Have you ever had a friend point at a person and say, "Look how hot he/she/they/them is." You look and see how someone may think he/she/they/them is attractive, but you don't completely agree. This is similar to how investors value crypto. Some people look at a project and see a tight body, a pretty smile, kind eyes, and a great personality. Other investors will look at the same project and see Brendon Fraser in The Whale as he's shoveling pizza in his mouth.

I'm confident I've found the hot (insert pronoun here) next door with this project. If you take the time to internalize what I'm sharing, you'll agree this project has everything: brains, beauty, and sustainability. And the best part is you can earn a steady passive income with little effort.

Fees are low. The interface is simple. The ecosystem is ripe.

And I'm going to guess you haven't heard about the project yet. It's called Ramses Exchange. And combining it with its second layer, The Ennead will make you rethink pooling liquidity.

While you typically have to provide liquidity on risky pairs to earn high yields, Ramses Exchange+The Ennead feature real projects earning real profits.

For example, they have a Coinbase staked ETH (cbETH)+ETH pool offering up to 43% APR. So you are pairing a wrapped asset and getting nearly ten times Coinbase-staked ETH rewards! A DOLA/USDC pool pays a 42% APR if you prefer farming stables. And in part 3, I will share a few of the pools I've pooled liquidity in on Ramses Exchange+The Ennead.

This is going to be a long one because it's intricate. But it's like a symphony; you get a beautiful result when everything plays in unison. So I'm breaking it into three parts:

• Part 1: What is Ramses Exchange, and how does it work?

• Part 2: What is The Ennead, and how will it make me money?

• Part 3: Why $RAM is severely undervalued and how I am using Ramses Exchange and The Ennead?

Preface: Yes, this article is so long it requires a preface.

The term flywheel is used freely in crypto. I'm going to use a metaphor of a fountain to describe these projects. A fountain requires three things to work effectively: 1) the structure, 2) the water, and 3) energy for recirculating the water. When these three factors combine, we can appreciate the tranquility of the movement of the water and the sound of the water interacting.

Instead of sound and sight, these DeFi platforms will provide growth and income. Using the fountain comparison, Ramses Exchange and The Ennead are the structure, the liquidity (provided by investors) is the water, and the energy is applied from other platforms.

So let's dive in and discuss how and why you should closely examine these two Arbitrum projects.

Part 1: What is Ramses Exchange, and how does it work?

Ramses Exchange is a decentralized exchange (dex) platform rewarding liquidity providers with a utility token instead of a reward token. Most dexes provide a reward token as a secondary yield to liquidity providers to add liquidity to their platform. Typically, the LP providers will earn fees on trades and the reward token. Unfortunately, LP farmers often dump these reward tokens as quickly as they earn them.

Ramses Exchange functions differently. LP providers only earn the platform's utility token, $RAM, by providing liquidity. Unlike traditional dexes, 100% of platform trading fees get paid to $RAM stakers. Additionally, $RAM stakers earn bribe rewards from Ramses partners. Effectively, there is a utility and value for holding the $RAM token: you earn a piece of trading fees and can receive weekly bribes.

So far, the Ramses concept sounds simple. Unfortunately, it gets a lot more complicated. First, to earn fees and bribes, $RAM holders need to convert their $RAM tokens into veRAM. This is an NFT that cannot be converted back to $RAM. To get the most value from their veRAM, stakers must lock their $RAM for four years. Four years in crypto may as well be a century. So, converting $RAM into veRAM is the equivalent of burning it.

So liquidity providers earn $RAM. They have two choices: dump the $RAM or convert it to veRAM and kiss it goodbye. veRAM holders earn the platform's trading fees and also get bribes.

How do partnerships work on Ramses Exchange?

Imagine you are a team trying to build your project, AlphaCoin $AC (I made this up). $ AC's price is volatile, and you want to deepen liquidity to strengthen its investing narrative. Unfortunately, many traditional dexes don't want to issue their reward tokens for providing liquidity to your small project. If the trade volume is low, there will be little earned in trade fees to attract liquidity providers. Further, more volatile pairs open LP providers to more impermanent loss (IL).

