Linear Finance AMA with Wolf Crypto
We held an AMA with Linear Finance in our public Telegram channel on September 9th.
Linear Finance is the first cross-chain compatible, decentralized delta-one asset protocol to create, trade, and manage synthetic assets (Liquids), and acts as a faster, cheaper, safer, and easier to use alternative compared to other synthetic asset protocols.
Linear Finance’s protocol is supported by a native ERC-20 Linear Token (LINA). The utility of this token within the ecosystem is used for — staking in the collateral pool, liquidity mining, governance and investing in synthetic “Liquids” on investment assets with infinite liquidity and no slippage.
Linear Finance also features -
- Minimal transaction fees and instantaneous execution at every touch point of the protocol.
- A seamless experience for all users, no matter if you are a staker, trader or market maker.
- Fairness and transparency throughout Linear Finance’s trading exchange, reducing systemic risk.
- Built on Ethereum with cross-chain compatibility to maintain connectivity with the DeFi ecosystem.
- Creative thematic exposures in addition to standard Liquids such as digital assets, commodities, forex, and market indices.
Linear Finance recently announced the results of their strategic investment round, which can be found in the article below —
You can visit the Linear Finance Telegram channel or the Linear Finance website for further details.
Here’s what Linear Finance’s Co-founder’s Kevin Tai and Drey Ng 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 Kevin Tai and Drey Ng from Linear Finance joining us!
TEAM & TEAM GOALS
WC
Gents, it’s our pleasure to have you here today!
Before we get into Linear Finance 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?
KT
Hello everyone, first off, thanks for hosting us and it’s a pleasure to be here to share our vision for Linear Finance.
In regards to your question, I actually come from a traditional finance background but started my journey in crypto as a miner. I mined with FPGA’s and was heavily involved in the community building Bitstream’s. But during that time I began investing in a number of promising crypto projects.
Over the last 1.5 years, I have been heavily invested in DeFi coins and using DeFi dapps as I see the true value and how revolutionary it is in terms of being able to dis intermediate financial markets and it’s middlemen. I started my career in Silicon Valley doing M&A for enterprise/mobile software companies, went to business school and then spent the last +13 years doing collateralized debt and structured products for bulge bracket banks in Asia.
DN
Again, thanks everyone for taking the time to speak with us. My background includes both banking in trade finance and trading floor doing FX and rates, and am leading the product side of one of the largest Security Token Offering companies in Asia called Liquefy. I led multiple tokenization projects with one of the largest real estate families in Asia, hedge funds and semi-government bodies.
My vision ever since my transition from banking to blockchain/crypto has been to disrupt the traditional banking system and offer permissionless financial asset access for the mass public. That’s exactly what DeFi is trying to solve and how Kevin and I got started.
Now I lead the product development at Linear and I bring to the table a wealth of experience of banking and finance and creating institutional-ready products with interoperability on blockchains such as Ethereum, Quorum, and NEO, focusing on high throughput, security, and scalability.
WC
Thank you for the intros guys.
Could you also give us some background on some of the team members who aren’t joining us today?
DN
Yes, the remainder of our team is invaluable in this journey.
Our Chief Technology Officer Jinsong, leads a team of 9 developers with a total of over 70 years of experience in front-end, back-end and blockchain development. Jinsong worked with me at Liquefy to launch a number of blockchain-based products for institutions and semi-government entities.
Prior to this, he developed proprietary token standards for blockchain gaming protocols, with cross-chain capabilities on Ethereum, EOS, NEO, and Cosmos.
THE LINEAR FINANCE NETWORK
WC
With that out of the way, let’s start with what Linear Finance is…
What’s your elevator pitch on Linear Finance and why the DeFi world needs yet another synthetic asset protocol?
KT
Ok lemme pitch this one…
DeFi is extremely powerful, disruptive, and has the potential to revolutionize the entire financial industry. The global commodities market is ~20 Trillion USD and the global ETF market is 4–5 Trillion USD and growing. These markets are filled with middlemen and more often than not inaccessible to many investors. Linear is creating synthetic versions of commonly traded assets, allowing traders all around the world to trade efficiently and disintermediating middlemen.
