Presenting UniLend’s Roadmap: Gearing up for Alpha Launch in December 2020!
Our Path to Unlocking the True Potential of Decentralized Finance
UniLend was conceptualized and designed from the ground up with the aim of truly revolutionizing DeFi by providing the industry’s first comprehensive, permissionless DeFi protocol. This is no small feat. Achieving such a goal takes thoughtful planning, dedication, and strategic execution.
We’ve therefore crystallized our roadmap to keep the community abreast of our progress and plans to build out our protocol as we advance forward on our mission to unlock the true potential of DeFi.
Read below for a granular explanation of our milestones.
Conceptualisation and Architecture Ideation
As UniLend is a completely unique protocol designed to combat the issues of the current DeFi space, multiple inherent challenges were identified during this phase and the UniLend team began exploring ways to optimally overcome these complications in Q3 of 2020.
After extensive research and ideation, an integrated architecture solution which will support both trading and lending functionality was finalized. UniLend’s trading pool will provide the liquidity needed to support lending and borrowing; this will filter out illiquid assets and provide the liquidity needed to support lending functionality.
Development Begins
UniLend Swap Feature (Completed)
The UniLend swap feature consists of an automated market making pool which negates the need for centralized components and maintains the liquidity needed to support trading in addition to lending and borrowing, in a completely decentralized manner.
UniLend Lending Smart Contract (Completed)
UniLend’s lending smart contract works differently to existing lending protocols and it thus required completely custom development. This was completed in Q3 of this year.
As opposed to a multi-asset pool system currently utilized by existing DeFi protocols, UniLend protocol consists of separate pools for different assets (multi-pool system). Creating separate pools for each token is an essential architecture-level advancement that opens up UniLend for permissionless DeFi options whilst limiting exposure of lenders and borrowers to any potential risks associated with all tokens in a specific pool.
Integrating Swap with Lend Component (In Progress)
We are currently in the process of integrating our custom swap and lend smart contracts with one another. This combination is a crucial aspect of UniLend which sets it apart from other leading DeFi protocols. The integration will allow for:
- Liquidity-based lending and borrowing
- Liquidation component integration
- Simulations of pool percentages and other scenarios for lenders
UniLend Alpha Release
UniLend’s Alpha release is scheduled for launch in December 2020. This is the initial iteration of the UniLend protocol/platform, enabling a select group of users to test our lending and borrowing functionality whilst identifying any initial bugs or vulnerabilities. Lending/borrowing will initially be launched with fixed interest rates.
Bug Bounty Program
Upon our Alpha launch, we’ll be inviting all hackers, attackers, security researchers and engineers to take part in our incentivized Bug Bounty Program to help us ensure the utmost security and robustness of our protocol.
Liquidity Mining/Staking
Liquidity providers are a key component in ensuring the sustainability of a decentralized finance protocol by facilitating liquidity within the protocol. Beginning in Q1 of 2021, we will implement our liquidity mining functionality in the UniLend Alpha release to refine the mechanism.
Once the fully-featured platform is launched (see below), liquidity providers will be rewarded for their services with governance rights in the form of UFT tokens, in addition to a percentage of trading and borrowing fees.
Protocol Optimization
UniLend will undergo necessary optimizations needed to refine the protocol after our Alpha launch. Optimizations will be conducted in areas including collateralization ratios, liquidations, and UI/UX improvement.
UniLend Beta Release
UniLend Beta release will entail the launch of a production-level platform which includes all the comprehensive features of UniLend protocol. The platform will undergo rigorous beta testing to ensure all the edge cases are covered and the platform is optimally secure.
Comprehensive Audit Report Release
At UniLend, security is our utmost priority. We have been working with the best audit teams in the industry since the early days of the project and UniLend will undergo comprehensive audits to ensure the platform is secure and not prone to any vulnerabilities. We will share these audit reports with the community.
UniLend Mainnet Launch
The fully-featured UniLend protocol/platform will launch towards the end of Q1 of 2021. By this point the protocol will have been battle-tested and will offer all of its comprehensive features, including decentralized trading, lending/borrowing, and liquidity mining, running on mainnet. UniLend will now be accessible to anyone and everyone for all DeFi functionality.
Integrations & UniLend Ecosystem Expansion
Once UniLend is launched on the Ethereum mainnet, we will then be ready to integrate the UniLend protocol into third-party products and services for the wider community to discover and utilize.
- Wallets: UniLend’s trading and lending/borrowing functionalities will be integrated natively into various leading DeFi wallets, including Frontier. Many more to be confirmed.
- Aggregators: DEX aggregators will list UniLend’s trading pairs to allow their users to utilize UniLend seamlessly from their interfaces.
- Partner Platforms (External Integrations): UniLend protocol will be natively integrated into various partner platforms which wish to utilize our functionality natively within their own platforms to expand their DeFi offerings. Confirmed partners so far include Crypto Locally and several major exchanges which we are excited to announce in the near future.
- Partner Platforms (Internal Integrations): Partner platform integrations also include platforms which UniLend is collaborating with to integrate added features or services within our protocol. This includes welcoming real-world assets to UniLend via OpenDeFi, bringing advanced trading tools to UniLend users via CyberFi, and enabling our users to utilize 3Commas’ suite of sophisticated trading tools.
