Thank you to the NanoNews Community for participating in Ask Me Anything (AMA) with Equilibrium May 06, 2021. This guest star Alex Melikhov, CEO at Equilibrium. If you were unable to join the live AMA, no worries, here comes our 113th AMA recap!
We are glad to meet here:
Lesley Czuma, Director of Business Development and Customer Success of Equilibrium
For taking your time out from busy schedule for the AMA!
Lesley: Hello everybody, thanks for having me! I feel great – that’s my philosophy. How about you?
Host: Iam feel happy today, our community hopes to talk and learn more about Equilibrium. CEO is busy and will be replaced by Lesley
Introduction Session
Q1. Could you give an introduction of yourself And how you can play an important role in Equilibrium?
My name is Lesley Czuma. I’m the Director of Business Development and Customer Success. So I play a central role in engaging communities such as yours. Before joining Equilibrium, I worked in enterprise blockchain – including a range of applications including and also beyond fintech, such as energy and supply chain. I am convinced that DeFi will revolutionize finance both institutionally and on the level of individual users’ access to funding. This is an exciting time we live in and it is a pleasure for me to be here with you today.
Host: Great, you have many great experience. DeFi will make a lot of changes in the future
Q2. What is Equilibrium? And how is the story behind the Equilibrium Creation?
Equilibrium is a one-stop-shop for DeFi users — it consists of a comprehensive lending platform and a professional-grade, cross-chain DEX. Equilibrium’s main features include pooled lending, a decentralized stablecoin, synthetic asset generation, decentralized margin trading, and perpetual trading. It’s a little like a combination of Compound, MakerDAO, Synthetix, and dY/dX with added extra value on top.
Our current team has been working together since 2017, when we began building on Ethereum. Since then, we have been working on other platforms. In April 2019 we launched the first EOS-based decentralized stablecoin. Today it is the most liquid decentralized stablecoin and the biggest DeFi project on EOS, with over $14 million of total value locked in our smart contracts, and over 1,000 active user positions.
Currently we are working on Polkadot-based Equilibrium and its canary network on Kusama called Genshiro.
Host: Equilibrium has a lot of maximum benefits for users, such as an all in one solution in the DeFi field, this is very interesting.
Q3. What is so exciting about Equilibrium, which might make Equilibrium different from all other projects out there?
In spite of the fact that there are other lending platforms, there are several ways in which Equilibrium is unique and valuable:
We are a one stop shop, offering all key DeFi use cases in one place.
We use three key elements that no one else offers:
1) Risk algorithm: monitors & corrects liquidity continually in real time. Incentivizes bailsmen & liquidity providers to add more liquidity if needed.
2) Programmatic interest rate: users can choose their collateral ratio – & influence their interest rates (these are not fixed)
3) Bailouts instead of forced auctions to resolve bad debt:
We recall what happened on Black Thursday with Maker DAO in 2020. That was because auctions are a risky mechanism – especially in adverse markets. That’s why we have replaced them with bailouts instead – thereby minimizing your risk.
Q4. Please provide some information about your Roadmap, How Equilibrium is progressing so far? And what Equilibrium is currently focused on?
We have already achieved quite important milestones. We have launched our core functions on testnet. Also, the EQ token TGE took place in November 2020, so EQ tokens are available on mainnet. We have successfully completed the first part of our PLO on Polkadot and reached the hardcap (250,000 DOT).
Recently, we announced our project on Kusama, which is called Genshiro. It’s an interoperable DeFi conglomerate on Kusama that can do all things that existing DeFi primitives do, but with less risk and in a cross-chain manner.
At the moment, we are mainly focusing on the PLO on Polkadot and the parachain auctions on Kusama which will start soon. We are also in talks with multiple partners regarding our further business cooperation. These include liquidity providers, trading companies, wallets, and major exchanges regarding EQ/GENS token listings.
Host: Great, Lately, the news about polkadot and kusama has been heard a lot and has made some investors glance at them and their ecosystem. I hope the Equilibrium will get positive sentiment regarding that as well
Q5. Please tell us more about Equilibrium Token Whaten! What utilities does the token have, and what benefits will tokens holders get?
Since we have 2 projects (on Polkadot and Kusama), there are 2 utility tokens: EQ and GENS.
EQ relates to our Polkadot-based product line. EQ is the core asset of our interoperable money market, widely used throughout our system and the applications that run on top of it. The initial supply is 120 million EQ tokens, fully compatible across every blockchain bridged with Polkadot.
EQ token use cases broadly fall into four categories: paying fees, accessing system governance, liquidity farming, and bailouts/system liquidity. At the moment, participating in the PLO phase 2 on Polkadot is the only way to get EQ tokens. But we are in talks with exchanges.
As I mentioned before, recently we announced our Kusama-based utility token GENS. Its use cases include governance, voting for validators, transaction fees, interest rates, and (when GENS will become a more established asset) liquidity for bailouts & collateral.
There are several ways to get GENS tokens:
1) The first option is to participate in the PLO and get interest from staking GENS during the parachain leasing period.
2) You can also join the Genshiro ambassador program for your shot at sharing the 300,000 GENS prize pool which will be announced this week. So, please stay tuned.
3) Each whitelist participant will receive a referral link that’s tied to your email address. You will get a 1% referral bonus in GENS for every person who participates in the PLO on Kusama using that link. Feel free to join the whitelist here: https://forms.gle/7UAyVhsAAdx9H2T66
Twitter Sessions
Q1. Equilibrium has successfully completed phase 1 of its PLO, a DOT/EQ token exchange. How will this protocol help secure your Polkadot parachain slot? This does not involve any risk? Participants will automatically get their DOT back at the end of the lease period?
