PolkaBridge x Public Mint AMA Recap
This is a recap of the ask me anything (AMA) session held between the PolkaBridge and Public Mint team on March 15 at 04:00 PM UTC. Public Mint bridges the worlds of traditional fiat with the innovative world of crypto, offering a complete platform for synthetic fiat, regulated and fully collateralized with funds held at FDIC-insured institutions.
The reward pool is 1000$
Leading the AMA are the representatives of the project:
Cyclese — @cyclese_polkabridge — Co-Founder of Polkabridge.
Zeph Williams — @zephwilliams — Co-founder of PolkaBridge, also the UX/UI Designer
From Public Mint, we would like to welcome:
Jorge Pereira — @jorgerpereira — Chief Technology Officer Of Public Mint
The plan of AMA session:
Part 1 — Introduction and preselected questions.
Part 2 — Live questions
Part 3 — The Quiz about Public Mint
PART 1. Introduction of project and community questions.
Cyclese | CEO & Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
Welcome @jorgerpereira
17:05
Jorge Pereira
Hi, thanks for having me here.
17:05
Zeph | Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
AMA starts now everybody!!
17:05
Cyclese | CEO & Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
We are very happy when conduct AMA with PublicMint today
Can you introduce about yourself @jorgerpereira ?
17:06
Zeph | Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
And tell something about Public Mint too please ^^
17:06
Jorge Pereira
Sure, I’m Jorge, CTO and Founder at Public Mint! :)
I’ve been doing software development for over 20 years, and have started a few companies in the process.
In the crypto space, probably the most recognizable is a company called Uphold, of which I started as CTO, and worked for 4 years.
17:07
Cyclese | CEO & Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
i know Uphold haha
17:08
Jorge Pereira
At Uphold, myself and the team I assembled, we were responsible for Product Design, UX Development, UI Design, Architecture, Mobile & Web Application Development, Platform Development, System Architecture, Blockchain, System Operations, Treasury Operation, Technical Security, Customer Support and supporting every other aspect of the business.
17:08
Jorge Pereira
About 4 years later — mid 2017 — Uphold was humming along with an exceptional team, so I left to pursue other ideas. I joined decentralized UK bank BABB as Interim CTO for a year, co-founded an enterprise forex company Wayfex and founded Fintech Server, a platform for building crypto-enabled solutions, on top of which we built Slyk.io, a me-commerce platform which helps entrepreneurs get to market quickly, grow and sell.
In early 2018 the idea for Public Mint was formed, which was to create a system where fiat could be used with the benefits of a blockchain.
And that’s how Public Mint was born.
17:09
Zeph | Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
So interesting!!
17:10
★SHUVO★ PolkaBridge CM
Awesome.
17:10
Cyclese | CEO & Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
and i remember that MINT token has been listed on Uniswap 10 days ago?
17:11
Jorge Pereira
Yes! A lot going on! :)
17:11
Cyclese | CEO & Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
Good. So are you ready for part 1?
17:11
Jorge Pereira
Yes, by all means, go ahead.
17:12
Cyclese | CEO & Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
Part 1 includes 8 questions , was selected from our community
17:12
Zeph | Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
OK, the first question for you here
What is the vision and mission of PUBLIC MINT ? What problems are you trying to solve?
It’s from @YoMothasFavApee
17:13
Jorge Pereira
Ok, that’s a 3 parts answer…
17:14
Zeph | Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
😂
17:14
Jorge Pereira
Public Mint is looking to solve the inefficiencies of legacy ways to handle and use fiat money like USD, by giving everyone the ability to bring their money into a blockchain, and reap the various benefits associated with this technology.
As an example, traditionally, if you want to send USD to someone, you need to ask your bank to do it. You may be able to do it online, but you’re still just asking the bank to do it, and if you do it on a Friday at 6pm, chances are your bank will not fulfil your request until next Monday. This is just an example of the difference between “doing it yourself” or “depending on a 3rd party to do it”.
So, Public Mint already allows you to control your own USD directly and immediately. If you want to send USD to someone on Public Mint, you no longer have to ask your bank to do it. You can do it yourself with your own wallet and private key, and the transaction is then peer-to-peer, rather than asking your bank to do it for you.
This is the foundation that Public Mint has built, which provides an opportunity to solve a number of problems. For instance, with Public Mint Earn we’re looking to address the disparity between the low earnings of a bank account (eg, under 0.4% APY) and the much higher earnings you can obtain in the DeFi space, by letting anyone access those earrings in a very simple manner.
