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Did you know that over $5 billion in crypto has been traded using Telegram bots? đ¤Ż
A bit crazy for an industry that almost nobody is talking about, right?
When we saw these insane stats, it got us thinking about whether or not this was legit.
Often when someone utters the words bots and crypto in the same sentence, it's followed up by scam.
So we had to find out what all the hype was about.
TL;DR: We discovered a token with strong economics which has gone up 3,000% since June and has paid out over $6 million in revenue share to token holders. đ˛
As per usual, today, weâll look onchain to see if what weâve discovered is actually sustainable and whether or not you can capitalize on this opportunity. đ¤
But first things first⌠What are Telegram Bots? đ¤ˇ
These are handy tools within apps like Telegram (and Discord) that let you do things like trade on decentralized exchanges, manage wallets, and even snag airdrops.
They even let you trade FriendTech keys. đ
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767
Lately, they've become a popular, easy, and fun way to interact with the blockchain. Why?
Because making a trade takes about 8 steps across multiple apps and websites. đ¤Ž
>>> then find something sexy we want to buy
>>> then go to @coingecko to find the token addie
>>> then uniswap or an aggregator
>>> then metamask
>>> then ledger
>>> then sign txs
>>> then twiddle thumbs
>>> then back to Telegram
Telegram bots help you skip all of that by allowing you to make trades in seconds, with a few clicks, all from Telegram.
And people love them because one-click trading in the middle of a Telegram chat makes sense. Thatâs where you get your alpha, and thatâs when you want to buy!
Now, these bots are built mostly for traders. And even if many of us arenât traders, I can see a future where we are swapping tokens constantly as all things become tokenized (shopping, supporting artists, making payments, investing, etc).
The ability to immediately buy/sell/trade tokens from inside the apps we are already using could bring a massive unlock. đ
Because they provide such a UX boost, these Telegram bots have amassed hundreds of millions in revenue through fees and taxes in just a few months.
One of the main reasons weâre writing this report is because some Telegram bots share revenue with token holders, a concept we find incredibly exciting.
Wait⌠These Telegram bots have tokens? And token holders get revenue share?
Not all Telegram bots have a token. But the third biggest application based on weekly active wallets â Unibot â does have a token called $UNIBOT. And yes, theyâre sharing revenues with token holders.
Throughout this report, Iâll refer to these âbotsâ as âappsâ or âapplicationsâ â because thatâs what they are.
As you can see in the chart below, Unibot (pink) is the 3rd biggest application, behind the two other notable apps: Maestro (1st) and Banana Gun (2nd).
Since its launch, Unibot has generated significant revenue through platform fees and taxes, and has distributed over $6 million to $UNIBOT holders since May 2023.
And because this has attracted a lot of eyeballs, $UNIBOT has gone up 3,000% in the last few months. đ
Right now, there appear to be two categories of people excited by the rise of Telegram bots:
Traders who use these tools for efficient trading.
Investors who are intrigued by the potential for earning fees and revenue.
Today, weâll focus on #2 by diving deep into the economics & tokenomics of $UNIBOT to assess if this is a good investment opportunity for you.
Furthermore, this report aims to answer 2 key hypotheses:
Evaluate whether or not using a token is beneficial for the growth of the Unibot application. Does the $UNIBOT token provide a mechanism to attract new users?
Analyze the effectiveness of using a token to share revenue with holders. Could this serve as a model for other tokens, like Uniswapâs $UNI, to potentially start sharing fees with its holders in the future?
Before we begin, letâs take a look at the wider market of Telegram bots to get a better sense of the activity occurring through these applications.
LFG âŹ
Activity of Telegram Bots
As mentioned, the 3 main applications in this sector are: Maestro, Banana Gun, and Unibot.
Some of the charts that Iâll share below are totally taken over by Maestro. The reason for that is because Maestro has been around since the beginning of 2020, while the other apps have only launched this year.
