What is Saddle?
A rundown of the Saddle AMM and its solution for trading pegged value crypto assets.
What is Saddle?
Saddle is an automated market maker (AMM) designed to enable efficient trading between pegged value crypto assets. Saddle is launching with a tokenized bitcoin pool, allowing users to trade between and provide liquidity for tBTC, WBTC, sBTC, and renBTC.
Saddle was recently spun out of Thesis, the crypto venture studio behind projects like tBTC, Keep, and Fold.
Pegged Value Crypto Assets
Pegged value crypto assets are tokens that have their value pegged to an underlying asset by some means. For example, the value of a stablecoin or tokenized bitcoin is supposed to be $1 or 1 BTC, respectively.
Different subtypes of pegged value crypto assets (i.e. USDT and USDC, or wBTC and renBTC) are better suited for specific on-chain actions, or may be supported only by specific applications. Trading in between those assets, therefore, should be as simple as exchanging 1–1. In other words, there should exist little to no arbitrage opportunity when trading between one stablecoin and another; users should be able to retrieve 1 USDT for 1 USDC — or as close to that as feasible.
The issue with the pegged value asset market today is that the desired 1–1 trading isn’t easily accessible. Trading among and in between these types of assets can be expensive and inefficient, resulting in lost capital and therefore lost market leverage.
Saddle’s Solution
Saddle solves the pegged value crypto asset trading problem by offering an AMM specifically tailored to allow users to trade in between these assets with minimal slippage. Saddle achieves this through the StableSwap algorithm, enabling an autonomous market maker that allows for the transfer of pegged value assets with minimal slippage. Other core components of Saddle’s solution include:
Bitcoin as a First-class Citizen
Bitcoin is the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, and the amount of tokenized BTC on Ethereum has been exploding — the supply has increased ~135X in 2020. Despite this growth, tokenized BTC is often not a priority when it comes to features and support. We believe bitcoin deserves to be treated as a first-class citizen in DeFi.
Virtual Synth Support
Virtual Synths are a new Synthetix feature introduced in SIP-89. SNX founder Kain Warwick provides a great overview of their potential in his post “Virtual Synths and where to find them”. In short, Virtual Synths will enable large, low slippage trades between any asset supported by Saddle. We are actively working on this integration and will have more details to share in the near future. Virtual Synths are the key to achieving our mission of unlocking deep on-chain liquidity between pegged value crypto assets, and we aim to become the premier on/off-ramp for the Synthetix ecosystem.
Incentivized LP Retention
DeFi protocols are still iterating on how to properly incentivize and retain liquidity providers (LPs). One common approach has been to add a fixed percentage fee to withdrawals (e.g. Yearn Vaults). However, this mechanism doesn’t reward long-term liquidity providers. Saddle fixes this by implementing a configurable withdrawal fee that linearly decays to 0 over one month. This fee will be disabled at launch until further notice. We are presently working on several other ways to incentivize LPs, stay tuned!
Security
The security of user funds is our top priority. Deploying new code that deals with money requires extra care and scrutiny, which is why we conducted three back-to-back smart contract audits with Certik, Quantstamp, and Open Zeppelin. Read the audits here.
The Saddle Team
Saddle is built by DeFi natives with prior years of developer experience at Web2 companies like Uber, Amazon, and Square. As regular DeFi users ourselves, we’ve seen first hand how important an active and vibrant community is for a project’s success. We know Web2, but we know Web3 better. You might have interacted with our founder Sunil (aka devops199fan) in the YFI community (he’s a multisig signer), or used tools created by members of our team, like yieldfarming.info by John (aka Weeb_Mcgee).
Keep up with us!
Find us on Discord, Twitter, Telegram, Github, and Medium.
什么是Saddle？
概述Saddle AMM及其固定价值加密资产交易的解决方案
什么是Saddle？
Saddle是一个自动做市商（AMM），旨在实现固定价值加密资产之间的高效交易。Saddle上线的同时也推出了代币化比特币矿池，使其用户能在renBTC、WBTC、sBTC、和renBTC之间进行交易并提供流动性。
Saddle是从Thesis分拆出来的子公司，而母公司Thesis则是tBTC、Keep和Fold等项目背后的加密风险投资公司。
固定价值加密资产
固定价值加密资产是指透过某种方式，将其价值与一基础资产挂钩的代币。以稳定币或代币化比特币为例，这些货币的价值永远都是1美元或1比特币。
固定价值加密资产可再细分为不同类型（也就是USDT和USDC，或是wBTC和renBTC），而有些是适合用于特定的链上操作，或者只受特定应用程式支持。因此，在这些资产之间进行交易应该如同一比一交易一样简单。换句话说，在不同稳定币之间进行交易时，应该几乎没有套利的机会。用户应能够以1 USDT兑换1 USDC — 或是以尽可能最接近的价格兑换。
当今固定价值加密资产市场的问题是，万众期许的一比一交易并不容易达到。在此类资产间进行交易可能成本高昂且效率低下，最后导致资本损失，进而失去市场优势。
Saddle的解决方案
为解决固定价值加密资产的交易问题，Saddle对此提供一款经过专门设计改良的AMM，让用户能以最小滑点在这些资产之间进行交易。Saddle透过StableSwap算法，运行了一个能以最小滑点来转换固定价值资产的自动做市商。Saddle解决方案的其他核心要素包括：
比特币为一等公民
比特币是市值最大的加密货币，且以太坊上代币化比特币的数量呈爆炸式的增长 — 2020年供应量的增加高达135倍。但尽管如此，代币化比特币在功能与支持方面通常不会被优先考虑。我们深信比特币应被视为DeFi中的一等公民。
Virtual Synth功能支持
Virtual Synths是SIP-89所引入的一个Synthetix新特性。在“关于Virtual Synths以及何处寻找他们”一文中，SNX创始人Kain Warwick完整的概述了其潜在的发展。简而言之，Virtual Synths能够使Saddle平台上的任何资产实现大型、低滑点的交易。我们正积极的进行此项整合，并会在不久的将来分享更多相关细节。Virtual Synths是开启固定价值加密资产之间深层链上流动性的关键，而我们的目标是成为Synthetix生态系统的首要出入通道。
奖励机制留住LP
DeFi众多协议仍在不停探讨如何适当的激励及留住流动性提供者（LPs）。其中一种常见的机制是取款时收取的固定百分比费用（例如Yearn Vaults）。但是这种机制无法奖励长期的流动性提供者。为解决此问题，Saddle重新配置了取款费用，使该费用在一个月内线性递减至0。在另行通知前，此费用将于上线后暂时取消。我们现正努力研商更多其他的方式来激励LP，敬请保持关注！
安全性
保障用户资金的安全性是我们的首要之务。使用任何涉及资金的代码皆需要格外的谨慎和详尽的审查，这也是为什么我们透过Certik、Quantstamp、和Open Zeppelin，连续进行了三次智能合约审计。点击这里阅读审计报告。
Saddle团队
Saddle是由一群DeFi专家所创建，他们皆具有在Uber、Amazon、和Square等Web2公司多年的开发经验。身为DeFi的常规用户，我们已经亲身体会了社区活跃性对于一个成功项目的重要。我们了解Web2，但我们更了解Web3。您可能已经在YFI社区中与我们的创始人Sunil（亦称为devops199fan，是位多重签名的持有者）有过互动，或者已使用过我们团队成员所创建的工具，例如John（亦称为Weeb_Mcgee）的yieldfarming.info。
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