In the rapidly evolving world of blockchain technology, Decentralized Finance (DeFi) has emerged as a prominent force, pushing the boundaries of traditional finance. As one of the key players in this dynamic landscape, WOO Network is paving the way for a more accessible and optimized crypto ecosystem. This article offers a comprehensive guide to the WOO Network, illuminating its background, core services, and unique offerings.

Background

Initiated as a project by Kronos Research, the highly esteemed quantitative trading firm, WOO Network took its first breath. Kronos, a globally renowned entity, proudly harbors 110 dedicated staff members worldwide and participates in various spheres of the trade market. This includes market-making, high-frequency trading, and arbitrage. The firm has a commanding presence on the global stage, boasting an average daily trading volume of $5 billion on international exchanges, thereby establishing itself as one of the top algorithmic trading firms across the globe. It stands as the exclusive market maker for WOO X, its very own trading platform. Moreover, it is a recognized market maker for prominent exchanges like Binance, Huobi, OKEX, and the decentralized exchange, dYdX.

The inception of WOO Network owes much to the vision of Justin Woo, a successful internet entrepreneur. He perceived a gap in the market for a social media network that appreciated and rewarded users for their creativity and original ideas. After investing years into planning, his vision came to life in the form of the WOO Network in 2020.

A troop of professional developers and seasoned entrepreneurs make up the team behind the WOO Network. They bring with them a history of successful enterprises and rich industry experience. James Young, the co-founder and current CEO of the company, contributes his expertise from a background in product management and engineering at Google. Luis Cuende, Loi Luu, and Rune Christensen, the co-founders of Aragon, Kyber Network, and MakerDAO respectively, have also financially supported this promising initiative.

What is WOO Network?

Serving as a dynamic liquidity network, the WOO Network fosters a connection between traders, exchanges, institutions, and DeFi platforms. The network presents an accessible gateway to the financial market by providing liquidity, facilitating trading executions, and offering efficient yield generation strategies. The notable aspect of this access is its affordability, often at lower costs and even sometimes at no cost at all.

The inception of WOO Network in 2019 was under the auspices of Kronos Research, a quantitative trading firm renowned for its role as a leading market maker on major exchanges. With a daily volume of $5-10 billion, Kronos observed a persistent issue within many cryptocurrency exchanges – both centralized and decentralized. The problem was the lack of affordable and adequate liquidity.

In response to this observation, Kronos played a pivotal role in the establishment of the WOO Network. The network now boasts a range of products designed to provide improved liquidity to users, often at lower costs or even for free. This ambitious venture managed to secure a significant $12 million investment in its Series A+ funding round in January 2022, led by Binance Labs.

The WOO Network offers a variety of services, divided primarily between two key platforms: WOO X, a centralized exchange, and WOOFi, a decentralized exchange and staking platform. Furthermore, for institutional clients, the WOO Network provides WOO Trade. This service allows partner exchanges to seamlessly integrate the rich liquidity of the WOO Network into their own services through API integration.

WOO X

WOO X represents the central product offering from WOO Network, dedicated to providing Centralized Finance (CeFi) trading services. The exchange takes pride in its low-cost trading options, profound liquidity, and adaptable user workspaces.

Low-cost Trading

A crucial aspect for any trader when choosing a trading platform is the associated fees. WOO X offers a compelling proposition for its users to lower their maker and taker fees by acquiring Tier 2 status. Attaining this status requires users to stake 1800 WOO on WOO X, and those who do so may also occasionally enjoy additional benefits.

Deep Liquidity

The success of any exchange heavily relies on its ability to efficiently facilitate transactions between buyers and sellers. The optimal situation for an exchange is one where there’s minimal slippage for large orders and a narrow bid-ask spread, which is possible only through deep liquidity. Deep liquidity implies a vast number of individuals contributing crypto for trading on the order book, allowing the exchange to meet demand effortlessly.

WOO Network achieves its liquidity from several sources, including individual traders on the platform, professional liquidity providers, other exchanges, market makers, and institutions. The most significant contributor to WOO X’s liquidity pool is Kronos Research, a trading firm engaged in market making. By integrating Kronos Research’s profound liquidity, WOO X further incentivizes more liquidity flow into the network.

