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Hello, Satoshi clubbers Another AMA took place in Satoshi Club and we would like to introduce to you the AMA session with our friends from Tidal and our guest was Chad Liu, Founder of Tidal and Dan R., CTO of Tidal. The AMA took place on 04 February.
The AMA session was divided into 3 parts with a total crypto reward pool of 800$
In this AMA Recap, we will try to summarise the most interesting points for you.
Part 1?—?introduction and questions from the Telegram&WebSite
Mary | Satoshi Club:
Hello Satoshi Club! We are happy to announce our AMA session with Tidal! Welcome to Satoshi Club
D. | Satoshi Club:
Hello Satoshi club!
@chadliu638 @draykh hello guys! welcome to Satoshi club!
Chad Liu:
Hi Guys.
Thank you for doing this.
Mary | Satoshi Club:
Hello! You’re welcome
D. | Satoshi Club:
Hello, hello! nice to see you here
Mary | Satoshi Club:
How was your day?
Chad Liu:
Doing pretty well. Busy, but good.
Mary | Satoshi Club:
Sure, we all have busy times
So, let’s start with our AMA
Please introduce yourself to our community and tell us how you got into cryptoindustry in general and Tidal in particular?
Chad Liu:
Sounds good. First of all, thank you for organizing this. It is a pleasure to be here. A bit background about myself?—?I have a mathematics, engineering and finance background, came to crypto space in 2017 working in a venture fund and fell in love with the space. The amount of creativity, innovation is definitely ahead of other industries. Earlier last year around April, I started this company by realizing the defi space has a high demand for insurance service.
A quick summary for the product?—?We are building an insurance marketplace to connect insurance sellers and buyers to cover smart contract hacks. Tidal offers the functionalities to create custom insurance plans for one or more assets from multiple protocols. The main objective of the platform is to maximize capital efficiency and return to attract LP’s, while offering competitive insurance premiums to attract buyers.
D.R.:
Hello everybody.
Mary | Satoshi Club:
It is definitely what we need here
Hello and welcome
D.R.:
Thank you!
D. | Satoshi Club:
Hi! welcome to Satoshi club!
Chad Liu:
Dan our CTO just joined us as well. Give him a min to introduce himself.
D. | Satoshi Club:
Sure
D.R.:
Mary | Satoshi Club:
Btw, did you work with traditional insurance before?
D.R.:
Hi everybody, it’s great to be here. I’ve been in FinTech for over 20 years working in the financial markets, electronic and cryptocurrency trading. I am a computer scientist by training, I’ve built multiple trading systems in FX, Equities and Crypto markets. Designed and build financial products like ETFs and CFDs. I worked with companies like BlackRock, BNY Mellon, FTSE and Galaxy Digital. I am excited to be working with Chad building next chapter in DeFi world.
Chad Liu:
I worked in the finance space before but not particular in insurance. Our team has expertise from traditional insurance space though. e.g. Marsh. In terms of what we are building, the important part is mathematic model to correctly diversify risks and help insurance seller earn returns, bring down insurance cost for buyers. similar as the traditional insurance modeling.
Mary | Satoshi Club:
Famous names
Got it, sure your experience will help a lot!
Btw, guys, may be you have some announcements or recent news, which you want to share with our community?
Chad Liu:
We did a successful private raise. we are ramping up the pace to go to market. Aiming on main net launch in March. Q1. Together with launch, we are working on incentive schemes to attract users, drive adoption and ensure retention. we’ll be sharing details of these mechanisms and their respective incentives with the launch of our alpha.
Here is the published fund raise link on coindesk: https://www.coindesk.com/polkadot-based-defi-insurance-app-raises-1-95m-led-by-kr1
Mary | Satoshi Club:
Congratulations
It’s important stage!
Thank you for your introduction! Are you ready to start with the questions from our community?
Chad Liu:
Of course!
D. | Satoshi Club:
Let’s go!
And thank you for the intro!
