October has been an incredible month for MetalSwap, featuring the proposal for deployment on Linea, the publication of Research and Development articles, the MetalSwap Unveiling series, the launch of new MetalSwap Competition and much more. Let's summarize everything that happened in this incredible month in the customary Monthly Recap.

The agenda we will follow is as follows:

• Project Updates
• OP Grant Reporting
• Learning Activities
• Development Preview
• Community Activities

Project Updates

• MIP - 5 Proposal Passed

On October 26th, the 5th MetalSwap Improvement Proposal was launched, suggesting the release of MetalSwap's Hedging Contracts on the Linea blockchain. This Layer 2 solution utilizes zero knowledge technology and MetalSwap, as a leading dApp in the field of Hedging Contracts, aims to expand to this blockchain, representing the pinnacle of Layer 2 innovation available today.

Thanks in part to the previous experiment conducted in the Testnet during the Linea Voyage Program, which gathered impressive statistics such as 148,000 open hedging swaps and thousands of NFTs for liquidity providing positions created, the DeFi foundation put forth this proposal.

It was voted on Snapshot and received 38 million favourable votes and zero unfavourable XMT votes, demonstrating that the community is eager for this innovation. Now, we await only the technical timelines for the official release of smart contracts on this new blockchain, marking the beginning of a new chapter in the history of this dApp.

MIP-5 on SnapShot

• MetalSwap competition  - Galxe Evolution

As every month, the new competition was launched, named this time "Galxe Evolution." This included a division into two parts, the first, the classic one, with the prize money divided among the authors of the best Hedging Contract and the second, totally new, awarded the participants in a marketing campaign launched on Galxe.

Unfortunately, due to security issues related to Galxe and totally detached from MetalSwap, this second part was cancelled, thus remaining active only the classic part of the MetalSwap Competition, which had a total prize pool of 1000 USDC.

• XMT Incentive Celer Bridge Deposit

The MetalSwap team has decided to allocate an incentive that will last three months for depositing XMT tokens on the Celer bridge.

In this regard, the foundation has made 450k XMT available for all those who decide to deposit their tokens on the different blockchains, distributed as follows:

$BNB : 200k XMT

$ETH : 200k XMT

$MATIC : 50k XMT

It is important to note that the rewards derived from this incentive will be paid on Ethereum's Mainnet, even though the deposit is also made on other blockchains such as BNB and Matic.

Official Tweet on X

• RiskOff Hedging Contracts

As stated in the dedicated article, initially, our tool was associated with the nomenclature “Hedging Swap”. However, the team noticed that the word "swap" created some confusion because this term, within DeFi, has taken on a completely different role, usually associated with decentralized exchanges.

So, in the month of October, the team decided that it was time to change the payoff of our tool, which is now "RiskOff Hedging Contracts" to also refer to the underlying functionality guaranteed by smart contracts. This new nomenclature will help new users to quickly understand the aim of MetalSwap.

OP Grant Reporting - Some stats about October

The grant offered by the Optimism foundation continues to incentivize the use of the dApp, both in terms of opening new positions and for those interested in liquidity providing operations. Let's now look at how many OP tokens have been distributed and other statistics from the last month.

• OP token distribution

Currently, the only OP tokens distributed are those related to the opening of new positions within the dApp, as rewards for liquidity providers will be distributed on December 23rd. In October, the dApp distributed more than 1200 OP tokens to all those who opened hedging positions within the dApp.

As of today, a total of 10,406 OP tokens have been distributed, which, at the current value of $1.89 per token, corresponds to $19,667.

• Opened Position

Now let's take a look at how many Hedging Contract were opened in the month of September:

On Ether, 12 positions were opened.

On WBTC, 2 positions were opened.

On OP, 77 positions were opened.

Learning activities

It has been a very productive month from the point of view of new articles and learning activities published within the official blog. We summarize everything that was released in this section.

Let's start by summarizing two articles that were published in October exploring two different possible use cases of the dApp in the world of decentralized finance.

• Aave Deposit

The first article published in this category addresses a use case where a user who has requested a loan on the Aave dApp can use MetalSwap's Hedging Contracts to protect themselves against the volatility of the asset provided as collateral. This way, they can significantly reduce the risk of their loan being liquidated. The article provides an example using ETH as the underlying asset, but it's important to note that this use case is already applicable with other tokens available on the dApp. 

• SNX staking

The team is continually studying new possible applications of MetalSwap's Hedging Contracts in the world of DeFi, and this month, particular attention was given to a theoretical application of MetalSwap's smart contracts to Synthetix's dApp.

