Introduction

Welcome!  This is the first in a series of articles in which I plan to analyze the top DeFi applications (Dapps) available on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC).  I aim to offer a balanced review of these projects, and allow you to make your own decision on whether to invest or not.  My plan was to start at the top with the king of BSC Dapps, PancakeSwap, and work my way through the top ten.  But, lo and behold, when I looked at the ranking by users, I saw a Dapp in 2nd place that I had never even heard of!

Indeed, biswap has rocketed up the DeFi landscape with over 10K users, and over 260 million in smart contracts, as of June 16, 2021.  Why has biswap taken off so quickly, what do the fundamentals look like, and is it safe to use?  I hope to provide you with all the information you need to answer these questions.

1. Disclaimer.

Before I go into the details of how Biswap works, please note that I am an educator by profession, not a financial advisor.  The purpose of this article is to provide you with information, not financial advice, so you can determine yourself whether Biswap is worth your investment or time.  Please supplement this article with your own research - DYOR.  Also note, that depending on when you read this article, some of the information may be out of date.

2. What is special or unique about Biswap?

The Biswap homepage looks completely professional, has an eye-catching loading animation, and is highly polished.  What I look for in a new project is - what do they provide that differentiates them from the BSC DeFi leader, PancakeSwap?  I see four key areas in which Biswap is competitive with, or challenges, PancakeSwap.

A. Lower Fees

And considerably lower.  0.1% is astoundingly low - we are approaching Binance levels of ridiculously low fees.  For comparison, PancakeSwap charges fees of 0.25%.  On the other hand, that means PancakeSwap provides a higher percentage of fees to liquidity providers - 0.17%, in comparison to Biswap's 0.05%.  Furthermore, while PancakeSwap takes 0.03% of all fees into their treasury, Biswap actually takes 0.05%.  This means liquidity providers in theory get better reimbursement for being providers on PancakeSwap.  I say in theory because ....

B. Extremely High Yields for Liquidity Providers (as of June 2021)

Yields are currently about triple on Biswap compared to what they are on PancakeSwap at the moment, and farms involving their native BSW token (more on that in a minute) can get above a 700% APR.  All other farms are in the 25-200% APR range.

Of course, there are many caveats here.

First, since Biswap is so new, if they do succeed, liquidity providers may eat a substantial degree of impermanent loss in those BSW pools (ie. the 700% ones) if the BSW token does rise.  Of course, it is possible that fees will help counterbalance that.

Second, that high APR is an incentive to early adopters.  Currently, I couldn't find anywhere to exchange or trade the BSW token outside of the Biswap network.  It is possible that Biswap might see wider adoption and start trading on more exchanges.  It is also possible it might not, or a platform vulnerability could be found, which causes the token (and by extension your returns) to crash in price.  In general, the higher the APR, the higher the risk, and the more important it is to DYOR (Do Your Own Research).

C. Referral Program

Finally, Biswap advertises itself as "The First DEX on BSC network with a three-type referral system".  When a user signs up with your referral code, you receive a 5% commission on BSW earned from their farms or pools.  You are then eligible to share some of that commission with them - as little as 0%, or as much as 50%.  As a new user who signs up for Biswap, this means you could hypothetically earn an additional 2.5% on all pools and farms that involve their BSW token.  (Needless to say, I will offer my referral code at the end of this article)

D. Highly Professional Design

I really cannot reinforce this enough; if you go to their site, the quality of the layout and design just blows me away.  This is not a quickly cobbled together project - the high degree of investment, that is clear in the entire design, might assuage some fears of this being a temporary project.  There are no broken links, or copy-paste-colour-change interfaces, as I typically see in this space.

3. The BSW Token and light tokenomics

At the time of this article, the price of the BSW token has been fluctuating between $1.50 and $1.70, and mostly climbing ... I do need to introduce a heavy caveat here, as the token is not yet listed on CoinMarketCap or CoinGecko.  You can trade the BSW token on Biswap at these prices, but as it is very new, there is not a lot of external information to back it up, so I am relying completely on their numbers in this early adoption phase.  The remaining information in this section comes directly from Biswap's documentation, which I will link at the end of the article.

