Pinecone Finance: What is it?

Pinecone Finance is a Yield Optimizer Protocol on Binance Smart Chain which aims to automate, frictionless and sustainable yield farming by making it effortless, frictionless, and a scalable process.  

Safemoon and its forks made the concept of reflection popular. In other words, such tokens prevent a relation of reflection. In other words, the token itself is a point of reference, as part of every transaction is used to keep a liquidity pool fueled, and a part of that same transaction is used to return to the holders. Although we love how reflective tokens have automatic liquidity and their cash flow generation, we strongly believe that projects without a sustainable flow of cash are never going to last.   

Founders:

The Pinecone team comes from individuals with over 15 years of experience, among them blockchain, finance, gaming, consulting, and marketing. Former senior executives of top global firms have all served as founding members of the company. The team members have most likely worked on other projects together previously.

Jin joined the crypto space in 2017 and helps develop two cryptocurrencies, one of which is listed on Binance. His professional background is in business consulting. Currently, he is running Pinecone Finance based on his MBA from Oxford, which he made his brainchild.

Its Uniqueness:

There are several ways that Pinecone differentiates itself from other Yield Optimizers:

Farming multiple strategies with a single asset

Since Pinecone prefers to specialize in single asset farming rather than farming through limited partnerships, it avoids the risks of farming via LPs.

In Pinecone, farmers will be able to select their farming strategies based on their preferences and switch between different vaults whenever they wish. Several crypto assets will have several farming strategies, each with different rewards and risks.

The anti-flash loan attack

• Regardless of how complex a flash loan attack is, it must be using smart contracts to execute many transactions simultaneously. Two levels of defense are used by Pinecone to defend against flash loan attacks:
• A 3rd-party smart contract cannot have direct access to Pinecone without passing a stringent security check including due diligence by Pinecone
• A maximum transfer per block is in place to prevent flash loan attackers from dumping large amounts of PCT within a single block

Passive income for PCT holders

The performance fee paid by vault users can provide sustainable income in addition to PCT rewards.

Pinecone Token (PCT)

Pinecone Token (PCT) is a first-of-its-kind token that combines tokens from Pinecone Finance and Blackberry (BNB) to reward productive and reflective users. PCT tokens will also be given to Pinecone protocol users (farmers) when their assets are deposited.

There is only one yield optimizer protocol with an automatic deflation mechanism, the Pinecone Protocol.

As well as PCT holders receiving both BNB & PCT, Pinecone protocol users (farmers) receiving PCT tokens by storing assets on Pinecone.

It is estimated that 1 billion PCT will be offered, of which 1.3 million will be offered in presale (worth 3,000 BNB) and the rest will be released linearly over time.

A performance fee of 1 BNB generates 4,000 PCT, which are distributed as follows:

• About 80% of the profits will go to farmers who use the protocol
• An investor is given 10% vesting throughout all tokens’ lifecycle (proportionally with token minting)
• Vesting of 10% to the team and advisors over the entire lifecycle (linear release proportionally)
• Tokens are all minted

Governance

The PCT token serves as our Pinecone ecosystem’s governance token.

It will give PCT holders voting rights in a few months, allowing them to make important decisions about the system such as farming strategy, new vaults, Max TX amount, etc. To create new proposals, PCT holders must first accumulate a certain amount.

 Fee Structure

Fees for withdrawals

Within 72 hours after depositing, there is a 0.5% withdrawal fee from Vaults.

Performance Fee

PCT prices will determine the way the performance fee is collected.

Performance fees will be charged at 10% when the average 3-day PCT price is below the 1 BNB = 4000 PCT ratio; at 30% when the average 3-day price is above that ratio.

We will check and adjust prices every day at 8:00 UTC.

Tokens issued per 1 BNB in fees are 4,000 PCTs, which are then distributed proportionately to users (based on their share in the vaults).

As long as PCT is bought for more than 1BNB/4000PCT, the users are earning money.

Security & Risk

Security

• Audit of smart contracts:

The entire project was completed by Certik, Beosin, and PeckShield

•  Transparency:

Pinecone Protocol is decentralized and open-sourced. All smart contract codes, our site, and the code we publish on bscscan.com are publicly available for maximum transparency.

• Practices for security:

For your peace of mind, we use a time-lock on our smart contract We’ve set a Max Transfer Limit for each block to keep bots, and hackers (mostly those using flash loans), from exploiting the system.

As an additional measure, we prohibit third parties from directly interacting with smart contracts through our protocols, preventing hacking and bot attacks.

Risk

The DeFi innovation has had the biggest influence on traditional finance in the last few years. In essence, DeFi is a technology platform that facilitates the provision of traditional financial services such as banking, exchange trading, insurance, and so on without involving middlemen.

‌Decentralization and transparency have greatly improved the efficiency and transparency of Defi.

 However, Defi only began with a booming market after 2020; therefore, it will encounter a pressure test from the security perspective, which has been relatively well established until now in traditional financial markets.

Systematic Risk

Systematic risk is the fluctuation of the value of deposited assets, due to the use of unstable coins like bitcoin, ethereum, cake, and bitcoin cash. You may deposit $20 and withdraw $15, for example, and vice versa. This will have a significant impact on your APY.

Technical Risk

Taking part in DeFi projects always involves some risk, which we’ve taken steps to mitigate. Firstly, it adapted the best practice in code security and tokenomics design from other projects, too, that suffered from technical hacking or economic exploit. To minimize the likelihood of vulnerabilities, it has had third-party auditors audit our smart contracts. Lastly, it will only interact with smart contracts that meet our security standard after our developers have checked them thoroughly from third parties.

Crypto Wallet Risk

According to users, the crypto wallet could pose the biggest risk.

Maintaining the security of your crypto wallet is your responsibility.

Some tips from crypto veterans to keep your wallet safe

-This private key and the Seed Phrase are yours and only yours! Anyone else who sees it or hears it is not allowed to share it.

-Take the Seed Phrase and write it down on paper. Keep your private key and Seed -Phrase away from clouds, such as in your e-mail box.

-Don’t use the same password twice! Make your password unique each time.

-A clean and functioning firewall and anti-virus software should be installed on your computer.

-Stay away from links and downloads from unknown sources.

-Make sure your browser is set to the highest security level! Clean your browser cache frequently!

-Use a VPN if you’re using an unfamiliar network like public WiFi. Unfortunately, hackers can tamper with that system. You should avoid making transactions from your cryptocurrency wallet, even when using third-party WiFi.

-Send and receive crypto funds from a credible CEX exchange rather than MetaMask or Trust wallet whenever possible.

​How and Where to Buy?

Binance has now launched the mainnet for PCT tokens. 0x4631d9D8b34f51B82958a19453bdc9eA0C4E49FC is the PCT token address. You should be cautious about purchasing tokens with a smart contract other than this one (since it is very easy to fake). You should stay alert and safe during the ICO. Be sure you have enough BNB in your wallet to cover the transaction fees. Don’t let yourself get carried away with the excitement.