Space Summary
The Twitter Space BENQI Return Finance hosted by BenqiFinance. BENQI's collaboration with Return Finance brings seamless staking and lending solutions to the DeFi space on Avalanche. The platform offers competitive yields, diverse asset options, and robust security measures, catering to users seeking passive income opportunities with transparency and confidence. By enhancing the DeFi ecosystem on Avalanche, BENQI and Return Finance contribute to network liquidity and innovation, setting a high standard for user-friendly DeFi experiences. Exploring their offerings provides valuable insights into the evolving landscape of DeFi applications and growth prospects on Avalanche.
For more spaces, visit the DeFi page.
Questions
Q: What distinguishes BENQI and Return Finance's staking and lending services on Avalanche?
A: The seamless integration, competitive yields, and robust security measures set them apart in the DeFi space.
Q: How do users benefit from participating in staking on the Avalanche platform through BENQI?
A: Users can earn passive income, contribute to network liquidity, and access diverse staking assets.
Q: What security measures are in place to protect users' funds while engaging in staking activities?
A: BENQI implements stringent security protocols to safeguard users' assets and ensure a safe staking environment.
Q: How does BENQI contribute to the growth of the DeFi ecosystem on Avalanche?
A: By offering innovative staking and lending solutions, BENQI enhances DeFi opportunities and liquidity on the Avalanche network.
Q: What makes BENQI and Return Finance a preferred choice for DeFi enthusiasts on Avalanche?
A: Their user-friendly interface, competitive yields, and diverse asset options make them attractive for DeFi participants.
Q: How can users access BENQI's staking and lending services on Avalanche?
A: Users can easily navigate BENQI's platform to stake and lend assets, providing a seamless DeFi experience.
Q: What insights can exploring BENQI and Return Finance provide about the DeFi landscape on Avalanche?
A: Understanding their offerings sheds light on the evolving DeFi applications and opportunities available on Avalanche.
Q: Why is the collaboration between BENQI and Return Finance significant for the DeFi community?
A: It showcases the importance of efficient staking and lending mechanisms in driving DeFi growth on Avalanche.
Q: How does participating in staking and lending contribute to the broader DeFi ecosystem?
A: It enhances liquidity, promotes network sustainability, and offers users passive income opportunities within DeFi.
Q: What sets BENQI apart as a leading platform for staking and lending on Avalanche?
A: Their focus on user experience, security, and competitive yields positions BENQI as a standout choice in the DeFi space.
Highlights
Time: 00:15:20
Seamless Staking and Lending on Avalanche Exploring BENQI and Return Finance's integrated solutions for effortless staking and lending experiences.
Time: 00:30:45
Competitive Yields and Asset Variety Discover the attractive yields and diverse asset options available through BENQI on Avalanche.
Time: 00:45:12
Robust Security Measures for User Protection Learn about the stringent security protocols implemented by BENQI to ensure the safety of users' funds.
Time: 01:00:38
Enhancing DeFi Ecosystem on Avalanche Insights into how BENQI and Return Finance contribute to the growth and innovation of DeFi on Avalanche.
Time: 01:15:55
User-Friendly DeFi Experience Exploring the seamless and transparent user interface provided by BENQI for staking and lending activities.
Time: 01:30:22
Importance of Efficient Staking Mechanisms Discussing the significance of efficient staking protocols in driving the DeFi community forward.
Time: 01:45:17
Diverse Asset Access on Avalanche Understanding the wide range of assets available for staking and lending through BENQI's platform.
Time: 02:00:09
Innovative DeFi Solutions Exploring the innovative staking and lending solutions offered by BENQI and Return Finance for DeFi enthusiasts.
Time: 02:15:30
Future Growth Prospects in DeFi A glimpse into the potential growth and opportunities in the DeFi space, particularly on the Avalanche network.
Time: 02:30:18
User-Centric Approach to DeFi Highlighting BENQI's user-centric approach and commitment to providing a rewarding DeFi experience on Avalanche.
Key Takeaways
- The collaboration between BENQI and Return Finance provides seamless staking and lending services on the Avalanche platform.
- Users can engage in staking activities and earn attractive yields on their assets through BENQI's user-friendly interface.
- The platform's robust security measures ensure the safety of users' funds while participating in staking and lending.
- BENQI and Return Finance aim to enhance the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem on Avalanche through innovative solutions.
- Participating in staking and lending on Avalanche can generate passive income for users while contributing to the network's liquidity.
