Nibiru: A New ICO on Coinlist

On January 16, 2024, Coinlist, a leading ICO platform, announced the upcoming token sale of Nibiru, slated for February 1. Prospective participants can register until January 29, 18:00 UTC. Nibiru is the third project to launch on Coinlist in 2024, following Subsquid and zkLink.

Token Sale Details:

• Tokens For Sale: 60 million NIBI, with a potential addition of another 60 million NIBI at the discretion of the project team;
• Price: $0.05 per token;
• Distribution: 10% of the NIBI tokens allocated for the ICO will be accessible around February 26, 2024. The remaining tokens will be evenly distributed over a year;
• Allocation: $50–$2000.

Participants need to pre-deposit their Coinlist accounts with the amount they intend to invest. The winners of the token sale will be able to purchase NIBI using USDT and USDC. Those opting for the maximum purchase limit of $2,000 will have the chance to apply for additional allocations ranging from $100 to $2,000.

To take part in the ICO, one of the prerequisites is having a Nibiru address. This requires creating (if not already done) a Keplr crypto wallet and linking it to the Nibiru project's official website. Once set up, Nibiru will automatically generate a user's address, which can be found and copied from the top-right corner of the webpage.

What is Nibiru Chain? 

Nibiru Chain is an L1 blockchain and a smart contract ecosystem, distinguished by its high-performance operational capabilities. Its developers highlight that the network can process up to 40,000 transactions per second (TPS), a significant leap compared to Ethereum's theoretical maximum TPS of 47.7.

Unlike many blockchains that rely on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), Nibiru Chain has opted for a different path, utilizing the Wasm VM. Developed on the Cosmos platform, it facilitates interaction with appchains in the ecosystem through the Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC).

Advantages of Nibiru Chain:

• Parallel Transaction Execution: Nibiru Chain implements solutions for simultaneous multiple transaction processing, greatly enhancing network scalability.
• Robust Security: Nibiru employs the Wasm execution mechanism, fortifying it against common threats like reentrancy, arithmetic overflow, and short address attacks.
• Comprehensive dApp Development Tools: Developers are equipped with tools like Nibi-Indexer for blockchain data tracking, Nibi-Oracle for off-chain data integration, and the flexibility to choose between EVM and Wasm VM for execution.

Nibiru Chain has laid the groundwork for dApps in various sectors, including DeFi, GameFi, real-world assets (RWA), NFTs, and bridges. It also boasts interoperability with multiple blockchains, such as Avalanche, Arbitrum, Ethereum, and six others. 

The Nibiru Chain Ecosystem. Source: coinlist.co

Nibiru's roadmap includes launching an NFT marketplace and developing proprietary dApps like Nibi-Perps (potentially for futures trading), Coded Estate (for tokenizing real-world assets), and Nibi-Swap (for token exchange).

Testnet Participation Rewards

In 2023, Nibiru ran four phases of its Incentivized Testnet (ITN), where participants actively engaged in the project's evolution. Three months after the last phase, the team rolled out a $7.5 million NIBI token airdrop to contributors.

The airdrop was distributed among 44,300 participants, with individual allocations ranging from 12.5 to 3,430 NIBI. Remarkably, a small group of 180 users received more than 1,000 tokens each.

This distribution gives insight into the potential selling price expectations of NIBI by testnet participants. For most participants (excluding the top 180), the average holding was 160 NIBI tokens. Considering the cost of maintaining a node at about $10 per month over the testnet’s seven-month span, node operators might have invested between $10 and $70.

To break even on minimal investment, the NIBI token would need a value of $0.0625 ($10/160 NIBI), and to cover the maximum outlay, a price of $0.4375 is required. It’s noteworthy that NIBI's ICO price is $0.05.

Tokenomics

Nibiru Chain's native token, NIBI, is a pivotal component of its blockchain ecosystem. The total supply of NIBI is capped at 1.5 billion, with a Fully Diluted Valuation (FDV) of $75 million.

NIBI plays a crucial role in the blockchain's Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism, enabling decentralized governance through voting.

One of the distinctive features of NIBI is its “Dev Gas” royalty system. This unique mechanism allows developers to earn half of the NIBI spent as transaction fees on their smart contracts. It's akin to a scenario where platforms like Uniswap or Aave receive a portion of gas fees in ETH.

According to the project website documentation, NIBI will be distributed among the following groups:

• Community: 60%
• Team: 21%
• Seed Investors: 8.5%
• Private Investors: 10.5%

Tokens allocated to the team, seed, and private investors are scheduled to unlock linearly over three years, starting a year after the Token Generation Event (TGE). However, the specifics of the community token distribution are not explicitly mentioned in the project's documentation.

