Introducing Euler

The latest innovation in decentralised finance: a permissionless lending protocol with reactive interest rates to address the long-tail of the crypto market.

Michael Bentley
Euler Labs
Published in
5 min readDec 16, 2020

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Our journey

Euler XYZ started out by winning Encode Club’s ‘Spark’ University Hackathon. In doing so, we beat over 100+ teams from universities across the world to take the prize. You can read more about the hackathon here.

Today, we are delighted to announce that we have closed an $800k seed round led by Lemniscap. The round includes other leading funds LAUNCHub Ventures, CMT Digital, Divergence Ventures, Block0 and Cluster, as well as influential angels Luke Youngblood of Coinbase, Richard Burton and Josh Buckley, CEO of Product Hunt.

Who are we?

Euler XYZ was founded by Dr Michael Bentley (previously post-doc in Mathematical Biology at the University of Oxford), Jack Leon Prior (experienced full stack developer) and Doug Hoyte (experienced solidity developer).

We are also very proud to have onboard Mick de Graaf from PieDAO in an advisory capacity.

From left to right: Dr Michael Bentley, Jack Leon Prior, Doug Hoyte and advisor Mick de Graaf

What is Euler?

Euler protocol builds upon the foundations of other popular money market protocols like Compound and Aave, but allows users to create their own markets for any Ethereum ERC20 token and features innovative reactive interest rate models backed by control theory that reduce the need for governance intervention in rapidly moving markets.

Motivation

Money markets now contribute billions of dollars of total value locked to the burgeoning decentralised finance (DeFi) ecosystem, allowing users to earn interest on their assets.

However, access remains limited to a handful of money markets for a few of the most liquid assets. Increasing access to money markets for more tokens poses a number of challenges that existing protocols were not designed to address.

Euler is a non-custodial protocol custom-built for the long-tail of the market. Several features set Euler apart from other popular money market protocols.

List any asset: powered by Uniswap’s decentralised time-weighted average price oracles, Euler is allowing users to create their own lending/borrowing markets for almost any Ethereum ERC20 token.

Risk-minimised: Euler secures the protocol by tailoring the borrowing capacity of users to the risk profiles associated with the assets they want to borrow and use as collateral.

Reactive interest rates: interest rate models backed by control theory ensure that money markets on Euler adapt to volatile market conditions in real-time without the need for governance intervention.

The Theory

Aave/Compound interest rates:

Euler interest rates:

Roadmap

We will soon be recruiting engaged community members to help us test an alpha version of the protocol. Details to be released in the coming weeks.

Join our Discord, sign up for news on our website and subscribe to our social channels below.

Euler V1 will be launched in Q1 2021, once we have collated feedback from the community and secured the necessary code audits.

Come and join the discussion

Visit our website, join our Discord, and follow us on Medium, Twitter, and Telegram.

Our repos are currently private, but you can also follow us on GitHub.

Get involved

Euler XYZ are always on the lookout for talented individuals to help us grow. Solidity developer? DeFi virtuoso? Governance specialist? Reach out to careers@euler.xyz, we’d love to hear from you.

Disclaimer:

This piece is provided by Euler Labs Ltd. for informational purposes only and should not be interpreted as investment, tax, legal, insurance, or business advice. Euler Labs Ltd. and The Euler Foundation are independent entities.

Neither Euler Labs Ltd., The Euler Foundation, nor any of their owners, members, directors, officers, employees, agents, independent contractors, or affiliates are registered as an investment advisor, broker-dealer, futures commission merchant, or commodity trading advisor or are members of any self-regulatory organization.

The information provided herein is not intended to be, and should not be construed in any manner whatsoever, as personalized advice or advice tailored to the needs of any specific person. Nothing on the Website should be construed as an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation for any asset or transaction.

This post reflects the current opinions of the authors and is not made on behalf of Euler Labs, The Euler Foundation, or their affiliates and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Euler Labs, The Euler Foundation, their affiliates, or individuals associated with Euler Labs or The Euler Foundation.

Euler Labs Ltd. and The Euler Foundation do not represent or speak for or on behalf of the users of Euler Finance. The commentary and opinions provided by Euler Labs Ltd. or The Euler Foundation are for general informational purposes only, are provided “AS IS,” and without any warranty of any kind. To the best of our knowledge and belief, all information contained herein is accurate and reliable and has been obtained from public sources believed to be accurate and reliable at the time of publication.

The information provided is presented only as of the date published or indicated and may be superseded by subsequent events or for other reasons. As events and markets change continuously, previously published information and data may not be current and should not be relied upon.

The opinions reflected herein are subject to change without being updated.

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