Waves had set up a great AMA-session (Ask Me Anything) with our CEO Maarten and Head of Product Mark. They talked about the Gravity Protocol, NFTs, DeFi and much more! Read the whole conversation back here.
Vladimir Zhuravlev, [07.08.20 13:00]
Hey guys! My name is Vladimir. I am Waves’ DevRel and Gravity co-author.
Today, we have @MaartenWNL and @markkooistra from Coinranking for an AMA session devoted to their product, blockchain technology, DeFi and inter-chain DeFi. Maarten, Mark, nice to meet you! Could you say a few words about your jobs?
Mark Kooistra, [07.08.20 13:03]
Hey hello, thank you for the opportunity Vladimir. I am Mark Kooistra, also one of the co-founders of Coinranking. I am Head of Product & Design, so I create new product features and even design them myself. Furthermore, I am 27 years old, love bouldering and sports in general. And I live in Groningen, The Netherlands. Thank you all for joining the AMA 🙂
Maarten Wiersema, [07.08.20 13:04]
Hi everybody, my name is Maarten Wiersema, 32 year young and I’m the co founder and CEO of Coinranking.com! I’ve been an entrepreneur for a decade now and I had the pleasure of meeting our other two co-founders almost 8 years ago! We’ve been building great stuff together ever since!
Vladimir Zhuravlev, [07.08.20 13:05]
Ok, let’s got ahead to the AMA’s first point!
Could you describe your product? What’s the mission of Coinranking and what global vision for it do you keep in mind?
Maarten Wiersema, [07.08.20 13:07]
In short: Coinranking will give you independent prices of billions of digital assets
Maarten Wiersema, [07.08.20 13:07]
Like Waves, Coinranking is focussed on the masses. That means casual buyers of crypto from all around the world. Professional traders and investors are better served by other products in the space. And that’s a great thing!
Maarten Wiersema, [07.08.20 13:08]
Our aim is to provide only the basic information necessary to make well informed choices and leave out all the complicated technical info. Essentially lowering the bar to enter the space.
In the future, billions of digital assets will be created and Coinranking will list all of these. Already millions of digital assets are in existence. The rise of non-fungible tokens is the biggest factor behind the astronomical growth of the number of digital assets.
Vladimir Zhuravlev, [07.08.20 13:10]
Great global vision! What are the main issues and difficulties in building Coinranking? What was the main challenge?
Maarten Wiersema, [07.08.20 13:10]
Haha where do I start :p
Vladimir Zhuravlev, [07.08.20 13:11]
From the beginning!
Maarten Wiersema, [07.08.20 13:12]
– Listing and integrating hundreds of exchanges, thousands of coins, and tens of thousands of trading pairs.
– Keeping a clean and accurate ranking of coins, by implementing all sorts of filters and manipulation preventing measures.
– Surviving the bear market, tough times traffic and usage went down 90% at the bottom. We even had to temporarily reduce the size of our team for survival, which is always painful.
– Creating a high-quality team who are all passionate about crypto and are agile enough to advance alongside the fast-changing landscape
Vladimir Zhuravlev, [07.08.20 13:13]
😯 such a huge road!
Vladimir Zhuravlev, [07.08.20 13:14]
What are you currently working on?
Vladimir Zhuravlev, [07.08.20 13:14]
I’ve seen the NFTs market in the beta mode on your website. Is it the main focus for your team currently?
Maarten Wiersema, [07.08.20 13:15]
Well, we just released this NFT section on our platform so it’s definitely one of our focus areas!
Maarten Wiersema, [07.08.20 13:15]
We have three huge upgrades that we are currently working on:
– Listing many more coins and millions of non-fungible tokens
– We will be integrating staking functionality, perhaps even Waves 😉
– Version 2 of Coinranking API, to improve access to our extensive data offering for developers
Maarten Wiersema, [07.08.20 13:16]
Very curious what the viewers think of NFTs 🙂
Maarten Wiersema, [07.08.20 13:16]
Oh and the API V2 is already in Beta so people can try it!
Vladimir Zhuravlev, [07.08.20 13:17]
As a developer, I can say for sure that an API is extremely important upgrade. Good to hear it!
Vladimir Zhuravlev, [07.08.20 13:18]
Speaking about entire Web 3.0, what fields show the highest demand for implementing blockchain, in your opinion?
Maarten Wiersema, [07.08.20 13:18]
Mark, can you take this one?
Mark Kooistra, [07.08.20 13:19]
Of course, I will take it 🙂
Mark Kooistra, [07.08.20 13:20]
IMO the highest demand for implementing blockchain is everywhere in the world where access to banking is (somewhat) lacking. Digital assets are first and foremost financial instruments, and will for the foreseeable future be used as such.
Mark Kooistra, [07.08.20 13:20]
For example: Being able to securely send and receive satoshis or some USDN, that is very powerful. At first, people will use it to store their value and after that, they will start to use these assets more and more for regular payments.
Vladimir Zhuravlev, [07.08.20 13:22]
So, Finances are kind of the best way to Web3 mass adoption, right?
