Igor Varnavsky has got an extensive experience in fields that range far beyond investments and IT: 17 years in journalism and 11 years of experience in marketing. Today, Igor is sharing a collection of insights about BondAppetit.io, highlighted below.
Bit Courier: Tell us about the creation of BondAppetit.io. When was it created?
BondAppetit was built by a team of seasoned coders, lawyers, and financiers, who worked at and with the most well-known global companies: Deloitte, Interfax, Mango Insurance, VK, and Art. Lebedev Studio.
This video tells it all:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w32WATvDpc
The protocol was launched on April 5th, 2021. In a few days, it reached a TVL of $8 million.
The launch of BondAppetit is being conducted in 3 phases. The goal of the first phase (April - July 2021) was to attract enough liquidity and prove the business model of BondAppetit. In exchange for liquidity, the protocol distributed 5% of the initial BAG offering to all liquidity providers.
The second phase started in August. During this phase, the protocol acquired the first batch of bonds to back the USDap stablecoin (https://t.me/BondAppetit/85) and started distributing coupon payments from bonds among governance token holders (https://t.me/BondAppetit/105).
The third phase will start once the protocol reaches at least $100M of capitalization. No more BAG tokens will be issued to the open market at this phase.
Bit Courier: Who is your target audience? What value do you offer to the people?
BondAppetit aims at three audiences:
- Big and mid-sized businesses looking for cheap financing opportunities. Traditionally, large and mid-sized companies get money through bank and bond financing. With its global reach and intermediary-free environment, the crypto market could become a new source of funding in the near future. The total market capitalization of the crypto market overcame the $2 trillion mark and is expected to grow.
Thanks to a sturdy real-world collateral, BondAppetit can hand out loans under more favorable terms than other lending protocols. DeFi loans are usually secured by volatile crypto and issued against a collateral ratio up to 300% or more. In contrast, USDap is backed by stable, real-world assets, eliminating the need for overcollateralization.
- Other lending protocols. The demand for decentralized stablecoins with robust and transparent collateral is insatiable. Many protocols are in need of such assets. BondAppetit will drive adoption of USDap through partnerships, and the first partner is EAST.Finance. EAST is a part of the Waves, a massive crypto ecosystem with a market cap over 2 billion dollars. The EAST token is partially backed by USDap.
- Crypto investors of any scale interested in using USDap as a means of payment and/or investing in BondAppetit governance token (BAG). USDap is backed by real-world assets, which generate stable yields for governance token holders.
Bit Courier: What is the current status of BondAppetit?
By October 2021, BondAppetit reached two key milestones:
- USDap is 100% backed by yield-generating bonds.
- The protocol is now distributing interest income generated by bonds among BAG holders.
BondAppetit is still in the MVP stage, but is now ready for scaling. At this point, our key task is to rapidly grow the supply of USDap and start handing out loans.
Bit Courier: How can one check the existence of collateral?
The bonds are stored by Wise Wolves Finance, a Cyprus-based Investment Firm (CIF) regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) with license number CIF 337/17. Anyone can check their availability any time online at https://bondappetit.io/collateral. The information is transmitted from the custodian and is digitally signed making data spoofing impossible. No single protocol with fiat collateral — neither USDC, nor USDT — has this level of transparency.
Bit Courier: Why invest in BondAppetit when you can just buy bonds or a bond ETF?
Greater security. If you buy the bonds and the issuer defaults, you will be left with nothing. With BondAppetit, a default is not that much of a disaster, since the protocol can acquire more collateral by issuing additional BAGs and selling them on the open market.
Higher income. The number of BAGs is limited to 100 million tokens, and the volume of loans and the issuance of USDap is not limited by anything. More USDap means more bonds, which means higher income for BAG holders.
Bit Courier: What is BondAppetit governance token (BAG) needed for?
BAG is a governance and a reward token, which is used to vote on-chain and to collect the bonds’ interest in dollars. Technically, it is an ERC-20 token and is based on the Compound Governance system — a recognized industry standard with the highest rate of transparency and security. Any member of the BondAppetit community with more than 1 million BAG tokens can initiate a governance proposal.
Bit Courier: Who is behind BondAppetit?
- Artem Tolkachev is the Founder and CEO of BondAppetit. Formerly the Head of Blockchain Lab at Deloitte.
- Vladislav Komissarov is the CTO of BondAppetit. Vladislav has about 20 years of experience as a developer and technical director in many IT projects.
- Igor Varnavsky is the CMO. Previously worked at Mango Insurance and VK.
- Sasha Ivanov is an advisor. Founder of Waves Tech.
Bit Courier: I wonder if you have UK-based projects in your portfolio? Do you plan to get any?
BondAppetit is a lending DeFi protocol built on top of the Ethereum network. Unlike Layer-1 protocols, BondAppetit does not need an extensive ecosystem. However, the protocol is interested in cooperating with intermediaries, custodians and potential borrowers from all key markets, including the UK. Read more on intermediaries and custodians here: https://bondappetit.io/whitepaper#13
usdt
sol