THORChain, a decentralized liquidity protocol, has released its comprehensive 2024 year-end and fourth quarter report detailing the significant developments and strategic changes that have occurred over the past year. According to Nine Realms, the report presents a series of key indicators and developments aimed at improving the efficiency and security of the protocol.
Key indicators and financial overview
During the fourth quarter of 2024, THORChain reported a total trading volume of USD 13.9 billion, with a peak 24-hour volume of USD 334 million. However, total liquidity decreased from $503 million to $259 million, a decline of 48%. Liquidity fees collected amounted to $5.28 million and affiliate revenue amounted to $3.92 million. The report also highlighted the breakdown of LP returns, with 27.83% attributable to liquidity fees and 72.17% attributable to block rewards.
Swap Path and Liquidity Fees
Top swap paths by USD trading volume included BTC<>RUNE, ETH<>RUNE, and BTC<>ETH, with BTC<>RUNE leading with over $2.6 billion. Similarly, in the top path based on liquidity fees, BTC<>RUNE led the way, generating fees of $956,030.
Integrations and Protocol Enhancements
In the fourth quarter, THORChain introduced several integrations, including Ledger Live, Bitget Wallet, and Gem Wallet via SwapKit. A notable change is that the minimum swap fee has been adjusted to 8bp, twice that of a double swap. This change aligns streaming swap slippage targets with minimum slip fees.
Additional protocol improvements include the ability to specify multiple names on swap notes for affiliate commission distribution, providing a significant upgrade to revenue sharing capabilities. The incentive pendulum has also swung back to its original form, now favoring a liquidity pool that earns 75% of all rewards in Q4 2024, taking into account all RUNEs from all nodes.
Strategic Upgrades and Future Prospects
THORChain has implemented several strategic upgrades, including reducing churn migration rounds to reduce gas costs, consuming 5% of system revenue, and updating Cosmos SDK v0.50 to enable future features. The introduction of the Cosmos upgrade module enables a smooth hard fork, preventing consensus failure.
In the future, THORChain plans to focus on strengthening the app layer and moving away from the basic protocol layer to mitigate risks. Potential future developments include integration of Solana Chain and using IBC to expand asset offerings within the app layer.
The report concludes with a focus on proactive yield improvement, with the goal of improving the liquidity delivery experience by allowing yield streaming to a variety of layer 1 assets.
For a detailed report, visit the original source on Medium.
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