Oct 8, 2020
OIN Finance — Telegram QUIZ & AMA — August 21
On Friday, August 21, we had the pleasure to welcome to our Telegram chat:
Renard Zhang, CEO of OIN Finance.
We asked him questions about the development of OIN Finance, currently ranked 722 on CoinGecko.
Some sentences have been slightly edited for readability but the meaning has been conserved.
Summary
OIN Finance is building a gateway to DeFi by bridging different unique blockchains and integrating them into a larger DeFi ecosystem centered around Ethereum.
OIN reconstructs the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem on the Ontology network through OIN’s lending platform. It is built on the OINChain giving it cross-chain capabilities and access to various public chains.
OIN will leverage ONT’s low transaction rates and congestion to expand the ecosystem and grow, making it easy to use and cheap.
OIN’s products include OIN-Swap, OIN-DAO, OIN-Lend, and USDO stable coin which will open up and bring together different markets.
Introduction
Q — Alex Raffin from GAINS: Can you tell us what you did before crypto, how you got into crypto, and if you’ve had any other venture in crypto previous to being involved with OIN Finance?
A — Renard Zhang from OIN Finance: I have been in the FinTech and blockchain field for over 6 years.
Prior to this, I was working within the United Nations System and Traditional Investment Banking for almost 10 years.
I provided strategy consulting services to banks like Standard Chartered and FinTechs like MasterCard. That’s also where I got to know blockchain and became obsessed with this amazing innovation.
My first experience with decentralized finance was as an advisor on a ConsenSys led atomic swap project as early as 2018.
Q — Alex Raffin from GAINS: You must have met a lot of special people.
A — Renard Zhang from OIN Finance: To be honest, there are many special people in the crypto space.
It’s a great experience, allowing me to gain exposure to different cultures and ideas.
Product
Q — Alex Raffin from GAINS: Can you tell us what your role is at OIN Finance and what the project is about in a few simple sentences?
A — Renard Zhang from OIN Finance: I’m the CEO, which means I am the top “salesperson” and top “BD” at the company. I am more focused on the business management side.
For our project, we are building a gateway to DeFi.
We want to bridge different unique blockchains and help them integrate into the Greater DeFi ecosystem centered around Ethereum.
Q — Alex Raffin from GAINS: Are you some kind of facilitator helping different protocols communicate?
A — Renard Zhang from OIN Finance: Yes. First to solve the congestion problem on Ethereum.
Then, bring other public chain players into the game, but of course within the DeFi space.
Q — Alex Raffin from GAINS: What’s your approach to solving that problem and what’s the timeline? I think we’re all tired of the high gas fees these days
A — Renard Zhang from OIN Finance: To address the congestion and high-cost issues on Ethereum-based DeFi systems, OIN Finance is starting a liquidity pool on Ontology as we were drawn to the high performance of the chain. We’re quickly expanding to other public chains. Qtum is a new partner we have.
Q — Alex Raffin from GAINS: Is it “simply” offloading ETH with other chains?
A — Renard Zhang from OIN Finance: No.
In this ecosystem, ETH users can enjoy high-performance transactions and extreme user-experience without having to give up their ETH assets into other tokens.
Users from other public chain ecosystems will also be able to access the tremendous liquidity we have seen on Ethereum. It’s a win-win for everyone in DeFi.
This is the biggest advantage of using OIN Finance
OIN Swap for public tests will be available very soon but don’t pool much as it’s at the test stage.
OIN Lend is still in development. We will try to make them available in Q4 of 2020.
For our cross-chain feature, we expect a 3-month development time from now. Official mainnet launch Q1 2021.
For the specific time changes, we’ll seek advice from our community through voting.
Q — Alex Raffin from GAINS: It’d be interesting to know more about the use cases of the token. Also, how is the token capturing the value of the ecosystem you’re building?
