2021/10/21 DeFi Raccoons Tae-Lim Oh AMA
Telegram link: https://t.me/DeFiRaccoons
Session 1)
[Q] Do you mind giving us a little on your background?
[A] Of course, I majored in Computational Biology at Carnegie Mellon University. I was introduced to Bitcoin at the computer lab at the school. Soon after graduating, I have started Gluwa, initially in an attempt to build Bitcoin-based Social Shopping platform which have evolved into a stablecoin project, and eventually expanded to Creditcoin.
[Q] Ouh, ok, so it makes sense that you’re doing this
I get it
Let me once again welcome you in our community and please, let me borrow you sweets ‘cuz today you land on our bench! * wait for applouse *. Now I think we can all figure out what’s this about by the name but can you please give us an overview on Creditcoin? What it is and maybe why is it important?
[A] To put it simply, Creditcoin is about building objective, verifiable credit history for anyone in the world.
Everyone deserves credit, whether to start a business, pay a medical emergency or pay for their education. Yet hundreds of millions of people around the world still don’t have access to this basic financial service due to poor market information.
Creditcoin is an interoperable blockchain designed to give people control over their own credit history, verifiable by any 3rd party. For investors, this means opening entirely new markets for credit which are currently limited by the lack of reliable credit information.
By giving people control over their own credit history and making that information transparent so anyone can interact with it, Creditcoin can help democratize the financial industry, moving us away from the status quo where only a handful of companies control and monetize all of our financial data.
[Q] Ok so we should give you guys credit for paving the way of crypto to wide adoption
that’s for sure. When you say interoperable what other blockchains do you have in mind?
[A] currently, the Creditcoin Network supports Bitcoin and Ethereum ($ETH, ERC20 and Gluwacoin)
but the Creditcoin Network can get connected with any open blockchain
[Q] Yeah, I think people are stuck on the MONEY thought, so they won’t just lend or borrow without an ID or really nice background. Getting a credit with no more than an address is like a dream and conquers the idea of security at the same time!
[A] ok, thank you for that! we’ll keep in mind
[Q] Ok, this was on point. Many of us Raccoons, including me, have experience with a more traditional, if we can use this word in crypto, way of finance. Getting to the whole point of it, was wondering how are you guys different from what we are used to? What can you say would be the difference between Compound and Creditcoin?
[A] With Creditcoin we’ve taken a very different approach to other projects, and we’re really trying to bridge the gap between real-world lending and the type of lending we see in crypto.
Projects like Compound rely on over-collateralisation of loans to create a ‘trust-less’ ecosystem. This works amazingly for crypto, where people can take out loans against the value of their assets. But realistically speaking, for most people or businesses in the world, they simply don’t have the liquid capital needed to interact with these kind of protocols.
Most parties seeking loans do it because they don’t have enough capital in the first place. Most real-world lending inevitably relies on financial intermediators to assess creditworthiness and dispense capital. The only tools available to these intermediators is information and contract enforcement.
Creditcoin builds open and accessible informational infrastructure which anyone can use. Smart contracts built on top of Creditcoin can then be used to aid contract enforcement within the ecosystem.
[Q] Yeah I agree, until now it was all like money goes back to money. If you have them you can make more but if you don’t you’ll just be like that. It’s nice to see this kind of use case in a blockchain
You might be ahead of your times!
[A] hopefully not too much ahead :)
[Q] Ahaha, with the world and crypto sphere moving this fast I don’t think you should worry about that
I’m just saying it was about time for someone to take the lead in this yet undisputed market
Now, I’ve seen you’ve mentioned Compound
But that’s quite different, right? let me ask the question everyone is thinking about
Now, thinking in perspective, I bet any Raccoon is wondering how does Creditcoin helps the everyday people with no credit history or credit cards?
[A] Great question. So currently, the people without access to traditional financial services get loans in a number of different ways. Local credit unions, informal lending, which is often rife with exploitation, government programmes and more recently fintechs as well. The problem is, whenever a loan is taken out, none of the credit history from that loan is publicly stored or shared. Without a public credit history, accessibility is reduced, competition decreases, and interest rates go up.
You can almost think of it as interoperability. By getting all that information on public blockchain, any party can know see and interact with that credit history. An open and democratic informational infrastructure layer for everyone in the global economy.