But, we also aim to improve our DeFi ecosystem. DeFi is fraught with the same friction that plagued our traditional finance systems. Friction such as long settlement/transaction times, high transaction fees, and asymmetric information that turns away users/traders like ourselves. This is particularly relevant in synthetic asset protocols where user interaction is high.
This is why we built Linear Finance, the first cross-chain compatible, decentralized synthetic asset exchange with creative investable synthetic assets, unlimited liquidity, and no slippage. We use our cross-chain integrations as an imminent L2 solution to scaling/high gas fees and as a result, Linear Finance is fast, easy, cost-effective, safe, and ready to use for ALL users, ranging from new digital asset entrants to experienced crypto traders.
WC
So with you guys coming from traditional finance backgrounds, tell me more about how that influenced the idea behind Linear Finance and how Linear would compare to a traditional finance product…if any?
DN
I believe the big inspiration for Linear was obviously the Web 3 scaling issues which need to be addressed immediately. The same issues that plagued the traditional financial markets when they transitioned into the digital world. But this is only the short-mid term goal as we all know these issues will eventually be solved. From a pure product perspective, synthetic derivatives already exist in traditional markets but cluttered with middlemen who add layers of fees and settlement time is oftentimes lengthened.
At Linear, users can build exposures to investment assets with instant settlement and at fair market and since it’s in DeFi, it’s permissionless and more importantly, given that we are cross-chain compatible, all our assets will be interoperable across different DeFi ecosystems so users can use them as lego pieces freely and quickly across chains. This is very powerful and simply doesn’t exist in traditional finance.
WC
I’m interested to know, as an Asian DeFi project, what are your insights into the Asian markets when it comes to DeFi protocols and platforms?
Something that’s really hard for us Westerner’s to judge is the “Eastern markets” and what their market demands are…So tell me, is DeFi as big in Asia as they say it is?
How does the Asia approach to DeFi differ to that of the West…and how does Linear Finance fit into or satisfy that demand?
KT
Asia has always been a hotbed of liquidity and hot money. Investors piling in to buy into the China growth story or the emerging countries in Southeast Asia. DeFi is actually no different. DeFi is permissionless and it’s built for everyone to use but many protocols are salivating now looking at the emerging DeFi market in China. The Chinese demographics are certainly attractive. Chinese millennial's make up more than 25% of the population and account for 65% of total consumption growth.
It doesn’t take much research to know that crypto adoption among millennial's is high with a significant wallet size. DeFi is just starting in China (and we know this because we constantly track Chinese social media and the China DeFi apps). But, how do you reach these potential users? Send the founders to do a few AMA’s and hire a few local community managers and call it a day? It’s simply not that easy.
We are building Linear Finance for everyone but as we are built in Asia, we also understand the local markets, their preferences and have the experience in building products for BOTH Western and Asian markets so trust that our strategy for the local Asian markets won’t follow the standard playbook.
WC
So satisfy my curiosity…what’s a “Delta-One” Asset Protocol? I haven’t heard that one before…same as other DeFi but with a different name? Or something unique?
DN
Delta-one is a financial derivative with no optionality and has a change of one. Meaning that with a move in the underlying price of an asset, there is expected to be an identical move in the price of the derivative.
A delta-one product is a derivative with a LINEAR symmetric payoff profile. Essentially this another name for “synthetic assets”
WC
So something that seems to separate you from some of the other DeFi projects I’ve spoken to recently is the type of synthetic assets you intend to have on your platform…
We have the usual crypto suspects, but then there are also assets like Oil, Coffee, Esports and ESG…No tulips though? Haha!
How about you run me through the type of synthetics you’ll have on the platform and what the possibilities are for further ones as the platform develops?
DN
We can have a discussion on tulips once we launch!
