Every revolutionary project has a transformative year.

Google’s came in 1996 when they changed their name from the slightly less catchy ‘BackRub’ (yep, that was the 1.0). Facebook’s came in 2003, when Zuck decided to build a genuine social network and not a platform for Harvard students to pass  ‘hot or not’ judgements about their peers.

And ours? Well, ours was this year.

We’ve got a new name, of course. We started the year as DeversiFi and finish it as rhino.fi, a name which packs a proper punch (and is much easier to spell).

But more than that, we’ve got a new mission. 

We started out as a humble layer 2 DEX, offering swaps and trades on ERC-20 assets. We end as a fully-fledged multi-chain DeFi aggregator, bringing the best opportunities in DeFi onto one platform so you can explore them effortlessly.

We might never be as big as the projects we’ve mentioned above, but we think we’re leading a revolution in how people pursue financial freedom. 

In case you’re new to rhino.fi or you haven’t tried our new features recently, we want to show you exactly what we’ve built for you.

Frictionless one-click cross-chain swaps

At the start of 2022, cross-chain swaps were still a flickering light on the horizon. Now, they’re the driving force of our trading experience.

We opened our first cross-chain portal, to Polygon, in the summer. Since then we’ve added BNB Smart Chain (BSC) and Arbitrum One, and we’re going to be adding way more soon.

What’s more, we’ve removed the friction you find on other cross-chain and multi-chain hubs.

We establish liquidity outposts on different chains, so you don’t even need to touch them. You make your swap on rhino.fi, and we do the transaction on your behalf (with your consent, of course: self-custody is baked into the code of our smart contracts).

What this means for you

You can swap X-chain as easily as same-chain. One wallet, one network, minimal fees and minimal fees. And if you want to bridge to all these chains without touching them directly – well, go ahead!

A UX worthy of the apps you already use

Let’s be honest… DeFi UX has sucked up to now. It may offer web3 possibilities, but the exploration features are a comedown from web2.

So we’ve gone and fixed that. 

We’ve built a cross-chain protocol tracker, where you can see all the assets you’ve acquired from different chains.

And we’ve built an explore page where you can search all our ‘trending’ opportunities and view all your current holdings: assets, investment positions and even NFTs.

What this means for you

You’ve got an app that blends the simplicity of a CEX with the flexibility and self-custody of DEX. You don’t even need to search our listings before you swap: you can see all the best opportunities at a glance.

Rapid chain onboarding for breakout exploration

When we onboarded Polygon and BSC earlier this year, we worked night and day to update our smart contracts and do all the other coding stuff. 

But the great part is that we’ve built a repeatable technology that can now be rolled out at lightning speed.

In fact, when we added Arbitrum at the start of December, it took us only seven days. And we think we can bring this down to 24 hours if we need to.

So as soon as we spot a breakout chain, we can open a portal on rhino.fi and you can begin seizing its opportunities.

What this means for you

You’ll be able to access new and emerging chains before anyone else in DeFi has woken up to them, while the trading, swap and yield opportunities are still box-fresh.

The first (and only) completely-trustless Layer 2 AMMs on StarkEx

Automated Market Makers (AMMs) have been on our roadmap for a while, and tbh it took us way longer than we anticipated to deliver them.

The technical challenge was like riding a bicycle up Mount Everest: each stage of the process brought technical challenges that pushed us to the limit.

But we got there.

Whether you want to provide liquidity or benefit from it, we offer AMMs that are as secure as everything else you expect from DeFi, in tandem with our scalability partner, StarkWare.

In order to build our AMMs we used the StarkEx L1 limit order. This concept has been theorised multiple times by the StarkWare team, however we believe we’re the first-ever team to use limit order at scale.

This tool allows the capital-efficient borrowing of funds from StarkEx on L1. Essentially, each time a user provides or removes liquidity on L2, we authorise the borrowing of their funds from the StarkEx bridge contract on L1, using the AMM contract.

This mechanism allows the syncing to remain trustless, with all user activity taking place on L2 at low cost.

What this means for you

You get the best of both layers: as well as the security guarantees of the Ethereum mainnet, you can enjoy the gas-free trading through rhino.fi.

Our first-ever referral programme (over 5,000 new users so far)

Other projects use mass airdrops to engage their community, but they’re too vulnerable to scammers and johnny-come-lately opportunists.

So, instead, we launched the beta test of our referral programme in December. We think it’s a better way to reward the people who are genuinely committed to rhino.fi and build the kind of community you want to trade with.

We launched in beta earlier this month, with prizes of up to 50,000 in USDT. And an amazing 5,000 new wallets have been created as a result.

We’ll be launching the next version of the programme in January, and all you have to do to enter is refer a friend. You’ll be able to find all details on our app.

What this means for you

Now you can help spread the DeFi revolution and get rewarded for it. Our referral programme enables you to become a champion of frictionless X-chain swapping and show the world what true financial freedom looks like.

Ok, that’s 2022 all wrapped up. What’s coming next?

2023 will be the year where rhino.fi reaches a critical mass of useful products and opportunities. 

So far we have focused on building the infrastructure to support opportunities quickly, but our focus will now pivot towards making use of this infrastructure to attract more users and give them the best of DeFi.

• More L2s: We will support the expansion of Arbitrum, StarkNet, zkSync 2.0 and other Ethereum Layer 2s.
• Non EVM chains: We will add support for selected non-EVM chains so that rhino.fi users can access all of the tokens and opportunities that those ecosystems have to offer.
• More yield: Native cross-chain yield opportunities will launch on rhino.fi in January. Users will be able to quickly and effortlessly move their funds into battle tested Arbitrum vaults and strategies, without ever having to leave rhino.fi.
• Wallets and mobile: Product development at rhino.fi is very much an iterative data-driven process, and therefore we have not defined an exact product roadmap. However 2023 is likely to be a year where account-abstracted wallets, a native mobile app and wallet recovery methods become even more of a focus in order to prepare for the next wave of DeFi entrants
• Curation and exploration – Showcasing opportunities across multi-chain DeFi via rhino.fi ‘Explore’

And don’t worry, we’ll give all the info you need about each of these advances when we make them.

2022 has been the year of transformation, and 2023 will be the year of results. We’re about to lead a stampede towards fairer, faster, frictionless finance.

Ready to help us lead the stampede?