DeFi needs to go beyond Ethereum, and the money market HARD Protocol is exploring cross-chain DeFi scenarios

DeFi has created an amazing miracle this summer, giving us a glimpse of another potential theme beyond "borderless currency" and "Web 3", which could be a trillion-dollar market.

DeFi has a powerful impact on zombie borderless currencies and junk public chains, sweeping the latter into the graveyard of history, where the scythe of death awaits them. It is no exaggeration to praise a programmable financial system with global liquidity.

According to data from DeFi Pulse, the current total locked value (TVL) of DeFi is approximately US$13 billion, a tenfold increase compared to the first half of the year, and the scale of the on-chain economy promoted by this is calculated in US$100 billion.

Currently, most DeFi applications are limited to the Ethereum ecosystem, but forks and competition in the Ethereum ecosystem have already appeared. The latter will promote the activity and innovation of the entire DeFi field and improve its anti-fragility. Among them, Kava, the first DeFi platform based on the Cosmos cross-chain, is a leader that cannot be ignored.

Cryptocurrency lending is a rigid demand and the market size is huge

According to the crypto investment fund Multicoin Capital, as the crypto industry matures, its market size will reach trillions of dollars, and the scale of collateralized lending will also reach trillions of dollars - this is a very huge market.

In the pledge lending track, MakerDAO, founded in 2014 and based on Ethereum, is undoubtedly the leading project, with a current locked value exceeding US$2 billion. However, it is also subject to the congestion of the Ethereum network, high gas fees, and only supports the pledge of ERC-20 tokens. In extreme market conditions on March 12, there was even an event of zero-cost auction liquidation of assets.

This is exactly where Kava's opportunity lies: relying on the Cosmos cross-chain, it provides decentralized stablecoins and other financial products with the advantages of fast, low cost, and support for multi-currency staking.

Kava’s Steady Development Path

In October 2019, Kava entered the public eye as the "Binance's 10th Launchpad Project" and the "Pearl of the Cosmos Ecosystem."

Subsequently, Kava developed rapidly, launched multiple marketing activities (such as CDP early bird activity camp, community knights, test network incentive activities), and established strategic partnerships with multiple partners (including OKChain, IRISnet, BNB48 Club, INJECTIVE, Swipe Wallet, Akash, etc.).

Kava lending platform was officially launched on June 10, with BNB as the first supported collateral and the stablecoin generated by collateral is USDX. In July, it started a 52-week program to provide 3.848 million KAVA rewards (74,000 KAVA per week) to users who participated in the BNB collateralization to mint USDX.

At the same time, Kava is also constantly adding supported collateral to expand the market size. Currently, BUSD, BTC and XRP have been added. Kava will provide KAVA token rewards to USDX users who use the above assets to mint USDX, and provide 3.848 million KAVA rewards to users who participate in mortgaging BUSD to mint USDX each year (74,000 KAVA are issued weekly); the reward proposal for BTC has been submitted for voting, and its reward allocation amount is 5 million KAVA rewards per year; and the reward proposal for XRP will be submitted in the next week after BTC, with an amount of 3.848 million KAVA rewards.

On July 16, in the Binance Launchpad annual best project selection, Kava took the top spot with its strong influence in the ecosystem, high scores in holding rebates/Binance Treasure integration and number of activities, and won the annual award, which is well deserved.

It is worth mentioning that in April of this year, the crypto venture capital firm Framework Ventures injected US$750,000 into Kava by purchasing 1% to 5% of the native tokens and promoted the improvement of KAVA's governance and economic model.

You may not be familiar with Framework, but it is the largest holder of SNX, the native token of the synthetic asset issuance platform Synthetix, and may also be the largest holder of LINK, the native token of the decentralized oracle provider Chainlink. Lianwen once wrote an article calling it "the 'immersive' promoter of the DeFi Great Leap Forward" and an important "behind-the-scenes promoter" of this DeFi craze.

Currently, there are more than 200,000 Kava blockchain accounts, more than 1,300 CDP accounts, a total locked asset value of more than 28 million USD, and a total loan value of 13 million USDX. The above performance of Kava shows its high-quality fundamentals, its products meet market demand, and are deeply recognized and supported by the market and users.

Kava, More Than a Stablecoin

On October 15, the cross-chain gateway Kava 4 Gateway of the Kava platform was successfully upgraded. This upgrade included Chainlink oracle update, Binance cross-chain bridge expansion, Kava CDP update (new support for BTC, XRP and BUSD), shortened governance time, Cosmos-SDK update and many other contents.

After the launch of Kava 4, "cross-chain asset staking" has been realized in the true sense, expanding from the initial support for only BNB tokens to assets such as BTC and XRP. In the future, it will support more other currencies, and its ecology will prosper further.

In addition, Kava also simultaneously released the first cross-chain currency market application HARD Protocol, the world's first cross-chain currency market.

The HARD Protocol platform is committed to providing users with more opportunities to use digital assets for on-chain economic activities. Users can borrow, lend and mine through assets such as BTC, XRP, BNB, BUSD, KAVA and USDX.

The launch of HARD Protocol has opened a precedent for Kava blockchain application integration, which has enabled Kava to leap from a "cross-chain decentralized stablecoin" project to a hub in the DeFi world, demonstrating Kava's ambition to build a decentralized financial services platform. As collateral, governance functions, and ecosystem liquidity tokens, the Kava token will also gain more intrinsic value through this transition.

