ApeX Pro is thrilled to bring our traders a weekly earning event — Trade-to-Earn, where you can receive ApeX Pro's reward token $BANA for the trades you make on the platform.
Before you begin, here's the complete rundown on Trade-to-Earn so you can grab $BANA earnings without missing a single week, starting TODAY.
Why $BANA? What About $APEX?
ApeX Pro is a non-custodial trading platform that will take your decentralized perpetual contract trades to greater heights on an order book model, built on the ApeX Protocol and powered by StarkWare's Layer 2 scalability engine StarkEx. This comes after the initial ApeX elastic Automated Market Maker (eAMM) launch earlier this year, which is when we first revealed ApeX Protocol's native governance token — $APEX.
With the launch of ApeX Pro, we introduced the reward token $BANA to work alongside $APEX as we explore a dynamic dual token ecosystem for greater asset value stability.
$BANA is minted from a limited supply of 25,000,000 $APEX at an initial redeem rate of 0.001, with 25,000,000,000 $BANA available for rewards.
The availability of these two tokens circulating in the wider ApeX Protocol ecosystem and its many use cases will go a long way in improving market liquidity of these assets. With different use cases and distribution methods across both $BANA and $APEX, we're leveling the playing field for all traders, seasoned and aspiring, curious and experienced alike.
For more details on how $APEX and $BANA are connected, read our explainer.
How Trade-to-Earn Works
As the name suggests, Trade-to-Earn allows you to enjoy extra rewards while you carry on your regular trading activities every week.
Trade-to-Earn is not a one-off single event, but will comprise several rounds over a minimum of a single year so everyone gets a chance to build their $BANA earnings — 52 weeks, 52 rounds at one round per week.
The Trade-to-Earn page will show you everything you need, from which rounds are ongoing to other important displays such as fees paid, individual estimated rewards, trading milestones reached and what you can do with your $BANA after claiming your rewards.
Receive $BANA When You Trade (Per Epoch)
The total amount of $BANA traders can earn within a single epoch is dependent on several factors, including a combination of fees, open interests and the $BANA-USDC LP Token balance during a single period, calculated using the Cobb-Douglas function.
From the calculation formula below, it's evident that the more traders trade and the more fees are generated, the greater the final rewards will be.
The value of θ in the first epoch is zero. From the second epoch onwards, the θ value will be adjusted every four epochs, subject to changes arising during that period. For other parameters and formulas, ApeX Pro may make slight adjustments according to event circumstances. Please make sure you follow ApeX Pro-related accounts or link your email address to your ApeX Pro account to receive the latest updates.
Compared to a model with fixed rewards, participants no longer need to worry about diminishing returns as ApeX Pro's Trade-to-Earn model was designed to avoid a zero-sum game.
3 Easy Steps to Maximize Rewards With $BANA
(1) Swap: BANA can be swapped for USDC via the BANA-USDC pool at any time during these 52 weeks.
(2) Add Liquidity: Add your $BANA or USDC to the $BANA-USDC Pool to receive LP Tokens. LP Tokens held during an epoch will contribute to a trader's Average LP Token Holdings, a critical factor that will eventually decide the total amount of $BANA distributed at the end of each epoch. The more LP tokens held, the more traders can receive stacked total rewards in $BANA.
(3) Hold & Redeem: Traders who hold onto their $BANA long-term can use them to redeem $APEX governance tokens pro-rata after the Trade-to-Earn event period fully ends at the end of the set 52 weeks. The more BANA is burnt (see BBP section below), the higher the redeem rate will be.
Buy & Burn Pool
50% of ApeX Pro transaction fees (in USDC) will be channeled towards a Buy & Burn Pool (BBP). The BBP will regularly proceed with $BANA buybacks, executed on TWAMM (Time Weight Average Market Maker) swaps. This is to ensure $BANA's price and value are maintained while traders choose to use their $BANA in any of the three ways mentioned above. More importantly, this ensures that traders' interests are protected over this long-term event, no matter what changes may occur during any epoch.
BBP’s buying activity is constant over time when measured in USDC/s, also known as the Buying Rate. This will be determined before each epoch begins, based on data observed in the two (2) epochs prior to the current one.
The total amount of $BANA burnt will affect the final $BANA to $APEX redemption rate at the end of the Trade-to-Earn event.
Trade-to-Earn in Action
Let's assume that ApeX Pro uses 10 $APEX worth of $BANA for Round 3 in Epoch 3 of the Trade-to-Earn event, equivalent to 10,000 $BANA, that's made available for this epoch. Alice is a participating trader, who through her trades, managed to earn 2,000 $BANA at the end of the epoch.
Swap
Alice can immediately swap her 2,000 $BANA for USDC. The section above will show how much available $BANA any trader has and how much they're worth in USDC if they proceed with the swap. Alice can choose to swap all the $BANA she has, or perform a partial swap.
Add Liquidity
As seen in the image above, depending on the total amount of $BANA a trader holds and the amount allocated for addition into the $BANA-USDC Pool, a trader's Average LP Token Holdings will change.
For example, Alice decides to add 2,000 $BANA and 10.377202 USDC into the pool and the value of $BANA is priced at 0.005188 USDC. In this case, the total amount of LP Tokens that Alice can receive would be 0.000143. The more LP Tokens a trader has, the more $BANA they will be allocated at the end of the epoch.
Hold and Redeem
Initial Minting Event: 25,000,000 $APEX = 25,000,000,000 $BANA (at a redeem rate of 0.001)
If the BBP burns a total of 12,500,000,000 $BANA out of the available 25,000,000,000 $BANA during 52 epochs, there are 12,500,000,000 $BANA in rewards left
The ratio of $BANA to $APEX in this situation would be 25,000,000 $APEX = 12,500,000,000 $BANA → Evidently, the redeem rate is now 0.002
If Alice holds her 2,000 $BANA to the end of the Trade-to-Earn campaign (instead of swapping), she can redeem 2000*0.002 = 4 $APEX
Alice can trade her $APEX holdings on crypto exchanges such as Bybit and Uniswap thereafter for possibly more value than the initial USDC she might have received for swapping.
The swap, redeem and burn mechanism underpinning ApeX Pro's massive Trade-to-Earn event is specially engineered to guarantee:
Biggest possible value for $BANA holders with three ways to use turn their held $BANA into multiplied rewards
Minimal price fluctuation for $BANA with the BBP and TWAMM Swaps
For a step-by-step manual on how to navigate your way through the Trade-to-Earn pages, check out our detailed guide here.