When interacting with decentralized blockchains and DeFi, improving your knowledge and awareness should always remain your top priority. With dozens of projects joining the BSC ecosystem every month, it’s not easy to keep up or better understand all the projects.
An excellent way to save time and get more info in one place are our Telegram AMAs. We will introduce you to new and emerging projects but also well-established names, help you better understand their offerings, and get to know their teams. If you attend a live AMA, you can ask the teams your burning questions and also win prizes and tokens.
To never miss out on our AMAs make sure to join our Telegram and follow us on Twitter.
Now let’s get to a transcript of a an AMA we held on April 29, 2021 with the Xend Finance team. Please note that some questions and answers were edited for brevity and clarity. The original transcript can be found in our Telegram.
AMA Xend Finance
IMPORTANT: Please note the following content does not constitute an endorsement or approval of any of the products or services of the project, organization, or individual.
Jeff (J): Google is not typically associated with a blockchain/crypto project, why do you think they decided to support the Xend Finance team through their Google Launchpad initiative?
Xend Finance team (X): Xend Finance is part of the Xend ecosystem which received investment and support from Google Launchpad. We are receiving support from Google Launchpad because Xend Finance is a high impact project that solves real-world problems by leveraging the blockchain. This impressed the team at Google and this drove them to give even more support to Xend Finance. They have made their resources and African team available to use every step of the way to help ensure our continued growth and success. We are very honored to have them in our corner. See their quote from Head of Google Launchpad Africa: https://twitter.com/xendfinance/status/1379077326877515783
J: What is the market opportunity for bringing DeFi and cryptocurrency savings opportunities to credit unions and cooperatives around the world? Why should people care?
X: The Credit Union Market size is over $1.4 Trillion Dollars with over 250m members. Xend Finance is the first DeFi platform for Credit Unions and Cooperatives and the industry needs DeFi because the credit unions and cooperatives face the following problems:
- Regular devaluation of fiat currencies faced by countries as a result of unstable economies
- Low Annual Percentage Yields (APYs) by traditional financial institutions
- Zero Insurance Coverage on fiat deposits saved on traditional financial institutions
- Barriers to global money markets by banks and other middlemen
By Leveraging DeFi, the Credit Unions are able to give more value to their members through:
– High APYs
- Stable Currencies
- Decentralized Insurance coverage
- Unrestricted access to the global money market
J: How is Xend Finance different from other blockchain/crypto projects?
X: Xend Finance actually has practical use cases for real people TODAY. Many blockchain/crypto projects operate in an ecosystem that is optimistic for a future society. We are actually onboarding real people today, many who have are unbanked, or have never interacted or been able to access stable currencies. Ultimately, by creating a product that makes it easy for real-world people to access DeFi and stable cryptocurrencies, we advance blockchain technology faster and further than by creating products with no practical users outside of blockchain projects.
J: Xend Finance is the first DeFi credit union in the world, the first DeFi project to launch out of Africa, and the first company to build on Binance Smart Chain out of Africa – that’s a lot of firsts! – what is it about Binance Smart Chain that made you want to develop on the blockchain? What has your experience been like?
X: There are a many things worth highlighting, but to name a few:
1. Very fast transactions, confirmation in less than 3 seconds
2. Very low fees. This is good for Africans and other 3rd world regions because most people don’t have high income
3. Cross-chain asset transfers. Tokens can be transferred across blockchains
4. EVM-Compatibility: Existing solidity code that runs on the Ethereum blockchain can easily be deployed on the Binance Smart Chain.
The experience has been amazing and this is based on the feedback from our current users on how low cost making transactions can be as well as massive support received from the Binance Community
J: You publicly launched in November and then had your mainnet launch at the end of March. What have been some of the highlights of this company to this point?
X: Becoming the fastest-growing blockchain company out of Africa and making Africans proud to have a company that has seen such worldwide attention has been very humbling. We have been covered these last five months on Coindesk four times, while also receiving an extensive article on TechCrunch for our mainnet launch. The attention is great, but we are most proud of onboarding real users who have never engaged with crypto before and helping them save in stable currencies instead of holding on to constantly devaluing local currencies. We have already formed partnerships with two real-world credit unions in Africa, which we are most proud of, as this advances the blockchain industry for all.
J: We thank you for being a part of our Binance Smart Chain African roadshow and as part of our Developer’s Masterclass series to help other budding blockchain developers. Tell us what that experience has been like advancing blockchain, DeFi, and Binance Smart Chain across an entire continent of 1.2 billion people?
X: The experience has been very challenging but extremely interesting. We have been met with so many hurdles such as lack of experienced developers, experienced business/marketing team in the blockchain space but the best part of it all is that we have also received a lot of support from friends, family, investors(like Binance, Google, HashKey, AU21, NGC, Matic Network etc) who believe in our vision and in our ability to execute regardless of the challenges. This has given us unimaginable strength to execute at all levels and we are happy to say that things are really looking great. I am also super excited to be helping blockchain engineers in Africa. All we do is #buidl!
J: What can we expect from Xend Finance in the coming months and years?
X: We are setting up an educational platform where non-crypto savvy users can learn about Xend Finance. This will help with growth and adoption of Xend Finance globally. We will be supporting multiple languages especially for our target regions. We are also partnering with multiple cooperatives and credit unions globally.
Our long term vision is to give these credit unions unrestricted access to the global money market and have up to 10% of the union members actively using our platform annually.
