Voting on ASGARDEX

2018-10-28 — 6 min read

Voting is now open on ASGARDEX. This short guide will cover how to vote for projects on ASGARDEX.

ASGARDEX is the first decentralised exchange built on THORChain. It will have permissionless access, on-chain incentivised liquidity and cross-chain compatibility. THORChain will be the largest, most liquid and most useable exchange protocol ever, powering the next generation of exchanges, wallets and payment services.

Whilst ASGARDEX is new, liquidity needs to be boot-strapped onto the network, and developer efforts need to be prioritised. As such, the team are using a community voting procedure in order to determine which tokens will be listed first.

Once the community vote on which tokens and blockchains will be listed first, the following will happen:

THORChain developers will build a Bifröst (bridge) to the blockchain
The Odin Foundation will purchase assets off the market and create the first liquidity pools for the top voted tokens.
The Odin Foundation will stake liquidity from the Liquidity Fund for that token, and support the pool.

In the future anyone can list any token at any time. If the token is already supported by a Bifröst (bridge to THORChain), then simply sending it across the bridge will create a new liquidity pool for that token. For coins that have their own blockchains, then users can request a new bridge by participating in on-chain governance to request validators to support the necessary infrastructure.

Let’s go through the voting procedure.

Voting

Requirements

A desktop browser with a Metamask wallet with Rune tokens

TrustWallet mobile browser with Rune tokens

1. Head to vote.asgardex.io

You can find your project under “ACTIVE” if it already has votes, or “PENDING” if it doesn’t have any votes yet. You can also search for your token.

2. Vote

Voting for a project to list on ASGARDEX is easy. There are three steps:

Get some Rune.

Vote for your project with Rune.

Win the vote.

You can head to thorchain.org/token to acquire Rune. These are needed for voting. As Rune is always used as the settlement currency and liquidity pair for each token on ASGARDEX, it is necessary to demonstrate sufficient liquidity support for each token.

When voting, you do not need to send your Rune anywhere. They stay on your address at all times. The voting transaction is a 0-eth transaction with some voting information about which coin you are voting for. Once the transaction is mined on Ethereum, then the smart contract reports how much Rune was used to vote and the votes are updated.

Once you have Rune on your Metamask or Trust Wallet address, then you can vote

Referral Codes

When you are ready to vote with your Rune, then you have the opportunity to add an optional referral code. If you add a referral code, you will get an extra 5% of the Rune you voted with airdropped to you when the project you vote on is listed. Ask your friends or community for a referral code if this is the first time you see this.

You need to add your voting address for the referral code to work. This should be pre-filled if you have a Trust wallet or Metamask logged in.

Voting Transaction

Once you have filled in the information, click the button on the bottom right of the page. If you have Rune on your address, then the number of votes you are casting are displayed.

Once you click the vote button, a Metamask or Trust wallet transaction will pop up. The details of this transaction are:

0-ether

Extra-data is filled with some information on the coin you are voting for

Gas price is set to the latest network gas fee

Gas limit is around 48000

The transaction simply tells the smart contract which token you are voting for and does not send Rune or Ether anywhere. This method ensures that votes are genuine, are unlikely to be performed by bots (as they cost a little bit of ether in the gas fee) and allows the community to vote on the coins they want.

Finishing

When you have sent your transaction, you will see a unique link that contains your referral code. If you share this around with your friends, you will be airdropped extra tokens when the project they vote on is listed.

Adding a New Token

If you can’t find your token in the list when you search, you can add it easily. This feature currently only supports ERC-20 tokens. If you would like a NEO, EOS or QTUM token to be listed, please contact the development team.

You can add a new token from the search page

Simply search and click the “add token” button.

To add a new token, simply add the token address. The Token details will be pre-filled if it is a valid token address.

Once you add it, then a new link will be generated for that token. You can share this around for your friends to vote.

Listing

The first Bifröst (bridge) that will be built to THORChain will be an Ethereum bridge to allow the Rune token to be moved over. As such, the first token to be listed on ASGARDEX will be the Rune Token. Rune will be indexed as Token0 (T0) on THORChain. The T1 token space is reserved for Bitcoin. The next tokens that will be listed are entirely up to community vote. Listing order is important in THORChain for the following reasons:

Once a token is supported, it is indexed on THORChain and linked to a continuous liquidity pool. This can never be changed.

Index order determines pair order. For example, as Rune is T0, it will always be the base pair for any token, such as BTC:RUNE, ETH:RUNE etc. However, users may choose to trade across the ETH:BTC pair, in which case the token with the lower index is the base pair. If Bitcoin is T1, and Ether is T2, then the order will be ETH:BTC, and never BTC:ETH. Thus, Bitcoin, being T1, will always be the base pair for non-Rune pairs.

The Odin Foundation will spend assets to purchase the voted token off the wider market in order to bootstrap the token’s liquidity. Once sufficient community liquidity has been added, the Foundation will smoothly remove staked liquidity in order to bootstrap the next token. In some cases, the Foundation may never remove the liquidity, but this depends on community input.

Conclusion

ASGARDEX is the first lightning fast decentralised exchange to be built on THORChain. Any exchange can be built on THORChain and will be able to access all liquidity, features and assets on the protocol. The voting for the first assets is necessary to focus development effort and liquidity.

Use this voting process to signal to the THORChain team which assets should be listed first.