To increase liquidity on $AC, you decide to offer mining rewards. If investors provide liquidity on a specific dex and stake them on the AlphaCoin platform, you will issue them $AC as a reward token. This poses some problems: 1) Liquidity providers may dump the $AC rewards. 2) $AC undergoes inflation by issuing rewards 3) This solution will only last for a while because $AC has a capped supply.

Meanwhile, you want to increase $AC liquidity. Ideally, this means less selling on your token as its being used for liquidity and more strength for your token. But, to further add obstacles, you want your liquidity to concentrate on one dex initially to provide the best swap rates and stability. So, opening pools on various dexes isn't a solution.

Ramses provides the solution for non-blue-chip projects. Projects can partner with Ramses exchange and incentivize liquidity providers without diluting their tokens. For example, they may have $50,000 USDC and want to use that to build liquidity. They can provide the USDC as a bribe on Ramses Exchange to get investors to provide liquidity for their liquidity pairing.

I wasn't lying when I said it's complicated. So $AC decides to partner with Ramses Exchange. AlphaCoin approaches Ramses and decides to bribe veRAM holders with their USDC.

How do bribes work on Ramses Exchange?

Every week, veRAM holders vote on which liquidity providers will earn the most RAM rewards. In exchange for their vote, veRAM holders earn trading fees on the pair and a share of the bribes.

Naturally, $AC wants to attract as much liquidity as possible, so as the team leader at AlphaCoin, you decide to allocate 5000 USDC in bribes if veRAM holders vote for your pair to earn higher rewards.

Other veRAM holders want to earn a piece of the 5000 USDC and vote for your $AC pairing. If you outperform competing liquidity pools, your liquidity pair will pay higher $RAM rewards. If the $RAM rewards are higher, more investors will add liquidity to your pair.

This benefits AlphaCoin in two ways: 1) It deepens liquidity and offers a way for $AC token holders to earn yield 2) It attracts new $AC investors to buy $AC and add liquidity.

The intricacies don't end there!

The puzzle deepens if you are a liquidity provider. There is a range of RAM rewards you can earn by providing liquidity. The RAM rewards are determined by how much veRAM you have. If you have a large amount of veRAM, you can earn up to 2.5 times the base reward.

This means liquidity providers earning $RAM will be tempted and incentivized to convert their $RAM rewards into veRAM. Having more veRAM improves their LP earnings (up to 2.5 times the base) and earns them platform exchange fees and bribes!

This is a flywheel where everyone can win: $RAM investors, partners, and liquidity providers.

The drawbacks of the Ramses Exchange model

You need to own a lot of veRAM to earn maximum rewards. This means you have to come out of pocket a lot of money to purchase $RAM and convert it to veRAM or be extremely patient and convert your rewards into veRAM.

The problem with this is that, largely, crypto investors are not patient. The other issue is that veRAM holders need to remember to vote each week. Only some investors want to do that. But don't worry because the second layer of this project, The Ennead, solves this issue!

Summary of Ramses Exchange

If this has been a lot, you should pause for a minute. Let's summarize some of the main points about Ramses Exchange before going onto The Ennead description.

• Ramses Exchange is a dex forked from Solidly. Velodrome on Optimism has proven the Solidly concept works and thrives on Layer 2's featuring lower gas fees and faster transactions.

• 100% of platform transaction fees go to platform investors instead of liquidity providers.

• Ramses LP providers earn $RAM utility tokens in exchange for providing liquidity.

• $RAM tokens can be sold (on Ramses exchange) or converted into veRAM NFTs. Converting $RAM into a veRAM NFT is the equivalent of burning $RAM.

• veRAM earns transaction fees and bribes and boosts $RAM rewards for LP providers.

• Platform partners benefit from the Ramses exchange because it provides an alternative to dilution for building liquidity, an active marketplace where investors can discover their projects, and the ability to sell more tokens for liquidity.

• The platform is complicated and time-consuming. Additionally, it benefits liquidity providers who hold a lot of veRAM.

• The Ennead will solve the veRAM issue for 90% of normal investors who want a hands-off way to earn passive income while they sleep.

Why you must read part 2!

