AMA Recap: MOVE Network x OpenSwap

It was a pleasant AMA with OpenSwap at MOVE’s Telegram Channel last Friday. We invited Bruce Chau, the Founder of OpenSwap to share with our community what their project is about, product features, their upcoming Bridge Troll NFTs listing on MOVE Market, and more. We received more than 100 questions from Twitter audience and Bruce also provided good answers to the best 5 ones. Here’s a recap of the AMA:

Q1. So Bruce, before we ask about your project, let us begin with an introduction of yourself and your team.

Hello Move Network ! I am excited to be here in this great community! I’m Bruce, a core team member and Founder of OpenSwap, a recovering enterprise dev, enlightened by blockchain in 2018 and never looked back.

At the core, our team’s strength is technology, however, we’ve been aiming to build up a community of talent that crosses boundaries of technology, finance, marketing, and more through the many partnerships we have developed and continue to build. We hope to attract more developers and contributors to our team through participation events such as hackathons that ultimately build up the DeFi community.

Q2. Sounds great! Looking forward to seeing your team growing bigger and bigger. Next question: can you tell us about OpenSwap, what are your offerings? and problems you are fixing?

At OpenSwap, we position ourselves as every Crypto Project’s BFF by providing a set of tools to empower teams to establish funding and sustained token health, allowing teams to focus on what they do best — BUIDLing!

Our base-layer technologies are:

Liquidity Queue, an alternative to the traditional AMM mechanism that can provide users the ability to make onchain swaps at ZERO SLIPPAGE.

Hybrid Smart Router, a set of smart contracts that identify potential swap paths leveraging both AMM pool smart contracts and liquidity queue contracts, helping users identify the most cost-efficient routing based on the availability of liquidity queues and AMM pools.

Open Interchain Protocol, a single asset crosschain bridging solution that offers more efficient inter-blockchain swapping of chain-native digital assets through the usage of single-asset vaults in a decentralized manner.

On top of our base-layer technologies, our project-focused key offerings includes:

1. Onchain Private Sales Offering — which is a service enabled by our OpenSwap Booster Queue, a technology that allows projects to facilitate private sale rounds, and providing an end-to-end on-chain solution including token purchase, vesting schedules, and secondary market for vested tokens. The OpenSwap Booster Queue is applicable for projects seeking additional funding without the risk of market price impacts. Projects may choose to whitelist the offering and offer guaranteed buybacks to participants to instill even more confidence in the project during unstable market conditions.
2. NFT Loyalty Program — which is an offering ideal for projects looking for alternative ways to utilize their token to increase community engagement. OpenSwap NFT Loyalty Programs provide an alternative to traditional staking campaigns for projects to offer a fun stake and mint NFT option to provide perks and rewards to their community. We have introduced an NFT Loyalty Program for OpenSwap’s project supporters, by the name of Troll Camp — a portal where our community members can stake $OSWAP tokens and mint OpenSwap Bridge Troll NFTs, which will essentially serve as the key to becoming a node validator on our single-asset cross-chain bridge (Open Interchain Protocol), upon feature release. Our first batch of Bridge Troll NFTs were issued in the beginning of October last year, and sold out lightning quick! We will be issuing the new batches of OpenSwap NFTs periodically, so our supporters should stay tuned to our updates! And regularly check in on what we new NFT campaigns we are running — you can do so by visiting our NFT Loyalty Program page: https://www.openswap.xyz/#/nfts
3. And just like other DeFi projects, traditional Staking and Farming features are available on OpenSwap for projects to lock up tokens to control supply, while offering rewards to their community. Farming features are also available for projects looking to build up liquidity in AMM pools in DEXs. These campaigns may be used in conjunction with NFT Loyalty programs to provide additional reward boosts for the most loyal project supporters!
4. Our fourth key offering is — Liquidity as a Service (LaaS). OpenSwap is building up a network of stablecoin partners to offer up liquidity as a service for early stage projects who often face the challenge of securing funds to provide the liquidity for their project tokens. By offering fixed yields for stablecoin holders, project teams would only be required to provide project tokens for the AMM pairs while stablecoin fixed yield seekers contribute the other side of the pair. This offering will enable projects to utilise their funds towards BUIDLing their projects.
5. Bond Marketplace — At OpenSwap, we also enable projects to take back control of their token liquidity with a LP purchase program by offering LP holders a discount on vested project tokens in exchange for LP tokens. By owning the LP tokens, the project teams can be rest assured that liquidity stays in the AMM pool, unlike traditional farming approaches where liquidity gets removed once the reward tokens dry up.

Q3. Thank you for explaining with such profound details. Your insights really have broadened our horizon of understanding about DeFi and Dex. I see a lot of potentials there!

We see that you have included an NFT play in your ecosystem, what makes your NFT special?

