Andre Cronje - infinite AMA

#303

Standard bank charter, but we are self limiting what we are allowed to do. What we have now is just payment rails;

Initiate a payment for x fiat with y crypto > receive a quote valid for z minutes and an address > send funds to wallet & trigger payment.

There are limits to the backend software you are allowed to use, and pre-approved vendors you should use, and if you do build it custom, you require all the usual compliance and ISO checks on the software, so its a very long process. Acquiring the license itself was also a challenge, originally we wanted to simply acquire a bank, however, the overheads are more than applying for a new license, since the compliance checks are the same, except you inherits the liabilities and overheads of the existing institution. So applying was the best way forward. Took almost 3 years.

So to make sure we don’t risk the above since we are a “crypto institution”, we are being very strict on KYC and onboarding and have minimum volume requirements. We are also avoiding custody of any kind.

The process for now is still heavily manual, which is why we are limiting participants, any automated product is most likely still 6 months+ away.

That being said, yes, we do try to leverage Fantom and blockchain technology as much as we can to make the process seamless.

The goal is to give DAO’s and crypto natives an API based fiat payment rail.

4 Likes
#304

Probably way too late and messy given progress to date, but looks like some existing banks on a fire sale these days!

#305

They might be, but as I said, compliance to buy one is the same as compliance for a new license. The effort is less on finding a bank / license holder willing to sell (there are lots of those), but being able to comply in the relevant jurisdiction.

Being able to buy, and being allowed to buy, are two very different things.

1 Like
#306

I see closed beta is happening… cant wait to join!

#307

q1: If the bank is approved, will it use underlying fantom dex infrastructure to swap and buy via account abstraction? (Or go beyond fantom where better liquidity is found via cross chain swaps).

For instance, here is the list of all on chain tokens, on fantom or whichever, buy with fiat and it automatically on boards your funds and does the routing right from online banking. Hold it in an on chain wallet for you, even though from online banking you may not even know.

This would be fantastic. Although for mass adoption I wish spookyswap was branded differently. Can we just keep the BOO token and change the name to something else? “Boolean” or something sufficiently nerdy/boring.

q2: Will this be an international bank? Could I tell my employer in, Canada for example, to auto deposit monthly salary to this account. Or is this more of an investment bank.

#308

This is copied from another post for another Chain. Credit must go there. But this is perfectly fits for Fantom. This idea is about how to make Fantom great again with DeFi. Need your feedback. It’s lengthy but worth it.

–

Blockchains number one use case is Finance. Everything else including Gaming, apps, NFTs, web3 Socials goes to the chain that have strong DeFi value. That’s what made ETH number one platform.

Though Fantom is the superior chain in terms of tech & community, Current state of Fantom DeFi is not good as it used to be. As per defillama, total DeFi TVL is $64Bn & Fantom share is $400Mn. Not even 1% share despite the chain running from 2018 while many new chains & L2s have strong DeFi.

So how to revert this? First, DeFi has a very weak link. Entire field is denominated in USD stables(algo or otherwise). When USD dies or is inflated or loss its value, it takes the whole crypto along with it. Global trade is moving from dollar to multi-currency.

Enters Gold. Trade between China, Saudi, Brazil & Russia are agreed to use their local currency instead of USD. Agreed to settle the trade deficit in physical gold. Most central banks are loading up the gold. Even now it’s possible to trade in gold between any countries.

Gold Standard: Gold is Global money, world reserve, lindy, decentralized, highly distributed, permissionless, low inflated, store of value & medium of exchange for 1000s of years. Gold has been used between Government to government, biz to biz & individual to individual.

Still gold has disadvantages with: storing large amounts safely, programmable, moving large amounts, privacy, censorship resistance, using it productively etc. This can be solved by on-chain algorithmic digital gold. But there is already crypto gold like Pax Gold, Tether Gold etc. These are similar to USDT & USDC. Centralised & censorable. We need something like DAI or better. With no single point of failure. Individuals and countries should store and use it without thinking twice.

Introduce ftmGold.

A Gold pegged token which can be minted like DAI, by collateralize FTM(No other assets including ETH and BTC, only FTM). And incentive deep liquidity in DEXes for ftmGold/FTM pair. And list the ftmGold in most CEXes.

Market the ftmGold to normies, whales, Funds, Corps, Govts, banks & CEXes that it’s the most robust & advanced money ever created. Same old gold but in new form.

Great if Fantom Foundation converts some of their treasure into ftmGold to show skin in the game.

Demand for ftmGold will increase the demand for FTM. Higher the FTM price, less FTM to collateralize for gold mints.

Sell the FTM for ftmGold in DEX if FTM overpriced. In the time of de-dollarization world, it’s perfect time to launch it to create demand for superior Gold.

Gold market cap is ~$13Tn, compared to that, USD supply is half of that. 2.3% of USD supply is on-chain in the form of stables. Global ETF Gold mcap is around $300Bn. Even if 2% of gold supply is captured by ftmGold, that is around $260Bn worth of gold or 400 tons of gold.

