Project Overview: Pollen DAO

Have you ever tried diversifying your crypto portfolio, only to see it lose value? DAOs can change all that. As you probably know if you’ve been hanging around for a while in the crypto space, DAOs stand for “Decentralized Autonomous Organizations”. We talked about the emergence of DeFi in many previous project articles, but this time we’re deep-diving into this tech by highlighting one upcoming & emerging project in the field – and that’s PollenDAO.

Here’s a quick, yet juicy teaser trailer for you before getting into the juicy details of PollenDAO!

1. What is PollenDAO?

Just as quite clearly hinted by the earlier video, Pollen is a DAO platform and asset management protocol. What this means is that Pollen lets users create their own indexes and/or portfolios using different coins and tokens. 

via GIPHY

Users can create their own or they can take advantage of what the developers call the “hive mind” (namely, the community, collective intelligence) to pool alpha and try and get the biggest returns.

So, for example, a user could create his/her own portfolio on the PollenDAO platform with the top 5 DeFi tokens he/she thinks are going to perform the best in the next year – let’s say COMP, ETH, MATIC, LINK, and UNI. Then other platform users could check out the index made by the user and vote on whether or not they’re happy with the tokens and allocation. If they are, they can add liquidity and, hopefully, make some gains as the basket value increases.

The interesting part is, indeed, that anyone – literally anyone – can create an index, and individuals who perform well are rewarded with more voting power and Pollen governance tokens. And that helps everyone else in the Hive. 

2. Outstanding features of PollenDAO

But here’s the real ace in the hole: the real goal of this project – which makes it stand out in a very unique way – is to create a safer, more stable, and ultimately more profitable way of investing in DeFi and crypto for everyone.

It’s the idea of using the combined brainpower for everyone: it’s the idea of using the combined “wisdom of the crowds” (or better, the community), by autonomously rewarding good decision-makers, which makes this a “DeFi Meritocracy”. Meaning, the smartest and best investors in the community will drive everyone’s investments up, and well, in theory, that helps all of us make more profits.  So just imagine if everyone from our WhatsApp, Discord, or Telegram had his or her own portfolio and you could buy in. Now also imagine that you could track who’s actually doing well through leaderboards, analysis tools, and statistics that show you who’s performing best, while the platform’s AI helps you break-down information, analyze data and predict which ones are likely to keep it up. Add also a touch of user competition in the mix to boost the fun.

Now, you might be asking: who cares if this thing is decentralized or not? You’d actually want that and here’s why: the indexes in DeFi that currently exist (e.g. stuff, like the DeFIPulse Index) are still centralized and basically a “cut and paste” from traditional finance.They give you exposure to a portfolio of tokens but the holder of DPI doesn’t have any in what assets are in the portfolio or what the allocations are of those tokens. With PollenDAO, the community collectively decides which tokens to invest in and what amounts. A completely decentralized platform also prevents special interests and promotes only what would benefit the community.

PollenDAO also creates specific incentives that ensure the portfolio is always optimized through a merit-based model, where high-performers get rewarded with more $PLN governance tokens, which, in turn, carry more weight in future decision-making – that’s what you’d call “power to the people”, but for real.

The hive mind merit-based model collects the best alpha and puts the community in control while also utilizing the knowledge and expertise of a pool of high-performing traders who make the best picks on which tokens to invest in, and at what allocation of the total size of the index’s pool  

3. Passive Investing Made True

If you don’t want to think about each and every asset and index and you just want to earn a nice steady profit, you can do that as well. The Pollen protocol allows its users to delegate their voting power. Essentially putting their finest DeFi degens in the driver’s seat, while you sit back and enjoy earning the sweet gains. 

There are 3 kinds of users that can benefit from this: 

1. Users that don’t have the time or energy to invest themselves in every new token hitting the market, but have extra funds and want to be in the game.
2. Users who want to create their own indexes and portfolios and get even more rewards for being diamond-handed degens.
3. Users who belong to trading communities – anywhere from private 10 people Telegram groups to groups with millions of users on Reddit. These users can get together and use their collective knowledge to make the best possible portfolio decisions.

All of these groups can earn yields on a fully-decentralized platform, while also making gains on the tokens in their index.

4. PollenDAO Token Economics ($PAI and $PLN)

The project also introduces two new assets to the Avalanche blockchain: 

• The 1rst one is called $PAI. $PAI is an acronym that stands for “Portfolio Asset Index” and has been designed as the next evolution of stablecoins like DAI. $PAI acts as a stablecoin and represents the value of all the liquidity that’s been added to the PollenDAO.
• And then there’s $PLN (or, when pronounced, “Pollen”). $PLN is the governance token in which users get paid out with when either the portfolio goes up in value, or when users participate in the community by making proposals/voting on proposals or when adding liquidity

Here is some basic information about both of the ecosystem’s $PLN token:

• Token Name:  Pollen
• Ticker:  $PLN
• Blockchain:  Avalanche
• Token Type:  Utility/Governance
• Token Address Contract: 0x7b2b702706d9b361dfe3f00bd138c0cfda7fb2cf
• Total supply:  200,000,000  $PLN tokens
• Markets: currently available on AscendEX and on TraderJoe

