AMA recap between Zenlink and Moonbeam

AMA

The aim of the AMA was for the community to learn about the Zenlink integration with Moonriver Network.

Moonbeam was represented by Francisco (Director of Markets and Partnerships of Moonbeam) and Zenlink was represented by Leo Guo and Toga Mamora, Co-founder of Zenlink and Ambassador of Zenlink respectively.

Below are the conversations/questions that took place during the AMA.

Toga Mamora

But before we start, let me introduce myself. I am Toga Mamora. I am the ambassador of Zenlink. I consider myself as an early follower on Zenlink and was appointed as an ambassador in June this year.

I will host this AMA session.

With the Kusama slot auction becoming regular and the Polkadot slot that has already started, the Polkadot ecosystem is entering a hot period. Zenlink as an important protocol layer project in the Polkadot DeFi stack has recently been launched on Moonriver and is planned to be deployed to the Moonbeam network in the future.

Today, we are pleased to invite Leo Guo, co-founder of Zenlink, and Francisco, Director of Markets and Partnerships at Moonbeam, to conduct an AMA in the Zenlink community to learn more about Zenlink and Moonbeam together with the community.

First of all, we would like to invite two guests to introduce themselves.

Francisco, you can start first and Leo will follow after you.

Francisco

hi Toga
first of all, I’d like to thank the Zenlink community for having me today — it’s an honour to be here !

Leo Guo

Our pleasure, man

Francisco

I’m Francisco, I work on the Moonbeam team helping out with markets related work and ecosystem development. Before diving into moonbeam I was working in a traditional web2 tech startup.
glad to be part of the web3 movement now 👍🏼

Toga Mamora

How about you Leo?

Leo Guo

Hello, everyone, I am Leo, co-founder of Zenlink. I have been working in the Blockchain industry for more than 5 years and joined imToken in 2017 was engaged in marketing, operation, and data analysis.
Very happy to invite Zenlink’s partner Moonbeam to come here to share with us.

Toga Mamora

It seems that Francisco’s move from Web2 to Web3 is putting him on the right path to the moon!

Francisco

‘haven't looked back since!’

Toga Mamora

Thanks for the introduction from both of you.

Now, let’s get into the project side. I will ask Leo and Francisco a few questions that may give the community members some ideas about what we are doing and what we are trying to achieve.

Leo, can you briefly describe Zenlink and what problem it is designed to solve?

Leo Guo

ok, Tiger

Zenlink is an underlying cross-chain DEX protocol based on Polkadot and is committed to becoming the DEX composable hub of Polkadot. By accessing the ultimate, open, and universal cross-chain DEX protocol based on Substrate, Zenlink DEX Protocol enables all parachains to build DEX and achieve liquidity sharing in one click.

Zenlink DEX Protocol includes Module, WASM, and EVM implementations, which are flexible and adaptable, allowing for customizable compositions and interoperability with different DeFi modules.

Toga Mamora

Thanks!! The next question is also for you Leo.

Zenlink has officially launched Moonriver on November 3, how did you consider deploying to Moonriver in the first place?

Leo Guo

[In reply to Tiger]
my pleasure.

As we all know, Moonriver is the best Ethereum-compatible developer platform on the Polkadot ecosystem right now. Thanks to Moonriver’s perfect EVM support, we deploy our EVM edition to Moonriver very fast, Module and WASM will deploy to other parachain.

These technical features also helped Moonriver build an ecosystem and capture user value and attention in a very short timeframe. Many other blockchain assets can be brought to the Polkadot ecosystem, Zenlink also breaks $120M TVL in a short time. I am looking forward to more cooperation with Moonbeam to provide a better DEX trading experience for users of Polkadot.

@TogaMamora, done!

Toga Mamora

$120 million TVL within a few days is really amazing. Thanks to the Moonriver community!!

Since we are speaking about Moonriver, can Francisco introduce Moonriver to us? And how is it different from Moonbeam Network?

Francisco

[In reply to Tiger]
Moonriver is an Ethereum-compatible developer platform targeted to Ethereum and Solidity devs. It is also a parachain on Kusama, which means it benefits from the shared security and interoperability that the Kusama network provides. We aim to provide the easiest development environment and the richest set of developer integrations on Kusama. By making it easy for developers to build on Moonriver, we are able to attract and onboard new and existing applications to the Kusama ecosystem very quickly.

Moonbeam is our deployment that’s targeted to Polkadot. Moonriver is the same code base but is targeted towards Kusama (a companion network of Polkadot that runs the same code and code is deployed there first before they deploy to Polkadot). We want a permanent environment where Moonbeam software can be deployed first before it is deployed to Polkadot. We believe this will result in higher software quality, better security, and faster development.

