Sharky 🦈 — #1 NFT-lending protocol ($SHARK application for LFG)

Jupiter DAO LFG Introductions
41

Thank you @Aro

Why do you say that supply is low? Isn’t it just a number? Like it could be 100M at $1 or 1B at $0.1

We chose 100M a while back because it seems to strike a good balance in terms of the psychology of “how much of the token an avg. individual will hold”. E.g. with meme coins it’s not unusual to hold 2B coins that are worth $0.05 and after a certain point, because those numbers are so large, it becomes hard to compare. So for $HARK, we were trying to strike a balance with keeping 1 $HARK to be worth something tangible. Like in the range of $0.2 - $20 which makes all calculations and perception of numbers more humane.

(All very subjective, but just explaining that there was a thought process behind)

1 Like
42

I’ve got to say, I’ve been a fan of what you’re building and have enjoyed using your product. But when I look at these tokenomics, with over 21% allocated to private, VC, and seed sales, and considering their unlock schedules, I’m reminded of some old DeFi projects that didn’t quite make it. Many of them had similar setups, and when their tokens started unlocking, we saw prices take a hit they couldn’t recover from, despite overall market improvements. I want to keep supporting you, but I’d feel a lot more confident if the token release strategy offered a more gradual and balanced approach.

5 Likes
43

Interesting that you compared volume in ETH but mentioned how much you have achieved in Solana - it might be helpful to see some comparisons of market penetration in Solana to get a better sense of the Sharky experience in the Solana ecosystem, too.

I am confused by your answers in the Vision section. I’d like to hear more about how focusing on culture will help avoid pitfalls in tokenomics. What tokenomics or “long-term incentives” are you planning to provide value to your token to help avoid the launch curve you described in your proposal?

While it is true that “there are numerous examples of meme-tokens that reached massive success while having no utility and no meaningful tokenomics,” I wonder about longterm sustainability and the health and growth of the Solana ecosystem - are you saying that team energy and culture are what you will contribute to the Solana ecosystem? Is that your growth strategy?

1 Like
44

Thank you for the feedback and the support @123 !

What would be a more balanced approach?

We consulted quite a bit of project and tokenomics experts and it was an aggregated conclusion that those terms are a good balance between “attractive enough terms for investors” and “conservative enough terms to sustain price impact”. It’s not an easy balance to have, but it seems there are plenty of projects launched recently with a similar distribution that did pretty well. I think social aspect and quality of investors play a bigger role. While there are all kinds of players, I hope we communicate through our grit that we are here long term (as we have been so far) and we are growing! We are also focused on good market making, DEX management and post TGE price-action. Our goal is to minimize the classic “pump-dump” curve, yet preserve some exciting volatility in contrast with $JUP launch for example which had a very slow-moving price. (not a bad thing, just a contrast)

We also eliminated clifts, after analyzing an amazing article by 6MV We Analyzed 5000 Token Unlocks - This is What We Found - 6MV

Hope this helps, and as usual DMs are open https://x.com/restuta

1 Like
45

Hey @waterlenz, appreciate your detailed questions!

Interesting that you compared volume in ETH but mentioned how much you have achieved in Solana - it might be helpful to see some comparisons of market penetration in Solana to get a better sense of the Sharky experience in the Solana ecosystem, too.

We compared Sol to ETH, because ETH is a bigger market. The chart for SOL would look even more skewed toward Sharky haha. What would you like to see for SOL to get a better sense of our experience in the Solana ecosystem?

I’d like to hear more about how focusing on culture will help avoid pitfalls in tokenomics.

Focus on culture will not help avoid pitfalls in tokenomics. It will help make those pitfalls have far less significant negative outcomes though. And given it’s not an obvious point we felt like it makes sense to highlight that.

What tokenomics or “long-term incentives” are you planning to provide value to your token to help avoid the launch curve you described in your proposal?

The most important ones - ensuring the longevity of our team, the sustainability of the business, and aligning our incentives with token success. Regarding incentives to hold and buy a token:

  • direct platform utility (details to be announced)
  • strong incentives to stake token
  • redistribution of tokens from the open market to holders (details to be announced)
  • using our token for incentives new vertical we are launching
  • having an additional utility that is more social (to be announced)

The token and its utility is a product, it should evolve and have a roadmap tied to major company initiatives, so that is how it going to work.

I wonder about longterm sustainability and the health and growth of the Solana ecosystem - are you saying that team energy and culture are what you will contribute to the Solana ecosystem? Is that your growth strategy?

Yes, I am saying that. But I am not saying that it’s the only contribution. W/o culture there is no growth. Solana already has a culture that I’ve heard being described as “committed, friendly (well it’s a controversial one haha), open-minded, builders”. Our culture is “cute, kind, helpful”, so we lead by example by being of the best brands and communities on Solana. Sharky has already brought a lot of people on Solana and was a stepping stone to NFTfi journey and etc.

E.g. things like:
https://x.com/0xBanana/status/1759315157509881866?s=20
https://x.com/leveragedin852/status/1689274208260362242?s=20

Aside from that and what I mentioned in the article (pretty much educating the entire Solana space about NFT loans, having build top 1 protocol, distributing millions of dollars to holders and lenders, helping with pNFTs and etc.), we also attended ~10 Solana Hackers houses, organized and sponsored events, brought builders to the space and spoke about Solana and Solana’s NFT market at conferences and panels (including large ones like NFT NYC). Helped numerous founders and teams to fundraise, general UI/UX, and company strategy.

