Shapeshift has initiated its metamorphosis by airdropping its governance token, FOX, to over a million past users and community members. But not only this, it is on its way to becoming the one and only decentralized on and off ramp where KYC is not needed to do swaps, and even cross-chain swaps. Meaning trading Bitcoin for Ethereum without going through any centralized party. In this article we take a look at Erik Voorhees’s Shapeshift and its token FOX.
Transitioning to Open Source & Multi-Chain Platform
ShapeShift is more than an exchange and has replaced its centralized infrastructure with new, decentralized architectures. Where users can now send, receive, trade, buy, sell, and earn yield across multiple chains via the open-source ShapeShift web and mobile apps.
Quite ‘cyberpunky’ if you ask me. The supported chains include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Avalanche, Cosmos, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Thorchain, and Bitcoin Cash, and more chains are probably coming in the future.
Some interesting features of this project are the following differentiating products.
Aggregating the Top DEXs Across Chains
ShapeShift offers a unified interface that aggregates premier DEX protocols across several chains, ensuring access to the best rates for myriad pairs. Think of protocols like 0x, CowSwap, and THORChain that can do cross-chain swaps. Also, 1inch, which is a DEX aggregator itself, and Paraswap are available.
Support for Multiple Widely Used Wallets
On top of that Shapeshift supports eight different wallets to connect with, including ShapeShift Native Wallet, KeepKey, Metamask, Tallyho, Portis, XDefi, Keplr, and WalletConnect (which supports 170+ wallets). So the most popular wallets can be seamlessly integrated with ShapeShift.
Fiat On/Off Ramp Aggregation
Over 50 digital assets across 10 chains can be bought and sold using a variety of payment methods, supported by Banxa, Gem, Juno Pay, Mt. Pelerin, and Onramper. Onramper further aggregates services like Moonpay, Wyre, Xanpool, Mercuryo, Indacoin, Coinfy, BTCDirect, UTORG, and Transak. This is good if you want to get directly on DeFi without going through centralized exchanges. These providers will of course ask for KYC to combat money laundering.
Multi-Hop Bridging, Swapping, and More
As said before, ShapeShift is set to integrate leading decentralized bridge protocols and this means that EVM chains and Cosmos zones support cross-chain operations.
Beyond bridging and swapping, ShapeShift is building an NFT marketplace as well. Not yet on point but it is coming sooner or later.
Lending and Borrowing on ShapeShift
ShapeShift also offers lending and borrowing while aggregating multiple protocols to ensure users find the most favorable rates. Currently the biggest and only pool is for Ethereum. So you can borrow against your Ethereum.
Opening a Loan
To open a loan with ShapeShift, simply visit their lending page at ShapeShift Lending.
Repaying a Loan
To repay your loan, go to the same lending page, click on the “Your Loans” tab, and follow the instructions provided.
ShapeShift Token – FOX
The FOX token is the official token of ShapeShift and its looks connected to the success of the platform, so if Shapeshift succeeds, the token will do well. From the price history we can say that the pair has been experiencing a significant uptrend since November. It has captured the attention of the trading community due to its impressive rally.
The trend for Shapeshift Fox Token remains significantly strong to the upside and it remains in a bullish momentum. This could be driven by the efforts of the platform to connect it to high APYs and use cases. One of such is the Arkeo Airdrop, where FOX holders or liquidity providers are eligible to receive tokens in the future.
How to Earn the Arkeo Airdrop?
The Arkeo project is a decentralized back-end project for node data, developed by ShapeShift and set for a mainnet launch soon. It aims to enhance development speed, offer censorship resistance, and reduce reliance on centralized data sources for applications using it.
If users want to qualify for the Arkeo Airdrop via the ShapeShift dApp, they need to:
- Hold FOX tokens, with the amount received proportional to the number of tokens held.
- Stake and hold ETH/FOX liquidity provider (LP) tokens that can earn the FOX Farm can earn up to 36.91% APR, and the underlying FOX in these LP tokens is eligible for the airdrop.
- Hold FOXy, which earns up to 0.00% APR, but will count towards the airdrop as if they were FOX tokens.
- Provide liquidity to the Uniswap V2 pool with ETH and FOX can earn 19.50% APR, and the FOX component will be eligible for the airdrop.
There are additional ways to qualify for the airdrop outside of using ShapeShift dApp, as detailed in the governance proposal. However, only self-custody wallets qualify; tokens in wallets on centralized exchanges are not eligible. So if you buy your FOX tokens, get them off the exchange!
Conclusion
ShapeShift has undergone a significant transformation from a centralized exchange to a decentralized, open-source, and multi-chain platform. In a way that the government cease and desist is falling on deaf ears, because no one is responsible.
On top of that, the future looks bright for their token, FOX that will earn more than just a juicy APY in their wide range of services, including decentralized swaps, cross-chain trading, and lending and borrowing, all without the need for KYC.
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