On 8th October, we are proud to hold an AMA with Lawrence Lim the co-founder & ZR the marketing lead of RAMP Defi. For those who have missed out the AMA, here is the recap of what we have discussed during the AMA.
Ivan the founder and co-founder Elson both welcome Lawrence & ZR onboard.
Intro
Hi everyone! A quick intro about myself, I’m ZR— Marketing Lead and co-founder of RAMP Defi . Previously Managing Partner of Merkle Ventures, a consulting and investing blockchain firm focused on layer 1, layer 2 and DeFi. Co-founded NOX, which developed on-chain custody utilizing cloud HSM.
Over the past couple of years, we have seen lots of users and investment funds have poured lots of capital into the development of various blockchains ecosystems. The staking economy is approx. USD22bn right now, based on stakingrewards.com data. That’s 22bn of illiquid capital locked up in staked asset positions, earning a fixed return rate. We believe that we can drive better ROI on this invested capital.
What RAMP proposes is that we let users collateralize these staked assets into a stable coin call rUSD. Using this fungible value, rUSD holders can borrow liquid capital in the form of USDT, USDC to invest into more DeFi opportunities, margin trade on exchanges, or even pay a car loan. This allows users to effectively leverage on “old” capital to invest in new opportunities.
As a personal intro, I’m Lawrence, the Project Lead for RAMP DEFI. I started my career in traditional finance — private banking and M&A. Before eventually moving into IOST, a layer 1 chain, as their International Growth Lead, where I spent the last couple years before launching RAMP DEFI
AMA begin
Q1: We all know Yield Farming has become so much in talk but these Farming Protocols have different Risk levels, how does Ramo defi deal with it? How can I maximize my Yield on the platform?
Good question. So some interesting differentiators between RAMP and other yield farming projects. Including 1) You get to farm across networks, using non-ERC20 PoS tokens and 2) there’s a business model behind RAMP, which involves taking a fee from the staking rewards of the users who use RAMP to unlock liquidity.
This fee accrues to RAMP token holders who stake, so taking on multiple staking positions and restaking the returns or farmed tokens, would allow you to compound returns.
Q2: What is the utility of RAMP token besides rUSD and eUSD in your ecosystem? How does RAMP token increase its utility, hence, its scarcity over time?
There’s three key focus on RAMP utility:
1) governance and voting rights — users can decide the direction of projects, and how fees are charged etc.
2) rPool distributions — all the fees charged will accrue to our universal liquidity pool, which is then distributed to users on a regular basis.
3) farming efficiency — the more RAMP you stake, the more you can farm.
Q3: Why do users choose to mint rUSD and eUSD instead of other stable coins which are here for a longer time? What values will RAMP’s stable coin bring to them?
rUSD and eUSD are representations of non-eRC20 and erc20 liquidity. That may sound complex, but the simplest way to understand it is that rUSD creates “new capital” backed by collateralized assets and is, therefore, a fresh source of funds into the crypto ecosystem
Q4: Can you tell us briefly about partnership Ramp x Injective? from the news, i saw there will be rUSD on injective DEX and bring more liquidity solution, except these any benefit for a trader?
besides, current market DeFi trend is slow down, do you think RAMP still the best timing to launch and any effect will due from the current situation?
Its important for DEXes to have sufficient liquidity, so that traders and investors can trade on them. one of the reasons why centralized exchanges are still preferred over dexes is because there’s more liquidity in the CEX (a bigger marketplace, essentially). By bringing liquidity to dex, RAMP helps to drive the growth of DeFi as an industry.
There’s never a good timing to launch — valuations may change, but useful solutions will always remain, and during bull runs, will be one of the main beneficiaries.
Q5: — The audits to the smart contracts are important to give confidence to the investors, do you plan to do one? How can the people involved in the presale be sure that their money is safe?
Security is one of the major components we look at and some of our smart contract codes are currently under audit. The audit reports would be released for viewing once they are ready.
Q6: How would Ramp Defi protect their user’s asset from being liquidated?
Good question and one of the key is that users have to be aware of the risks and rewards involved. Similar to margin trading, RAMP provides users with a way to leverage their assets. And similar to margin trading, there can be margin calls if the collateral loses a certain value. The key is for the user to either exit the positions, or at the beginning, choose a sufficient collateralization % that can provide a reasonable buffer against liquidation. We of course will help to put in certain safeguards, such as a minimum collateralization ratio, but these cannot entirely prevent a user with high-risk tolerance being more exposed to liquidation events.