Hope this makes sense! :)
17:17
Zeph | Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
Hmm could we send fiat money by Paypal, right?
any differences from Public Mint?
17:19
Jorge Pereira
Well, Paypal has done something similar, right? They keep money on banks under the hood, and you can transact inside Paypal, in between Paypal users.
But that’s not open. You can’t really tell anything that happens under the hood at Paypal, and you’ve just replaced one intermediary with another.
If you send money via Paypal to another person, you are not really doing it yourself, you’re just asking Paypal to do it. Paypal sits in the middle of the transaction. Also, it’s not transparent.
With Public Mint, it’s a fully open system, where you sign and create your own transactions.
17:21
Zeph | Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
hmm, understood, one more. Can a Public Mint user send fiat money to another who doesn’t use?
17:22
Jorge Pereira
You can send fiat money to an address, regardless of whether that address is a smart contract, or an address controlled by another user.
17:23
Cyclese | CEO & Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
and at Paypal, there are many rules and user can easy reach limit. This is very inconvenient .
17:23
Zeph | Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
awesome
17:23
Jorge Pereira
There will be ways to send money to a cellphone or an email address, but that’s essentially an on-chain escrow mechanism, where people can come to claim the funds sent to them, but you’re not relinquishing your control to anyone.
17:24
Zeph | Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
Clear, we can move to the 2nd one :D
17:24
Jorge Pereira
Great, go ahead then!
17:24
Cyclese | CEO & Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
Q2 from @chramicagoggy
Public Mint wants to compete with other payment platforms like PayPal,
which has already proven to be very safe and reliable, but limited in terms of bank to chain and chain to
bank transactions
Public Mint has the advantage of having this innovative payment method, but and as for the security of the money allocated on your platform, do you have any security fund?
and the bank’s transaction for the platform will automatically be for USD, or for your token?
17:26
Jorge Pereira
Right, we’ve waded a bit into this already, but let me summarize…
Public Mint partners with regulated institutions who handle and store fiat funds, so that Public Mint never actually handles money itself. That is one way to be secure, is that we’re non-custodial, as compared to Paypal, Coinbase or Uphold, who are custodial. They are convenient to use, but they’re holding and in direct control of your funds, whereas Public Mint is not.
17:27
Zeph | Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
Sorry maybe I asked too much for the first question 😅
17:29
Jorge Pereira
With Public Mint, USD is safely kept on deposit with institutions that are FDIC-insured, which means money is protected against the failure of such institutions. As for the money allocated to the Earn program, it goes to DeFi/CeFi, so to ensure some degree of security, a portion of that will be applied to insurance mechanisms. One example of this is the recently announced partnership with Bridge Mutual.
17:30
Zeph | Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
OK, I think it’s enough
17:30
Jorge Pereira
As for the last question, the bank’s transaction to the platform is in USD, and all activity on the platform is in USD. The MINT token is used primarily on the Earn program, and while MINT may see other uses in the future, its purpose is not to to transact on the blockchain. This is a great thing, as it means there’s no such friction or barriers to entry.
17:30
Zeph | Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
Oh, don’t know why I could not see you typing
Are you done Jorge?
17:31
Jorge Pereira
Yups, I’m done on this one.
17:31
Zeph | Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
So thank you for your detailed answer
Found it so easy to understand.
Let’s move to another question, ready Jorge?
17:33
Jorge Pereira
Yes.
17:33
Zeph | Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
The Q3 was from @Greatfulblockchainn
Can anyone create fiat-based native apps with Public Mint? Will the local applications created fully support credit cards, ACH and wire transfers?
17:36
Jorge Pereira
Anyone can create fiat-based apps with Public Mint, by interacting directly with the blockchain. There are also APIs to make some tasks easier.
So, just like anyone can create ETH-based applications on Ethereum, anyone can also create USD-based applications on Public Mint — in fact, using the very same code. In other words, if you have an app that works on Ethereum (using ETH), you can launch that same app on Public Mint (using USD).
And yes, any application can accept credit bank transfers (wire, ACH), and soon credit cards and stablecoins. We even make it really easy for web apps, by offering an embedable widget. You can literally place a button “add USD” with a few lines of code pointing to an address, and the result of people clicking it and going through the process is that you will receive USD on-chain on that address.
17:38
Zeph | Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
yeah I like APIs 😁
17:39
Bruce Leo|Chinapolka and BMW Venture Capital |
👍👍
17:39
Zeph | Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
Sound it will be easy to be popular, right?
17:39
Jorge Pereira
I’m counting on it. :)
Please note, that most of the “foundational” part of this is already built: blockchain, web wallet, widget, etc. The core of the work in the next few months is to build the Earn program and the new mobile app.
