My good ol' friend PUBLISH0X and another writing contest. Full disclosure I had no idea what Symbiosis was from a blockchain perspective until this contest went live. From then though I went on a deep dive to figure out what it was and what it can do and if it would be something I add to my regular crypto routine. So without further ado let's get into it.
What is Symbiosis?
You need a little backstory to Blockchains to understand what Symbiosis is trying to do. Exchanges in the crypto space let you swap 1 token for another token. In order to do that though there needs to be a liquidity pool with both tokens in it so there is enough 'cash' from both to process the swap. Symbiosis is a website (DeFi) that is trying to bridge all those liquidity pools together in a way.
Symbiosis has a native token called SIS which is it's governance token and also what nodes need to stake in order to work as a node.
What does it do?
Symbiosis takes the following blockchains: Ethereum, BNB, Avalanche and Polygon and creates it's own cross blockchain liquidity pools. It is bridging those 4 common blockchains and enabling people to swap tokens to and from them with ease. The concept is sound enough and shoot even the execution is great.
Historically the various blockchains have been silo'd if you will. Sure you could swap Ethereum for MATIC almost anywhere but swapping a layer 2 crypto on Ethereum to one on Matic was not really an option. If you earned some rewards from some random Ethereum project and didn't know what to do with that crypto you can now use Symbiosis to swap it to another chain for another token if you want.
Symbiosis's claim is that you can move your liquidity across any chain... yeah they claim ANY CHAIN.
I just want to level set with you that this claim is false. The #1 thing I do to test a Blockchain swapping solution is to look to see if I can swap THETA or TFUEL. And wouldn't you know it, that Symbiosis does not support the Theta Blockchain.
I figured that was a long shot so then I searched for Bitcoin Cash because well who doesn't love Bitcoin Cash? The only place I found it was on the BINANCE Blockchain. And if you are like me and live in the United States well Binance is a non-starter. So that doesn't count to me.
Their own documents state they don't swap any token. They get away with this claim because they say they will support any blockchain that has enough market attention.
Theta has 5 times the 24 hour trading volume as WAX. Theta has a 2.8 BILLION Market Cap. TFUEL has 1.7 Billion Market Cap. If that isn't enough market attention then I don't know what is.
How do I use it?
You can use it to swap tokens that they support. https://app.symbiosis.finance/swap
They support 6 wallets (technically more because Wallet Connect could be a lot of wallets that support it). I was sad to see LEDGER wasn't an option.
You can see here is a swap from BNB to CAKE. The process is clean and simple to use. I also love the green color scheme to everything so that is a plus for sure.
When it comes to swapping tokens, it is just like every other exchange really. Pick the token you want to send and then pick the token you want to receive. Then you need to address the slippage amount and click on swap. After a few minutes you will receive your tokens. Easy Peasy Lemon Squezy.
You can stake your tokens to earn rewards for backing the liquidity pools. https://rewards.symbiosis.finance/uni-swap/stake
Staking Uniswap for example has a 168% APY which is great.
Is it worth it?
For me it is not worth it. There are already pools out there that supply me with everything I need when it comes to swapping. I applaud Symbiosis for what they are trying to do. I think we need something like this. However claiming they support any chain when they don't (they support 4) is kind of grimy to me. I mean let's call a spade a spade here guys. They claim something that isn't true, so they are lying about what they can do.
And I know 95% of the posts for this contest are going to be talking about how great Symbiosis is and how we all should use it and blah blah blah. But if I have only learned 1 thing in my time in the blockchain business is that your integrity as an author and as a person is more important then trying to win a contest. Because once you lose that, you can't get it back. So with that being said, Symbiosis is not for me and it's not something I will be using. Could that change down the road? Yeah, it is possible I may use it in a year or two when they actually enable more blockchains into their web app. However as it stands today it serves no purpose to me personally.
That is MY opinion for what I do with cryptocurrencies. Symbiosis may be perfect for you and that's great. I really wanted this to work for me I did. I wanted to be able to convert say my BCH into Theta or TFUEL. I wanted to use it to convert my HIVE into Statera but it's not possible.
I went into writing this article and doing research on it super excited and I would be lying if I didn't say I walked away unimpressed.
