Genesis Shards, A New Paradigm: The Ultimate NFT DeFi Pioneer? Is This The Next Big Thing in crypto?

Filippo Bertocchi
5 min readMay 31, 2021

☯️ Genesis Shards: An Innovative Value Proposition
With the DeFi and NFT markets advancing at an exponential rate, a variety of products have come to life on the blockchain but one that particularly stands out and that has gained major traction in recent times is the concept of the Initial DEX Offering (IDO).

This is primarily because IDOs represent one of the most optimal ways to essentially by-pass the centralisation of traditional exchanges and, as such, have become a rather vital component to the success of both DeFI and NFT infrastructures.

However, at the crossroads of Decentralised Finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and Initial DEX Offerings (IDOs) exists an untapped, unexplored digital asset ecosystem with astounding potential offering countless, exciting opportunities to its first adopters. We are of course referring to the often misunderstood early-stage, pre-IDO token environment, a space that has been for the most part neglected by both institutional and retail investors due to its low-liquidity issues, inherent default risks and the often inconsistent OTC trades occurring within it.

Genesis Shards is the first project to venture into these uncharted waters and has since firmly established itself as the de-facto launchpad for pre-IDO tokens on NFTs. This authentic value proposition allows GenShards to place itself at the forefront of a mesmerising digital asset innovation making it a truly unique, one-of-a-kind pioneer in the NFT DeFi ecology. 🚀 🚀

☯️ But, what exactly is Genesis Shards?
In essence, Genesis Shards is the first marketplace for pre-IDO tokens on NFTs, it’s Polkadot-powered, it raised $2.7 million from heavyweight investment funds such as Morningstar, Moonwhale Ventures, Block Dream Fund, 3Commas, Master Ventures and it had a hugely successful launch on Polkastarter. Plus, it’s an all-in-one DeFi, NFT and IDO solution.
What’s not to like about it! 😎 😉

☯️ GenShards: A DeFi-NFT Symbiosis?
In order to contextualise the pioneering role of Genesis Shards, it is constructive to briefly introduce the fundamental elements currently driving the NFT market. This will help to better highlight the NFT-DeFi symbiotic nature of Genesis Shards and to better understand the compatibility of the DeFi and NFT architectures within its ecosystem.

At this stage, it is clear that NFTs have become an increasingly popular phenomenon over the course of the last few years. Starting with CryptoKitties in 2017 and arriving at the 2020–2021 CryptoPunk and NBA TopShot mania phases, NFTs have consistently proven themselves as a strong asset class spiking the interest of both retail traders looking for a quick flip as well as big institutional players seeking long-term growth opportunities. While at first the concept of a ‘non-fungible token’ was rather complex to fathom, NFTs have gained considerable momentum in the market with numerous collectors flocking to the crypto space and with some NFT artworks reaching multi-million dollar evaluations. Beeple’s ‘Everydays’ NFT art piece sold for $69 million, for instance.
NFTs are clearly here to stay, but the interesting fact is that NFT capabilities stretch well above the realm of digital art! There are myriads of potential use cases when it comes to non-fungible tokens, be it collectible items, trading cards, animated videos, music and, yes, even real estate!
However, one of the most intriguing, most captivating developments in NFT infrastructure is the flourishing use case for non-fungible tokens in Decentralised Finance protocols.

☯️ So, are DeFi and NFTs even compatible?
The most pressing question at this point is: Where do these non-fungible ‘marvels’ sit with regards to the dynamic, intricate, ever-evolving world of Decentralised Finance? And more importantly, can NFTs and DeFi go hand-in-hand? Absolutely, YES! 🤘

This is precisely where the Genesis Shards ecosystem comes to life. 🔥 🚀
In fact, as Stephen Young (founder and CEO of NFTfi) said in a recent press release, “NFTs are a foundational building block of the emerging virtual economy”, a powerful statement that beautifully resonates with the utility of NFTs on Genesis Shards, or ‘Gen NFTs’. Consequently, is Young’s argument applicable to Genesis Shards and to Decentralised Finance as a whole?
We sure believe so! How, you may ask? 😉

Well…
GenShards models its value proposition, firstly, on its ability to redefine non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as DeFi options and, secondly, on its capability of providing a much needed solution to one of the biggest, most dreaded problems in the crypto economy: Early-Stage Token Illiquidity.

Genesis Shards effectively solves this problem by transforming NFTs into DeFi options and by subsequently creating a permissionless environment of interchain liquidity for pre-IDO tokens. Users will therefore no longer be required to engage in shady over-the-counter (OTC) deals and low-liquidity environments that could place their capital at risk.

Basically, Genesis Shards does this by ‘NFT-fying’ time-locked fungible tokens in order to: 1) produce liquidity for these tokens and 2) activate a market that previously didn’t exist. These time-locked Gen NFTs are also either tradable on the OpenSea NFT marketplace or are redeemable for their post-IDO token-equivalent. Simply brilliant! 😎

This offers users looking to leverage the GenShards ecosystem a secure NFT-backed interface for pre-IDO liquidity that doesn’t interfere with the IDO plans and is also an opportunity for projects to gain a sense of price discovery early on in their development and access great partner networks. Additionally, by leveraging Polkadot’s cross-chain architecture GenShards will also be able to collect pre-IDO tokens from smaller blockchains with low liquidity, wrap them into Gen NFTs and allow them to be traded on Genesis liquidity pools. 🔁

☯️ With Genesis Shards, non-fungible tokens are therefore given a superior layer of utility by transforming into liquidity vehicles for pre-IDO tokens and by generating an exciting new suite of DeFi products across multiple blockchains, effectively becoming ‘DeFi’ NFTs!!

So, is Young’s description of NFTs as a “foundational building block of the emerging virtual economy” coherent with the Genesis Shards model?
Most definitely!

While it is true that projects such as NFTFi or Charged Particles are currently experimenting with the concept of wrapping interest-bearing tokens within NFTs to increase their DeFi utility, Genesis Shards is completely reshaping the non-fungible token infrastructure. Indeed, the process of minting a time-locked, fundamentally scarce, custom-made (Yes, Gen NFTs are cool!!), sophisticated pre-IDO NFT that can be swapped for post-IDO tokens constitutes a fascinating development in crypto and an unprecedented architectural feat in the world of DeFi and, of course, NFTs.

☯️ In conclusion, Genesis Shards aims to completely rejuvenate the pre-IDO liquidity environment, it is fundamentally redesigning the DeFi ecosystem from the ground up and, more importantly, it is synthesising a new NFT paradigm, an NFT 2.0 if you will. It is the very synthesis of this hybrid NFT model, the ‘Gen NFT’, that gives Genesis Shards its inherent principle of value, an NFT 2.0 advancing and ultimately accentuating the role of Genesis Shards as the quintessential, avant-garde, symbiotic DeFi-NFT pioneer.

I believe Genesis Shards stands a good chance of becoming the Numero 1 Launchpad in the space. Do You? 😁

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Filippo Bertocchi
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Digital asset enthusiast, investor and content writer for Genesis Shards.