What is Titano and why has it spawned so many forks? Let’s explore the popular protocol

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If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, Titano must be doing something right. The project defines itself as “the original AutoStaking token,” and they have to say it because the Titano code has been forked to death. Let’s find out why. Titano is a DeFi protocol that runs on the Binance Smart Chain. Besides AutoStaking, its main characteristic is that it offers a whopping 102,483% APY or Annual Percentage Yield. 

Titano guarantees those numbers by charging a fee that they use as collateral. The protocol levies an approximately 13% tax on every token purchase and 18% onwith every sale. With those funds, Titano maintains itself and rewards its holders. From a purchase, for example, 5% would go to an Automatic Liquidity Pool; 5% goes to a Risk-Free-Value liquidity reserve, and 3% goes to the Titano Treasury. More on this later.

Currently, the Titano protocol has an 87 Security Score at Certik and was also audited by Solidity Finance back in November 2021. They host over 75.000 wallets. Since the fixed APY is significant, the system constantly creates a lot of $TITANO. This generates high inflation. To combat this, the protocol burns tokens weekly. So far, they’ve burned more than $250 million in value. To obtain $TITANO, go to PancakeSwap and look for the BNB/TITANO pair. Alternatively, you can use the protocol’s own decentralized exchange. 

As a warning, $TITANO is not the first rebase token, and the practice has a dark history behind it. The infamous SafeMoon uses a similar system and its creators are currently being investigated by the FBI. Its predecessor, “the ICO that vanished into thin air“ known as Bee Token, rug-pulled its users without explanation in 2019. Titano doesn’t have anything to do with those projects, and their history shouldn’t tarnish what Titano is trying to do. Buyers beware, however.

For more on Titano, check out my recent conversation with Barnaby Andersun on Cryptonized. 

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What is a rebase token and how does the game work?

According to Limitless Insights, “a Rebase Token is one whose circulating supply expands or contracts due to changes in the token price. This increase or decrease in supply works with a mechanism called rebasing. When a rebase occurs, the supply of the token is increased or decreased algorithmically, based on the current price of each token.” 

This is where Risk-Free Value comes in. To stabilize the liquidity pool when needed, the protocol collects funds in a separate wallet. If there’s a “sharp sell-off,” the “RFV provides a liquidity reserve” that can be injected into the system to guarantee that holders can buy or sell the token. 

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Recent activity in the Titano ecosystem

As a project, Titano seems healthy and in constant motion. They recently migrated all of the wallets to a V2 of their coin, released a DEX to be less dependent on PancakeSwap, and started Titano P.L.A.Y. and the Titano lottery to keep holders engaged and earning money. Let’s explore some of these ideas and explain how they benefit Titano investors.

Their recently released decentralized exchange is called Swych. Why would they need one, if the almighty PancakeSwap already exists and serves the whole Binance Smart Chain ecosystem? According to the official info, “Pancake Swap takes a 0.08% fee on every Titano token transaction, which seems small, but over the past four months, Pancake Swap has made more than $2 million in fees from facilitating Titano trades.”

Not only that, but the fees come in the forms of $TITANO tokens, and the PancakeSwap team sells them at will, causing ripples in Titano’s market capitalization. By launching Swych, they remove that risk. Plus, they’ll “burn a percentage of all fees from transactions. This will reduce inflation and help to stabilize the circulating token supply, bringing significant value to all holders.”

The biggest benefit, though, is that they’ll keep everything under one roof, significantly increasing security. By providing swapping services, Titano holders don’t have to deal with other protocols, which is always “a security risk potentially exposing the investor to malicious actors.” Plus, Swych provides stability, since it proves the Titano team is here to stay.

The Titano P.L.A.Y., short for “Prized Linked Accumulating Yield,” is also an exciting development. Through a few clicks in the Titano Dashboard V2, holders will be able to participate in “a raffle style competition” that promises “over 1 million dollars on our first draw. This prize will be shared among 25 contestants.” Users just have to stake some $TITANO in PLAY to constantly participate in every contest available, and “a player's odds increase the more tokens they enter.” Simple.

As it happens, the game began with controversy. On Monday February 14th, 2022 a hacker stole 4828 BNB from the PLAY protocol. However, the team quickly identified the hackers and started a back and forth that included threats of physical violence. Luckily for everyone involved (except the hackers), the Titano team recovered all the BNB and the full amount was returned to the community and added to the liquidity pool “to increase price support and stability.”

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The case of the hundred Titano forks

The amount of forks this code has spawned is unbelievable. Some of them are similar but just run in other networks and chains.  Others run in the BSC, but with slightly different characteristics. As a safeguard against volatility, most of these protocols offer multiple yield payouts a day. There are so many that we will only cover a few. Let's begin. 

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Sphere Finance on the Polygon Network

According to Limitless Insight, this protocol’s characteristics are as follows.

• As $TITANO, the $SPHERE token will have “automatic staking and compounding capabilities.”
• It offers a “market-fixed APY of 99,900 %” and a “daily Return on Investment of 1.910%.”
• Their “automated staking system pays out every 30 minutes or 48 times per day.” 
• It doesn’t have a single point of failure, because “the front end of the protocol isn't running on a single server, instead it is hosted on hundreds of servers.”

Safuu on the Binance Smart Chain

The name stands for Sustainable Asset Fund for Universal Users, and according to Limitless Insight, it’ll provide: 

• A whooping fixed APY of “382,945.41% for the first 12 months.”
• An insurance fund, “5% of all trading fees are stored in the Safuu Insurance Fund.”
• It’s “the fastest auto-compounding protocol,” as it pays token holders “every 15 minutes or 96 times each day.”
• Constant burning, “the Fire Pit burns 2.5% out of all Safuu Token market sales in the same individual transaction.”
• Each transaction has a tax fee, “14% for buys & 16% for sells”
• 4% from that tax fee, every 48 hours, “will inject automatic liquidity into the market.”

Nevertheless, buyers beware. Limitless Insight warns “Bryan Legend has had a troubled history with 3 Projects — Fitrova, Tagz Exchange & Clever DeFi, so I hope you will not blinded by the high APYs and leave your funds in there for too long. My strategy wouldl be to get in quickly and get out after the price has done a good 2/3x.” Yikes!

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Skadi Finance on AVAX

A very similar project to the ones mentioned, what sets Skadi Financet apart (according to Limitless Insight)  is it will have “4/5 Approval MultiSig with two influencers — AtlasisMe & BullishMM” who know who the founders are. Besides that, the characteristics are as follows:

• A fixed APY of “155,830%, a daily ROI (Return On Investment) of just over 2%.”
• It “pays every $SKADI holder every 30 minutes or 48 times each day.” 
• The liquidity is locked for 6 months, guaranteed by the “4/5 Approval MultiSig.”

Other known Titano forks are Hybrid Finance on AVAX, Insignis Finance on the Harmony Network, plus KDAO and Caesar Finance, both also on AVAX. Do those yields sound too good to be true? Maybe they are. Do your own research and tread carefully, this is unstable territory.

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