Bonded.Finance AMA Recap
CryptoDiffer team
Hello, everyone!
We are glad to meet here
Managing partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mak
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
How’s it going everyone. Thanks for having me
CryptoDiffer team
Q1: Can you introduce yourself to our community ?
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
Sure thing.
My name is Paul Mak
37yr old
Dad with 2 kids (boys aged 8 and 6)
Investor/operator for the last 17yrs spanning a diverse range of industries.
FMCG, core manufacturing, Pharma, property, gold and crypto
CryptoDiffer team
Q2: Can you briefly tell us what is Bonded.Finance in 3-5 sentences?
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
So we’ve been hailed the “compound of altcoins” but we’ve taken lending and the use of smart contracts another evolution forward to enable us to support a much large range of altcoins.
Through an algorithmic bonding process, we’re building new lending instruments we call “smart instruments” that enable us to leverage altcoins as a lending product. This results in lending instruments with reduced risk and higher yield.
That’s the basic foundation for the construction of our product suite. But it’s enabling us to create some pretty cool exotics.
What’s really exciting is that these products enable us the ability to harvest billions in dormant capital, convert it into productive capital and generate a tonne of network fees, profits and all that good stuff that keeps the lights on!
CryptoDiffer team
Q3: Let`s now talk about the milestones you have achieved and about your upcoming plans?
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
Well we’re actually off to the races. Interface is built and being tested already and our first product we’re looking to deploy shortly after the public round. Instead of talking about it though.
CryptoDiffer team
Awesome, a lot of updates to come out!
Thank you for great answers!
I think it is time to start community questions round!
Cryptodiffer Community
The recent sell-off has wreaked havoc on DeFi tokens, as it erased many of the gains recorded in August thereby making different rumors to spring up in the crypto space that DeFi bubble is near. What’s your view on this? Do you see this as a threat to your project development or as an opportunity for traders to scoop on discounted tokens?
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
Before Defi became popular it was always considered as one of the main tenets of crypto so I think people calling defi a bubble are also calling crypto (and bitcoin) a bubble too.
Which is my opinion isn’t the case at all. We’re essentially speaking the same language as Wall Street now with the type of products we are building only we’re making them faster, cheaper, more transparent and free of human error (or most of it).
Cryptodiffer Community
What innovations exactly are you bringing to the lending ecosystem? What problems will you solve therein?
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
One of the primary problems we are addressing is the singular illiquidity of altcoins. By building what are essentially crypto indexes and utilising them as a lending instrument we help not only lenders enjoy premium returns but we help all altcoiners leverage their bags to exploit new opportunities or free up cashflow.
Cryptodiffer Community
I tried to check your website but couldn’t find anything there, I would like to know some of the services you offer and the stage the project is at currently? Also, will there be whitepaper as time goes by or you will be jumping to prototypes directly? Kindly tell us more
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
Yea sorry about the lack of public information. That was my call. Defi moves too fast, there are far too many imitators and copy cats and we just want to ensure we have a little runway before we give them a chance. But yes we will issue the whitepaper soon. We are also jumping straight into MVP deployment shortly after the public round and will also be providing all applicable documentation with the release of every product including third party audits.
Cryptodiffer Community
What difficulties are you faced or facing to bring partnerships or mass adoption, while blockchain seemed as a scam in the common people? How are you going through this?
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
The level of adoption of the blockchain by institutions is now high. Much more than two years ago when we started the project.
Cryptodiffer Community
What do you think the role of community in Bonded.Finance ecosystem? What’s your plans to keep build positive community and what do you expect support from CRYTODIFER community?
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
From this community. All we ask is that you give it a try. Even if it’s just $5. It doesn’t matter. Just make sure you take her for a test drive. It’s not only a great way to earn money but it’s a great way to broaden your knowledge of decentralised financial products. It’s really exciting as a user.
Cryptodiffer Community
What’s Bonded.Finance long-term development plan? How do you make users believe that Bonded.Finance is a long-term high-quality project?
What’s the biggest challenge for Bonded.Finance in the future? And how do you plan to solve this problem?
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
Yea good questions. It’s actually mind blowing from an economists perspective what is happening in the current defi markets. The incentive models are beyond anything of the norm. It’s clearly a zero sum game on most platforms which in most instances would drive people away but instead we’ve got people rushing the gates trying to jump in. It’s obviously not a sustainable model.
