What is UMA Cooking Up with Oval? The Golden Egg!!

In this post I will talk about what is UMA project, what is the latest Oval functionality it has launched and why I am really excited about it for 2024.

Before going further I would like to give a shout out to Paul aka PVM who recommended me to check out the project.

The first time I read about it all of it seemed very complex to me but this time when I took some time to dig up some details I was able to understand better about the vision of UMA and what niche in crypto it is targeting to serve for the DeFI markets which are definitely going to see a lot of action in the coming bull run.

What Exactly is UMA?

UMA in a nutshell is a OO which stands for Optimistic Oracle whose key function to collect, consolidate and structure data so it can be useful for DeFI projects like AAVE, Compound etc.

Oracle’s are very important in the decentralised environment to ensure the users and DeFI projects can function seamlessly in a trestles manner.

What separates a Optimistic Oracle from the other Oracles is the approach of “true unless disputed” which differs from the instantly finalised price feeds of plain Oracles.

What is the Oval Feature launched by UMA?

Oval is aimed at helping the DeFI protocols by capturing a higher portion of the OEV which means Oracle Extractable Value. This OEV is linked to the value that is lost by the user who has created a position that gets liquidated. This value generally is not realised by the DeFI protocol and is captured by bots.

Oval helps the DeFI projects gain this value by wrapping the Chainlink price updates and generating an auction of OEV. Through this OEV is able to capture upto 90% of the value created by liquidations.

Collaborations with UMA!

UMA is already formed collaborations with several projects like Across Protocol, FORE, Flashbots, The Graph and more. To stay updated on the new developments check out their blog homepage - https://medium.com/uma-project

Be An Early Adopter of UMA!

UMA is still flying under the radar for most of the crypto influencers so it has just 70K followers on Twitter and a neven smaller community on Discord. This is a great opportunity to get involved with the project and be part of the early adopters before the projects explodes in the coming months.

Watch out for oSnap!

I will soon be making a detailed post on oSnap which is another key focus area for UMA for the coming months. oSnap stands for optimistic snapshot execution. It uses the snapshots to enable DAO governance in a truly decentralised manner without need for intervention from a assigned signatory. Just like Oval even oSnap allows for resolution of disputes so humans and bots are both involved in looking out for dispute opportunities.

Price Action of UMA token!

UMA project was launched in 2018 and the native token was launched in 2020 at a price range around $1. It performed very well during the bull run and hit an all time high in the range of $33. After the slump during the following bear market it slumped back to it’s launch price range of $1. What is remarkable is that it has already started getting attention since January 2024 and is not sitting comfortable at a range of $4 all set for hitting new all time highs once the bull run kicks in to full swing. Do watch out for more follow up posts on UMA from me in the coming days.

As always these are my personal takes based on my risk appetite and DYOR before taking any action.

Cheers,

Sam