we hosted an amazing AMA with Apricot on the 29th June
And here we will put some of the best questions:
Q1. Can you introduce yourself to our community?
Hello guys, This is Ace, co-founder of Apricot Finance. In Apricot, I’m mainly in charge of overall operations and business development. I had 7 years of entrepreneurial experience in Fintech start-ups. Before Apricot, I co-founded Ponton Coin trading and brokerage platform.
Q2. Can you briefly tell us what is Apricot?
Sure, of course. Apricot Finance is a comprehensive DeFi solution built on the Solana network which will provide users with services such as excess floating rate collateralized lending, fixed-rate collateralized lending and DeFi FinTech modules etc. Apricot’s ultimate goal is to become a leading platform in the DeFi industry by building a secure, efficient and innovative one-stop DeFi service platform that provides personalized DeFi solutions for all users. The main issue that Apricot has addressed is the current lack of liquidity for the DeFi platform in the event of a black swan event. Compared with other projects of Solana Ecosystem, the main advantage of our project lies in the fast development progress.
Currently, most mainstream lending platforms rely mainly on external arbitrageurs to handle bad debts, but if external arbitrageurs are unwilling to handle or in case of a “liquidity crisis”, these bad debts are often paid for by the platform. Hence, Apricot will introduce asset-backed securitization approach found in traditional financial to solve the bad debts that third-party arbitrageurs are unwilling to handle. In simple terms, for bad debts that arbitrageurs refuse to intervene with, Apricot will first liquidate such bad debts through its platform to fulfil the promise that any bad debts can be liquidated within 2 hours. Secondly, the platform will aggregate the bad debts collected into a pool of bad debts, securitize the assets in the pool, and use these assets as the underlying assets to issue a special token named COT for bad debts processing. Finally, investors can buy COT tokens to invest in the bad debts acquired by the platform and share the income brought about by the appreciation of such assets, while the platform can also use the income gained from the issuance of COT to acquire more bad debts, successfully forming a closed loop of bad debt processing within the platform.
Q3. Let’s now talk about the milestones you have achieved so far and about your upcoming plans?
Yes, we have met goals in the roadmap till now, Currently, our basic lending agreement (Apricot Lend and Apricot Assist) has completed its initial development phase the testnet has been launched and is undergoing code audit now. Once it passes the code audit, the mainnet will be launched at the end of July after the Stress Testing. Meanwhile, we will also launch fixed-rate lending, unsecured lending and FinTech modules this year.
Financial-wise we have closed our seed round of 800k investment 3 weeks ago and we are at our private round at the moment and we received a lot of interest and commitments. We tentative to close our private round fund raising in one week’s time.
We will keep our investors and users informed of our development progress through social media and our official website. Kindly follow us on social media to get more first-hand information!
Q4. Every project has a story behind their name, Can you tell us more about the story behind this? Who are the team behind this project? can tell us their background?
Apricot represents freedom and vitality in Eastern culture. On the one hand, the pioneers of blockchain include many cryptography and computer science scholars who are pursuing freedom, and this name pays tribute to them. On the other hand, the DeFi ecosystem has been thriving and full of vitality since last year, and we also hope that the vitality of the DeFi ecosystem will continue to be maintained.
Besides me, there are 4 core team members. My partner, Cecilia, leads overall strategy product direction and other development, strong financial background in Wall Street.
Our tech lead Yaniv is passionate about programming language design and will lead the development team, and he used to work in one of the top high-frequency trading firm. Dr Gou is a Phd in finance, he is responsible for Apricot’s economic modeling and financial product design.
Q5. DeFi is one of the hottest and most sought-after topics in the blockchain space right now. Can you share your opinion on DeFi with us? Do you think DeFi will disrupt the current financial system? What is Apricot’s approach to the DeFi sector?
At present, the DeFi ecosystem has made considerable progress this year. We have seen more and more projects emerge, and more users have begun to use DeFi products. However, we also need to be soberly aware that compared with traditional finance, there are still many areas where DeFi needs to be improved in terms of transaction volume, transaction speed, and user experience. The recent regulatory issues that have emerged in major countries such as China and the United States also make The DeFi ecosystem faces more challenges. Apricot will make its own contribution to the DeFi ecosystem with a unique interest rate model and a perfect liquidation system
And here we will put best questions from our members and Apricot fans:
Q1
According to your website, you already have markets in the Solona . Do you plan to move to other blockchains like BSC or other chains? Also, the current situation of Ethereum with respect to its high commissions and traffic on the network, has any negative impact on the project?
Yes we will definitely consider cross-chain in the future when have accumulated certain users or good cooperation opportunity with other chain. It will be also a big development for Apricot Finance as well
Ethereum is very mature now but it has high transaction fee and slower speed. The development of “asset-backed securitization” and “high-frequency trading” products to be launched on the Apricot platform requires the entire public chain to maintain a stable, efficient and swift Time-to-Finality capability at all times, but the current performance and functionality of Ethereum is insufficient to develop such products. Therefore, the originality of our products developed based on Solana public chain technology will be the biggest difference between us and other lending projects on Ethereum.
