we hosted an amazing AMA with Flurry Finance on the 19th of July
And here we will put some of the best questions:
Q1) Can you introduce yourselves to our community?
Mike Ting : Sure, let me start first. My name is Mike Ting and I am CEO of the project. I graduated from Cornell University and Stanford University with degree in Computer Science,
I spent most of my career in trading derivatives in HK, singapore and Korea market. worked at banks such as JP Morgan and Societe Generale.
I entered the crypto space in 2018 because i was impressed with the blockchain technology. I co-founded C-Trade, a crypto derivates exchange in 2019.
At the beginning of 2021, I felt that DeFi brought a lot of application scenarios to blockchain and i think there is a lot of opportunities of recreating traditional financial products in a decentralized. that is why we started Flurry, a stablecoin with yield generation capability.
Lawrence Wong : Thanks for the intro. Hi, my name is Lawrence Wong and I am the CTO of Flurry.
I have a mixture of tech and trading experience in developing trading systems, pricing and trading fixed income and equity derivatives from various positions held in trading finance institutions such as Barclays Capital, KBC Financial Products and Daiwa Capital Markets.
I am also a programmer by training, did my masters degree at Imperial College, London
I was a trader, marker maker, programmer and structurer. I also founded my own trading company, doing low latency trading in equity derivatives.
I was first exposed to crypto and blockchain in 2017. Didn’t take part in the 2017 BTC rally but I saw the potential in blockchain and I knew it was going to be a game-changer. In 2018, I started exploring the crypto and blockchain space in 2019 and I joined FinFabrik, a startup based in Hong Kong to develop a digital assets platform on Corda, a private blockchain.
I wanted to understand first-hand the challenges to digitize off-chain assets and also explore whether a public chain or a private chain is more suited for tokenising real-life assets. This is going to be a big deal as the trend is already showing more assets will be digitized and exchanged online.
The explosion of DeFi is really encouraging and opening a lot of opportunities. The success of DeFi shows that gradually, each function in traditional finance is being reinvented in the crypto space. With our tech and trading background, we are in a good position to do something innovative and help contribute to the growth of DeFi and overall in this emerging crypto industry.
Q2) Can you briefly tell us what is Flurry Finance?
Mike Ting : Sure! Flurry is about enhancing the usability of DeFi. There is a lot of innovation in the DeFi space. Unfortunately, user experience is not catching up. As a result, a lot of users turn away from DeFi
We believe Defi should be for everyone but not only tech-savvy. That is why we started Flurry and we am to make the yield generation process as simple and convenient as possible,
To achieve that, we will introduce rhoToken, a cross chain token that will use its underlying stable to generate yield with lower fee and diversified risk,
Users do not have to worry about the tedious process of moving funds anymore. and most importantly, the rhoToken is pegged 1:1 to the backing stablecoin and thus can act as a medium of exchange. In other words, no more Lock-Up!
Q3) Let’s now talk about the milestones you have achieved so far and about your upcoming plans?
Mike Ting : On the product side, we should have our first version on Testnet in a week. We are having our smart contract audited in July and should have our product on Mainnet in Aug,
On the community side, we have reached 10k members in Telegram and 13k on Twitter and they are still growing,
We also will have partnerships with wallets and exchanges. please follow us on Twitter and Telegram to stay tuned.
Lawrence Wong : On the Yield Generation Strategies, so far we have issued 3 rhoTokens: rhoUSDT, rhoUSDC and rhoBUSD. We now have a working prototype that generates interest from Compound and Aave on Ethereum, and soon from protocols like Cream Finance on BSC. We will add more protocols in the coming weeks.
On the Cross Chain plan, we are looking into connecting Aave on Matic and also we are working on bridging the rhoToken cross chains to MATIC, SOLANA and BSC. The rebasing mechanism works cross-chain which means you can hold rhoUSDT on MATIC but still earning interest from Compound on Ethereum. Since the speed and transaction costs are better on these new blockchains or L2 solutions, it makes a lot of sense to use the rhoToken as a stablecoin on MATIC as a payment currency! You no longer have to pay $10 to send $10!
We are also working on a basket stablecoin (rhoUSD) which accepts multiple support stablecoins when minting. With that, we are developing more yield farming strategies such as farm on AMM pools, and staking of LP tokens to further enhance the yield.
