BSC-based AMM Bunicorn to address post DeFi-Liquidity-Mining Crisis through NFT vesting

DeFi industry grew by more than  88X, with more than $160 billion TVL recorded in May. The concept of liquidity pools was instrumental to this growth, as Liquidity Providers (LPs) contribute their resources into a pool to help power DeFi services like lending, token swaps, arbitrage etc., as well as the prospects of taking advantage of yield farming opportunities. As LPs cash out their gains, most times, this will normally result in a massive dump in DeFi token prices and a horrific drop in liquidity afterwards. If liquidity mining will remain a relevant bootstrapping strategy for DeFi startups, then there needs to be an innovative approach to it, which is what Bunicorn is attempting to bring into the mix. Bunicorn, a BSC-based AMM, introduces time-locked NFTs called NFT vesting; a radical reengineering of the liquidity mining concept.

Bunicorn is providing the ultimate liquidity solution for capital efficiency for BSC LPs by adopting the most current optimized AMM models: Balancer-style liquidity bootstrapping pools (LBP) and Kyber-style Amplified pools. By introducing the concept of time-locked NFTs it calls VBUNI, Bunicorn helps to reduce token velocity, which diminishes DeFi projects’ token price devaluation risks by locking up farming rewards in wrapped NFTs that take them out of circulation. 

VBUNI wraps up farming rewards (VBUNI) into a time-locked NFT, allotting each NFT with a vesting period. Holders can then convert their VBUNI to BUNI upon vesting expiry. But should there be any need to liquidate the VBUNIs for value before their vesting period expires, holders can do so at a discount in any of the secondary markets, making them even qualify as a speculative asset. 

Bunicorn ranks the rarity of the VBUNI NFT collectibles in 6 levels from Normal to Legend based on the number of underlying assets wrapped in that token and the duration of the vesting period. For instance, a BUNI token with a value of $1M locked in 1 month would be classified as “Super Rare”. Cards can be enhanced until a certain level at which they are fully mature (max).

The most interesting part of the VBUNI innovation is that any VBUNI-NFT holders can also collect, enhance, and evolve their cards and participate in any Bunicorn’s gaming event. With this mechanism, users will have more demand to buy low-level cards for the fusion instead of converting them back into real BUNI. This gives them ample opportunities to resell their “Super Rare” asset at a price much higher than the underlying BUNI value in other NFT markets. 

Some of the top industry investors also backed Bunicorn right from the early days of the project [date when the project commenced] as it raised $1.5 million during its private round. Some of them include Sygnum Capital, Kryptal Group, Magnus Capital, Poolz Ventures, QCP Capital, JRR, etc. 

Bunicorn’s smart contract has also undergone an audit and is certified production-ready, with users already interacting with the app in the testnet environment. Reducing the token velocity of mined tokens after liquidity mining through time-locked NFTs is a new approach that could become a common practice. Moreso, it is viable to earn more yield while keeping easy liquidation for these wrapped NFT yields. Such a possibility is an innovation that makes the fast-paced yield farming concept more sustainable for bootstrapping DeFi projects/startups.