The overarching theme for the synthetic asset offerings is creativity. We will have the standard synthetic digital assets, commodities, and market indices, but our team is currently curating a number of “Digital Traded Funds” (DTFs) which will be based on thematic digital exposures.
On the asset pipeline going forward, this will also include structured and leveraged products.
WC
For those who may not have been here in 2017, this is what I’m referring to with the tulips reference!
We haven’t reached peak bull til I can bet the house on flowers…In this case, synthetic flowers!
So just to clarify, in a Linear Finance world…synthetics = liquids right?
KT
Yes, this is correct.
WC
Before we break down the applications in the Linear Finance ecosystem, I have to ask…”cross-chain”…I hear this so much these days…
What does this actually mean for you?
You’re ETH based to start with but what other chains do you intend to support?
(I note there is talk of “partner chain” networks in the whitepaper…)
DN
Here’s how we view cross-chain compatibility working on Linear Finance.
- Speed / scalability issues are solved because all the smart contract logic such as building ℓ USD (Linear’s synthetic USD) and trading for synthetic asset exposure (Liquids) can be done on EVM-compatible chains such as BSC (and other partner chains), with a much higher TPS, low block time, and much less gas fees. This means your transactions are faster and cheaper and price discovery is fast so you don’t get frontrun.
- Increased composability and usability for users. Even though LINA is ERC-20 based, users can acquire LINA tokens in all the supported chains, use Linear Finance to conduct their transactions and subsequently move their assets to any of our supported chains, further increasing interoperability. Even with wallets, users can use the same Metamask for storing BSC’s coins and synthetic exposure by changing the RPC link. Not only is the user experience greatly improved, but the barrier to adoption is also easily removed. This means that you can start your journey on ERC-20 but end up having your assets in another ecosystem like Binance Smart Chain.
WC
“Even with wallets, users can use the same Metamask for storing BSC’s coins and synthetic exposure by changing the RPC link”…
This sounds like a different approach to most cross chain solutions, does it not?
DN
It’s way easier for user than having them to get used to a completely new chain!
WC
So that would mean support for other chains is MUCH easier right…and as a result MUCH quicker?
DN
That’s right!
WC
So before we get too far into this…lets break down the various components of the Linear ecosystem.
How about you bullet point them for me and we’ll go through them one by one?
KT
Yeah, let’s talk about our Buildr function and our Linear.Exchange.
WC
So let’s go into more detail on each one, firstly Linear.Buildr…
It’s a decentralised app, but how can I access it and what can I do with it?
KT
Yes, it’s a decentralized app so users simply go to linear.finance and they will be directed to another page where they can connect their wallet and subsequently deposit and stake their LINA tokens into our Buildr app.
Upon doing this, they can “Build” ℓUSD which they can subsequently use to purchase our synthetic asset or simply take off our protocol and use elsewhere in the DeFi ecosystem.
WC
Building in this context means bonding an asset and turning into a ℓUSD equivalent right?
Is this just LINA tokens or other stuff too?
KT
That’s right. Essentially you would be collateralizing your LINA tokens.
In terms of other coins as collateral, we are seriously considering taking in other coins..
We will make an announcement this after mainnet launch!
WC
Ok so I can build a “liquid” using the buildr but then I need to be able to trade this asset.
I assume this is where the Linear.Exchange comes in?
Explain to me what the exchange is, what it does and how I would use it as a user?
KT
Our Linear.Exchange will serve as the platform for users to use ℓUSD to purchase and sell our synthetic “Liquids” so they can get exposure to our investment assets. Note that as mentioned before, given our interoperability, our Liquids will be able to be moved off our platform.
Our linear.exchange will serve this initial purpose but there will be additional features added shortly such as portfolio construction/asset management.
WC
So this is a DEX? What tech stack have you built this on?
DN
We can’t tell your our secret sauce just yet!
However the first implementation will be cross-chain compatible with BSC so that people can trade without friction and stay on MetaMask all the time!
