DeFi is the hottest topic in the blockchain society these days, and the active on-chain behavior has given new vitality to many public chains based on Ethereum. However, due to structural flaws in Ethereum1.0, there is a vast authority difference between native tokens and ERC20 tokens, and it has restricted the development of DeFi. QuarkChain aims at building the next-generation DeFi platform through sharding and multi-native token to solve the problems facing DeFi today: high GAS cost, poor user experience, insecurity, and vulnerability to attacks.
Let’s experience the security and the ease-of-use of the next generation of DeFi. These DeFi products will be launched shortly, but before that, we need to introduce why our multi-native token function will help us realize a new revolution to DeFi.
DeFi, the most prominent trend in crypto?
DeFi provides users with a new way to increase passive income. Compared with the inflation model of PoS pledge, DeFi income comes from a series of derivative transactions such as staking and lending operations of the mainstream cryptocurrencies, rather than pure token creation. The expected inflation rate is lower, which makes income more stable and more reliable. Once the bull market comes, in addition to the interest on loans, one can also enjoy the benefits of staking tokens. Coupled with the newly launched “lending is mining”, it has made this year’s hot market even hotter.
Data on DeBank showed that in the context of rising global asset prices, the lending amount in the crypto market was $1.08 billion. In terms of users, the current number of DeFi users is less than 240,000. Compared with the nearly 40 million ETH addresses held on Ethereum, DeFi may be able to leverage the entire market, but things do not develop so smoothly as expected.
Network congestion and skyrocketing gas fees
Affected by the epidemic, Bitcoin plummeted by almost 50% to $3,800, and ETH fell as much as 65.2% just on March 12 and 13. The plummet caused a run, the Ethereum miner fees that carried a large number of DeFi and DApps skyrocketed, and the network was also congested. DeFi users were unable to redeem and borrow in time, and the forced liquidation was triggered due to the inability to replenish the positions in time, causing considerable losses to the users on it.
As we all know, Ethereum relies on the consumption of GAS to complete its economic operation. Every step of the chain requires the consumption of GAS. The miners will determine the order of transactions based on the price of the GAS fee. From Mar. 12 to 13, due to a large number of transactions such as transfers, replenishment, deposit, and withdrawal of users on the chain, the Ethereum GAS fee increased to 10 times of the usual, and the GAS fee was once as high as 1 ETH to successfully package transactions. The high handling fee restrains the demand for transactions. However, the value growth of DeFi comes from frequent transaction activities on the chain. It says that the high GAS fee has limited the upper bound of the value of Ethereum DeFi. ETH can only pay the GAS fee. Any ERC20 token issued on it cannot achieve this function, setting a bar for new users, and DeFi’s dependence on ETH, further restricting DeFi’s free transactions.
Your eyes are on the passive income, but the hackers are eyeing your principal.
“If you transfer Bitcoin to an Ethereum-based platform, you must pay attention to security issues, because the security of the two blockchains of Bitcoin and Ethereum is not the same. Although Ethereum has advantages and flexibility, the investment in security does not seem to be enough. This means that you may encounter various risks, such as a sudden increase in the gas price which leads to other related problems. All of these will cause you to lose part or even all of your investment funds.” Said by Andreas Antonopoulos, a well-known KOL in the cryptocurrency industry, made the above evaluation of Ethereum-based DeFi.
Why is there a vast hidden danger in Ethereum’s DeFi? The first thing to know is that when an ERC20 token is issued, an ERC20 contract is created. This ERC20 contract defines some necessary interfaces, which are mainly used for bookkeeping. But this ERC20 contract is a contract subordinate to Ethereum, and the authority of this contract is different from Ethereum itself.
Let’s introduce in detail, what the difference between native ETH and other ERC20 tokens is on the DeFi products of Ethereum.
If you use Ethereum’s native token ETH, the operation is simple. As long as the ETH is transferred to the contract of the target DeFi application, the contract operation will be the same as when we use cash to invest in stocks or wealth management products. No other operations are required.
