Introduction

What is OtterClam?

OtterClam is a decentralized ecosystem that incorporates elements of finance, governance, and NFTs, in the Metaverse. These three components correspond to OtterClam’s Treasury, DAO, and Otter Kingdom, respectively.

We are a DAO-governed community of NFT, DeFi, and Metaverse enthusiasts who value transparency, innovation, education, and fun.

Why do we need OtterClam?

The DeFi space can be overwhelming and intimidating. The OtterClam project is creating a fun, interactive, and user-friendly application that provides an array of investment opportunities and educational resources across the NFT, DeFi, and Metaverse spaces.

We have created a thoughtfully designed ecosystem that utilizes a robust incentive structure built around the CLAM token that provides utility within each space. The “meta-utility” of the token allows CLAM to be utilized across the entire ecosystem.

A tight-knit community who values education is vital to the success of the protocol. Why? Because without a strong sense of community, a project dies. To harness the power of diversity of thought and competency, we utilize the DAO model of governance.

While anyone who has participated actively in a DAO knows it is not without its problems, the OtterClam team believes it provides a depth of human capital and level of transparency needed to reach our protocol's full potential. More importantly, however, it creates intrinsic value through the process of community building. Every new idea is contested and debated. Although organizing people is notoriously messy and difficult, our project has proven that community-building efforts are worth the time and energy they require.

It is our view that few, if any, protocols offer products and services that integrate these spaces effectively. This is not, as some would argue, a solution in search of a problem. Anyone familiar with the NFT demographic has likely noticed a stark contrast between those interested in NFTs and those interested in DeFi mechanics. The same is true for Metaverse enthusiasts.

Individuals from each of these demographics often arrive at OtterClam from unrelated projects, so the educational efforts initiated by our DAO are vital to the coherence we seek to project across the NFT, DeFi, and Metaverse spaces. We are confident that a protocol that bridges the gaps between these various market participants and the services they seek, will flourish.

We believe that the DeFi, NFT, and Metaverse spaces are missing a project with robust fundamentals, community-driven values, and a governance model that not only ensures but embraces transparency at every turn. OtterClam provides intrinsic value both in its fundamental tokenomic incentive structure, and its community-first approach to achieving organic growth and loyalty.

What is the goal?

Our goal is to create an ecosystem built on the CLAM token that incorporates NFTs and DeFi in the Metaverse. The ecosystem can be described as a series of overlapping incentives encouraging users to purchase and hold CLAM via staking, bonding, or locking up PEARLs in chests in order to receive rewards.

The treasury backing CLAM is DAO-governed and optimized to support the interests of the community. Currently, under the directives of the DAO, the treasury funds are being utilized to optimize growth by diversifying assets. The "Treasury" in the Otter Kingdom is not simply a multi-sig wallet that maintains the protocol's funds.

We've broadened the Treasury's working definition to include all the mechanisms at work behind the protocol's reward system. These include NFT market revenue management, the PEARL chests/notes rewards system, and of course, the various staking and bonding features that serve as the backbone of the protocol.

Users might also be introduced to our project through PAW Market, a proprietary, Polygon-based NFT market where users can buy, sell, and trade NFTs without the high fees associated with the Ethereum network.

Since PAW Market will be open source and permissionless, in addition to being far more cost-effective than other platforms, we're confident this feature of the Otter Kingdom will attract many users while supporting the exponential growth of Polygon's NFT ecosystem.

PAW Market will utilize the CLAM token at every turn. Buying, selling, and minting NFTs will require CLAM. This will support the treasury's growth directly, and the OtterClam protocol more broadly, by creating a source of natural demand.

We believe that once users interact with any individual aspect of the protocol, the intra-protocol incentive structure will encourage continued engagement and organic growth. It is not unreasonable, in other words, to imagine a user coming from a DeFi-centric platform seeing value in the NFT platform.

Furthermore, we hope some of our NFT enthusiasts take the time to learn more about the inner workings of our DeFi infrastructure. If we have done our job well, the OtterClam applications, with the help of our friendly community, will support the educational efforts we've established to ensure users have access to the information they need to make the right decision, the first time.

Finally, we want to make interactions with our protocol seamless, educational, and fun. We understand the complexity of a DeFi protocol can be overwhelming, so as with any organization that prioritizes user friendliness, we strive to minimize users' exposure to complexity while emphasizing simplicity and functionality.

How can I benefit from OtterClam?

We have created several ways to benefit from the OtterClam ecosystem. There are many different paths a fellow Otter can take to earn CLAM. Several of these have already been mentioned.

The main benefit for stakers comes from stable supply growth. Otters harvest new CLAM tokens from the treasury, the majority of which are distributed to the stakers thanks to the CLAM tokens they offered. Thus, the gain for stakers will come from their auto-compounding balances, though price exposure remains an important consideration. That is, if the increase in token balance outpaces the potential drop in price (due to inflation), stakers would make a profit.

The main benefit for bonders comes from price consistency. Bonders commit capital upfront and are promised a fixed return at a set point in time; that return is in CLAM and thus the bonder's profit would depend on CLAM price when the bond matures. Bonders benefit from a rising or static CLAM price.

Who created OtterClam?

Our team is mostly anonymous, born from the habitat of otters.