APY.Finance Launch Announcement & Post-Launch Roadmap

Following the completion of core platform and smart contract development, we are extremely excited to announce that APY.Finance has reached an incredibly significant milestone as the Alpha build is officially launching on mainnet. Prior to using the platform for the first time, we encourage users to view the new User Guide which guides users in yield farming on the platform.

The Alpha platform, however, is just the beginning, as it marks the first key step of many in our plans to scale the APY.Finance team, platform, token utility, and decentralization. In this article, we’d like to provide a brief overview of what users can expect next from APY.Finance.

Increasing Yield & Rapid-Integration With New Farms

One of APY.Finance’s core principles is delivering the highest risk-adjusted yield possible. We are initially deploying our Alpha build with just a few low-risk vetted farms and strategies which have been successfully voted through by $APY governance token holders via our Snapshot governance page. Users can expect yield returns to increase over time as we continue to host new governance proposals for additional farms which will increase diversification and improve yields. We are also currently working on a Convex integration to boost Curve yield.

With a diversified base of proven and safe farms, we can rapidly integrate with newer riskier farms while keeping a lower overall risk profile. A core element of the framework we’ve built within the APY.Finance platform is the extremely nimble solution we’ve created which allows rapid integration of new farms near instantaneously once they are voted in. New farms will often have higher yield returns early on, and our rapid integration will allow us to capture yield from these new farms with a quick turnaround. In order to assist in rapid integration and staying on the cutting edge of new farms, we are onboarding a Defi Researcher to constantly vet for, and keep the team and the community up-to-date on the latest Defi protocols that APY can integrate with for additional yield. Further, we are also onboarding a Data Scientist to analyze protocols for possible inclusion in the APY yield farming portfolio, and create data models which will allow us to predict a strategy’s impact on the overall portfolio, and assist the community in making informed governance voting decisions.

Cross-Chain & L2 Expansion

We’ve been evaluating the natural evolution of our currently implemented yield farming strategies as we prepare to move to other chains and L2s which will have many added benefits. Moving to other chains and L2s will not only increase yield for users but will also lower platform transaction costs by allowing the platform to be more nimble, rebalancing more frequently, which improves capital efficiency as idle capital and low yielding capital will be put to greater use quicker.

Our team is currently conducting research on EVM compatible chains and L2s to determine our first expansion as we continue to progress toward cross-chain and L2s. We are weighing our options based on the criteria of available liquidity, user traction, onboarding process’, incentives and predicted longevity.

Some of the options for expansion we are currently evaluating are:

• EVM-Compatible chains & L2s
• Avalanche
• Harmony
• Fantom
• xDai
• Binance Smart Chain
• Polygon
• Arbitrum

Finally, we understand the frustration with the rising gas fees, which makes acquiring small amounts of the $APY token unavailable to users, as the token is currently only available for purchase on mainnet. Moving over to L2s will have the added advantage of lower user transaction costs, saving users on deposit costs, and making the platform even more accessible to a wider range of users with access to smaller amounts of capital. This will become even more important as APY.Finance continues to scale and cements itself as a platform where any user, regardless of experience or capital, will be able to participate in yield farming with APY.Finance.

Improving $APY Token Utility

One of the immediate goals we have is increasing $APY token liquidity and utility. While listening to feedback from the community discussed in our social channels and Discourse governance discussion forum, we’ve speculated some ways in which this may be best achieved.

By integrating Defi 2.0 mechanics focused on concepts such as platform-owned liquidity and self-sustaining liquidity to improve liquidity depth, we believe we will be able to improve token liquidity without risking users to impermanent loss. To demonstrate its effectiveness and evaluate if it’s the right solution, the Data Scientists we’ve recently onboarded will work with us to develop analytical models which will assist us in evaluating exactly how token bonding markets similar to Olympus DAO affects tokenomics.

We are also researching how best to automate liquidity provision on Uniswap v3, so $APY stakers can achieve greater capital efficiency. One of the options we are currently exploring to achieve this is Gelato’s G-UNI protocol.

Further, we are evaluating ways to insure the platform against shortfall events while improving token utility for $APY holders. After thoroughly researching other platforms that have a safety or stability module where tokens can be staked for additional rewards, we believe there would be a great benefit to allowing staking of $APY tokens in a safety module to insure against shortfalls or platform exploits. We are considering and evaluating optimal practices to allow $APY token holders to receive increased platform rewards and/or other benefits, and ways for the $APY token to grant greater governance powers as we continue to increase decentralization. We encourage $APY token holders to share their ideas and discuss their thoughts on ways to improve token utility and suggestions posted in this article in the APY.Finance governance discussion Discourse channel.

The Wrap-Up

We hope this was an insightful look into the development of APY.Finance following today’s Alpha launch, and are extremely eager and excited as we ramp up into the next phase.

The APY.Finance Alpha build will be live on mainnet today for users to begin yield farming with just a few clicks: https://apy.finance/