Weekly Bonzo Bytes 🎙️🐵

The Spaces focused on three pillars: Bonzo Finance protocol updates, Hedera ecosystem developments, and broader industry news. The team addressed recent price display inaccuracies on CoinGecko/CoinMarketCap tied to a Hedera codebase update, advising SaucerSwap as the source of truth and noting Bonzo’s Supra/Chainlink oracles remain accurate. A brief dashboard NaN incident stemmed from an RPC rate-limit and was mitigated by a fallback provider. Bonzo’s Shopify merch store is live with Founders, NFT (designed by Inama), and Vaults collections, plus an Easter egg. Bonzo Vaults have completed Halborn audits, UI/UX is implemented, contracts are on mainnet and in testing; launch remains targeted for end of October with three strategy types (single-asset DEX, dual-asset DEX, leveraged LST). Strategically, Vaults deepen DEX liquidity to relax Bonzo Lend caps and grow revenue. The MiCA EU report for the BONZO asset is completed, published in docs, and supports ongoing CEX discussions (e.g., Kraken). Key stats: Bonzo TVL $32.4M (# 65 among lenders, # 3 on Hedera); Hedera TVL ~$95.48M; USDC issued ~$171.2M, with USDC TVL ($16M) a stronger traction metric. Hedera’s 0.0.800 staking account was funded with 250M HBAR (estimated 1.5–2.5% APY). The team explained WHBAR architecture and a planned DAO proposal on reward direction, highlighted Hedera’s resilience during the AWS outage, and discussed market items including CZ’s pardon, industry recognition, consolidation trends, and near-term additions like WETH via LayerZero (with WBTC next).

Bonzo Bytes Twitter Spaces – Session Summary and Analysis

Session Overview and Participants

• Host: Brady (Bonzo Finance) opened with a disclaimer that all views are personal opinions, not financial advice; forward-looking statements involve risks; do your own research; Bonzo Finance and speakers are not liable for actions taken based on this information.
• Guest panelist: Michael joined mid-session and contributed on market/regulatory topics and Hedera decentralization.
• Community participants and question-askers: Celestial Being, Free Love, Straight Up Kurt, Oracle, Not Jack.
• Other names referenced: Remley (publishes the Bonzo Scoreboard), Inama’s NFT (lead designer for last year’s Bonzo NFTs), RE7 Labs (risk steward), Sandeep (Polygon), Richard Bear and Jasper (HIP-1249), and a designer based in Milan.

Bonzo Finance Updates

Data Integrity: Price Display Issues on Aggregators

• Observed issue: Inaccurate and volatile price information for assets across the Hedera ecosystem on CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap over the last 2–3 weeks.
• Suspected root cause: A Hedera network codebase update appears to have changed how analytics tools ingest on-chain data (primarily from SaucerSwap DEX contracts), disrupting price display pipelines.
• Remediation: Hedera core teams and ecosystem leads are working with CoinGecko and CMC to resolve the issue.
• Source of truth: For Hedera asset prices, rely on SaucerSwap on-chain data.
• Impact on Bonzo protocol: None. Bonzo Finance sources pricing from Supra and Chainlink oracles, which pull directly from SaucerSwap contracts and are functioning normally.

Dashboard “NaN” Incident

• Incident: A temporary “NaN” (not-a-number) display appeared on the Bonzo Finance dashboard.
• Cause: Rate-limiting at the primary RPC provider triggered a redundancy fallback to an alternate provider, resulting in a brief data gap.
• Resolution: Fallback engaged immediately; frontend data resumed; RPC provider notified with details on rate-limiting/outage; the protocol frontend remains fully operational.

Bonzo Merch Store Launch

• Status: Live on Shopify with worldwide shipping.
• Collections:
  • Founders Collection: Bonzo logo-branded apparel and accessories (hoodies, T-shirts, stickers, etc.).
  • Bonzo NFTs Collection: Merchandise featuring community-requested NFT art; shoutout to Inama’s NFT (lead designer from last year).
  • Vaults Collection: Celebrates the upcoming Bonzo Vaults launch; designed with a Milan-based artist who has worked with major brands (including artwork on a jet).
• Easter egg: Hidden feature hinted by the last clothing item in the launch video (also hinted in a tweet). Community encouraged to find it.

