Intro
Trader Joe is an AMM-based DEX that launched on the Avalanche blockchain in 2021. Since launching, the DEX has gone on to facilitate nearly $100B in cumulative trading volume across multiple chains.
The team developed their own unique CLMM, an NFT marketplace, lending and borrowing markets, and staking with real yield accrued from platform trading fees. At the end of 2022, Trader Joe introduced a novel protocol called Liquidity Book, enabling concentrated liquidity and zero slippage trade executing through use of an innovative discretized architecture.
To explore Trader Joe and find out more exciting facts and even insights about the project plans, delve into the article.
Trader Joe: Essential Metrics
- Total Value Locked (TVL): $147.44m
- Blockchains: Avalanche, Ethereum, Arbitrum, and BSC
- Native token: Yes, $JOE
- Market Cap: $210.2m
- Average APY: varies from 7.95% to 10.26% (as of December, 13)
- Risk Level: Medium
- Foundation Date: June, 2021
Trader Joe: Ecosystem
As we’ve mentioned above, Trader Joe grew into a full-stack project with many opportunities for DeFi users. It’s an Avalanche-oriented creature with various DeFi products under the hood. Let’s break down the whole platform into some smaller parts to embrace the ‘one-stop decentralized trading.’
We've also wanted to get more details on a particular issue, so asked Blue — TJ's Head of Marketing and Growth. Here's his answer:
Q: From a wide range of blockchains, how did you decide on Avalanche?
A: Two key factors influenced our decision to launch on Avalanche. Firstly, the platform's technological prowess, especially its consensus mechanism, is exceptional. It facilitates fast, scalable, and secure transactions, making it well-suited for large-scale applications and the DeFi sector.
Secondly, the professionalism at Ava Labs and their commitment to building a strong team were major draws. This, coupled with their clear focus on a long-term business strategy and solid growth prospects, reinforced our confidence in Avalanche's future success and aligned perfectly with our strategic objectives.
Source: Trader Joe website
Trading
You can trade using a wide range of assets across multiple chains. As for a fee model, it’s flexible and depends on a pool.
You’ll have a Base Fee that Trader Joe charges for a trade, a Max Fee that Trader Joe takes upon the earned fees, and a Protocol Fee for those who staked JOE tokens. Fees start from 0.005% for a stablecoin pair (USDT-USDC) and up to 0.8% for other pools. They may also rise to 2.48% based on the volatility caused by the trade.
Lending
The BankerJoe provides p2p lending based on the Compound protocol which is one of the most credible money market protocols. Investors lend or borrow against whitelisted assets.
It is an easy way to earn additional yield by lending your assets to borrowers without leaving the Trader Joe platform.
Liquid Pooling
Liquidity pool fees vary due to a definite pool. In general, traders pay a swap fee to liquidity providers while performing a swap. The total swap fee includes two components: a base fee and a variable fee. The fee rate depends on the swap amount in each liquidity bin and is distributed equally to the liquidity providers in the bin. More on fees in official docs.
- Liquidity Providers accrue fees from trading activity on the platform. These fees accrued are automatically compounded into a liquidity providers position.
Staking
The platform supports staking with no lock-up period and a 24/7 harvesting opportunity. As for farming investments, it’s crucial to remember that due to the last $JOE token emission that took place on the 24th of November, farming is not active anymore.
Although there is some liquidity in the pools, you can reinvest your assets through Notum to continue getting rewards for your investments.
NFTs
Joepegs Marketplace is a user-friendly platform with multiple NFT filters and a support website for artists to get real-time information. It is built to operate on Avalanche and BNB blockchains and it is one of the largest NFT markets in the Avalanche ecosystem. It offers minting, purchasing, and trading NFTs.
LaunchPEG is an NFT launchpad that provides various auction styles and minting options, such as flat mints at a fixed price.
What Is Trader Joe’s Liquidity Book?
Liquidity Book is a Trader Joe’s unique feature that changes how Automated Market Makers (AMMs) can operate. It was created to maximize both traders' and liquidity providers’ experience by introducing unique mechanisms to enhance capital efficiency and profitability. The main features the Book provides are:
- Zero Slippage: Traders can swap tokens without losing value caused by price changes within specific trading ranges and "bins."
- Concentrated Liquidity: Liquidity providers can choose specific price ranges to supply liquidity. That makes their capital more efficient.
- Surge Pricing: Liquidity providers have an opportunity to get additional dynamic fees when the market runs into high volatility.
- High Capital Efficiency: It supports high trading volumes with relatively low liquidity requirements making it more profitable for liquidity providers.
- Flexible Liquidity: Liquidity providers can customize how their liquidity is distributed, tailoring it to suit their strategies.
- Special Bin System: The system uses separate "bins" for trading ranges, rather than continuous price "ticks," setting it apart from AMMs like Uniswap V3.
