Our Rationale for Delaying ITGR Listing
Jun 13, 2021
The worsening market condition has forced us to consider and reconsider the timing of our listing plan. Even the best protocols have sustained another wave of bloodbath last week, some falling as much as 33.2% again.
This is one of the toughest decisions the team has had to make, and we are fully aware of the significance of this decision to our token holders.
On the one hand, we are keen on executing on plan - we have implemented all the token, listing, and token release contracts, and everything is ready to go. We would feel good about delivering on time, as we always try to do. We think that this builds trust. Our biggest worry would be that the token price would be temporarily depressed enough to disappoint our long-term investors, but we can hope that our token price will rebound with the market later.
On the other hand, if today we were given a clean slate to make a decision that maximizes token holder value, we tend to think that:
1. It's probably wise to wait until the market rebounds a bit from the recent shocks. We believe that the market will rebound; it's just a matter of time.
2. Our trading volume is growing like this, and we believe that it will grow faster soon. Wouldn't everyone agree on a much higher token price if we just let the growth trajectory play out a bit longer?
3. Shouldering the responsibility to make wise decisions in times of emergency also builds trust.
Again, we are very conflicted about this. (And, at times, we really wish that we were decentralized enough to call a governance vote to settle this decision so that we don't need to make unpopular decisions like these).
As it currently stands, as the Gnosis Auction is closing in, we are forced to make an emergency decision. We have consulted with as many friends of the protocol as we can, and we have been encouraged to make the decision that we believe is right to maximize the long-term token price.
Again, we don't feel entitled to make a call on this, but we are responsible. And we have decided to delay the listing process (both the Gnosis Auction and token distribution). We expect to re-launch the listing process by late August, after the overall crypto market sentiment is healthier and we demonstrate strong progress on our growth targets. Our intention is to:
1. Steer clear of poor crypto market conditions - the downturn of the past 3 weeks, and wait for a market rebound.
2. Allow more time for our growth metrics to take off - both trading volume and community size.
Specifically,
1. The current Gnosis Auction will be terminated. We ask all bidders in the current auction to cancel their bids. Please do not submit further bidding. You will not be able to claim ITGR tokens.
2. Please do not worry If you fail to cancel your bids. You will receive a refund of USDC directly from us within 72 hours after the auction ends.
3. All existing bidders (cutoff timestamp is the posting of this announcement) will receive a 100 ITGR grant (3-year vesting, distributed on the new listing date) to compensate for any gas costs.
4. All token distribution will be delayed until a new listing date (expected in late August).
5. All minted ITGR tokens will sit in the Integral-owned genesis wallets and Gnosis-owned wallet and will not for any reason be transferred or traded until a new listing date.
6. There will be no circulating ITGR tokens until a new listing date is announced. Any circulating Token claiming to be ITGR without our verification could be a fraud and should be ignored.
In times like this, we can only hope to give our community the maximal degree of transparency. We will share below our entire growth roadmap, and we hope that you will agree with us once you see what we are planning on.
Additionally, as part of our growth plan and as a form of apology, we will be airdropping $1000 of trade credits to all current token holders. These trade credits, called Integral Points, can be used to reduce trading fees to zero and can be traded on the open market. More details will be forthcoming as we launch this program formally.
Our Growth Roadmap
It has been only 10 while weeks since we launched Integral as a newborn DEX, and during this period, we have achieved progress that has taken other comparable protocols much longer to accomplish:
1. We have rolled out full DEX functionality quickly and safely: first attracting an early ATH TVL of $750mm, and then rolling out full trading functionality with a novel algorithm. We are currently the #6 DEX on Defi Pulse.
2. We have built a sizable initial community of long-term holders, including 1900 investors and 2500 farmers.
3. We have raised a war chest to ensure that we will survive any market conditions and work fast towards the thesis of becoming the #1 DEX.
4. We have achieved product-market fit and are seeing an organic trading volume of $300mm+ in just 3 weeks of trading and high retention of 85% repeat trade volume.
We are just at the start of our hockey-stick growth:
1. We believe that our trading volume will take off as soon as we are integrated into a leading aggregator. Our execution price already consistently ranks top of the list among all DEXes, and we expect to take up a significant market share. However, because our swap is non-atomic, we are working closely with aggregators to make these integrations happen as soon as possible. In the meanwhile, we will be launching trade-flow incentives programs that encourage organic trading.
2. To play where the ball will be, not where it is, we believe that the next phase of trading volume growth will come from institutions. We are uniquely positioned to serve large trades from institutions and are in the process of designing the 1st DeFi pool that institutions can trade against. We believe that this long-term bet will catapult us far ahead of our competitors and get us close to #1 DEX status if it pays out.
3. Now that we have our product-market fit and our niche, we will start aggressively growing our community through social media campaigns in order to ramp up token demand.
4. We will sign more token distribution channels, including centralized exchanges, to ramp up token demand.
5. We will launch staking to reward long-term holders and reduce immediate token supply.
Executing on plan builds trust, but we hope that making tough decisions in times of crisis also builds trust. We can only hope that you judge us a bit more lightly this time. We will always keep our shareholders' long-term interests highest in mind.
If you have further inquiries, please open a Zendesk ticket, and our agent will offer help there.