Flash In 5 Explainer Blog

Overview

January 1st, 2021 marked the launch of FLASH, our first official token creation from Blockzero Labs.

Flash is the time travel of money – it’s crypto’s first flash-staking protocol that allows you to earn instant upfront yield by staking $FLASH.

Prefer a more sophisticated breakdown? Flash is a decentralized protocol for automated minting provisions on Ethereum.

The Flash protocol enables a new DeFi framework that wasn’t possible until now: Flashstaking.

What Is Flashstaking?

Flashstaking is the process of locking up tokens for a predetermined amount of time in order to earn instant upfront interest.

Yield is paid in advance and completed all within one transaction.

The Flash Protocol is built with a number of useful features:

Permissionless
Open source
Stake $FLASH and redirect the yield to EOA or a contract
Unstake $FLASH after the expire period is over
Unstake $FLASH before the expire period is over, but burn percentage of the staked amount based on the remaining time
Dynamic FPY (Flash Percentage Yield) calculated with this formula

Flashstaking vs. Flashloans

Flashstaking works similarly to flash-loans, where anyone can borrow any amount of capital as long as they pay it back within one ethereum transaction. However, instead of borrowing money, you stake capital for a predetermined amount of time and earn the entire reward instantly.

Instant, upfront, and all in one ethereum transaction.

Flashstaking vs. Yield Farming

Instead of yield farming and earning rewards in small increments over a long period of time, the FLASH protocol enables for everything to be paid immediately, without waiting for months on end.

Flashstaking is the concept of locking up money today, and earning money from the future. All done in a decentralized, instantaneous, and permissionless manner.

This is why we call $FLASH the “Time Travel of Money”.

Proof-of-Time

Bitcoin uses Proof-of-Work. This means, BTC is generated and rewarded to the users who provide electricity (mining power) to the Network.

Ethereum 2.0 will use Proof-of-Stake. This means, ETH will be generated and rewarded to users who provide capital (staking power) to the Network.

While electricity (PoW) and capital (PoS) have proven to be respected consensus models, $FLASH uses a more universally finite resource: Proof-of-Time

$FLASH is generated and rewarded to users who provide time (Flash power) to the Network.

The more time committed to the Network, the more confidence can be seen in the protocol; then the interest rate gradually goes down. If confidence reduces (time), the interest rate gradually floats back up. This free-market dynamic will be really interesting to watch in real time, all circling back to the proof-of-time metaphor.

As a Layer 2 asset, the goal of staking $FLASH is not to provide security to the Network. Ethereum does this plenty well.

The goal of staking $FLASH is to fuel the time travel of money. Instead of 1.21 Gigawatts of plutonium powering a 1982 Delorean, users simply need $FLASH to power their flashstake.

Three Flash Strategies - Staker, Maker, Taker

Are you a Staker, a Maker, or a Taker?

Those three terms represent three distinct strategies and ways to use the Flash dApp. For a more detailed breakdown on these three strategies, check out this blog, or watch the video below!

Stakers can be represented by the “stake” tab, as seen above. These are the people staking FLASH and earning instant yield (altcoins). In addition, every time FLASH is staked, new FLASH is also minted. That new FLASH is swapped into the pool of the users choice (ex: FLASH/DAI).

Makers can be represented by both the “create” and “pool” tabs on the dApp. These are the liquidity providers who earn stake/swap fees (just like on Uniswap).

Lastly, Takers can be represented by the “swap” tab. These are the arbitragers who balance out the FLASH liquidity pools.

Hopefully if you’ve read this far, you now have a better understanding of the various ways to interact with the Flashstake dApp and it’s various dynamics and use cases. Be sure to check out all the links below for more info on all things Flash. Happy Flashing!