Thank you for asking this question. Not to say that other NFTs are bad but ours is really one of a kind. Our NFTs have actual DeFi utilities. In our upcoming single asset crosschain bridge, there will be validators monitoring each order request and only our NFT bridge troll holders can become node validators, so you can think of it as a license to earn lucrative bridge fees for helping keep the troll network secure.

Moreover, we integrated with Chainlink VRF in the generation of our NFT trolls. Even all NFTs of the same level share the same functional role in our Open Interchain Protocol (single-asset crosschain bridge), they are NFTs with graphical properties such as backgrounds, clothing, facial expression, and rarity etc. We needed an RNG that is secure and open to ensure system integrity and prevent potential manipulation. We went with Chainlink’s VRF, this way our participants are provided with automated and publicly verifiable assurance onchain that our Trolls are truly generated randomly. We value integrity, fairness, and true randomness at OpenSwap!

Q4. Having a sustainable means of earning bridge fees does sound extremely lucrative, can you tell us a bit more about how your Single Asset Crosschain Bridge?

The goal of crosschain bridging and swapping has long been a topic of interest in the DeFi space. Due to the realization that we are entering into a multichain landscape, the enablement of interchanging of digital assets across different chains has transitioned from being a ‘good-to-have’ feature to now an important and fundamental necessity. In the current DeFi environment, there are 2 typical approaches that are being utilized and experimented with:

1. Lock & Mint Synthetic
2. Crosschain Liquidity Pair Pool Model

The easiest to implement is the centralized version of the Lock and Mint, where native tokens are given to a central custodian who in turn, mints a synthetic version of the token on a target blockchain. The decentralized version requires the usage of decentralized custodians that are properly incentivized to behave appropriately. The majority of bridges, including those previously proposed by Cosmos and PolkaDot are of the ‘Lock & Mint’ variety, the difference mostly lies on how they are achieving true decentralization and their approach for key security.

The crosschain liquidity pair pool model previously led by Thorchain would require liquidity providers to stake pairs consisting of a native token with the platform token, and the platform would then route the swaps leveraging the common platform token to facilitate the crosschain swaps. With this approach, swappers will be able to receive native tokens on the target chain instead of synthetics.

Both these traditional crosschain models are moderately acceptable, but are both facing the critical issues of being slow in speed, expensive, high complexity, and the proliferation of synthetics of the same underlying assets.

Now with our single asset crosschain bridge — Open Interchain Protocol — it is a solution that offers more efficient crosschain swapping of chain-native assets through the usage of single asset vaults and a basket of decentralized mechanisms.

With the incorporation of other OpenSwap technologies like liquidity queue and hybrid smart router, Open Interchain Protocol will form a fully transparent and capital efficient end-to-end crosschain swapping solution unlike anything else available in the current market.

Thank you for educating us on this unique selling point — crosschain swapping solution!

Q5. For MOVE community members who wish to own a Bridge Troll NFT, is there anything they need to be aware of?

There are definitely. Other than the cuteness of the trolls, there are some things potential buyers need to keep in mind. First, all kinds of trolls allow one to become a validator. This means that regardless of rarity and level, as long as you hold a troll NFT then you can become a validator and earn incentives. However, the higher the tier, the higher reward. They also receive monthly airdrops with the amount varying from rank to rank so be sure to check them out at our site.

Second, the “intrinsic floor” depends on the batch. Before this listing, the only way to obtain these NFTs was to stake OSWAP tokens at our site. At first they were cheaper in terms of OSWAP tokens. For example, a Hunny Troll would require 300k OSWAP token staked then compared to the 600k OSWAP token. We made this change because the demands were too overwhelming. We have a mechanism where holders can burn their NFTs to get back their OSWAP token staked. In each NFT, there is a property stating the amount people staked for it. Therefore, this would be the “intrinsic floor” of our NFTs, the market price of OSWAP token * stake amount. Bear in mind that, as of this moment, there are 2 batches with different stake amounts. Buyer will need to pay attention to the property shown on the listing page.

Q6. We will launch our MOVE Market soon. How excited are you about your listing on our marketplace?

We are super excited about our Bridge Troll NFTs getting listed on MOVE Market! This will essentially be the first and initially exclusive NFT marketplace where our Bridge Troll NFTs can be freely traded and transferred.

Aside from simply listing our Bridge Troll NFTs on MOVE, we will also be looking into creating further synergies between the two projects. We are already actively planning on running a series of co-marketing activities involving periodic and surprise NFT airdrops for both OpenSwap and MOVE Network communities.

Q7. Wow that sounds really amazing! I bet our community members can’t wait for your listing and the upcoming activities!

Besides the co-marketing and listing of Bridge Troll NFTs, what other partnerships do you foresee the OpenSwap x MOVE Network collaboration can achieve?

With top tier NFT leaders like Edwin Lun (Group CEO) spearheading MOVE Network’s advancement and growth into the crypto-commerce space, we believe MOVE is confidently advancing towards the goal of becoming one of the best NFT aggregators, and we feel that OpenSwap x MOVE ongoing collaboration can definitely help us go parabolic!

