This is the summary of the Ask Me Anything (AMA) on 17–10–2019 in the Telegram @gcryptochat. Robert Auxt, CEO and Tomas Pristac, CBDO managed to answer 47 questions together in 1 hour and 15 minutes about the current and future developments of Eterbase as a company and exchange. We’d like to thank everybody for providing us with high quality questions and hope you’ll like the in-depth answers the team managed to give. The answers are categorized into several sub-sections to make reading easier instead of a chronological order like in the telegram.
1. Introduction:
Q: Welcome Robert and Tomas, could you provide a brief introduction about yourself and Eterbase?
A: Robert Auxt
Hi, my background is banking and finance. We came up with the idea for Eterbase around 2 years ago, as we have percieved a need for a platform that would bring closer traditional banking and digital asset business to the cryptocurrency scene. So far we are succesul to integrate IBAN and crypto accounts, with more things coming in next months.
A: Tomas Pristac
My background is investment banking and financial services. I joined the project and the team 7 months ago, overwhelmed by its vision and uniqueness.
Q: Could you briefly describe Eterbase in 5–7 sentences, including your mission and vision?
A: Robert Auxt
Digital Asset Ecosystem consisting of exchange, FIAT gateway, additional modern “banking” solutions (coming). Here at Eterbase we know new emerging financial services are coming along with brand new asset classes. Our Mission is to throw away the old perception of crypto. Our Vision is to create transparent ecosystem massively adopted in B2B, B2C and P2P.
2.General Exchange Questions
Q: Your whitepaper states ‘we have also seen that in many projects, the initial design changed significantly during the development of the final product” Has this happened to Eterbase?
A: Robert Auxt
We are constantly making adjustment to our roadmap according to market needs. Currently, we are preparing P2P lending module for the EU and Global deployment.
Q: Regarding the negative fees, there’s a dilemma; for example, if I trade USDT against USDC and receive profit from that? I will receive profit from negative trading fees, but who will cover me that profit, Eterbase exchange?
A: Robert Auxt
You will receive your negative fees in QUOTE asset.
Q: A tagline of Eterbase is ‘Trade with Negative Fees’. What does this mean?
2. How will Eterbase manage 15 million trades per second with a single node?
A: Robert Auxt
1. The negative fees mean that we can split fees from takers with market makers. More detail can be found here: https://medium.com/@ETERBASE/introducing-eterbase-premium-memberships-cf6ac2521d09.
2. As per architecture, we are running on 40+ servers and several nodes that can increase if we need to scale up. We utilize multiple matching engines and sharded DBs.
Q: Liquidity is a recurring issue for a lot of cryptocurrency exchanges (even some of the bigger ones). How will Eterbase tackle volume/liquidity issues?
A: Robert Auxt
Liquidity is a major problem that we will tr to resolve via P2P lending and additional OTC deals that we’re actively making.
Q: Are there any existing plans to attract non-crypto investors to the Eterbase Exchange? What are the actions to increase awareness around eterbase exchange in non-crypto space?
A: Robert Auxt
Yes. We will provide P2P lending to EUR-EUR basis or non-crypto services as well.
A: Tomas Pristac
We are members of the Innovation HUB of the National Bank of Slovakia, we are also members of Centre for Financial Innovations of the Ministry of Finance. The best way to attract non-crypto investors is to show them Eterbase is transparent and regulatory compliant, which is important with the regulations coming. Another scenario is to get shares to stock exchanges at some level.
Q: 1. Why is the best incentive for me to leave Binance and use Eterbase?
2. What are the advantage and disadvantages of working with two blockchains on the same tokens (Xbase ERC233 / Xbase-B BEP-2).
A: Robert Auxt
1. Mainly negative trading fees, zero withdrawals for EUR, additional airdrops and some unique assets.
2. We can access liquidity in BNB and Binance Dex, also it gives the project some additional exposure.
Q: You have any plan to launch own public blockchain for decentralized financial services?
A: Tomas Pristac
Yes, based on Directed Acyclic Graphs methodology
Q: In terms of speed, transaction costs; how is Eterbase different from other similar payment solutions out there?
A: Robert Auxt
As per trading and withdrawal fees we offer some of the most competitive in the industry. In terms of FIAT SEPA payments we also support INSTANT SEPA, which is the fastest way to transfer EUR to date. Besides we are already exploring options for implementation of DAG into type of payments for our Mainnet.
Q: How will you climb the rankings of exchanges with so much competition? What is the competitive advantage Eterbase has that you feel most confident about?
A: Robert Auxt
As mentioned: mainly negative trading fees, open source market making bot (soon to be released), P2P lending, free EUR withdrawals, multi-tier referral program: https://www.eterbase.com/exchange/referral-bonus/
A: Tomas Pristac
We will bring bank grade quality services, trusted, and regulatory compliant. We want to implement investment services into our platform. New emerging asset classes together with financial services at one place.
