waterslide – the first DeFi Frontend running on DFINITY's Internet Computer
Unveiling waterslide, the first decentralized Frontend for the Liquity Protocol running on DFINITY's Internet Computer, and how DFINITY's Internet Computer and Ethereum will change the way we interact with Smart Contracts forever.
TL;DR
waterslide is a Frontend for the Liquity protocol running on DFINITY's Internet Computer. The synergies between both Ethereum and the Internet Computer allow for completely decentralized DApps for DeFi.
If you're interested in how to earn rewards using Liquity, dig deeper down below ⬇️
Adam Maj
Try it here (note: you need MetaMask installed) and don't be scared by the long URL you will be redirected to, this will go away soon! [EDIT: already disappeared!]
Main benefits
- 💻 Hosted on DFINITY's Internet Computer
- 💸 99% kickback rate
– Users depositing through our Frontend receive a 99% kickback rate as an incentive for early adoption. This means that 99% of the LQTY rewards from stability pool deposits through our Frontend go straight into your pocket! As we build out our Frontend and add new functionality, the kickback rate will decrease over time – so better be quick! - 🧑🎨 Custom Frontend skin and additional features
– Our designers are currently revamping the entire Frontend to provide you with an even better experience when using our service in the future. Until we are done, please use our current Frontend! make sure to come back from time to time to see us evolve and check out new cool features.
The Genesis event
It has been a great day in the history of the Internet. After several years of silence, many rumors, much hope and much skepticism, the time has finally come. The now more than 180 employees of the DFINITY Foundation have reached their biggest milestone yet: the Genesis Event. I have been accompanying the project as a community organizer for the last three years and I am incredibly proud of what the DFINITY team has achieved. Thanks to DFINITY, it will be possible to host decentralized applications with almost native cloud speed. The ecosystem is large and many developers have been working on their projects for months, finally being able to deploy them on the mainnet. If you now think of slow, clunky and not particularly user-friendly applications, you are mistaken. DApps – or better "Open Internet Services" – running on the Internet Computer can hardly be distinguished from centrally hosted websites in terms of usability. And this is where the strength of the Internet Computer lies: accessible applications for end users, but still with the security properties you expect from a blockchain application.
What distinguishes DFINITY from other projects?
To quote Diego Prats, Director of Product:
The true aim for the Internet Computer (IC) is to be a generalized compute platform capable of serving web UXs and trusted material straight to browsers and/or other devices.
This includes the following features:
- serious compute and scalability
- persistent storage/variables
- applications that can serve their assets directly from chain, no more using of centralized cloud companies to serve websites or other assets from (this is exactly what waterslide does)
- much better development experience
- remarkably fast query calls allowing for very quick, edge-like loading of assets
Anyone interested in the full answer should read Diego's post!
What is waterslide anyway?
waterslide is a Frontend for the Liquity Protocol. Frontends allow their visitors to interact with Liquity's Ethereum smart contracts through a beautiful user interface. If you've never heard of Liquity, it's worth reading the FAQ for a quick overview. In short, though, Liquity is a decentralized borrowing protocol that allows you to draw 0% interest loans against Ether used as collateral. Loans are paid out in LUSD – a USD pegged stablecoin, and need to maintain a minimum collateral ratio of only 110%.
The special thing about Liquity is that – compared to other DeFi protocols – it does not operate its own Frontend, but relies on decentralized Frontends. The economic incentive to run a Frontend is that they can set their own kickback rate. In simple terms, the kickback rate determines what percentage of the rewards a user receives is kept and how much is paid to the Frontend through which the user interacts with the protocol. waterslide, for example, has set a kickback rate of 99%. This means that 99% of the rewards go straight into your pocket and 1% to waterslide.
If you are familiar with Maker DAO already, this video lists the 10 key differences between the two.
DFINITY's Beacon Fund is one of Liquity's investors and CEO Robert Lauko is a former DFINTY Foundation employee, as are Yulin Liu (economist) and Cédric Waldburger (advisor). So there are certain synergies 😎
And this is where it all comes together!
Until now, websites that interact with smart contracts on Ethereum, for example, were often hosted on centralized cloud providers like AWS. This opens the door to censorship, platform risks, regulations, and attacks. As long as 99% of the DeFi interfaces people use are hosted on cloud platforms, DeFi applications are vulnerable.
As described earlier, the Internet Computer enables the hosting of secure Frontends. This makes every facet of DeFi applications uncensorable!
And waterslide is just that, a Frontend for a protocol whose smart contracts run on Ethereum, while waterslide itself is hosted on the Internet Computer. waterslide is harnessing the power of both networks which is making it truly decentralized.
This is where the term "sister networks" makes sense when talking about the synergies that DFINITY and Ethereum have. The irrefutable logic of smart contracts on Ethereum combined with the capacities of the Internet Computer allows for a completely new view on DeFi applications. By running on this decentralized framework, the Frontends for a lot of Ethereum projects could potentially be much more difficult for governments or even the tech industry to regulate.
“We want people to abandon traditional IT and move all systems and services to smart contracts.”
– Dominic Williams, the chief scientist at Dfinity.
This is just the beginning! In the future, there will be many interfaces for smart contracts hosted on the Internet Computer. Especially thanks to projects like Fleek, which allow anyone to easily port their project to the Internet Computer and the latest release of the DFINITY SDK, allowing the incredibly easy upload of static sites to the IC.
Where we are headed
waterslide not only wants to be exceptionally decentralized and secure, but also to stand out with its extraordinary design. That's why we are currently working on a complete redesign of our Frontend. If you want to stay up to date, just check in from time to time and follow us on Twitter. In the future we also want to host our blog on the Internet Computer, currently it's still running on a self-hosted Ghost instance (maybe this will be your first project, porting Ghost to the Internet Computer? Don't hesitate to apply for a developer grant! 🤓).
As we strongly believe in the benefits of decentralized Frontends, we expect that many projects will decide to proceed like Liquity. This is where waterslide would like to position itself as a DeFi hub that develops and hosts secure and user-friendly Frontends for different projects.
Of course, we are also thinking about how to build a token model that would allow waterslide users to become part-owners at the same time. But first we would like to implement new functionality following the implementation of the new design. Feel free to send us an email with your feedback!
On and upwards! 🚀🚀🚀
Get in touch with us
- try waterslide.app
- join our telegram
- follow us on twitter
- send an email
- sign up to our newsletter