[Serenity Premium] Orbit Protocol On Blast [Initial Review Mar 2024]
Blast launched in end of Feb this year and now its TVL is over $1 billion in its DeFi protocols (not counting the other $1.5b ETH and stablecoins bridged over and sitting idle). This makes Blast the no.7 protocol by size (measured by TVL in DeFi protocols) according to DefiLlama. Comparatively, Blast is larger than Base Chain now in terms of DeFi.
Blast is an EVM, with a yield bearing feature. Fund bridged over to Blast are deposited into yield generating protocols. ETHs are deposited with Lido now earning about 3.5%; stablecoins are with MakerDAO's Dai saving (EDSR), earning 15% now. ETH and USDB (its stablecoin converted automatically from bridging other stablecoins) are therefore rebase tokens. EOA accounts will have rebases automatically, and smart contracts can opt out, opt in for automatic rebase like EOA, or opt in for yield claiming (details here).
Orbit Protocol
Orbit Protocol is the largest DeFi protocol on Blast by TVL ($311m) and has a relatively meticulously built system in place, compared to other protocols which seem more like work-in-progress.
Orbit Protocol is a lending protocol, and so far it only supports ETH and USDB lending and borrowing. Similar to most other protocols, Orbit promises to distribute 100% Blast Points (awards to protocols according to TVL) and Blast Gold (awards to protocols devs) to its users. The distribution is likely to be on a net TVL basis, i.e. the more your net worth in Orbit, the more you share of Points and Gold. Blast is expected to launch in May, where Points and Gold can be converted to tokens with market value.
For the interest rates, Orbit also employs a lending curve, similar to other lending markets. Currently, lending in ETH is 1.47% and USDB is 15.6%. There's no rebase yield if you lend in Orbit, i.e. Lenders forgo the 3.5% yield from ETH and 15% from USDB provided by Blast. Instead, lenders receive $ORBIT rewards.
$ORBIT Rewards
An interesting design of Orbit Protocol is that it launched its own platform token $ORBIT very early. To support its token, Orbit Protocol will keep the native yield from Blast, and use the harvested yields to:
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Serenity Research to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.