Across the Cryptoverse #41 - Staking $PRE For Across Keywords

Let's talk about interoperability powered by intents, and how Across adapted to supply the best tools required by the current status quo of the Cryptoverse. 

Across is the cross-chain ecosystem’s optimal bridge design. The intents-based framework, where relayers lend out their assets to fill orders, is giving that extra speed and the lower fees that everyone loves. These loans need to be paid for, but the cost is extremely low... as one thousand USD loan will costs only $0.01. 

Across asks users to express their intent and then relayers front canonical assets to fulfill their demands. The approach is more secure than using representative assets, but there is a trade-off because relayers expect a return on their loan.

The relayers are willing to lend out their assets for one hour at a 10% annualized interest rate. There are 8,760 hours in one year, which means the cost of the loan is roughly 0.001%, or 0.1 basis points. If a relayer lends out $1,000 for an hour, the cost would be roughly $0.01. The LPs will also take a fee for committing their capital, and there’s a relayer repayment cost, but this is also low because repayments are bundled to save gas.

This design allows Across to securely transfer value while offering users extremely low costs. The mechanism is as efficient as the Presearch keyword staking, where users stake $PRE to push their keyword on the top results of a search. 

Presearch is a decentralized search engine with an unique market strategy that promotes the most common online searches and also rewards the users and community members. Every search is rewarded with fractions of PRE tokens, which can be exchanged, or used for word staking. It revolutionaries the search engines space, same as Across innovated the bridging sector.

Presearch was born as a proof of concept in 2003, as a "Switzerland of Search", aiming to create a platform for different search providers and enabling the user to have simplified search field.

The evolution and the concept expanded in 2017, when Presearch was launched as a blockchain powered search engine. The vision was to send Google into extinction, as the world needs to evolve and adapt to the demands of modern society. We all aim for decentralization and privacy... and Google fails to protect both aspects!

The Google search engine indexes billions of web pages through the use of keywords, with market shares over 60% across the globe. This dictatorial leadership involved scandals and criticism regarding privacy, tax avoidance and censorship.

It took nearly 20 years for Google Search to be challenged as the Alpha of the "search engine" reign. Presearch came to fill the gap created by the Google-related scandals and aimed to innovate the search industry while creating a rewarding experience for web users and marketers. The community-driven management ensures that the best interest of everyone involved is paramount, and the $PRE holders will vote on development of the project.

Presearch is open and transparent, offering users the choice of which data sources to use. The innovative approach made Presearch expand and constantly earn the market shares that Google is loosing due to the bullying approach towards their existing users. If Google was the basic primitive tool, Presearch is the discovery of fire!

I joined Presearch in the early days, probably early 2020, and I was fortunate to earn more $PRE per search than you are earning now. I was fortunate as well to be early in there and onboard a big number of friends or crypto bros. This helped me to accumulate a nice bag of tokens, which I used to stake useful keywords.

I started with referral links and similar stuff, but then decided to use all the $PRE to spread the word about the Across efficiency in cross-chain transactions. No Across related keywords were staked in 2022, when the bridging sector was still in it's hey days. 

It slowly started to grow and my staking was constantly outbid by all kind of shady referral links. But you know already that's no second place for PVM... and I always staked more to regain that top spot. I started with a plethora of keywords at 100 PRE each, and started removing the ones with low searches to improve the stake of the good ones.

Nearly one year later it was clear which keywords were trending on Presearch and the layer2s that users were exploring. As expected for 2022-2023, the Arbitrum chain provided the most hype, and this was reflected in the number of views my keyword had. My staked word had 957 views and 25 users clicked it to go to Across. You may say that 2.6% is not that effective, but at least I helped some to enjoy the best bridging experience.

Polygon and Optimism where the runner-ups in the views count, with 644 and 406 searches. Based on click efficiency, the Boba Bridge keyword was the best. Over 43% of the users that searched for a bridge to or from Boba clicked the link to use Across!

Few more weeks and the I removed Boba from the keywords, as the chain was removed from Across supported chains. I had to use the $PRE to maintain my top position for Ethereum Bridge. Optimism lost the third place to $ACX, showing that the token has gone mainstream and the people want to learn more about it.

The Arbitrum Bridge went over one thousand views, and the $ACX keyword started to trend! The newly added "cheapest bridge" had a good percentage for ad clicks but a very low count for views. This made me think that the crypto savvy people will search exactly for their desired destination instead of a general search. 

I decided to allocate the start of 2024 for yearly reviews of the platforms I am constantly using, and Presearch keyword staking had to be analyzed. The top dog remains Ethereum Bridge, with the most views and clicks. Surprisingly the Polygon Bridge searches skyrocketed lately, fast approaching one thousand views. The $ACX keyword maintained the upward movement, and gained 200 views since the last check. 

The two new destinations, zkSync and Base where added as keywords... and both performed well. zkSync has better stats because it was added first, and there is still hype generated by the imminent airdrop. Good click percentage, with x5 of the viewers using the link to open Across. I honsetly like the way this synergy worked so far... as a power-combo of innovation and decentralization.