Since Jan 2020, there have been almost 16 million transactions recorded through various Telegram bots (92% of them happened on Maestro).
Over half of these transactions have happened in the past 4 months.
All transactions have amassed a total trading volume of over $5.4 billion. Again, most of which (88%) occurred on Maestro.
However, the narrative is changing, as users start to use applications other than Maestro.
As you can see below, there are over 40k active wallets every week. While Maestro is still the most popular app, Banana Gun and Unibot arenât that far off.
In fact, Banana Gun has had the most weekly active wallets throughout the entire month of September.
The stats above should help you understand that Maestro is the OG in this sector, but the competition is intensifying, and users are starting to use different apps now.
Most of the newer Telegram bots have only been around for a few months, so the metrics above have a lot of room to grow, especially considering the rise in weekly active wallets.
Now that you have an overview of the Telegram bot sector, you may ask yourself: Why isnât this report about Maestro, if thatâs the biggest application?
Simple: They donât have a token. And neither does Banana Gun (the 2nd biggest application.)
Actually, Banana Gun attempted to launch a token 2 weeks ago, but due to a bug in their smart contract, their token went to 0.
PLUS: Should you invest in Telegram Bots?
There's more to it than you may think. So bookmark this post.
Banana Gun is the 2nd biggest Telegram Bot in terms of txns & users, just behind @MaestroBots.
It recentlyâŚ
Does a Telegram bot need a token?
Not necessarily. But having a token can boost your revenues immensely. Hereâs why.
Maestro and other Telegram bots have relied on subscriptions for their revenues so far.
Subscribers pay a fee to access premium features, such as discounted application fees, faster processing speed, the ability to execute multiple trades simultaneously, and exclusive insights into token trends, among other perks.
When Unibot came around though, they changed the game, because they offered all of these advanced features for free, and still managed to bring in insane amounts of revenue.
How are they doing it? Theyâre charging a 1% fee on all successful buy/sell trades that happen on the application, PLUS, a 4% tax on all trades that happen using the $UNIBOT token (more on this in a second).
This allows Unibot to generate a healthy revenue while providing valuable features for free to their users.
Furthermore, because they have a token, theyâre able to program a revenue share model, where $UNIBOT holders receive a piece of the pie. Iâll tell you how much in the next section.
But is this sustainable? Weâve always said that sharing revenues with holders is a very bad idea for a company thatâs just getting started.
But Unibot might prove us wrong. Remember, the goal of todayâs report is to establish whether or not using tokens like $UNIBOT can incentivize user growth and participation.
Does this model attract more users to the application? Or does it leak value?
Letâs find out by diving into $UNIBOTâs economics, utility, and tokenomics.
Economics of $UNIBOT
Unibot makes revenues in 2 ways:
By charging a 1% fee on all successful buy/sell trades that users make using the bot.
By imposing a 4% tax on all $UNIBOT thatâs traded â paid by the seller.
Unibot makes money both when you use their application and when you trade their token.
This is similar to how Friend.Tech charges a 10% fee on every trade, which is then equally split between Friend.Tech and creators. Learn more about that in our Friend.Tech report from last week.
Since Unibot makes money (4%) from people trading $UNIBOT, theyâre offering an incentive to those who trade the token.
Unibot offers discounted platform fees if youâŚ
Trade $100k in $UNIBOT, get 20% off the 1% platform fee
Trade $500k in $UNIBOT, get 30% off the 1% platform fee
Trade $1 million in $UNIBOT, get 40% off the 1% platform fee
Trade $2 million in $UNIBOT, get 50% off the 1% platform fee
Since June, Unibot has made over $10 million by charging a 4% tax on $UNIBOT trades.
Plus, almost $2 million from their 1% platform fee.
Unibot implemented the 4% tax in June 2023, while theyâve charged the 1% platform fee since May 2023.
Remember when I told you that Unibot is sharing their revenues with $UNIBOT holders?
Well, so far, theyâve shared close to $5 million from the 4% tax.
