2 [Abra] aUST Analysis

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    What is aUST?

    aUST is the interest bearing token that the Anchor Earn depositors get for depositing UST. It's always increasing in value at the rate of Anchor Earn APY (normally 19.5% APY). The latest value of aUST to UST can be seen on the Anchor Dashboard (1.159 as of this writing).

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    Data Analysis

    > NOTE: We'll be using the number of transactions as a metric for usage of each of the use-cases.

    1. As we can see that the deposit and withdraw transactions are the most common use-cases followed by using aUST as collateral on Mirror.
    2. The number of deposit and withdraw transactions have seen a significant uptick recently (1st chart below) while the relative share of both has remained neraly the same and in favor of deposits (2nd chart below).

    Use-cases for aUST

    aUST has 6 distinct use-cases:

    1. UST Deposited into Anchor Earn - This is how the users receive aUST and the best strategy is to hold it and earn interest.
    2. Redeemed for UST - Since aUST is a deposit receipt for UST, it can be redeemed for UST + interest earned since deposit.
    3. Swapped - Instead of being redeemed the aUST can be swapped to UST directly.
    4. Bridged - aUST can be bridged to Ethereum. The only use-case I'm aware of is the Abracadabra Degenbox strategy which let's the user use aUST as collateral to borrow MIM.
    5. Collateral - With Mirror v2, aUST can be used as collateral to open collateralized debt positions (CDP). This is similar to the Abracadabra strategy of letting borrow MIM by using aUST as a collateral.
    6. Transfer - Like any other token, aUST can be transferred to other wallets.
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    Isolating Smaller Use-Cases

    Now let's remove deposits and withdraws to focus on the smaller use-cases.

    1. Here we observe that the collateral use-case has weird peaks and cyclical pattern. This is because the trading for non-crypto mAssets is only open while the U.S. Stock Market is open Mondays to Friday. Thus you see a reduction in minting on the weekends.
    2. The swap use-case seems to have emerged recently around November 15th and is picking up steam. Before then it didn't even make sense to swap. I beleive this is happening now because of the transparency provided by Coinhall on the aUST/UST pool which shows the price, recent trades, current value and makes it easy for everyone to discover the arbitrage opportunities.

    By using a 100% stacked chart, some additional patterns emerge:

    1. The transfer use-case has also become quite popular recently. On some days it has the highest share of transactions.
    2. The swap use-case seems to be increasing in popularity.

    Conclusion

    We've discovered some emerging use-cases for aUST that were not employed before. The ones I think can make the most difference on Terra are:

    1. Swapping for arbitrage opportunities
    2. Use as collateral for additional assets - LUNA, ETH etc.