We held a live AMA with Structure Finance Founder, Serge Levin on 18th September 09:00 PM (UTC+8). Here’s the recap for those who missed it.
Introduction
Elson: First of all, I would like to congrats Structure Finance had a great launch on Huobi on 16 September 🚀
$ STF Price is still trading around ~ $4.7 at the moment
JH: also, structure is recently partner with Bella 💯💯
Serge Levin: thank you! yes, we are very excited about this partnership!
Elson: and we are looking forwards for more excited news about structure finance 🔥
Before AMA start, can you introduce yourselves and the team background to our new community joiners?
Serge Levin: definitely! I am Serge, the founder of the project. We came up with the idea about a year and a half ago — took us a bit of work but here we are.
Here is a little background about the team — the founders come from a mix of traditional finance background and crypto.
Serge Levin — Founder (me)
Serge has nearly 20 years of experience in managing structured product issuance, trading and sales. Previously, he was a quantitative trader at Point72 and managed structured product portfolios at Nomura, Citi Bank and Morgan Stanley. He holds a PhD in Biophysics from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
Kent Osband — Head of Research
Kent has 30 years of experience in monitoring strategic risks for major investment firms, international financial institutions and think tanks, including Fortress Investment Group, Goldman Sachs and the International Monetary Fund. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, holds a PhD in economics from UC Berkeley, and is the author of three books on financial portfolio risk.
Evelina Lavrova — Head Evangelist
Evelina has about 15 years experience in Business Development and Marketing. Prior to joining Structure, Evelina was a Global Marketing and PR of Waves and Gett. Evelina was featured in Forbes and Thrive Global. In 2017, she was nominated in Top 10 Women In Crypto by Core Magazine.
Our key investors include iAngels, NGC, Ascendex, ARPAchain as well as founders of Bancor Network and Kraken Ventures.
Elson: Any latest news / ANN u can sharing with our community before our first section start?
Serge Levin: Well, first of all our utility token $STF has been listed on Huobi. Do check it out!
Elson: here’s the link to trade STF on huobi 🔥
Serge Levin: We have also launched a mainnet version of our Double No Touch option (DnT), everyone should go and check it out here:
https://structure.finance/dnt5min/
AMA Twitter Section Begins:
Q1. Currently, the Structure Finance DeFi protocol is integrated on the Chromia network. Please explain why you chose Chromia and the benefits you gain when choosing Chromia over other large networks? Similarly, what advantage does your platform have for Chromia?
Serge Levin: The structured products themselves are chain-agnostic, we can (and are going to) deploy them on multiple chains. However, Chromia was a perfect addition to the basic Ethereum chain at this stage. It is a “relational blockchain” — a relational database wrapped in blockchain. So any advanced applications that you normally would build in a centralized manner can be built just as easy on Chromia. It gives us flexibility in the type of defi products that we can launch on the platform and what features we can integrate.
Q2. I understand that Structure finance is built on ETH & BSC as layer 1 protocols. most users and value is derived from these two base layer protocols. but there is limited bandwidth for ETH in terms of speed and cost. To overcome this, does you also integrate with layer 2 protocol?
Serge Levin: As you said, Ethereum is limited in terms of speed and cost, so Structure.finance is also integrating with layer 2 protocols like Chromia to provide better user experience for trading on Structure.finance. It’s an obvious next step. Flexibility is increased and the costs are reduced by using a layer 2 solution. We are also looking at other Layer 2 solutions to make us more versatile
Elson: cost for ETH is really higher cost now
Serge Levin: yeah — its pretty much useless for real world applications
Q3. On your whitepaper, I read that the validity of the Double No-Touch Option (DNT) is only for a limited period of time and when that period ends then the DNT token price will be reset and start a new cycle, nonetheless, can you tell me how long these periods of time usually last?