This week alone, Ramses Exchange paid over $230,000 worth of bribes to veRAM holders and $25,000 in transaction fees. This is $255,000 that went straight into veRAM holders' pockets. These rewards can be sold or compounded into the machine to grow future earnings.

Remember, these fees and bribes are strictly sent to veRAM holders, not the LP providers. LP providers earn $RAM, which they can sell or, if they are smart, can convert to veRAM. And, if they are smarter and desire more efficiency, these LP providers will consider staking their LP tokens in The Ennead pools.

Ramses Exchange Telegram: https://t.me/ExchangeRamses
Ramses Exchange Discord: https://discord.com/invite/ramses

Part 2

In Part 2, we will discuss how The Ennead, a second layer built on Ramses Exchange, will provide a seamless experience to enjoy the juicy rewards offered by Ramses Exchange.

I'm going to break this up into chunks as well:

1. What is The Ennead?

2. What is neadRAM?

3. How does it all tie together?

What is The Ennead

The Ennead is the part that excites me to share this project. I wouldn't expect most readers to want to babysit a platform, convert their tokens into NFTs, try to build up veRAM for higher LP rewards, or remember to go in each week to vote. Fortunately, The Ennead solves all of these problems.

The Ennead has been built by a different dev team than Ramses Exchange, but many Ramses developers and team members are advisors on the project. This is important because both platforms support and depend on each other.

The Ennead is a platform where you can stake your Ramses liquidity pairings, earn rewards without voting, and get a share of Ennead's profitable model. No need to mess with NFTs, voting, researching bribes, or any of the intricacies of the Ramses Exchange game theory.

The Ramses Exchange team gifted The Ennead a large amount of veRAM. As described earlier, the veRAM is used for voting, earning platform fees, and boosting liquidity rewards.

Investors who provide liquidity on Ramses Exchange can stake the liquidity in the Ennead pools instead of the Ramses Exchange pools and earn boosted rewards. Effectively, you are utilizing The Ennead's massive amount of veRAM to boost your LP earnings.

For example, here's what the ARB/USDT pool looks like on the Ramses exchange.

It may be hard to read this, but the APR ranges from 6.21–15.51%. On Ramses Exchange, the investor's APR is based on how much veRAM they hold. Most smaller investors will be challenged to earn the high end because so much veRAM needs to be held.

However, if I choose to stake my ARB/USDT Ramses liquidity on the Ennead, here's what it looks like.

Instead of getting closer to the 6.21% reward rate by staking on Ramses Exchange, I will earn 14% by staking my ARB/USDT on The Ennead! And I don't need to hold any veRAM to get this boosted APR. Since The Ennead has so much veRAM, they can boost most pools to the maximum allotment. It's like going to a gym and using its equipment rather than owning it at your house.

In return, The Ennead collects 15–17% of my rewards as a fee. But, if I'm earning over twice the rewards (14% instead of 6%) by staking in The Ennead pools, the fee is inconsequential.

There are two vault options for staking on The Ennead. Read about them in detail here. One option allows auto compounding into more LP, and the other allows for earning rewards in neadRAM.

What is neadRAM?

Back to the complicated stuff. To fully understand The Ennead, you must understand the wrapped version of $RAM tokens they provide called neadRAM.

Ideally, 1 neadRAM=1 RAM. But because of liquidity imbalances, the peg can move. So, when staking your liquidity on The Ennead, you will earn neadRAM. This neadRAM can be swapped on Ramses Exchange. Or, if you understand the mechanics, you can stake your neadRAM on The Ennead and further boost your earnings!

For example, I stake my liquidity pairing from Ramses Exchange on The Ennead. I earn neadRAM rewards. I can sell my neadRAM and be extremely happy that The Ennead handled the voting, allowed me to use their veRAM, and offered me higher rewards than I would have earned on Ramses Exchange.

Or, I can take my neadRAM and stake it on The Ennead. By choosing this option, I can benefit if the price of neadRAM increases (I will explain why I believe it's undervalued in Section 3). But, more importantly, I can earn a share of The Ennead's revenue.

