The Dawn of Programmable Cashflows
Alice pays Bob $30 every month.
A DAO distributes rewards to all its members periodically.
Carol buys $100 of ETH every week.
All these operations can be described in just a few words, but still require many repetitive and expensive transactions to be processed on-chain.
What if we could use smart contracts to ensure digital assets move automatically on-chain without any need for periodic transactions?
Meet Superfluid Protocol
Using our new smart contracts framework on Ethereum you can transfer any token or digital asset on-chain in several ways based on a novel primitive: predefined rules that we call agreements.
By publishing a single transaction, you could agree to transfer 10 DAI per month in a constant stream. Every second, a tiny amount of DAI will flow between the two wallets, without any need for gas or any further transactions by sender or receiver. Similarly, cancellation is also only one transaction.
Agreements are initiated with a single on-chain transaction. After this, all the magic happens automatically. The agreement will keep working forever without requiring any interactions or gas fees.
The already functional agreements in Superfluid Protocol are:
- 💸 Money streaming - the way it should be! Ideal for subscriptions, salaries or dollar cost averaging. No time commitments or capital lockups
- 🎁 Rewards distributions - one transaction to distribute to any number of receivers with a fixed cost. Perfect for frequent payouts of rewards
Connecting balances using agreements allows for revolutionary new ways of transferring digital assets.
Real-time balances
Normally, on the blockchain, transfers are settled in a sequence. In order to send an asset, you must first wait to receive it in your wallet.
Superfluid streams are a constant flow of transactions that are executed automatically every time a new block is minted on the blockchain.
These transfers are finalised simultaneously. The Superfluid Protocol nets automatically between the incoming and outgoing payments of each account or contract. This means users (and smart contracts) can transfer money as they receive it, at every block, potentially enabling them to operate with no working capital or delays in payments.
Digital assets streaming only requires one transaction on-chain, greatly limiting the processing cost of recurring payments, and enabling a new subscription based economy to emerge on-chain.
Differently from monthly payments, streaming money is the perfect exchange of time (or services) for money, eliminating the need for trust or upfront payments.
Superfluid enables scalable money streaming, the future of digital recurring payments and asset transfers.
Programmable Money 2.0
Superfluid tokens are ERC20 and ERC777 compliant, but also come with agreements built in, enabling automatically updated real-time balance inside your wallet, without needing any transactions.
Tokens can be issued through the Superfluid Protocol, but can also be used to enhance existing ERC20s. Wrapped tokens can be streamed and moved in a Superfluid manner, while being redeemable 1:1 for the underlying asset at any time.
The Superfluid Protocol is:
💸 Flexible - different agreement types within the same account
📈 Scalable - an account can handle infinite streams with fixed gas cost
🏗 Modular - smart contracts can integrate and combine agreements
🛠️ A protocol for builders 🛠️
The Superfluid framework is thought with developers in mind. We are collectively creating an extremely flexible environment, empowering builders to explore and push the boundaries of programmable money.
Developers can register their smart contracts as SuperApps, allowing them to manage, integrate, and combine agreements. By setting up the appropriate callbacks, a smart contract is able to react every time someone opens a stream towards them, as well as when the stream is updated or closed!
All tokens in Superfluid framework will share a batched call functionality, empowering users to create and execute complex transactions. For example, you can transfer USDC, DAI and YFI, or open a payment stream towards 30 users, all in one transaction. 🤯
Superfluid is easy to use, modular, extensible, and allows for the creation of completely new and unique financial experiences and applications.
The Real-Time Finance Economy
Streaming digital assets creates huge efficiencies and enables a new generation of DeFi applications to bloom.
We believe this could change how money works. From settling transactions to settling agreements, making transactions obsolete and updating our financial system for the modern digital world.
Something we call Real-Time Finance.
Imagine…
🏦 DAOs that redirect all incoming streams to pay rewards to members
💰 An ERC20, entitling the holder to automatic reward distribution
🤖 Automated DeFi strategies, pooling streamed investments from users
🍠 Yield Farming, but with automated harvesting every second
💱 Dollar Cost Averaging: stream DAI to accumulate ETH, continuously
🚀 Plus anything else you can think of 🚀
Be the first to BUIDL! 👨💻
Today we are opening Superfluid Protocol up for the brightest developers in Web3 to hack with us and build the very first applications.
We are releasing part of our codebase much earlier than expected for you to hack on it during ETHOnline, with full support from our team.
Wanna help us shape the financial systems of the future?
Join us on Discord, and let’s start building!
Want to handle recurring subscriptions or deposits?
Crypto businesses finally have a simple way to accept recurring payments, enabling subscription based business models for software, communities, content, and donations! Want to know more? Get early access
Useful Links:
- Build with superfluid, read our docs and join the conversation
- Handle recurring payments and crypto subscriptions
- Visit our Website or GitHub, follow us on Twitter, Discord or Linkedin