An important thing to mention; we are already, today, ready for the first wave of regulation — which will potentially cause a lot of exchange to close business. We’re already seeing this happen.
Q: 1. Could you share something about the next developments we’ll see?
2. Is there any future plan to attract more user to increase the trading volume?
A: Robert Auxt
1. We have several new things coming up in Q4 — more mainnets, market making bot (open source) andmore partnerships/listings.
2. P2P lending that should increase our standing in terms of volumes, liquidity and userbase.
Q: Adoption is one of the important factor that all sustainable blockchain projects should focus to be more attractive in the investors’ eyes. Can you tell me what Eterbase has done and plans to do to achieve real world adoption?
A: Robert Auxt
One example is IBAN accounts that can be utilized for our clients and also Treasury gateway for projects: https://medium.com/@ETERBASE/announcing-the-eterbase-treasury-gateway-accelerating-wider-adoption-of-crypto-by-facilitating-24b1b40ec7b1
Q: 1.Could you name some of the key features of Eterbase Exchange?
2. Could you explain the utility of the Xbase token? Use/Benefit?
A: Tomas Pristac
1. AMLD5 Compliant, own IBAN account for user, negative trading fees proves you can earn money with just trading.
2. We have 9 levels of premium membership. If you lock XBASE, you can have negative trading fees, discounts on withdrawals, airdrop of EBASE stablecoin, general multiplied airdrops from campaigns, listings, competitions. In the future, all services and all products will be utilized/incentivized by XBASE.
Q: In the future could we expect features such as margin or lending?
A: Robert Auxt
We are planning to introduce collateralized and uncollateralized P2P lending/borrowing in Q4 with margin planned for next year.
Q: How is eurbase backed? Is the Fiat gateway available for all countries, or for which countries is it available?
A: Robert Auxt
EURBASE is backed by crypto, cash guarantees and EUR on bank accounts. FIAT gateway is currently only available for the EU only with swift and USD coming in next months via additional partnerships that will be open to more countries.
Q: Are there any existing plans to launch a margin trading platform?
A: Robert Auxt
We will first introduce P2P lending and afterwards we will move to margin. Technical parameters are yet to be announced.
Q: What is your strategy to increase awareness, bring more traders, increase volume? Could it be better to attract more non-crypto traders for Eterbase?
A: Robert Auxt
We anticipate that we will enroll at least 50 projects to our treasury program over the next 6 months, this will lock up over 50 million tokens from our circulating supply, will bring enterprise volume to our order books and will increase the User base of the exchange as token holders will want to trade their tokens where the Enterprise transactions take place. We will also be arranging strong cross marketing campaigns with each Treasury client further enhancing our marketing campaign.
30% of our total Supply is already locked by Premium members in 2 weeks, this figure will increase rapidly and when we add the tokens locked by Treasury clients and also Liquidity providers that join this will dramatically decrease the circulating supply.
Q: What sets you apart from other European Exchanges?
A: Robert Auxt
External test by Dark Pool liquidity have shown that we have the fastest API speed out of all European exchanges. Besides this we offer negative trading fees, free EUR withdrawals, IBAN accounts and P2P lending in near future.
Q: There are a lot of exchanges out there; how did you get the idea of creating another one? What is your break-even point as a business? What revenue exchange may generate in 1–2 years for you?
A: Robert Auxt
Our core idea was to make a platform that will provide crypto-exchange with bank like features such as IBAN accounts, corporate account / treasury services that is AMLD5/GDPR compliant. We are getting quite close to break-even already and we expect relatively strong growth from this point on with ROI at around 40–60% pa.
Q: What types of users do you focus on in the Market?
A: Tomas Pristac
We are focusing on every segment, but would really attract big institutional non-crypto players.
Q: Is the token going to get more use-cases (Xbase)?
A: Robert Auxt
Yes, one additional utilization will actually revolve around P2P lending.
Q: What challenges are currently there for Eterbase? Do you see the current market decline as an opportuntity?
A: Robert Auxt
As per our future mainnet we assume it will be able to beat anything on the market as per TPS and costs (DAG or similar technology planned).
Q: 1. What main point did you have in mind when you started Eterbase?
2. How many members does the team consist of? What qualifications are required if someone wants to join the team?
A: Robert Auxt
1. Mainly to combine a crypto exchange with bank like services such as IBAN accounts.
2. There are currently over 20 people are involved on daily basis. As per devs usually we require 15+ years experience in banking or cybersecurity.
Q: Could you talk about your marketing strategy? How will the world meet Eterbase?
