DamoTalks #45 Recap: AMA With Echidna Finance

Introduction:

DamoTalks #45

Guest: Raimonji, Marketing Lead for Echidna Finance

Host: Jane — Event Manager of TokenDamo

Live Assistant: Lin Lin

Live time: March 1, 4 P.M. (UTC+8), 2022

Q1：Can you introduce yourself to the community members? What’s the core function of Echidna? How do users benefit from Echidna?

Hi everyone! Raimonji here. I am the marketing lead for Echidna Finance. Echidna is a community-driven protocol custom-built for Platypus Finance — the dominant stable swap on Avalanche.

At a high level, Echidna enables stablecoin holders and LPs to boost their yield farming rewards on Platypus Finance using the PTP we aggregate from the community. If you’re an LP, instead of holding PTP and staking PTP yourself, you can leverage our vePTP to boost your rewards.

We also unlock utility for the PTP token. When you contribute your PTP to us, it becomes a yield generating asset through our ECD emissions. The voting power of vePTP also becomes liquid and tradable and we expect it to be highly sought after once governance is enabled on Platypus

Q2：Some people say that Echidna is the Avalanche version of Convex, what do you think about this? What do think are your strengths and competitiveness?

I think our core functions as yield boosters are similar, but that is where our similarities end. I will use Convex as context for comparison. The team looked at Convex’s model and made upgrades to the rewards distribution and tokenomics to make it more sustainable.

When you use Convex, you are paid in your LP token currencies, cvxCRV, CRV, CVX, and 3crv in a mixed bag, which is quite convoluted. As an investor, you want to know how much you are getting paid and you are getting paid so you can make better investment decisions.

So for Echidna, we separated the rewards distribution and made it super clear:

If you are an LP, you are paid in PTP tokens earned from our yield boosting.

If you are a PTP contributor, you receive ECD (Echidna token).

the composition of your APR is clearer and it’s also easier to transact with which brings me to my next point about tokenomics. We believe that by focusing our liquidity mining rewards onto PTP contributors, we prevent rewards dilution and dumping since a larger portion of a user’s APR will come from ECD, which can be locked for additional platform fees and carries voting power accumulated by Echidna’s vePTP. All of this ultimately creates a more sustainable system for ourselves, and for Platypus so that we may grow together.

Q3：Can you tell us about Echidna’s tokenomics model?

I think it’s important for people to understand the tokens we’ve created for our ecosystem so I decided to share this chart first.

we have three tokens in our ecosystem

• ecdPTP
• ECD -veECD

When a user contributes PTP to our platform, we exchange it for ecdPTP at a 1:1 ratio. A user can then lock ecdPTP to earn ECD emissions.

ECD can be locked for veECD, (voting escrow Echidna token), which entitles the user to a % of our platform’s fees paid in PTP, and also grants them voting power. We are also releasing a new update for ECD today/tomorrow depending on your timezone, and it will add more utility and value to the token. So now that you understand those three tokens, the other half of our token model is our rewards distribution, as mentioned previously.

We distribute 80% of all PTP earned by Echidna back to LPs, the 20% will be taken as a haircut and deployed for the following

• veECD holder rewards (as described above)
• ecdPTP / PTP pool for investors to exit
• treasury (liquid capital for operating costs)

Macro Overview

Token Model Stake stablecoins and LP tokens to earn boosted PTP emissions Convert PTP to ecdPTP then stake ecdPTP to earn ECD Lock ECD for voting power and % of protocol revenue paid in PTP Rewards Distribution 80% of all PTP earned will go to LP depositors 20% will be split among PTP staking on Platypus, ecdPTP / PTP pool for investors to exit flexibly, and treasury (marketing, community incentives, legal)

Native Token Tokenomics

70% Community Rewards 55% emissions for PTP contributors (logarithmic distribution for 3 years)

15% for bonus rewards for secondary pools (10% at TGE then 18-month vesting)

15% Team — 6-month cliff 18-month vest

5% Advisors — 6-month cliff 18-month vest

5% Community Treasury — support operational costs- 10% at TGE then 3-month cliff and 18-month vest

