The Postmortem Revival of Tomb Finance: Past, Present, and Future
Background: Gatekeeper
Gatekeeper was a wonderful idea gone horribly wrong through the intentional and malicious actions of bad actors hellbent on undermining our community, our use cases, and Tomb as a whole. Originally intended as a tax applied to the token when sold, Gatekeeper allowed us to control whales, maintain the peg, and stabilize the project during its infancy; it was intended to prevent a bank run on Tomb, and was slated to be removed via governance vote shortly before the exploit occurred, which started on September 2, 2021. Put simply, Gatekeeper was never intended to be a permanent fixture of the Tomb ecosystem — it was at best a stopgap necessary during the project’s vulnerable early stages to prevent its premature destruction.
The bad actors spammed completely false and spiteful invective across all of our discussion channels, claiming that Tomb was a scam, an exploit, and doomed to implode; these bad actors provided links to websites where Tomb could be sold at a lower tax than what was imposed by Gatekeeper. When faced with this news, our team had two choices: migrate to new contracts, effectively ensuring the destruction of our project, or immediately disable Gatekeeper. It should go without saying that this was not a hack — the security of our system and of our project was not compromised in any technical way. This regrettable event was an example of social engineering, and of exploiting the fear and uncertainty of innocent users who didn’t know better to enrich the coffers of a small group of deceitful thieves who thrive on the abuse and suffering of those striving to build a better, safer, and more resilient world.
For more details you may refer to the original Medium article written by the previous owners and team members of Tomb Finance, prior to the takeover by Harry Yeh and his team: https://tombfinance.medium.com/tomb-finance-post-mortem-480fa68375b2
The Takeover by Harry Yeh & His Team
Following the Gatekeeper incident on September 2, 2021 and the near-collapse of the Tomb Finance project, Harry Yeh of Quantum Fintech Group announced on September 5, 2021 that he and his team would take over Tomb in an attempt to save it. A screenshot of the announcement on Discord is shown below:
Following the careful review and planning of the takeover of Tomb, Harry announced the details of the plan and next steps on September 11, 2021.
This was a pivotal moment for Tomb that reignited confidence and faith in the project, along with a far wider reach and acceptance of Tomb shortly thereafter.
Since then, Tomb has gone from a project that once seemed doomed to extinction to a thriving community with unprecedented growth and the attainment of several milestones. This is a testament to Harry Yeh’s prowess and his team’s execution.
Milestones Since Takeover
Since the complete takeover from mid-September 2021 to today, in January 2022 — in roughly four months — Harry has led Tomb from USD $2.5M total value locked (TVL) to a peak TVL of USD $1.6Bn, with an average daily TVL in excess of USD $1Bn and growing rapidly.
Additionally, not only has Tomb been added to DEXes like SpiritSwap and Zoo, but new liquidity pairs such as Zoo/Tomb and TSHARE/Tomb have been created. We have partnered with market.xyz and Tomb can be used as collateral to borrow $MAI. Tomb now has full cross-chain compatibility with Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, and Avax. The creation of LIF3 and the ability for Tomb to mint NFTs on Fantom’s official NFT marketplace only highlights the increasing value of Tomb Finance.
Since the inception of Harry’s involvement, Tomb’s TVL has continued to increase while the peg has become less volatile, not only increasing the value of the platform but also the stability and usability of Tomb as a whole:
Harry has also appeared on major international media outlets to speak authoritatively on DeFi and Tomb Finance:
Addressing Gatekeeper
Although the Gatekeeper incident was before Harry Yeh and his team took over the project, it is important that we still address this unfortunate matter out of a sense of goodwill for the Tomb community and a commitment to maintain the integrity of this project.
With that said, Harry and our dev team are going to take snapshots of the state of the blockchain at the time of and just before the Gatekeeper incident. For users affected by the Medium article and who sold because of the Gatekeeper exploit, Tomb will airdrop $TBOND, $FANTY, and $LIF3 to the addresses affected.
Stay tuned. More details coming soon.
Tomb Finance Moving Forward
“Good things take time, GREAT things take longer, and the BEST things LAST a LIF3 Time!” - Harry Yeh
From Harry Yeh and our team, we thank every single one of you in the Tomb community for your love and support since Harry and team took over in mid-September 2021. As you can see, we are fully dedicated to Tomb and have continued to reach milestone after milestone — with no end in sight. Better yet, we’ve continued to build onto the ecosystem with $LIF3, Felix Exchange, and $FANTY.
Follow @tombfinance and @harryyeh for #TombTuesday weekly updates you do not want to miss.
KEEP CALM AND TOMB ON!
Tomb Finance Team
