Kujira (KUJI) - deep research
Enjoy frens. This is the good and the bad, even if you don't like it... so feel free to comment if that's you … there's no hurting a tractor’s feelings.
NOTE: This article was written in January and may now be out of date. Bull principles all still apply! The project has certainly started to garnish some fan fair and rightfully so. May be time to re-up 👀
Project Kujira / Token: KUJI / Docs
[ Messari + Token Terminal + Defi Llama + Dune + Dexscreener + Debank + Kujira Track ]
Preface:
Kujira aims to be a multi chain investing platform, designed for all crypto users and to give retail full access to products traditionally reserved for the wealthy (ie liquidations markets). Real yield generation and a great UX are at the top of their list.
Launched Nov ‘21, as a Cosmos Layer 1 blockchain. Kujira has many dapps built in-house and also provides teams with the tools to build on top of their ecosystem. There main product is called FIN and it is a CLOB dex, though presently it does not have perpetual contracts for trading.
Tokenomics: [ as of 12/27/22 ]
*Circ. supply minus amount staked
Token Distribution:
I like the high 80% circulating supply, and with a high % stake. But I don't like that 51% of the tokens are held by either the team, VCs or advisors.
The supply max was initially supposed to be 150M tokens which was voted in Jan ‘22 to be reduced, resulting in a burn of the liquidity pool rewards.
Further $KUJI will be fully vested on Nov 9 ‘23, with only Team, Operational, Marketing & Treasury left to be released; a good thing as all Private sale & Advisor allocations have been fully vested.
Quick history
Kujira created ORCA in response to the May ‘21 Anchor cascading liquidations that caused $luna to go from $16 to $4. They wanted to allow both retail and institutional investors to have access to a liquidations marketplace.
FIN was initially started on Terra but after its collapse they decided to launch their own app chain.
75 active validators; price oracle measures 3 independent sources.
Fast future
Sonar = next gen Cosmos Wallet (desktop & mobile)
Staking Bonus Tiers; 500, 5k & 50k symboles (image below) with meaning yet to be released.
Name service / Sports Betting / Self-repaying loans / Perps
How it works
dApps = shared liquidity across
ORCA = Public marketplace for liquidated collateral
EVM & Cosmos compatible (increased liquid efficiency)
$160M TVL dutch auctioned via marketplace
FIN = Cosmos 1st 100% onchain CLOB token exchange
10x long/short margin trading
a scalable DEX with low fees and improved trade execution
BOW = Is a self-sufficient and 100% on chain market maker for FIN’s order book. Appears to be similar to Uniswap V3’s model of deploying liquidity within a range, which allows for greater capital efficiency. Works to increase rewards to Kuji stakers via attempts to increase volume.
BOW also has a swap feature.
Projects can advertise here by providing incentives
BLUE = Kujira heart; dashboard, staking (rewards), governance, swaps & bridging / IBCing (Interconnected Block Chaining)
Infra =
FINDER = Blockchain explorer
Kujira Senate = Governance mechanism
POD = staking UI for Cosmos
$USK = overcollateralized stablecoin
Minting = long exposure (ATOM, DOT, nBTC, axlETH, BNB)
166% collateralization
ORCA manages liquidations
Wallets
Sonar = being developed by the team to be the main wallet for Kujira ecosystem
Keplr = OG atom wallet
Bridging = Axelar Bridge
Direct from bank via Kado Money
Wallet Inspection:
NA
Team:
3 founders + 7 core team (4 devs)
Location =
Kujira Labs = Lisbon, Portugal
Hiring =
Investors =
Developer Activity = [ Github + Gitlab ]
Audits(s):
No FIN audit found
Competition:
Demex built on top of carbon; CLOB dex cosmos + eth
Kujira Integration coming soon
MCAP #790 // Twitter 5800
Injective; solana + aptos
Jump, Binance backing. Multi Chain, looks really promising at first website and coingecko glance (
MCAP # 211 // Twitter 156k
Large ecosystem
Social:
Twitter = 72k
Discord = 8.6k
TG = 8k
Bullish:
Twitter (media) =
Jordi Alexander bullish on Cosmos and CLOBs; which Kujira is both
Excellent documents
Cosmos SDK
All contracts launched must be voted in via governance, all must be revenue generating
Kuji stakers accrue value via liquidations and trading revenue.
GUD = Grown-Up Defi
KUJI staked in FIN has a good chance of receiving airdropped tokens (atom famous for airdrops) in addition to platform rewards.
The team donates to charitable causes.
TVL Growth
Many Partnerships
Moonbeam ($GLMR) to allow wDOT to be used to mint native stablecoin $USK. Can also use ETH and BNB. Orca also onboarded to Acala to be their aUSD liquidations protocol.
Atlo Protocol, Black Whale, CALC Finance, DLOYAL Refer, Entropic Labs, Fitlink, Kujira Name Service, Kujirans, Local Money (P2P), and SRL Finance.
Operation of ORCA while LUNA ecosystem came crumbling down, good stress test.
VC unlocks finished in November and so now is likely a good time to DCA
Stablecoin integration with Woo Commerce
Bearish:
Promising ALOT
Wallet
Stablecoin
CLOB Dex
Miserable FDV/TVL
Competitive app-chain space, especially with dYdX coming to cosmos SDK.
High % allocation to team / advisors / VCs
Conclusion
As an appchain, it faces significant competition, especially with dYdX entering the cosmos fray and the others mentioned above. Though it is more than just a trading dApp, its a real yield blockchain complete with stablecoin, liquidations market, validator staking portal, launchpad, on-off ramp and more. They are certainly reaching high and are still fairly low mcap. The team is small but it is growing and the community is well developed.
As you may know, I like the cosmos app-chain narrative, with many respected investors (Jordi Alexander & Ryan fr Messari) speaking out about the viability of them. Further I like that this L1 is focused on app development, partnerships and real value directed to KUJI holders, which are 57% staked.
There also appears to be a formation of a flywheel happening, as the projects launching are jumping onto the idea of value flowing to KUJI stakers, with a potential for airdrops to token holders, which has been prevalent in the cosmos space. They are also partnering with DOT parachains for liquidity and for more liquidations markets, which is novel and value deriving.
Now the hard part, does that warrant an investment? Well the reason I was brought here was because of mr game theory and his projections on CLOBs within the Perpetual trading category, which as it turns out only one is true. This is a clob but it is not (yet) a perps trading market. That leaves room for speculation if we are buying the rumour and selling the news. I do also see the benefits of investing within the appchain space but cannot say I am convinced on this project just yet. The FDV/TVL is much too high, signaling to me that people are already speculating in advance.
I think this project deserves attention but also needs more maturity and more trading. Spot doesn’t cut it.
ps I would consider cutting the worst performing Arbitrum perp/options play in favour of this investment; essentially to spread out my investments in =
1. AMMs vs CLOBs
2. L2s vs Appchains
Notable Screen Shots
Docs Key Points
TVL Distribution
Staking Mystery
Great UI / UX
Nothing in this report should be misconstrued as financial advice. Any investments should be taken at the sole discretion of the reader and/or counter party.
As always, dig deep and DYOR.