The relationship between Moonriver and Moonbeam will be similar to that of Kusama and Polkadot. Moonriver will serve as a place for projects to deploy their code first, under real economic conditions, before deploying on Moonbeam.

I think what parity found was that unless there was a real value at stake, you can’t really test new features effectively, otherwise people don’t really care about it (governance is a good example of this). So that was the original purpose of Kusama, and now it has taken a life of its own. The moonbeam foundation is adopting this philosophy with Moonriver/Moonbeam.

We also consider Moonriver as a “community-led” network, where the majority of tokens are given to the community through crowdloans and other incentives. Like Kusama, we expect this to create a very different environment over time that develops distinct use cases that are not necessarily the same as Moonbeam.

Toga Mamora

Thanks for the clear explanation, Francisco!
Since Moonriver won the slot to become a Kusama parachain, it has gained a lot of attention from the community and has also formed a preliminary network ecosystem. Can you tell us about the current state of the Moonriver ecosystem? What do you think about Zenlink and what does its deployment on Moonriver mean?

Francisco, can you take this?

Francisco

sure
[In reply to Tiger]
Yes, it’s great to see that Moonriver has gotten significant traction since we launched it, which is great to see for the Kusama and Polkadot ecosystems.

Close to 8M tx, at about 200–400K tx per day at this point, which is already much larger than many chains that have been running for a long time.

In terms of project deployments, lots of teams are deploying on Moonriver including defi protocols like Sushi, Beefy Finance, Solarbeam, Autofarm, a whole bunch of NFT projects, games and of course, Zenlink.

Defi TVL is at $400M+ which puts Moonriver in the top 20 by TVL across all chains if you look at something like defillama.

Zenlink has been a significant contributor to the DeFi ecosystem on Moonriver, having accrued around 110M in TVL so far. Also, we are glad that it’s a Chinese native team since Kusama and Polkadot are very popular in China and we have a growing community there. It has given Moonriver more exposure in the Asia market for sure.

I think all of this activity is a sign of what will happen on Moonbeam!

Toga Mamora

Moonriver seems to be on track! Glad to see this is happening. I am sure the community members with what is going on.
As we know, due to Moonriver’s EVM compatibility, there are many Ethereum projects that have deployed or plan to deploy to Moonriver in addition to Polkadot native projects, so do you have any thoughts to share with the community about the different deployments of both to Moonriver?

Francisco, this is for you again.

Francisco

[In reply to Tiger]
Yeah, it’s a curious thing to observe because Kusama initially started as this experimental network and now it has fully taken on a life of its own. To be completely honest I don't know what exact shape both networks will end up taking.

However a similar pattern is happening with Moonriver at this point, and it will be interesting to see how the 2 networks end up evolving.

The general tendency we are seeing is that most projects will be deployed on both Moonriver and Moonbeam, however, some are even choosing to stay on Moonriver and others are deciding to build only on Moonbeam.

Those we have observed staying on Moonriver are mostly NFT projects, whereas with Moonbeam we will find out soon what type of projects decide to deploy there.

Overall we do expect significant activity on Moonbeam as we have seen with Moonriver already.

Toga Mamora

I guess the time will tell, what will be the real use case of Kusama and Polkadot.
Zenlink has also gained a lot of attention since its launch, with TVL breaking $100 million within 2 days, what does this mean for Zenlink? Also, there are still a lot of community members who are curious about IYO. Leo, you give us a brief introduction to IYO and tell us what the rationale was for taking this approach to distribution?

Leo Guo

TVL is the basis of trading experience. Thank you to the community for making us the fastest Polkadot ecological DEX to break through $100 million TVL. But it’s just the beginning, we will launch more features for our users in the next few days. Last week, we launched one click to choose the trading pair or collect your favourite pairs, Is it more sufficient for AMM trading？ This week we will open the port for users to create their pairs. Stay tuned！
IYO aims to complete the initial issuance of ZLK Token by initiating Yield activities. Once IYO reaches the relevant goals, ZLK starts the transfer. Note: IYO only affects the transfer function of ZLK, and all other DApp features (including trading, staking, invite to earn, etc.) can participate normally.

