LeoFinance Keeps Expanding and Advancing

LeoFinance is one most thriving community and active front-end here in the Hive blockchain. Its founder (Khal) usually present and giving updates through weekly AMA also means a lot.

I first came to the Lion's den on 27th March 2022. Although I have been lurking around the community for a while, that day was my very first time to post on the LeoFinance UI when I shared about exploring Polycub.

Anyhow, let me share in three categories the things that I've noticed have changed or happened over the last 6 months. More like a chronology of developments or events within the ecosystem.

Disclaimer: There may be some discrepancies on the dates.

On the DeFi Side

• Launching of Polycub (6th March 2022)
  This is the second DeFi project launched by LeoFinance (first being CubFinance). It is aimed to create a safe, reliable and growing yield DeFi platform and it resides in the Polygon network.

• pHBD Bridge and Deploying pHBD on the Polycub farms (15th April 2022)
  The first journey of HBD into the DeFi world offchain. LeoFinance introduced pHBD-USDC and pHBD-POLYCUB on the Polycub Liquidity Pools as a way to deepen the currency's liquidity.

• Multi-Token Bridge and PolyCUB V2 launched (May 2022)
  After the success of pHBD, the LeoFinance team decided to roll out the MTB. This opened up another door for onchain assets like $HIVE and SPS in addition to HBD to go out in the world of DeFi. The pHIVE-POLYCUB pair was deployed on the Polycub farms on the 8th of May 2022.

• Polycub DAO/Governance (21 April 2022)
  The first governance happened with xPolycub stakeholders manually voting in favor of reducing the yield lock period from 90 days to 30 days.

  This was followed by the yield voting on a weekly basis. Then the Governance UI getting released afterwards. And the PolyCUB Improvement Proposals (PIPs) voting also followed which increased the Multi-Token Bridge wrapping fee from 0.25% to 0.50%

• vexPolycub Vault Launched on Polycub (16th July 2022)
  This was the start of staking and/locking up of xPolycub for a long term of 2 years.

• V2 vaults stealth-launched on CuBFinance (10th August 2022)
  This was when another market for $HIVE and HBD opened up in the BSC network through CubDeFi which brought much excitement to the community of stakeholders because bHBD and bHIVE pairs (bHBD-BUSD, bHBD-CUB and bHIVE-CUB) can now be pooled.

  In addition, the Multi-Token Bridge for BSC was updated too, adding bHIVE and bHBD to be bridged through. The CubFinance UI also getting some enhancements.

• CUB Governance/DAO rolled out (10 August 2022)
  This started the burning of CUB. The yield from the Multi-Token bridge is used to buy CUB from the market and then burnt on a daily basis. The total burnt CUB has crossed 1 million recently.

• Monthly MTB Revenue Reports for PolyCub & Cub (August 2022)
  These keep the stakeholders updated on how the Multi-Token Bridge is doing in terms of revenues and other related data.

On the Technical Aspect (Apps, UI and UX)

• Launch of LeoMobile App Open Beta on android (6th April 2022)
  Although the beta had been launched in December 2021, the enhanced version was released in April which was followed by the testflight version on iOs. Enhancements like search bar, push notifications have been included in the updates that followed afterwards.

• LeoMerge (LeoMobile + LeoDesktop) - I think this is still being worked on through today. I wonder if I have missed any new updates on this but I guess not.

• Community Pages Launched (5th June 2022)
  Apparently, this was a suggestion by jk6276 and it is was seen as a way to onboard users by welcoming different crypto communities and projects to LeoFinance and providing them with their own page for related contents. Initially, there were 20 pages but checking today, there are only 15. Some have been removed because there had been no contents in them.

• Threads went live (3rd August 2022)
  This was one of the most anticipated microblogging feature in the LeoFinance front-end. You can read more of how threads evolved from since its launch on this post.

I'm unable to pinpoint any single development on the LeoFinance UI but I could say from my personal experience that it had improved a lot from since. I remember having loading issues in the past due to updates being rolled out.

Initiatives in the Community

• 100LEO for those who beat Khal on the LeoFinance Engagement
  This challenge/initiative started on the 10th April 2022 which made the engagement more fun. Many stepped up with their interaction and at one point in time, Khal had to send out over 1400 LEO to those who came before him on the Engagement League.

  This initiative have stopped however, probably because Khal had become so occupied with the technical side of things.

• LeoAmbassador Program (19th April 2022)
  This was aimed at having ambassadors to help in the growth of the LeoFinance ecosystem

• Birth of @leogrowth and LeoChallenge/LeoContests (5th April 2022)
  The leogrowth was born and being managed by Eric (anomadsoul) and it first initiated contest which was introduced in April with the #newlion tag for those who make their very first post in the LeoFinance front-end. This was followed by more other contests up until now.

  The new ones being the LEO&HODL Contests by @hodlcommunity and @leofinance and this very recent one currently being run by leogrowth.

• Leo Power Up Day/LPUD (Started 15th June 2022)
  Another one initiated by Eric (anomadsoul) through the leogrowth account which aims to encourage us to keep growing our stakes through powering up LEO every 15th of the month. And the den has been roaring since with hundreds of cubs and lions powering up every 15th of the month.

  Additionally, the LPUD badge was introduced to the community by HiveBuzz in last month's LPUD (15th August 2022)

• LeoGlossary (3rd July 2022)
  As you may have already known, this is an initiative and a project by TaskMaster. In case this is your first time reading about it, you can check more information on this post.

• The Daily LEO Relaunched (5th September 2022)
  Another effort to keep the LeoVerse thrive and grow by sending daily newsletters of updates and news on crypto, finance and other related information to its subscribers.

• Sponsoring other Community Contests
  LeoFinance reached out to different communities around Hive and partnering with them in sponsoring contests by providing $LEO as part of the contest prizes. Some of the supported communities include the following:

  • HODL Community
  • India United
  • Ladies of Hive
  • Dibblers Dabs
  • Feathered Friends
  • Bundesliga Soccer Competition
  • Hive Chess League

From these, you could really see how LeoFinance keeps on advancing and expanding. It should be understood that these developments mentioned have been going on for almost 2 years (18 months or so) and they happen to roll out in the past 6-7 months.

What I want to see

• Search function in the web version of the LeoFinance UI. This is truly needed for easier user experience so we don't need to go to other front-ends when trying to find something or someone.
• Bookmarking or saving option for articles. It will be easier to find them especially when we want to reference them in the future.
• LeoPedia to be updated. Tutorials to be added (so we can easily refer to others who might be needing "How To's"):
  • Wrapping/Unwrapping of Hive assets via the LeoBridge
  • Adding Liquidity on Polycub and CubFinance farming pools
  • Staking Leo/Powering Up
  • How to Sign up to LeoFinance via Web 2 apps (Twitter/Facebook) on LeoMobile.
  • How to access or make #threads or any other guides or tutorials related to the LeoFinance ecosystem.

Guess these are all for now and I hope the ecosystem will grow and thrive even more in the days, months and years to come.