@NeilDeramchi The Compound team has been working together for years. My co-founder and CTO Geoff and I have worked together consistently since 2007, and have founded two venture-backed companies together. Each member of our engineering team we've worked with previously, and invited to join us at Compound. Our team's familiarity and depth of experience working together has allowed us to hit the ground running.

Compound lets you earn interest on your crypto, in a safe and transparent way.

The more nuanced answer is that Compound is a protocol that establishes ‘Money Markets’ for Ethereum assets, where users can supply capital or borrow from a money market, and interest rates are established algorithmically (instead of users having to negotiate terms, or create orders).

@soonaorlater As a product-minded founder, I'm extremely skeptical about "app coins", or tokens that are required to use a service; they add an additional layer of friction which is completely unnecessary. It's a matter of personal opinion, but most seem like bolted-on excuses to launch a token-sale and take advantage of the public's readiness to invest and embrace crypto projects. Long-term, I think that most of these will fail.

@okayvanagon We envision a rich ecosystem of applications being built on top of Compound. At its heart, Compound creates a floating interest rate for every Ethereum asset, which allows applications to monetize token balances (and unlock new business models). Exchanges, wallets, and funds will automatically deploy assets to Compound when they aren't being used, benefiting users and developers. And borrowers (applications and traders) will be able to borrow tokens seamlessly, to use, spend, or short-sell. All of this is made possible by making 'supply' and 'borrow' instant, predictable functions, with algorithmic floating interest rates.

@bentossell I dabbled in Bitcoin mining back in 2013, when hobbyists could buy ASIC mining equipment and attempt to compete with the largest players -- it was an exciting time. But it wasn't until Ethereum's Homestead release that I became seriously interested in crypto. The idea that a blockchain can be the foundation of an infinite universe of programmable assets was what tipped the scales for me.

@bentossell For the first 6 months of Compound, we've been focused on research, development, and building the first implementation of our protocol, and unlike most crypto projects, not focused on building an early community -- there was so much risk early on that we didn't want to let down our community by saying "sorry, this just isn't technically feasible", which is likely to occur with a lot of projects launching in the space right now. So far, it's been all organic so far, with the help of a lot of other entrepreneurs, investors, and enthusiasts in the space.

But now we're extremely excited to begin building our community. Join us in Discord and chat with the team anytime: https://discord.gg/874ntdw

@sourcex44 The biggest difference between Compound and peer-to-peer lending protocols is that Compound allows users to supply capital to an entire market, and not another user directly. This morning, I published an article which lays out some of the challenges in the space: https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/cryptos-missing-pieces-building-sustainable-financial-ecosystem-1665284

@bobaqer @Robert-Leshner Great, thank you SIRR

@bobaqer Ethminer is a lightweight, popular, easy-to-setup solution: https://github.com/ethereum-mining/ethminer/releases/tag/v0.13.0

@bigpeperoni Absolutely not -- there is no reason to impose frictions and burdens on users. It's like McDonalds telling you that you need McBucks to buy a hamburger, when local currency works just fine. Compound is designed for the community.

@bigpeperoni @Robert-Leshner That was the answer I was hoping for. Thanks!

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