For investors and businesses, reducing informational a-symmetries can open new markets, creating new types of economic relationships, for borrowers without access to the traditional financial system, this means greater loan accessibility and cheaper rates of capital.
To give an example, for a local credit company in Africa, having a verifiable history of loan performance means they could raise and compete for money from anywhere in the world, increasing their access to cheaper capital and opening up new investment opportunities for everyday investors like you and me.
[Q] That’s well put!
Yeah I can see how having a full history would help out, and basically build the financial infrastructure we all wonder about
But I think this is more of an american issue/model/ way of thinking?
Do you think your main focus is on that land?
Or are you guys looking for more of a globalizational way of doing things?
[A] Closer to the latter. We want to build a global standard which anyone can access to, unlike the current infrastructure. Also, the concept of credit came way before the US, so not necessarily American idea we’d say.
[Q] Got it!
Seems like everytime we gather around we get to talk about this! Can you please give us some hints on the utility of $CTC?
[A] So, the main function of $CTC is as a utility token to record loan transactions on the blockchain. Pretty simple. However, we have two additional functionalities we want to add moving forwards.
Firstly, we want to create a $CTC rental market. This functions similarly to a staking model. To put it simply, this means holders can rent/lend out their $CTC for a fee, with the $CTC being returned to the user after a year. This way $CTC holders will be able to passively generate income from the network’s users.
Secondly, we’re working on a governance framework whereby $CTC will be used to govern various smart contracts within the Creditcoin ecosystem. Token holders will be able to vote on proposed upgrades similarly to something like $COMP, however we’re still thinking long & hard about how this should work. These frameworks are still in their infancy as we’ve recently seen, so we don’t want to rush things prematurely.
[Q] Yeah, looks like you have a lot on your plate
So all the transactions will all be with $CTC? no stablecoins no nothing?
I mean that’s already enough utility for a coin
Was just wondering what’s the process of it, who get’s what and why? I’m just lending you $CTC and you give it back to me?
[A] That’s where the interoperability comes in! The loan transactions themselves are settled outside of the Creditcoin Network in $BTC, $ETH or ERC20 tokens (e.g. USDT or USDC). What the Creditcoin Network does is verifying such loan transactions are settled by reading other blockchains and record them with who gave out loans to whom on what terms and who made their repayment.
[Q] It’s like you red my mind, again! That settles it down for me
Ok so I was also browsing your website and seen something really cool. While we’re at it, I’ve seen some connections between you guys and Credal. Can you briefly tell us about what is Credal?
[A] Yes of course. Credal is essentially our API service for Creditcoin, a bit like Infura for Ethereum. It allows developers to interact with Creditcoin without running and maintaining their own Creditcoin nodes. Developers can simply make REST API requests to Credal instead.
Behind the scenes, the Credal server is connected to multiple Creditcoin nodes, communicating with them on behalf of the developer. Any DApps or other applications plugging into the Creditcoin Network will be able to use Credal to handle that process.
For us, this is the big next step, allowing our partners in Africa with over 2M existing users to start recording loan transactions directly on our blockchain, as well as enabling the next generation of DApps, smart contracts or any organisations who wish to start using Creditcoin as it was intended.
[Q] Send me one copy, I’ll try it out with my bank, just for the last time!
Ok so why go with Credal? what does it brings to the table more than other API services?
[A] haha
It is the first API service that connects you to the Creditcoin Network! Until other people start building another API service, Credal will be the only one, too.
[Q] Ok, agreed on that. Now I wanted to get a little back to your first (or so) project
So we’re talking investments here, right? What can you tell us about Gluwa and how is it connected with Creditcoin?
[A] Gluwa is the (hopefully just for now) principal technology provider of Creditcoin, and is it were, the first organisation trying to build the lending infrastructure on top of that.
We’re hoping more people join the development of Creditcoin! As a member of Gluwa or as an independent contributor. If you are interested, please contact us via Github.
https://github.com/gluwa/Creditcoin
We also have an investment product whereby anyone (sadly US excluded) can invest and earn up to 12% APY on their Gluwa-native stablecoins. The funds are used to invest in various credit investment opportunities focused across Africa and Asean, generating interest for our investors. That process, as well as our partner companies, will be operated on top of Creditcoin, with Gluwa Invest acting as Creditcoin’s first real investment fund.
[Q] Heard that Raccoons, get your hands on some opportunity here!
