Fantom ecosystem spotlight – SCREAM
This week we caught up with Screamsh, the founder of the first native-Fantom DeFi lending protocol SCREAM.
A project with soaring TVL, SCREAM’s success is built on the innovative opportunities the protocol offers and the commitment of the SCREAM team to grow the ecosystem through collaborations with other projects like StakeSteak.
Keep reading to learn more about SCREAM… and for a major announcement that Screamsh just happens to drop!
1. What is SCREAM?
SCREAM is a decentralized lending protocol for individuals and protocols to access deep liquidity within the Fantom network. The protocol is permissionless, transparent, and non-custodial.
SCREAM enables users to borrow and lend tokens directly on its platform with low fees due to the high scalability of the Fantom Network. With its quick speeds and low transaction costs, Fantom helps protocols offer the best possible user experience.
2. How do you introduce SCREAM to a novice, or someone who knows relatively little about DeFi? And what are your words of advice for someone looking to get started on Scream?
Mainly, by comparing what we offer with the near-zero interest rates you get on bank deposits. With SCREAM, you can earn significant yields on high-liquidity stablecoins that you may not earn with other financial tools.
We know users want to have peace of mind knowing they are protected from the underlying volatility of markets, so we offer the most liquid stablecoin markets on Fantom with competitive yield and incentives.
We would strongly recommend getting accustomed to our platform features in small doses before plunging into borrowing. Supplying crypto to SCREAM is the easiest and least risky way to earn APY. You also earn SCREAM as an additional incentive too. We’ll soon be releasing a beginners’ guide that will fully explain how to utilize our lending/borrowing markets.
Borrowing carries the highest-risk profile on our platform since it puts your collateral at risk from liquidations. Obviously, borrowing less and maintaining higher collateral amounts reduces the risk of liquidation.
3. How did you come up with SCREAM/what was your inspiration?
I caught on early that Fantom did not have a major lending solution that attracted deep pockets of liquidity – and so SCREAM was born as an efficient protocol with orderly lending/borrowing markets.
I also wanted to create something symbolic, a bit absurd, and memeable: “Fantomizing” the motif of C.R.E.A.M. Finance and its aesthetic – transposing it into a minor key; into the tongue-in-cheek “spooky” standard that most project names on Fantom are known for.
Ironically, even though most think we are a fork of C.R.E.A.M. based on our borrowed aesthetic; our code is actually a fork of Compound v2, the safest and most auditable code for a lending platform on Ethereum.
4. What’s your background?
I first started trading stocks in 2013 and shortly after that got into Bitcoin. I started as a bit of a degen, and it was only after the collapse of Mt.Gox that I started to read into the Whitepaper.
Fast forward into 2017, losing a lot of money along the way but passing my law degree, I decided to learn Solidity and developed some basic dApps and trading bots on Ethereum to take advantage of price movements.
After learning about Compound, Aave, and Yearn, I ended up falling in love with DeFi in 2020. I became really excited about the layering of DeFi applications and using different platforms to earn yield.
5. Why did you decide to build on Fantom?
Seeing the promise of Fantom’s fast, high-throughput open-source smart contract platform got me seriously excited.
At the time, the dApp ecosystem was still starting up, but reading into the tech made the prospect of building on top of Fantom really promising. Once you begin to use it, you understand how the power of Fantom can be harnessed to build a highly scalable dApp ecosystem.
I felt a lending platform that could take advantage of this new technology would do really well. The opportunity called out to me.
For SCREAM, I decided to use my favorite UX designer, Sebastian, and we collaborated to build a soft-looking and pastely UI built around a clean, simple, and fun design aesthetic.
6. How did you learn about Fantom?
Initially, through a friend who discussed the potential to work on other chains. Avalanche and Fantom both had really promising technology, and we both split – in the end, I decided to make Fantom my home.
It also helps that the leading DEX on Fantom, SpookySwap, offers users a friendly and intuitive design. The feel of the platform really entices me and I love the illustrations that the team put out. I really feel that SpookySwap, as a vital go-to platform, offers the best platform for new users to explore the ecosystem.
7. How was your experience of building on Fantom?
Seamless. Instead of learning a new programming language like Rust or dare I say, Haskell, you can bootstrap a platform with your existing Solidity knowledge and program the best dApp version natively on Fantom.
Again, my experience is not unique. I expect the low barrier to entry and the high costs of deploying smart contracts on Ethereum to incentivize more developers to migrate over to Fantom.
8. What brings you to DeFi and what excites you most about the space?
Creating a project out of nothing and having several other projects root for you is one of the best feelings you can get.
DeFi’s inherent composability – the ability for projects to be built on top of each other – makes this possible. This is also apparent when you speak to other project founders and decide how to integrate new systems, products, or strategies.
One example is closely connected to our strategic alliance with StakeSteak. Xam_Pham and Shien are leaders in their field in pushing fUSD to peg without the Fantom Foundation invoking liquidations. We worked closely for many weeks to make this happen in the way it was intended and helped to promote one of the best teams in Fantom. Congrats Boys!
Ultimately, I see this space evolving rapidly over the next few years, where more and more people see the benefits of using DeFi tools. Despite regulatory uncertainty, I really do see the future of DeFi as being mainstream.
9. How did the community receive SCREAM?
Ha. This is quite the question to unpack.
At the time of our first Medium article (in May 2021), we were completely unknown to other community members. Anonymous projects were regarded with some suspicion, and we realized that we had work to do to build support.
We decided to launch the SCREAM “Monster Hunt” in an effort to set records straight. We created a unique puzzle set that would unlock the coveted PASTEL ticket. Those who obtained the PASTEL ticket would be rewarded as early supporters of the protocol. We wanted to demonstrate that a team with so much enthusiasm, that did things differently, with so much passion, could be trusted.
We truly believed that, with these parameters, the community could break away from the usual mindset regarding anonymous developers. I would like to think we succeeded in winning over most members from within the Fantom community who could solve the puzzles, despite the initial tumult!
We want to shout-out FTM Community Alerts for documenting his experience in real-time with the Monster Hunt and hyping it within the Fantom community. It truly feels like an age ago!
10. What’s coming up for SCREAM? Free alpha!
As many users may know, SCREAM provides the most concentrated lending markets for stablecoins on Fantom. We see this need for deep markets intensifying as more users and developers migrate over to Fantom.
It’s our pleasure to announce that we’ve teamed up with FRAX, the world’s first fractional-algorithmic stablecoin, to provide high liquidity stablecoin borrowing to SCREAM. FRAX has an excellent track record of stability and perfect peg.
FRAX will build one of their native AMOs (Algorithmic Market Operations Controller), which expands/contracts stablecoin supply directly on Fantom for SCREAM.
We see FRAX as breakthrough technology, and partnering with FRAX in bridging the AMO cross-chain to Fantom will provide Fantom-users with the most competitive stablecoin markets available to date, with the most-competitive borrowing costs.
Coupled with Fantom’s low gas fees and highly-scalable architecture, SCREAM will be able to offer the most competitive stablecoin markets industry-wide.
Not to mention, we will be incentivizing FRAX borrowing significantly…
…In other news, don’t forget your pastel ticket this halloween!
11. What do you want to tell to fellow developers who haven’t started building on Fantom yet?
Three months ago, our project didn’t even exist. Now it exists on Fantom, and we continue to see our usage and use-cases expand exponentially.
We can’t even imagine how painful the experience would be going back to Ethereum – so if you’re able to try it out, even just to tinker around with it, we would recommend it!
Get involved with SCREAM at:
