Alpha Finance Lab

Launched in October 2020, Alpha Finance Labs is a suite of DeFi products under a single umbrella. Alpha was off to a strong start after successfully launching their very first product, a leveraged yield farming protocol named Alpha Homora, meeting high user demand. The protocol positioned itself well by integrating with major DeFi protocols such as Aave, Compound, Cream and Yearn. However, in February 2021, the protocol suffered a flash-loan exploit which derailed their momentum. With the re-launch of Alpha Homora v2 on the horizon, now is a good time to revisit Alpha’s brief history and outline what is in store for them in the near future.

What is Alpha Homora?

Alpha is a research-based decentralized finance (DeFi) incubator with the stated goal of expanding DeFi usage to a wider population. According to Alpha, its strategy is to build products that address market gaps while designing around the user experience. It undertakes a lot of research, simulations and iteration before arriving at a product that hopefully achieves product market fit. Ultimately, Alpha’s long term vision is to build an ecosystem of DeFi products across multiple chains that work together to benefit users and grow the overall DeFi market.

Alpha is led by Tascha Punyaneramitdee as CEO. Prior to co-founding Alpha, Tascha did a stint in investment banking at Jefferies before becoming a product manager at Tencent and then Head of Strategy for Band Protocol. Serving as CTO at Alpha is Nipun Pitimanaaree who was previously the chief researcher at OZT Robotics. Nipun is also a four-time gold medalist in the International Math Olympiads (IMO) and is ranked third overall in the IMO hall of fame.

As a testament to the team’s capabilities, the protocol has accomplished a lot and integrated with the core building blocks of DeFi. Alpha Homora’s interface has built-in functions where users can borrow ETH from Aave or Compound to lend on Alpha Homora. Alpha Homora is tightly integrated with Cream’s Iron Bank as detailed below. Yearn Finance’s v2 DAI and USDC vaults supply liquidity to Alpha Homora’s lending pools. Based in Thailand, Alpha also has a partnership in the traditional finance world with SCB10X, the venture arm of Siam Commercial Bank, through which Alpha can leverage resources from SCB10X as it builds new products.

To date, Alpha’s product lineup features three versions of Alpha Homora:

• Alpha Homora v1 - a leveraged yield farming protocol with an integrated ETH lending market on Ethereum.