AMA RECAP : CRYPTOSCAPE X MELD
Venue : Crypto Scape
Date :28 june 2021
Time : 01:00 PM UTC
Guest : Mr. Ken olling(CO- Founder & Chairman)
He shared detailed information and his opinions about the project MELD.
🔴 SEGMENT 1: INTRODUCTION
Q1.Please introduce yourself and your team to our community and tell your crypto ??
*Ken Blaue Representing MELD:
My name is Ken Olling and I’m one of the co-founders of MELD.
MELD is building the banking stack on the Cardano blockchain.
We are a team of 15 now and we are based all over the world.
I'm based in Norway. Our engineering team is based in Vietnam and we have people in Canada, Switzerland, and the UK. Our team has been developing on Cardano for the past 3 years and has been contributing to the Cardano source for the same amount of time.
MELD is building the ability to borrow fiat (USD and EUR) against crypto assets.
Our team has been developing for Cardano for the past 3 years. We work in Haskell. The team has been contributing to the Cardano source code for the past 3 years as well.
We are building MELD to be able to unlock the potential a person has locked in crypto and benefit from it in fiat without having to sell it.
This makes it possible to unlock some of the value people have collected in crypto and use it in the fiat world without having to sell your crypto.
This has 2 major benefits.
1. You can keep your crypto and see it increase in value.
2. If you sell then you have to pay capital gains tax. No one wants that!
Borrowing against it postpones the taxation.
Also when you take out a loan, you can deduct the interest from your taxes (in most countries).
We are focused very much on the DeFi space.
MELD is fully decentralized and trustless.
But most importantly we are NON-Custodial!!
We don't take the keys to your cryptos like other lending platforms like BlockFi and Nexo.
Q2. What is Meld all about explain it along with the usecase and vision?
*Ken Blaue:
Our focus is to service the markets outside of the US for now. 62 percent of crypto investors are outside of the US. And our competitors focus on the US market. Especially with their KYC process. We are based in Singapore and Switzerland.
We want to bring new types of financial instruments to market under the DeFi model.
It needs to be decentralized, trustless and non-custodial for it to be DeFi (in our eyes). These values lead to other benefits.
1. it's transparent and then (more or less) fair.
2. it's composable so people can build on top of it and create new and interesting products.
3. It's part of a bigger echo-system.
MELD is build on the Cardano blockchain.
We are focused on creating products that can produce a high degree of capital efficiency.
When you get high capital efficiency you can make some really interesting things.
For example
one of the products we are launching is a self paying loan.
You can collateralize your crypto in a smart contracts and then borrow fiat against it.
But we use the collateral and earn yield on it and then some of that yield goes to paying down the principle of the loan.
This is what we mean by capital efficiency. It's not just for our benefit , it's for all protocol participants benefits.
Another product we are bringing to market is a -1% interest loan.
This loan is only for ADA as collateral and you can only borrow mUSD (our stable coin). But the loan as pretty amazing terms! you can borrow up to 90%of the ADA value, no time limit and we pay you to borrow it!!!
We believe that these kind of products are the hallmark of DeFi and we need to use the technical innovation to benefit all.
Q3.In your distant targets you have mentioned zero interest loans if you would do then how you plan to generate revenue?
*Ken Blaue:
By securing the Cardano blockchain.
With the zero interest or negative interest loans you borrow against ADA as collateral. We then use the collateral in Cardano Stake Pools and get block rewards.
From the block rewards we take some of it and pay in interest to THE BORROWER. Yes, the borrower gets interest. And then we take most of it and put to a treasury/hedge to handle market volatility.
This is because these zero or negative interest loans have a 90% LTV. And we want to avoid liquidations.
and then the MELD protocol takes a percentage to cover costs and pay MELD staking rewards.
So some of the innovation is from MELD and some comes directly for our choice of blockchain technology.
Q4.How you assure the borrowers won’t run away with the funds what’s the amount of locking as collateral also what’s your take on flash loans ?