Q1 from Telegram user @Highpee
Tidal finance is a decentralised insurance marketplace which is built on Polkadot. However I read where you said that your v1 will be launched on Ethereum first and then later, you will get migrated to Polkadot. Why didn’t you launch directly on Polkadot blockchain and how long after you go live will this migration takes place. Also, as a Polkadot based insurance marketplace, do applications need to be on the Polkadot blockchain before they can benefit from your insurance cover or it will be possible to draw insurance premium from Tidal irrespective of someone originating blockchain?
Chad Liu:
We pick to launch on Ethereum for couple reasons. first its faster, polkadot main net will wait until probably Q2 or Q3. second it covers most of the user cases. The protocols we are insuring mostly in Ethereum network. Our migration will happen somewhere around Q2 this year. The application don’t need to be on polkadot to be insured, actually projects from different chains can all be insured. How LP participate on Tidal is to deposit stable coins in the reserve pool and cover buyers pay for insurance premium with stable coins.
D. | Satoshi Club:
And after migration on polka people will have choice to switch between two blockchains? they can stay on Ethereum or go to Polka?
Mary | Satoshi Club:
How long we need to wait until launch?
Chad Liu:
We are migrating to platforms compatible to ETH. e.g. moonbeam or plasm. user can still use ETH wallet to participate.
D. | Satoshi Club:
Got it.
Chad Liu:
We are aiming on main net by end of march. test net few week before that.
Mary | Satoshi Club:
Got it! Can we already try your services in testnet?
D. | Satoshi Club:
Can we participate in testnet? will it be open for everyone?
Chad Liu:
It will be! at the beginning week we may select some partners to test but will open up to everyone after.
D. | Satoshi Club:
Nice
Mary | Satoshi Club:
Excellent! Thanks!
Ready to proceed?
Chad Liu:
D. | Satoshi Club:
Q2 from Telegram user @rhedd
What are the qualifications or required steps to advantageously launch an insurance pool on Tidal finance ecosystem? How many pools can be created per user? Can the user create multiple pools on TidalFinance?
Chad Liu:
There is no KYC requirement for user to participate on Tidal platform. We will have liquidity mining program to incentivize early adopters. either you provide liquidity to sell covers, or purchase covers. We will launch 3 different risk trenches pools (low, mid, high), and liquidity provide can customize their own strategy by selecting multiple protocols to back up in each pool.
For pool creation v1 we simplified the design, going to launch 3 pools at beginning for user to directly participate. later on we will add features for user to propose different pools.
Mary | Satoshi Club:
So, first pools you will choose yourself?
Chad Liu:
Yes. we will keep it simple with low, mid, high risk pool.
Mary | Satoshi Club:
In the future you will have governance, as i know? Users will propose pools using this process?
Chad Liu;
Correct.
Mary | Satoshi Club:
Got it
thanks!
Ready for the next question?
Chad Liu:
Let’s go!
D. | Satoshi Club:
Q3 from Telegram user @Cristubista
Many of the projects, although robust and well developed, may be difficult to use for many users. How could you minimize this barrier to entry, making your services more accessible to users and helping them understand why they need insurance for their assets?
Chad Liu:
That’s a great question. one approach we are adopting to form partnerships with protocol team and increase their user awareness of safety concerns. On the other hand, most protocol teams have stronger intent to purchase covers themselves. with more hacks increase in the space, I think the awareness for retail users is increasing as well. On the app side, we will make the user flow simple and user documentation easy to read.
D. | Satoshi Club:
Will we see a video guides from your team, how people can use your platform, create pools etc? i think it will help a lot people to understand all importance
Chad Liu:
Yes. We are working on the user doc. Educational videos will be very useful for sure.
D. | Satoshi Club:
Mary | Satoshi Club:
Great!
And next question or you want to add something?
Chad Liu:
Ha, next one.
D. | Satoshi Club:
Let’s do this!
Q4 from Telegram user @borysfireball
Insurance is important and necessary, but based on my own experience, I can say that to use it effectively you always need to ‘read the text of the contract, which is written in small letters’. I’m sure you can praise your project for hours, but I’m interested in what are called ‘pitfalls’. What should users pay attention to so that at some point it does not turn out that they will not receive insurance? Is this possible in the case of Tidal insurance?
