Original title: "Is SBF really optimistic about the AVAX ecology? What is his actual action?"

Original author: 0xMaxi

SBF recent statement

SBF, the founder of Alameda Research and FTX, is undoubtedly a successful investor. He has accumulated more than US$22.5 billion in wealth in the 4 years from 2017 to 2021, and was selected into the Forbes 30 Rich List under the age of 30.

In an interview with the Decrypt blog on January 18, 2022, SBF said that he is optimistic about the three sectors Solona chain, Avax chain, and asset cross-chain tools. The main reasons are as follows:

• The scalability of Solona can reach the level of the industrial revolution

• Avax is a real blockchain with a professional team and has the potential to be a huge field

• Asset cross-chain: BTC is still the core of the cryptocurrency ecology. The synthesis of mainstream Tokens such as BTC and ETH, and the cheap and fast transfer between various blockchain networks require more and more in-depth research

Everyone knows that SBF has always been a supporter of the Solana ecology. He not only co-founded Serum, but also gave the green light for the Solona eco-project to launch on the FTX trading platform.

At the same time, in SBF's many public statements in 2020 and 2021, he also positively commented on the AVAX team's capabilities, products, and ecological prospects. According to SBF, the AVAX ecosystem is often compared with the Solona ecosystem as an "Ethereum killer".

So, is SBF really optimistic about the AVAX ecology, or is it short-term speculative profit? Let's first look at the Defi projects that SBF has participated in Avax in the past year.

SBF's participation in the AVAX ecosystem

Although SBF has made it clear that it is optimistic about the AVAX network before the launch of AVAX Token in September 2020, the SBF related team (Alameda/FTX) has not been seen in the public information of AVAX's multiple rounds of financing.

It can be found from the data on the chain that SBF is very active in participating in the Defi mining project of the AVAX ecosystem.

• In February 2021, participate in the liquidity mining of Pangolin, a decentralized trading platform

• In August 2021, under the incentive of the Avalanche Foundation's $180 million reward program Avalanche Rush, SBF will mine on BENQI and Trader Joe.

• At the end of September 2021, participate in the mining of the cross-chain bridge project Synapase

• In January 2022, participate in the mining of Platypus, a stablecoin-for-protocol

As of January 22, 2022, the total assets of the two wallets marked by Nansen as Alameda in the AVAX ecosystem are 1.04 billion US dollars. The funds of the two wallets are as follows:

Wallet 1: total assets of 1.398 billion US dollars, avax network assets of 940 million US dollars, accounting for 68%;

Wallet 2: total assets of 946 million US dollars, avax network assets of 100 million US dollars, accounting for about 11%

It can be seen that the Defi project of the AVAX network has become the focus of SBF's current mining investment.

The Defi projects that SBF is currently participating in, the current funds are as follows:

• BenQi,Lending agreement, $256 million

• Aave,Lending agreement, $231 million

• TraderJoe,Decentralized Exchange (DEX) Liquidity Pool, $80.3M

• TraderJoe, lending service, $64 million

• Blizz,Loan agreement, $84 million

• Synapse, asset cross-chain bridge, $59 million

• Platypus,Stablecoin swap protocol, $195 million

Summarizing the mining behavior of the SBF team on these mining pools, it is not difficult to find the following characteristics:

Intervene in the head mine for the first time：Because the initial rate of return in the mining pool is relatively high

Adhere to the principle of "digging and selling":After the stable currency production, the SBF team will convert the harvested platform currency into value currency or Stablecoin almost every 1-2 days.

Whoever can go for nothing will go for nothing:The above-mentioned Avax ecological SBF participates in the mining project. According to the public information, only Aave participates in the investment of Alameda. The advantage of prostitution of other institutional investment projects in mining pools is: since there is no investment in Token lock-up, there is no burden of "digging, withdrawing and selling" to smash the market.

No additional investment:Although SBF invested 195 million US dollars in mining on the Platypus platform, it did not buy $PTP Token in the market to pledge to help APR. Instead, it harvested the Token mined every day and reinvested it in pledge to increase the rate of return.

risk control:The SBF team carries a large amount of funds to mine on various platforms. The biggest risk is being donated, so the security of the platform needs to be evaluated.

Adopt Stablecoin mining as much as possible:Since SBF holds a large proportion of USDC, USDT, DAI and other stablecoins on each platform for liquidity mining, the impact of the recent market crash is limited.

So what are the benefits of SBF on these projects? Take the recently participated Platypus project as an example:

The total number of Token rewards in the booster pool is 60 million, and the SBF investment accounts for about 32% of the TVL of the project. When the TVL remains stable, the number of Tokens harvested by SBF at the end of one year of mining is about 19 million. According to the existing The currency price is 3.5 US dollars, and the estimated Token value is 66.8 million US dollars; the annualized rate of return is 34%. Of course, this is only a theoretical estimate. With the change of TVL and currency price, the rate of return will change greatly.

Due to the mechanism design of Platypus, PTP Token needs to be pledged to obtain APR assistance, so SB continuously reinvests the mined PTP to obtain the high APR of the assistance, and has not yet sold the mined PTP Token.

But investment profit is a matter of time, which is determined by the investment behavior itself; it can be seen from the previous investment behavior of SBF.

Short SBF of Defi Token

At the beginning of September 2020, SushiSwap founder Chef Nomi was angered by SBF after running away with donations. Nomi simply transferred the management rights of SushiSwap to SBF. Soon, the excited SBF fans were slapped in the face by the heroes in their hearts, and SBF "digged and sold" all the way to keep the price of SUSHI down.

In October 2020, SBF was reported to have pledged a large amount of FTT, SUSHI and SRM on the decentralized lending platform Cream Finance, and simultaneously lent ETH and USDT worth US$24.5 million, as well as various DeFi coins such as UNI, MTA, CREAM, LINK, etc. , Short profit on the trading platform.

He explained this: Defi mining on Ethereum has a big bubble, and he shorted certain coins, not out of malice, but simply felt that the value was overestimated. And when the market crashed, he was criticized by many for buying what he believed to be undervalued from panicked sellers.

The SBF of "mining and selling"

According to relevant reports, in May 2021, SBF carried 4.3 billion US dollars to mine on the BSC and Polygon chains, of which 2.5 billion US dollars were bet on BSC chain Venus, PancakeBunny, Belf.fi, Mdex and other platforms, earning 230 million dollars a day. Ten thousand U.S. dollars.

SBF's consistent "mining, raising and selling" approach is considered to be an act of emptying out the project, which makes the project's currency price slump, and has caused dissatisfaction among many BSC ecological investors. Some netizens even said, "The entire bsc will be dug up by SBF." !"

After the mining of the project currency price was almost over, SBF almost completely withdrew the funds previously participating in the liquidity pools of the BSC ecosystem.

Summary and inspiration

As a senior player in the Defi field, SBF's investment behavior has attracted the attention of many investors. On the one hand, people have great confidence in the security of the projects that SBF participates in, and on the other hand, they are worried and complain about its behavior of smashing the market, which makes the currency price plummet.

In the face of investment in the currency circle, everyone is responsible for their own investment decisions. Although people have different opinions on SBF, giving others the expectation of heroism, or imagining that big players will be merciful when they make profits, is itself a manifestation of immature thinking.

Ordinary Defi players can participate in some high-quality projects early by paying attention to and learning from the investment behavior of big players like SBF, and withdraw in time before big players smash the market.