ALQO Lightpaper 2020
A Decentralized Ecosystem for
Financial Services (DeFs)
A Liquid ObjectA Liquid Object
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We aim to empower those sidelined users with the tools needed to capitalize on this new and innovative tech.
Traditional finance (“TradFi”) operates in an archaic and obtuse manner, where
users have limited control over their finances and receive the least incentives and
opportunities for saving. Decentralized finance (“DeFi”) grants financial
autonomy and more significant savings opportunities. It provides for products
direct to the consumer transparently and openly. DeFi is the evolution of finance
inspired by the limitations of TradFi and gives individuals control of their financial
sovereignty.
The process of empowering users with DeFi requires a multi-prong approach to
understanding the current landscape and the products and services offered by
this new financial technology. Historically, DeFi offers only the most tech-literate
users the aforementioned increased opportunities; currently, everyday users
interested in capitalizing on this growing financial technology remain on the
sidelines.
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Overview
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We present ALQO, a decentralized ecosystem for financial services "DeFs,"
focused on contributing real-world use and value to decentralized finance by
bridging the traditional banking experience with decentralized finance via an
accessible platform centered on user convenience and ease-of-use. ALQO
will develop stand-alone decentralized products for those users wishing to
remain completely focused on autonomy.
ALQO, meaning "A Liquid Object," is a nod to the economic term liquidity,
which is a significant contributor to, and indicator of, the success of a
cryptocurrency's ecosystem, which will play a role in the adoption of the
ALQO network. The ALQO team incentivizes its ecosystem's growth with
diverse liquidity mechanisms, such as auctions, lending, and indexes.
ALQO builds its next-gen network using the dynamic Substrate framework.
The integration of its custom chain to the Polkadot protocol allows maximized
scalability in a secure and developer-friendly framework, providing rapid
product development and deployment; while retaining composability and
interoperability at its core. Using this cutting-edge tech stack to develop its
"DeFi" product offerings, ALQO delivers innovative decentralized financial
products to market fast.
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DeFi
DeFiDecentralized finance intends to disrupt traditional banking and the conventional
financial services market entirely. However, a steep learning curve, poorly
designed user-interfaces, lack of security measures, high fees, and a generally
poor user-experience present an opportunity for improvement of this industry
segment to serve non-native and native crypto users better.
ALQO's DeFs solves these issues by providing a safer and more comfortable user
experience for all participants and provides products that address these industry
issues. It accomplishes its simplicity of use and safety by delivering audited contract
products, an optimized user interface to reduce asset allocation errors, and more.
While ALQO focuses on its decentralized ecosystem for financial services to drive
financial innovation through technological improvements, using the ecosystem in
daily life is the EONS financial services layer's goal. EONS is an extension of the
ALQO ecosystem. EONS is a bank-like financial services platform that bridges the
gap between traditional and digital finance, giving the user more control over their
money and savings, with more opportunities to earn, such as higher interest on
novel investment opportunities, than conventional banking.
EONS provides several money-management conveniences, such as a Visa debit
card (launching in the UK, coming Q2 2021 for the EU and USA), IBAN accounts for
UK & EU residents, expense analytics, and automatic personal savings accounts the
user controls. EONS gives users the ability to access decentralized and standard
banking services within a complete product suite to ditch their out-of-date bank
permanently.
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Products
ProductsIn ALQO's DeFs, are several innovative products. Auctions allow users to buy and
sell assets in a public auction. Auctions are simple and easy to set up, and listing
options are robust. In an example auction, a typical listing will see the user set the
auction rules, like duration, accepted assets, price decay rate, reserve, trade price,
and asset settlement addresses for the settlement contract. The contract controls all
assets listed for auction, and bidders must prove ownership of funds to make bids.
Contract finalization settles automatically. When an auction ends, funds disburse
automatically, and assets transfer to the buyer.
