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Ribbon Finance: A Look into Ribbon VIPs Wallets
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Key Takeaways

  • Ribbon VIP is a new initiative put out by Ribbon Finance that provides benefits to Ribbon's top depositors and veRBN holders.
  • Over 80% of funds from the VIP wallets are held on Ethereum, followed by Avalanche and Arbitrum in descending order.
  • Ribbon’s products with the most utilization from Ribbon VIPs would be the USDC and ETH vaults, as well as locking RBN for veRBN. The utilization of these products totals to about 89% of Ribbon VIPs’ funds.
  • Besides Ribbon, top protocols being used by the Ribbon VIPs on Ethereum include Aave and Uniswap as well as a significant positions for wallets staking MATIC.
  • Meanwhile, GMX and Aave are the top protocols for Ribbon VIPs across Avalanche and Arbitrum.

Introduction

Ribbon Finance is one of the top DeFi structured products protocols. Since its inception, the protocol has grown to encompass many products and amassed substantial TVL over 2 years. Read more about Ribbon Finance in our report here.

Ribbon VIP is a new initiative put out by Ribbon Finance that prioritizes Ribbon’s top depositors and veRBN holders. Besides having direct communication with the team, Ribbon VIPs will have benefits such as early preview of new products/features, custom merch, private events, closed-door AMAs and other events. The criteria to qualify as a Ribbon VIP is listed in this article.

Given that these addresses are wallets of high networth individuals, we thought it would be interesting to look into the positions of these wallets. Some interesting wallets based on Nansen labels also include Sifu.Vision and incoom.eth (CryptoMessiah), which was also mentioned in our report on high-signal wallets. The chain allocation for these wallets is shown below. It shows that most users are still the most comfortable with Ethereum, as it dominates the share of users’ funds vs. other chains by a large margin.

Chain Allocation

Nansen Query (as of 6 Dec 2022)
Source: Nansen Query (as of 6 Dec 2022)

Ethereum

Over 81% of these wallets’ funds are positioned on Ethereum. Looking at these positions, (besides having funds in Ribbon) a significant portion of the wallets’ positions are staking MATIC. Upon further analysis, the position comes from only two wallets - with one wallet staking over $22.8m worth of MATIC, which is nearly half of the wallet’s total holdings. Around 26% of funds are just being held idle in users’ wallets, signaling that users are just holding their funds for the time being given market conditions and potential smart contract risk.

For Ribbon VIPs wallets - over 39% of their total funds are placed in the USDC vault (~$10.2m), whereby ~$4.2m vault tokens are staked for slightly more yield. The vault with the second highest utilization would be the ETH vault (~$7.4m), with over ~$3.4m vault tokens staked. Over $5.6m worth of RBN tokens are locked for veRBN, with varying unlock dates for these wallets ranging from early 2023 to 2024. All these funds total up to 89% of the positions of Ribbon VIPs wallets on the protocol.

Ethereum Protocol Allocation

Nansen Query (as of 6 Dec 2022)
Source: Nansen Query (as of 6 Dec 2022)

Avalanche

Avalanche is the second chain that users have most of their funds on. Interestingly, only 2% of users’ funds are held in their wallets - a significantly smaller percentage as compared to Ethereum. There are 3 protocols that dominate in terms of the amount of users’ funds on it - Wonderland, Kyber Swap and GMX. The position in Wonderland comes from a single wallet - Sifu.Vision: Treasury, which staked over $5.8m wMEMO in the protocol. Similarly for Kyber Swap, the position comes from Sifu’s wallet, which has pooled over $4.7m on the wMEMO - USDT.E pool on the protocol. Given that it is a significant portion of the total TVL, any movement from Sifu will have a large impact on the pool. GMX has a better representation, with 7 wallets having funds in there. Around half of the total value comes from wallets’ positions in GLP, while the other half comes from staking GMX.

Avalanche Protocol Allocation

Nansen Query (as of 6 Dec 2022)
Source: Nansen Query (as of 6 Dec 2022)

Arbitrum

Arbitrum is the third chain that most users have their funds on. A slightly higher percentage of funds are held in users’ wallets - 5.4%. For Arbitrum, the clear winner would be GMX, having over 79% of users’ funds on the protocol. Out of 9 wallets that have funds in GMX on Arbitrum, 5 of them have funds in GMX on Avalanche as well. Yields on both chains are pretty similar, hence the differentiating factor may just be limited to what users are more comfortable with. Unlike Avalanche, over 80% of funds on Arbitrum are staked in GLP, with the rest staking GMX. Newer protocols such as PlutusDAO are also on the rise as it provides strategies such as yield on GLP, which has been successful in attracting significant TVL.

Arbitrum Protocol Allocation

Nansen Query (as of 6 Dec 2022)
Source: Nansen Query (as of 6 Dec 2022)

Conclusion

Overall, it seems like activity on Ethereum is more risk-off as compared to the other chains. However, this could also be attributed to the fact that most users normally store their funds on Ethereum for the ease of bridging to L2s and other chains. Avalanche contains the second highest amount of Ribbon VIPs’ wallets liquidity. However, most of the funds on Avalanche are concentrated in Sifu’s wallet and thus, the percentage for protocol allocation may not be representative for all Ribbon VIPs. Arbitrum has seen a steady increase in activity over the past few months, with GMX being one of the main drivers of its growth. Newer protocols have also popped up such as Dopex and PlutusDAO, which are also the top protocols for Ribbon VIPs’ wallets.

Across all chains, GMX and OG DeFi protocols such as Uniswap, Sushiswap and Aave are the top choices for Ribbon VIPs to deposit their funds into. Besides just holding their funds idle in their wallet, their on-chain activity suggests that most users are consolidating their funds into more battle-tested protocols.

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Disclosure: The authors of this content and members of Nansen may be participating or invested in some of the protocols or tokens mentioned herein. The foregoing statement acts as a disclosure of potential conflicts of interest and is not a recommendation to purchase or invest in any token or participate in any protocol. Nansen does not recommend any particular course of action in relation to any token or protocol. The content herein is meant purely for educational and informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as financial, investment, legal, tax or any other professional or other advice. None of the content and information herein is presented to induce or to attempt to induce any reader or other person to buy, sell or hold any token or participate in any protocol or enter into, or offer to enter into, any agreement for or with a view to buying or selling any token or participating in any protocol. Statements made herein (including statements of opinion, if any) are wholly generic and not tailored to take into account the personal needs and unique circumstances of any reader or any other person. Readers are strongly urged to exercise caution and have regard to their own personal needs and circumstances before making any decision to buy or sell any token or participate in any protocol. Observations and views expressed herein may be changed by Nansen at any time without notice. Nansen accepts no liability whatsoever for any losses or liabilities arising from the use of or reliance on any of this content.