Don’t take my word for it, just ask around, I am curious what you will find people are saying about us, since from the bubble I am at it all looks nice and positive.

Is that your growth strategy?
Depends. It’s our growth strategy for social influence, but not for company metrics.

Then regarding your worry about sustainability – you can check out our existing tokenomics for $FISHY, our platform rewards token: https://fishy.sharky.loans. I have been life for over a year and is one of the most sustainable tokenomics out there, despite the token being by-design inflationary. So at least we have a track record of building tokenomics that works.

Hope this clarifies.

1 Like
46

Thank you - I appreciate all your time and consideration in explaining your perspective further!

1 Like
47

What will the token be used for? Will it be tagged to the loan mechanism i.e. use the funds from token launch to fund your borrowing fund? If that’s the case what’s your NPL (Non non-performing loans) to date and how much of the loans you have given defaulted and struck off as bad debt? If the token is just a meme token with no utility then pls ignore my queries… if it is being used to fund your loans then maybe there needs to be a yield for users who provide liquidity…

1 Like
48

To add to Restuta’s point

A vehicle, similar to a watch, would be

  • verified & validated
  • inspected
  • vaulted and tokenized

The NFT then issued to the depositor. This asset would have to remain vaulted until redeemed. Then the NFT could act like any other on-chain (expect backed by something :slight_smile: )

So if a borrower were to default the NFT would transfer and the vehicle would never move.

1 Like
49

thank you! pretty crazy indeed

1 Like
50

Hey @uanaen, see here on that:

Will it be tagged to the loan mechanism i.e. use the funds from token launch to fund your borrowing fund?

No plan to use funds to use borrowing fund, we have enough lenders that fund that. We prefer to facilitate the marketplace, instead of being a risk underwriter.

and how much of the loans you have given defaulted and struck off as bad debt?

None I think are stuck, when loan defaults, collateral goes to the lender. (I am sure there are some forgotten and not foreclosed collaterals, but that is an issue on lender’s side, not Sharky’s)

So summarize – sharky is not a bank, it’s a marketplace. We don’t underwrite the risk, we just help lenders find borrowers and fix certain risk parameters to simplify decision-making.

Hope this clarifies!

1 Like
51

will you have tier system for airdrop or will there be a ratio like $HARK per x points?

1 Like
52

High quality team, high quality product, and a high quality introduction here on the JUP forum.

Excited to see this token go live :muscle:

The lightest part of this proposal is on the tokenomics - would be great to see more detail around where the demand is coming from, where the supply sinks are, emissions schedules, etc.

1 Like
53

Tired system, similar to one for the farming season as described here:
https://farm.sharky.loans

1 Like
54

Thank you!

Regarding sinks, I posted these in one of the responses above:

  • direct platform utility (details to be announced)
  • strong incentives to stake token
  • redistribution of tokens from the open market to holders (details to be announced)
  • using our token for incentives in the new verticals we are launching this year
  • having an additional utility that is more social (to be announced)

The circulating supply is likely going to be around 15-20% at launch, then investors have a 12-month linear unlock, no cliffs, team has 18. Both have 10% unlock at TGE. Seems like we have followed best practices and found a good balance in the current meta.

55

Sharky! I’ve never been a big fan of NFT lending protocols as they all seem to cultivate a sense of “farming”/“taking advantage of points” and I truly wonder how much volume there’d be without the crazy points/rewards/grind that projects create out of thin air BUT this is not the place for that.

I used your platform for a little while last year and it is definitely a great experience. The UI can be a little confusing for most but there are enough resources to get a hang of how to use it.

My main gripes with the proposal are:

  • Why do you need a token? Your platform has been doing great (as you mentioned multiple times in the post above) without one so why do you need one all of a sudden. All of these platforms on web3 seem to just want to get a token out and then after that they fall apart. Tokens create problems: “investors” (aka people who just bought $50 of $HARK) will constantly complain about price action. The team will be constantly bombarded with “investors” asking “wen pump” and when it dumps they will be blaming everyone on the team. Not a good morale boost for teams and I honestly think this is one of the reasons a lot of projects fall apart after token release. Your platform works seamlessly without a token… Now you could argue for governance but at that point couldn’t you just use your FISHY points or NFTs themselves to be “governance” tools.

  • Your platform is heavily reliant on the current state of the NFT market. During the long NFT bear market (where y’all had your highest volumes) we saw a lot of people take advantage of your loans. Sharky has never been part of a full blown bull market. Does the platform lose all the volume as people would rather hold onto NFTs with price appreciation? How can you even forecast this? Are there products in the pipeline that may help hedge against different market conditions (aka what happens if NFTs just “die” as a medium and volume is abysmal for 6 months)?

Also a quick note, that tokenomics chart doesn’t look very “community/Solana users” friendly. If I’m reading it correctly, the airdrop is 5%, public 1% and private is 6.2%? Seems extremely low compared to VC/Seed/Marketing/Team/Advisory imo.

3 Likes
56

Dope Token Proposal, LFG :fire:

2 Likes
57

im so bulish ! lend and borow your nfts ! good interface. erning points for all of this !

58

Clean proposal, awesome to see Sharky here and will DEF. be voting for you guys. GO SHARX <3

59

Best launch in LFG. Lets go SHARK!

1 Like
60

What % of your token does the LFG launchpad get? 1%?

2 Likes