- Utilizing BENQI's services enables users to actively engage in the DeFi space on Avalanche with confidence and transparency.
- The partnership between BENQI and Return Finance highlights the growing importance of efficient staking and lending protocols in DeFi.
- Users can access a wide range of assets for staking and lending on the Avalanche platform through BENQI's integrated solutions.
- Seamless user experiences and competitive yields make BENQI and Return Finance a compelling choice for DeFi enthusiasts on Avalanche.
- Exploring BENQI and Return Finance's offerings can provide insights into the evolving landscape of DeFi applications on Avalanche.
Behind the Mic
Introduction and Initial Greetings
Hey, guys, just hang tight in here for a couple more minutes. We're just going to let people flow in before we get started, but we will get going soon. No problem. Well, we got you. Awesome. All right, let's get going. I know it's lunchtime for people on the east coast, so grab a snack, grab a coffee. We're going to have some fun today for people that have been paying attention to the Benki kind of spotlight series that we do. I don't think we have an official name for it, but we come on and kind of dig deep a little bit with some of our exciting partners and different people doing incredible things in the space. And today we have the luxury opportunity pleasure to be with some of our friends from return finance.
Introduction of Participants
So I'm going to give Daniel an opportunity to introduce himself in just a second for anybody that has never tuned in before. My name is JD Gagnon. I'm one of the co founders of Benki. I have a face for radio, which is why we do spaces, so nobody has to stare at my ugly mug. But super excited to be here. Super excited to talk to Daniel about something I'm obviously interested in but is definitely a win for Avalanche and for Benki. And that is return. Daniel, welcome, my man. Thank you so much for having me. Great to be here. It is our pleasure. Now, maybe you could do a quick little intro, kind of. Who are you, Daniel? What is very high level return? We're going to dig in a bit. But who are you and how did you end up with return?
Daniel's Background and Experience
Sure. So keeping it very short, I'm a serial entrepreneur by background. Started my career in web one, where I was fortunate enough to build one of the largest Internet media companies in Europe, which we exited very well for a few hundred million dollars. We powered sponsored links or search in Europe across twelve countries, acted as an investor for a while, got involved in many different industries and found myself in crypto about five years ago within my friend group, became known a little bit as the crypto guy. Started having some very painful zoom conversations with people, most of which are smarter than me, trying to teach them how to download metamask, explaining to them what those funny keywords were, getting them to transfer money into metamask, which tokens to buy and where to stake them.
Genesis of Return
And quite literally after four or five conversations like that, together with my partners, went, shit, we can build a product that solves that problem. And that was the genesis of return. Amazing. Thank you. For anybody that knows me or has listened to my voice ramble on for hours. The intersection between what we all know very romantically as Tradfi and the area that we're building on chain solutions for Defi. There's a contact surface that I think is really interesting to explore. And what Daniel and return is building is something that's of personal interest to me. But I think, like I said earlier, a really exciting opportunity for the space, a really exciting opportunity for avalanche.
Explaining Return's Functionality
So maybe before we get too deep into the weeds here, can you kind of explain how return works and who your ideal, or I guess your archetype of ideal user would be? Of course, let me take it from 20,000 foot first, return connects customers to yield. Now we do it on chain. And I think what's really important here is, as we all know, yield is fragmented by both protocol and blockchain. So what we've done is we've built a product that is akin to Expedia or booking.com for Defi, allowing customers to search, compare and earn in a few easy steps with a user experience that no one in the world has ever built before.
Customer Segmentation and User Experience
Now we've really built our business on a handful of key ease of use, compliance and government. To the best of our knowledge, we're the only regulated cross chain aggregator out there. Transparency and traceability, security and delivering the best choice of yields available in terms of our customer. We have really three groups of customers. We've built a mobile app, both iOS android, which is really targeting retail. We have a web app with a full KyB integration which retail can use, but it's really targeting corporate treasury in the web three space as well as potentially whales. And last but not least, we've productized our API on the back of the tech stack that we've built.
API Integration and User Experience Enhancement
And we're starting to get some very significant traction by plugging that API into to third parties, for example, exchanges, fintechs or banks, allowing them to offer their customers our unique user experience and giving them the ease of use to allow their customers to earn yield too. I hope that answers your question, JG. It does. Absolutely. We're going to kind of double click on a couple of things. You mentioned a word that makes most of us cringe, and that is compliance and regulation and so on. Can you help me understand when you guys were saying, hey, we need to build return pro, what was the initial problem that you thought that your solution was going to be the real only solution for?
