🌽 Kakarot Launched Their Testnet

Heard about Kakarot? It's a zkEVM built on Starknet to bridge this network with Ethereum.

The project has roped in funding from Vitalik Buterin, StarkWare, Lambda Class, OKX Ventures, and other big names, though they haven’t spilled the beans on how much they got. Their Twitter's got followers like Vitalik, StarkWare, zkSync, and many other heavy hitters and investors.

Yesterday, they announced the launch of their public testnet, and we can jump in now hoping for some rewards because this project is likely to drop its own token.

What do we need to do?

• Head over to their site, connect your wallet, and add the Kakarot testnet
• Claim test $ETH on the same site
• Do swaps on Izumi, Hisoka, and Goku

As they mentioned on their Twitter, the next step will be launching a testnet campaign with points, so stay tuned for rewards. In the meantime, it’s best to get noticed on the network early.

Happy farming, y'all! 🌽

🌽Farming Points from ORA Protocol

Look what I found: a verifiable Oracle protocol, Ora Protocol, that integrates artificial intelligence and complex computing into the blockchain environment. Raised $23 million in investment from Hashkey, Polychain, SevenX Capital, dao5, Foresight and others.

We now have the opportunity to farm points on their platform for AI utilization, with an eye on dropping them in the future.

What do we need to do?

• Go to the website
• Connect Twitter and in the third banner enter the code S9XLRV.
• Go to the page
• Use the AI functions
• Steak ETN / stETH / STONE / OLM in Ethereum

For every ether staked, you get 8 points daily, for every 10,000 OLM you get 24 points daily.

For each transaction in the Arbitrum network you will receive 3 points, as you know they are cheap, so a quality account will cost up to $10, looks interesting.

Farm crypto with a real farmer 🌽

🌽FUEL NETWORK has launched a steak program

Found another interesting testnet for you. Fuel is a modular blockchain that provides maximum security and flexible bandwidth for the Ethereum ecosystem.

They've raised $81.5M from Blockchain Capital, Stratos Technologies and others.

And they have launched a farming point program for providing liquidity.

At the moment you can deposit in: ETH, WETH, eETH, rsETH, rETH, wbETH, USDT, USDC, USDe, sUSDe, ezETH and stETH.

We'll get 1.5 points for each dollar equivalent, but there will be a x2 bonus on ezETH from July 8-22.

Fuel has already had several phases of testnet, the guys decided not to invent a wheel and wanted a nice figure on TVL, and we got the same thing in return - figures in points. This is the last opportunity to be active before they go main, so don't miss the chance.

Wake up, it's time to farm🌽

🌽Rage Trade announced the launch of its token

Quick reminder, Rage Trade is an aggregator of decentralized futures exchanges that recently became one.

After a year and a half, the project announced the release of its token, which will launch on August 7 and will be available on HyperLiquid.

Don't forget that Rage Trade has an active point farming campaign going on. We still have time to keep farming.

What do we need to do?

• Go to the website and connect your wallet.
• Choose Hyperliquid to farm two drops at the same time.
• Make transactions and farm the points.

As my experience shows, tier2-3 projects can give out good drops, so keep farming. If you haven't already it's about time.

Happy farming y'all 🌽

🌽MEV bots: Why are they dangerous?

With the introduction of smart contracts, as with any revolutionary technology, there have been many ways to hack, attack, trick users and protocols on the web.
The harder the product - the harder it is to understand the nature and capabilities of hackers.

For starters, what is this MEV exactly?

Simply put, Miner Extractable Value is money that can be made by affecting the way transactions are processed. This can be done either by validators or by any users.

MEV can take various forms and it's hard to talk about whether it's an inefficiency or a flop.

It is mostly associated with all sorts of attacks, the most basic ones are:

1. Liquidation bots monitor lending protocols and look for positions of users that can be liquidated, at the expense of which they get rewarded.

2. Front-Running. A methodology where the mempool is constantly monitored (the place where just sent transactions that have not yet been validated into the blockchain get to) and mev bots insert their transactions before or after major purchases/sales.

For example, Elon Musk decides to buy $100m worth of $EUL, throws his transaction with 10 GWEI, the bots notice it in the mempool, see that the purchase is incredibly huge, the price will go from $4$ to $4000$ after its execution. And they insert their transactions for the purchase with GWEI higher than Elon's in order to be in the block before him and have time to take the token at the old price.

