Equilibrium — CryptoVerse AMA
Date : 3rd Dec 2020
Guest : Alex Melikhov — CEO
Q: Please briefly introduce yourself and #Equilibrium to our community?
Alex Melikhov : I’m Alex, the CEO at Equilibrium, the leading cross-chain DeFi project. I’m an engineer in applied mathematics by training. Before I arrived at the blockchain space I was focusing on fintech — mostly payment systems and gateways. I was always on the tech and architectural side of things.
I came to crypto in 2016 when we co-founded Changelly. Currently, it’s one of the largest instant crypto exchanges on the market.
In 2017 I decided to put together a team of senior developers and financial engineers to start the development of DApps. We were building a lending platform on Ethereum those days and it was even before all DeFi buzz.
In 2018 we kicked off the development of the EOS blockchain. We have launched the first decentralized stablecoin on EOS called EOSDT in April 2019. Today it is the most liquid stablecoin on EOS and one of the biggest DeFi projects there, with over $13 million of total value locked in our smart contracts, and over 1000 open user positions.
About Equilibrium : For now we are working on turning Equilibrium into a one-stop-shop for DeFi users. Imagine that you can do all Ethereum primitives, but in a single place and cross-chain. It’s all coming true thanks to our recent developments on Polkadot.
Our main goal is to unite all sustained DeFi use cases in a single easy-to-use interface on the basis of cross-chain liquidity pools and a robust innovative technology that underpins all the product line.
The use cases for the lending platform include pooled lending (like Compound), synthetic asset and decentralized stablecoin generation (like Synthetix and MakerDAO respectively). For the cross-chain DEX we anticipate trading on margin and perpetuals to be the main products.
Equilibrium allows users to stake and earn, lend, borrow, raise liquidity in synthetic assets and decentralized stablecoins — all in one place. Our tech is super scalable and secure thanks to the underlying technology — Polkadot. Also, it accesses all protocols bridged to Polkadot to unlock full DeFi potential.
Q: After migrating from EOS to Polkadot, what expansion of the development path of Equilibrium has been made? What can Equilibrium bring to Polkadot’s ecological development?
A: Well, It’s absolutely a new level for us. With the expansion of our project to include interoperability across major blockchains and use of their assets, Equilibrium is filling a missing link in the DeFi space, which will unlock huge economic potential.
As I mentioned before, Equilibrium allows users to stake and earn, lend, borrow, raise liquidity in synthetic assets and decentralized stablecoins — all in one place combining different blockchains.
Also, we have received a Web3 Foundation grant to develop our DeFi pallet. The pallet will benefit anyone building complex DeFi and Fintech solutions using Substrate technology because it offers a lot of functionality out of the box to reduce development efforts.
Generally speaking, we expect development simplification to facilitate the migration of DApps from other blockchain platforms to Polkadot.
Q: Could you give us an overview of the tokenomics? Is the token designed to rise and fall with the success of the platform? And does it include any scarcity paths such as stake, store, or burn?
A: Of course one of the ways our token’s value will grow is through the success of our platform and its unique products.
These fill some important gaps in Defi, including:
- Solving cross-chain liquidity (cross-chain multi-asset collateral and trading — manage all your assets on all protocols from 1 convenient interface)
- Making liquidity sustainable (three-step risk management that monitors and corrects liquidity constantly)
- Ending the fragmentation of DeFi (all key use cases in a one stop shop)
- Insuring lending by replacing forced auctions with a bailout mechanism.
But the success of our platform is not the only way the token’s value will grow. We have several token distribution mechanics that influence the scarcity and value of the token.
These include:
Staking, notably a liquidity farming program that will start soon.
It is designed to reward users in EQ tokens for active use of Equilibrium’s products. We have allocated 12 million EQ tokens (10% of the total supply) to encourage crypto users to bring assets into our DeFi money market. The liquidity farming pool will distribute EQ tokens to borrowers and bailsmen alike, based on their relative liquidity size. The aim is to evenly distribute the entire allocation of 12 million EQ tokens over a period of three years.
During Initial Parachain Offering (IPO). DOT token holders will be able to stake their DOTs in our name for a parachain slot and receive EQ tokens in exchange. This will be a risk-free trade-off — they will be able to submit EQ and get their DOT back at the end of the parachain leasing period (if they wish). IPO dates will be announced soon.
EQ token distribution for investors in private equity.
During the NUT -> EQ token swap (ended)
Let me say a word about our new utility token, “EQ”. It will work on any blockchain supported in the Polkadot ecosystem and will have a lot of utility both on Equilibrium’s platform and beyond. It will be used for governance, to vote for validators, to cover transaction fees, for staking, and for covering.
You can find more details on the EQ token economy on our website:
Q: What is your strongest advantage that you think will make your team leading the market? In contrast, what is your weakness? How do you plan to overcome it?
A: Equilibrium has several competitive advantages, which makes us stand out from other DeFi projects.
1) Unique on-chain risk management system :
The risk management system monitors the overall system liquidity in real-time, starting from individual users’ multi-asset portfolios and aggregating them to follow overall system solvency. It also takes into account multiple other factors as asset portfolio volatility and collateralization level of a particular user position.
