This article covers the most important details that you should know about the upcoming mainnet launch of SundaeSwap, which calls itself “the sweetest decentralized exchange on Cardano”.
What Is SundaeSwap ($SUNDAE)?
SundaeSwap is “a native, scalable decentralized exchange and automated liquidity provision protocol”.
It is backed by cFund (“an early-stage sector agnostic venture firm in the Blockchain industry anchored by IOHK and managed by Wave Financial”); Alameda Research (the quantitative cryptocurrency trading firm and liquidity provider founded by FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried); and Double Peak Group (“a family office focused on investments in the digital asset and blockchain space”).
Here is why the SundaeSwap team decided to build a DEX on Cardano:
“… in simple terms Cardano is faster and cheaper than the alternative smart contract platforms. It also is run by a non-profit foundation and regularly collaborates with high profile academic institutions. All in all it is more advanced and a better option for future projects to be built upon.“
SundaeSwap Goes Live on Public Testnet
On 6 December 2021, the SundaeSwap team announced that they had gone live on Cardano’s public testnet, which prompted a seemingly delighted Charles Hoskinson (Co-Founder and CEO of IOG) to invite members of the Cardano community to “go get some ice cream.”
SundaeSwap’s Upcoming Mainnet Launch
In a blog post published on January 7, SundaeSwap Labs started by telling fans that they could “expect a very exciting announcement in the next few days”, which has to be related to the upcoming mainnet launch (likely to occur later this month).
The SundaeSwap team then tried to set expectations of the Cardano community ahead of the launch of the Cardano-powered DEX on the mainnet.
They first pointed out that during their testnet launch event, they “noticed a large backlog in processing user actions”, which was “partially due to continued improvements to the Scooper order batching program, but was more due to the current maximum throughput parameters of the Cardano blockchain.”
SundaeSwap’s Upcoming Mainnet Launch
In a blog post published on January 7, SundaeSwap Labs started by telling fans that they could “expect a very exciting announcement in the next few days”, which has to be related to the upcoming mainnet launch (likely to occur later this month).
The SundaeSwap team then tried to set expectations of the Cardano community ahead of the launch of the Cardano-powered DEX on the mainnet.
They first pointed out that during their testnet launch event, they “noticed a large backlog in processing user actions”, which was “partially due to continued improvements to the Scooper order batching program, but was more due to the current maximum throughput parameters of the Cardano blockchain.”
SundaeSwap Mainnet Launch FAQ
In a blog post published on January 15, SundaeSwap Labs provided the following key dates and takeaways:
- “Thursday, January 20: SundaeSwap will launch as a fully-functional beta decentralized exchange (DEX).
- Tuesday, January 25:The first round of ISO rewards will be calculated. ISO participants must delegate ADA to qualifying ISO Scoopers prior to 21:45 UTC on January 25th to be able to earn SUNDAE for all five ISO rounds. See below for more details.
- Thursday, January 20: Yield farming SUNDAE rewards begin. Yield farming will be available for at least the first six months of the SundaeSwap DEX, and during this period, LP tokens staked to yield farming contracts in eligible pools can earn additional SUNDAE rewards.“
The team then talked about the three ways of getting hold of the $SUNDAE token:
- “Participate in the ISO (available during Cardano epochs 316 through 320).
- Earn yield farming rewards (available January through June).
- Swap other tokens for SUNDAE on SundaeSwap and other participating DEXs (this is a change of plans, see the section on the Taste Test on why).“
ISO stands for Initial Stake Pool Offering. The basic idea is the people delegate their $ADA to stake pools taking part in the ISO and every epoch (five days), these delegators are given tokens by the DEX.
The SundaeSwap ISO will start on January 20, and will “continue for five epochs, with rewards (5% of the total SUNDAE supply, 1% per epoch) being distributed based on the snapshots that will be taken at each epoch boundary.”
To “participate in each ISO reward round”, it is necessary to delegate before the follow dates:
- Round 1: January 25th (21:45 UTC)
- Round 2: January 30th (21:45 UTC)
- Round 3: February 4th (21:45 UTC)
- Round 4: February 9th (21:45 UTC)
- Round 5: February 14th (21:45 UTC)
The SundaeSwap team points out that “as long as you are delegated to an official ISO Scooper (find the list here) before the snapshot is taken, your rewards will be calculated for the epoch you staked in.”
In order to ensure you qualify for all five ISO reward rounds, you need to have $ADA staked (“with eligible SPOs”) prior to 21:45 UTC on January 25. The reward will be “calculated based on the snapshot taken at that time, and at the same time at each subsequent epoch boundary.”
500,000 $SUNDAE will be “allocated daily over at least the first six months of the DEX’s operation to yield farmers participating in the following liquidity pools:
- SUNDAE/ADA
- LQ/ADA
- WMT/ADA
- CARDS/ADA”
The list of eligible pools will be “adjusted by community vote later as the ecosystem grows and stablecoins launch.”
DISCLAIMER
The views and opinions expressed by the author, or any people mentioned in this article, are for informational purposes only, and they do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice. Investing in or trading cryptoassets comes with a risk of financial loss.