3. Back-Running - the same as Front-running, but in reverse. These bots insert their transactions right after large transactions on the network. For example, to buy back a token cheaply after large sales.

4. Sandwich attacks are one of the most popular trends because you don't have to wait for transactions from whales; you can pull profits from relatively small transactions.

Every time you make a transaction on an exchange, a slippage or how much you are minimally ready to receive tokens after the exchange is set in the transaction. This can be exploited and manipulated.

Here's how the exploitation can occur:

For example, you want to make a $1k purchase of token XYZ. Before the purchase, the market price of the token was 1$. The token is not super liquid, but a small purchase would not change the price much. Under ideal conditions, you would get 998 tokens in the end.

• You send your transaction where the dex has defaulted to 2% slippage; it means the transaction will be executed even if you get 980 tokens after it is executed.

• Mev bots see the transaction in the mempool, calculate how much the price of the token should be affected so that the victim gets exactly the minimum and how the price will change after this purchase.

• The bot sends 2 transactions at once to the block where the victim's purchase will be made: to buy and to sell. The purchase of the bot must necessarily be before you, and the sale immediately after.

And what happens:

1. In one block of mev bot raises the price of token.
2. Your transaction is executed and the price goes up even more.
3. The mev bot sells tokens with a profit. The token price has not changed in almost any way, but the victim received 2% less tokens than they should have.

Not much but no fun. Tomorrow I will tell you how you can protect yourself from mev bots so that your tokens stay with you.

Safe farming, fam🌽

🌽Farming Points with Usual

There's a hot new project on the horizon called Usual. They're cooking up a decentralized RWA stablecoin that's genuinely owned by the community.

Usual has raised $7 million from heavy hitters like IOSG Ventures, Amber, StarkWare, and other big funds, plus some angels, including Bryan, and the founders of Frax, Karak, and Curve.

The goal of Usual is to create a truly decentralized and secure stablecoin, $USD0, backed by collateral reserves like BlackRock BUILD (a tokenized treasury fund), Ondo USDY, and others. By the way, Ondo is a top holder of BUILD, so this is a real deal.

Right now, Usual is running a campaign to farm Usual Pills (pre-launch points), which you can earn by minting and holding $USD0++, as well as providing liquidity in Curve pools.

According to the docs, 7.5% of the total $USUAL supply (the project's governance token) will be distributed for these actions, and it’s likely to launch in the fall.

What do we need to do?

• Head over to the site, connect your wallet, and follow them on Twitter.
• Deposit $USDT, $USDC, or $USDY to get $USD0.
• Go to the Desk tab and swap $USD0 for $USD0++.
• In the same tab, you can add liquidity to a Curve pool under the Liquidity section.
• Just in case, complete the Galxe quests.

Currently, they’re dishing out 3 Pills per day for this, but there are multipliers too. From day one of holding your position, you’ll get an extra 2% daily. The earlier you start, the bigger the multiplier.

If you pull out your liquidity, the multiplier resets, but your points stay. The max multiplier is only for those who hold from the start to the end of the event, which lasts 4 months.

There's also a three-tier referral system where you can earn 10%, 1%, and 0.5% respectively. Looks good to get in.

Farm that summer harvest 🌽

🌽Protecting Yourself from MEV Bots

As I promised yesterday I'm gonna give you a couple of easy tips how to keep your crypto safe from mev bots. I'll tell you about the most common ones. There are much complicated ways but let's not dive into that just yet.

1. Flashbots

These bad boys help you send transactions directly to miners, skipping the public mempool where bots lurk. For example, if you're trading a hot new token on Uniswap, using Flashbots can keep your trade secret until it's confirmed.

2. Tight slippage

This gives bots less room to exploit your trades. For instance, if you usually set it at 1%, try lowering it to 0.5% or even 0.1%. If you’re buying a volatile token like SHIB, tight slippage settings can protect you from sudden price swings caused by bots.

3. Gasless trading solutions

Such platforms allow you to trade without gas fees, reducing the chance of your transactions being frontrun by bots. Your orders are settled in a way that makes them unattractive for MEV bots.

4. Avoiding peak times

Bots are most active during high-traffic periods. Trade when the network is quieter to stay under the radar. Early mornings or late nights can be good times to execute your trades. For example, if you notice gas prices are lower around 2 AM, that’s a good time to trade.