Chad Liu:
Yes. every protocol has their underwriting terms. I would say for user to look out few things: what are we covering? for example, 1. smart contract hack and malicious attacks. (we cover flash loan attacks by the way). 2. partial coverage. 100% insure is definitely each cover solution’s goal for users. but under some extreme case it may not apply. e,g, if multiple protocols get hacked at the same time and reserve pool is not enough to cover 100% losses.
Mary | Satoshi Club:
Yes, users should pay attention for this!
Chad Liu:
Yes. it will be very clear in our user guide and we take this as priority. we want to protect user’s interest for sure.
Mary | Satoshi Club:
Partial coverage will be just in cases you described above?
Chad Liu:
Yes.
Mary | Satoshi Club:
No text, which will be written in small letters?
Chad Liu:
There are other cases like scam attack just to get to get paid by cover we have audit team to investigate and prevent as well.
Hahaha. may work for 1 or 2 cases.
Mary | Satoshi Club:
Oh, i like this, i had thoughts that somebody will definitely look how to cheat the system
D. | Satoshi Club:
Indeed
Mary | Satoshi Club:
Thanks for answers! Ready to proceed?
Chad Liu:
Yep!
D. | Satoshi Club:
Q5 from Telegram user @cengizhantekin
Tidal Finance is powered by Polkadot. Does that mean Tidal provide insurance service for only the projects on Polkadot or do you also serve to other blockchains? If you do, is it any blockchain or is there a list of limited number of blockchains you support?
Chad Liu:
We do not limit to only polkadot. actually we are providing insurance to all chain. I think a lot people making this assumption has a bit misunderstanding about polkadot. its an ecosystem to connect to different chain. therefore , comparing polkadot and ethereum is like comparing apples to oranges. Polkadot’s advantage is scalability (faster transaction and low gas fee). we have been in contact with other chains like BINANCE smart chain, heco.
Harmony as well.
D. | Satoshi Club:
Lots of people still think that Polka is another “Ethereum killer”
Mary | Satoshi Club:
HECO
their name repeats every day
They are not?
D. | Satoshi Club:
Love this project as well
nice guys, we had AMA with them as well.
Mary | Satoshi Club:
A lot of people think that cryptoproject to be successful has to kill another
Chad Liu:
There are certain advantages but I don’t think you can compare them side by side. ETH is a proven ecosystem on its own already.
Mary | Satoshi Club:
Btw, @chadliu638 , which project Tidal want to ‘kill’
?
Chad Liu:
Haha. that’s why polkadot came in and say we can all connect.
D. | Satoshi Club:
Chad Liu:
Haha. our competitor is NXM. but I think the space is big enough to form healthy competition and even collaboration. I do need to some other parties to insure Tidal.
Its like we buying health insurance. if there is only one provider I think customers will suffer.
Mary | Satoshi Club:
Yes, Nexus is great! But you are right, space is unlimited now
D. | Satoshi Club
Agreed!
Mary | Satoshi Club:
Ready for the 6th and last question from this part?
Chad Liu:
Yes!
D. | Satoshi Club:
Q6 from Telegram user @Wormz28
Crypto partnerships are key to the success of cryptocurrencies in general & on your website, I can see on the BLOG that TIDAL had successfully made partnerships with many different kinds of huge projects. So may we ask what is the purpose or the reason of TIDAL seeking for more partnerships? Also I can’t see any Roadmap in the website, so is there any development services/products you are currently working on?
Chad Liu:
For partnerships, we want to bring protocol teams onto the platform to backup their own protocols as well. we are working on a safety module in the product to fit for this propose. How it works is that protocol team can deposit some tokens to back against their own protocol, if hack happens, this pool will take responsibility for payout. But the upside is that they can show Tidal’s LP confidence of their own protocol and attract more capital to help them sell covers. It is the same concept as their own treasury insurance fund, utilize on tidal platform has these benefits.
For our product, we are aiming on main net launch by end of March. new site with more info on the product will be released very soon in a week or so. Stay tuned we are ramping up the pace to go to market!
Mary | Satoshi Club:
How many partnerships do you already have?
Chad Liu:
I’m counting…
Mary | Satoshi Club:
I was trying to scroll down your feed and it was full of partnerships announcements
D. | Satoshi Club:
The same
Chad Liu:
Maybe 20.
some protocols may take some time to launch to have a real user case. but we are working on everyone who has interest in insurance solution for their team.
