Sake Finance Dapp Staking Application

Governance dApp Staking Applications
1

GM Astar Community and @Community_Council

My name is Hysenberg and I am the head of smart contracts at Sake Finance. Sake seeks to enhance its existing support of the ASTR token and ASTR users by participating in dapp staking.

A short summary of Sake Finance

Sake is a lending and borrowing protocol native to the Soneium chain.
Sake is the top native app on Soneium by TVL and the top lending market across all chains by ASTR deposits.
Our lending markets are built with the battle tested Aave V3 smart contracts, with enhanced yield farming opportunities powered by onchain agents.

Here are some of our top ASTR offerings:

  • 4.5% APY for supplying ASTR to the Sake Astar Pool
  • 41% APY for looping wstASTR-ASTR
  • Use ASTR as collateral to borrow any token in the Sake Main Pool
  • Lever long ASTR against any token in the Sake Main Pool (primarily USDC, USDT, and USDT0)

Here are some of our current metrics (as of Sept 23 2025)

Total Supplied: $16,282,925
Total Borrowed: $2,925,040
TVL: $13,357,885

ASTR Supplied: 38,700,000 ($901,510)
ASTR Borrowed: 14,550,000 ($338,850)
wstASTR Supplied: 33,050,000 ($822,710)

Over $170,000 in yield paid out to suppliers.
Over 80,000 unique addresses have active positions in the Sake lending markets.

Sources:
DefiLlama https://defillama.com/protocol/sakefinance
Sake App https://app.sakefinance.com/

A history of Sake, Astar, and Soneium

We have been building on Soneium since Minato testnet and launched Sake Finance on day one of Soneium Mainnet, Jan 14 2025.
Sake was the lead developer of the Astar Surge campaign, which kickstarted the Soneium network by bridging over $18M worth of ASTR and vASTR to the Soneium network (more info https://astar.network/blog/astar-network-unveils-astar-surge-a-pre-deposit-campaign-by-key-soneium-projects-driving-ecosystem-growth-160)

Soneium Spark Competition winner
Optimism Season 8 Grants recipient
Participant in the Astar Surge, ACS, Ecosystem, and Soneium Score campaigns

Security

Our lending markets are built with the battle-tested Aave V3 contracts with a follow up audit by Peckshield.
Our onchain agent contracts are the product of months in development and over a year in production, farming rewards on multiple networks. These agents are completely user owned and controlled and have been audited multiple times by Peckshield with no recorded exploits.

Audit reports

We also have a track record in protecting user funds. Of all protocols that integrated nsASTR, Sake was the most prepared to defend against and recover from the exploit on Neemo Finance.

  • Our market configuration prevented the exploiter from using the Sake markets to convert their illegitimate nsASTR.
  • The team was all hands on deck in the war room to lock down any possible attack vectors and scan for damage.
  • We maintained constant communication with the relevant teams and users in the ecosystem and aided recovery efforts.
  • We reconfigured our pool, built a streamlined withdraw and redeem flow, and allowed users to safely claim their ASTR as soon as the Neemo claim contract was available.

How we plan to use the ASTR staking rewards

The bulk of the ASTR earned will be distributed to ASTR suppliers and borrowers, incentivizing ASTR users and enhancing the yield opportunities of ASTR.
A portion may be used to fund protocol improvements and new Sake features (to be announced).

The Sake Team

The Sake team is composed of battle-tested developers with extensive web3 experience alongside quants with deep tradfi knowledge. This combination allows us to accurately tune our risk parameters to keep users safe while offering some of the best yield with our cutting edge products.

There are 8 full time builders working on Sake Finance, if you want to get in contact with us please reach out in our Discord or find one of us three:

@ DimSumTrader: Founder and CEO, worked multiple years in tradfi and defi and is most excited to bring better user experience onchain.
@ Hysenberg: Head of Smart Contracts, wrote his first smart contract in 2019 and has since built protocols across a number of defi verticals.
@ Samir: Head of Marketing and Partnerships

Links

Website: https://sakefinance.com/
X: https://x.com/sakefinance
Hub: Sake Sake access to all other links

Conclusion

We are excited to be part of Astar’s growth and to help users get the most out of every opportunity.

