Is 2|3omb the Rocky Balboa of DeFi?

Tin Money

Published in

Coinmonks

5 min readMar 30, 2022

Of the Tomb forks, none took a bigger beating than 2|3omb. Now it looks like they’re about to come back swinging hard.

If you even dream of beating me you’d better wake up and apologize — Muhammad Ali

From Tomb to Zomb and Back Again

For those not familiar, a few weeks back I dove headfirst into the world of DeFi on Fantom (FTM). One of the protocols I tinkered with a lot was 2|3omb. You can read all about the experience here, here, and here.

Watching 2|3omb struggle through the last few weeks was tough, even from the sidelines. I’ve heard the devs speak in their AMAs and they’ve always struck me as genuine guys. They’re now doxxed and their LinkedIn profiles look legit.

That said, I think I might have called their demise too soon.

I remain dubious of the “money printer goes brrr” crap they have in their docs. Regardless of who’s making the claim, the perpetual money-from-thin-air idea rings hollow to me. Best I can tell (as currently configured) Tomb and the forks require new money to survive.

Once that money dries up, the wheels come off fast. The basic financial structure of Basis.io sourced protocols have fundamental balancing limitations. If one is going to make a peg to an asset, there must be a way to redeem the asset, or the peg has no value.

This is, and always has been, true of every pegging scheme. Whether gold to dollars, notes to pigs, or Tomb to FTM, the peg has to be fully redeemable. I think the brief and torrid history of the various Tomb forks supports the thesis. A quick glance at WhatTheFork will give even a casual observer insight into the (limited) survivability of these forks.

So, what changed my view on 2|3omb? Redemption.

Redemption

Shortly after the 2|3omb peg collapsed, the devs announced a partnership with a third Tomb “Zork” (Zomb). I did (and still do) find the idea preposterous. A peg to a peg to a peg is the short version of Zomb and its relationship with 2|3omb.

Where I sit, Zomb looks like a new money hustle, just like Based is for Tomb. From Tomb to Zomb, these schemes might survive for a while. But if a big ol’ bear comes lurking again…well, we’ve seen what that looks like already. Tomb may have more padding, but I’m pretty sure a big enough bear will chew through that too.

Nevertheless, 2|3omb also mentioned a partnership with Devil Finance around the same time. Devil Finance is (was) a yield optimiser on Fantom that hadn’t gained much traction yet. At the time, this acquisition looked to me like the devs were scrambling to grab any branch they could to save themselves from falling off a cliff.

Now that I’ve poked around a little, I think there’s more to it. Devil is currently being rebranded as Redemption. An updated whitepaper isn’t out yet, but best I can tell, the 2|3omb|Redemption devs are adjusting some of the reward mechanisms, implementing a swap, and will be owning their own liquidity.

What this means to me as an investor is, this is now a Tomb fork with a revenue model. And it’s a revenue model that extends far beyond chasing baboons with 4-digit APRs. Of course, it’s still DeFi, which means the outcome is anyone’s guess.

Degen to Regen

What makes me bullish on the Redemption proposition is:

1. The devs just had their asses handed to them and they’re still building

2. Some variation on ve(3,3) seems likely to factor in Redemption governance (Cronje’s vote escrow+game theory governance reward stabilising solution)

4. A treasury revamp (treasury 2.0)

4. Liquidity will be owned and hosted on the protocol

5. Yield optimisation + self-owned liquidity + liquidity hosting = huge revenue opportunities

6. NFTs and Game-Fi in the pipeline (DeFi Kingdoms anyone?)

7. A fiat on-ramp (I’m dubious, but it would be pretty cool)

8. Multi-chain expansion and bridging (though, this is a bit less interesting in the wake of Stargate)

And let’s not forget you can buy 2|3ombs and 2|3Shares at literal rock-bottom prices right now. Put another way, if Redemption works as advertised, and 3omb reclaims peg, it’ll be an easy 8–10x.

What’s the catch?

It could all be a total dud. I haven’t seen enough to know exactly what the devs are up to. And there’s a chance 2|3omb reputation may be rekt beyond repair. But another T-fork that completely fell apart is Ripae and they just reclaimed peg with zero innovation.

In contrast, 2|3omb + Redemption are building something that genuinely looks promising and I’m 100% paying attention. I aped 2|3omb the first time around because I wanted to play degen baboon for a while and see what it was like. I made money doing it, so no complaints there.

This time 2|3omb doesn’t look like a degen baboon play. With Redemption coming online and the 2|3omb FUD meter deep in the red zone, it looks a lot more like a legit, oversold investment opportunity.

I’m still not drinking the 2|3omb Kool-Aid, but I am definitely putting some FTMs back to work in the protocol. It’s all T|2|3|Ripae profit anyway, so not really a risk. If it turns out Redemption is all smoke, I guess I’ll just be giving that profit back.

But since my first run with 2|3omb, I’ve listened to the devs a lot and now I’ve seen their faces on LinkedIn. The road map looks promising, but I’m not making this bet on fundamentals. This time I’m just trusting my gut and betting on a team with fighting spirit.

Even if it flops, my hat is still off to them. I don’t think I could have weathered what they’ve been through the last two months. I think they deserve a win and with Redemption, I’m willing to bet they get it.

Of course, these are just my opinions. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advice, and always DYOR. Following any of these ideas might cause you to lose all of your money. I am 100% serious about that. I like tinkering with this stuff, but I’m on record acting like a total baboon. Invest accordingly.

Until next time, be safe, be smart and be sure to tie the camel.

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Is 2|3omb the Rocky Balboa of DeFi?

From Tomb to Zomb and Back Again

Redemption

Degen to Regen

What’s the catch?

Also, Read

Written by Tin Money