Aegis AMA with Wolf Crypto

12 min readAug 25, 2020

Aegis Finance — Profitable DeFi Network for Diversified Lending
Services & Lending-based Derivatives

We held an AMA with Aegis in our public Telegram channel on August 24th.

Aegis is a scalable DeFi network which offers solutions for over-collateralization in existing DeFi lending businesses In order to provide users with more diversified lending services and lending-based derivative issuance.

Aegis is working with several partners to build Aegis Ecosystem including:

POS-based Blockchain: Ethereum, COSMOS, Polkadot, TRON.
Traditional Financial Service Providers: Alipay, Visa, Mastercard, American Express for user credit validation.
DEXs & Markets: Uniswap, Balancer, 1inch, Mesa.|
Oracles & Protocols: Chainlink, Augur, Band Protocol, Aeternity.
Crypto Wallets: Enjin, Imtoken, Kcash, Trust Wallet, MetaMask.

Aegis will be launching their token soon with an approximate $450K USD market cap.

You can also visit the Aegis Telegram channel or Aegis website for further details.

Here’s what Aegis CTO Christopher Holm had to say in the AMA.*

*This AMA has been edited for clarity.

WC (Wolf Crypto Telegram Member)

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to another edition of Wolf Crypto AMA, this time with Aegis!

Joining us from the Aegis team today is Aegis’s CTO, Christopher Holm.

TEAM & TEAM GOALS

Welcome Christopher, it’s our absolute pleasure to have you here today.

Let’s start off with a brief intro from yourself and once done, perhaps you could also give us some background on some of the other team members who couldn’t join us today?

Hi!

This is Christopher Holm, Chief Technology Officer at Aegis DeFi.

I graduated from the Department of Computer Science, Imperial College London and I personally possess extensive knowledge and experience performing solution architecture design and development using Service Oriented Architecture principles.

With more than 3 years of working experience in Blockchain architecture design and engineering, I have been looking at the specific realm of open finance and started my research on DeFi. DeFi is the application that I have faith in.

So I co-founded Aegis, a scalable DeFi platform that gives users access to lending and unsecured borrowing services based on their individual credit scores. I believe that Aegis will become a DeFi platform that makes open finance accessible for all.

Well, our team is composed of experienced protocol infrastructure architects and business professionals who have contributed to the growth of the blockchain industry since the early days of Ethereum development.

AEGIS & DEFI

Thanks for that, so let’s move onto the project stuff.

What’s your two minute pitch on what Aegis is, what it does and why it’s needed?

CH

Aegis is a scalable Liquidity Bridge between fiat and DeFi Ecology.

Current DeFi platforms such as Compound offers lending and borrowing services underpinned by the over-collateralization of crypto assets. However, one downside of this methodology is that capital extraction is inefficient, and users are unable to unlock the full value of their digital asset portfolio.

Aegis is a scalable DeFi platform that solves this problem by giving users access to lending and unsecured borrowing services, based on their credit scores. An “Aegis Score” is then assigned to the individual users, which allows users to unlock corresponding capital loans in the crypto ecosystem.

Aegis therefore plays the critical role of a capital bridge that gives users the ability leverage and move liquidity seamlessly between fiat and crypto ecosystems.

Can you break down the core components of the Aegis ecosystem before we move into the more product irentiated stuff…

I. Lending, Collateralized Borrowing and Unsecured Borrowing

Besides lending and collateralized borrowing, Aegis features Unsecured Borrowing.

Aegis uses a proprietary AI-powered credit scoring algorithm to assess users’ creditworthiness based on the data provided, and assign an “Aegis Score” to each user, which is similar to traditional risk profile assessments. The Aegis Score determines the maximum credit that a user is allowed to draw down from the liquidity pool.

On top of the lending/borrowing layer, Aegis Network allows users to directly trade a wide range of crypto assets and traditional financial market instruments with its native derivatives issuance and trading protocol. In order to provide users with more diversified lending services and lending-based derivative issuance, Aegis will work with partners to build Aegis Ecosystem.

Explain to me what the importance of a “liquidity bridge” is in this current market?

How does this improve the crypto ecosystem and the overall end user experience?

As described in Aegis DeFi litepaper, the “liquidity bridge” is what makes Aegis so unique and different from general lending platforms.

One downside of the methodology in most of the DeFi lending platforms is that the capital extraction is inefficient, and users are unable to unlock the full value of their digital assets portfolio.

In addition, many users have capital locked up in traditional fiat financial markets, and the locked value remains separated from the decentralized crypto ecosystem.

That’s where Aegis comes forward with solutions. Aegis solves this problem by giving users access to lending and unsecured borrowing services, based on their credit scores. An “Aegis Score” is then assigned to the individual users, which allows users to unlock corresponding capital loans in the crypto ecosystem.

