Saddle Finance has launched as an automated market maker optimized for pegged value crypto assets like wrapped BTC on Ethereum and stablecoins.
#SaddleUp
We’re launching Saddle to unlock the potential of pegged value crypto assets like tokenized #BTC in #DeFihttps://t.co/3r2LH2RZww— Saddle (@saddlefinance) January 19, 2021
The new project recently spun out of Thesis, a crypto venture studio that has been behind popular projects like tBTC, Keep, and Fold.
While the product and the underlying math is not all that different from Curve Finance at the moment, the Saddle team has made it clear that they have plans to go in a different direction compared to Curve and provide unique value to users.
Saddle’s first liquidity pool enables trades between different flavors of wrapped Bitcoin like wBTC , tBTC, renBTC, and sBTC. The project is launching a guarded mainnet which will restrict usage and cap deposits at 150 BTC. This maximum cap was reached just a few hours after initial product launch.
Quick update on the pool: we just reached the initial maximum deposit limit of 150 #BTC 🤠 #SaddleUp
— Saddle (@saddlefinance) January 19, 2021
Community seems to be a huge focus for Saddle, their admin keys are currently controlled by a 3 of 5 Gnosis Safe Multisig. The signers include prominent figures in the crypto community such as Marino Conti, Kain Warwick, DegenSpartan, Klim K, and Damir Bandalo.
Interestingly, there is no native token attached to Saddle Finance at the moment. The DeFi protocol is bootstrapping liquidity through a deal with Keep Network (also built by Thesis) that will set aside 125,000 KEEP per week to payout to Saddle’s liquidity providers.
Saddle Finance is clearly aiming to compete with Curve Finance and has been backed by leading investors in the DeFi space. To date, Saddle has raised $4.3m in funding led by Framework Ventures, Polychain Capital, Electric Capital, and others.
In terms of audits, Saddle Finance has undergone three back-to-back smart contract audits with Certik, Quantstamp, and Open Zeppelin. While this does not guarantee the safety of user funds, it does instill some peace of mind that these are not unaudited contracts being “test in prod”.
Keep up with Saddle Finance by following their Twitter!
Business Development and Operations at TrustToken – TUSD. Jack is a startup generalist and DeFi enthusiast. Stay connected with him by following @HHJackSun on Twitter.