That’s something that we were dedicated to building in the construction of our interface and products. Our products add security like a blanket to the whole altcoin space incentivising stronger hands and the ability to hold onto assets longer. That’s our long term model.
Most of our products aren’t going to offer such abstract short term returns. We want sustainable use of capital and a better balance of incentives between lender and borrower that fosters that long term sustainable business model.
Don’t get me wrong though. We intimately understand the LP incentives that drive initial adoption and we certainly have those incentives weighted on the front of our initial marketing campaigns.
As for the future. The easy part is attracting users to your network. The hard part is keeping them. But as outlined above, we have a good incentive balance that supports hundreds of altcoins. That’s how we keep them.
Cryptodiffer Community
Who are the main Competitors Do you see in the market?
What makes Unique to Bonded. finance?
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
Would have to say SALT, AAVE and COMP.
Their offerings are all quite standard lending solutions. Ours are far more exotic and enable investors to increase yield and risk exposure significantly. We also have some cool kickers mechanically built into the smart contracts for example one product enables the lender to take a percentage of the upside appreciation of the assets held us collateral in exchange for a slightly reduced interest rate. That’s really cool. It’s all automated too.
The other is our automated risk parameters. We’ve got the interest rate variable based on linear demand calculations but we’ve also modelled similar for LVR / LTV and also a “liquidity scraper” to ensure the assets in the collateral basket maintain reasonable sell down liquidity.
We also support way more altcoins and it’s thanks to these innovative smart contract designs that we can do that.
Cryptodiffer Community
It’s quite unfortunate these days that DeFi developers pay more attention to the technical side & capitalization, focusing on how to build lending services on blockchain, rather than the security of smart contracts thereby making Defi projects a target for bad actors. Can you talk more security of Bonded Finance? Why should we trust the expertise of it creators?
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
Yea fair assessment. There is only one standard in my opinion. Industry wide trusted, third party smart contract audits. It’s simple. Any project who isn’t doing that, should not be trusted imo.
Cryptodiffer Community
Adoption is a real Problem nowadays as Many projects are coming day by day,
How will You try to get adoption around the globe?
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
It’s not a one street solution.
No coiners need to use the same tools or use tools that operate intuitively in the same way.
Need easy fiat onramps etc so capital can get into the defi space.
Once there though:
Simple lending products that institutions and retail investors understand is key and an intuitive interface that resonates that. Everyone understands how to get a loan or how to loan out money. Don’t confuse them with crypto or technicalities. A new meta mask solution / wallet with a more familiar mobile screen would help that too.
Cryptodiffer Community
What public networks does BondedFinance plan to integrate with? Tell us about your existing partnerships today?
What is the structure of BondedFinance? Is it a decentralized open source protocol that anyone can contribute to? How do you plan to manage?
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
I’m sorry but I can’t go into partnerships just yet. We will be disclosing them publicly soon though so stay tuned for sure.
As for our smart instruments – yes they are decentralised products. We are baking in governance capabilities into our native coin so the platform can be managed by our community as well. More decentralised the better.
Cryptodiffer Community
What keeps you ahead of your competitors and why should we trust your brand instead of trusting ur competitors?
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
I’ve addressed the competitive edge in an earlier response. As for trust. The idea is to not have to have to trust anyone. Once the products are audited and deployed, it’s all in your hands!
Cryptodiffer Community
All current projects are concerned with the speed and quantity of transactions. Old projects have also improved their network. So what else does Bonded Finance need to bring to investors?
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
I think what we’re bringing already is enough to chew on for now. This whole space is essentially one big experiment in behavioural economics. With that in mind one thing we are bringing is a relentless commitment to innovation and experimentation to better the tools and the yields of our user base.
Cryptodiffer Community
As we know, every successful project has a few stories behind the scenes, What’s the story behind the development of Bonded.Finance , how was the idea formed, what are you most proud of and how were you able to overcome challenges whilst developing your platform ?
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
Actually the story converges from 3 seperate stories.
1. I was managing a family fund. In 2017 we did pretty well just like everyone else but we over committed and started just crop dusting allocations everywhere (at that time every seed and private round was oversubscribed). In hindsight we invested in some really embarassing projects haha. But 2018 hit and we took on heavy losses and then had to watch our capital dissolve as all the liquidity was sucked out of the market. We ended bag holding some big portfolios of illiquid assets. So we started looking at ways to extract any value/capital we could.