A — Renard Zhang from OIN Finance: That is a great question and a very pointed one at that. We can distill the source of the question into two parts:
1. What ecosystem are you building?
The ecosystem we’re building is one portion of the traditional financial markets and a significant one at that. A bank is inherently a lending institution. They primarily make money off the loans they give out from the deposits they take in savings accounts. Market makers (in the traditional markets) are the ones to provide liquidity, and the stock markets generally would not function as ‘well’ as they do now without their participation. They also require special licensing from their governments to operate in this manner, as it is such a crucial aspect of the market itself.
By offering these two services, we can start to see how the backbone of the market can come together when we offer bridging services. This provides the linkage to other platforms to build off of and synergize with our services. We are leveraging the assets and resources within the financial industry in this way to become something more than what is currently available.
The partnerships and so forth also create a significant portion of our ecosystem. They are part of the greater infrastructure. They can offer tertiary services that tie in with our platforms, such as third-party wallets (we’re not Apple, we won’t force you to use ours), or even information portals such as CoinMarketCap.
2. What function does your coin serve within that infrastructure?
The function of our coin is to manage and stabilize all of the above. By having a governance coin, we are taking that extra step from sharing the profits between the users, and having everything governed by the users as well. This again leads back to the credit union answer given above. Credit unions share their profits with their members, and any important votes are taken with the members as well. Many studies and surveys show that customer satisfaction and services offered are much, much better with credit unions. This is because it creates buy-in.
Through the OIN Coin, we are thus capturing the value of the synergies present within the system. We are leveraging not only the ability to vote but also the profits that are created by the system’s synergies through rewards.
Q — Twitter user @Pamoato: Much of the industry is currently based entirely on the welfare of Ethereum! How does the OIN Finance plan to become the platform that allows value to flourish in the DeFi space? Also, why is cross-chain technology crucial in DeFi?
A — Renard Zhang from OIN Finance: That’s exactly what we are solving.
As most industries at their birth, the DeFi space is highly concentrated, while its access to compatible resources is fragmented and inaccessible.
We are building OIN-Swap, a liquidity pool, and OIN-Lend, a lending platform, all with cross-chain functionality. This will open up and bring together the different markets, allowing efficient transfer and leveraging of value within.
Essentially, if you consider different countries and their currencies and systems, and how they function well together, they need a backbone system that will allow them to work together. That is what we will be.
Q — Telegram user Mr Happy: Oin Finance has a unique model that encompasses Liquidity pool | Lending | Stablecoin | OIN Coin as well as offering cross-chain interoperability. How does your team maintain all of them at their best?
A — Renard Zhang from OIN Finance: The nature of our products provides synergy between them, providing a platform for DeFi to grow. For example, a large bank will have these ‘services’, and offer them in conjunction with one another as they create benefits for one another. For example, it is much easier to lend when you have a large pool to work with. Due to these funds and your knowledge of the velocity of money taking place, you can then bolster the liquidity markets. This is a gross oversimplification and not 100% accurate, but it paints an easy picture for us to understand why it makes sense for one entity to be the provider of these services.
Q — Telegram user Ross: Under which mechanism is USDO pegged to USD, how is this mechanism secure and can it generate trust among users?
A — Renard Zhang from OIN Finance: This is through a process similar to MakerDao — so not like a centralized solution like PAX. But it’s worth noting that a unique feature of OIN Finance is that we don’t ask you to give up any Ethereum assets (ERC-20 or Ether). Instead, OETH is only a temporary asset in our system; you’ll get your ETH assets back once you leave our OIN Finance DEX. That’s precisely why we’re not competing against ETH. Rather, we help make the Ethereum ecosystem stronger and allow more public chains to leverage the hype in the Ethereum ecosystem.
Q — Telegram user Airla | 3WM.IO Ambassador: Unreliable data altered by malicious agents in traditional markets causes huge costs for investors and makes the crypto markets also vulnerable. How does OIN deal with these issues?