17:42
Cyclese | CEO & Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
Good . Should go to next question
17:42
Zeph | Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
So interesting
17:42
Cyclese | CEO & Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
Q4 from @noahbacasi
Why did you choose the IBFT consensus for Public Mint? Can you share the main metrics like TPS,
commission cost, etc.?
17:43
Jorge Pereira
We chose it because it provides high TPS, low computational costs and more importantly, immediate finality.
It allows Public Mint to operate with 25x+ the TPS of the Ethereum network (300+ TPS), while still being able to leverage any future improvements on Ethereum technology.
To finalize this question, this is what allows us to keep costs fixed at $0.05 per USD transaction (and proportionally to other more complex transactions), which is orders of magnitude cheaper and faster than Ethereum nowadays.
Zeph | Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
Does it mean the fee will be always $0.05 for a transaction of 1$ or 10,000$?
17:46
Cyclese | CEO & Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
In reply to this message
i don’t think it will depend on amount of transaction :D
17:46
Jorge Pereira
The fee is fixed at $0.05 if you’re sending USD, which is equivalent to spending 25.000 gas.
17:47
Zeph | Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
Sound good
17:48
Jorge Pereira
The “proportional” part comes into play if you’re doing something more complex, like interacting with a smart contract. As an example, at current prices, if a smart contract call would cost $90 on the Ethereum network, it’d cost $0.90 on Public Mint (approximately, just as an example, of course).
17:48
Cyclese | CEO & Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
good concept
17:49
Jorge Pereira
As an example, imagine an Uniswap trade.
17:49
Zeph | Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
Wow, where will be the remain $89.1?
17:49
Jorge Pereira
It can easily cost about $100 to make a trade on Uniswap. If Uniswap was running on the Ethereum network, that’d have 2 large effects.
First, a trade would likely cost less than $1, as opposed to $100. But also importantly, because costs are fixed, there would be no front-running.-
So now, if you’re doing a large trade on Uniswap, bots can see your trade, and pay a higher fee to put their transaction in front of yours. That wouldn’t happen on Public Mint. If your transaction gets to the network first, it’s guaranteed to be executed first, because there’s no gas war.
17:52
Zeph | Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
Thank you for so detailed answer
Any addtional questions Cyclese? I’m done.
17:53
Cyclese | CEO & Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
We should go to next question
17:53
Zeph | Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
I think so
The next one was from @Mabroxxx
Can you tell us about the Public Mint Earn Program. How does it benefit the platform as well as the community? What role does the $MINT token play in the platform?
17:55
Jorge Pereira
The Earn program allows anyone to leverage the type of gains you get in CeFi and DeFi, without having to understand any of it, or worry with how it all works under the hood, or moving funds around to generate revenue.
In order for the Earn to work properly, someone needs to be making decisions on how to move money around the various DeFi/CeFi options, essentially taking on the role of a funds manager.
And because you’re taking on a role, you get paid for it. That’s why MINT stakers who participate in governance receive USD as payment, directly from the TVL earnings (lookup the Earnings Fee in our whitepaper).
17:55
So that’s the purpose of the MINT token: to govern the Earn program.
Zeph | Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
Sound so promising
I think I will hold a bit $MINT
😁
17:58
Cyclese | CEO & Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
In reply to this message
lol
so the next question
Q6 from @beatingbitcoinn
Users who stake MINT tokens and participate in governance will receive rewards. So, how can I stake my
MINT? what are the minimum TVL?
18:01
Jorge Pereira
You will be able to stake MINT once we launch the new Public Mint app. In the meantime, you can add MINT liquidity to Uniswap, and stake MINT-ETH LP tokens on https://stake.publicmint.com, currently at over 280% APY.
Once Earn is live, there’ll be no minimum TVL per se, anyone can bring in whatever amount of USD they choose, although for practical reasons we might want to avoid tiny transactions and require amounts of at least $10 — $100. This will all be made clear by the time we launch.
As an example, for earnings of MINT stakeholders, let’s look to a bit further in the future where we have $500M in TVL, at a conservative average APY of 10%, which means the Earnings Fee will accrue $7.5M per year, which will be paid to MINT stakeholders. So, the higher the TVL allocated to Earn, the more the same MINT stakeholders will earn for their efforts.
18:03
Zeph | Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
Oh, good, money will born money ^^
Ah we intend to launch Farming this month, would you like to have a MINT-ETH LP tokens pool?
Users can lock MINT-ETH LP tokens to earn PBRs which will be attached in each PBR transaction on network.
