Kyros Ventures took part in Blank‘s $1.8M Private Sale Round along with many other big names in the field like X21 Digital, SevenX, Spark Digital Capital, GBV Capital, and Woodstock.
Congratulations Blank on this impressive result!
Details of the Private Sale:
Private Sale Token Allocation — 35,000,000 BLANK
Total Token Supply — 125,000,000 BLANK
Whitelist allocation request — 68x the maximum capacity
The nature of public blockchain technology allows anyone to trace and verify transactions publicly, thus risking exposing users’ identities. Blank hides users’ financial data by mixing transfers with the pool of funds within Blank, ensuring that outward transfers remain anonymous. Therefore, the privacy level only goes up with each additional transfer inside.
Agreeing with Blank’s view on the importance of privacy within the blockchain ecosystem, Kyros Ventures decided to support this new project with its development. We believe in the potential of the BLANK token as it expands the privacy integration, helping users get a better sense of safety on the blockchain.
Thuat Nguyen, CEO of Kyros Ventures, said:
“Pursuing privacy among blockchain transactions has always been one of Kyros’s major interests. Once you connect to your crypto wallet, your information is exposed, including that on the decentralized apps you used, the transfers you made, and the amount of crypto you hold in your account. Kyros has a positive outlook on Blank’s solution to protect users’ privacy, therefore, boosting its true potential among the Vietnamese crypto communities. Kyros investment in BLANK is just the beginning of many more collaborations to come! “
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About Kyros Ventures
Kyros Ventures is the investment branch of Coin68 Media, the leading cryptocurrency entity in Vietnam. Specializing in incubation and investment, Kyros Ventures is the gateway for international cryptocurrency projects to enter the Vietnamese market, helping them to achieve greater awareness and adoption thanks to its extensive network of partners and communities.
Blank is the most private, non-custodial Ethereum browser extension wallet.
Blank allows the user to easily interact with privacy smart contracts on Ethereum to hide the amounts and the origins of cryptocurrency held, in a decentralized, non-custodial, and frictionless manner.
Blank solves the problem of privacy in crypto transactions. Each time you want to make a withdrawal, Blank will create a new wallet address for you with the amount of crypto that you requested. This address originates from the smart contract where everyone’s funds are pooled. All of this is achieved using cryptographic proofs to ensure that the user cannot be linked with the original depositing address.
Kyros Ventures, the rising incubator of cryptocurrency and decentralized finance (DeFi) projects, has completed its investment into APYSwap, a new protocol for the efficient and easy yield farming and liquidity provision for digital assets between multiple blockchains.
APYSwap is a protocol for the decentralized multi-chain exchange of shares of its Tokenized Vaults. The project implements a delegation function for user assets and provides a marketplace for financial assets trading. APYSwap allows users on multiple blockchains (initially Ethereum, Polkadot and Binance Smart Chain) to create and control their native blockchain vaults and transfer the ownership to third parties. By supporting multiple DeFi protocols, it offers a simple and effective user experience for selecting asset management options.
APYSwap consists of three layers: APYSwap Vault Contracts – the protocol and smart contracts, APYSwap Marketplace – the layer 2 aggregation marketplace, and APY Mask – a Metamask-style web wallet for end users.
To fuel its system, the project utilizes a native currency called the APYSwap token (APYS), which also serves as a governance token and can be used for trading fee reduction and pool insurance.
Staying true to our mission of supporting new and innovative solutions in the DeFi space, Kyros Ventures has entered into a partnership with APYSwap after seeing the project’s vision and potential impacts to the crypto ecosystem. In addition to financial assistance, APYSwap can take advantage of Kyros’s resources, insights and connections in various crypto communities around the world to further the development of its platform to better suit the needs of the market.
Jenny Nguyen, COO of Kyros Ventures, commented on the partnership:
“Via its new approach to yield farming and asset management between multiple blockchains, including Ethereum, Polkadot and Binance Smart Chain, we see that APYSwap has realized what the market is currently looking for and built up its own solutions. We have no doubt that with our support, APYSwap will be able to successfully deploy their products and quickly form a user base of crypto participants from all over the world.”
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About Kyros Ventures
Kyros Ventures is the investment branch of Coin68 Media, the leading cryptocurrency entity in Vietnam. Specializing in incubation and investment, Kyros Ventures is the gateway for international cryptocurrency projects to enter the Vietnamese market, helping them to achieve greater awareness and adoption thanks to its extensive network of partners and communities.
APYSwap is a protocol for the decentralized exchange of shares of Tokenized Vaults. Through the creation of a Layer 2 blockchain, users can trustlessly swap accounts and assets from multiple Layer 1 blockchains, i.e. Ethereum, Polkadot and Binance Smart Chain. APYSwap simplifies yield farming and reduces its costs for users, without sacrificing decentralization or self-custody.
Vietnam has marked itself as one of the most potential lands for crypto development, with achievements from not only international investments but also local entities. With the start of 2021, Kyros Ventures would like to showcase the Vietnamese Crypto Map, presenting the overall crypto ecosystem that Vietnam has built up over the past years. This map will guide you through the Vietnamese Blockchain & Crypto landscape, including the leading faces in fields of exchange, wallet, Dapps & DeFi, Stablecoin, Media, and so on.
Vietnam Blockchain & Crypto Map, presented by Coin68 Media and Kyros Ventures
TomoChain, KardiaChain, Axie Infinity, and Kyber Network are Vietnamese projects that stood out both locally and internationally. Not only did these projects experience growth on their technical side with a full set of new products, but they also attracted a large community of supporters all around the world.
International exchanges have been very active in Vietnam, with famous names such as Binance, Huobi, OKex, and FTX. Wallet and exchange services developed by Vietnamese (Coin98, FMX) have also marked their footprints with unique product features and an easy-to-use interface. English was no longer a language barrier for those who are enthusiastic about crypto as Vietnamese materials are now available.
In terms of legislation, Vietnamese laws have banned cryptocurrency as a form of issuance, provision, and payment. Vietnam is currently under the researching phase of different CBDC models, especially using the one from China’s DCEP. However, Stably and VND are 2 Vietnamese projects with high potentials.
While the government takes careful legal steps, Vietnamese and other users can still learn about blockchain and crypto from formal universities such as RMIT Vietnam, University of Technology, and FuniX, a unit of FPT University.
In addition, specialized media channels are becoming a rising trend after the boom in quantity from the peak of 2017. Coin68 is a great example of a reliable source of information, regardless of the market being uptrend or downtrend. Using our expertise and speed in catching up with the latest trends, Coin68 is confident to be your gateway to wider knowledge in blockchain in general.
More specifically, in the past year, Vietnam is proud to introduce the first generation of crypto investment funds, Kyros Ventures, a venture capital fund developed on the solid foundations of Coin68. The fund has been supported and invested in more than 30 large and small deals, contributing to bringing many quality international projects to Vietnam.
Overall, 2020 has been a very successful year for the blockchain & crypto market in Vietnam. We have a positive look at 2021, the year of the Ox, and look forward to the creation of many more new projects and new aspects to the blockchain industry.
Kyros Ventures, the investment branch of Coin68 Media and the leading incubator in crypto in Vietnam, today announced it has completed an investment into FMX, a cryptocurrency derivatives trading platform that aims to simplify and gamify the trading experience of crypto futures, to assist FMX’s entrance into the Vietnamese market and boost the adoption of derivatives trading.
