[AMA Recap] Defi Money Market (DMM)

BitMart, a premier global digital asset trading platform, recently listed Defi Money Market (DMM, Token Symbol: mUSDC). The DeFi Money Market (DMM) provides a trust-minimized, transparent, and permissionless environment on the Ethereum blockchain that empowers users across the world to once again earn a positive yield in their digital assets (ETH, DAI, USDC, USDT) through mTokens backed by a basket of interest-generating real-world assets brought on-chain into the DeFi space.

On September 9, 2020, to better help BitMart users know more about DMM and its team, we held a Telegram AMA with the topic of “Defi Money Market (DMM)”. We are pleased to have Corey Caplan, Partner of the DMM Foundation, to join the AMA and share valuable insights with our community members.

If you miss the AMA live, check our AMA recap below for more details:

 

 

[ABOUT THE GUEST SPEAKER]

Corey Caplan is Partner of the DMM Foundation, the organization behind DeFi Money Market (DMM). Caplan, who is also the Co-Founder of Dolomite, is an experienced entrepreneur with a demonstrated history of working in the software-as-a-service, consulting, and cryptocurrency industries. He is skilled in project management & planning, Android development, distributed backend server development, dev-ops, smart contract development (Solidity), relational database design & implementation, and iOS Development. 

[AMA]

BitMart Admin:

Question 1. Can you please introduce yourself and share a bit more about your story and DMM foundation?

Corey:

My name is Corey Caplan, and I'm Partner of the DMM Foundation, the organization behind DeFi Money Market (DMM). 

DeFi Money Market (DMM) is a novel digital currency ecosystem that solves the dual problems of currency debasement and the near-impossibility of earning interest with its DeFi protocol that empowers anyone to earn a positive yield (interest) on digital assets. DMM enables a stable 6.25% APY to be earned on deposited funds (currently ETH, DAI, USDT and USDC). Since the protocol is permissionless, anyone with an internet connection can mint mTokens and tap into a financial instrument that enables greater financial freedom and inclusion for all. DMM aims to spark the return of earned interest to the global monetary landscape.

BitMart Admin:

Question 2. What are the real-world assets backing DMM?

Corey:

Currently, there are $8.7M in overcollateralized loans backed by real-world income-generating automobiles on the trust-less permissionless protocol. The value of these assets is monitored by a Chainlink oracle to ensure the constant overcollateralization of the ecosystem. Moving forward, the community will have the opportunity to introduce new assets such as aircraft or real estate into the ecosystem.

BitMart Admin:

Question 3. What are mTokens?

Corey:

mDAI, mUSDC, mUSDT, and mETH (all mTokens) are interest-bearing synthetic tokens that give exposure to the 6.25% interest that DMM offers based on real-world, income-generating assets. mTokens can be minted by anyone with an internet connection using the permissionless Ethereum blockchain, allowing for better financial opportunity and financial inclusion for all. 

 

BitMart Admin:

Question 4. How does the mToken integration work?

Corey:

• The DMM protocol is permissioness, so technically anyone can mint mTokens and access the stable yield provided by the DMM ecosystem
• mToken integrations help further democratize access to DMM’s stable yield by directly offering the yield-generating tokens to wallet and exchange users around the world.
• These integrations offer an extremely unique opportunity to digital asset holders as the income generated is stable and based on real-world income-generating assets, which few are able to provide at the time.

BitMart Admin:

Question 5. Why did you start with DAI/USDC/USDT/ETH as the initial digital assets on the platform?

Corey:

Stablecoin mTokens are essential to DMM’s core mission of democratizing access to financial services. Now, anyone in the world can earn a stable yield on a stable currency in a permissionless environment that is still rooted in real-world principles. ETH is critical to the DMM ecosystem as the application is built on the protocol. Offering yield on assets that offer volatility broadens the scope of financial opportunity that is now available to all.  

 

BitMart Admin:

Question 6. What digital assets will you be adding to the DMM ecosystem next?

Corey:

There have been many discussions about what may be the best assets to bring into the ecosystem, but ultimately, this will be up to the community. The first anticipated proposal for the introduction of new assets will be for aviation in the form of two Pilatus PC-12 Aircraft that will be registered with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and based in the United States of America. 

BitMart Admin:

Question 7. Where is DMG trading?

Corey:

DMG is the DMM governance token, allowing the community to vote on proposals to the protocol, and is currently trading across many centralized and decentralized exchanges, including KuCoin, Poloniex, Okex, and Uniswap.

BitMart Admin:

Question 8. What is the yield farming capability that you're launching?

Corey

Yield farming is a process that enables traders to gain even greater ROI from their digital assets. We are launching a DMG staking dapp that will enable yield farming within the DMM ecosystem.

BitMart Admin:

Question 9. How do I become a yield farmer of DMG?