And $1.2 million from the 1% platform fee.
In total, $UNIBOT holders received ~$6 million, while the Unibot team was left with $6.4 million to cover their expenses and product development costs.
Okay, Iâve just thrown lots of moving numbers at you. Let me explain how the revenue share program works for Unibot.
All of Unibotâs revenues (fees + taxes) go into a tax pool. Once the tax pool hits the threshold of 100 $UNIBOT, the revenue is converted to $ETH and split up in the following way:
~28% of revenue goes to the Unibot team
~57% of revenue goes to $UNIBOT holders
The remaining ~15% is used to add liquidity to the UNIBOT/WETH trading pool. Why? The greater the liquidity, the healthier the token.
Youâll notice that holders get close to 60% of Unibotâs revenue, however, theyâve only made $6 million, while the Unibot team made $6.4 million so farâŚ
Thatâs the case because the holdersâ share used to be much smaller in the past, until the Unibot team decided to share more and more of the revenue.
Now, before you decide to ape into $UNIBOT to get a piece of the $6 million thatâs being shared, letâs talk about its utility & tokenomics. đ
Utility of $UNIBOT
Whatâs the utility of $UNIBOT? Why would anyone buy this token?
A few reasons.
To gain access to a holdersâ-only Telegram channel, âwhere you can discuss alpha, propose new features, and access a dedicated support channel.â
To get fee discounts:
Hold 10 $UNIBOT = 20% off the 1% platform fee
Hold 100 $UNIBOT = 30% off the 1% platform fee
Hold 500 $UNIBOT = 40% off the 1% platform fee
Hold 1000 $UNIBOT = 50% off the 1% platform fee
To share Unibotâs revenues.
To be eligible for revenue share, you must hold at least 10 $UNIBOT (currently worth ~$600).
The revenue is then shared proportionally to the amount of tokens held.
In the last 30 days (on average), $UNIBOT holders experienced an APY of 45.71%.
This means for every $UNIBOT, holders are making $41.55/year.
Keep in mind that this is the average. At the current $UNIBOT price of $57, with an APY of 45%, you'd be making ~$25/year for every token you hold.
So please note that these rewards are going up and down based on the price and the volume that Unibot (the app) experiences.
More volume (people using Unibot + trading $UNIBOT) = more rewards for $UNIBOT holders.
However, as these rewards remain high, itâs safe to assume that more people will buy $UNIBOT to benefit from the insanely high APY.
As that happens, the earnings per share might dilute even more, depending on how many new holders there will be.
So, letâs recapâŚ
We learned that Unibot gets its revenue by:
Charging a 1% fee on all successful in-app transactions
Imposing a 4% tax (covered by sellers) on all transactions made in $UNIBOT
They then put this revenue in a pool and once it hits 100 $UNIBOT, itâs converted into $ETH and then distributed to the team (~28%), token holders (~57%) and used to provide liquidity (~15%).
For a token holder to be eligible to receive revenue share, you must hold 10 $UNIBOT or more.
$UNIBOT, like most small market cap tokens, has high volatility including a 59% drop in price in the last 30 days.
As of this writing, itâll cost you $570 to be eligible for revenue share.
At the moment, there are a total of 7,292 $UNIBOT holders.
However, only 3,307 are eligible for revenue share (holding at least 10 $UNIBOT).
So we discovered that we have a profitable business and a revenue-generating token, but is this token a good investment? Let's dive into the tokenomics to explore this further. âŹ
Tokenomics of $UNIBOT
The tokenomics of $UNIBOT are very straightforward⌠There are a total of 1 million $UNIBOT tokens, all of which have been put into circulation at launch.
$UNIBOT has no upcoming token unlocks or inflation, which is good because it wonât cause any particular sell pressures.
Fun fact: With 1 million total $UNIBOT tokens and a 10-token minimum for revenue sharing, only up to 100,000 people can share revenue.
