TLDR
- About 25% of Ignition LP can be unlocked on Dec 13th. The majority (70%ish) unlocks towards the end of March.
- At current asset prices, a maximum of $270k of XRD will be paid out on Dec 13th as impermanent loss protection if all eligible positions are unlocked.
Given the many opportunities in the ecosystem currently offering greater rewards than Ignition, these assets are expected to be redeployed across Radix ecosystem projects. The opportunities include lending markets like Root and WEFT, providing liquidity as LP on the various DEXs or perps platforms like Surge, and participating in the upcoming launch of wrapped versions of the top ~30 assets by market cap ahead of Anthic.
For those who missed it, Project Ignition was a $10m+ liquidity incentive campaign that went live in March 2024. It allowed users to lock xBTC, xETH, xUSDC, and xUSDT in a liquidity pool with the amount matched with XRD by the Ignition program.
The program aimed to bootstrap DEX liquidity for core assets to grow DeFi activity within the Radix ecosystem, especially as there were limited bridges at the time (e.g. Maya was not live).
As people bridged assets in the lead-up to the program and participated in its launch, the total value locked in the Radix ecosystem doubled – from $20-25m to $45-50m, and the program sold out!
Perhaps most importantly, this TVL increase nearly doubled the network activity. In the first nine weeks of the year, before Ignition, there were around 320k on-chain transactions. In the nine weeks after Ignition, this nearly doubled to 580k on-chain transactions.
This growth proved sustainable, with average weekly on-chain transaction steadily increasing across quarters (excluding the RadQuest activity spike) – Q1 = 46k/wk; Q2 = 60k/wk; Q3; 104k/wk; Q4 (to date) = 84k/wk.
Over this period, the DeFi ecosystem on Radix has materially changed. DEXs such as CaviarNine, Ociswap, and DeFiPlaza have continued improving their offerings. Lend Borrow Markets like Root have gone live, bringing additional competition for capital. New dApps like Surge have brought new opportunities for Radix users to put their assets to work. The integration of Radix with Maya Protocol has enabled trustless cross-chain asset swaps, allowing users to exchange assets across multiple blockchains without having to rely on centralized intermediaries. This has enabled further innovation within the Radix ecosystem, with projects like Astrolescent and Caviarnine incorporating bridging functionality into their offering.
Looking ahead to 2025, Radix is also getting some industry firsts with novel products like Anthic. This product will enable DEXs on Radix with “flash liquidity,” providing depth similar to the largest centralized exchanges. It will also bring wrapped representations of the largest crypto assets by market cap, meaning users can trade and utilize assets like DOGE, ADA, SOL, BNB, and more on Radix.
With the ecosystem’s rapid growth—enabled by improved DEXs, lending platforms like Root, new dApps like Surge, and cross-chain functionality via Maya Protocol— the Radix Foundation wants to explore new ways to incentivize on-chain activity to attract more users, capital, and developers into the ecosystem. This means looking beyond what Ignition supported, which only catered to a limited number of assets in specific pools. Therefore, Ignition will not continue in its current form unless there is significant market desire for this, especially as there are so many other opportunities for these assets to provide utility in the ecosystem today and even more so in early 2025.
To further support and grow activity in the Radix ecosystem,additional initiatives are being explored alongside existing programs such as the developer grants fund or the recently announced ecosystem asset fund, which focuses on buying and holding native assets within the ecosystem. Input and ideas from the Radix community are encouraged for potential programs to support in early 2025.