Discussion on Compliance and User Experience Challenges
What was the problem you were solving initially? So before I talk about the compliance stuff, let me just talk about the key problem. So I briefly mentioned the fragmentation of liquidity across protocol and blockchain. So what happened is when I was trying to educate my friends, they found the entire user experience very counterintuitive. Interacting directly with the blockchain wasn't an easy experience. So we wanted to build an abstraction layer over the blockchain, allowing customers to have an intuitive user experience. And the reason why I use that word intuitive is something's intuitive. Someone has seen or done something similar before.
Bridging the Gap for Non-Crypto Native Users
So the user experience is very similar to a traditional banking app, for example. Now, I think one of the big challenges people have had is, you know, if someone has money on, let's say, ethereum, and they want to stake on avalanche or any other blockchain, it's complicated, especially for non crypto native people. What we've done is we've built this product that really bridges the 95% of the population who aren't crypto native into a crypto ecosystem. And one of the big problems that we've solved is this liquidity fragmentation, allowing customers in seconds to stake, unstake, and then restake in a different protocol, in a different chain.
Concluding Remarks on User Experience
And to the best of our knowledge, no one in the world has been able to deliver the kind of experience that my team have built. Amazing. Yeah. So, I mean, that's something that we encounter quite a bit as we're talking to institutional deployers or capital allocators or enterprise users. One of the challenges is just the complexity of bridging and token standards and in many cases different wallets and so on and so forth. This definitely will serve as a really nice bridge, I think, for a lot of those crypto curious users, but don't want to learn the hard way like some of us had to.
Security and Partnership Discussion
Okay, so we're going to talk a lot more about security. I have a lot of questions about what keeps things safe and what your posture is there. But first, let's do a little shameless plug. Maybe you could help us understand, Daniel, why Benki was one of the first integrations you guys chose to, or that we've kind of worked on together as opposed to other competitors and so on. For avalanche, what were some of the things you were looking for in that Benki seemed to fit the bill. Sure.
Reasons for Choosing Benki
So firstly, we wanted to definitely integrate with protocols on avalanche. And when we started that journey, Benki was the protocol that immediately rose to the top. Now you've got sort of very obvious things that make it right to the top, such as TVL, you know, you're floating between what, 4500 million in TVL. But I think from my point of view, our experience has been that Benki is quite unique from the protocols that we've interacted on avalanche with the way in which they look at economic modeling and security, technological security. And without stating the obvious, you were easy to get hold of.
Conclusion on Integration Experience
There were faces associated with the project. And you know, we have a mutual friend at Avalanche who is able to connect us. And I mean, just for you, for the listeners out there, you may find this kind of interesting. The pitch to Benki was about a 15 minutes pitch before we got thumbs up. And it was like, let's do it. Let's make things happen. So all in all, you would be our ideal partner in terms of the approach, the technology, the product and frankly, the yield you offer our customers. Amazing.
Recap of Return's Functionality
Okay, so just a quick recap for everybody because I know it might be a lot of. But essentially what return is doing and we're going to dig into some compliance and different things later. But essentially what return does is they create essentially an aggregator of different yield opportunities on multiple different networks. And they abstract the complexity of taking advantage of those from whatever source chain you're on. They abstract that and deal with that in the background. So ideal users or people that are going to start to use return to us is very additive.
Benefits for AVAX and sAVAX Holders
So often people will ask, what is the benefit to the average Avax or S Avax holder? And I think the answer is more eyeballs, more opportunity, more people that can participate in our workflows that otherwise may not be able to. So it really is a one and one is three in this environment. Obviously, more utilization of the protocol and specifically SFX leads to greater benefits for the ecosystem as a whole, greater decentralization, et cetera. So for the average venki user and or Avax, s Avax holder, obviously there's total new markets that are being opened up via the return solution. Maybe, Daniel, you can help me understand, or at least help the listeners understand.
Understanding the Partnership with Benki
How does this partnership with Benke benefit your average user? What other opportunities does this present to them? So I'm going to put our users into three buckets, retail whales and institutional. I think, firstly, you guys have an awesome product and you're offering great yields. And those yields that you offer are sustainable, which is super important. Now, we briefly touched on compliance and regulation, for example. And yeah, it is a controversial subject, but if you want, and this is my opinion, if you want big money and we want access to big liquidity, we have to be able to open up to institutions. And having spent a long time across my career dealing with institutional capital allocators, in most cases they have a problem, which is it's known as a duty of care.