Keep reading until the end to find out if thereâs an opportunity for you. đ
Does Unibot burn any tokens?
When they initially launched, $UNIBOT had a burning mechanism in place. It was burning 0.1% of all fees!
However, the community noticed that the burning mechanism discouraged liquidity pool growth, which is why they proposed a long-term solution to remove auto-burn and instead use the tokens to add more liquidity. I explained this in the economics section above.
The vote to disable the autoburn was part of their transition to Unibot v2, where the team also increased the revenue share from platform fees for token holders from 25% to 40%.
Additionally, two weeks ago, they reduced the trading tax on $UNIBOT from 5% to 4%.
While this could mean less overall revenue, the cut comes from the team's share, not from token holders.
Hence, effective 9/7 6pm EST, the team is reducing their share of the trading tax to bring the total from 5% to 4%!
PLUS, starting 9/15, ALL token holders eligible for revenue sharing willâŚ
These ongoing adjustments indicate that the team is still fine-tuning their strategy, which is a positive sign.
What stands out is that each change has been in favor of $UNIBOT holders, giving them a bigger slice of the revenue pie.
Is $UNIBOT a Good Investment?
$UNIBOT has gone up 3,000% since its inception. However, the token is also down 73% from all-time highs.
So in terms of short-term price action, itâs anyone's guess where this goes. But letâs look at the fundamental demand for the $UNIBOT token.
Supply/Demand
As we established above, in terms of the supply side, there are no unlocks or inflation, so there is little forced selling on the supply side.
On the demand side, outside of speculation, the reason someone would buy this token is to get discounted platform fees or share the revenue.
Right now, Unibot is sharing close to 60% of their revenues and giving their holders a 45% APY. Is that really sustainable?
First of all, keep in mind that the 45% APY will fluctuate over time based on how many $UNIBOT holders are looking to share the revenue.
Second of all, it is generally a very bad idea to share revenues with your holders in the early stages of a project. Instead, itâs wiser to use that money to improve the product to attract new users.
Nevertheless, the yield that Unibot is sharing with holders comes from the revenue that Unibot makes from trading fees, which means that itâs sustainable.
For comparison, other tokens (like Solana), provide a yield to their holders by inflating their token. Thatâs an example of yield thatâs not sustainable.
And, as we established in the economics section, the Unibot team has still made over $6 million in profit, which they can use to cover its operations and development costs.
Having a sustainable yield this early on in the projectâs journey is huge for Unibot, which, in terms of supply and demand dynamics, looks extremely solid.
Using $UNIBOT to Attract Users
With all of that said, we must acknowledge that for this to remain sustainable, the application (the Telegram bot) needs to attract more users.
More users = More revenues.
More revenues = More revenues shared with $UNIBOT holders.
More rev share = More new $UNIBOT holders.
More new $UNIBOT holders = $UNIBOT go up. đ
However, as we look onchain, we can see that the number of new users on the platform (blue đ) is decreasing, meaning that itâs the same, returning users (red) that use the app over and over again.
As I said earlier, one of the goals of this report was to establish whether or not having a token can acquire new users. Letâs seeâŚ
There are 7,292 total $UNIBOT holders right now. Out of those, only 3,307 own 10 or more $UNIBOT.
When we look at the total number of bot users, we can see that just over 1,100 are using the application daily.
And remember⌠You donât need to own $UNIBOT to use the app.
As we dig deeper, we can see that ~90% of those who use the Unibot app donât actually hold $UNIBOT.
Only 5% of those who actively use the app hold between 0 and 10 $UNIBOT.
And only 5.6% of the active users hold over 10 $UNIBOT.
Here are some other interesting factsâŚ
Out of the 7,000+ $UNIBOT holders, only about 12.4% of them have also used the Unibot app at least once. The rest have never interacted with the app.
Out of the ~3,300 $UNIBOT holders that hold 10 or more tokens, only 10.3% interacted with the app at least once.