The $1 million investment round in both equity and FMX’s native token FMT was led by Kyros Ventures, with the participation of Coin98 Ventures, the newly formed investment arm of Coin98 Finance. This investment marks Kyros’ long-term stake in the development of the FMX platform to encourage the adoption of crypto futures trading.
FMX is a cryptocurrency derivatives trading platform, specializing in futures contracts. Realizing that the crypto derivatives market, although very potential, but is still very risky, complex and lacks the necessary tools to support and incentivize traders, the team behind FMX has developed their own solutions to tackle these challenges. With the slogan “Futures trading made simple”, FMX’s mission is to make futures trading easy and accessible to everyone, promising success to all participants. To achieve this, FMX will focus on improving users’ experience on the platform by implementing a simplified and intuitive UX/UI design, demonstrating to users that futures contracts can also be exchanged with relative ease just as spot trading, not to mention even more fun and rewarding thanks to the gamified activities and uniquely designed trading competitions.
To power its platform, FMX will issue a native utility token named FMT, a Solana-based token with limited supply that can be used to earn exclusive privileges and participate in volume mining activities on the platform.
Jenny Nguyen, COO of Kyros Ventures, explained:
“Realizing the disruptiveness of FMX’s solutions and in order to back its expansion into the Vietnamese market, Kyros Ventures will invest in FMX’s equity to provide financial assistance to the platform and align the interests of the two parties in developing the nascent crypto derivatives landscape. Besides, Kyros Ventures will help establish FMX’s foothold and awareness in the Vietnamese crypto communities. Furthermore, Kyros Ventures will explore other collaborations between FMX and crypto organizations in Vietnam.”
Thuat Nguyen, CEO of Kyros Ventures, said:
“We are extremely impressed by FMX’s achievements since its launch. FMX’s suite of futures trading products is a necessary complement to the current crypto market, which will make it easier for ordinary traders to participate in this segment. Kyros Ventures expects that through this strategic investment, FMX’s innovative solutions in futures trading will soon see mass adoption by Vietnamese traders, thus demonstrating the full potential and ushering in a new age for crypto derivatives, especially during the uptrend period that we are witnessing.”
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About Kyros Ventures
Kyros Ventures is the investment branch of Coin68 Media, the leading cryptocurrency entity in Vietnam. Specializing in incubation and investment, Kyros Ventures is the gateway for international cryptocurrency projects to enter the Vietnamese market, helping them to achieve greater awareness and adoption thanks to its extensive network of partners and communities.
FMX is a cryptocurrency derivatives trading platform that aims to solve the current shortcomings of current trading platforms by simplifying and gamifying the trading experience of crypto futures to encourage mass adoption and promise success to all who participate in its platform. FMX has its own utility token called FMT, which is a Solana-based token that offers holders with exclusive rights and can be used for volume mining.
Vietnam is one of the most dynamic cryptocurrency markets in the world. To get here today, we have overcome many difficulties together. For the first time in history, Kyros Ventures and Coin68 are proud to introduce to the crypto community, the “Vietnam Cryptocurrency Market 2020” report. This document includes collective market insights, Vietnamese investors’ perspectives on many issues that we gathered through a survey conducted at the end of 2020. Let’s take a look at the 6 main points of the report.
Vietnam Crypto Market
It will not be strange if you will find that crypto advertising in Vietnam is the image of a successful businessman with a luxury car, a penthouse. Men under 35 years old are the biggest participants in the Vietnamese crypto market. Other features include:
The two big cities, Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, have the highest concentration of interest for crypto, with 43% and 27% of the total number of respondents respectively.
In addition, nearly a quarter of respondents were engaged in crypto part-time, along with their other major jobs.
More than a quarter of respondents say they have a basic understanding of crypto but need guidance when exploring new products/trends.
The most common channel to acquire knowledge voted by the community is the reputable cryptocurrency news portals like Coin68.com.
Trading Behavior
Coin68 observes that the longer a person participates in crypto, the more likely it is to trade the longer term and the more confident they are to use more products. This is in contrast to newbies. But whether you are new or experienced, one piece of advice you will often hear is:
“You don’t trade margin, you lose. You trade margin, you lose x2.”
Perhaps that is why the most popular crypto product is Spot trading.
In Vietnam, there is an exchange that is leading in all 3 categories: Favorite Spot Trading Product, Favorite Derivative Product, and Favorite P2P/OTC Trading Product.
Portfolio Preference
More than 90% of respondents said they want to remain or increase the proportion of crypto in their portfolios for 2021 compared to the previous year. This is especially true for groups with a low crypto allocation of 50% or less.
The report also specifies the most common annual earnings of crypto-participants, along with their expectations for crypto return 10%, 30%, or x2 account this year.
Community View on Bitcoin
When the survey took place from mid to late December 2020, Bitcoin’s price fluctuated between $19k1 – $26k5. Our market report states that the community has little expectation of Bitcoin’s price reaching $ 40k in less than a month from the survey. In fact, most expect BTC to be between $16k – $20k in Q1/2021.
No one is expecting BTC to reach $50k, whether in the next 3 or 12 months.
The majority believes that Bitcoin will replace gold.
This confidence increases over a longer timespan, as the market grows stronger.
The paper reports the top 3 candidates voted by the community to threaten Bitcoin’s current leading position.
Perspectives on Altcoin
DeFi marks a brilliant 2020 year, occupying the top trends thanks to DeFi yield farming and liquidity swaps. However, the most expected trend in 2021 is Games on Blockchain and Non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The prominent views on Altcoin are summarized as follows:
More than 70% expect Altcoin 2021 season to take place.
Large-cap altcoins are expected to moon the most next year (but there are some surprises).
Uniswap dominates the Vietnam DeFi market, while other DeFi tokens still have windows of opportunity to challenge the lead.
Projects from Vietnam
The Vietnamese crypto community has voted according to 3 categories: Top 5 most popular projects, Top 5 projects with the best awareness, and Top 5 most used products.
As a result, only 6 names to be announced. Wonder what are the best Vietnam projects? Download your copy of the official report file.
On behalf of the research team of Kyros Ventures and Coin68, we’d like to thank all of you who have been supporting us from the very beginning. Sincerely send you and the crypto community the Vietnam crypto market 2020 report, as a tribute to all. We shall see you in the next report.
CertiK was founded in December 2017 by acclaimed computer science professors. The company specializes in developing cutting-edge security solutions for blockchains, dApps and software applications. CertiK has serviced more than 100 clients and secured over $18B worth of digital assets with high-quality auditing and consulting services, ranging from stablecoins such as Binance’s BGBP and Paxos Gold to decentralized oracles such as Band Protocol and Tellor and well-established DeFi protocols including Aave and Ampleforth.
The CertiK Foundation is a nonprofit, research-driven organization with the mission to empower people to trust the blockchain technology. The foundation launched CertiK Chain in late 2019.
CertiK Chain is a cross-chain protocol designed to ensure the security and reliability of blockchain infrastructure and decentralized applications built on top of it. CertiK Chain is able to achieve this with native in-chain features including Security Oracle, CertiKShield Reimbursement Pool, a secure programming language – DeepSEA, and a hacker-resistant OS kernel – CertiKOS (Figure 1).
The project launched on October 27 2020 on the Binance Launchpad. According to Binance Research, the project raised 39.4M USD from two rounds of private token sales, where 38.00% of the CTK total token supply has been sold at 0.77 USD/CTK and 1.90 USD/CTK.
