Official Statement and Future Plans
The Temporary Suspension of LlamaRace and Upcoming Plans for Napier Finance Version 2
The Mission
Our mission is “The Endgame for the Curve Ecosystem,” meaning we aim to establish Curve as the central hub for finance. We believe in the long-term success of the Curve ecosystem and are committed to contributing to it through the Napier project.
Napier Finance Version 1
Napier Finance v1 was one of our initiatives to embody this mission. The primary design goal was to manage fixed-term assets (such as PT and YT) on Curve Finance properly, enabling yield trading and maximizing utility.
The specific design goals of Napier Finance v1 were primarily as follows:
Implementing Various Yield Management Strategies:
- Earn Fixed Yields: lock in a fixed rate on their yields and receive stable returns.
- Trade Future Yields: trade yields across the DeFi space or secure their future yields immediately.
- Provide Liquidity for Additional Rewards: earn extra returns from swap fees, CRV, CVX, and NPR.
- And many more.
Yield Trading on Curve Finance:
- Maximizing Incentives and Utility: Our goal was to maximize incentives and utility by enabling yield trading on Curve Finance and leveraging its ecosystem infrastructure.
- In Practice: This involves increasing the price of assets redeemable at maturity as the maturity date approaches, while maintaining a continuous interest rate when there is no trading activity.
- Our Approach: We connected an external AMM optimized for yield trading to Curve pools to achieve this.
What we learned from Napier v1
Napier Finance v1 was an idea we believed that would be the best solution for end users by providing an architecture that prevents liquidity fragmentation and offers efficient incentives. However, the actual implementation presented challenges from the perspectives of users, projects, and technology.
The major specific issues were as follows:
Curve pools were not originally designed for yield trading: Curve does not support the specific features needed for YT trading, and implementing these features is excessively complex. For example, there is a lack of functionality to efficiently calculate the amount of ETH or TriLST-PT, and since metapools do not support flashswaps and breaking down the functionality of AMM calculations is complex, implementing swaps from YT to underlying assets is challenging. As a result, we decided to make the YT selling feature in the Points Casinos unavailable at launch. Additionally, using PT price/interest rate oracles from Curve pools is very difficult within this architecture due to similar issues. Considering that oracles are essential for PT/YT assets to become as mainstream as today’s stablecoins, this presents a significant obstacle.
Using native assets as the underlying assets: Using native assets as the underlying assets was a reasonable approach to abstract the pool architecture; however, it led to several issues from the perspectives of users and partner projects, including a significant reduction in capital efficiency since the underlying assets do not accrue points or yield, the need for custom implementations or challenging integrations for some YBTs, and the overall protocol design becoming heavily dependent on the immediate redeemability of each YBT for issuing PT/YT based on native assets, which undermines the protocol’s health and autonomy (e.g., stETH withdrawal periods can take 1–5 days).
These technical issues became significant obstacles for us, preventing us from delivering the best possible product and being a major factor in the delays and postponements of the launch.
Napier Finance Version 2
With Napier Finance v2, we aim to incorporate the lessons learned and improvements identified during the development of v1, drawing on over three years of experience that our team has invested in this field. For the past six months, we have focused on research and development to bring this vision to life.
The design theme for Napier v2 is “The Modular PT/YT.” We believe this is the only viable approach that will truly allow us to approach the scale of traditional financial IRD markets.
It provides:
- PT/YT as a service provides curators with a flexible product design space. It’s a comprehensive tech kit for developers that handles any risk exposure without permissions or limits.
- Risk experts and DeFi projects will issue and manage PT/YT themselves as curators. Those most familiar with each asset will contribute to it to earn additional revenue without diminishing the income associated with the asset.
- Revenue sharing that scales curators. This will dramatically accelerate its development, bring high-quality products to market, and promote competition.
Not just those:
- Curve Factory for yield trading. In close collaboration with the core team of Curve Finance, we are working to improve Curve v2 to make it better suited for this purpose. Special thanks to Mich and Fiddy for their support in helping us make this a reality.
More detailed information about Napier v2 will be gradually released as we approach its launch. We are currently working towards a rapid launch with minimal viable functionality.
The temporary suspension of Llama Race
We have decided to temporarily suspend all operations related to Llama Race, Llama Quest, and Napier Points due to technical issues with Napier Finance v1.
Specifically, as of 2 PM UTC on September 16th, the following operations will be suspended
- Future distribution of Napier Points.
- The new listings for Llama Quest Chapter 3’s Points Casinos.
- All Llama Quest operations planned after Chapter 3.
Withdrawal of Deposited Assets
First, we want to make it clear that there is no risk to the funds; rather, a design change is necessary, meaning everything is safe. In light of the temporary suspension of the Llama Race and Napier points distribution, we will implement instructions to ensure that users can safely withdraw their deposited assets from the Napier Finance platform. Specific instructions can be found on this page.
Regarding asset withdrawals and any related guarantees, please ensure that you obtain a ticket in the Napier Discord server by 2 PM UTC on September 25th. Please note that any complaints or grievances after this time will not be accepted.
If you have any questions regarding asset withdrawals or anything related, please join the official Napier Discord, open a ticket, and submit your inquiry.
How Napier Points will be managed
We highly value the contributions made by the Napier community members thus far. Therefore, we have decided to take the necessary measures to ensure the continued value of Napier Points.
We’re going to stop accumulating points, current balances will be frozen until we resume. The token distribution for the entire Llama Race at completion stays fixed at “the total supply of Napier Points will be equivalent to 3%-5% of the total supply of NPR tokens”.
Additionally, the points for the incentivized voting on Curve governance conducted on July 2nd will be distributed as planned.
NPR Tokens
Due to the temporary suspension of LlamaRace, we have decided to postpone the TGE to a later date than initially planned. This was a difficult decision, but we believe it is necessary to ensure that the ecosystem surrounding the Napier Finance platform and the NPR token function healthily, ultimately leading to a more successful token generating event. Consequently, we anticipate that the timeline for integrations involving NPR tokens, such as cvxNPR (Convex Finance), will also be pushed back.
What is next?
Napier Finance v2 — Curator/Partner Invitation
We invite you to become a part of the modular PT/YT ecosystem, offering curators a flexible design space with limitless possibilities. By collaborating with us, you can shape the future of decentralized finance through a public, permissionless tech kit that handles any risk exposure.
For Curators and Risk Experts:
- Issue and Manage PT/YT: You, as experts in your respective assets, can take ownership of issuing and managing PT/YT. This allows you to generate additional revenue without diminishing the asset’s income potential.
- Revenue Sharing and Scaling: Our revenue-sharing model is designed to empower curators, builders, and contributors, accelerating development and bringing high-quality, competitive products to market.
Technical Partner with Us:
We believe in building a neutral, decentralized infrastructure for PT/YT that is not managed by any single entity. In close collaboration with all the talent in DeFi, we will create a robust foundation that serves the entire ecosystem.
The code review with yAudit is scheduled to begin this month. Let’s collaborate to make PT/YT a public asset, available to all!
Contact Us:
Join our journey and contribute to this vision. Reach out directly through Telegram to connect with our founder and learn how you can be involved.
About Napier Finance
The end game for Curve ecosystem. Napier is a modular yield trading platform on Ethereum that enables users to fix, trade yield and build without limits.
- Website: napier.finance
- Twitter: twitter.com/NapierFinance
- Discord: discord.gg/PKkJkmvPx2
- Telegram: t.me/napierfi
