Ecosystem News: $127M TVL on Vaults and Deeper Liquidity on Drift

Gm Driftors, 

This newsletter is your guide to what’s happening across the Drift Layer as we work together to make Drift the most liquid perpetual DEX on Solana. 

Our focus? Thicker order books, build enhanced vaults (now with an impressive $127M TVL) and continuous under-the-hood improvements to give traders the best prices and seamless experience on Drift. 

Over the past month, 30+ teams built on top of the Drift Layer. These projects include new vaults and yield strategies that harness Drift’s powerful perpetual exchange, empowering you to stay ahead in the market. 

Introducing: Drift Vaults

Vaults are structured products built by innovative teams on Drift, allowing users to access diverse strategies without active trading.

There are two new partner vaults by Gauntlet and Neutral Trade. Now, live on Drift. 

Gauntlet: Bringing Risk Management Expertise & Curated Vaults to Drift

Gauntlet elevates the Drift ecosystem with their experience in crypto risk management and innovative vault design. The team built a delta-hedged JLP vault, utilising Jupiter’s innovative Liquidity Provider token (JLP) to optimise returns while managing risk. 

Why hedge JLP? While JLP offers attractive yields, token holders face risk from market movements and trader PnL, which can impact returns. Gauntlet’s hJLP strategy mitigates these risks by hedging both components.

How It Works: When users deposit USDC, it’s automatically swapped to JLP, which is then used as collateral on Drift. Short positions in SOL, ETH, and BTC are opened to offset the delta in the JLP pool, with hedges rebalanced as needed based on tolerance thresholds or new deposits/withdrawals.

With a current APY of 30% and likely a steadier rate of return than JLP itself, Gauntlet’s vault has already reached 96% capacity. 

Neutral Trade: Amplifying SOL Yield and Liquidity 

Neutral Trade have deployed an innovative strategy on Drift to bolster liquidity on both Drift and Jupiter, offering depositors an impressive 30% APY on their SOL.

How It Works: The strategy acquires JLP and hedges BTC and ETH exposure, allowing it to capture yield from  JLP’s fees, dSOL’s staking rewards, and funding rewards from the BTC/ETH hedge. This ensures depositors maintain complete SOL exposure while maximizing their returns. 

For SOL holders, Neutral Trade’s vault provides a powerful way to increase SOL yield, all while supporting the wider Solana DeFi ecosystem.

Ecosystem Updates

Ranger Finance

Earlier this week, Ranger’s data dashboards moved out of their beta phase, and are now live! Featuring data on OI, funding rates and an adjustable liquidation heatmap for the top perps DEXs on Solana, the dashboard is an attractive tool for traders.

Bulk Trade

Bulk Trade offers a wider variety of markets with deeper liquidity through non-custodial MM vaults. The team recently ‘open-sauced’ their innovative transaction engine, named ‘Lóthrandir’, which enhances current transaction systems by focusing on high throughput, low latency, and precise token pricing.

Drift Updates

• BET resolves first election markets: Over $30M in bets were placed on Drift's election markets, with an influx of volume as votes were counted.

• 50X Leverage: Additional high leverage spots have been continuously gobbled up, keep an eye on our socials to secure your spot.

• Perp Listings: Drift listed four new perpetual markets in October: MOTHER, MOODENG, MEW and MICHI, recording volume in excess of $8M.

• dSOL: October saw further adoption of dSOL this month, with total stake fast approaching $50M and dSOL APY increasing to 9.4%. dSOL is also accepted as collateral on Drift and depositors earn a 5x FUEL boost.