Many of you may have noticed the cryptic message that appeared on MetalSwap's social media in recent days. 

The DeFi space represents a deeply dynamic ecosystem, so it should not surprise us that MetalSwap will also undergo changes over time. What kind of changes are we talking about?

Before addressing this topic, it’s time to analyze what has happened along the way since the inception of this project.

MetalSwap’s History

MetalSwap was the pioneering dApp to introduce the hedging contracts derivative product in DeFi.

The project was officially launched in November, 2021, with the product that was released in September 2022 on the Ethereum blockchain and later also on various layer 2 blockchains such as Optimism in May 2023 and finally on Linea in December 2023.

MetalSwap has already received different awards within the crypto sector, the most notable being the award of a development grant directly from the Optimism Foundation and participation in the “DeFi Linea Voyage” campaign.

In today’s article we want to summarize the MetalSwap story, understanding the good and and the bad of tha last few years.

Some Stats about the dApp

Currently, the blockchain with the highest number of open positions on the MetalSwap dApp is Linea, with over 6,600 positions, thanks in part to the aforementioned campaign.

The second blockchain where users have been most active is Optimism, with over 1,210 open positions to date.

The third blockchain by the number of open positions is Ethereum, with 474 since the tool's release. The number of open hedging positions on Ethereum is obviously lower compared to other blockchains mainly due to the transaction costs of this chain, which make any operation much more expensive.

In total, the MetalSwap dApp has facilitated over 8,285 hedging positions in 2 years.

Total Value Locked and Users

Currently, the TVL of the dApp is around $802k, with the ETH blockchain alone accounting for about $590k

Linea is the second blockchain with the highest TVL, around $111,000, and finally, Optimism is the last with $101,000 in value

This TVL has made it possible to open positions with even very significant target sizes over time and is one of the reasons for the success of the MetalSwap dApp.

Thanks to the dedicated Dune dashboard for MetalSwap, we can also analyze the number of unique users who have interacted over time within the Optimism blockchain, which, even though it is not the one that has accumulated the highest number of open positions over the months, best reflects MetalSwap's core user base.

There are 254 unique users who have taken advantage of MetalSwap's hedging swaps, which is an excellent result for such a niche tool as hedging contracts.

A Versatile Product

This product was specifically designed with a strong focus on commodities, tailored to meet the needs of users seeking to hedge against price fluctuations in these assets.

Many reports related to the evolution of the RWA theme show that the tokenization of commodities has experienced very limited growth in recent years in terms of capitalization compared to other sectors of DeFi and compared to the tokenization of other financial assets.

https://app.rwa.xyz/ 

As for the tokenization of commodities, it has so far developed almost only in relation to gold. A digital asset, in fact, that has been integrated into the Hedging Contracts system.
We can see from the chart below that 99% of the capitalization of on-chain digital asset commodities is represented by tokenized gold, mainly in the form of the two tokens $PAXG and $XAUT.

 https://app.rwa.xyz/commodities 

For this reason, the efforts of the Metalswap ecosystem have focused on the implementation of native crypto digital assets, demonstrating in many articles how this product can be extremely useful for many use cases of DeFi users.

It is equally clear that in the on-chain derivatives sector, the market has mainly rewarded products like Perpetual Futures and Options, primarily used on crypto digital assets.
Hedging Contracts have numerous advantages compared to the aforementioned products; nonetheless, the vast majority of volumes in DeFi derivatives come from these latter two types of products.

Rethinking MetalSwap

Today, MetalSwap is a dApp that has created and consolidated its position as a market pioneer in the decentralized hedging contracts sector but also has the need and desire to evolve.

Much has been done to create the first decentralized Hedging Contracts and this pioneering role in DeFi has been recognized by major projects, as mentioned earlier, primarily Linea and Optimism.

However, now it is time to take on new challenges and expand its market!

Very soon, there will be extremely important announcements for MetalSwap and its community!

At the moment, we cannot add anything more, but we recommend you follow our X profile and the official blog to stay updated on upcoming developments. More To Come!

-The DeFi Foundation

✎ What is MetalSwap?

MetalSwap is a decentralized platform that allows Hedging Contract on financial markets with the aim of providing coverage to those who work with Digital Asset and an investment opportunity for those who contribute to increase the shared liquidity of the project. Allowing the protection for an increasing number of operators.

With Hedging Contract we enable hedge swap transactions through the use of Smart Contracts, AMM style.

It's great to Hedge the Risk of Price volatility with MetalSwap dApp !