The past year has been amazing for Ease. It was our second year building advanced coverage products for DeFi users and the first full year with the new team.
It’s hard to fathom how much the team has accomplished. A complete rebrand, a new website, a new app and much more. All of this while being in a full-on bear market which was plagued by hacks and scams (FTX, anyone?).
Fortunately, these didn’t affect Ease much. If anything, it gave the team more time to keep on building. And that’s exactly what we did. Let’s recap 2022 by recapping the 2022 Quarterly recaps!
Q1: January – March: The Ease rebrand has begun
The main focus of the first quarter was the rebrand from Armor to Ease and the development of our new Uninsurance ecosystem.
In 2020 & most of 2021, we successfully focused on improving and building on top of Nexus Mutual products under the Armor brand. We created very innovative products like arCore & arShields, see the 2021 recap.
In late ‘21 we developed a new whitepaper which detailed a completely new coverage system: Reciprocally-Covered Assets: RCA’s, later renamed to Uninsurance. Around the same period, we also replaced several team members and added new ones.
As both the team and the main product had changed, the logical step was to rebrand. We started brainstorming and had many brand, logo, colour and marketing sessions. Not only within the team but also with external advisors. This is how Ease came to fruition.
For marketing and security purposes we decided to split the website and user interface in two: an informational website and a separate app.
It took many weeks of creating new sections and filling them with content, design style, logos and more. Still, the completely new website was live at the end of Q1 as planned! We also hired a new team member, had a great AMA and posted a great manifesto from a long-time supporter. Actually, we liked it so much, we invited him to the team at Ease as well!
Read all of this and more in detail in the full Q1’22 recap here: https://ease.org/ease-defi-quarterly-recap-q1-2022/
Q2: April – June: DevConnect Amsterdam and the Uninsurance App!
The 2nd quarter of 2022 started off on April Fools Day, with a surprise “announcement” that Ease would do a flash sponsorship of FC Barcelona! Then it was back to work on the new Ease app.
The team had been writing the new smart contracts and designing and developing the new app during the previous months. We launched a Bug Bounty program with our friends at Immunefi to get as many eyes on the contracts as possible.
On April 13, the Ease Uninsurance app launched, with 17 brand-new vaults! Soon after 6 more vaults were added and we’ll be adding more vaults and protocols.
April also marked the first IRL meetup of most of the core team, during DevConnect Amsterdam! During this time, we worked together and enjoyed Amsterdam and CEO Robert represented Ease during the panel sessions.
The new Uninsurance system is a definite improvement over the existing products. Therefore we decided to sunset the arCore and arShield products, so we can focus on Uninsurance.
ARP-002 was also executed, moving control of the vaults to the new Ease DAO! Note that anyone can propose new vaults or protocols and can be rewarded for this.
Read all of this and more in detail in the full Q2’22 recap here:
https://ease.org/ease-quarterly-update-q2-22/
Q3: July – September: the launch of the $Ease token and Uninsurance V2: gvEase!
The third quarter of 2022 was even busier than the ones before!
Though the basic Uninsurance app was already up and running, its real power was yet to be unleashed. In order to do so, we needed three main ingredients:
- Designing gv-Tokenomics
- Creating a new gvEase app on top of the Uninsurance system
- The new $Ease token to power it all
And actually the 4th ingredient: a team working all summer to build the above!
Growing Ease
“Gv” stands for Growing Vote, and it’s a key part of the expanded ecosystem. Unlike other veNomics, staked $Ease isn’t locked for a long period, but the longer you leave it staked, the more gvEase it generates.
Therefore, it rewards long-time $Ease hodlers, when staking as well as when voting on DAO proposals.
In addition, new functionality was added to the $Ease token and ecosystem:
- Staking $gvEase on certain vaults lowers your cost in case of a hack. This way you can protect yourself even more and protocols can protect their users.
