DeFi
Zeta Markets Launches ZEX Airdrop
Early adopters can now claim 8% of the token supply, with 30% reserved for ongoing trading incentives.
Zeta Markets, a decentralized perpetual exchange built on Solana, is the latest web3 project to offer a token to early adopters.
On June 27, Zeta open airdrop claims for its ZEX token. ZEX facilitates governance and staking for the project, and will also serve as the native gas token for Zeta’s upcoming layer-2 network, Zeta X.
“ZEX is the native token of Zeta Markets, which powers governance, staking and incentives on the protocol,” Zeta said. “Additionally, ZEX will serve as both the native gas token and incentive mechanism on Zeta X, Zeta’s pioneering DeFi L2 on Solana. »
Zeta is currently the 25th largest DeFi protocol on Solana with a total value locked of $17.2 million, according to DeFi Llama. The platform generated $45 million in 24-hour volume and processed 10 billion dollars in cumulative volume since its launch in 2021, and hosts 125,000 monthly active users.
For comparison, dYdX v4, a leading DeFi derivatives exchange, hosted $542 million in transactions in the last 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap.
Zeta has allocated 10% of ZEX’s supply to airdrop. Active Zeta traders can now claim 70% of the airdrop, with allocations determined by an internal snapshot taken on June 7.
Zeta ecosystem partners will receive 1% of ZEX’s supply, while the remaining tokens will go to ZEX stakers as a follow-on drop This will take place after 28 days. Airdrop claims will remain open until September 25, 2024.
“The initial airdrop is designed to reward genuine, long-term Zeta users,” the project states.
Zeta added that 30% of ZEX’s total supply is earmarked to provide ongoing trading incentives, with rewards distributed to users over 90 epochs lasting 28 days each.
Voting and Escrow Tokenomics
Zeta claims its token is among the first to introduce a “vote-escrow” (VE) mechanism into the Solana ecosystem.
EV stakers receive governance power proportional to the sum of assets staked and the length of time tokens are locked, allowing stakers to vote on which pools of assets rewards are allocated to. This mechanism gave birth to the famous “Curve Wars” in 2021, where DeFi protocols were competing to allocate CRV to Curve liquidity pools.
Zeta described VE-tokenomics as “an incentive for long-term engagement with exponentially greater governance and enhanced incentives for stakers.”
Zeta X joins Solana’s L2 ecosystem
Airdrop follows Zeta announcing plans to launch a Solana-based layer 2 application chain, Zeta X (ZX), on May 23.
Zeta X will feature a Solana-based system optimistic cumulation who uses zero-knowledge proofs to facilitate permissionless on-chain settlement. The platform will match orders on Layer 2 while utilizing Solana’s base layer for data availability and settlement, aiming to deliver on-chain performance comparable to centralized platforms.
The project claims that Zeta X will facilitate throughput of up to 10,000 transactions per second and transaction confirmation in less than 10 milliseconds. Zeta X will also support up to 50x leverage.
“By taking the inherent strengths of Solana’s Layer 1 and leveraging the power of a purpose-built L2, ZX will provide traders with an unmatched experience in terms of speed, efficiency and security,” said Tristan Frizza, Founder of Zeta Markets.
Frizza told The Defiant that while the project is currently focused on building ZX to support a revamped Zeta exchange, it will invite third-party developers to build “synergistic applications” on the network in the future.
“Our current plans are to focus on a single exchange application to better prioritize liquidity and user experience,” Frizza said. “That being said, we will definitely then explore ways for people to compound on that liquidity layer and build synergistic applications on our L2, for example, money markets, core trading vaults, etc.”
Zeta
Zeta’s Layer 2 ambitions come as the Solana ecosystem appears to be moving tentatively toward L2 adoption, despite the Solana team to commit to achieve high-throughput scalability at its base layer.
On June 21, Light Protocol and Helius Labs sparked controversy with the testnet deployment of ZK Compressiona Solana-based scaling solution that appears to borrow much of its architecture from Ethereum Layer 2.
“It’s like a L2 without all the things people complain about L2s.” said Anatoly Yakovenko, Solana co-founder, amid fierce debate on social media. “It’s a L2 that doesn’t need a security council multisig, users don’t need to change chain ID, doesn’t need a governance token, doesn’t need an external sequencer, Solana validators still receive all transaction fees.”