Community AMA Recap: July 2021
On Thursday 15th June, we hosted our monthly Community AMA on Telegram. Here is the recap and Q&A session that followed.
Be sure to follow our Telegram announcement channel and Twitter accounts as we will be hosting weekly live sessions covering all things related to the company and current affairs in the ecosystem.
Update from the Porta Team
- Block explorer — the development team is making progress with version 1 and we should be sharing more on it soon
- Porta Pass — is in early development phase and we will share more details on that over the coming weeks
- Blockchain development — is making great strides and we should be ready to launch our Testnet in August
- Hiring — we have recently hired a Community Manager, Social Media Manager and Rust Developer to help build our community, increase awareness of the project and accelerate the development of our blockchain.
Questions from the Community
Q1: With the global financial crisis in mind, do you think there’s a danger that crypto investors are becoming more and more exposed to derivative products whose mechanisms are becoming more and more convoluted? For example, with PORTA, you could create a “batch” index token that tracks a number of individual “batches” and so on?
Shane Benjamin: As Emmanuel was talking about, we ended up with too many derivatives at some point. So this would be great if we, if we restricted to a number of products and we just create one derivative, as opposed to many.
What I mean by that is when and what ended up happening with the housing crisis. And I believe 2008, right. Was the fact that there were derivatives of derivatives of derivatives. What we have to do is avoid that type of process.
We could create an index, which is not just, it could be a derivative. You don’t have to necessarily buy an underlying assets. It tracks that value of the index, but there has to be a limit to that. And so it is possible but we believe that if we’re do something like that, there will be restrictions and like certain rules in place.
Q2: Jonah assumes that our blockchain explorer will only support Porta. Is it in beta soon? Is it available on online to try out?
Shane: The blockchain explorer would only support Porta then probably Porta Mainnet and Testnet. We’re not going to be handling a whole bunch of other blockchains. Is it in beta? We’re still working and finishing it up. We’re probably going to release the proper beta in a week or two. You can be able to see it play around with it as well, around the same time that we will release our Testnet, and release Porta Pass.
I think we’re going to try to release everything all at the same time. Give us two to three more weeks. And yeah, Jonah you’ll be able to play with everything that we’ve been working on over the past months. It’s coming.
Emmanuel: The team, has put a lot of work in for that, for sure.
Q3: Does the project support staking?
Emmanuel: We’re basically we are revamping our staking because we had not the best experience with, with one provider.We aiming to make it seamless. We have crazy ideas with staking as well, that we want to you try them out, just to really make sure that you all are incentivized to back the project. We’ll be doing it this quarter, after our Testnet launch.
If you follow our Telegram announcement channel or hop in the Telegram group, you’d be able to keep up to date when asked, when it’s ready to launch.
Q4: Revenue is an important aspect for all projects to survive and maintain,what ways can Porta generate profits and revenue? What is the income model?
Shane: At this point, our goal is just basically to create the platform that people want to use. I don’t want to say yet to be determined, but what we’re after right now is basically broader use, as opposed to just revenue. We do understand that revenue is important.
We do also know what building a business is all about. We’re going to find a way to monetize different products as time moves along. The clear revenue part is not that right now, but our goal primarily is to be able to add value to you. And we believe that once you’ve added value to the end user, we’re going to find a way to monetize that
Q5: Can you highlight the decentralized aspects of your technology?
Shane:We’re building a blockchain. I’m not sure how much more decentralized we can get. I think we’re at the max of potential decentralization with that, and then possible quantify the level of decentralization economic incentive. We’ll work on a different programs, such as staking programs.
And we’re also working on a Beta program, which would incentivize community members and provide access, but the staking program would definitely be there and then we’ll work on the beta program as well.
Q6: Cardano has just been a lot of time getting small contracts. It has been stalling development for a big portion of that project. Is smart contracts high on Porta’s product development list, or will it take years?
Emmanuel: I can be quite cheeky right now and probably say, will not take us years to get to smart contracts and I’ll pass the question onto Shane.