For economics and performance, CertiK Chain uses a Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS) consensus protocol. For accessibility, CertiK Chain is built with the inter-chain friendly Cosmos framework and is fully compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine.The CertiK Chain leverages and provides the safest infrastructure for the blockchain ecosystem, including the CertiK Virtual Machine, CertiKOS, and DeepSEA programming language. A blockchain can fulfill its promise of a fairer, safer, and more transparent system only with verified layers.
– CertiK Security Oracle
CertiK Security Oracle aims to enable users to assess the risk of a DeFi protocol/smart contract in real-time before interacting with it. The oracle retrieves a set of security scores from a decentralized network of security operators which assess the reliability and security of the source code, and compete to earn $CTK (Figure 2). Security scores are displayed on a scale of 1 to 100 enabling users to assess smart contract risk at a glance.
The CertiK Security Oracle makes audit reports available on-chain and decentralizes security intelligence from a handful of security auditors to the entire blockchain community to be accessible on-chain upon demand.
Figure 2: CertiKShield status (Source: CertiK Foundation)
– CertiKShield Pool
This is a decentralized pool of CTK that is used to reimburse lost, stolen or inaccessible crypto assets from any blockchain. As a member, if your funds have been stolen, you can submit a detailed request for reimbursement. The rest of the members vote on your request, and if it is deemed to be legitimate and appropriate for reimbursement, you’ll get paid back.
CertiKShield Pools consist of Collateral Providers and Shield Purchasers. Collateral Providers receive staking rewards for staking CTK in the CertiKShield Pool, while also collecting a portion of the fees paid by Shield Purchasers, as depicted in Figure 3. The cost of reserving funds from the CertiKShield Pool for personal reimbursement of lost assets will be directly tied to the CertiK Security Oracle score, with lower scores (which represent more risk) requiring higher fees for protection.
Figure 3: CertiKShield pool mapping (Source: CertiK Foundation)
– CertiK Virtual Machine (CVM) is built to support a security-first blockchain and enable security intelligence to become an on-chain, expressible value. The CVM is unprecedented in its ability to empower users to access, check, and dynamically establish blockchain and smart contract security. It is fully compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
– DeepSEA is a security-first programming language and a compiler toolbox that is fully compatible with CertiK Chain’s virtual machine, along with Ethereum WebAssembly and Ant Financial’s AntChain. The DeepSEA toolchain was developed by the CertiK team with support from the Ethereum Foundation, Columbia-IBM, Yale University and the Qtum Foundation.
– CertiKOS is an operating system kernel originally developed at Yale University, receiving international acclaim as the world’s first “hacker-resistant” OS kernel. It was the subject of five papers published at top computer science conferences from 2015-2020. CertiKOS is the bedrock for the security infrastructure of CertiK Chain, and plays a pivotal role in running CertiK Chain nodes and the CertiK Security Oracle.
– CertiK QuickScan can be used to secure theBinance Smart Chain smart contracts; this is a lightweight, yet powerful scanning system that can complete a smart contract auditing process within 15 minutes. The CertiK QuickScan uses automated scanning technologies to analyze a wide range of known security vulnerabilities at scale. Once finished, the scanned smart contract will receive a score broadcasted through the Security Oracle network via CertiK-maintained oracle operators.
CertiK Foundation Ecosystem
Development partners include Ethereum Foundation, Columbia-IBM and the Qtum Foundation
Leading exchanges including Binance, Huobi, Liquid and Coinone have chosen to partner with CertiK’s expertise to audit blockchain projects before allowing them to list on their exchanges
Research partners include Yale University and Columbia University
A more exhaustive list of CertiK’s notable clients and partners includes Hyundai, Ant Financial, yearn.finance, Ampleforth, AAVE, Band Protocol, Binance Coin, Bitcoin.com, Crypto.com, Kava, Terra, ThorChain, ICON, Matic, Swipe, Reserve, Paxos, TrueUSD, Universal Protocol and hundreds of other projects.
Initial circulating supply (CS): 23,796,787 CTK (23.75% of total supply)
Detailed token distribution as illustrated in Figure 5
CTK is the native utility token of the CertiK platform. The token utility includes:
Gas consumption for smart contract operations
Shield purchases for insurance against hacks, theft and code malfunction
Payments for real-time Security Oracle audit requests
Staking for network consensus and hosting validator nodes
Rewards for participating in the Security Oracle network and providing real-time security analysis
Collateral and reimbursements for providing collateral to the CertiKShield pool
Community voting for decentralized network governance
CTK token has been allocated to two Private Sale rounds. The first Private Sale round sold 29M CTK at 0.77 USD/CTK raising USD $22.33M, while the second Private Sale round sold 9M CTK at 1.90 USD/CTK raising USD $17.1M.
Figure 5: CTK token distribution (Source – Binance Research)
Comparable Projects
Within the blockchain industry’s security sector, CertiK, Quantstamp and OpenZeppelin are considered the three most prominent companies with an excellent track record of auditing top-notch clients worldwide. Among the three projects, OpenZeppelin was founded the earliest (2015 vs 2017), focusing on an open-source library besides security auditing. However, it was left behind in the smart contract security race when CertiK pioneered its automatic auditing tool, and Quantstamp followed shortly. Moreover, only CertiK and Quantstamp have their own token. Thus, in this report, we cover a comparison between CertiK and Quantstamp.
As demonstrated in Figure 6, we observe that CertiK outperforms Quantstamp with better metrics in audited assets despite a smaller client pool. CertiK’s excellent performance also resulted in higher stakeholders’ confidence, vividly depicted by the higher funding and market cap.
Figure 6: Comparison between CertiK and Quantstamp
Upcoming News and Development Progress
CertiK chain mainnet has been launched on Oct 24 2020. The team is working to launch CertiKShield Pools with existing clients as well as integrate with major protocols to provide on-chain security through the Security Oracle mechanism. Furthermore, CertiK team has released CertiKShield yield farming to reward collateral providers with CTK. We expect the team to continue the momentum and add more projects to CertiK’s portfolio. Besides, CertiK will focus on community building in China, South Korea, North America and Europe.
CTK token is fully released for 2 out of 7 allocations i.e. Private Sale 2 and CertiKShield Pool. The rest will be distributed gradually until August 2023. Details for the CTK release schedule are illustrated in Figure 7.
Centre of expertise: CertiK Chain brings some of the world’s brightest minds in computer science to solve a painful issue in DeFi – security of unaudited contracts. In DeFi it has become increasingly popular for unaudited smart contracts to be released pseudo-anonymously and the community to interact with them in the hunt for lucrative financial rewards. These contracts often go unaudited because it has normally been seen as the responsibility of the contract developers to seek audits, but in many cases the developers seek not to. The CertiK Security Oracle decentralizes the responsibility of conducting security analysis and instead gives the power to the people to request security intelligence themselves.
Emerging DeFi security risk: With over $1.4B of crypto stolen in the first 5 months of 2020 alone, a CertiKShield membership is a wise step in the right direction for individuals and projects involved in the DeFi space.
Reputation and a supportive ecosystem: A highly active community with the growth campaign including regular technical updates and education sessions via blog posts, online and face-to-face product education sessions, and social media engagement
Factors to Watch
Competitors: Various types of decentralized applications and networks are emerging at a rapid rate, and the industry is increasingly competitive. It is possible that alternative networks could be established that utilize the same or similar code and protocol underlying CTK and/or the CertiK Platform and attempt to re-create similar facilities. The CertiK Platform may have to compete with these alternative networks, which could negatively impact CTK and/or the CertiK Platform.
