Ferrum Network AMA Recap
CryptoDiffer team
Can you introduce yourself to the community? What is your background and how did you come to the idea to create your project?
Ian Friend
Co-Founder and COO
Of course, so my background is in law. I got into crypto in early 2017 and quickly fell in love with the technology, the community and everythign else about it. I then co-foudned the blockchain practice team at my then law firm. I met Naiem at an event in NYC. He had already built the Ferrum Network test net and was looking to build the team. We thought our skill sets were complemantary so we teamed up. Then in May 2018 we won a competition to pitch Ferum on the main stage at Consensus. Thats when things really took off.
CryptoDiffer team
Can you briefly describe what is Ferrum Network in 3-5 sentences?
Ian Friend
Co-Founder and COO
The idea behind Ferrum Network is to create a single, high speed network that works with any blockchain, to enable a consistently fast, low cost transation experience no matter the asset. What this means in practice is that using Ferrum Network you can send BTC, ETH, BNB, etc in milliseconds for near zero fees. And we never take custody of your assets.
This underlying technology supports a host of financial applications like fiat gateways, non-custodial wallet, decentralized exchange, and more.
So rather than build a network and hope others build on top, we went about buiilding our own products that will migrate onto the Ferrum Network. By doing so, we ensure network and token utility through our existing users.
CryptoDiffer team
What technology stands behind Ferrum Network and why it’s better than the existing one?
Ian Friend
Co-Founder and COO
So Ferrum Network is the marriage of two unique technologies. A DAG based ledger that is inspired by IOTA’s tangle, and an interoperability protocol that allows Ferrum Network to represent any other asset, even digital fiat.
What this technology does is allow you to deposit an asset into Ferrum thru our wallet. A proxy of that asset is created in the ferrum network that is pegged to the value of the underlying asset. The private keys of teh underylgin assset are randomly broken down and distribtued among the ferrum nodes, with security measure in place to prevent collusion. So what is actuallly happening is users are exhanging a proxy BTC (or anythign else) on the network, and since its a DAG its much faster and cheaper than the blockchain that asset originated from.
Using proxies or “wraps” as a means to overcome the interopability challenge is not new. Waves, Bitshares and others use similar technology. Ferrum is innovative in the way those proxies and the underlying assets are distribtued among the nodes. This means our solution is more decentralized and secure.
Also the DAG ledger makes the transactions on the network very fast and very cheap. Here is a demo of UniFyre walet runnning on our testnet
CryptoDiffer team
What is the token utility in the ecosystem? Where it will be used and why the demand for the token should increase?
Ian Friend
Co-Founder and COO
We have many more demos on our you tube channel
Ok so the FRM token is the gas of the network. You need to spend a small amount (around 1 cent worth) to run a transaction on the network. The unique thing is that every time a token is spent, it is burned.
All products we build, like Kudi Exchange – our African fiat gateway, will run on the network. This means that Kudi transactions will require FRM tokens once Kudi migrates to the main net in 2020. Based on our growth projections this means that thousands of tokens can be spent and burned daily from our African users alone.
Same thing with UniFyre Wallet, Infinity DEX and Sub Zero Wallet. All require FRM in one way or another as gas.
CryptoDiffer team
Ian, Why did Ferrum Network choose emerging markets and the West Africa region to create a fiat gateway there?
Ian Friend
Co-Founder and COO
http://kudi.exchange
So West Africa, Nigeria in particular is a huge market for crypto. There are 200 millin people in Nigeria alone, it has the 7th highest BTC volumes in the world, and as recently as a few months ago, #1 in the world for GOogle searches for “bitcoin”
But beyond the numbers, the existing financial system means there is a real use case for crypto. Banking is slow and expensive. Most peoplestill use cash, but millions have smart phones. They are open to new technology to improve their lives.
We made Kudi to make crypto simple and useful. By combininig the ability to buy and sell bitcoin, and send fiat currency through the app in miilseconds for 0 transaction fees, it is sort of like the Coinbase + Venmo for Africa. Also the fact we have a U.S. Dollar backed stable coin in the app is something no one else offers.
CryptoDiffer team
Cool! Let the community ask questions now!
Cryptodiffer Community
Have you launched your mainnet? What characteristics of your protocol separates it from the rest? What technical advantage does your network provide to your users?
Ian Friend
Co-Founder and COO
So main net is comin in 2020. I think I described the protocol above, so ill turn to other questions.
Cryptodiffer Community
Are you planning to report the use of funds for community, how much you spend per month/year and on what?
Ian Friend
Co-Founder and COO
Yes in terms of funds we are all about transparency. We have even published the exact number of tokens that willl be used for what in the 1st year.
Cryptodiffer Community
What is your marketing strategy, do you plan to create community mining programs, like LTO did?
Ian Friend
Co-Founder and COO
We are actually the 3rd project after LTO and Elrond to implement social mining. It will be launched next week.
Cryptodiffer Community
How do you plan to push token price goes up? Any huge news/partnerships?
Binance Dex listing is usual stuff for projects now. Do you plan anything special?
Ian Friend
Co-Founder and COO
In terms of token price, we believe the best way to support it is by building useful products and acquiring users who will need to use the FRM token. Otherwise yes we have a number of partnerships in the pipeline, as well as the binance DEX listing coming up (application going in later today or tomorrow). From there we launch UniFyre Wallet and then willl turn to main net.
Cryptodiffer Community
What happened with BNB bridge, now public sale cant sell it or trade it, this is fake it works for all other projects . To keep the supply lower?
