AMA with Tempus

On the 8th of March, 2022 at 14:00 UTC, Decentralized Club had the honor of hosting David Garai from Tempus for an Ask-Me-Anything session on their Telegram page with a community of over 70,000 people. It was hosted by DC Admin, May.

The session was divided into three segments. Introductions were made in Segment 1, questions from the Twitter community were answered in Segment 2, and live questions from the community members in attendance were answered in Segment 3.

If you missed this event and would like to know what Tempus is all about, you can find a recap of the interview here. Information here should be researched and should not be taken as investment or financial advice. Also note that slight edits have been made for clarity, and links in this recap lead to images, documents, or other media.

Segment 1 - Introduction

[May]
Helló, สวัสดี, 大家好, नमस्ते, Selamat!

It’s your favorite host, May! Here again for another session - this time with Tempus 🥳

Today, we have a special guest from Tempus with us!

Everyone, please welcome our guest.

[David]
GM everybody, GM

[May]
https://t.me/decentralized_club/748930

[May]
It’s good to have you here with us!

You’re welcome to our community - the Decentralized Club

How are you doing this morning?

[David]
I'm alright thanks. I've just adopted a Ukrainian refugee cat.

(temporarily)

[May]
Oh my mittens!

That’s beautiful!

Let’s get right into the session now, shall we?

[David]
Let's do that

[May]
Awesome!

So, can you tell us about Tempus?

What was the inspiration that created Project Tempus?

[David]
Sure. My co-founder and I started the project in April last year. Before then, I was working as a derivatives lawyer in London and in Tokyo, working on interest rate stuff. So the inspiration for the project came from there.

At its core, Tempus is a fixed-rate protocol. It lets you get a high fixed yield for any yield farm, so you get certainty over how much $$ you will be receiving. The problem that we're solving is that yields in DeFi tend to fluctuate a lot.

[May]
Certainly looking forward to hearing all about what you’ve created.

What innovative solution is Tempus bringing to topple its competitors with similar offerings in the trading and DeFi sector?

[David]
I can point out some things:

- Integrations. Tempus is already on Fantom and Ethereum and we have $13.5mm TVL without any liquidity mining. We have integrated with Lido, Rari and Yearn, and we have a lot of upcoming integrations. You can get a *fixed* yield in a number of Yearn pools through Tempus, as well as on Lido and Rari.

- Capital efficiency. We've worked a lot with Balancer to bring you guys the most capital efficient AMM that lets you fix your yield and speculate on yield in the best possible way, and also increase yield for LPs.

- UX. Tempus is very easy to use compared to other competitors in the space, you can get a fixed yield in a single transaction, and withdraw in a single transaction.

I'd also like to point out that our team is very smart and capable, we have 21 people right now working on a lot of exciting new stuff and new products 🙂

[May]
This is impressive!

Shout out to your team! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Are you hiring? 👀

[David]
Sure, looking for Marketing folks right now mainly, and a Community Manager.

DM for details wink wink

[May]
Dear DC community, you heard the boss 😌

Can you tell us about your native token and its utilities?

[David]
$TEMP (https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/tempus) is the core native token to Tempus protocol.

It has multiple use cases:

- Governance (live!)
- Staking to receive fees (in the works)
- Payment of protocol fees (in the works)

We're currently working on a big revamp of our tokenomics to improve it the best we can so keep an eye out for that.

We have about $15 million in liquidity across our AMMs so we're in a lucky position since we have very liquid markets already.

[May]
I agree! Perfect timing.

Glad to see that your governance utility for $TEMP is live! 🥳

Do you have membership tiers for holders?

[David]
Yes, Tempus governance is live on Snapshot. We don't have any membership tiers right now, but we'll have something similar in the improved future tokenomics

[May]
Awesome!

Tell us about staking or yield farming incentives on Tempus. Give us a sneak peek :)

[David]
Staking will be mostly fee-based rather than inflationary. I don't think people really like inflationary staking these days since it tends to deflate the value of the native token in the long run. What it means is that when people use Tempus protocol, they will pay fees for doing so, and those fees will be redistributed to those who stake TEMP. It's similar to how dividends work in TradFi but doing so in a more concentrated way.

[May]
I like that!