Fusion Farming
Fusion Farming is a mechanism by which users will be able to attain multiple tokens via liquidity mining for certain assets. We will run Fusion Farming campaigns for certain projects’ tokens which are listed on UniLend. During these campaigns, users who provide liquidity for specific tokens will be able to secure both UFT and the token in question via liquidity mining.
Community Governance Launch
In a system which aims for maximum decentralization, distributing governance power to the users is crucial. We intend to completely decentralize UniLend protocol by placing governance power in the hands of token holders.
We will achieve complete decentralization via the UniLend Governance DAO. Anyone with 1% of tokens or 1% of delegated voting power will be able to create proposals via the UniLend Governance DAO (token holders can also pool their governance power to achieve this). All UFT token holders will be able to vote on proposals, and only proposals with a majority consensus will be implemented.
Governance proposals can include changing collateralization ratios, changing the interest rate model, liquidation type, and other important protocol parameters.
UniLend Ecosystem Fund (Enabling Projects to Launch Their Tokens with Comprehensive DeFi Functionality)
UniLend endeavours to build a strong DeFi ecosystem and support projects that share our vision. To ensure the growth of the ecosystem and the creation of a new generation of projects, the UniLend Ecosystem Fund (factored into our token distribution model) will provide financial support and guidance to innovative blockchain startups which launch their tokens on UniLend. The Ecosystem Fund will be utilized for:
- Investor connections
- Technical support
- Marketing support
- Other advisory/support needed to ensure the success of the projects
We will also bootstrap these new projects in the UniLend ecosystem with full DeFi functionality (decentralized trading in addition to lending/borrowing) right from their token launch. Empowering brand new tokens with comprehensive DeFi functionality is a concept completely new to the crypto space, and something which is extremely valuable for new tokens looking to establish a user base and solid use cases for their token.
Therefore, we anticipate that listing on UniLend (in addition to traditional platforms such as Uniswap) will be standard procedure for new token launches. In fact, we recently launched a poll on Twitter regarding this, and the crypto community echoed our sentiment strongly.
Launch on Multiple Chains
UniLend protocol is compatible with other EVM compatible blockchains, including Binance Smart Chain, Matic Network etc. Based on community demand and growth of the token ecosystems on these chains, UniLend will launch on applicable chains in order to spearhead the growth of the DeFi ecosystem on these chains.
Layer 2 Scaling Implementation
In the past year, there has been significant advancement in the development of Layer 2 Ethereum scaling solutions, including Optimistic Rollups, ZK-Rollups etc. After the successful launch of UniLend, we will begin implementing Layer 2 solutions to improve the capital efficiency and UX of the UniLend protocol.
Meta Transactions (Pay Discounted Fees Using UFT)
Meta Transactions will allow users to interact with UniLend by paying fees in tokens instead of ETH. Users will be able to pay for transactions in UFT and other major tokens. Additionally, Meta Transactions will also pave the way for gasless transactions on multiple chains and sidechains where UniLend protocol will be operational.
Future Roadmap Release
With more research about the ever-changing needs and trends in the DeFi ecosystem, the UniLend team will prepare the roadmap for future growth beyond Q3 of 2021.
Comprehensive Protocol Research
We will commence the next comprehensive research phase regarding additional functionalities to be added to UniLend protocol, in order to increase both efficiency and adoption.
Credit-Backed Loans
The current DeFi solutions are not using credit scores as a factor while issuing asset-backed loans. Credit rating systems are evolving in the DeFi ecosystem and it will be possible to lower collateralization ratios for borrowers with high credit scores.
Credit scores will encourage and enable borrowers to borrow greater amounts of assets and make full use of the platform. Further research will be conducted on the credit score calculation techniques, implications of credit score integration on liquidations, changes to the liquidation rules during flash crashes for credit score backed loans etc.
LP-Backed Loans
There has been a significant shift in the DeFi space with users adding liquidity to AMM pools to earn trading fees and other token rewards. Uniswap alone has $1.32 billion US dollars worth of liquidity locked at the time of writing, with significant liquidity locked in other such protocols also.
The LP tokens provided to liquidity providers are often more stable than the underlying tokens alone. Therefore, come Q3 2012 we will enable UniLend protocol users to use LP tokens as collateral to borrow ETH.
Flash Loans (Targeting Top-50 Tokens by Market Capitalization)
The growth of the use of flash loans is on an upward trajectory and new use cases are continuously arising. Currently, there is a very limited selection of tokens that can be borrowed for flash loans from other lending protocols. UniLend will open up flash loan options for tokens available on UniLend.
Once the above milestones have been achieved, we will have established the industry’s most comprehensive permissionless DeFi protocol. We feel confident that these milestones are achievable in the stated timeframes and we’re excited to reveal the other plans we are currently ideating, and those which will arise as we continue on our journey.
The above roadmap is just the beginning. We are already in the process of ideating and fleshing out plans for several other features which are not listed in the roadmap above. We will keep the community updated on other plans as and when they are finalized.
Our website will soon be updated with a dedicated roadmap page to list and check off the above milestones as they are achieved.
Here’s to the next stages of our exciting journey on our mission to unlock the true potential of decentralized finance! 🥂
The UniLend team would like to thank our community for your incredible support thus far. We remain at your disposal should you have any questions. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us!
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