WC
LinearDAO…we can’t talk DeFi these days without DAO coming into it. I remember when DAO was a dirty word…back in the ETC days!
How that’s changed..
So governance…as someone who has been historically anti-government, I seem to find myself in endless discussion on government and governance methods these days…
SUSHI has been a really interesting topic of conversation in that regard lately, but I will spare you my rant on that for now…Unless you too are also using Twitter to dictate the future of your platform?
DN
Haha for sure… NOT…I saw some whales voted against some legit candidate… that’s sad to see.
In the short term, those who hold a certain amount of LINA tokens can be members in our DAO which will vote on initiatives such as P-ratio, synthetic asset selection, collateral pool tokens and % mix, among other initiatives that will affect Linear Finance.
In the mid to long term, whilst token holders can still participate in governance, from a legal entity perspective, we will be transitioning from a Foundation to a full DAO structure.
WC
Ok so does this have the same pitfalls of most token based voting systems, where whales who bought in on the presale etc, end up dictating the future of the platform?
I know that is a two fold argument, as they are the ones with most skin in the game…
DN
Haha that’s actually a very good question!
That’s the reason why our private round sale is only less than $2m USD… just to make sure we got the sufficient funding for development while not destroying the DAO governance
Also, there will be a series of community driven events where we distribute LINA in a fair way.
WC
Nice, I’m going to get to the community driven events in the token section, as we can’t talk DeFi without putting on our farmers overalls these days!
There are plenty of mentions of staking in your whitepaper, but from my understanding, your staking model differs from “traditional staking models”…(I always feel a bit dumb when using the word traditional in crypto…haha).
Can you explain to me how LINA token holders can stake on the platform, what rewards the reecie for doing so, and what risks they undertake by participating in the staking process?
DN
As mentioned before, users are able to stake their LINA tokens on our protocol and use it to “Build” ℓUSD which can be used to purchase our “Liquid” synthetic assets. In addition, as a reward to staking, there will be staking rewards in the form of additional LINA tokens and a share of the exchange fees generated on Linear.exchange. Note that upon staking, the users LINA tokens form part of our collateralized debt pool which serve as a counter party to the Liquids that are purchased.
We mention that there is “unlimited” liquidity because on our protocol, there isn’t an order book for our Liquids, so technically you can purchase as much of a Liquid as you like, obviously depending upon how much ℓUSD you have.
WC
So I’m assuming with the creation of Liquids and thus staked assets, this is going to lock quite a bit of LINA from the circulating supply right?
KT
Yes, that would be the correct assumption as the LINA holders would be incentivized to stake for the staking and exchange fee rewards.
WC
What cut of exchange fees do users get again…sorry…staked token holders?
KT
So our exchanges fees are 0.25% and users will get a certain cut….
We will reveal the % given to uses shortly but going forward, governance will ultimately decide the split.
WC
So on this, does that mean you act as a MM in the background?
And are you going to have a Chad like interface when I can just smash market buy?
Real Chads market buy, as we all know, and why Uniswap is such a Chad platform!
KT
You can go Super Smash Brothers and smash market buy all you want until you spend all your ℓUSD!
The counterparties on our Liquids will be the staked LINA holders.
WC
Ok so it’s P2P in that regard…each trade has a counter party to it?
DN
It’s actually P2C where user are trading against the collateral pool, that’s why you can smash market buy without slippage.
The essence is to have a balanced group of people so the long / short orders can balance each other…and of course we will bring in extra yield campaign to ensure that.
WC
Can you explain to me what a “pledge ratio” is and how that affects capital on the platform?
KT
The pledge ratio stipulates the amount of ℓUSD you can build upon the staking of your LINA token on the protocol. Obviously the higher the pledge ratio, the lower amount of ℓUSD you can build and vice versa so this will ultimately determine how much ℓUSD and Liquids can be purchased.
The pledge ratio is an important factor in our protocol so this will be monitored closed and ultimately it will be the community to drive and determine the appropriate P-ratio.
WC
So this is like my risk exposure? It’s like a leverage trade? Or different?