Ian Friend
Co-Founder and COO
The token bridge is nearly complete. once it is up in the next day or two it will have a lower fee to make up for this delay. I apolgize for the delay on that and the miscommunication from our team. We had some challenges yesterday with the distribution overall. I want to assure you we learned from these mistakes and will be better going forward. No one is harder on ourselves than us. We promise to do better in the future.
Cryptodiffer Community
Is your tokens unlock schedule designed to create turnover on binance dex to get listed on main binance?
Ian Friend
Co-Founder and COO
The token unlock schedule was designed to attractive in the short, medium and long term. It was not designed with binance in mind, however the binance DEX application is designed with Binance CEX in mind if I am being perfectly frank.
Cryptodiffer Community
Can you compare your project with Binance Dex, what is your closest competitor ?
Ian Friend
Co-Founder and COO
So Ferrum Network also supports a DEX. We are calling it Infinity DEX and it will come out later next year. It is different than Binance DEX because it is a true cross-chain DEX with advanced features like high-frequency trading and AI driven trading assistance.
https://infinitydex.io
We have websites for all the products:
http://unifyre.io
https://subzerowallet.io
Cryptodiffer Community
1: As i know that one of your project product-Kudi exchange will be lived in Africa. Why did your team choose this area as beginning? How do you think about Asia market- not so regulated and big blockchain/crypto community?
2: UniFyre wallet is an interesting and innovative product of Ferrum network. So, if people want to join OTC trading on this product, do they need to KYC or complete any requirements? Can you explain about risk-free OTC trading feature on UniFyre?
3: Can you introduce some informations about Sub-zero wallet which will be released on Q2 2020 of Ferrum network roadmap?
Ian Friend
Co-Founder and COO
1. We choe it because Africa is a great region for crypto in general. Also due to the connections we have we were able to secure the banking relationships and exchanges licenses to operate a fiat gateway in Nigeria. However, we are very bullish on the Asian markets and are actively seeking parnterships there to expand our fiat gatways to that region. We are also making a CHinese version of UniFyre Wallet.
2. There wont be any KYC requirements for UniFyre because it is a non-custodial wallet, although we are still conferring with outsde counsel on how to deal with US persons. So risk free OTC trading will be enable once the main net is out. Basically with Ferrum Netwok you can do conditional trades – ones that only go thru if both parties accept. This means you dont need escrow for OTC trades anymore. Also UniFyre will support staking of any asset once main net is live. Very exciting.
3. Sub Zero Wallet is a cold storage application on an offline smart phone. Its like ledger but more secure because there are additional laywers of security. And also easier to use because it can send assets quickly to a hot wallet using QR codes.
Cryptodiffer Community
How are you going to compete with lots of other DEXs which are launched now (Binance DEX, Switcheo, Nash) or if not competing, do you plan to partner/cooperate with other DEXes to create a global DEX infrastructure
Ian Friend
Co-Founder and COO
Great question. We view crypto as a collaborative space to begin with. This is why we partnered with Fusion who are also building an interoperabiltiy protocol. In terms of DEX cooperation we would definitely love to explore that. We will be interoperable with Binance Chain so connecting to Binance DEX might be achieveable as well.
Cryptodiffer Community
Any engagment activities for local communities? Like Russia, Korea etc.
Ian Friend
Co-Founder and COO
We have about 7 different international communities. The biggest is Russia, Phillipenes and Inidian but Chinese and Korean are growing quickly because of our marketing with BItMax
Cryptodiffer Community
Can you explain to us the traction based reserve model?
Ian Friend
Co-Founder and COO
Hi Yusuf! Glad you asked. So the traction based reserve model is an innoviative approach to reserves. Rather than just unlock those tokens at a random time, we are tying those unlocks to the amount of FRM burned each month. So that way there will be no increase in supply and we only get it if we follow thru on our promises. You can read about it more here: medium.ferrum.network
Cryptodiffer Community
Can you describe some real-life usecases for Ferrum?
Ian Friend
Co-Founder and COO
So the big one is our fiat gateway/payments app called Kudi Exchange in Africa. Users can send real money thru What’s App instantly for 0 fees. If you want a private demo PM me after.
Cryptodiffer Community
Q: As a quick view of mine on Ferrum White paper, Sub-zero wallet will be an ultra secure cold storage application which allows users to securely store digital assets offline on their old android phone. So, how will it be different from AirGap- crypto wallet application which has same function as Sub-Zero?
Q: In Q3 2020, Ferrum network will also launch Infinity DEX with advanced features. One of interesting feature is Investor’s AI Assistant- which will monitor news outlets, Twitter feeds, and public Telegram chatter for any relevant mention of digital assets. So, to integrate this into exchange platform, does your team face any difficulty about tech? How will your team guarantee that all information about assets are true? Wrong informations can lead investors to big loss and high risk.
Q: In Ferrum White Paper, i saw this: “The Infinity DEX will operate much like a centralized exchange”. So, how will new token listing on exchange be decided? Will be there community voting system or decision by Ferrum team?
Ian Friend
Co-Founder and COO
1. Ill have to get back to you re: airgap since I am not famliar with it.
2. the AI driven trading assistance will allow users to make more informed decisions but it wont make trades for you. Our team used to work at Bloomberg building similar technology for equity traders, and we have a quant from Morgan Stanley on the team who does the same. There will be disclaimers involved tho I am sure of it.
3. The Infinity DEX will be similar in the sense of having the features of a centralized exchange, but will not hold assets and will be community driven.
Cryptodiffer TEAM
If you have any additional questions feel free to reach out to Ferrum team in their chat: https://t.me/ferrum_network
Thank you everyone!
Thanks Ian Friend @ifriend05 for your time =)
