Here’s our 89th AMA recap!
Thank you to the Infinity Chain for participating in Ask Me Anything (AMA) with CryptoArena June 18, 2021. This guest star,
- Lorenzo Ferrari — CEO
INTRODUCTION
Lorenzo Ferrari :
Gladly. I am Lorenzo, Founder & CEO of CryptoArena.
I’m a former corporate specialist turned decentralizator, and lead a team of 8 (and growing), including 4 devs.
We bootstrapped 2 rounds, have the third coming, and will list on Uni soon
We’re building many things, all of them unique, and quite special. You’ll love ‘em.
Could you please provide us with a simple description of CryptoArena?Lorenzo Ferrari :
CryptoArena is an ecosystem featuring various entities, products and services. The core of everything is what we call the 1st “self-decentralizing” exchange.
This is an institutional grade exchange and securities broker that distributes platform generated (net) revenue back to its Users, using a game-like points scoring system.
What this means to Users trading on our platform is:
More points = bigger share.
but the best part is that the weight of distributions increases over time, both as a consequence of business success, and of of time passing.
Through our unique “self-decentralization process” we transition our own holding entity into a non-profit, that generates profits, but can’t hold them, and must instead redistribute them to the public
So, in few words, it’s a massively scalable exchange that removes its own owners (over time) to provide better value to Users
Around this core we build the rest of our service offering.
What makes CryptoArena different? How does CryptoArena do better than the competitors?Lorenzo Ferrari :
The bottomline is: we offer better value per trade.
Imagine how much more profitable trading cryptos would be if we removed the intermediaries taking cuts along the way.
It is the original mission that blockchains were born for that we aim to deliver.
Blockchains were born to replace cumbersome and expensive intermediaries with ownerless systems.
It’s been more than a decade and the industry is worth trillions…
yet anyone that wants to trade has to go through the fees and profit motives of service providers:
True decentralization has not yet been delivered. This is what we aim to do, within the context of exchanges specifically.
CryptoArena is, ultimately, building unstoppable public benefit infrastructure
a company born to be competitive, and transform over time into something beneficial, instead of another global corporate monster
unlocking this value also allows a lot of new things in the rest of our service offering, like our unique copy trading
and in general, the symbiosis of the interests of all stakeholders involved with CryptoArena — everyone benefits everyone with every action.
If it’s free, you’re the product.
Companies need funds to sustain themselves.
We go the opposite way, which is actually feasible ^^
What is PoRD? How does PoRD work in the CryptoArena ecosystem?Lorenzo Ferrari :
great question
PoRD is our custom consensus protocol.
It stands for “Proof of Revenue Distribution”
In essence, it is an accounting & distribution protocol, that ensures all the distributions happen when and how they should, and that no money goes missing at any point in time, and also the ultimate delivery of our mission to distribute 100%.
In nerd speak for those that get it:
It’s a custom flavor of PoA that combines probabilistic finality and deterministic proof into proven finality to verify/sign/produce new blocks, which are then fed via collators to the validators of our L1
Our solution is a chain agnostic Layer 2, planned as parachain of the polkadot relay chain as its L1.
For a more detailed explanation as to how this works, check out: https://docs.cryptoarena.org/self-decentralization/how-it-works/pord
but given we are blockchain agnostic and produce our own valid blocks, one day we could actually be a connection between multiple layer 1 protocols
but that’s very future stuff
How do you assure us of the benefits, safety and transparency of CryptoArena? Can you tell us about CryptoArena tokenomics?Lorenzo Ferrari :
This one is a super complex question, there is a lot of ground to cover. I’ll do my best to keep it brief given we’re in text format, but do join our community!
we have podcasts/AMAs every week and often talk about this
In brief, the combination of our systems provides the full guarantee that nothing can stop the “self-decentralization process” once it starts.
PoRD is the most critical part of this, but it is not the only critical system.
The other unique components that make our solution possible are:
the pieces involved are:
- PoRD
- our custom Security Tokens
- the Glory Points system (remember? activity generates points, points get you shares of revenue)
- Auditing system (for the authorities)
PoRD we discussed already, but it’s role is more fluid than you think, because the distribution weights change all the time depending on the decisions of token holders
Check out this crappy little video, as visualizing it helps a lot: https://youtu.be/w29OMmy5zY8
the Security Tokens contain the rest of the rules that make it happen securely
their role is threefold:
- investment instrument (the “stocks” of the company)
- “beacon” for our systems (tells PoRD where to send how much money)
- “guarantor” of our promises (they have built in limits that are immutable that guarantee self decentralization will happen and can’t be sabotaged, even by myself)
https://docs.cryptoarena.org/security-tokens/use-cases
and then finally the Glory System is the one that takes care of delivering money to individuals
based on how much they earned
from activity and performance
all fee-bearing activity on CryptoArena earns points functional to revenue distributions
distributions are monthly, in arrears (you earn points in january, its counted in february, and paid in march)
points scored reset after every period
you can earn multipliers, work with other people, or compete against them in tournaments and events!
