What Is Mirror Protocol (MIR)?

The Mirror Protocol is a DeFi protocol based on smart contracts on the Terra network. Smart contracts are just like regular contracts; however, instead of being drafted on paper, these contracts run in the form of protocols on blockchain, while Terra is a public blockchain protocol that brings DeFi to the masses by using decentralized stablecoins.

Mirror Protocol creates synthetic assets called Mirrored Assets (mAssets) that reflect the real-time and real-life value of the assets they represent. To simplify, a synthetic asset is a token derivative that mimics the value of another asset. mAssets replicate the price behavior of real-world assets and provide traders with open access to price exposure without the hassles of transacting (or owning) real assets. Synthetic assets offer exposure to an asset without requiring ownership of the underlying resource. In comparison to other traditional and digital exchanges, the platform allows global access to financial markets, cheap transaction costs among mAssets, and fast order execution.

Since the assets do not confer the same ownership rights as the underlying assets, they do not require a trading licence or regulation. Mirror's mAssets provide the world access to formerly closed marketplaces.

Notably, The platform uses two tokens for the purpose of staking—LP Tokens are given to liquidity providers when they add liquidity, and sLP Tokens are minted and immediately staked when a short position is created.

Five key stakeholders of the platform are traders, minters and shorters, liquidity providers, stakers, and oracle feeders.

Trader

A trader is a user that trades mAssets against UST through Terraswap and benefits from price exposure via mAssets.

Minter & Shorter

A minter is a user who takes up a collateralized debt position (CDP) in order to get newly minted mAsset tokens. A collateral debt position is a smart contract collateralized by a group of cryptocurrencies used as securities. CDPs can accept UST mAssets as collateral. Additionally, CDPs must maintain a collateral ratio greater than the mAsset's minimum multiplied by a premium rate for each collateral type (set by governance).

A shorter is a user who enters the same CDP but quickly sells the minted tokens and receives newly minted sLP tokens. When the Terraswap price is higher than the oracle price, sLP tokens can be staked to obtain MIR rewards. Terraswap is a Uniswap-inspired automated market maker (AMM) protocol employed with smart contracts on the Terra blockchain.

To put things into perspective, AMM is a tool utilized to supply liquidity (token pool) in decentralized finance (DeFi) without the intervention of a third party to set the price of an asset

Liquidity Provider

A liquidity provider adds equal amounts of an mAsset and UST to the appropriate Terraswap pool, increasing market liquidity. This procedure compensates the liquidity provider with newly issued LP tokens that represent the liquidity provider's part of the pool as well as rewards from the pool's trading fees. LP tokens can be burned to reclaim the pool's share of mAssets and UST.

Staker

A staker is a user who stakes either LP or sLP tokens (through the staking contract) or MIR tokens (using the gov contract) in order to earn staking rewards in the form of MIR tokens.

Mirror Protocol's governance token is the Mirror token (MIR). Users who stake MIR tokens receive MIR payouts for withdrawing collateral from CDP positions within the network.

Oracle Feeder

An oracle feeder is a Terra account that is responsible for supplying an accurate and up-to-date price feed for a given mAsset or whitelisted collateral. The oracle feeder is the only entity authorized to amend the reflected asset's registered reported price.

History of Mirror(MIR) Protocol

Mirror Protocol was designed and developed by Terraform Labs, a South Korean corporation that also created the Terra network and debuted in 2020. Do Kwon is the CEO and cofounder of Mirror Protocol and Terraform Labs. Kwon previously founded Anyfi, a wireless mesh network firm that created one of the most complex decentralized apps for real-world use. Kwon worked as a software developer at Microsoft and Apple before attending Stanford University to study computer science. Other important members of the platform’s team are Brian Jung (head of assets at Terraform Labs), Nicholas Platias (head of research at Terraform Labs) and Paul Kim (head of infrastructure at Terraform Labs),

How Are New Tokens (MIR) Created?

MIR is currently required to be staked in order to vote on ongoing polls and as a deposit in order to create new governance polls. The platform aims to use MIR to serve additional uses for the protocol in future iterations, increasing its usability and value. Users who stake MIR tokens receive MIR payouts for withdrawing collateral from CDP positions within the network. MIR is also utilized to motivate users to farm yields by staking LP tokens that were produced as a result of providing liquidity for MIR and mAssets. Yield is provided to users from newly minted MIRs through annual inflation, which steadily raises the overall quantity of MIR until the end of the year.

How Many MIR Tokens Are There?

Mirror Token has a maximum supply of 370,575,000 MIR coins.