7th LPUD
The LPUD is ongoing and it will be the last for the year. If you haven't participated yet, do so and get your share of the Christmas bonus offered by the LEO team. If you're wondering what it is, do check out how to get an LP delegation as big as your power up.
This is the best one yet and add to that the other LPUD prizes which are juicy too. Talk about 20k LEO Power delegation to 3 winners (which I've been a lucky recipient on the previous LPUD) and another 11 different LP delegations from various Lions in the community. I've done my part earlier today and staked 800+ LEO (combined power up of both my accounts).
And speaking of LEO, let me share some of my thoughts about it and why you probably shouldn't miss stacking up too.
LEO, a must-have (must-hodl) asset in the LEOverse
Unless it's your first time around this community, you would already know what LEO is. But for starters, it is a layer 2 token native to LeoFinance, and is one of the main rewards in the community on top of HIVE and HBD. We have written about this in detail and do check it out here if you want to know more.
LEO's Current Features:
Stakable - You can stake it (LEO Power) and use it to curate contents and depending on the weight of your vote, you will earn curation rewards from it. You can also delegate it to other active accounts to curate for you and you will get a share of the curation rewards if you are not keen on curating yourself. Other way to earn from your Leo Power is to lease it via LeoFi where people needing LeoPower offer leases and pay liquid LEO.
Can be pooled in DeFi
There are liquidity pools onchain via Diesel Pool where you can pair your liquid LEO with another Hive assets (ie- BEE, Swap.HIVE, CENT and ONEUP) and provide liquidity and earn different assets as your yield rewards.There's also a farm on BSC via CubFinance where you can pool LEO with BNB and farm CUB at 42.45% APY.
Another farm available is on Polygon via Polycub where you can LP your LEO with MATIC and farm $POLYCUB. Although the APR isn't really attractive.
Personally, I still prefer powering up my LEO and curating manually as it gives me more control over my Leo Power and curation rewards will depend on how often I curate contents and the weight of the votes that I set.
Developments in the LEOverse
Khal had been teasing about the ongoing developments which may have a huge impact on the LEO token. One of his most recent ones being on threads, re:
The new Leo Finance UI may radically change the frontend because the front page is more focused on threads, short-form contents or the so-called microblogging if you may. And the new UI being more tailored for a better user experience is simply awesome and may help onboarding easier since microblogging won't be limited to crypto or finance topics so it is certainly welcoming.
LeoAd revenue - Per Khal, a smart contract is being built to automate the buying back of LEO and distributing them to LEO stakeholders as Leo Power.
Monetization tools for content creators, re:
There are plans to build paywall tools where authors can put some of their publications as premium contents and other users who want to read them can pay LEO, or HIVE or Hive Backed Dollars (HBD). Or may have them as a monthly subscription. LeoFinance ecosystem will get a cut from the payments, buy back $LEO and burn them.
Or authors can turn their articles as NFTs where they or buyers can still earn beyond the 7-day payout period. LeoFinance will also get a cut from the payments, used these to buy $LEO then burn them which will consequently help lessen the supply of the token.
What's the most important upcoming feature?
We are very excited about the new UI which is being built and per Khal, the beta is expected to come out before Christmas and hopefully, next to come out will be the smart contract for the LeoAd Revenues too.
Why?
First, having a better or improved UI and more focused on Twitter-like contents may encourage more users. And the more active users will mean more engagement and activities on the platform which in turn will increase the ad revenues. It will be very interesting to see what changes will come when both will roll out. Personally, I see both of these as the most important features that will come to Leo Finance.
It's pretty exciting when the LeoAd smart contract starts to buy back LEO and distribute them to stakeholders. This is a good method to incentivize those who support the ecosystem by staking LEO for the long-term instead of selling them in the market. So yes, the more Leo Power an account holds, the more share it is going to have in the distribution. And with the smart contract still in the works, we can imagine that the revenues are piling up. If this doesn't encourage you to stack up and stake, I wonder what would.
We do understand that the other features mentioned above (author monetization tools) will take some time to develop but it will be just as important when they get added in the future.
What feature should be added to Khal's list?
Perhaps a send gift or tip button on posts or threads where users can send $LEO as tips to the authors. This will be very helpful especially for posts which are already past the 7-day payout period.
Order of importance of the upcoming features - Personally, I would like them to roll out as follows:
- New UI
- Leo Ads Revenue Smart Contract
- Author Monetization Tools
And the my reason as to why such an arrangement? Perhaps the illustration below can sum it up succinctly.
An improved UI means better UX which may attract more active users. More active users means increased activities and engagement onchain which lead to more revenue generated by the ads; then more LEO will be bought off the market, powered up and distributed to Leo Power holders. This may in turn encourage users to stake LEO for more share and the cycle goes on.
And based on the LEO tokenomics, over 70% of the supply have already been staked, others pooled on DeFi, so if the ads revenue smart contract will start buying LEO from the market, powering it up, we can imagine there will be lesser liquid LEO in the market, thus making the token more valuable in the long run.
Khal mentioned on the previous AMA that the author monetization tools will take a while to develop so it is safe to NOT expect them to come out in the sooniverse.
Personal Thoughts
Those who have been here since the LeoFinance inception may have already proven that it is a community of BUIDLers and HODLers. This year alone, there had been several products and features that came out despite being in the crypto-winter.
Khal had been quite transparent in giving updates of what's going on, what's coming and even seeking the community's inputs regarding the UI and other products. He also mentioned that he has prepared a long runway. Hence, I can say that the LEOverse will continue to build and roll out things that will provide the community stable and reliable platforms not only to create and monetize their contents but also have various ways of earning. Ever heard of Elon's Everything App? LEO team is attempting to build it here in the LEOverse and I believe it will.
Images from the Leoverse. Lead photo created on Canva. No copyright infringement intended. 151222/21:00ph