Ethermon AMA Recap

Hello, everyone!😁 We are glad to meet here: Eric Poh, Co-founder

Hi everyone! Thanks for having me!

Our team has prepared 3 questions for you to start with Are you ready to start now?

Yes lets go!!

Let`s start with the introduction ! Q1: Can you introduce yourself to our community?

Sure My name is Eric, I'm the co-founder and CEO of Pinknode. I am a Singaporean, currently still living and working here. I have a degree in banking and finance, and started my career in banking, left after to pursue entrepreneurial interests, namely in digital marketing, e-commerce startup and corporate finance, contributing through roles in sales, product management, marketing and business development.

Oh well, thanks for an answer!

I have been an investor in the crypto space since 2014 when I bought into the NWO and fiat collapse thesis. I spent a great deal of time in 2017 reading whitepapers, picking out and ‘investing’ in ‘winners’, only to end up hodling through a heart wrenching bear market. Last year during Covid, I had the luxury of time recalibrate my perspective and understanding of the crypto space with the growth of DeFi and new layer 1s(or 0s) solutions. That was when I decided to go full time into crypto. @mykocryptodiffer

Great! the quarantine gave us a lot of great projects

It did, and gave us a bull market !

so let's move on to your project! Q2: Can you introduce Pinknode to us?

Sure Our vision is for Pinknode to become the leading community owned infrastructure-as-a-service project on Polkadot; by providing secure, reliable and scalable API endpoints and node operation services to users of the Polkadot ecosystem. We are solving the lack of infrastructure support on Polkadot which impedes developer growth and the potential complexity of node communication inherited from Polkadot's unique architecture which potentially has 100 parachains in the future. Pinknode will lower the barriers of entry for developers and projects to build on Polkadot, who are essentially outsourcing their infrastructure needs to Pinknode, and we will also be consolidating Polkadot's multitude of nodes under 1 operator for ease of access and simplified solutions. @mykocryptodiffer

good to hear that you have a particular goal! Q3: Let`s now talk about the milestones you have achieved so far and about your upcoming plans?

We have finished setting up our MVP; our user dashboard is ready and we're already running nodes on Polkadot, Kusama and its testnets. We're in the midst of multiple partnership talks to onboard projects. In the near term, we intend to invest into strengthening our network architecture to ensure reliability and scalability via solutions like AutoScaling, load balancing, going multiregion etc. We are also in talks to kickstart XCMP testing with projects on Rococo testnet. @mykocryptodiffer

that's been a long way!

Yes the team has achieved all its milestones ahead of time so far. :)

nice we have one question left before we enter the community part Q4: Can you tell us about your recent fundraise partners and share some key details about your tokenomics?

Sure, we just finished closing our private round with multiple top tier VCs like Astronaut Capital, Moonrock Capital, Signum Capital, Faculty Group etc. We received more than 31m in private investment interest (44x of amount raised) in short 2 weeks period. You can find out more here, We have considered deeply about our token use case. The various developer/project use cases of $PNODE include: PAYMENT via fees via staking and burning of $PNODE - there will be packages for different rate limits and services STAKING $PNODE tokens for API access, securing of network, optimisation of relays For community use cases: STAKING $PNODE - community campaigns, running independent nodes, voting and fractional node ownership GOVERNANCE of Pinknode, for onboarding of new parachains, role of nodes etc. We are also considering a burn model to further enhance the value of $PNODE. This is a small raise and micro cap project, so first day mc is only 500+k. 👍 @mykocryptodiffer

Thank you for such detailed and interesting answers! It is time to move to the community questions part.

1. How do you ensure that projects and developers focus on building their product instead of setting up analytics suites? 2. I see that the pricing model of Pinknode is based on staking and burn structure of the native token $PNODE. So to ensure the stability of the token and the network itself, how often is the burning and how does the deflationary mechanism of PNODE work?

1. We'll be taking care of their infrastructure needs, and this removes the need for them to allocate engineering resources to set up and maintain one. They can utilize our nodes to set up anything that's useful for their users (including an analytics suite) 2. Token burn will be conducted on a monthly basis (akin to collecting a fee). We have a fixed supply and we will consider other forms of token utilities in the future that may involve burning.

Pinknode project comprise of 5 team members, my concern is, isn't this number too small for a project like yours which is very keen on building good products? Won't this slow down the speed at which the project achieve it goals or you have the intention of expanding at a later time in the future?

We are hiring more people, front and backend devs, business development and marketing. So far, this team has proven themselves to be fast movers in testing and implementation. :) We are moving fast.

I read that the name Pinknode signifies your close relation to the Polkadot community with ‘Pink’ being most prominent part of their branding. This sounds interesting, what impact do you think this brand positioning will have on your project? Also, do you think being a "Polkadot only" project is really a good idea for a micro cap project like you? Won't this limit your potential customers?

Thank you for noticing :) We think by branding ourselves strongly with Polkadot, we will stand out as the specialist of the network. Polkadot and its sister networks, will have more than 100 parachains in the future, and this will be more than enough to keep us busy for a long while. Also, Polkadot is positioned as a layer 0 meta-protocol - which we think will become a 'blackhole' that will bring every other blockchain protocols out there, together, essentially becoming the de facto platform to operating. We are very optimistic about the future of Polkadot

Is Pinknode designed for "developers and projects, big or small, anyone , who needs access to Polkadot's relay chain or parachain network, can utilize your service"? well Im talking about your future "HODLERS" for the sake of Pinknode Holders What are the incentives/benefits they will get in holding $PNODE for long term?

Holders of PNODE tokens are defined by us as 'infrastructure landlords'. There will be a fee charged for every relay that happens on the network and node owners (which the community can be, through our fractional node ownership model), will benefit greatly from increased activity. Of course, we have token burn models which induce a deflationary outcome benefiting all that holds PNODE.

I see the projects on the AMA being discussed very actively and there is a lot of promise that it will be revolutionary and to be rolled out in the coming year! But so far very few projects have been implemented, so what practical direction is there for this #Pinknode project for the coming years? namely in this year 2021 and 2022?

We having a working product and are already in talks with multiple projects (which will be announced soon). We intend to remain very aggressive in terms of onboarding of new partners and projects to establish a foothold in the Polkadot ecosystem. Our technical roadmap is also very precise in its goals, so the team has a clear direction as to where we're heading in the near term.

for this #Pinknode project Can you give me 2-3 advantages of this project, to convince me and other investors to invest in your long term this project?

1. Infrastructure projects are usually privately owned, which retail investors can't get their hands on. We're democratizing the ownership of infrastructure on blockchain. 2. We are Polkadot specialists and we are early - we will be able to innovate new solutions through strategic partnerships within the ecosystem and establish new competitive moats, in both scale and scope.

What are the outstanding features of Pink node that would generate trust in sceptical users that have invested in projects that have failed in the past? I mean what makes it a secure investment?

Last question We have a fair distribution tokenomics and long vesting for our team members. We have a responsible team with high acclaimed advisors and VCs in board who will push us in the right direction. We are committed to maintaining our service once we onboard the first project, and as we go along and gain more traction, we will only get better. 👍👍🙏

Wow, thanks for such detailed answers! Thanks for your time, Eric!

Yes, our token is going live soon and I want to make sure I clear all doubts to do the team justice 💪💪 Thank you for your hospitality !!

Hope, you succeed) Thank you to everyone who took part!

Thank you