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We were delighted to welcome our guest from Showcase. The AMA took place on May 8th, 2021 and our guest was @socapceo .
The total reward pool was 500$ and was divided into three parts. In this AMA Recap we will try to summarize some of the most interesting points for you.
Part 1?—?introduction and questions from the Telegram&Bitcointalk community
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: Hello, dear community! We are pleased to announce AMA with xBTC.
Andres M. | Satoshi Club: Hello dear community, welcome to another AMA session. Our guest today is @socapceo
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: Hello and welcome to Satoshi Club, @socapceo!
Mark Sgambelluri: Hey all thanks for having me!
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: Thanks for joining
We’ve heard a lot about your project. and we will be glad if you introduce it to us better
Andres M. | Satoshi Club: Yes, we would like to know more about you
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: Let’s start!
Introduce youreself please. How did you get to be involved in crypto & xBTC?
Mark Sgambelluri: We are a rebasing token that rebases to bitcoin dominance, creating a decentralized synthetic derivative that can be used to trade bitcoin dominance on the open market in an uncensorable self custodial format. We are the first project to:
1. Do an initial dex offering partnership with 1inch
2. Rebase to a novel non-price oracle (we worked directly with Tellor and then chainlink to develop oracles from scratch)
3. Create a synthetic derivative like instrument based around an asset that isn’t tradable normally (bitcoin dominance)
4. create a cross chain bridge of shared supply with a rebasing token on BSC. We will actually be the first multichain rebasing token I know of both the BSC and ERC version will be fully functioning: rebasing on their own, but through a novel bridge they will be directly connected.
We also just launched partnerships with ApeSwap and Beefy with over a million in liquidity farming rewards!
I started working with different crypto projects in June 2020, but have been a holder and evangelist of crypto since 2012 or so. I first got involved through online chat forums.
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: this is a very popular segment of the crypto market. you are in trend
Andres M. | Satoshi Club: Could you explain the concept of rebase token?
Mark Sgambelluri: Yes and we are leading the way in two novel areas: cross chain implementation and rebasing to a more novel oracle that creates dynamics more inline with digital assets.
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: Wow! You have a very impressive journey into crypto
Mark Sgambelluri: We use supply changes to track a number. The biggest example is ampleforth that tracks one dollar. We, instead, track bitcoin dominance xBTC will always trend towards having a price that is equal with bitcoin dominance. This is done by increasing supply or decreasing supply. Everyone’s supply across the entire ecosystem changes each day depending on the rebase. This creates a synthetic that is more decentralized and open market than traditional platforms where you need to provide collateral or use their special interface
Andres M. | Satoshi Club: Thank you, crearly explained
Mark Sgambelluri: The supply changes just happen automatically and your wallet either increases stays the same or decreases in supply depending on if xBTC spot price is above equal to or below bitcoin dominance respectively
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: I really like your ambitious goals. And also a very clear implementation! It’s very professional.
Mark Sgambelluri:
thanks so much!
Andres M. | Satoshi Club: Thanks for the introduction. Well, we have collected some community questions, ready to proceed?
Mark Sgambelluri: Let’s do it!
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: Thank you very much for the great intro!
Q1 from Telegram User @yellowchamp
xBTC introduces a brand new type of hedge, the Dominance Hedge. This is much more adaptive and responsive than a simple price hedge. Instead of tracking price you track how well Bitcoin keeps up with the breakneck pace of all other blockchain technologies. So with the Dominance Hedge that being used by your platform,what better impacts that it gives to users and traders of xBTC ? How it will affect the decision-making of users with regards to trading? With the volatility of market,how will xBTC Dominance Hedge adopts the bullish and bearish run of the market? Thank you
Mark Sgambelluri: Ha! I see someone read the whitepaper. As bitcoin dominance falls and all the other alt coins become more popular and find more users, the Price we are tracking goes lower and lower which should force more frequent and larger positive rebases, which are historically good for rebasing tokens. So even if bitcoin Price goes up its dominance could still fall if it doesn’t keep up with the rest of the digital assets, a holder of xBTC could benefit from this because of those positive bases. In a bearish scenario, which for us would be bitcoin dominance rising, our token would likely suffer because positive rebases are harder to create. But in that scenario likely many altcoins would be suffering. We are a bet on altcoins dominating bitcoin, if that isn’t happening… that’s not good for us. But let’s say bitcoin dominance surged to 95% it would likely be gearing up for a huge drop, which would be good for us. That middle part where it surges from 40% to 90% would be bearish for us though, and many altcoins
Andres M. | Satoshi Club: Do you have xETH token, or do you only manage xBTC?