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?
Mike Ting : That is an interesting question. We came up with different names at the beginning. The rationale behind those names is to come up with a name that captures the essence of our product.
our product is about generating interest income for our users. it’s like coin falling from the sky to users’ wallet. like a light rain fall or snow flurry. we end up choosing “Flurry” because a lot of snow turns to a snowball.
just like the snowball effect in investment. And that is exactly what our product is about. Flurry helps our users grow their money and build up a snowball effect in their wallet.
As for Team FLURRY, we are composed of 8 developers who have experience working in traditional finance and decentralized space. As explained before, Lawrence & I had the experience of running a centralized exchange.
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 Flurry Finance’s approach to the DeFi sector?
Lawrence Wong : Definitely. DeFi is actually the most successful use case of blockchain so far since Crypto Kitties, and it has enormous potential in redefining how we exchange value in the financial market.
Decentralization helps reduce friction for financial operations and this is one of the key success factor of this phenomenon.
By Eliminating intermediaries it is possible to reduce costs, make processes more efficient, and empower asset owners to decide what’s best for them.
Anyone who knows how to program can come up with an idea and implement a smart contract. The fact that anyone can see and verify the code on the blockchain removes the need to rely on a reputable 3rd party in order to trade or to ensure atomic exchanges of value.
This opens up to endless possibilities of new and creative innovations to perform the same function that we see in the traditional banking system, something that used to take a lot of resources and financial power to develop over the years.
So far we have see collateralized lending, yield farming. Then we have derivatives like synthetic tokens, prediction market, decentralised option selling. We expect this trend to continue, i am not surprised if we will see trustless money market funds that are rule based like a robo advisor.
With Mike’s and my background in derivatives and structuring, I believe we have a lot to contribute in this space.
And here we will put best questions from our members and Flurry Finance fans:
Q1) You state that users of Flurry Finance may create performance by allocating coins to DeFi protocols like Compound, Aave, Curve.. but will these be the only protocols accessible in Flurry?
Mike Ting : Absolutely not. These protocols are the first ones we integrate, because they are currently the main source of yield and have the highest TVL. As we see DeFi expanding out of Ethereum due to the gas issues, we expect major players will migrate to other chains such as Solana and Matic, we will follow them.
In fact we are already testing our smart contracts on Aave on MATIC. And if a new DeFi protocol with large TVL emerges, we will simply deploy another contract and integrate it into Flurry as a possible yield farm strategy. All the strategies can be deployed to different chains, yet be managed by our Vault as the same pool of money.
Q2) Flurry’s Mainnet is launched in Ethereum, which everyone know the gas fee is higher, can i know your reason why use Ethereum network, and how do you plan to lower the gas fee, as it will affect to user’s experience?
Lawrence Wong : I believe the answer is not a question of which chain has the lowest gas costs, but actually, which chain has DeFi protocols that have significant TVL and a decent rate of return.
As long as Ethereum remains the biggest source of yield, stablecoins would have to stay in Ethereum to earn that yield, and that is the ecosystem Flurry has to operate in.
If the gas issue on eth remains unsolved, we foresee big DeFi players like Aave & Compound will migrate to other chains and we will follow them, as Mike already mentioned.
By following, however, we do not mean migrating. We have smart contracts in every chain in order to get the best return for our users.
Since our rhoTokens will be cross chain, you can move your rhoToken to a cheaper chain like Binance Smart Chain,
so transfers and trading will be cheap,
but you can still earn interest from Ethereum!
This way the users don’t have to worry about setting up a new wallet or moving their funds across different chains, we take care of that for you.
Q3) Nobody can guarantee the security of Smart contract. But Audit play an important role in finding out the known bugs of smart contract. Can you tell us describe how strong is your security ? Have you done an audit by any third party?
Lawrence Wong : Security is critical to the success of any DeFi protocol because the code is open source and we are certain that if there are any flaws, they will be exploited. We will have our smart contracts audited by Certik.
They are one of the leading blockchain security firms whose client includes Binance, Tera and Shapeshift
They auditied many protocols on such as PancakeSwap.
The audit process will be ongoing as each new functionality released will be fully audited before surfacing on Mainnet.
We are also considering buying smart contract insurance to cover any loss due to hacks/attacks.