The reason why we choose IYO to start ZLK’s transfer function is we want to make a balance between the community, investors, products, and ZLK. It is also a kind of thinking about token distribution in the blockchain industry. Three targets of IYO means that the product is more mature. For more details of IYO you can: https://medium.com/zenlinkpro/announcing-the-zenlink-community-airdrop-program-91950c7a85ba
It should be noted that the ZLK claim will start two weeks after. Specifically, we have compiled a FAQ for reference: https://medium.com/zenlinkpro/faq-product-usage-and-iyo-related-questions-and-answers-after-the-launch-of-zenlink-d7f0f4deb0c4

@TogaMamora, done

Toga Mamora

Thanks. The FAQ is in one of the pinned messages. So, to the community, if you have questions about Zenlink dex, please refer to that first.
Currently, Zenlink is running an IYO with multiple yield/farming activities, and because of this type of IYO distribution, ZLK cannot transfer in the initial phase and therefore does not have a price. Leo, can you please explain?

Leo Guo

Token distribution is very hard for a blockchain project. Many projects begin to circulate their tokens before the product is online. We don’t think this is a good way. Therefore, we hope that the three targets of IYO will be met before the ZLK transfer is started because this means that the product can be used by more people. The ZLK allocation of investors and community can also be more reasonable, and the price of ZLK can also be matched to the true situation of the project to avoid excessive price fluctuations in the early stage. Similar to the IPO in the stock market.
But in the process of IYO, we also saw some bad phenomena. For example, some people participated in trading mining by executing automated programs. We will change some mining rules after the end of the first cycle to encourage real trading. In the past few days, the number of transactions on moonriver’s entire network is also 6–10 times as much as before.
If the target cannot get reached, we’ll try to listen to our community.
@TogaMamora

Toga Mamora

Next question.

Another question of interest to the community is related to ZLK tokens. We see that Zenlink advocates fair launch, can you please share with us how Zenlink tokenomics is designed? And how will it achieve a healthy economic cycle?

Leo Guo

nice question
When we were designing economic models, we have always considered how to let ZLK drive the long-term development of the project and the community. And what ZLK can we do for our product users? So with 50% of the tokens to be used in community incentives and a generous buyback and burn mechanism.

The economic model is also a process of continuous optimization. We may fine-tune the content in the next. For example, holding ZLK can enjoy a trading fee discount, and then it might be adjusted to the size of the trading volume weight. And when the 1st cycle is complete, the 50% of the trading fee will return to LP will start from the 2nd cycle. And all of the 1st cycle trading fees (about $0.9M) will be decided by the community.
@TogaMamora

Toga Mamora

It is great to find out that at this very early stage, Zenlink already have over 18,000 holders and all these hodlers earned their ZLK through participation.
The launch of Zenlink DEX on Moonriver has done well and I would like to ask Francisco, what do you think about the launch of Zenlink on Moonbeam in the near future?

Francisco

[In reply to Tiger]
Yes, Zenlink has quickly become a prominent DeFi project on Moonriver having accumulated approx. $110M in TVL quite quickly.

I would expect it to have a similar impact, if not greater on Moonbeam once we launch.

It’ll be interesting to see how both instances of Zenlink on Moonriver and Moonbeam end up developing!

Either way, I think everyone should be very excited about the Dotsama ecosystem in general.

Leo Guo

[In reply to Francisco]
Let’s promote the KSM/MOVR native pair！

Toga Mamora

I expect 10x more TVL on Moonbeam. This is because I perceive the parachains of Polkadot will have 10x the marketcap.

Francisco

[In reply to Leo Guo]
that would be awesome yes haha

[In reply to Tiger]
yeah this is the rule of thumb in general between Kusama and Polkadot

we’ll see if that holds up with parachains as well!

Toga Mamora

No, this final question is addressed to Leo.

Are there any short-term and long-term plans that Zenlink can share with the community?

Leo Guo

Of course, we have.
1. Optimize the product. In the next 2 weeks, we will focus on optimizing the product. At present, the stability of the product has been completed in stages. We will release two new features that will enhance the user experience.
2. Community building. The global ambassador program is launched. Welcome everyone to join us in building Zenlink and Web3.0! https://zenlinkpro.medium.com/announcing-the-zenlink-global-ambassador-program-1a2f90c95fcb

3. Announce the 2022 roadmap. You can see our 2021 roadmap on Zenlink’s official website (https://www.zenlink.pro). Next, we will announce the 2022 roadmap as soon as possible, including the DEX aggregator, the NFT+DeFi+DAO combined product, and the DEX composability of parachain. In a word, the launch of Zenlink is just the beginning!
@TogaMamora

Toga Mamora

Thanks to both Leo and Francisco for answering all the questions. I hope the community how to have some ideas about what we are doing. But one thing is certain, we are in for a long term.

However, if the are any questions that the community would like to ask, you can ask now.

I shall unmute the chat for 2 minutes and please post your most important questions. We will then select 10 questions and each selected question will be eligible to earn 10 ZLK.

