Alchemix Roadmap

8 min readOct 8, 2021

It seems like forever since our explosive launch in February when we invented the world's first Self-Repaying Loans - welcome to the Future of France.

We’ve been blessed with a devoted community of DeFi gigabrains and degens alike. Whilst we’ve brought true innovation to the space, we can understand that our followers deserve some reassurance that Alchemix intends to continue making waves.

Patience is a virtue, but enough is enough. With Alchemix v2 so close to audit, it’s time to reveal our short to mid term development plans.

Please note that we cannot advertise release dates or promise that plans won’t change. This is DeFi and we value the need to remain agile. We also like to avoid firm dates that might disappoint users if unforeseen delays in production occur.

What this document doesn’t cover is all the partnerships we’re planning or even details about specific collateral types or the range of yield strategies we’ll be looking to offer in v2. To keep up with our integrations and operational progress it’s best to keep an eye on our Twitter feed, discord announcements, and governance channels.

Without further ado let’s present our current roadmap:

https://gateway.pinata.cloud/ipfs/Qmd6ushyrQBaeZKMVj4f4jiL8Z73ni25eje9jaLSAbWGMb

There’s a lot to take in. Let’s run through it all to give a brief overview of each piece of the roadmap puzzle.

Audit and Testnet

v2 is almost code and document complete. It will go in for an audit with Runtime Verification on November 1st. While the contracts are under audit, we will deploy them to testnet and invite the community to participate. The testnet will help to familiarise our users with the new interface and flow of the dapp. It will also assist the UI team in squashing any bugs and improving the UX.

Deploy of v2

Once the code has passed the audit and been thoroughly tested in testnet, the deployment of v2 will consist of two major building blocks. The first is the Alchemix v2 contract and the second is vault adapters that are used to plug it into the variety of mixed risk-reward strategies we’ll soon be offering.

Alchemix v2

Sporting several new fundamental upgrades in comparison to v1, this contract forms the basis of v2. The new architecture is modular and allows the team to build upon it and expand it to grow with the ever-changing landscape of DeFi. We are proud of the effort we have given to make it extensible and composable while also prioritising security. Key features include: multiple strategies, multiple collateral types, delegated credit, and composability.

New strategies

Each new yield strategy that Alchemix plugs into Alchemix will have its own contract known as a vault adapter. Each contract will handle any custom logic necessary to hook into the various sources of yield in the DeFi ecosystem. We expect many of these to be developed over time allowing us to offer users a wide range of yield generating options to power their Self-Repaying Loans.

Furthermore, users in Alchemix will be able to allocate their collateral to various vault adapters simultaneously, in effect allowing you to build your own meta-yield aggregator on top of Alchemix.

Decentralise

A large aspect of decentralising Alchemix is distributing the operations of the ecosystem to achieve sustainable growth looking ahead. It will also solve any trust assumptions there are with regard to administrative functions.

Safe-snap governance

Safe-snap offers gas-less on-chain voting. It differs from the current snapshot with a multisig setup we currently have. Governance votes that control protocol parameters or treasury funding will be queued on chain and then executed by safesnap if they are passed by the DAO.

Community contributions

We’d like to encourage our community to truly become part of the Alchemix team by carrying out incentivised tasks that assist with the operation of the protocol. We will utilise the team coordination tool, Coordinape, to onboard community members to contribute their talents to the growth of the protocol.

Grant programme

Since v2 is built with composability in mind, we will start up a grant program to encourage development on top of Alchemix v2. Why not start dreaming up what you could build on v2?

Alchemix DAO

The Alchemix DAO is a critical development which will transition Alchemix to be fully decentralised. We have designed it with engagement in mind, and will achieve this through gamification and incentives within the DAO.

Protocol rewards module

This contract will allow ALCX stakers to earn a portion of the protocol revenue denominated in a variety of tokens. By being a staker in the DAO, you will be entitled to protocol earnings. Such rewards are necessary for DAO participants because Alchemix DAO stakers will have something at stake — the protocol itself.

