Patience is the best teacher. After waiting for more than two months, Aptos was recently launched on the exchange. During this period, everyone has witnessed a lot of articles and information about Aptos and move language. The Aptos ecosystem has also developed rapidly during this period. Many solana ecosystem project parties have also begun to switch to Aptos. Coupled with high amounts of financing, the crypto industry is also looking forward to the launch of Aptos on the exchange. Binance, Coinbase, OKX, Huobi and Matcha have all expressed their intention to launch Aptos on the 19th.
According to Grumpy Rabbit's experience, there are often many operational possibilities when a large project is launched. Therefore, we also conducted a drill before the launch to obtain certain opportunities through corresponding strategies. The purpose here is not to create anxiety for everyone, but to summarize the operations before the launch.
Price Estimation
The biggest problem with Aptos’ estimated price is the economic model. Previously, the Aptos economic model was not public. Later, the Korean exchange Upbit announced the economic model, and then the official released a simplified version, so Grumpy Rabbit was able to estimate the price.
Token Allocation
We see that institutions account for 13.48% of the share, and the project financing is about 350 million. Assuming that these are the institutions and there are no other special channels, then the average price of the institution should be 2.6u, because there are relatively large differences in the prices obtained in different rounds. For example, the price of the angel round is much lower than that of the A round, and the price of the A round is also much lower than that of the B round. There were rumors in the market that some institutions got a price of 1u. Crazy Rabbit believes that this information has a certain degree of credibility. This is also a key information for the subsequent estimation of the market value.
Unlock Information
Here is a guess, why Upbit was able to obtain Aptos’ economic model information? Cranky Rabbit believes that it is mainly due to the strict restrictions on the listing of coins on local exchanges in South Korea. New coins need to be strictly reviewed before listing, so this kind of information is very likely to be easily obtained by South Korean exchanges.
In addition, the collapse of Luna has also caused the Korean exchange to be officially investigated by the regulatory authorities recently. Therefore, the listing of new tokens will naturally be more stringent. If there is no economic model, it will naturally not be allowed to go online to prevent the emergence of a second Luna. In the eyes of regulators, even the well-known Aptos is actually no different in essence from ordinary tokens of the exchange, and it cannot be relaxed just because of its good background.
Since the economic model is made public the day before the market opens, we can see the initial circulation volume, and then by comparing it with the existing rankings, we can easily deduce the possible price range and the corresponding market value, and then make a comparison to estimate the possible reasonable price range.
The circulation volume 1 is the total amount, and the initial circulation volume is the total amount that can flow in the market when it is first launched. The corresponding price is estimated from the range of 1-64u.
Finally, we determined that the price estimate would be in the range of 5-15, and the corresponding ranking should be between 27-57, which is a more reasonable position. Although the error of this estimate is relatively large, there are still many opportunities for projects that have just been launched.
Opportunities to participate
The main opportunities for participation are divided into the following categories:
1. Moving bricks on the exchange
Arbitrage in exchanges mainly relies on the price difference between different exchanges to buy - withdraw coins - recharge - sell. Now, the normal transactions of most currencies do not have price differences for arbitrage. The main reason for arbitrage of new coins is that there is an information gap between CEX exchanges and DEX. Therefore, the risk of machine arbitrage is relatively large, which provides us with an opportunity. We need to prepare wallets and cross-chain bridge tests, etc.
Of course, if you find that there is also information gap between CEXs, you can also move directly. The main considerations for moving bricks now are hand speed and team cooperation ability. There are relatively few opportunities, so you need to prepare in advance. The most optimistic thing for Cranky Rabbit is moving bricks from DEX to CEX. As for moving bricks between CEXs, there are actually many similar robots. Therefore, if you encounter one, act decisively. If not, just treat it with a normal mind.
2. Open leverage/contract futures and spot arbitrage
To put it simply, if the opening price reaches our estimated price, then we can short the contract. In this way, when moving bricks, we can lock in the price in advance to prevent price fluctuations and exchange coin jams. This is also the correct way to open a contract or leveraged short. This is how the contract was originally played. Some people call it hedging, which is generally used by miners for mining.
Now, many people who trade contracts in the market often do naked short selling, which means they do not have spot goods on hand and directly short sell. If the price rises, there will be great risks. Here, Cranky Rabbit does not recommend that you speculate in this way.
Because Grumpy Rabbit has participated in the Aptos testnet activity before, and some nodes were selected, without knowing when the coin will be issued, we also chose to open the contract short and wait for the testnet rewards to be issued and a wave of decline will occur before we can lock in profits in advance.
Of course, considering that some exchanges may have the situation of single-machine coin pulling, we still need to observe the actual situation after the opening and cannot rush in immediately. Although it turned out that we thought too much here, we must maintain awe of the market.
Afterwards, Aptos conducted an airdrop event, and some of Grumpy Rabbit’s accounts were lucky enough to be selected. In this case, there is a high probability that the price will fall from its high point, and the probability of a gradual decline is relatively high.
