Swag Finance is a blockchain-based protocol geared towards powering decentralized community involvement in the decisions of a centralized platform.

Following the birth of distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) such as blockchain, the cracks in centralized systems have continued to widen. Decentralized finance (DeFi) networks, for example, unearthed the ills of centralized finance (CeFi) starting from the protocol level down to the governance structure.

In legacy networks, the decision to upgrade or launch a new product, for instance, is a privilege given only to the management team and board of directors. However, with DeFi and other decentralized platforms, the entire community is involved in the decision-making through votes.

Therefore, many centralized businesses have decided to either completely adopt blockchain technology or are in the process of shifting their governance structure to a distributed platform. Swag.live, an adult entertainment site, is an example of a traditional platform moving its governance structure to the blockchain using Swag Finance.

Background of Swag.live and Swag Finance

Swag.live is an Asian adult entertainment platform founded in 2016 by Sam Liu. It serves content in either short, long, or live video formats. Although based in Asia, the platform has expanded to North America, with a team located in Montreal.

One of the strengths of Swag.live is the ability to keep up with evolving user tastes and their fast product iteration. This edge has seen the platform embrace a decentralized platform to address needs such as community involvement in governance issues.

In line with this, Swag Finance is born to beat the status quo in centralized systems where a select few make decisions. These centralized decisions are only meant to benefit a few, effectively sidelining the majority.

What is Swag Finance?

Swag Finance is a blockchain-based protocol geared towards powering decentralized community involvement in the decisions of a centralized platform. In short, Swag Finance wants to turn Swag.live into a community-governed business.

However, the community members will have different strengths depending on their involvement in the ecosystem. The power is determined using a community governance weightage. Although participating in Swag Finance’s governance procedures is not meant to rake in profits, community governance can ratify proposals that lead to financial gains.

Unlike centralized hierarchal enterprises where the physical appearance of a member might command respect and higher presumed voting power, the voting power of members in a decentralized platform needs to be tangible. On the Swag Finance network, the tangibility of this strength is vested in the network’s native token, SWAG.

SWAG Governance Token

625 million SWAG tokens are ready for issuance. However, the tokens are distributed among the platform’s decentralized autonomous organization, DAO, (25 million tokens), influencers and backers (60 million tokens), and the general Swag Finance community sharing the remaining 540 million SWAG coins.

Distribution of coins to the general community happens through swap events. These swap events include the First Swap Event (FSE), the Subsequent Swap Events (SSEs), and SQUIRTS.

Note that the swap events happen on exchanges, including on the Cream.Finance exchange. During the FSE on Cream.Finance, one SWAG coin is projected to change hands at a minimum of $0.10.

On the Swag Finance roadmap, the first issuance of SWAG coins is slated for Oct 15, 2020, on SWAG liquidity pools on Cream.Finance. The first two swap pools will be CREAM/SWAG and USDC/SWAG. Liquidity providers in these pools are rewarded if they stake CRPT LP (tokens from the cream pool).

The first FSE will have an initial token supply distributed on a 50/50 basis in both pools, with the SWAG/USDC pool having a ratio of 500,000 SWAG/50,000 USDC and the SWAG/CREAM pool having a token distribution of 500,0000 SWAG/1,500 CREAM. The CREAM amount is adjustable at the start of the session to indicate the token’s actual price.

Liquidity providers in Cream.Finance who stake CRPT, are rewarded with a total of 1,015,000 SWAG coins in seven days. However, 24-hour rewards are estimated at 145,000 SWAG tokens.

Daily, CRPT rewards are equally split between SWAG/USDC CRPT and SWAG/CREAM CRPT pools. Note that CRPT staking attracts a three-day lock up.

Governance on Swag Finance

With a native currency in place, the Swag protocol is ready for decentralized governance. Since the strength of a member lies in the number of tokens, the protocol assigns the ratio of SWAG to vote right to 1:1:1. In this case, one token represents a single vote, and a single right to participate in community discussions.

However, to ensure fully community-based governance, Swag.live intends to move its entire business on-chain. Apart from maximized community involvement, on-chain businesses benefit from enhanced transparency. To minimize the initial migration cost, the DAO will vote on the cost and will undergo a phased migration.

To improve transparency during the initial stages, the DAO will be independent, and the Swag team will not:

  • Engage in private coordination of decisions.
  • Police DAO governance
  • Cater to DAO maintenance costs. SWAG holders will manage the DAO. However, the Swag team will be involved in DAO guidance until the token is completely on-chain.

Rounds of Governance Voting

Swag Finance handles governance in rounds to maximize community interaction and control.

The procedures include:

  • Raising a proposal to kick start the voting process for all SWAG holders. However, voters must stake their coins for the entire voting session for the vote to be considered.
  • After voting, participating voters are rewarded in the network’s native token, a stablecoin, or any other valuable token. The rewards are held in a SQUIRT Pool. Each voting proposal is connected to a pool. The incentives paid to voters are proportionate to their staked amount.

Also, rewards are influenced by the staking period and votes cast. Note that the rewards in the SQUIRT pools come from Swag.live as an operational cost.

  • Before voting starts, a smart contract holds information such as the starting time, duration of the voting process, the amount of sharable rewards among voters, and the proposal.

At each given time, there are two SQUIRTS. For example, the first SQUIRT (Oct 15 to Oct 24 session) has a reward pool of 112,827 USDC. The question presented for voting is “how often should SQUIRTS occur.”

The second SQUIRT (Oct 25 to Oct 31 session) has a reward pool of 231,389 USDC. It seeks votes on how fast/slow Swag.live should move from off-chain to on-chain.

Three Ways to Participate in the Swag Finance Ecosystem

The network provides simple steps to be part of the Swag community.

  • First, you need to participate in an FSE and swap SWAG token, or
  • provide liquidity on Cream.Finance, or
  • vote in the community and share the SQUIRT pool rewards.

What Makes SWAG Different From Other DeFi Tokens?

We are used to DeFi protocols and decentralized platforms minting tokens and hoisting their value on thin air. Most of these platforms do not have a record of tangible business profits. However, SWAG tokens emanate from a position of success.

For instance, Swag.live has been a profitable business since 2017. Furthermore, Swag Finance’s parent company has had a consistent money-making journey since its inception. With that in mind, the SWAG governance token is designed for a community that wants to be involved in a real and profitable business.

Conclusion

Swag.live is among the few legacy businesses appreciating the power of DLT and total community involvement in decision-making. Thanks to this, the Swag Finance platform is already proving its real-world use case while SWAG token’s value holds more weight since it is supported by a successful business.

With a clear distribution of the SWAG governance token, the network exudes transparency right from the start. It’s also worth noting that its networks, liquidity mining, and yield farming activities conform to the standard of popular DeFi protocols.

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