3% Rocket Joe — DEX liquidity 100% unlock

2% vePTP Holder — Airdrop variable release

70% of the total supply will be for liquidity mining rewards. 55% for ecdPTP stakers; 15% for secondary pool bonus rewards (e.g. trader joe double rewards farm). 15% team + 5% advisors both have a 6-month cliff (lock) followed by 18-month vesting. 5% community treasury for operational costs (bug bounty, content, partnerships, etc.); 3-month cliff and 18-month vesting

then 3% for rocket joe to seed our DEX pool, and 2% airdrop to vePTP holders. BTW, the airdrop is claimable in 2 weeks.

Q4：We know that Echidna did not provide any tokens to VCs, how about your team? Without Fund Raising, how do you support the continuing development of the project?

the 5% community treasury mentioned above will have 10% unlocked at TGE, but we are very cautious about selling our own tokens to support our operations. So we will also rely on the small portion of PTP revenue that we divert to our operations to keep us going

our team token allocation also has a large portion reserved for future team members, Echidna will be a multi-year project and we made sure we structured our incentives such that we can continue to grow the team over time

Q5：How does Echidna ensure the security and stability of smart contracts? Can you tell us what have you worked on in terms of security?

We were audited by Omniscia, which were Platypus’ auditors. The Platypus team also reviewed our code as part of the whitelisting process.

We will also announce our bug bounty program within this week.

Q6：I saw on your documentation saying that you are going to build a Convex-like protocol, but Convex is based on the complicated use of the Curve protocol, and Platypus, for instance, is very easy-to-use. In your opinion, what direction is Echidna heading in?

We designed our protocol to emulate the simplicity of Platypus and this is reflected in our tokenomics, rewards distribution, and user interface. People use Platypus because it’s simple and innovative and in the same spirit that is how we will proceed as a project. We also believe in investing in user education and localization, since both of these contribute to making things easier to understand.

This means creating and translating content that can guide a user throughout the whole process of investing with Platypus and Echidna, from their first stablecoin deposit all the way to submitting a governance proposal for Echidna.

Q7：We all know that the token launch of Echidna Finance just ended not long ago, can you share with us your current achievements?

We raised 20K AVAX from Rocket Joe with only 3% of the total supply, which was actually quite close to our target. That puts our FDV at about 64m. We’re very grateful to everyone who helped seed our DEX liquidity. Double rewards farms on trader joe for the ECD/AVAX pool start on 2 Mar 6 pm UTC.

We raised over 20K AVAX from Rocket Joe which placed our FDV at around 60m when we launched. We surpassed a million PTP deposited yesterday at around 8 pm UTC, which is perfectly in line with our mission of accruing as much PTP as possible.

We currently offer > 1600% APR for PTP (based on ECD emitted) and we also unlock more value and utility for the ECD token very soon as mentioned previously.

We will also deploy an ecdPTP / PTP pool very soon so investors can enter / exit flexibly and hunt for arbitrage opportunities. So definitely come check us out and deposit some PTP!

Q8：What else is planned for Echidna Finance in 2022? What do you think is the most significant thing for Echidna this year?

There are two main things: one of them is happening right now — Echidna (ECD) Rush.

To bootstrap PTP from the community, we elevated our ECD emissions 4x the normal emission rate. The multiplier will decrease for every million ecdPTP staked, and right now we are at 1.1m (3x multiplier). This is also why our APR is at 1600% for PTP deposits. Accruing a large amount of PTP will be crucial to our long-term viability as a yield booster and the team structured our incentives to reflect this priority of ours. The second thing is voting power monetization. The voting power from our vePTP will be transferred to the ECD token, which is liquid and tradable.

Users can use lock ECD for veECD and vote in the Platypus voting gauge, with the most contentious proposals being PTP rewards allocations to stablecoin pools. Stablecoin protocols with liquidity pools in Platypus / who want to open liquidity pools in Platypus will bribe vePTP (ECD) holders with airdrops of their token so you will vote for their pool

To give some perspective, Frax and UST paid over 30m in bribes to Convex (CVX) token holders in the past 2 months. We expect that kind of user incentivization to come to Platypus once they enable their voting gauges. We will build a vote monetization platform so users can capitalize on these opportunities via Echidna

In the short term, the most important thing will be our PTP bootstrapping event, Echidna Rush, which is happening right now. Accruing a large balance of PTP is vital to our success as a yield booster, so we are offering huge incentives to anyone who deposits PTP into our protocol, especially the early ones.

