Thank you to everyone who joined AMA Blockelite x Vera Protocol on 15th October at 8 PM PST I 4 AM UTC I 11 AM UTC+7. Here is the recap for those who missed this AMA.
Hello fellow Eliters and welcome to another Blockelite AMA Series
Our special guest today is Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol
Segment 1: Introduce about Vera protocol and Guest Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol
1. Can you briefly introduce yourself as well as the Vera Protocol?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: Hello everyone, my name is Denis and I am the founder of Vera Protocol.
I have been coding since age 14 and started by first internet business at 14 years old. I am currently based in California, USA. I graduated from the University of California, Berkeley School of Engineering and my educational background is one of an engineer.
Since then, I have worked in multiple startups and companies in the field of e-commerce, IoT, sharing economy, and supply chain.
Blockelite Host: Great, you have coding from a very young age
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: I assume many of you here today are from Vietnam?
Blockelite Host: Sure, most of the people here are Vietnamese
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: Believe it or not, I love Vietnam because if it were not be for my friend from Saigon that introduced me to cryptocurrency 4 years ago, I would not even be here today to talk to you.
My first purchased cryptocurrency was Ripple (XRP). It was under $0.01 when I purchased it!
Blockelite Host: You bought XRP with a very small value, so great
Have you arrived in Vietnam yet?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: I have been to Hanoi and Saigon MANY times!
Since cryptocurrency caught my attention, I began researching the technology. Luckily, I am based in Silicon Valley, the home to many technology and cryptocurrency/blockchain experts.
Blockelite Host: so great
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: I have attended many cryptocurrency events in Vietnam
My company and our engineer team actually helped one of Vietnam’s early blockchain projects.
Blockelite Host: May I know the name of that project?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: Tomochain
Blockelite Host: I know that project, great project from Vietnam
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: since then I have also been invited to speak at many blockchain events in vietnam
Blockelite Host: It’s great to hear it
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: Been to Hanoi, Saigon, Singapore, any many other places all over the world due to the blockchain industry.
Many people in Vietnam are hungry to learn about the technology and new opportunities created by this techonology
Blockelite Host: These meet-ups about 2–3 years ago, right?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: 1 to 2 years ago
due to covid, no more meetups have happened past year
Blockelite Host: ok, I see
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: I am happy to have the opportunity to share with your community about our project and how our technology can create new opportunities and change the world.
Blockelite Host: We are excited and eager to learn new technologies
Blockchain and crypto are no exception
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: So let me explain quickly what is Vera Protocol
Blockelite Host: Very pleased
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: What problem we are trying to solve. And how we can reward all supporters on our platform
Everyone here know what is DeFi right?
If not, I can explain it.
Blockelite Host: yeah, Defi is hot trend. Everyone has at least heard it
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: Beause of DeFi, 2 strangers can buy, sell, or loan each other digital assets without relying on a middleman
Blockchain smart contracts make DeFI possible.
Currently, 99% of DeFi use case involves digital assets and crypto
Blockelite Host: I see, Defi brings a lot of benefits to us
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: DeFI smart contracts need to obtain data NOT on the blockchain to work
For example, a smart contract need to know the price of Ethereum on the top 5 exchanges
Or they also want to know the the price of fiat currencies like US Dollar or VND
How does the smart contract get this data?
But do I trust one person?
This is why DeFi smart contracts need to use ORACLES
ORACLES help get data from outside the blockchain
Chainlink is an example of Version 1.0 of oracles
Heard of Chainlink? The coin is very hot
Problem with Version 1.0 oracles is the oracle design is centralized. They have a network of people they can ask to get the data, but the job is done outside of the blockchain
Blockelite Host: yeah, Chainlink is great project with ORACLES
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: Data is obtained and voted on by people OFF CHAIN
Also , the transactions are slow and expensive (gas cost)
Instead of asking @Tubiireal0607 to get the data, version 1 oracles ask all of @Tubiireal0607s friends network.
Yes, many people are asked to do the job but cheating and errors can still occur
Version 2.0 oracles = decentralized oracle network
Version 2 has much higher economic security.
Vera Protocol is building chainlink 3.0
Blockelite Host: Great, a lot of new knowledge opens up here
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: The oracle network must be decentralized…
But more exciting is, we can connect the real world with the digital world
Let me explain!!!!
Right now DeFi allow digital assets or coins to be loaned or buy/sell
We agree the future of crypto allows VALUE in the REAL WORLD to be transacted by crypto right?
VALUE can be ANYTHING
Blockelite Host: Will Vera collaborate with Chainlink?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: Not currently, but it is a possibility. We believe our platform is superior.
What if VALUE is a PHYSICAL object?
Products?
Collectible toys or items?
Consumer goods?
Gold/silver/jewlry?
Real estate?
Empty space on your property you want to rent to a stranger?
There are many many business examples currently using CENTRALIZED technology that one day can be DECENTRALZIED right?