Understanding Duty of Care and Institutional Interest
And that duty of care requires them to only interact with a regulated entity. Now, having return as that bridge, as it were, into Benki, by us being regulated and us providing that institution with the necessary comfort through our compliance and governance, helps bring that institutional liquidity on chain to you. And I think that's a huge added bonus, I think, for retail investors. So the 95% of the population who aren't crypto native, in most cases, we're presenting return as an alternate to a bank savings account. And that being said, in most places, in the first world at least, definitely in the US and in Europe, most bank accounts have a kind of, you know, they're regulated, which makes people feel comfortable and has some kind of recourse.
Creating Confidence in the Crypto Ecosystem
Historically, crypto has had a bit of a bad rap in the press. A lot of the press has talked about hacks and scams and rug pulls. The fact that we can present ourselves as with a regulated face, with the processes, the checks and balance that helps give retail customers confidence to take that leap of faith and try something new. So, you know, it's not about us, you know, advocating for an authoritarian world. The way we look at it is if you want to bring the masses in, give them something that they can identify with, that they're used to, and actually it'll serve the entire ecosystem very well. Does that answer your question? Absolutely.
Addressing the Learning Curve in DeFi
Yeah. Thank you. So, I mean, obviously, I see we've had some really exciting conversations, and obviously I see the benefits. I think, for the average user, one of the challenges over the years that we've had, not us in particular, but I think Defi in general, is the learning curve is just so straight up at first. And the cost of said learning for most of us is pretty expensive. And so this is obviously very exciting for, in terms of, like, the avalanche ecosystem at large, what other kind of areas of opportunity are you guys looking at for expansion on avalanche? So let me address the learning thing, and then the second part of the question.
Strategies for Consumer Education
We agree with you. The cost of educating consumers is one of the most expensive things you can do. The reason why we've gone down the aggregation route or the comparison route is, if you think about it, over the last 20 or so years, billions of dollars have been spent educating the average consumer to go to the comparison website. Whether you're looking for a flight, a hotel, a credit card, or, I don't know, food delivery. We think that's a behavior that will port very well into defi. So the second part of your question, in terms of the avalanche ecosystem, the other thing that we do is as part of our onboarding process, we bifurcate the onboarding flow and we separate between retail investors and accredited investors.
Emerging Opportunities in Real World Assets
Now, the reason why that's important is we're super excited about the rise of real world assets on chain and the fact that Avalanche have demonstrated themselves as definitely one of the leaders in this. We see a world in the immediate future without giving too much away, where we will be offering on chain rwas in a really easy way to our accredited investors through return app. Beautiful. So as far as compliance goes, some of the things that people often ask are how will defi protocols that are moving towards as much decentralization and eventually absolute decentralization, like Benki, is, how does that, in your view, work in lockstep with the regulated requirements and some of the compliance requirements you guys have currently?
Balancing Compliance and Decentralization
So let's be clear. Return is decentralized. However, we have two points of centralization that right now are unavoidable for ease of use. The first is the KYC process, and the second is the fiat on ramps for our european listeners. For example, we are the only place, to the best of our knowledge, where you can do a bank transfer straight into defi. Now, when we talk about ease of use, that's groundbreaking. And that's a process that customers or retail customers who are not crypto native would expect and are used to. So we hope that will help drive significant adoption. I think that the fact that businesses like return existential, it will allow and help companies like yourself grow, because you guys can focus on what you do really well, which is the tokenomics and the economics around your yield programs, staying decentralized and securing the network.
Strategies for Bridging Liquidity
And we can be that funnel of liquidity into your protocol. I think the one rule we have is we have no intention of competing with the protocols that sit on our app. Our business is to bridge liquidity to the protocols that sit on return. It is not to be to offer direct yield ourselves. That's not our business. Our business is to help bridge the hundreds of millions of people, billions of people, who over the coming ten years, will get involved in on chain yield. And we hope to be at the very forefront of that. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, for people that have been in avalanche since the early days or even now, kind of one of the big challenges as a space to scale and hit your stride, obviously, is to attract liquidity from other ecosystems, attract new liquidity, and ultimately distribution is a challenge.
Challenges in Attracting New Liquidity
Where are we going to continue to grow and find new users, short offering unsustainable emissions programs or airdrops or all these things that can end up crushing an ecosystem? This type of distribution advantage, I think, is very important and likely how things will evolve as l one s, l zero s, as avalanches. However we want to characterize it now. There's other avenues that we can pursue to try to get awareness and exposure for the products that are being built to take advantage of the underlying technology. Okay, so obviously I'm fired up about this. We're super excited about the integration with you guys and the partnership in terms of, like, future regulation and compliance.
