AMA with Alpaca Finance | Transcript

Q: Why did you build Alpaca Finance, and why do you associate the project with this animal?

A: The rising costs of the process have become prohibitive for the majority of people. Ethereum has become a whale game because of high gas fees!

As a result, Binance Smart Chain (BSC) has experienced an exponential boom in popularity. However, we noticed a flaw in their applications. To be specific, one of the largest missing pieces was an on-chain leverage protocol!

Thus, Alpaca Finance was born, seeking to provide value to the BSC community through leveraged yield farming.

We chose alpacas because we believe that this majestic animal is the perfect representation of us.

Alpacas love to live in the mountains at high altitudes, just like your leveraged farming yields!

Alpacas also come in many colors, and we have a ton of different farming pools for you to choose from! We have partnered with big projects like Thetan Arena, Splinterlands, Moonpots, Phala Network, and many more.

Alpacas are also environmentally friendly and have a very light carbon footprint, wherein 95% of their wool is usable! Just like BSC, wherein gas is very cheap compared to other blockchains.

Alpacas do not bite and do not have sharp teeth, just like we offer our transparency and safety!

To conclude, Alpacas fit the perfect description as to what we do, which is leveraged yield farming. We provide liquidity to our partners while making you profit!

Q: Alpaca has already announced its own stablecoin called $AUSD. Why should we buy and hold it? Are there any references that can help new users get a better understanding of $AUSD?

A: The benefit of AUSD is that it is an auto-farming stablecoin that earns passive yields for you! AUSD is collateralized, decentralized, and extremely secure. We have gone through multiple audits to make it as secure as possible.

You will be able to use AUSD outside Alpaca FInance to earn more profit as well!

AUSD will dramatically increase capital efficiency for our lenders, increasing APYs and the appeal of our platform, as well as TVL. Lenders will be able to earn Lending APR & Staking APR and collateralize their assets to mint AUSD!

The small fees associated with AUSD will go to ALPACA holders through buyback & burn / Protocol APR and to the Dev Fund.

Introduction to AUSD

You can read more about AUSD here.

Q: Can you name the use cases of ALPACA tokens on your platform? What are the uses on the market? What are the benefits of buying and HODLing ALPACA tokens?

A: You will be able to capture the benefits of the platform using ALPACA tokens!

For example:

10% of the 19% performance fees for yield farming positions on the single-asset CAKE vault is distributed as Protocol APR to ALPACA governance vault depositors.

4% of the 5% of every liquidation bounty goes towards buybacks and burns of the ALPACA token.

10% or 19% of the lending interest that lenders earn goes towards buybacks and burns of the ALPACA token.

Proceeds from occasional revenue generation events go to ALPACA buyback & burn, such as 20% of the revenue from the Alpies sales, which sums to $1.25 mn.

2.5% of 5% royalty fees on Alpie NFTs sold in the secondary market go to ALPACA buyback & burn.

5% of 9% of Auto-Farming Performance Fee, which is from rewards earned from farming the collateralized assets in AUSD positions in Alpaca Staking (and potentially external protocols in the future), will be used for buyback & burn.

1% of 2% of Stability Fee charged on each AUSD debt position will be used for buyback & burn.

Additionally, you will also be able to vote on key governance decisions through staking your tokens in our Alpaca Governance vault, which we just recently launched! Stakers will receive xALPACA where 1 xALPACA = 1 vote, allowing them to decide on key governance decisions.

We hope to continue to serve as an asset to all of our holders and believers 🙂

Q: Alpaca plans expansion to Play-to-Earn GameFi. Could you please reveal some dates, maybe the game characters? 

A: We have been working on a Play-to-Earn game since earlier this year. We are now moving out of the game design phase and into the development phase. A lot of new NFT projects claim to be planning a game. However, many people say that those projects will likely end up with a 2D Pacman or nothing at all. The problem is, most of the current NFT projects have no track record, no background, and no resources. That is why you have rug pulls or NFT projects that do not fulfill their roadmaps. That is where Alpaca is different.

Unlike projects coming out of nowhere, we have an established brand and user base, and our background is finance. We already have a billion-dollar active platform, and we have a respectable, trustworthy team. So, if we say we are building something, we will keep our promise.

As for the game, there will be five classes on each of the Dauntless and the Dreamers. And you will be able to play three Alpies as a team of heroes. A bit similar to how Axie works. You will be able to choose three classes arbitrarily of any specific type based on your ideal play style. Every class is going to have a different play style, different combat system. Thus, you will be able to play how you want.

We will be launching our beta Version in Q2, 2022, and our public version in Q3, 2023.

Q: Safety and security are the most important issues. How will the team resolve possible security problems? Does the team have a workaround?

A: In short, yes. Within the BSC community, Alpaca Finance is regarded as one of the most secure platforms because of our spotless track record of never having had a security issue and our multi-layered security processes.