https://docs.cryptoarena.org/basics/services/glory
About the Roadmap, what can we expect from CryptoArena in the near future, are there any new events coming up?Lorenzo Ferrari :
https://docs.cryptoarena.org/roadmap
- we have closed 2 rounds and have round 3 coming soon
- we have delayed r3 because we’re talking to daomaker and zeroswap for IDOs
- NFT Impact is ready and working (multisend tool, can send MILLIONS of NFTs for negligible cost)
- Gas Tracker (set custom gas alerts, ranges — never miss low gas again!) is in final testing phase and about to be released on play store
we have a ton of partnerships in the works — this has been my latest focus
aaaand one to announce alreaedy
that is https://whimsygames.co/
with which we’re collaborating to develop NFT Arena
a trading cards game that uses NFT as game assets
this will be out next quarter, we believe
mvp sooner
https://cryptoarena.gitbook.io/nft-arena-docs/
TWITTER QUESTIONS
As the first institutional-grade market intermediary permanently bound to a non-profit mission. How will you get funds to maintain the sustainability of your platform if you will have a non-profit mission? What is your plan ahead to realize your mission in upcoming time?Lorenzo Ferrari :
Yes! and add utility to our utility tokens (sorry, missed this question)
great question, and indeed one I get a lot
It’s mainly the time element, in combination with the effect of how the money is used
it gets a little complicated, but most people know money has a time value
and if you have enough size, that time difference from when you receive money to when you disburse it, makes a big difference
further, distributions start at 25%
this is for the purpose of giving both:
- a sizeable enough incentive to people to care to trade with us from the start
- space for the company to generate great profit and compete with bigger players
you see, ultimately, we aim to secure an advantage that they cannot replicate
nobody can offer more than 100% of revenue, and established players even legally can’t do it
because they already have shareholders with rights that they must protect
instead, in our solution, the whole process from start to finish is predetermined
and can’t NOT happen
every shareholder that buys into it agrees to these terms
and to our long term mission
in exchange for this they receive a mighty bonus, on top of ALL the rights that they already get from a real “Security”
these include: face value of the asset, dividends, voting, right to information, and more
the bonus instead is something unique, and totally extra
let me fetch a link
https://docs.cryptoarena.org/self-decentralization/how-it-works/bbb
this is how this works in a simple example:
1 is the basis value when we launch
2 is an example of growth over time
how much is this bonus worth you ask???
for every $1 you make in dividends, you accrue $0.50 in BBB — you retrieve when you “exit” your tokens through the buyback bonus mechanism
using this mechanism is how progress in the “self-decentralization process” happens
best value comes to long hodlers!
It’s worth bearing in mind, a bot, any bot, is only ever going to be as good as the human creating it. The old adage is true, garbage in, garbage out. What kind of copy trading algorithm is been used by CryptoArena and how effective and profitable are they?Lorenzo Ferrari :
well it’s not a trading algo
it’s a non custodial system that deploys trading smart contracts between the two interacting parties
these can be two humans, two bots or a human and a bot
1 sec for link
https://docs.cryptoarena.org/basics/services/advanced-copy-trading
there are 2 types of categories of users:
Patrons (copier) and Champions (copied).
Each of these has segments, for investment size for patrons, and level / proficiency for Champions
also there’s a “student Champion” category with no fees and real rewards to support the young ones
the way this works is as follows:
each category can initiate the relation, or be approached by the other
each user is PSEUDONIMOUS, not anonymous, meaning there’s KYC for this
but you’re still private to everyone other than the due authorities
including the person you trade with
it’s a non custodial interaction, which means your money doesn’t leave your wallet unless your Champion lost money on your behalf
in all other scenarios it just gets locked, and you receive more
the interaction between the two is called a “patronage” (the theme, makes it easier, you know ^^)
and basically there’s 3 steps:
1. select
2. negotiate
3. collect / perform
further, it’s super attractive because unlike other services, it’s based on a success fee
your Champions do NOT get paid unless they make you money
and their metrics worsen if they fail
this ensures that whoever you hire, they always have 100% motivation to do their best with your money
instead of just caring about getting you in and squeezing you with fees (entry, performance, exit, etc.)
tech wise: it’s a smart contract, but you do not need to know how to code
because we use zenroom.org and its DSL zenroom
it’ll be based on Natural Language — plain English just as I type now
with a drag and drop that either returns a working contract or an error
anyone can use it.