Aegis therefore plays the critical role of a capital bridge that gives users the ability leverage and move liquidity seamlessly between fiat and crypto ecosystems.

The “Aegis Score” sounds similar to Equifax in a traditional finance world right?

Similar. But with different technology and business mode.

Can you give me an example of how an end user would use Aegis to “move liquidity seamlessly between fiat and crypto ecosystems”?

In addition to loan facilities, Aegis provides its users with a unique portfolio dashboard for trading and asset management which helps users to check their profitability and monitor their credit lines in real time.

Aegis plans to offer users a range of innovative asset management products such as structured investment products (e.g. credit swaps, dual currency instruments), synthetic commodities (e.g. gold, oil, copper), traditional financial markets derivatives (equities, bonds), real estate, indices and more, which they can trade immediately without leaving the Aegis platform.

Ok so in a world of now what seems like hundreds of various “DeFi providers”, what’s your value proposition to users compared to other platforms?

Compared with competitors, Aegis is more product-oriented.

We are committed to product development, making products and services more user-friendly and accessible to all.

We provide a DeFi product which will be more user-friendly, easy-to-use, more abundant info display through our Dashboard, helping new users to get involved faster.

As for product functions, in the early stage, we will enable collateralized lending & borrowing services first.

On the bases of collateralized lending & borrowing, we will further optimize interest-rate models, higher scalability and stronger adaptability.

We will also work on product details for perfection.

You say, “We provide a DeFi product which will be more user-friendly, easy-to-use, more abundant info display through our Dashboard, helping new users to get involved faster”

That sounds nice…but how? And what does this dashboard look like?

Through a user-friendly portfolio management dashboard, Aegis users undertake a questionnaire to determine their risk/rewards tolerance, and is subsequently assigned their individual risk tolerance profiles with Aegis Network.

Also, Aegis will build up a precaution system to remind users of borrowing interest rates which shall not be too high for users.

Reading through the litepaper, I see various references to “liquidity mining incentives”.

There’s quite a few ways these days to incentivise liquidity providers…

How does Aegis do it?

In every block produced during lending & borrowing on Aegis, there will be certain amount of AGS tokens to be distributed to the users, of which half will be granted to the lenders based on the total amount of deposits and the other half will go to the borrowers based on the total amount of loans.

Aegis will also adopt the liquidity mining incentive (Yield Farming) to the multi-collateral and synthetic assets issuance operations. With Liquidity Mining Incentive plan, users could receive AGS token as rewards for adopting lending, borrowings, issuance and trading across the platform and thus the platform could go to market in an economic way and AGS token could have a native distribution throughout the ecosystem.

What about “liquidity pools”…This seems like such a broad term these days.

In the context of the Aegis network, what does this actually mean for you?

When users supply liquidity to Aegis, they begin earning a variable interest income instantly. Interest accrues on every Ethereum block, and users can withdraw their principal plus interest anytime.

The liquidity supplied to Aegis are held in the global liquidity pool, and lenders receive aTokens, which represent their asset ownership and can be redeemed for their underlying assets anytime.

As interest accrues to the liquidity supplied by the user, the aTokens are redeemable at an ever-increasing exchange rate (relative to the underlying asset) that is based on the interest earned by the underlying assets.

Does this mean you’ll also have governance as part of the platform?

If so, what type or style of governance? What can users vote on?

AGS token holders within the community retain the rights to raise proposals and vote on these proposals.

The proposals may include the change of staking rewards or updates on the blockchain, and are subject to majority vote requirements and minimum quorum requirements for network proposals.

AEGIS tokens are required to be staked by proposal creators and voters.

I see an example of “Digital Copper” being used in your litepaper.

This is obviously a synthetic asset right? Is this just an example or are you planning on adding assets like that to the platform?

Yes.

Besides issuance of derivatives, Aegis also enables the issuance of synthetics. In addition to loan facilities, Aegis provides its users with a unique portfolio dashboard for trading and asset management which helps users to check their profitability and monitor their credit lines in real time.

AGS TOKEN UTILITY

We briefly touched upon some of the AGS utility in the previous questions, but how about you give me a bullet point summary of the various use cases within the Aegis ecosystem?

I. Gas and Transaction Fees

Lending, borrowing, trading and asset management activities may incur gas and transaction fees with Aegis Network. Users get a discount on these fees should they choose to pay them in AGS tokens.

II. Staking and Network Validation Rewards

Aegis Network validators must stake a certain amount of AEGIS tokens as collateral to participate in the validation of on-chain transactions and validation of users’ credit lines and quotas for unsecured loans.

III. Collateral

AGS tokens may be used as collateral to borrow capital from the Aegis liquidity pool, and is subjected to the same collateralization models provided in the technical design.