Insurance module — DAO as insurer of last resort

While v2 is built with security in mind and is being audited by the renowned Runtime Verification, there always is the possibility that a black swan event happens — even outside of Alchemix — that could result in losses to the users in the protocol. Therefore, stakers in the DAO will act as the last line of defence for the Alchemix protocol. If such a loss happens to the system, then stakers in the DAO will have to vote on whether or not to slash their holdings to be auctioned off to make the protocol whole again. Because of this functionality, there will be a 10 day unstaking time so that if governance votes in favor of saving the protocol, no one can exit during the decision making process.

Governance module

This contract will handle decentralised voting for members of the DAO. It features ALCX token voting along with time-based vote boosting.

Gamified DAO

The Alchemix team has keenly studied and learned from many of the existing DAO models that are already in existence. From studying their mechanisms, we have developed an alternative that both rewards time and participation in the DAO.

Users will earn a resource in the DAO that represents their time in the DAO. This resource can either be spent to increase their voting power so they can have a greater voice in issues they care about, or it can be converted into an ERC20 token that will have various yield boosting functionalities within the DAO and our farming contracts.

We have further plans to build a DAO character NFT that you can customise and upgrade to gain more clout and rewards from the DAO. This character could be utilised in other applications in the future as well.

DAO end game

Alchemix intends to realise it’s vision to achieve full autonomous decentralisation. Any administrative or treasury action in the Alchemix protocol and DAO will be trustlessly executed by the DAO itself. Once implemented, we will no longer have to trust that the dev/community multisig + timelock, and managerial functions now handled by the development team will be completely handled by the DAO.

v2 Modules

Once v2 has launched it will enable the fun to really get started. There’s no limit to the number of applications that can take advantage of Self-Repaying Loans. Here’s just a small selection of the ideas we have in mind.

Boost users

This module allows users the option of donating their yield to boost other users’ yield. In return for boosting the yields in the system, boosters will receive rewards from the protocol.

Collateralised debt applications

Imagine holding a basket of on-chain assets (from ERC20 tokens to NFTs) that you’d rather not sell but instead would like to use as collateral for a loan. This dapp will allow Alchemix users with spare credit to lend it to other users based on what they are willing to stake as collateral. It will open up markets for any on-chain asset, helping to unlock utility and liquidity for assets that might not otherwise have market access to DeFi protocols. Think of it as an on-chain pawn shop.

Collateralised debt auctions

Just like the previous module this allows users to apply for credit with their on-chain assets, only this time within an auction.

Streampay

Imagine having enough collateral in your Alchemix account to cover all your living expenses each month. Built directly on top of Alchemix v2 delegated credit features, Streampay will allow users to send their credit to other addresses. It will offer a range of convenient payment options enabling the user to set time periods, capped amounts or even continuous payments. The more collateral you deposit, the more you’ll be able to spend from the continuous credit that’s generated. This creates a powerful primitive that can open up interesting integrations between Alchemix v2 and other — even new specifically built — applications

Recipe book

Call us optimistic because we’re expecting the range of yield strategies to grow large. Large enough that a new user may be overwhelmed by the choice. To make the user experience as smooth as possible we’re planning on creating curated funds or ‘recipes’ of yield strategies that suit differing levels of risk reward profiles for our users. A user will simply be able to pick a recipe with ease without the hassle of researching the finer details.

Multi-chain

For security and resource management reasons we’re going to focus on EVM compatible chains. This allows us to use our audited code whilst maintaining a consistent user experience. The order in which we’ll deliver on these chains is still very much the topic of debate within the team and community.

New Synthetics

We haven’t given you much here outside of the obvious — alBTC. Don’t let this fool you, there are a number of other synthetics we plan to launch. We just can’t reveal these yet, stay tuned.

Just like us, our roadmap is ambitious. We want to spread the magic of Alchemix far and wide and to introduce capital efficient, radical financial utility inside of DeFi. We believe Alchemix as a foundation will lead to positive change for money management — both for individuals and institutions alike. Our v2, along with full decentralisation, will make Alchemix a protocol of the people, for the people.

We encourage everyone in the Alchemix community to help us shape and build the future of the protocol and bring responsible DeFi to the masses, and if you’re not already in the community, join our discord and become part of the conversation.