3. Open a short order and sell spot goods
Opening a short position to smash the spot is a temporary plan before the market opens. According to the current overall market trend, research reports from some institutions, and predictions and comments about Aptos from many people on Twitter, as well as a comparison with the trends of previous airdrop projects, it is believed that the project is likely to reach its peak at the opening. Therefore, if there is an opportunity, a short position will be arranged.
Because we have airdropped spot, we don’t have to worry about losses (there is no loss with airdrops, the only question is how much you can earn). Therefore, if the price is high, there should be many people who make the same choice as us. At this time, we should just follow the general trend.
Practical operation summary
1. Airdrop
The airdrop information was released before the official opening. The airdrop this time was 20,076,150 million. Since there were many accounts that met the requirements held by the Grumpy Rabbit, there was a shortage of staff in the community. The ideal situation at this time was the third one we mentioned earlier, opening short orders, borrowing coins with leverage, and smashing the spot. Before smashing the spot, you need to claim the airdrop, which takes more time, but the overall operation is quite satisfactory. Because of the error on the front end of the claiming page, there was some delay, so we focused on claiming the airdrop.
2. Issues regarding opening a contract
Although the exchange said it would open contracts, there was also news that Aptos would not allow the exchange to open contracts within two weeks. It was found that Huobi had contracts, but the account was shown as unavailable. This delayed some time. Matcha and OK also opened contracts, so we can use the hedging strategy we mentioned. The spot token collection seems a bit slow because it is still in progress, but locking in a higher price still has the advantage. Although the result of the short operation is not satisfactory, it still plays a hedging role.
3. Margin lending
I planned to use leveraged borrowing to sell, but the Matcha Exchange refused to lend me the coins, so I couldn't do it. If the leveraged borrowing went smoothly, I could dump the coins in advance and then buy them back at a low price. However, given the large fluctuations at the opening, I guess the exchange is not willing to take on a big risk. It is also possible that all the coins have been borrowed, so this path is not feasible.
Finally, Grumpy Rabbit also kept some accounts and did not choose to sell them. They were used for Aptos domain name registration and the layout of other projects. For the Aptos ecosystem, there is still a certain degree of playability, so appropriate layout can be considered.
Next focus
In the short term, the price of Aptos is more related to the market receiving airdrops and selling. Generally, receiving about 50% within three days is a relatively normal value. In a bear market, people are more inclined to sell, so the proportion of airdrops received on the first day will be relatively higher, and there will be relatively more market crashes. After minting 50%, the market will gradually return to rationality, and it will enter the value discovery range. That is to say, if the project price is relatively overvalued, it will gradually fall, and vice versa.
If you need a more detailed analysis, you can look at the number trends of airdropped cold wallets, hot wallets, and exchange wallet tokens to determine whether the selling spree is over.
During the value discovery period, the valuation of airdrop projects needs to be more precise. It is often relatively difficult to accurately value projects during this period. The 5-15 previously estimated by the community cannot guide further operations within this range, so we need to use other methods to re-estimate future trends.
Some thoughts on wool airdrop
Projects are common but good wool is rare. The actual operation process this time did not strictly follow the plan before going online. Instead, the focus was on getting wool. The contract tool was used as a hedging strategy to lock the price in advance to prevent large-scale losses. This idea is correct. At the same time, the Grumpy Rabbit also made some summary of the project wool.
1. High-quality projects
The main point of the wool activity is that the project party has grasped the dominant position. Therefore, for users, unscreened interaction is very tiring. There is also the situation of counter-stealing. Therefore, the core still lies in the selection of high-quality projects, which is very critical. For example, uniswap, 1inch, dydx, and ENS are all high-quality projects and are also known to everyone. Only such wool can be rewarded. If it is an unknown project or a project that most people have never heard of, its wool will not seem to have so much gold content.
2. Pay attention to official channels
In addition to selecting high-quality projects, you also need to pay attention to the project’s Twitter and official activities so as not to miss out on possible important information. For example, aptos wrote on its official Twitter in early September before the airdrop that it would release a testnet NFT. The official NFT must have a high gold content and is worth paying attention to.
3. Prepare tools and resources
You need to fully prepare tools, such as fingerprint browsers, common account resources, IP resources, low-cost server resources and other resources. If you don't have enough manpower or time, one or two hundred accounts will be enough. Generally, a big account is worth hundreds to thousands of U, and a hundred accounts are only tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of U, which is also of very high value.
Getting the wool is a probabilistic event, and luck is relatively high. Currently, the circle is relatively competitive, so you may consider not going where there are too many people, and you can choose to do some of the difficult ones (unless you have plenty of time).
Finally, overall, the idea of Crazily Rabbit in receiving airdrops and performing pre-launch operations is correct. Although there are some variables, this part is also taken into consideration during the airdrop token launch process. For players, online transactions and airdrops may be relatively simple, but how to receive and maximize profits is also a topic worthy of further discussion and thinking.