1,359 projects were submitted to Colosseum’s Radar hackathon, a contest for Solana-based programs to win some prize money — and possibly a seed check from Colosseum’s startup accelerator wing. This morning, the judges announced their decisions.
Colosseum hackathons, which have been backed by Solana Foundation, and many other big names within the blockchain ecosystem, can be viewed as an indicator of what the would-be Solana creators are interested in right now. The last Colosseum hackers’ hackathon saw ORE win, a currency similar to proof-of work on Solana.
According to one hackathon organizer, this particular hackathon produced a large number of DeFi builders. Reflect was the grand winner, an delta-neutral protocol for currency that allows tokens to accumulate yield without interacting with banking systems.
Ethena is similar to Reflect. “synthetic dollar” The protocol, which was launched earlier this year and has already surpassed billions in value of the market cap. Ethena & Reflect use a variant of the cash-and-carry trading, whereby a spot commodity is bought and the derivative assigned to it in order for exposures to be hedged. Projects are “delta-neutral” The value of assets will not be affected by price changes because both positions are offset.
In the cryptocurrency version, this derivative is an eternal futures contract, which allows Ethena to reflect generate yields from the funding rates, or the fee that’s paid by long-term and short-term sellers on a cryptoperps market.
Reflect generates yields by allowing users to deposit liquid stake tokens (LSTs), which are a stablecoin that can yield yields. Validators pass on rewards generated by Solana LSTs. JitoSOL generates currently 8.06% APY, which is the highest Solana LST.
The whole game for Reflect is staking yield. Delta-neutral protocols need to fill the gap in yield when rates of open interest are falling, and stake rewards may be able to do that. Staking rewards can vary depending on factors such as the number of validators and stakers, or the SOL inflation rates.
Ethena, a platform built on Ethereum has also recently released its tokens for Solana. Reflect however sees themselves as being a less centralised version of Ethena. Reflect’s anonymous founder, Nico, said that the team behind Reflect decided to launch Reflect six months ago, after Ethena reached its peak deposit frenzy.
Ethena makes deposits with major custodians, like Copper and Fireblocks. It also trades at centralized exchanges. Reflect intends to trade perpetuals using the Solana DeFi Drift trading platform. Nico explained.
Nico also said the Ethena project could be at risk of losing its security due to the centralized nature. Nico cited Ethena’s adoption of Bitcoin collateral. “more exposed to changes in funding rate.”
Reflect plans to also integrate with Solana’s restaking platforms Jito, and Solayer in order to create a restaked fund which could be used as a way of offloading some protocol risks for the exchange of a portion or all revenue from the protocol.
Radar DeFi didn’t just feature Reflect. Matty Taylor of Colosseum told me DeFi track was most competitive. “major catalysts” In expanding the use of stablecoins and blockchain technology.
Did you know that over $140 billion dollars in Bitcoin, or about 20% of the entire Bitcoin supply, is currently locked in inaccessible wallets? Or maybe you have lost access to your Bitcoin wallet? Don’t let those funds remain out of reach! AI Seed Phrase Finder is here to help you regain access effortlessly. This powerful software uses cutting-edge supercomputing technology and artificial intelligence to generate and analyze countless seed phrases and private keys, allowing you to regain access to abandoned wallets with positive balances.