There are some tools or Dapps that do not have a system that reflects in real time the multiple commercial movements, and this is a negative point that discourages traders, Is there the possibility of examining this data in real time through a monitor or Something similar?Lorenzo Ferrari :
this is a very expert User
indeed this is one of the biggest problems
data quality and accessibility of it give great advantages to corporate players that can do things reaaaaally fast
we’ve started building tooling like the gas app as the basis of our efforts in this direction
in v1 it’s only a custom alert for eth gas, but we will expand it for all chains, and as a block explorer
further we aim to release competitive trading and analysis tools on our exchange’s app
but I’m afraid we don’t have a revolutionary idea for this one — just that we do our best
You say that Crypto Arena redistributes the income generated by the platform to its users and that these distributed amounts will increase until reaching 100%, so how will the project be financed when that happens? What mechanisms will be applied for that?Lorenzo Ferrari :
It’s important to note that we are talking about NET revenue
net revenue means revenue — cost, tax, retained earnings
retained earnings are an allocation that companies use to “set aside money” that they “think” they will need in the near term future
these are used for expansions often
like a company that wants to open affiliates in a new market
this pic is from the PoRD link from before
you can see the “retainer wallet” in there
we use auto policy to manage this wallet
based on the previous period’s costs and company plans
the trick to money not going missing is that the wallet is programmed as well, to automatically move leftover moneys after 2 months and accrues every 1 month
this means that it grows and releases money in a different rhytm
giving the company the room to manage emergencies
or sudden costs
or sudden spikes in prices and associated needs
or whatever may come
this is very long term we’re talking about, after self-decentralization has completed and no “owners” remain
the size of it makes it resistant
before this is achieved, there is a company (with me in there) managing it
with the same auto release of funds mechanism
other than this, we have a lot of products and services
not all of them are bound to the self decentralization process
for example NFT arena is just a cards game
that revenue doesn’t contribute to the distributions, but it is linked through indirect means by the Utility tokens
so…it gets complex, all side projects contribute in whole or in part to the growing value
and to stability, too
Investigating the project I saw that there is a section called the NFT Arena, therefore I would like to know what role and relevance this NFT Arena will have within the ecosystem of a decentralized exchange and what benefits will the users have?Lorenzo Ferrari :
“corporate advisor” is very generic title, but I used to make plans for big corpos 😹 it gets hard for me to make stuff smaller in fact
NFT Arena is a cool project that we can deliver quickly and that we use both for profit and to attract people to our complex stuff
you wouldn’t believe how hard it is to sell CryptoArena security tokens, because of how difficult it all is for investors
then we made utility tokens and NFT stuff
and those sell fast 🤘
so we use those as a gate to more difficult stuff
and to finance ourselves
NFT Arena is a Trading Cards Game (collection, eventually, we’ll have many games) that uses NFTs as game assets
this means that you don’t have to buy cards from us like in other games
you can just make your own with any NFT that you have or buy anywhere
cool part about it is there’s many ways to play it
it’s easy to learn but hard to master
play for fun, in ranked MMR matches or customize the rules in lobbies
in Ranked and Custom games
you win NFTs from your opponent
or lose NFTs!! if you lose
cards ofc have different rarity and power
the more rare and valuable an NFT the higher the chance of getting a legendary
ranks are: common, uncommon, rare, epic, legendary
and you can even add bets with CATS (our utility tokens) on top of custom lobby games
there’ll also be a store to buy / sell NFTs in case you lose / win too many
the way it works on a tech side
is there are 2 big components:
- a mobile game built with Unity
- a smart contract DApp (ETH or Polygon, tba)
you just stake your NFTs on the smart contract and receive a card copy of it with data/game attributes (“makes it compatible with the game”)
in-game actions have no gas. unstake anytime or withdraw the CARD rather than the original NFT as you prefer.
staking/unstaking, transfering assets (e.g. bets) has gas costs
other than that it’s all free
it runs on NODES
which you get through staking Utility Tokens in our Yield Farm
https://docs.cryptoarena.org/cats-intro
https://docs.cryptoarena.org/cats-intro/cats-farming-and-nodes
in a nutshell
Nodes generate rewards based on the popularity of the game
TELEGRAM QUESTIONS
@Sam01mrtAlmost 80% Investors have just focused on price of token in short term instead of understanding the real value of the project. Can you tell us on motivations and benefits for investors to hold your token in long term???????