5. PollenDAO’s Development Team 

The brains working, day & night, behind the PollenDAO’s project are showcased in the project’s official medium, and their technical skills/competence and job-related pedigree are quite a force to be reckoned with! Among them:

• Dr. Jaime Fernando Delgado – Blockchain Architect with over with more than 15 years of experience in programming, machine learning, data analysis, Blockchain technologies, protocol design, and smart contracts architecture
• Dr. Theodosis Mourouzis – Cryptologist and Information Security Professional with strong interests in both academia and industry. He holds a BA/MA in Mathematics and an MSc in Pure Mathematics from the University of Cambridge, an MRes in Security Science, and a Ph.D. in Information Security from University College London
• Dr. Stylianos Kampakis – Protocol Design & Data Science Professional in the Pollen DeFi protocol design team. Dr. Stelios has been involved in data science and artificial intelligence for more than a decade
• Dr Frederico Teixeria – Financial Modelling Professional with over 15 years of experience in the numerical solution of differential equations, high-performance computing, optimization, uncertainty quantification, meta-modeling, and machine learning
• Adam Clarke – Co-Founder, Senior Software Engineer & Product Designer (UX & UI Lead), leading the UI/UX and frontend team. He has a passion for delivering intuitive and dynamic user experiences and has over 12 years of experience across product design and software development.
• Maarten Ectors – Decentralisation Lead with over 23 years of experience in innovation and software. His role is to make himself irrelevant by converting Pollen into a fully decentralized organization with an active open source ecosystem around product management, development, and operations.
• Sean Bond – Chief Marketing Officer – 20 years of marketing and advertising experience, working at various times (sometimes all at once) as a creative, strategist and business leader. He has set up advertising agencies, built multidiscipline marketing teams for brands and agencies.
• Philip Verrien – Co-Founder and Project Lead, bringing the technical leadership and lifetime of experience needed to run the innovative DAO-based platform.
• Lana Pierce – Business Development Lead that joined the Pollen team with 10 years of experience in sales and a demonstrated track record of success.
• William Vandyk – Chief Operating Officer – 20 years in traditional financial services, initially in investment banking before moving to corporate development. He has led over 200 corporate transactions, including 34 IPOs and 63 takeovers, was head of Strategy & Corporate Finance at Schroders Personal Wealth, CEO of an ESG tech incubator, and has built, led, and sold a number of brokerage and investment businesses.
• Doug Crescenzi – Protocol Engineer and a Founding Partner at Upstate Interactive, a software consultancy that specializes in full-stack Web3 development. He has an M.S. and B.S. in Computer Science from Syracuse University and a background in cyber security. 
• Om Parikh – Smart Contracts & Web3 Developer with specialization in the L2 scaling domain. He specializes in developing sophisticated smart contracts, cross-chain & multi-chain (rollups, plasma, commit-chains) protocol development, auditing smart contracts, developing subgraphs, working with oracles, etc.
• Benjamin Lock – Co-Founder & Art Director – After escaping the finger buffet celebrations of sculpture college. Benjamin was blockchain-ganged into co-creating the UK’s first crypto investor show. In a previous life, he had a five-year dalliance with Mini Mouse (Disney), a decade or so with The Grinch (Universal) and companies, before returning to Earth. Aiming to glitch the classical pixel at a time.
• Sean O’Donovan – Marketing Operations – Formerly a cog in the world of Market Research and Consultancy, Odo is experienced in advising global companies such as Unilever, Gilette, and Spotify on their marketing strategy, developing skills in client management, public speaking, and more along the way. Then came along this little thing called cryptocurrency. 
• Ismail El – Full Stack Developer passionate about Blockchain technology. He started his career 8 years ago working for tech giants such as Binance, Groupon, and Bosch contributing to both front-end and back-end projects. For the past 3 years, Ismail has been working in the web3 space, developing both smart contracts and front ends for various teams.

6. PollenDAO’s Roadmap

What’s coming next in PollenDAO’s future? Here’s a quick overview of the roadmap’s infographic that has been laid out by the team:

7. Conclusion 

Pollen is a fully decentralized asset management platform that maintains an asset pool while allowing others to curate their own custom asset pools, thus solving many of the current issues in the DeFi space! If you’d like to learn more about the project, we highly recommend you to follow the links below and deep-dive into Pollen’s thriving community, where you’ll find all the resources, information, and people to get you started in what seems to be on of the most promising DAO-based projects of the new year!

8. Community and Social Channels (as of February 7th, 2022)

PollenDAO’s Website

For everything you need to know about PollenDAO, visit the official PollenDAO’s Website.

PollenDAO’s Telegram

Join the conversation on Telegram to stay in the know about PollenDAO. 

PollenDAO’s Discord

To keep up with the latest updates from PollenDAO, follow them on their official Discord server.

PollenDAO’s Twitter

Get in touch and social with other members of PollenDAO’s community. Join the community on Twitter. 

Legal Disclaimer

Both Satoshi Club and the article’s authors are not providing readers any individually tailored investment advice. The article does not constitute financial advice. The material is for educational purposes only and Satoshi Club nor any of its authors are responsible for any gains or losses that result from your cryptocurrency investments. Investing in cryptocurrency involves a high degree of risk and should be considered only by persons who can afford to sustain a loss of their entire investment. Investors should consult their financial adviser before investing in cryptocurrency.