31 Aug 202003:08
AMA
Konomi AMA Recap
Cryptodiffer Team
Hello, everyone! Cryptodiffer TeamWe are glad to meet here
Jayden Antonio, COO at Konomi, (@yige910627)
Jayden Antonio
Hello everyone. I am glad to meet you all and share our project Jayden AntonioCryptodiffer Team
Welcome Jayden, thank you for taking your time today! Cryptodiffer TeamLet`s start from the introduction questions!
Q1: Can you introduce yourself to our community?
Jayden Antonio
Sure no problem Jayden AntonioHi everyone, this is Konomi's COO Jayden. I have been working in Singapore after graduating from the National University of Singapore with a major in electronic engineering, I used to be OFO's regional manager in Singapore, responsible for OFO's expansion and operations in Singapore. Later I founded Mileslife, A technology startup company that used technology to improve the efficiency of the tourism industry. I have been interested in blockchain and Bitcoin since 2015, so I participated in Bitcoin mining and ICO investment in the early stage. At the beginning of 2020, I felt that DeFi has really brought application scenarios to the blockchain, so I joined the Konomi project founded by several NUS alumni. Currently, I am responsible for the operation of the project and business development in China. Most of our team members are still based in Singapore and the focus of the project was mainly on development. With the improvement of our product development progress, the project has also recently received a grant from the Web 3 Foundation, and we have also begun to speak out in the market. I am very happy to communicate with you.
Cryptodiffer Team
Thank you Jayden for the intro! Cryptodiffer TeamQ2: Can you briefly tell us what is Konomi in 3-5 sentences?
Jayden Antonio
The vision of Konomi at the beginning of its establishment was to enable financial applications on Ethereum to seamlessly connect to the Polkadot ecosystem, and to provide the users with a complete asset management experience - from liquidity protocols to lending market, as well as the management of ecosystem assets. Polkadots has more application scenarios that are different from Ethereum in terms of governance and parachain auctions due to its better base layer performance. As a result, we believe that Polkadot-based financial applications will also have more opportunities than Ethereum. Thus, at the initial stage of our product design, we first built the underlying facilities which are decentralized liquidity protocol and lending protocol. Jayden AntonioTo make it short. Konomi wants to build the base layer liquidity and money market protocol for Polkadot starting from lending. Therefore, we have developed a lending module and AMM module. In the future, we hope to derive more financial products for the ecology. Since we are building our own Parachain so we hope to work together with other projects and integrate good ones onto our chain
Cryptodiffer Team
Perfect, thank you, the last question from us: Cryptodiffer TeamQ3: Let`s now talk about the milestones you have achieved so far and about your upcoming plans?
Jayden Antonio
Let’s talk about the milestone first. We started the project in August 2020 and we got investment from some notable VC in November and a grant from web3 foundation by end of 2020. In terms of development, we have completed our lending module and AMM by now. I think the best achievement is that we have built up a solid team throughout the progress Jayden AntonioAs for our plan, we are working on our liquidation module and governance module and there are likely to be completed before Q1 and for Q2 we will be working on the staking module and prepare for parachain auction
Cryptodiffer Team
Perfect! thank you! Cryptodiffer TeamThank you for such detailed and interesting answers!
It is time to move to the community questions part.
Cryptodiffer Community
Only couple of days ago, Konomi just launched its ambassadorship program. My question is: what profile does a cryptolover require to work with you? What are you looking for in the applicants who wish to become part of the Konomi team? Cryptodiffer CommunityJayden Antonio
The ambassador program is our core community building program for the year. We are looking for crypto enthusiasts who believe in Web 3.0 to join our development progress. In short, we want to look for talents who agree with our visions and goals as well as able to commit to this project. Of course, there are benefits given to them. In terms of profile, we wish the applicants to have a good understanding about blockchain and Polkadot.its not mandatory to have working experience in this field but experience will be a plus point . Jayden AntonioCryptodiffer Community
1. With the Recent explosion of the Blockchain Industry, a day is coming when big players on Ethereum will start migrating to Polkadot, so how does Konomi aim to stay competitive and lead in the saturated field of DeFi? Cryptodiffer Community2. Liquidity and trade volume issue remains some of the biggest barrier hindering the growth of most new projects, what's Konomi approach to solving these issue?
Jayden Antonio
Very critical questions. I think it’s a big challenge for most Polkadot base projects. For example, our lending module works similar to Compound and compound has recently announce that they will bridge to parachain in future so how are we going to stay competitive. I think the answer is being innovative and always make the project unique. For us, we would like to connect our lending module with AMM SWAP module in Q4 to enable leverage trade for aggressive investor. That’s something Compound doesn’t offer Jayden AntonioAs for liquidity and trade volume, we would be rewarding our users with token to kick start liquidity.
Cryptodiffer Community
Paypal is well-known company. Cryptodiffer CommunityIs there any advantage partnership Konomi with paypal?
What is the leading utility of the partneship?