Mark Sgambelluri: Only xBTC. xETH was a different token that tracked Ethereum price. There was another one that tracked bitcoin price. We don’t find these very interesting because if you want to get access to those prices just buy the asset. Also those numbers will likely trend up which is bad for rebases. But if you want to access bitcoin dominance we are one of the only ways to access a spot price on that.
Mark Sgambelluri: Actually the only way that we know of
Andres M. | Satoshi Club: So, what is the better way to buy xBTC?
Mark Sgambelluri: Uniswap and apeswap are the easiest ways we are also on bittrex global as WXBTC which is a wrapped version of xBTC that you can always unwrap for the underlying xBTC. We are also the first rebasing token to list a wrapped version on a centralized exchange, and we were excited to get such a high-quality exchange as bittrex global
Andres M. | Satoshi Club: Congrats
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: Thank you! great answer! do you want to add something?
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: Or can we jump to the next question?
Mark Sgambelluri: Nope good to go!
Q2 from Telegram User @Antoni_azx
On your whitepaper you mention that it’s a believe of xBTC that the highest value use cases for blockchain technologies are found in the many digital assets beyond Bitcoin. Bitcoin has proven to be the most solid investment plan in the last years, even many governments are starting to invest on it, why is xBTC leading this campaign in favor of other blockchain assets and not Bitcoin?
Mark Sgambelluri: Because we think defi, healthcare, insurance, banking, gaming, video, and social networks all combined are a bigger use case than “digital gold”. Bitcoin is important and led the way. It will continue to perform well. But reimagining, decentralizing, and improving all those listed things are the bigger addressable market and we are excited to see all that is created. We do foresee ETH flipping btc and already see many big institutions starting to be more on ETH.
Andres M. | Satoshi Club: Then, what are the main benefits for long term holders of xBTC?
Mark Sgambelluri: The dropping of bitcoin dominance which trends us towards more frequent and larger positive rebases. Also as the metric of dominance becomes more known and used you can always use xBTC to access a spot price on bitcoin dominance which people could want to use in speculating on future movements of bitcoin dominance.
Andres M. | Satoshi Club: Great concept, it could helps to explore new use cases of BTC, don’t you think? Btw, thanks for the clarification, ready to proceed with the next question?
Mark Sgambelluri: Yes definitely I think there is already one: using it in defi as collateral or to get interest. Speculating on its dominance is one use we provide. They could do other uses like smart contracts on bitcoin, but I highly doubt that will happen. Let’s do it
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: Thank you so much! this is a real advantage xBTC!
Andres M. | Satoshi Club: Completely agree!
Q3 from Telegram user @Arisabela
One of the ways for your holders to passively receive income is by minting their liquidity pool tokens directly on your platform, this can sound very convenient but isn’t there small letters? Is there any risk associated to this option?
Mark Sgambelluri: Yes there are things to keep in mind, all LP holders anywhere can suffer impermanent loss but rebasing tokens fix some of this because their price doesn’t change as much. Also you are exposed to the price movements of xBTC, ETH (on Ethereum), and BNB (on BSC), so as those three prices move you get the up or down of that. On ETH you are getting over 400% APY and on BSC over 6000% APY (by using Beefy), so these returns can offset those risks. Providing liquidity is essential to the ecosystem and that is why we focus our ecosystem incentives on it, it helps the entire community
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: Wow! Very cool APY
Andres M. | Satoshi Club: So, how to create our own pool? how many tokens are needed?
Mark Sgambelluri: As little or as much as you want! There is no minimum! Just stake liqudity on ApeSwap.finance then put it in the farm on ApeSwap or into Beefy.Finance
Andres M. | Satoshi Club: Oh that’s great
Mark Sgambelluri: You can also stake BTC on Beefy.finance right now and earn xBTC-BNB LP tokens, a very cool use case of BTC!
Andres M. | Satoshi Club: What would be the APR in this case?
Mark Sgambelluri: You can go here and scroll to bxBTC-BNB LP and click add liquidity, or click on the BeltBTC tab to add BTC: https://app.beefy.finance/ Andres M. | Satoshi Club: A lot of ways to earn passive incomes, a great option for hodlers
Mark Sgambelluri: Current APY on BTC is 29% with OVER 35 MILLION DOLLARS farming (lol I literally just saw that, that’s crazy) and APY on bxBTC-BNB LP tokens is 6,550% right now. These APYs can change as more people enter the pool.
