Introducing Basilisk
A Liquidity Bootstrapping Protocol built for Kusama
Ever since HydraDX Snakenet joined the Rococo test network together with 6 other community parachains, we quickly became one of the most active participants and one of few parachains which accomplished a successful cross-chain transfer.
Now, it is time to announce the next stage of the HydraDX embedment in the Polkadot ecosystem - Basilisk and its native BSX token. Basilisk is a liquidity bootstrapping protocol designed to operate as a parachain in Kusama, the Substrate canary network from the Polkadot family.
While Kusama was built as an experimental playground which welcomes fast development and chaos, this is not what we intended with Basilisk. Basilisk is not a mere canary network - it is an independent chain which has the mission to enable frictionless liquidity bootstrapping for new cryptoassets.
Basilisk is a natural stepping stone on our journey of building the liquidity infrastructure of the future. This plan will eventually culminate in the HydraDX Omnipool which is intended to operate as a Polkadot parachain in order to enable frictionless liquidity for any asset on any chain.
Together, Basilisk and HydraDX create a synergy which caters to the varying needs of cryptoassets throughout their entire life cycle. Bootstrap liquidity in the early stages using Basilisk, then move over to the HydraDX Omnipool to unlock unprecedented liquidity in an ocean of assets.
Enter Basilisk
Managing to pull off the most successful Liquidity Bootstrapping Pool (LBP) up to date was not an easy task. The months that we spent preparing the HydraDX LBP taught us some valuable lessons about the main challenge young cryptoprojects experience when launching a token: Achieving meaningful distribution while bootstrapping sufficient liquidity.
The insights which we gathered inspired us to create Basilisk - a liquidity bootstrapping network that caters to the long tail of assets. Basilisk is a modular Automated Market Maker (AMM) chain which provides liquidity bootstrapping functionality for any new cryptoasset.
It allows participants to choose from a variety of AMM models which govern the price discovery. The API design of Basilisk allows for AMM models to be plugged in easily: From basic spot trading to purpose-specific models for derivatives such as PERP or the Siren Protocol.
The first version of Basilisk will offer an advanced implementation of an LBP module as well as other XYK pools with order matching transactions. In the following iteration, Basilisk will introduce other price discovery mechanisms (auctions and bonding curves), an AMM for swapping correlated assets (stablecoins or wrapped tokens), as well as cross-AMM order matching.
And, needless to say, there will be an NFT marketplace as well! We are currently working with a team called SubAuction to get this up and running ASAP! The goal is to deliver a better and cheaper UX for NFT users. Our improved XYK AMM will be supporting Unisocks-like use-cases very soon.
Roadmap
Community-driven
Our team has grown significantly in the last months. We are lucky to have an active community from which we are able to source talent. However, Basilisk will require even more manpower because it will become a project on its own.
Our plan is to transition Basilisk to the community as soon as possible. For this purpose, we will be recruiting capable stewards who will take lead and further tinker with Basilisk. Among other tasks, the Basilisk stewards will be leading the community members and the developers.To incentivize community involvement, we have reserved 5% of the BSX token allocation for the stewards and other team members who get involved in Basilisk.
While we will be releasing Basilisk into the wild, the HydraDX team remains committed to supporting the project. One of our priorities is to help source the right talent for Basilisk. For that purpose, we have been brewing something special on the side.
We have formed a group that we named Hydration which consists of a bunch of programmers and researchers who exchange knowledge about Substrate and HydraDX under the guidance of our core team. We believe that Hydration will become one of the most powerful resources we have. Here is where the community will also form the Basilisk core team.
Do you want to get involved? Join our Basilisk Discord server and get in touch! (link below)
Basilisk LBP
What better way to baptize a new Liquidity Bootstrapping Protocol than with an actual LBP event? We are happy to announce that Basilisk’s native token - BSX, will also have its own LBP event. For that purpose, we will be working with another parachain project that will help bring a stablecoin ecosystem to Kusama. More hot details to be announced in the coming weeks!
BSX Tokenomics & Distribution
*original Parachain allocation set to 10% and later changed to 15%
Basilisk Aesthetics & Socials
It’s like an ayahuasca Amazon trip. Reptiles become funky and suddenly their eyes turn to the One Eye. Is it Sauron? - No, OMG! The Chamber of Secrets has been opened, the enemies of the heir... beware 🙃.
Meet Basilisk! You can never look it in the eyes but you can follow it here:
🐍 Basilisk Substack for Basilisk-related updates