Introducing AAVE, LINK, MKR, YFI and UNI!
We’re excited to announce that on 26 May, we're adding five new cryptocurrencies to the Wirex app – AAVE, LINK, MKR, YFI and UNI! Customers will be able to buy, exchange and hold all five currencies in the app, or spend them in real life with their Wirex card.
We will also be scrapping exchange fees for AAVE, LINK, MKR, YFI and UNI for a whole month, which means you’ll pay 0% until the 2nd of July*.
What are these new cryptocurrencies?
If you’re not familiar with any of these cryptocurrencies, here is an overview of what they are and how they work.
About AAVE
AAVE was founded by Stani Kulechov and launched in 2017. It is best known as a decentralised lending system that allows customers to lend, borrow and earn on all crypto assets. AAVE is just one of several DeFi cryptocurrencies that runs on the Ethereum blockchain.
AAVE is particularly useful in that it makes lending and borrowing easier for its users. For instance, a lender can deposit an amount of funds they wish to lend, which in turn is collected into a pool. Borrowers can then draw from those pools to take out a loan. Moreover, borrowers don’t get charged a fee for taking out a loan with AAVE tokens.
AAVE also offers ‘flash loans’, which are loans that can be issued and settled almost instantly. No upfront collateral is required, either.
About LINK
LINK was launched in 2017 by the for-profit company, SmartContract. Also known as Chainlink, LINK aims to provide genuine, dependable data to smart contracts working with blockchain.
LINK was created to resolve the issue of smart contracts needing to rely on external data sources to properly carry out their terms. Therefore, the purpose of LINK is to act as a bridge between smart contracts and external data sources.
By using LINK, you can rely on it to successfully implement smart contracts that depend on the Chainlink network.
About MKR
MKR (AKA MakerDAO) was founded in 2015 by a group of developers led by Rune Christensen. Like AAVE, it is also a DeFi cryptocurrency that runs on the Ethereum blockchain. MKR allows its holders to vote on proposals that influence how the DAI cryptocurrency can be used.
MKR gives its holders the power to determine key decisions on through an Executive Voting process. If a proposal is passed through this process, then the code in MKR’s protocol is changed based on that winning proposal.
However, it must first go through the Proposal Polling process. This is so holders fully understand a proposal before it reaches the voting stage.
About YFI
YFI (yearn.finance) was launched in 2020 by independent developer Andre Conje. It is an ERC20 token that runs on the Ethereum blockchain. YFI is designed to deploy contracts on the blockchain, as well as decentralised exchanges including Balancer and Curve.
YFI offers three main services – Earn, Zap, Vaults and APY – all of which aim to help users in lending and trading crypto assets.
As a token holder, you can also vote on proposals regarding rules when using yearn.finance.
About UNI
UNI (Uniswap) is an Ethereum token launched in 2018 by Hayden Adams. Its purpose is to help users buy and sell crypto assets as easily as traditional currency exchange.
It achieves this by allowing you to deposit crypto assets through smart contracts, which traders can also access. Those who trade against assets will then pay a fee that is distributed to all liquidity providers (depending on how much they contributed).
Like YFI, UNI token holders can also vote on proposals. Specifically, to help improve Uniswap’s development and ecosystem.
Wirex currently supports a great variety of top cryptocurrencies (see our full list here ) and we’re looking forward to giving you even more choice and flexibility with these new additions!