We have had 14 security audits, which is one of the highest amounts across any ecosystem.

Last June, Alpaca received the highest security rating on BSC from DeFi safety, which was advertised by BSC itself, and the 3rd highest security score from CertiK.

We always have people looking at our code. We will never stop improving our security.

Making sure security is at its very best and that your funds are safe really means the world to us. That is why we invest so much in security.

We like to take the word “safu” to a whole different level. And we hope other protocols do the same.

If there is a breach in security, we have partnered with many insurance protocols, including Insurance and Nexus Mutual. Thus, your funds are always SAFU!

Q: What makes your project different? Does your project open up opportunities for collaboration or some kind of proposal submission? Does your NFT require KuCoin UID? 

A: The advantages of Alpaca Finance:

1. Our top-notch security: we are the best in terms of security in the space. We have never been exploited or lost significant user funds.
2. High APYs and liquidity: we make it easy for lenders to be paired with farmers. Both earn high returns. Our lending and borrowing products also have large liquidity, enough to integrate with large institutions and other major platforms.
3. A respected and trustworthy brand: we have been around for a while. Users know and trust us and our spotless track record. Many top platforms integrate with us. We have received many audits and top rankings, and we have been listed on dozens of the largest exchanges, including Binance. We also won the 2nd Most Valuable Builder award by BSC.
4. Superior capital efficiency: through leveraged yield farming utilizing undercollateralized loans and AUSD, we offer higher capital efficiency to all platform participants. This creates higher utilization, liquidity, and APYs for everyone.
5. Yield farming sustainability and product customization: people can use our products according to their desired asset and risk exposures. They can take simple lending positions or advanced leveraged positions, getting long, short, or neutral exposure to assets. This is great for users who want to customize positions for specific strategies and for the platform too. This means we and our community can remain profitable in bear markets, unlike competing platforms.
6. Network effects: by offering leverage to farmers, users can earn with much higher APYs, creating stronger incentives to provide liquidity. The exchanges providing the farming pairs also benefit because they gain more liquidity, which allows lowering prices, leading to easier and more profitable trading. This makes Alpaca a blue-chip cornerstone for any network we participate in.

The NFT form needs to have a BSC address.

Q: Will Alpies function in a Play-to-Earn game or the value of these is limited to art?

A: Yes! Alpaca NFTs will be a sort of heroes in an NFT game that we have been working on for a while now. You will be able to use it and earn more money from leveraging your NFTs while having a ton of fun!

Q: Who are the big investors in the Alpaca project? What is the main purpose of Alpaca?

A: Alpaca is a fair launch project. We do not have any initial investors. For the Alpaca token, we made it as dump-proof as possible by doing a fair lunch (meaning there was no presale or premine). Everyone participated equally. We invite others to do the same. We honestly hope they do… but they do not.

There were no whales who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in exclusive private sales and bought tokens for a hundredth of a price to dump on you once prices increase.

Private sales that people like us have no access to. Why? BECAUSE WE ARE NOT WHALES!! Maybe because we do not have the right connections.

87% of the total supply goes to platform participants. 87%! Have you heard of 87% of the total supply GOING TO THE PEOPLE BEFORE?!? Not to whales, but to people like you and me.

The team gets less than 9% of tokens. So, they cannot dump you as well!

Q: Is ALPACA cryptocurrency worth investing in?

A: Feel free to do your own research! I might be biased here, but for me, it is. We have great tokenomics. You can read more here.

Q: Please, share with us your expanded plan for 2022. How will you integrate users with the project?

A: I think our roadmap answers your question best.

For Q1, 2022, the largest milestones will be Multichain and the new institutional products platform. The release is scheduled for the end of the quarter.

For Q2, 2022, the launch of the gaming token, the game and its components, and new products for the institutional platform.

For Q3, 2022, the launch of the NFT marketplace, augmenting the game to its full version and releasing it to the public, and expanding the institutional platform.

We also have high-level goals for the upcoming year:

1. Unlock higher capital efficiency for Alpaca Finance users through product innovations.
2. Widen our customer reach beyond the niche of leveraged yield farming by building high-quality, engaging products. We include new media segments such as NFTs and Play-to-Earn gaming to enhance the development of the Alpaca brand and metaverse. We will create organic funnels to integrate our entertainment products with financial services. This will spread our influence and onboard massive market segments currently untapped by DeFi incumbents.
3. Further, decentralize Alpaca by introducing governance. Create proper incentivization mechanisms to assure the bulk of the platform’s revenues are distributed to loyal, long-term ALPACA holders.
4. Expand horizontally by building multichain, tapping into completely new user bases beyond BSC to increase user numbers and revenues.
5. Expand access to new segments of large institutional capital by creating easy-to-use structured products for institutions and investment funds.
6. Through the aforementioned vertical and horizontal expansions, Alpaca’s brand from a top BSC DeFi platform to a top cross-chain finance and new media conglomerate.