Loss of talent: The development of the CertiK Platform greatly depends on the continued co-operation of the existing technical team and expert consultants, who are highly knowledgeable and experienced in their respective sectors. The loss of any member may adversely affect the CertiK Platform or its future development. Further, stability and cohesion within the team is critical to the overall development of the CertiK Platform. There is the possibility that conflict within the team and/or departure of core personnel may occur, thus negatively influencing the project in the future.
Executive Summary
Projection Milestones
Note: This projection evaluation method considers both the CTK token price and the CTK circulating supply as variables. This is an accurate representation since both are subject to change over time.
At the time of writing, the circulating supply (CS) is 23.8M CTK, and the market cap (MC) reaches $27M. The token’s initial price on Binance Launchpool was $0.77/CTK. At the time of writing, the token price had passed the $1.13 mark.
CertiK is expected to carry on its market leader’s advantage by expanding its product suite and industry network. CTK CS will be around 50M CTK in August 2021, and CTK may reach the Top 100 ranking at CoinMarketCap.
At full token release, the CS will be around 100.18 million CTK. CTK token price may potentially reach $5 per token, giving it a circulating market cap exceeding $500M.
Finally, Figure 8 presents the different possible scenarios determining the potential CTK market cap and the associated return on investment (ROI) in the future.
Figure 8: Future CTK market cap projection
Concluding Remarks
The CertiK’s Security Oracle and Shield Pool are necessary in the DeFi space. The Kyros research team expects CertiK to continue to grow as the leader in the smart contract audit niche. Furthermore, we are bullish on this project, and we believe that the crypto enthusiasts and investors alike will also be able to foresee its potential.
Taking into account CertiK’s favorable metrics versus comparable projects i.e. Quantstamp, we would be extremely surprised to see this token stay under $2 within the first half of 2021.
Due to the volatile nature of the crypto markets, short term price estimates are difficult to establish. We, however, expect to see the CTK token price soar to $2.8 – $4 in the mid-to-long term, giving it a circulating market cap in the vicinity of $330M.
Even higher token price milestones are feasible in the long term, our most bullish prediction envisaging CTK potentially reaching $4.5 – $5.5 in the future. Taking into account that CTK has the market leader advantage in the blockchain security industry, it will probably remain a force to be reckoned with.
Kyros Ventures, the conglomerate consisting of many of the largest Vietnamese crypto communities, had participated in the $350,000 seed round of Royale Finance, a DeFi protocol building a trustless ecosystem where iGaming platforms borrow capital to fund their bankroll.
Royale Finance is the latest project to apply the use of blockchain technology in the centralized internet gambling (iGaming) sector, even taking it to a whole new level by combining it with decentralized finance (DeFi) solutions to create what they called ‘iGDeFi’. The team behind the project believes that the current iGaming industry, which is projected to worth 127 billion USD by 2027, still holds much potential that can be unlocked with the help of blockchain and DeFi.
In essence, Royale Finance is a Web 3.0 platform that will provide liquidity to iGaming developers through the use of smart contracts, meanwhile secure their innovations with the transparency and immutability nature of blockchain. Royale plans to disrupt the iGaming industry by helping entrepreneurs to fund their bankroll via a network of participants rewarded to provide capital. The fund then can be used to bootstrap the network, lend capital to the first users, and continue the development of the project. With the integration of a self-governing DAO protocol, open-source smart contracts and algorithms, a fair distribution mechanism for users, and shared liquidity pools to lower entry barriers, Royale Finance will guarantee the highest possible benefits for both projects and users coming to their platform.
Sharing the same vision as Royale Finance in increasing the adoption of blockchain technology in all aspects of life as a whole and in the iGaming industry in particular, Kyros Ventures had joined Royale Finance’s $350,000 seed round with other well-known incubators, including Alphabit, Fomocraft Ventures, and Vendetta Capital. The funds will be utilized to achieve Royale’s roadmap goals in Q4 2020 and Q1 2021, such as deploy smart contracts to provide liquidity for iGaming businesses and retrieve collaterals, reward users via DeFi money market and AMM protocols and distribute ROYA governance token.
On top of that, Kyros Ventures will assist Royale Finance in expansion into the Vietnam market and surrounding regions. In specific, Kyros will leverage our deep knowledge and understanding of the Vietnamese crypto communities to introduce Royale’s innovations in iGDeFi to local investors and traders. Kyros will also explore other collaboration opportunities between Royale Finance and our network of partners both domestically and abroad.
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About Kyros Ventures
Kyros Ventures is a conglomerate of four of the largest crypto communities in Vietnam: Coin98, Tradecoin Vietnam, HC Capital, and Coin68, which collectively have more than 100,000 active traders. Kyros Ventures is the gateway for international cryptocurrency projects to enter into the Vietnamese market. We aim to help projects achieve greater awareness and adoption thanks to our extensive network of partners and communities.
Royale Finance is an iGaming DeFi protocol seeking to build a trustless ecosystem where iGaming platforms can access liquidity for their bankroll requirements. Royale’s user-centric platform creates Web 3.0 smart contracts-backed liquidity that allows iGaming entrepreneurs to bootstrap innovation with the security and transparency of the blockchain.
Alpha Finance Lab aims to research and solve major problems in decentralized finance (DeFi), including sustainable yield-generation, impermanent loss, privacy-preserving token swaps, cross-chain interoperability, and fixed lending interest rates
Alpha Finance Lab is the first organization to provide a leveraged yield-farming protocol – Alpha Homora. The protocol allows users to gain higher returns (up to 2.5x) on liquidity mining aggregated from other prominent yield-farming pools
Alpha Finance Lab’s vision is to build an ecosystem of cross-chain DeFi products and integrate Alpha products seamlessly with traditional finance, such that anyone and everyone can use traditional finance and Alpha decentralized finance products interchangeably
Alpha Finance Lab Product Suite
Alpha Homora – Leveraged yield farming on Ethereum (Figure 1). The innovation is also called “dYdX for yield farming”, audited by PeckShield. In Alpha Homora, users can participate as yield farmers, ETH lenders, liquidators, and bounty hunters. The platform’s Total Value Locked (TVL) has surpassed $12 million at the time of writing.
Figure 1. Alpha Homora – the world’s first leveraged yield farming platform on Ethereum
Alpha Lending (Mainnet launch currently paused) – a decentralized lending protocol with an algorithmic, autonomous interest rate. Alpha Lending is one of the first lending protocols available on Binance Smart Chain (BSC), leveraging BSC’s fast transaction processing time and cheap transaction fees. The protocol also supports cross-chain assets and perpetual lending.
Perpetual swap protocol is in active development. In the latest regular update, the team announced that it would prioritize perpetual swap in the current context of a bullish Bitcoin and crypto market.
Initial circulating supply (CS): 174 million ALPHA
Token distribution as illustrated (Figure 2)
Figure 2. ALPHA token distribution
Alpha Finance Lab Team
Tascha Punyaneramitdee– Project Lead. Former Head of Strategy at Band Protocol and Former Product Manager at Tencent. Before that, the Berkeley alumna was an Investment Banking Analyst at Jefferies.
Nipun Pitimanaaree– Lead Engineer and Blockchain Researcher. Former Chief Research Officer at OZT Robotics. He holds a Master of Engineering degree from MIT.