There are more to come too.
Mary | Satoshi Club:
Which of them will be ready to work when you will launch?
Chad Liu:
Launched protocols. Reef is pretty close, stakeDAO already launched. cere soon. these are few recent ones.
Mary | Satoshi Club:
Reef our friends
Thank you for your answers!
Part 2?—?live questions from the Telegram community
Q1 from Telegram user @ Dump & Pump Hodl
Are you only into European market? What about Asian marketplaces?
D.R.:
Tidal is truly decentralized and non-custodian, so there is no geographic restrictions.
Q2 from Telegram user @Marian Mahreb
Recently on twitter you said that with the current partnership, the Tidal Finance insurance solutions will be available to the Polkadot DeFi ecosystem. What about the other ecosystems? Are you planning to provide available insurance solutions for them too in the future or would you stay purely on the Polkadot DeFi ecosystem?
D.R.
We will release an Ethereum version of our protocol too.
Q3 from Telegram user @ Вячеслав
Polkadot is only launching the Rococo test network, will this not interfere with your launch and, accordingly, investors ‘ investments to make a profit in the near future?
Chad Liu:
Our v1 will be launched on ETH. and tidal’s business model is to charge a transaction fee from cover sold. there are more than 30 billion locked asset and more than 95% are not covered. I believe the platform have a great potential to generate revenue.
Q4 from Telegram user @Femi Oyinloye
How can you minimize insolvency risk for pool creators and also increase capital efficiency?
D.R.:
This is the core innovation of Tidal, as @chadliu638 mentioned, we have a multi level capital allocated to provide covers. There are Guarantors (protocol teams) that provide first level of capital, then LPs, and then Tidal token holders can also stake their tokens to provide additional coverage
Q5 from Telegram user @Rolex
Does the Konami partnership benefit Tidal Finance users financially?
Chad Liu:
It does by adding konomi protocol into Tidal risk pool. So that liquidity providers on tidal can have one more option to backup their protocol can earn yield. we have a cap on how many protocols a user can backup, but in general, the more you backup, the more earning you could enjoy. Of course the risk would be a bit higher too.
Q6 from Telegram user @ Super-Girl Says
Are those coverage plans that you have published on your website already final or can they be modified later by the community?
D.R.:
We have created 3 coverage pools so far: low risk,medium risk and high risk. these pools can change and also Tidal token holders can propose additional pools.
Q7 from Telegram user @Morgan
99% of DEFI assets is vulnerable to hacks and attacks.
Is there any system built by TIDAL to protect user’s from this security breaches ?
Chad Liu:
Tidal’s goal is to get user covered for their asset with a affordable price. its like everyone buy health insurance. to make this work we are attracting liquidity providers to sell covers by earning high yield and buyer can benefit from the available covers. if we can bring down that number from 99% to 50% that’s a huge improvement in the defi space.
Q8 from Telegram user @ FAHRI™One Sevent™57
How do you protect investors and the integrity of the TIDAL FINANCE financial system from thieves and other hackers?
D.R.:
Amount of coverage available is based on amount our LPs are willing to stake. If people don’t like particular protocol they will not stake their capital, if they do like the returns and are ok with the risk levels they will increase available coverage.
Q9 from Telegram user @Icy
How is Tidal Finance’s Core Design concept to increase your capital efficiency?
Do you have a simple explanation and example case how insurance fund possible to make returns ? @chadliu638
Chad Liu:
By allowing users to backup multiple protocols at the same time. I always like to give an example of how people sell insurance in a traditional insurance world, if you have $1 dollar, and you want to sell insurance. If you only sell 1$ cover (a reasonable insurance premium is pretty low 2% ~ 5%), you are only making a small return by putting all your capital at risk. No one would sell insurance this way. What you want to do is to sell to 20 people, 50 people, and each person buys $1 from you, but at the same time managing the risk of claim payout to make sure you have enough capital to cover the losses. This is how insurance funds make returns.
Part 3?—?Quiz Results
As usual, for the third part, Satoshi Club Team asked the chat 4 questions about the crypto project. A link to a Quiz form was sent into the chat.
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