Please give us a summary of your 2021 highlights and what major news should we look forward to from Tempus in 2022?

[David]
Sure. In 2021, we raised three rounds of funding to the total of $35 million. We launched on Ethereum mainnet and Fantom. We grew the team to 21 people. In 2022, we have brand new products coming out, a new UI, LP Vaults, incentivization, new tokenomics, and ultimately, new exciting products that haven't been revealed yet. So a lot to look forward to.

[May]
This is where Tempus gets a resounding applause 🥳

So much has been done! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[David]
It's been a crazy year.

[May]
Congratulations on your fundraising rounds! Very successful 😁

We’re only in March :)

[David]
Thanks 🙂

[May]
2022 will give us more reasons to applaud Tempus, I’m sure!

It’s now time to take questions from our Twitter community.

Segment 2 - Twitter Questions
[May]
How do Tempus performance tokens work, that despite the low fees that Fantom presents, less capitalized users will not have to wait several months to break even in their profits? How accessible are these tokens? Who can enjoy them?

Twitter Username: @y1sus_afp

[David]
I guess this question is asking about Tempus governance tokens, not sure what "performance tokens" are. Right now there are no farms available for the Tempus token, aside from double sided liquidity provision on Uniswap, Balancer, and single sided liquidity provision on Bancor. These are the best yield farms right now. Bancor works for most because it guarantees a certain level of profit because of IL insurance.

[May]
Possibly a typo. Great answer nonetheless.

What chains are you running on at the moment? I can only see recurring mentions of Fantom and Ethereum. Are there other supported chains and is Tempus EVM compatible?

Twitter Username: @TadesCorner

[David]
Great question. We are currently only deployed on Ethereum and Fantom, that's correct. At the same time, we're looking at multiple options out there including L2s, EVM compatible L1s. There are lots of possibilities to deploy on other chains in 2022.

[May]
Yes, there are!

Tempus is governed by a decentralized community of TEMP token holders and their delegates who propose and vote on updates to the protocol. But what are the requirements needed to make a proposal that is validated by the community? Can any $TEMP Holder include new features?

Twitter Username: @TheShadowJK_1

[David]
Sure, the community can propose anything and the token holders will consider it. The team is bound by governance decisions and there are no limits on what they can entail.

[May]
Good to know!

Before the next question, can you please share your social media links with our community?

[David]
https://linktr.ee/tempusfinance

You'll find all relevant links here, including Twitter, Discord, Telegram, Docs, Website, Medium, etc.

[May]
A LinkTree! Smooth!

Let me pin that.

[David]
Our Discord is the most active with more than 8k users.

[May]
https://t.me/decentralized_club/748991

[May]
Is $BNT on the Tempus ecosystem? And for liquidity providers, how is income sourced on TempusAMM? What are some other dynamics of your protocol?

Twitter Username: @theyasflower

[David]
We have a TEMP/BNT pair on Bancor, so you can trade the token against BNT.

For LPs, they receive dual yield. Let's say you're providing liquidity to a Fantom Yearn USDC Vault on Tempus. What you receive is a combination of: Yearn yield PLUS Tempus yield, at the same time, aggregated into one high yield. So it's really attractive to LPs.

[May]
Liquidity Providers on Tempus are smiling to the bank 😌

Your funding rounds garnered a lot of attention but not a lot of information on the security of Tempus. Do you have a bug bounty for loopholes to prevent hacks? Who have you been audited by?

Twitter Username: @trixiesfirst

[David]
Great question. We have a number of audits already completed, by Coinspect, Codearena and another one by Sherlock. We have a $1 million bug bounty on ImmuneFi and a $150k bug bounty on Hats. We also have protocol level insurance equal to $10 million dollars of funds lost, so in the event of a hack you will be reimbursed out of this fund. Funds on Tempus are SAFU.

[May]
“Funds on Tempus are SAFU” 🥳

These bounties are huge! Gonna tell my coding hacking tech-tinkering frens all about it!

Are you ready to move to the most popular part of the AMA?

The live segment 🥳

[David]
Let's goo

[May]
In this 3rd segment, I will open the group for some seconds for the live community to shoot you some pressing questions.

Please pick five original questions to answer.

