Community AMA Recap
I. Intro
Slavian: Hello and welcome to an “old-school” community AMA! It’s back to TG this week!
There will be 3 parts to the event:
- Updates
- Popular questions we received
- Your live questions
Part 3 is interactive, so make sure you’re well prepared. We’ll try to answer as many questions as we can. Don’t worry if we didn’t get to yours. You can message the admins after the AMA with your remarks.
Let’s get started. Robert, how’s it going?
Robert Sharratt: Hi Slavian! All is pretty ok, just crazy busy here in Geneva.
Slavian: Crazy busy? Tell me about it!
II. Updates
Slavian: So, let’s start with the 1st point. What good stuff do you have for us?
Robert Sharratt: Such a lot of work merging TradFi and DeFi!
Our tech team continues to work flat out, including weekends, on our integrations with TradFi.
DeFi innovation is amazing. TradFi integrations are beyond complex.
It is as if TradFi was built in a fit of absentmindedness over the past two generations …. or maybe drunkenness.
However, we are focused on functioning as a bank in the front and DeFi in the back. The DeFi Mullet as the Bankless guys call it.
It isn’t exactly the personal look I am going for, but it does describe the idea ….
Slavian: Phew! I hear you.
III. Community submitted questions
Slavian: Let’s move onto a few questions the community sent to us now. They’re fewer today, so we can focus on your live questions!
1. When is the roadmap finally coming out?
Robert Sharratt: Yeah, we are working on it!
Our tech team wants to make it an interactive mechanism in Trello, so everyone can see and comment.
I really like the transparency.
Slavian: Even upvote / prioritize features.
Robert Sharratt: I’m super keen to move as much as possible to community governance.
A few things are delayed as we work on integrations. Basically, we are creating Revolut but with our ledger on-chain. It is just taking some time.
Our plan is to have it out to community comment by the next AMA.
Slavian: Great!
2. Are you guys following USDC/circle’s fast moving progress? They’re moving closer and closer to our niche, and they have so much exposure already. Has the team considered reaching out to collaborate at all or at least opening a line of communication?
Here’s a tweet for some context:
https://twitter.com/jerallaire/status/1417460775132741643?s=21
Robert Sharratt: We are not Circle. Or Coinbase. Our vision is to be as pure DeFi as possible. One thing we are working on is having our ledger on-chain, on Polygon. It has never been done before, for a financial technology company. But, the vision from our tech team, particularly Amadeo and Nic is to be as decentralised as possible. It is a clear differentiator with centralised entities, from banks to fintechs to centralised crypto companies.
We are working with Visa and Mastercard on a product via Cresco, a regulated Swiss financial company built on crypto.
We have a plan to “merge” (bridge) TradFri and DeFi. It involves a stablecoin.
fiatUSD will be 1:1 cash backed, transparent (via our partners Chainlink), and will be a seamless way to go from a Cresco bank account to DeFi.
IV. Live Questions
Slavian: Amazing! Let’s move on to the live questions now. I’m going to open the chat!
Chat is open!
Koploseus: Do you have an ETA for the app launch ?
Robert Sharratt: We expect that the retail app will launch at the end of the summer or in September in an MVP version. We are also working on a web app that will launch before that.
The web app is going to be a bit more DeFi orientated than the retail app.
Jace: When does the team figure the app is ready for launch? As well as active Marketing?:p
Robert Sharratt: Marketing will start just before launch, of the web app and retail app.
CryptoPunkPoet: Polygon is considered quite centralised, and there is alsways controversy about there multisig handling (billions of $ in the hands of a few devs).
- Is this a concern?
- Will you support ngm stable-coins be supported (e-chf, e-dkk, e-sek ..etc) ?
- Have itchy fingers 😁… can we apply as beta testers? Thanks
Robert Sharratt: Yeah, so true. We won’t be touching this aspect of Polygon.
Hyperex: Does Cresco need a license to offer its financial services in other countries? If yes, how is that being taken care of?
Robert Sharratt: We have regulatory authorisation to offer all of our financial services here in Switzerland. Our plan is to have users effectively come to us, in Switzerland, rather than offer local financial services. We also have banking infrastructure in place in the EEA and the UK. We are putting this in place also in Singapore, HK, Australia, Japan, Vietnam and Canada. (Please don’t ask why these countries. TradFi is such a nightmare). Of course, DeFi is open, permissionless, and global, so our crypto-side presents less regulated possibilities.
Crispyboi: Good morning Robert and Slavian! This may be a question for Amadeo, but Robert I noticed you mentioned the ledger being on-chain on Polygon. If I’m not mistaken, Amadeo has previously expressed hesitancy and skepticism on sidechains, and has preferred native L1 Ethereum or L2 solutions like rollups. What changed?
