Function X: March Hash Out- Part I + Part II

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Part 1

This series will be divided into two parts for better understanding of the decentralized staking. The first part is to understand the staking through decentralized protocols, the terminologies, type of staking and overview of the staking process that Function X provides.

Mechanism & rationale of DeFi

Decentralized finance is currently an experimental form of finance to offer traditional financial instruments that does not rely on central financial intermediaries such as brokerages, exchanges, or banks, and instead utilizes smart contracts on blockchains, the most common being Ethereum (Wikipedia). From the perspective of finance, funds need to travel and be utilized to create value. Centralized organizations are able to do this through the shared clearing system that was built decades ago by central banks.

However, in decentralized finance, the basic flow of funds remains the same except the connecting point shifts from a centralized server to a blockchain. The obvious reasons are fund transparency, fund safety and others. However, the “secret sauce” is to enable the fund to be ‘communicable’ and ‘interactable’ with other smart contracts.

For example, Alice stakes Token A in smart contract B (a yield aggregate platform), and the smart contract B will further stake the fund in Protocol C (a insurance platform), in which smart contract B will get an LP (Liquidity Pool) token D as receipt. All these processes can only be done when tokens and smart contracts are interacting and connecting on the same ‘highway’ (blockchain). Hence, it has to be an on-chain transaction in order to kick off the cycle.

High return or high APY (Annual Percentage Yield) is an inevitable topic when people discuss DeFi.

Where does all this return come from?

It does not come from thin air. Normally, it comes from interest by lending money (providing a loan) , capital gains and transaction fees by providing capital (providing liquidity), a premium by providing insurance and so forth. Using the example mentioned above, Alice stakes Token A in smart contract B (a yield aggregate platform), and the smart contract B will further stake the fund in Protocol C (a insurance platform), in which smart contract B will get a LP token D as receipt. Then smart contract B will further stake LP token D to smart contract E (a borrowing platform) to earn interest. In return, Alice will get a reward from smart contract B, protocol C and smart contract E and Alice could get a higher reward by multiplying the above mentioned staking process.

Risk and reward

High risk should come with high return. The greater the risk, the higher the reward. In the worst case scenario, participants might lose everything. The frequently mentioned risks are:

  1. Impermanent loss that happens when you provide liquidity to a liquidity pool, and the price of your deposited assets changes compared to when you deposited them;

  2. Security loophole or code error, such as unlimited minting of new token or an error of the price oracle;

  3. Rug pull where the owner of the smart contract takes away all the tokens deposited in the smart contract; and

  4. Business logic attacks, such as flash loans that drain all deposits in the vault.

Due to the complexity, rapid changes and sophisticated processes of smart contracts, nothing is guaranteed, not even a security audit firm can ensure with absolute certainty the security of each protocol and smart contract. It is a high risk activity, so if you want to participate in DEFI Do your own research (DYOR) and only put in what you can afford to lose.

Simple notes before you participate:

  1. Do a research on the project to check if this is legit
  2. Make sure only visiting the official website / app
  3. Use blockchain explorer to check if the operating smart contracts are legit (open source, verified, etc)
  4. Do not reveal your private key and seed phrases to anyone
  5. There is no free lunch in the market

A journey through staking on a decentralized protocol

With new business models and new technical innovations having been introduced recently, more staking and post-staking events and activities will be implemented in the near future. For those who have not joined the crowd, we would like to take this opportunity to guide our community to embrace this trend alongside with the mainnet launch of Function X. New things to be learned and new habits to be cultivated.

The Team will divide this guided journey into 3 phases with significant incentives at each phase:

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  1. Entry stage: This is mainly to familiarize users with a DeFi environment and to develop good cyber hygiene practices, including setup, staking (lock up), transferring tokens, harvesting and collateralizing assets. Entry stage is sometimes known as pre-governance stake because it has all the benefits of participating in governance but minus the governance responsibility (and penalty if you break governance rules). Hence, some see this stage as a “getting free tokens without responsibility” stage.

  2. Governance stage: Encouraging users to participate in the governing process of the network.

  3. Participation stage: Encouraging users to participate in market activities, such as trading, borrowing (taking a loan), synthesizing assets, providing liquidity and so on.

Please stay tuned for more updates.

Staking & post staking

As a first step, this article will introduce “staking” on a decentralized platform. Staking refers to users actively ‘locking up’ their tokens on a specific platform for a certain period or time and with the consensus that the owner of that specific platform will use the tokens for specific purposes. Normally, we can simplify the staking into dual-token staking and single token staking (single-sided staking).

  1. “Dual-token staking”(dual side)refers to putting two different pairings of tokens into one pool, normally as token liquidity, such as NPXS/ETH, FX/DAI. This might incur impermanent loss or impermanent gain of the principal when the market fluctuates. Hence, with the higher risk, the reward and return of this type of staking would be higher. The majority of the staking and farming that you see nowadays is dual-token staking.

  2. “Single-token staking” refers to putting one pairing of tokens in one pool, normally for loans, insurance or token holding rewards. The risk is much smaller compared to the dual-token staking, thus, the reward and return would be determined based on the pool participants.