Lending is a second product service. With lending, users can loan and borrow
products via collateralized assets. Typically, a user forms a request and sends their
collateral to the smart contract; the contract pool then fills it if the requested loan
asset is available. The rate determines the collateral or borrowed asset correlation,
loan pool availability, and contract duration. Pool availability and asset collateral
set the borrowing limits. Lending is a great way to earn interest on your crypto or
stable coin collateral or borrow against others' assets while retaining ownership of
your primary collateral, assuming you satisfy your loan commitment.
Indexes are a great way to gain exposure to multiple assets in one product. Built
using the ALQO blockchain, we provide market index products whose value is
represented by a single token issued. As interoperability between different
blockchains increases, proper multi-chain indexes are now a reality, offered in a
single token. We plan to release several index products in permanent and short
term indexes, with varying assets and risk templates.
Automatic Marker Making, "AMM," allows users to stake assets that trade them to
fulfill exchange buy requests. ALQO's DeFs goals include establishing AMM
algorithms that create an attractive option for users interested in tiered risk
allocations of automatic trading strategies. ALQO's team plans to release detailed
information in its official forthcoming technical whitepaper regarding the type of
trading strategies employed and the risk each provides. AMMs have experienced
a surge of interest lately. We feel ALQO's AMMs are an attractive proposition.
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Interoperability
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Smart contracts are code that allows a blockchain to handle financial services
without a centralized party. All of the ALQO products are smart contracts built
on top of the ALQO blockchain network. Interoperability allows different
blockchains to communicate directly; we believe that interoperability is a
significant contributor to the crypto industry's future mass adoption success.
The ALQO chain provides increased multi-chain interoperability. ALQO seeks
to expand on this functionality for our ecosystem. It is a significant and critical
element of our long-term vision for integration with our EONS financial
services product. It will allow us to decentralize finance and banking to reach
the masses.
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Tokenomics
Tokenomics
The ALQO token will play an integral part in the DeFs ecosystem, allowing access to
the many planned products. Currently, the ALQO blockchain exists as a Pivx-based
proof-of-stake masternode network, with approximately 69M coins in total supply
and circulation. The ALQO coin's current holders will take part in a non-expiring
coin-to-token swap to receive mainnet tokens on the new ALQO chain.
We will phase out the existing masternode structure of ALQO's current network,
and current rewards will change. The node structure of our new chain will take
precedent. However, node operators will continue to receive rewards for securing
the network. ALQO will use a node structure and network hierarchy comparable to
existing parachains. We will release detailed tokenomics of our new chain in a
forthcoming technical whitepaper.
The mainnet ALQO token uses include DeFs products, staking, and mainnet
contract gas. Increasing the usability of the mainnet ALQO token will help control
supply while increasing demand.
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Wallets
WalletsThe ALQO wallet's primary goal is to enable access to a user's token holdings and
the DeFs products and services by employing a platform-agnostic design. The era
of desktop wallets is closing; browser extensions like MetaMask allow user custody
access to new and innovative products in the DeFi space. Our wallets will capitalize
on the trend and release first as a browser extension and later to Android and iOS
mobile app platforms.
Traditional DeFi products are built directly into the wallet's interface, reducing
participation fees and complexity. All products enabled on the ALQO network will
be reviewed to minimize user risks. The Substrate network allows control of many
different assets, regardless of the blockchain type, which will enable users to
manage all of their assets in one location. Users can manage their security using
their operating systems, secure passwords, and mnemonic backups.
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Conclusion
ConclusionALQO's DeFs' mission is to unencumber finance from its legacy constraints in
conventional banking and financial services. DeFs aims to empower users with
innovative financial products and services in a decentralized manner that is simple
and easy to use. Users can make the most of ALQO's DeFs by bridging the gap
between banking and decentralized finance with EONS, the licensed and
regulated financial services platform.
ALQO helps architect the future of finance with cutting-edge financial technology, bringing
everyone financial freedom.