Sip Sake :sake:, and as always let’s go mainstream!

10 Likes
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Great to see this application. Sake is the #1 lending protocol on Soneium and can boost a lot of use cases for ASTR. I 100% support the onboard to dApp staking - Let’s goo.

4 Likes
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I fully support Sake’s coming to dApp staking. Sake will be the foundation of the ASTR flywheel.

3 Likes
4

Sake Finance was one of the first projects to join Soneium and, from the very beginning, it has demonstrated great value to the ASTR token through vaults and other strategies.

For this reason, I support its inclusion.

2 Likes
5

Thank you for the proposal, and welcome!

Sake has been an important project, supporting Astar since the early days of Soneium through Astar Surge. I am glad to support this proposal.

1 Like
6

Thank you for the proposal and for the project we’ve been working through together since the beginning. In any case, may I ask for further consultation regarding the targets in terms of numbers? What goals does the team have going forward? =)

1 Like
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I’ve been using SAKE Finance since its testnet, and I’m happy to see their application to Astar’s dApp Staking. It’s great to have one of the major projects on Soneium supporting the ASTR token from the very beginning and building this bridge that connects staking on Astar L1 with bonuses for those who use ASTR as liquidity on the SAKE dApp at L2. I really like this approach.

I would also suggest considering, in the future, special NFT rewards (as Sake Bottles nfts) for Astar L1 stakers that provide benefits and/or bonuses when using the SAKE dApp on Soneium L2.

1 Like
8

More than happy to welcome Sake to the dApp staking :star: Strongly support this proposal.

1 Like
9

Awesome to see this proposal moving forward. Sake stands as the top lending protocol on Soneium and can significantly expand ASTR’s utility. I’m fully supportive of integrating it into dApp staking, let’s make it happen!

1 Like
10

I’m glad to see you here, Hysenberg.

I’ve been supporting you since day one. It’s the most valuable of the 2-3 platforms on Soneium where I entrust my funds that I enjoy using for sake and frequently borrow from.

I support you 100%.

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Thank you all for your support! Past, present, and future. It means a lot to me, and I hope to repay you for your loyalty

1 Like
12

Good questions

may I ask for further consultation regarding the targets in terms of numbers?

The short but uninformative answer: The target is always higher. More supplies, more borrows, more yield paid out to our users. More partnerships, more tokens, more rewards.

It’s hard to estimate a reasonable upper bound for Sake. Much of it depends on the partnerships we can form and assets we can bridge in from other ecosystems. The Astar community has been some of our strongest supporters, so it’s only right to keep building along side them and push to bridge more ASTR from Astar mainnet. The ETH and BTC ecosystems have a lot of capital, so bridging in from there will be a huge boost to Sake, Soneium, and indirectly ASTR.

For Dapp Staking, obviously the target is to be a Tier 1 protocol, though it is competitive and that’s more of a stretch goal. Tier 2 or Tier 3 are much more reasonable.

Getting into some numbers. Note these are all rough numbers with a lot of assumptions. The exact math and mechanics of the distribution are TBD. These numbers are also highly dependent on the staking rewards earned and ASTR in the lending markets moving forward.

Assuming we can reach Tier 2, currently rewarding 7652 ASTR per era (~2,792,980 per year).

And assuming we reward each of these four categories with 20% of the ASTR rewards each

  • Main pool supply ASTR (current supply 26,810,000 ASTR)
  • Main pool borrow ASTR (current borrow 7,230,000 ASTR)
  • Astar pool supply ASTR (current supply 10,280,000 ASTR)
  • Astar pool borrow ASTR (current borrow 7,300,000 ASTR)

This would boost the APYs by

  • Main pool supply ASTR + 2%
  • Main pool borrow ASTR + 7.7%
  • Astar pool supply ASTR + 5.4%
  • Astar pool borrow ASTR + 7.6%

The latter two would be a huge boost to wstASTR loopers and the Astake staking flywheel, so should this proposal pass I would expect the majority of the ASTR inflow into Sake go into the Astar pool.

