP tokens need to be migrated from the old CW20 contract-based standard into a more native TokenFactory standard. This greatly simplifies third-party integrations with Astroport and we expect to see these LP tokens being used in other protocols on any of the chains we are deployed on. For example, LP tokens could now be more easily integrated with protocols like Apollo and Nolus and potentially be used as collateral on credit protocols like Mars. Holders could even stream LP tokens to other LPs with Astroport’s permissionless incentives tools.
CA5: Injective orderbook integration
Status: Deployment imminent
Injective’s core focus is on finance. Optimized and coded for DeFi from day one, it includes a core orderbook primitive that powers a number of decentralized DEXes. Currently, Astroport liquidity stands alone and can’t be used by orderbook-style DEXes on Injective.
CA5’s goal is simple: feed Astroport liquidity directly into Injective orderbooks. That means LP liquidity could end up being tapped not just by traders who visit astroport.fi or DEX aggregators like IBC.fun or TFM.com but also by Injective’s native orderbooks.
It should be a massive win for all parties. For Astroport, it’d mean more utilization of the protocol’s liquidity, which in turn means more fees flowing back to xASTRO stakers.
CA6: Exploring new pool types
Status: Planned exploration
Astroport currently supports 4 pool types:
- Constant Product Pools (XYK pools, which were popularized by the earliest versions of Uniswap)
- Stableswap Pools (optimized for 1:1 tokens such as stablecoins)
- Passive Concentrated Liquidity Pools (PCL pools use an advanced repegging algorithm to help LPs combat impermanent loss and earn more on their liquidity without having to actively manage their positions)
- Transmuter Pools (enable zero-slippage on 1:1 token swaps, primarily for moving between stablecoins)
Contributors have ideas on several other pool types they’d like to explore, too. Specifically:
- Weighted pools: Inspired by Balancer, weighted pools enable custom ratios for different assets (i.e. imagine a pool with 80% ASTRO and 20% NTRN for example). This gives LPs more control over their asset exposure and can help minimize impermanent loss.
- Oracle-based pools: As good as AMMs are, unless they are the source for price discovery, they will always lag behind in regards to price. This means they are defenseless to toxic flow. Oracle-based pools can operate much more efficiently since they always allow trading at the most recent prices. They can also protect LPs from toxic flow by automatically adjusting the curve as prices change.
- Party pools with 3+ assets: These pools increase capital efficiency and are especially useful when considering the array of USD-based stablecoins in the Cosmos. Sei alone features 7 flavors of USDC and 2 USDT variants. Multi-asset pools would allow them to be LP’d alongside one another.
Each new pool type aligns with Astroport’s current pools, all of which are optimized for passive holders. Specifically, that’s LPs who want to provide liquidity over longer, maintenance-free timelines. By focusing on that demographic, Astroport can ensure it remains the premier destination in all the Cosmos for passive LPs.
CA7: SLAMM model
Status: Planned exploration
Liquidity fragmentation gets worse with the launch of every appchain and L2. A Shared Liquidity AMM (or SLAMM) could theoretically solve this fragmentation once and for all. With a coordinating appchain “Hub”, virtual liquidity pools and “satellite” deployments on other chains, SLAMMs can theoretically optimize liquidity across isolated, cross-chain pools.
With this approach (originally outlined by Delphi Labs contributors here), LPs should be able to “deposit once, LP everywhere” and passively collect fee income across chains. This would offer a better user experience (UX) and superior trade execution for end users as well as smoother returns for LPs.
Closing thoughts
Like a massive tanker filled with crude oil, Astroport is crypto’s permissionless liquidity engine. Deploy it anywhere to attract massive pools of liquidity for your favorite pools. Thanks to its emphasis on passive LP’ing, that liquidity is hyper-composable and programmable. That means it can be integrated into orderbooks, offer parallel options for LPs in active concentrated liquidity vaults, and serve as a liquidity base for credit and perps protocols like Mars.
In other words, Astroport offers liquidity on demand, and it can be deployed on any chain where there’s a need for that liquidity.
Expect the cosmic atlas to evolve over time, but it outlines our priorities today. We’d love to hear your thoughts on it and any other ideas you might have to help Astroport better serve LPs and traders. Join the conversation in Telegram now!
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DISCLAIMER
Remember, Astroport, Injective, Neutron, Sei, and Terra are experimental technologies. This article does not constitute investment advice and is subject to and limited by the Astroport disclaimers, which you should review before interacting with the protocol.
