Pika Protocol Dev Recap

Pika team has been working hard for the past 3 months to develop the platform and foster the growth of our vibrant community. Our dedication to innovation and enhancing user experiences has been the driving force behind our continuous efforts. The result has been a stream of developments and achievements, punctuating our journey with a series of significant milestones.

Retroactive Airdrop

On June 19th, we were very excited to unveil the long-awaited retroactive airdrop, a heartfelt token reward for our loyal traders, LPs, and dedicated community contributors. Their invaluable support has helped shape Pika during our first two years, evolving it into the protocol it is today. Just three days later, on June 22nd, the airdrop went live, allowing our users to start claiming their EsPika tokens and initiate the vesting process.

The claiming process remains open until September 30, 2023 — so if you have a historical connection to our platform, we encourage you to check and claim your tokens if you haven’t already done so!

Pika v4: Beta Launch

The journey of Pika Protocol’s more recent accomplishments began in earnest with the launch of the beta of Pika v4 on July 5. This marked a major improvement on the already successful v3, and introduced a host of new features and enhancements to the platform.

The integration of Pyth’s oracle price feeds was a pivotal development, granting users trustless and permissionless order execution. Alongside this, the reduction of trading fees and the introduction of numerous new trading features and pairs created exciting opportunities for traders. Additionally, the beta launch included an advanced TradingView chart, enhancing the analytical capabilities for users. Flexible margin and non-liquidatable low leverage trading are also made possible in v4.

The beta phase played an invaluable role as a testing ground, enabling the team to glean essential insights from early adopters and refine the platform comprehensively as we launched new features and upgrades in rapid succession.

With a user-centric approach in mind, the Pika team dedicated substantial effort to enhancing the user experience. A large number of frontend fixes and improvements were implemented, all aimed at ensuring a smooth and hassle-free experience for traders, liquidity providers, and investors. This meticulous attention to detail paid off as the platform operated relatively smoothly for the entire month of the beta, garnering positive feedback from the community.

PIKA Staking

Beyond the airdrop, the most eagerly awaited feature of v4 was undoubtedly PIKA staking. Staking went live on July 19, providing $PIKA stakers with 30% of trading fees and 10% of EsPika emissions paid in real time, as well as eventual access to trading discounts and EsPika rewards for traders. This programmatic token utility sets $PIKA apart as a unique asset in the space. To date, our dedicated user base and community have staked an impressive total of over 12 million $PIKA tokens, a figure that continues to grow steadily.

Incentives Program

On August 1st, we embarked on an exciting new chapter with the introduction of EsPika incentives for both traders and liquidity providers in our vault. This shift marked the inception of our incentives program, strategically designed to reward and incentivize both traders and LPs alike. These incentives, boosted by $PIKA staking, are part of the V4 flywheel for protocol growth.

Refreshing our UI: A new look for the Pika App

Understanding the importance of visual appeal, we totally revamped the design of several pages on the platform: including the staking page, vault, dashboard, and more. These redesigns provide a new sleek and intuitive interface to navigate the platform and stake your $PIKA and Espika, as well as to manage rewards, trading discounts, and vault liquidity provision.

We’ve also introduced a fresh look to the pikaprotocol.com landing page, designed to showcase our latest features and extend a warm invitation to first-time users — embracing a new aesthetic, while maintaining our classic style.

Pika v4: Fully Launched

Drawing from the valuable insights gathered during the beta phase, Pika Protocol version 4 transitioned to an official release on August 4th.

We’ve seamlessly integrated and fine-tuned various elements, including the upgraded user interface, incentive programs, and staking features. We remain dedicated to the ethos of continuous improvement, and you can expect a steady stream of new innovations, upgrades, and additions as we progress with v4.

Trading Discounts and Delegation

The last piece of the staking rewards to go live was the trading discounts on August 11. These discounts provided $PIKA traders with the opportunity to get even lower rates on our already industry-leading low trading fees, based upon their $PIKA staked and amount of volume on a 30-day trailing volume basis.

In addition, we implemented a delegation system for our larger traders, or any others who are more security minded, to allow them to stake $PIKA and accumulate rewards in one address, while delegating the trading discount to another hot-wallet address for active trading.

Supporting 35 Trading Pairs

Since the launch of Pika v4, we’ve been diligently expanding our offerings, introducing new trading pairs each week that span both the crypto and forex. We’ve incorporated a wide range of the community’s favorite assets, from L1s and L2s to DeFi and meme coins. And our list keeps expanding!

Community Projects

Our progress however isn’t solely attributed to our developers and core team; our dedicated Pika community has also demonstrated remarkable industriousness. Community members have stepped forward to craft new tools and dashboards, offering deeper insights into Pika’s metrics.

Dune Wizard T0xicPotato spearheaded the creation of innovative dashboards, while Pika OG FreeMartian contributed several additional dashboards, offering comprehensive insights into the airdrop and various other aspects. Additionally, LordBogdanoff curated subgraph data with a new stats site at pika-stats.com, which meticulously tracks an array of trading and protocol metrics, enriching our understanding of the ecosystem.

What’s on the Horizon?

The team is actively working on a number of major updates. Here’s a glimpse of what’s coming soon:

• Introducing the Pika SDK: A toolkit for traders to seamlessly build bots tailored to their unique trading strategies.
• Unveiling the Trader Leaderboard: A real-time insight platform for traders to observe and learn from the best in the game.
• Kickstarting the Referral Program: A strategy aimed at bolstering the growth trajectory of the platform.
• Launching Trading Contests: An initiative to further drive the adoption by motivating and rewarding our traders.
• Expanding Our Trading Suite: Expect the increase to 50+ trading pairs, spotlighting the hottest new assets.
• Increasing the Max Leverage: Enhancements to the leverage for major trading pairs.

Pika Protocol will continue to evolve and push the boundaries of what’s possible. Together, the future holds even more promise and potential for both the team and its dedicated community.

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