KT
I would think it more like your collateral or borrowing rate
WC
Can you give me a traditional world comparison there? Like what a Pledge ratio would be for like a bank or something like that?
I’m, thinking about the Big Short and the banks ability to take in money and then lend it out a 1:10…then 1:25…and then higher and higher…
Is this the same thing?
DN
Sure!
For example, if you put in $3 USD worth of ETH, we are able to build $1 USD worth of exposure.
The $ 3USD worth of ETH acts as a collateral to make sure that you will come back one day to burn the $1 USD worth of exposure to redeem your ETH back.
WC
So does this scale upwards?
If Iput in $3m USD of ETH, I’ll have $1m USD worth of exposure?
DN
Right. the beauty in this is, if you are a believer of the protocol and want to “own” part of the exchange, you can simply build ℓUSD using LINA and some other form of collaterals later to earn staking rewards and trading fee split.
After creating the ℓUSD you can actually provide liquidity via Uniswap so for say a trader who didn’t stake LINA they can enjoy the benefits of our platform.
WC
Hmm very interesting, so explain to me and my feeble brain…this is similar to being a Uniswap LP provider in that regard?
DN
Haha you can say so, it’s roughly the same concept, but instead of having individual LP tokens for each pair on Uniswap, there is just one pool for Linear
WC
So if that is the case, what about the topic of impermanent loss?
It seems like lately for some of the LP’s on Uniswap, impermanent loss has turned into permanent loss pretty quickly lately…
DN
Haha that’s a very good question. basically the collateral pool is essentially a debt pool.
So if the long / shorts are not balanced, there will be a certain amount of debt inflation where you get less than what you earn.
That’s why we always have extra yield reward campaign to let people help balancing the long/shorts
LINA TOKEN UTILITY
WC
We briefly touched upon some of the LINA token utility in the previous questions, but how about you give me a bullet point summary of the various use cases within the Linear Finance ecosystem?
DN
LINA is our native ERC-20 Linear Token which serves the purpose of staking in our collateral pool to create ℓUSD, liquidity mining, governance and investing in synthetic “Liquids”.
WC
Obviously most projects want to avoid inflation on their networks as much as possible, so I’m assuming there is an actual need for this to be the case?
KT
Currently for the tokenomics, there is a set supply with a certain % that will be given out for staking rewards.
Whilst we are finalizing the token distributions there are considerations being discussed on whether to implement a small inflation on top of the scheduled releases or even at the end of the staking reward distributions.
It is quite possible that we will leave this decision to governance and the LinearDao.
WC
I note you also have a secondary token within the ecosystem, ℓUSD
Can you explain its role within the ecosystem and why you chose to roll your own stable coin instead of using one of the many existing stable coin’s already out there?
DN
It is absolutely necessary to have our own stablecoin ℓUSD within our own protocol. It serves as a linkage between the collateralized debt pool and our synthetic asset exchange.
In addition, with our own ℓUSD, we have a certain element of control. Imagine if we allowed individuals to stake and we were lending out USDT and USDC and something were to happen to those coins… I think that is an added risk that is not part of Linear’s core business, which is to provide an exchange venue for users to seamlessly switch across synthetic asset exposure.
This is something to be done by COMP or AAVE so that they can maintain a certain level of supply and demand and be paid for this default risk.
WC
So why have you chosen to use your own token as a method of base collateral, rather than using a more widely used…and perhaps, stable, asset?
DN
Whilst LINA will be the main form of collateral within our protocol, in the spirit of interoperability and our quest to also become a DeFi lego piece, we are exploring the possibility of other coins such as wrapped versions of ETH and BTC, and other coins within our DeFi ecosystem.
This is on top of our priority list as it will help bolster and drive our TVL.
We will make an announcement on this very soon!
WC
What is the logic behind having a 80/20 split on collateral? Is this simply to lock up more of your own token?
KT
The logic behind the split is that we know from other synthetic asset protocols, their TVL is limited by the number of stake tokens and their price.
