AMP

What is Amp (AMP)?

AMP is a universal collateral token that facilitates fast and efficient transfers for any real-world application. With a vision of taking money into the 21st century, AMP can be used as collateral to make any asset a fast and secure medium of exchange.

One of the biggest disadvantages of the legacy financial system is settlement inefficiency. Cryptocurrencies, meanwhile, tend to require multiple block confirmations before a transaction can truly be considered permanent.

Amp serves to provide the missing element of speed without compromising on security. As a universal clearing layer for transfers, Amp also unlocks assets that would otherwise require multiple rounds of confirmation.

Already used by payment network Flexa, Amp can enable instant, fraud-free payments across any network, allowing real-time settlement regardless of the protocol used. Individuals can also use it to collateralize their own transfers or increase the collateral quality in Decentralized Finance (DeFi).

Who are the Founders of Amp?

Created by Flexa in collaboration with Consensys, AMP is an open-source collateral token available to anyone. The Amp token architecture and design result from two years of R&D by Flexa. The AMP token is a 1:1 migration from Flexacoin.

This means it shares the distribution of the original FXC token, which originally carried out a private sale of 20% of its supply in 2018. 20% of the supply went to the founding Flexa team and employee pool, while 50% was split equally between the Merchant Development Fund and Developer Grants.

How Does Amp Work?

Existing payment networks primarily facilitate transaction-related messaging while relying on financial institutions like banks to mitigate risk for both merchants and payers. However, Amp does not focus on the centralization of this service; rather, the project focuses on the centralization of risk.

The AMP digital token is designed to decentralize risk in a financial transaction and includes a novel interface to allocate condition-specific collateral for payments with potential Byzantine participants.

It serves as a vehicle for accruing value within a collateralized network, aligning the interests of all participants. By enabling decentralized ownership and participation, it gives payment networks the potential to become significantly more efficient.

AMP is an ERC-20 compatible token that implements conditional access rights via smart contracts within a partition scheme. The ERC-20 standard allows for universal interoperability, but AMP differs in that it belongs to a particular 32-byte partition serving as a second dimension in the distribution array of balances.

The AMP token supports transfers between addresses and partitions through a specific function and also includes a separate one that authorizes an address to transfer tokens on behalf of the caller, but only from a particular partition. On top of these two key functions, token holders can designate an operator for their tokens within a particular partition.

The core innovation of AMP is the partition strategy. This external contract allows special rules, such as automatically granting operator statuses, calling other hooks, and authorizing discrete transfers based on external oracles.

This allows the Amp contract to execute common implementation situations for collateral managers, creating a better developer experience and permitting additional trust to be incorporated within the contract.

What is Amp Staking?

To access the open network, each mobile wallet application generates a unique partition within the scope of the strategy and collateral manager. A successful settlement means that application-specific rewards are deposited into these partitions.

AMP holders transfer tokens to the partition corresponding to the application they want to stake collateral for. This guarantees any form of value exchange, whether digital payments, fiat currency exchange, loan distributions, or property sales.

By staking AMP to a partition, the protocol is ready to collateralize a transfer. Thanks to the collateral pools built up by users staking to partitions, the risk of asset transfer is decentralized.

What makes Amp Unique?

A project like Amp gains authenticity through adoption and is already a key part of the widely used Flexa merchant payment network.

Flexa integrates natively with existing point-of-sale systems and online platforms to enable payment in a typical checkout experience. The Flexa Spend SDK is permissionless, and mobile wallets or applications can create unique, interoperable authentication codes for conveyance.

Amp serves as the decentralized collateral within Flexa to decentralize risk within the network. To enable payment functionality, applications and communities can collectively stake AMP with Flexa on behalf of users. Additionally, Flexa effectively decentralizes transaction insurance and provides immediate finality-as-a-service.

How is the Amp Network Secured?

AMP is an ERC-20 token and plays a major role in securing transactions on the Flexa network. However, Amp itself is secured by Ethereum, and its token contract is immutable and set without administrative functionality.

What is the Use of AMP?

As detailed above, AMP is an Ethereum-based token used to collateralize payments via its novel system of partitions.

Amp users and holders also govern the project, with off-chain voting carried out via Snapshot, a gas-less signature platform. Users can vote on proposals the community presents, which cover topics such as grants, partnerships, cross-chain integrations, DeFi collaborations, and more.

Proposals are first introduced publicly to the Amp Community Forum and must be live for discussion and feedback for a minimum of 48 hours before submission. Then, they are submitted to Snapshot by holders of at least 1% of the AMP supply, or 1 billion AMP.

For a vote to be successful, a quorum of 5 billion AMP must be achieved, and a vote needs to be active for 48 hours and pass with a simple majority.

How Much AMP is In Circulation?

AMP has a maximum total supply of around 100 billion tokens, with a circulating supply of over 42 billion AMP.

How Do You Buy AMP?

You can buy AMP on multiple decentralized exchanges, such as Balancer, Dod, Moonswap, Sushi, and Uniswap.

As an ERC-20 token with a significant application to DeFi, its ecosystem includes many other well-known Ethereum projects such as Chainlink, Loopring, zkSync, and Flux.

How Do You Store AMP?

There are a wide variety of wallet applications for you to store AMP in, with the option of staking the tokens. These include Argent, Coinbase Wallet, Gnosis Safe, Metamask, Rainbow, and Trust Wallet. If you need a wallet with native crypto spending using the Flexa Spend SDK, you can choose between SPEDN and Valora.

At the end of the day, though, AMP is an Ethereum-based token; therefore, any Ethereum-compatible wallet can be used to store AMP.

Is AMP a Good Investment?

AMP is a product of Flexa and remains very much tied to the payment network despite the change in branding when it was launched as a separate upgrade to Flexacoin. Still, Flexa is a market leader in its own right, and continued growth of the network will likely see AMP’s fundamental value increase.

As an open-source token and an effective piece of technology, though, AMP is designed to be adopted by payment processors and financial applications worldwide. On the other hand, 2022 has seen regulators turn their attention to various digital assets, and AMP is one of many that could suffer if the regulatory hammer descends upon it.