The free to mint XEN Crypto token, existing on nine chains so far and making Etheruem deflationary, has made strides in the crypto space, with over 30 million addresses created, occupying around 40% of Ethereum’s network traffic, an instant listing on exchanges, and widespread media coverage. All this, despite being free and having no utility other than the lowest possible barrier to blockchain entry and education about its first principles. On November 11, Popcorn, a multi-chain regenerative yield optimizing protocol, comes to the playing field with their DeFi platform to create a use case worth attention because they are doing things differently and in the spirit of XEN.
XEN, Popcorn and the first principles
XEN Crypto encompasses the economic energy of all the people across multiple chains. It was created to give people the opportunity to create this energy through the process of minting by burning gas. After Bitcoin, it’s the precursor for creating an ecosystem based on the first principles of the blockchain presented by Satoshi Nakamoto in his white paper. XEN stands by decentralization, immutability, permissionless consensus, and self-custody. By integrating with Popcorn, XEN further upholds these principles. Decentralized finance is important, and it’s about removing third parties and centralized institutions from financial transactions and enabling people as sovereign individuals to control their finances. Popcorn enhances the utility of the XEN token because “Utility comes from interacting with other protocols first and foremost, such as Popcorn and other DeFi protocols. Popcorn is the first golden use case for XEN in DeFi. Being able to find balance and alignment between XEN’s economic energy with other economic entities is something I really welcome here because XEN and Popcorn share many of the same values,” said XEN TZU, the member of the Fair Crypto Foundation and the creator of Xenducation.
What is Popcorn
Popcorn is a multichain DeFi wealth manager that offers exposure to liquid asset strategies that not only earn a competitive yield on your crypto assets but also fund nonprofits and social impact organizations at no additional cost to the user. They make it easy for you to deposit your crypto, optimize your yield, and create positive global impact at the same time. Users are incentivized to deposit into Popcorn with POP, a governance token that allows you to vote on treasury management ($5M+), smart contract parameters, and which nonprofits to fund. POP is now trading on Uniswap and MEXC
POP is a governance token on mainnet, BNB Chain, Arbitrum, Polygon, and now Optimism. By staking POP and receiving vesting POP (vlPOP), users can participate in the governance of the platform.
POP stakers on Ethereum are able to get a 2.31% vAPR which will be topped up in the coming weeks on Optimism. The current emission rate is 234.29 POP staking rewards per week.
Staking POP generates an equivalent amount of vlPOP, which gives the power to vote on proposals in PopcornDAO. vlPOP holders will receive POP tokens for actively participating in the governance process. Popcorn wants to incentivize users to take part in governance to keep the protocol decentralized and increase the POP token’s utility.
XEN holders can go to Popcorn and stake their XEN to receive POP while being in full control of their private keys. Thanks to Popcorn’s innovative idea, they will also create a positive social impact at no additional cost while staking XEN.
XEN stakers will get POP rewards pro rata based on how many people staked XEN. So everyone who stakes XEN will get a share of the 25,000 POP allocation in the pool, and the fewer users there are, the bigger a piece of the pie each of them will get. The daily emission of POP is 297.57. The user can unstake at any time without any penalty. The minimum amount of XEN required is $100 equivalent. After rewards are earned and claimed, 10% is transferable, and the rest is vested linearly over 365 days.
Popcorn as a social impact vector
Popcorn is a DeFi that creates a positive impact because “by virtue of transacting on Popcorn, you’re doing good,” said Michael Kisselgof, the co-founder of Popcorn. “So what does that mean? It means that the transaction fees that you pay that are on chain, a portion of those are redirected to charity”. 20–50% of the platform’s trading fees go to charity.
The innovation brought by Popcorn is that it funds community-selected nonprofit and social impact organizations without incurring any additional cost to the user. They are elected by the stakeholders in PopcornDAO, and the nominated organizations are called beneficiaries. So every time you transact using their platform, you also create good energy by participating in philanthropy. “What we’ve created here is an automated way of doing it. So it’s very much baking social impact into the core of the protocol”.
Conclusion
Popcorn is an innovative platform in the world of decentralized finance that combines aspects of philanthropy with crypto transactions. Other than creating a positive social impact, it lets people do good while earning POP. XEN token holders can now join Popcorn in this endeavor.
