Sebastian Sinclair

<div id="highlights-block_62fb227a9c713" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Brisbane-based Mycelium has launched its perpetuals product following a successful DAO vote earlier last week</li>
 <li>BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes assisted in a support capacity where he provided &#8220;immeasurable&#8221; advise ahead of the delivery of the product, Mycelium said</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes has been advising Australia-based blockchain infrastructure provider Mycelium on an &#8220;ongoing basis&#8221; ahead of Tuesday&#8217;s launch of its perpetual swap product, according to a statement.



Mycelium Perpetual Swaps, which live on Ethereum layer-2 Arbitrum, provide exposure to &#8220;blue chip&#8221; cryptos with 30x leverage, allowing them to trade against the platform&#8217;s liquidity pool.



Brisbane-based Mycelium <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/mycelium-to-launch-perpetual-swaps-following-tracer-dao-merge/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">merged</a> with decentralized derivatives platform Tracer DAO late last week following a successful proposal vote by members of Tracer&#8217;s decentralized autonomous organization. The move was described as a precursor to future derivative product launches from Mycelium.



Traders of the perpetual product are able to access markets involving governance tokens from Curve Finance (CRV) Frax (FXS) and Balancer (BAL). Additional markets for bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), chainlink (LINK) and uniswap (UNI) have also gone live marking Mycelium as the largest provider of perpetuals on Arbitrum, the provider said.



Perpetual swaps, unlike traditional futures, allow traders to speculate on the future price of an asset, without an expiration date.



Traders are not required to post 100% of collateral as margin, which allows for&nbsp;leverage in many multiples on certain contracts. Margin is typically denominated in crypto. Perpetual swap products have risen in popularity in crypto ever since BitMEX pioneered the crypto derivatives in 2016.



It follows the platform&#8217;s first derivative product, dubbed &#8220;Perpetual Pools,&#8221; in 2021 which was launched under the brand name Tracer, also on Arbitrum.



The pools function by rebalancing long and short positions while attempting to shield traders from liquidations. Over the past 12 months, the product has witnessed more than $800 million in trading volume, Mycelium said.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Arthur Hayes&#8217; involvement</h3>



Hayes, who has kept a low profile following his <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/bitmex-founders-hayes-delo-plead-guilty-to-violating-us-bank-secrecy-act/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">guilty plea</a> to US Department of Justice charges of violating the Bank Secrecy Act, continues to provide &#8220;advice and support&#8221; to Mycelium, a spokesperson told Blockworks.



Hayes and BitMEX&#8217;s other co-founder Ben Delo were accused of flouting US anti-money laundering rules from 2015 to 2020.



The BitMEX co-founder has been working with the Tracer (now Mycelium) team for over a year, a spokesperson told Blockworks, where he has been providing feedback on ideas regarding financial engineering.



Further details of his involvement were not provided and a request for additional information was declined.



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BitMEX’s Arthur Hayes Advises Mycelium’s Perpetuals Launch

<div id="highlights-block_62f5b9decd099" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Members of Tracer DAO&#8217;s decentralized autonomous organization have voted to merge the platform with blockchain provider Mycelium</li>
 <li>Following the vote, Mycelium is expected to launch its perpetutal swaps contracts on Arbitrum by late August</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Users of the Ethereum-based decentralized derivatives platform Tracer DAO voted Tuesday to migrate its&nbsp;token and brand under blockchain provider Mycelium&#8217;s roof.



A proposal put forth to members within the platform&#8217;s decentralized autonomous organization on Sunday reached a near-unanimous decision, with more than 99% in favor of the move, according to a recent <a href="https://vote.tracer.finance/#/proposal/0x2f2103cc31a01e36f94d488ae5c3ea9a9d57b5f4543a8897fe2d74c9f8c3ec7c" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">voter snapshot</a>. Future product launches will also fall under the Mycelium banner.



The integration with its core service provider will allow Mycelium to further expand Tracer&#8217;s exchange platform and develop future trading products, including perpetual swaps, according to a <a href="https://tracerdao.medium.com/introducing-mycelium-perpetual-swaps-launching-august-2022-85a460f0afb6" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">blog post</a>.



Australia-based Mycelium plans to offer a perpetual product sometime this month where traders will be able to utilize markets for Curve&#8217;s native token (CRV) Frax&#8217;s governance token (FXS) as well as Balancer&#8217;s governance token (BAL), the post reads.



As a core service provider to the DAO since February 2021, Mycelium developed the smart contracts for Tracer&#8217;s &#8220;Perpetual Pools&#8221; derivative product which launched on scaling solutions platform Arbitrum late last year.



Markets for bitcoin, ether, chainlink and uniswap will also be created under Mycelium&#8217;s perpetuals offering which would make it the broadest market for the contracts on on Arbitrum, Tracer said.



A perpetual swap is similar to a futures contract, except that there is no expiration date for the contract. In crypto, they have grown to become the dominant choice among traders for the purpose of price discovery, according to <a href="https://insights.glassnode.com/the-week-onchain-week-17-2022/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">data provider Glassnode</a>.



Perpetual swaps closely resemble spot index pricing which makes it easier and more intuitive for traders to manage their positions as well as leverage, the provider said in April. 



Derivatives exchange BitMEX pioneered the financial product back in 2016. In most instances, traders are not required to post 100% of collateral as margin, allowing&nbsp;leverage in many multiples on certain contracts. Margin is typically denominated in crypto.



Multiple exchanges within the industry now support perpetuals as part of their suite of offerings including Binance, dYdX, FTX, Bybit and Bitget. 



Holders of Tracer&#8217;s native token (TCR) are now also able to swap their tokens to Mycelium&#8217;s native token (MYC) on a 1:1 basis ahead of the transition, expected to be completed by the latter half of August.



&#8220;This transition will allow Mycelium to deliver greater value to all existing Tracer and TCR stakeholders, in addition to providing a more dynamic ecosystem of DeFi products and services for users to access,&#8221; Tracer said in a statement shared with Blockworks.



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Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



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