Euler Launches on Mainnet!

Long-awaited permissionless lending markets are here… Euler is open for business on mainnet.

Introduction

The Euler Labs team is excited to announce today that the Euler Finance dApp is officially live and deployed on Ethereum Mainnet. Check it out now at https://app.euler.finance/.

We’ll be releasing more information about how to use the protocol to its fullest potential over the coming weeks. In the meantime, we suggest users continue to get accustomed to the protocol first on our Ropsten deployment here: https://ropsten.euler.finance/.

You can start by visiting our user guide here or checking out some of our ‘how to’ video tutorials on YouTube here.

Euler was built from the ground up as a permissionless protocol to help democratise the process of lending and borrowing on Ethereum. It is packed full of innovative new approaches, and we hope it will evolve to become a core primitive of DeFi in the months ahead.

A Risk-Managed Launch

The unprecedented pace of innovation in DeFi owes much to a spirit of ‘build fast and break things’. If there’s one area in which history tells us a cautionary tale though, it is in the DeFi lending space.

Euler has therefore been methodically built from the ground up by a team of risk-conscious developers and researchers slowly over a period of around 16 months.

Our launch further reflects this risk-managed approach. We’ve introduced a lot of new innovations into the DeFi lending space and we feel it is important to release them in a structured way so that we can monitor performance as we go and try to limit risks.

We’re therefore launching the protocol in two stages.

Phase 1 — test in production

Our first phase starts today. Euler will be launched in a guarded way with reduced features and conservative risk parameters whilst we expand on our Ropsten tests by testing in production mode.

Users can begin activating their own lending and borrowing markets in a permissionless fashion, and start to explore features such as our transaction builder, which lets users batch up transactions to minimise gas.

However, we have simplified the protocol for now to reduce risk. For example, we have limited the number of collateral types people can use and deployed simple interest rate models (similar to those used on Compound and Aave).

Nevertheless, there’s already a lot to get to grips with. Drop into our Discord server and you’ll find we’re here to help if anything does not make sense.

Want even more features? Fear not, because our second phase is just around the corner.

Phase 2 — community goverenance begins

Our second phase is scheduled to begin in January 2022. The stabilisers will be taken off. Community governance will begin and new features will go live.

In an effort to decentralise the protocol, we will deploy the Euler Governance module and begin distributing voting rights (EUL governance tokens) to the protocol’s users to give them a voice in how the protocol is run. More details on this soon.

Community governance will pave the way for users to start making proposals to relax some of the conservative parameter choices implemented in Phase 1.

At this time we expect the community to explore increasing the number of assets that can be used as collateral on the protocol and start to experiment with our reactive interest rate models.

Testing in Production

Why test in production? Is it safe? Andre Cronje has a good article explaining why this practice is useful. In short, it allows us to test features of Euler that cannot be replicated exactly on testnet, such as our integrations with Uniswap v3 and 1inch protocol.

It is important to stress that this does not mean Euler has not yet been tested or audited. It has (see below). Testing never stops. This is just the next phase in the development of the protocol.

By deploying the code on mainnet and verifying the smart contracts, people looking to build-on top of Euler will also be able to start work now on integrations that will become an important part of the protocol’s growth in the new year.

Code Audits and Bug Bounty

Has the smart contract code been audited and tested? Yes.

The Euler smart contracts have been audited at various stages in the protocol’s development from partners including Solidified, ZK Labs, Halborn, Certora, and Sherlock. You can view all the code audits here.

We will also be announcing a public bug bounty very shortly in partnership with Immunefi to enable the general public to audit the Euler smart contract code themselves. You can read more about the bug bounty here.

Disclaimer

Euler is an entirely non-custodial protocol. If you decide to interact with the protocol on Ropsten or Ethereum Mainnet you do so entirely of your own accord. You are using the software at your own risk and you will not be compensated for your efforts or any loss of funds that may incur if something does not work as you expect it to.

Conclusion

Euler has landed! You can start activating lending and borrowing markets for almost any asset now on Ethereum Mainnet.

We built Euler for the community, but this is just the start. There is lots more to come. We need your help to improve Euler and leverage the full potential of the protocol. Please also join our community in discord and give us your suggestions.

About Euler

Euler is a capital-efficient permissionless lending protocol that helps users to earn interest on their crypto assets or hedge against volatile markets without the need for a trusted third-party. Euler features a number of innovations not seen before in DeFi, including permissionless lending markets, reactive interest rates, protected collateral, MEV-resistant liquidations, multi-collateral stability pools, sub-accounts, risk-adjusted loans and much more. For more information, visit euler.finance.