BSW has a maximum supply of 700 million; at the time of this article, there are over 31 million in supply.  Initial tokens were allocated for the initial liquidity, marketing and strategic partnership purposes.  Overall, 100 million of the tokens are planned to be allocated for transaction fee mining.  The remaining 600 million of the tokens are to be distributed as follows:

• Farms / Launchpools: 85.7% per block

• Referral Program: 4.3% per block

• SAFU: 1% per block

• Team: 9% per block

A. Token Burning

• All the rewards from accounts with no referrer will be used for purchasing BSW tokens and burning them.

• 50% of the trading fees will be used for token burning.

Biswap plans to burn tokens weekly, but it should be noted that they reserve the right to change that schedule at any point.

4. The Roadmap

   

Looking at the roadmap, I have previously mentioned that they are still in the process of listing on CMC, Coingecko, and being listed on more exchanges.  You can only stake BSW in the Launchpool currently (albeit at very high returns).  Completing their remaining tasks should make them highly competitive, if they are able to do so successfully.  

5. Risks and Concerns

A fundamental principle in investment is "The higher the returns, the higher the risk".  Biswap is a project that is really in its infancy, launching in May 2021.  The project offers incredible returns at this early phase.  What are the risks?  I have identified a few.  

A. Possible Vulnerability in the Audited Code

 As Biswap proudly advertises on their front page, their code was audited by Certix on June 9th, 2021.  Certainly this offers a strong degree of confidence, but it does not mean the code or project is without vulnerability - projects that have been audited by Certix in the past have still been exploited.  In other words, an audit offers a high degree of confidence, but not 100%. I opened up the security assessment and read through it (link in the description).  (Note - I have a BCS, and I am pursuing a MCS)  

The absence of any critical or major issues is a very positive indication.  Obviously, it is difficult for me to comment specifically on the nature of other errors, as I am not trained in auditing code.  Reading Certix's descriptions, I would call one of the medium severity errors "somewhat concerning".   Now, it is possible that Biswap has already addressed all of these concerns.  It is possible they have addressed none of them.  There is no way of knowing at this stage.  I suspect, even if the errors were fixed, it would take Certix some time to recertify the process (if this was even a process that was planned to occur), as the initial report took months to produce.  

B. The Team?

So who are the intelligent, driven individuals behind Biswap?  What capital groups are funding this cutting-edge platform?  I don't have a clue.  I checked the website, their medium page, other articles, and I could not find anything on the people involved in creating this project.  It might be out there somewhere, but I couldn't find anything after about 20 minutes of research.

Mind you, a large draw of decentralized finance is the anonymity it allows users in interacting with the system, and this approach is used by other DeFi teams.  So, I can't specifically fault their team for wanting to remain anonymous.  However, it means that if something goes wrong, there will be nobody to hold directly accountable.

C. It's Incredibly New

I can track down controversies and growing pains for many Dapps on the BSC - including PancakeSwap.  This is because these products have been around for a longer period of time, and have thus been "Battle-tested".  Biswap has not, because it's incredibly new.

Now, the professional presentation of their site, and well documented plans, makes me want to believe things will turn out fine.  However, one has to realize that until Biswap has been around for a year, we won't know with certainly how committed they are, or if there are any undiscovered flaws in their code.

5. Conclusion

Is Biswap a good investment?  A safe one?  I hope this article helped you in coming to those conclusions for yourself.  If you would like to do further research on your own, I would recommend the Biswap documentation that I have listed in the links below.  Rewards are very high right now for early adopters of this platform, and it seems like they are set to be a major player in the BSC Dapp landscape.  However, when rewards are high, risks are high - we won't know for certain how stable this project is for several months.  Of course, by then, the risks will be lower - but so will the rewards, that early adopters can currently enjoy.

A. Comments

Do you plan on investing in Biswap?  Is it too early in the project's development?  Leave me a comment with your thoughts.

B. Next Up!

My next Dapp review will feature a review of PancakeSwap, the top Dapp in the Binance Smart Chain.  How do things look for the future of CAKE?

After this, I may do some light research into some of the Syrup Pool tokens.

C. Referral Link and Tips

If you decide to use Biswap as a result of this article, please consider using my referral link below.  I have set it up to give you the highest possible return (50/50 split) - we will each earn an additional 2.5% on your BSW farms and pools!

Earn an additional 2.5% on your BSW rewards, courtesy of MathTiger!

Also, if you enjoyed or learned something from this article (my first article! :), please leave me a tip.  More tips gives me more encouragement to write and research more in the future.