I performed a rather neutral-toned analysis of the potential revenue mechanisms for @leostrategy in response to the question "Where does the yield come from for SURGE".
I make no significant distinction between the Inleo team and LeoStrategy team given the discernible coordination and overlapping ownership of the relevant tokens. @khaleelkazi has identified himself as a "Board Member" of LeoStrategy.
My analysis apparently was interpreted as harsh criticism of Leostrategy, you may access the post and comment chain here:
https://peakd.com/hive-167922/@leostrategy/surge-is-the-nextgen-stable-yield-play-9c3#@alohaed/re-senorcoconut-t3b30c
General response, if you have a token project on Hive with replete with a marketing and hype campaign, anyone can and should (if so inclined) discuss it on chain. Your permission or opinion is irrelevant. One of the primary purposes of Hive is to secure a censorship resistant forum for discussion. Freedom is a habit and strengthened by practice. I would absolutely respect your respective right to down vote that content.
The hype around the tokens, is approaching 2021 DeFi levels of hype, and virtually every prediction or estimate of the value of the associated tokens is "up only". When hype is at a fever pitch, it is likely time to engage in some sober analysis.
The general premise of LeoStrategy, does have some merits. With LEO now essentially a revenue share token on LeoDex, it has some clear utility. The caveat is that LeoDex is now one of many competitors in the Thorchain/Maya crosschain swap ecosystem. From the available data LeoDex has generated ~$3,600 in earnings from its swap fees. That amount may increase if perpetual futures trading increase platform revenue. It is unclear if the Thorchain ecosystem itself is capable of generating a substantial increase in usage. Leostrategy is a substantial staker of LEO on the LeoDex platform and thus captures a substantial portion of swap fees. It's clear that those swap fees will have to grow substantially to fund the same level of spending on LEO that was generated by the presales of LSTR and SURGE.
In my analysis of the yield source for SURGE, I commented to the person that asked, that at least for the first six months of yield payments, the purchaser is funding their own yield. That is LeoStrategy sequestered a portion of the sales to pay for the yield. There is nothing controversial or disputable about this observation.
The poster responding to me from LeoStrategy concluded "Again, I'd love for you to explain how HP plays any role in this?"
This is relatively simple to answer:
- LeoStrategy's content is curated with both Hive Power (HP) and Leo Power.
- LeoStrategy and InLeo related accounts consistently advocate for users to "Feed the SIRP", the SIRP is a mechanism where subscriptions to INLEO premium, and curation revenue is used to purchase LEO with Hive, and distribute it to LEO stakers. LeoStrategy itself identifies the SIRP as an element of achieving its goals.
While it may be an unpopular opinion, given the coordination and synchronized marketing, the distinction between InLeo and LeoStrategy appears to be a polite fiction. I think the project is interesting, and it success likely hinges on driving volume to the LeoDex platform. I also make no apologies for analyzing and commenting on public projects that utilize the Hive Blockchain at least in part.
Seems that this interwebz blockchain thingy is harder than it looks.
It might help if we could call someone who cares for a quarter.
Since the kneecappening and 2 year development walkabout in ~17 to ~19 there has been very little reason for people to use hive and lots of reasons not to.
It's almost as if somebody said to pull it.
There isn't much leo could have done absent some grand influx of new users.
Hive had some fortuitous timing. The fork happened as people were becoming more broadly interested in crypto outside of Bitcoin and Litecoin. Social media was mainly Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. Tiktok hadn't taken off yet, federated social media was nascent.
The DeFi boom coupled with the Covid environment, motivated people to seek out alternatives and interested in the overlap of blockchain and social media.
In 2025 attention is more fragmented in both domains.
I sometimes wonder if we would fare better in the current environment by marketing Hive as a superior platform for blogging and communications. It's a developing thought and fully articulated yet, but there appears to be a growing disastisfaction with the modern web and social media experience.
Yeah, it appears that indelible data storage is going to be our thing.
Maybe some defi, at some point.
We were #3, in the world.
Yeah, I am not invested in any of it either. Seems like a big ole circle jerk to me. It's the same few people with the largest concentration of coins. I use Inleo and paid a year of premium that I have a bout a 3rd of left, but yeah, these tokens seem sketchy to me. And they don't like you talking about it either. Oh well, here we are, lol.
And now, a more serious comment. Your analysis did not appear to be misinformation. It was pragmatic analysis - and those without assets in an eco system performing pragmatic analysis is exactly what people should encourage - because if you have favourable conclusions, that would lure others into it.
If you have conclusions that do not appear to be bullish, or favourable, based on your research (excusing any potential gaps in it) - then well, that isn't good marketing.
