Solidly: Recap, Reflections, and Lessons Learnt

Our thoughts on the Solidly debacle and how we will improve from it

Introduction

Hello all, and welcome back to another edition of The Average Joe’s Crypto. In recent days and weeks, many of you have probably subscribed to this Substack or followed us on Twitter due to our coverage and content related to Solidly Exchange. By now, we are sure you have heard about all the drama and chaos that occurred in the last couple days. This post will be different than ones in the past. It will be much shorter in length and go over the relevant information related to Solidly. Additionally, we will be self-reflecting on some of the mistakes we made and how we can improve from here on out. As always, we encourage you to subscribe to us and give this post a share if you enjoyed.

What Happened, and What Now?

In a move that shook markets on Sunday, Anton Nell tweeted that him and Andre Cronje we’re retiring from the DeFi/Crypto space. For those of you who don’t know, Anton Nell is an associate of Andre Cronje. In the tweet, Nell also announced that there are around 25 apps and services that will be terminated on April 3rd, 2022, as a result of this decision.

Source

Firstly, we want to address that it is not true that ~25 apps and services will be terminated. For every project that Andre worked on, the code was open source and immutable. Regardless of Andre’s involvement, all the code he worked on will continue to function as designed. Andre talks about the importance of immutable code that does not need human interaction in this medium post. Andre projects will continue to live on despite his retirement. As far as this all pertains to Solidly, the protocol is not going anywhere. The team behind Solidex Finance announced shortly after Andre’s surprise retirement that they will pick up the torch and continue maintaining the Solidly UI.

Source

By this point, however, the damage was already done. Shortly after the announcement, all Solidly related assets tanked. SOLID hit a low of $0.80, SEX a low of $2.39, and WEVE a low of $0.025. Although these assets have slightly rebounded in the days after, the future of Solidly is very much still up in the air. Sure, Solidly will technically continue to live on as its code says it will. But, there is no guarantee that the protocols and users of Fantom will continue using it. After all, if the leader of the project abandoned it, why shouldn’t they abandon it too? It will be interesting to see if the Fantom community can rally around the project that brought in billions to the ecosystem and continue supporting it. Additionally, we’d imagine Andre’s plan for using Solidly as a base layer to execute his vision of a decentralized Forex market is all but finished at this point. Ultimately, time will tell what the future beholds for Solidly.

On the flip side, not all is doom and gloom. As previously mentioned, the team behind Solidex will try to pick up where Andre left off and continue hosting Solidly. Despite some issues with the launch of Solidex, the team is fully committed to the decentralization and immutability aspects that served as guiding principles for Solidly. Also, 0xDAO’s Convex-like layer for Solidly should also be launching soon. This could bring about a new wave of capital and attention into Solidly. And lastly, we’re confident that veDAO will figure out a way to navigate all of this, whether it be continuing with Solidly or a new plan all together on a different chain.

Lastly, we will not be entertaining any of the “theories” surrounding Andre’s retirement. Does it suck that he retired? Yes. Is there anything we can do about it? No. What’s done is done and there is no point trying to sense of it. All we can do is look to the future and focus on what we can control.

As far as how we are adjusting to our investments to all of this, we have changed our path considerably. After all this news broke, we removed a significant portion of our investments out of SOLID, SEX, and WEVE. We still hold those three assets, but only about ~10% of what we once had. We’re still holding on to a tiny portion of these assets as we will continue monitoring the situation around Solidly. Additionally, if things start turning around and Solidly is looking like it can still become an AMM hub for Fantom, we have no problem with re-investing the money we took out. With so much uncertainty, however, we prefer to not overly expose ourselves to this risk.

Reflections & Thoughts

In retrospect, it is quite obvious that we did a poor job evaluating Solidly. We have been bullish since the beginning, and we communicated these beliefs to you through both Substack and Twitter. Obviously, no one hits 100%, but this one really did blow up in our face. We tried to back up our bull cases with data and research, but it’s looking like we were wrong. We’re sure many of you had this investment blow up in your face also, and we are truly sorry for that.

One thing I do want to do is address some of the allegations that have been thrown at this account in the wake of all this. Mainly…

1. That I used my followers for exit liquidity

2. I was being paid to put out bullish content for Solidly

Both claims are unequivocally false.

Everything I write about are the actual opinions of myself. When I wrote bull cases for Solidly, Solidex, and veDAO, it was because I was invested in them myself and personally believed in them. I usually even added to my position after I put out a post or thread. My reputation is what matters to me. As some of you may know, I graduate from college in a few months and my goal is to begin a career in crypto once I graduate. Not sure how future possible employers would like it if I lied to my followers and used them for exit liquidity…

Also, none of the content I have put out has been paid for. Everything I’ve put out has been free and was done because I personally wanted to write about it. The only money I’ve made from this so far has been in the form of donations. And for full disclosure, my donations have amounted to 20 USDC and 5 FTM. I don’t do this for the money, I do this because I have a passion for writing and crypto. If I ever do paid content, I will always disclose so.

I understand why some people may have thrown these allegations at me. It is perfectly understandable to be frustrated and mad. Just know that my goal is to help you guys. I try to always be honest and upfront, no matter what. Solidly didn’t go the way I expected nor wanted it to, but hopefully I can still count on your guy’s support. I mean it sincerely when I say that all of your support really means so much to me. Growing this account from nothing and connecting with all of you wonderful people has truly been an awesome experience, and I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.

I think there are some ways in which I can improve, however. Firstly, one thing I did a poor job of was outlining risks or bearish possibilities that related to Solidly. In the future, I will always try to make the risks of any project or protocol I’m talking about evidently known. Moreover, when I’m talking about specific investments, I will disclose the % of my portfolio they represent. This will give a better understanding of how I adjust my investments. Lastly, I will have a Discord server up and running in a few days that will be open to anyone to join. This will help make it easier for anyone to get in touch with me, and also make it easier for me to receive feedback. I have big plans for the Discord server, mainly in trying to make it helpful to you guys, and those details will be disclosed in the coming days.

Well, that’s all I got for this post. Hopefully you’re not too dismayed by all this Solidly stuff and decide to stick around for more content. If you have been enjoying the content I’ve put out, please consider donating to this Ethereum/Fantom Address:

0x7ba9aa5E4caD26EA5E8ba4AC286E5d38Af91F62b

Once again, thank you for all of your support! We look forward to continuing building this account and interacting with all of you wonderful followers! As always, if you enjoyed this post, please feel free to give it a share. If you want to make sure you don’t miss any future content, don’t forget to subscribe! If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please either leave a comment or interact with us on Twitter!

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