FTM Alerts community AMA recap: Our vision of decentralized finance

This post recaps the AMA that took place on the FTMAlerts Official Discord Server on February 15th

We are thrilled to share a great AMA session. One of our Co-Founders and tech lead Myrddin, once again successfully represented and spread awareness about our platform among the FTM Alerts community.

After our 1st AMA we felt we still had more to cover and explain. That’s why we were eager to quickly find another host. Choosing FTM Alerts has proven to be a great move. Overall we were satisfied with the questions that were thrown at us and believe that our answers will provide more clarity to investors.

AMA

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
Nearly time! 😄
I think it’s time…..
So
Without much delay, I present to you Excalibur Finance!!!!!

@Myrddin — Excalibur
Hello guys 👋

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
Hi and welcome on behalf of the FTMalerts fam!

@Myrddin — Excalibur
Thanks for having me!

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
It is a pleasure to host your time here!
I hope you are ready for the ton of exciting questions folks have!

@Myrddin — Excalibur
Absolutely

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
But before all the heavy lifting, we would love to know more about you, rest of team and how you guys got in the crypto space!

@Myrddin — Excalibur
Ok, so first please let me introduce myself, I’m Myrddin, the tech lead and co-founder of Excalibur Exchange
Concerning how we got in the crypto space, I would say it’s a journey, personally my first exposure to crypto came in 2017.
Being in IT i was lucky to have found it early but not lucky enough to find it even earlier
The real journey started a year ago when I discovered DeFi, the idea of helping to recreate financial markets using contracts, the ability to allow anyone large or small to control their own funds… they appealed to me and I spent considerable time learning and understanding the space
Our core team have collaborated, worked on various efforts in DeFi over the last year, and now have come together to try to create something we are proud to share with others

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
That’s amazing!
Well I’m personally glad you found it and ended up on FTM
😄

@Myrddin — Excalibur
We are too for sure!

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
Haha! So what was the biggest factors which led you to FTM?
Apart from @FTMAlerts good looks

@Myrddin — Excalibur
Technically, high security, quick finality, and low fees. For a more broader perspective, we really appreciate the way the community is built here.
We globally felt that the Fantom ecosystem was a bit more wide open and there were a range of interesting launchpad partners and individual projects who we could help support with our custom project friendly DEX offering.

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
Praising FTM totally does NOT put you in our good books 😛
So what is Excalibur Exchange exactly?

@Myrddin — Excalibur
Excalibur Exchange is an ecosystem DEX, built with a focus on sustainability, capital efficiency and supporting new projects.
Its focus is on creating virtuous sustainability, with highly variable swap fees, incentivization for long term staking, a distinct yield generating governance token separated from farming rewards, and a variety of ecosystem mechanisms to support new projects that list.
Its ownership and governance will be truly decentralised from day one, with the opportunity to vest into the hands of traders, liquidity providers, and listed projects helping to grow the ecosystem.

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
Wow! What inspired you to start Excalibur Exchange?

@Myrddin — Excalibur
I’d say, our own experience in DeFi
We felt that while technically sound, existing AMMs were not built with a focus on all users
We built Excalibur with a ground up focus on how we could improve the experience for all market participants: traders, long term liquidity providers, projects and ecosystem partners
It was a desire to see if we could build a product that didn’t need to make the compromises that first gen DEXes had to

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
That sounds super intriguing!
But before we dive deeper, with your project name, I gotta ask, who represents whom!?!?
Do we have a Arthur?

@Myrddin — Excalibur
Haha, fine question

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
Merlin?
😛

@Myrddin — Excalibur
Well, Myrddin is Merlin in welsh language

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
Are spots on the round table open?

@Myrddin — Excalibur
There definitely are spots on the round table open, for all those that will join us on this journey

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
Lovely!
So before we get into the mechanics and details, first and foremost point of security arises!
Users would love to know they can breathe easy while interacting with Excalibur, maybe some audit info?

