$Opium governance token

$OPIUM tokens are neither financial instruments nor securities. They merely serve as a tool that will help community to build the foundation for a derivatives trading ecosystem which will be permissionless and decentralized. The information in this update is for information purposes only (and does not constitute financial or other advice or an inducement to purchase or sell any service or security (however defined under applicable law).

Overview

The Opium token or $Opium is an ERC20 virtual asset that plays a key role in protocol’s autonomy and decentralisation. The token holders can propose, delegate and vote on project-related initiatives and thus collectively govern the protocol.

As in other DeFi projects, placing tokens into the hands of users incentivizes the community to keep the protocol up to date and constantly improve it.

$Opium g\ives rights to:

• Change DAO parameters within its permissions

• Execute actions on its behalf

• Allocate the Active Users Fund (ex. for Liquidity Mining Programs, Bounty Programs and other)

• Make changes to the Opium Protocol codebase.

Contributors can stake their tokens into different subunits of the DAO to represent a specific role/function in the community or take specific risk. There are few different options at the moment with different risk/return/duties profile, please make sure your skills are in a good fit and feel free to propose new staking modules with new duties towards protocol maintenance and development.

Currently, users of the Opium protocol can receive $Opium tokens through liquidity and governance mining.

Mining

Mining is a process of rewarding a user with governance power, governance tokens or tokens of another type, in exchange for their contribution to a protocol.

First of its kind, technical mining started with Bitcoin: miners confirmed transactions by solving cryptographic equations and automatically gained remuneration in the first cryptocurrency. Other cryptocurrencies and blockchains, including Ethereum, rely on the same Proof-of-Work process, and so do DeFi protocols that operate on Ethereum.

However, as any financial system, centralized or not, the new protocols needed liquidity to operate and that’s how liquidity mining came into being. Liquidity mining or yield farming is a process of providing liquidity via cryptocurrencies or tokens to DeFi protocols. In contrast with technical mining, liquidity mining on AMM doesn’t automatically imply reward as it comes with some risks.

Typically, liquidity providers add a specific ratio of assets into a liquidity pool to offset a potential risk. If the adverse event takes place, part of the staked assets will be used to cover losses and thus liquidity providers will partially lose their funds. As the market for virtual assets is extremely volatile, there is a possibility of impermanent loss—the situation when keeping virtual assets in the wallet would be more profitable for the owner. In other words, liquidity mining is not a fast and easy way to earn tokens, it requires financial acumen and deep knowledge of the DeFi ecosystem.

As liquidity mining has been criticized for favouring passive participation over active contribution, governance mining emerged as a solution. Governance mining rewards community members for skilled contributions through a number of mechanisms. In this scenario, contributors can provide not only their computing power or liquify, but solve any problem in line with their skills, from finding the right candidate to launching a marketing campaign, and be rewarded for their efforts. The reward will depend on the scope, frequency and outcome of the contribution.

Initial distribution

The minted supply of $OPIUM is 100,000,000. The initial distribution of this supply is projected as follows:

60%: Active users

This fund is used to allocate governance to active users of the protocol for the benefit of the Opium ecosystem, as described in the previous chapter. The definition of active users will be decided regularly by governance. More tokens can be allocated for specific actions such as providing liquidity on a specified instrument or term, building actively-used instruments, or other essential activities. The tokens in this fund will be unlocked gradually and distributed retroactively to active community members, based on the specified criteria of active usage.

16%: Early backers and advisors

This fund will be used to compensate early backers and advisors for their contribution to the success of Opium thus far. The tokens are going to be vested continuously for the next two years.

14%: Opium Founding Team

This fund will be used to cover the expenses of the founding team behind the Opium Protocol, and to support key hires and the future growth of the team. A part of these tokens will be granted to past, current and future contributors of the Opium Team and will be vested continuously for the next four years. Opium Team is a fast-growing distributed community of builders consisting of developers, mathematicians, traders, and consultants who strive to further grow and develop the Opium Ecosystem.

10%: Governance Reserve Fund

This fund will be used for external initiatives and partnerships which will help the Opium ecosystem to further grow and flourish. $OPIUM token holders have full control over the usage of this fund through governance proposals and voting.