Emissions will start at 4x the regular rate for the first million PTP converted. The multiplier will lower by 1x after every millionth ecdPTP staked. In other words:

1,000,000 ecdPTP staked; multiplier remains at 4x.

1,000,001 ecdPTP staked; multiplier reduced to 3x

2,000,001 ecdPTP staked; multiplier reduced to 2x; so on and so forth

This mechanism makes our rewards system accessible to all users regardless of their capital levels, and highly favorable to early PTP contributors who support us. After we reach 3M ecdPTP tokens staked, ECD emissions will follow a logarithmic schedule In the mid/long term, our next major milestone will be building a feature on Echidna for users to be incentivized for their vePTP voting power. A really big part of the Curve Wars is voting bribes. To give some perspective, frax paid over US$20 M in bribes in the past two months followed by UST at over $10 M. Echidna will expand In anticipation of these monetization opportunities for users.

Q9：Who are Echidna Finance’s current partners or institutions?

We have no institutional partners. We have a few media partners that we work with such as Muhabbit, Token Damo, etc. Our advisory team is strong but we are currently unable to disclose more information about them at this stage.

Free Q&A

1. As you mentioned people staking PTP will earn ECD. Currently locking ECD for veECD can earn more PTP and gain voting power, so any future plans to provide more locking benefits? How to attract more people to lock ECD instead of just selling them directly (so as to keep the price growing and more sustainable)?

We will announce our plans for this today/tomorrow. There will be more utility and value-added to ECD locking, we are confident it will incentivize users to hold onto their ECD in the short term

In the long term, once Platypus voting gauges are enabled, the vote monetization platform will be a key driver of ECD diamond handing.

2. How did you choose/end up with the name “Echidna Finance ”? What were your thoughts back then, so you decided on “Echidna”? Ambassadors play a very important role in every project, Do you have an ambassador program? If yes, How can I be one?

We chose Echidna because Echidna is the only other egg-laying mammal like the Platypus. We wanted to show that we are on Platypus’ side with our branding and our actions support their growth, hence our decision to go for Echidna

3. Will you consider developing an auto compounding feature, or partner with an auto-compounder like Beefy $BIFI? Like automatically harvesting PTP rewards for LPs to stake them as ecdPTP, or automatically harvesting earned $ECD to extend locked veECD.

I think this is BIG to users in high tax countries like the USA because this will create MUCH LESS taxable events.

Also Beefy has proven to be attracting a huge amount of new TVLs because they are trusted auto-compounders and have a huge community.

We are already in discussions with an auto-compounding protocol on Avax to set this up. Cannot provide more details than that but know that it’s coming soon

4. After launch with platypus is there any interest in yield boosting for other AMMs?

Hi @jlaudybell, not in the short/mid-term. We really want to specialize in Platypus and the ecosystem it provides. Platypus is approaching US$ 1B TVL but it is still in beta. There are a lot of new developments coming for it (new stablecoin pools, factory pools, governance, etc.) and we want to make sure we can capture value from these developments and enhance it for Platypus users and Echidna users — only then we may explore other AMMs afterward

5.2-USERS will deposit their stables to platypus and stake. These LP Tokens to these projects. I wonder will this affect platypus TVL ?

Echidna does not remove TVL from Platypus.

When users stake their LP tokens into Echidna, they must first deposit their stablecoins into Platypus, which will contribute to Platypus’ TVL.

We also built a feature that allows users to direct deposit their stablecoins into Platypus via Echidna (deposit stablecoin for LP Token + stake LP token all done in one action)

I will conclude by saying that since we enable anyone to boost their yield farming rewards on Platypus, a lot of people will approach Echidna to use our service. This ultimately helps Platypus grow their TVL!

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