Zaros 2024 Recap

As 2024 comes to an end, it’s the perfect time to reflect on everything we’ve achieved this year and celebrate how far we’ve come. For Zaros, 2024 has been a year full of milestones, progress, and moments we’re incredibly proud of.

Here’s a look back at some of the highlights from this amazing year:

1. Testnet Launch
2. Trading League 1 & 2
3. Fundraising
4. $ZRS Launch and Migration to Uniswap
5. Becoming part of the Monad Ecosystem
6. Campaigns
7. Dragons Alliance: Zaros’ Ambassador Program
8. Zaros’ New Era: The Derivatives Liquidity Powerhouse

Each of these moments represents the hard work, passion, and dedication of our team and community. Let’s celebrate what we’ve built together — and get ready for what’s next.

Testnet Launch

On February 28th, we officially launched Zaros’ testnet on Arbitrum Sepolia. This milestone came after months of dedicated development, marking the first time our community could explore and test the platform.

The testnet launch introduced users to the platform, enabling them to create accounts and participate in the zPoints campaign.

Since then, our testnet phase has seen tremendous engagement, with over 20,000 users onboarded. Looking ahead to 2025, we’re gearing up for the mainnet launch. Additionally, Zaros will go live on Monad’s testnet and mainnet as they launch, with our debut on Arbitrum’s Mainnet arriving sooner than you might expect, so stay tuned.

Trading League 1 & 2

On May 27th, after three months of active testnet operation, we launched the Zaros Trading League Pre-Season — a moment our community’s traders had eagerly awaited to showcase their skills.

The competition focused on Profit and Loss (PnL), with the top traders achieving the highest PnL securing leading positions on the leaderboard.

The Trading League quickly became the best way to maximize zPoints, as top performers earned multipliers that boosted their zPoints for every completed task. This reward structure incentivized both participation and competitive trading.

The success of the first Trading League, which concluded on September 16th, led us to immediately launch Trading League 2. Designed to keep traders engaged and actively farming zPoints on the testnet, Trading League 2 is still ongoing, continuing to drive strong participation from our community.

Fundraising

In the first half of 2024, Zaros secured $1.8 million in funding from prominent investors who align with our vision of building a next-generation perpetual futures decentralized exchange. This platform is powered by boosted (Re)Staking vaults on Arbitrum and Monad.

Our investor roster includes leading names such as SNZ Holding, Seven Capital, Cogitent Ventures, Dutch Crypto Investors, Rocky Holding, Honey Island Capital, Anthony Sassano, Alex Kruger, Fernando Martinelli, Kieran Warwick, Andy Chen Fang, and Kevin Lu.

In May, we published a detailed Twitter/X thread highlighting the backgrounds of our investors, which you can access here.

Cointelegraph also featured our fundraising in a press release — read it here.

$ZRS Launch and Migration to Uniswap

One of the standout achievements in the first half of 2024 was the launch of our token, $ZRS, on May 29th.

We introduced $ZRS through Fjord Foundry’s Liquidity Bootstrapping Pool (LBP) system, allowing the community to participate in the token sale. During the LBP, we successfully raised $526,180.

After the LBP, $ZRS was listed on Balancer, which now offers the deepest liquidity, and on MEXC for centralized exchange (CEX) users.

Our launch strategy set us apart from many projects. We chose to release $ZRS during the testnet phase, providing a lower Fully Diluted Valuation (FDV) and ensuring greater transparency for the community. This approach allowed users to farm zPoints with full knowledge of the token’s mechanics.

Even during the testnet phase, $ZRS already serves key roles in the Zaros ecosystem:

• Governance: $ZRS holders can vote on proposals in the Zaros DAO.
• Liquidity Rewards: Holders can earn zPoints by providing liquidity to the $ZRS-ETH pool on Uniswap.
• Future Revenue Share: Post-mainnet, $ZRS holders will receive 15% of the trading fees generated on the perpetuals DEX.

In November, months after the $ZRS token launch, the DAO council approved a ZIP to transition the $ZRS liquidity pool and incentives program from Balancer and Aura to Uniswap and Merkl. This move aimed to boost the token’s visibility, attract more holders, and optimize the distribution of rewards.

For more details on $ZRS, refer to our documentation. To learn how to farm the $ZRS airdrop, read this article.

Becoming part of the Monad Ecosystem

One of the best decisions of the year was to bring Zaros to the Monad blockchain. While Monad is not yet live, we are fully committed to launching on day one of both its testnet and mainnet.

Monad is a parallelized-EVM blockchain that has secured $244 million in funding and is home to one of the most active and engaged communities in crypto. Expanding Zaros to Monad presents an exciting opportunity to integrate our yield-bearing LP model and perpetuals engine with Monad’s advanced scalability enabled by parallelization.

