EMP Money Strategic Foundation — Part 2
In my precious article on EMP Money, I stated the importance of not selling your EMP. So if that’s the case, what can you do with it? Many in DeFi want to be yielding income on their holdings rather than leave it in their wallet. In this article I will go over the options you to get your EMP working for you.
Pair EMP With ETH To Earn ESHARE
The primary option is to pair your EMP with ETH then stake the EMP/ETH LP on the farm to earn ESHARE. This requires you to find fresh ETH. You can do this by purchasing ETH directly or selling your ESHARE. The problem is that you may wish to hold your ESHARE (like me) and may not be able to buy more ETH. Using your EMP to buy ETH to create LP is harmful toward the protocol and should be avoided. The good news is that there are other options.
Buy Bonds
If EMP is under peg you can swap your EMP for EBOND. Purchasing EBOND takes EMP out of circulation. EBOND can be redeemed back to EMP when it trades over peg again. In theory, this is the ideal mechanism to reduce circulating supply. The drawback is you can only redeem back to EMP when EMP trades over peg. The incentive for purchasing EBOND is that you receive bonus rewards if you hold them until they are more than 10% over peg.
Like other Tomb forks, the extended period of time that EMP has been below peg means that bonds have not proven to be an attractive option. The bonus is also hard to obtain. The last time EMP traded more than 10% over peg was in April and this was for a brief period.
Purchase Nodes
You can use EMP to purchase Nodes. Nodes pay back 400% of your initial investment over time. Your EMP will be deposited into the Node contract which will be used to gradually repay all Node holders. Nodes are also strategically subsidised by the Treasury to ensure a continual payout. The daily payout is approximately 3% of the pool balance but tends to be lower when EMP is below peg.
Nodes can be purchased in multiples of 500 (Nano Node), 1000 (Mini Node), 2000 (Kilo Node), 4000 (Mega Node), or 8000 (Giga Node). The bigger your Node contract, the higher the daily APR and faster you receive your ROI. This means it is better to save for a Giga Node if you can. Below is comparison of how different sized nodes work comparatively.
The main draw back with Nodes is that they can create sell pressure on EMP in the future. With the use cases added for Splinterlands and Growth DeFi, Nodes have become a more powerful tool for investors.
Use your EMP to participate in Splinterlands.
This is an option that I’m not totally familiar with but something I will be looking into soon. EMP Money has a partnership with Splinterlands which is a positive for both communities. If you are familiar with how Splinterlands works, this could be a great option. It is also a great option is if you are a fan of Play To Earn ecosystems.
Splinterlands have also used EMP Money’s Detonator as a Service (DaaS) in an attempt to attract liquidity on their SPS/BNB LP pair.
Stake Your EMP With Growth DeFi
Growth DeFi are another user of DaaS for their xGRO/BNB LP pair. Growth DeFi allow you to stake EMP in the Single Asset Staking pool to earn the xPERP token. The daily APR is roughly 0.23% at the moment.
The only catch is that you need to claim your rewards every 24 hours or they disappear. This is similar to how Detonator and Reactor work. The rollover occurs at 1am UTC so make sure this time works for you. A good guide is ask yourself if the Detonator rollover time is suitable for you.
What I Am Doing
I already had some Nodes and recently purchased a few Giga Nodes so I am receiving more EMP than I can realistically pair up. Theoretically I could swap my ESHARE to ETH to create more EMP/ETH LP but I plan to hold my ESHARE at current prices. There is also a new ESHARE single asset staking pool which means I have little incentive to sell right now. The only exception is that I take a small amount of profits because I am in need of some supplementary income in real life.
My current approach is to stake my EMP on Growth DeFi to earn xPERP. I generally compound at the same time as Detonator to make things easy. When I accumulate 8000 EMP I will unstake from Growth Defi and purchase another node.
I still haven’t decided what to do with my xPERP yet. I could use it to invest in the Growth Defi ecosystem but given the small revenue I’m not convinced that it is worthwhile yet.
Final Thoughts
The original Tomb fork design resulted in a lack of utility for peg tokens when they trade under peg. EMP Money are adding utilities to the token even when it trades under peg. They are not the only ones to do this but have had greater success than most (if not all) Tomb forks.
The EMP token itself is not only giving you exposure to Ethereum but utility is being added to the standard features of the peg token. For those who are patient, holding EMP could be very rewarding with incentives being added to hold the token while under peg. The team also provide the added incentive of allowing you become a VIP to get exclusive opportunities. Selling EMP is something that will against you gaining admission. I took this opportunity and I have no regrets. The whole DeFi space is hurting right now but EMP Money is a shining light in a dark space.
Links
EMP Money Homepage: https://emp.money/#/
EMP Money Detonator Link: https://emp.money/#/detonator?ref=0xa7AC3Ea7D8dEC039F459934Cb0d0152a2e2B28f1
Telegram Group: https://t.me/empmoney
Discord: https://discord.gg/9wDDa26Z6e
YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2ZUX77BqsmWkeOisjYEIeIWs6egmmVBd