ARGO? xARGO ?— the only useful x in your life

Demystifying Argo’s token model

Argo Finance
4 min readMar 28, 2022

Ahoy Argonauts!

It’s time for another deep dive, and today, we’ll be talking more about ARGO and xARGO.

When it came to Argo, we built this protocol with longevity and sustainability in mind, and as the protocol grows in functionality and use, this increasing value should realistically be shared across all community members.

We understand that the model may be slight more complex, but we promise that it’ll be worth it.

ARGO — Argo Protocol’s Native Token

ARGO is designed to capture a portion of our protocol’s revenues, as such, its intrinsic value should and will scale according to Argo’s TVL.

However, ARGO in it’s pure design would not introduce a form on incentive to hold onto the tokens, as we’ve learnt from multiple protocols. As such, we’ve introduced a few other concepts, including xARGO and pledging, to introduce certain mechanisms that would encourage more sticky ownership

Introducting xARGO

xARGO is a time-locked version of ARGO which allows you to vote in governance and earn protocol fees. There is a 28 day unstaking period for xARGO. xARGO can be obtained by either staking your ARGO, or via liquidity mining rewards.

This innately introduces a level of stickiness to token holders when they’re yield farming. However, there’s more to xARGO — read on to find out more.

Pledging xARGO

You can pledge your xARGO in the pledging module. Doing so will provide you with the following benefits:

  • Share of Protocol Revenue (Yield in CRO): 50% of all protocol fees will be routed to xARGO pledgers
  • Voting Power: Voting power in governance votes
  • Earning Penalty fees: Penalty rewards from xARGO holders who instant unstake.
  • Boosted Vaults APRs: Boosted APRs applied to Argo DeFi Vault APRs

This is where the meat lies. xARGO, outside of being a liquidity mining token, holds the actual utility to the protocol.

While there’s the typical protocol revenue sharing, we’re changing the mental model — we’re providing the revenue directly in CRO instead of doing a buyback model which simply emits more ARGO. Pledgers will get a tangible share of our revenue as we continue to grow.

With regards to voting power — it’s in the works and we’re excited to share more once it’s finalised.

Note: There is no time penalty to wait when unpledging xARGO. However, once you’ve unpledged xARGO and want to unstake it to sell, you’ll have the following options:

1. Wait 28 days to unstake xARGO into ARGO

Should you decide to unstake xARGO back into ARGO, one option is to wait for the 28 days unstaking period to expire. At the end of the unstaking period, you’ll receive ARGO.

2. Instant unstake xARGO into ARGO (50% penalty fee)

You will have the option to break the 28 day xARGO unstaking period and receive ARGO instantly. However, you will have to forfeit 50% of your xARGO value as a penalty fee.

75% of the penalty fee is burned and while 25% is redistributed proportionally to xARGO pledgers.

Example:

Bob has 80 xARGO and wants to unstake it instantly for ARGO.

xARGO Penalty = xARGO * 50% Penalty Fee

xARGO Penalty = 80 xARGO * 50% = 40 xARGO Bob will essentially pay 40 xARGO as penalty and receive only 40 ARGO in his wallet.

30 xARGO will be burnt, 10 xARGO will be distributed across xARGO pledgers

TL;DR — ARGO is tradable, xARGO is usable

ARGO will be the tradable form of our token, but in order to fully experience the benefits of our protocol, you’ll have to stake your ARGO for xARGO and pledge it.

The following image should succinctly explain the value flow of ARGO tokens across the protocol:

We’re just as excited as you are for the launch and can’t wait to unveil the protocol to all of you soon!

Smooth sailing Argonauts, for I will see you again very soon!

Your Captain, signing off.

Connect with us, Argonauts.

We are building a family here at Argo. Join our socials, keep up with our latest news, and chat with us, we look forward to answering any doubts and questions.

Be an #Argonaut today.

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