*Ken Blaue:
1. We don’t pass judgement on our customers. We don’t need a credit check etc. We don’t care if they run away with the money. The fiat loans are set to 50% LTV. if they run away with the fiat then we liquidate their positions to cover the cost of the loan and we return the remaining crypto collateral to their account.
2. We will have various types of loans. Some will be fix time limit and some will be open. One product is a line of credit where you only pay interest on the money used. Again we don't care if people want to borrow forever.
3. Flash loans are very interesting but our short term goal is to build lending and borrowing in normal time scales. Not on a per block timescale. Also Flash loans are different on Cardano where transactions are under 1 second. For ETH because of the long times for a single block it makes more sense technically. We are not ruling them out, but we are not planning anything yet.
Q5.Share in your tokenomics and how you assure team won’t dump on holders?
*Ken Blaue:
So the tokenomics are two fold.
First The basics. We are minting 4 billion at Genesis and that's it. The token is deflationary through strategic buybacks.
The Token can be used for 4 things.
1. You can pay for fees on the protocol with it.
2. You can stake it in the MELD stake pool and earn 40% of all fees on the protocol.
3. You can use it in our LPs called MELD Vaults to earn Yeild.
4. It's a governance token, allowing you to vote on changes to the protocol.
BUT....
The second part here is the most interesting.
The way you acquire the token.
MELD will be starting the wolds first ISPO on Thursday. An ISPO is an Initial Stake Pool Offering.
This is a way for people to help the MELD protocol development. You stake your ADA in our stake pool. In exchange for you staking you will be rewarded in MELD tokens.
This is the safest and most fair way to launch a project.
You never pay for anything. No out of pocket costs. And you are rewarded with MELD tokens at the end of the ISPO.
The ISPO is a new and much more community driven way to build on the Cardano blockchain. We are super happy to bring this to market and get community participation.
The ISPO has not started and we already have 3.5m ADA staked!!!!!!
🟡 SEGMENT 2:TWITTER QUESTIONS
Q1)MELD is the first decentralized and non-custodial liquidity protocol for borrowing fiat ,what do you exactly mean by this statement how are you differentiating yourself from other lending platforms?
@Rockydj824
*Ken Blaue:
BlockFi, Celcius, Nexo they are all centralized and they require that you give up the keys to your crypto.
We do not.
We are protocol and are decentralized.
We lock the crypto up in smart contracts. Not taking your keys away.
You only ever have to do KYC if you are borrowing fiat. With the others, you have to do US based KYC for anything.
You can see exactly what your crypto is being used for with MELD. You have no idea where your crypto is used on these CeFi systems.
What happens if or when the US government changes it policy on crypto? What can you do then?
Decentralized is best!
Q2 Most projects are choosing erc or bsc mostly these days, why you prefer to choose cardano chain, and how can you prove that you are truly democratic. @Derriego
*Ken Blaue:
We looked at BSC and ERC and we love both of them. especially Ethereum. But we want to build a more modern model with a slightly different approach and with less technical debt.
Cardano was a good choice (so we thought in the beginning) because of the architecture and the newness of it. There is more than $40b in liquidity locked in Cardano that's just doing nothing.
We want to help unlock that liquidity. And build bridges to the rest of the DeFI ecosystem.
As part of this we are bringing MELDed (wrapped) assets to Cardano as mETH, mUSD, mBNB, mBTC and mEUR.
We want to work with all of the chains.
As to the democratic question. We are open and trustless. The protocol will be governed by a Swiss Foundation. We have a governance token
Anyone with MELD tokens can submit a MIP (MELD improvement proposal) and then token holders can vote on it.
Q3 As I’m not familiar with these two wallets “Yoroi and Daedalus”, can you first describe each wallets and also explain with us how can we delegate our ADA to the public MELD stake pool using these wallets? Lastly, I want to know what benefits me of staking ADA to MELD node? @Wormz29
*Ken Blaue:
Yoroi and Daedalus are the two native ADA (Cardano) wallets. Yoroi is for mobile and Daedalus operates as a full node. You can download both for free from the cardano site or the mobile app store. At the end of the summer you will be able to download the MELDapp as well which will do the same thing.