Thara Malaimarn– Blockchain Developer. Former blockchain developer at Band Protocol and Loom Network.
Pitchanai Thitipakorn– Software Engineer. Former Full-stack Developer at GIS Company.
Alpha Finance Ecosystem
Integral parts of the Alpha Finance ecosystem are presented in Figure 3, namely the strategic investors, prominent industry partners, and yield farming pools. Each of these plays a significant role in the overall success of the Alpha Finance platform
Figure 3. Alpha Finance ecosystem
Alpha Finance Lab’s strategic investors include:
The Spartan Group – SpartanGroup is a boutique financial advisory and digital asset management firm specializing in blockchain, cryptography, and other digitization technology. Spartan Advisory clients include IBM, Dapper, Blockstack, Deribit, Solana, and Blockfolio. Its investment team has over 20 years of experience serving world-class financial groups such as Goldman Sachs and Indus Capital.
Multicoin Capital – Multicoin Capital is a thesis-driven investment firm that invests in cryptocurrencies, tokens, and blockchain companies reshaping trillion-dollar markets. The venture has raised a total of $75M and invested in 26 deals so far, including Solana, Dune Analytics, Braintrust, and SKALE Labs.
DeFiance Capital – DeFiance Capital is a DeFi focused crypto-asset fund that combines fundamental research with an activist investment approach.
Alpha Finance Lab’s ecosystem partners are:
Binance–the top-notchexchange is not just a launchpad partner but also a blockchain operator where Alpha finance protocol runs upon
SCB10X–The venture arm of Siam Commercial Bank, one of the largest commercial banks in Thailand. SCB10X is an early investor in international payments giant Ripple and leading cryptocurrency lending platform, BlockFi. The partnership with SCB10X will provide Alpha with traditional banking expertise and an avenue to onboard retail customers to DeFi.
Band Protocol –Alpha Finance uses the Price Oracle feature for its infrastructure. The oracle is responsible for querying the latest price of an asset from BandChain.
Finally, ALPHA token’s liquidity pool providers include Uniswap, Sushiswap, Pickle, IndexCoop, and mStable.
ALPHA Tokenomics
Public token offering on Binance Smart Chain on 10 October 2020
Revenue from Alpha products will be used to buyback and burn ALPHA tokens
Additionally, the burning parameter will be configurable through token-based governance in the future
Token Utility
Staking – Users can deposit ALPHA tokens into a smart contract, which utilizes them to cover any default loans. Users can then receive a portion of the platform’s revenue.
Liquidity mining
Critical to bootstrap liquidity, distribute governance rights to invested users and create a strong community of DeFi enthusiasts who will help propel the protocol forward
Featured in Binance Launchpad. In Oct 2020, the opportunity existed to stake BNB, BUSD, and BAND to earn ALPHA
Deflationary economy –all Alpha Finance products will tie back to ALPHA and reward users for using their products as revenues from the products will be used to buyback or burn ALPHA tokens. Additionally, the burning parameter will be configurable through token-based governance in the future.
Governance procedures
Alpha will implement governance on two levels via DAO mechanism – product-level governance and Alpha Finance-level governance
Product-level governance will allow ALPHA token holders to govern key protocol parameters of specific Alpha products
Alpha Finance-level governance will allow ALPHA token holders to govern how the portfolio of Alpha products interoperate
Comparable Projects
Alpha Finance competes directly with strong projects such as SushiSwap and yearn.finance in the yield farming segmentand AAVE and Compound in the lending segment. Alpha Finance has established 21 yield farming pools (both leveraged and non-leveraged) while its lending product is still in the Testnet phase. Figure 4 below demonstrates Alpha Homora’s competitively higher yield returns compared to that of SushiSwap and yearn.finance.
Figure 4. Alpha Finance in APY comparison with SushiSwap and yearn.finance
Alpha Finance Lab is the first and currently only platform providing leveraged yield farming products with Alpha Homora. Such innovative product provides a competitive edge to Alpha Finance in the popular DeFi yield farming field.
For non-leveraged yield farmers, Alpha Homora acts as an efficient liquidity aggregator with unique features, such as loss-minimizing/gas-saving, optimal swap, and automatic reinvest-ment.
Ultimately, Alpha Homora offers a high lending rate for ALPHA. The product’s Testnet on Binance Smart Chain is ready, but the final launch is currently paused as the team awaits better timing.
Upcoming News and Development Progress
Token Release Schedule
Alpha Finance Lab team will unlock a large number of ALPHA tokens by September 2021, releasing 60% of its total supply into the circulation, approximately 600M ALPHA (Figure 5). From now to the first anniversary of Binance Launchpad, the team must prove their capability to deliver market-fit DeFi products, i.e., the liquidity mining aggregator, leveraged yield-farming pools, perpetual swap, and the lending feature.
Development Roadmap
Alphaperpetual swap protocol is in active development as the team’s key focus for the rest of 2020. The product is expected to carry on Alpha Homora’s momentum, capturing unaddressed demand in DeFi in an innovative and user-friendly way.
Alpha Lending product launched its Testnet on Binance Smart Chain (announced in late September). Yet, the final product release is now paused for better timing as auditing has been completed.
Alpha Homora product development – more educational resources on Alpha Homora, additional yield farming pools, more marketing through various channels, expanded liquidity mining program, and a referral program
Figure 5. ALPHA token release schedule
Reasons to be Bullish
Despite the recent correction of the DeFi bubble, total value locked (TVL) in DeFi protocols steadily grew from USD 700 million at the start of 2020 to USD 12.93 billion as of 27 November 2020 (Defipulse). Alpha Finance Lab is looking to deliver the next stage of DeFi through building interoperability among Alpha products and integrating with leading ecosystem partners
Backed by strong investors and industry partnerships (especially Binance and SCB10X) who are well-positioned to support Alpha Finance Lab’s growth
The team made the right move when branching out into the perpetual swap segment, which has a great demand with no clear major player yet.
Highly active community growth campaign including regular technical updates and educational sessions via blog posts, online and face-to-face sessions, and social media engagement
Factors to Watch
The liquidity aggregator field is booming as the second wave of the DeFi industry. Several projects are in fierce competition to capture the market share.
ETH is the core asset in the Alpha Finance ecosystem since pools and products are all based around Ethereum. The team needs to expand its product suite to more blockchains and deliver a better asset coverage to reduce its dependency on Ethereum in case of adverse market movements.
Executive Summary
Projection Milestones
Note: This projection evaluation method considers both the ALPHA token price and the ALPHA circulating supply as variables, which is an accurate representation since both are subject to change over time.
At the time of writing, the circulating supply (CS) is 174M ALPHA, and the market cap (MC) reaches $27.4M. The token has an initial offering price on Binance Launchpad at $0.02 / ALPHA. At the time of writing, the token price had passed the $0.28 mark (its new ATH since inception) before retracing to $0.22.
One year after the launch, the leveraged yield-farming pools concept pioneered by Alpha Homora would be popularized, and Alpha Finance Labs is expected to gain the first-mover advantage. ALPHA CS will be around 600M ALPHA. ALPHA then has a chance to surpass SUSHI’s MC.
At full token release, the CS will be 1B ALPHA. ALPHA token price may potentially reach $0.8 per token, giving it a circulating market cap in line with YFI’s MC and in the vicinity of $800M.
Figure 6 presents the different possible scenarios determining the potential ALPHA MC and the associated return on investment (ROI) in the future.