Corey:

Users will mint either mDAI, mETH, mUSDC, or mUSDT from app.defimoneymarket.com and deposit those tokens together with the underlying assets in Uniswap to create a secondary market (and receive LP tokens for doing so). Farming will be run as campaigns for “x” amount of time, in which mToken holders are able to stake the liquidity pools created to earn the DMM governance token, DMG. For example, if a user had 100 tokens composed of 50% mUSDC and 50% USDC, they would deposit those tokens into a Uniswap pool to create liquidity for mUSDC and its underlying asset, allowing users to stake those LP tokens to yield farm DMG within the DMM Yield Farming contract. Farming campaigns will end when they are cancelled (via governance vote or emergency shutdown through the DMMF) or when the DMG from the farm is depleted.

BitMart Admin:

Question 10. What types of decisions have been passed recently by the DMM DAO?

Corey:

The most recent decision was the addition of yield farming. Prior to that, the DAO voted to add the most liquid stablecoin on Ethereum, USD Tether (USDT). Coming up, there will be a vote to enable token burning where the excess interest goes to DMG holders.

 

[Free Q&A]

Question from a Community Member:

Q1. What is the main competition to DMM in the DeFi space?

Corey:

In strictly the DeFi space, we compete with other yield-generating protocols. We don't see much direct competition since almost all protocols aren't focused on bringing real-world assets onchain. This indirect competition can still be difficult because we can't offer the same extremely high, but volatile, yields that other protocols do. We are much more stable.

 

Question from a Community Member:

Q2. What is the DMM DAO business model? Who are your potential customers and which markets are you targeting on?

Corey:

The DAO earns more interest than it pays out, allowing the DAO to receive the excess interest revenue and use it for things like token burns. We are currently focused on crypto users and people of the DeFi space, exchanges, etc. We are partnering with consumer alternative-banking apps that could offer DMM as a stable form of interest to every-day non-crypto people. 6.25% is virtually unheard of by these people!

 

Question from a Community Member:

Q3. One of the keys to a large user base of Ethereum is that their yield farming can bring more benefits.  What are the differences and advantages of yield farming from DMG

Corey:

The advantage is that we are a risk-free (but not from technical risk) form of yield farming - you simply deposit Uniswap LP tokens into our contract and you earn DMG. There is no counterparty risk, because our contracts *do nothing* with the LP tokens other

 

Question from a Community Member:

Q4. Can you explain the value of using Chainlink Oracles for DMM? How exactly will DMM use Chainlink Oracles?

What do you think of the defi space in the next 5 years? Will Defi merge with mainstream finance in some way, or will they remain independent for the foreseeable future?

Corey:

Chainlink is an independent bridge from our real world data to the on-chain world. They are able to take our loan information, sanitize it with industry-standard price information and maintain our ecosystem's collateralization, etc. They will help soon with other important features too, like a fiat tracker, DMG price feed and adding support for more asset types.

We wouldn't be able to operate this ecosystem *at all* without Chainlink.

 

Question from a Community Member:

Q5. Can you walk us through what happens to eth, dai, etc. once it gets converted to mTokens. Where does that money go, and what are your plans to make this more transparent and under the control of the DAO?

Corey:

Most of the funds stay in the smart contracts on-chain. The portion that doesn't gets withdrawn, converted to fiat, and allocated to a loan that is backed by the real-world asset. In case of default, the original funds are recovered by selling the asset. At which point, the funds can either 1) return to add liquidity to mTokens or 2) be re-allocated to another asset.

We are working with Chainlink to be able to offer a "fiat tracker" that tracks monetary movements while funds are in-transit, for increased transparency. This will be a first-of-its kind piece of technology that we are REALLY excited about!

 

Question from a Community Member:

Q6. Too many projects promise magic but never release any working product or prove any revenue, Within a short/long time of release. Is $DMG like this? If not can you tell us, What makes DMG different from other projects?

Corey:

We've been consistently shipping since our first public release in March. Within 6 months, we have fully transitioned to a DAO, released governance and voting, released a protocol for earning yield, made countless protocol upgrades, created yield farming, are working on burning and staking right now, and haven't stopped moving forward!

Question from a Community Member:

Q7. The DEFI space is very young and is changing rapidly. My question is, how flexible are your tools to adapt to changes in the DEFI crypto space? How do you make DMM become popular ?

Corey:

All major aspects of our protocol are upgradeable, allowing us to adapt to the environment. Keep in mind, certain aspects of our ecosystem are "slow" on purpose because we want to offer stability where the rest of the market doesn't have it!

[About the Project]

The DeFi Money Market (DMM) provides a trust-minimized, transparent, and permissionless environment on the Ethereum blockchain that empowers users across the world to once again earn a positive yield in their digital assets (ETH, DAI, USDC, USDT) through mTokens backed by a basket of interest-generating real-world assets brought on-chain into the DeFi space.

 

The DMM DAO governance token, DMG, is the tool through which the community governs and grows the DMM ecosystem and the underlying protocol. Governance decisions may include introducing new digital assets to earn yield upon, introducing new assets to earn interest, and/or any other proposals launched by the community.

[Useful Links]

• Whitepaper: https://defimoneymarket.com/DMM-Ecosystem.pdf
• Official Website: https://defimoneymarket.com/
• Telegram: t.me/DmmOfficial
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/DMMDAO?s=20