Shane: Thank you. Yeah, it won’t take years for us to get smart contracts in place. Cardano I think they’re still developing a lot of different aspects of their blockchain.
What we are using is Substrate. We have that advantage of using what they’ve already put in place. We’re going to continue to be built on that framework.
It will not take us years, preferably it will take us months. Hopefully with Testnet everything goes the way we want it to. It’ll probably be coming by latest Q4 2021.
Q7: On your website, you show in Q3 that you’ll make partnerships in the most relevant parties, to streghthen Porta, but could you tell us what kind of partnerships that we will seek? Do you have already have some projects in which you’ve made associations?
Emmanuel: In terms of partnerships from our end, it’s going to be two-fold. Not spoiling our first project product, it will be about really aligning with people to help us push that first product out there.
I think that NFT partnerships that make a ton of sense for us as well. I think that’s definitely what we’re trying to do at least initially, whilst alsopartnering with different communities as well, to get people interested in a way about what we’re building.
The first port of call would definitely be NFT partnerships because it just makes a lot of sense. It is a smart and effective gateway, to the blockchain and web3 world. We’ll be targeting these over the next couple of months.
Q8: Do you have any plans integrating the project with NFTs? Would there be options to do staking or yield farming in the future?
Shane: In terms of the NFT aspect, it definitely makes a lot of sense for us in terms of what we want to try to do. Our main ethos is great customer experiences and well designed products. NFTs of lends itself towards that. That’s definitely in our roadmap for sure.
Again thank you for everyone for answering the product poll that Yvonne put into the Telegram group and Twitter about what products would you focus on next — I saw that NFTs came second. We’ve definitely taken a steer on that.
Yield farming will probably come a little further down the road.
Q9: What strategy will you implement to bring non crypto natives into your ecosystem? Do you keep a balance between developing technology and also improving the value of your token?
Emmanuel: For non crypto natives, I think it’s, it’s incredibly important that if we want to, and our mission here is to really accelerate, the adoption of Web3 products and blockchain globally — you have to make that process as seamless as possible. And this is why we’ve taken the more sensible, long-term route is that we could have easily just done stuff to get stuff out the door for getting stuff out the door sake.
I think it’s incredibly important that we’ve built a solid foundation from a product perspective that, you know, we’ve got our blockchain, we’ve got our Testnet, and we’ve got Porta Wallet. We want to help people understand and get used to crypto quite seamlessly.
Like people outside of this ecosystem, people outside of crypto, they don’t have the time nor do they care — you have to make them care. We’ll definitely be leading an educational effort of trying to share the long-term benefits of being involved in this space.
Obviously you all are within the community you will be playing a heavy role in that, in terms of welcoming people and making sure that they understand what’s going on and make the best out of crypto.
Shane: The way we’re going to get them on board is to just give them a really simple experience. Something that doesn’t require too high of a learning curve. We don’t handle the value of the price, we handle the value of the token. We can’t make the price go up, but we can add value to the technology.
We are going to focus on building the best possible technology for us and to make it easier for developers as well, to interact and to build on our blockchain we want to make it as simple as possible.
Also make the interface easy for the non crypto natives. So that’s how we’re going to get more people on board. And we believe that as we add more value that way, then that will be reflected in the price of the token.
Q10: What will be the flagship application of Porta?
Shane: That’s why we asked for input in the product poll, to see what direction would you all would prefer.
What do we might go with the DeFi road or we go down the NFT road. We plan to develop in both these ecosystems. We were still in discussion around what will be our first product.
The product poll I believe said DeFi lending came first, and NFTs were number two. People have a strong interest in the DeFi space, but we also believe that the platform and our goal lends itself very well to NFTs.
So we’re going to let you know once we decide, but it’s definitely going to be in the DeFi space, probably lending or the NFT space.
Q11: What plans does Porta have to educate, raise awareness and launch community intiatives so that more people can understand the project easily?
Shane: To be honest, yes, Porta is a big project in terms of how we educate and raise awareness.
