DeFi
DeFi Token VELO Sparks Interest After US Congressman’s Investment Revealed
DeFi Token VELO Sparks Interest After US Congressman’s Investment Revealed
US Congressman Mike Collins (Republican of Georgia) recently disclosed a $15,000 purchase of Velodrome, a relatively small altcoin, in its documents. This investment propelled Velodrome Finance, which has a market capitalization of approximately $79 million, to the forefront. THE BIKE The token, the native currency of the Vélodrome ecosystem, saw its value increase by 9% over the past week and is now trading at $0.1122.
Velodrome is a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol on Layer 2 networks. Launched in June 2022, Velodrome Finance comes from the Solidly project with the aim of supporting the liquidity of DeFi protocols on Layer 2 solutions. It uses a “vote deposit” mechanism inspired by Curve Finance and Olympus DAO, designed to promote long-term holding through staking, rebasing and bonding.
The platform’s innovative approach aims to alleviate common DeFi issues, such as the “farm and dump” scenario, by balancing protocol issuances with fees through a rewards system. Vélodrome offers different liquidity pools, with reward rates determined by user voting. The initial distribution of VELO involved 400 million tokens, distributed among community members, partner protocols, the Velodrome team and the Optimism team. VELO holders benefit from transaction fees, bribes and rebase rewards. Once locked, VELO converts to veVELO, allowing users to vote on pools and influence protocol decisions.
Congressman Collins’ investment brought attention to Velodrome, highlighting its unique position in the DeFi space. It also shows the growing involvement of US politicians in cryptocurrencies, including presidential candidate Donald Trump’s recent demonstration of strong support for the crypto industry, going so far as to call himself the “crypto president”.