Distribute Tokens with Ease using Streamflow Finance
Streamflow is a suite of products that enables organizations (and individuals) to distribute funds simply.
“Smart contracts are moderating crypto payments and since the transaction fees are so low, crypto firms can foster this super-efficient form of value exchange, with someone who is actively participating in their market.” — Cavicon
Streaming has revolutionized the internet, and blockchain can help take it to the next level. Alongside the advancement in the dominance of blockchain and crypto, the breakthrough of money streaming services and the ability of individuals to take advantage and also improve the existing protocols have been impossible to miss.
In this article or context, a stream is a locked payment that is unlocked over time. A money stream is a continuous stream of funds sent from one account to another. Some payrolls in today’s world don’t make sense anymore. This time-intensive activity toward monotonous bookkeeping and accounts work redirects labor away from productive tasks therefore leveraging the blockchain with money streaming protocols will help eliminate this tedious task.
OVERVIEW OF STREAMFLOW FINANCE
There are several applications of money streams which includes:
- Payroll
- Vesting Contracts
- Services billed per unit time
- Fundraising etc.
Organizations evolving around decentralized ecosystems which include investors, DAOs, foundations, fundraisers, Web3 native teams, and so on need a way to effectively value their networks. Most crypto firms or projects are limited to one-time rewards that often don’t provide long-term value to their ecosystem nor incentivize contributors in the right way.
Grants, investments, yields rewards, and salaries can be categorized under values. In an attempt to achieve the goal of value as stated above, some organizations use tools and systems which are more often than not inefficient and ineffective, therefore, hindering progress.
Streamflow is a platform made of composable and mutually compatible tools. They include:
- Multi-signature vaults or treasury
- Bulk token distributors,
- Embedded token vesting, and other tools to enhance capital efficiency.
It is possible to have these are separate tools but the main deal is putting these things together under one infrastructure to make it a system.
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” — Helen Keller
The above image shows that token vesting contacts that are created using Streamflow are tradable. You can transfer the vesting contract to a new address. The team aims to make vesting contracts tradable via secondary markets. Event-based unlock means a vesting contract can release the locked tokens at a certain event date, etc. Token vesting contracts on Streamflow are configurable. This also shows that vesting contracts can be created using a Multi sig wallet.
ONBOARDING PROCESS
Once you click on Get Started on the site, you’re redirected to the page below. Streamflow Finance supports four wallets at the moment and the team is planning to integrate more. Connect to your wallet and enter your password. For mainnet users, make sure you have some SOL for transactions. Devnet users can always request faucet SOL and other SPL tokens to test the platform. I will be using the devnet version in this onboarding process.
It is highly recommended that you familiarize yourself with new protocols by using the testnet or devnet versions of the protocols before switching to the mainnet.
Once your wallet is connected to the site, you are automatically connected to the mainnet version. For those who want to switch to devnet, click on your address displayed at the top right corner of the page. Toggle the devnet on. Once it’s toggled on, click on the airdrop icon beside the address to receive faucet coins for testing.
On the left plain of the site, you can switch between all streams, incoming and outgoing streams. The Multisig wallet feature is still under development.
CREATING A VESTING CONTRACT
The vesting section on the Streamflow web app is for creating token vesting contacts. When crypto projects decide to launch their token, a very small amount of tokens are unlocked at the Token Generation Event(TGE), remaining supply of the tokens is locked in the vesting contracts.
For example, token allocations of the team, seed investors, and community can be locked in the vesting contract, those locked tokens are then released over time according to their token unlock schedule. Streamflow offers configurable vesting contracts with some powerful features like a cliff time release.
First, you select the SPL token you want to vest. The token balance of the SPL token selected is displayed on the right hand of the screen. Streamflow charges about 0.25% of the total amount of tokens being vested therefore, you will have an error when you input the total amount of that selected SPL token in your wallet.
For instance, if you have 1000 USDT(100%) in your SPL wallet, you cannot vest all. You will have to leave 2.5 USDT(0.25%) in your wallet for charges. Therefore, your max balance for vesting will be 997.5 USDT(99.75%).
Go ahead to input your recipient's email address to notify the receiver when the contract is created. This feature is only available on the mainnet. Since I am using devnet, I won’t use the feature.
The start and end dates are simply the duration of the vesting contract.
Something I observed:
The time auto-updates on the site. Observe the gif below while also looking at the system time. Once I clicked on the start time as if I wanted to edit, it automatically moved 1–2 minutes ahead of the system time while the end time moved 5 minutes ahead of the start time.