What is missing is a ORACLE SYSTEM to obtain data from the real world and send it to the blockchain
Vera Protocol is this solution
Vera will allow the future of DeFi 3.0 … let people loan physical objects or assets to strangers
Not only bitcoin or crypto
Blockelite Host: Great if I could see Vera become a big project in the future👍
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: Vera can also allow e-commerce to become Decentralized — we call this DeComm
Vera will be the #1 solution for DeFi and DeComm apps
I am done with my explanation
Blockelite Host: thank you so much. lots of useful knowledge here
2. How is Vera protocol development going? What solutions can Vera Protocol offer and will it be useful in the future?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: Vera protocol has been researched and developed over the past 2 years
Currently we are finishing our private sales so we can have the resources to expand our team and build our platform.
We expect to be listed on the exchange before end of year, or as early as November.
Here is an example of what Decentralized Commerce looks like.
Strangers can directly sell things to each other without needing a middleman
Strangers can also loan things to each other
Here’s what we are building:
Imagine any smartphone can now provide oracle services by obtaining data from the real world and sending it to the blockchain
Imagine using your phone to scan an object using NFC and make money for your service!
NFC is Near Field Communication — its the same technology used by Apple Pay or Samsung Pay
Also in Asia many transportation companies use NFC to allow people to pay for their tickets wirelessly
It is a trusted and secure technology.
Blockelite Host: great, I hear that Vera will have a Public sale this month, right?
I see a lot of people looking forward to this in Vera group
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: This or next month
Yes we will have over 6000 members soon~
And many new partnerships
3. What are Vera token used for? How can Vera token holders benefit?
Blockelite Host: 7–20% APY for staking, so interesting
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: Vera tokens are used to govern our decentralized oracle platform
Lets take a look at the the different parties in an example business model
In a DeFi or DeComm app there is a buyer and seller
the buyer/seller do business via smart contract
The smart contract require data from real world provided by our oracles
If data is good and match the conditions, the transaction is approved
Buyer pays seller money.
A % will be used to pay Vera Network oracles
because oracles perform the service!
As of now, anyone can become an oracle~
We call oracles VERIFIERS
Verifiers must stake VERA tokens to become an oracle on our network and they provide the services and earn reward in return
But what if you dont want to be an oracle? Can you still participate and earn reward?
YES! You can be a DELEGATOR
Delegator also must stake tokens, but they choose to stake it on a Verifier
If a VERIFIER is a BAD oracle — they cheat or always offline and do not do the job
Delegators do not want to support it right?
Because they wont earn rewards or they may even get punishment if the Verifier get punished
So Delegators help our network pick the best oracles!
If the Verifieres make money, the delegators also make money
For everyone staking Vera token we also will reward them with more tokens as interest!
We want participants to support our network long term and get rewarded
if the ecosystem grow with many DeFi or D-Comm D-Apps, all stakers will be happy!
Blockelite Host: Thanks, hope everyone understands more about Vera token and its benefits
4. Who are the current notable partners for Vera Protocol and what can we expect from the partnerships that you have?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: We recently partnered with Quarkchain and Matic Network.
We also have a few e-commerce companies that will partner with us
We will have partnerships with crypto exchanges soon but I cannot tell more for now
We have existing partnerships with multiple NFC smart tag manufacturers
This is the key technology that allow data to be sent from the real world to the digital world
Blockelite Host: sounds great
I see you recently partner AlchemyPay yesterday, Can we expect more vera partners in the future right?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: First we have a growing number of partnerships as we just talked about
Second, we have existing business relationships with communities that want to use DeFI or Decomm De-Apps powered with Vera
5. What is the market strategy of Vera protocol to get mass adoption by millions of users or investors outside the crypto space?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: Vera will be a great project to get adoption because our vision is very practical.
Most businesses fail or have friction because 2 parties dont trust each other.
If we can use oracles to obtain data that can be trusted then it can make many business transactions fast, efficient, and frictionless
Segment 2: 5 best questions from twitter
Q1: What incentives are available to me as a seller or buyer on the Vera Protocol platform? Do I need KYC to access all features?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: Seller or buyers will use D-Apps that can be powered by Vera. Incentives may vary depending on the D-App. However everyone can become a Verifier or Delegator for our network by staking our tokens and earning rewards and interest. Currently, we do not plan to require KYC.
Blockelite Host: So is everyone just staking Vera will have eligible?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: Yes. Everyone can stake Vera.
Blockelite Host: Is there a minimum staking level?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: Currently, we have not publicly announced the details and rules. We likely will have different levels to incentivize different levels of participations for people from all economic backgrounds
Q2: Any P2P Marketplace requires Fast & Low Cost, High Scalability and High Security. What technology does Vera Protocol utilizes to achieve the above features and bridge the gap prevalent in Traditional Commerce?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: By eliminating middleman, the fees for marketplace transactions should decrease
Being a second and third generation oracle , our oracle transactions are faster and cheaper than first generation oracles.
Details of this technology is explained in our technical whitepaper
Blockelite Host: Can you share the link of technical whitepaper?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: http://veraprotocol.org/whitepaper
Blockelite Host: Great, if everyone want know more can use that link
Q3: DeFi and Dapps are 2 pillars primed to rule 2020 in crypto space, what’s your approach to DeFi and Dapps. What roles do you play in innovativeness of DeFi?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: We innovate DeFi 3.0.
