Hi Folks!

UniLend Finance was invited by Crypto Royals (https://t.me/cryptoroyalschat) to an AMA session on February 16th and Vishal Kothari, UniLend's community lead and Ayush Garg, UniLend's marketing ops lead, participated in this session. Here is the recap of this event.

Segment 1: Introduction and basic questions

CryptoRoyals:
Good evening everyone! I am pleasured to have Marketing and Operations Lead @ayushgrg and Community Lead @VishalBlockchain here from UniLend Team for Today's AMA session. Hello @ayushgrg @VishalBlockchain , so nice to have you here with us today.

Ayush Garg:
Glad to be here. Thanks for the intro Devina!

Vishal Kothari:
Hey DeVina Glad to be with Crypto Royals.

CryptoRoyals:
Lets begin today's session with Segment-1 ( Questions From Host ). Please type done aftwr completion of an answer to avoid any kind of confusion sir.

CryptoRoyals:
Q1. Can you please give us a brief overview of UniLend?

Ayush Garg:
Sure! Before we get started I would like to give a shout out to my team for their relentless work, we opened our Alpha, Initium V1, to our entire community for testing earlier this month after getting 41k+ responses. We’re making excellent headway on our roadmap and we’re preparing to launch our Beta this month! If anyone wants to get access to try it, check out our announcements for more details Moving on, I’d also like to introduce myself a little better. I am from Computer Science background with experience working at companies like Uber and Box8 (Indian startup with 700cr valuation) Have been part of Crypto space since early 2017. I have also worked with Startup Oasis - Initiated by IIM Ahmedabad and Rajasthan Gov.
Last year, around august we started working on UniLend. I have been part of UniLend's team since launch and now leading front in Marketing and Operations. @VishalBlockchain is another gem in our team, would like him to introduce too.

Vishal Kothari:
So... Hey, I am Vishal Kothari - Community Lead at UniLend Finance. I have started my career from Computer Education in 1998 and exploring around various IT related businesses and services finally realised the best thing technology has given us is the Cryptocurrency as I was studying and researching about cryptocurrencies since 2014. I have been guiding projects on marketing front & community growth from more than an year & have been an early part of UniLend Team from start of the project.

Ayush Garg:
In regards to your question, UniLend is a comprehensive DeFi protocol with the mission to unlock the true potential of decentralized finance. Essentially, UniLend Finance will offer every DeFi capability imaginable for any ERC20 asset, including the $30B+ of assets which are currently excluded from DeFi. As many people say UniLend is like a combination of Uniswap, Compound and Aave. This is one way to think of our protocol but there is much more. What we are bringing to the table is the permission less listing, which is basically anyone can start lending and borrowing for their tokens with just providing liquidity to our platform. We are picking up from where Uniswap took the Defi revolution. done!

CryptoRoyals:
Thats a great overview given by you guys.

Q2. It’s great to hear that your team is so focused and congratulations on the launch of your protocol’s Alpha release! How about we expound on what you stated, that this is just the beginning. Maybe you can share a little about the partnerships you’ve recently released information about?

Vishal Kothari:
Thank you for your positive words, I would be happy to share. I think everyone should be excited for our upcoming roadmap goals and the many collaborations with the projects we’re working with. You can check all the updates of the January here: https://unilend.medium.com/unilend-project-updates-4-january-2021-70c5adc77f96.

Like stated above, we’ve recently launched our Initium community testing event, which is providing us with excellent feedback to keep improving the UX, UI and features of our protocol. In addition, Q1 of this year has officially kicked off, so expect to see new releases on the horizon. Specifically, the next big release will be the Beta release of our protocol, which is on track for launch this month.

There are many additional milestones coming soon after, such as liquidity mining/staking features to be added to the mix. In regards to our partnerships, everyone probably noticed that we recently strategically partnered with Mirror Finance to enable decentralized lending and borrowing of synthetic stocks via UniLend. Yes, we’ll be the first protocol to offer this type of functionality.

Get ready to lend and borrow the world’s major stocks (including the FAANG tech giant stocks). Also, we’ve recently entered into another cutting edge partnership with Nord Finance, who’ll be integrating UniLend Finance into the Nord Advisory portion of their tech stack.

This will enable new DeFi investing strategies for the DeFi community. Nord Finance’s community will be introduced to the innovative features of our protocol, thus helping to further enhance our future growth as well. There’s a whole lot more cooking behind the scenes. For example, UniLend is currently working with Fire Protocol to enable UniLend to bring more assets to Huobi Eco Chain (HECO). In addition, our teams are currently working together to explore wrapped UFT to bring UFT to Fire Protocol, and ultimately to HECO. Again this is just the beginning, many more collaborations and unique protocol functionalities are yet to be announced. done..