Robert Sharratt: Yes, Amadeo does indeed prefer Ethereum (as do I). However, if Polygon is good enough for Aave, it should probably be good enough for Cresco. Our main focus on Polygon is to be able to mint to this sidechain for low costs. Then, there is a bridge to Ethererum as well.
Pedro: When the money market proposal will be updated on the Aave Governance Forum? It was scheduled to May, in the roadmap.
Robert Sharratt?: Yes, update for our plans with Aave is coming.
Jeff: Will it be possible to track deposit>stablecoin conversions when the visibility is on-chain to individual entities (even if these users identities are anonymised)?
Robert Sharratt: All fiat to stablecoin “conversions” will result in a mint event on chain.
GG: Are you on path to the 1B AUM on the EOY, or will you maybe do much more?
Robert Sharratt: Yes, on track for target AUM at EOY.
If our new stablecoin gets the widespread adoption we expect, “AUM” could be higher.
Koploseus: So what was this DeFi Summer surprise ? :)
Robert Sharratt: The web app. Built for mass adoption of DeFi. Built for real DeFi users.
Skinnjakka: https://twitter.com/HsakaTrades/status/1418276172396306432 Thoughts on this? Is Cresco a part of it?
Robert Sharratt: Stani is a guiding light to us all.
Amazon Prime Wolverine: Any updates on merch?
Slavian: I’ve been lurking here, scanning your ideas. Also adding a few to the “Cresco Collection”. We’ll give credits to the creators, of course!
Magellan Fall: You talked about VISA/Mastercards partnership earlier, can we expect to get a credit card with retail app launch or is it coming later?
Robert Sharratt; MVP retail app will not have cards. Version 1.1, following immediately, will have virtual cards. Version 1.2 will have physical cards. Debit cards. Not credit cards.
Sávio: Will there be a new liquidity mining program?
Robert Sharratt; Yes, but linked to the new fiatUSD stablecoin. We don’t want it for a stablecoin really, but rather to create the TradFi — DeFi bridge.
Harold: In reply to Robert Sharratt ,“Yes, but linked to the new fiatUSD stablecoin. We don’t want it for a stablecoin really, but rather to create the TradFi — DeFi bridge.”
So the team will be injecting cash to enable liquidity mining so there is still the 1:1 ratio?
Simon Kaggwa Njala: Amadeo seemed to show some hesitancy wrt CINAP. Is this still at the core of your project?
Jeff: Is there a point in time approaching that you’ll need to ramp up the Cresco team members again? Presumably the apps will need to offer some level of customer service support especially to scale the userbase significantly
Robert Sharratt: We hire a new backend Go dev every week to help with TradFi integrations. We made an offer to an amazing community member, a talented dev, who will join us in 80 days.
We will also have to hire support people.
So much amazing software being integrated, will cut down on hiring people e.g. AI verification for ID.
Crispyboi: In reply to Jeff “Is there a point in time approaching that you’ll need to ramp up the Cresco team members again? Presumably the apps will need to offer some level of customer service support especially to scale the userbase significantly”
And if so, where can I apply? 😁
Robert Sharratt: We encourage our community to get involved with the core team! DM me or Slavian!
Amazon Prime Wolverine: Can Cressie-chan become an official mascot, like Aave’s ghost? (I’m clearly not asking very important questions, so feel free to ignore)
Slavian: More than an official mascot. We are actually considering her for a very important role within the webapp…
Amazon Prime Wolverine: In reply to Slavian 09:41, “More than an official mascot. We are actually considering her for a very important role within the webapp..”
Like Clippy?
Slavian: In reply to Amazon Prime Wolverine, “Like Clippy?”
Maybe😉
Koploseus: Is it still possible to present Cresco to the public? To gain attention before all release ? Is it possible not to shill “defi Summer , huge news, blablabla” and just give some update about any progress ? Also is it possible to make AMA for big news ? Ama are getting less interesting (not that much question)
Robert Sharratt: Yeah, detailed marketing coming with some of our advisors/friends.
Hyperex: What is the capacity of the stablecoin at launch? is there somewhere we can read about it?
Robert Sharratt: It is going to be 1:1 backed by cash in a Cresco bank account. The user is the Mint.
John: Any update on plans for launching the GBP savings product?
Robert Sharratt: No, sorry.
Tommy: There are a lot of headlines (I won’t call it news) regarding stablecoins in the last month, has this changed the companies approach or complicated how the current approach is executed?
Robert Sharratt: Most stablecoins are not that great.
Slavian: In reply to Robert Sharratt, “Most stablecoins are not that great.”
+1
Robert Sharratt: Ours is 1:1 backed, transparent and designed for DeFi users. But, our main purpose is not to create a stablecoin, but rather to merge the TradFi and DeFi infrastructures.
https://stablecoin.crescofin.ch
Slavian: And that’s all the time we have for today! Thanks a lot for taking part in this AMA, guys.
Stay tuned for next time!