We are building a decentralized oracle platform for DeFI use cases that involve getting data from the real world.
Currently DeFi uses more centralized oracles powered by data the exists online (not from real world)
We are the first platform that allows real-world DeFI use cases
Q4: The online trading market is $ 3.5 trillion a year and is growing rapidly. What part of the online commerce market do you want to conquer in 3–5 years?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: This is a very big market.
We want to conquer the DeFI market for physical assets as well as any marketplace D-App that require data from the real world.
These are all trillion dollar industries
Blockelite Host: How much market share can Vera aim for in the next 3–5 years?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: I know this is a trillion-dollar industry, the competition is huge
There is no way we can predict the future but we will aim for the moon!
We are the first mover in this area.
Q5: “Vera is the future of P2P retail”. So will the products be endorsed from Vera or another organization affiliated with Vera? If people buy the product in another region or country, how will the product reach them? How will the transaction fee be calculated at that time?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: One of our first MVP D-Apps will be a P2P local marketplace D-App,
Blockelite Host: When will it lauch?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: ~ 6 months after we complete presales and list on exchange
Blockelite Host: Very much to look forward to in the future.
Hope I can try it out
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: We do not plan to reinvent postal and courier services so it will be up to the seller to use a local courier service to ship the product.
However, using NFC smart tags, we have the ability to track the product along logistics chain without needing to fully depend on the courier company
Vera is not an endorsement company. We are building an protocol that can power P2P retail dapps.
Segment 3: live questions
1. Very few decentralized oracle projects in space focus on IoT endpoints. How did Vera solve this problem?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: We will at first focus on using NFC-enabled endpoints to obtain data. Our founder and partners have decades of experience in the NFC/RFID industry.
2. Vera Protocol is partnering with AlchemyPay. What are the major benefits of this partnership and how will it be added to your ecosystem?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: Alchemy Pay build solutions for making it easy for consumers to pay with crypto in D-Apps. We will consider using their solutions in our ecosystem D-Apps so we will focus on what matters the most — the oracle platform and governance of this network.
3. Could you give me 3 key points to convince me and other angel investors invest in Vera Protocol in long-term?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol:
1. Chainlink 95.3x proves market has huge demand of our type of project.
2. Vera is the world’s first DeComm or DeFi 3.0 project.
3. Founders have real world industry experience outside of crypto — realistic vision for business adoption
4. What is the name of the token from Vera Protocol? How much supply is available? Can you tell us where the token will be allocated? And is the token ready to trade?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: $VERA.
10 Billion supply
80% of total supply sold or given out to ecosystem.
Cannot discuss details publicly but expected listing before end of year.
5. What are the advantages of Open P2P versus centralized P2P marketplaces?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: E-Comm is very centralized. Here are the main problems
By the way, if you sell things on Amazon, they charge you up to 20% or 30%. And if you sell very successfully they will make a generic product to try to undercut you in price.
Sucks huh?
6. What are some strategies for Vera to build a cost-effective, scalable, and secure decentralized oracles system?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: Details explained in whitepaper. Basically instead of needing 2 blockchain transactions, we require only one therefore saving on gas fees. And the data is saved on a data store on chain which can be called via API which essentially does not have any required cost.
7. Vera Protocol is DeFi 3.0, what is DeFi 3.0? What is the difference and highlight of Vera Protocol with the projects DeFi 1.0 and DeFi 2.0?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol:
1.0 DeFi uses centralized oracles.
2.0 uses decentralized oracles.
3.0 is 2.0 with ability to use real world data to connect physical world with digital world.
8. Where did you get the inspiration for this unique project idea? And what influence will we have on the crypto industry due to the project?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: I’ve been in the IoT industry for several years and I see the market being extremely controlled and centralized by big enterprise companies. Worse, they take our data and make money off us or sell it to advertisers — they can know everything in our homes and lives~ I see blockchain being a potential way to free us from the control of tech oligopolies while empowering all of us by providing new models to do business.
9. After listing, what is the next ? could you update to me the potential partners in future and the way to expanding use cases?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: Building community. Listing on bigger exchanges. More partnerships and D-App mvp releases.
10. Does Vera Protocol target only crypto enterprises? What about the real-world companies? What use case VERA ? What makes VERA more unique than others?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: No. We are focused on empowering individual community members by powering D-Apps that allow individuals to access alternative services currently monopolized by Big Tech
11. what are the payment methods accepted on Vera’s platform, and how is the withdrawal process for sellers? What is the minimal amount to withdraw?
Denis Lam — Founder & CEO of Vera Protocol: We will have abstract layer to make D-Apps built with Vera easy to access in the real world even for users that do not know what crypto us
Thank you for everyone’s interest in Vera
Blockelite Host: Thank you for joining today AMA! It was awesome!
Our AMA session is now over !!!
More about information Vera Protocol
Official website: https://veraprotocol.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/veraprotocol
Medium: https://medium.com/veraprotocol
Telegram Group: https://t.me/veraprotocol
Telegram Channel: https://t.me/veraprotocol_channel
