A look at the Flexa project, its background, history, and its native asset, Flexacoin. We will also talk about its underlying protocol, as well as its role in the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) field.
The Flexa project claims to be the “simplest and safest way” to allow retail usage of crypto-currencies today. This DeFi project has acquired its reputation and value by enabling different crypto-assets to be used for payments on its digital wallets. And these are done in an instant and highly-secure manner for users and merchants alike.
Built on Ethereum, the native Flexacoin is a digital token built for facilitating commerce. By using this technology, customers can pay using cryptocurrency and merchants can receive payments in fiat.
Table of Contents
Background
Based in the United States, the Flexa project was launched in 2019 by Daniel McCabe, Trevor Filter, Tyle Spalding and Zachary Kilgore, who served different roles. The fundraising was carried out via private sale, for which Access Ventures was the leading investor.
The team combines extensive experience in technology, retail, and payment technology. Its members have worked with American Express, Capital One, the MIT media lab, NASA, Paypal, Warby Parker and Starbucks.
What is Flexa?
The Flexa project is a set of decentralized components and protocols, powering a versatile payments network to make cryptocurrencies spendable everywhere. It is designed to facilitate economic activity, act as an intermediary for payment transmission, and create a major use case for the blockchain.
It enables an entire ecosystem of applications to process feeless and instant digital payments for the users. Flex powers Gemini, SPEDN, BRD, Celo Wallet, CoinList etc. applications to allow storage, buying/selling and swapping of digital assets.
The Flexa project consists of SDK for digital wallets, the Flexacoin Collateral Token (FXC) and the Flex Network Protocol – which defines the mechanism and powers the technology for operation.
Flexa – A Useful DeFi Initiative and Comparison With Lightning Network
The world of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is about disrupting the traditional financial system. And there is no better disruption than taking over the multi-billion dollar payment industry. After all, traditional financial services are known to overcharge their customers and are highly inefficient.
Since its introduction in 2019, Flexa has quickly risen through the ranks and is on its way to become one of the top ten projects in DeFi.
Flexa complements the lending, borrowing, derivative, synthetics, liquidity mining and other DeFi processes by adding a much-needed payments component. The current total value locked for Flexa stands at $86.8M, which gives an idea about the popularity and impact of this powerful technology.
Its closest competitor – the Bitcoin’s Lightning network, in comparison, has a TVL of $11.6M in its public channels.
The Flexa projects’ user experience/interface is largely considered by many to be more convenient and powerful than the Lightning network.
Flexa Supported Assets
The Flexa projects currently support a wide variety of stable, prominent cryptocurrencies. For instance, the stablecoins DAI, Gemini dollar, USD coin etc. are supported.
And so are digital tokens such as LINK, ZRX, ATOM, COMP, XRP etc. Among the prominent cryptocurrencies supported are BTC, BCH, ETH, EOS, DASH, ZEC, LTC etc. Furthermore, users can request new assets to be added.
Flexacoin Collateral Token (FXC)
The native token of the Flexa project is the Flexacoin Collateral Token (FXC). It secures all payments in real time, allows conversion of different crypto-assets, provides FIAT support and final settlement on chain.
The token itself is built on the ERC-20 standard, which runs on the Ethereum blockchain.
The total supply of FXC tokens is 100 billion. Out of which, 20% was reserved for token sale investors, 25% for merchant development fund, 25% for developer grants, 10% for the network development fund and 20% for the team.
Flex Network Protocol (FNP)
The Flex Network Protocol (FNP) is an open source protocol powering the Flex ecosystem. It allows for the addition of retail payments features, bringing acceptance of digital assets, reducing complexity, and minimizing volatility.
The protocol provides mechanisms for payment confirmation and acceptance, as well as wide compatibility and easy integration with digital wallets and other payment systems. The whitepaper specifies that the protocol aims to be compliant, useful, instant, and secure.
Advantages of Flexa
The Flexa system offers significant advantages and revolutionary improvement over the traditional payment system.
100% Digital And Private
The Flexa payments are 100% digital from start to end, allowing them to transfer and settle in seconds. The transactions within the system don’t include any sensitive information to identify the sender. Instead, it uses an undecryptable digital code to send payment information.
Settlement Guarantee And Fraud Resistance
The payments completed through Flexa are guaranteed to be settled and don’t have charge-back problems. In a manner similar to the basic principles of the blockchain, completed transactions become final and immutable.
This means that merchants can be certain that the payments can’t be reversed unlike in traditional banking.
Versatile Integration With Payment Systems
The Flexa system is designed to be highly modular, and thus, allows the integration with different payment systems. It is heavily customizable to fit all particular requirements of a business.
Multiple Payment Options
The protocol supports a wide variety of cryptocurrencies, tokens and stablecoins, which means that users can utilize their favorite assets. Merchants, on the other hand, can be assured that they will receive payments in non-volatile FIAT.
Simple And Easy Payments
The users can utilize multiple digital wallets, leveraging Flexa technology to pay with ease and less hassle. The process is as simple as loading cryptocurrencies on wallets, executing tap and pay, with the Flexa back-end taking care of the rest.
Flexa Capacity
Flexa Capacity is a dapp designed to allow any crypto asset to be spent from any wallet, with both custodial and non-custodial support. The system utilizes FXC as collateral to provide assurance for merchants to receive payments for purchases at all times.
With that in mind, Flexa Capacity has two main functions:
- A mechanism for adding collateral to the Flexa network and assigning it toward wallets with Flexa support.
- A real-time snapshot of the Flexa network capacity, which allows anyone to view the total value of unconfirmed transaction that the blockchain can handle at a given time.
Flexa Capacity went live on mainnet in November 2019, and the network’s current total capacity is roughly 6.8 billion FXC. To add collateral to the system, here are the stes:
- Go over to the dapp web portal and connect your wallet.
- Supply the Capacity smart contract with Flexacoin.
- Allocate your FXC and set up your capacity to a wallet that is Flexa-enabled.
- Earn rewards or withdraw your capacity whenever you wish.
Conclusion
The nascent distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) have been regarded as revolutionary, but have been often criticized as not having practical use cases and adoption. The payment processing and value transfer is one of the fields, which can greatly benefit from the usage of blockchain and cryptocurrencies.
The Flexa project is changing that, with its advanced technology and new-found synergy with the digital assets.
The protocol has mastered a way for cryptocurrencies to be utilized efficiently for acquiring / trading goods and services. With so few competitors in the blockchain payment processing field, there’s little doubt that Flexa will command a higher market-share in the future.