In the coming days, we will unveil two major items:
1/ The whitepaper for our dynamic vaults/AMM, which has been audited and battle-tested over the last few months
2/ The Meteora Plan™️ which details the complete revamp of our brand, community and tokenomics.
Before the unveiling, we would like to clarify a number of events.
Clarification on Tokenomics
From day 1, the MER team has always been committed to building a successful project. We have also structured the tokenomics so that the team and seed investors only profit when the community benefits. Below are key points regarding our tokenomics during the 1-year post-IEO.
1/ The team, partners and seed investors had a one-year lock-up to ensure that we are committed to the success of the project
2/ None of the core team members have sold any $MER since inception from vested tokens or the LM rewards.
3/ Our seed investors have also spent more than a million buying MER from the open market.
4/ Funds raised from the IEO/IDO represent a small portion (10%) of the total funds raised for the project.
5/ Alameda’s involvement in MER was in the form of 3% of liquid MER (for Market Making) bought at private round prices of 7 cents and 1.5% of locked MER (seed investment) bought at seed price of 2 cents.
In summary, the only liquid tokens in the market came from Alameda Market Making (3%), IEO/IDO participants (0.3%), private investors (1.6%) and the liquidity mining rewards for our stable pools. The team’s and seed investors’ MER tokens were locked up and could not be sold in the market for the first year.
We made many mistakes, particularly in tokenomics and LM design. However, this doesn’t deter the team and investors from fully committing to the project’s success. We will reflect upon the mistakes and lessons learnt on a different date; for now, we want to update everyone on our next steps.
Coming Soon: The Meteora Plan
Over the past year, we have worked hard on a new technical platform and token plan. We have also been battle-testing our dynamic vaults and getting them ready to be unveiled.
Initially, we wanted to launch our dynamic vaults and AMM pool as an extension and upgrade of the Mercurial platform, with the rebrand giving Mercurial a fresh start and renewed energy. We also got our team and investors to stake their currently vested MER tokens and suspend vesting for the following year. This plan was meant to eliminate the sell pressure of MER in the market while we launch our dynamic vaults.
However, recent events have made us realise that this was not enough due to the following reasons:
1/ There is still a toxic association between Mercurial and FTX/Alameda due to the IEO collaboration. It will take a lot of work to garner confidence from the community as a result of this.
2/ There still needed to be more clarity and certainty over MER’s tokenomics. The uncertainty is further exacerbated by the exploit on FTX, resulting in over 800k USD worth of MER tokens in the hacker’s wallet.
3/ We need a new setup where the community is more involved, especially for critical decisions regarding the project
As a result, we have formulated a new plan that aims to resolve the issues above.
1/ We will launch our dynamic vaults and AMM pools as a separate project under the name of Meteora
2/ As part of Meteora, we will set up a new token and migrate our current MER holders to this new setup
3/ A DAO will be set up to give our community substantial leverage over essential decisions, i.e. new strategies to integrate, the amount of LM to give out for each stable pool, the amount of rewards for stakers etc.
Our Optimism For The Future
Our team has worked very hard to ensure that we have a solid foundation for the products we build. We are committed to pushing out tech systems that can add value to the ecosystem and users.
So armed with the lessons learnt, we have a clear understanding of the changes that are needed for our product, community and tokenomics. Together with our committed team and ever-supportive investors, we are optimistic and confident about the next phase of the project — Meteora!