Bonzo Vaults: Launch Progress and Strategy

• Readiness: Halborn audits completed; UI/UX finished (vaults page and individual vault pages); contracts deployed on mainnet; testing underway.
• Strategies: Three vault strategy types planned:
  • Single-asset DEX strategy.
  • Dual-asset DEX strategy.
  • Leveraged liquid staking token (LST) strategy.
• Timeline: Targeting end of October launch; emphasis on rigorous testing and QA. If issues surface, launch may slip by a day or two—quality over speed.
• Rationale and synergy:
  • Vaults could have launched as a standalone protocol but are integrated into the Bonzo ecosystem to complement Bonzo Lend.
  • Addresses liquidity limitations that constrained lending caps; vaults aim to create and optimize concentrated liquidity on decentralized exchanges (SaucerSwap) to support larger, safer lending capacity on Bonzo Lend.

Community Q&A Highlights

Dex Bunny Exploit and Bonzo Exposure

• Question: Are Bonzo vaults or lending exposed to the September exploit at Dex Bunny (Uniswap v4 hooks)?
• Answer: No overlap or shared components. Dex Bunny used Uniswap v4 hooks; Bonzo Vaults leverage distinct components (separate from Bunny’s stack and separate from Aave v2/Beefy/“itchy” vaults mentioned) with different risk surfaces.
• Broader commentary (Brady and Michael):
  • DeFi is early; no code is 100% safe.
  • Building on brand-new paradigms (e.g., Uniswap v4 hooks) can compound risk if not battle-tested.
  • Importance of process: audits, using proven codebases, thorough testnet/user testing, and controlled rollouts.

Centralized Exchange (CEX) Listings and MiCA

• MiCA report: Bonzo has completed the EU MiCA report and submitted it via a selected home member state. Approved for publication and now available in Bonzo’s docs (Legal section).
• Relevance: MiCA reports are becoming a prerequisite for listing on EU-touching CEXs (Coinbase, Kraken, Crypto.com, etc.).
• Current discussions: Ongoing exploratory discussion with Kraken about a potential listing. No immediate promises, but the MiCA milestone significantly improves listing readiness.

Protocol Metrics and Ecosystem Stats

• Bonzo Finance:
  • TVL: $32.4M (up $1M WoW from $31.4M on Oct 17). In HBAR terms: 192.85M (down ~2M from 194.81M).
  • Lending protocol rank: # 65 globally.
  • Hedera DeFi TVL rank: # 3 (DefiLlama), behind SaucerSwap and Stader Labs (HBARx liquid staking).
• Hedera network:
  • TVL: $95.48M (USD-denominated), up a few million since Oct 17.
  • Cross-chain TVL rank: # 50 among L1/L2.
  • USDC issued on Hedera: $171.2M (+~94% WoW)—highly volatile; better indicator is USDC TVL locked.
  • Stablecoin TVL: ~$16M USDC locked across Bonzo Finance and SaucerSwap (consistently growing over 6–12 months).
  • HBAR price: ~$0.1682, slightly up WoW.

Success Metrics and NFT Utility

• Success definition (Scoreboard):
  • Top-line: Protocol revenue is priority (long-term sustainability).
  • Supporting metrics: TVL growth, user growth, usage of new products (e.g., vaults).
  • Communications: Remley posts a recurring “Bonzo Finance Scoreboard” with tracked KPIs.
• NFT utility: Points Seasons (Season 4 ends December) and Bonzo Faucet remain primary utilities. No imminent changes planned; community feedback welcomed for future utility ideas.

Supply Caps, Risk Steward, and Near-Term Asset Additions

• Supply caps: Awaiting updated proposals from RE7 Labs (third-party risk steward) which is building risk analytics, models, and dashboards. The work involves complex parameter calculations (e.g., secondary liquidity, position data, volatility, price shocks) per asset.
• No undisclosed blockers: The delay is due to diligence and tooling to accurately set safe parameters.
• Near-term catalyst: Wrapped ETH (via LayerZero/Stargate) with finalized risk parameters; target listing within a week.
  • Bridge support: Up to 29 networks into Hedera.
  • Bonzo Lend: New WETH lending pool planned.
  • SaucerSwap: Multiple vaults will support WETH, enabling rewards.
• Wrapped BTC: Introductions made between “Biko” and LayerZero-supporting orgs; LayerZero contract nearing completion.
  • Governance: SaucerSwap DAO already approved pools for WETH and WBTC; WBTC pool will go live automatically once asset is available, without a new vote.