To Delegate ADA you need to have it in your wallet (Yoroi and Daedalus).
Then it's a matter of 4 or 5 clicks and it's delegated.
Basically you select delegate/pools
Search for MELD
the first ISPO MELD stake pool is called MELD1
select it and then select the amount of ADA you want to deligate.
You can un-deligate whenever you want as well. No lock in time.
Once you delegate you start getting MELD token rewards.
If you delegate 1000 ADA at the start of the ISPO on July 1 and you leave it in for all 32 epoch (1 epoch = 5 days) then you will get rewarded just over 2000 MELD tokens. and you get your 1000 ADA back!!!!
Q4)What’s the security offered by your platform and have your smart contracts been audited??
@Grumpyb14017909
*Ken Blaue:
Security is no 1 for us. If people do not trust us then no one will use the protocol.
This is why we have 2 full time security engineers (one is from Apple) and we focus a lot of attention to security.
We have not been audited for 2 reasons.
1. The main testable net is not up and running yet for cardano. and 2. none of the auditing firms are yet very familiar with Cardano smart contracts and Haskell/Plutus.
Yeah, we want first mover advantage to that $40b.
Q5)What are the benefits offered for long term holders of your tokens ? Also tell a bit about passive income which could be possible through your platform. @Zordan91017228
*Ken Blaue:
So in the long term which for us is 2024. We see MELD as a major player in both the DeFi space for lending and borrowing. But we are also building products for when the institutions come into the space and we are focused very much on pensions.
We want to offer the pension market a low risk fixed income alternative to the bond market with is dying from negative yield bond issuance.
We see that when the bear market comes, we want to be able to help people unlock some of the value of their crypto while they can still Hodl it. So we think fiat loans will be very big in the bear market.
🟢 SEGMENT 3:TELEGRAM LIVE
Q1-Ramsy Bolten:
What advantages does MELD provide to the customers over other competitors? Will I be required to go through KYC before using your fiat lending solutions? how many cryptocurrencies and Fiat does MELD support?
*Ken Blaue:
We don’t take your crypto keys and we are decentralized so it’s independent and safe. For fiat loans we require KYC specific to your country, not the US. For all other products, no KYC We will start by supporting ADA, ETH, BTC, BNB and then we will expand.
Q2-dinkan_jnr:
Is your token listed??? if yes which are the exchanges it is available?
tell us about your token listing
*Ken Blaue:
We are not launched or listed yet. We launch in November and we expect to be listed in at least 2 exchanges by the end of the year. We are shooting for listings on KuCoin and Gate.io.
Q3-Chocolate Love:
As a community based project, how can I donate my quota for your success? Do you have a Global Ambassador Program and any Referral Rewards system?
*Ken Blaue:
You can contribute via the ISPO and get rewarded in MELD Tokens. Yes we have an ambassador program and we will be launching a referral program in two weeks.
Q4-dinkan_jnr:
From Where we can collect updates about your project faster???
*Ken Blaue:
The best place to get updates is our Telegram channels or our Discord channel.
Q5-situation situation_is_bad:
Can you tell me about your governance mechanism? Who will have the most powerful vote and which suggestions community can vote in?
*Ken Blaue:
The governance mechanics can be found in detail in the whitepaper. But in general. If you hold MELD you can submit MIP - MELD improvement proposals and you can vote on them.
Q6-Pangeran Kodok:
What is the biggest achievement MELD has? what is your target in the next 1-5 years?? and are you going to your plan to get more users?
*Ken Blaue:
The biggest achievement is being able to create a more fair method for the community to get MELD tokens. The ISPO is a perfect solution to community engagement.
Ken Blaue:
Any additional questions can be answered on our telegram channel or other social media here.
Thank you from Crypto Scape 🥰