Cliff time
When the cliff time feature is activated, a certain percentage of the total vested tokens will be released as soon as the vesting contract begins to stream.
For instance, let’s say an investor gets an allocation of 100,000 tokens from a project, now that project can decide to unlock 10,000 tokens (10%) at the token launch, and the remaining 90,000 tokens can be progressively released according to the desired time frequency. In this example, 10% was the cliff time release. Every project that launches a token, uses vesting contracts.
The drop-down menu to select those people who can transfer and cancel a contract includes:
- Only recipient
- Only sender
- Both
- Neither
N/B: Selecting neither on both will mean the sender has chosen to not have authority over the vesting contract once it is launched.
Automatic withdrawal
Enabling the automatic withdrawal will mean the unlocked tokens will be automatically transferred to the recipient wallet at a set frequency.
If the vesting contract unlocks 100 tokens of X every 30 seconds and the automatic withdraw is set to 1 minute, it means 200 tokens will be automatically withdrawn to the recipient wallet every 1 minute.
X = Any SPL token.
The image below displays the balance of the selected SPL token. An overview of the vesting contract is also displayed. The overview automatically calculates and updates its parameters as you set up your vesting contract. If you are finding it difficult to customize your vesting contract with the already existing tools on the web app, you can reach out to the team for a custom deal.
Paste the wallet address of the referrer into the referral address tab. A certain amount of the service fees will be sent to the referral address as a reward. This is optional.
Go ahead to create the vesting contract after cross-checking your inputs. Accept the popup from your wallet and the contract is created.
Navigate to the outgoing or all streams section to view the vesting contract. The vesting contract I created wasn’t set to start almost immediately. Therefore the status of the contract is scheduled as seen in the image below alongside other details about the contract. Clicking on stream ID takes you to Solana explorer where you see all activities being performed within that contract.
When the contract has started, the status changes from Scheduled to Streaming. You can see the transaction from the sender and receiver’s ends. Given all privileges (set to both), the sender has the option to transfer and cancel. The receiver can transfer, withdraw and cancel.
As the vesting contract ends without being transferred or canceled, the status changes to completed. The status bars underneath withdrawn and unlocked are filled.
If the vesting contract is canceled before it is completed, the unlocked tokens are automatically withdrawn to the receiver’s wallet while the locked tokens will go back to the sender.
CREATING A PAYROLL STREAM
The streaming section is for creating payroll streams. You can stream payments to employees, freelancers, service providers, and contractors as per your requirements. Payroll streams are a great way to make recurring payments. The sender can always top up the payroll stream with more funds. You can release the salaries/wages in different time units like X number of seconds, minutes, hours, weeks, months, or years.
For instance, if a worker's monthly salary is 400 SOL, you can create a payroll stream to release 400 SOL at the end of the month by setting the release frequency to one month and the release amount to 400 SOL. Another way to go around it is to proportionally break down the total salary amount into smaller amounts and release that in smaller time units. For example, setting a release frequency of 1 week and release amount to 100 SOL.
Since I have emphasized most areas in the vesting contract, I just outlined the differences and changes in the stream section in the image below. I emphasized the release amount and frequency with the example above. There is no option to set the end date and time because it is automatically calculated and displayed in the overview section. Proceed to create your stream once you’ve cross-checked your inputs.
The type changes from vesting to stream. The actions the receiver can perform remain the same. Nevertheless, on the sender’s end, there is an extra option to top up the stream at any point in time before its expiration date. Select the option and input the amount you want to add to the stream.
From the image below, notice that the asides from the total stream adding up to a total of 700 USDC, the end date has also been extended.
FEATURE REQUESTS
NFT Streaming and vesting: This sounds weird, I know but let’s take a look at it from this perspective. Just like fungible tokens, non-fungible tokens also have total supplies therefore the integration of NFT streaming and vesting is possible.
“The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.” — George
AI suggested options: When creating a vesting contract or a stream, artificial intelligence could help suggest the dates, time, and release frequency based on the contract title given.
For instance, inputting the contract title ‘Vesting Contract for creating detailed documentation on Streamflow’. If I am creating the contract at night(i.e. 10 PM), the person will likely start creating the documentation in the morning(i.e. 8 AM) and it might take at least a week to create detailed documentation. Therefore, artificial intelligence automatically fixes time. The barrier to implementing this is if the sender and receiver are in different parts of the world with different time zones.
Theme changer: There should be a theme changer for those who prefer surfing through white-themed websites like myself.