@Myrddin — Excalibur

Absolutely, and not only
Security has been a top priority during the entire process of Excalibur creation. Globally I think it’s worth insisting on the fact that we don’t think security should just be about an addition of audits, but rather a constant state of mind, from the general conception of the project to its post-launch exploitation and management.
For instance, if there are developers currently reading, they will probably understand what I mean if I say that exhaustive unit tests should not be an option for smart contracts, unlike what we (very) often see.
Having said that, regarding the concrete actions we have taken:
We had a rigorous multi-month audit by Paladin, whose reputation is now clearly well established in terms of reliability and seriousness
We also recently launched along our open beta a bug bounty campaign to catch any flaw that could have been slipped through during the audit process
If I may add, our distribution model also includes the constant funding of a SAFU fund, that will be used for bug bounties and will act as a guarantee fund for beta features and compensation schemes

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
Wow! That sounds great!
Token launch model of choice?

@SamRadfar — FTMAlerts
Nowadays we are facing a lot of new Defi with great potential to attract members to their server. What features and facilities on your server could distinguish your Defi and attract more to join the project? What is your vision in long term for your members?

@Myrddin — Excalibur

It’s still a bit too early to give all the details regarding our launch
What I can say is that the central idea will be that of a fair launch, but with our own take on its implementation
That means no private sale and no discount for anyone, we’re adamant about this
Also, the launch will put not only the tokens, but also the liquidity of the protocol into the hands of the fantom community

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
That is certainly unique!

@Myrddin — Excalibur
I can add that even the team won’t receive any token, and will have to take part in it like any regular user in order to have some
We’ll give the exact process very soon, the announcement ETA being approximately a week from now, and the launch happening early march

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
Wow! So what incentive does the team have to continue to support the project?

@Myrddin — Excalibur
There is a small fraction of the collected platform fees that will be used as management funds, both for paying the team and more generally the daily expenses
For the rest, they will be investors as the others

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
👍
Reviewing the platform I found an element that seemed quite revolutionary to me: Transaction fee mining. Can you tell us how exactly it works? How can a user know which pairs are listed to obtain these rewards per transaction? In what tokens are these rewards received? Can it be the case that these incentives fully cover transaction fees? If so, under what conditions can this occur?

@Myrddin — Excalibur
That’s a lot of questions 😄
If you don’t mind I’ll start by quickly explaining the global idea to everyone

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
Hahahah, fair enough
Our folks tend to get excited with their questions 😬

@Myrddin — Excalibur
Transaction fee mining is the process of automatically (and immediately) reimbursing swap fees through our utility token $EXC. Those paid back fees can be claimed at any time.
I won’t enter into too much technical detail here, but you can find more information in the docs, especially in terms of security. Some might find it quite interesting as our approach here is quite unique and reliable imo
Now for the other questions, only whitelisted tokens will be concerned by those rebates. Those will mainly be largely used tokens with reliable price feeds available for obvious security reasons
It’s possible that the incentives will fully cover transaction fees, but if that’s ever the case it would be more of a promotional exercise
We have designed this mechanism to ensure that the DAO and the team have the available tools to grow and defend the project. Just to give you an example, it could be used to protect volumes during a period where another multi-chain AMM is attempting to enter on a chain where we are present, using an aggressive trade mining program

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
Nice!
In addition to the differences and utilities of both tokens, why does EXCALIBUR need two Tokens ($EXC & $GRAIL) instead of just one? Is it necessary to have two tokens to continue innovating this ecosystem?

@Myrddin — Excalibur
I don’t think having two tokens could really be called an innovation, I’d rather call it a means to an end
In our case, it’d be more that this double token model, both technically and practically, seems to be the best fit for our general approach and strategy
One of our true innovations reside in the way we’re globally handling and redistributing the fees through all of the various actors of our protocol. The main idea behind that being to give fairer and more adapted rewards to every one of them, according to their role and their commitment into the protocol
While $EXC is a regular utility token aiming to reward liquidity providers that will stake on our platform, $GRAIL brings the idea of shareholding, and even ownership of the project.
But that will only be for the users that made the most useful contributions and helped build up stable native liquidity
Basically, it means that just by holding $GRAIL in their wallet, users will be rewarded with passive income paid as daily dividends from the platform fees, in a manner that scales over time as the project grows. Hence creating meaningful long-term rewards
Globally, this gives us the opportunity to give additional and more appropriate rewards to those who are the most involved in the success of the protocol

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
Great!
Given that the only way to really burn $EXC is through swapping fees (which only works if you have LOTS of deposits) and short term bonding contracts, wouldn’t the emissions outpace the burns? How do you balance the two to make it worth while for the users?