As the first application based on the Kava platform, the cross-chain currency market HARD Protocol has several unique advantages:

• Inheriting the inherent advantages of the Kava platform, fast transaction speed, low transfer fees, support for cross-chain ecology, etc.

• Launched with the launch of Kava 4, HARD Protocol has supported multiple currencies since its inception, and its market audience is wider, which helps to expand the user and market scale of the entire HARD Protocol;

• Smart use of Kava’s existing infrastructure (such as validator sets, price feed modules, cross-chain bridges, and existing user base) to make early cold starts smoother;

• HARD Protocol issues the in-app governance token HARD for decentralized governance and liquidity incentives. The total amount of HARD is 200 million, there is no seed round or private placement, and the token distribution is fair.

Based on the future market performance of HARD Protocol, we may see more applications based on the Kava blockchain to build DeFi Lego blocks, all of which can take advantage of Kava's security, price feed services, cross-chain functions and other infrastructure. In this journey, Kava is also gradually realizing its vision of "providing open and decentralized financial services to the world" - Kava will be more than just a stablecoin.

The world's first cross-chain currency market HARD Protocol

The abbreviation of HARD Protocol - "the first cross-chain money market" - points out its two biggest features: cross-chain and money market. According to the official introduction, HARD Protocol has three main business sections:

• Liquidity Supply — securely deposit digital assets in HARD Protocol and earn interest;

• Borrow — Pledge digital assets on the HARD Protocol platform and lend them to others;

• Earn from mining - Both depositors and borrowers can earn HARD Protocol's governance token HARD.

At present, the first version of HARD Protocol has been officially launched, and the total locked assets have exceeded 12 million US dollars. Based on Kava 4 and its ecological foundation, HARD Protocol currently supports the staking of BNB, USDX, KAVA and HARD tokens. The mining APY of the first three assets is about 50%, while the mining APY of HARD has reached an astonishing 9000%. At the same time, the mining of mainstream assets such as BTC, XRP, BUSD will also be launched one after another.

Currently, HARD Protocol has received support from many exchanges and DeFi applications. For example, Binance and BitMax have launched HARD Protocol mining and trading, and users can directly experience simple and convenient mining products through Binance and BitMax. HARD Protocol is also integrating more centralized exchanges and DeFi applications to lower the threshold for using HARD Protocol and improve the composability of products.

HARD Protocol V2 is expected to be launched in December 2020, and will support lending and corresponding incentives for more currencies, as well as expand HARD's governance functions.

In terms of HARD governance, its holders can vote on key parameters of the HARD Protocol (such as providing additional collateral assets, incentive distribution methods, platform fee settings, etc.), which can generally capture the intrinsic value of platform development. The total amount of HARD is 200 million, and the distribution is as follows:

40% of the total HARD will be used for ecological incentives to create healthy and continuous liquidity rewards. It is worth mentioning that 20% of HARD will be distributed to KAVA stakers in the next few years. Users who stake KAVA tokens in the Kava network can receive HARD tokens according to block allocation.

HARD token rewards were officially distributed on October 16. Users who supply assets (Supply) on HARD Protocol can obtain HARD mining rewards. Currently, HARD Protocol has allocated different proportions of HARD tokens for different assets such as USDX/HARD/KAVA/BNB. The detailed allocation amount and APY can be viewed and calculated on the login website.

The operation steps are also very simple. Users log in to the HARD Protocol official website and connect the Kava wallet (currently supports Trust Wallet and Ledger wallets) to earn HARD tokens through liquidity supply (Supply) or lending (Borrow).

What is particularly eye-catching is the nested reward mechanism of the Kava ecosystem, that is, users can first go to the Kava CDP lending platform to mortgage and borrow USDX, and then use USDX to go to the HARD platform to mine HARD tokens. This operation will help users obtain both KAVA and HARD rewards at the same time.

In HARD Protocol, 49% of HARD token rewards are allocated to the USDX currency market, which is the highest among all currency markets. Through economic incentives, users are encouraged to borrow and lend USDX to expand its market value. In order to empower application scenarios, USDX will be adopted. Through embedded cooperation with exchanges and DeFi applications, USDX aims to gradually expand the adoption rate and provide users with borderless, stable and fair DeFi services.

Cross-chain brings more possibilities to DeFi

When we talk about DeFi, we should not limit ourselves to the single ecosystem of Ethereum. BTC, which has the largest market value and the best liquidity, Ripple, which has long been ranked third in market value and focuses on cross-border gateway remittances, and more mainstream assets should also have a place.

This is exactly the vision of Kava and HARD Protocol, to expand the DeFi ecosystem to the entire digital currency industry and make it easy for all users to participate.

In addition, the underlying layer of HARD Protocol is built on Cosmos-SDK, which can provide users with a better experience: lower transaction fees, faster speed, support for multiple cross-chain mainstream assets, etc. - this is the advantage of HARD Protocol over MakerDAO/Compound/Aave.

For the open platform Kava, HARD Protocol will be a milestone, and its subsequent market performance will encourage the emergence of more types of DeFi applications. In the near future, we may see multiple verified applications such as Uniswap, Yearn, Curve, etc. based on the Kava platform - they will not be limited to the Ethereum ecosystem, and in theory can support all tokens - which will bring a Cambrian explosion to the Kava ecosystem.

This is the greater possibility that cross-chain brings to DeFi: Decentralized Finance, which allows all types of assets to be truly decentralized and everyone can participate freely.