Telegram AMA with tehMoonwaLkeR on 12/1

12 min readDec 2, 2020

Telegram AMA with tehMoonwaLkeR on 12/1

On Tuesday, December 1st, the community at tehMoonwaLkeR held an AMA with our Founder Damon Nam. Here’s a transcript of the conversation:

Blaze, [01.12.20 13:01]

Alright ladies and gents, will be muting the channel for the first round of questions then opening it up for community questions.Remember, we will giving out a valuable NFT for the best question this evening
Well without further ado, lets kick this AMA off
Please can you introduce yourself and tell us more about your background?

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:03]

I’m originally from Dallas, Texas and studied Information Technology and have a Bachelor of Science in Business at Southern Methodist University.
I’m a technologist at heart and 20 year IT professional. Following graduation, I spent 17 years at Microsoft in various business management roles. I am in the United States and our team is global. However, our operations are headquarted in NYC (as it is the financial capital of the world and has a concentration of our partners, advisors, and legal counsel)
Speaking of the team, we are a small group of global resources. We have 6 team members… all with an engineering focus excluding myself. We are hiring, so please reach out if you’re looking to join a dynamic innovative startup with a great company culture.

Blaze, [01.12.20 13:04]

Wow, very impressive credentials and that’s a substantial amount of time you spent at Microsoft

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:07]

Absolutely love the dynamic pace with startups. I work twice as hard as before… but wouldn’t trade it for anything else in the world. BTW, we like to view ourselves as a business, not a project as we are here for the long-term. 😉

Blaze, [01.12.20 13:08]

You know when you are working hard and killing it, it means you love what you do
Agree, gets used too often the term project in this space.
For the layman and for those who dont know anything about COIN, what exactly does COIN do?

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:09]

Quite simply, Coin Exchange is a P2P cross-chain decentralized cryptocurrency wallet, exchange, and AI assistant that is powered by atomic swaps and artificial intelligence.
The two major advantages we have over most DEX’s today are:
- Cross-chain interoperability
- Integrate AI to help consumers save time and money

Storm Broken, [01.12.20 13:09]

Great vision 👏

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:10]

Quite simply, Coin Exchange is a P2P cross-chain decentralized cryptocurrency wallet, exchange, and AI assistant that is powered by atomic swaps and artificial intelligence.
The two major advantages we have over most DEX’s today are:
- Cross-chain interoperability
- Integrate AI to help consumers save time and money
Here’s a quick 1 minute demo of the AI piece in action: https://youtu.be/J7RqqylC9-k

Blaze, [01.12.20 13:10]

I am familiar with all you have mentioned but the AI assistant is rather intriguing. What does it do?

Holliday, [01.12.20 13:11]

why do u think we will use coin dex in future and not uniswap?

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:13]

By leveraging AI, we provide a fresh digital assets management experience that is simple, autonomous, and personalized.
For example, you can even send or exchange funds by typing commands from any input field on the web such as, “send $30 btc to @damonnam” and easily execute transactions in seconds.
We’ll even recognize blockchain keywords on a webpage and hightlight them (similar to Grammarly) and upon hover, provide meaningful insights.
Our Coin Exchange learns, evolves, and helps you navigate your financial journey.
We understand crypto is confusing and difficult. And while crypto is trying to disrupt finance. We want to disrupt crypto.

Blaze, [01.12.20 13:15]

What!!! That sounds incredibly simple and makes it easier for the masses to start using crypto. Let’s be frank, in its current state you have to be pretty tech savvy to be in crypto

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:15]

Absolutely. I’m more technical than the average consumer and it still gives me angst and anxiety when I send a transctions. Not only do solutions need to get easier, but emotionally instill confidence so that people feel good about transacting together.
I literally have to double check wallet addresses 2–3x on every transaction. Meanwhile, fingers shaking and my heart is racing. LOL
Transacting in crypto shouldn’t feel like I’m having a conversation with my ex-wife. 😂
The solutions on the market today have too much friction and complexity for the average consumer. The industry needs to overcome this barrier.

Blaze, [01.12.20 13:16]

hahaha I feel you, always double checking and breathing a sigh of relief when funds arrive on the other side

Holliday, [01.12.20 13:16]

same
Agree, simplicity is key

Holliday, [01.12.20 13:17]

Any plans to promote the exchange and it’s AI to “regular folks”?

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:18]

Indeed. In fact, the AI piece will be tailored and marketed towards that average consumer. We are preparing for the next huge wave of retail investors and average consumers that onboard into the industry. We want to be their first touchpoint in crypto.