It’s impossible to know the exact amount of inflow in advance as this depends on market participants (ASTR holders), but factoring in wstASTR (current supply 33,200,000 borrow 536,880) along with the idle supply of ASTR on Soneium and Astar, a net inflow of 30-50M more ASTR (ASTR+wstASTR combo) is not unreasonable.

The amount of ASTR supplied would increase more than this as loopers (both staking wstASTR-ASTR and single token ASTR-ASTR) become more profitable.

While there has been moderate demand for ASTR-USD lever longs, we expect these numbers to increase with the added incentives.

What goals does the team have going forward? =)

Sake is not done building yet, we’ve accomplished a lot but there’s still a lot left to do.

Repeating some of the high level goals from above

  • More supplies
  • More borrows
  • More yield paid out to our users
  • More partnerships
  • More tokens
  • More rewards

Some more concrete goals

  • Implement functionality for flash swap debt or collateral.
  • Infrastructure improvements, namely improvements to our tracking, monitoring, and analytics (currently internal, to be made public).
  • Improvements to the strategy agents. The dex routing is already pretty optimized, we want to add support for withdraws via the unstaking queues.
  • Integration with account abstraction powered by SCS with ASTR as the gas token (apologies to SCS for lagging on this, we’ve been busy :grin:)
  • Improvements to the lending markets - asset configuration and ongoing risk analysis.
  • Improvements to the lending protocol. More on this later, but there were some controls lacking and lessons learned in our operation over the last >8 months.
  • TGE and formation of the Sake DAO. We’ve heard numerous requests for this, and my apologies to everyone who’s been waiting, we need to make sure we get it right. I can’t with good consciousness release a worthless governance token that dumps -90% in the first few weeks.
  • Other plans for boosting the yield of ASTR supplied (to be announced).
4 Likes
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I would also suggest considering, in the future, special NFT rewards (as Sake Bottles nfts) for Astar L1 stakers that provide benefits and/or bonuses when using the SAKE dApp on Soneium L2.

That’s a good idea. Is there an existing precedence for this that might help shape our plans?

14

Increase the yields a bit for those who put ASTR in earn on your dApp, because we’re at the limit of ridiculous. How should a holder be interested in using your dApp? Focus on the use of the dApp, don’t worry about the earnings from dApp staking…

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Hi @Marroz, I appreciate the feedback. It’s a fair criticism.

I agree with you I would like to see a higher supply rate for ASTR. Engaging in Dapp Staking is one route towards that goal. Let me break it down.

The current situation

The supply rate for ASTR in the Main pool is 0.68% APY, and it has been low for quite a while. The utilization rate is 26%, which signals there is much more demand to use ASTR as collateral than to borrow it, at least when it’s pooled with assets correlated to ETH, BTC, and USD.

The supply rate for ASTR in the Astar pool is 4.5%. There is more demand in this pool because it can be used in a staking loop wstASTR-ASTR, with a utilization rate of 70%.

Possible market changes

The Sake team does not control these numbers directly; they are a product of every market participant competing to boost their own bags.

Said differently, financial markets are a PvP game, every player for themselves. In a limited fashion the Sake team can reconfigure the board, but every player chooses how they want to play the game.

Here are some of the changes we could make that could boost the supply APY. Note these are not without their downsides.

  1. Change the interest rate model. We can change the rate curve to be steeper, which would increase both the supply and borrow rates assuming utilization stays constant. However, the increased borrow rate would likely cause some users to repay their borrows, in turn decreasing the utilization rate and the supply APY.
  2. List more assets. In this case we would be targeting assets that would likely be used as collateral to borrow ASTR against, and the top of that list is ASTR LSTs like wstASTR. The Astar pool is already configured for this, and in the short to medium term it makes more sense to push this combination to that pool.
  3. Add incentives. We can add rewards outside of the base supply rate. Additionally by adding rewards to ASTR borrows we can incentivize more users to borrow ASTR, which in turn increases the utilization rate and the supply rate. Of course this needs a source of funds, which is where ASTR Dapp Staking comes in. Of the three options here, this is the one with the least downside.

My recommendations to Sake + ASTR users seeking to maximize their yield

As always NFA. I’m just reporting the rates and some opportunities.