We believe that adding value is definitely one way, that we want to educate people. We want to show them how easy it is to get onto the blockchain . Also so create blog posts, create videos, create all these different educational material around that so that they can just jump in and learn how the blockchain actually works.
But on top of that, we want to make design our focus so that there isn’t that much stuff to learn to lower the learning curve as much as possible in terms of raising awareness. Naturally, we’re going to do marketing and build a community and so on. And so that, that is going to, what’s going to help, um, make the, make the transition easier.
Emmanuel: We will be sharing details to join our Beta program, if you’re interested, like to get involved are for sure. Keep an eye on that. That’s definitely coming over the next week or two. That’d be an opportunity for you to get access, to see what’s coming around the corner when it comes to Porta.
Q12: Currently, there are many projects springing up like mushrooms with bold ideas but still fail — why would Porta succeed?
Shane: Why will it succeed? Because we put the community first, we put the user experience, so we’re basically making to user the primary focus of our platform.
The reason we’re doing that is because if we make the, you, the users, the builders, the community the ones that use it and spread via word of mouth.
That’s going to allow us to succeed is by making the people that are most important part.
Q13: If you have your own blockchain, we got a token standard name in mind, like ease ERC-20 for Ethereum? Will the Porta Wallet function as kind of a dex or will we provide a temporary DEX until someone else builds a DEX for Porta?
Shane: Let me cover the ERC 20. We will, we will be using a type of standard for tokens as well. It is a smart contract blockchain. Tokens would definitely be something that’s going to be integrated.
The way this is going now, we might call it like a PRC 20 or something like that. Cause it’s called Porta, but the idea will remain the same. It will be ERC 20 standard fit blockchain, but on the Porta Network.
For the Porta Wallet function, even if there might be other projects that build wallets for Porta or build a DEX there is a possibility of us integrating a DEX directly into the wallet if it works for the community. I’m not making any promises, but if it works, if it works for the community, we would be happy to do it.
Q14: Tell us what the main role of your coin in ecosystem, you know, is it utilities or a few cases? Why should people invest in your coin for the long term?
Emmanuel: In terms of use cases, I think that the most important thing is that we to build up towards real life use cases. That’s hence why you probably should do you own research. In a long term, when it comes to us, is that we are focused on making sure that we have that crossover appeal.
If you guys come across the stuff that Shane shared in the interviews, we are locked into creating real life use cases and utility.
Nonetheless, we have to make sure our foundation is right before we go doing that. That’s essentially why we’re building the products and gearing up towards, a couple of years time, we want to make sure you can actually use your tokens in real life scenarios, I’m not going to pontificate about what that could mean right now, but in your everyday life, that is what we are aiming for.
Q15: Recently many hackers have been able to break into crypto security systems and also have lost a lot of data. How is the Porta’s security system and how can Porta ensure the security of investors’ data from hackers?
Shane: Right now, we, we’re not a centralized system, so we don’t keep any of our users data.
We’re actually building the blockchain. We’re focused on security on the blockchain itself, and that’s why we’re using already well checked and, software frameworks built by Gavin Wood, for example, which is, Substrate.
Gavid Wood built Ethereum, Polkadot and Kusama, and now he created Substrate. We’re not building everything from the ground up. We will have to work on our own security, but there’s a big parts of it that has already been done for us.
We will take as many best practices and we’ll take as many steps as possible to protect all of your data and information and most, definitely your funds on our network.
Q16: How many tokens are issued by Porta or what guarantees that inflation does not incur?
Shane: Right now we have 100 million $KIAN tokens. We haven’t decided how many tokens we’re going to mint just yet on the Porta Network but it’s most likely, there’s definitely going to be some type of conversion from the existing number over to the number of tokens that we’re going to have on the Porta Network.
Q17: What are your plans in place for global expansion for Porta? Is it focusing on one market at a time or focusing on building and getting costumers users or partnerships?
