A51 Finance — 2024 Product Strategy

5 min readFeb 22, 2024

The following article explains our product strategy, our plans to attract TVL, and how we intend to increase the liquidity of the $A51 token.

Why → Vision

A51 Finance is a ‘remote control’ for liquidity positions offering a superior interface to interact with the underlying AMM giving you more control over your liquidity positions.

What → Strategy

Product

Build an automation layer on top of Uniswap and other AMMs akin to an advanced remote control for interacting with the underlying liquidity. Be present on all the major EVM chains as well as upcoming L2s and support a wide range of AMMs starting with Uniswap v3.

Features

Build advanced tools right after the release of the base protocol like the ability to hedge the liquidity positions by borrowing the funds, buying options, etc. Exit strategy is another set of features that would allow an LP to specify how they want their liquidity to be exited.

The liquidity simulator will go live with the base protocol. We believe that LPs need a way to test their strategies before putting their real money into the vaults. This will increase confidence in our product, and the simulator could also be used by other liquidity management protocols.

We will focus our efforts in the next few months on giving our users a great user experience by unlocking a few features that we have planned like adding liquidity using any asset, withdrawing to any asset that the user wants, and more.

Vault Management

A51 will offer management on a few pegged, stable, blue-chip vaults like stETH-ETH, USDC-ETH, and WBTC-ETH. But A51 is permissionless, and anyone can create any strategy for any token pair. We will be putting a special focus on our product on LRT assets.

We are reaching out to asset management companies and market makers whom we can partner with for them to manage their clients’ liquidity on A51.

Expansion

We believe that different L2s have become akin to payment gateways in the Web2 world, and being on many chains is our priority. We plan to be on all major L2s in the first couple of months.

We will also deploy A51 on upcoming L2s. This will offer us two advantages: capture the initial market before other protocols, and a huge potential for grants and airdrops.

Liquidity Incentives

The proposed VE+FOO tokenomics model is very closely aligned with the protocol, and the success of the token would be tied to the protocol. The more TVL the protocol has, the more valuable the token gets, and attracts more liquidity for VE token participants.

Refer to this article to understand the concept in detail:

NFTs with Lifetime Access

This is still raw, and we still haven’t figured out the details of it but the idea is to sell NFTs that would exempt seasoned LPs from protocol fees. This will allow us to raise some funds for the development of future versions.

Chains & DEXs

Chains

Having a multi-chain launch strategy is the need of the hour now, we cannot just focus on one chain anymore. Ecosystems on several L2s have become mature enough to have separate communities, and we need to reach them at the outset.

Here are some chains that we will launch in the first few weeks of our protocol going live:

Ethereum
Polygon
Arbitrum
BNB
Optimism
Base

Expansions planned after the first six chains:

Metis
Manta
zkSync Era
Mantle
Linea
Polygon zkEVM
Scroll

DEXs

Initially, the protocol will launch on Uniswap v3 with expansions to other DEXs coming up in the next several months:

Uniswap v3
Uniswap v4
Pancakeswap
Quickswap
Camelot
iZiSwap
Velodrome
SyncSwap
Agni Finance
TraderJoe

Token

Our goal is to build deep token liquidity, offer the token on multiple chains and CEXs, and offer sustainable incentives to drive value toward the protocol.

Our main token narrative will be around VE+FOO tokenomics as mentioned in this article here.

Benefits of using VE+FOO tokenomics

Good flywheel: More TVL drives more value towards the token in the form of revenue sharing and token buybacks.
Merging of LPs and stakers removes conflicts of incentives between the two users.
Mercenary farmers are discouraged from becoming part of the system.
Perpetual $A51 token sale.
Users who want to own more $A51 get a chance to buy the tokens at a discounted price.
Good balance between demand and supply.
No excessive inflation. 50% of inflation is offset by new value coming into the system in the form of $A51 sales.
Low barrier to entry to becoming an LP leading to a significant increase in token liquidity.
Farmers will be reluctant to sell their $A51 as they will essentially be dumping on themselves. More details on this effect are in the LIT tokenomics article.

Chains

The plans are to expand the token to Arbitrum after Polygon. We will see after the new tokenomics go live whether we need to expand to other chains too.

CEXs

We are in talks with several CEXs for a potential listing. Further details will be announced after the protocol launch.

Growth

Strategy

Roll out gradually and start with TVL capped at $100k initially. Cap to be increased every couple of weeks.
Incentivize liquidity using partnerships.
Run a points and referral-based airdrop campaign from March to May.
Promote the liquid restaking tokens and their vaults to attract the new TVL coming into this space.
Offer insurance on the TVL in the protocol for the first few months to instill confidence of the users.
Educate seasoned and new LPs about the benefits of our product.

Wen → Roadmap

March

Product launch — 11 March 2024
Introduce points/referrals and leaderboard system — 11 March 2024

April

Expand to more chains
Potential CEX listing
Forge partnerships for liquidity incentivization
Sell NFTs with lifetime access to the protocol

May

Unlock hedging and other advanced parameters
Implement the VE + FOO tokenomics
Launch the token on Arbitrum

June-July

Expand to more chains DEXs
Development of more advanced parameters

August

Launch the protocol on Uniswap v4

Please note any plans after March are subject to change based on how the launch goes. We will keep our community members informed.

Wrap Up

We have been building for the past few months, and we believe that this is the best time to launch our protocol. We have tried our best to meticulously design every aspect of our protocol, tokenomics, and growth strategy and have tried to create a flywheel where the token’s success is tied to the success of the protocol, and not just based on hype. I invite all members of the A51 community to give their feedback on our strategy.

Written by Abdul Sami Khawaja (Co-founder, A51 Finance)
Twitter: https://twitter.com/8thousander
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sami-khawaja/

Find out the A51 Finance Q2 Roadmap here.