This is all in the immediate term, assuming no reconfiguration of the pools and no major market moves.

If you’re currently supplying ASTR to the Main pool (0.68% APY), you can withdraw and supply to the Astar pool instead (4.5% APY).

You can also perform rate arbitrage, as the ASTR borrow rate in the Main pool is 3.29% APY you will net 1.2% APY plus the supply rate of your initial collateral.
Supply collateral to Main pool, borrow ASTR from Main pool, supply ASTR to Astar pool.

A more lucrative option would be to stake it for wstASTR on Astake, yielding 17.64% APR. From there you can loop wstASTR-ASTR on Sake for a maximum yield of 41.4% APY.
We’ve made this easy via our Sake Strategies, though users might opt for more control and set it up manually. See the Strategies tab in the Sake app for more info.

Summary

  • Even though the default method of earning yield with ASTR on Sake is not offering great numbers, there are much better opportunities within Sake if you know where to look.
  • The Sake team has limited control over the markets, though all upsides come with downsides. Any changes will only be made after a period of deliberation and analysis.
  • Engaging in Dapp Staking is the most surefire way to boost yield for ASTR suppliers.

If you have further feedback or suggestions please don’t hesitate to let us know. I’m happy to continue this conversation here or in our Discord.

5 Likes
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I support this Proposal. Astar Degens Treasury utilized Sake and we were pleased with UI and overall state of the project. I would love to see further development from the Team. Having strong infrastructure within an Eco is crucial for its success

1 Like
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Hi @PolkaWarrior,
Glad to have the support of the Astar Degens :saluting_face:

I would love to see further development from the Team

Yes. We’re not done building yet. The pace of development and announcements has been slower than I’d like, that’s on us. Further developments will be announced when they are ready.

Having strong infrastructure within an Eco is crucial for its success

Strongly agreed. I’m proud that Sake is the leader in lending on Soneium, and we have no plans on stopping any time soon.

1 Like
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Hello @Hysenberg & SAKE FINANCE team,

After carefully reviewing your dApp Staking application and following the community discussion on the forum, the Astar Community Council has conducted its internal vote.

Result: :white_check_mark: [6] votes in favor / [0] votes against (out of 6)
Congratulations on passing this step! :tada:

To proceed with the onchain motion for your listing, please provide the following details:

  • The EVM or WASM address of the smart contract

  • The WASM address of the contract owner (:warning:mandatory = WASM address)
    You may use wallet providers such as Talisman, Subwallet, or Polkadot.js (recommended).

For reference, you can find the official documentation here:
:backhand_index_pointing_right: Astar Docs – Register a dApp

Next steps:

  1. Once we receive the requested details, an ACC member will submit the ONCHAIN motion for your listing on Astar Governance (Subsquare)

  2. The motion will require at least 4 out of 6 ONCHAIN votes in favor from the Community Council to pass.

  3. After approval, your dApp will be officially whitelisted and able to register on the Astar Portal under dApp Staking.

For reference, you can follow this guide to register your dApp:
:backhand_index_pointing_right:t3: Register a dApp in Astar Portal

We look forward to welcoming your project to the Astar dApp Staking program. :rocket:

— Astar Community Council

@Community_Council

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Hello @Community_Council,

We appreciate your vote of confidence.

Our Astar Substrate wallet is:
ZWZoaq8ugVg9tNdz7vkRf8q1T1EM8gJdfjPJLZeg6dv53A9

Our contract address on Astar EVM is:
0xE0713A1d29Fdaa2DEC57179378E1002466CF4208

3 Likes
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Hello @Hysenberg,

:white_check_mark: Update for SAKE FINANCE

The on-chain motion for the listing has been successfully executed — SAKE FINANCE is now officially whitelisted and can register on the Astar Portal under dApp Staking.

:link: Motion reference: Motion #77 – SAKE FINANCE Listing

For reference, you can follow this guide to complete your registration:
:backhand_index_pointing_right:t3: Register a dApp in Astar Portal

Welcome aboard! :rocket:
We’re happy to see SAKE FINANCE joining the Astar dApp Staking ecosystem.

4 Likes