Figure 6. Future ALPHA market cap projection
Concluding Remarks
Alpha Finance’s leveraged yield-farming solution seems necessary if the yield farming industry is to grow and lead to DeFi adoption. The Kyros Research team is bullish on this project, and we believe that crypto enthusiasts and investors alike will also be able to understand its potential.
Considering Alpha Finance’s favorable metrics versus comparable projects with a higher market cap (e.g., SushiSwap, yearn.finance), we would be extremely surprised to see this token stay under $0.2 in the first half of 2021.
Due to the volatile nature of the crypto markets, accurate short term price estimates are difficult to establish. However, we expect to see the ALPHA token price soar to $0.4 – $0.6 in the mid-to-long term, giving it a circulating market cap in the vicinity of $200M.
Even higher token price milestones are feasible in the long term, our most bullish prediction envisaging ALPHA potentially reaching the yearn.finance’s market cap in the future. Taking into account that Alpha Homora has the first-mover advantage in the leveraged yield-farming field, Alpha Finance Lab definitely has plenty of potential.
FinNexus is a next-generation DeFi “supermarket” which enables a global audience to discover and use decentralized finance products in a frictionless and intuitive manner.
The flagship product is the FinNexus Protocol for Options (FPO), which features the world’s first Multi-Asset Single Pool (MASP) in addition to decentralized and permis sionless option writing, trading, and exercising.
FPO is designed to be multi-chain compatible, including with Ethereum, Wanchain, Elrond, XRP Ledger, and KardiaChain.
Uniswap Liquidity Mining program currently ongoing (226.2% APY at time of writing).
Figure 1: FinNexus model
FinNexus Product Suite
FinNexus Protocol for Options (FPO) is a permissionless, censorship-resistant, and non-custodial protocol that enables anyone to write, trade, and exercise options. FPO is the first protocol to feature a Dynamic Margin Mechanism that enables the minimum collateral to back an option to change with price fluctuation. All transactions are on chain, and FinNexus also enables multi-coin collateral, cross-chain transactions, and infinite liquidity for options.
Multi-Asset Single-Pool (MASP) DeFi options model – FPO platform’s liquidity is pooled together into a single monolithic pool, which acts as the sole counterparty writing, trading, and exercising options. The MASP feature ensures that users do not have to worry about the availability of enough liquidity.
FNX Liquidity Mining – Options writers will be incentivized in several ways, including the distribution of FNX tokens as rewards regarding minting and trading volumes on the FinNexus options platform once it goes live. In the future, FinNexus will provide a collective pooled model, using FNX as the major collateralized asset, to mint both call and put options, with multiple underlying assets. The pool will be acting as both the minting collateral pool and liquidity pool for the creation and transaction of options. The holders of the pool will be granted pool share tokens. Risks and rewards will be shared among the pool participants.
Wandora Box – The first decentralized prediction game to launch on Wanchain.
Jack’s Pot – A no-loss lottery game built on Wanchain.
UM1S – a real asset-backed token with a fixed rate of return.
Figure 2: FinNexus features
FinNexus Founding Team
Boris Yang, Founder & CEO. Boris is a former Vice President at Wanglu Tech, co founder of Wanchain, and the leading designer of Wanchain’s technology stack. Boris has many years of experience in internet startups and is a serial entrepreneur. Boris holds degrees in finance and law from Beijing’s University of International Business and Economics.
Bob Chen, Co-founder & CTO. Bob has worked as a technical expert for internet giants such as Alibaba and Qihoo 360. He has developed an asset management wallet within the blockchain industry, specializing in blockchain asset security management, high concurrency applications, and high-frequency quantitative trading. Bob graduated from the Harbin Institute of Technology.
Ryan Tian, Financial Specialist. Ryan has worked as an investment banker at a well known securities company and led IPO, SEO, and M&A projects. Having worked in the financial industry for more than ten years, he specializes in securities products and financial and risk control. Ryan has a Masters in Finance from the University of York.
Jack Tung, Regulatory Compliance Specialist. Jack is a senior FinTech consultant with more than ten years of experience in asset management services for high net worth individuals. He specializes in framework design for asset management compliance and architecture design for financial enterprise compliance.
Veerender Singh, Community Manager. Veerender is an experienced community mana ger in the blockchain space, currently serving as a Community Manager for MANTRA DAO, and is the Editor and Business Development Manager for blog.goodaudience.com
FinNexus Ecosystem
Integral parts of FinNexus’ ecosystem are presented in Figure 3, namely the founding partner Wanchain, enterprises, DeFi partnerships, and crypto exchanges/liquidity providers for the FNX token. Each of these plays a significant role in the overall success of the FinNexus platform.
Figure 3: FinNexus ecosystem
Strategic Partners:
Wanchain is an innovative public blockchain project which has made advancements in privacy protection, cross-chain integrations, multi-asset transactions, and proof of stake consensus mechanisms. Wanchain’s team will provide comprehensive technical support for FinNexus.
SuperAtom is a Southeast Asian-based FinTech company aiming to make financial services more accessible for the masses. SuperAtom is incubated by New York-listed Cheetah Mobile and will work together with FinNexus to tokenize financial products, which will provide stable investment returns.
A more exhaustive list of FinNexus’ cryptocurrency industry partnerships include:
Band Protocol – Band Protocol is a cross-chain data oracle platform that provides reliable and real-time price data and is a backbone for the truly secure and decentralized financial products that FinNexus provides.
Chainlink – FinNexus has integrated Chainlink’s price feeds to power the FinNexus Protocol for Options platform.
Elrond – FinNexus is planning to build a version of its unique multi-asset single-pool (MASP) DeFi options model on Elrond, an open source blockchain platform with high output and execution speeds.
XRP Ledger – FinNexus has announced plans to bring real-world assets to the XRP Ledger and connect the passionate XRP fanbase with the exciting world of DeFi.
KardiaChain – KardiaChain will operate the first fully decentralized and interoperable blockchain ecosystem in Vietnam. FinNexus is exploring the potential to develop DeFi services on the KardiaChain mainnet.
FNX token’s liquidity:
FNX token is currently listed on five exchanges: BitMax, BKEK, Bitrue, Uniswap, and Hoo.com. The corresponding volume proportions are depicted in Figure 4.
Figure 4: FNX volume proportion on top 5 exchanges (Source: Coingecko)
Enterprise partners and investors include:
Consensus Lab: an APAC VC aims to empower inspiring projects in the blockchain space. Since 2018, the firm has 21 investments in prominent blockchain and crypto companies, a few of which are the FTX exchange, CertiK, QuarkChain and BlockCloud.
Genesis Group: A Hong Kong-based veteran crypto venture capital having 20 invest ments in the field over the past few years. Some projects under their portfolio include Quarkchain, Pchain, and Edenchain.
TRG Capital: An Amsterdam-based seed-stage venture capital firm. The firm’s focus area is startups fundamentally disrupting digital assets’ global transfer, mainly Layer2 solutions and startups decentralizing finance (DeFi). Notable projects in its portfolio include Polkadot, Kava, Frontier, Avalanche, Zilliqa, and Solana.
FNX Tokenomics
APY token specifications are as following:
– Current market cap (MC): 1.3M USD
– Circulating supply (CS): 13.7M FNX
– Total supply (TS): 500M FNX
– Token distribution as depicted in Figure 5
At the time of writing, FinNexus’ fully diluted market cap is US$64.7 million. Note that 28,036,823.22 FNX tokens have been converted 1-for-1 to UM1S, a real asset-backed token with a fixed return rate. More data on FNX distribution can be found at the FinNexus site.