Emmanuel: For expansion, we want to make sure that, we’ve got the right products in place and we’ve got the right team in place for that. Credit to Shane who has put the team together across the global ready.
That of helps us to tap into different local markets. We’ve got people Iran. We’ve got people in Kenya, which is obviously help us to tap into local markets.
In terms of partnerships. That’s definitely something when we’ve launch Testnet, we will be keen to establish partnerships for the platform and community. Obviously for developers looking to build on our blockchain, and in terms of the users, we want to make sure we get the right strategic partnerships kind of help introduce the company to more users.
Shane: We do have plans for global expansion. Don’t worry. It’s coming.
Q18: Will there be any privileges on your platform for developers or users?
In the early days would definitely plan to give some privileges to early developers and look to see how that translates to users. We’re going to see how that works.
We do plan to have different types of grant programs and incentives to inspire new developers to come and build on our platform for our community. We believe that by doing that, then the privilege for our, for our portal users is that they get an, an excellent experience.
For developers coming on a Porta platform, because we do have goals and plans to keep a high standard of quality on the platform as much as you possibly can. Furthermore, we’re going to see if there’s does any other economic privileges that we can bring to our users, but definitely we plan develop strong development tribe.
Q19: What project out there has impressed you the most within the crypto space and what other projects would Porta like to take a similar path in terms of their?
Shane: In terms of blockchain, I would have to say Polkadot has stood out to me the most. What Gavin Wood and his team are doing over there is amazing. Polygon as well, I think they’re doing some really great stuff of over there like strong project. Filecoin is also doing really well. And then we can’t forget Doge — can we :) . That’s a joke. Don’t take me seriously on that. Baby Doge is where it’s at. I’m just joking though. Do not quote me. This is not an investment advice. Don’t go and buy those meme tokens unless you really want to.
Definitely Polkadot, Filecoin, Polygon. Of course Ethereuem, which is the original blockchain project.
Q20: Currently on the DeFi market is becoming a trend, a focus for investors and a boom for DeFi. First of all, what do you think about this? And how would Porta to compete with other DeFi projects that have specific differences?
Emmanuel: DeFi is on fire is right now. From an investor perspective, as everyone’s probably seen DeFi startups raising massive rounds, people doing building amazing projects. And obviously DEXes or lending protocol have seen volume increases. The most important thing within this space is to build things for the community.
At Porta, we don’t necessarily believe in building things for the sake of building. Especially within DeFi. I think we have some ideas internally and thank you to everyone that shared ideas around the product poll about what we should do with the DeFi as well.
There is a lot to be desired when it comes to the user experience. We could definitely have a competitive advantage and that’s definitely something in our DNA.
Q21: What problems do you see in a blockchain environment that we can prevent from growing and what are you going to.
Shane: The sub-par user experience is a problem in the blockchain space at this point.
That would be one of the key pain points for the transition from Web2 to Web3, because just being able to interact with the blockchain is so hard as opposed to interacting with the typical internet.
In the UK, um, that would be something that Revolut or Monzo or any of these mobile banks. The reason why it’s so easy for the next generation of users to move over to those platforms, because the interface is so intuitive. Also you have like extra perks. When you make a payment, it’s a notification immediately saying how much you spent and so on — it’s to be able to track all your expenses.
We need to make the user experience so good that people feel like the transition and advantages that they get from moving over to Web3 is much better than to stay on Web2.
That’s really what we’re going out as a problem we’re trying to solve. And that’s how we’re going to really get growth in the blockchain space by designing it for regular people.
Shane: Thank you once again for all of your trust and your interest in us. Let’s keep moving this forward. I hope that we’re going to give you guys more content and more products. Then that way you can just share it with everyone else. Looking forward to seeing you all in the next Community AMA or live chats that we’re going to try.
Thanks again for joining the conversation and enjoy the rest of your evening or morning, wherever you are.
Thank you everyone.
Giveaway Winners
The winners for this month’s, Community AMA are:
- Johan
- Hendra
Bonus winner:
- Dean
All winners get 500 $KIAN tokens.
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