Overview
StaFi (FIS) is known as a decentralized cross-chain protocol of stablecoins that aims at releasing the liquidity of staked assets and providing users with stable, secure and flexible asset management solutions. The protocol is established by a technical team with many years of blockchain development, the goal of the team is to provide reliable decentralized financial services for users around the world.
Location of Headquarters： China
Time of Establishment：10–2018
Date of Mainnet Release：7–9–2020
- Built by Yellow Hat DAO
- Liam Young; co-founder
FIS Token
FIS is the native and utility token based on StaFi protocol, the token can be used in the following functions:
Staking: In order to join consensus network, the verifiers in StaFi consensus must become shareholders first, and the nominees are required to stake their FIS.
Trading Fees: In order to prevent the abuse of system, the initiator of transaction(s) must pay certain FIS tokens to visit computing resources.
On-chain Governance: The holders of FIS may participate in the modification(s) of StaFi’s parameter(s), the voting to support the upgrade of protocol and determination of development progress. Anyone may submit their proposals to the protocol, but only FIS holders can vote in favor of or against the proposals, with 1 FIS account represents 1 vote.
Value Acquisition: The majority of StaFi protocol’s platform fees (trading fees and liquidity fees) will be used to provide funds for the repurchase and burning of FIS tokens. According to the decision of governance, certain changes may occur to the distribution of StaFi’s incomes.
According to the data of CoinMarketCap, by the deadline of this article,
Token Distribution
Operation Method and Technical Protocol
Built based on the technology of Substrate, StaFi releases the liquidity of staked assets through the staking of contracts. The protocol involves the interactions of the major components listed below:
rToken：rToken is known as the derivative asset issued by StaFi based on the staked tokens. By holding rTokens, you may request to redeem the staked native tokens at any time, which means that the holders of rToken are entitled to obtain the incomes generated from the staking of the tokens.
Staking Contract: Staking contract is known as a set of codes that involve the core functions of StaFi, for example, staking, redemption and trading etc. Staking contract also records the swapping relationship between rToken and the underlying tokens staked. The role of StaFi’s contract staking is similar to that of CDP contract in MakerDAO.
Multi-signature Accounts: Multi-signature accounts are known as the temporary accounts that StaFi used to manage the staked tokens and participate in the staking.
StaFi’s Special Verifier (SSV): What makes SSV and SV different is that SSV is responsible for the management of multi-signature accounts and the verification of the trading status of mainnet. SSV uses multi-signature transactions to process the staked tokens in the accounts.
StaFi’s Business Model And Profit Model
StaFi’s business model is based on the provision of stable liquidity solutions for DeFi ecosystems, the profit model of StaFi mainly involves the appreciation of StaFi’s token (FIS) and the access fee of StaFi network
StaFi’s Target Markets
StaFi’s target markets are the users and project teams in DeFi ecosystem, especially those project teams that require stable liquidity. Currently, many project teams in the DeFi market are facing the challenge of liquidity issues. Hence, StaFi provides a reliable solution to help those project teams to solve their liquidity issues.
Competitors
The major competitors of StaFi are other liquidity solutions, for example, various protocols such as Sequity DAO, Rocket Pool, Akala, Kira Network, Balancer, Curve and Uniswap etc. All other protocols provide similar solutions, but StaFi differentiates itself from other protocols through the provision of further highly-efficient, flexible and secure solutions.
Partners And Clients
From their blog (1–7–2021):
“StaFi has reached cooperation with Curve, jointly providing a great trading scenario for rETH/ETH. The current exchange rate of rETH to ETH is stabilized at between 0.99 and 1.02, and the total amount of rETH and ETH in the liquidity pool has reached 13,387, with the market value reaching $26,427,546.00.
What’s more, Yearn’s Vault product has integrated rETH, with an APR of 12.31%, and the current TVL is about $7.9M.”
Projects that use or build on it
-Curve
-yEarn
-Partners
-Is a partner of Zenlink (11–11–2020).
-Partnered with Huobi (12–11–2020).
-Works together with Reef Finance to let liquid stake tokens also earn yield.
