On 25th of February 2021, Anshul Dhir, Co-Founder & COO, EasyFi Network, was live at the IM Community Telegram group, to provide community members with insights on EasyFi Network recent developments, future plans, updates, and also provide answers to community questions and queries.
In order to ensure clarity to my readers, this article has been divided into three segments; the first segment, gives full account of the questions asked by the moderator of this AMA session (Bà Tân) , the second segment, gives account of the questions asked by the IM Twitter Community members, while the third segment, gives account of the questions asked by Yelegram community members.
SEGMENT 1
Bà Tân — Hi Anshul Dhir.
Anshul Dhir —
Hey mate! How are you doing? Thanks for inviting me here today!
Bà Tân — Welcome everyone. Today IM Community will host AMA with EasyFi. Today our guest is Anshul Dhir. Please introduce yourself a bit Anshul.
Anshul Dhir —
Sure. Well, I am COO & Co-founder at EasyFi Network, an entrepreneur with 15+ years of diversified experience across Global financial markets, Portfolio/Fund management, Real estate & alternative investments, fintech & technology businesses & the Ministry of Communication & IT (GOI).
For the last five odd years, I have been focused on blockchain & cryptocurrency space. My journey in this industry started with an initial investment in 2013–14 and then later on setting up cryptocurrency mining farms across India in 2016–17.
Bà Tân — Great.
Anshul Dhir —
During the journey, I met my current partner & Founder Ankitt Gaur who, at the time, was building Koinfox. I along with Opinderpreet Singh (another cofounder at Koinfox) joined him and there was no looking back then.
After putting up Koinfox on the flywheel, Ankitt (CEO at EasyFi) & I, along with our other co founder & CTO Arif decided to take a deep dive into DeFi space with the launch of the EasyFi network in August 2020, to address the major pain points & setup cross-chain lending infrastructure for the long term. That’s a brief about me & team.
Bà Tân — Thanks for the introduction.
Anshul Dhir —
Pleasure
Bà Tân — Please tell our community a little bit about EasyFi, its work in the DeFi space and the unique things you are focussing on in this space.
Anshul Dhir —
EasyFi Network is universal layer 2 DeFi lending protocol currently LIVE on Polygon (erstwhile Matic Network) and Ethereum networks. As the first Layer 2 lending protocol built on Polygon (Matic) Network, EasyFi has been designed as an open and inclusive financial network infrastructure to run on public networks to facilitate end-to-end lending & borrowing of digital assets and related financial products.
When it comes to DeFi, We are focused on the borrowing side of lending markets where the actual gap lies. We focus on consumer centric products, expanding DeFi lending space to better use cases and addressing major pain points of high gas cost, slower transactions, no borrower centric products and fewer collateral options in existing money markets.
As an overall focus on unique things — we are probably the only Layer 2 DeFi lending protocol that is focussing on under-collateralized loans, Micro-lending products, Pay-day Loans & Credit default swaps (institutional offerings) as mentioned in our roadmap. This we are also enroute to achieving in the near future.
So the focus areas for us are:
- More & robust collateral options.
- Consumer-centric financial products.
- Cross-chain lending infrastructure.
Bà Tân — We have been hearing a lot about your #DoMoreWithDeFi campaign. Can you talk a little bit about it?
Anshul Dhir —
Thank you for asking. We are very excited about our #DoMoreWithDeFi campaign that is changing the DeFi narrative of going beyond just a single point of yield from your digital assets.
As said, currently DeFi (particularly in the lending segment) has limited forward linkages to use-cases like trading, margin financing, leverage, etc.
As a matter of fact, there’s a lot of liquidity (surplus capital) in the market and the gap here is deploying or diverting this capital to a better use-case. With improving infrastructure & technological improvement with regard to security & operations in DeFi, the influx of capital is only going to grow. Hence, new avenues need to be created both on the user (retail) side and LP (institutional) side.
Therefore, the #DoMoreWithDeFi campaign reflects upon the overall vision of EasyFi creating maximum & innovative avenues for both sides of users. End-user may see it as more yield, more collateral options, more assets to borrow, more funds (under collateralized) to avail, More reach to new projects (EasyFi Access). Institutional user may see it as More avenues to earn interest, More avenues to deploy capital.
Bà Tân — How can I join farming in EasyFi?
Anshul Dhir —
Very simple…you will have to go to our EasyFi App — visit the Staking, Dual Farming or Access modules, stake EASY tokens on any ongoing program and earn / farm the respective token.
Each of these farming modules work differently.
Staking — uses a Liquidity pool token methodology. Basically one needs to acquire an LP token by supplying liquidity to an EASY pool with partner project tokens or with existing cryptos on Uniswap or other DEXs. Deposit the LP tokens acquired into the relevant EasyFi staking program and start farming Easy tokens.