As part of this expansion, we’ll launch a zPoints season on Monad as soon as the blockchain goes live! We deeply appreciate the Monad community’s enthusiasm and support. Their valuable insights and active participation have been instrumental in the success of Zaros’ ecosystem.

We’re eagerly anticipating Monad’s mainnet launch to begin building a robust derivatives ecosystem on this innovative blockchain.

Campaigns

In 2024, we successfully ran amazing community campaigns across our app and communication channels. Among these, the Dragon Festival stood out as the most successful. Its announcement video alone had over 25,000 impressions on X, and the post-event momentum brought a significant influx of users to our app and Discord channel.

During the Dragon Festival, Zaros achieved remarkable milestones:

• 20,000+ users actively trading on our dApp
• 20,000+ followers on our X profile
• 15,000+ members in our Discord server

The engagement with our campaigns this year has been extraordinary. We want to extend our thanks to you — the community — for your incredible support and active participation in our initiatives. Your enthusiasm makes everything we do possible.

Dragons Alliance: Zaros’ Ambassador Program

The Dragons’ Alliance is Zaros’ ambassador program that was introduced in September. It was designed to empower dedicated community members to play an active role in shaping the future of Zaros.

We believe in creating a user-centric experience for derivatives on-chain. The Dragons’ Alliance helps us spread this vision by bringing together passionate individuals who are committed to spreading the Zaros’ mission, onboarding new users, and increasing engagement within the community.

The program’s goal is to enhance the collective strength of our community to advance Zaros’ position as an ecosystem for trading derivatives and yield compounding on Arbitrum and Monad. As members of the Alliance, ambassadors contribute through content creation, education, event hosting, and community moderation.

They are rewarded with exclusive perks, recognition, and opportunities for growth as they ascend through the Alliance’s ranks. Whether you’re just beginning your journey or aiming to become a Dragon Master, the Dragons’ Alliance offers a way to make a meaningful impact on the Zaros ecosystem.

Zaros’ New Era: The Derivatives Liquidity Powerhouse

In December, we announced a change in Zaros’ approach and vision, unveiling our plans to pivot our product strategy to expand our market and explore new growth opportunities in the future.

With this product pivot, Zaros is evolving beyond its initial focus on launching a Perpetual Futures DEX with a unique liquidity provisioning model to become a comprehensive derivatives ecosystem. While the Perp DEX and its innovative zVault-powered liquidity model are still in our plans, we are pivoting towards a B2B strategy. It allows us to provide our Market Maker and Perpetual Futures engines as plug-and-play solutions for third-party protocols.

By doing so, other projects can integrate with our infrastructure, reducing development complexity and accelerating time-to-market for partners while joining an expansive derivatives ecosystem that includes options, prediction markets, and more.

With those changes, we plan to establish Zaros as “The Derivatives Liquidity Powerhouse on Arbitrum and Monad.” For end-users, the evolution ensures seamless access to a broad suite of products in a unified on-chain interface with a CEX-like experience. Liquidity providers benefit from expanded opportunities, as their assets now support an entire ecosystem rather than being limited to the Perp DEX.

This model addresses key challenges for derivatives protocols, LPs and users, such as fragmented liquidity, risk management, and development complexity, while enhancing incentives for traders and LPs alike. Through that, we not only expand our revenue potential but also ensure long-term sustainability for its ecosystem participants.

Final Notes

As 2024 comes to an end, it’s clear this has been an incredible year for Zaros. We began with the launch of our testnet on Arbitrum Sepolia, onboarding over 20,000 users and laying the foundation for our mainnet launch in 2025. Along the way, we hosted two successful Trading Leagues, raised $1.8 million from leading investors, launched our token $ZRS, and migrated its liquidity program to Uniswap, boosting accessibility and rewards for our community.

This year also marked our expansion into the Monad ecosystem, where we aim to integrate our yield-bearing LP model with Monad’s high-performance blockchain. We also ran awesome community campaigns, such as the Dragon Festival, and launched the Dragons’ Alliance ambassador program to empower our community to take an active role in Zaros’ growth. Finally, in December, we announced a significant pivot toward becoming a B2B-focused derivatives ecosystem, solidifying our position as “The Derivatives Liquidity Powerhouse” on Arbitrum and Monad.

All these milestones represent the hard work and dedication of our team and community. As we look ahead to 2025, we remain committed to building a complete derivatives ecosystem for derivatives trading, and creating meaningful opportunities for our users and partners. Thank you for being part of this incredible journey.

Follow Zaros on X to stay up to date on what’s next. See you soon!

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