AMA Recap: Bumper Finance

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Bumper

10 min readJul 22, 2021

On Tuesday 13th of July Bumper CMO, Jason Suttie, hosted an AMA on Telegram with CEO -Jonathan DeCarteret, COO — Gareth Ward and CTO -Samuel Brooks.

The discussion covered topics such as:

A simple overview of the protocol.
The user-friendly interface that Bumper’s DApp will utilise.
Information about LP Programme
Difference between an NFT and an ERC-20

Jason Suttie:

Welcome all to the Bumper AMA👋

I’m Jason, CMO at Bumper and I’m going to start off with a little get to know you session with Jonathan, our CEO, Gareth, our COO and Sam our CTO.

Then we’ll jump into answering some of your Twitter questions before opening up the forum for anyone to drop in their own questions.

We’ve got about 45 minutes today, because we’ve got a protocol to launch tomorrow!

For those who haven’t been in one of our AMAs before can you each briefly give an overview of your role at Bumper and what you did before Bumper?

Jonathan DeCarteret:

I’m Bumper Chief Exec — been starting and running companies since I was a teenager, most notably Switch, which I grew to the UKs 60th fastest growing company. Crypto pulled me down the rabbit hole in 2017 and I’ve been having fun here ever since.

Jason Suttie:

I know Sam is in and out of Dev meetings so he’ll be popping in when he can.

Gareth:

I come from a creative industries background and have been involved in start-ups, tech and crypto for some time.

Jason Suttie:

Jonathan, you’ve got a bit of a history with running companies in the tech space. How do you think that experience has helped set you up for turning Bumper into a top 3 DeFi protocol?

Jonathan DeCarteret:

Hugely. Running a quick-to-scale business like Switch teaches you how to make swift, important decisions on the fly, trusting your instincts and running with momentum. Working within FinTech crowdfunding taught me a lot about regulation and innovation and also frankly, harboured my disdain for big finance and all the control they retain.

Jason Suttie:

I think the regulation issue is a massive one to understand.

Gareth, like many great products, the founders often don’t set out with the final product in mind. I always think Slack is a great example of that. Can you tell us what you were trying to solve and how it ended up as the Bumper solution we now know?

Jonathan DeCarteret:

But overall, how I’ve learn about Gestaltism and how successful companies are greater than the sum of their parts

Jonathan DeCarteret:

For sure and crypto is only at the beginning of that journey

Jason Suttie:

Absolutely.

Gareth:

Absolutely. When we decided to create a product in DeFi, we assessed the market and looked for obvious pinch points where we felt we could create a product to satisfy the market. One of the areas was over-collateralized loans. Often being set at 150% so we thought if we could reduce that down and make it more efficient. The idea to create something that could reduce that by effectively “swapping” out to stable coins at a floor level, was born.

That being said, once we went into the design and scoping phase, we realised the main issue was to solve for slippage, and in doing so, we designed a much bigger product that could provide price protection of an unstable asset and its core idea stemmed from the use of the unique aspects of DeFi to solve for that slippage issue.

Jason Suttie:

I’d love you each to share a bit about where you see DeFi going and how Bumper will help make that happen.

Jonathan DeCarteret:

Trustless, permissionless, non-custodial ecosystems, are by nature frictionless with a high hertz rate of liquidity. Because crypto is natively digital, the plumbing infrastructure is just superior to traditional finance. In crypto this gives rise to all kinds of financial instruments and structured products that can never exist in TradFi. We started to see this with Flash Loans, frontrunning and meme pool Miner Extractable Value (MEV). Imagine fast forwarding 5 years and turbo charging that AI and Quantum tech. It’s going to simply be jaw dropping.

Jason Suttie:

I know I should be playing host but I’m going to take Sam’s place on this one and say that DeFi is a super exciting space to be involved in at the moment. The impact decentralisation will have on traditional finance will cause huge shifts. By helping people deal with the major issue of volatility Bumper is bringing the two worlds closer together.

