LFG candidate - ZPY, a utility token for Zippy Stake Pool

Jupiter DAO LFG Introductions
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  • Intro Questions:
  • Introductory Story: How did you get to today, and what do you want to do next?

My journey into into crypto started several years ago with Ethereum and then Cardano, and finally realized in 2021 that Solana is the way. Been running a validator node on Solana testnet since epoch 293 and on mainnet since epoch 470. As I have been coding my whole life and also been in various business roles over the years, both the program and Defi side of Solana has always had a very strong appeal to me, and am now finally dipping my toes into it properly with a new non custodial stake pool called Zippy Stake Pool.

  • Describe your project in 5 sentences.

Zippy Stake pool provides competitive liquid staking using the standard SPL stake pool program, and offers an LST called zippySOL when you stake, very similar to jitoSOL, mSOL and bSOL. The next step is to mint a coin, ZPY, that can be used for not only governance (similar as JTO and MNDE, control delegation strategy and treasury decisions), but will also allow holders to get a share of the proceeds from the Zippy Stake pool. The proceeds come both from epoch staking fees and also from liquidity pool proceeds from LPs managed by Zippy. As people increasingly stake, trade zippySOL & ZPY and engage with Defi, as a holder of ZPY, you benefit.

  • Tell us about your team

At the moment it is just me! Actively recruiting. If you want to join - let me know!

  • Social Handles

Discord: @kagren
Tg: @kagren0

  • Background information in the ecosystem - previous projects or web3 experience

Validator operator & founder of www.zippystake.org

** Jupiter Ecosystem and you

  • Main pitch on how the product collaborates with the Jupiter & Solana ecosystem

At the moment liquid is staking is quite centralized with the big three holding most of the liquid staking TVL (Marinade, Jito and Blaze). Stake pools help decentralize the network to spread stake across many validators which strengthens the network. Thus, the more stake pools there are, the better for the Solana network as a whole. To steer Zippy, open governance is key, which will be possible with a future governance token (ZPY), and those who take time to govern should be entitled to compensation as well. This compensation comes from proceeds from staking to Zippy (supporting decentralization) and liquidity provider fees for ZPY and zippySOL (supporting a healthy defi ecosystem).

  • Describe partners, supporters, or collaborative efforts

Defi integrations are key for an LST to succeed. Liquidity pool on Marinade and discussions onging with others to support a rich defi environment.

  • Potential synergies between you and Jupiter users, DAO, holders, etc.

Zippy is a supporting decentralization and promoting utility, just like Jupiter. As holders of the ZPY token, Jupiter users will be able to influence the future of Zippy as well as earn while doing it.

  • Approximate date for TGE

April 2024

  • Vision Category:
    • If your project were to succeed, how would it fundamentally change the web3 space?

Increase decentralization by supporting more validators, and increasing the total TVL of LST which will bring more liquidity and Defi opportunities to all.

  • What would you say is your biggest challenges or obstacles as a project?

In this early stage, the main challenge is the “cold start” problem - achieving enough critical mass (staked zippySOL) to be able to attract Defi collaborators. When/if TVL increases, another key challenge will be to build an active community to help govern Zippy and evolve the ecosystem.

  • What advice would you give to another team launching a token in web3?

Focus on the utility. Don’t get me wrong, I love the odd meme token like the next guy, but without utility, long term success is very hard to achieve.

  • What is something most tokens get wrong, and what steps are you taking to ensure that you won’t experience these pitfalls?

See above. Utility is key.

  • Appendix/About
    • Website
  • Socials links

https://twitter.com/ZippyStake

  • Community links
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Wanted to elaborate a bit on the importance of LSTs and the governance of them. Less than 5% of staked SOL in Solana is currently liquid. Does this mean that the current liquid stake pools have failed? No, I think is it too early to pass that verdict.

Stake pools are an important mechanism on the network to decentralize stake - and thus increasing the resilience of the network. I fully support directing stake to a single validator (disclaimer: I also run a validator), but to follow Anatoly vision, we need thousands of Validators! Stake pools are an important mechanism for that. For that we need both more stake pools, but also other clever LST initiatives like Sanctum, for example.

As the number of Stake Pools grow and hopefully we will have more than 3 that control the majority of pooled stake, the governance of these pools really matter! A very large pool wields a lot of centralized power and can act as kingmaker of certain validators if it so wanted.

To counter this, effective, transparent and incentivized governance is key. Those who commit their time to help govern the stake pools do something really good for the network, and there should be an incentive for that. That is at least the thinking behind the ZPY governance token for the Zippy pool

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Hello! Please, what is you sales/acquisition plan to convert direct stake to liquid staking?