Expanding Regulatory Reach
Do you have plans on expanding to other jurisdictions? And what does that kind of look like as you open up access to a greater swath of new users? The short answer is absolutely. So today we are fully compliant across the EA. So that's Europe and a few other countries as well as in Switzerland. So I think we're 28 countries in total. Over the course of the next year, we expect to receive our approvals in a number of other territories, in Asia, Latam, Turkey, India, so on and so forth. I think that we are very focused on making sure that we deliver best practices in the way in which we attract customers, to make sure we're a sustainable funnel, to make sure that we're in business for.
Addressing Liquidity Fragmentation
For a long time, and to make sure we can truly add that value to partners like yourselves. The one other point I'd like to make, if you'd allow me to, is that liquidity fragmentation issue. You know, I just had a quick look on Defi Lama, and I think there's about 60% of the liquidity currently sits on Ethereum. I was sitting with a friend of mine the other day, and, you know, he's an institutional investor and he has tens of millions of dollars sitting on Ethereum. One of his big problems is he doesn't want to have to move. He finds the whole process complicated and risky to move money from one chain to the other. The fact of the matter is, with return, we are making his life incredibly easy.
Innovating User Experience
And we feel that with the ease of use, the transparency, the traceability that we're able to offer, as well as being regulated, we could significantly improve not only the user experience, but the speed in which you have liquidity transfer from one chain to another. Now, when you have a delta of 60% to, I don't know, 8% to the next biggest one. Well, that's going to be groundbreaking and it's going to help really stimulate the ecosystem, not only from a competitive landscape point of view, but from a user acquisition point of view. Back to you, JD. Beautiful. Yeah, thanks, man.
Marketing and Client Acquisition Strategies
Obviously I can see the opportunity, but one of the major challenges, of course, with new concepts like this is go to market. And we've talked to you guys a good amount about your client acquisition strategies and how you plan to make this solution visible to the right user to start growing, obviously your utilization. So maybe you can help the listeners understand a little bit what your plan is, how you plan to attract users, which ultimately benefits avalanche as an ecosystem, and Benki, of course, as a platform. Are you comfortable sharing some of that go to market and how you plan to engage your swath of users?
Addressing Market Education and User Engagement
Of course. So as I briefly mentioned earlier, customers in other industries have already been educated to go to the comparison website. That's what they're looking for. And I think when you look at DeFi in general, you look at the level of fragmentation, the thousands of protocols there are very often when even if someone has an intent, the moment they engage, they get put off by the number of protocols out there and they don't even know how to start assessing those protocols on whether they're safe or not. So first off, by being regulated, by creating an easy user experience, and by curating only the best protocols from the best chains that have passed our common sense sniff tests, that have passed the security test, well, that creates a safe environment.
Creating Safe User Environments in DeFi
That's the first thing. The second thing is, like with every business, you have to sort of get your message out there. The great thing about return is solving a pre-identified problem that many people have a pain point on. Now, as a serial entrepreneur, my view on building businesses in general has always been, don't focus on the business first, focus on solving a problem. Because if you solve a problem, you'll end up building a business around that.
Market Engagement and Solutions
And we've already had people approaching us from all walks of life, from investors, I mean, from all walks of life, from investors saying how we're solving their problem and how they can't wait to work with us. Now, lastly, we have two direct faces to the market, our web app and the mobile app. But let's not forget the API. So by integrating with our API, as we already have done within exchange, it hasn't been released yet. I can't say the name, but a major exchange in Europe, we sit behind their earn button. Now, they already have thousands, tens of thousands of customers. So we're going to allow their customers to, when they hit the earn button, to have our seamless user experience. So, yes, our ability to get liquidity is not solely dependent on return finances, direct marketing efforts, but it's also from the business development deals we're doing with exchanges, fintechs and banks around the world who want to offer this.
Liquidity and Market Opportunities
Let's not forget, for exchanges and banks, some of their biggest outflows are going from their centralized program into deFi. And for banks, well, banks are all starting to look for a regulated solution to offer crypto yields to their customers. And again, if you'll let me just go on for one more minute, the reason for this is in many countries, you look at Asia, for example, despite the inflation and the high interest rates, or relatively high interest rates we've enjoyed in Europe and you have in the US, in Asia, they're barely getting 1%. So the need for having high yield products is enormous. So we're seeing a huge opportunity to integrate with partners, with existing institutions there and help their customers who are already onboarded get yield. And by doing so, that's going to funnel significant liquidity not only into Benki, but into the ecosystem in general.
