The only problem was, the train came to a halt. Transactions took hours, wallets froze and most people were left out looking at the price of $SUNDAE going up.
But that is fine because we were told it was going to be so... A lot of people followed the project closely, they had around 250k followers on twitter and after all, they were going to bring the Holy Grail to Jerusalem. Well, I don't really know if I can get behind that.
When you are getting ready to launch a product, you know that your product will most likely jam the network for "a couple of weeks" and you still go ahead full speed, I'm starting to wonder what the fricking hell is going on. Is there any chance there might be some dodgy ulterior motives involved?
What are the actual benefits of having an AMM protocol live on the mainnet before the chain is ready for it? I mean, when most if not all the coins that are to be traded on the so called DEX are already available for trading on other platforms, all but one: $SUNDAE. Is it really worth clogging up the network and making the community pay so you can sell your snake oil? I know, snake oil might be a little much, but before we settle on that, let's have a closer look at what has happened so far.
Tokenomics. More like Jokenomics
SundaeSwap's tokenomic model baffles me. What I find more surprising that the self-proclaimed community of true decentralisation ate it all up. And defended it when it was challenged.
In simple terms, insiders take 45% and the community gets the other 55%. I hope I got the math right here.
Hold on a minute, the team gets only 25%! I hear what you're saying, but is that really what is happening? The other 20% are going to investors, advisors and "future hires"...
Well, that might very well be true, but the fact remains unchanged. The community gets 55%. I understand some folks might not be happy with my angle here, but before you wiggle your arms and consider yourself offended, let's add some contrast:
Minswap on the other hand throws in a whooping 78.5% in the community pool. Pree-he-ty nice I would say.
The team gets 10%, another 10% goes to development and a measely 1.5% reserved for partnerships.
And now, going back to my previous statement that got you all riled up about SundaeSwap taking 45%, please pay attention to the wording used by the MinSwap team. Right under the tokenomic model.
"This means that the total allocation to us — the team, is 21.5%"
It just looks like these are either more self-aware than the SundaeSwap VC Cartel or they just simply call bullshit for what it is.
$SUNDAE - The Golden Coins
I mentioned earlier that the main reason for having SundaeSwap live is for them to sell their coin. Is there any evidence to support that statement?
I believe there is. Take a look at the newly released Queue tab in their web app. Over 9k people are in line to buy the magic beans, by far the largest active queue. The 2nd place is taken by WMT with a lousy 300.
Have a look at the standings, 10 days after their launch. Keep in mind that a lot has happened since the 20th and the possibilty to see this info is recent. Props to them here for listening to the community and implementing it.
Web App - UX+UI
Okay, the app itself is not bad. I have to admit that as far as I've interacted with it, it seems to be working as intended. I personally am not really keen on the colour scheme, but I do find it somewhat pleasant to look at. I am now talking about the Light mode.
The only thing I can say about Dark mode is STAY AWAY. Colour scheme and contrast is so so bad, and I find mobile experience even worse. But hey, that's just me.
Honestly, It looks like the developers were announced they were only going to get paid 10% of the initial contract right about when they started developing Dark Mode. Ok, ok - this is a joke. I am not even going to touch the CardStarted hot potato as the information available is very scarce and Sundae went full lawyer mode around it.
AMM vs OrderBook
Most people seem to forget that they did trade before SundaeSwap came along, and they did it pretty easily and with minimal congestion.
I am talking about the true OG of Cardano DEXes - MuesliSwap.
Since the 20th launch, Muesli seems to have slid into obscurity and I rarely see it mentioned in the DEX DeFi space. Their OrderBook model works great and what is most important, the blockchain can handle it. The AMM hype bonanza seems to spread like some sort of virus.
In conclusion
By the looks of it, there is not much fire behind the SundaeSwap smoke screen. And the smoke seems to be clearing out. Unless you really really want to get your hands on some $SUNDAE that is.
Ah, scratch that. You can also get it on MuesliSwap.
Moreover, it really looks like the hype is dying down. Nobody really cares about AMM when they can't use the network. Pretty common sense I suppose.
Check out this twitter poll one of the SPOs has made.
Does anyone remember the tale of the tortoise and the hare? "You can be more successful by doing things slowly and steadily than by acting quickly and carelessly."
SundaeSwap is nothing more than a hyped up project that really brings nothing special to the table. And the hype is around it being the go-to DEX on Cardano.
And that is apparently the decentralised dream my friends: A handful of people deciding who is going to own the market.
Review - 1 year on
I had this article drafted right about a year ago. Looking back now it seems like I was pretty much spot on.
Look how far Minswap and Muesliswap have gotten, and then look at the empty white cards at the top of SundaeSwap. You can see the abyss. And I haven't even mentioned the transactions that went through in "error" before the snake oil went to market. Anyone remember that?