-Is mentioned by Oasis Network as of its partners (30–12–2020).
-A genesis member (28–3–2021) of the Polkadot DAO Alliance (PDA).
-Is one of the announced partners of Unmarshal during their first months (5–4–2021).
Product Analysis
StaFi aims at providing a method that locks any tokens into other blockchain network, the platform allows users to transfer and exchange their locked tokens freely without caring about the actual positions of their tokens, which is realized through the provision of a set of products by StaFi.
First, the major product provided by StaFi is rToken, which is known as a type of ERC-20 tokens that represents the native tokens locked in other blockchain networks such as ETH or BTC etc. When the users deposit their native tokens into the smart contract of StaFi, relevant amount of rToken will be issued correspondingly, which means that the users now hold the tokens locked in StaFi, and the process is called “Staking”, as during the process, the users staked their tokens for the guarantee of network security and thus obtain relevant rTokens.
Apart from that, StaFi also provides another type of token called FIS, which is known as the native token of the platform. FIS tokens are used to pay various transaction fees of the platform and conduct voting and decision-making of governance. The total supply of FIS is 100 million, among which 40% are used for community rewards, 21.4% are allocated to foundation, 15% are allocated to the project team, 6.1% are allocated to private round, 6% are allocated to the advisors, 5.7% are allocated to the seed round, 5% are allocated for ecosystem development, and 0.8% are allocated for public sale. FIS tokens are also used for the provision of some incentives to encourage users to participate in the development and governance of the platform.
What’s more, StaFi also provides a model of governance called StaFi DAO, which consists of FIS holders and may determine the development paths and strategic plans of the platform through voting process. StaFi DAO encourages community members to actively participate in the development of StaFi and ensures that the platform always meet the requirements and expectations of its users.
StaFi’s products include Staking Contracts、rToken、Liquid Staking Pool and StaFi DAO
1. Staking Contracts
StaFi’s staking contracts are the core components of StaFi’s ecosystem. The staking contracts of StaFi allows users to lock their PoS assets and obtain relevant rTokens, which represents the interests of corresponding PoS assets and can be traded freely. Apart from that, Staking contracts also provide the functions listed below:
The users may withdraw their PoS assets from the mainnet without canceling the entrustments or waiting for the tokens to be unlocked.
The users may freely transfers their assets between mainnet and the ecosystem of StaFi.
rToken
rToken is known as the type of token in StaFi’s ecosystem that represents the interests of corresponding PoS assets. By locking their PoS assets into the staking contracts, the users may obtain relevant rTokens, which can be freely traded in StaFi’s ecosystem and with the tokens on other cryptocurrency exchanges.
2. Liquid Staking Pool
Liquid Staking Pool is known as a type of service in StaFi’s ecosystem that allows users to freely trade their PoS assets during unlock period. The users may transfer and lock their PoS assets into Liquid Staking Pool. During the lockup period, Liquid Staking Pool will automatically entrust the users’ PoS assets to various verifiers and generate interests. Apart from that, the users may also obtain LP token by depositing their rTokens into Liquid Staking Pool. The users may trade LP tokens freely during the unlock period and gain interests from the trading activities.
3. StaFi DAO
StaFi DAO is known as a decentralized organization that aims to promote the development of StaFi ecosystem. StaFi DAO consists of StaFi’s community members, who may determine the solutions to various issues of StaFi ecosystem such as adjustment of fees, making policies of governance and optimizing the functions of ecosystem etc. The governance token of StaFi DAO is FIS, which can be used for the purpose of voting, governance and incentives.
Analysis Regarding the Advantages and Disadvantages of StaFi’s Products
Advantages
Solution to liquidity issues: Known as the major product of StaFi, rTokens provides a solution to solve liquidity issues, which is that the users may lock their native tokens without losing them and trade their native tokens on other chains.
Easy To Use: StaFi’s products are easy to use, it only requires normal users to conduct simple operations to lock or unlock their tokens.
High Level of Security: The technologies and protocols that StaFi adopted are highly secure, which means that the users’ assets and privacy are protected thoroughly.