When staking neadRAM, you earn

• 10% share of RAM earned by The Ennead protocol LPs, as neadRAM.

• Protocol-optimized Ramses trading fees and voting bribes, as neadRAM or wETH rewards.

• Weekly rebases, as neadRAM.

I like to think that neadRAM is like owning veRAM, but much better. Why? You don't have to vote every week. You earn a share of the protocol fees liquidity providers are happily paying. And you get a piece of the bribes, mostly paid in ETH.

How does it all work?

This would be a great time for me to have excellent computer skills and draw one of those fancy flow charts that are confusing to a layperson.

Fortunately, I don't have those skills, so I will explain how it works the old-fashioned way.

1. I find a liquidity pool on Ramses Exchange that I want to pool liquidity in.

2. I add the liquidity on Ramses Exchange.

3. I take the LP tokens, stake them on The Ennead to earn a higher APR and not have to deal with veRAM and voting, and earn boosted payouts.

4. I come in periodically and collect my neadRAM rewards from my liquidity pool on The Ennead.

5. I stake my neadRAM rewards on The Ennead.

6. I claim my ETH rewards and re-stake or sell my neadRAM rewards on Ramses Exchange.

Why you need to read Part 3

Persistence and patience are tremendous bedfellows in DeFi. I commend you if you've made it this far and your brain isn't tied in knots. In part 3 of this series, I will dive into why I believe the $RAM and neadRAM tokens are undervalued and my strategy for using both platforms to earn consistent yield with little work.

The Ennead Discord: https://discord.com/invite/tFHQBXk2X7

Part 3

It’s time to go full circle to your friend telling you someone is hot and you have a differing opinion. I will try to be as objective as possible. First, however, I recognize I am invested in this project. I have added liquidity, and I believe it will succeed.

But this is crypto. This is DeFi. Some projects will 20X, and some will drop by 99%. And my job now is to explain why this project will grow and be a great income earner for a long time.

I’m going to break this article into two sections:

1. Why $RAM (and neadRAM) is undervalued and poses an excellent investment thesis.

2. How and what I’m adding liquidity in Ramses Exchange + The Ennead

Then, I recommend you explore the platforms, visit the Discords, and ask any questions you may have there.

Section 1: Why is $RAM only valued at $2.2 million?

When Ramses Exchange first launched, and the $RAM token hit the market, it caught fire. It peaked at $0.25, up 400% from its launch price.

The quick flippers made their money and moved on to the next project. Meanwhile, Ramses Exchange was building value. As a result, the total value locked on the exchange has remained remarkably consistent. This is because liquidity providers and partners benefit from the symbiotic feedback loop.

Further, The Ennead didn’t launch its liquidity pools until this month. I have been patiently waiting for this launch to write about this project. Fortunately, it coincides with the $RAM price being below where I believe it should be.

The circulating market cap for $RAM is $2.2 million. And while it’s challenging valuing Solidly forks, we can compare a couple of others.

Velodrome on Optimism has a $27.5 million circulating market cap. And it deserves it, being the top platform on Optimism. However, Velodrome doesn’t have boosted rewards. It has a second layer with Sonne Finance, but it’s not as robust (IMO) as The Ennead. Also, it’s on Optimism which is losing the race with Arbitrum.

Satin Exchange is the Solidly fork on Polygon. It’s got under $8 million in TVL and sports a $2.8 million circulating market cap. In all fairness, I wanted to do a deep dive on Satin Exchange, but the platform wasn’t functioning properly when I tried using it (over a week ago). I believe Arbitrum is a much more robust DeFi ecosystem than Polygon.

And finally, we have Velocore, which just launched on zkSync. Velocore has a $10 million market cap. It’s positioned to where if it plays its hand properly, it can be a huge building block of the zkSync ecosystem. I like its valuation based on potential, lack of competition, and being a trustworthy partner in an increasingly scammy ecosystem.

Ramses Exchange should be at least equal in value to Velocore. It has a significantly higher total value locked, more partnerships, and a fully functioning layer 2 (The Ennead) built on top of it. The fact that $RAM is valued below Satin makes me want to go out and buy a lot more.