When people first hear about Bumper they often associate it with a Stop Loss, which we all know it isn’t, then when they understand what Bumper actually does, they say it can’t be done. Can you explain why it’s completely different and so much better than a Stop Loss, or anything else out there?

This also answers a question from @Rosanela08 on Twitter

Gareth:

The Castle — The Vibe

Dennis Denuto makes a sensational case about the ‘vibe’ of the Australian Constitution.

Gareth:

This is how I feel on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMuh33BMZYY

Gareth:

How Bumper Works To Protect Your Crypto Investments

We recently talked about the problem of cryptocurrency volatility, and the need for a solution that not only protects users from any…

Gareth:

After a standard hysteresis period, your policy becomes available to exit. As it’s a rolling policy, as long as you decide to keep the policy open is really up to you. If you do, then you’ll either receive a stable coin equivalent to your protected amount (USD value) or a combination of the unstable coin (eg. ETH) and the stable coin up to the value of your protected amount (USD value).

Subsequently, you can exit when the protected asset is above the floor and be back in your original asset, with the comfort knowing that your value was protected the whole time and you could sleep at night. Added to which, you would have been earning BUMP tokens while your policy was open.

Here’s a good article to read on it: https://medium.com/bumper-finance/how-bumper-works-to-protect-your-crypto-investments-1dc62ef5b841

Jason Suttie:

Now onto what we’re here for, the LP Program.

Tomorrow, we’re opening up the LP Program. Can you give us the highlights Jonathan?

Jonathan DeCarteret:

Its a milestone for us. From midday July 14th our early supporters can deposit USDC to farm BUMP and also gain exclusive access to our Private Sale to earn upwards of 300% APR. Its why we turned away so much institutional investment, to keep up community centric.

Jason Suttie:

The APRs quoted are pretty decent, how does this work for someone depositing $10,000 and taking up the opportunity to get their 20%? What will they end up with?

I’ll direct that one to you Gareth.

Samuel Brooks:

IM HERE

Fashionably late, I hope

What did I miss

Samuel Brooks:

Soz, minor glitch in the matrix

All sorted

Gareth:

10k deposited at the start. 20% option.

8k to farm, 2k to swap.

You’ll end up with around 720 Farmed BUMP + what you bought

ROI = ~80%; APR = 310%; APY = ~1,000%

It’s worth noting that the way the user earns the BUMP token is more simple than a compounding process which APY deals with. Either way, the rewards are pretty awesome.

Jonathan DeCarteret:

Bumper — DeFi Price Protection — Depositing During the LP Program

From July 14th, supporters will be able to deposit USDC into the protocol and yield-farm BUMP tokens. Find out the steps to do that here.

Jonathan DeCarteret:

Here’s our How to Guide — its pretty elegant and simple with just 9 steps — we’re super pleased that it also works on mobile

https://www.bumper.fi/learn/depositing-during-lp-program

Basically get your MetaMask wallet ready with USDC. Connect on July 14th. Hit the Deposit button and choose if you want to buy BUMP at Private Sale. Its as intuitive as that.

We’ll also be adding a video walkthrough to the site later today.

Jason Suttie:

Bumper — Mobile Dapp preview

Preview of the Bumper Dapp on mobile.

Bumper protects the value of your crypto using an innovative DeFi protocol. Set the price you want to protect and if the market crashes, your asset will never fall below that price. Importantly, if the market pumps, your asset rises too.

Jason Suttie:

When it launches you’ll also be able to deposit via a mobile version: Here’s a run through of that: https://youtu.be/qa2JeA7WjIk

Jonathan DeCarteret:

Deja Vu black cats again @SamuelBrooks

Jonathan DeCarteret:

Nope. Bumper’s near-zero slippage engine allows the protocol to swap you back into your original asset when the price rises. That’s Bumper’s key I.P

Jason Suttie:

Thanks Gents. Now here’s your chance, community, to drop your questions in…

Cryptitious:

Any plans on going cross-chain and which chains? When would that be? How would that be built?

Samuel Brooks:

Cross-chain, absolutely.