In fact, if SNX were present within the dApp, according to research completed by the team, it would be possible, for the first time in the history of DeFi, to fully protect itself regarding the c-ratio that governs the staking and issuance of s-usd within Synthetix.

This is a theoretical possibility since SNX is not present on the MetalSwap dApp today but this type of item demonstrates the capabilities and possibilities of our smart contracts!

The main communication effort of the month of October saw the release of four episodes of the MetalSwap Unveiling series, which are articles aimed at explaining, in the simplest manner possible, the functioning of the dApp. Here is a summary of what has been published:

• What is a Hedging Contracts

A user that is unfamiliar with the dApp can read this article as an introduction to the MetalSwap world. In "What is a Hedging Contract," the article explains what MetalSwap's smart contracts are, and what purpose they serve, providing an immediate overview of the dApp's objectives and functionality.

• Long and short position

A second step to take after understanding what MetalSwap's hedging contracts are is definitely to understand what it means to open a "long" or "short" position within the dApp. These two articles address all the doubts that a new user might have regarding the opening of hedging positions within the dApp.

• Understanding Frontend in DeFi

The latest article published in the Unveiling section was "Understanding Frontend in DeFi" Here, the team focused on explaining the capabilities of a dApp like MetalSwap, which, in addition to being used through its frontend, can also be utilized directly without the mediation of a graphical interface that aids in interacting with the contracts— which are the true strength of MetalSwap.

Finally, other activities such as the usual Market Volatility Overview, an AMA with Celer, and an introductory article on RWA completed this section.

• RWA article 

A topic that has exploded in recent months in the world of DeFi is definitely that of Real World Assets, and MetalSwap is extremely interested in this type of asset that may be implemented within the dApp in the future. Following the development of this specific category of digital assets derived from the real world is, therefore, of utmost importance to the MetalSwap community and the publication of these informative articles helps the community to stay up-to-date regarding developments not only in MetalSwap but in the entire DeFi.

MetalSwap Knowledge - Exploring RWA

• AMA with CELER

As we saw earlier in the Project Updates section, the team is forging a fruitful collaboration with the Celer bridge team. In the month of October, an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session also took place on Celer's official X channel, where two members of the MetalSwap team introduced our dApp to the Celer community. Various interesting topics were discussed, including the origins of MetalSwap, the integration of this bridge within the dApp and the future of MetalSwap.

• Market Volatility Overview

Finally, as is customary every month, the episode of the Market Volatility Overview has been released. This series of articles analyzes MetalSwap's areas of interest, such as commodities or the DeFi world. In this sixth episode, particular attention was given to the situation of crude oil, which experienced a significant upward spike in the month of October.

Development Preview

• Hedging Contracts on Linea

Certainly, the most interesting development coming in November will be the official release of MetalSwap's smart contracts on the Linea blockchain. This is expected to happen by the end of the month, and after deployment, a new chapter in MetalSwap's story will unfold.

• XMT Birthday

On November 19, 2021, XMT, the project's governance token, was created. Since that day, much has changed, and MetalSwap has evolved into a comprehensive dApp. Let's get ready to celebrate this birthday together, dear Swappers!

• Marketing Campaign

Despite the challenges faced with Galxe in the last campaign, the team is exploring new possibilities to introduce the tool to new users. In the coming weeks, new DeFi campaigns may be launched, so stay tuned!

Community Activities

Let's conclude the October Monthly Recap by analyzing all the community activities, especially within the official forum, the project's governance hub.

• Forum Incentive Discussion

The first discussion launched on the forum was regarding the implementation of an incentive to encourage the creation and publication of ideas related to MetalSwap's development within the forum. The community discussed the implementation of an incentive for those who show dedication to the project and contribute to its development.

• TEMPCHECK

The MetalSwap community was called to vote on two TEMPCHECKs, which are polls within Snapshot that help the team gauge the community's opinion on certain decisions that need to be made. The two polls this month concerned the choice of which stablecoin to use on the Linea blockchain and the amount of stablecoin to allocate to operate hedging swaps on this new layer 2.

It's been a lengthy recap, a sign that October was a month of hard work that led to many tangible developments by the community.
That's all for this recap!

Stay informed, stay involved, and let's continue to shape the future of DeFi together!
-The DeFi Foundation

MetalSwap official forum

✎ About MetalSwap

MetalSwap is a decentralized platform that pioneers Hedging Contracts in the financial markets. Our mission is to provide coverage for digital asset operators and investment opportunities for liquidity contributors. With MetalSwap, we're revolutionizing the DeFi landscape with AMM-style Hedging Contracts.

RISKOFF HEDGING CONTRACTS with MetalSwap dApp!