Olympus DAO

OlympusDAO

Olympus is a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) focused on creating a decentralized reserve currency for Web3.

History

On February 1st, 2021 a Medium article was posted, "Introducing OlympusDAO, An Algorithmic Currency Protocol." Shortly after this article, the protocol also introduced themselves on Twitter. The token ticker was initially OLY but then changed to OHM. The founder of Olympus is pseudonymously known as Zeus. The protocol reached a peak TVL of $866.53 million in December of 2021.

Timeline

The Initial Discord Offering (IDO) for the Olympus token, $OHM, was announced on March 2nd, 2021. The only requirement was to be in the Olympus Discord prior to March 3rd at 03:00 UTC.

The launch sale took place from March 12th 03:00 UTC to March 14th 15:00 UTC.

Public trading of the $OHM token opened on March 14th at 18:00 UTC.

On June 9th of 2021, Olympus announced a partnership with Frax.

In the same month, Olympus migrated to Version 1.1 to enable new functionality and features.

In July 2021, Olympus launched Ohmie-Cards which garnered widespread use on crypto twitter.

On September 17th of 2021, Olympus launched Olympus Pro; a bonding marketplace for protocols to build-up their own Protocol Owned Liquidity.

The next month, Olympus announced the upcoming V2 migration that would eventually take place in December 2021.

Protocol

Olympus is as a reserve currency that is backed by a treasury of assets. This differs from a stablecoin as it is not pegged. Olympus uses staking, bonding, and treasury mechanics to achieve a desired outcome.

Staking

Users stake OHM on the Olympus website and opt in to participate in the Olympus network. Staking OHM burns it, and users receive sOHM (staked OHM) in return. When unstaking, the sOHM is burned and the user receives OHM. Staking allows the user to receive OHM-rebase rewards every 2,200 Ethereum Blocks. Olympus created the (3, 3) meme to refer to the optimal game theory of all users staking.

A chart depicting the different game-theoretic outcomes of OHM.

Bonding

Bonders can start bonding with any Olympus-approved digital asset, and they're promised a fixed return at a set point in time; the return is in OHM. Bonding allows Olympus (and other protocols with Olympus Pro) to own their own liquidity. Olympus introduced Inverse Bonds in March of 2022 which introduce a mechanism to essentially allow users to redeem their OHM from the treasury.

Treasury

The Olympus treasury consists of Treasury Reserves, Protocol Owned Liquidity, and locked, vesting, or other strategic assets. Olympus also uses their treasury to act as an incubator for new projects through Olympus Incubator. Volt Protocol is the first Olympus Incubator project.