2. One of the projects we invested in was a defi project (in 2018). They had the basic tenets of p2p lending. I started coming up with ideas that I was going to pitch to them. Before I got the chance to, in late 2019 they came and asked us for more capital. After finding out they had poorly managed the investment we made we decided against supporting them and instead taking our ideas to build our own platform.
3. I really wanted to contribute to this space. Im fascinated and excited about the macroeconomic implications of it all. As a passive investor I felt like I was taking from it instead. So I’ve really been looking forward to this. I have a decent traditional finance network too so this was the perfect vessel to captain.
So those three ideas came together and Here we are.
Cryptodiffer Community
A question about your product. Will Bonded VIP staking work? How can I get a higher percentage of remuneration?
Many DEFI project coins have plummeted over the past week. What is the Bondedfinance project doing to make a difference and improve the user experience?
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
Yes we have our own form of LP incentive/staking to reap higher returns. All will be revealed in detail soon. Just having a 5min breather guys. But I’ll get through more of the list. Np.
Cryptodiffer Community
How can I contribute to your success as a community driven project? Will I get any benefit from storing the token in Bonded in the long run?
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
Certainly spreading the word helps and in due course, we will take suggestions on ways to optimize the product although this dovetails with our governance piece. I believe in a hybrid model where things are fully decentralized and community governed while having thought leaders help drive the initiative. The long-term benefit of holding the token is based on our ability to create this hybrid ecosystem wherein users are able to experience the upside and the growth while being able to directly contribute to the platform’s success. That is the embodiment of crypto; where the contributors, the people who put money on the line are the actual users who derive the value and participate directly in the growth. If we have a truly built out library of smart Defi contracts that can appeal to any risk profile, well I don’t have to tell you that there is massive upside in that.
Cryptodiffer Community
Q: I want to learn more about Bonded.Finance, but the information is very small, most of Bonded.Finance social networks are less active, the community is relatively empty and less, what strategy does Bonded.Finance team have to develop the community and maintain long-term user?
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
This project is just getting underway and we have successfully sold out our seed round and over subscribed the private. As I mentioned with regards to governance, community involvement, an active and participating community that helps direct the product line and so forth, same holds true here. We have aligned ourselves with investors we consider to be “smart money.” These are individuals and groups whose reach is far and influential to drive a community towards the project. This is not a siloed mission by any stretch and you’ll see as things unfurl, a growing an active community and i would humbly to some of our earliest supporters for being responsible for the kickstart.
Cryptodiffer Community
What innovations has Bondedfinance brought to the DEFI space? How is Bondedfinance changing the new DeFi ecosystem and what are the plans for the next few years?
DeFi has become the fastest growing and most accessible aspect of the blockchain industry. How does Bonded feel about this? In your opinion, are we not in danger of oversaturation?
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
Yea the saturation is an interesting question for all trending markets.
When you consider the value prop of an Aave or any of the lending platforms, what you’ll find is a reasonably stable and secure platform that offers low risk yields of less than 10% on average. A portion of the bonded platform will allows user to allocate capital to higher-risk and in turn, higher-yield plays. Right now, just this properly executed does not really exist. When you consider the amount of lesser known coins that have sound volume profiles over time, there is a veritable fountain of unused liquidity waiting to be exploited. The notion of being able to take bonafide long bags and earn on them has not been done to date with projects that are outside the crypto mainstream. Our plans for the next few years? I’ll say this to be absolutely candid – anyone who has some inexorable long term plan in this space is going to miss all the good stuff. No one saw the proliferation of farming, the potency of YFI etc. even a few months ago. Our plan is to launch stable and sustainable Defi products as well as to keep a finger on the pulse that can react to and capitalize on opportunities in a rapidly emergent market place, hell, a rapidly emergent paradigm.
Cryptodiffer Community
What is the algorithm used by Bonded Finance ? What does it solve the problem of blockchain system ? How do you manage the algorithm and operate it?
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
Just because there was 3 questions in there.
1. Using linear growth rate for interest rates and LVR hence creating dynamic rates on basis of demand and supply
2. Problem our solution solves is instant liquidity for borrowers and lenders in crypto assets and illiquidity solutions for altcoins.
