Balanced: Bringing DeFi to the ICON Ecosystem Balanced Follow Feb 13 · 3 min read

Hello from the Balanced Team,

We’re excited to announce Balanced, the first DeFi project on the ICON Network. Balanced is a collaborative effort between ICX Station, PARROT9, Galen Danziger of Mousebelt, and Dan Brehmer of iBriz-ICONosphere.

Our goal is to create the de-facto form of payment for the ICON ecosystem through giving ICX another use case: collateral.

What is Balanced?

Balanced is a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization). It incentivizes people to deposit their ICX as collateral and borrow tokens pegged to the value of real world assets. The first token will be the ICON Dollar, which is pegged to USD.

There is no ICO and no pre-mine of tokens. Balanced contributors earn (mine) Balance Tokens, which entitle them to governance and rewards from network fees. Only Balance Token holders that actively contribute to the Balanced DAO receive these benefits.

Why are we building it?

Native protocol tokens like ICX are too volatile for payments. If we use ICX as collateral instead, we can create stable tokens to pay one another within the ecosystem. DeFi is essential to the success of any decentralized public blockchain protocol, and we’re excited to work on the first piece of ICON’s DeFi ecosystem.

How can you use Balanced?

Most importantly, we would like to highlight how ICX holders can use Balanced in practice:

Leverage — Deposit ICX into Balanced, borrow ICD, then buy more crypto. Mine Balance Tokens — Deposit ICX and borrow against it to mine Balance Tokens. They represent ownership in the Balanced DAO, and include benefits like income from network fees. Make Stable Payments — Borrow ICD from Balanced, then use it to make payments without fear of the price fluctuating. Sell ICX without affecting the market — If you borrow ICD, some of your collateral is sold over time to support arbitrage traders. This keeps ICD close to its pegged value, and helps you reduce your ICX position without hurting the market. Offer liquidity on the DEX — Supply liquidity for the Balanced DEX to mine Balance Tokens and earn more ICX. Trade ICD — Trade ICON Dollars to take advantage of arbitrage opportunities. Interest Rate Arbitrage — Take advantage of the 0% interest rate to borrow ICD and sell it for an Ethereum stablecoin. Then lend it at a higher rate using the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem.

What next?

The Balanced team is working on the technical specifications and a high-level roadmap, which we’ll release soon. For more information about Balanced, visit our website, read the white paper for more details on how this project works, follow us on Twitter, and join us in Telegram to stay up to date on our progress. Our next big announcement will likely be the release of a technical roadmap with some realistic milestones.

Thank you for reading and we look forward to building this product for the ICON ecosystem!

Balanced team