Why do we have post-staking?

Rather than doing nothing after the staking, there are several protocols that provide post-staking activities. For example, in a lending platform, users can choose to re-stake their LP tokens to another smart contract to earn interest; in a synthetic platform, users can further trade the asset available on the platform, such as BTC, ETH, for the synthetic asset that’s synthesized by the previously staked asset.

We believe practice is the best way to learn and become familiar with new things. We would like to draw your attention to [Hash Out March (part 2) A guide to participate in Function X staking]. In the second part of the March Hash Out, we will share more information about the mechanism to stake PUNDIX and FX token through a decentralized way.

Last but not least, as with all things crypto, Do Your Own Research (DYOR) and remember, nothing is guaranteed. And please, only risk what you can afford to lose!

Part 2

Highlights

  • 10,500,000 FX on-chain staking rewards will be distributed over 29 weeks for PUNDIX and FX token holders in FXWallet (10 weeks for staking calculation, 19 weeks for staking reward distribution). Staking period starts on 6th April, 2021 until 15th June, 2021
  • All receivable rewards will be released 5% immediately, the remaining 95% will be distributed in 19 weeks (5% /week).
  • Four steps (TSCU): 1. Transfer of FX, PUNDIX, ETH to FXWallet (or import your other blockchain wallet in FX Wallet); 2, Staking FX or PUNDIX or both in the smart contract; 3. Claim reward; 4. Receive the Unlock tokens when mature.
  • All staking rewards need to be claimed or harvested before their respective deadlines.
  • Users can opt in or opt out anytime before the staking calculation period 15th June 2021.

Staking reward allocation and calculation

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Function X Foundation will be allocating 10,500,000 FX tokens (around 4 million worth of USD as of March 29, 2021) for the first onchain staking event, in which 6,930,000 FX (66%) allocating to PUNDIX holder and 3,570,000 FX (34%) allocating to FX holder. The whole distribution will last for 29 weeks (203 days). The staking event will be distributing 1,050,000 FX per week, or 150,000 FX per day.

Here is how the staking reward calculates.

Staking reward per block = user’s staking token / total staked token * total staking reward per block

For example, Alice stakes 100 PUNDIX and 100 FX in the respective staking smart contract, while the total staked token in the PUNDIX pool is 10,000 PUNDIX and the total staked token in the FX pool is 1,000 FX. Assume there are 6,541 blocks daily. The staking reward per block of PUNDIX Pool is 15.135 FX (150,000 * 66% / 6,541) , the staking reward per block of FX Pool is 7.8 FX.(150,000 * 34% / 6,541)

IF Alice staked for 24 hours (without withdrawal), she will receive a staking reward as follows: (total staking daily reward: 150,000FX)

PUNDIX staking pool: 989.98 FX ( 100/10,000 * 15.135 FX * 6,541)

FX staking pool: 5,102 FX (100/1,000 * 7.8 FX * 6,541)

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The staking reward will be computed and accumulated per blocktime and the available/receivable staking reward will be updated on the staking interface simultaneously.

There is no cap on each wallet address that can be staked.

Withdrawal of the token will result in no entitlement of staking reward during the staking calculation period.

Staking calculation period and staking unlock period

To avoid market fluctuation and maintain the viability of the network, it is a common practice for staking smart contract implementing token lockup mechanism for the distribution of staking reward. Each cycle reward starts with releasing 5% of the claiming staking reward immediately and the remaining 95% of the staking reward will be locked for 19 weeks. In short, each ‘cycle’ consists of two parts: immediate release (5%) and locked token (95%). Locked token will take 19 weeks (5%/week) to be fully unlocked.

There are two periods: 1.staking calculation period and 2.staking unlock period

  1. Staking calculation period: 10 weeks time (70 days) from 6 Apr, 2021 until 15th Jun, 2021, users can accumulate the staking reward within the staking calculation period. The calculation of staking smart contract will be closed on 15th June 2021 and any staking after 15th June 2021 SHALL NOT be qualified and entitled for the staking reward.
  2. Staking unlock period: Every staking reward will need 19 weeks (133 days) to be fully unlocked. Please take note of your unlocked token schedule. YOUR ASSET YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. All unclaimed unlocked staking reward after 14:00 GMT+8 on 5th December 2021 shall be FORFEITED.

For simplicity, users need to claim the staking reward (at least once) before or on 14th June 2021 to get the first 5% of staking reward, and users need to wait for 19 weeks or 133 days to get full unlocked token and please execute the claiming of unlocked token anytime before 5th December 2021.

For example,

If Alice claims her token reward on 3rd June 2021, she will have to wait until 14th October 2021 (3rd June +19 weeks) to receive the full staking reward;

If David claims his token reward on 10th June 2021, he will have to wait until 21st October 2021 (10th June+19 weeks) to get the full staking reward.

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Users can claim the staking reward anytime they want but the unlocked token can only be released every 7 days.

Note: The smart contract will compute the staking reward in terms of block time instead of day/week. Day/week in the calculation is for illustration purposes.

