An honest question: Why do we need our own DEX?

Hi Martians

Love the progress we’re making so far, when looking at the roadmap though I am most excited about the gamefi aspects. And I often wonder, why do we need another DEX on Harmony? Can we not cooperate with an existing long standing DEX on Harmony (e.g. ViperSwap) instead of creating our own?

This will allow Mars Colony to focus solely on (IMO) the best aspects of the future for Mars which are the amazing upcoming NFT’s and gamefi aspects, instead of being bogged down on the DEX. Let another talented dev handle that while Mars Colony focused on their own differentiating factors in the markets (and what makes Mars Colony so unique).

So open question: why our own DEX (potentially wasting time and effort that we could spend on key aspect of the game) instead of working together with existing DEXes on Harmony (those that might also have ambition expanding outside this chain)?

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I think it’s a great question, and questions like these are also great. Because sometimes it needs to be challenged. Here’s one of the reasons I think why having an in game DEX would benefit the game and the brand as a whole.

If you have on chain DEX within the game it allows control over the type of features /coins/liquidity pairs you could allow, and also let’s say if in the future MARS colony wants to branch out to other blockchains, which we know is going to happen in the future, this allows better bridging capabilities between the project and pair combinations and also gas fees, arbitrage and slippage etc. I don’t know much about adapting a current DEX, but from what I have seen there seems to be a lot of things as to why having your own DEX supersedes having a shared DEX. Just my two cents but I’m always happy to be corrected as I’, also just learning about all these new GameFi/Defi concepts

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As a counter and arguments for partnering with an existing DEX (Devil’s advocate here):

  • Existing liquidity/value on the DEX that could flow into CLNY
  • Time/energy saved on created and innovating(/updating) our own DEX
  • Can increase focus, speed and execution on the in game elements
  • Growing together with your partner, again it would have to be a DEX that also has ambition to go cross-chain
  • Also Mars Colony can still own the liquidity and even lock it, the example to mention here would be TRANQ on the Harmony Chain that has become a success without their own DEX
  • Another example would UNITE Finance, that I believe is also going to add a gamefi element now

As you see competition on the gamefi front is increasing, hence why I think this is where we should double down on.

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Great counter:

some thoughts .

  • agree existing liquidity would help, but they are more geared towards that particular DEXs audience but could potentially help if a partnership was established.

  • I suppose the core framework would be available from Harmony already with a minor few tweaks this shouldn’t be to much work, however could be completely wrong

  • Could coincide with second point, but agree focus could be towards the gamefi aspect if DEX was a ton of work to compile

  • Agree but this could also be a major risk to a project

  • Tranq is a rather good example, however I also think they make use of their initial native token to supply liquidity for other DEXs

your points are all valid and I fully agree, it would be good to get input on this from the team and get their thought process behind it, also maybe establishing a DEX with a new kind of Space exploration game could also be new if it consists with expanding into other blockchain networks.

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This is a great “Direct” question. I’ve often said this indirectly via “Collaboration” ideas. To add to this conversation, a collaboration with say “Sushiswap” which we already have liquidity on, is already built on multiple chains. Seems to me that the thing required is the “Bridge” aspect that “Elk” provides, “Harmony” provides, and I think DFK also has some sort of cross chain bridge. I realize that the DEX has its fees it collects for the treasury. Perhaps this is the motiviation behind the DEX, just seems to me that re-inventing the wheel ( not really cause code is available just needs conversion and tweaking ), but it does take away from the GameFi aspect and resources required to develop the integrations. I think a bridge for CLNY to our “future” colonies is a great tool to have, but as mentioned, a DEX that already has significant user base and liquidity just seems like a resource too good to pass up for a .3% transaction fee. Lost development time IMO which is what will drive the utility of the token. This is all coming from someone who has no clue about how to develop on the blockchain. @brother @eugenefinch @father

UPDATE: The reason for our own DEX as conveyed during an informal AMA is that it allows for better bridging capabilities cross-chain than using an existing DEX. Team has already got experience building a DEX so its not a major undertaking. Thank you @brother for hosting an informal AMA. Always fun to listen to your rants.

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I think the original idea of having a DEX was to place the CLNY token as an intermediary in all swaps.
So if someone wants to swap from ONE → 1ETH, there would be two pools ONE/CLNY and 1ETH/CLNY and the ONE → 1ETH transaction would in fact be ONE → CLNY → 1ETH.
It would collect fees that would be redistributed, (or maybe burned?) and enable the team to think about cross chain bridges.

Overall I agree though, I’m also more interested in the game development currently. If the “Fi” in GameFi is important, the “Game” part is as well and so far on this later point nothing new has been released since the project was launched on main net.

It’s coming though and they’re expanding their team, so more power to develop all these things.

Forward

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