New Arbitrum 3,3 Solidly Fork Offering Up To 3,123% APR

Bombs are dropping on Arbitrum. The newest Solidly fork, Chronos.exchange, has gone live and immediately lurched its place to the third position DeFi platform on Arbitrum (per Defillama). It’s definitely Solidly season as we have seen these 3,3 projects burst out of the gates at full speed.

So what’s attracting $200+ million in liquidity in two days? Rewards! Adding liquidity on Chronos.exchange can earn up to 3,123% in APR. And liquidity providers are paying attention.

Are these reward levels sustainable? Will the CHR token continue trading at attractive prices? Will all of the liquidity on Arbitrum migrate over to Chronos.exchange? I’m not sure. But, in the meantime, I want to participate in some of these juicy rewards.

How big are these APRs?

You don’t attract hundreds of millions in TVL if you aren’t offering a great deal. And it seems like Chronos.exchange has a lot of great opportunities for liquidity providers.

Here’s a screenshot from the liquidity page sorted by the highest APR.

As I’m writing, eight pools are paying over 1000% APR in the CHR token!

And if you are looking to farm something more on the stable side, the wUSDR/USDC pool is paying 65.81%. If you aren’t familiar with USDR, read my recent article, Earn 17% Passively By Holding This Re-Imagined Stablecoin.

Many different ways to play Chronos.exchange

Chronos.exchange has several strategies you can employ to earn returns. The most aggressive (IMO) is adding liquidity to the native token, CHR pools. For example, the CHR/wETH pool pays 1815% in annual rewards. However, the price of CHR may have a lot of volatility (either to the up or downside) against ETH, so you are risking impermanent loss.

If you want to be more conservative, consider some stablecoin LP options. And, if you are looking for moderate risk, look at some of the other projects partnered with Chronos.

As this is a Solidly fork, transaction fees and bribes will go to veCHR holders. The veCHR mechanism requires a two-year CHR lock for maximum benefit and bribe/transaction rewards. If Chronos.exchange can maintain such deep liquidity, it could attract more bribes and have high transaction fees.

How is Chronos.exchange different from other Solidly forks?

Chronos is operating differently from the traditional Solidly model. First, Chronos is not providing any rebase rewards on the veCHR. They state this benefits the platform by not providing undue advantages to early investors who can grow their voting power via the rebases.

Secondly, Chronos is introducing maturity-adjusted LP returns. I will pull from their Medium article, https://medium.com/@chronosarbitrum/case-study-why-ve-3-3-needs-sticky-liquidity-85443a3720da, to explain this concept.

This concept of maturity-adjusted LPs is novel and creative. If my understanding is correct, you will advance to a higher maturity level each epoch (week) that you leave your LP staked on Chronos. The cap level is 6. Each level offers a boost to your CHR rewards.

I asked in the Chronos Discord, and they stated that today’s APRs reflect maturity boost levels of 1. So I added an LP and received a maNFT at level 1.

Key Takeaways

My experience on the platform has been a hit-and-miss. Yesterday, I was unable to connect with my Rabby wallet. However, today I was able to connect with Rabby. Also, I had some issues swapping on the platform. Rewards from the LP aren’t displayed, but I did receive them when I claimed the rewards.

This doesn’t surprise me, as every Solidly fork I’ve interacted with has UI issues. They are annoying but to be expected. Of course, you can always visit their Discord (link below) if you need assistance, but it seems pretty busy right now.

Overall, I’m impressed with how much TVL the platform has captured quickly. It should be interesting to see how these Solidly wars play out and which model is the most sustainable.

Chronos.exchange Docs: https://docs.chronos.exchange/product-docs/introduction/chronos-finance

Chronos Discord: https://discord.com/invite/gTzrsdWgwD

I have not been paid or sponsored to write this article. However, I am actively providing liquidity on Chronos.exchange.

^{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. Furthermore, this article is my opinion; I am not a financial advisor.}