Revelo Roundtable #19 - Curvance & Radiant

In this episode of Revelo Intel’s Twitter Spaces on July 2, 2024, Kirk hosted Issac from Radiant Capital and Mai from Curvance to discuss omni-chain Lending, the future of DeFi, and more! Read our notes below to learn more.

Background

Kirk (Host) – Head of Business Development at Revelo Intel

Issac (Guest) – Director of Project Management and Communications at Radiant Capital

Mai (Guest) – Multi-role team member at Curvance

Radiant Capital – an omnichain money market on top of LayerZero

Curvance – a modular protocol for optimized liquidity management

Intro

Isaac introduces himself as the Director of Project Management and Communications at Radiant Capital. He shares his background as a mechanical engineer who worked in Formula One, aerospace, and as an entrepreneur in the tech sector.
Isaac mentions his initial encounter with Bitcoin mining and his eventual full-time involvement in crypto with Radiant in 2022. He is excited to discuss lending, borrowing, and the omni-chain future in crypto.
Mai introduces himself as a multi-role team member at Curvance, handling engineering, fundraising, business development, and more. He describes his previous experience as a traditional finance quant at hedge funds and asset managers, working on investment algorithms and big data machine learning.
Mai recounts his early involvement in Bitcoin mining during college in 2012 and his renewed interest in crypto during the DeFi summer around COVID-19. He highlights the appeal of the DeFi space and its potential for impactful solutions, leading him to fully commit to the field.

Radiant’s Cross-Chain Lending and Curvance’s Unified Platform Approach

Isaac explains that Radiant is a lending and borrowing protocol built on LayerZero. The main vision is to provide a seamless cross-chain user experience, allowing users to deposit, borrow, and repay across different chains. The goal is to make lending and borrowing accessible to both crypto natives and mainstream users without worrying about the underlying technology. Radiant operates by redistributing 85% of borrowing fees back to users, with a significant portion going to liquidity providers through a system called Dynamic Liquidity Provisioning (dLP).
Isaac highlights the upcoming launch of isolated markets in their v3 release, enabling the use of various hot tokens in a risk-isolated manner.
Mai describes Curvance as a distribution rail system for DeFi that integrates with any external contract, ecosystem, or token. Curvance aims to unify the user experience in DeFi by consolidating various functionalities like borrowing, liquidity provisioning, and cross-chain actions into a single platform. Users can manage complex positions, move assets between chains, and perform swaps without juggling multiple applications.
Mai highlights that Curvance is about building modular components to create a unified DeFi experience, viewing the crypto industry as positive-sum and aiming to grow the ecosystem collaboratively.

Exploring Cross-Chain Interoperability: Radiant’s LayerZero vs. Curvance’s Wormhole

Kirk asks about the choices between different interoperability layers for omni-chain experiences, focusing on Radiant’s use of LayerZero and Curvance’s use of Wormhole.
Isaac explains that Radiant chose LayerZero for its seamless cross-chain experience, enabling users to deposit on one chain, borrow on another, and repay on a third without complex transactions. Initially, Radiant integrated with Stargate for bridging within their UI and then adopted LayerZero’s OFT protocol for omni-chain fungible tokens. This integration allows for seamless asset transfers, burning tokens on the source chain and minting them on the destination chain.
Isaac highlights the goal of providing an Amazon-like user experience, simplifying complex operations for both crypto natives and newcomers, aiming to onboard millions of users to DeFi with this technology.
Mai says that many cross-chain messaging technologies, including LayerZero, Wormhole, Hyperlane, and Axelar, are all good choices. For Curvance, the deciding factor was the team and the ecosystem surrounding Wormhole. He appreciates Wormhole’s unique querying system, which facilitates inbound messages, and the team’s enthusiasm and collaborative spirit.
Mai highlights the importance of working with a supportive and proactive team, noting that Wormhole’s approach and attitude made them the ideal choice for Curvance.

Unifying Crypto Ecosystems: Radiant and Curvance’s Vision for Seamless Cross-Chain Experiences

Kirk asks Isaac about Radiant’s view on the current landscape of L1s and L2s and their focus on EVM or omni-chain across L1s.
Isaac describes the excitement in the current crypto landscape, noting the maturity and robustness of existing tech compared to previous cycles. He highlights the importance of addressing mainstream users who are not concerned with the technical aspects but are interested in seamless user experiences.
Radiant aims to offer a seamless, omni-chain UX, making it easy for users to trade, invest, and manage assets without worrying about the underlying technology. Radiant currently operates on Arbitrum, BNB, and Ethereum mainnet, with plans to launch on Base and possibly explore non-EVM chains like Solana.
Isaac highlights the importance of bridging different ecosystems to provide comprehensive crypto solutions, acknowledging the technical and community differences between ecosystems like Ethereum and Solana.
Mai explains that Curvance focuses on both current liquidity and activity as well as future-looking bets. They prioritize partnerships with chains like Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base, while also exploring emerging technologies like Monad and Movement Labs‘ Move VM. Curvance aims to grow across multiple chains, leveraging Wormhole’s querying system to manage cross-chain data efficiently.
Mai acknowledges the ongoing fragmentation in the crypto space and highlights Curvance’s goal to unify liquidity and chains, providing a seamless DeFi experience. He mentions their efforts to address liquidity fragmentation and unify the DeFi landscape, aiming to make the user experience more straightforward and cohesive.

Enhancing Wallet UX and Sustainable Token Incentives

Kirk asks for perspectives on making the wallet experience more user-friendly.
Isaac highlights the importance of account abstraction and chain abstraction to create a seamless UX for users. Radiant aims to offer an Amazon or iPhone-like experience where users don’t need to worry about the underlying technology, such as different wallets or chains.
Isaac highlights the importance of making the user experience as abstract and simple as possible, allowing users to engage with the protocol without needing to understand the complexities of the tech stack.
Mai focuses on the dApp level UI/UX experience rather than the wallet level. He notes that getting users to switch wallets is challenging due to their established preferences. Curvance aims to improve the application experience by integrating various functionalities into a unified platform, allowing users to manage their assets and perform transactions without needing multiple tabs or complex operations. He highlights the importance of making the dApp user-friendly and intuitive, rather than relying on technical jargon or complex models.
Kirk asks about the most effective utility or form of incentive for protocol tokens and how product and token interact symbiotically.
Isaac explains that Radiant focuses on sustainable business models that do not rely on excessive token incentives. They aim to balance rewarding loyal users and attracting new users, avoiding the pitfalls of DeFi 1.0 where unsustainable incentives led to short-term TVL inflows that quickly vanished. Radiant’s dLP model rewards users who provide liquidity and engage with the protocol, with plans to introduce dual emissions to combine incentives from other protocols, creating synergistic benefits without excessive reliance on their native token $RDNT.
Mai describes Curvance’s approach to building a robust token system, learning from past models and incorporating improvements. Curvance’s tokenomics allow for dual emissions and flexible lock periods, balancing short-term liquidity with long-term incentives. The system rewards users who lock tokens with higher rewards and provides mechanisms for early unlocking with penalties that benefit the DAO. Curvance aims to make the token the center of their ecosystem, ensuring it is integral to the user experience and not merely an exit liquidity tool.

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Show Information

Medium: Twitter (Audio)
Show: Revelo Intel Twitter Space
Show Title: Revelo Roundtable #19 – ft. Curvance & Radiant
Show Date: July 2, 2024