Apricot Finance: A collateralized Loan Platform on Solana

Apricot, one of the newest players in the DeFi space, promises to truly redefine the collateralized lending industry with an extremely promising product. Albeit being an over-collateralized lending protocol, Apricot also acts in the best interest of borrowers, as it has set one of the lowest collateralization requirements in the market, and limits liquidation penalties. Demand for this platform is projected to be naturally high, as their platform operates on a mutual benefit mode, as both lenders and borrowers’ needs are taken care of adequately. But what makes Apricot a truly revolutionary product that redefines the decentralized collateralized lending industry? Let’s find out

Why Apricot?

Apricot is deployed on the Solana blockchain, which the team believes to be the foundation for future DeFi. Thanks to Solana’s low finality time, and highly predictable slippage, the liquidation process can be better timed, enabling a low minimum collateral ratio, liquidation threshold and liquidation penalty. Comparing with its direct competitors like Compound and AAVE, the minimum collateral ratio and the minimum liquidation ratio of 110%, and 103% pales in comparison to the 133% offered by the capitalization. This allows the borrowers in the Apricot platform to borrow more than they could otherwise, while also ensuring minimum liquidation penalties (an industry low of 1% when compared to the 5-10% industry average). 

However, this doesn’t come at the cost of protection for lenders, as the loans are still over collateralized (at 110%) and liquidation is guaranteed with a special program, called Apricot Rescue. If third-party arbitrageurs are not able to finalize the liquidation process within 2 hours of crossing the minimum liquidation threshold, or if the collateralization ratio falls below 103%, Apricot Rescue steps in and automatically liquidates, which guarantees the liquidation process (again, an industry-first, as liquidation is not guaranteed on platforms like AAVE and Compound)

The liquidations carried on by Apricot rescue is accumulated into a pool of collateral assets called the COT pool. Through a process similar to securitization in traditional finance, Apricot will issue a COT token whose value is backed by the asset market value in the COT pool, on reaching an appropriate size.  This creates liquidity for high-quality assets facing temporary liquidation issues, and democratizes investment access to liquidated collateral. 

With Apricot Lend, Borrowers can borrow with less collateral and less liquidation risk, while the lenders’ protection remains uncompromised with Apricot rescue, making the whole workflow timely and predictable for all the stakeholders involved. 

Product Roadmap

Tokenomics 

Apricot Finance has designed the token economics in a way that users can actively use their various products while sharing the increase in network value over time. The total APR supply is locked at 1 trillion, distributed as follows

1. 19% for private sale 
2. 1% for IEO/Public sale
3. 15% for Marketing
4. 15% for Teams and advisors 
5. 15% for the Ecosystem
6. 20% as Apricot Rescue Reserve
7. 15% as General reserve. 

Recent Progress

Recently, Apricot Finance had announced that the team had placed first in the East Asia category of the Solana Hackathon, and was awarded the second-highest prize (USDC $40k) in the event. Recently, it had also announced a partnership with Solanium, a one-stop Solana startup incubator and accelerator. Additionally, they have forged a successful partnership with Raydium, an on-chain order book AMM, taking advantage of the lower fees, faster transactions and enhanced scalability offered by the platform. As a thank-you for the increasing support by the community from launch, Apricot has launched a Twitter campaign to reach a total of 20,000 followers – every time they gain 1000 followers on Twitter, 5 random followers will receive $20 USDT each, to a total of $1800 USDT. 

About the Team & Investors

The Apricot team is led by Ace and Cecilia. Ace has over 7 years of entrepreneurial experience in the field of tech and finance and had co-founded Ponton Coin Trading and brokerage platform before Apricot. Ace will lead the overall operations and business development for Apricot. Cecilia on the other hand brings in experience from the traditional finance industry, thanks to her position as an investment banker in New York prior to being involved with Apricot. Cecilia will lead the overall strategy, product direction and other developments. 

Apricot finance recently announced a successful seed round of $800,000 with prominent investors including Chris McCann, Genblock Capital, NGC Ventures, DFG, CMS Holdings, CryptoJ Capital, Coinsights Ventures, Double Peak Group among others. 

In Conclusion

Apricot promises to be one of the most promising platforms to have ever entered the decentralized collateralized loan industry. While their project is still in the nascent stages, given time I’m positive this project could very well turn out to be one of the biggest DeFi names in the coming years. Wishing all the very best to the team, and the members of the Apricot community! If you’re interested in checking them out, head on over to the following links

Website: https://apricot.one/#/

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ApricotFinance

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ApricotFinance/

Telegram Announcement: https://t.me/apricotfinanceann

Telegram: https://t.me/ApricotOfficial

Discord: https://discord.gg/C6JrtqZF5U