Security and User Funds
So just kind of summarizing again what we've talked about. We're covering a lot of ground here, Daniel, so super appreciate the lengthy and thoughtful answers. With all of that said, the world that we all are hoping for, one where blockchain scales and becomes a large, meaningful, intertwined part of global finance, often that is going to come from that intersection between what works or what exists in tradfi distribution. Obviously a certain level of knowledge, a certain level of scale. Once that starts to overlap with the technical innovations of blockchain and abstracts the complexity away, which is what return is doing, we should see a much greater or a much smoother, I suppose, learning curve and process to onboarding into the space. So super excited about that.
Concerns about Security in New Solutions
Okay, we're going to turn a little bit away from the excitement of bringing new users in and so on. And let's talk a little bit about security. Obviously, anytime that there's a new. I have a series of questions on this, so we'll go through it kind of one at a time. But whenever there's a new solution, like yourselves, generally speaking, security is of. Well, it's always of paramount importance, but a new solution comes with additional risk. I know you guys have taken a ton of measures to ensure security of user funds but I'd love to hear it from you and help people understand the security posture you have and the length that you're willing to go to protect your users.
Partnering for Security
Sure. So as a younger startup, even though we're young now, but in the early days, you know, were tempted to build an entire product ourselves. What we realized is, as you quite rightly said, security was the big threat. So then we took a view. We said, look, why don't we partner with tried and tested organizations who've got products and work with them? So let me start with our wallet infrastructure. Our wallet infrastructure is provided by Fireblocks. As we all know, Fireblocks is one of the leading institutional wallet providers. We've done a deal with them which is unique in the world. We work right at the top with Michael, with the CEO, and we're using their infrastructure to deliver segregated wallets to all their customers.
Innovative Security Measures
Now, that takes the risk from us, and we leverage a tried and tested technology that is second to none in the world. Now, what do we do next? All our partners have a track record of delivering the highest level of service and security. So for us, making sure we don't reinvent the wheel, but making sure we integrate with the best products in the market that have this history of delivering the best quality product and security has enabled us to focus on what we do well, which is building a product and a user experience with this abstraction layer that no one in the world has done and using tried and tested methods to do it.
Financial Stability and Transparency
Yeah, so, I mean, obviously user funds is pretty important. I'm going to bring up a topic that not all of us like to chat about, but the kind of wave of bankruptcies and insolvencies of some of these quasi centralized entities, Celsius and the like, FTX, etc. One of the large concerns really, is that trade off between complete decentralization and transparency. When you trade off a little bit of that to become custodial, which is required to be regulated in most cases. All of that to say, I know you guys are very keenly focused on sharing transparency and so on with your users, but how do you approach that?
Commitment to Transparency and User Control
What steps and structural implementations have you placed so that we don't run into another Celsius type environment? Well, I'm happy you asked that question, because we're fundamentally different. We're not a black box. Firstly, we offer transparency and traceability on every transaction. But what's more important than that is that return finance is what's known as bankrupt remote. Let me explain when a customer invests through return, we're not holding their money. The money is in the smart contract with you guys. So what happens is, God forbid something happens to us, they're able to, again, through fireblocks, they're able to claim the equivalent of their LP token and get their funds back.
Comparison with Other Institutions
We don't touch your money, we can't control your money. So that's a fundamental difference. Whilst I don't want to talk badly about Celsius, when customers invested in a Celsius, a blockfire voyager, all those guys, well, they invested in a black box. You didn't know what they were doing with the money behind. They had control of your money. In return's case, if someone is investing in Benki through return, well, we're facilitating that for them. But the money's in Benki, which means if we go bust, they can claim from you, they can just get the LP token back, no problem. We can't control that.
Lessons from Market Failures
I think it's a really important distinction because that is obviously, that was a huge blow to institutional and enterprise adoption, was when we had the wave of, oh, crap. Proof of reserves didn't really exist and none of us knew if they even had the money available anymore or how they were investing it and so on. It put us back a long ways. But it's exciting to hear, obviously, that, you know, through some protocol design, you guys have been able to abate that risk, generally speaking, entirely. And so it's a totally different conversation with users then if that's no longer a major risk.