CryptoRoyals:
Excited for more such announcements sir!

Vishal Kothari:
Even you guys can get our regular announcement through https://t.me/UniLendAnnouncement and also you can join the community chat at @UniLendFinance

Ayush Garg:
Here is the summary of our partnerships:

CryptoRoyals:
Everyone join UniLend's Announcements channel now for much fsntastic updates.

Q3. This all sounds so exciting! One question about security - how can users be sure they are safe while using such a new protocol?

Ayush Garg:
Great question. Very relevant one in the recent time. I would say we are much more secure than other money market protocols. For instance, current protocols are dependent on other DEXs like Uniswap etc. for liquidations (which is a major concern for adding illiquidity & more volatile assets). Which is another room for vulnerability. Nobody has any sort of control on these DEXs, whereas in the case of UniLend, we are deriving the lending/borrowing capacity of assets based on the liquidity available on our trading platform. Yes, we will be having our own trading platform. Hence, we are not dependent on any other protocol for liquidation & everything is handled within the UniLend ecosystem. The problem we are solving is quite large and it requires a complete ecosystem to be built for catering to such a problem. Progress on this front is going strong. Also like our roadmap suggests, during Q1 of 2021, we will have proper audits in place from a variety of the best industry players to make sure our protocol is safe for users. Done!

CryptoRoyals:
Thats an amazing explanation!

Q4. You brought up the roadmap and it got me thinking about the future of your protocol again. What else do users have to look forward to further down the road in 2021?

Vishal Kothari:
Great Question DeVina. We’re making excellent headway on our roadmap and we’re excited to hear feedback about Initium V1. https://app.unilend.finance. Though our Alpha was a monumental event in our journey, there is so much more in store for 2021. Above we stated that Q1 has many exciting roadmap milestones on the horizon, including our Beta release this month and Mainnet release coming in Q1. Additionally, Fusion Farming should also go live during the first quarter. This is an innovative feature which will allow UniLend liquidity providers to attain two different tokens at once by providing liquidity. Again, this is just the first quarter of 2021.

Ayush Garg:
While Vishal bhai answers, have a look at it yourself 🤟
https://t.me/UniLendAnnouncement/78

Vishal Kothari:
In the future, UniLend will implement community governance, the UniLend Ecosystem Fund, launch onto multiple chains, layer 2 implementation for a superior user experience, and even metatransactions. We’ll also bootstrap new projects in the UniLend ecosystem with full DeFi functionality right from their token launch. Empowering brand new tokens with comprehensive DeFi functionality is a concept completely new to the crypto space, and something which is extremely valuable to new tokens looking to establish a user base and solid use cases for their token. Therefore, we anticipate that listing on UniLend (in addition to traditional platforms such as Uniswap) will be standard procedure for new token launches. In fact, we recently launched a poll on Twitter regarding this, and the crypto community echoed our sentiment strongly. You can see the full roadmap outlining our plans up until Q3 of 2021 here: https://unilend.medium.com/presenting-unilends-roadmap-gearing-up-for-alpha-launch-in-december-2020-89ff10805bcd. These are all things that we can confidently say we can fulfil based on the dates shown via our roadmap, though there are many other items we are also working on/researching in the background. We've been working on something in stealth to surprise UniLend fan. Fasten your seatbelts, Something BIG is coming! https://t.me/UniLendAnnouncement/179

CryptoRoyals:
Cant wait to see that new thing. This all got me real excited for this new upcoming announcement!

Vishal Kothari:
Keep an eye at https://t.me/UniLendAnnouncement

CryptoRoyals:
Will surely do. Ok, great answers so far.
Q5. Above you stated you’re picking up from where Uniswap left off? I heard your team has great comparison articles in regards to this, could you expand on this topic and let us know where we can find these articles?

Ayush Garg:
Yes, to clarify, we have the utmost respect for Uniswap and the other leading protocols for being trailblazers in the DeFi space. That said, we believe that our comprehensive DeFi functionality and permissionless listing model will facilitate the evolution of DeFi and bring the next wave of users into the DeFi space. haha those articles are something which really helped to explain our vision across. The goal with the series is to show the cryptosphere why we will be a major contender, with more to offer than our competitors. UniLend is a unique protocol that is capable of truly revolutionizing DeFi. We have actually compilled it all together in a youtube playlist.

