The DeFi Olympiads is a self-titled experiment in shared responsibility that\’s somehow slipped under most people\’s radar. However, this unique project was responsible had one of the most traded tokens on the network, second only to FTM, when it was released. The project is an attempt to create a sandbox for other protocols to test their contracts in an environment that simulates the real market. How is this done? Read on.
The Setting
The project launched in March 2022 as an incentivized testing environment for participants to test new protocol designs before they interact with authentic assets on the live network.
In a refreshing take for DeFi, this \’guerilla\’ auditing experiment challenges the assumption of decentralized ownership with centralized responsibility. It aims to harness the power of crowds to test new protocols and their contracts. This is done by incentivizing users to break, exploit and collude on experimental protocols.
After all, the buck stops with you in this wild west of DeFi.
The Stakes – TICKETS and MEDALS
To qualify for the games, users must lock up any amount of stable coin \’DOLA\’ in a trustless contract, called the \’Toxicity Bond\’, for a minimum duration of three months. This bond dictates the length of the lock-up duration and can be extended for any of the following reasons:
- Blaming the dev for asset market prices
- Excessive speech regarding any asset market prices addressed to the dev
- Blaming the dev for their actions or lack thereof
- Excessive spam
- Harassments of the dev
- Excessive cult of personality behavior
- Excessive complaining about the rules, the games, or the dev
- Or other reasons not mentioned on this list
Once players lock their DOLA, they will receive a number of TICKET tokens equal to their DOLA deposit. Players can make deposits during the first 7 days of the project commencement. After the first week, no more deposits or players will be accepted.
Aspiring Olympiads are free to use any means necessary (excluding violence) to acquire MEDAL tokens. They can hack or exploit the provided contracts and interface to their heart\’s content. At the conclusion of the event, tokens will be airdropped to wallets that hold MEDAL, if the project successfully launches on main-net. Tokens will be distributed proportionally to each player\’s MEDAL balance.
Check out the official DeFi Olympiad rules page for more info here.
Players are allowed to collude against each other. Bots are fair game and hacking and exploitation of the protocol are encouraged. Let the DeFi games begin!
The First Inaugural Games
By the end of registration for the 1st game, 1,779,400 TICKETs were minted in total showing considerable interest in this new project.
The project released its 1st game in the form of a Continuous Dutch Auction protocol. It allows MEDALs to be bought using TICKETs via a novel bonding curve continuous auction design. The purpose of the first game is to test this new design as an alternative to Olympus bonds which ensure a highly accurate and predictable emission rate.
After the initial release and efforts from DeFi athletes, an updated version of the auction was uploaded for further assessment. Currently, the first iteration of the DeFi Olympiads is still underway at the time of writing this article. Curious readers can check out the current leaderboard here.
The Games Master
As advertised, DeFi Olympiads has no official presence, other than their Twitter and their website. Diligent degen researchers will be able to find an unofficial community-run discord for players in the DeFi Olympiads. Delve deeper into the Olympiad Twitter or community discord and you\’ll find a recurring name, @NourHaridy.
Nour is a known community member of the Inverse Finance DAO. Their primary products are the stablecoin \’DOLA\’ and their governance token \’INV\’.
While I do not think it was ever a secret, it\’s easy to make the connection that Nour is behind DeFi Olympiads and is working on \”replacing Curve with a super gas efficient stable coin bonding curve\”.
Full disclosure – Lrn.Fi could (and maybe will) write a whole overview on Nour and the work of Inverse Finance. However, this writer thought it prudent to make readers aware of the financial ties between the creator of DeFi Olympiad and the stablecoin required to participate.
Please, do your due diligence and do your own research before apeing into any project.
The Future
Since the initial experiment will run until June 2022, users will have to wait until then for a conclusion!
Only time will tell if this experiment will produce positive results or slip into crypto obscurity.
The Update
The first DeFi Olympiads have successfully concluded. The host of the experiment let the community know that due to unexpected events, their focus must be on a prior project. All participants were able to withdraw their initial investments and were left with a final message \’Thank you and farewelll, for now\’.
