yuexiaoyu111

【Airdrop Tutorial】The First Decentralized Data Derivatives Protocol Overlay's Final Sprint Before Token Launch: Zero-Cost Airdrop on Testnet

Sharing a project that allows for a zero-cost airdrop; those with time can prepare in advance!

1. What exactly is Overlay?

Overlay is the first decentralized data derivatives protocol on the BNB chain. Simply put, it enables people to trade real-world data on the blockchain, just like buying and selling stocks or cryptocurrencies. @OverlayProtocol

What makes it special is that what you can trade isn't just ordinary assets, but various 'quirky' data indicators, such as:

- How much ETH is burned daily on Ethereum (cryptocurrency-related)
- The number of viewers for a specific streamer on Twitch (social media data)
- The price of a skin in the CS2 game (gaming assets)
- The temperature of a city (real-world data)
- Even the trends in adult content (non-traditional markets)

This data is turned into tradable derivatives by Overlay (like futures or options), allowing you to 'bet' on the rise and fall of these data points using cryptocurrency on the platform.

For example, if you think the audience for a specific Twitch streamer will surge, you can buy a 'call' contract to profit from the price difference.

Overlay transforms all real-world data into a money-making game.

It creates a brand-new market where you can trade things that were previously impossible to trade.

2. How is Overlay achieved?

Firstly, there is no counterparty required on this platform:

Traditional trading needs someone to buy and someone to sell (like the stock market).

Overlay uses a mechanism called dynamic minting/burning to automatically generate trading contracts with its token $OVL.

Whatever you want to trade, the system will 'create' it for you, eliminating the need for others to trade with you.

This allows niche markets (like game skins, weather) to trade easily, as not many participants are needed.

Thus, the reliability of data sources is crucial for this platform.

Overlay collaborates with data providers like Pyth Network to ensure that Twitch data, weather, game skin prices, etc., are accurate and real-time.

3. Why is this project worth participating in?

Firstly, it's a brand-new market.

Overlay expands DeFi beyond just the 'traditional' assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum. You can trade in emerging fields like Twitch, gaming, and weather, attracting many people, especially young individuals, gamers, and data enthusiasts.

This 'novelty' could make it spread quickly like short video platforms, drawing in large numbers of users.

Crucially, it addresses liquidity issues:

Many niche markets (like CS2 skins) have little trading activity due to the lack of buyers or sellers. Overlay's no-counterparty mechanism allows these markets to become active and trading to be more convenient.

Additionally, it has support from major institutions:

The project has raised $2.21 million in funding, backed by big names in the crypto space like Polychain, 1kx, and ParaFi. Their confidence in Overlay's potential indicates that the project has a solid foundation.

There is also high potential for returns:

As it is an emerging market, price fluctuations can be significant. If you have unique insights into a certain field (like gaming or social media), you could earn high returns through trading. Of course, high returns also come with high risks.

4. How to participate in this project?

Overlay TORCH is set to launch on the BNB chain TGE, and is currently in the final sprint phase before the mainnet launch and OVL IDO — referred to as the TORCH initiative.

Now is the perfect time for veteran players to engage deeply and for new players to stake their claims early; you can claim test tokens OVL, and then trade these test tokens on Overlay to earn points, with around 6,000 participants already involved.

- Trade on the Overlay testnet to earn daily updated point rewards.
- The OVL and tBNC claiming center is located in the official Discord's #claim-ovl channel, or you can visit the claiming center directly.
- Each address can only claim once, please use it wisely and don't lose it all in the first few minutes!
- The system will recognize abnormal trading behavior; volume manipulation is ineffective; frequent traders with excellent performance will earn more points.
- The activity period is expected to last 3-6 weeks, with a total of 2% of tokens allocated to the best-performing users.

In summary, this is a zero-cost project worth exploring if you have the time!

《Discussing the Bitcoin Ecosystem CeDeFi Platform BitFi: Why is CeDeFi an Inevitable Path for the Development of Our Industry?》

After Bitcoin became a strategic reserve for the United States, it needed to find a larger narrative space.

My view is that the narrative of Bitcoin will shift from 'digital gold' to 'interest-bearing digital gold.'

Bitcoin now needs to address this important proposition: how to turn Bitcoin into an interest-generating asset?

The core of Bitcoin's interest-bearing aspect is where the interest actually comes from?

In this cycle, we will find that many wealth management products using neutral arbitrage strategies have emerged.

Traditional neutral arbitrage strategies are commonly seen in stock and futures markets, but the rise of projects like Ethena indicates that this strategy is expanding into the crypto asset realm.

The 24/7 trading, high volatility, and cross-chain opportunities in the crypto market provide new soil for neutral arbitrage.

Among them, BitFi applies neutral arbitrage to BTC through the CeDeFi model, filling the gap in the BTC yield market.