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: Thanks for sharing!
Mark Sgambelluri: Apeswap has been an amazing partner, they’re super quick, agile, innovative and have a great community. Beefy is all the same and also have over 680 million in TVL and are listed on Binance. We are in really great company on BSC and have found great partners who love our concept and find it to be really interesting and innovative!
Andres M. | Satoshi Club: Congratulations, you are building a great ecosystem with them
Mark Sgambelluri: ApeSwap has over 472 million in TVL and a fraction of the market cap of Pancake Swap, great time to be finding ApeSwap if you haven’t seen them, one thing better than pancakes, banana pancakes!
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: definitely!
Andres M. | Satoshi Club: We have heard a lot about ApeSwap, is trending topic I think. Btw, time to proceed with the 4th question, ready to go?
Mark Sgambelluri: Great project great team!
Q4 from Telegram User @Jonahapagu
xBTC launched a Protocol called Mint Protocol. The Mint protocol was meant to align the community’s incentives with the project’s incentives. It is also meant to reward users for supporting xBTC’s ecosystem… so how does this Mint protocol work, and how can users benefit and get rewards from this protocol..
Mark Sgambelluri: You can provide liquidity on Uniswap V2 with xBTC and ETH, then stake those LP tokens in mint.xbtc.fi you are providing a service to the ecosystem by providing liquidity and locking up xBTC supply, to reward this you earn xBTC
This is currently providing 434% APY
there is also a how to here bit.ly/minthowto Andres M. | Satoshi Club: Btw, could you share with us your tokenomics? how is the token distribution of xBTC?
Mark Sgambelluri: 10% TEAM
5% MARKETING/PARTNERSHIPS
10% LIQUIDITY
40% ECOSYSTEM
35% PUBLIC LAUNCH
We’re especially proud of this distribution with only 15% going to team and partners, when you look at projects like Ampleforth that kept 70% for team and partners and only had a public launch of 10%. You can read more on our comparison to Ampleforth here: https://medium.com/@Social.Capital/xbtc-an-evolution-of-ampleforth-584784d69537 Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: We also would like to know more about your team. Who is the core of the team xBTC?
Mark Sgambelluri: You can see the full team at xbtc.fi our main core is five guys: CEO, COO, CMO, Creative lead, CTO. All of us come with years of experience and multiple projects we have supported in the space. You can read each of our bios in our whitepaper also found at xBTC.fi
Andres M. | Satoshi Club: Satoshiclubbers let’s check the website
Mark Sgambelluri: We are all non-anonymous and have founded the project in a way to be as compliant as possible even getting some legal opinions along the way to be listed on places like Bittrex Global that have a high bar for entry
Andres M. | Satoshi Club: For sure, that is a great milestone
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: Тhanks a lot for the answers. And your openness. Please tell us, do you have audit? Or perhaps in the plans?
Mark Sgambelluri: We are fully audited and passed with flying colors! Our CTO also worked backend and compliance at a CEX and taught computer science in university at Sweden, so we are in good hands security wise! We have a running partnership with Zokyo to ensure our safety. https://xbtc.fi/xBTC-Token-SC-Audit.pdf Andres M. | Satoshi Club: Well done
Andres M. | Satoshi Club: Thanks for share those important details with us. Time to go with the next question, would you like to add something else?
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: I never tire of admiring you
Q5 from Telegram user @Ajpaa
one key difference between xBTC and AMPL stated in your medium article is that AMPL is a pegged currency, xBTC is a pegged synthetic derivative-like asset. AMPL pegs their price to a dollar, creating a pegged currency while xBTC peg price to a novel oracle. What is novel oracle? What is the uniqueness it has brought to xBTC and the advantages users of xBTC stand to enjoy.