Blaze, [01.12.20 13:19]

Sounds like you have really built something that will be game changing. That’s the first piece of the puzzle. How do you plan to get users onboarded en masse?

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:20]

To do that, we plan on doing consumer focused campaigns that target the experience. The consumer doesn’t even need to know about the inner parts or foundation behind the scenes that are executing their transactions (ie. AI, cross-chain, non-custodial, etc.)
The campaigns will be focused on promoting a simple and safe experience for new users in the industry to transact in crypto.
We’ll leave the technical advantages and understanding to us geeks in blockchain.

Blaze, [01.12.20 13:22]

I understand that the company will not be profiting from the fees on your DEX…Can you explain the Revenue Model as far as Staking and how the Company will make money?

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:23]

As for our business model, we earn revenue from our exchange fees, exchange listing fees, and more.
50% fees goes to liquidity providers and the other 50% into $COIN buybacks. Buybacks go to the reserve which is use to reward stakers. The more volume the network generates, the more token holders that stake earn.
This ensures that our company is aligned with token holder interests and is correlated with the usage of the network itself.

Holliday, [01.12.20 13:24]

When can we expect to see some of these features? Coin DEX, AI, staking, etc?

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:25]

We are on track for the deployment of the network in December.

Holliday, [01.12.20 13:26]

Wow, quite soon then.

Blaze, [01.12.20 13:26]

Let’s talk about the token itself
What value, other than its potential as an investment asset, does the $COIN Utility Token have in your Coin ecosystem?

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:26]

The $COIN™ token has multiple and essential functions for the network including the power to vote on proposals to influence and govern the future direction of the network. Also the ability to execute smart contract code in the network for network operations, staking incentives, liquidity, network governance, etc.

Holliday, [01.12.20 13:27]

Is it true that you have an agreement with Coinbase ?

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:29]

Indeed. Coinbase is an alliance and liquidity provider for us. In the short-term we know we may not have enough users to fill our order books. To circumvent this, we wanted to create a relationship with a reputable company / brand that could help support us. Longer term, we hope to wean ourselves away from that dependency as we gain more users and fill up our own order books.
They’ve also asked us to consider integrating their username system into our platform so that you can essentially send funds to a Coinbase user by typing:
“send $50 btc john@user.coinbase.com”
Or just inputting the coinbase username instead of a wallet address in the platform.

Storm Broken, [01.12.20 13:32]

Wow

Blaze, [01.12.20 13:32]

That’s pretty big I must say

Holliday, [01.12.20 13:32]

Very nice.

Blaze, [01.12.20 13:32]

Your website states “You can’t hack an exchange that doesn’t hold any funds”. Can you talk a little about how this works from this point of view?

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:32]

Quite simply, it’s because everything is done on-chain. We have no databases or store any data. You can’t hack the platform unless you hack the blockchain itself. But with this type of security, there are drawbacks.
Our biggest strength (P2P decentralized on-chain transactions using atomic swaps) is also our biggest weakness (speed of the chains themselves). Unfortunately performance is limited to the performance of the chain itself. We are hoping that BTC lightning network and ETH 2.0 and the overall performance of other chains increase over time.

Blaze, [01.12.20 13:32]

We are about halfway now, I think I will open up the channel for some community questions

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:33]

We are going to release an updated demo this week, but here is one of an earlier build that shows some screens as well as a swap occuring on TestNet.
As you can see, the interface is intended to be simple like Uniswap (to begin with).

❎ 𝐵𝑒𝓁𝑜𝓋, [01.12.20 13:33]

Will it be possible to store and manage assets in COIN Wallet by a group of individuals or enterprises? Creation of a certain holding company where signatures of all participants are required.

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:34]

Interesting question and to be frank, we haven’t thought about this yet. Our focus at this time is on the end-user.

$ Matvey, [01.12.20 13:35]

The Trends these days are Yield Farming, Staking and NFT. Can Coindefi add some or all of these features on your proposed WALLET?

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:38]

We would consider it expanding on core features in the future including NFT’s, etc.
However, we want to ensure laser focus on:
1) Core utility (sending, reviewing, exchanging)
2) AI (ease-of-use and potential SAAS business model)
We want to focus and get really good at these things. We’ve learned that we can’t spread ourselves to thin. Additionally, that we need focus on the things that have a direct impact to revenue, value of the token, etc. From there, expand once you have product market fit.