A — Renard Zhang from OIN Finance: The traditional markets have found many ways to prevent fraudulent data, but you are correct in that there still are ways to ‘fool the system’. As a blockchain company, we inherently deal with the decentralization of trust through distributing the data and computation. The systems in place rely on not one player in the system, nor can it be affected by a group of players. The whole system must become corrupt to truly fool the system, at which point it becomes an unprofitable venture for the malicious player. This is what is our guarantee: to fool the blockchain system within DeFi, it will become unprofitable.
Q — Telegram user Hermawan | Trader✓: Currently in crypto, there are a lot of platforms that provide many products. Which unique products does OIN Finance provide?
A — Renard Zhang from OIN Finance: In a simple sentence, our biggest advantage is cross-chain mining rewards for DEFI….not just replicate existing products on Ethereum but a step forward. That said, we’re exploring more possibilities with our public chain partners. Their community developers will definitely come up with more featured products together with us.
Q — Telegram user Tanya: Which version of OIN is better to use V1 or V2 and what are their differences in terms of functionality?
A — Renard Zhang from OIN Finance: The V1 and V2 just denote what platforms they’ll be able to function on. We will initially release V1 that only provides liquidity services on the ONT platform. V2 will expand into other platforms such as ETH with our bridging technology
Q — Telegram user Rick: What are the mechanisms of the OIN to prevent its users from making big losses in a collapse of Ethereum prices? Although the Black Swan is a rare event, how would the OIN protocol act to mitigate the effects of this scenario?
A — Renard Zhang from OIN Finance: I would first say the market is also risky and we can’t help remove them. But we’re working on a mechanism that can assist you to mitigate the risks. That’s precisely how we set up the collateralization threshold and the security safeguards. Back to your price problem, working with multiple digital assets definitely helps diversify and address the risks. We may bring in more real-world assets down the road if needed.
Technology
Q — Telegram user burak yilmaz: What’s the relationship between Ontology and OIN?
A — Renard Zhang from OIN Finance: ONT is the first chain we started to work on.
First, because we have some developer team coming from ONT, but no official relationship. Its high-performance really attracted us but other chains have their unique features. Our goal is to leverage them.
We are alsoattracted to its high-performance. Almost 100–200x cheaper than the current Ethereum network. Not just the speed. But more DeFi products can be packaged on a high-performance network.
Q — Telegram user Andrey: Is it safe to say that the Ontology blockchain is the ideal choice for implementing OIN Finance?
A — Renard Zhang from OIN Finance: It’s a great starting point. But public chains like Polkadot, Cosmos all have their own technology advantages. We’ll actually using some of their breakthroughs in the future, and we’ll explore more partnerships — both technical and business.
Q — Telegram user Ivan Letov: 80% of DEFI’s applications and value are on the Ethereum network and all existing problems can be resolved in Ethereum 2.0. Will the OIN project be in demand with the release of Ethereum 2.0?
A — Renard Zhang from OIN Finance: We absolutely will be alive and thriving by ETH 2.0. In economics, there is the concept of the substitute good. It is a product that substitutes one another. For example, if you were having dinner, you would order Coke or Pepsi, not both. For us, we plan on growing alongside ETH, as it obviously cannot be the only platform that contains DeFi. For any sub-industry within the blockchain space to become truly integrated into the real world and its business processes, it must be present and available on the largest platforms within the blockchain. It must also have integration potential with the outside world as well. By becoming an easily accessible, cross-chain platform, we will be laying out the foundations for not only DeFi on ETH to grow, but for DeFi to grow within the blockchain itself, and to the outside world thereafter.
Q — Telegram user Rimjhim: Since Ethereum is the most reliable platform, what advantages will OIN have after Eth 2.0?
A — Renard Zhang from OIN Finance: I would not say it’s the most “Reliable” but definitely more “Adopted” and commonly used. We like the fact that so many developers and community members are making it better. And it’s well established. That’s precisely why we’re building all our DeFi products centered around Ethereum. Going forward, we will not replace ETH but simply help more public chain players share the benefits of ETH through our bridges.
Inclusiveness does not only mean include more users on ETH but also more blockchain networks into the DeFi Ecosystem.