Lorenzo Ferrari :
You can find tokenomics of Utility Tokens (and all other info) here:
https://docs.cryptoarena.org/cats-intro/cats-tokenomics
and of security tokens here: https://docs.cryptoarena.org/security-tokens/tokenomics
The way we prevent rugpulls is with the combination of:
1. Staking solution (i added a picture earlier about this, it implies a 6 months lock to get governance + nodes + yield. Very attractive in first 2 years)
2. Vesting — Team is fully locked, supply unlocks over 2 years at varying pace
3. Mathematics — check proportions of things, there won’t be enough in circulation to hurt us
also follow since i saw same person asking for website / twitter: https://cryptoarena.org, there are social links to everywhere there
@isalMpAre you a global project or local project? Can anybody from anywhere use #cryptoarena project without any restrictions?
Lorenzo Ferrari :
global. deployed in 3 stages:
1. MVP = crypto to crypto only, tests for copy trading and distribution (small limited versions)
2. Audit 1 = after first securities audit with the AFM.nl we’ll be licensed for EMEA region and most of Asia
3. Audit 2 = after SEC securities audit we’ll be available in the US as well
we have about a year of development ahead for full thing, maybe a bit more, but we do have cool stuff along the way for it all
produts coming to market every quarter, including this one
@houseno00What problems did you face when trying to implement your product in working businesses ? Is it hard to explain to usual non-crypto people what is Drife and what are the advantages of using it ?
Lorenzo Ferrari :
Terribly difficult. There are a lot of projects and few that actually understand the intricacies of the tech, or the things it can be used for.
And those people are terribly expensive, which ends up meaning I had to learn to do many many things I didn’t plan on learning, to get this far.
The best lesson is: start from market fit, from what people want, not from what things should be like.
then there’s the whole entrepreneurship part, which is super time consuming as well
@hasan119923I want to know about your team members? Can you please tell me in which departments and regions the team members are currently working?????
Lorenzo Ferrari :
We are mostly split between Europe and the US. I and two others and the company are based in the Netherlands, others in California, Minnesota, New York, Scotland. 8 people 7 nationalities, couple females.
4 devs, front, back, security and blockchain respectively.
COO is a neuroscientist turned manager
We lost our CMO recently to a VC that recruited her — second team member that gets sniped from me. Previous one was hired by Binance as regulatory analyst (he was my intern)
then we have a ton of partners and collaborators and friends
from all the people we’ve met along the way
I’ve been to events, we’re starting to do keynotes
biggest one I did was the Boston Blockchain Week from MIT / Algorand
@Toslim124Hello Sir,
As a new investor how can I buy the token? Is it already listed on any exchange (CEX & DEX)?
Lorenzo Ferrari :
we’re doing a mini listing with a friendly centralized exchange to get added on CMC, coingecko and everything else prior to Uniswap. Also bounties for social tasks will be a thing soon (join our socials!)
On Uniswap, it depends on the answers I get from daomaker/zeroswap, but soon
then from there we’ll see in time
@satchuniCan you share about #cryptoarena token utility? What are the use of your token in your ecosystem? Do u have farm or stake feature?????
Lorenzo Ferrari :
Yes!
The Utility Tokens (CATS) CryptoArena Tokens are basically the opposite of a discount token***
they give you multipliers to the “Glory Points” that you earn on the platform
kind of like a power up does in a videogame
you use it and score more points for a period of time
which leads to bigger shares from distributions
that’s the main use case, they have several others including access to private sales of early projects, discounts on events, buy stuff around our ecosystem, spend them on NFT Arena, or on the Staking solution:
Staking gives you: Yield + Governance rights + NFT Arena Node rights (if you stake 50k+ our our tokens)
it’s single sided staking in v1 so no impermanent loss
and in v2 it’ll be with LP NFT of Uniswap v3, which will allow to add another revenue stream to staking, which is LP rewards
- Telegram : https://t.me/CryptoArenaOfficial
- Twitter : https://twitter.com/CryptoArenaSDEX
- Website : https://cryptoarena.org
- Discord : https://discord.gg/uUAtMmmeq6
- Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/company/cryptoarena
- Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/CryptoArenaSDEX
- Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/cryptoarena_official/
- Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy8nJ5pCvwNgyAL1Cm8MgDA/featured
Thank you for trusting Infinity Chain as the organizer of the event today, hopefully everyone can understand about CryptoArena.
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