5. Decentralized exchanges with mev protection

Some DEXs are starting to implement MEV protection measures. Balancer’s Smart Order Router helps to protect against MEV attacks by finding the best trade paths.

MEV bots are a pain, but if you follow these tips I'm pretty sure you'll be fine.

Farm smart, fam🌽

🌽Farming XP from Avantis

Avantis is making waves on the Base blockchain. This future-dex scored a sweet $4M investment from big shots like Pantera Capital, Galaxy, Base Ecosystem Fund, Founders Fund, and Modular Capital.

Now, they’ve rolled out their XP farming campaign, paving the way for the site’s shift into the DAO phase. Voting with tokens means the airdrop is a sure thing.

What do we need to do?

• Go to the page
• Connect wallet
• Start trading
• Provide liquidity

The campaign ends in 5 months, $1 of made volume equals one point, $1 in liquidity brings 1 point daily. If you block it, you will get 4 points daily, but it also depends on the lock-up period.

The Base network is heating up too, with top funds deposited and more drops expected.

To make the most of it, use the Telegram bot to track free space in the pool for depositing stables, as the hard cap is nearly full.

Farm crypto with a real farmer 🌽

🌽 A cheap way to farm with Coinbase Onchain Summer

Base has just launched their Base Onchain Summer campaign where you can farm points by completing simple tasks. Once you join the event, you’ll get a special Summer Pass that tracks your XP, which you can later exchange for goodies in the shop.

What do we need to do?

First off, head over and register here for Onchain Summer.

• Quest 1 (250 XP): Go to the website and mint an NFT for just $0.38.
• Quest 2 (500 XP): Connect on this site, pass the first level, and sign the transaction.
• Quest 3: Mint another NFT here for $0.38.
• Quest 4: Get a Coinbase Wallet and spin the wheel every day.

There aren’t many tasks yet, but there’s a referral system and it’s recommended to use Coinbase Wallet. The quests update regularly, and additionally the chain itself is warming up with a deadline on August 31. I strongly suggest you jump in, because the event is official and there are also points, it is obvious that they are introduced for a reason.

Farm crypto like a real farmer 🌽

🌽New Threat: Permit Scam

Before I got the lowdown on permits, I thought tales of folks losing all their funds through a browser signature were just scare stories. But it’s legit.

A permit isn’t used in all tokens, but it’s still common. This is the ERC-2612 standard. It works like a normal token approval for a wallet or contract, but it can be called from anywhere.

Essentially, an approval that can only be issued from your address has the same validity as a permit issued from any other wallet.

How it works:

1. The owner of the wallet makes a signature that contains information:
• Who can spend tokens
• Number of tokens
• The validity period of the authorization

2. The signed message is transmitted to the recipient or any other person.

3. The recipient submits this signature to a token smart contract, which verifies the signature and transfers the specified tokens.

Permits are dope and essential. This mechanic is used in popular DApps. But the permit scam is a new threat that trips up careless users. Scammers can use all sorts of tricks to nab your signatures and swipe your tokens.

For example:

1. Misunderstanding. Some users may not understand what they are signing and give attackers the opportunity to withdraw all their tokens.

2. Social engineering. Attackers can convince users to sign a permit by promising them a reward or bonus.

Permits have mad potential, but like any powerful tool, they need careful handling. Only sign permissions you’re 100% sure of, steer clear of sketchy sites and apps, and always check smart contract addresses before signing. Stay sharp and don’t let yourself get skunked.

Safe farming, fam🌽

🌽Mint just launched a new Mint Expedition program

Here's the deal: Mint is an L2 specifically built to work with NFTs, with NFTScan Labs behind it. The project raised $5M from Antalpha Ventures, Mask Network, BlockAI Ventures, Predator Capital, and other funds.

Yesterday, the team announced a new Mint Expedition campaign where you need to farm Mint MP and Mint Expedition NFTs by completing tasks.

The team also shared that they have allocated 12% $MINT tokens of the total supply to participants:
• MintID
• GreenID owners
• Mint Expedition.

The campaign will consist of a series of seasons, with the first season called Explorer's Base already available, which started yesterday.

What do we need to do?

• Connect your wallet on the website.
• Start completing quests to earn NFTs and MPs.

So far, tasks include introducing us to the Mint ecosystem, like linking assets to the network, creating your own NFTs, registering a domain, and more. Looks simple but kinda promising.

Happy farming y'all 🌽