Mark Sgambelluri: The novel oracle is Bitcoin Dominance, this wasn’t a number you could just instantly peg to, as there isn’t necessarily an agreed upon measure of it (do you measure the top 100 tokens, top 1,000, what tokens do you include?). We worked directly with Tellor and then Chainlink to develop oracles from scratch using multiple data points to get the most accurate of bitcoin dominance we could get. With Ampleforth you can access a synthetic 2019 CPI adjusted $1 bill, but you could also access a one dollar bill with DAI, USDC, USDT, etc. Sure the 2019 CPI adjusted one is slightly more useful. But with xBTC you are accessing synthetic Bitcoin Dominance. This is a number you can’t access or trade anywhere (that we know of, though I’m sure as we get more popular people will copy it on centralized exchanges and synthetic platforms, but they won’t be decentralized, open market, or fully synthetic like we are). That’s the uniqueness of xBTC. On the other side of Bitcoin dominance we are also tracking the dominance of EVERY SINGLE altcoin: nano, AAVE, Theta, ada, tron, doesn’t matter the blockchain or use case, as they dominate and push bitcoin dominance down it trends our peg downwards which is good for positive rebases
Andres M. | Satoshi Club: Very clear answer, btw, what is coming for xBTC in your roadmap? what is the big coming event for this 2021?
Mark Sgambelluri: Our main goal is to continue to spread in defi, the more platforms we get on and the larger we grow our liquidity the more semi-collateralized our token gets. As/if BNB and ETH grow those liquidity pools will buy up xBTC and push it up. We want to spread far and wide across liquidity pools and defi platforms. ApeSwap and Beefy are hopefully just the beginning! Beyond that there are a few implementations we can’t build ourselves but would love to see our community build like a platform to stake xBTC and make a more direct bet on where bitcoin dominance will be, we have a community competition running for this right now, a dApp build off and marketing competition. https://medium.com/@Social.Capital/xbtc-community-competition-with-over-20-eth-in-rewards-and-a-new-job-opening-8048bdb439cd Andres M. | Satoshi Club: Don’t forget to share coming announcements with us
Satoshiclubbers, let’s join the competition
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: Satoshi Clubbers! do not miss your chance! Big thanks for such a detailed answers!
Ready to proceed to the last question of this part?
Andres M. | Satoshi Club: Let’s proceed
Q6 from Telegram user @Ajpaa
As stated on your official website, xBTC plans to have over $1 million in liquidity on exchanges on day one, and after a period of 12 months, instead of locking or burning exchange liquidity, it will withdraw no more than 5% of liquidity per month. All these would be achieved as long as liquidity remains relatively high, cos it will provide an option of repurposing the tokens for other uses. How would xBTC ensure that it is guaranteed an adequate liquidity to implement all these measures, what are the primary sources of it’s liquidity generation, and what other uses will the tokens be employed for, if it’s liquidity goal is met?
Mark Sgambelluri: We are using our ecosystem incentives solely for incentivizing our community to provide liquidity, so that is our main goal, to keep that liquidity high. If the liquidity stays over one million and we do pull out that 5% a month it would be used for partnerships, marketing, salaries, and other expenses to keep the project going, though we haven’t used that system yet. It is just there if we need it.
Part 2?—?live questions from the Telegram community
Q1 from Telegram User @highpee
I can see that you are the FIRST rebase to list on a CENTRALISED EXCHANGE, and I give you kudos
for this. But am wondering, how do you make this possible? How are you able to rebalance the xBTC held in centralised wallet without seeking the permission of users?
Mark Sgambelluri: An exchange can rewrite their back end or order books to support a rebase token, but this is highly cost and time prohibitive. So we wrapped our token so it can it can be used in any platform on DeFi or any CEX. To do this you take your xBTC and put it in a staking contract that holds it and get back wxBTC you can use anywhere. While you use it the xBTC in the pool keeps rebasing, you can then redeem your wxBTC for xBTC at anytime and get all of the rebases either negative or positive.
Q2 from Telegram User @highpee
3 days ago, you announced xBTC BSC integration. and also a $1 million in rewards to be issued to early users. What should a user partake in this distribution? Also, How will bxBTC on BSC expected to behave similar in pricing and rebasing model with the ERC-20 variant of xBTC?
Mark Sgambelluri: The best way is to provide liquidity on Apeswap and then put it in the Apeswap farm or on Beefy:
Apeswap https://dex.apeswap.finance/#/swap?inputCurrency=0xab111d5948470ba73d98d66bbdf2798fbe093546 Beefy https://app.beefy.finance/ The ERC and BSC version both rebase and can always be converted to each other so it is one cohesive ecosystem, this type of implementation has never been done, we are the first multichain rebasing token!
Q3 from Telegram User @Kuterux
An effective Marketing strategy is indispensable for any project. Have you determined a method to bring investors / users living in different countries to the ecosystem of your project and make them a permanent element of your project????
