In Pyth Network’s Twitter Spaces which took place on April 17, 2024, Marc from Pyth Network hosted Mara from Rain.fi to discuss insights on bear markets, innovation, community building, Rain.fi, Solana, and more! Read our notes below to learn more.
Background
Marc (Host) – Contributor at Pyth Network
Mara Gonzalez (Guest) – Co-Founder of Rain.fi
Rain.fi – a decentralized lending and borrowing protocol on Solana that offers a unique buy-now-pay-later system for NFTs
Pyth Network – an oracle protocol that connects the owners of market data to applications on multiple blockchains
Rain.fi, Bear Markets, Resilience, and Financial Innovation
- Mara shares her journey into crypto, starting from a missed opportunity to buy Ethereum in 2017 due to fear, to eventually buying in during the 2021 bull run and getting involved in the Solana NFT marketplace.
- Mara reflects on the excitement of seeing interest in Rain during a more optimistic market phase, despite the advantages of building during bear markets.
- Marc suggests that enduring a bear market in the crypto world is a testament to one’s resilience, comparing it to surviving challenging conditions like heavy rain in Dubai.
- Marc elaborates on the typical journey of individuals in the crypto space, where they initially engage for financial gains but eventually stay due to the technology and community, expressing hope for mass adoption.
- Mara provides an overview of Rain.fi, which operates on the Solana blockchain and began as a lending platform specializing in NFT loans. They later introduced a ‘buy now, pay later’ service for NFTs and recently added DeFi loans and a magic swap feature, which allows for leverage buys without liquidation risks.
- Mara highlights that Rain is unique because it operates on a peer-to-peer model where lenders control the terms of loans, such as Loan-to-Value (LTV) ratio, interest rate, and duration, offering borrowers a wide range of options.
- Marc asks Mara to detail Rain.fi’s development timeline and how they prioritize new features and products based on market trends and user feedback.
- Mara shares that Rain.fi’s initial vision was to become the largest bank in Web3, starting with services like NFT loans and evolving to include other financial products. She notes that the launch of their DeFi product coincided with a surge in DeFi activity, attributing it to good timing.
- Mara explains the innovative approach to lending on Rain.fi, where lenders can engage in multiple financial activities such as loans and leveraged trades using the same funds without segmenting them into different accounts. This flexibility is designed to enhance user engagement and reduce complexity.
Solana’s Rising Potential: Innovations, Challenges, and Expansion Plans
- Marc asks if any other chain has similar features to the novel and secure design that dramatically increases exposure, and he queries about the scalability for tokens with decent liquidity.
- Mara says that they listed eight assets today, bringing the total to around 30 assets live for loans or leveraged trading through what they call magic swap.
- Marc considers the synergy between Rain.fi and cloned assets on Solana, suggesting it could attract tokens from other ecosystems like Ethereum to Solana, enhancing exposure even on tokens like optimism orbital.
- Mara finds the idea great and plans to message her team about expanding their current offerings. She highlights the enablement of $BTC and $ETH on their platform, noting these developments are possible due to the superior speed and cost of Solana compared to Ethereum.
- Mara explains their use of the Pyth oracle for accurate pricing in their NFT loans, which is essential for determining loan-to-value ratios. She notes that all leveraged buys go through Jupiter, describing a seamless backend process where combined funds from lenders and borrowers instantly purchase tokens, which are locked until repayment.
- Marc comments on the significant composability found within protocols and mentions the launch of a Solana staked derivative by Jupiter. He highlights the ongoing developments in Solana, especially in network performance and airdrop season.
- Mara discusses the recent challenges faced by Solana, including degraded network performance due to a proof of work coin incentivizing spam. She notes how this has impacted other users and details how their protocol adapted by increasing repayment times to cope with these issues.
- Mara praises Quentin for his role in efficiently managing the protocol’s response to the Solana issues, stating that they introduced additional RPCs and manual fee settings, which allowed over 90% of transactions to be successfully processed even on the worst days.
Evolution of User Engagement and Rewards in Protocols: Solana’s UX and Droplet Strategies
- Marc acknowledges the importance of good UX in protocols and reflects on how the UX in Solana has improved over time.
- Mara talks about ‘droplets‘ as a point system on their platform, explaining the three ways users can earn them: by depositing funds, issuing loans, and borrowing.
- Marc mentions that the concept of points or rewards like droplets has become more mainstream in protocols, helping to signify valuable actions within a community.
- Mara discusses the community engagement aspect of their platforms, highlighting how they use droplets and other incentives to foster brand awareness and user interaction.
- Mara says they had introduced droplets before Drip did and found it amusing that Drip seemed unaware of their earlier launch. She thinks a collaboration involving droplets could be fun and interesting.
- Marc discusses the importance of community engagement in the crypto space, suggesting collaborative events to increase familiarity and interaction within their community.
- Mara mentions their weekly community get-togethers where they explore new platform features and invite community input.
- Mara shares that they have just closed a strategic pre-seed funding round and are planning to introduce RWA loans. She hints at upcoming significant partnerships, including one with a gaming protocol and another with a well-liked protocol.
- Mara explains that Rain.fi aims to integrate multiple blockchain technologies, enhancing user experience so that the differences between chains are seamless and transparent to users.
Check out these important links
- Listen to the original audio
- Follow Marc on Twitter
- Follow Mara on Twitter
- Follow Rain.fi on Twitter
- Follow Pyth Network on Twitter
Show Information
- Medium: Twitter (Audio)
- Show: Pyth Network Twitter Space
- Show Title: AMA: RainFi Never Stops!
- Show Date: April 17, 2024