Currently EASY-WRX Staking program is live in collaboration with WazirX — this is being executed on the Polygon (Matic) Network. This one requires users to stake an LP token acquired on Quickswap (a Layer 2 Dex powered by Matic / Polygon). We are running this program on Eth as well as Matic Chains.
Check them out here:
Link 1
Link 2
The best part of our programs are the net APR generated. We have had an average APR of more than 150% for all our EASY farming programs. We are regularly organizing farming programs in collaboration with partners from the industry. So keep your EASY tokens ready for staking.
Bà Tân — Can you tell us about the EasyFi roadmap for the next few months? Is there anything new that the DeFi space is going to see from your side?
Anshul Dhir —
EasyFi has envisioned short term achievable goals to work with a long term vision. Small goals helps us focus and execute the milestones better. That is why we plan and publish a Quarter on quarter goals. Here is the current quarter roadmap that we published earlier last month.
Our primary focus will always be to provide readily available, real-life, utility-oriented and user-friendly lending products in a permission-less way. A very ambitious yet very achievable task. In the very near future, we are going to bring the following new things to the DeFi space.
As mentioned earlier you will see non-ERC20 tokens listed as collaterals.
We will also be initiating Derivative Asset Lending on our lending platform — where Derivatives of staked assets will be listed as collaterals — we will start adding.
Next in line as lending collaterals will be tokenized stocks and precious metals. For instance- FACEBOOK-TESLA-APPLE-AMAZON etc., shares, Precious metals like GOLD & SILVER. News about this should be coming soon.
We will be Expanding to multiple new blockchain networks in the near future, going beyond the current Ethereum and Matic (Polygon) networks.
We are also planning to change the look and feel of our lending protocol with new intuitive UI/UX.
We also have expansions planned with new wallet integrations.
Q2 will see us venture into our main focus area of under-collateralization and un-collateralization through new markets for micro-loans and pay-day loans and the rest.
SEGMENT 2
Twitter Question 1 — What is your strategy for building a strong community? Do you agree that the power of the community will lead your project to develop globally? What services do you provide to the community?
Anshul Dhir —
At EasyFi, we firmly believes in the strength of the community. Communities play an important role in bringing value to networks. infact, there’s no crypto without communities. We have been very focussed in building our community step by step and have grown into a one large global community of at least 20000 people from all over the world.
As numbers, we now manage 1 global and 6 regional communities including one in Vietnam with over 3.5K members. Here’s the link for our dedicated community for Vietnam.
Ankitt Gaur, CEO at EasyFi, has been always inclined towards addressing the community frequently. In fact, he went LIVE with one of a kind community connect program last month. You l see more such programs added to the schedule in the coming future. We have also planned an exclusive ambassador campaign for our community members. More details shall be announced very soon.
We are very much open to feedback on this. I would urge community members to keep giving inputs in EasyFi’s official TG group.
Twitter Question 2 — What is your background and how did you come to the idea to create your project? Does it have special meaning and is there any story behind this name?
Anshul Dhir—
Well as mentioned during start, here’s a brief about myself and our journey till date. Supplementing to this, allow me to tell you more about idea of EasyFi, how it came into existence as a brand.
EasyFi as the name suggests, is a short form for “Easy Finance” and that was the primary motive that was driving us in creating something in the DeFi space. We want to ensure that the DeFi space, its functions, usability, tools, services are made simpler, affordable and easy to use without anyone having to bother about learning the technology first.
Our main focus is to deliver (real-life utility oriented) user friendly lending products in a permission-less way. It’s definitely an ambitious goal, not an impossible one though. I guess that is as simple as our story can get about how we got this name.
Twitter Question 3 — Only getting users, holders etc is not everything. In my opinion, a project needs to deal with solving a real world issue or problem. What is the problem that your project primarily focuses on?
Anshul Dhir —
Thats a very good question. Besides price action to value of token and all other things in the market. There’s lot for which whole team puts slog into.
The primary issue that we are trying to solve is the problem of the smaller investor, who does not get to utilize and benefit the true power of blockchain and DeFi and have underutilized assets. What is missing is the opportunity for the users and holders of small amounts of crypto assets, which is a big chunk of the global crypto community.
As a company, we are focused on the retail borrower. There is no dearth of liquidity or capital in the DeFi space and same has been proved with the ever mounting TVL in DeFi currently. However, the high collateralization ratios in the current lending markets restricts the users due to the costs involved. Off late the gas fees on Eth network has also skyrocketed and restricting users.
We, therefore, started with the premise of bring down the collateralization lower and endeavor to achieve under-collateralization and un-collateralization. We believe this will drive real adoption of DeFi. We are already building the infrastructure layer for digital identity management so that we can allow borrowers evaluation to happen for issuing loans to users on our platform.