★ Egor Dubinin ★, [01.12.20 13:33]

What mechanism is used for cross-chain transactions? How secure are these operations on the COIN?

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:41]

We leverage atomic swaps in order to execute exchanges on-chain. When you send an exchange order through our system, we make a call to the chain to release those funds on your wallet (based on your pre-signing transaction) and then those funds are moved to a contract on the chain. The HTLC standard allows for the chains to communicate with each other to execute it. If another order matches, it will be placed by the other user / chain into the same contract and then execute. If not order is found by X time / date, then the funds are unlocked and returned back to your wallet.

Thunder 🔥, [01.12.20 13:33]

Smart contracts are vulnerable to bugs, and even recently three big new DeFi projects were victims of this, costing users funds. How efficient and secured is your smart contract, and did you ever audit it via any external party?

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:43]

In our engineering deployment process, we:
1. Perform a beta
2. Perform a third-party audit
3. Perform a community audit
We’ve previously used Hosho, Authio, and Quantstamp. Our staking and governance contracts will be audited soon. @thunderousel

Lavrov, [01.12.20 13:33]

What are your plans for developing mobile applications for Android and IOS? Indeed, in our time, many people follow the market and trade from the phone.

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:45]

We do have plans to support native mobile apps in the future. Especially for consumers and payments.

Carmencita🦄 🦄, [01.12.20 13:33]

In what type of wallet can we deposit our $ COIN, which do you recommend?

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:46]

Use the Coin wallet and exchange that we release in December. 😉

𝓙𝓮𝓼𝓼𝓲𝓬𝓪 𝓔𝓿𝓪𝓷𝓼, [01.12.20 13:33]

Are you planning to launch your own credit card or Coin wallet card for storing cryptocurrency like Crypto com does?

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:48]

Our sole focus is DeFi now. While we have a relationship with two banks that want to deploy this, doing so would make the network very centralized… which we don’t want. We also think that the crypto credit card space is saturated at this time.

Holliday, [01.12.20 13:45]

Any upcoming partnerships you are working on?

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:50]

Yes. We are always looking and open to collaborating. We are working on a couple in the pipeline at the moment. However, none that I can reveal yet.

Holliday, [01.12.20 13:49]

I see the total supply is around 100 million. Do you know what the circulating supply is currently? Will it increase at all?

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:51]

It’s currently around 20% if I can recall and will gradually increase up to ~40% leading up through December (as tokens unlock and are distributed).

Blaze, [01.12.20 13:51]

What does the roadmap look like for 2021 and what milestones are you most looking forward to?

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:55]

In the future, we will add additional token support, integrated more 3rd party wallet support, increase our neural net, but most importantly, build developer programs that empower the community to build on top of our foundation.

Holliday, [01.12.20 13:55]

Can you post some links on where we can learn more about $COIN?

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:59]

- Coin Pitch Deck: http://bit.ly/coinpitchdeck
- Coin Business Plan and Whitepaper: http://bit.ly/coinwhitepaper

Blaze, [01.12.20 13:57]

Well I think that is pretty much what I wanted to cover. @damonnam should I open up the chat for more community questions or do you feel that you have covered what you wanted to?

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:57]

Our community driven developer programs will help drive open-source engineering outside of our team. In order to grow and scale, we recognize that we can’t do this all ourselves. And in DeFi, a strong open-source model that drives community development is necessary. Much like the developer communities on top of Ethereum, Compound, Uniswap, etc.
Not only do we want to build an army of token holders, but also developers that can help with new add-ons, features, security audits, etc. It’s really a radical shift for us. Not only in engineering, but operationally as well.
The less control and influence a company has in this space (DeFi), the more opportunity the business has to grow and scale. A decentralized / distributed model is where we are headed which is great for the company and most importantly, the token.

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:58]

As we are focused on DeFi, we are also looking to transition the company to a DAO and put the power of the network into the hands of our community, developers, and $COIN token holders. We want the network to eventually be ran and owned by the community, not a company, and have a path to get there.

Damon Nam @ Coin — Will Not DM, [01.12.20 13:59]

I have to run to another meeting, but thank you for the time today.
We have a wonderful team of community officers and members that can also help with any questions or support. I encourage you all to join the discussion at t.me/coindefi.

Blaze, [01.12.20 14:00]

Thanks so much for your insights in what looks to be a very promising business in this space. Wish you the best of luck and will be sure to keep an eye on what you are doing

Holliday, [01.12.20 14:00]