I don’t think you can be a serious protocol and not be thinking about cross-chain or L2 implementations

Cryptitious:

Agree!

Samuel Brooks:

So, several dimensions to this:

- ETH 1.0 L2 (optimistic vs zk) ;

… mate you’re throwing me off 😂

- ETH 1.0 L2 (optimistic vs zk) ;ETH 2.0; and cross-chain

Half Day Guy:

The promotion of Bump will become an major part of its success.

I understand at this point dev is the primary mission. At what stage, and in which manor will you be financing an outreach to the masses. eg getting on major YouTube channels etc.

Samuel Brooks:

for now we need to focus on core protocol and features, efficiency and security

once we have sufficiently weighed anchor, we’ll turn up plans on cross-chain

Robertson:

NFT is not just a trend! It is going to rule this decade and innovation has just started. So, with NFT what is your future plan?

Samuel Brooks:

Clearly BSC is on the radar, but so is what parts of the implementation can be shifted to L2

We investigated this earlier in the year, but concluded that the tech wasn’t where it needed to be to house parts of the system, and so we decided to go with a full L1 approach and revisit after the v1.0 launch

Generally though, zero knowledge > optimistic techniques

amiright

…

Samuel Brooks:

a little tender from 15 hours in the saddle

Jonathan DeCarteret:

Difficult to say, the representative bUSDC and bETH will definitely be fungible. Bumper could theoretically be purposed to protect the price of NFT’s

Jason Suttie:

Our focus at the moment is on the LP Program and bringing the right audience into that. Channels like mass Youtube are spot on for the main protocol launch though and we’ve already started conversations with some brilliant channels who are excited to be able to share Bumper with their audience.

Rey:

Do you have plans to have farm BUMP longer than 3 months? Like after public sale?

Gorilla Back:

Just to confirm — about 23 hours until LP pool opens ?

Mr. No_ONE_H0M3:

Guys make sure your website handles all the contract requests and traffic @ 12 noon tomorrow

David Boss:

@SamuelBrooks Not long now..😊

Samuel Brooks:

Here’s one for you: what’s the difference between an NFT and an ERC-20?

Cryptitious:

I was also thinking of Solana and if you could compose with Solana’s on-chain orderbook, Serum, then swapping in and out of USDC with Bump on Solana — with Solana’s speed — would work quite well. Thanks for the answer.

Mr. No_ONE_H0M3:

Don’t be coinlist :D

Gareth:

TBD but on the cards, for sure.

Jason Suttie:

Equally though we’re always keen to hear from our community about the channels you watch and we’re our audience hang out.

Clive Rosefield:

tomorrow is the big day!

Gareth:

Midday UTC tomorrow.

RS:

yep can’t wait!

Samuel Brooks:

What’s after NFTs? Perhaps…. tokenised NFTs… wait, I think I’ve been here before. o0

Gareth:

Too hard to get in?

RS:

too many bots

Jonathan DeCarteret:

Yup100% — we’re working on the model to allow for Farming 2.0 and keep distributing BUMP tokens. Once we’ve finished modelling, we’ll release full details for community to decide

Rey:

👍👍

Jason Suttie:

…I’m conscious that the team need to head back to getting prepped for launch tomorrow so we’ll give it another minute.

Before we conclude, the Bumper brand has a bit of an 80s / gamer style. I’d love everyone here to tell us their favourite classic game from the 80s.

Samuel Brooks:

Yeahhhhhhh tech is only one part of a good technical answer. The other part is product. And for DeFi, that means going to the biggest network effect to ensure maximum uptake… which is important for any market-based application that works better the more users you have participating.

Steve:

super mario for the win! hahaha

Rey:

Pacman of course 😅😅

Clive Rosefield:

donkey kong for me!

Mr. No_ONE_H0M3:

Space invaders for me

Gareth:

Battle City (1985, NES) — 1 of 7: Full Gameplay (Take 1)[1080p]

[1 January 2018] Now available in 1080p60 and 2-player co-op!

https://youtu.be/g3aTE-Cvaj4