Twitter Question 4— Can you tell Why EasyFi doesn’t make own blockchain instead of running on Ethereum?
Anshul Dhir —
Frankly, our focus as a pure lending company is totally different. We have planned EasyFi as a DeFi lending platform and not a unique blockchain. Infact we are focused on developing interchain lending infrastructure. So as of now our token has been deployed on Ethereum, Matic (Polygon) and we are LIVE on both the chains.
The Lending protocol has been built on the Layer 2 Matic / Polygon network. As a business, we want to focus on the decentralized lending market. There are several blockchain infrastructures available for the purpose and we are going to expand to multiple chains.
Twitter Question 5 — What is EasyFi fairness and transparency? What technology of EasyFi helps ensure fairness and transparency for users?
Anshul Dhir —
EasyFi is a blockchain-based lending platform. So every single transaction done on EasyFi is available for audit on ethereum and matic networks, in public domain. All our token contracts, and holders wallets etc are accessible and public.
And in all fairness, all transactions are on public, open and immutable ledgers. That’s where beauty of open permissionless networks lies and we are all transparent & fair to our user to help them ascertain this information in a much seamless manner on our dedicated dashboards.
SEGMENT 3
Community Question 1 — Which area does focus on at the moment? (DeFi, Nft, Dapps, Stake, Yield Farming.
Anshul Dhir —
DeFi is all about compasability and we believe, while serving the niche market, a community oriented project cannot leave any of above untouched. Also, there’s lot of utility around playing these. DeFi +NFT is a deadly combination with huge potential ready to unleash in near future. EasyFi definitely has plans to bring about clear line of utility with NFTs. We are pretty much active with staking, farming, cross yield generation activities already. This will only increase by the time.
Community Question 2— People are exploited with interest rates by local financiers. But there is a reason why they stay there, they not see a better option. It is easy for them to use their funds to buy and sell in their localities. Is easyfi competitive enough to be a mainstream payment method?
Anshul Dhir —
Why compete when you can compliment? We are not at all inclined towards competing for local distribution channels. In fact, we tend to compliment them by addressing inefficiencies in the existing system. There’s loyalty attached to the relationship which is invaluable, and paramount.
With help of better technology and processes in place, we can infuse greater transparency as to borrower’s evaluation, lower down interest rates and introduce shorter loan disbursal cycles, ensure timely repayments to name a few. Also, EasyFi is focused on the lending sector and has no interest in becoming a global payment method. We’ll leave that to others .
Community Question 3— What methods does EASY plan to control the distribution volume and supply-demand relationship and ensure the value of EASY?
Anshul Dhir —
Our tokenomics is well defined to address all the major areas when it comes to distribution. I would invite you to have a look here to understand more about same. To sum up, i would say major portion is for community and ecosystem, Investors and advisor’s emmission is scheduled uniformly over daily distribution through smart contracts only. Everything is automated and available for audit over etherscan. Here’s more details about it.
Community Question 4— Can you tell me what is Koinfox TrustScore? What role does Koinfox TrustScore play in the #EASYFI network, and what benefits can users benefit from using Koinfox TrustScore?
Anshul Dhir —
Yes, as mentioned earlier we are working on to achieve lower collateralization ratio so as to deliver undercollateralized & unsecured lending products in DeFi on layer 2. Therefore, borrower evaluation mechanisms plays an important role which further needs establishing web 3.0 identity layer.
Our team has been working on developing TrustScore for different purposes in DeFi since inception and we are very close to achieve our target. Infact we have already started partnering with few industry players to achieve our goals. One is Blockpass who are leaders in identity management.
Community Question 5— It is unfortunate that some projects remain half way because their developers abandon the concept because they cannot achieve the desired capitalization in the long term, how do you plan to make this project sustainable for its development?
Anshul Dhir —
Thats a very important question. Well, you are right! That’s the calculated risk an entrepreneur has to take while building a business. Survival is the key and markets favor the fearless.
To start with, EasyFi has to offer money markets for both stable as well as volatile assets on a layer 2 network (Matic network), you won’t see a lot many players on layer 2 LIVE as of now and along with that, we are focused on building products with great utility for both retail and institutions in the long run. We are focused on structured lending products viz. Microlending, credit delegation, credit default swaps. Imagine, you can take an advance loan on your salary and spend it on daily domestic expenditure, everything permissionless.
Pertaining to the resource and skill set our team possess, we have been in business from last 15 years, founded, exited few successful businesses already. We have been fortunate to have a dedicated team currently and hope to only expand by the time. Very soon, I am sure, we will be able to deliver a much sought for product in micro-lending space. Stay tuned for same.