The NIBI Tokenomics. Source: nibiru.fi

To effectively assess the ICO's potential returns, it's important to estimate the volume of tokens that will be in circulation after the TGE and identify their respective holders. The distribution of NIBI in the hands of various stakeholders will influence the market dynamics, potentially affecting the token's price.

The detailed tokenomics provides valuable insights into the economic structure of Nibiru Chain, offering a clearer understanding for investors and participants in the blockchain's ecosystem.

The NIBI Tokenomics as of November 29, 2023. Source: docs.google.com

The overall token supply of Nibiru Chain's NIBI remains constant at 1.5 billion tokens. When examining the allocation of these tokens, 60% is dedicated to the community, and seed investors hold 8.52%.

Notably, the allocation for team and private investors has changed compared to earlier data:

• For private investors, the allocation decreased from 16.13% to 10.5%.
• For the team, it increased from 15.35% to 21%.

Since the tokens for these groups will be locked at the Token Generation Event (TGE) as per Nibiru's documentation, it can be inferred that the allocation for other token holders might remain as originally planned.

According to the data table, the token distribution at TGE for various subgroups, as a percentage of the total NIBI supply, is as follows:

• Community Reserve: 0.08%
• Strategic Reserves: 1.58%
• Airdrop: Retroactive ITN: 0.25%
• Airdrop: Gamified Engagement Airdrop: 0.1%
• Validator Delegations: 1%
• Ecosystem Grants (from before mainnet): 0.05%
• CEX Liquidity / Market Maker: 1%
• Public Sale (e.g. CoinList / Republic): 0.8%

Considering the ICO on Coinlist, where 60 million NIBI were allocated (and potentially another 60 million at the team's discretion), the share of NIBI for ICO winners at TGE would be either 0.4% or 0.08% of the total supply, depending on whether additional tokens are allocated.

Thus, the total share of tokens available at TGE is estimated to be between 4.951% and 5.351% of the total supply, translating to between 74,265,000 and 80,265,000 NIBI.

By multiplying these figures by the token's initial price, the projected market capitalization ranges from $3.7 million to $4 million. In comparison, zkLink’s previous sale on Coinlist had a market capitalization of $20.4 million. 

Regarding the distribution of NIBI among testnet participants, ICO investors, and speculators:

• Airdrop: Retroactive ITN: 0.25%
• Public Sale (e.g. CoinList / Republic): from 0.4% to 0.8%

These estimates do not include other groups, whose tokens are reserved for ecosystem operations, community engagement, and CEX trading. The Airdrop: Gamified Engagement Airdrop tokens are likely to be distributed to the community later on.

In conclusion, during TGE, groups potentially inclined to sell will control between 0.65% and 1.05% of the total NIBI supply, or about 13.2% to 19.5% of all tokens available at TGE.

Projected Valuation of NIBI Post-ICO

To forecast NIBI's value after its ICO, it's useful to compare it with similar projects in the field. While Nibiru's team positions the project alongside major names like Solana, Aptos, Arbitrum, and Ethereum, a more apt comparison might be with Sei.

Nibiru Rivals. Source: coinlist.co

Sei is an L1 blockchain focusing on DeFi trading infrastructure. Like Nibiru, Sei is built on Cosmos and employs the Tendermint consensus algorithm.

Market capitalization, calculated by multiplying the asset's price with its circulating supply, offers a metric for this comparison. Assuming Nibiru's market cap aligns closely with Sei's, we can approximate NIBI's price.

Data from CoinGecko indicates that at TGE, Sei had a market cap of $315 million, dipping to a low of $174 million. For our analysis, let's assume Nibiru releases only 60 million tokens for its ICO, and we base our estimate on Sei's minimum market cap.

Under these assumptions, the estimated price for NIBI post-ICO could be around $2.34, significantly higher—nearly 46.8 times—than its ICO price.

Further, tokenomics data reveal that during Nibiru's seed round, tokens were sold at $0.0667 each. These investors will start receiving their tokens a year after TGE, around February 2025. 

Details of Nibiru's Seed Round. Source: docs.google.com

If early investors are reluctant to sell at a loss, NIBI's price could potentially be sustained at a minimum of $0.0667, about 1.3 times its ICO price.

It's important to note that matching Nibiru's market cap to Sei's is speculative, and the tokenomics discussed are not definitive. The seed round pricing information should also be treated cautiously. Investors are advised to consider these factors and conduct thorough personal research before making investment decisions!