The Baking Sheet - Issue #38

Welcome to this week’s issue of The Baking Sheet! 

Details on the next protocol upgrade (Florence) have been released and now the proposal has been injected for the community to vote on! As we’re moving forward to another era of Tezos’ never ending evolution, we’ve been met with a flurry of ecosystem-wide news and announcements. 

This week’s issue scales back the curtain and coattails on the ever growing theme of adoption.

As Charlie Wiser so eloquently enamored in one of his recent publications, public blockchains derive their value from network effects. These network effects can stem from multiple areas - and we’re seeing growth today in multiple areas within Tezos such as DeFi, Government, NFT’s, STO’s, and more. 

If we circle back to a previous issue, we discussed the intention from OpenSea (the largest NFT marketplace) to bring Tezos NFT’s to their platform. 

Below are a few figures to refresh your memory.

Keeping this chart in mind, NFT’s on Tezos have begun to gain an incredible amount of traction. Platforms such as tzcolors and hic et nunc are selling NFT’s as quick as hot cakes. 

For the disbelievers in NFT’s, I will be posting a publication that delves deeper into the above mentioned statement and also clarify why the very notion and backlash towards NFT’s have pervaded the art world for years here in the near future. 

Progressing along, I would say the most exciting development we’ve seen this week is the growing success of Kolibri from Hover Labs. As of the time of this writing, in just two weeks since launch, nearly $5M worth of tez is locked in ovens. 

This success is worth a bit more examination. 

Like I’ve brought up in the past, the growing DeFi momentum will result in only a net-positive for the Tezos ecosystem. After witnessing the success from Kolibri, I’d like to shift that. 

Seeing the amount of traction and support from community members wishing to participate in these DeFi applications like Kolibri has really made me shift towards the mentality that we’ve truly reached an inflection point within the ecosystem.

What do I mean by that? 

Well, for starters, we’ve all been accustomed to strange market activity as our network prides itself on being a non-hype and non-facilitator of questionable antics to promote increased market reception. The beauty with these protocols such as Kolibri (and we will see more in the future) is that it’s bringing access to liquidity for current tez holders. 

This access is important because it allows for current holders to bake their tez in an oven and mint the algorithmic stablecoin, KUSD. Upon minting, current holders can then use that KUSD on Tezos native DEX’s like Dexter to purchase more tez and increase their stack. 

The benefits posed herein represent not only an allowance for more demand of tez, but the allowance of holders of tez to create more demand for tez by purchasing it on the market through collateralization in a Kolibri oven. 

This impact I feel is under appreciated and there’s much more to come. The work Bender Labs is doing with WRAP Protocol to bring over 20 ERC-20 assets to Tezos, will likely further propel more success for Tezos and DeFi within the ecosystem. 

In terms of STO news, we saw some more traction there this week. A couple of pieces, actually. 

tZERO and ROI Group announced their intention to digitize upwards of $50M worth of value through an STO. This STO will make use of real estate in downtown Dubai, including a luxury hotel. Equally important to note, ROI Group has billions in assets under management so their pivot to utilize Tezos only enumerates Tezos’ focus on security and sustainability to the highest degree. 

Also, Elevated Returns long anticipated Thailand-based STO is nearing completion. As things currently stand, there are billions worth of STO’s slated to take place on Tezos. The gravity and nature of how these offerings will manifest themselves materialistically can be further grasped here. 

Lastly, during TezTalks we had some exciting announcements. The City of Reno, Nevada is working on building a Tezos-based DAO for the city of Reno, dubbed Reno DAO. Additionally, they are experimenting with ways in which they can create a governance token for citizens of Reno to participate in this DAO. 

To add - they will be tokenizing various artworks from the popular Burning Man attraction in Reno! 

The number of banks, real-estate firms, funds, and companies that already have STO’s live on Tezos mainnet is nothing to sneeze at. Neither is the growing momentum we’re witnessing with NFT’s, government adoption, and DeFi. 

What will soon become clear is that Tezos is growing, it will fail to succumb to the material hype of other networks that pride themselves on one metric, and will truly last. The developments witnessed this week and those assuredly to be made in the future, will encapsulate that notion.