After much deliberation and careful thought Neptune Mutual decided to close the cover marketplaces.
After much deliberation and careful thought Neptune Mutual decided to close the cover marketplaces. Below the reasons for the decision as well as what it means for the community.
The marketplaces will be closed using an emergency withdrawal process whereby the liquidity provided to cover pools by LPs will be returned to the wallet addresses from which the liquidity was supplied. In addition to protecting cover pool LPs, there will also be refunds to all cover policy purchasers with an existing and valid policy who have paid over 10 USD in policy fees in one transaction.
For veNPM holders, please fill out this form to receive a refund for your veNPM to NPM conversion penalty.
From the end of June there will no longer be NPM emission incentives for LPs i.e. Epoch 3 of the liquidity gauge emissions will be canceled.
Unused funds raised from financial backers will be returned to those backers; this includes DEX liquidity that has now been removed from SushiSwap and Uniswap. A small amount of liquidity on SushiSwap Arbitrum has been left to enable a minimum amount of NPM trading.
The protocol will be open sourced, and become a true public good. Enabling the community to fork the code developed by the Neptune Mutual team such that others might use the existing resources to further our mission to make the blockchain space better protected against smart contracts and other risks.
There are numerous factors that have led to this difficult decision, some of which are external factors which are uncontrollable or unforeseeable. A few factors summarized below:
“Given Neptune Mutual’s Tier 1 backers, why have you not listed on a top CEX?”
This is perhaps one of the most frequently asked questions. In short, the answer is that for a variety of reasons Neptune Mutual was not able to achieve the diverse set of performance metrics (community size and engagement, marketplace user activity, DEX 24 hour trading volume, TVL growth etc.) required to list on top tier CEX. The CEXs that are prepared to list NPM token do not have the depth of liquidity or breadth of user-base to offer good prospects for NPM tokenholders.
“Why has Neptune Mutual not achieved strong growth?”
It is tempting to take a shortcut to answer this question by pointing a finger at one specific factor, but the reality is that there are many contributing factors. A few summarized below:
Since the outset of engaging with the community we have endeavored to highlight the need for DeFiInsurance; Neptune Mutual built a comprehensive dataset of on-chain hacks available, anywhere, and each week we highlight the many millions of dollars that are stolen as a result of smart contract hacks. Despite this, we have consistently been confronted by projects unwilling to spin up cover pools in our marketplace because of the sentiment that audits of their code are sufficient to persuade their community that their protocol is safe. Less than 0.3% of all digital assets are protected with some form of DeFiInsurance, and yet despite all the media reports of hacks, the conference discussions about the importance of governance or CEX proof-of-reserves, it continues to be the case that it is extremely difficult to get media attention to focus on the need for a fast and efficient means of mitigating smart contract risk.
A variety of approaches have been taken by different DeFiInsurance protocols to address this, from attending multiple conferences throughout the year and significant marketing spend, to the leaner approach that Neptune Mutual took (in part as a result of the bear market in 2023). What can be said is that no DeFiInsurance protocol has managed to achieve significant growth over the last 18 months, sadly the overall TVL of the sector has shrunk a lot.
For all the reasons above, at this moment the best course of action is no longer to double-down on investing in growth, but rather to refund unused capital and close the marketplaces.
The consequences are very tough for the Neptune Mutual team who have spent the past 3 years of their time on the mission to facilitate safer environments within DeFi. The team has delivered products according to the roadmap and the fact that the protocol was never hacked, despite attempts being made on the darkweb, is testament to the expertise, passion and absolute focus on security. The team survived the FTX and UST crisis unscathed, and believed that the continued growth in hacks would lead to growth in the demand for a good solution to mitigate these risks, but sadly, as can be seen right across the DeFiInsurance category, this is not yet in sight. So we would like to thank the team for all the dedication, skill and passion invested into the Neptune Mutual project since the outset.
The team will open source the protocol, including blockchain indexing protocol (subgraph alternative), frontend, middleware, database, and backend code, to make it a true public good. This will allow anyone to fork the code and create covers by defining parameters and premium ranges, potentially leading to innovative covers and organic usage.
The Discord channel will be closed to reduce the risk of phishing and other types of cyber attack, any questions / queries will be responded to in the Telegram channel.
We want to take this final opportunity to thank you all for your support.
Neptune Mutual will contact only its financial backers, with whom a signed agreement exists, in relation to next steps (i.e. holding NPM tokens does not qualify you for any form of refund). Contact will be made only from a neptunemutual.com domain email address so please check the source of any email you may receive very carefully. Please ignore any messages from any other email or social media accounts in relation to token/cash refunds.
Neptune Mutual announces NFT launch aiming to reward and engage the Neptunite community.
