# Our North Star

At Rumpel, we believe in a world where all value is liquid, accessible, and transparent. We believe open finance offers the best foundation for such a world, and our mission is to help people discover, unlock, and trade all value.

## Incentives, Points, and Airdrops: The Engine of Growth

> "Never ever should you be thinking about anything else, when you should be thinking about incentives” - Charlie Munger, The Psychology of Human Misjudgment.

Rumpel's mission rests on four core theses:

### Thesis 1: Incentives are the bedrock for network bootstrapping

Incentives will continue to be used to bootstrap network effects & ecosystems. The need for subsidizing switching/opportunity costs is a fundamental requirement in products with network effects.

### Thesis 2: Points will continue to support projects as a powerful incentive tool

Points have a positive track record and will continue to support strong teams. Wildly successful GTM strategies have been implemented using point programs. Four notable examples:

* Feb 2023: [Blur overtook Opensea in NFT marketshare four months after launch](https://thedefiant.io/news/nfts-and-web3/blur-blows-away-opensea)
* Dec 2024: [Blast attracted +1$B in deposits with points and a promise](https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/12/28/blast-hits-11b-in-deposits-more-than-a-month-before-its-due-to-go-live)
* Jun 2024: [Ethena’s USDe proliferated DeFi and became the fastest stablecoin to reach $3b](https://x.com/leptokurtic_/status/1796823152003097062)
* Feb 2025: Berachain’s Boyco Pre-deposit vaults attracted [\~$3B in deposits in 15 days](https://defillama.com/protocol/royco-protocol) [(points from various projects, including Berachain, were the primary incentive)](https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/01/29/berachain-app-boyco-goes-live-with-usd2-2b-in-pre-deposits)

Even looking at the long tail of projects, teams have continued to opt for point programs, with 50% of recent airdrops having already been allocated to point holders.

<figure><img src="https://1867312591-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FpufmDi4GX1YNAMUXZqqn%2Fuploads%2FrYvYlI2NerkNRFNZbeEC%2FRumpel%20Protocol%20Design%20Frame%20(5).png?alt=media&#x26;token=b4f52740-3740-4e2a-aa00-01304af9c729" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="https://1867312591-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FpufmDi4GX1YNAMUXZqqn%2Fuploads%2Fd9jIsBCmd3KkCng5bIro%2FRumpel%20Protocol%20Design%20Frame%20(9).png?alt=media&#x26;token=e3b8e9da-016d-47ab-b9b6-38b3f88bd0b2" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="https://1867312591-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FpufmDi4GX1YNAMUXZqqn%2Fuploads%2FAfdyojuGvF0mDqHptUvQ%2FRumpel%20Protocol%20Design%20Frame%20(8).png?alt=media&#x26;token=c08b01d2-2e6d-4e8d-970e-bc1b7d233c48" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

{% hint style="info" %}
Why won’t tokens be the _only_ incentive over the long term? Two reasons:

1. Early Rewards: Pre-TGE projects need to explicitly incentivize growth before launching a token. [Opaque airdrops lack the precision necessary](https://x.com/hosseeb/status/1803996158513287458) for effective GTM strategies.
2. Flexibility with distribution: It is inappropriate for projects to give strong guarantees in ownership distribution too early. Projects that do are at risk of _overpaying_ for incentives. Therefore, a good founder will always pick a point program because it gives them [flexibility when financing their incentive programs](https://mirror.xyz/kenton.eth/WLQ98TytJgxtdkcTevSlISbUKoFWex5Gw_TcW8u_SaY).
{% endhint %}

### Thesis 3: Airdrops will continue to finance incentive programs

Crypto uniquely enables the efficient distribution of protocol ownership, and the speculative energy around ownership will continue to fuel incentive programs.



### Thesis 4: The risk appetite in crypto will continue to broaden, necessitating efficient risk exchange between participants

As more users enter the space, the average risk appetite will soften, widening the distribution of risk preferences. And as this spectrum widens, there will be increasing demand for marketplaces where risk can be exchanged for a particular onchain strategy.





