Geist Finance is a Fantom-based decentralized non-custodial liquidity market protocol that allows users to become depositors or borrowers. 

Fantom, one of the newest layer-1s in the blockchain arena, has opened the doors for more innovative decentralized projects that the public deserves to have. Through its fast, secure, and scalable platform with very low fees, amazing projects are being born with the massive potential of redefining various industries, including the most crucial one ー finance. Geist Finance is one of its current top DeFi application, which we shall talk about in this article.

Background 

Geist, a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, recognizes the current limitations of today’s DeFi services, which, until now, haven’t unlocked a quarter of blockchain’s true possibilities yet. The platform aims to seize the opportunities provided by Fantom by delivering services that can truly challenge existing DeFi solutions in the market. 

What is Geist Finance? 

Geist Finance is a Fantom-based decentralized non-custodial liquidity market protocol that allows users to become depositors or borrowers. It is both a lending and borrowing market powered by Aave, one of blockchain’s biggest DeFi protocols. 

Depositors provide value to the platform by providing liquidity to the market and earning a passive income as a reward. Borrowers, meanwhile, can borrow in an overcollateralized or undercollateralized manner. One important thing to note here is that Geist doesn’t have a governance or venture capitalists backing its DeFi venture. 

But it can still provide value to its users by implementing “revenue-earning token-sharing platform fees” between liquidity providers and token holders. 

GEIST Token 

GEIST Token is the platform’s utility token, with a 1 billion supply, yet has no governance, ownership, or protocol treasury. As a result, half of the revenue collected by the platform from users’ borrowing transactions goes straight to GEIST stakers. 

Lenders and borrowers are also rewarded with GEIST tokens as an incentive for using the platform. 

GEIST liquidity implements a mechanism where rewards are vested for 3 months, but users are allowed to claim them right away but have to pay a 50% penalty. 

The collected penalties will then be distributed to platform users who chose to lock their GEIST token for the entire 3 months. 

This mechanism, which Ellipsis Finance first implemented on Binance Smart Chain, ensures a consistent flow of rewards for ‘active lockers’ of GEIST tokens.

GEIST stakers and lockers both earn from protocol fees, but for lockers, they have one additional revenue stream which comes from “exit penalties” paid by users who exit early in their token vests. 

Tokenomics 

PercentageWhere Will It Go? 
40% Rewards for lenders and borrowers
20%Rewards for GEIST/FTM liquidity 
20% Rewards for DeFi communities, Allotted for Airdrops 
20%Allotted for the Geist Finance team 

Protocol Owned DEX Liquidity (PODL)

Protocol Owned DEX Liquidity or ’PODL’ is a module that purchases LP tokens using half of Geist’s FTM token treasury rewards. 

All GEISTFTM LP tokens that will be purchased will be locked for eternity to maintain liquidity and reduce the availability of GEIST tokens to preserve and increase their value. 

Using PODL isn’t mandatory but serves as an option for users to exit their LP position by selling their GEIST-FTM straight to the protocol. 

This mechanism allows users to help the protocol and gives them the opportunity to earn at the same time. 

To start using PODL, users must head to Geist Finance’s PODL page, approve the contract spending GEIST-FTM on their behalf if it’s not yet done, select an amount of FTM they want to buy and click the “Buy FTM” button. 

Airdrops 

The Geist team has allocated 200 million GEIST tokens, or 20% of the token’s supply, on airdrops intended to reward the platform’s active users, particularly the token holders and communities. 

These airdrops are meant to be released continuously to help the team re-evaluate the top areas where the platform’s resources should go. 

The gradual release mechanism also prevents the risk of excessive sell pressure on the token or sudden supply shocks. 

Rewards for GEIST Lockers 

Geist has partnered with Solidex, a Fantom-based yield aggregator for Solidly, an AMM and DEX platform. As a result of this partnership, Geist has acquired a considerable amount of Solidex’s treasury, which contains top assets called SOLID (rewards) and SEX (native token) 

These assets will be distributed to current GEIST lockers, and users are reminded that those who have expired lockers will not be eligible for the rewards. 

How to Register 

To register, users with Geist lockers need to go to the Manage GEIST page and click the “Register Locked Balance” on the bottom part of the page to record their current lock balance. 

They are required to register on Solidex Lock Fees weekly before the Thursday midnight (UTC) deadline to access weekly airdrops. 

On top of that, they are also required to register their new balance every time they lock more GEIST tokens. 

How to Claim

Users can claim their rewards by going to the Manage GEIST page and clicking the “Claim All” button located at the page’s bottom part. 

Once they claimed their rewards, they are also required to register their balance to ensure that their current locked GEIST tokens are registered. 

Geist Partnerships 

Gelato Network

Gelato is a multi-chain automation protocol that allows users to provide specific instructions to “decentralized bots” that interact on their behalf with Dapps on-chain. 

Gelato network, through its partnership with Geist, has integrated its automation features on Geist Finance. 

This means that “Gelato bots” will take over the remaining tasks that previously needed human intervention to make Geist Finance’s service as efficient as possible. 

Through this integration, Gelato eliminates the centralized requirement of smart contract execution of getting protocol fees from the Geist team, reducing ‘trust’ and making the entire process much faster. 

Chainlink

Chainlink is a platform for decentralized oracle networks that creates tamper-proof inputs, outputs, and computations to power up any smart contracts regardless of their blockchains. 

Geist Finance has partnered with Chainlink to tap its accuracy, reliability, and low latency updates using Fantom’s speed and low-cost transaction. 

Through Chainlink’s advanced oracle network, Geist Finance would have the capability to identify users’ borrowing rates and accurately calculate their collateralization ratios with ease. 

Chainlink can also help Geist Finance to get accurate price updates on-chain even in the midst of exchange downtime, data manipulation attacks, and flash crash outliers. 

Conclusion 

Geist Finance’s main advantage as a DeFi platform is Fantom protocol’s ‘superior’ capabilities, coupled with its ability to deliver key DeFi services. On top of that, what makes it more competitive is its generous distribution of fees, smart mechanism, and relevant partnerships that provides more benefits to its users.