Overview

Let's take money into the 21st century.

Welcome to Amp

Amp is a universal collateral token designed to facilitate fast and efficient transfers for any real-world application.

‌When using Amp as collateral, transfers of value are guaranteed and can settle instantly. While the underlying asset reaches final settlement, a process that can take anywhere from seconds to days, Amp is held in escrow by a collateral manager. Once the transaction successfully settles, the Amp collateral is released and made available to collateralize another transfer. Amp exists to serve as universal collateral for anyone and any project.

Digital collateral

When Amp is used as collateral, every asset becomes a fast and secure medium of exchange.

When transferring digital assets, there is a natural push and pull between speed and security. With cryptocurrency transfers, the more confirmations the recipient waits for, the more permanent the transaction becomes. However, waiting for several confirmations may not be practical in many real-life situations, such as payments, when speed is of the essence. This inherent tradeoff between speed and security has made it challenging to use cryptocurrencies in the real world.

By serving as collateral for asset transfers, Amp provides speed without compromising on security. In essence, Amp becomes a universal clearing layer for transfers and unlocks assets that would otherwise require waiting for confirmations before being put to use. This new ability to use any asset immediately upon transfer is a feature any asset can benefit from whether digital or physical, cryptocurrency or Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

What makes Amp unique

Amp is a fundamental building block for the future of digital and physical transfers. Its exclusive purpose is to serve as collateral for any asset transfer. Two innovations make Amp unique: collateral managers and token partitions.

Collateral managers are sort of like escrow accounts built with different rules and specifications that can be customized to fit various use cases. Anyone can create a collateral manager with Amp as collateral to use in applications whenever efficient value transfers or escrow services may be beneficial.

Token partitions are similar to traditional hard disk partitions, where regions of a disk can be managed separately. Partitions within the Amp token contract allow different collateral managers to enforce rules upon separate, distinct spaces associated with the same digital address. This enables users to "stake" tokens without literally transferring them to a smart contract.

Real-world use cases

Collateral for payment networks. Flexa uses Amp to enable instant, fraud-free payments to merchants across its digital payment network. Apps that integrate Flexa stake Amp to ensure all payments can be settled in real-time regardless of the asset or protocol used. Anyone can stake Amp to earn a pro-rata share of the transaction fees generated on the network. Visit the Staking Guide for details on using Amp to power global payments.

Collateral for individuals. Users can often collateralize their own asset transfers, for instance, to gain immediate margin relief on an exchange. In this situation a user can assign Amp to a collateral manager and transfer another asset without requiring excessive transaction fees. The exchange counterparty can allow the underlying asset to be used immediately since Amp is effectively escrowed against the value of the transaction.

Collateral for DeFi platforms. New DeFi platforms and protocols are constantly evolving global finance and many are adding Amp to their products. This has further diversified the current and future uses for Amp, and effectively increases its collateral quality. Explore the multitude of DeFi platforms already using Amp.