Q7: Where does the project name come from? What does it mean for you and why did you choose that name for your project?
Meaning of a ramp is a bridge. So it’s simple to think of RAMP as the bridge that allows the collateralized asset to be liquid, flow across different blockchains and invest in different opportunities.
Q8: If Ethereum has high gas fee now. Why did you still use Ethereum blockchain when you want to solve best allocate capital for profit maximization?
Liquidity attracts liquidity. RAMP bridges liquidity to Ethereum because that is where the most USDT, USDC, and asset exchanges are found. We expect that in the future other blockchains will also rise up to be mature ecosystems, and RAMP will be driving liquidity across multiple “liquidity hubs”, which includes but is not limited to Ethereum.
Q9: How do we get benefits from staking non-ERC-20 coins? Would it be possible to stake NFT? Have you thought of a way to enhance the staking of these assets?
We have multiple staking programs ready ahead, its a lot more interesting than the usual inflation models, and involving a range of various well-known projects in the space. So stay tuned on our staking announcements coming up (after the public sale is done and all) ;)
Q10: Partnerships are crucial for Adoption, so can you tell us what partners you have currently and future partnerships
Yes, partners are critical to implementing the RAMP solutions. Currently, we are partnered with some of the major blockchains such as Solana, Elrond, NULS, IOST and currently in talks with a couple of others which would be announced soon :)
Q11: How does RAMP DEFI view projects like MakerDAO which is the current market leader in Defi space? Are you planning to compete with them or are there possibilities of you guys coexisting in the future in other to co-build a Stronger Defi ecology?
MakerDAO is great. They have done well on collateralizing ERC20 assets, and in fact, I see them as doing a crucial role in helping to drive user adoption and willingness to own a collateralized stable coin. Our focus is non-ERC20 assets, which makes us very complementary to Maker (instead of competitors), and another interesting thing that RAMP gets to solve is liquid staking, and this allows us to be charging fees on staking rewards versus having to pay stability fees, which makes our solution a lot more user friendly on the level of the fees :)
Q12: how do you attract investors to be interested in $RAMP? because some investors only focus on short-term prices rather than long term?
We are focused on accruing revenue and income to the token. RAMP essentially provides a financial service (unlock liquidity from staked assets) and charges a fee for this. This fee accrues to all RAMP token holders who stake. The reality is that if there's strong sustainable income, it is worth for users to own and stake RAMP. There will always be value and demand.
Q13: What incentives are available for early investors, adopters, community, bug bounties, partners, creators and operators?
Stay tuned for more community program announcements! :)
Q14: Sum it up in a sentence, the end goal of Ramp Defi
Unlocking liquid capital from staked assets :)
Q15: Adoption is important to factor that all blockchain projects should focus to be more attractive in the investor's eyes. You have done and plans to do achieve adoption?
Our investors, and many users in our community, own tokens held in staking. Many, our investors have funded us to solve their problems haha. A crypto fund with millions invested into staking can easily extract extra capital into more investments, and leverage to get higher returns on investment. You can do the same as a user, using RAMP
Q16: Nowatime hacker hacks many websites and also many Defi project…… Now, described your security system for the public. ….. Where did you get the inspiration for this unique Ramp Defi project idea? And what influence will we have on the crypto industry due to the Ramp Defi project?
We have multiple security audits done to help put up the best security possible for our users
Q17: With so many DEFI projects, what advantages or innovations will Ramp DEFI bring? Would it be possible to quantify the level of decentralization and economic incentivization?
By end of October, when the product is released, we would be the first chain to allow cross-chain stake farming to take place across different blockchain ecosystems. So far no one has done it successfully before in a non-custodial manner.
Q18: Do you have any new partnership recently? And what advantage of this partnership to the project?
We have many partnerships and announcements ready for the next 4 weeks haha. So stay tuned for some really solid and cool stuff coming up for RAMP holders :)
Q19: What does RAMP DeFi think about solving issues that the DeFi ecosystem still can’t solve? and why this is the problem important?
We are solving liquid staking for the first time, and there's a pent up market demand for our product. Simply put, our solution allows users to utilize capital more efficiently and allow the possibility of high returns on investments.
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