August 15, 2022 — Starfish Finance is a pioneer project in the Astar incubation project and the first decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible token (NFT) finance platform on Astar Network. It recently closed its seed round led by Next Web Capital, joined by GBV Capital, Parity, Acala, Infinity Ventures Crypto, Tokensoft, Paribus, Alphanonce, MindWorks Ventures, Popfield Ventures, MetaverseHub, Oriole Ventures and others. The round signals a deep and long-term collaboration between Starfish Finance and renowned strategic partners, and the protocol is vigorously supported.
The essence of Starfish Finance derives from the power of community. Since its conception, An exceptional amount of community members have gathered on the social media channels of Starfish Finance.
Their fraternity is now Astar Network’s most valuable and active society. Soon, the Starfish culture will propagate the entire Polkadot community with its unique lifestyle.
The three Excaliburs of Starfish Finance
Based on an enhanced Balancer version 2.0 model, the architecture of Starfish Finance is built around three pillars: stablecoin liquidity pools, cross-chain DeFi and NFT finance.
- Multi-token pools with multiple leading stablecoins
Starfish supports liquidity pools consisting of up to eight crypto assets with customizable weighting, offering more flexibility and risk management for DeFi users. Users can farm yields on Starfish’s stablecoin liquidity pools. In addition to Astar and Polkadot native stablecoins, the pools will support leading ones such as Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC) and Dai.
- Boosting cross-chain liquidity efficiency
With its strategic partner Celer Network, a prominent cross-chain asset transfer technology, and the recent cross-consensus messaging format (XCM) update on the Polkadot ecosystem, users will be able to bridge their crypto assets seamlessly across different layer-1 (L1) and layer-2 ecosystems. Starfish Finance has plans to deepen collaboration with a wide range of decentralized protocols outside and inside the Astar network to enlarge the ecosystem.
- Cross-chain NFT lending and borrowing
Starfish’s partnership with Celer Network goes beyond just a ubiquitous DeFi bridge. This time, the latest Celer’s inter-chain message framework is fused within the Starfish Finance protocol. Users can securely lock their NFTs on their native chains, enabling them to borrow various crypto assets cross-chain on Astar Network. The beauty of such a mechanism is that users will not risk security issues locking their NFTs on cross-ecosystem bridges. In addition to Celer’s engineering, Starfish Finance adopts Decentralised Information Asset’s decentralized oracle to acquire tokens and NFT price feeds instantly across centralized exchanges and various L1 ecosystems, including multiple NFT marketplaces, decentralized exchanges and DeFi protocols.
Liberating NFT liquidity
NFT “hodlers” need not sell their beloved NFTs for instant liquidity. Instead, they can collateralize their NFTs to apply for a crypto loan on Starfish Finance. Moreover, lenders will be able to earn yields by providing liquidity in the Starfish Reserve Vault.
To ensure the collateralized NFTs will add more value than risk, Starfish will screen out NFTs that are not qualified as collateral. In the event of a liquidation, SEAN holders will have the chance to bid for blue-chip NFTs at a discount. Besides, once the Starfish decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) is formed, SEAN holders will have voting power to whitelist other cross-chain NFT projects.
The Starfish vision
Community
Starfish Finance is fundamentally community driven. Starfish values its community and endeavors to promote its spirit across communities in other ecosystems. Being part of the Starfish community is to participate in a liberal, fraternal and equal culture.
Collaboration
The Starfish team gathers tenacious believers in Web3. Its leadership actively seeks to partner with distinguished players in the blockchain economy to broaden Starfish users’ experiences in DeFi and NFT finance — on Astar Network and beyond.
Convenience
Through its minimalistic user interface and lively graphics, Starfish unleashes the interoperability of assets between Astar Network and other L1 chains with a smooth user experience that fuses with Starfish’s open and easy-going culture.
What’s next?
In the imminent future, Starfish is launching its public sale on Tokensoft, a tier-one and reputable initial DEX offering platform with a track record of successful token launches for prominent projects like Acala, Moonbeam, Litentry, The Graph, Avalanche and Tezos. In September 2022, Tokensoft will launch Starfish’s $SEAN tokens via two private rounds and one public round.
More strategic partnerships with non-Polkadot native projects will move forward simultaneously. Starfish will be at the core of the Polkadot DeFi ecosystem, and Starfish’s community will enjoy first-mover advantage at the early stages of development. Stay tuned for more Starfish Finance development and strategic partnership updates.