Mark Sgambelluri: Mainly by building our ecosystem, we “shill” through building and partnerships. We do pay for other marketing but just focusing on influencers or youtubers can only go so far, we focus more on partners, ecosystem, and product. It is our hope that the community and holders become the biggest evangelists and spread our word
Q4 from Telegram User @Ayammatiwaranahitam
since when was #xBTC born? And can you tell your journey to become what it is today?
Mark Sgambelluri: We launched in September 2020 in a partnership with 1inch. We have completed a lot, you can find that here: https://medium.com/@Social.Capital/xbtc-looking-back-and-looking-forward-78d88ef17c4a since this update we have created wxBTC, listed on Bittrex, gone cross chain, and signed multiple other partnerships! It has been quite the journey and one we are proud of!
Q5 from Telegram User @Jodasf
Nowadays users are looking for the easiest, most efficient and secure way to generate income without so much effort, but, with such a wide market and with so many opportunities, it is often difficult to differentiate great projects from those that are not, so I would like to know, what makes xBTC a great project and how is it achieved that through this, users get great opportunities and benefits?
Mark Sgambelluri: I think the key is that our product is released and working. We have created an asset that creates a spot price for bitcoin dominance, period. And that is exactly what is happening, no matter what a user can always buy or sell xBTC for the amount equal to bitcoin dominance (eventually as rebases push it towards that number). So even if everything else stopped today (the partnerships, marketing, community management) the product would still continue and still work exactly as designed, that is a sign of a good project in our mind. The question is just will people use xBTC to access bitcoin dominance and how will they use it to do so, that is a question for the market by being fully synthetic, decentralized, and open market that is what we are designed for. To be at the whim of the open market, for better or worse, Ampleforth is similar and it has been for the better, other projects it has been for the worse, time will tell!
Q6 from Telegram User @adaatalay
Who are your “great partnerships” and roadmates? Can you give me a list.
Mark Sgambelluri: Past and present:
Tellor
1inch
Chainlink
Bittrex Global
ApeSwap
Zokyo
01ex
Empire Global
Buzoku
X21
Unification
Magnus Capital
Trade Dog
Jeff Kirdeikis
Sami Rusani
Lester Lim
Brian Evans
Q7 from Telegram User @alptrader
There is no rebase tokens on Binance. Do you think xBTC can be listed on Binance?
Mark Sgambelluri: We sure hope so! We are the first token to go multichain and we are now on BSC, so hopefully they notice us. We can also provide them with wxBTC so they don’t have to make any adjustments for rebase tokens.
Q8 from Telegram User @Kuterux
For crypto education, Do you have another page or chennal or articles for guide us how to use your platform?
Especially to guide staking or farming on your platform?????
Mark Sgambelluri: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGoEo7CE4Xv2OBZg5Yv1tVg https://medium.com/@Social.Capital bit.ly/minthowto are the best starting places to learn more, we also did an interview with Chainlink: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_laI8V-IIdg&ab_channel=Chainlink Q9 from Telegram User @Xusuo
xBTC is focused on making digital assets that are innovative and easily accessible to everyone. Usually a rebase project using a price oracle. Do you have your own oracle or have partnership with other oracle project? Can you explain more detail about your oracle?
Mark Sgambelluri: Our oracle is created from scratch in partnership with Chainlink. This makes bitcoin dominance as easily accessible as possible, just buy a token on uniswap or apeswa. We are a better synthetic than many competitors because:
1. We are a first of our kind DOMINANCE number, like tracking Microsoft dominance against the Nasdaq outpacing it, this type of metric has never existed, that we have seen
2. No strike price or expiration date
3. No margin or margin call
4. Tokenized and easily tradable as an ERC 20
5. Rebasing allows you to benefit while holding (sell extra supply that comes in)
6. Decentralized and agnostic (available anywhere and everywhere)
7. Immutable and transparent
Q10 from Telegram User @Tahsinahmett
If we want to be part of the xBTC movement and communities, what is the best way to do it?
Mark Sgambelluri: Pick a quick one that is easy!
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/XBTC_Official and Follow us on Telegram: https://t.me/xBTC_Official
Part 3?—?Quiz Results
In the final part we tested your knowledge in terms of xBTC . They’ve prepared 4 questions for this part. The total reward pool for quiz was 300$.
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xBTC Website?—?xbtc.fi xBTC Telegram?—?@xBTC_Official
