DeFiner AMA with Wolf Crypto
We held an AMA with DeFiner in our public Telegram channel on October 6th.
DeFiner is a platform for decentralized digital asset financial services, specifically a lending platform where users can deposit and borrow funds. Depositors and borrowers both accumulate interest over time, which is earned by lenders and paid by borrowers. This platform is broken down into two products: a digital asset savings account (made up of lenders) and a peer-to-peer lending marketplace (for supplying borrowers).
Digital asset savings account — a liquidity pool in which to deposit crypto assets and earn interest, operated by a smart contract that executes deposits, withdrawals, loans, and repayments. DeFiner does not control the DeFi savings account; users transact directly in a non-custodial manner.
The automated nature of the protocol leads to efficiency and a reduction in total costs. This allows DeFiner to pay significantly higher compounding interest on user deposits than standard banking.
Peer-to-peer lending marketplace — a place for borrowers to obtain a crypto loan. The borrower puts his/her digital assets up as collateral, which then disperses the loan from the savings accounts, all of which is facilitated through our Ethereum smart contracts. No middleman. No credit check. No paperwork.
This method is cheaper, more convenient, more secure and more accessible than standard banking solutions.
You can access the DeFiner private token sale by registering for an account on Coinlist —
Full details of the project can be found here —
You can also view the DeFiner application here —
DeFiner will launch with an initial market cap of ~ $663K USD.
You can also visit the DeFiner Telegram channel or the DeFiner website for further details.
Here’s what DeFiner’s Co-founder Jason Wu and Chyna Qu 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…yet another big week of AMA’s here at Wolf Crypto!
Today we have Jason Wu and Chyna Qu from DeFiner joining us!
TEAM & TEAM GOALS
WC
Gents, it’s our pleasure to have you here today!
Before we get into DeFiner and how it differs to what seems like the hundreds of DeFi projects released or releasing over the last and next little while, how about you give me some history on your background in both crypto and finance so we have a little bit of context?
JW
Hi Winston, nice to be here.
I got my first Bitcoin back in 2013. I was curious about Bitcoin and just wanted to play around with it. Automation and the effectiveness of transferring assets globally mesmerized me. With the automated network, transaction and settlement cost will be significantly lowered and the service quality will be significantly improved.
WC
Thank you for the intro Jason!
Could you also give us some background on some of the team members who aren’t joining us today?
CQ
Our amazing team includes Oussama, who used to be the CTO of a multi billion dollar company called Arcserve. Oussama currently helps to oversee and manage all business activities.
Hilal currently serves as the CTO of DeFiner. He has 30 + years of experience in the technology field. He is one of the original members at Microsoft.
Tom Short is our CMO. Tom has an extensive background as an executive and consultant at accelerators and firms such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, Nex Cubed, and VenturePad
We have an amazing team of twenty talented, energized DeFiner’s who are working diligently front and back.
THE DEFINER ECOSYSTEM
WC
With that out of the way, let’s start with what DeFiner is…
What’s your elevator pitch on DeFiner and why the DeFi world needs yet another lending protocol?
JW
DeFiner is a decentralized finance network for digital savings, loans, and payments.
DeFiner is the best return DeFi Lending protocol. The unique design of adding an aggregator function to allocate the unused capital
This gives users the best return, also, users depositing and borrow capital on DeFiner will also earn COMP, MKR and FIN.
WC
So for context, let’s talk about some of your DeFi competitors in the space, most notably Compound and Aave.
What makes DeFiner different from these two platforms/protocols and what’s the value proposition for a crypto user to use DeFiner over them?
CQ
On average, the Compound borrower rate is 3–5% higher than the depositing rate. This interest rate earned by depositors is equal to the borrowing interest rate multiplied by the utilization rate. The utilization rate typically ranges from 40% — 75%. Or, if you reverse these numbers (60% — 25%), we see there is usually 25%-60% capital sitting there and earning nothing. This is the major reason that the spread between the borrowing rate and lending rate is so high on Compound.
DeFiner Savings has successfully resolved this issue. Our Taurus DeFi Savings account deposits excessive capital to a money market like Compound or Maker to improve our capital utilization rate to more than 85%.
JW
We provide the best return with the safest environment.
WC
I see there’s a little bit of CeFi on there as well, but we’ll get to those later…
Firstly let’s break down the various processes a user can participate in as part of the DeFiner platform…
Firstly depositing and lending…What assets can a user deposit onto the platform and lend out, and what’s the process flow in doing so?
CQ
As far as the assets, here are the ones that we currently supported —
We provide support of 11 assets and we currently have the best rate for LINK, ETH and WBTC.