However, the operation of tokens minted using ERC20 contracts is very different from native ETH, regardless of whether the tokens minted by these ERC20 contracts are well-known. Before trading, the ERC20 contract first authorizes the DeFi platform’s contract to transfer a specified number of ERC20 tokens on the account, such as USDT, USDC, or WBTC. After approval, the DeFi contract is called to transfer money. The intuitive understanding is to avoid frequent password input in small transactions, we authorized Paypal to open a password-free payment, so that the payment can be directly deducted during consumption. It sounds convenient, but is it that good?
There is a crucial problem here: if the DeFi contract is malicious during the approval process, this DeFi contract has the right to transfer all the ERC20 tokens on our account to any account. It is similar to that we authorize Paypal to perform a password-free operation of the balance, but if a hacker attacked Paypal successfully, this hacker could transfer all our money to his account. Similar things have happened before.
There is a famous project called Bancor, which used to rely on the type of authorization contract for ERC20 processing. However, there was a bug in the contract that allowed the contract to transfer the tokens in the user’s wallet to any hacker designated address after the user was authorized, which caused a loss of almost 100,000 US dollars.
The loss was not so significant because it occurred in the early stage of DeFi development. If it happens today that the DeFi asset scale on Ethereum already reached hundreds of millions, it would cause severe damage to the entire Ethereum ecosystem and the development of DeFi.
Therefore, many problems DeFi met were due to the imperfect design of the ERC20. However, we also observe fewer attacks on native tokens because of the complete authority control and the shorter operation chain. Therefore, to solve this problem, we can just increase the authority of ecological tokens so that they can have the same functions as native tokens. All tokens can become “first-class citizens” in this public chain ecology and enjoy the same convenience.
The next generation of DeFi platform
Many public chain projects, especially Ethereum itself, have, in fact, deeply recognized their own shortcomings and have also proposed new solutions. The fundamental core is to improve processing efficiency and avoid network congestion. Using PoS consensus instead of PoW can improve throughput and reduce packaging cost, which means reducing GAS cost. Of course, improving transaction efficiency and reducing GAS cost will become the primary long-term goals, but this does not enhance the security and usability of DeFi on Ethereum. In our opinion, a mature DeFi platform must have the following characteristics:
High efficiency: Have faster concurrent processing capabilities, which means higher TPS.
Low GAS rate: Lower fees can encourage the DeFi users’ enthusiasm for using it and even stimulate the development of high-frequency trading.
Safer: There are fewer interactive links in the contract, which at least structurally avoids the problems caused by the permission difference, such as the complexity of ERC20 interaction, the lengthening of the operation chain, and the increase of vulnerabilities.
Easier to use: Various types of multi-native tokens can be used to pay transaction fees during the transactions, and there is no need to use designated tokens to pay for that.
Easy to combine: It can support a wide range of contracts, including the combination of different consensuses on the same chain, ledger structures, and other elements. It can even open up other chains, and make DeFi like a real Lego game.
People always want a faster horse until the car appears.
In the QuarkChain mainnet, the multi-native token is the primary function for building the next generation of the DeFi Network. The multi-native token has the same status as QKC in the QuarkChain system. They can call contracts, cross-chain, and pay transaction fees under certain conditions. In addition to being unable to participate in QKC network governance, the multi-native tokens can achieve all of the QKC’s functions, including cross-chain transfers. Most of the non-native asset inconvenience problems faced by Defi can be solved. In the future contract, the functions of the multi-native token will be the same as QKC, eliminating the last barrier to applying multi-native tokens. We will launch our DEX afterward when users genuinely feel the unimpeded DeFi platform on QuarkChain.
The new DeFi world will start with the creation of personalized multi-native tokens.
Ethereum performance and contract security restrictions have affected the development, which is why DeFi will become the leading new field of QuarkChain. After intensive development and testing, the multi-native token function is ready to be officially delivered to the community. The QuarkChain community members can mine their tokens, as well as use them for transfer (including cross-sharding transfer), payment of fees, and directly call smart contracts very soon. All the users can experience the convenience and innovation that the multi-native token brings to the blockchain system in conjunction with the DEX we will soon launch.
To let everyone experience the security and ease of use of the next generation of DeFi we bring, QuarkChain will launch five DeFi-related products in August. These products are expected to be launched one after another from this week. Please stay tuned with us!
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