2) Programmatic interest rate :
The programmatic interest rate is opposed to the flat rate set by governance in most of DeFi protocols. In our case, it’s reflecting the risk level in the system and also largely depends on the risk profile of the particular user position. In simple terms, the less risky a user position and the more bailout liquidity in the system is — the lower interest rate user pays.
3) Bailouts and proactive protection to bad debt :
Bailouts are a proactive solution to bad debt. Most DeFi projects liquidate the debt by way of auction, but forced actions might become risky in an adverse market (as we learned from the MakerDAO case). In our case, we are establishing a special user role called bailsmen.
Currently, I can’t say that we have any weaknesses. The main objective for us is to unite all sustained DeFi use cases in a single easy-to-use interface on the basis of cross-chain liquidity pools and a robust innovative technology that underpins all the product line.
Q: How will you attract investors and build the trust and win the hearts of millions of people in your project?
A: Both of these tasks are about communication, but the specific approach is a little different in each of the two cases.
We have a systematic approach to communication with investors. We research them and their interests, have phone calls with them in which we pitch our project, explain its goals, products, roadmap, and vision. They ask us questions and conduct due diligence to further test the match. We also continually inform them about news on our project — major developments and milestones that we have achieved.
As to our community, we have a number of social media channels in which we engage — e.g. Twitter, Telegram, WeChat, etc. — and we regularly publish updates in our blog on Medium (in English, Chinese, Korean). Beyond this, we also have a dedicated PR program, in which we attract the attention of journalists and the media to write about us. Our team regularly participates in AMAs, podcasts, and conference panels on DeFi, in which we comment on trends and also present Equilibrium. We also engage with our community as much as possible, so that you can get involved. To do this, we have an ambassador program in which we recruit community members to be Equilibrium advocates and act as community resources. We invite our community to participate in our testnet to try out our products and give us feedback.
Feel free to get involved in either of these activities here:
Upcoming Ambassador Program
To join testnet:
and don’t hesitate to share your feedback here:
Q: Partnerships are crucial for Adoption, so can you tell us what partners you have currently and future partnerships?
A:At this moment we have partnered with several major projects. Polkadot to expand our product lines; Web 3 Foundation to facilitate the migration of DApps from other blockchain platforms to Polkadot; Quantstamp to make sure our Polkadot-based technology is secure and lacks vulnerabilities; Chainlink and Bluezelle to diversified price feeds; Reef.finance to boost liquidity for both our platforms; StaFi to make our networks and assets more fully compatible with each other.
At the same time, we are in talks with multiple partners regarding our further business cooperation. These include liquidity providers, trading companies, wallets etc. We are also talking to major exchanges regarding EQ token listings. Follow us and stay tuned for further updates.
Here are some links:
Official Announcement Channel:
Telegram chat:
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/EquilibriumDeFi
Q: Why did Equilibrium choose Quantstamp to audit the core components of your system? What makes this company so well suited to this task? Exactly which elements of your platform will be audited?
A: Quantstamp has made a name for itself in the DeFi space by supporting numerous pioneering projects, e.g. Zilliqa, Binance, yearn.finance, Chainlink, ConsenSys on Ethereum 2.0. Notably, they helped to suggest reforms to MakerDAO after Black Thursday.
So considering that we highly value quality and consider security to be a priority, they were an obvious choice. Also, no other project on Polkadot has used them yet, and we feel that their audit of us will add a lot of value to the ecosystem for other projects too, since there are learning to be had for everyone building on Polka’s Substrate as a common denominator. All of our business logic / products are being audited — lending, borrowing, price feeds.
Q: To archieve a good performance the interoperability is absolutely necessary, can you tell me how is possible to Equilibrium have that Awesome interoperability? Which is the technology responsible of this?
A: Polkadot is the technology behind our project. It is the successor to Ethereum, since it has been created by Gavin Woods, who was Ethereum’s chief architect. He knows what to target to improve Ethereum’s performance, and that is the focus of the improvements that you will find on Polkadot. These are: High scalability, security, and, of course, interoperability.
Q: How does Equilibrium platform handle cross-chain issues like slow Transaction speed and high fees?
A: Equilibrium uses Polkadot’s technology, which is highly scalable, and that solves the issue of transaction speeds. High fees are also a thing of the past, because Polkadot does not have gas fees.
Q: What is your long-term vision of the industry where the Equilibrium works? Are you afraid that one day there will be another project with more innovative technology that can replace Equilibrium?
A: Actually, we are not afraid of competition — our understanding of DeFi is that it is a synergetic and cooperative space. That’s the reason that we believe in and are fostering interoperability — we want to unite different assets and platforms — not to keep them isolated and siloed — because that’s not sustainable. This is all the more so since DeFi is about decentralization — but at the same time as a community with the purpose of empowering the user. That means we need to work together, and that is why Equilibrium is forming a lot of partnerships to improve the user experience and expand possibilities. Examples include Chainlink, Bluzelle, Quantstamp, Stafi, Reef.Finance, etc.
Follow us: Website | Twitter | Telegram |Facebook
Join Cryptoverse!
Join the community chat on Telegram. Follow us on Twitter. Subscribe us on Youtube.