We already have $3.9m of TVL locked into our network, which can be seen here —
https://etherscan.io/address/0x7a9e457991352f8fefb90ab1ce7488df7cda6ed5
WC
Can you explain to me the mechanics of how the DeFiner Protection Fund works?
This is your own version of NXM?
JW
Yes, for sure, since day one, DeFinfer’s priority is to ensure the safety of users funds.
Protection 1 is Security of Smart Contract.
Protection 2 is the insurance. This protects and issues with our smart contracts. This we are partnering with Nexus Mutual and Quantstamp.
Protection 3 is the DeFiner self user protection fund. This will used to protect what if even insurance cannot cover.
By using these 3 protections, we put the users fund security as the highest priority.
CQ
DeFiner has set up an initial self-protection fund of $500,000.
If there is any loss of users’ funds because of any design or security flaw, DeFiner will be the first to absorb the loss.
WC
Let’s go through collateral and borrowing next. Do you have a process flow for that also?
CQ
WC
I note that on both the flowcharts you’ve posted, you have a section dedicated to “Proof of Premium”.
Can you explain what this is and why it’s important within your ecosystem?
CQ
POP is a crucial part of our system.
By contributing lending capital and collateral on the network, lenders and borrowers are entitled to a portion of the newly mined FIN. The duration and value of those assets staked will be used to calculate how much FIN the lender or borrower will get proportionally. The number of newly mined FIN follows a predefined deflationary curve.
WC
You mention that PoP entitles users to a portion of the newly mined FIN…
Is this FIN minted from the Staking pool, or from some other token tranche?
JW
FIN minted from POP pool, it will have an inflation curve, but the idea is to reward users and keep our savings pool to have a very competitive APR.
WC
I find it extremely interesting that you are somewhat complementary to both Compound and Aave in the sense you utilise both platforms to enhance your own, but I am interested to know as to what additional risks this adds to your own ecosystem?
And of course, what the net positive results are for both the ecosystem and your users?
JW
Users on DeFiner will get 3 rewards —
- Interest on their deposits
- FIN tokens
- COMP tokens
Overall interest will be around 20%.
This is the interest calculation portion, next week we will release the FIN mining rewards portion and then the COMP portion.
WC
You mentioned previously that a unique point of difference between DeFiner and other DeFi platforms was the ability to pay back loans using collateral on the platform.
Can you explain to me how this functions as a use case example and what advantage this offers the user as a result?
CQ
A problem borrowers have is locked collateral. When they want to pay back the loan, they have to secure the funds to pay off the loan balance. However, their locked collateral cannot be used for this purpose.
DeFiner has an option for borrowers to pay back the loan with their locked collateral. To do so, the borrower pays a 2% fee to a 3rd party liquidator, which pays back the outstanding principal and interest on the loan. In exchange, the liquidator gets the equivalent amount of collateral with a 2% discounted price.
WC
On the subject of collateralization, do DeFiner have a different collateral ratio to some of the other competing projects we’ve already spoken about?
CQ
Correct, here are some more details on how our over collateral works —
WC
A couple of other things of note I noted on the flow charts you’ve provided is both staking and governance. Let’s do staking first…
Explain to me the staking mechanics on DeFiner and what the benefits are for a user to stake the FIN token on the platform?
JW
The Stake program will be used for our Business customers and in the future, we will help crypto business to issue corporate debt.
In order to do so, they will need to stake FIN to earn the status to issue debt, so it is a long term plan for our staking program.
WC
Do you have any expectation as to what the APY will be for users staking on DeFiner will be, at least initially, or is that too much of a moving target for now?
JW
We will disclose it soon, all I can say here is, if you are already in the Coinlist Sale staking, you will not be disappointed.
You will get a very good return!
WC
What about governance? How does that function on DeFiner?
What decisions can FIN token holders make to influence decisions made on the platform?
JW
Each FIN token owner will have a voting right to decide the configuration of the SM and interests rate models etc
We are going to be a DAO model and all the FIN token holders will help to govern the protocol.
WC
One of the challenges any new DeFi platform faces is attracting liquidity to the platform. TVL has now become a defining statistic in DeFi and something a platform can live or die with and from…
What’s DeFiner’s plan in regards to attracting liquidity and having it “stick” within the platform, especially in the initial phase as the platform requires some bootstrapping?
JW
We are better than Compound, from the capital utilization perspective or the security perspective.
Therefore, users will eventually come to use our platform, we have not doubt. and we also have build a lot partnerships with crypto players.
Stay tuned for more information on this!
WC
Explain to me the role third party liquidators play in the DeFiner ecosystem as reading through your docs, this is framed as a distinct point of difference to other lending platforms?
JW
Sure.
On other platforms the 3rd party liquidator will only help to liquidate collateral when there is forced liquidation event.
