Unido AMA Recap

31 Aug 202021:08

AMA

Unido AMA Recap

Cryptodiffer Team

Hello, everyone!😁

We are glad to meet here
Michael Swan, Chief Commercial Officer & Founding Team Member (@michaelpac)

Michael Swan

Hi Guys, great to be here!

Cryptodiffer Team

Welcome Michael, thank you for taking your time today!
Our team has prepared 3 questions for you to start with!
Let`s start with the introduction!
Q1: Can you introduce yourself to our community?

Michael Swan

Good place to start! I come from traditional finance, having worked in Macquarie on their multi-asset custody platform, and more recently in Goldman Sachs where I was a Vice President.
After a decade in traditional finance, it became evident to me that centralised control of finance stifles innovation and over the last 2 years, I have since become a crypto convert.
My years in finance, working with the world's biggest corporates and fund managers, gave me an important insight into the realities of enterprise getting involved in crypto. They are limited by their own corporate governance, hamstringing their ability to adopt new technologies. The custody of the private key was, and remains today, a major issue stopping mainstream corporate adoption of crypto. This realisation led my search to PAC Blockchain 18 months ago and their work on Unido.
And here I am today 😁

Cryptodiffer Team

Q2: Can you introduce Unido to us?

Michael Swan

Unido is developed by PAC Blockchain, and incubated by Faculty Labs. PAC Blockchain was founded by Chris Weddle, our CEO, who has been running PAC since 2012 as an agency developer, and for the last 5 years, a blockchain developer.
Chris, through his consultative roles with corporates, identified the same issue regarding corporate governance and the custody of the private key and commenced building Unido. The same realization I had, coming from the other end!
Our solution is Unido, an enterprise platform for decentralized capital markets. It enables any enterprises who hold crypto in their books, such as Tesla, Microstrategy and other neo-banks, asset managers or crypto-native businesses, to seamlessly manage their crypto assets.
We do this by providing a suite of crypto banking tools and an enterprise bridge to allow businesses to securely invest crypto treasuries into DeFi through platforms such as UniSwap, Balancer and Compound. This is provided by the Unido Enterprise Platform which has already been developed and is being piloted by several neo-banks.

Cryptodiffer Team

Perfect, thank you!
we have the last question from our team before we open the chat for community questions
Q3: Let`s now talk about the milestones you have achieved so far and about your upcoming plans

Michael Swan

In terms of our go-to-market, we are already in direct conversation with enterprises who already have crypto-assets on their books and need a more effective way of managing and investing their funds - this is where the immediate need is and the pain-point that Unido EP is ready to solve.
We are making it easier for the users by creating an intuitive UI so that the UX is as smooth as possible. The platform itself will require almost no time to even learn about it, because everything will come as almost second-nature!
We will also be working with alliance partners who are providing custody and software solutions to asset managers, family offices and VCs to extend our reach across multiple geographics and customer demographics. We are tailoring / whitelabelling our solution for these organisations but the UDO token will still be at the heart of fueling activity through these providers.
Whilst DeFi is still in its infancy, Unido’s easy to use, plug and play solution that makes investing as easy as using your iPhone, will help accelerate more enterprises access DeFi opportunities.

Cryptodiffer Team

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

Cryptodiffer Community

Is Unido primarily focused for enterprises alone, or is there a possibility to expand to individual users who wanted to invest crypto assets in a much more secure environment?

Michael Swan

We have 3 product variants in the Unido suite. Unido Enterprise Platform is for enterprise/ corporate use, Unido custodial is a variant for neo-banks, custodial providers and exchanges, but we are also offering the Unido Wallet, which is a lightweight retail wallet, designed for individuals and MSMEs who don't require the entire tool suite of EP, but want the security benefits of the Unido multi sig engine and access to Defi networks, all on a smart device.

Cryptodiffer Community

Unido being a scalable platform that create solutions to many problems, what are the chances of Unido offering users access to lending and secured borrowing services in the future?

Michael Swan

This is a very interesting question and we have been working on a pipeline product where Unido is perfect. Given the distributed nature of the key, a bank or exchange can take security over a client's crypto assets, by retaining enough fragments of the key and only choose to approve transactions once certain events, such as loan repayment, are made. It will allow secured lending and margin lending, with security enforced at the blockchain level.

Cryptodiffer Community

What plans do you have to help drive demand and scarcity for the token? Do you have any burn/buy-back program?

Michael Swan

$UDO is a utility token, which is which will be required to pay for transaction fees and must also be staked in order to receive access licences for the various Unido product offerings and including the Unido Enterprise Platform and Unido Core. The Unido Treasury built-into the ecosystem will enable enterprise users to seamlessly exchange stablecoins for UDO to power their transaction and purchase additional licences for their organisations. This will mean that we continuously purchasing UDO off the open market as adoption increases. Once we launch the Unido Core API, the token will also be used for governance rights to distribute the Ecosystem Funds to subsidise 3rd party dApp developers who wish to utilise our technology. The token consists of an initial burn on fees paid to reduce the total issuance by 20%, to magnify the buy-side demand on investor tokens, by reducing the total circulating tokens. We will also launch a liquidity mining program to reward our early supporters staking UDO/USDT and UDO/ETH pairs.

Cryptodiffer Community

Are you targeting to reach out for investors in morewhat an institutional manner or simply reach out the individuals? And Why?

Michael Swan

We would like to see a broad mix of investors. We see great interest from the community of people who recognise the value Unido brings. We also have an enviable list of VCs whom bring strong credentials to our project, including AU21, Tokenomik Inc, Moonwhale, Master Ventures and others.