But if anyone want to dive deep into the comparisons, would recommend reading these 2 blogs.
Comparison with Uniswap: https://unilend.medium.com/defi-dissected-unilend-finance-taking-the-uniswap-defi-revolution-to-the-next-level-b576ce915350
Comparision with Aave: https://unilend.medium.com/defi-dissected-a-brief-comparison-of-unilend-and-aave-2e7726c1e7ee

CryptoRoyals:
Will definitely read these ones.

Q6. Recently we’ve noticed UniLend is becoming the new future home to many up and coming hot DeFi tokens. What’s creating all the buzz and why do these projects want to work with UniLend Finance?

Vishal Kothari:
We see many other projects already realizing what we’re doing is different. We believe these projects see our vision and know that our lending and borrowing platform will more than just compete, but dominate the DeFi status quo protocols. In the future, we believe that DeFi users will flock to our protocol. Mainly because we’ll have all the functionality that the top DeFi protocols have and more. Also UniLend will maintain our status by continuing to innovate and strategically partnering to join protocol strengths. We have great synergies with projects like Injective for instance. Not only are we working on collaborating in the future but we’ll have their token INJ listed for trading, lending and borrowing. This is all easily done with our permissionless listing capabilities. In addition, we’re already preparing to list Mirror finances mAsset tokens which mimic real world synthetic stocks, such as the FAANG stocks. Furthermore, we’re also preparing for Base protocols Rebase tokens, Phantom’s synthetic commodities and Union’s collateral optimization token UNN. It’s inevitable that our platform will be sought after to find the next “big project” before other protocols list these new projects. We are building our protocol to have a trust factor to protect against fake tokens yet still allow for early listings. All in all, we are creating a safe haven and technological hub for the greatest projects and everyday DeFi users. UniLend Finance is the key to unlocking the true potential of decentralized finance.

CryptoRoyals:
Amazing!! Thank you so much for answering all the introductory questions.

Segment 2: Twitter Questions

Q1. Is Unilend really designed to solve the problems of the DeFi protocols of only admitting few tokens (Maker DAO, Aave) and of being able to make loans of any of them? or are there more benefits with Unilend?

Ayush Garg:
This question has many layers to it! So our protocol is target at the whole Defi space and we are pretty far sighted in development considering the ever expanding Universe of Crypto and Defi Big Bang. Yes our goal is to enable users to get loans against their fav cryptos which they dont want to sell of, we are not limited to few tokens or type of tokens. The $UFT holders will play major role in governance of the platform, but their will be other benefits when we launch our staking and mining pools. Also one more added advantage coming with our Big Reveal! Done! So yeah exciting stuff all around

Vishal Kothari:
Welcoming Every ERC20 Token to DeFi.

Q2. Anybody will be able to list any ERC20 token without any entity controlling the process, this makes UniLend’s features accessible to every token. But does that mean that scam tokens can be listed without any restriction?

Ayush Garg:
I get the underlying concern here. It is not wrong to be sceptical about security. The security of funds of our users and projects who are providing liquidity is utmost priority for us. We are taking significant measures to prevent any calamity. To begin with, we will do a guarded launch with only trusted projects initially till the platform is stable. Also our smart will be reviewed by industry experts and certified with trusted names. And lastly in case of liquidation, we will not be interacting with any other DeX as we will have that built in, which itself reduces the exposure. done.

Q3. Has been passed so much time since a strong DeFi project appear, so How Unilend will spread its name to all DeFi ecosystem to attract more investors attention? Also Which are most important investors and Advisors?

Ayush Garg:
We have raised sufficient amount of funds with our initial round of funding and have done IDO in oct 2020. We are well placed to execute our future plan we mentioned in our roadmap. That said, our team is very well connected in crypto industry. And a plethora of invertors have interest in UniLend for future. Our Founder Chandresh Aharwar is well known from his time in Matic( now Polygon) as VP Marketing and Strategy. Nasdaq covered us - https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/investors-flock-to-indias-defi-scene-months-after-central-bank-ban-overturned-2020-09-29 This will help you understand about our fund raise better: https://unilend.medium.com/unilend-successfully-raises-3-1m-7dc6f950dfa

Q4. Which one of these aspects important for you?
A-Increasing Token Price&Value
B-Empowering Platform Development
C-Building Community Trust
D-Expanding Partnership Globally

Ayush Garg:
This is a good one. Our highest priority currently is to get the product right and to achieve that we are working on various fronts. Techwise we are solid, our code being pushed to github frequently. Community - we have a large army of supporters and its growing fast, our community has 15k members, we have 3 regional communities, more to come!
Token price - I believe this is an important aspect but in highly volatile crypto market, we don't associate our value with the price. We always thrive to create more value, sooner or later that will be reflected in our price. Partnerships - We are partnering with all the projects where there is a meaningful collaboration, and can generate real value for their users and ours, I have shared an image of expanding UniLend ecosystem too.