@Myrddin — Excalibur
First, I’ll need to add some precisions about how we’ll burn $EXC:
- directly through EXC swaps, like it was mentioned
- through short term bonding contracts, also mentioned in the question
- the DAO treasury might also be used at times to buy back & burn parts of the EXC supply, but it will be ofc subject to validation via a governance vote
- finally, via the GRAIL->EXC swap for users that won’t wait for the swap penalty to end
Also, important point, we’ll be able to control our emission rate at any time to adjust to the market situation
Ofc, this decision will also be controlled through governance

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
Great!
The mechanics of $GRAIL is very similar to other governance tokens like xBOO or xTarot where the generated platform fees are redistributed to their users (inherently increasing its value). What is the reason for separating that into a claimable component?

@Myrddin — Excalibur
I think I covered the answer there with the previous question about the two tokens
is there, I may have been a bit carried away with my answer and said too much 🙂

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
Whoops
😅
One of the principles of the Excalibur project is to be “Flexible and Adaptable”. Can you briefly explain the main strategies for adapting to market changes that will allow Excalibur to adjust to the different scenarios that may appear in the DeFi and Crypto ecosystem in general?
Even handing the DAO (Community) the reins may not get the best result

@Myrddin — Excalibur
First, I think it’s important to note that the terms flexible and adaptable are not only about the market, but about the way we’re generally handling our whole ecosystem
In terms of pure market strategy, the possibility to change the swap fees for each pair individually is truly game changing for us. Just to give a quick example, it will give us the opportunity to focus on some specific pairs to bring more aggregator traffic to us
Also, the various incentives implemented on the platform will also have a similar effect, won’t repeat again the full list, but the transaction fee mining is a perfect example of that

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
It was my understanding that the main source of income for a DEX came from the transaction fees of the pairs that are traded. At Excalibur, when a swap is made, up to 100% of the fees can be returned to the user in the form of native tokens. In these cases, what would be the source of income for the swap services provided? Is this mechanism profitable for the project in the long term?
What % goes to team?

@Myrddin — Excalibur
Ok , so this user is talking of transaction fee mining I think, but I want to be sure that everyone fully understands how it works.
The swap fees are still distributed among LPs and the other actors. The paid back fees you get from trans fee mining are freshly minted $EXC of an equivalent value
Globally, the swap fees are distributed like this:
- at least 50% for the LPs
- the rest is for our redistribution mechanism
The redistributed part will go as follows:
- at least 50% into shareholding dividends for $GRAIL holders
- up to 40% for the POL
- between 2 and 10% into the SAFU fund
- a max of 20% for the team & treasury

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
Wow!

@Myrddin — Excalibur
to have a more visual overview, you can check on the documentation, as it might be more understandable for everyone: https://excaliburexchange.gitbook.io/excalibur-exchange/protocol/fees-allocation

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
In the time safe bet, users choose a lock period during which they cannot withdraw their deposits and in return receive up to 50% additional farming rewards. So, how will you meet these additional rewards?

@Myrddin — Excalibur
Sorry, just to add a last thing about the redistribution: everything is fully automated through smart contracts, and can’t be interrupted in any way
So I guess your users are talking about our time vault staking implementation here, which is a fairly interesting feature I think
To give you a really quick overview, every user will have the opportunity to lock its LPs in every farm for a duration up to 30 days. The longer the lock, the higher the rewards
So for example if you lock for 30 days, you will get a 50% farming bonus
Now to directly answer to the question, the time locked LP deposit is simply treated as a larger deposit for calculating your fair share of the available rewards for that pool.
For instance, if you deposit $1000 into the USDC/FTM pool during 30 days, your loyalty and commitment will be treated like a $1500 deposit for determining your share of $EXC or $GRAIL earnings
So those aren’t really what you could call “additional rewards” and won’t change anything for the emission rate

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
Nice
What’s the alpha on your referral mechanics?