We wanted to avoid having this issue so we will allow a certain amount of alternative coins to be staked as collateral while leveraging this to also drive the usage of LINA tokens. Again, the actual ratio can be determined by the community later on.
WC
So you have spoken on TVL a few times, and obviously you have some liquidity mining going on…
How are you going to bootstrap your TVL and liquidity on the network?
As we all know by now, Users follow TVL…
KT
Yes, we will have an attractive liquidity mining program to incentivize users to stake in our debt pool.. We view this as a cost of user acquisition.
LINEAR FINANCE REVENUE MODEL
WC
That’s probably a really good segue into how all these token mechanics work to serve Linear Finance itself, past the users of the network.
So what’s the revenue model past selling LINA tokens and how do the aforementioned token mechanics work into the model?
KT
The revenue model for Linear Finance is quite simple. The protocol generates revenue when users use their built ℓUSD to purchase our Liquids. Thus, all parts of the token mechanics are focused on promoting this.
There are two ways we go about increasing Liquid purchases.
1. Whilst we reward stakers with rewards, we will likely add bonus rewards to users who purchase Liquids.
2. We are beginning discussions with other DeFi players within the ecosystem to accept our Liquids onto their protocols, effectively driving demand for our Liquids.
Ultimately, in the long run, the goal is to drive enough demand for our Liquids such that the exchange fees generate enough rewards for the stakers in our debt pool.
WC
So more users = more liquids = more revenue…for both the staked users and Linear Finance?
KT
That’s right….. essentially the more Liquids are purchased, the more profitable Linear is. So our core goal is to drive usage of our exchange!
PARTNERSHIPS & BACKERS
WC
So it really is all about getting people to use your product, and the rest seems to just naturally follow after that…
Something that helps with user acquisition is the support of your backers, I posted it earlier but let me repost that now…
But instead of this article though…how about you tell me in your own words…
Who is standing behind and backing this project and what makes them so special?
KT
Thanks for bringing up our recent announcement on this. We are really blessed to have them onboard and each of them bring their own value to the table. Whether its experience in helping projects navigate the expanding DeFi ecosystem, financial innovation in products or networks that can help us with certain key markets or helping us with getting institutional liquidity.
Take Hashed for example, they will help us tremendously in entering the korean market.
We raised $1.8m USD from strategic investors NGC Ventures, Alameda Research, Hashed, CMS, Kenetic, and Genesis Block.
Other notable investors include Evernew Capital, Soul Capital, Moonrock Capital, Black Edge Capital and PANONY.
All of our investors are important and bring different value to the table. We chose them as they bring not only tactical knowledge and experience in the ever-changing DeFi space but also intelligence in areas such as financial innovation, key market expansion/adoption, and roadmaps to institutional liquidity.
WC
So that’s the fund side of things, but how about technology or crypto partners?
Are you doing this alone or do you have some other projects adding to your tech mix?
DN
I don’t think we can call ourselves a DeFi project if we don’t have partners that are working with us. Let’s talk specifically on oracles, other blockchains, and other service providers.
We will diversify our oracle providers. Thus, we are looking into different solutions provided by the major oracle providers such as Chainlink, BAND and Tellor. Being a cross chain protocol means that we can have much more composability in a cross-chain manner, e.g. It is more sensible to work with the highest through-put and highly secure oracle on Ethereum while we can focus more on other parts such as decentralization on faster chains like BSC and other faster blockchains.
For blockchains, we are very selective on the chains that we work with. Apart from the technology and security side, like how compatible it is with our existing chains of choice and how secure the blockchain is, more importantly there has to be a community and ecosystem behind it. In this sense Linear is able to aggregate the DeFi crowd and be a hub for synthetic asset transfer across different chains.
Currently we are in talks with 2 other prominent blockchains which are highly likely to capture market shares from the clogging Ethereum.