Customizable Workspaces

WOO X offers users the flexibility to tailor their trading view, complete with widgets, charts, and other customizable elements. This not only offers a personalized experience but also equips seasoned traders with the necessary tools and information for successful trading. Further enhancing the user experience, TradingView offers advanced charting tools for creating technical analysis indicators.

WOOFi

WOOFi is an Automated Market Maker (AMM) based on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and employs the Synthetic Proactive Market Making (sPMM) model to determine prices. This innovative approach is a departure from the more common Constant Product Market Maker (CPMM) method utilized by the majority of prevalent AMMs. WOOFi’s distinct offerings encompass three primary features:

Swapping

Within WOOFi’s liquidity pools, users can trade between token pairs. Contrasting with AMMs like Uniswap on Ethereum that use the CPMM model, the sPMM approach is similar to a conventional exchange’s order book, which works more in sync with market realities. This method retrieves order book prices from centralized exchanges like Binance and then computes an appropriate trading price based on market data oracles provided by the WOO Network.

Trading

WOOFi introduces a unique method for providing liquidity, diverging from the conventional dual asset liquidity pool (LP) system. Single asset pools serve as sources of liquidity, and WOOFi effectively manages and rebalances these assets. It incentivizes investors who contribute low-liquidity assets with rewards, promoting an active participation in the liquidity provision.

Earning

WOOFi offers users the opportunity to farm yield by depositing LP tokens sourced from other DEXs and individual assets. The earnings from these vaults are then automatically and efficiently reinvested, enabling users to compound their interest.

Staking

WOO token holders are given the opportunity to stake their tokens and thus participate in the revenue generated by WOOFi. This feature not only creates a sense of community among the token holders but also provides them with a financial incentive to remain engaged with the platform.

$WOO Token

The $WOO token stands as the native token for the WOO Network, acting as the connective thread between all its DeFi and CeFi services and products. The token has a maximum supply of 3 billion, which is subject to gradual reduction through monthly token burn events until 50% of the maximum supply is burned.

As a multi-chain utility token, WOO traverses several blockchains through bridges such as BNB Chain, Ethereum, Avalanche, Polygon, Solana, Arbitrum, Fantom, and NEAR. It has been integrated into well-known DEXes across these chains, including Bancor, SushiSwap, Uniswap, PancakeSwap, QuickSwap, and SpookySwap.

The utility of the WOO token extends beyond mere trading to include zero-fee trading on WOO X, trading rebates (Trade-to-Earn), staking, discounted services, airdrops from WOO Ventures, and access to governance functions. Here’s a more detailed exploration of its current and potential use cases:

  1. Governance: WOO stakers on both WOOFi and WOO X, or those holding a minimum of 1,800 WOO in an on-chain wallet, can actively participate in the platform’s decentralized governance. This allows them to create proposals or cast votes within the WOO Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO).
  2. Staking: Staking WOO tokens can reduce your trading fees on WOO X and, in some cases, even eliminate them. High-volume traders on WOO X can also stake WOO to extend their trading limits and decrease fees further.
  3. Yield Distribution: Tokens received from WOO Ventures’ early-stage project investments are partially distributed to WOO stakers on WOO X. Additionally, users can stake their WOO on WOOFi and earn yield from the fees generated by both Swap and Earn products.
  4. Liquidity Provision and Yield Farming: WOO tokens can be used to join liquidity pools and farms on exchanges like SushiSwap, Uniswap, PancakeSwap, and others. This function opens up opportunities across multiple blockchains.
  5. Lending and Borrowing: WOO tokens can be leveraged as collateral for crypto loans or lent to other users, providing an additional financial utility.
  6. Social Trading: In the future, WOO stakers will have the chance to emulate the trading strategies of top-performing traders, fostering a more collaborative and shared trading experience.
  7. WOO Token Burn: 50% of the platform’s revenue is channeled towards the monthly buyback and burn of WOO tokens, actively managing the token supply.

Conclusion

The world of blockchain and DeFi is ever-changing, teeming with opportunities for innovation and growth. As we’ve explored throughout this guide, WOO Network stands as a testament to this dynamic nature, disrupting traditional market boundaries with its unique blend of CeFi and DeFi services. From its inception by Kronos Research to the multi-chain utility of its native $WOO token, the WOO Network is consistently pushing the envelope, providing robust liquidity solutions, user-friendly trading platforms, and beneficial yield opportunities.