Hedera and Community News

Native Staking Account Funded (0.0.800)

• Event: Hedera Foundation announced funding of the staking account with 250M HBAR.
• Research outcome: Native staking rewards APY target range estimated ~1.5%–2.5%.
• Adoption goals: Hope for centralized exchanges to enable native HBAR staking; broader aim to reduce token velocity and enhance HBAR retention.

HBAR Supply API and WHBAR Architecture (Pinned Explanation)

• Lending pool mechanics: Supplying HBAR to Bonzo Lend requires wrapping to WHBAR because smart contracts need ERC-20/HTS-like assets to interface reliably.
• Implementation: Bonzo uses SaucerSwap’s WHBAR contract to avoid liquidity fragmentation and streamline liquidations.
• Liquidation efficiency: Aligning asset format between Bonzo and SaucerSwap enables direct, efficient liquidation and market operations.
• Staking reward path today: HBAR deposited into SaucerSwap’s WHBAR contract is staked; rewards are used for SAUCE token buybacks under SaucerSwap’s program.
• Proposed change: Bonzo will submit a DAO proposal to SaucerSwap requesting that staking rewards attributable to Bonzo-originated deposits be used to buy back BONZO tokens and fund Bonzo’s single-sided staking rewards engine.
• Contingency: If infeasible, Bonzo may migrate off SaucerSwap’s WHBAR contract—balancing technical feasibility against ecosystem liquidity fragmentation concerns.

AWS Outage and Hedera Resilience

• Incident: A widespread AWS outage disrupted many Web3 services and networks (especially those concentrated on AWS for validators).
• Hedera’s architecture: Nodes are highly distributed—each council-operated node is either on-prem or on distinct cloud providers, with no two nodes sharing the same provider.
• Outcome: Hedera network remained online; any single-node impact doesn’t affect global network throughput or uptime. Blog and architecture graphic were shared.

HIP-1249: Smart Contract Throughput and Gas Estimation

• Approval: Discussed as approved in a Technical Steering Committee meeting; spearheaded by Richard Bear and Jasper.
• Purpose: Improve the gas estimation algorithm to more accurately predict throughput and reduce conservative hard limits, thereby increasing smart contract throughput when implemented.
• Timeline: Implementation will take time due to algorithmic changes; no definitive ETA. Expect a “long cooking” period before it’s live.

Market and Industry News

Political Pardons and Market Sentiment

• News: Trump’s pardon of Binance founder CZ sparked debate on regulatory climate and market impact.
• Speculation: Discussion on whether an SBF pardon could also occur and how markets might react.
• Potential impact lens: If industry figures can resume leadership roles, markets may interpret it as bullish; community sentiment remains mixed given past damages to the sector.

Hedera Recognition and L1/L2 Valuations

• Mention by Sandeep (Polygon): Comments widely read as highlighting valuation differences between L1s and L2s, with Hedera referenced; interpretations varied (some saw it as positive, others as a backhanded note toward Polygon’s positioning).
• Media presence: Hedera cited more frequently in industry articles; featured strongly in CoinDesk 20 indexing and ETF inclusion; overall trend of increased acknowledgement.

Aave Labs Acqui-Hire: Stable Finance

• Event: Aave Labs (company behind Aave protocol, upon which Bonzo Lend is based) acqui-hired Stable Finance (SF Bay Area startup focused on consumer savings apps).
• Trend: Consolidation in DeFi; protocols and networks increasingly acquiring application teams to vertically bolster their ecosystems (e.g., Base acquiring Echo).
• Strategic lens: Networks may build or own end-to-end components for capital market formation; reverse app-chain dynamics in play. Regulatory implications remain to be seen.

Additional Notes and Follow-ups

• Easter egg in the merch launch video: The last clothing item is the hint; a tweet with the hint was posted—community encouraged to hunt.
• Not Jack’s comment: Appreciation for the clear explanation of vault-lend synergy—vaults grow DEX liquidity, which supports lending capacity and protocol revenue.
• Gran: Currently traveling/moving to London; still working but less publicly visible; expected to resume regular presence.

Closing

• Brady thanked attendees for the thoughtful questions and participation.
• Michael’s contributions on decentralization and market dynamics were acknowledged.
• Community was wished a great Friday and weekend and invited to continue the conversation in Discord and future Bonzo Bytes sessions.