In our platform, users can volunteer to payback loans with their collateral and the 3rd party liquidator will also help to do so.
So, users don’t need to worry about the liquidation events.
WC
We’ve spoken a lot about what the platform does, but let’s talk about the user layer a bit, before we get more into the token utility aspect of things…
How will users access DeFiner, via a web application, mobile etc? And what are the plans moving forward to develop this user layer.
CQ
There are currently three ways of accessing DeFiner
The web application —
The H5 interface —
And the mobile application, which is currently on Test Flight and is coming soon!
WC
Nice, looking at the roadmap, I see you have a bunch more stuff lined up past what’s already working on the network.
Can you quickly TLDR for me the product offerings you have still to come, DeFi Payments, DeFi Checking, DeFi Invoice, DeFi Digital and DeFi Trade?
Why have you chosen the path of offering, over time, a “full suite” solution, instead of just focusing on the core aspect of borrowing/lending?
JW
We are building a DeFi banking solution. Therefore, anything you can do with your current banking system, we can do it over DeFi.
That is why we’re building all of these additional services.
FIN TOKEN UTILITY
WC
We briefly touched upon some of the FIN token utility in the previous questions, but how about you give me a bullet point summary of the various use cases within the DeFiner ecosystem?
CQ
- Distributed Profits
- Proof of Premium
- Voting Rights
WC
So explain to me the mechanics of how holding FIN tokens benefits the end user in regards to returning profits from the users who use the platform, back to said token holders?
JW
On the platform, revenue will come from fees collection and interests sharing. Users who are holding FIN will eventually get the revenue proportionally.
We will set up a AMM pool for collected FIN and COMP so users who want to claim, can redeem their tokens freely.
DEFINER REVENUE MODEL
WC
That’s probably a really good segue into how all these token mechanics work to serve DeFiner itself, past the users of the network.
So what’s the revenue model past selling FIN tokens and how do the aforementioned token mechanics work into the model?
CQ
Our main business model is profits sharing. Lenders provide capitals to the pool and borrowers contribute interests.
DeFiner profit shares 10% of the interest and returns 90% interest back to the lenders.
PARTNERSHIPS & BACKERS
WC
You briefly mentioned it as part of your introduction, but DeFiner is backed by the Techstars incubator.
Tell us, why were you picked for this, what was your experience as part of this and what ongoing support will you receive from those guys moving forward?
CQ
Techstars is really an amazing experience.
To us it’s more like a large entrepreneur school that trains the founders to scale, to have the entrepreneur mindset and to grow. After the program, the amazing TS network
Our Techstars experience —
Here’s a video about our Techstars life —
WC
I note as part of your promotional materials, you also talk about Microsoft and their marketplace a fair bit.
What’s the relationship there and what can we expect from this as the project develops?
CQ
DeFiner is currently in the Microsoft Startup Program.
This is a program aiming to provide early stage tech startups benefits such as Azure, all MS related programs and technical consulting.
WC
I watched a really great video from Chainlink recently with your CTO…
What’s the relationship between DeFiner and Chainlink?
JW
You can read all about our relationship with Chainlink our blog post on it —
FIN TOKEN SALE & SUPPLY
WC
Before we get into the crux of your TGE, can you data dump me the FIN token metrics?
CQ
WC
I see from this list you’ve run several rounds of private sales and are finishing with a small public sale…
What was the token price in the various tranches, and what methods have you used to raise funds?
CQ
WC
As per the info above, I see you’re planning on having a small public token sale.
When will this be happening and on what platform? How will users be able to participate in this process?
CQ
All I can say for now is still tuned for more updates!
You can still join our Coinlist which is on going right now —
WC
Can you also hook me up with the Token Distribution and Token Release schedules please?
CQ
Sure, here is our token distribution schedule —
This is our token release schedule —
JW
You can find full details on the token sale here —
WC
$663K USD is a very comfortable starting market cap, especially for a working product with $4m USD of TVL already!
CLOSING THOUGHTS
WC
Thanks very much for your time today guys, and we look forward to keep our community updated with the public sale and launch events for DeFiner!
JW
Thanks Winston!
CQ
Thank you, don’t forget to follow our channels and stay tuned for more updates!
Telegram —
DeFiner Resources
Website: https://definer.org
Telegram: https://t.me/DeFiner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/definerorg
Blog: https://blog.definer.org
Github: https://github.com/DeFinerOrg
Application: https://app.definer.org
Whitepaper: https://github.com/DeFinerOrg/whitepaper/wiki/DeFiner-Whitepaper
Wolf Crypto Resources
Public Group: https://t.me/WolfCryptoPub
News Channel: https://t.me/WolfCryptoAnnounce
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WolfCryptoGroup