Aside from the co-marketing and listing of OpenSwap Bridge Troll NFTs, we would also be looking forward to further collaborations with MOVE Network in the following areas:

1. Serving as MOVE Network’s crosschain bridging solution
2. Potential private token sale for project tokens MOVE Network are incubating leveraging our Onchain Private Sale Offering
3. Offering token projects who onboard with OpenSwap’s NFT Loyalty Program an opportunity to list their NFTs on MOVE marketplace
4. Assisting MOVE Network to take control of their liquidity through our LaaS offering and Bond Marketplace offering

We believe these are some of the many areas OpenSwap and MOVE Network can potentially collaborate on, and we anticipate these efforts will be mutually beneficial for both projects!

Q1 on Twitter: Regarding your “HYBRID ROUTING” feature, how is the process of routing the exchanges through the different chains in the DeFi space? Does this process have to be done manually by the user or does your ecosystem do it automatically, when they start using the OpenSwap platform?

This is completely handled by our backend, users will not need to do anything manually. Just simply go to our swap page and we will automatically give you the best price after you have picked the tokens and amounts. Compared to some other similar services, our router contract doesn’t require any additional service fee, this means that there will be lower friction. This service is now available on both BSC and Avalanche. You can try it out yourselves.

Q2 on Twitter: Many people, the main focus of any crypto community is on the price of the token. When prices go up, people are happy, when they go down, people start to leave. What is the #OpenSwap team’s plan to strengthen and grow a loyal community, and see the product as more than its price.

This is a question that we resonate with quite a lot. OpenSwap as a project has been through its fair share of ups and downs. Also like you’ve said, people come and go. At the end of the day, we believe that community is one of the most important pillars of our project. Our plan to grow a loyal community is that we interact with our community with sincerity. We listen to their opinions, both good and bad. Based on their feedback, we refine our Dapp and services. I believe at the moment, we have quite a loyal community and that most of our members believe the tech.

Q3 on Twitter: OpenSwap has a Liquidity Queues feature which is based on a Secure Adapter Protocol, could you explain the basic concepts behind the liquidity queues and how does it differentiates it from other DEX aggregators? Also can you explain what consists of the security protocol?

Yes absolutely! Our Liquidity Queue is really one of a kind. It allows users to perform 0-slippage trade, something that I believe no one has done before. In case you don’t know, almost all forms of Automated Market Making Pool, like the pools on Uniswap or Pancake Swap, have slippages. This means that if you want to swap $100 usd for say BNB, you would get lower than $100 worth of BNB before fees. Whereas in our Liquidity Queues, we make no slippage swap possible. A key element to this is where we get the prices. Having a faulty price feed can lead to disastrous results. I remember there was a time where a feed was not working properly on Solana, which led to Bitcoin being sold for around 10k less than market price. Therefore in our Liquidity Queues, we have a couple circuit breakers like with the prices from Chainlink, Certik and Pancake Swap etc. if the prices are off by a threshold of 1%, the trade would not go through, protecting our users.

Q4 on Twitter: One of the most common issues is that most investors nowadays are just concerned with short-term gains and do not consider long-term rewards. Is it possible for you to give them some reasons why they should buy and hold #OSWAP tokens over time?

OpenSwap understands that potential users are concerned with token prices and what they can get from holding the tokens. I think there are 2 main reasons why DeFi users might want to get some OSWAP tokens.

1. Single Asset Bridge and OS Pro’s offering will soon bring utility and possible upside price actions to OSWAP tokens. In the case of the Bridge, only OSWAP tokens holder in particular the ones holding Bridge Troll NFTs can validate the cross chain trasantions. This means that they will soon be able to earn bridge fees. Who knows? It might be pretty lucrative. OS Pro’s offerings are more projects-focused. This means that every time a project uses our services, they would either need to give us project tokens or buy OSWAP tokens. It can lead to our developing revenue sharing system and token burn respectively.
2. Supporting true innovation. One of our biggest offerings will be the Open Interchain Protocol. The way the bridge functions is completely different with all the existing bridges. It allows stakers to stake with just 1 asset, this means there will be no Lock and Mint Synthetics nor impermanent losses. Imagine being able to support the pioneers of DeFi. You can really tell your friends that you are in it for the tech!

Q5 on Twitter: Since your IDO was recently finished and dusted off, could you please open up a bit with us as interested users and finally tell us who are your main investors and partners who contribute and help in the evolutionary process of this OpenSwap together with the core team?

Yes, we are definitely more than happy to share this information. I am a buidler myself so I like helping other projects and people to build as well. We have a lot of good projects and institutions as partners. MOVE Network is of course on the list. To name a couple more, we have Impossible Finance, C98, Double Peak, NGC, DeSpread and OAX as our backers. We are particularly close with other projects launched on Impossible so stay tuned for more collaborations.