Q2
APRICOT stands out from other projects because it has the option of loans and borrow. Will future users have a limit established in the loans? What guarantees that these loans will always be available to those who require it?
At the very beginning, we probably will launch a beta version with fewer user quota and if that runs well, we will open to more users and members. But of course in the future there won’t be any limit, neither for guarantees as Apricot Rescue is one of our main features to provide extra guarantee to our users, with the implementation of Apricot Rescue and COT token is also mainly for bad debt management.
Q3
Congratulations on your Last Seed Round, raising $800,000. Since the $COT token also carries more voting weight as $APR. Which token should investors consider most? Can you also explain your low liquidation penalties?
APR is our main token, which is planned to have the utility when the Apricot Network Launches. Its role includes community governance, reserves, user incentives, collateralized mining. With APR, users will be able to trade, provide liquidity, and share value growth with the platform. COT token will only be worked for bad debt management.
Q4
How can we trust our funds with APRICOT ecosystem? What security measures being implemented in your network? Is your smart contract audited already?
We have sent our code to two professional auditing firms already and one of them is introduced by Solana Official. We are working on it and once that passed we will be ready for main net launch
Bad debt handling has always been the most difficult yet important point for all lending platforms to deal with. Currently, most mainstream lending platforms rely mainly on external arbitrageurs to handle bad debts, but if external arbitrageurs are unwilling to handle or in case of a “liquidity crisis”, these bad debts are often paid for by the platform. Hence, Apricot will introduce asset-backed securitization approach found in traditional financial to solve the bad debts that third-party arbitrageurs are unwilling to handle. In simple terms, for bad debts that arbitrageurs refuse to intervene with, Apricot will first liquidate such bad debts through its platform to fulfil the promise that any bad debts can be liquidated within 2 hours. Secondly, the platform will aggregate the bad debts collected into a pool of bad debts, securitize the assets in the pool, and use these assets as the underlying assets to issue a special token named COT for bad debts processing. Finally, investors can buy COT tokens to invest in the bad debts acquired by the platform and share the income brought about by the appreciation of such assets, while the platform can also use the income gained from the issuance of COT to acquire more bad debts, successfully forming a closed loop of bad debt processing within the platform.
Q5
How can the community contribute to the progress of Apricot
Do you have a Governance model? Is there and ambassadors or bug bounty or contest we can assist in so as to enable further adoption?
The community is able to provide many localization services for Apricot Finance. For example, we plan to launch mobile and web apps in Middle Eastern, Vietnamese, Korean, French and other languages by the end of the year, and we will hire part-time people in local communities to help us translate. At the same time, after our beta release, everyone is welcome to come and find our bugs, and we will award a certain amount of USDT to anyone who finds significant bugs. Our governance model has been published in the white paper, if you want to know the details can be found on our website.
Q6
-Apricot is a secured lending platform in Solana. What are the advantages of having chosen this blockchain as the basis of your lending protocol? Does Solana help maximize profits within Apricot? Do you plan to migrate to other blockchains such as BSC?
Solana’s TPS of up to 50K and extremely low handling fees ensure that many financial products that cannot be realized in other ecosystems can be realized on Solana. That’s the biggest advantage for Apricot, as it enable Apricot a lower collateral and high guarantee.
Q7
Can you describe how is burn system work in your project? Because I think burn is important to up value and price of token?
Our Token Burn is mainly for COT tokens, which is for bad debt management. When the user redeems COT from us, we will put all of the user’s COT tokens into the black hole address for destruction. While our main token APR will unlikely to be burn unless necessary.
Q8
What is your strategy for Your project to attract more users and become an effective and preferred authorized gateway for DeFi?
First of all, we will give away APR (accounting for 25% of total tokens) to users who trade on our platform at the initial stage of the platform’s launch. Secondly, our platform’s lower transaction fees and collateral ratio will also attract more investors. Finally, our unique COT bad debt processing token will also enable investors who are willing to deal with bad debts to join our platform.
Q9
Are you a global project or a local project? Can anyone use your project anywhere without any restrictions?
Definitely a global project. The background of our founding team includes the United States, Singapore, and China. Our English version of the testnet has been launched, and it is expected to launch Chinese, Arabic, German, Korean web pages and mobile terminals before the end of the year. Investors can choose to join our whitelist to buy our tokens or directly trade in the secondary market.
Q10
What are you focusing on right now? Who’s is your target audience? ?What are the main goals to be achieved this year ?
We are focusing on all aspects including fund-raising, marketing and tech development. We received some feedback on our testnet and we will fix to best and prepare for the mainnet launch. Our main customers include traditional financial investors, DeFi junior and senior investors, etc.
And this was the end of our AMA with Apricot.
If you have any other questions you can ask here:
ℹ️ℹ️ Useful links ℹ️ℹ️
Website :- https://apricot.one/#/
Medium :- https://apricotfinance.medium.com//
Twitter :- https://twitter.com/crushtoken
Reddit :- https://www.reddit.com/user/ApricotFinance
Discord :- https://discord.gg/KD7tcfZW