Even if $2Bn worth of ftmGold bought by market, FTM price goes up by 200-400%. FTM price is not an issue for end users who want ftmGold, Because he mostly brings USDT to buy FTM to convert that into ftmGold.

1 Ounce of gold is going to be the same in USDT. But internally more activities are going to happen in Fantom. Users buy FTM using USDT or BTC in CEX, use that FTM to buy or mint ftmGold.

Idle ftmGold sits on-chain can be used for productivity, which is killer. Loan against low volatile gold is way better for users than high volatile ETH. Can be used for payments as almost everyone on the earth accepts gold. DeFi positive feedback loops kick in.

For a $200Bn ftmGold mcap, FTM price might reach $200 - $300 which puts it in the top 3. Once TVL and Mcap swells, we can see devs and businesses start to discover the technical ability of Fantom.

Bring the narrative around ETH/USD vs FTM/Gold. Narrative around rapid inflation and de-dollarization. ftmGold as better collateral for DeFi. Better hedge against BTC. Global payments. Set the narrative that stables are villains of web3/crypto and ftmGold / FTM is the savior.

ftmGold should be in core, so that it can be upgraded in every version if needed. Should not have any Single point of failure including 3rd party oracle like chainlink.

The situation around the globe favours gold. The wait is over. Enjoy a 4 digit FTM price.

TLDR

  1. Create ftmGold

  2. Market ftmGold to every crypto stakeholder.

  3. Build DeFi around ftmGold.

  4. Make Fantom top 5 chains.

  5. Get ready for post USD global financial system.

  6. Enjoy 3 digit FTM price, or 100x from here.

  7. Kill the ETH/USD with FTM/Gold

2 Likes
#309

Good morning Andre, after reading the concept of the Bank that the FTM Foundation is developing, will FTM holders or staking benefit from the Bank? or are they not related?

#310

Hi Andre – If there won’t be any liquid markets for the current fUSD, what will the net effect be for those of us that still hold fUSD from before the depeg? E.g. can we migrate 1:1 to the new fUSD once it’s created?

Thanks

#311

hi Andre , as you can see after Multichain rumours , TVL have been dropping a lot mean people are in panic leaving Fantom
is there any plan to get Tether, Circle and Binance to support stable coin for Fantom ?
what do you think about Fantom relying on Multichain bridge for people to bring their coin to Fantom ?

last question , does Fantom bank will issued Fantom own stable coin ?
thanks
hope to get your reply

2 Likes
#312

Any update on this @sam?

1 Like
#313

Hey @bravenoob21 - Currently engaged with ftmscan team to sort it out! Will be sure to update once its resolved!

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#314

Hi André,

First of all: thank you for being always sincere, you speak frankly, and we appreciate that.

My questions are very general because I am not a developer but only a user. I use Fantom because that is fast, decentralized and I don’t know…I like it !!

That being said, regarding the existing Layers 2 like Arbitrum, Polygon, how do you see the future of Fantom and what will make Fantom more competitive than the others?

Do you think in the future that all Blockchains will coexist with their pros and cons or one blockchain will take the lead and replace all the others?

More general, how do you see the blockchain world in ten or twenty years?

1 Like
#315

q1. Where liquidity is available on-chain, we will source on-chain, where it is not available on-chain we will use off-chain. As fiat does not exist on-chain, there will always be an off-chain component.

Spookyswap is not a foundation project, so we have no say in their branding or naming decisions, they are their own project.

q2. Yes.

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#316

Indirectly I would assume so yes, but there are no inherent hooks.

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#317

fUSD v1 will simply be unwound, best to repay any debt and close any FTM/sFTM positions. There won’t be a migration from v1 to v2.

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#318
  1. People will always panic, its human nature.
  2. Yes, Fantom has been trying to work with Tether, Circle, and Binance for native stable coins for years, but they generally believe Fantom is a scam and do not even bother talking to us.
  3. A stable coin is planned.
2 Likes
#319

L2’s are just L1’s with different branding, there is very little difference. So Fantom will compete with L2’s in the same way it competes with other L1’s, superior tech, superior throughput, lower latency, true finality, significant storage requirement reduction, lower hardware requirements, and overall better user experience.

I do believe in a hub and spoke model, but just as the internet is rooted in a few DNS servers, so too will the decentralized web be rooted in a few chains.

2 Likes
#320

Hi mate, I was wondering if you can elaborate on Binance, Coinbase ETC thinking Fantom is a scam, how did this come about?

1 Like
#321

Hi Andre - been following Fantom closely since 2018 and it is great to see how the team has grown. On the thought-leadership and community outreach front, we have had Michael Chen, Simone Pomposi and most recently Juan. Each of whom were great in their own right.

Since Juan moved on, Fantom-led thought leadership (via e.g. developer interviews or fantom team members discussions) on ecosystem developments seems to have fallen flat. Anything in store for the future on this?

1 Like
#322

Juan hasn’t left. Nothing has changed in that department.

2 Likes