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Hey! Thanks for the excellent question. There is no one single solution, bu here is what we will do:

  • Help to educate of what it means to stake with a single validator. We of course fully support if someone wants to give support to their favourite validator which is really great! But if you are looking just to get top APY, by staking with a single validator you open yourself up to risks like commission rugging and your staking reward is linked directly to the performance of the selected validator. Also you may contribute to concentrating stake with may not be optimal for overall decentralization.
  • A key part to grow the volume we believe is to incentivise people to deposit their single validator staking accounts to Zippy Pool. We will do this by offering a points multiplier for SOL that is converted from a single validator staking account set up prior to 2024-02-15. This is not yet live on the site but should be up in a few days.
  • The amount of points one collects will be directly correlated to how big allocation one would get in the upcoming ZPY token launch (and thus also how much percentage of the pool proceeds you would be eligible for as a ZPY token holder). Jito did this a while back when they had their points program prior to the JTO launch, which I thought was a really nice initiative.
  • The points system is already live, you earn points already by staking to get zippySOL, and as mentioned depositing a staking account (once the feature is live) will give you a multipler. A leaderboard will be available in the next few days.
  • Ultimately, it is not only about incentives but to continuously showing the benefits and values of liquid staking. One key aspect that we will be working on always is to get as many defi integrations as possible up asap. First up will be an incentivised vault on Kamino that should launch very soon. We have an open door policy - we are open for anyone wanting to collaborate with us to help grow the LST ecosystem
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We have gotten questions on the tokenomics of the ZPY governance reward token, and here is our initial thinking. Feedback is most welcome! You can read this also on https://docs.zippystake.org

  • Total supply: 1,000,000,000 (fixed)
  • Allocation:
    • Initial airdrop, 20% = 200 000 000
      • Distribution
        • 80% (160 000 000) to past and current zippySOL holders. Distribution will be allocated based on the amount of points by the snapshot date (yet to be determined)
        • 20% (40 000 000) to key contributors and advisors that have helped to grow the Zippy Stake pool until the ZPY token launch.
        • Team and advisors: 20% = 200 000 000
        • Initial liquidity, 10% = 100 000 000 (including liquidity incentives during introductory period)
        • Staking rewards: 40%, a reserved amount of ZPY reserved for paying out additional rewards for stakers during campaign events
        • Business development: 10%, e.g. partnerships, collaborations, marketing
  • Pool proceeds
    • Proceeds from the Zippy Staking Pool, such as epoch reward fees, withdrawal fees and any fees earned from liquidity fees in pools funded by Zippy, will be used as follows
    • 20% of proceeds are used to buy back ZPY and burn the tokens
    • 30% of proceeds are used to cover operational expenses of the pool
    • 50% of proceeds are distributed to ZPY holders. Those who take activate part in governance will receive a larger share of the proceeds.
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Looks good. Is there any initial liquidity available for launch purpose. Only concern is the team size in relation to the token size. Hope it improves.

Best regards,

VJK

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Hi VJK,

Thanks for checking out the proposal! Regarding team size, yes for now it is myself doing all of the work, but hope to have some brave members join soon to help grow the project. Regarding liquidity, yes there will be liquidity provided for ZPY, just like there is already liquidity provided for the liquid staking token zippySOL (on Orca and Meteora).

Please let me know if you have any other questions!

Best regards

Kristofer

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Bullish on all LST projects on Solana, would love to see this one launch. The large % of SOL that is natively staked shows just how much liquidity can be unlocked in the ecosystem.

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I love this I joined your discord, how much sol is staked currently on zippy? what is the profit margin currently? this seems so early and very ambitious launching on LFG, team size is defintely my biggest concern. What is your next goal? are you going to add more pools of any sort? another suggestion would be to make website more appealing and have informative links.

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Thanks for the interest! TVL for Zippy is currently only ca 160 SOL, but we are just getting started. The proceeds come from the stake pool fees, 3% on the epoch rewards (which is ca 8% APY), so for now there is not much to share, but as TVL grows, this will be become much more meaningful.

We just launched a borrow/lend pool on Solend, please fee free to check that out. Regarding team size, we are actively looking to expand te team with 2-3 core members. Feel free to reach out if you want to join or have someone you recommend.

Regardig next goals, the backlog looks like this:

  1. Get incentivized vault set up on Kamino. Ongoing dialogue with Kamino to make this happen in the next few weeks. The vault will pay out zippySOL and bSOL (because we want to support other LST projects) incentives.
  2. Add more information on the web site about the points program and a leaderboard
  3. Marketing to grow TVL in anticipation of the ZPY launch
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A short update from Zippy!

  • TVL has been on an explosive journey going from 160 to 520 SOL as of this writing in the last 12 days!
  • Another Defi integration for our liquid staking token is done, this time it is Hawksight, and you can now deposit your zippySOL into incentivized Hawksight strategies providing over 100% APY
  • We have been getting a lot of questions about liquid staking token and what is a liquid staking token, so we added a quick primer to our docs: What is Liquid Staking? - Zippy Stake Pool
  • In summary, the quick TVL growth is getting us closer to launching the ZPY governance/reward token. More information on the proposed tokenomics are also available on docs.zippystake.org
3 Likes