18:04
Jorge Pereira
For sure that’s something we can discuss. :)
18:04
Cyclese | CEO & Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
In reply to this message
i’m going to ask this :))
18:04
Jorge Pereira
Anyway, hope the above makes sense.
18:05
Zeph | Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
Hope so 😁
Ok, the 7th one
Q7 from @diamanterusMarketing is the core element of every project, so everyone knows that the potential that the project can bring is essential to achieving the set goals. How do you attract new users and new investors to join $MINT and maintain long-term investment?
18:06
Jorge Pereira
That’s a really high-level question — a lot of it we’re not able to go into full detail now, but you kinda already pointed to the solution. We’re building a marketing plan with many fronts, which will come to full strength when we’re ready to launch the app.
So, how do we attract new users and investors? On one hand it’s about building a really good product and *keeping* users. Then it’s about communicating adequately and to the right people, to acquire new users, generate traction and growth. Every startup goes through this, and we’ve done it a few times in the past, so hopefully we can leverage our collective knowledge as a team to pull it off again.
Until we’re ready to go to market, we’ll continue to focus on developing partnerships and building the actual product. In the next few weeks we’ll start to ramp up our communication and provide more information about these efforts.
18:09
Cyclese | CEO & Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
long-term plan
so the final question is very important
and everyone in our community wants to know it
18:09
Q8 from @withuscrypto
PublicMint partners with #PolkaBridge . What is the purpose of this Partnership? And what are the benefits of this collaboration for both projects?
18:11
Jorge Pereira
We aim to be useful for the wider crypto community, and part of that goal is to make it easy for any other blockchain to transact in fiat. This aligns particularly well with the Polkadot ecosystem where it’s natural to interconnect with other blockchains. So you can see how PolkaBridge is interesting to us in that context.
We’re establishing similar partnerships with a number of other projects, but we prefer not to announce them until we’ve taken the steps to iron out the details, so we can talk about specific ways in which these partnerships will work.
We’re all in a nascent space where a lot is happening fast, and the benefits of being part of such an ecosystem is that we don’t have to build everything, we can leverage what others are doing to complement our efforts. The benefits are synergistic, where by working together, projects like Public Mint and PolkaBridge can grow faster and reach more people than by going at it alone.
There. Thanks for all the questions. :)
18:14
Cyclese | CEO & Co-Founder PolkaBridge (Never DM First)
Yes. i love your concept. And i like “Public Mint and PolkaBridge can grow faster and reach more people than by going at it alone.”
Congrats on our partnership
PART 2. Questions about the project from the live chat of the telegram community.
In this part, we open a chat for the crypto community for 120 seconds. Then the guests from the PolkaBridge crypto project choose the top 10 questions. The 10 crypto enthusiasts have earned cryptocurrency in the sum of 1000$.
Q — 1 from a telegram user @Aleksei
Just double checking, you can supply TVL to the platform and Earn USD on that TVL OR you can simply stake MINT tokens and earn a percentage of everyone else’s TVL?
Jorge Pereira
- If you have USD, you can deposit your USD into the Earn program, and that will generate revenue. You will earn 85% of that revenue, and 15% will be paid to MINT stakeholders.
- If you have MINT, you can stake it to vote, and earn 15% of the Earnings from everyone else’s TVL
So, in practice, you can do both, depending on the assets you want to hold.
Q — 2 from a telegram user @LosPutasDeElPaso
Can the regular joes around here participate somehow in the DeFi ecosystem of Public Mint and how do you actually look to develop the current, extremely frictioned and high-barrier entry DeFi?
Jorge Pereira
In reply to this message
That’s pretty much our goal. As someone that knows nothing about crypto, you’ll be able to download the Public Mint app, load USD from your bank account, and start earning. All without knowing anything about crypto, ETH, and the underlying complexities of DeFi or CeFi. And also, because we’re essentially pooling funds, also without paying the very high Ethereum fees.
Q — 3 from a telegram user @Charmaine Eulalia
How can I be sure that the money that I see in the blockchain is actually in your bank account?
How did you connect a bank account and the blockchain? Do you use Oracles or what? Thank @jorgerpereira
Jorge Pereira
That’s a great question, and one that many companies solve via 3rd-party audits. We’re looking to address that in a more efficient manner, and will look to launch mechanisms for self-verification later in Q3/Q4.
Q — 4 from a telegram user @LicvICeRRRRRRR
big problem for a lot of Defi projects seems to be that when farming starts, the price goes down because people unload to put liquidity into the farm. Will there be an incentive to hold MINT and not just farm and dump?