During the DOT/EQ token swap there was a custodian (Copper) which provided custody services for the phase 1. Once Polkadot auctions start Copper will submit the bid for our selected lease period (24 months) by transferring DOT to the decentralized crowdloan module on the Polkadot relay chain.
The swap was risk-free because it didn’t have an implied risk of an EQ/DOT price drop in case EQ doesn’t perform well. Also, every swap participant gets the right to reverse the swap at the initial swap rate for free. They can exercise this right at the end of the parachain lease period.
If Equilibrium fails to secure a parachain leasing slot after repeated attempts within five months, then swap participants will have the opportunity to swap back their EQ to DOT.
Q2. I’m new in the theme about cryptocurrencies and projects so, considering that you work mainly on Defi, what are the problems that are you solving on it?
In my opinion, there are several obvious industry hurdles that we are also addressing at Equilibrium. They include:
1. Market fragmentation. Before us, users needed to use several apps on different protocols.
2. Lack of interoperability. We design Equilibrium to enable asset transfers across chains & and use of different assets in lending combining them in collateral baskets.
3. Inefficient bad debt liquidations. We are introducing the bailout mechanism that will prevent situations like with MakerDAO in March 2020 by ensuring bailout liquidity in advance
4. Liquidity issues. Equilibrium maximizes cross-chain, non-custodial liquidity by using multiple assets from different protocols
Q3. Phase 1 of Equilibrium’s PLO received about $8.5 million in DOT, congratulations! My question regarding this is: what functions did or will Cooper and Signum Capital, both partners of yours, play in the safekeeping of all the DOT collected? what role do they play in this regard?
Thanks! As I mentioned before all the DOT collected during our token swap is kept absolutely safe. This DOT will live in a cold wallet by Copper. When Polkadot parachain auctions start Copper will submit the bid for our selected lease period by transferring DOT to the decentralized crowdloan module on the Polkadot relay chain.
The wallet is under multisignature permissions, and all DOT operations (like withdrawals and transfers) need to be authorized by all the participants. This refers to the Equilibrium team, as well as Signum Capital, a well-known Singapore-based ecosystem participant and investor who kindly committed to becoming a part of our multisig.
Q4. As a community based project, how can I donate my quota for your success? Do you have a Global Ambassador Program or a Referral Rewards System?
We appreciate the support of our community. We have Equilibrium’s Ambassador Program. Feel free to read the full Ambassador Program description here: https://medium.com/equilibrium-eosdt/become-an-equilibrium-ambassador-v2-bde2ee9e4149
We invite everyone to participate in the program! 💙
At the same time, we are planning to launch the ambassador program for our Kusama-based Genshiro with the 300,000 GENS prize pool. So, please join the dedicated chat to be up to date: https://t.me/eq_ambassadors
Since we are preparing for upcoming parachain suctions on Kusama, there are more opportunities for our community members:
You will be able to participate in Genshiro PLO and get interest from staking GENS during the parachain leasing period.
Also, all whitelist participants will get a 1% bonus in GENS on their contributions to PLO on Kusama. Feel free to join the whitelist here: https://forms.gle/7UAyVhsAAdx9H2T66
Q5. So what the reason team choose the polkadot chain?(apart from the cheap fee) any good explanation from the team that can interesting the big investor to choose the equilibrium? Once more what is the best advantage for team? Thanks!
We’ve been watching the Polkadot ecosystem for quite a long time. We were just waiting for the right moment to jump on the development.
Polkadot sits at the forefront of blockchain evolution, providing tools to solve high resource cost, scaling, decentralized governance, and cross-chain interoperability issues. We’ve considered several options when deciding to scale beyond EOS: Algorand, Cosmos, TON, but picked Polkadot as the most promising and widely welcome among the broad crypto community.
Live AMA
Q1. I see your project has several partners but who is the main partner? What are the benefits of the collaboration between the Equilibrium project and the Blockchain ecosystem? and will those targets be completed and implemented soon in 2021?
Our main partner is probably Polkadot as a platform itself – better said, the Web 3 Foundation and Parity – the organizations behind it. That is because we are building on the Polkadot platform and it offers us a uniquely valuable technology.
Polkadot solves all the main tech challenges that are key for DeFi – interoperability, security, scalability.
Q2. Most solid projects with token utility and good infrastructure but perform poorly because investors dumped after listing on the first exchange. How can I prevent initial investors from dumping your Equilibrium tokens?
This is unlikely to happen since our token is valuable already for its utility. It enables you to vote, participate in governance, pay fees, use our products – all of which are essential to benefitting from our unique offering. In other words, we are a real project, with real value, not just an empty token.
What’s more, we offer use cases that fill a gap and are needed, and offer elegant solutions.
Q3. What is your top 3 things for priorities in 2021? Could you share some plans for the upcoming year ?
Q.What is your top 3 things for priorities in 2021? Could you share some plans for the upcoming year ?
1) The first priority that stands before us is to win an auction and become a parachain on Kusama.
2) Second, is to win an auction and become a parachain on Polkadot
3) We expect that there will be many learnigns from the experience of developing our parachain on the Kusama network, and we will use these to optimize our offer on Polkadot
Thanks very much for having me on your AMA, thanks for your questions and your attention! Before I go, I would like to give you some useful links so you can stay in touch with us and participate in Equilibrium’s community:
Stay tuned for our further updates:
Website: https://equilibrium.io
Twitter Equilibrium: https://twitter.com/EquilibriumDeFi
Twitter Genshiro: https://twitter.com/GenshiroDeFi
Telegram: https://t.me/equilibrium_eosdt_official
Medium: https://medium.com/equilibrium-eosdt
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