Figure 5: FNX tokenomics
Token Utilities
Collateral for writing options and liquidity for exercising options within the Multi-Asset Single Pool (MASP) for the FinNexus Options Protocol (FOP)
The medium of exchange to buy and sell options on the FOP
Uniswap Liquidity Mining currently ongoing
Right to higher rates of return on tokenized products
Rights to invest in tokenized products with lower cost
Discount on transaction commissions
Derivative rights, like early settlement, resale, or interest swap
Benefit from FinNexus’s development
Figure 6: Application of FNX in FinNexus’ ecosystem
Comparable Projects
FinNexus ultimately aims to be a multi-blockchain DeFi ecosystem and protocol and is commencing with the ‘unsolved’ use-case of a decentralized options and derivatives trading platform. FinNexus Protocol for Options (FPO) has a strong case for becoming the dominant decentralized options and derivatives platform:
Multi-chain compatibility including but not limited to – Ethereum, Elrond, XRP Ledger, KardiaChain and Wanchain.
Infinite liquidity via the Multi-Asset Single-Pool (MASP) mechanism.
The dynamic margin model enables the same collateral to write multiple options when options prices move further out-of-the-money.
An intuitive and visually appealing user interface supports the above features, leveraging user experience to the next level.
Figure 7: FinNexus’s competitors
Upcoming News and Development Progress
The team is currently working to create synthetic assets, including stocks, bond, and exchange-traded funds.
FinNexus Protocol for Options is aiming to provide universal support for any underlying asset and develop further protocol layers to empower users to hedge, speculate and insure their digital assets, including Blockchain Interaction Protocols (BIP), Protocol Cluster for Assets Payments (PCAP), and an Assets Distribution Protocol (ADP).
Staking mechanism in development to provide staking users with higher returns and lower transactions costs, and provide further security to the FinNexus network.
The FinNexus is focused on developing further partnerships with public blockchains and more real-asset-backed tokens.
FNX Token Release Schedule
Figure 8 depicts a detailed schedule of how the FNX tokens are released into circulation over three years. The team estimates that around 90 million FNX tokens will be injected as the vesting periods are completed.
Figure 8: FNX token release schedule over three years
Reasons to be Bullish
Despite the recent correction of the decentralized finance (DeFi) bubble, total value locked (TVL) in DeFi protocols continues to steadily grow from USD$700 million at the start of 2020 to USD$12 billion as of 24 Oct 2020 (as reported by Defipulse). The next frontier for DeFi is decentralized options and derivatives, a multi-trillion-dollar market that remains untapped, and FinNexus is firmly positioned to be a market leader in this segment.
A strong and ardently passionate team with combined decades of experience in technology, finance, FinTech, and blockchain industries.
Factors to Watch
More popular exchanges branching out into DEX options is one of the greatest threats to FinNexus. Examples of such events would be Binance DEX launching its options trading or, most likely, Synthetix announcing its trading platform for options.
One of the rising DeFi segment concerns is smart contract security. Over 62 million USDworth of assets were lost in several DeFi attacks by hackers in 2020, with the most recent and significant case being Harvest Finance. Such hacks are an emerging alarm for the industry in general and options trading operators like FinNexus.
Executive Summary
Projection Milestones
Note: This projection evaluation method considers both the FNX token price and the FNX circulating supply (CS) as variables. The method is an accurate representation since both are subject to change over time.
Figure 9 presents the timeline for different scenarios determining the potential FNX market cap in the future:
From May 2021, projected CS would be around 30M FNX (6% of total supply); FNX price can potentially x2-3 with the full launch of crypto options products ∙ From the second half of 2022, projected CS would be around 67M FNX (13.4% of total supply); FNX price can x5-7 and surpass Hegic’s current market cap (MC).
In Q3 2022, the FinNexus team predicts their token’s circulating supply will reach around 87M FNX (17.4% of total supply); We expect the project to provide universal support toward its options protocol and add more underlying assets (commodity, stocks). FNX price can x10-12 and reach the top 100 largest cryptocurrencies by MC.
At full token release, CS will be around 460M FNX (note that 6.12% of total supply was burned); FNX price may potentially reach the x15-20 range ($1.5 – $2 token price) assu ming adherence to the development roadmap.
Figure 9: FNX market cap projection
Concluding Remarks
The FinNexus platform has caught the attention of the Kyros Research team. We are bullish on this project and believe that the investors will also be able to see its potential. Considering FinNexus’s favorable metrics versus comparable projects with a higher market cap (e.g. Hegic), we would be astonished to see this token stay under $0.3 during the next 6-month period.
While short term price estimates are difficult to establish due to the volatility of the crypto markets, we expect to see the FNX token price soar to an ATH of $0.7 – $1 in the mid-to-long term, giving it a circulating market cap in the vicinity of $90M. Even higher token price milestones are feasible in the long term, with our most bullish prediction approaching $2 at full token release.
APY.Finance automates yield farming to get users the best, risk-adjusted returns in DeFi. APY.Finance smart contracts continuously route user’s funds to the latest-and-greatest yield farming strategies. The project aims to democratize yield farming by making it accessible to the average user and not just the DeFi experts.
The project uses the technology previously developed by DALP, which won the second place at the HackMoney 2020 hackathon hosted by ETHGlobal.
Main Features of APY.Finance
APY.Finance is a liquidity aggregator with 3 main features:
Pooled liquidity: save gas fee by economies of scale
Funds are deposited to APY.Finance thus adding to the liquidity pool. APT tokens then represent an individual’s share of the pool. APY.Finance can achieve economies of scale by collectively routing funds together in a single transaction
Massive gas savings in excess of 99% are expected as the system’s TVL increases. This innovation alone could revolutionize the accessibility of yield farming. Added to user experience, token redemption can be applied anytime, allowing one to withdraw yield farming profits from the liquidity pool easily
Smart routing
After the initial deposit, APY.Finance will then automatically route funds to the most optimal yield farming strategies, optimized not only for profit but also risk level
In particular, capital is spread across multiple strategies, depending on each strategy’s risk score. Taking a risk-averse case as an example, a small proportion of capital is allocated into high-risk high-return pools, whereas the remaining capital is to be assigned to low risk pools
Community-owned
Security is APY.Finance’s primary concern so strategies will be rolled out carefully and slowly. At first, the platform will be run by DeFi experts that codify yield farming strategies and monitor for time-sensitive incidents
Concurrently, a liquidity mining rewards program will run in order to get the APY token into the hands of real users. APY governance token holders will be able to propose and vote on easily verifiable changes to the DeFi landscape, such as strategy risk score changes or even yield allocation
APY token holders will be able to vote and change system-wide parameters such as fees, risk score, and rebalance thresholds. However, this is just the first of three distinct phases of the project’s roadmap and APY token functionality.
In the second stage, APY holders can propose changes to existing strategies simply by drag-and-drop, without the need for Solidity engineering knowledge.
In the final stage, APY token holders will be able to propose entirely new strategies and influence the deployment of billions of dollars into various DeFi protocols.
