#36 Interview with @Contango_xyz

follow up interview with cantango addressing some challenges i thought they might run into

#36 Interview with @Contango_xyz

In the interview

• Story of the team

• Why is contango a better derivative?

• Future plans & how they plan to overcome challenges i mention from my previous tweet

• what do they team thinks its required to make it in crypto

Interview with Contango team

❓ what is Contango protocol in a few short lines?

“Contango offers the first expirables in defi. Read a brief recap here:”

2Lambroz.eth 🐑 Crypto Nerd 🤓2lambroz.lens🌿 @2lambro

#25 @Contango_xyz New Dex with a cheaper way for you to leverage long/short? Leverage trading with expirables In this thread 1) TLDR 2) How does it work 3) What does it enable 4) Opportunities & Challenges 5) How I would value it, what metrics to look at 6) Summary

❓Can you share the story of how team was founded?

“In early 2021, @KamelAouane started flirting with the idea of cash and carry (CnC) in defi. But no one was offering dated futures in defi so he set off to build them, together with @ultrasecreth and @Egillh210. In December 2021, the co-founders closed a $4M raise in less than a month and in January 2022 assembled a team leveraging their own network. No external hire was made.”

https://medium.com/contango-exchange/how-contango-was-born-a04b3b480750

❓Can you share the advantage of contango over other derivatives protocol?

• Contango has no order book or liquidity pools: it leverages fixed-rate markets so it’s liquid from day one.

• There are no funding fees. All costs are known in advance.

• Positions are tokenized as NFT to allow for further composability.

• At expiry traders can choose between physical delivery or cash-settlement.

❓Do you mind sharing the plans and future for contango?

Integration with other fixed-rate markets like @NotionalFinance are underway. We are also doing R&D to bring other mechanisms to build expirables. The goal is to achieve greater liquidity on L1.

❓ what are your thoughts on my previous tweet on the challenges i think contango might face and how to overcome it?

📍Challenges from lambro’s previous tweet

1. Current model can’t support lots of pairs due to the underlying fixed rate lending protocol

   Bluechip pairs like ETH and BTC normally drive most of the volume on other exchanges, we’re confident offering just these for a v1. It’s true that we can’t deploy new pairs unless the underlying fixed-rate markets do that first, but it’s a tradeoff we’re happy to have in order to be liquid from day one and not stress about bringing liquidity to the protocol. We are exploring new mechanisms to build expirables to bring more pairs.

2. Current model are not able to provide a wide range of time frames.

   Similarly, these are all improvements we target for a v2.

3. Potentially a cap on possible open interest due to fixed rate lending (good problem to have tho)

   Indeed is a good problem to have. But remember: the more trading activity on Contango, the more borrowing and lending on the underlying protocols. This can move the rates on those underlying pools and potentially attract more liquidity, which in turn improves pricing on Contango. 

❓Any alpha to share with the community?

Audit is wrapping up soon. Main launch imminent. Stay tuned.

❓lastly what do u think is required to make it in crypto?

A good sense of humor. Wagmi

thanks for reading, why u no like?