Explain to me how the deflationary token burn works on Aegis and what proportion of tokens are burned and in what manner?

A proportion of the gas and transaction fees incurred in the Aegis Network shall be used to buy back and burn AGS tokens from the open market, creating a deflationary mechanism that reduces the supply of AGS tokens.

TOKEN SALE & SUPPLY

Ok this is probably the section that 99% of people following the AMA are interested in!

So firstly, can you drop the version AGS token metrics on me please?

Total Supply of AGS is 30,000,000. Within the capped supply there will be a liquidity mining incentive pool Yield Farming), the fees for various operations will be burned and a deflationary mechanism will be introduced.

I gotta say, that’s a quick turn around from seed to private to public to launch!

The speed at which this market moves these days…

What’s the launch plan and what cap/circulating supply with the AGS token have on day one?

Well, it’s been quite crazy for Aegis during these days. We completed Seed and Private token sales within one week. We sold out the Public Sale allocation in 16 seconds.

Have to admit that, Aegis’s heated popularity among communities all across the globe is something extraordinary.

Well, for our future plans, we will soon be launching on Uniswap where users can enjoy farming yields by adding more liquidity into the platform. And, Aegis team is also talking to some top-tier crypto exchanges regarding listing and marketing cooperation.

Soon we will have announcements regarding listings. Stay tuned to our official channels.

What was the actual USD value of the public sale?

The public sale had an allocation of 150,000 in USDT. Each winner has the right to send us $1500 USDT each in order to claim their AGS tokens in the near future.

To tell you the truth, we are almost finished in collecting the Public Sale funds cause every winner is so excited about it.

That’s a pretty juicy starting cap…are the Aegis team locking liquidity into the Uniswap liquidity pool using Unicrypt?

For now, it’s still too early to tell because I’m responsible for the product and technology development.

You should ask our MM team, LOL. I think the MM team already has the best solution at hand.

Are you going to incentivise liquidity providers on Uniswap?

Definitely.

There’s a lot of tokens locked up in the foundation and the yield farming token tranches…

When and how will these be released?

The Foundation acts as the administrator of Aegis DeFi. The allocation reserved for the Foundation will be for long-term development of the project.

Parts of the Foundation allocation will be used for liquidity provision, exchange listings, developer incentives as well as the daily management of the Foundation.

Also the Foundation will be responsible for auditing and supervisory body of the project operations. Besides, the Foundation will set up a specialized capital pool to hedge against potential financial risks.

We don’t have to worry about team tokens hitting the market til the 6 month mark right?

Nothing to worry. Aegis aims to bring new values and innovations to DeFi services. We see the mission as a long-term target that the whole team is dedicated in.

As we grow in both business and project development, you will see more and more users using the platform product and services. Thus, the use cases of AGS as the utility token will increase with it. AEGIS token’s utility lies in its double feature as both collateral and as an entrance requirement to the Aegis DeFi Ecosystem.

Each use of the Aegis protocol starts with the deposit and lock-up of digital assets and the issuance of credit and other collateral backed derivatives by engaging the Aegis Protocol, which demands AEGIS tokens.

I hate to be this guy, and I’m more than happy to just trade on Uniswap, but when exchange, when CEX, when Binance? Etc etc…

We will further improve the liquidity of AGS tokens by working with top-tier exchanges such as BitMAX, OKEx etc. to make it available for Aegis DeFi users.

Official announcements will be made when ready. Listings will happen soon, hopefully before the end of August.

DUE DILIGENCE CHECKS

Does Aegis have a Github?

Sure

We already entrusted one top-tier auditor which has the best team and are already working on the code auditing.

We remain extremely vigilant on the codes that we submit on GitHub and will NOT publish any code without being audited.

Once we complete the auditing, we will update in GitHub.

Do you have a legal opinion that your AGS token isn’t a security?

Yes, we have entrusted the best legal firm in Singapore to issue the Legal Opinion letter proving that AGS token is not a security.

Has the AGS smart contract been audited and can we see the results?

As I mentioned just now, We already entrusted one top-tier auditor which has the best team and are already working on the code auditing.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Thanks for your time today Christopher!

All the best for the launch tomorrow!

Thank you, time is limited..so PM me if you have any further questions!

Aegis Resources

Website: https://aegis.finance
Telegram: https://t.me/AegisEN
Medium: https://medium.com/aegisdefi-blog
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AegisDeFi
Litepaper: https://aegis.finance/whitepage/AegisNetworkLitepaperEN.pdf

Wolf Crypto Resources

Public Group: https://t.me/WolfCryptoPub
News Channel: https://t.me/WolfCryptoAnnounce
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WolfCryptoGroup

Aegis AMA with Wolf Crypto

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