Ref Finance is a community-led, multi-purpose Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platform built on NEAR Protocol. Ref combines several core components: a decentralized exchange, lending, a synthetic asset issuer, and more -— into a single, synchronous DeFi stack. Ref will take full advantage of NEAR’s low fees ($0.005 per swap), one-to-two second finality, and WebAssembly-based runtime (hello, Rust smart contracts!) to rival even CEX costs and speeds and become a powerful addition to the increasingly multi-chain DeFi ecosystem. Using the recently launched Rainbow Bridge (NEAR <> ETH), traders can utilize the billions of dollars in ERC-20-compliant assets from Ethereum, and eventually, from any chain (BSC, Polygon/Matic, Cosmos/IBC, and others) on NEAR. Ref Finance’s first product is an automated market maker (AMM). It is similar to Uniswap, with a few changes: - Multiple pools in a single contract. Traders can trade across pools atomically in a single transaction. - Customizable LP fees per pool. LPs can charge higher fees for illiquid or highly volatile tokens. Referral fees for swaps, currently set at 1 bps. Developers can earn rewards for building UIs and other applications on top of Ref Finance. - The Ref Finance community is planning to launch a DAO on NEAR (using Sputnik DAO) to facilitate future development, upgrades, and community building. The DAO’s treasury will receive 4 bps from each swap. The DAO will be governed by the $REF token, which will be distributed to LPs, developers, and users of the platform. The distribution details and mechanisms will be described in subsequent posts.