Jorge Pereira
In reply to this message
Unlike other projects, the mid-term goal of MINT stakeholders is not to farm MINT. It is to “farm” actual USD resulting from very real financial value. Once we launch our app, there will be a short period of time where we’ll compensate for the low initial TVL by providing more MINT to MINT stakeholders. But as the TVL grows, value comes not from farming MINT, but actually “farming USD”.
Q — 5 from a telegram user @TinderNoel
The DEFI bubble is pumping up every day and it’s only a matter of time before it bursts. What do you think about this and can you be sure that MINT products will be in great demand in the long term? what are the ways that MINT Token MINT rates profits/revenue to maintain your project and what is its revenue model ?
18:38
Jorge Pereira
In reply to this message
There are many, many projects in the DeFi space. Some introduce new tokens that have temporary value, particularly while we’re in a bull market or bubble. You really need to look at these products and ask: is their value based on volatility and speculation? Or is there a tangible added-value to their offering? There are many products that offer real financial value, and did so during a bear market as well. For instance, products that offer fully-collateralized loans for instance, generate real APY that is disconnected from volatility and speculation. Those are the kind of products we see Earn leveraging.
Q — 6 from a telegram user @AshishVerma
If the general cryptocurrency market experiences a major crash, what are you doing or what will you do to stay afloat?
18:42
Jorge Pereira
In reply to this message
This might sound odd to hear, but… we’re not a cryptocurrency company. Like many others in the crypto space, we believe our value offering is separated from the value or volatility of crypto, or even of our own token. We’ll provide a valuable service to people, and that generates revenue. It may sound old-school, but that’s how actual companies survive and thrive. If you’re depending on being in a bubble or bull run, your time is limited, so we’re not built like that.
Q — 7 from a telegram user @Draisaitl
You mentioned the Earn program is going to be available via a mobile app. Do you have any screenshots of it and when will it be available?
18:43
Jorge Pereira
There’s 2 early screenshots in our whitepaper, and we’ll soon be publishing more. The app should enter Beta with a limited number of people in late Q2, and will be launched to the in Q3.
Q — 8 from a telegram user @HuyĐỗNhật
Now that technology is changing every second, are you afraid that in the future #PublicMint will lag behind new projects with newer technologies? Do you have a plan for this?
Jorge Pereira
In reply to this message
Technology is important to making a product successful, but it’s also the part that I find easier to improve and upgrade on. We can always leverage and incorporate new technology into our product, and that’s for sure something we expect to continue doing. More importantly is to make sure that whatever technology you incorporate, you do it with a purpose, to solve a problem, to make life easier for people. Too many projects focus on technology as the main item, and forget to make sure people come first.
So, yes, we have a plan to continue incorporating newer technology, in the service of a better product. Our multi-layer approach essentially guarantees that we can improve, replace or even provide alternatives to various pieces of our technology stack.
Q — 9 from a telegram user @VinhFAPTV
You co-founded public mint at the mid of 2018. We all know that after the bull run of 2017 it was a critical time for cryptocurrencies. how have you been able to survive this longest bear market and continue building and developing cos many projects have died out in this time period?
+9
18:52
Jorge Pereira
In reply to this message
We did not set ourselves up as a crypto company that depended on a volatile token. We set ourselves up as a fintech that is leveraging blockchain technology to solve problems and have a positive impact on people and businesses around the world. That allowed us to attract seed investment and operate for a couple years in stealth while we advanced our product and better understood our use cases.
Q — 10 from a telegram user @Bitcoinfan2020
Do your ambitions go so far as to completely replace banks in terms of transferring money?
What will be the cooperation with polka bridge?
Jorge Pereira
In reply to this message
No. Banks will always have a role in transferring money at some fundamental level. We rely on banks, we do not intend to replace them. However, given the full weight of regulation and their legacy systems, it’s not efficient for a bank to serve every customer, or to handle every transaction.
If you’re familiar with crypto — and this is just a metaphore — you could look at banks as Layer 1 solutions for Fiat, whereas Public Mint is a Layer 2 solution for fiat. Most individuals and businesses would be better served using Public Mint to transfer funds quickly and immediately, without every transaction having to hit a bank, and only actually go to the bank when they need to take their funds out of the network.
18:55
Thank you everyone! :)
Part 3 — Quiz about project
In the final part, we tested the knowledge in terms of the Public Mint project. They’ve prepared 4 questions for this part, so everyone could be a part and answer. Participants had 10 minutes to answer. 1000$ was distributed between the winners.
