Interesting Criticism from the Leostrategy/Inleo Team
I performed a rather neutral-toned analysis of the potential revenue mechanisms for @leostrategy in response to the question "Where does the yield come from for SURGE".
I make no significant distinction between the Inleo team and LeoStrategy team given the discernible coordination and overlapping ownership of the relevant tokens. @khaleelkazi has identified himself as a "Board Member" of LeoStrategy.
My analysis apparently was interpreted as harsh criticism of Leostrategy, you may access the post and comment chain here:
https://peakd.com/hive-167922/@leostrategy/surge-is-the-nextgen-stable-yield-play-9c3#@alohaed/re-senorcoconut-t3b30c
General response, if you have a token project on Hive with replete with a marketing and hype campaign, anyone can and should (if so inclined) discuss it on chain. Your permission or opinion is irrelevant. One of the primary purposes of Hive is to secure a censorship resistant forum for discussion. Freedom is a habit and strengthened by practice. I would absolutely respect your respective right to down vote that content.
The hype around the tokens, is approaching 2021 DeFi levels of hype, and virtually every prediction or estimate of the value of the associated tokens is "up only". When hype is at a fever pitch, it is likely time to engage in some sober analysis.
The general premise of LeoStrategy, does have some merits. With LEO now essentially a revenue share token on LeoDex, it has some clear utility. The caveat is that LeoDex is now one of many competitors in the Thorchain/Maya crosschain swap ecosystem. From the available data LeoDex has generated ~$3,600 in earnings from its swap fees. That amount may increase if perpetual futures trading increase platform revenue. It is unclear if the Thorchain ecosystem itself is capable of generating a substantial increase in usage. Leostrategy is a substantial staker of LEO on the LeoDex platform and thus captures a substantial portion of swap fees. It's clear that those swap fees will have to grow substantially to fund the same level of spending on LEO that was generated by the presales of LSTR and SURGE.
In my analysis of the yield source for SURGE, I commented to the person that asked, that at least for the first six months of yield payments, the purchaser is funding their own yield. That is LeoStrategy sequestered a portion of the sales to pay for the yield. There is nothing controversial or disputable about this observation.
The poster responding to me from LeoStrategy concluded "Again, I'd love for you to explain how HP plays any role in this?"
This is relatively simple to answer:
- LeoStrategy's content is curated with both Hive Power (HP) and Leo Power.
- LeoStrategy and InLeo related accounts consistently advocate for users to "Feed the SIRP", the SIRP is a mechanism where subscriptions to INLEO premium, and curation revenue is used to purchase LEO with Hive, and distribute it to LEO stakers. LeoStrategy itself identifies the SIRP as an element of achieving its goals.
While it may be an unpopular opinion, given the coordination and synchronized marketing, the distinction between InLeo and LeoStrategy appears to be a polite fiction. I think the project is interesting, and it success likely hinges on driving volume to the LeoDex platform. I also make no apologies for analyzing and commenting on public projects that utilize the Hive Blockchain at least in part.
Yeah, I am not invested in any of it either. Seems like a big ole circle jerk to me. It's the same few people with the largest concentration of coins. I use Inleo and paid a year of premium that I have a bout a 3rd of left, but yeah, these tokens seem sketchy to me. And they don't like you talking about it either. Oh well, here we are, lol.
Seems that this interwebz blockchain thingy is harder than it looks.
It might help if we could call someone who cares for a quarter.
Since the kneecappening and 2 year development walkabout in ~17 to ~19 there has been very little reason for people to use hive and lots of reasons not to.
It's almost as if somebody said to pull it.
There isn't much leo could have done absent some grand influx of new users.
Hive had some fortuitous timing. The fork happened as people were becoming more broadly interested in crypto outside of Bitcoin and Litecoin. Social media was mainly Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. Tiktok hadn't taken off yet, federated social media was nascent.
The DeFi boom coupled with the Covid environment, motivated people to seek out alternatives and interested in the overlap of blockchain and social media.
In 2025 attention is more fragmented in both domains.
I sometimes wonder if we would fare better in the current environment by marketing Hive as a superior platform for blogging and communications. It's a developing thought and fully articulated yet, but there appears to be a growing disastisfaction with the modern web and social media experience.
Yeah, it appears that indelible data storage is going to be our thing.
Maybe some defi, at some point.
We were #3, in the world.
And now, a more serious comment. Your analysis did not appear to be misinformation. It was pragmatic analysis - and those without assets in an eco system performing pragmatic analysis is exactly what people should encourage - because if you have favourable conclusions, that would lure others into it.
