Graphene is a licensed fork of Carbon DeFi. At Velocimeter, we immediately saw the potential of the tech to bring our users a unique experience unseen anywhere. To learn more about the tech, see the resources below.
The TLDR of Carbon, and thus Graphene, is tech that allows users to create on-chain Limit Orders, Range Limit Orders, Reoccurring Range Orders, and Concentrated Liquidity (aka Overlapping Liquidity)
Let's take a few mins to highlight each strategy Type.
The Limit Order
This is a single, disposable order that will either buy or sell a single token with a predetermined budget. These orders are:
Irreversible
Adjustable
Gas-less on execution for the maker (you)
The Range Order
This is a very similar to the limit order, but instead of chosing a single price point, you select a range. They are great for estimating the local tops or bottoms. These orders are:
Irreversible
Great for scaling in or out
Adjustable
Gasless on execution for the maker (you)
Susceptible to being partially filled if your estimate is not fully achieved
The Reoccurring Order
These are usually two range, or limit, orders that are combined into one strategy. They are generally used to buy low and sell high, again and again, in an automated way. These orders are:
Rotating liquidity - When you Buy Low, those tokens are put in your Sell High range
Adjustable
Gas-less on execution for the maker (you)
The Concentrated Liquidity
These are similar to the widely know concentrated liquidity popularized by Uniswap V3. However, they do have some features that set them aside. They are:
Not restricted by ticks
Not restricted by fee tiers - You can set ANY fee (spread) you like
Gas-less on execution for the maker (you)
How is Graphene Different
As mentioned above, Graphene is a fork of Carbon but with a few differences. Namely, they are deployed on L2s and alternative L1s. Carbon Defi is only available on Ethereum Mainnet, whereas Graphene is available on Base, Fantom, and Mantle, with more chains coming soon.
Additionally, Graphene rewards users of the system with various tokens.
The Rewarding
Let's start with saying that only certain token pairs are rewarded, even though any ERC20 tokens (excluding tax-on-transfer tokens) can be used to create strategies.
Velocimeter, is a ve33 Solidly style DEx. To understand this model check the resources below. But it is the main mechanic that is used to incentivize certain Graphene pairs. veNFT holders can vote on enabled pairs to allocate oVM tokens, specific to the chain, to be earmarked for rewards for that Graphene pair for the current epoch.
When the epoch flips at Thurs 00:00 UTC $VM tokens are minted and placed in a special gauge to wait the results of the following week of Graphene strategies.
When the epoch is over, the rewards are calculated, and allocated, and wait for users to claim them. You can claim them by simply pressing the following button in the Rewards tab on Graphene.
Or, alternatively by going to the following link on Velocimeter . Make sure you're on the correct chain.
https://www.velocimeter.xyz/rewards
What are the Important Results?
In simple terms, Velocimeter is watching all the strategies made on Graphene for the enabled pairs, regardless the order types outlined above. As the week progresses, orders are filled, and Volume is achieved. At the end of the 1 week epoch, all the strategy volume data is compared and the earmarked VM tokens are allocated to the wallets owners of the strategies pro-rata based on their volume.
You can see your current status at anytime in your strategy. You will notice the following important data; Epoch Volume, an Est. rewards
In this snippet, the user's strategy has achieved $8542.20 of volume, which is about 3.87% of the total Volume for this pair. This means, if all things stay the same, he would be allocated 3.87% of the rewards, which currently equate to about $137.06. Which is an APR of about 60% compared to his Total Budget.
Note that things will not likely remain the same, so these are estimated rewards.
Note that the ROI does NOT include reward calculations, and is only a consideration of the USD value of the strategy itself.
What are the Rewards?
As mentioned above, the predictable rewards are the ones that were voted on and are in the form of oVM tokens. However, the system has the ability to add any type of reward to pairs. You can see the different pairs enabled, and the rewards earmarked for that pair by clicking on the Reward tab for the chain you are.
In the following example we look at the rewards on Fantom for the axlUSDC-WFTM pair. We see that both oFVM and axlUSDC are currently rewarding this pair.
Important Factors
There are some very important factors that should be highlighted:
User funds are only ever exposed to Carbon's audited code
Reward calculations are done off-chain, but the rewards are held on-chain
You don't have to hold your strategy for the entire epoch
Your token order does not matter, ie, WETH-USDC and USDC-WETH will be considered the same, BUT ETH-USDC is not
The ROI metrics do NOT include rewards and is just a factor of how well the strategy is doing itself.
Resources
Here is a list of important links
To dig deep on the tech behind Carbon feel free to check out their docs here https://docs.carbondefi.xyz/
Alternatively, you can watch some of Ceazor's videos
To know more about the basics of ve33 you can watch this video
and to know more about all the other tech employed by Velocimeter, please check this playlist
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfKk-J8j-NQx72ClANfqDNeDFbnGjkI9m