Utilizing Industry Learnings
Okay, well, you've hit the nail on the head. I mean, the one thing that we know from the Celsius of this world is customers and retail and institutional love the idea of investing on chain and generating yield. We've got what we call second starter advantage. You know, when we started designing return, were able to look at the likes of Celsius and say, okay, well, what can we do differently? We know the customer liked the proposition. How can we enhance that proposition? And that's how we came up with this whole bankrupt remote model allowing us to deliver the user experience and the end result, which is the yield, in the safest way possible.
Future Roadmap and Availability
Okay, so we're going to come. My phone is ringing in my ears. At the same time, we're going to kind of come in for a landing here a little bit. But first, maybe you can share a little bit with us about kind of what the next steps are, what the roadmap looks like. When will we see return finance with Benki solutions available on it. So Benki is live right now on return. We're going to actively start marketing the platform in September. I think from a product point of view, by the end of Q three, we would have added another step in the process, which is right now customers can search, compare and earn by staking, unstaking, and then restaking.
Enhancements in User Experience
What we're launching by the end of the quarter is allowing customers to directly restake without having to unstake, without having to go through that step. So for example, if a customer has $10,000 in maker, they can press one button and restake it directly into Benki without having to do anything else. And everything is done on the back end, transparently, seamlessly, easily and fully traceable. So that's what's coming down the pipe in the next couple of months, again, removing further friction and just making it even easier.
User Engagement and Anticipation
So a little tongue in cheek, and I might not have been very obvious there, but a little tongue in cheek is it's already available. Benq integration is already available on return finance. So definitely worth checking out for everybody. Now listen to this. I don't know, some people might be going, holy crap, this is. Well, people should be going, holy crap, this is going to potentially change the way that we view bringing new users onto Avalanche. And they want to get involved with you guys.
Token Economics and Future Plans
Are you launching a token? What's the plan around the economics of return as a platform? So the short answer is yes, we are launching a token. And we're pleased to say explicitly in our regulatory approvals, we have the right to launch a token.
Token Governance Utility
So we're regulated. I think what's interesting is the utility of the token that we're launching is the major utility is essentially governance. And it's about voting for which protocols get the additional rewards given by the return token. We will be able to, we will be having membership tiers, and those membership tiers will allow customers to benefit from free swaps, no gas fees, all of that kind of stuff. I think that you know what it's like in crypto. You've got this rumor mill all the time. And a rumor hit a while ago that were launching a token. And it's been amazing because we've been getting all these DM's from capital allocators, from whales, from investors around the world asking us for our saft, looking to try and get early involved. So look, it's an exciting time for us, I'm hoping.
Token Discussions and Partnerships
I mean, I don't need to put you on the spot now, but I'm hoping at some point we'll be able to have a conversation about our token and being able to stake that on your protocol. I think that the most exciting thing is the most traction we've had around the launch of our tokenization have been at the protocol level, where protocols who are already on the app, plus there's another sort of 20 or so that we plan to be integrating by the end of the year, have realized that actually, because the power of the governance is in the token, that they should probably get involved. So from an investor point of view, we're in pretty exciting talks with protocols around the world who are looking to be our biggest token holders. So the stars are starting to align. It's still early days, we still have a way to go.
Tokenomics and Support Ecosystem
But I'm pleased to say that the token design, the tokenomics, have been done in partnership with two world leaders. We've done them with Republic, crypto and with zero one X. So we feel we've got not only superior utility, but we've got a sustainable program that is really designed to support our ecosystem for the next seven or eight years until we're fully self sustainable. Now, the launch of the token is also a key to building, retaining and engaging the ecosystem. So it also feeds into the whole customer acquisition side of the business, too. So we're very excited about that. Yeah, super exciting.
Questions and Engagement
I mean, I think Republic obviously is one of the best out there in kind of imagining more sustainable and better economic structures as the space matures. So super excited to see how their advisorship or whatever the engagement is with you, starts to shape maybe the next wave of tokenomic structures and value accrual. Okay, so before we move on to user questions or listener questions, anybody that's in the audience, we've got about 15 minutes, usually reserved at the end. If you have questions. Hoping for me to ask them randomly is probably an act in futility. So we're happy to have you up here and you can ask Daniel anything you want. In the meantime, Daniel, can you help share? If people want to learn more about return, where can they find you? Where can they find more information?
Channels for Information
Excuse me. Sure. So, well, feel free to dm me directly on my X or Twitter account or the return Twitter account. Alternatively, go to return finance and hit info and you can make any requests there. We like you guys. As Benki, we felt strongly about putting faces and names and associating with the business, as opposed to being a faceless black box organization. We're proud of what we built and we feel that also helps add both credibility and trust to the whole exercise. Yeah, totally.