For the others we will be working on integrating with a number of different DeFi players within the ecosystem (wallets, AMM, lenders, etc) to bring additional features and services to our protocol for our users. Our goal in this is to have a tight integration all the way up to the user experience so our partner’s features and transactions can be done within our Linear front end and more importantly, our synthetic assets can be moved to other protocols to expand upon the network effect and build other DeFi products.
WC
So can I ask, with BNB staking kicking off on Binance chain…what’s your thoughts on that?
From my end past the initial “everything has to be listed on BNB DEX” to get on Binance the chain kinda died off for awhile no?
KT
From our perspective, its quite obvious that Binance is itching to get into the DeFI game so offering features like BNB staking is not surprising and nothing new. BUT, the emergence of BSC will bring upon a whole new DeFi ecosystem built upon that chain.
WC
Call my cynical, but I’m a bit suspect on CZ, Binance and their “DeFi” aspirations…It seems they could of done that any time in the last year and only now they’re acting upon it, now there is hype there…
Smart business of course, but cold and calculating and not really in the spirit of “true DeFi”
KT
Yeah, we can all be cynical on things like this but its Binance and its CZ. they have the resources and the clout. BSC will may not be the first but it will no doubt be an influential chain.
And yes, a large part of it is hype…why be the first right?
WC
Fair call, from a projects end you can’t ignore that…They’ll bring users if nothing else!
In a similar vein, how about, for want of a better word, influencers?
I note that in my research for this AMA, I came across this from Boxmining…
It sounds like he’s backing and supporting the project?
KT
We view the role of influencers in our marketing efforts to be very crucial to mass user adoption.
These influencers are important as they serve the important role of educating potential existing and new crypto users on the benefits of your product and in many instances will give you feedback.
Haven’t you noticed influencers checking smart contract code and bringing up issues to developers and users?
These influencers lend their credibility and reputation to showcase projects which they believe in to even their own captive audiences (Twitter, Telegram, Discord) which more often will drive adoption to your protocol.
COMPETITORS
WC
We touched on it briefly in the intro, but as a project in DeFi with a .finance domain, you’re kind of up against EVERY DeFi project haha!
So dial it back for me. Who do you consider your true competitors in the space?
KN
I consider true competitors in the space the ones who place their focus on the creation of synthetic assets and these would include projects such as SNX, UMA, and FTM.
The DeFi space is growing so rapidly that I believe all of us will find our own niche within the ecosystem and potentially collaborate in the future as we will all face the same challenges as the ecosystem expands.
WC
In a similar vein, there are now a LOT of cross chain solutions out there. We seem to have accepted the fact that no one chain will win and that each chain has different abilities for different use cases…
So again, what makes Linear Finance different from the rest and who are your main competitors in this cross chain niche?
DN
For cross-chain protocols there are usually 2 approaches on that, first is setting up a chain using SDK like Cosmo’s one to spawn a chain which is tailored to communicate with other chains. However, this actually has the security problem as in the consensus security is by its own, say DPOS for most of the projects taking this approach.
It would actually add another layer of risk in securing the stability of the application, such as who to be appointed as the limited node members and what if they misbehave. Also, somehow it is an “overkill” for a specific use-case to have a stand-alone blockchain which requires a lot of supporters in order to stay secure and safe.
Second approach is to build up bilateral bridges to other chains for traffic alleviation. Instead of blindly accepting as many chains as we can, we take the highest likelihood “Ethereum Killer” as the Layer-2 solution of Ethereum. For example, our first implementation is on Binance Smart Chain (BSC) because of its community and tech compatibility.
We are also looking into some other “Ethereum Killer” and we are very selective on that as we foresee the future of blockchain as Inter-chain (just like the concept of Inter-net). We believe there will be a couple of winners in terms of different regions and use-cases and Linear’s approach is to grow with the winners together in the long run instead of being bound by a single blockchain.
Stay tuned for more announcements on which chains we are going to integrate with next!
WC
It’s hard to talk about any platform with synthetic assets and not talk about Synthetix (SNX) as they’re the daddy of the synthetic assets in the crypto space…
What makes Linear Finance different to Synthetix and are you complementary in any way at all?