My own pragmatic analysis of the LEO project has been one that shows (and I will be happy to be wrong in the future) - unsustainable growth as THE MODEL, as opposed to a pragmatic, realistic projection of "even if this (realistic situation) is the worst case scenario", here is what happens.
The future isn't promised.
I think they should refine some of their public facing communication styles.
When the prevailing mode is dramatic exuberance and hyperbole,anything that doesn't mirror that likely gets interpreted as "FUD" or negative opposition.
The language around Leostrategy marketing reads as if it was ripped straight out of 2021 a month before the DeFi crash.
The problem is it's 2025, DeFi protocols aren't novel anymore. There isn't really a class of long term crypto holders who haven't been exposed to unrealistic hype.
LSTR probably is a strong mechanism to sustain the LEO price, but the amount of purchasing required to continually drive price higher is an exponential curve.
Leostrategy's revenues after the presale money is spent, will most likely come from their arbitrage bots (market makers) and from revenue on the LeoDex platform. The userbase on Thorchain and Maya Protocol isn't huge, and there have been some missteps over the past year (from holder complaints). In order for LeoDex revenues to significantly increase, they have to increase their user base in relationship to other dexes in the Thorchain space, and its likely that Thorchain itself has to grow.
InLeo appears to be pushing pepertual futures trading, which is essentially a form of gambling for a specific subset of crypto trader. It may take off in the Thorchain ecosystem or it may not - it's not clear what level of unmet demand exists for this activity.
Leo team is well known for multiple scams and financial slanders in the past. The backbone of all their project are just farming hive reward pool in a variety of different ways. Their "top content" creators are just top hive reward pool extractors. I can demonstrate this with data and have done multiple times in the past with success.
My only problem is why hive stakeholder is not stopping their auto-votes on these accounts?
https://hiveanalytics.usehive.com/leo-voter-premium
My point is you can create 50 different tokens and try and siphon value, but people don't have to be dumb to allow them to do it.
I think the pivot away from Hive may be good for them, and us. The Leodex twitter posts celebrating the ability to swap TRX (Tron Blockchain) assets, indicate there has been some ideological and conceptual divergence, that may be beyond reconciliation.
It's gone from this:
To this:
Hive is a repudiation of Justin Sun, so it is challenging to reconcile enthusiasm for embracing that space.
I have been begging them to leave hive for ages!!
They are like blood sucking ticks though, or like a parasite, they will never leave!
Your point that for the first six months the SURGE buyer is funding there own yield from sequestered presale funds is just straight cash flow, nothing spicy. With LeoDex at about 3600 in fees, the math says platform voluem has to grow a lot before those swap fees can sustain similar LEO buys. Noting how SIRP plus HP curation feeds LEO back to stakers also supports your link between the teams, which is a fair read of incentives. I definately value analysis that cools the room, my calculator even smiled a bit today :)
1 of paper, 4 of coin
That's more or less it. Presale purchasers give Leostrategy 4 Hive in exchange for 1 SURGE, and Leostrategy gives them back 15% yield per year based on a fixed valuation of $1.00 per SURGE.
LeoStrategy is setting aside funds equivalent to six (6) months of yield, so they have some runway to begin generating revenue.
Unless the maximum supply is altered when SURGE is migrated to BASE then the upper limit for SURGE is 2,000,000 tokens, valued at $1.0, that would leave LeoStrategy on the hook eventually to generate $300,000 in revenues annually to make yield payments, after the runway is exhausted. That's approximately $821 a day.
That's achievable if they are disciplined and tighten up their communications.
~$1300 a day (at August's hive prices) in curation across the entire hive platform (for authored posts) - and LEO / LSTR's holdings of hive do not make up a significant chunk of this, but with exchange volume, perhaps it is achievable, but apart from the ~30LEO that I somehow ended up with (without making a conscious effort to acquire it) - I will wait and see.
I am a hive content maximalist in the context of this discussion, and I do not want to see the work of genuine authors devalued by poor quality curation "at all costs" to see "investors" rewarded at any costs.
I am sure you are familiar with @themarkymarky Hive Analytics site, and the clear bias in leovoter towards subscribers:
https://hiveanalytics.usehive.com/leo-voter-premium
I love your analysis 😬
Thank you, it's been an interesting project to track so far.
I fell for the LEO hype with cub and look where that went, Can't say I really lost anything, got out without too much loss, brought a tiny bit with their latest HYPE nonsense and sold at the top for a small profit.
Not a project I'd personally have anything to do with anymore. They had their chances, enough is enough.
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@alohaed, I failed to pay out 3.017 HIVE and 0.567 HBD to reward 14 comments in this discussion thread.
My wallet is running low on Hive or HBD. I will try again later.