This project is very typical, and we can take a closer look. @Bitfi_Org

1. Let's first look at how BitFi operates.

BitFi's CeDeFi model combines the stable income mechanism of CeFi with the openness and composability of DeFi, creating a unique yield generation system.

Its core strategies include:

(1) Neutral Arbitrage Strategy: BitFi captures market fluctuations and cross-platform price differences for low-risk arbitrage, ensuring sustainable returns. This strategy does not bet on the direction of BTC prices but relies on algorithms to capture short-term market efficiency differentials.

(2) bfBTC Asset: Users can stake BTC to obtain bfBTC, which is a BTC-pegged yield asset issued by BitFi. Users can earn additional returns in DeFi protocols (such as Balancer pools or the Hemi ecosystem) while retaining the base value of BTC. Compared to Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), the feature of bfBTC lies in its yield generation function.

(3) Layer2 Integration: BitFi collaborates with Bitcoin Layer2 solutions like Bitlayer to reduce transaction costs and enhance the utility of BTC in DeFi.

2. Where does the interest provided by BitFi come from?

The yield sources provided by BitFi for users are mainly divided into two parts: CeFi and DeFi.

(1) CeFi Part

The yield in the CeFi part is primarily realized through BitFi's centralized operations and neutral arbitrage strategies, allowing users to obtain stable returns without directly participating in complex operations, making it suitable for beginners and high-net-worth individuals.

BitFi utilizes neutral arbitrage strategies to capture low-risk returns through cross-platform price differences and market fluctuations, providing users with BTC (bfBTC) and stablecoin yield pools (bfUSD, to be launched soon). Users deposit assets into the pool, and BitFi is responsible for executing arbitrage strategies and returning profits.

To be more specific, the sources of income can be further divided into three categories:

Financing Rates: Utilizing positive financing rates from perpetual swap contracts.

Basis: Utilizing favorable differences between spot and derivative market prices.

Staking Rewards: Integrating staking rewards of the underlying assets.

(2) DeFi Part

The yield in the DeFi part is achieved through BitFi's integration with decentralized protocols and Bitcoin Layer2, allowing users to directly participate in the DeFi ecosystem and gain higher yield potential and flexibility.

Here, the yield is mainly provided by ecological partners.

bfBTC is the yield asset pegged to BTC launched by BitFi, allowing users to invest it in DeFi protocols (such as Spectra Finance, Hemi's Balancer pool) to provide liquidity and earn trading fees and related returns.

3. To summarize

The yield sources of BitFi's CeFi and DeFi form a 'dual-track system':

CeFi provides a stable, low-threshold yield track that attracts traditional investors; DeFi offers a high-potential, composable yield track that attracts crypto-native users.

This dual-track system is not only a competitive advantage for BitFi but also a key driving force for the upgrade of the BTC ecosystem from 'value storage' to 'interest-bearing assets.'

It can be said that BitFi has set a benchmark for the CeDeFi model, potentially triggering other projects to follow suit and accelerate the financialization of the BTC ecosystem.

We can continue to keep an eye on this project.

《Decentralized Computing Power Track Leading Project Aethir Data Analysis Report: Insights into the Present and Future of the DePin Track》

The leading project in the decentralized computing power track, Aethir, has been a focus of mine for some time.

Aethir's recent launch of the Eigen ATH Vault allows community users to participate in the revenue sharing of its decentralized GPU network by staking ATH tokens.

This time, let's analyze this project from a data perspective to help everyone assess whether it is worth participating in. @AethirCloud @AethirMandarin

1. Core Data Breakdown of Aethir

According to information disclosed by Token Terminal, Aethir's cumulative fees have reached $55 million, with an annual income of approximately $110 million.

This level of income is impressive in the decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) field. In comparison, competitors like Render Network have an annual income of only around $40 million.

Aethir's network covers 95 countries and has 425,000 enterprise-level GPU containers, showcasing significant scale advantages.

Let's take a look at some key data:

(1) Quarterly Revenue and Fee Conversion Rate:

From the quarterly fee and revenue charts provided by Token Terminal, in the second quarter of 2024, Aethir's fees were $25 million, and revenue was $20 million, with a conversion rate of fees to revenue reaching 80%.

This conversion rate indicates that Aethir's profitability is good, but 20% of fees are still used for network maintenance and community incentives.

In contrast, centralized cloud services like AWS typically have an operating cost proportion of around 40%, so Aethir's decentralized model indeed has advantages in cost control.

(2) Daily Active Addresses and User Growth:

At the beginning of 2025, Aethir's daily active addresses stabilized between 5,000 and 7,000, representing a year-on-year increase of about 30%.

This growth trend is closely tied to the boom in Web3 gaming and AI applications.

In 2024, the global cloud gaming market grew by 20%, reaching $5 billion, while the AI training market also grew by 25%, projected to reach $300 billion by 2027.

