Avax_Daily hosts Defrost: #Defi #Defrost #AvaxDaily #AVAX
Avax_Daily Admin: Hello and welcome, how are you today?
Michele: Hi everyone, this is Michele, I am the CEO of Defrost Finance. Super excited to be here and doing pretty well I must say!
Avax_Daily Admin: Happy to hear! Ready to start our AMA?
Michele: Ready to roll!
Q1: Now to start the AMA, please have a quick introduction to the community. What is Defrost all about? Where did the idea for this project come from?
Michele: Defrost Finance is the platform behind the first stablecoin native to the Avalanche blockchain. Originally We were co-incubated by the Avatar Fund and Wanlabs, the research arm of Wanchain.
The reason why we launched -in a nutshell, but happy to elaborate further – is that we saw a very clear opportunity in the fact that one of the fastest-growing chains out there – and one with the best tech – lacked a native stablecoin. We figured there was a space for us and moved in as quickly as we could.
Recent numbers, at least in my opinion, show that the intuition is proving right 😃
Q2: I know you have had no ICOs, IDOs, or pre-sales and decided to opt for a completely fair launch approach. Could you tell us why and how you think this approach will play out for Defrost?
Michele: From the very beginning, we decided to go full fair launch. The reasons are more than one.
What I would like to stress is that we think this is the right choice both in terms of fairness and in terms of development for Defrost. It is obviously fairer to users, since fair launch means no one has special access to our token. (Obviously, the more capital you can invest, the more you can mint, but that’s inevitable.)
It is also best for our future development because it prevents VCs from having too much influence over the project. We are community-first and it is our users who will decide how the platform will develop.
Furthermore, being fair launch is an obvious marketing advantage since everybody loves such projects 😃
Q3: It seems that you have two tokens – a stablecoin named H2O and a governance token, the MELT. Can you tell us a bit more about those? How can they be obtained and how do they work?
Michele: H2O is the actual stablecoin. What’s innovative about it, is that It is minted by providing LP tokens users have on Dexes and lending platforms (Trader Joe, Pangolin and Benqi for now). This is where our fundamental use case or business purpose comes into play – we help users leverage assets that would otherwise sit idle in their wallets.
If you have tokens that have been staked on, say, the USDC/USDT pool on Trader Joe, you can use them to mint H2O on Defrost and, upon staking them, mine MELT as a reward. That MELT can then be used in farms to get additional returns.
So it’s basically yields and more yields.
Which brings me to the second token I’ve already mentioned- the MELT.
This is our governance token and is capped at 100,000,000. It is NOT a stablecoin and is used to provide users with returns on their investments, besides being the gateway to our governance system which will come online probably this month.
At the moment, users can stake their MELT either on Trader Joe – APR at nearly 600% -or on our own single token MELT pool.
Q4: We know you have just launched a new MELT pool with a unique compounding system. Could you explain how that works and why users would want to join?
Michele: The single-token MELT pool is the latest instrument to be launched by Defrost. (It went live only yesterday.) It works differently from other farming pools in that it has no fixed amount of rewards but an interest rate of 0.2% a day that automatically -and I stress automatically – compounds every 24 hours. This means that early users will be able to reap 107% returns in MELT on their investment over the year.
Besides the MELT, participants in the pool also receive 50% of the H2O fees accumulated over the previous month, distributed between all participants. In this sense, they are proper stakeholders of the company, since fees measure how much h2o is being minted.
All a user has to do is come with MELT, stake it and wait for the rewards.
From Defrost perspective the pool is useful because it creates a positive circle in which users are encouraged to stake MELT earlier and for longer periods of time (both actions guarantee higher returns) and thus take away MELT from the market, helping the price. As for H2O, with higher prices in MELT and a great staking opportunity, users are encouraged to mint.
Q5: We also know that next week or so you will launch something called a “Super Vault”. What is it?
Michele: Yes indeed. That’s one big big piece of news for Defrost!
You see, at the moment, if you stake your tokens on a platform and get the LPs which you can then use to mint H2O – such as, say, qiDAI – once you come to Defrost you are notable to retain the yields on that platform.
This means that users have to choose whether they like to stake on Platform 1 and be happy with it or come over to us and get additional rewards in MELT for minting H2O.
Now, it’s very clear that with TVL surpassing 150 million in two weeks – peaked at 178 last week before the crypto crash – many users are happy to do so!
But we thought that allowing all yields to be retained would provide our users with a great service… and that’s where the super vault comes into play
With the Super Vault users will be able to retain the rewards native to the original platforms they have staked on, while also using Defrost 😃In other words, it will be one step – rewards, one more step – more rewards, one more step – still more rewards.
Currently, the contract for the super vault is being audited. It should come online next week for Benqi users.
Q6: Let’s talk about marketing plan, partnerships & influencers that you are collaborating with.
Michele: Our marketing plan so far has focused on two main goals – maximizing the exposure to our key communities and spreading our message as far as possible on AVAX. In practical terms, this meant working with our partner platforms to reach their users – as LP providers, they are our users too! – and working with avalanche-centric media outlets and influencers.
This strategy will likely change in the coming months toward more branding. Defrost is growing more mature and we need to have the community understand what we stand for.
Q7: What are the project goals? Can you share with us your roadmap in the next 6 months?
Michele: In the short term, we plan to launch the new super vault next week- or shortly after – and then begin to use liquidity from other chains as well.
Here I should mention that Defrost Finance is built to be able to accept LPs from other chains as well to mint H2O. In this sense, Avalanche will be a first step toward greater liquidity.
If you look at the longer term, we aim to become a full DAO. The ultimate goal is to give up control of the platform to our community – something we thing can be done since a stablecoin product is not excessively difficult to manage through voting – and have users vote on everything.
The process, however, will be gradual. It will begin with the implementation of our governance system in the coming weeks and will see the core team gradually give up more and more responsibilities.
Q8: Where can we find out more about Defrost on social media?
Michele: There are plenty of places, but I would start with our official channels:
Twitter: @Defrost_Finance
Discord: https://discord.gg/KsZcADdBym
Telegram: https://t.me/Defrost_Finance
Medium: https://medium.com/@Defrost_Finance
Avax_Daily Admin: With this, we are now at the end of our AMA session with Defrost.
Time for wrapping up, any last words you would like to say to our community?
Michele: First of all, I’d like to thank the Avax Daily administrators for having me tonight. And then of course I’d love to thank you all the participants for having been here. It was nice talking to you 🙏
Avax_Daily Admin: Thank you so much for spending time with our community & all the very best for Defrost.
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