Try to ignore generic, vague, and copy-paste questions 😊

Everyone please prepare your questions

What’s your favorite dessert?

[David]
Anything with fresh coconut.

[May]
Nice!

Dear community, as a measure to deter bots and reward hunters, please include the phrase below in your questions so the guest can tell original questions apart!

The sky is blue and our guest likes fresh coconuts! 🥥🌴

Dear guest, please prioritize such questions 🙂

The group will be unmuted shortly

---Chat was then opened for the live community to send in their questions---

Segment 3 - Live Questions

[May]
Dear guest, as a measure to deter bots and reward hunters, the phrase below has been included in questions so you can tell original ones apart!

The sky is blue and our guest likes fresh coconuts! 🥥🌴

Please prioritize such questions 🙂

[Feray furnense]
The sky is blue and our guest likes fresh coconuts

Why did Tempus Launch on Fantom? Why Fantom and not Solana? I really want to know why that was the choice?

[David]
First question. Sure. There are some reasons, number one is that it's easier to integrate with an EVM compatible chain. You can just port over the existing code without rewriting Solidity in Rust. It makes it much easier for us. There was also a very good buzz around Fantom at the time. We'll revisit Solana later.

[Orina Emine]
The sky is blue and our guest likes fresh coconuts

How can one mint a crucible, what's the process and how can I be subscribed to the rewards program?

How many members are in Tempus and who funds the project?

[David]
Second question. Great question. You can find more details on the Crucible website (Alchemist). Currently, our reward program for TEMP/BNT LP tokens (Balancer) has expired but you can withdraw from Crucible at any time.

[May]
Keep 'em coming 🥥🌴

[KaptinBlack]
Hello Mr David, (The sky is blue and our guest likes fresh coconuts! 🥥🌴)

Earlier you said
"Staking will be mostly fee-based rather than inflationary."

In simple clear terms, can you tell us what this means??
That is "fee-based" because we are used to inflationary staking.

And why did you decide to use this other than the regular Inflationary type. Any specific reasons?

Thank you 😊

[David]
Third question. Thanks, this is a good one. Fee-based means that if someone is a user of Tempus they will pay fees in USDC, ETH etc. We then swap those USDC, ETH etc. to TEMP tokens and then put them in a reward pool for stakers. Stakers get the TEMP generated. This is better than inflationary staking because it doesn't inflate current token holders (TEMP price does not go down) in any way, and it pumps the TEMP price.

[Karoceh]
🥥🌴

In addition to high fixed yields, I think investors are also looking for long term solid projects? How can we be sure that Tempus will last long and is suitable for long term investment?

[David]
Fourth question. Thanks, this is a good question. I think you can be sure by looking at the list of our investors (Jump, Wintermute, GSR, Lemniscap) and see the quality of the team on the website. We are well funded for the next 3 years at least and you can be sure we are here because we have accountability.

[May]
https://t.me/decentralized_club/749084

[Broken Native]
NFTs are trending currently, is there a time where you introduce NFTs on your platform? Would you be able to share plans on your NFTs?

The sky is blue and our guest likes fresh coconuts! 🥥🌴

[David]
Last question! Thanks, we actually have our own NFT project called Tempus Sers. You can find out more about them on our website. We gave these away to early supporters of Tempus and you can still buy them on OpenSea. They will have future use cases in Tempus protocol such as increased liquidity mining rewards.

[May]
Aaannnnd it's a wrap! Well-crafted questions, impressive answers, brilliant guest!

[David]
Thanks guys, it was great. Thanks for joining!

[May]
Thank you for your time with us today! It was a truly enlightening session.

I know it's a short time to learn about EVERYTHING, but it was worth our while!

Any final remarks for our community?

[David]
Sure, please do check out our social links (see pinned message) and join our Telegram & Discord groups, follow our Twitter. 2022 is an exciting year for Tempus and we'd love you guys to be part of the journey.

[May]
https://linktr.ee/tempusfinance

Our warm regards to the rest of the awesome 21-people team at the Tempus HQ working tirelessly to make this project a success!

Tempus is a solid TradFi project and we wish you all the best for the future!

Thank you, we look forward to an amazing and exciting future!

Until next time, do have a great day!

The AMA with Tempus Finance is now over