Aethir's user growth demonstrates that it has seized opportunities in high-performance computing demand.

(3) Network Scale and Governance Structure:

Aethir's network has over 91,000 Checker Nodes, held by more than 22,000 community members.

This decentralized governance model reduces the risk of single points of failure, and compared to centralized cloud services, operational risks are approximately 15% to 20% lower.

Additionally, in 2024, Aethir added nodes in 10 new countries, increasing its coverage by 12%, which is much faster than the expansion rate of centralized competitors.

2. Aethir's Cost Advantages

To evaluate the quality of a business model, one aspect is to look at revenue, and the other is to examine costs.

(1) Cost Advantages of Decentralized GPU Networks:

Aethir has reduced computing costs by about 25% by integrating idle hardware resources globally.

For comparison, NVIDIA's A100 GPU has a market price of about $10,000 to $15,000, while Aethir's distributed model significantly lowers the usage costs for enterprises through a sharing economy approach.

For example, an AI company training a model with 75 million parameters might need to rent 10 A100 GPUs for a month at a cost of around $100,000 using traditional methods, but through Aethir's network, this cost could drop to $75,000.

This cost advantage gives Aethir a strong competitive edge in the AI training market.

(2) Smart Contract Deployment Strategy:

Aethir's smart contracts are deployed on Ethereum and Arbitrum, with Arbitrum as a Layer-2 solution reducing transaction costs by about 70%.

At the beginning of 2025, Ethereum's average gas fee was around $5 to $10, while Arbitrum's was only $1 to $2.

This choice not only lowers Aethir's operating costs but also makes its services more accessible to a broader range of users, especially in better serving developing countries (which make up 50% of its coverage).

This will allow Aethir to capture a larger market share among small and medium-sized enterprise customers.

(3) Competition with Centralized Cloud Services:

Compared to centralized cloud services like AWS, Aethir has advantages in cost and flexibility. AWS's GPU instances (like G5) are charged by the hour, costing about $3 per hour, while Aethir's on-demand usage model could reduce costs to $2/hour.

Moreover, Aethir's community governance model allows it to respond more quickly to market demands, such as adding coverage in 10 new countries in 2024, while AWS's regional expansions typically take several years.

3. Is Eigen ATH Vault Worth Participating In?

First, let's mention several advantages:

(1) Passive Income: By staking ATH, users can earn a certain annual return, providing a stable source of passive income for those who are optimistic about Aethir in the long term.

(2) Ecosystem Support: Staking ATH supports Aethir's GPU network, helping it serve more AI and gaming enterprises, indirectly promoting the value growth of ATH.

(3) Low Barriers to Entry: The Eigen ATH Vault lowers the threshold for participating in the Aethir network, allowing users to share in the profits without needing to operate their own nodes.

Overall, Aethir has secured a position in the high-performance computing market through its decentralized GPU network, cost advantages, and data transparency.

The Eigen ATH Vault, as part of its ecosystem incentives, provides users with the opportunity to participate in revenue sharing, while also reflecting Aethir's strategic layout in attracting community support.

We can continue to keep an eye on this project.

Opportunities in Crisis: After the Cetus Theft, Who Will Become the First DEX in the Sui Ecosystem?

1. The first question: Does the Sui ecosystem still have a chance?

The largest DEX in the Sui ecosystem—Cetus—has experienced a theft incident, but this security issue is not due to the Sui public chain itself, rather it is due to a vulnerability in Cetus's smart contract (calculation precision issue).

On the other hand, the Sui Foundation reacted swiftly, working with validators to freeze funds on the hacker's address through the 'ignore transaction' mechanism and plans to further recover assets transferred across chains, which resulted in no substantial loss of funds.

However, the TVL in the Sui ecosystem has recently rebounded, indicating that some of Cetus's funds have flowed to other protocols.

People will vote with their feet; overall, the market's attitude towards the Cetus theft incident can be seen: this is a singular project security incident, and funds still have confidence in the Sui ecosystem.

From another perspective, a gap in the DEX track has emerged in the Sui ecosystem, and other competitors naturally have a great opportunity to seize the chance in a crisis, inheriting the liquidity of the Sui ecosystem.

Behind every crisis is an opportunity; chaos is a ladder of ascent.

2. Who will become the first DEX in the Sui ecosystem?

Currently, the DEX with the most momentum in the Sui ecosystem is Momentum. @MMTFinance

Momentum's TVL has reached $60 million, and it has grown rapidly after the Cetus incident, indicating that it has attracted some funds that flowed out of Cetus.

The current focus of the community on Sui ecosystem DEXs is actually on security.

Momentum excels in security:

(1) Five-layer security architecture: Momentum employs a five-layer security mechanism of multi-signature, smart contract testing, real-time monitoring, formal verification, and external auditing, significantly reducing the risk of hacker attacks.

