Following a successful $4.25 million series seed funding round with prominent investors including Cumberland DRW, Decima Fund, HashKey Capital, Longling Capital, and MZ Web3 Fund, Term Structure, a non-custodial fixed-income protocol, will launch its first-ever Testnet Trading Competition. This event, running from March 4 to March 10, 2024, allows participants to become familiar with basic interest-rate products, demonstrate their skills to fine-tune their strategies without using real funds and compete for valuable prizes in a simulated market environment.
In traditional finance (TradFi), fixed-income products are essential tools that allow institutions and individuals to forecast future cash flows and assess the value of various investment opportunities. Despite their importance, such products have been notably missing from DeFi. The Term Structure Protocol addresses this gap by offering fixed-income products for earning fixed interest or securing fixed rates. This lays the groundwork for a more sophisticated DeFi ecosystem with advanced instruments like forwards, futures, and options to enhance investment strategies and risk management.
Term Structure offers a comprehensive suite of services that cater to various aspects of fixed-income trading. This includes primary markets that facilitate borrowing and lending at fixed rates and fixed terms, secondary markets that enable the buying and selling of fixed-income tokens before maturity, and repo markets that allow short-term borrowing by using Term Structure's fixed-income tokens.
There are currently two markets available: primary markets and secondary markets. In primary markets, borrowers and lenders can borrow or lend tokens with fixed rates and fixed maturity dates through the auction mechanism. When these orders are matched, borrowers obtain the tokens they sought and are obligated to repay their loans by the maturity date to retrieve their collateral. Lenders, by contrast, will receive the Term Structure fixed-income tokens, which can be redeemed for principal plus interest at the time of maturity. Meanwhile, the secondary markets provide a venue for users to trade fixed-income tokens through an orderbook system.
This protocol implements zkTrue-up, a customized Zero-Knowledge (ZK) rollup, to maintain data availability, increase transaction speed, and allow users to place and cancel orders without gas fees. To take a step further, users can initiate Forced Withdrawal on the zkTrue-up contract for fund withdrawal in case of censorship or any issues. Should there be a failure to process the withdrawal request, users can activate the Evacuation Mode and perform an evacuation on the L1 contract to secure their assets. In addition, industry-leading firms ABDK and HashCloak have thoroughly audited the protocol’s smart contracts and ZK circuits. All the identified issues have been fixed, demonstrating the protocol's reliability and unwavering commitment to asset security.
The upcoming Trading Competition is a showcase of Term Structure's robust system. With a total of 10,000 USDC available for the top 10 profitable traders and NFTs for all participants, the competition promises to be a fertile ground for both seasoned traders and newcomers to explore and refine their trading strategies. During the competition, real-time performance tracking will be available through the leaderboard at https://leaderboard.testnet.ts.finance/.
Joining the competition is straightforward. Users should go to the Term Structure Leaderboard and follow the instructions to claim their test tokens. These tokens can then be deposited on the testnet. While users can place orders according to their preferences, they should join the protocol's Discord channel at https://discord.ts.finance/ to monitor market movements and news. Auctions in the primary markets will occur every hour on the testnet during the competition.
Users can also swap tokens on the testnet. Transaction fees vary depending on the types of tokens being swapped. Moreover, a liquidation mechanism has been implemented to ensure the stability of the protocol on the testnet. Please refer to the trading competition guide and join the workshop at 8:00 a.m. (UTC) on March 1 on YouTube for more detailed information.
To enhance their winning prospects, participants are encouraged to visit the Term Structure Academy, where intricate financial terminology and concepts are demystified. Additionally, a fixed-income trading guide is available, offering insights into specific trading strategies and explaining how particular news events can significantly influence token prices and impact trading outcomes.
Term Structure extends an invitation to traders and crypto enthusiasts to join this competition. It represents a unique opportunity to engage with the future of fixed-income trading and get first-hand experience with a platform poised to transform borrowing and lending in DeFi. Moving forward, the protocol will roll out new features and tools, including trading APIs, SDKs, Layer 2 swaps, and support yield tokens as collateral. Please follow Term Structure’s Twitter at https://twitter.com/TermStructLabs for regular updates.
Learn more https://ts.finance/.