Staking my ETH (Part 3) - Due Diligence Rocket Pool
This is how I do my due diligence before investing more than $500 in DeFi
As a recap this is my due diligence process. This was my post for Lido Finance.
Who are the key team members? What are there past records?
Have their smart contracts been audited and if so by who and when?
Is their Github repo actively maintained? Are there commits and are issues handled in a timely manner?
What is their total market cap and TVL?
How many wallets/addresses do they have?
What is their FCAS score?
What is the activity like in their Discord and/or Telegram channels?
Where are they deployed?
Rocket Pool -
Background
Rocket Pool is a first of its kind ETH2 Proof of Stake Protocol, designed to be community owned, decentralised, trustless and compatible with staking in Ethereum 2.0. It was first conceived in late 2016 and has since had over 5 successful public betas over the life span of ETH2 development. Source.
To fully grasp the power of the Rocket Pool protocol, it is imperative to understand staking. Staking is a form of passive income available to self-sovereign individuals or crypto investors on centralized and decentralized crypto exchanges and staking platforms. The act of staking involves locking up a certain amount of collateral for a period of time. In turn, this helps secure a given blockchain network, and the investor receives staking rewards similar to interest on investment. It is a passive income since no sale or trade of staked collateral occurs, and the rewards are independent of the asset’s appreciation or depreciation.
The Rocket Pool protocol is for two types of investors, those who wish to remain liquid and stake small amounts of Ether without being bound by uncertain lock-up periods and investors with at least 16 ETH looking to maximize their ROI and stake to become a validator. Let’s examine the possibilities of each.
The 16 ETH from the Rocket Pool generates additional ROI for the node operator between 5 and 20%. This percentage varies based on the supply and demand of rETH and remains fixed after the launch of the Minipool. Currently, this expected Minipool fee is at 15.05%.
From its launch in early November 2021, 2,988 Minipools have registered through the Rocket Pool protocol across 70 decentralized geographic locations.
Source via Nasdaq
Another interesting read from Defiant - “Staking Race Quickens as Rocket Pool Draws 1% of Ethereum’s Validators in Three Months”
Team: David Rugendyke founder and CTO started designing Rocket Pool in 2016. He has over 18 years commercial experience as a senior developer with a computer science background and started designing Rocket Pool in late 2016. He is currently committed to developing Rocket Pool full time as the chief technology officer. Rest of their team members is right there on their home page which I think is pretty awesome.
Audits: Their smart contracts have been audited by Quantstamp, Sigma Prime, Consensys, Trail of Bits, and they have a bug bounty open on Immunefi! All listed right there on their homepage! Geez. I’m starting to fall in love with these guys. Source
Github Actively maintained, 13 contributors, updated regularly. 20 repos. They are using Solidity, Javascript, and Shell. Source
Market cap + TVL: RPL price today is $34.30. Market cap is $352,587,067 and TVL is $697.87m. Coinmarketcap and Defillama.
Holders: 1,838 via coinmarketcap
FCAS: N/A
Social Media: they are on twitter, discord, medium, and github. They have 14,456 members and when I checked 2,345 were online on Discord.
Blockchains: based on their truffle config, it looks like they are deployed on just Ethereum for now. Note: they are in beta.
On a rating scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is I won’t invest and 10 I will. I would give them a 7.
Conclusion: I will be staking with Rocket Pool. Stay tuned on the next post with screenshots.