Cryptodiffer Community

The likes such as Bitgo and Coinbase offers almost similar service as Unido, so why create Unido when enterprise can get what they want from the likes of Coinbase and Bitgo? What are some of the value added products you would be introducing to help enterprise who wants to hedge their assets?

Michael Swan

The biggest differentiation is our distributed key - Bitgo and Coinbase are essentially websites and databases, and unfortunately, centralised services represent a hack risk. The Unido patented signing engine is a sophisticated multi party computational model, where the private key is fragmented and distributed amongst various singing parties. At no one time does any of the signing parties possess the entire key, meaning there is no one device that represents a security risk if it is compromised. We combine this clever tech with easy to use transacting and direct Defi vault integration so enterprises can earn a yield on their assets from the easy to use dashboard, comparing different APY's on offer and selecting which one to delegate to. Point and shoot crypto yield investing.

Cryptodiffer Community

Marketing is a central element for every project, so that everyone knows the potential that a project can bring is vital to achieve the goals set. What is Unido strategy to attract new users and Investor to $Your platform and keep them long term.

Michael Swan

Enterprise clients and hedge funds are the target demographic at the moment, given the wave of corporate money entering crypto atm. We will utilise partnerships with corporate services firms, such as accountants to introduce our Unido platform to corporates looking to enter crypto. Positioning with accountants, whom are trusted advisers to corporates, offers direct and trusted recommendations to their clients whom are engaged on crypto as a topic and want to enter. It also allows our marketing approach to be hyper-scalable, opposed to direct selling to companies.

Cryptodiffer Community

They comment that United has its own wallet, however they also plan to release the technology of the United core in order to work with third-party applications, so, will it be possible to use their ecosystem using third-party wallets?

Although initially it is necessary to subsidize its development through the Ecosystems development fund, how long do you think it will be necessary in order for United to be completely sustainable?

Michael Swan

Yes, we have will roll out the Unido Core singing engine as an API for developers this year. There is so much scope for blockchain beyond just crypto! Our eco-system development fund is there to help encourage projects to build on the Unido platform and there is an allocation in the token to the fund on day one. Ill also note that half of the ongoing fees generated go to replenish this fund, so we intend to make this an ongoing funding activity to continue to drive Unido adoption with 3rd party developers for years to come.

Cryptodiffer Community

🔵 How was the PAC that forms the basis of Unido products developed and how does a proprietary key management and transaction signing technology support Unido Core?

🔵 By creating a DAO Is it possible to take advantage of all the features of Unido Core technology, how to integrate the UDO token into DAO?

Michael Swan

PAC is the developer of Unido and has been in business as an agency software developer since 2012. The last 5 years have been focussed on blockchain and the development of Unido. Unido Core is the underlying technology of the multi party computational fragmented key signing engine, delivered as an API, so can be adopted by 3rd party developers and hopefully deploy thousands of DApps powered by Unido.

Cryptodiffer Community

With Unido Crypto Banking feature, business banking portal enabling enterprises to seamlessly manage their day to day operations and capital expenditure. Have you already secured agreements or partnership with banks/credit card companies, and filed for licenses with regulators?

Michael Swan

Our first bank client to take our custodial variant of Unido will be announced very shortly. They are a US-based neo bank

Cryptodiffer Community

Where it will be listing soon, dex or cex? And how will you get users from all over the world and what are the features of this project to invest in longterm, please explain

Michael Swan

Our Polkastarter IDO is this coming Wednesday and TGE will follow directly after, where we will trade on UniSwap. Stay tuned for CEX announcements

Cryptodiffer Community

I understand that the main reason Unido was established is to help any enterprises who hold crypto in their books to seamlessly manage their crypto assets. With the current market situation, more enterprises will be coming into Crypto and Defi, is Unido well positioned to help onboard such enterprise?

Michael Swan

The issue of corporate governance of the private key has always been an issue for enterprise, but as mentioned earlier, we have seen a willingness finally for corporates to embrace crypto and they are flooding in! They enthusiasm doesn't remove their need for corporate governance, so Unido is superbly positioned to facilitate corporate uptake of crypto and provide safe and easy access to Defi

Cryptodiffer Community

Can you share Unido opinion on DeFi ? What steps are already being taken towards the future progress of Unido ?

Michael Swan

As mentioned, we are integrating various Defi vaults into our interface, to allow "point and shoot" investing for enterprises. Delegating to Defi networks bear the exact same security risks as transferring coins - both require the private key. So Unido's security solution is just as applicable to Defi as it is normal transacting.

Cryptodiffer Community

Can customers get support by UNIDO without delivering sensitive personal information? What information do you save on the system? Is it necessary to present the information? How does the system protect users from risks?

Michael Swan

The Unido wallet is downloadable on Apple Store and Google Play now. This is a software based solution, rather than legal custodian, so doesn't require any KYC, beyond basic details such as email and phone number to facilitate notifications etc.
Thanks everyone. Really appreciate the well considered questions!!

Cryptodiffer Team

Thank you for your time, Michael!
Great answers

Michael Swan

We are very excited for TGE and hope you all see the long term value proposition Unido represents. This is everyone's chance to get in on the ground floor for critical custody infrastructure to power the wave of enterprise crypto holdings
Thanks everyone for your interest in Unido!!
Thanks Maks and Nick for hosting

Cryptodiffer Team

Yes, our team is looking forward for the launch! 🚀🚀