Mark Kooistra, [07.08.20 13:22]
Yes I think at the moment that is the case indeed!
Vladimir Zhuravlev, [07.08.20 13:22]
Then, what do you think about DeFi? Which projects in the DeFi space are your favorites?
Maarten Wiersema, [07.08.20 13:22]
Yes, we very much believe in mass adoption of DeFi. Being able to escape ‘The Great Monetary Inflation’ as Paul Tudor Jones calls it, is one of the strongest use cases for DeFi in the short term. Also, in The Netherlands where we are based, all banks currently charge interest if you want to store your wealth.
Mark Kooistra, [07.08.20 13:23]
[In reply to Vladimir Zhuravlev]
Personally, I like decentralized derivatives the most among DeFi projects, such as Synthetix and Neutrino. Because these projects give everyone in the world (the masses) with a smartphone the ability to hold assets in the old financial system. This is such an equalizing force, and will bring in a huge amount of untouched capital at the same time.
Vladimir Zhuravlev, [07.08.20 13:23]
[In reply to Maarten Wiersema]
In the Netherlands, you pay for storing money in banks?? Funny fact!
Maarten Wiersema, [07.08.20 13:24]
😅
Vladimir Zhuravlev, [07.08.20 13:24]
[In reply to Mark Kooistra]
I agree! It’s powerful!
Vladimir Zhuravlev, [07.08.20 13:25]
[In reply to Mark Kooistra]
What do you think about #InDeFi? Will inter-chain solutions for DeFi apps boost mass adoption?
Mark Kooistra, [07.08.20 13:26]
They will, because inter-chain solutions increase composability of DeFi projects. If DeFi stays silo-ed on different blockchains, then every blockchain has to develop some of the same solutions.
Mark Kooistra, [07.08.20 13:26]
Mass adoption would be reached earlier and more resource efficient if those blockchains were connected and could make use of each other’s DeFi apps.
Vladimir Zhuravlev, [07.08.20 13:27]
[In reply to Mark Kooistra]
Totally agree! That’s actually the mission of Gravity 🙂
Vladimir Zhuravlev, [07.08.20 13:27]
Do you think the Gravity protocol will help to create new apps as a solution for inter-chain DeFi?
Maarten Wiersema, [07.08.20 13:28]
Yes, definitely.
Maarten Wiersema, [07.08.20 13:28]
Otherwise we would not have participated in the Gravity Project 😉
Maarten Wiersema, [07.08.20 13:28]
The unique aspect of Gravity protocol is its blockchain and token agnostic approach. This creates the right incentives for any project to integrate the Gravity protocol into their blockchain. If there was a token tied to the Gravity protocol, it would be hard to align the incentives of incumbents and newcomers.
Vladimir Zhuravlev, [07.08.20 13:30]
Yep, Gravity is tokenless. It’s one of its main adventages. The protocol uses native tokens of target chain.
Vladimir Zhuravlev, [07.08.20 13:30]
Currently, there are 2 target chains: Eetherum and Waves
Vladimir Zhuravlev, [07.08.20 13:31]
In your opinion, which chains should be added to Gravity next?
Mark Kooistra, [07.08.20 13:32]
Indeed, I think first and foremost the chain with the highest level of DeFi adoption, which is obviously Ethereum at the moment. Chains that would be suitable next would be Tron & Tezos. I think smaller blockchains would be more eager to join the network especially when the biggest DeFi chain Ethereum is added. After that, hopefully network effects will kick in to seduce more and more projects to Gravity.
Mark Kooistra, [07.08.20 13:33]
Also, we should connect Cosmos and Polkadot, which have somewhat similar goals in terms of the interchain.
Vladimir Zhuravlev, [07.08.20 13:34]
It’s planned to add Ethereum already in the Devnet (released in September). I hope you are right in saying that many others will be attracted after that!
Mark Kooistra, [07.08.20 13:34]
That would be very cool!
Vladimir Zhuravlev, [07.08.20 13:35]
Ok, the the last question (before we go to chat questions)! What would you recommend to developers and crypto enthusiasts who are listening to us?
Mark Kooistra, [07.08.20 13:35]
For developers: Now the technology is ready to bring crypto to the masses. Focus on (DeFi) products that regular people need. An interest bearing stablecoin like USD Neutrino is an excellent example.
Mark Kooistra, [07.08.20 13:36]
Also, I would try to avoid much of the complex crypto terminology and instead use terminology that people already understand. This enables a smooth user onboarding and reaching a much larger audience.
Maarten Wiersema, [07.08.20 13:36]
For crypto enthusiasts:
When investing, try to assess where a coin or token derives its value from. Many crypto projects don’t really need a token, such as Gravity protocol for instance. Value accrual of a token is mainly based on strong economic fundamentals in the long run. For example, transaction fees, collateralization, voting, medium of exchange, usage rights etc. Token value based on marketing, prominent figures or unbuilt technology is very fragile.
Vladimir Zhuravlev, [07.08.20 13:38]
Great stuff! Maarten, Mark, thanks a lot answering on my questions.