If you have conclusions that do not appear to be bullish, or favourable, based on your research (excusing any potential gaps in it) - then well, that isn't good marketing.
My own pragmatic analysis of the LEO project has been one that shows (and I will be happy to be wrong in the future) - unsustainable growth as THE MODEL, as opposed to a pragmatic, realistic projection of "even if this (realistic situation) is the worst case scenario", here is what happens.
The future isn't promised.
I think they should refine some of their public facing communication styles.
When the prevailing mode is dramatic exuberance and hyperbole,anything that doesn't mirror that likely gets interpreted as "FUD" or negative opposition.
The language around Leostrategy marketing reads as if it was ripped straight out of 2021 a month before the DeFi crash.
The problem is it's 2025, DeFi protocols aren't novel anymore. There isn't really a class of long term crypto holders who haven't been exposed to unrealistic hype.
LSTR probably is a strong mechanism to sustain the LEO price, but the amount of purchasing required to continually drive price higher is an exponential curve.
Leostrategy's revenues after the presale money is spent, will most likely come from their arbitrage bots (market makers) and from revenue on the LeoDex platform. The userbase on Thorchain and Maya Protocol isn't huge, and there have been some missteps over the past year (from holder complaints). In order for LeoDex revenues to significantly increase, they have to increase their user base in relationship to other dexes in the Thorchain space, and its likely that Thorchain itself has to grow.
InLeo appears to be pushing pepertual futures trading, which is essentially a form of gambling for a specific subset of crypto trader. It may take off in the Thorchain ecosystem or it may not - it's not clear what level of unmet demand exists for this activity.
LEO is a platform that is built on the idea of onchain communication and transparency. So let me start by saying: I have no issue with discussions and I also have no issues with you personally. We’ve spoken together on spaces and other Hive podcasts with relative frequency in the past.
The issue I’ve seen is the convolution of ideas and the portrayal of these ideas as indisputable facts. Instead, I think it’d be wise to purport your ideas as”just your opinion” unless it can physically be stated as a fact.
I will give three examples here as I don’t want to make this an exhaustive comment. I’m also not here to argue or debate. I think discussion is good and anyone is welcome to come to our weekly AMAs and ask me questions. I can give my perspective as someone working on the project (LEO) and as a community leader helping others.
My role in LeoStrategy is purely advisory and they brought me on just a few months ago. LeoStrategy has been around much longer than I even got involve in it. They brought me in as the idea was solid but the project itself was floundering. Go ahead through their old posts / see the LSTR initial sale that lasted 6+ months. These things were great ideas but unsuccessful until they brought a few public-facing board members on. Such as myself and others in the LEO Ecosystem.
I am flattered that you think I have the bandwidth to run all of these projects simultaneously. I could only strive to be able to be that active.
I love Hive and want nothing but the best for it. Somewhere along the way, a few whales started treating me like an outsider. Then some LEO people got upset and have posted threads about why they’re tired of the bs on Hive. Can I blame them? No. Do I necessarily hold all of their views? No. For some reason the views of the few are being attributed to LEO itself. Should the views of every poster on Hive be attributed to Hive itself?
I’m am now and forever will be unafraid to speak my mind. There are some issues on Hive and those issues should be addressed. Among them: the way the DHF is funding projects, the way downvotes have become weaponized and a handful of others. Including the treatment of projects like LEO that continuously try to build a sustaining business ON Hive (not against it). For some reason, a few people in leadership roles take issue to L2 projects on Hive: thinking they take away the base layer.
I don’t know about anyone else, but the very reason I stuck around was the idea of SMTs way back when. The creators of big projects on Hive have a history of being ousted eventually and being outcast for those ideas that made them big in the first place. IMHO this is not a good way to make Hive successful.
In the very screenshot you shared, LeoStrategy is saying “LEO is a hard asset because it has a limited supply and revenue generating mechanisms… such as the SIRP…”
Any rational analysis of this statement would tell you the LeoStategy is calling the SIRP a mechanism for helping the LEO token (which it is: it’s a buyback based rewards pool which replaced an inflationary one). NOT a mechanism for helping LeoStrategy itself. It is the convolution of ideas such as this that rubs me in a very wrong way and makes me ask: what is the goal here? Discussion or defamation?
I’ll reiterate that I take no issue with you nor the idea of open discussion. What I take issue is with people playing fast and loose with reality and misleading people to think of it as fact.
A lot of allegations are made with a lack of evidence. Then those allegations are purported as fact. Then when someone replies to correct the allegations, it is called bashing. It’s a methodology I disagree with and I am not afraid to say it. Others should feel free to speak their mind (you included).
