NEW YORK, April 14, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As DeFi continues to grow in credibility and scope, overlapping project ecosystems are coming together to develop new and innovative tools with which to further revolutionize the financial world. Cross-chain liquidity sharing protocol, CrossFi, has recently teamed up with the complementary distributed storage solutions IPFS and Filecoin to provide liquidity for the ecosystems’ locked digital assets. The collaboration, likely to increase the utility of Filecoin’s native token, FIL, comes after a 530% rise in the price over the past month. Additionally, further support from the team behind lending platform Kava will allow CrossFi to provide liquidity to more DeFi users and continue to expand the usability of blockchain technology as a whole.
Since its inception, the Internet has always struggled with bandwidth and impermanency issues. The InterPlanetary File System seeks to upgrade the existing HTTP protocol by creating a peer-to-peer network that improves content-addressing and reduces dependency on centralized servers, meaning online content is permanent and can be accessed faster and more efficiently. Filecoin is a complementary protocol that provides persistent data storage and introduces an incentive mechanism for users who maintain the network. ‘Miners’ must stake FIL tokens to receive mining rewards which are locked for a minimum of 180 days and are incentivized to continue locking for up to 540 days. This locking and staking slows down the expansion of DeFi by reducing the amount of liquid capital in the space; an issue the CrossFi protocol resolves by introducing liquidity. Through the CrossFi protocol, Filecoin miners can tokenize their staked FIL by minting an equivalent value of ERC20 (or other public chains) compliant cFIL. This applies to any PoS project, including the more than 3.6 million ETH (approx. $7 USD billion) already staked on ETH 2.0 with currently no option to un-stake.
As an emerging field, players in the DeFi space are inclined to collaborate and innovate together; the result is an industry full of rapid experimentation and positive advancement. CrossFi, in collaboration with IPFS, Filecoin, and Kava, will be further enabling these conditions of rapid experimentation by allowing more liquidity to flow through the space. Liquidity drives innovation in DeFi, and through building out positive relationships with quality blockchain projects, especially those leveraging PoS, CrossFi is set to push the boundaries of DeFi innovation.
Kava Labs, the developers behind multi-chain DeFi lending platform, Kava, and the world's first cross-chain money market, HARD Protocol, is a distributed team of blockchain industry veterans seeking to create DeFi applications usable by anyone. This vision of democratizing financial services lends itself to the CrossFi Protocol’s property of giving users more financial choices through increased levels of liquidity. This is especially applicable for the Kava lending and borrowing platform, wherein, through CrossFi, lenders are using their staked financial assets to mint an equivalent value amount of assets usable on Kava or other blockchains. This increases the incentives for lenders to lend on the Kava platform, and therefore attracting more borrowers.
Aaron Choi, VP Global BD of Kava, said, “As a leading developer on cross-chain DeFi products and solutions, Kava is excited to announce our collaboration with CrossFi in exploring new ways to unlock liquidity for the improved experience of our users. We deeply understand that POS solutions, like Kava, face certain liquidity challenges due to staking requirements native to our chain. We look forward in support of CrossFi and their innovative solution in tokenizing staked assets and enhancing liquidity for Kava users.”
As capital and ideas continue to flow into DeFi, there is a growing movement of motivated people looking to create sustainable and ethical business models on this new technology. During the current period of building and experimentation, especially, encouraging participation is an important part in testing the robustness of ideas and infrastructure. For the leaders in distributed data storage, IPFS, and Filecoin, allowing users more flexibility in how they contribute to growing the network by supporting CrossFi as a liquidity provider, makes participation in the network increasingly attractive for new users. Along with support from Kava, this joint innovation actively pushes the boundaries of DeFi and opens up new possibilities for innovation.