3. Algorithm is written in the smart contract for borrowers and lenders and once smart contracts are deployed they work themselves on the basis of said algorithm
Cryptodiffer Community
A question about your product. Will Bonded VIP staking work? How can I get a higher percentage of remuneration?
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
Because we use altcoins the LVR/LTV tends to be higher as is the interest rate also. So already we will be offering higher returns than existing crypto lending platforms. And yes we do have a staking mechanism as well as the LP incentives baked in with our own little emission schedule and our own little “halving” events as homage to bitcoin haha.
Cryptodiffer Community
Why Choosing “Bonded” as the name of your project what is the story and legend behind the name?
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
Well bonded references a lot of things. (Bonded yield curve for our public launch)
Bonding assets
Bonding lenders and borrowers
But where the name really came from was physics.
In physics Unstable atoms will share electrons to reinforce the outer shell. (Covalent bond)
Sometimes the atoms just borrow electrons to reinforce the outer shell
(Ionic bond)
Basically moving resources around to create something stronger.
What we’ve done is modelled this same process algorithmically (bonding mechanics) in our smart contracts to create what we call smart instruments.
We are in essence taking a singular weak asset and adding resources and functions to make it a stronger asset.
Pretty cool huh!
Cryptodiffer Community
I am a full time FARMER, and only care about LIQUIDITY MINING, what are the prospects available for me in your project
Kindly explain more about your Tokenomics, Vesting, Release Schedule and UTILITY, is it inflationary or deflationary
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
That’s cool. It’s clearly been a good period for farming.
Re bonded. The token supply is fixed, it is neither inflationary nor deflationary. Not that it needs defending but we all know the gimmicky aspects of token supplies and their effort to create short-term price appreciation before they fall off the proverbial cliff like a poorly executed vesting schedule.
With regards to farming, yes we have the LP incentives for both borrowers and lenders to farm our native token thus increasing APY. But we have much more than that. Our products are different and varied offering all sorts of different incentive structures. Some are predictable while others aren’t ie (% stake in collateral upside) so these products will certainly challenge the experiences farmer. One of our product that intends to collectively pool select alts to generate an LP token which in turn will mint eth and find its way to some of the better vaults might appeal to the devout farmer. So there’s a lot of new tricks coming.
The vesting and release schedule is still forthcoming but frankly we are not opposed to have a circulating supply that reflects demand while respecting the vision of the project itself. What this means is that we believe having a reasonable percentage of the supply in circulation is healthy as so many projects today are releasing less than 10% of their supply in order to realize a large diluted cap where they can unload tokens at an unreasonably high USD value which is followed by a release they are hoping that no one will notice. This is a manipulative practice that serves no one. As for the utility of course governance, and two the opportunity to create an LP token which will be vaulted. for lenders of course there are yield considerations and bonuses for those willing to hold larger amounts. In time, we do hope the community may offer suggestions and more than this, we are looking into some regulatory touchy areas regarding dividend style benefits but can’t speak to that at this time.
Cryptodiffer Community
What is your plans in place for global expansion, are focusing on only market at this time? Or focus on building and developing or getting customers and users, or partnerships? Can you explain this?
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
Our team construction is deliberate. We have senior investors with large networks in traditional financial markets. Onchain data suggests that much of the activity in defi is existing ecosystem capital. We want to change that and help contribute by building a new capital pipeline. Once we have enough tried and tested data we will pr course be pushing this network into action.
Cryptodiffer Community
How does the algorithmic bonded process works? Is this the core of the platform? What are the benefits for users?
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
Bonded finance is a development lab, a desktop interface and a suite of decentralised investment instruments.
Each instrument has algorithms that manage an index of altcoins while also managing the risk profile of that collective index to create what is essentially a brand new investment vehicle suited for credit/lending activity. Lenders and borrowers can now safely transact over this vehicle.
The instruments operate on the Etherum blockchain with our interface supporting multiple smart contracts and providing that one location to invest in all these new exotic products and earn accordingly
Cryptodiffer TEAM
Hey @unbankt this was really insighfull session in my opinion
you shared a lot with audience today, big thanks to you
Thank you everyone who took part today
Managing Partner at Bonded.Finance, Paul Mac
Ok. Perfect. A lot of the questions were variances of the same question so I tried to cover a lot with my answers. I hope they were cohesive enough and that gave you all a better understanding of bonded finance.
Thanks for having me guys.
Take care.