Reflections on the Conversation
Okay, well, that was all the questions I had. Did you have anything else, Daniel? I don't see any hands up in the audience. Come on, guys, don't be shy. We always have questions, but if not, we can move on. But Daniel, is there anything else that you want to talk about? Maybe funding rounds or progress or anything else that you want the listeners to know about you before we end here? Sure. Well, look, we're a young company, proud to say that were preceded in an equity round by Tim Draper's web three arm, as well as an outstanding organization based in the UAE called crypto oasis.
Funding and Ecosystem Participation
Both those entities funded us on a deck on just an idea and made our life much easier by cutting us significant checks. I think that over the course of the next month, we are doing our seed token round and, you know, we're excited about the ecosystems participation, both at a protocol level and an investor level. I think that the fact that we have spoken to so many, not only VC's, but investors who immediately understand what we do. You know, when I started this. When I started this chat with you, JD, I explained that, you know, we view ourselves as a sort of the booking.com or the expedia of Defi.
Clarity in Explanation and Goals
Well, it's an explanation of what we do in ten words and or less. And for a lot of people looking to get involved in crypto and in Defi, they tend to get lost in the explanation of what someone does. The moment you explain it in that way, well, you suddenly become relatable to so many more people. And, you know, the moment you explained that there's thousands of protocols underneath which are. And the level of fragmentation, well, that's a huge problem that we're solving. A convenient, safe, easy place that is transparent, that is regulated with everything traceable, all in the palm of your hand.
Future Aspirations and Collaborations
So whilst we still have a lot to learn, and I know we've got lessons to learn, and we're going to learn from partners like yourself, we think we have something both compelling and exciting and are looking forward to what the next year has ahead of us. The journey has only just begun. Totally. I think we're going to see, not financial advice, but we're going to see some excitement in the markets one way or another here soon.
Unique Economic Design for Protocols
So let's buckle up and take advantage as best we can. One other thing that I just want to point out again that you kind of mentioned, and people may have missed slightly, what's really interesting in the economic design here is as return scales, as very much a distribution channel for many protocols in the space. They're going to continue to move more to decentralization via governance. Now this is a huge motivation obviously for many protocols like Benki and many others to establish positions in return itself so that we can ensure that as the benefit of the distribution continues, you know, we have a say in how the future of that evolves. So super exciting from the protocol level again.
Governance and User Benefits
Of course we don't ever give any financial advice, but it is somewhat unique in some cases other platforms you have to bribe and do different things to ensure that your situation is a bit better. But as far as governance goes, this is one of the few circumstances that I've seen where it really matters to both your users and your protocol partners to have positions. So super exciting, Daniel, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you. Of course, we've had many conversations.
Partnership Excitement and Closing Thoughts
I'm super stoked about working together. But again, thanks Ben, thanks a ton for joining today. And if we don't have any questions, I guess we'll end it there. Any final thoughts? Daniel? Well, no other than JD and team, thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for your partnership and we look forward to working closely with you, hopefully delivering shareholder and token holder value to all involved.
Looking Forward and Audience Gratitude
And we know we also have a lot to learn from you. So we look forward to maintaining this dialogue and growing together. Thanks for your time everyone. Thank you all listeners for your time this evening or this afternoon rather. Yeah, thanks a ton everybody. Obviously the pleasure is also ours. Daniel, I think this is one of the rare circumstances where, you know, it is in fact a win win.
Celebrating Collaborations and Looking Ahead
A win for the ecosystem, a win for us, a win for you, and I suppose a fourth win for your users without taking away from any of the other participants. So it's very exciting. It's an amazing collaboration. We're stoked to be partnered with you guys. Let's go. For everybody else that's listening, we do these kind of partner spotlights and interviews with different people in and around the avalanche ecosystem.
Community Engagement and Continuation
If you know of a project or product that would be a good partner of ours, or maybe a good guest on chats like this to help people understand more simply and deeply what's going on, let us know. Send us notes. The Benki X channel or my personal X account. DM's are always open of course. Or come in our telegram and chat it out and we'll see if we can keep this party going. I enjoy talking to you guys. I enjoy interviewing some of our great partners, so let's go with that.
Wishing Well and Closure
Everybody enjoy the week. Have a beautiful Wednesday wherever you are, and we will chat with y'all soon. Daniel. Thank you, everybody.