I’m not privy to the conversation had between you and LSTR but I can see from this post and the comments here that you think curation has some role to play in SURGE dividends: with my knowledge of what is being done, curation couldn’t even hold a candle to the monetization needed to pay dividend yield. You yourself said they need tens of thousands of dollars per month to pay these dividends. If that is true, then please add up how much they’re earning from post rewards and curation and enlighten us as to the total that these rewards contribute.
It is ideas like these that seem to be tossed in to create drama. Anyone who tries to run the math on that will see that it isn’t even remotely viable and noteworthy. Hell, I bet their post rewards barely cover the cost of the overhead of server droplets and server management to calculate and pay said yield. Please show the math of things when you share your opinions so people can understand the non-drama-weighting of ideas.
Wish you all the best and if you’d like to discuss in real-time as I’m sure much gets lost in text format; the AMAs are a place where the whole community gathers (including LeoStrategy’s team in the Threadcasts) to discuss ideas, ask questions and even debate things we disagree on. The whole LEO ecosystem is built on the idea of the community-first, community-decided and crucible of good ideas/building above all else.
Here is where you lose me. @leostrategy continually identifies the SIRP as an element of its and the overall intent to increase the price of LEO.
When a commenter asked "where does the yield come from?" I identified curation and SIRP as components of that yield.
I did not say that what a bad thing.
I did not say that I believed them to be major components.
Why that was a point of contention when it was a demonstrably accurate statement is baffling.
I have observed that communications that can be viewed as abrasive, probably aren't ideal given that the InLEO team and the LeoStategy project derive value from Hive.
Something that jumped out to me this evening -
I've never interacted with @leostrategy on Twitter. Not once. I've only referenced them twice both on September 18th while interacting with you.
I made an inquiry to you on Twitter, after asking the LeoStrategy team here on chain and getting no response.
https://x.com/GentlemanRural/status/1968663937651511588
LeoStrategy missed their identified deadline to mount SURGE liquidity on BASE. That's not a "false narrative" that's observable fact. The subsequent reasoning for missing the random window in order to ensure crosschain arbitrage bots were functioning may be sound, but I'd argue that deadline was used to create a sense of time pressure to purchase SURGE.
The observation of overlap between the InLeo and LeoStrategy teams is clearly my opinion.
The mechanisms of LeoStrategy appear generally sound for positive price action, and maintenance though the hyperbolic predictions and "up only" seem unrealistic given the cyclical bust boom cycles in crypto.
The weaknesses of the strategy appear to be some level of opacity or obfuscation, LeoStrategy itself being a single account wallet, and the communications management. All of these things can be improved.
The fastest way to get me to make time to laser focus on the details of a project, are to toss around labels like "false narratives".
1 of paper, 4 of coin
That's more or less it. Presale purchasers give Leostrategy 4 Hive in exchange for 1 SURGE, and Leostrategy gives them back 15% yield per year based on a fixed valuation of $1.00 per SURGE.
LeoStrategy is setting aside funds equivalent to six (6) months of yield, so they have some runway to begin generating revenue.
Unless the maximum supply is altered when SURGE is migrated to BASE then the upper limit for SURGE is 2,000,000 tokens, valued at $1.0, that would leave LeoStrategy on the hook eventually to generate $300,000 in revenues annually to make yield payments, after the runway is exhausted. That's approximately $821 a day.
That's achievable if they are disciplined and tighten up their communications.
~$1300 a day (at August's hive prices) in curation across the entire hive platform (for authored posts) - and LEO / LSTR's holdings of hive do not make up a significant chunk of this, but with exchange volume, perhaps it is achievable, but apart from the ~30LEO that I somehow ended up with (without making a conscious effort to acquire it) - I will wait and see.
I am a hive content maximalist in the context of this discussion, and I do not want to see the work of genuine authors devalued by poor quality curation "at all costs" to see "investors" rewarded at any costs.
I am sure you are familiar with @themarkymarky Hive Analytics site, and the clear bias in leovoter towards subscribers:
https://hiveanalytics.usehive.com/leo-voter-premium
Your point that for the first six months the SURGE buyer is funding there own yield from sequestered presale funds is just straight cash flow, nothing spicy. With LeoDex at about 3600 in fees, the math says platform voluem has to grow a lot before those swap fees can sustain similar LEO buys. Noting how SIRP plus HP curation feeds LEO back to stakers also supports your link between the teams, which is a fair read of incentives. I definately value analysis that cools the room, my calculator even smiled a bit today :)