FAQ
What is Quasar?
Quasar is an appchain for decentralized asset management designed to interoperate with a broad network of blockchains implementing the Inter-Blockchain Communication protocol. Quasar uses vaults and strategies to gather and deploy capital.
What is an appchain?
Appchain refers to an application-specific blockchain. Unlike generalized blockchains like Ethereum that host multiple different apps, appchains are built uniquely for individual applications. Similar to how Bitcoin is specifically built to mint/store/transfer BTC, and Osmosis is specifically built for hosting AMMs, Quasar is specifically built for hosting vaults as general asset management vehicles.
Appchains are increasingly prevalent and desirable to both developers and users since they offer greater control over customizable features. The "internet of blockchains" concept coined by Cosmos describes the emerging ecosystem of numerous interconnected appchains. Cosmos provides toolkits for appchain construction and emphasizes IBC adoption for blockchain interoperability.
What is IBC? What is the Interchain?
The Interchain comprises a community of blockchains aligned on improving interoperability across the internet of blockchains. This includes any chain that integrates or plans to integrate the Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC) and most blockchains built with the Cosmos SDK. IBC is an interoperability protocol that provides specifications for secure data transfer between independent blockchains. Quasar uses IBC to transfer assets, execute cross-chain actions, and request queries from remote chains in a decentralized and permissionless manner.
Does Quasar use smart contracts?
Yes, smart contracts run on the Quasar blockchain. Unlike other general purpose blockchains where smart contracts are used for a variety of applications, our smart contracts are exclusively for building vaults and the strategies they run. The essence of Quasar lies in how vault smart contracts and strategy smart contracts interact with each other.
What are vaults?
Vaults are smart contracts that act as general digital asset containers. They are the entry point to accessing Quasar’s infrastructure, acting as the bookkeeping mechanism facilitating interchain digital asset management.
Vaults are created and managed by administrators that act as leaders of the vault’s portfolio. In the short term, Quasar will limit who can create new vaults; in the long term, vault creation will be permissionless.
The bulk of a vault’s members are liquidity providers who join the vault to participate in the strategies it selects. Liquidity providers will be able to choose from among vaults with varying risk profiles and goals.
What are strategies?
Strategies are smart contracts with execution logic for deploying assets across the Interchain. Vaults aim to meet their asset management goals by dynamically attaching strategies. Every strategy is customizable, upgradable, and composable, able to seamlessly communicate with vaults (or other strategies?). They can be built for a wide range of creative use cases by individuals or groups of individuals with experience in smart contract development and/or algorithmic trading.
What is the $QSR token used for?
The $QSR token is primarily used for Quasar’s proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. Validators stake $QSR to secure the network. Additionally, $QSR is used as “gas” for on-chain transactions. Vault creators must stake $QSR to instantiate a new vault. Lastly, $QSR is used for governance. Stakers of $QSR will be able to vote on on-chain governance proposals and decide how to use the community pool of funds held in Q-Treasury.
Who is Quasar for?
Quasar is for crypto natives and enthusiasts alike seeking a decentralized platform to seamlessly manage digital assets across multiple disparate blockchains (without complex cross-chain bridges) all in one place.
This includes liquidity providers seeking to access interchain strategies, connect with expert managers, or find a community of investors sharing similar goals. This also includes portfolio managers looking to build vaults to crowdsource liquidity, developers and quants interested in designing interchain strategies, and larger organizations who could leverage vaults for their particular applications.
How can I participate in the Quasar testnet?
Questnet is the Quasar testnet, used as our testing bed for vaults. While it was incentized before mainnet launch, our public testnet is no longer incentivized. It will continue to be publicly available for testing purposes and will be used as a testing and development environment for forthcoming Quasar features. For participating as a validator on Questnet, visit our Discord to introduce yourself to the community and find more resources for spinning up a validator. You can also check out our documentation with additional details on how to connect to testnet as a validator.
Is Quasar audited?
Yes. We are regularly audited by Halborn, an award-winning blockchain cybersecurity firm. They evaluate and test our blockchain, smart contracts, and web app to identify and eliminate any vulnerabilities, bugs, or possible exploits. Reports from Halborn will be made publicly available.
How will liquidity providers access vaults?
Users can find vaults and subscribe to them via the Quasar web app: app.quasar.fi.
The app functions as Quasar's primary interface. Updates in the form of UI improvements, inclusion of additional vaults, changes in the caps for for each vault, vault governance, and permissionless vault creation features will be added to the app over time.
What kind of wallet do I need to connect to Quasar?
Quasar supports connection via the Keplr wallet, the Cosmos ecosystem’s native wallet. We expect to support additional wallets soon.
Do I need $QSR to participate in a vault?
Though $QSR is needed to create a vault, it is not needed to join a vault. Since transaction fees are paid in $QSR, users joining a vault may need to hold $QSR in their account to cover these fees.
At the time of writing, however, the $QSR token has not yet been released via public sale. $QSR is only being used by validators to secure the chain. Our first vault accepts $OSMO for deposits and for transaction fees.
How do I withdraw assets from a vault? Can I withdraw at any time?
Vault participants will receive vault-specific tokens that function as pro-rata shares of the vault’s returns. These tokens can be redeemed from the vault smart contract to withdraw assets from the vault at any time (unless the vault has opted into a strategy requiring a specified bonding period). Users can expect an unbonding period of 14 days as part of the withdrawal process. This is to ensure that vaults can bond into the underlying liquidity pools on other protocols like Osmosis. Future vaults may be able to determine different unbonding/withdrawal conventions.
What do I need to know about $QSR’s tokenomics?
The $QSR token is used for proof-of-stake security and is used for transaction fees on the Quasar chain. Aside from standard PoS mechanics, vault creators are required to delegate $QSR to validators to spin up a new vault. The sustainable growth of $QSR’s value is supported by Q-Treasury. The $QSR token is also used for on-chain governance, including governance of Q-Treasury.
You can find additional information in our documentation for $QSR, including a detailed breakdown of token allocation.
How does Q-Treasury work?
Q-Treasury has two functions. First, it acts as a community pool governed by the Quasar community. Second, it acts as a reserve of protocol-owned liquidity through which users can purchase $QSR. You can read more about Q-Treasury in our Q-Treasury documentation.
What makes Quasar non-custodial?
Liquidity providers maintain self custody by interacting with vaults exclusively with their own wallets. Users can withdraw funds at any time and always have the option of exiting a vault with their funds when a governance decision is made that they do not approve of. Vault creators and administrators acting as portfolio managers do not need to take custody of user funds to deploy on the Interchain. This is facilitated by IBC’s interchain accounts standard, which allows fully traceable execution of actions on other chains, remotely, from Quasar. This means that there is no need for a manager to access multiple accounts, wallets, or UIs to execute strategies on behalf of liquidity providers.