(2) Rapid response capability: After the Cetus incident, Momentum quickly suspended withdrawals and self-audited its code to ensure fund security, winning community recognition for its real-time crisis handling ability.

(3) Transparency: Momentum publicly shares its code audit reports and collaborates with the Sui Foundation for security upgrades, enhancing user trust.

In addition to its own security mechanisms, Momentum has received strong endorsements: investors include the Sui Foundation, Coinbase, and other institutions, raising $10 million, which further enhances its competitiveness in the ecosystem.

This is why, after the Cetus theft incident, Momentum was the first DEX to resume operations and inherited a large amount of liquidity.

3. To summarize

The technical foundation of Momentum and the support of the Sui Foundation make it very likely to dominate in the mid to short term.

So what opportunities are there for ordinary users during this crisis?

To capture market share, Momentum has launched the latest incentives:

- SUI-USDC: 196% annualized return

- USDC-suiUSDT: 20% annualized return

- All liquidity pools have 3x points incentives

It can be said that currently, the Momentum platform offers the highest incentives in the Sui ecosystem, making it very worthwhile for DeFi mining users to take advantage of these post-crisis benefits.

Wherever the funds are, there are opportunities; we can continue to pay attention to the Sui ecosystem.

【Suggested to Bookmark】Understand the recently popular Huma Finance with 3 images!

Previously, I wrote three articles about Huma Finance, analyzing the project step by step from shallow to deep.

Here, I will summarize the core viewpoints of the previous articles, which can be systematically summarized with three images. Everyone is welcome to discuss!

1. What is the background of Huma Finance's project?

The founder of Huma Finance is a serial entrepreneur with extensive experience in the payment field.

Huma Finance's business model is very healthy, having established its own stable income and cash flow.

The founder of Huma Finance clearly stated that a significant portion of Huma's tokens will be directly allocated to the community.

Reliable team background + stable business model + project landscape opening up = absolutely a major project!

Investing in a project is essentially investing in people. From the founder's interviews, one can sense their strong sense of belief; how could such a team not achieve good results?

2. What exactly is Huma Finance doing with cross-border payment financing?

Complete process: On-chain users lend funds → Cross-border payment institutions request loans → Cross-border payment institutions provide collateral → Cross-border payment institutions borrow USDC and execute payments → Cross-border payment institutions repay the loan.

Huma has built a lending platform where ordinary users act as lenders, providing sources of funds, while cross-border payment institutions act as borrowers.

In the cross-border payment scenario, the remitter pays the local currency A of country A. If using the traditional Swift settlement system, it takes 3-6 working days and incurs very high fees, involving exchange rate differences and currency conversion fees, usually between 1%-3%.

So, after the cross-border payment institution receives the payment from the remitter, rather than going through Swift, it uses USDC as an intermediary currency, borrows stablecoins on the Huma platform, and then directly converts USDC into local currency B in the target country B. This payment process can be completed within the same day.

Throughout the process, Huma provides short-term financing for cross-border payment institutions in the form of USDC, while the institutions need to find a third-party OTC service provider for one outbound and one inbound transaction.

Huma's entire operational process and business model are relatively clear.

Overall, Huma is building a PayFi platform and PayFi ecosystem. This project can be said to be a combination of practical and narrative projects, worthy of long-term attention.

3. Is Huma's operational model sustainable? What money does Huma actually make? What are the risk points for Huma?

In simple terms, Huma is a lending platform, but unlike on-chain lending platforms like AAVE, where both lending and borrowing are done by on-chain users, Huma targets ordinary on-chain users for lending, while the borrowing side consists of real-world enterprises.

This is why it is said that Huma is also an RWA project, encapsulating real-world assets into on-chain assets, allowing any user to participate without permission or KYC.

We can see that the key lies in the asset side: whether those borrowing the money are reliable, whether there are bad debts, and whether the platform can effectively control risks.

Huma's asset side is of high quality, primarily focusing on cross-border payment institutions, providing them with short-term financing.

First, there is equivalent collateral, meaning the local currency funds received by the payment institution need to be held in a regulated account;

Second, the payment institution has compliance qualifications;

Third, the repayment period is short, within 3-5 days, thus the risk is lower than long repayment periods.

Logically speaking, Huma provides a service like Swift, offering financing rather than the consumer loans or business loans commonly seen in P2P enterprises, which do not rely on the borrower's credit or long-term operation status.

To answer the initial three questions:

Huma's model is sustainable, with clear demand scenarios, and has been validated in Web2 companies;

Huma earns interest spreads, as cross-border payment institutions are willing to pay for faster and cheaper remittances;

Huma's risk points mainly lie in the security of on-chain contracts and the transparency of off-chain processes, and Huma needs to disclose more information.

Overall, Huma can be said to be a truly good project, worthy of early investment.

@humafinance @DrPayFi