KT
We differ from Synthetix in a number of ways. As mentioned earlier, our cross-chain compatibility allows us to bring an immediate and COMPLETE solution to the scaling/gas issues that existing SNX users currently face. We are not a fork of SNX. SNX is built for Ethereum and not optimized for faster chains while we are. Cross-chain compatibility and integration also give us an enormous edge for two reasons.
1. Expanding Interoperability: For instance Binance is looking into moving into DeFi and are on a path to build the DeFi ecosystem on the Binance Smart Chain, which holds enormous potential for Linear. Our users are able to asset swap any tokens on our protocol to BEP standard so users can continue to Lego build on an entirely new DeFi ecosystem, providing access and optionality, further expanding the network effect.
2. The cross-chain compatibility opens up a pathway to new markets and users. We will go after Binance’s own captive audience of over 400K accounts and 150+ fiat onramps to reach their customers that are inaccessible to SNX due to the complex nature of web3. We have a winning proposition as our protocol will be on a chain they are familiar with, have a clean, properly designed UX/UI for ease of use, along with the proper marketing/educational materials to handhold new users to our Linear Finance protocol. The food is at the bottom of the pyramid guys and in the mid-term, this is where the gold mine will be.
LINA TOKEN SALE & SUPPLY
WC
So this is usually the part where I’d ask a series of well crafted questions about your token sale and launch plans…but I have a feeling I’m going to get rejected on this again…and my fragile ego can only take so much rejection in a single day
So pump me up or let me down softly! What’s the deal?
KT
Unfortunately we can’t disclose much right now but public sale details will be shared very soon!
WC
So there WILL be a public sale?
KT
Yes there will be one. Tokenomics and details sooooon!
DUE DILIGENCE CHECKS
WC
Does Linear Finance have a Github?
DN
For sure. Right now we are in private repository mode. But will make it public once our testnet launch is live in mid October.
Rest assure, we have conducted the first stage of code auditing with one of the biggest code auditor in Asia already. And will have more code auditors joining to try to “crack our code”.
WC
Where are you guys based?
DN
We are decentralized, but currently stuck in Hong Kong because of COVID though…
WC
Where is Linear Finance incorporated?
KT
Our foundation is incorporated in the Seychelles.
WC
Nice, say hey to Arthur for me!
Has the LINA smart contract been audited and can we see the results?
DN
We are currently choosing audit providers and will have this completed before the launch of our mainnet.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
WC
Now before we end this, this is one of my favourite Twitter follows and one of my favourite Tweets…
So my question from this to you is….what’s your community like, how do you intend to grow it and does it have a unique identity already?
Keeping in mind your pre launch so that’s a distinctly different community to the one you build post launch…
KT
Yeah, obviously as our product will be launching soon we currently are in the process of establishing our communities within a number of key markets and will likely runs some marketing campaigns and use this time for user acquisition and education.
It will ramp up substantially post launch as we look for Linear super users and we will be rolling out our referral and ambassador programs as well.
WC
Well guys, its been an epic AMA session and I really appreciate you taking so much of your time to speak to us today
I’d usually do some community questions, but instead I will direct people to your Telegram and the Boxmining AMA tomorrow. If you’d like to participate in that one, drop a comment in the Twitter link below!
KT
What an excellent AMA and we thank you very much for hosting us.
We are building Linear for the community so we welcome your inputs and questions even before the product launch.
Join us in TG and Discord!
DN
Thanks guys, this was fun!
Linear Finance Resources
Website: https://linear.finance
Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/Tb3iAhuMZsyfspxhEWQLvw
Medium: https://medium.com/@linear.finance
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LinearFinance
Whitepaper: https://linear.finance/defi/Linear_Whitepaper_EN.pdf
Wolf Crypto Resources
Public Group: https://t.me/WolfCryptoPub
News Channel: https://t.me/WolfCryptoAnnounce
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WolfCryptoGroup