Jayden Antonio
We would like to clarify that we are not on partnership with PayPal on official level. However, JP join our advisory committee personally Jayden AntonioBut we believe that JP will be a good bridge between Crypto and fiat world and we would like to explore more partnership or opportunities with traditional finance
Cryptodiffer Community
When using Konomi Trade do I have the possibility to make my own trades or is it just to deposit my funds and the AMM will take care of giving me my benefits? Cryptodiffer CommunityJayden Antonio
The AMM will execute the trade Jayden AntonioCryptodiffer Community
DeFi is one of the hottest and most sought-after topics in the blockchain space right now. Can Konomi share your opinion on DeFi with us? Do you think DeFi will disrupt the current financial system? What is Konomi's approach to the DeFi sector? Cryptodiffer CommunityJayden Antonio
DeFi has enormous potential to dramatically reshape how capital markets would and put pressure on existing financial institutions to meet the demands of consumers. For a long time, existing financial institutions have had a track record of not being responsive to all borrowers and have even had internal biases against minorities and people of color. DeFi is a set of financial legos that can completely reshape how this space is developing. Jayden AntonioAs we go deeper into “new finance,” firms like Konomi represent a great effort to build up new infrastructure that will usher in substantive change that is cost effective and conducive to new financial models that are more inclusive and constructive. Regulation will definitely tame some of the crazy yields that we see in the market right now, but it will bring in more individuals. There is a trade off between mass adoption and regulation. In order for mass adoption and broader usages of these new financial tools, it will require a stricter regulatory environment to ensure safety for a larger number of people.
Cryptodiffer Community
Why is DOT supported as collateral for crypto assets? What kind of privileges will DOT provide in lending and collateral, and will new cryptocurrencies be added as collateral? Cryptodiffer CommunityJayden Antonio
DOT will be the first assets supported by us because it’s the native token of Polkadot and we are a Polkadot based project. I think same logic applies to KSM too Jayden AntonioCryptodiffer Community
What are the specifications of your project that makes you unique and different from others? Why should we buy/use Konomi instead of other projects? Cryptodiffer CommunityJayden Antonio
Let me compare us with some other lending projects Jayden Antonio1) Match lending: dYdX, Dharma, etc.
Let’s take dYdX as an example for match lending. An obvious feature of the dYdX platform is that it requires both the borrower and the lender to exist at the same time and the amount of loans and borrowings has to be equal for matching to take place. Therefore, the shortcomings are also obvious, it is unable to respond to demand in a timely manner, and transaction efficiency is low.
2) Loan only mode: MakerDAO
MakerDAO is an old DeFi project on Ethereum, with ETH and DAI tokens in its fund pool. The user lends the stablecoin DAI issued by the MakerDAO platform through mortgage of ETH, but users cannot lend personal assets on MakerDAO. MakerDAO's lending function is relatively simple and cannot meet most market needs.
3) Liquidity pool lending: Konomi, Compound, etc.
Compound's liquidity pool lending is much more optimized than the above-mentioned lending model. The most unique feature is that the supplier and lender can be regarded as two liquidity pools. The borrowing demand is carried out in the liquidity pool, and the borrowing interest rate and collateral value are automatically adjusted according to market demand through smart contract algorithms. Konomi not only inherits the advantages of the Compound liquidity pool lending mechanism, but also makes it possible to provide lending services for the entire encrypted asset market based on the characteristics of Polkadot's cross-chain transaction.
The above-mentioned and well-known DeFi projects are basically from Ethereum.In addition to Konomi, Acala and Equilibrium are currently active DeFi projects in the Polkadot ecology.
Acala mainly provides stable currency lending services for the Polkadot network. Similar to MakerDAO's DAI, Acala also has its own stable currency aUSD, which is also secured by encrypted assets as collateral. If Acala develops well in the future, Konomi will also establish a connection with it to improve the liquidity of the stablecoin in Polkadot ecocosystem.
The Equilibrium is launched by the EOS stablecoin team aims to build a cross-chain token market for Polkadot, and its official business direction is indeed similar to Konomi. However, under the funding of the Web3 Foundation, the development of this project was mainly focused on the data analysis of DeFi asset volatility and value at risk, and the function of the lending sector was relatively lagging.
Polkadot-based Konomi has more advantages in this regard, as interest rates update faster and the curve is relatively smoother. Konomi currently adopts a mortgage lending method, which requires users to over-collateralize. With the improvement and promotion of the DID decentralized identity infrastructure, Konomi will also design a set of reputation mechanism to reduce the burden on mortgages for users with good reputation. The Konomi lending sector is also fully compatible with Polkadot's cross-chain ecology. Through cross-chain messaging (XCMP), all parachain assets and bridge chain assets can interact with Konomi, and its community users can also enjoy more free lending services.
Cryptodiffer Community
Any plans to increase the number of validators where common holders will be able to stake Konomi in the future? If so, are there any estimated launches? Cryptodiffer CommunityJayden Antonio
Yes we do have plan. Staking will be available by Q3 base on our development roadmap but we will try our best to get it done by early Q3 Jayden AntonioCryptodiffer Community
Why did you decide to make your project on Polkadot and not on Cosmos? Does Cosmos also support cross-chain transactions? What value will Konomi bring to the Polkadot ecosystem? Cryptodiffer CommunityJayden Antonio
Yes, Cosmos support the cross-chain transaction and it has great scalability. However, security is its weakness. I mean it’s unrealistic to maximize security and scalability at the same because they contradict each other to a certain extend. I believe Polkadot achieves a better balance between these two factors. Maybe it will be easier to understand if I put it in this way. Cosmos is more like an Android system and Polkadot is more like IOS Jayden AntonioCryptodiffer Team
Thank you for your time, Jayden! Cryptodiffer TeamJayden Antonio
Thank you guys Jayden Antonio