The following document belongs to the “New Dapp Report series”, a set of executive reports that intend to provide users with a high-level perspective of new decentralized applications (dapps). The document focuses on aspects that are relevant for any decentralized application including financial, social, technical and if applicable, tokenomics as well.
Please, do not consider this document as financial advice.
Category: Decentralized Finance (DeFi)
Blockchain: Ethereum
Dapp page: https://dappradar.com/ethereum/defi/shibaswap
Project overview
ShibaSwap (Shiba) is a Decentralized Exchange (DEX) within the Shiba Decentralized Ecosystem (DEco). Currently, Shiba runs on Ethereum offering token swaps, staking, and yield farming. ShibaSwap relies on three main tokens: SHIB, LEASH, and BONE.
Originally conceived as an experiment with community governance and decentralization, SHIB was once viewed as a meme coin. Currently, ShibaSwap aims to establish itself among the top DEXes on Ethereum, and potentially become the engine for the Shiba DEco under a DAO model.
Financial overview
Looking at traditional and blockchain financial metrics, ShibaSwap does not appear to have any potential risk figure. Revenues generated within the last 7 days are estimated to be around $70,000 per day. When compared to bigger protocols like Uniswap ($2.3 million daily revenue), the gap is still considerable. On the other hand, when compared to Curve, one of Ethereum’s most used dapps, the difference is attainable ($153,000; Curve’s daily revenue). (I)
Overall, early indicators around revenue, Total Value Locked (TVL) and usage, signal a promising outlook for the dapp’s future.
Traditional metrics
- Funding round amount (ICO, IEO): No publicly known fundings or offerings
- Accumulated Revenue (July 6 – 18): $310,0001
- Revenue exit rate: $9,300,000
Blockchain metrics
- Total Value Locked: $1.47 billion (-4.47% from the previous week2)
- Total Value Locked representation (%):
- 1.87% in terms of Ethereum
- 1.43% in terms of overall DeFi ecosystem
- Usage – Unique Active Wallets (UAW)
- July 12-19 UAW daily average: 10,312 (83.33% increase from previous week)
- July 19 UAW: 15,390
Token overview
Differently from other DEX platforms, ShibaSwap relies on 3 tokens. Overall, the tokenomics look well designed. The tokens complement one another, bringing a balance between supply and utility. Although all three tokens are largely volatile, which can be a common behaviour in newer projects.
- SHIB: The dapp’s native token. Launched in August 2020, 40% of SHIB’s total supply was burnt by the founding team as a signal of commitment to the project’s outlook.
- LEASH: Labeled as Doge Killer, originally designed to rebase on Doge’s price. Once the project was launched, it was redesigned to counter SHIB’s massive supply.
- BONE: Designed to be part of the liquidity mining program, this token is offered as an additional reward for participating in staking or liquidity pools that involve any of the other two tokens. BONE’s minting process will decrease progressively as the project scales.
Social awareness & engagement
The community around this project, #ShibArmy is probably one of its biggest strengths. Shiba currently has more Twitter followers than other DeFi dapps like Uniswap or Sushiswap. If and when the DAO is fully functioning, the community aspect will become even more important for the Shiba ecosystem.
- Twitter: @Shibtoken
- Followers: 745,000
- Social media reach: +3M people
- Followers growth: -53% from previous month
- Reddit: r/SHIBArmy
- Followers: 201,000
- Discord: https://discord.gg/shibatoken
- Members: 93,500
- Telegram: https://t.me/shibainuthedogecoinkiller
- Members: 191,000
Team overview
While the team behind ShibaSwap remains anonymous, they have managed to successfully relate relevant news and events across social media platforms. For instance, they act swiftly on both Telegram and Discord to solve inquiries enhancing the customer experience. It is clear that the ShibaSwap team is not just a group of unknown, random developers. However, in this case, accountability is preferred over anonymity.
- Creators: Ryoshi Research (pseudonim)
- Team size: Unknown
Technical overview
According to Certik, a well renowned security-focused ranking platform, the project seems technologically efficient. Security Scoring gains importance within the DeFi context. The team solved most of the auditor’s recommendations in a swift and transparent manner. Overall, the security of the dapp seems to be acceptable.
Auditor(s): Certik
Security Scoring: 90/100
Audit status: 33 out of 34 issues solved
Technical issues: Potential sandwich attack (II)
Active Contracts: 14
Hacks count: non available
Multisig address: 0x38e1d4314a38c60C6ab3b98b0a89a4411D839d44
Requires 3 out of 5 signatures to be approved
Architecture
Conclusion
Overall, ShibaSwap seems like a solid project. Once labeled as another dog meme coin, Ryoshi Research helped improve the project’s outlook. A well-defined roadmap (including a timely SHIB burn) and attractive features have lured users since the project’s launch. Its current TVL represents almost 2% of a very competitive Ethereum DeFi space. It will be interesting to see if ShibaSwap can reduce the gap with DeFi leaders like Uniswap, Aave and Curve by properly leveraging their three tokens.
Aside from the financial metrics, the dapp’s community and social aspects look impressive. With active social media channels and an agile team, the Shiba community looks ready to boost the project to new heights. Finally, the security aspect which is fundamental, especially in DeFi, seems robust. Having a recognized audit certificate improves trust in the project.
Footnotes
(I) – The data contained in this report was retrieved on July 20, 2021. Accumulated revenue estimated = 0.5% from total transactions volume.
(II) – When pair.swap() is triggered for a trade of asset fromToken for toToken, an attacker observing this transaction can manipulate the exchange rate by frontrunning a transaction to purchase one of the assets and make profits by back-running a transaction to sell the asset.