Q5. Do you have a Roadmap for your project? I don't see any Roadmap for your website,Plz disclose the matter.

Ayush Garg:
Ofcourse we have that. I feel we a very comprehensive and realistic roadmap. We are on track to reach our milestone which is to get our beta out by end of Feb and Mainnet by End of Q1. We are committed to deliver on our promise but our devs are pushing it further to deliver things which we planned for a later stage.

Vishal Kothari:
And here you all can check our detailed roadmap too...
https://unilend.medium.com/presenting-unilends-roadmap-gearing-up-for-alpha-launch-in-december-2020-89ff10805bcd

Ayush Garg:
Referring the big storm coming. done.

Segment 3: Live Questions

Q1. Can UniLend provide users with more information about security and anti-hack?

Vishal Kothari:
As we always keen to see the security will be always in our priority and for that even our smart contract of the $UFT token is already been audited by the top audit company certik and we will ensure that our smart contract of them mainnet will also be audited by the best in the industry. You can check our UFT token audit through:
https://twitter.com/UniLend_Finance/status/1316055719020359680

Q2. You said that #Unilend picking up from where Uniswap took the Defi revolution. What the essence of this words?

Ayush Garg:
So Uniswap is the pioneer in Defi and shaped the space how we know it. And this is the first time an utility is added to crypto which is widely adopted (every trader's most visited site is a gastracker now. UniLend want to take it further by permissionless platform where anyone with liquidity can list their tokens for lending and borrowing. The Current TVL of the market is around $40B, where only handful of tokens can be used for Lending, borrowing and other Defi services. We are going to unlock this potential of other tokens which have created value and have strong community backing. Adding them we can take this TVL to cross $100 B in coming months.

Q3. How do you plan to spread awareness about your project in countries/regions where English is not spoken well like Indonesia, Vietnam, India, Bangladesh and Iran, do you have local communities for them to make them better understand about your project?

Vishal Kothari:
We are building up global and regional communities to support all our users to have ease of the communication with the team through the community and community managers and that's why we already have 2 regional communities announced so far
🇻🇳 Vietnam : https://t.me/UniLend_Vietnam
🇮🇩 Indonesia : https://t.me/UniLend_Indonesia

Q4. UniLend is a permissionless platform focused on Ethereum tokens, but the need for cross-chain solutions is increasingly perceived. Does UniLend intend to be a cross-chain platform, allowing its features to be available to non-ethereum tokens?

Ayush Garg:
It is in our plan but not a priority right now.

Q5. Many new projects initially developed well but were suddenly abandoned. How will you manage your project to get your position on the market and become the best project in the blockchain world?

Vishal Kothari:
We have bigger roadmap than we have announced so far and shared with our community. So you can see that we are not here for short term but we are aiming to propel the DeFi Ecosystem with UniLend with a greater goal than anyone can think around for sure.

Q6. In the world cryptocurrency competition, features are of the utmost importance to attract investors and the community! Can you provide a list of killer features that scare your competitors over your project?

Ayush Garg:
Not sure if it scares anyone :wink:

1. Permissionless listing
2. Integrated DeX
3. UniLend Ecosystem
4. Decentralised Governance
5. Build on most widely used Blockchain Ethereum
6. Robust planning
7. Leaders as partners and last but not the least, coolest team!

Q7. Where do I get information about your team? Why do you prefer to be anonymous? Do you have a plan to identify your team later?

Vishal Kothari:
We are not anonymous, please check our website to know more about our team.
https://www.unilend.finance . Join us at @UniLendFinance for more details.

CryptoRoyals:
Okay great. Thank you so much for answering best questions from the community.

Vishal Kothari:
Loved the energy in the group. Thank you DeVina for the warmest hosting us here.

CryptoRoyals:
Pleasure is ours sir. If anyone has any more questions left to be asked, feel free to ask in @UniLendFinance.

Ayush Garg:
Thank you everyone and Crypto Royals Team. It was great interacting with you and thanks DeVina for hosting us!

CryptoRoyals:
Lets end the session now. Thank you so much everyone for joining our session with UniLend finance today and special thanks to @ayushgrg and @VishalBlockchain for this amazing informative session! We all wish the best for UniLend sir.