Ref Finance is a DeFi marketplace for NEAR native tokens that leverages the power of NEAR’s low fees, ultra-fast finality, and WebAssembly-based runtime.
The NEAR Protocol is already an innovative solution itself when it comes to dealing with the current limitations of blockchain platforms. But its real power lies in the projects that unlock the potential of its tech by creating disruptive solutions that utilize its lightning-fast transactions, strong security, and low fees.
Table of Contents
Background
Ref Finance is a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform that was initially created by Illia Polosukhin, which is also the co-founder of the NEAR Protocol. The platform scaled in operation when Proximity Labs, a NEAR-focused research and development company, received funding from NEAR Foundation to expand and strengthen the DeFi service.
What is Ref Finance?
Ref Finance is a DeFi marketplace for NEAR native tokens that leverages the power of NEAR’s low fees, ultra-fast finality, and WebAssembly-based runtime.
The platform allows users to trade tokens using its Automated Market Maker exchange, stake LP token into farms, and provide liquidity to the system.
One of REF Finance’s major goals is to partner with various NEAR projects and help them create market pairs on its platform and provide them with a better market presence.
The platform has already initiated token swaps and pool-swapped tokens with NEAR-based projects to form markets with active liquidity.
Ref Finance Mechanism
Participants can either trade or become a liquidity provider (or both) in the platform by depositing an equivalent of each underlying token in exchange for LP tokens, also called “pool tokens.” Uniswap’s liquidity pools might be more popular than Ref Finance’s for the time being, but it doesn’t mean that Ref’s services are inferior in any way.
Ref Finance’s advantage over Uniswap is that its smart contract contains all pairs of liquidity pools, which comprise reserves of two or three NEP-141 tokens, kind of like the ERC-20 tokens of NEAR.
REF Token
REF token is the platform’s governance token with a 100 million supply and uses a protocol revenue sharing model to provide rewards to the holders. The token can be used for pooling, farming, governance, and even speculation to earn profits while securing the entire ecosystem.
Ref Finance desires to be a 100% community-governed platform in the near future, and once it’s accomplished, REF will have a central role in the ecosystem.
Ref Finance DAO
Ref Finance’s DAO or the “ref.-finance.sputnik-dao.near” currently uses the SputnikDAO, a NEAR-powered DAO hub, to streamline its operations.
Aside from having voting power, DAO members are also authorized to participate in project management, product testing, product strategy, and even on PR and communication-related matters.
Members are also reminded that they should exercise independent voting and not merely act on the vested interests of other parties.
DAO Roles
Council
Council members are the only ones who can create proposals on the platform and have the authority to approve or reject them through voting.
Community
Community members may not have the authority to submit proposals, but for the majority of the proposals, council members entrust the voting rights to the community.
Ref Roles
Traders, stakers, liquidity providers, and developers are the primary roles that a platform participant may choose when joining Ref Finance.
Roles: A Quick Look
| Role | Definition of Role |
| Traders | Responsible for swapping NEP-141 tokens |
| Stakers | Receives “pro-rata shares” of the shared protocol revenue. Pro-rata is a method used to assign a proportionate amount of income or losses to each side based on their ownership percentages. |
| Liquidity Providers | They are rewarded for supplying NEP-141 tokens to liquidity pools. |
| Developers | Help participants to better interact with trading interfaces, trading strategies, tokens, and other crucial components of the platform. |
Roles: A Deep Dive
Traders
A ‘trader’ in Ref Finance is actually a broad term as there are four major types of traders executing different trading strategies in the platform.
1. Speculators
A speculator, as its name suggests, trades merely on speculation, just like an “ape” approach, which involves purchasing a token of a newly-launched project without proper research.
But they also use data-backed strategies such as fundamental and technical analysis, which provides better results than aping on new projects.
2. Dapp Users
Dapp users purchase tokens to use other NEAR-based applications that center on NFTs, gaming, finances, and more.
3. Smart Contracts
They are designed to do trading by applying swap functionality on products like custom scripts and DEX aggregators.
4. High-Frequency Bots
High-frequency bots execute various trading strategies, which include long/short and market-neutral arbitrage strategies.
Stakers
1. Long-Term Stakers
Long-term stakers focus on holding a protocol token, participating in governance, and any platform ventures that guarantee earning stability.
2. Short-Term Stakers
Short-term stakers, which are also called “infra-strategy stakers’ focus on limited-period staking. They focus on maximizing their returns until their REF tokens need to be utilized for other purposes or need to be sold.
3. Voting-Only Stakers
Voting-Only stakers’ main task is to influence the path of specific proposals by providing their votes on them.
Liquidity Provider (LP)
1. Passive Liquidity Provider
Passive liquidity providers are REF token holders who passively invest to gain trading fees and do not engage in active ventures such as monitoring their positions and divergence loss.
2. Sophisticated Liquidity Provider
Sophisticated LPs take on active roles such as market making, monitoring their positions and divergence loss, and developing customized tools for trading.
3. Token Projects
Yes, sometimes, token projects can act as LPs by creating a liquidity pool for their own tokens to start liquidity.
Developers
Developers can use Ref Finance’s advanced platform to execute UX/UI experiments, liquidity aggregation, DeFi dashboard projects, yield aggregation, and monitor data and analytics.
REF Finance Collaborates With Octopus Network
Octopus Network, a multichain interoperable network specializing in appchain operations, has initiated a partnership with Ref Finance to tap the DeFi platform’s ambitious goals for the decentralized finance industry.
It started when Octopus Network’s founder, Louis Liu, made a proposal on Ref Finance’s governance forum and laid out ideas about the benefits of a token swap deal between the two platforms.
From there, it evolved as a collaboration making Octopus Network the first ecosystem project to strike a token swap deal with Ref Finance.
The deal will produce benefits such as increased locked tokens on Ref Finance, a more diversified Ref treasury, and giving Ref holders more ease in accessing other platform tokens.
Conclusion
Ref Finance is a service, not only for crypto enthusiasts but also for NEAR projects who wants to showcase a stronger presence for their tokens. And by creating a platform for both individuals and projects, it can potentially create a great demand and position itself as a top player in the highly-competitive blockchain industry.