This shows that most token holders arenât using the app. Instead, theyâre either speculating on the price of $UNIBOT or they want that revenue share.
And, since most of them get revenue share without even using the app, they leak value out of the Unibot ecosystem.
Is that good or bad? đ¤
We don't know yet as this is a brand-new concept, and we have nothing to compare it to. But it's interesting to note and something we will keep an eye on.
However, whatâs interesting is that even if most $UNIBOT holders speculate, they still contribute to Unibotâs revenues since Unibot charges a 4% tax on all $UNIBOT trades.
At the start of this report, I told you that weâd identify whether or not using a token increases the number of users on the app.
Weâve now concluded that itâs not the case â using a token does not necessarily attract new application users.
With that said, we must acknowledge that in the very few months that Unibotâs been around, they managed to create a great application and a solid token with strong tokenomics, which could very well serve as a blueprint for other projects.
Whatâs the Future of Unibot?
Looking into the future, here are my thoughts on the potential catalysts for growth and its potential downfalls:
1: As the bull market starts, thereâll be more and more trading going on. Especially in the hype phase of the bull run. Then, everyone thinks theyâre a genius and are opening irrational trades.
At that point, using a Telegram bot like Unibot will be a no-brainer for most traders, because it offers a far superior trading experience.
2: Unibot recently integrated Base into its application.
The future is multi-chain, and we're proud to support @BuildOnBase as the first L2 on Unibot!
Now live, seamlessly bridge to Base for free and instantly swap from the bot!
Onchain & Onward.
This means that users get to trade at minimal fees, which will attract more users, while Unibot can still charge the 1% fee for all successful buy/sell transactions that occur through the app.
This could be the go-to place for trading in the bull market.
3: Unibot is extremely profitable.
In their first 3 months, theyâve managed to make over $6 million.
And because they only have expenses for operations & staff, most of this revenue is profit, which they can reinvest in the business to develop a better product.
For the record, if you look at Unibotâs Twitter, youâll see that theyâve been shipping a lot of new features lately, which is good to see.
Lastly, by being so profitable, they are able to share such a big chunk of revenue with their holders at such early stages (most companies canât do that).
The ability to do this is definitely getting them a lot of attention â itâs the reason we wrote this report, so it's got undeniable marketing appeal. đ
Even though there are positive signs regarding Unibot, there are still concerns to be addressed.
The biggest one remains a potential future competitor thatâll have a better product and charge lower feesâŚ
We've seen this happen time and time again with DEXs, marketplaces, etc. Surely someone is soon going to launch an identical (or better) product with lower fees than Unibot.
Weâve seen Banana Gun launch $BANANA 2 weeks ago, which was a complete failure. But at some point, it surpassed $UNIBOT in FDV.
So, what happens when all of these Telegram bots start launching tokens? What happens if Maestro launches a token? Will $UNIBOT stand to suffer? Will they lose market share? MaybeâŚ
At that point, they'll likely need to find additional revenue streams to remain profitable and competitive in the future. Itâs all going to depend on the team's ability to improve the product, ship new features and market it.
But until that happens, I see no reason why Unibot does not continue to grow and continue to print money while doing it.
This could be a great token to hold onto, if not for price appreciation, at least for the current high APY. But I doubt thatâll last long â APYs above 10% rarely do.
If youâre going to buy this token, then keep in mind that it shouldnât become a significant part of your portfolio because itâs still a very risky investment.
To better understand how to properly design your portfolio, we recommend you take our Web3 Investing Masterclass.
As a PRO member, you get a 50% discount, and as a Founding member, you get it for FREE by following the second button underneath. đ
Thanks for reading. And remember, you're strong, youâre powerful, youâre alpha! â¤ď¸
See you soon. âď¸
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kyle Reidhead
Founder of Web3 Academy and Impact3
Find him on Twitter
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Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and not financial advice. Conduct your own research and consult a financial advisor before making investment decisions or taking any action based on the content.