Q — Telegram user Ross: According to your website, transactions in OIN Finance take less than 1 second to be done and the platform doesn’t get congested. Have you tested the scalability of the network? How is this speed sustainable?
A — Renard Zhang from OIN Finance: The speed was what I tested. Although no one can guarantee the speed, most can’t deny the high-performance of ONT. As we expand to more blockchain networks with their unique features, the speed won’t be your only reason to join. You’ll have access to more product features.
Security
Q — Telegram user Egor Dubinin: How does OIN Finance assess the risks associated with market uncertainty and volatility? Is there a mechanism to hedge market risk to keep its users safe?
A — Renard Zhang from OIN Finance: I have a twofold answer for you from the security and safety perspective:
First, many of our tech team members come from Ontology and know all the detailed nuances of the blockchain.
Secondly, we’ve done many rounds of stress tests.
Thirdly, we’ve invited several industry-leading security companies like Beosin to audit our code.
Last but not least, we are rolling out bug bounty programs or even hacking events to help us fix bugs.
From the liquidity risk perspective: This is addressed through mechanisms such as our clearing trigger set at 180% collateralization, which may be adjusted at a later date. A lot of the mechanisms are taken from the traditional finance industry, which can be said to be tried and true.
Business Development
Q — Twitter user @MagnatSV: The DeFi space is very young and is changing rapidly. How flexible are your tools to adapt to changes in the DeFi crypto space?
A — Renard Zhang from OIN Finance: We are uniquely positioned to be a multi-chain gateway.
The fact that we are already working with four Blockchains essentially demonstrates our flexibility.
The way we do it is through a cross-chain mechanism. We allocate different nodes on our target public chains and our intermediary chain. They will broker their data.
For technical details feel free to refer to our white paper.
Q — Telegram user Belov: What plans does OIN have to partner with large lending protocols such as Maker Dao or dYdX Debt Collateralized Debt Positions (CDPs) to try to extend the user position liquidation protection feature?
A — Renard Zhang from OIN Finance: For the other large projects out there, time will only tell what our partnerships would look like if any. As we’ve stated before, we take pride in the fact that in our space there are the current giants; it shows that we are in the right space. They are also helping legitimize the market itself, providing services to their own target markets. As we do not wish to substitute them but to bolster and leverage any synergies (e.g. Just because you have a Binance account, doesn’t mean you don’t have a Bitfinex account for their leverage products). This can then mean that when the time comes to partner with the incumbents, there are many routes available in how we will work together, for example, we may link our services together to provide a seamless transition between target markets, services offerings and the like.
Q — Telegram user Egor Dubinin: Most investors want to invest in work products or MVP. What is the development status of your OIN-Swap, OIN-Dao and OIN-Lend products?
A — Renard Zhang from OIN Finance: Swap is almost ready like the timeline I mentioned earlier. Others are scheduled to come out in the next 3–6 months. But with partnerships with more public chains, you’ll see some changes — the eventual fate and new innovations will be decided by the community, not our team.
Q — Telegram user Bit Top: What future developments of OIN Finance, in your opinion, will be the most attractive for large organizations?
A — Renard Zhang from OIN Finance: If you’re speaking about the traditional large organizations, it would have to be the LEND, and our two coins, the OIN governance token, and the USDO. By having an instant platform that they can borrow from without having to go through their bank at rates they can instantly see, it offers traditional companies instant, easy, and predictable access to leverage. As the whole DeFi industry grows, later on, the platform itself could be integrated into the traditional financial industry in one way or another. How that might look like remains to be seen, as it must be a case-by-case basis.
It was a shared pleasure Renard. Is there anything else you’d like to say? Where can we go to follow you? — Alex Raffin from GAINS
Thank you all for taking part in such an amazing AMA! There were tons of insightful questions, and we really enjoyed getting in touch with every one of you. Join our Telegram group. Otherwise, please contact us in the following platforms: Website, Medium, Twitter, Telegram, GitHub, E-mail — Renard Zhang from OIN Finance
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