And, I can see a world where $RAM has as high or a higher valuation than Velodrome. Why? The ecosystem. The most optimistic thing about Optimism is its name. Arbitrum has over double the TVL than Optimism and much better projects (in my opinion). Further, if Arbitrum uses its $ARB token to incentivize the ecosystem, it should raise all Arbitrum platforms.

The best reason I have high conviction on Ramses Exchange and the $RAM token

After a couple of years in DeFi, you learn what’s important in a project. Unfortunately, you gain this knowledge via expensive lessons. One of the most important factors in a platform is the team behind it. And from what I’ve learned by listening to AMAs and interacting in Discord, the Ramses Exchange and The Ennead teams are top-notch.

Not only because of their experience, skill sets, and marketing prowess but because they are good guys in crypto. They want the entire DeFi ecosystem to thrive, and this is why so many platforms are seeking these teams to partner with.

If you have questions, go to the Discords or the Telegram. The team is patient and happy to share their insights. It’s not wen Lambo or 20x incoming moon boy talk. Data is shared transparently in real time, and the team recognizes shortcomings when they exist.

At $0.06 per $RAM, I’m a happy buyer. I started accumulating $RAM at $0.13 and continued buying more and stacking my rewards.

My Strategy and an example of adding LP

I have three pools that provide liquidity in GNS/WETH, GMD/gmUSD, and neadRAM/ETH. I am staking all of them on The Ennead and all my rewards. I claim and pocket the Ethereum rewards. I’m not recommending these pools; it would take me another three parts to share my investment thesis. But I’d encourage you to take a closer look at the GMD and Gains Network if you want to learn more.

Here is an example of me adding liquidity on Ramses Exchange and staking it on The Ennead.

I want to add liquidity for $GNS (Gains Network) and $WETH. I have chosen this pair because $GNS has been relatively stable against Ethereum. In addition, I am overall bullish on $GNS and willing to hold it for a long time.

Step 1: Find the liquidity pool on Ramses exchange and hit manage. For the record, I am left-handed and use my right hand to control my mouse, so my drawing skills will always be subpar. ;)

Step 2: Add liquidity to the GNS/WETH pool on the Ramses exchange. I add an equal amount of $GNS and $WETH. Again, I want to have the volatile pool selected (it was by default).

Step 3: Go to The Ennead and manage on GNS/WETH LP.

Step 4: Approve and confirm LP staking. Notice that unstaking will be the opposite action.

Step 5: Refresh the page and click My Deposits. I confirm that my LP is staked. This is also where I go to claim rewards.

After claiming my rewards, I can sell them on Ramses exchange or stake them on The Ennead.

** The Ennead is very fresh. Currently, it’s paying rewards in $RAM and doesn’t have both vaulting features yet. However, the $RAM rewards can be converted to neadRAM and staked on the platform.

***Solidly forks are typically slow and don’t work well on mobile. However, if you run into issues, you can usually refresh your window, wait, close, and re-open it. Also, the Discords for both teams are responsive and well-monitored.

Key Takeaways

Ramses exchange is a platform where all rewards go to token holders. This is a refreshing change from most dexes that don’t distribute their profits (Uniswap). In addition, it provides a resource for smaller projects to deepen liquidity and creates many symbiotic relationships.

It’s important to only invest in pairs that you believe in and don’t get lured in by crazy high APRs. Typically, these are the most volatile LPs. The game theory is extremely advanced, but using The Ennead makes this a very easy investing process.

Here are some links and resources:

Ramses Exchange growing partners list (check this out): https://docs.ramses.exchange/ram-tokenomics/arbitrum-partner-venft-allocations

Ramses exchange docs: https://docs.ramses.exchange/introduction-to-ramses/what-is-ramses
Ramses exchange Discord: https://discord.com/invite/ramses

The Ennead docs: https://docs.ennead.farm/the-ennead/
The Ennead Discord: https://discord.com/invite/tFHQBXk2X7

I have not been paid or sponsored to write this article. I am investing in $RAM, neadRAM, and providing liquidity via The Ennead.

This information should not be taken as investment advice. Digital assets like crypto and NFTs involve risk, so you should always perform due diligence before investing.