GoGoPool: Driving Security, Community, And Liquidity On Avalanche

Avalanche

While GoGoPool is typically known for its liquid staking protocol, it’s transitioning into a core piece of infrastructure for the Avalanche ecosystem. Through its two primary functions, liquid staking and validators, GoGoPool directly contributes to liquidity, decentralization, and security on Avalanche. Through improved UX and security, GoGoPool is committed to enabling communities to flourish and driving activity within the Avalanche ecosystem. Let’s explore.

Function #1: Liquid Staking

Users who deposit AVAX into GoGoPool receive ggAVAX in return, which creates utility across various DeFi projects on Avalanche, including Trader Joe, DeltaPrime, Wombat Exchange, and more.

Liquid staking remains GoGoPool's most popular use case. As of June 27, 2024, 539k AVAX are receiving competitive staking rewards via GoGoPool’s validators.

From a yield perspective, GoGoPool aims to maximize user returns by automatically compounding AVAX rewards, eliminating protocol fees, and adding an extra source of income via MEV.

On a broader scale, GoGoPool contributes to the expansion of the Avalanche ecosystem by using its liquid staked AVAX deposits to subsidize the costs of spinning up and running new validator nodes via Validators.

Function #2: Validators

Operating as a validator on Avalanche is typically a costly endeavor in terms of time and money. Validators must meet technical requirements, like coding, hosting, maintenance, and upgrading. Additionally, they need to operate at least eight nodes, with a minimum stake of 2,000 AVAX required for each node. These factors create barriers to entry for any builders looking to secure their own Avalanche-based L1 (formerly known as Subnets).

GoGoPool provides a solution for both of these problems with validators. Validators validating through GoGoPool offers security to one or more Avalanche-based L1 chains, but it also provides additional incentives to builders. For example, after GGP tokens are staked GoGoPool automatically contributes 1,000 AVAX towards its overall stake, reducing the validator’s upfront cost by 50%.

GoGoPool also eliminates the technical barriers to entry with its One-Click Launcher, which allows anyone to launch a new validator or “relaunch” existing nodes as validators with just a single click. This provides an easy way for any existing L1 on Avalanche to immediately start reaping the cost benefits of running a validator.

Zooming out, GoGoPool’s impact on the broader Avalanche ecosystem has been impressive. So far, 281 Validators have been launched using GoGoPool, making them a top contributor of new validators on Avalanche:

In aggregate, these Validators are fueled by 287k AVAX:

To put this in perspective, GoGoPool’s 281 validators account for roughly 18% of Avalanche’s current total validator count, up from just 5.3% in November 2023.

How GoGoPool Offers “Infra-As-A-Service”

GGP contributes to decentralization and security throughout the broader Avalanche ecosystem by making it easier to spin up validator networks. It can be thought of as an infra as a service provider for projects looking to launch an L1 on Avalanche. With 281 validator nodes and counting, the Validator Network is a massive and easily accessible resource for projects to bootstrap infrastructure for their L1 chains.

Using liquid staking deposits to bootstrap new validator nodes encourages decentralization on the Avalanche network. When node operators choose to use Validators, the AVAX that would typically be staked with larger validators is redirected to create new validators, expanding Avalanche’s validator fleet and contributing to decentralization.

Taking this a step further, even smaller participants (anyone holding GoGoPool’s GGP token) can contribute to Avalanche’s security by depositing GGP into Seafi Labs’ GGP Vault. All deposits are routed to the GoGoPool validator network, contributing to the total stake of the network and thus increasing its security. In essence, the GGP Vault is the first product that fractionalizes the Validator network, making it easier to potentially earn returns and contribute to the network’s security.

Fostering Ecosystem Growth

Due to the aforementioned cost and technical barriers to entry associated with securing an L1 chain on Avalanche, GoGoPool’s Validators have been an increasingly popular solution for many projects. Notable examples include:

NodeKit

NodeKit uses GoGoPool’s decentralized validator set to validate all deployments of their shared sequencer, SEQ. This integration is a great example of combining technologies to create efficiencies, as NodeKit is not only decentralizing the sequencing of transactions on rollups between multiple blockchains, but it’s also further decentralizing its security by choosing Validators

MELD

Originally based on Cardano, the team behind Meld decided to make the switch to Avalanche, and is now using 5 Validatorsto secure MELDchain. Meld brings a unique service to Avalanche: hybrid accounts that enable users to transfer value between fiat and digital assets seamlessly.

Coqnet

One project that GoGoPool is currently working on is the formation of Coqnet, a new Avalanche-based L1 network fully secured by the Validators fleet. The GoGoPool team has stated that their goal is to bootstrap Coqnet with security from over 100 node operators at launch; that’s about 6% of Avalanche’s entire current validator capacity, demonstrating the power of GoGoPool’s infrastructure.

Pandasia

GoGoPool also helps projects decentralize their network in terms of value with Pandasia, which allows Avalanche-based networks to airdrop their tokens to specific validators in the broader Avalanche ecosystem. By giving projects an easier way to reward their network security providers, Pandasia ultimately incentivizes validators to secure more projects, leading to expansion of the validator ecosystem.

Enhancing Liquidity In Avalanche And Beyond

With the amount of benefits that Validators provide for new and existing L1 builders on Avalanche, it’s easy to overlook GoGoPool’s other major contribution to the ecosystem: liquidity.

GoGoPool’s ggAVAX token allows people to secure the Avalanche ecosystem while potentially increasing their yield by taking part in various DeFi strategies.

Top DEXs on Avalanche, including Trader Joe and Balancer, were quick to add ggAVAX/AVAX liquidity pools (Trader Joe LP; Balancer LP), which directly benefits the ggAVAX token by reinforcing its value relative to AVAX, but also ultimately benefits the Avalanche ecosystem. When DeFi users deposit ggAVAX into these liquidity pools, they potentially earn various token rewards, commonly known as “yield farming.” The potential of earning rewards on top of ggAVAX’s built-in staking yield can attract demand for the ggAVAX token, which requires more AVAX to be deposited into GoGoPool. Additionally, DeltaPrime users can post ggAVAX as collateral long and short positions on select assets with up to 5x leverage.

Conclusion

GoGoPool’s contributions thus far to Avalanche’s liquidity, security, and community have been nothing short of impressive. Looking ahead, GoGoPool aims to attract new projects to Avalanche and even to serve as critical infrastructure for new Avalanche-based L1 blockchains.

To learn more about GoGoPool, visit here.

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About Avalanche Blockchain Network

Avalanche is a high-performance blockchain platform designed for builders who need to scale. Engineered with a revolutionary three-part Layer 1 (L1) architecture, Avalanche is anchored by its Avalanche Consensus Mechanism, ensuring near-instant finality for transactions. The platform also features an open-source Layer 0 (L0) framework, enabling the seamless creation of interoperable Layer 1 blockchains with high throughput on both public and private networks.

Supported by a global community of developers and validators, Avalanche offers a fast, low-cost environment for building the next generation of decentralized applications (dApps). With its unique blend of speed, flexibility, and scalability, Avalanche is the preferred choice for innovators pushing the boundaries of blockchain technology.

For more information, visit avax.network