In this Space, we were joined by Tao from Velodrome and Joe from King Protocol to dive into some of the opportunities that are available for KING users on Velodrome.
In case you missed it, here are the top questions from the event.
What is the vision for Velodrome on Swellchain?
Velodrome is a decentralized exchange that has two-sided, full-range liquidity pools, very similar to the ones at Uniswap. You deposit tokens in the pool, and the liquidity provider earns trading fees that the pool generates. At Velodrome, we have an additional emission system where every week, LPs compete for VELO emissions to earn more liquidity by incentivizing pools.
Velodrome started on the Optimism mainnet, and as we learned more about Optimism’s vision to create this Superchain environment—making it feel like a single ecosystem—we knew early on that it was a great opportunity for Velodrome to expand to the chains that are part of the Superchain, with Swell being one of the main ones.
The way Velodrome interacts with chains on the Superchain is that we have liquidity pools on different networks that receive a version of VELO emissions. In return, they direct fees to voters just as they would on Optimism.
It's still in the early stages, but we've seen a lot of users opt into Optimism as well as bridge over and participate on emerging chains such as Swell. We're continuing to develop new features that will make it even more seamless, such as Super Swaps—the ability to swap tokens across all chains through Velodrome and make it feel like a single chain.
— Tao, Velodrome
How does the Superchain ERC-20 plan on updating the standard for everybody?
Super Swaps will essentially use certain tokens that we’re currently building out liquidity for in collaboration with Hyperlane and a few other players. This will allow for very fast finality across chains—you bridge a token and trade it on the chain with a new pool. The liquidity pools will need to be present on both chains to ensure the swap can happen, but in terms of the user experience, it will be very similar.
— Tao, Velodrome
Swellchain is the restaking chain. Can you explain what that means?
The main reason we have positioned Swell as the restaking chain is that when Swell was looking at restaking and AVSs, we noticed that there is $10–15 billion worth of security in EigenLayer, but there is no home for these AVSs. Just like King Protocol is creating a home for AVS governance tokens, we wanted to create a chain where these AVSs can build with support in an environment that allows them to gain the usage they need to become sustainable networks.
A governance token alone can only go so far, and if restaking is to be successful, Swell needs to play its part in helping these AVSs get usage on-chain. We've positioned Swellchain as a place to bootstrap and help these builders go to market and gain traction.
One of the most exciting aspects of this pathway is that Swell is deeply committed to integrating restaking at the chain level later on. We’re exploring innovations such as secure block building with Radius, which allows users to encrypt their transactions before the block is built, making the block MEV-protected.
Swell launched our liquid staking token, swETH, in 2023, followed by our restaking token, rswETH, in early 2024. With over two years in the industry, it made a lot of sense for us to build the chain for restaking. We are laser-focused on creating the best experience for LRTs on-chain.
— Abi, Swell
How does King envision the future on Swellchain?
It has been a great experience building liquidity and attracting LPs, and we are aiming to build the most useful possible ecosystem. Our goal is to offer $KING holders a wide range of opportunities for their tokens while also providing AVS governance tokens witha Trojan horse to tap into that liquidity and DeFi optionality.
Swellchain has already been a tremendous partner in helping us achieve that.
— Joe, King Protocol
What inspired you to start King Protocol?
King was formerly LRT2, the product devised by Swell Founders among others that Etherfi used to pool all these rewards. They recognized that this product needed to exist because if all these AVS tokens were simply sold, it would create a vicious negative feedback loop where restaking yield is also sold off.
Rather than having this solution owned by LRTs themselves, we figured it should be an independent solution run by a capable team. So, Alpha Growth was commissioned, and we rebranded it into something a little more memeable and fun.
The big problem we’re solving is the fragmentation and low liquidity of the various yield tokens emerging from the evolution of restaking. As more AVSs begin paying for security, those tokens will be deposited into the KING vault, where LRTs can distribute them to users. This ensures that restaking users have liquidity for their extra yield.
—Joe, King Protocol
Why is Velodrome on Swellchain a great place to LP your KING?
Once you have KING on Swellchain—which you can bridge using Superbridge—there are three main yield options available, with more to come soon:
- LP on Velodrome – Swell has its own veVELO, which was bought and locked up to vote on the KING pool.
- Hold KING on Swellchain – Holding $KING on Swellchain earns SWELL rewards.
- LP KING-ETH on Ambient – Earns SWELL rewards.
You can check out all the earning opportunities on the Swell Portfolio.
— Abi, Swell
Thanks to everyone who attended the event!
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