While Bored Apes and CryptoPunks have been a huge hit with collectors and traders, there's more to NFTs and digital collectibles. At Neptune Mutual, we think earning NFTs, rather than simply buying them, makes them more satisfying to collect and adds extra value.
That's why we're launching a collection of soulbound and tradable Neptune-themed NFTs for the Neptunite community that are free-to-mint exclusive artworks.
Unlike traditional NFT 'drops', we're taking a different approach at Neptune Mutual; users of our cover marketplace will qualify for free-to-mint NFTs. We have created a complete NFT collection and reward system to encourage adoption of cover which mitigates security and custody risk.
Each time you interact with the marketplace, for example, by buying cover or contributing liquidity to a cover pool, you'll earn points and have the chance to use those points to unlock NFTs.
Any user who has purchased a cover of $10 or more will be eligible for a soulbound Grim Wyvern NFT that is the starting point of a user’s journey to unlock more NFTs in the series. As you purchase higher levels of cover or contribute liquidity to the network, you'll access higher levels of the NFT reward program. This will give you access to NFTs of increasing rarity.
Think of this as a Web 3.0 loyalty program. The more you engage with the platform and participate in the marketplace, the more opportunities you'll have to unlock tradable NFTs.
In addition to the mintable NFTs, we may offer some airdropped NFTs. These will be given for free to qualifying users during special promotions and will not require points or token expenditure.
Introducing Neptune, the Guardians, and the Beasts#
All of the NFTs in our first collection are themed around the lore of Neptune, the Guardians of the Sea, and the Beasts that prey on unwitting sailors who venture out into the sea of DeFi. The initial NFT collection will include several key characters from the Neptune universe, including Neptune himself and:
Many of these NFT characters are available in their basic forms and as Legendary Evolutions. Each of them is vibrantly illustrated and accompanied by lore explaining their origins and powers.
Moreover, we also offer NPM token rewards for collecting characters, which vary with the level of the character. If you'd like to know more about these characters and the part they play in the Neptune Universe, check out our introduction to Neptune Lore, where you can learn about the beasts and the valiant guardians who fight tirelessly to protect DeFi adventurers. You can also jointhe waitlist to receive our NFT magazine profiling the NFT characters and their stories.
Each of the NFTs above has a rating reflecting its level and the number of siblings it has. NFTs with a lot of siblings are relatively common whereas NFTs that are a higher level and have fewer siblings are rare. NFT siblings are nonetheless unique and distinct from each other, having combinations of attributes that are one of a kind.
The first level of any character is known as the "Selection Level." Once you've minted a character at the Selection Level, you'll have the option to mint Evolutions of that character as you earn more points and advance through the levels of the marketplace.
For example, at Level 1, you can mint the Sabersquatch or Delphinus. Depending on which NFT you chose, when you progress to Level 2, you then have the option of minting one of two evolutions: Epic Delphinus or Diabolic Sabersquatch. Each of the guardians and beasts has an evolution to choose from.
However, the bottom line is that you must have enough points to mint an NFT. And points can be earned through purchasing cover or providing liquidity in the Neptune Mutual marketplace.
In addition, you must have unlocked the lower-level NFTs to unlock the higher-level ones. It means that you can’t skip straight to a higher-level NFT.
While there's a points requirement to mint NFTs, we do not charge a minting fee. Our objective with this launch is to produce NFTs that reward our users and celebrate the goals of the Neptune Mutual ecosystem.
We're introducing a collection of soulbound NFTs that cannot be sold or traded once they're unlocked. These NFTs show that the owner is part of the Neptunite community.
To access the NFT marketplace, you must have unlocked and redeemed your first soulbound NFT. From there, you can collect more NFTs by performing certain actions on the platform and earn points that can be used to purchase tradable NFTs.
There are seven levels of tradable NFT "evolutions" to collect, with each level offering access to different guardians or beasts. Within each evolution level, there are also levels of rarity. Tradable NFTs can be sold or exchanged on NFT marketplaces as normal, or you can keep them in your wallet to admire them in the future while you work to complete the whole set.
Neptune Mutual's cover pools aim to protect DeFi users from hacks and exploits, and that's what we want to emphasize with our NFT series, too. Any active user of our platform can start collecting NFTs through their normal activities on the platform.
We hope you'll enjoy building your collection. And we’re sure that many of our users will acquire all of the characters, relish the artwork, and engage with the character lore as much as we enjoyed creating them.
We invite you to start building your collection and contribute to a thriving DeFi ecosystem at the same time. If you want to know more about the Neptune Mutual marketplace and NFTs, feel free to reach out to our team members.
Many of these NFT characters are available in their basic forms and as Legendary Evolutions. Each of them is vibrantly illustrated and accompanied by lore explaining their origins and powers.