- Fixed & Variable Pricing: It has a pricing model that includes both fixed and variable components. That allows them to tailor fees based on current market conditions.
JOE Token | Tokenomics
- Circulating supply: $341,459,396 JOE
- Total supply: $490,000,000 JOE
- All-time high JOE coin price: $5.07 (Nov 21, 2021)
- All-time low JOE coin price: $185.38
As Trader Joe is a community-driven project, it is governed by JOE governance token and rewards holders by distributing fees gathered from liquidation and swaps back to holders who stake JOE to get sJOE rewards.
Token’s Allocation
The initial distribution of Trader Joe (JOE) tokens is as follows:
Source: Trader Joe
- 50.00% is allocated to Liquidity Providers (LP);
- 20.00% is allocated to Treasury;
- 20.00% is allocated to Team;
- 10.00% is allocated to Future Investors.
As you can see, the token distribution is balanced and transparent. There are no pre-sales or private sales, which makes the platform genuinely decentralized.
Token’s Supply Schedule
JOE token was launched on 3 July 2021. The max supply of this token is capped at $490M. The supply of JOE is expected to be released in February 2024. The emission has ended, so there won’t be any newly minted tokens.
Source: Trader Joe
V1 AMM: a part of the platform's revenue, specifically 0.05% of all trades, goes into the sJOE staking pool.
V2 AMM: a flexible fee depending on the Liquidity Pool is paid to sJOE staking.
JOE tokens are emitted according to the distribution portion. Team, Treasury, and Future Investor funds are emitted at schedule as public distribution to LPs.
How Risky Is Trader Joe?
Trader Joe could be considered a safe protocol due to the following reasons:
First, it’s a decentralized exchange (DEX): The key thing is that DEXs rely on smart contracts for all management and protocol execution instead of being governed by a single authority. It means that there can’t be any manipulation and censorship. Transactions are secured by cryptography, so hacking is nearly impossible.
Moreover, according to Notum’s RAF, the platform is referred to as medium risk level, based on inspecting four key metrics: protocol audits, protocol exploits, protocol maturity, and protocol TVL.
Protocol audits: Trader Joe works with several security audit firms that test it to identify any vulnerabilities and prevent potential exploits.
- HashEx: They audited the AMM and yield farming at TraderJoe and found three high-level security issues. TraderJoe solved the issues by deploying the smart contracts on Avalanche C-Chain.
- Paladin: The auditing platform identified integrity vulnerabilities in the Trader Joe's system in 2020. Paladin audited several other DeFi projects such as LayerZero, SpookySwap, etc., and it is trusted and trustworthy in the industry.
- Protocol Maturity: The protocol was launched in 2021. Three-year maturity reduces technical risk as smart contracts are time-tested.
- Protocol Exploits: There haven’t been any recorded protocol hacks since launch.
- Protocol TVL: With TVL about $148m, the protocol is considered trustworthy.
How to Earn Yield by Staking sJOE?
sJOE is a token that gives a real yield paid in $USDC stablecoins. Its yield comes from the trading fees of the platform.
Every swap on Trader Joe charges a fee that is taken and distributed to Liquidity Providers. This ranges from 0.02% for a stablecoin pair (USDT-USDC) up to 0.8% for some other pools. Depending on the particular case, fees may rise to 2.48% based on the volatility caused by the trade. More information on fees can be found here.
sJOE Staking
sJOE runs on Avalanche and Arbitrum. These steps apply to both networks. Investors can stake into sJOE and unstake sJOE at any time. They don’t pay any fees to enter or exit sJOE staking strategy.
Source: DefiLlama
Rewards are generated every 2-3 days and distributed as soon as gained. Click “Claim Rewards” and confirm to get your rewards.
How Much Do Stakers Earn?
- sJOE stakers gain rewards equally proportional to their share of the sJOE vault.
- Rewards vary and are based on trading fees generated within the platform. The more trading volume is, the more fees are captured.
How to Calculate? Here’s the formula: userRewardRate = userJoe / totalJoe * sJoeRewardRate.
Insights From Trader Joe Team
We’ve asked some more questions about the project plans for the upcoming year to have a better understanding of Trader Joe’s goals and objectives. Blue kindly provided us with the answer:
Q: What can we expect from the project in 2024?
A: Trader Joe is continuing to research new product developments that aim to enhance or iterate on the current Liquidity Book model with the aim to provide a more efficient and seamless trading and liquidity providing experience.
Final Thoughts
Trader Joe might be an option for investors who are seeking to earn yield due to its high total value locked (TVL) and significant volume. The DEX is user-friendly and has a strong community and competitive gas fees on the Avalanche chain.
JOE tokenomics have also been updated to add more utility to long-term holders. The platform is continually going through various audits which makes it robust.
Disclaimer: Notum does not provide any investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. This article is written for informational purposes only. Cryptocurrency is subject to market risk. Please do your own research and trade with caution.