Ref Finance is a community-led, multi-purpose Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platform built on NEAR Protocol.
Ref takes full advantage of NEAR’s low fees ($0.005 per swap), one-to-two second finality, and WebAssembly-based runtime (hello, Rust smart contracts!).
Ref Finance’s first product is an Automated Market Maker (AMM). It is similar to Uniswap, with a few changes:
What is a recurring swap? A recurring swap automates buying or selling crypto, so it's set up exactly how the user wants it.
The user simply chooses which crypto he/she wants to buy or sell, how much and how often he/she wants that to happen.
The concept of recurring buys is not new. Crypto exchanges like Binance or Gemini have already implemented it. Revolut, a well-known challenger bank, was one of the first to implement the feature for its crypto users.
But what problem is being solved or what value proposition provides such a feature? The value derives from the idea that taking small, incremental steps can add up to big results over time. This concept is rooted in many cultures and countries. You have probably heard the following expressions or their equivalent in your native language.
A penny saved is a penny earned
From little things big things grow
Beyond money, the concept can refer to human actions in certain religions too.
We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop. - Mother Teresa
Finally, in trading/investment terms, you have probably heard about the Dollar-Cost Averaging strategy [1]. An investment strategy that can be defined as:
Dollar-cost averaging (DCA) is an investment strategy in which an investor divides up the total amount to be invested across periodic purchases of a target asset in an effort to reduce the impact of volatility on the overall purchase. The purchases occur regardless of the asset's price and at regular intervals.