@Myrddin — Excalibur
You’re probably talking about our swap referral feature

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
👀

@Myrddin — Excalibur
We think it’s going to play a huge role in our success, and is a large part of why we can present ourselves as an ecosystem-oriented DEX
First, it’s important to understand that it’s aimed exclusively at partners and projects that want to take part in our ecosystem
This will basically give them the possibility to directly and automatically receive a part of the swap fees generated by their users
So the only condition is to bring some real contribution to our ecosystem by incentivizing their users to use our pairs
The simplest example to illustrate would be aggregators: if we find an agreement with one, each time one of their users would use (at least partially) our pair to make a swap, they would directly and automatically get a small fraction of the generated swap fees
They could then handle it in the way they want, giving the fees back to their users, or if they are for instance a new project, to build up some treasury for some fresh features later, hence helping them with their own development
I think it’s a complete win/win strategy, where we’re giving strong incentives to other projects to generate high volume on our DEX (hence distributing more fees to our users), while they are adequately rewarded for it

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
That’s amazing
How are you choosing your partners?
Any onboarded?

@Myrddin — Excalibur
We are already in advanced talks with some yes, but that will remain secret for now
Basically, the prioritised partners would naturally be aggregators, yield optimizers and fresh projects that will need help for building their initial liq treasury
But that can definitely be extended to others

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
How do you envision the technical influence of “the community” on EXCALIBUR (other than voting on constant changes to innovations in the project)? Some projects have very few devs or designers working in the space other than from the team itself. So, could it be a goal of EXCALIBUR DAO Treasury to attract talented and energetic contributors, including technical contributors to the protocol?

@Myrddin — Excalibur
I think the influence of the community in crypto, and even more in DeFi, is something that has been globally undervalued and underutilised, especially considered its true potential
So of course, the DAO treasury might, and should, be used to bring various talents onboard, especially when Excalibur will be successful enough to aim for broader expansion
Having said that, while it’s relatively easy to work with some contributors, for instance designers, it’s a different story for sc development
So the whole process for that will have to be well thought out, and not “done just to do it”

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
Brilliant!
Wow
Didn’t realise we been grilling you for over an hour
Glad we nearly done with questions (So we didn’t have to get to the water boarding part)

@Myrddin — Excalibur
Haha, sorry, I tend to be a bit talkative, so that’s probably my fault is that has been so long

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
Not at all!
So what all can we expect in future? Any Bombs coming soon?
Any dates to watch out for?

@Myrddin — Excalibur
Absolutely, mainly two
By the end of this week, we’re going to announce a very special event that we have been working out the last weeks. Something quite unusual in crypto space I think, but not directly linked to our launch
Let’s say a sweet prize is included for a winner
Then next week will come the official announcement about our launch, and all of its terms
I can already say that the launch will happen ~ early march

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
Great! Thank you so much for your time!

@Myrddin — Excalibur
Thanks again for having me

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
Anything else you want to add 😄 ?

@Myrddin — Excalibur
And thanks to you and your community for all the great questions
Definitely not your average AMA with botted ones

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
*Primarily the community
I’m just the messenger
😛

@Myrddin — Excalibur
Absolutely, you’re all welcome to come join our open beta currently going on on fantom testnet!

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
Woohoo!
Links please!

@Myrddin — Excalibur
It’s currently live on https://beta.excalibur.exchange/
Included, a $50,000 bug bounty, and a $1,500 giveaway for 3 beta participants

@Fierydev — FTMAlerts
Holy crap!
Well thanks again and thanks all for reading/joining in!

@Myrddin — Excalibur
Thank you everyone!

Social Media links

If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask us through one of our social media links

(Official Telegram preferred)
Website: https://excalibur.exchange/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ExcaliburDefi
Main Telegram: https://t.me/excaliburexchange
Announcement Telegram: https://t.me/excaliburexchangeann