You know what they say, once you start using DeFi on Polygon you ain't never going back. Well I don't think anyone's actually ever said that before but maybe they should. Hardcore DeFi users and retail investors alike have been flocking to Polygon due to it's low transaction cost, high throughput and wide range of DeFi products. Many of those DeFi products made usable by the Polygon Bridge, which allows for easy transfer of assets from the Ethereum mainnet to Polygon.
This rise in usage is reflected in Polygon (MATIC)'s token price. Which in spite of the recent market downturn, is still up nearly 5,000% over last year's figures. DeFi apps on Polygon have similarly shown very high usage, with this being exemplified by Aave on Polygon showing nearly 3x the users than it's Ethereum counterpart.
I was a little sluggish getting into Polygon, not jumping in until early March. In spite of the late start, the rewards have been worthwhile. Today I'd like to cover three DeFi projects I'm either currently using or am anticipating using in the near future. So let's get into it!
1. Polycat Finance
There's been a rash of Poly(animal) DeFi protocols that have sprung up as of late, but Polycat is the one that takes the cake. Polycat is a self-described "Value-oriented, economically sustainable hybrid yield aggregator on Polygon.". Launched on May 02 of 2021 Polycat was an early player in the Yield Farming scene on Polygon. They've currently been audited three times with a fourth in progress and have yet to experience any hacks or exploits.
Yields are pretty nuts on Polycat, with ranges between 12%-8,700%. Their native token, FISH, can also be used similarly to how CAKE is used on Pancakeswap. FISH can be staked and either more FISH earned, or tokens from a sponsored pool such as GBTS or GNFT. I currently have a decent amount of the FISH/MATIC LP tokens locked up and am earning a pretty hearty reward daily thanks to the insane APY.
With the fall of TITAN I've been using Polycat for my degen farm related needs. While there's certainly a possibility Polycat makes it long-term I highly recommend doing your own research here and not getting too greedy.
Website: https://polycat.finance/
2. Honeyswap (1Hive)
The (anime) crossover I've been waiting for. Honeyswap is a Automated Market Maker based Decentralized Exchange, similar to a Uniswap or SushiSwap, built on xDAI. And that's the only issue, Honeyswap has a great team and product it's just on a not so active chain. But I'm not here to talk about xDAI, I am here to talk about an already fantastic product making it's way over to Polygon.
With a launch date of July 1st Honeyswap will be airdropping tokens to their current LP holders from xDAI and I personally will be snatching up some of the dumped tokens on launch.
Website: https://honeyswap.org/
3. Kyber
In an announcement made on 16 June, Kyber announced it will be expanding to Polygon on 30 June. In addition to the launch they will also be doing their first liquidity mining program, "Rainmaker", with over $30 Million in rewards for LP'ers on Ethereum and Polygon. This is yet another big name, proven product making it's way over to Polygon.
Kyber will be bringing over it's Dynamic Market Maker (DMM), a new product in Kyber's liquidity hub, which includes additional benefits over the typical AMM used in DeFi. With $30M in rewards up for grabs this could be a good opportunity for people to jump into.
Website: https://kyber.network/
Bonus: Harvest.Finance
Harvest has been a staple of my DeFi portfolio for a little bit now. Their main focus is on making DeFi easy and simple for the average crypto user. They're currently one of the most undervalued projects in DeFi, boasting a ridiculous P/E. There's no set date for their Polygon release, with a major UI/UX update taking priority, but early-mid July is what I'm hearing. When that happens I'll certainly be there.
Website: https://harvest.finance/
Final Thoughts
That about wraps up the top 3 DeFi projects to watch on Polygon. Unfortunately with lower fees and high volume of users comes a large variety of scams and rug pulls. That's exactly what we've started to see on Polygon. I'd highly recommend you do your own research before apeing into any project. RugDoc.io is a great resource for DeFi newbies to help better asses the risks of a project.
Something that I did, that may help you if you're a newbie, is to asses new DeFi projects on your own. Don't jump in, just watch how they go with no investment. If something you thought would be a home run ends up rugging it's users, I'd examine the reasons why that may have happened and some of the warning signs that presented themselves.
Also joining discords of popular projects is another great learning source. Tons of experts are more than willing to share their knowledge with you if you just ask.
Thanks for reading, let me know if there's any projects I should look into. The above is also just my opinion and meant for informative purposes. I always recommend doing your own research. Happy Earnings!
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Good write. I have been in polycat for a month, it is giving a consistent nice yield, the apr's have gone down, but are still quite good. From many other projects for the safer ones there are also sushiswap and quickswap (besides the bluechips curve and aave) and for degens I am recently trying out augury finance and adamant finance. Almost got burned at iron so the bags in degens are small. I would add a useful bridge between bsc, fantom, polygon and xDai, it is much cheaper than going from Eth: https://www.xpollinate.io/