Staking reward distribution and harvest/claim of staking reward

Basic rule of staking reward: NO CLAIM, NO TOKEN.

The smart contract will compute the total token receivable for each wallet address but it requires users press the ‘claim’ (send request) button actively to claim it. Regardless of the staking reward or the unlocked token, the reward token will NOT transfer to your wallet automatically.

  • Users have to manually redeem with paying the ‘gas’ fee.
  • The event of a user claiming the staking reward at that particular moment is considered as a staking cycle (‘cycle’). Each cycle will last for 19 weeks.

To illustrate further, the number of staking rewards shown on the staking interface is the total receivable staking reward on that particular ‘cycle’. The new cycle will kick start immediately right after the claiming of the previous cycle, so the staking reward cycle will keep rolling until the end of the staking event. Users can choose to end the cycle (claim the reward) anytime before the deadline.

In each cycle, users will only receive 5% upon their claim (harvest), the remaining 95% will transfer to the locked token’s account. 5% of the total receivable staking reward will transfer from the locked token’s account to the unlocked token’s account every 7 days.

The unlocked token derived from each staking circle will be accumulated automatically without user’s interference, users can then choose anytime before the deadline to claim the unlocked token.

For example: (a single circle)

On 1st June, Alice’s f(x)Wallet interface showed a total staking reward of 1,000 FX to be claimed. She ‘presses’ the claim button and pays the gas fees to claim that 1,000 FX reward. After the smart contract processed the transaction, 1,000 FX will be transferred out from the receivable account to the following account:

  1. Alice’s wallet — 50 FX (1,000 FX *5%)

  2. Alice’s locked token account — 950 FX (1,000 FX *95%)

On 8th June, 50 FX will be transferred out from the locked token account to the unlocked token account. Alice can choose to claim it now or claim it later. If Alice chooses not to claim it on 8th June, the balance of the unlocked token account will increase to 100 FX on 15th June; 150 FX on 22nd June; 200 FX on 29th June etc. If Alice did not claim any unlocked token before 29th June, she can claim 200 FX to her wallet.

Please note that, the first claim of the staking reward is the prerequisite criteria of the following unlocked token.

In simple terms, you need to have the first 5% to get the rest of the 95%.

The balance of different staking rewards from each staking cycle will be combined and shown on the staking interface.

Users can claim the staking reward anytime they want but the unlocked token can only be released every 7 days.

All remaining unlocked tokens shall be claimed before 5th Dec 2021 or else all unclaimed unlocked tokens will be forfeited.

Network and the gas fee

The purpose of staking activities is to help our community to become familiar with the whole decentralised network and environment, hence the whole staking smart contract and token (ERC20) will be running on the most popular network — Ethereum network.

Unlike centralised network, every action in the decentralised network requires ‘gas’ to fuel the transaction or request.

For example, transferring token from wallet A to wallet B; sending token A to smart contract B for staking; requesting /claiming reward token from smart contract A, etc.

Basically every transaction needs ETH as a gas fee to perform the request, in layman’s terms, every action/request in a decentralised network costs money.

Sometimes, due to the network congestion, the requests or transactions might not be able to respond promptly.

Please check the gas fee (cost of transaction) before performing the transaction/request. Your patience is required so that you can avoid duplicating the transaction or requests as this might result in further network congestion and spending more gas.

The FX token you will receive from the staking can be used for the transactions on the Function X blockchain when the mainnet is live.

Withdrawal of the principal

There is no restriction of the withdrawal of the principal from the staking pool.

Users can request the transfer (gas fee involved) of the token (PUNDIX / FX) out of the staking pool anytime. By doing that, the wallet address will not be eligible for the future staking reward.

However, the withdrawal of the principal shall not affect the previous entitlement and previous locked token distribution.

For example, on 15th June, Alice decides to withdraw her PUNDIX from the staking pool and by the time she transferred, she was entitled to an unclaimed staking reward of 10 FX which she has not claimed (or start the circle) and 20 FX token in the locked token account. The withdrawal of her PUNDIX token shall not affect her previous staking reward. She just needs to claim her 10 FX and wait for 19 weeks to unlock and wait for x weeks for her 20 FX to be unlocked.

How to begin the journey

  1. Install f(x)Wallet (iOS & Android) in your device and set up your account. Make sure you keep your seed phrases properly. PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS A BLOCKCHAIN WALLET THAT YOU OWN YOUR PRIVATE KEY. IF YOU LOSE THE RECOVERY PHRASES, YOU WILL LOSE THE ACCESS TO THE ACCOUNT.

  2. Transfer tokens to your f(x)Wallet address

  3. Click the staking button and transferring tokens to the smart contract

  4. Claim / harvest the receivable staking reward

  5. Receive unlocked tokens when matured.

Last but not least, although the team will try their best to provide a secure and stable environment; however, nothing is guaranteed, neither the fund nor the reward is 100% safe in the extreme scenario. Please do your own research and put in what you can afford to lose only.

Patience, risks, and rewards are always part of the DeFi’s journey.