Figure 1. APY token distribution
APY.Finance Team
The founding members of APY.Finance are:
Will Shahda, CEO & Solidity engineer
Partner at Wired Capital which develops algorithmic cryptocurrency trading bots that use arbitrage strategies and machine learning techniques
After founding WP-Science, a small business developing, marketing, and distributing WordPress plugins, Will wrote and audited Solidity smart contracts for companies such as Jarvis Network and Squarelink
He organized and lead teams competing in blockchain hackathons, frequently placing and winning sponsorship prizes. Furthermore, Will handled Solidity development, project management, and pitch presentations for hackathon projects
Prior to focusing on blockchain technology, Will led development and delivered flagship products for international brands including Kraft, Mondelēz International, Green Mountain Coffee and Spin Galactic international franchise when working for Blue World Inc and Arana Interactive
Chan-Ho Suh, Smart contract developer at APY.Finance
Backend developer with 6+ years of experience spanning across structured and unstructured environments, small and large teams, and rigorously tested production code and ad-hoc rapid application development.
Currently working as a smart contract developer at APY.Finance and Tech Lead for Capital One
Prior to that, the Cornell alumnus was a senior software engineer for a loan syndication platform (LoanStreet Inc.), a quant developer leading development of the trading desk for volatility derivatives at MIO Partners, an application developer at JPMorgan Chase & Co and an electronic trading developer at Nomura
Jonathan Viray, Full stack engineer at APY.Finance
Jonathan is a self-taught freelance software developer and a licensed contract attorney
Jonathan served as an associate attorney for Zhang & Associates and Special Counsel, and as a contract attorney for Epiq and TransPerfect Legal Solutions.
He used to work at the Earl Carl Institute for Legal and Social Policy and U.S. Attorney’s Office early in his career
APY.Finance advisors include:
Sunil Srivatsa, DeFi strategy advisor and co-founder of Urza DAO
8 years of experience in Uber, Square, Cultivation Capital as a software engineer and analyst
Pascal Tallarida, advisor, founder of Jarvis
prop trader with 12 years of experience, founder and trainer at Diabolo Menthe Trading SAS
APY.Finance Ecosystem
Integral parts of the APY.Finance ecosystem are presented in Figure 2, namely the key investors and DeFi partners and networks. Each of these plays a significant role in the overall success of the APY.Finance platform.
Figure 2. APY.Finance ecosystem
APY.Finance’s DeFi industry network encompasses well-established brands such as Uniswap, Sushiswap, Balancer, Compound, Synthetix, Jarvis, PieDAO, 1inch, Yearn.finance, dY/dX, Aave, and Curve.
APY.Finance’s investors enable its long term vision to become reality. The key investors include Alameda Research, Arrington XRP Capital, Cluster Capital, CoinGecko, Genblock Capital, TRG Capital, The LAO, 12 Capital, and Vendetta Capital.
Comparable Projects
APY.Finance is one of the three most popular liquidity aggregators, including yearn.finance and Delphi from Akropolis. All three of them have already attracted funding into their pools prior to their IDO launches. Here APY stands out with the highest TVL prior to IDO/token issuance as compared to the other two, with around $34 million locked into the smart contract thus far. Meanwhile the APY range is similar across platforms as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3. APY.Finance versus Yearn.finance and Delphi
Upcoming News and Development Progress
APY.Finance Token Generation Event
Around 2.6M APY tokens will be available for sale on Balancer’s liquidity bootstrapping pool (LBP) on November 5, 2020 at 14:00 UTC.
The LBP will run for 48 hours on a fair Dutch auction format, ending on an exact block number to be announced.
The token will be released on a declining price mechanism, which effectively wipes out all front-running bot attempts. For instance, if a bot snips all APY tokens in the very first seconds, the changing pool weights will cause the APY token price to drop below the initial acquisition price as confirmed by the project’s CEO.
Such a mechanism and commitment will truly provide fair chances for those with real needs and interests in the token governance, rather than allow speculation and whale manipulation.
Token Release Schedule
APY.Finance has a fixed cap of 100M APY on total supply. The token release schedule has lengthy lock up terms, indicating long-term commitment from both the team and its investors:
Around 7.5M APY tokens in circulation at the IDO event
The team has adopted a 4-year vesting schedule (1-year cliff, 3-year linearly vested)
All seed and strategic investors are also aligned on a 1-year vesting schedule with 9c and 13.5c cost basis, respectively
Development Roadmap
Completed milestones and the plan for the rest of 2020:
Launch of the liquidity mining program with more than 1,500 unique addresses participating, locking a round of $40 million in liquidity mining smart contracts
Updates to the liquidity mining user interface to make it more intuitive
Preparation for IDO strategy
Alpha product development
Reasons to be Bullish
Impressive growth in the DeFi industry boosts project confidence:
DEX volume skyrocketed 80x from the beginning of this year until October
TVL in smart contracts for DeFi projects exceeds $12B at the time of writing, reaching the 20x YTD growth rate milestone
However, liquidity aggregator TVL market share is still only 8%, relatively small compared to DEX and lending protocols (Figure 4)
Green field in the liquidity aggregator niche – there is a small number of projects participating. Thus, APY.Finance has a higher chance to capture market share at this early stage
Figure 4. Yield farming market components and structure by TVL
Factors to Watch
Potential emergence of new liquidity aggregator projects with more competitive advantages, especially ones developed and supported by popular DEXs or pools like Uniswap, Curve.fi, etc. The development from Yearn.finance is also a factor to watch since they are currently the market leader in the liquidity aggregator niche market.
Annual percentage yield (APY) is the key reason that attracts individual investors (based on the CoinGecko survey), who tend not to be loyal to any platform unless it provides most benefits to them. The SushiSwap $800M liquidity “steal” from Uniswap always remains a practical case study for the DeFi industry.
Executive Summary
Projection Milestones
Note: This projection evaluation method considers both the APY token price and the APY circulating supply as variables. This is an accurate representation since both are subject to change over time.
At the time of writing, the circulating supply (CS) is 8M APY, and the market cap (MC) reaches $2M
Right after the IDO, we expect 25M APY tokens will be in circulation. Considering the price may rise modestly due to the current hype (x2-4), MC could be in the range of $12.5M to $25M
One year after the launch, when strategic and seed round investors’ tokens are fully released, APY CS will be around 68M APY. APY then has a chance to surpass FARM’s MC
At full token release, the CS will be 100M APY. APY token price may potentially reach $5 per token, giving it a circulating market cap in line with YFI’s MC and in the vicinity of $500M
Figure 5 presents the different possible scenarios determining the potential APY market cap and the associated return on investment (ROI) in the future.
Figure 5. Future APY market cap projection
Concluding Remarks
The APY.Finance’s advanced solution seems like a necessity if the yield farming industry is to grow and lead the DeFi adoption trend. The Kyros Research team is bullish on this project, and we believe that the crypto enthusiasts and investors alike will also be able to understand its potential.
Taking into account APY.Finance’s favorable metrics versus comparable projects with a higher market cap (e.g. Yearn.finance), we would be extremely surprised to see this token stay under $0.5 at the IDO in the tail end of 2020.
Due to the volatile nature of the crypto markets, short term price estimates are difficult to establish. We, however, expect to see the APY token price soar to $2 – $2.5 in the mid-to-long term, giving it a circulating market cap in the vicinity of $170M.
Even higher token price milestones are feasible in the long term, our most bullish prediction envisaging APY potentially reaching the Yearn.finance’s market cap in the future. Taking into account that the total market capitalization of the liquidity aggregator segment of the crypto market is relatively small compared to that of the DEX and lending segments, APY.Finance definitely has a promising future ahead.
