Pioneering Telegram-Integrated DeFi: An Interview with Storm Trade Co-Founder Denis Vasin

Decentralized finance (DeFi) continues innovating, with platforms integrating popular messaging apps like Telegram. This convergence brings financial services directly to users, tapping into Telegram's extensive user base and intuitive interface. Projects such as Storm Trade, Telegram Wallet, Ston.Fi and Dedust pioneer this approach, offering trading, wallet, and exchange services within the Telegram ecosystem. As traditional finance and decentralized solutions intersect, Telegram-integrated DeFi platforms simplify complex financial services, potentially driving mass adoption.

Storm Trade, a decentralized derivatives trading platform built on the TON blockchain, has been making waves in the Telegram-integrated DeFi space. With a 24-hour trading volume of $8,749,409 and a total value locked (TVL) of $11,198,846. Storm Trade aims to attract the next 10 million DeFi users by offering leverage trading up to 50x directly through the Telegram messaging app.

In the coming months, Storm Trade is set to launch its native token, $STORM. Holders of the platform's Market Makers NFT will have the first opportunity to purchase the token at a fixed price.

As Storm Trade prepares for this token launch, we had the chance to sit down with Denis Vasin, Co-Founder & Lead Dev of Storm Trade, to discuss the project's vision, the role of Telegram integration, and the challenges of operating in the rapidly evolving DeFi space.

Can you tell us about the unique features of Storm Trade that set it apart from other derivatives trading platforms?

In fact, Storm Trade is the first derivative DEX right on Telegram. By DEX I don't mean 2 buttons and a chart, I'm talking about a serious tool along with a mode for professional traders. Storm Trade is a social-fi solution that aims to make trading not only convenient but also not boring, adding advanced mechanics in the form of trading tournaments, squads, NFT collections, while adding professional tools in the form of cross-margin, copy-trading and much more.

How does the direct integration with Telegram benefit users and contribute to the growth of Storm Trade?

Telegram means almost limitless possibilities for all messenger users. This helps Storm Trade go down the path of social-fi trading by adding different competition mechanics based on Telegram channels and chats, increasing brand awareness in various Telegram app centres and reducing the execution time of trade ideas for traders with their own channels.

In addition to 900m potential users, it is an opportunity to be embedded in advertising integrations with preset bidding parameters.

Here's how it works. For example, the author of a Telegram channel assumes that the market will go up and opens a LONG position in BTC pair with a certain stop loss and take profit.

Usually, in order for someone to repeat such an entry, they need to register on the exchange, deposit funds there, find the right pair, in general, do a lot of things.

Deep integration of Storm Trade in Telegram implies that having created a position, the author of the channel will be able to share it with already set parameters in his/her Telegram channel. And those who want to repeat the same entry will only be able to follow the link and enter the amount of collateral they are ready to trade with.

Storm Trade - a real breakthrough in futures trading technology.

The $STORM token is launching soon. Can you share more details about the token's utility and how it fits into the Storm Trade ecosystem?

Launching a token is one of the most important events for every product. It is often the case that the token exists separately from the product without making a significant contribution to the ecosystem. For STORM, this approach doesn't seem close.

STORM is the heart of the ecosystem, integrated into the exchange directly, and helping to increase the efficiency of the protocol economy.

STORM has two very powerful utilities: staking, whose profit is made up of the protocol's fees, and a liquidity buffer, which will maintain a good APR for liquidity providers.

You mentioned that only a small percentage of the total token supply will be available for sale. Can you explain the reasoning behind this decision?

There are several reasons for 4% allocation to IDO. Unlike memecoins, which traditionally allocate a large volume of token for sale, STORM attracts institutional funding and does not need overfunding from retail.

How do the Market Makers NFTs play a role in the token launch, and what advantages do NFT holders have?

First, you have to understand what Market Makers NFT is. Market Makers is a unique, hand-drawn NFT community collection designed to be embedded in the social-fi mechanics, rewarding the best traders and activists on the platform. Ownership of NFT will provide the owner with a guaranteed spot on the whitelist for token purchases, and in the future will add discounts on trading commissions, avatars for the user profile, and many other uses.

Since all NFT holders have access to the whitelist at the same time, this will serve as a great opportunity to buy STORM tokens the very first at a fixed starting price.

Each NFT will have a certain allocation to the purchase amount, and the more NFTs you have in your wallet, the higher the allocation to IDO will be.

After IDO, collection opportunities will only increase from reduced trading fees to VIP community membership.

As a derivatives trading platform, how does Storm Trade ensure the safety and security of users' assets?

It is worth remembering that Storm Trade is a DEX, where all internal work is built on smart contracts. All smart contracts are audited by several trusted organisations.

Since building smart contracts on TON is quite complex, it is not easy to find auditors.

Our first audit is from the TON Tech campaign. Additional audits are planned for the future.

Can you elaborate on the staking mechanism and how it rewards token holders who support the platform?

The staking mechanism will be quite simple. The stakeholder will have two options: to put liquidity on the Ston.Fi and introduce tokens to the market, or lock tokens in staking on Storm Trade and withdraw tokens from the market. The mechanisms will balance each other, creating a deflationary token economy.

Storm Trade has partnerships with notable organizations like Gotbit, Cointelegraph, and ToncoinFund. How do these partnerships contribute to the project's development and success?

All of the above partnerships help us develop in one area or another. Cointelegraph is aimed at media support, while Gotbit and ToncoinFund provide us with investment and advisory support.

What are the long-term goals for Storm Trade, and how do you envision the platform evolving in the future?

Storm Trade's long-term goals are to build the most exciting platform in Telegram, bringing together both experienced traders and beginners, both those who came for the spirit of competition and those who came for passive earnings. Storm Trade aims to become the most balanced place for trading with easy onboarding and amazing Social-fi products.