Benefit sharing: StaFi’s governance model encourages users to participate in decision making and share the results of the StaFi ecosystem.
Disadvantages
Intense Competitions: StaFi faces intense competitions in the market of DeFi, which requires StaFi to continuously promote creativity and increase the competitiveness of their products.
Node Collaboration: The risk regarding the theft of private keys still exist, which requires great number of nodes to reduce such risk.
Scarcity of Liquidity: The liquidity may be limited, as the tokens can only be transferred for specific verifiers.
Background And Milestones
Known as the founder of the project, Liam Young has been providing staking services since 2018.
The development path of StaFi can be listed as below:
On December 13th, 2019, StaFi Protocol announced that it had obtained the sponsorship from Web3 Foundation and had become part of Web3 ecosystem.
On June 12th, 2020, StaFi released its economic whitepaper.
On July 2nd, 2020, StaFi released its first open testnet Seiya.
On July 21st, 2020, StaFi announced the launch of incentive testnet, with the testing period lasted for 1 month and provided 500,000 FIS as rewards for participants.
On July 23rd, 2020, StaFi had reached USD$ 600,000 worth of seed round funding, with its investors including Focus Labs, Spark Digital Capital and BitMax’s incubator B-Tech.
On July 28th, 2020, StaFi announced the launch of its staking airdorp.
On August 24th, 2020, LD Capital announced their investment in StaFi.
On August 25th, 2020, StaFi Protocol released its token distribution plan.
On September 11th, 2020, BitMax announced the exclusive debut listing of StaFi.
On September 21st, 2020, StaFi released its roadmap of the fourth quarter and planned to launch the cross-chain bridge between its own asset and Ethereum.
On September 24th, 2020, StaFi Protocol announced the establishment of its partnership with decentralized data storage network Bluzelle.
On September 30th, 2020, StaFi Protocol announced the establishment of its partnership with blockchain cloud service platform Ankr.
On October 10th, 2020, StaFi Protocol announced its integration of Chainlink to provide correct prediction of prices for rToken users.
On November 13th, 2020, StaFi launched rETH, the liquidity solution of Ethereum 2.0 Staking, with the minimum volume of staking reduced to 0.01 ETH.
On December 17th, 2020, StaFi released the whitepaper of rToken, 70% of incomes generated from rToken will be distributed to FIS holders through token destruction or bonus.
On January 23rd, 2021, StaFi announced the official launch of rFIS and planned to launch the staking drop of rFIS products as incentives.
On January 27th, 2021, StaFi announced the establishment of its partnership with Marlin Protocol, together with the plan regarding the launch of rPOND, the liquidity staking derivative of POND.
On March 3rd, 2021, Binance’s Innovation Zone listed StaFi’s token FIS.
Community And Governance
StaFi’s Community And Ecosystem
Upon its establishment, StaFi placed great emphasis on the construction and development of its communities. StaFi community consists of a group of technical experts, scholars and cryptocurrency investors from different countries and areas around the world. Until recently, StaFi has already established large communities including developers, partners and users worldwide, with its community members making important contributions to the project regarding technology, operation and marketing expansion etc.
Apart from that, for the promotion of the development of the overall blockchain industry, StaFi has also cooperated with other blockchain projects such as Nervos, Plasm, Chainlink and Kava etc.
StaFi’s Governance Model and Decision-Making Mechanism
SStaFi’s governance model is based on the voting of StaFi’s token holders. StaFi’s token holders may affect the development and decision making of StaFi network through participating in the voting of StaFi network. Specifically, StaFi’s token holders may determine various topics of governance such as the modifications of network parameters, adding new governance proposals and change block rewards through voting mechanism.
What’s more, StaFi also established a layered governance model. StaFi’s governance proposals must go through the examinations and voting of community members, StaFi’s node verifiers and StaFi’s core development team, the governance proposals can only be executed after passing all voting layers.
Overall, StaFi’s governance model involves the features of decentralization, democracy and separation of powers, which can effectively protect the interests and development of the community.