Also before we integrate with a new DeFi protocol, we will do our own audit on other protocols to see if there are any risk in investing in the platform.
These risk levels will be accessed and when we move to a DAO model in around 18 months, holders of the FLURRY token can have a say on which platforms they would like FLURRY to integrate, and which ones to avoid.
Q4) We’ve had serious issues with carpet pulling from tokens lately and honestly, nothing to laugh about. My first question is, how safe are our funds with Flurry Finance? Is our investment safe?
Mike Ting : Totally hear you. We are making sure our users’ fund are safe in 3 aspects,
1) as mentioned by Lawrence, our smart contract will be audited by a reputable smart contractor
2) unlike other DeFi products where the peg is maintained by market supply/ demand or backed by their gov tokens (thus exposed to price volatility risk and mechanism failure), our rhoToken are backed 100% by underlying stablecoin.
3) we will set aside part of our income as reserve, which acts as an insurance fund and the first line of protection against hacks/ attack.
Q5) Most investors are just interested in the short-term token price, not the project’s underlying value. Could you elaborate on the advantages for long-term investors?
Mike Ting : For long term investors, we would like to share with you our long term ambition.
Our goal is to bring rhoTokens to mass adoption and achieve yield generation cross chain. Imagine as an user, , no matter which chain you are on, as long as you are holding the rhoTokens, you will receive interest earned in different products that are on different chains.
And when you have to use your fund, you do not have to redeem and can spend the fund directly. It is so simple and convenient to use and it is a whole new experience for yield generation.
The underlying stablecoin is never idle and the use of capital is so much more efficient than the old way of yield farming. We will create a whole new experience of yield generation and long term investor would be excited to see that happens.
Q6) What are your marketing strategies to Expand audience, seek out additional merchant Partner and ventures to take the project to the moon?
Mike Ting : Yes, as we said earlier we would like to bring rhoTokens to mass adoption. So we will talk to centralized exchanges, wallets, and payment service providers to collaborate together. Imagine your wallet can hold rhoTokens and you can buy bitcoin/ ethereum with your rhoTokens on exchanges. then you are earning interest when you are not using your fund but can buy cryptos right away when you want to.
Q7) Can you tell us about your team members? Are they qualified and professional in their fields? What are the hiring qualifications for team members for your exceptional project? Thanks….is your project listed on coingecko and coinmarketcap or not?
Mike Ting : Our team members is a mix of people with blockchain knowledge and traditional finance experience. We think it is a good mix of skills because DeFi is basically recreating traditional financial application in a decentralized way using blockchain. So we are a team with not only technical knowledge but expertise in finance. i think that differentiate us from other DeFi projects out there.
Q8) Can you describe about what are the use of your token in your platform? how do i possible to get your token?
Lawrence Wong : The FLURRY token is the governance token for the protocol. In 18 months, this will grant holders Voting power to decide on important matters like how the reserve fund is used, which DeFi protocol to integrate next, what fees to charge and what new features FLURRY should implement. The FLURRY token will be publicly listed (preliminary date is Aug 2021) and it will be open for public subscription. If you don’t manage to get any, after the token launched, you will be able to buy the FLURRY token on uniswap!
Q9) The stablecoin market is currently mostly monopolized between USDT and BUSD. What innovative advantages do rhoUSDT, rhoUSDC and rhoBUSD offer to compete and establish themselves in the market? What level of acceptance do you expect after its release?
Mike Ting : You can look at rhoTokens as wrapped stable coin. They are better than stablecoin because they earn interest for their holders.
Q10) Do you have a Token Burning plan to increase Token value and attract Investors to invest?
Mike Ting : we have a buy and distribute model. What we will do is that we will use the management fee income to buy back Flurry tokens from the market and put them back in the staking pool. This mechanism supports the token price in 2 perspectives:
The buy back itself provides a support to the token price by reducing the circulating supply
The distribute part encourages users to hold on to their Flurry tokens, resulting in less selling pressure in the market.
And this was the end of our AMA with Flurry Finance.
If you have any other questions you can ask here:
https://t.me/FlurryFinance_Official
ℹ️ℹ️ Useful links ℹ️ℹ️
Website :- https://www.flurry.finance/
Medium :- https://medium.com/@FlurryFi
Twitter :- https://twitter.com/FlurryFi