Emerging bullish trend in DeFi:
Approved forks that reward OG protocols, adding extra yield to their tokens.
Uniswap, Compound, GMX, and Liquity are the most forked protocols, yet the OG protocols gained little benefit from these forks.
Thus new DeFi protocols launched under license that limits forking, serving as a "tax on innovation."
Fair to say that the industry dislikes the licensing.
When Uniswap V3 launched, we had to wait for 2 years until the V3 launched.
Instead, Aave licenses forking in exchange for rewards: revenue sharing or airdrop.
Notable examples are Spark and World Liberty Financial.
Yet, rewards varied and Aave DAO is now voting to unify it depending on fork type:
• Friendly Fork: Independent deployment using Aave code, but not Aave liquidity.
⇥ Terms: 10% monthly profit share and 3.5% token supply to Aave.
• Whitelabel Instance: Uses Aave liquidity, like WLFi.
⇥ Terms: 20% monthly profit share and 7% token supply to Aave.
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Aave is not alone.
Liquity V2 is launching under a license but with a vision of “friendly forks” across every EVM chain in exchange for "incentives".
15 forks are lined up, with @beraborrow, @felixprotocol and @NeriteOrg confirmed.
As @lurkaroundfind shares "in addition to airdropping to LQTY, each fork will use a portion of its token to incentivize DEX liquidity for BOLD, the Liquity v2 stable."
Under this new meta, everyone benefits:
• Innovation isn't restricted
• OG protocols get extra revenue and rewards
• Fork protocols get extra marketing support, technical advice, and no legal issues
Now, all eyes on Uniswap v4.
Uniswap v4 will launch under the 4 year license but Uniswap can potentially grant exceptions for specific use cases.
But will they?
I believe $UNI holders could benefit from friendly forks, similar to how Aave and Liquity do.
Naturally, as delegate to Aave I voted for the proposal. I hope Uniswap DAO follows.
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If you believe in this direction, please delegate your $AAVE or $UNI tokens to me in their DAO pages.
My address: 0x3DDC7d25c7a1dc381443e491Bbf1Caa8928A05B0
ENS: ignasdefi.eth
Note: I'm an active delegate on Arbitrum, Lido, Optimism DAOs as well, so use the same address to delegate your tokens.