Well you surely got my attention with 12% APY for a stable
So how did you thought about connecting Creditcoin with Gluwa? was it always a plan or it was just the natural thing to do?
[A] Both. We have designed Creditcoin to enhance blockchain-based finance and introduce the concept of credit to the space. Given a currency, you want to hold it, spend it, and invest it. The concept of Creditcoin was a natural progress of what Gluwa has been building.
[Q] Yeah, seems the organic way of growing.
What can I say, I myself am a HODLer
Now that we have all that settled down, would you please provide us with some of the best features of Creditcoin (fees, credit history and scoring, security, etc.)?
[A] 1. Creditcoin is open, transparent and can be used by any party connected to the Internet, with no innate collateral requirement for borrowers. This means our blockchain can reach and serve millions of users which current DeFi projects can’t.
2. Interoperability — One of our core design philosophies was to make our blockchain as open as it can be. That means building towards interoperability, so that various different ecosystems, blockchains and even different types of credit transactions can all be recorded on our blockchain. A key feature we’re looking to add as part of this are DIDs (decentralized identity). Relatedly, these are the kinds of decisions we envision our governance token playing a key role in.
To address your points on scoring specifically, this will be handled by applications or institutions built specifically for, or on top of, Creditcoin. That process is not innate as it stands.
[Q] Ok, yeah of course, it’s always better to do something specifically for your project and product.
Nowdays everyone is just forking a blockchain and goes on uniswap
Would be cool tho for you guys to be able to integrate those DIDs, hit me up when that happens!
I was able to see something about a new concept for this kind of market, mining pools. How are these going to influence the ecosystem?
[A] We want to lower the barriers of entry to becoming a Creditcoin miner so that more people can join the network, contributing to its security. To do so, we envision creating a mining pool platform like AntPool. Further, we will support or fund multiple mining pools and let them run independently, increasing the network’s decentralization. Together, the Creditcoin Network will become more robust and stable.
[Q] That’s rather cool! Do you have in mind any early investors promo or so?
Yeah usually in DeFi is all about the more the merrier.
[A] You can get the early mover’s advantage by mining today :D when the network is the smallest!
Also, contact us if you are interested in starting a mining pool. We’d like to help.
[Q] I’m all about helping out, specially when it’s profit involved
We like to finish this part of the AMA by looking at what is happening in the near term. Could you please share with us the first milestones on the roadmap?
[A] 5 Million live users. In the short term, all our smaller milestones can be boiled down to the following: Credal release, listing on more exchanges, and Creditcoin ecosystem/partner expansion focusing on credit businesses in the developing world.
[Q] Looks like you guys are on the right path
Btw what exchanges are you on rn?
[A] OKEx, Bittrex Global and GOPAX :)
[Q] If we’re talking mining let’s see where we can get some up and running!
Thank you so much, this concludes the first part of our AMA session!
Now let’s move up to what our community wants to know more of
can you link the coingecko to your token?
so the raccoons know where to buy 🙂
[A] CoinGecko (https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/creditcoin)
Creditcoin price, CTC chart, market cap, and info | CoinGecko
Get Creditcoin price, CTC chart, trading volume, market cap, exchanges and more.
— — — —
We’ve selected 6 twitter questions for you to answer, I’m gonna give you the first 3, you can answer them, next 3 just the same. At the end I’m gonna kindly ask you to pick 2 questions that you loved the most so we can also reward the Raccoons
When ready!
[Q] Here are the twitter questions:
1. https://twitter.com/Techkia7/status/1450656384555491330
Can you list 1–3 killer features of Your Project that makes it ahead of its competitors? What is the competitive advantage your platform has that you feel most confident about?
2. https://twitter.com/CryptoOliver431/status/1450512988104974341
Can anyone from anywhere in the world get loans in your platform? Or do you plan to expand in the future? What all items do you take in as collateral? Are digital assets also considered as collateral? Do the users need to hold $CREDIT to get full access to your platform?
3. https://twitter.com/PotokGadang/status/1451017685584674817
When using CTC and its swap feature, 2 swap transactions are performed simultaneously, my question is, won’t this significantly increase the network fees that users must pay? Why 2 swaps at once?
[A]
Q1) 1. https://twitter.com/Techkia7/status/1450656384555491330
Can you list 1–3 killer features of Your Project that makes it ahead of its competitors? What is the competitive advantage your platform has that you feel most confident about?