- Leasing is offering unused $gvEase to others, getting $Ease rewards in return, which can be auto-compounded or claimed.
- Bribing offers protocols and power users a chance to borrow this gvEase from other users, by offering $Ease rewards. (DAO votes cannot be leased/bribed, however).
A completely new app was developed, together with the new $Ease token to power all of this. $Armor & $vArmor can be swapped against $Ease or $gvEase.
TikTok, we don’t stop. How we became Trillionaires
In addition to expanding our Glossary and Knowledge Base, we also published a series of long-form thought pieces about DeFi and beyond. Our multi-part piece about a DeFi equivalent of the FDIC preceded the FTX demise and the following similar discussions by months!
The first piece launched in august, titled The Challenge of Managing Risk in DeFi Insurance. The team continued the ongoing series of thought pieces with FDIC/SIPC Viability in DeFi, Part 1 and Part 2.
We also started a TikTok channel, to explain some of the basics of DeFi and Crypto security to a different crowd. It’s important to protect all users and share the opportunities, but also the dangers of Crypto and how to mitigate them. Check it out here: https://www.tiktok.com/@easedefi
We finished Q3 by publishing an article about TVL: what it is and why it’s overrated. To illustrate the latter point we made ourselves virtual trillionaires in minutes, occupying the top 3 spots on Uniswap!
To top this busy quarter off, Messari published their long-awaited report about Ease.
Read all of this and more in detail in the full Q3’22 recap here:
https://ease.org/ease-quarterly-update-q3-22/
Q4: October – December: 8 months and counting, bugs and arNXM
The fourth quarter of 2022 will always be remembered as FTX and the full crypto winter season. But besides gloomy news, there have been some positive things as well!
Since the launch of the Ease Uninsurance system in April, no protocols and vaults we cover have been hacked. This means that everyone that has deposited their tokens into the system has had 8+ months of free, stacked-risk coverage!
Ease has been an important driver in getting protocols to offer bug bounties. The team has decided to kill 2 birds with one stone by actively looking for bugs themselves and has done so successfully.
This way:
- The Ease Uninsurance users know they are safer as vulnerabilities have been removed before they could be exploited.
- The Ease treasury has received bug bounties. This is an additional stream of income, ensuring our freedom to build, even in a bear market.
Ease and arNXM V2
Ease is the largest staker in the Nexus Mutual ecosystem, controlling nearly 1/3rd of all stakes. Nexus Mutual V2 is coming out soon, and with that Ease is vying to become their most advanced syndicate.
We’re currently creating a comprehensive, very detailed Ease Risk Framework to grade and price each protocol on Nexus.
This step both displays our knowledge of DeFi risk and adds yet another revenue stream for our treasury.
More additions to Uninsurance and the Thought Pieces
A new protocol was added to the Uninsurance system: Badger DAO, the first 3 vaults are already live.
Several more thought pieces were published:
- About the world of DeFi Farming, with its benefits and pitfalls.
- Staking, Leasing and Bribing are important aspects of the new $Ease app, they started this quarter. The team wrote an explanatory article about farming. Lease Farming was also born! To celebrate, the team boosted the lease rewards/APR.
- Of course, the biggest news from 2022 was the sudden and catastrophic demise of FTX. Is Crypto to blame? We think not and wrote this article that dives a lot deeper than most.
Our Crypto Glossary and DeFi Knowledge Base have also expanded significantly in the past months. Check them out and let us know on our social channels if you want us to explain more Crypto lingo!
Read all of this and more in detail in the full Q4’22 recap here:
https://ease.org/ease-quarterly-update-q4-22/
Looking forward to 2023
We’ll soon be releasing another article, which looks ahead!
It will discuss our thoughts, strategies, and focuses moving into 2023. It will also include what we’re doing to generate revenue and our philosophies through a bear market.
In 2023, we’ll keep on focusing our efforts to reach a clear goal: everyone should be able to DeFi with Ease.