Eclipse Equinox marks a significant development for new Cosmos projects launching via Eclipse Fi’s launchpad. Designed as a governance aggregator, Eclipse Equinox primarily focuses on the accumulation and strategic deployment of Astroport’s vote escrow token; vxASTRO. This integration enhances Eclipse Fi's launchpad model by enabling them to direct liquidity incentives towards the liquidity pools of the Eclipse Fi projects that are deployed on Astroport’s DEX.
Historically, the relationship between DEXs and launchpads has been interdependent yet disconnected. Eclipse Equinox bridges this gap by leveraging the symbiotic dynamics between Eclipse Fi and Astroport, a first in the DeFi space. Eclipse is utilizing ECLIP as the metagovernance token within this governance architecture, thereby expanding the token’s utility and furthering ecosystem integration. This integration is further strengthened by Astroport’s arc-75 proposal, which allows Eclipse Fi to earn 10% of the trading fees from pools deployed by Eclipse on Astroport.
Ecosystem integration as a result of Eclipse Equinox introduces several compelling flywheel effects. The synergy between a launchpad and governance aggregator positions Eclipse Fi as both a launchpad and a director of liquidity throughout Cosmos and on Neutron. This is anticipated to play a pivotal role in the upcoming vxASTRO wars, while creating further revenue and sustainability for the Eclipse ecosystem.
The impact of Eclipse Equinox extends beyond Eclipse Fi, offering substantial benefits to both Astroport and the Neutron ecosystem. Specifically, Eclipse Equinox offers ASTRO token holders an opportunity to stake in a vault for boosted ASTRO rewards and ECLIP rewards. This is facilitated by Astroport's ARC-102 proposal, which integrate a vote escrowed tokenomics model akin to Curve Finance’s veCRV, and thanks to the Equinox integration it helps create a mutualistic relationship between a DEX and a Launchpad. Furthermore, Astroport’s tribute market enables this model to be used by protocols or users to incentivize vxASTRO voters to direct Astro emissions to liquidity pools via bribes.
Eclipse Equinox presents an unprecedented model in blockchain governance whereby a DEX and a launchpad can collaborate, converging their liquidity and projects respectively for mutual gain.
Solving the Liquidity Problem with Eclipse Equinox
3.1. Astroport DEX x Eclipse Fi
Eclipse Equinox for eclipASTRO Liquidity providers
4.3. What if some ECLIP stakers/Essence holders don’t vote?
4.4. Breakdown of Voting/Bribe Rewards
4.6. Eclipse Rewards Ecosystem
4.6.1. eclipASTRO liquid single-staking vault
Launchpads play a critical role in web3 by accelerating the growth and development of new projects from their nascent stages of development. They facilitate funding, liquidity acquisition, and broad user engagement before, during and after the Token Generation Event(TGE). Additionally, they often have a large influence on go-to-market(GTM) community bootstrapping, especially with retail users during bull cycles. These platforms are integral to blockchain ecosystems and can be attractive to many parties, including blockchain networks, projects looking for users or capital and private investors looking for deal flow.
However, for many DeFi projects, exchanges are a larger focus. Exchanges play a key role in facilitating token liquidity generation events that are crucial to the launchpad's function. Launchpads list new projects with sufficient trading volume on exchanges, becoming an important source of fees and discovery by new community members. Hence why these exchanges often operate their own launchpads to drive volume to their ecosystem.
DEXes follow a similar pattern as they see an opportunity for mutual gain. Launchpads face challenges in bridging the gap between emerging projects and the needs of the market while exchanges (both centralized and DEXes) require new projects to drive more volume to their markets. That said, this synergistic relationship often ends up being a game for quick profits as users of these exchanges often rely on the projects listed to gain a quick profit. Exchanges, too, often list these new projects in an attempt to capture deeper transaction volumes and fees. While this serves well for new projects at the beginning, it often leaves them with little liquidity and volume to rely on once the initial value is captured. This is mostly caused due to a historically elusive and menacing problem in DeFi: liquidity.