Linear Finance is a decentralized, cross-chain protocol designed to create synthetic assets, known as "Liquids," with unlimited liquidity. The protocol provides cryptocurrency users with exposure to traditional assets such as commodities, forex, and market indices, serving as a bridge between traditional finance and blockchain technology. Linear's ecosystem centers around its native token, LINA, which plays a key role in collateralizing Liquids and enabling community governance through the Linear DAO. 

The project’s overall goal is to provide a user-friendly platform where users can access both digital and traditional assets with the benefits of blockchain’s security, transparency, and efficiency.

Project Function

The Linear Finance protocol allows users to mint and trade synthetic assets through a suite of decentralized applications (dapps). The core products include:

Linear.Buildr: A dapp that enables users to mint synthetic assets (Liquids) using LINA tokens or other accepted digital assets (such as ETH or wBTC) as collateral. This collateral is required to create Liquids, which can represent a range of traditional assets like commodities and market indices.

Linear.Exchange: A decentralized exchange where users can trade a variety of Liquids with fast transaction confirmations and high liquidity. The exchange leverages the rapid settlement speed of one-second block confirmations, making it attractive to high-frequency and algorithmic traders.

Linear DAO: The governance structure that allows LINA holders to vote on important protocol decisions, such as transaction fees, collateral ratios, and insurance fund allocations. This decentralized governance model helps align the interests of token holders with the protocol’s development.

Though built on Ethereum, Linear’s cross-chain functionality allows users to move assets across supported chains, improving scalability and reducing fees compared to Ethereum’s base layer. Linear also incorporates dynamic price feeds to provide accurate asset valuations, helping to prevent front-running, a common issue in decentralized exchanges (DEXs).

Token Utility

LINA, is an ERC-20 token built on the Ethereum blockchain, and functions primarily as a utility and governance token within the ecosystem.

Collateral: LINA is the primary token used as collateral to mint synthetic assets (Liquids) on the platform through Linear.Buildr. Users must stake LINA or other digital assets to create these synthetic tokens, ensuring that the system maintains its liquidity and integrity.

Governance: LINA holders participate in the Linear DAO, where they can vote on protocol parameters and governance initiatives. This includes decisions on transaction fees, allocations to insurance funds, and liquidation mechanisms.

About the Founders

Linear Finance was co-founded by Drey Ng and Kevin Tai.

Drey Ng serves as Linear’s co-founder and Chief Product Officer. He also co-founded Liquefy, a platform that provides access to tokenized securities, leveraging his fintech experience and expertise in tokenization. He also contributes as a blockchain instructor in Hong Kong.

Kevin Tai, the other co-founder, brings significant experience from traditional finance. He was formerly Vice President at Credit Suisse in Hong Kong and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. Tai's deep expertise in financial markets, wealth management, and global investment banking plays a crucial role in guiding the project’s vision to blend traditional assets with decentralized finance (DeFi).

Risks of LINA

Like an investment in other crypto assets, there are some general risks to investing in LINA. These include:  (i) volatility risk and liquidity risk, (ii) short history risk, (iii) demand risk, (iv) forking risk, (v) code defects, (vi) regulatory risk, (vii) electronic trading risk, and (viii) cyber security risk. For additional information of these and other general risks associated with crypto assets and Uphold’s platform, please refer to the Risks Specific to Holding Digital Assets statement.

In addition to these general risks, an investment in LINA is subject to the following specific risks:

Lina Finance operates using smart contracts, which have an association with vulnerabilities and security breaches. Despite undergoing successful audits by well-regarded third-party entities, it is essential to acknowledge the existence of inherent risks. 

We emphasize that this Crypto Asset Statement is not an exhaustive description or summary of all risks associated with LINA. Investors should conduct their own research and perform their own assessment before trading any crypto asset to determine the appropriate level of risk for their personal circumstances.

The LINA community and Lina Finance founding team are not under any legal or regulatory obligation to disclose material information to the public regarding its activities. Holders of LINA have no recourse to the LINA community, Lina Finance founding team, or Uphold if LINA declines in value for any reason.

Changes to applicable law may adversely affect the use, transfer, exchange, or value of any of your crypto assets, and such changes may be sudden and without notice.

Uphold’s Evaluation Process

Prior to listing LINA on the Uphold Platform, Uphold performed due diligence on LINA and determined that LINA is unlikely to be a security or derivative under relevant securities legislation. Uphold’s analysis including reviewing publicly available information on the following: 

The creation, governance, usage, and design of LINA, including ensuring the source code is open-source, audited and peer reviewed, security, and roadmap for growth in the developer community. 

The supply, demand, maturity, utility, and liquidity of LINA.

Any marketing materials put forward by the LINA social team including on, Twitter, Medium blog, LinkedIn posts, Discord and Telegram channels.

Material technical risks associated with LINA, including any code defects, security breaches and other threats concerning LINA and its supporting blockchain (such as the susceptibility to hacking and impact of forking), or the practices and protocols that apply to them.

Legal and regulatory risks associated with LINA, including any pending, potential, or prior civil, regulatory, criminal, or enforcement action relating to the issuance, distribution, or use of LINA.