Serge Levin: At the moment, DnT contract expires in 5 minutes. We wanted to help short-term traders to make money when coins just crab sideways . However, like many other parameters for our products, we are going to make it part of the governance process so if our community/token holders want shorter or longer term DNTs (or other products), they can get together and vote for it.
Q4. I’m Reading You recently launched a DNT (double-no-touch) beta. Enough mentioned in your Media Document? What’s that? What are the Benefits for your Users? The concept is quite easy to use? will it release another superior product?
Serge Levin: Pretty easy concept — you get paid if USD/BTC stays in range for 5 min. So if nothing happens, you win — we are making boredom exciting again!
More formally, you get two boundaries (upper and lower) and if these boundaries are not touched, you get paid. At the start of the trade, you can see these boundary prices and what the cost of that bet is, like 50%. That means you double your money if BTC does not touch these levels for the next 5 min
Q5. Do $STF token holders have the right to participate in the governance of the Structure? What kind of decisions can they make?
Serge Levin: Definitely, the holders of STF token will have the right (and will be encouraged) to participate in the governance of Structure! We are going to vote on things like new payoffs or deprecating old ones, token rewards, sharing of network fees etc. So owning our token is the main way to influence the direction of the community while also making money
Live AMA Begins:
Q6. I read that all of structure finance include a buy-back features. Can you explain describely how exactly this buy-back works? What happened with the buy-back tokens? Will you burn them or store then for emergencies?
Serge Levin: Yes, our structured products will be buying back the STF token using the fees they collect. These tokens will be held in reserve in case of emergencies like collateral shortfall — if nothing like that happens, the tokens are effectively burned.
Q7. Could you tell us about the differences, advantages and benefits of Structured Finance’s products compared to other Defi products?
Serge Levin: Well, nobody else does structured products yet. We are providing structured payoffs that can not be expressed using linear products like futures / perps or even options. So this is a way for traders to make money in situations were it’s impossible to make money otherwise and a way for people to stake crypto volatility as an asset class.
Q8. The majority of projects and platforms are currently in English. How will Structure reach out to non-English-speaking communities in the area? Is there anything you’re planning to help people comprehend your project better?
Serge Levin: Non-English speaking countries are a major focus to our project. We are planning to use local crypto communities to reach users in those countries. We are also probably going to have an ambassador program where advanced users can educate / help other users locally and earn rewards
Q9. Some projects see all crypto users at the same level of technical knowledge, but the majority are technically inept. Therefore, have you made your Platform suitable for both experienced and inexperienced users?
Serge Levin: Everyone is welcome! Some background is helpful, but we are trying to build a community of users from all backgrounds. We are going to ensure that people who are using our products get help — education in form of tutorials, help in the community chat and local ambassadors for non-English speaking countries
Q10. As a trading platform for users of all skill levels specializing in structured financial products. can you explain to us what are these Structured Financial Products and what are the advantages of using Structure Finance?
Serge Levin: Structured products are pre-packaged financial instruments that include various forms of options or discontinuous features. For example, our Double No Touch is a barrier option — the user can leverage the two barriers to get exposure to short volatility in crypto.
Q11. Can you tell us what Crucial role does $STF Token plays in Structure Finance Ecosystem and What are the key utilies of the $STF Token
Serge Levin: The platform supports STF as the native token to support platform incentives and decentralized governance. First and foremost, STF is the default currency in the Structure.finance platforms. Users could use STF for transaction fees and also for purchasing option products. The transaction fees will be collected and contributed to the reserve, and further on allocated through decentralized governance. Secondly, it is important for the platform to have initial liquidity to enable the option products to have more accurate pricing and better profitability. However, to provide liquidity at the initial stage might not be profitable. To encourage users to deposit assets and incentivize a positive feedback loop, there will be token incentives given in STF. Lastly, the token holders collectively decide on the platform governance, in terms of fee ratio setup, and different platform support.
Q12. Are you interested in the Southeast Asian market? And Do you have an ambassador program and can they have a program?