Error inputting total balance: Errors occur that result from inputting an amount more than what balances hold. There is just an error notification about insufficient funds which could mean gas fees or balance but not specified. i.e Cannot input total balance. Leave 0.25% for fees.
STRM TOKEN
The team plans to launch their token but an official announcement has not been made yet. According to what they’re building, I predict $STRM will have many utilities such as staking, and service fee discounts for token holders and may eventually become a governance token. Early users of the streamflow platform might receive token rewards after the token launch.
MOBILE VERSION
You can use Streamflow from mobile wallets, such as the Phantom and Solfare apps by using the inbuilt browser in these wallet apps. Phantom and Solfare apps are available on both IOS and Android. The developers have done a good job to optimize Streamflow products for mobile use. Nevertheless, they might build a separate Streamflow app for mobile phones in the future.
COMPETITOR(S)
In the Solana ecosystem, I see MeanFi’s streaming web app as a competitor to Streamflow in their money streaming services. MeanFi is a self-custody, permissionless, and trustless bank built on Solana. Comparing both platforms, Streamflow’s UI is greater, has a vast number of adjustable options, and also has both vesting and streaming options. MeanFi’s money streaming platform is not their core or main product rather, it is just one of MeanFi’s products so that could be one of the reasons they kept it very basic.
However, I see that MeanFi has more community members and social media followers than Streamflow, and therefore, there’s a tendency of having way more users than Streamflow. Streamflow should put more effort into marketing.
‘Best-known’ always beats ‘best’ — Grand Cardone
MULTICHAIN
Currently, the team is ultra-focused on building a complete product suite on Solana. Streamflow token vesting and streaming payments are already live on mainnet, batch payments and multi-sig wallets are going to be launched soon. In the future, they may decide to go multichain. The rumor spreading in the community is that the next ecosystem will be NEAR.
AUDITED SOURCE CODES
An audit is simply an examination of whether the recorded transactions within a blockchain ledger, crypto, or smart contract are verifiably complete and correct based upon the public evidence of the transactions recorded in the ledger. In this case, the streamflow finance source codes were audited by Opcodes.
Opcodes.fr is a firm that has reputable and skilled individuals with years of expertise in spotting bugs using their penetration testing techniques, code reviews, in-depth research, and training.
A source code audit is an effective comprehensive investigation process to identify weaknesses in an application or smart contract code as well as potential refinements to its performance, maintenance, and compliance with standards.
Each audit begins with the identification and manual inspection of code related to the application’s susceptible access points and processes. In summary, this is done to check and fix all possible loopholes black hat hackers could act upon. The link to the source code audit can be found at the footer of the website.
MILESTONES
Speaking of milestones, Streamflow finance has crossed $150 million TVL(Total Value Locked) and more than 2500 streams with 90 plus unique SPL tokens in Vesting contracts and Payroll Streams. Specific details on how many wallets have connected to Streamflow are not public yet.
However, as of 4th March, Streamflow Finance announced a raise of a $3.1M seed round with Jump crypto as the lead investor to aid the team build out an effective and real-time token distribution platform for teams and treasuries on Solana. More details are in the article below.
COMMUNITY
Meet People
The community is also a great way to connect with members or teams using the token distribution platform. Reach out to the team members if you have what it takes to improve the existing platform.
Educate yourself
The team alongside other community members shares educative content on money streaming, Defi, and tokenomics in various language translations.
Request Features/support
You can also make requests for the project developers to add new features you feel would be beneficial to the protocol and it would surely be put into consideration. You can report any bugs you might find in the infrastructure for a smoother experience.
CONCLUSION
The testimonials and endorsements from several crypto projects and individuals displayed on the website show that streamflow has solved a major problem in token distribution. The major benefactors of this development will be people building in the Solana ecosystem for now. For crypto project owners, when it comes to token rewards and airdrops, using streamflow to distribute rewards to community members will prevent immediate token dump caused by weak hands and airdrop hunters.
I suggest the team builds more partnerships with Defi projects. Another recommended advice is to get involved in the incubation stages of new projects in the Solana ecosystem to aid their token allocation and distribution techniques using Streamflow. The rise of contract vesting and money streaming protocols mirrors the development of blockchain and crypto at large. This enables individuals and institutions to have a vast number of options to reward skillsets, talents, and long-term contracts in a fair and decentralized manner.
Streamflow has taken the next step to enhance this compensation model which might just be a perfect opportunity for blockchain and money streaming to grow together. I will remain very active in the Streamflow discord community not just to keep track of their progress but also to contribute to their growth in every possible way I can.