1, non-collateralized/credit lending — we can reach anyone on the Internet, even if you don’t have crypto yet!
2, interoperability — by design, we can work with any other blockchain
Most DeFi projects stay within the crypto-space, not touching the real-world economy. We connect to the end-users well before anyone is brave enough to do so.
Q2) https://twitter.com/CryptoOliver431/status/1450512988104974341
Can anyone from anywhere in the world get loans in your platform? Or do you plan to expand in the future? What all items do you take in as collateral? Are digital assets also considered as collateral? Do the users need to hold $CREDIT to get full access to your platform?
[A]
Anyone on the Internet can ask for a loan on the Creditcoin Network. However, a lender has to accept your deal to get it fulfilled. We are currently most active in Africa since our lenders are concentrated in the region. We are planning to expand to other parts of the world by inviting more lenders to our network.
The Creditcoin Network does not have a concept of collateral, and it is entirely credit-based.
While you need to spend $CTC to post your loan offers on the network, we see loan platforms pay that on behalf of their borrowers. For end-users, the UX is no different from CeFi.
Q3) https://twitter.com/PotokGadang/status/1451017685584674817
When using CTC and its swap feature, 2 swap transactions are performed simultaneously, my question is, won’t this significantly increase the network fees that users must pay? Why 2 swaps at once?
A3. I think you are talking about another project. There are no swap transactions on the Creditcoin Network.
[Q]
Q4. https://twitter.com/CryptoOliver431/status/1450514767861403651
Hello sir
I have A doubtfull question in my mind that is ,If the event the borrower is unable to fulfill his/her repayment obligation how does @creditcoin
insure the lender against total loss of funds? is the credit market physically regulated by financial bodies?
Q5. https://twitter.com/Dezoxi01/status/1450516772558356482
At the basic level @creditcoin connects investors and borrowers who register matching loans condition requirements. What are the condition requirements used for lenders and borrowers?
6. https://twitter.com/ArunSajeevan6/status/1450521780322328578
Creditcoin is a public blockchain that creates a credit lending infrastructure.
I always saw tools like “CIBIL Score” in the traditional lending system very useful in prioritising borrowers.
So will @creditcoin implement any such score system,to prioritise & reward the borrowers?
[A]
Q4. https://twitter.com/CryptoOliver431/status/1450514767861403651
Hello sir
I have A doubtfull question in my mind that is ,If the event the borrower is unable to fulfill his/her repayment obligation how does @creditcoin
insure the lender against total loss of funds? is the credit market physically regulated by financial bodies?
A4. Important question. The network itself cannot collect loans. However, lenders can make an off-chain agreement with the borrower that enables them to physically and legally collect loans. For instance, a fundraiser who is a regulated financial institution can provide that information off-chain to prove its creditworthiness and legal terms. With that in mind, the lender will assess both on-chain and off-chain information about the fundraiser to make the investment decision.
Q5. https://twitter.com/Dezoxi01/status/1450516772558356482
At the basic level @creditcoin connects investors and borrowers who register matching loans condition requirements. What are the condition requirements used for lenders and borrowers?
A5. The lender needs to choose the borrower that it likes. Thus, the condition or requirements depends on the lender. Since each lender makes its own decision, a borrower may get a loan from lender A and not from lender B.
Q6. https://twitter.com/ArunSajeevan6/status/1450521780322328578
Creditcoin is a public blockchain that creates a credit lending infrastructure.
I always saw tools like “CIBIL Score” in the traditional lending system very useful in prioritising borrowers.
So will @creditcoin implement any such score system,to prioritise & reward the borrowers?
A6. We intentionally left the credit scoring system off-chain. A couple of reasons: 1) there is no golden credit model that fits all. Each lender will want to use a slightly different model. 2) credit assessment is computationally heavy, not a good fit on a blockchain. 3) you want to use both on-chain and off-chain data to assess credit.
some projects claimed to do credit scoring, but they never delivered
[Q] That was on point! Thanks for that again
Now please choose 2 winners, except for 1 and 3 — since they were disqualified
Whichever you liked the most shall be awarded! :)
[A] I pick 5 and 6 :)
[Q] Good choice, and I know the Raccoons are also making a good one when joining your project
It was great having you with us today and please keep in mind to always come back to us with infographics, announcements, or just a warm hello!
[A] thanks for hosting us and all the great questions!
I will return with more goodies soon :)