Serge Levin: Yes, we are very interested in Southeast Asia — there is huge potential in this market for crypto and various structured products are very popular there in traditional finance. Right now we are working with several local KOLs and communities but we will be rolling out an ambassador program shortly
Q13. DNT has a validity period which is exactly 1 hour. Can you tell us why you picked hourly life spans? If this for short-term traders then why not make it to 1min or 5min?
Serge Levin: Well, you asked and we listened! The mainnet version of DnT now has 5 min expiration time!
Q14. Is there any guide to earn STF by staking HT & TALK. ?
Serge Levin: ure! You have 2 more days to do it!
Here you can find all info regarding Primepool:
https://www.huobi.com/support/en-us/detail/34885409575726
And here you can lock and earn:
https://www.huobi.com/en-us/topic/primepool/
Q15. I am really Excited your new Product that is Voltility income pool,
Can You tell more about this Product?
How will this be useful?
Serge Levin: Volatility Income Pool is essentially a “volatility exchange”. You have two pools, the “Flow” pool where you earn if volatility is less than expected and “Leap” pool where you earn when volatility is higher then expected. The expected volatility is determined by the ratio of amounts in the two pools. There is also a “Liquidity Provider” account which invests into both pools and essentially serves as a market maker.
Q16. As I was reading your website I found that STRUCTURE offer two products :
1. DOUBLE NO TOUCH OPTION
2. STRADDLE OPTION
Can you please tell us more about these two option and what benifits users can take by using these option ?
Serge Levin: Double No Touch Option is an option that pays a reward if crypto stays within a defined range for 5 min. It’s very useful if nothing is happening and you just want to collect carry but have a limited downside. Straddle option has now been integrated into our Volatility Income Pool product where the investors into Flow pool sell hourly straddles in exchange for steady income, while Leap investors buy these straddles from them.
Q17. Can you Share with us more details Regarding IDO? about Schedule and contribution for each?
Serge Levin: ur Primepool has been launched on Sep 13 and will continue until September 20th!
Users can lock their HT and TALK tokens in Huobi (https://www.huobi.com/en-us/topic/primepool/)for a chance to win part of our 1.98 million STF token prize pool!
Max. Reward Limit by locking HT per day in Round 1–378,000 STF
Max. Reward Limit by locking HT per day in Round 2–70,000 STF
Max. Reward Limit by Locking TALK per day in Round 1–150,000 STF
Max. Reward Limit by Locking TALK per day in Round 2–29,000 STF
Min. Locking Requirement is 1 HT or 5 TALK!
Q18. What is the role of 2 different tokens in this project? Explain describely the utility of $SFF and $DNT? Which token should I buy and hold for long-term?
Serge Levin: STF is our utility token that is used by the platform for fees and other payments. DnT is a structured product that we have listed — it’s not actually a token but a very short-term vault. Another upcoming structured product is VIP, Volatilty Income Pool where users can trade volatility as an asset class
Q19. besides you guys doing some AMAs in big community groups like you guys are doing right now with SHINCHAN. what MARKETING way will you do to spread AWARENESS on Structure Finance? can u tell us a bit about your Marketing Strategy?
Serge Levin: In addition to AMA, there are several other initiatives. First of all, we are partnering with both centralized exchanges and DeFi projects to reach users. We are also working on grass-root outreach program where very active user can become our ambassadors and help in reaching/educating new members
Q20. There are other structured products projects available in the market. Can you tell us how Structure Finance will compete with them? What are the unique features of Structure Finance that you think will lead you to the market over others?
Serge Levin: Yes, there are other structured product initiatives however nobody is trying to bring the same scope of products to the crypto universe. Also, our team has combined 50 years of structured product experience from traditional finance and we will be able to deploy new products and provide liquidity better than others. Finally, we are building this platform as a community project from the start so we have our users to suggest ideas and push in new directions.
-End-
