“Our guest for this episode, is arguably one of the most popular projects on the Cronos ecosystem. With a TVL that once peaked at $1.1B USD (Q4 2021), this project is also known to have one of the most iconic and prolific NFTs on the Cronos chain. Our guests were able to allocate some time, specifically for this Q&A which we are thankful for. With no further ado, please welcome: Mad Meerkat Finance!”
There is clearly a lot of information that we would like to cover in this summit, but it would only be fair to start by asking how did your project come about, and what were some of the inspirations behind Mad Meerkat Finance?
Mad Meerkat Finance came about because we wanted to create a transparent platform for users to trade – Defi. On top of that, our team envision an ecosystem of wide range of products that users can participate in, more than just 1 singular platform.
Please tell us more about your team. How many people are behind your project, how many DEVs do you have onboard, and when did you initially launch it?
We have approximately 10 core members. And we currently have approximately 20+ developers. We used to have an even larger developer team but unfortunately, because of the crypto downturn, we had to let go some of our DEVs to ensure we have a steady and longer runway.
Launching a sustainable blockchain project, let alone a successful one, is no easy task. Can you share some fun and/or not so fun moments you’ve encountered during this journey?
Launching a sustainable blockchain project is very hard. We won’t be so blatant as to say that we are fully sustainable. But every step we are taking, is towards sustainability. Theres been ups and downs, fun and not so fun part. It’s tough for projects like us when there’s FUD / false information spread by individuals that have malicious intent for our project and our community. The fun part is when the community is happy and we are enjoying what we do best, development.
What were some of your most memorable moments post launch? How did you manage to hone your success given the immense popularity of the MMF project?
Some of our memorable moments is when we hit all time high for our TVL and when our token price reached all time high as well. We honed our successes through looking at other projects and replicating the best practices.
What do you make of the current market cycle we’re in, and how has it affected your project?
After the LUNA/UST and the FTX saga, I think the web3 users are now a lot more wary about investing in blockchain projects. One of the biggest stablecoin and chain fell. One of the biggest CEX fell. This has eroded confidence in just crypto in general. It did affect us because bearish sentiment would naturally cause users to sell back their native tokens into stablecoin for stability and to hedge their positions.
What are some of the challenges your team has faced (or is still currently facing) during this market cycle, and how were you able to overcome them?
We face issues similar to many defi projects. Namely inflationary issues. End of the day, for a project to be sustainable, the amount of fees earned from the protocol has to outweigh the native token emission that is used to sustain the liquidity on the platform. On our polygon end, we have achieved sustainability recently because our fees earned is more than the emissions of MMF. We hope this continues and we plan to replicate this on Cronos as well.
The blockchain ecosystem is full of options when it comes to finding a chain to build on, but why did your team initially decide to build on the Cronos chain? What did you see in cronos that was appealing enough to build on?
Cronos at that point was pretty new when we first started. It’s almost close to 1 year since we began our defi journey. We chose Cronos solely because it was a blue ocean strategy (less competitors) and obviously because it has a strong backing – Crypto.com. EVM chains are similar overall.
One of the criteria that projects get measured by is their TVL. What are some of the strategies that your team is currently working on to maintain a sustainable TVL?
We hope that through the fees generated from Madmex and other platforms, we will be able to increase price of MMF which will be able to help increase TVL for the platform.
In Q3 2022 you’ve launched MMF on the polygon chain, are there any benefits to having your token listed on 2 chains as opposed to one? One of the main questions the community has is whether there will be a cross chain value where MMF token holders on both cronos and polygon would be able to benefit from this altogether? If possible, can you shed some light on this?
Good question. Ever since we have launched Polygon MMF, we were able to give back benefits to Cronos holders via staking of Cronos tokens for MMF (poly). On top of that, Polygon provide a testbed for us to replicate success (Like Madmex) and bring to Cronos.
We’ve always looked at your team as an Avant-guard group of DEVs with a prolific ecosystem. Where do you see MMF in 3 years from now? What are some of the crypto bucket lists that your team still has in sight?
We see MMF still running well in 3 years’ time and hopefully, we will be the biggest DEX on Polygon and Cronos. It’s not going to be an easy road, but our team is committed to the very end.