A: Tomas Pristac
There’s an elaborate marketing strategy that stretches from content creation and distribution to digital marketing, so you will see Eterbase across many of the larger platforms moving forwards. We wanted to make sure the platform was fully working prior to launching this campaign and that the referral system had been implemented. We consider marketing to be a very important aspect for an exchange and are well prepared to gradually roll this out.
A: Robert Auxt
We will focus on B2B marketing initially, with additional digital marketing activities planned for Q4 targeting retail clients. We are aiming to become a top crypto/banking provider within the EU with a significant range of crypto fintech products such as PP lending.
Q: A lot of exchanges are closing down, while new ones are being born near daily; so in order to survive and thrive you need to have something to is so special it attracts new traders (unique selling points). What makes Eterbase special?
A: Tomas Pristac
Personally, I think our best comparative advantage is that we are from the financial, banking and regulation, public/govt world. We know about the necessary steps in both; business and regulation part. We want to focus on adoption of new DeFi products and new services & be ready, trusted and compliant once regulation speeds up.
Q: Currently there are many exchanges, what is the difference between Eterbase exchange and other exchanges?
A: Tomas Pristac
A unique point of the exchange is the treasury service that brings real adoption possibilities for projects and their (enterprise) clients. In the current market; nobody is offering this service. We have a lot of projects in the pipeline that will bring in enterprise volume to the exchange and long term partnerships.
Additionally, backing the exchange in its goal to become a fully fledged financial service is investment firm ZMJ SICAV, a.s. as the entity regulated by the Czech National Bank. Eterbase will be working closely alongside ZMJ SICAV, a.s. investments as they find themselves soon to be headquartered in a new building, in the financial hub of Bratislava, alongside the investment firm by June of 2021.
Eterbase is also looking to expand staff in the near term but our sights are also set long term by sponsoring the Slovak Technical University Cryptonomics Program to assist with education, and to increase the awareness of young people in blockchain technology.
Q: Are there any partnerships coming in the short term?
A: Robert Auxt
We have several partnerships already and many more will follow.
3.Security of the exchange
Q: We’ve seen hacks at several exchanges in the cryptocurrency scene. Hacked and leaked user data even happened at Binance (the biggest exchange for crypto). How can Eterbase handle these attacks?
A: Robert Auxt
We currently handle between 100,000–200,000 attacks per day and so far handled everything without any major problems. We rely on a very experienced security team.
Q: 1. How does Eterbase handle security (customer information)?
2. I see a lot of exchanges advertising 0% fee, how is the fee in Eterbase?
A: Robert Auxt
1. We comply with GDPR therefore all customer information is encrypted on separated serves in the EU.
2. We provide even negative trading fees thus going below 0% so in this regard we are quite competitive (also zero withdrawal fees for EUR SEPA).
Q: 1. What are the security measures that you have for Eterbase to make sure that all the assets stored in your wallet are safe and secure?
2. What products do you plan to deliver to the market, and what companies are you target on?
A: Tomas Pristac
1.We run eterbase at the highest level of security, but can not give out specific details.
2.Products we plan to deliver (a few examples for short term): p2p lending (fiat and crypto), Longterm: various FIAT gateways, derivatives.
Q: Security/Privacy feature should be the top priority for any organization. How is Eterbase implementing various methodologies to validate the participants?
A: Robert Auxt
We use AI tracking solutions for threat identification that monitors all systems, wallets, users, API and any inbound and outbound traffic. For customer validation we use most up to day KYC process and standard 2FA procedures. As per privacy we follow GDPR. Overall, our security is also audited: https://medium.com/@ETERBASE/eterbase-receives-security-audit-certificate-c3cad1f579f3
Q: Could you share how Eterbases ensures safety of the funds?
A: Robert Auxt
First of all we run security audits: https://medium.com/@ETERBASE/eterbase-receives-security-audit-certificate-c3cad1f579f3 as per proceedures we utilized advanced multisigs for hot/cold wallets and AI security sytstem monitoring
Q: For an exchange, security issues are often the most common concern. Has Eterbase been in trouble for this? How did you solve that situation?
A: Tomas Pristac
We are constantly under various attacks as everybody else in this industry I suppose. Until now, we solved every attempt in initial phase, our security is strong.
Q: 1- Even Binance traces has had large scale BTC theft in the past, why is Eterbase strong enough?
2- What Is the Cryptographic authorization algorithm Etherbase using? What level your exchange is secured? If my tokens got hacked or stolen, is there any way to get them back with Eterbase authorization system?
A: Robert Auxt
We are preparing to team up with the best in the industry for chain analysis in accordnace to AMLD5. We utilize HSM storage for private keys. External custody for cold storage is also planned.
End of AMA