Below are the selected questions and the response

Harry

Why does Moonbeam choose Kusama and Polkadot networks instead of other platforms?

Francisco

[In reply to Harry]
we were attracted by the multi-chain vision of Polkadot/Kusama and the fact that interoperability is built into the design of the architecture itself.

We feel strongly that problems related to interoperability will be the key ones to address in blockchain moving forward.

Дмитрий Змейкин

Hello. What will be the conditions in Bootstrap when Moonriver joins? Will there be additional stimulation with movr coins? And the second question, applied to moonbeam and Zenlink ambassador, when will the answers come?

Leo Guo

[In reply to Дмитрий Змейкин]
The Bootstrap function on Bifrost and Moonriver are launched together. But we just start from Bifrost at first. This week, we will open the feature to allow users to create the pairs freely on Moonriver. Enjoy that! About the ambassador program, we will announce the application result ASAP

Edogawa Conan

What are the competitive advantages of MoonBeam for offering cross-chain bridges and smart contracts in Polkadot?

Francisco

[In reply to Edogawa Conan]
I think the fact that we are focusing entirely on ethereum compatibility sets us apart from other teams. One clear example of this is the fact that we changed the account structure on moonbeam to be just like on ethereum. This allows users to use tools like metamask exactly like they would on ethereum which ultimately improves UX and adoption.

In addition, I’d say the ecosystem we’ve built is a competitive advantage since that is very difficult to replicate. There are other parachains with EVM compatibility but that don't necessarily have all the tools, integrations and projects that we’re working with.

In terms of EVM compatible chains outside of Polkadot — I’d say our biggest advantage is being part of this interoperable multi-chain ecosystem that will provide new uses cases.

Trump

As I know, Moonriver consists of 4 basic layers are EVM, Web3 RPC, Unified Accounts, DeFi Integrations, so how do these help Moonriver improve compatibility?

Francisco

[In reply to Trump]
all of these layers make a seamless ethereum compatible environment so that projects can simply port the code they already have on ethereum onto moonbeam without changing almost anything.

Our goal is to reduce deployment friction as much as possible — and we’ve aimed to do so by providing those layers you mentioned.

Analogy

Could you share with me how is Moonriver secure to build into a truly secure and reliable platform?

Francisco

[In reply to Analogy]
one of the benefits of being a parachain on Kusama and Polkadot is that the relay chain validators provide shared security for all the member parachains.

We’ve also worked to grow the number of collators (block producers) on moonriver and moonbeam to increase the decentralization of the network.

Blue l ambassador l CM

Please tell us more specific information about goals and vision for the next 1 to 3 years?

Francisco

[In reply to Blue l ambassador l CM]
as it relates to moonriver and moonbeam — the goal will be to grow the ecosystem and adoption as much as possible. In the medium to long term, we are excited by the use cases related to interoperability on dotsama.

For example one of our partners Lido will be able to access the KSM on the Kusama relay chain remotely from Moonriver in order to provide a liquid staking solution. This is only one of the use cases we are excited about that is made possible through the interoperability on Kusam and Polkadot.

IP12

Hi Leo, how could Zenlink solve security issues from attacks?

Leo Guo

[In reply to IP12]
To address this issue, from our perspective, firstly, we will follow some good security practices, such as using strong passwords and password saving tools and other measures to ensure that all our own service accounts will not be maliciously stolen.

Second, the third-party services we involve, including DNS services, cloud services, etc., are sourced from top-tier international providers. Some of their services are able to deal with similar DNS attacks, such as dynamic DNS resolution, firewall filtering, etc.

Third, we also cooperate with external security service providers to do penetration testing attacks regularly in order to identify improvement points.

From the user’s point of view, in one word, never disclose private keys and helper words to anyone and any project.

As the code audit, it’s the basis of our project. We completed it by SlowMist. Will open resource next few weeks.

Ho Alex

Do you have a staking program for those who have NFT Zenlink?

Leo Guo

[In reply to Ho Alex]
We will make the NFT more useful in Zenlink DEX Network. according to the tokenomic, we will launch the NFT tokenomic independently

JoeJoseph

Will there be a Bifrost — movr bridge in the foreseeable future? Resp can you tell us more about that possible promotion regarding a KSM/MOVR native pair you just mentioned? 🙂

Francisco

[In reply to JoeJoseph]
stay tuned for further XCMP collaborations — but yes you can expect more use cases to be possible between parachains in the near future

seto Δ

Any plan in the near future zlk will be going multi-chain as erc20, bep20, polygon chain, etc?

Toga Mamora

[In reply to seto Δ]
This can be considered into future plans.

But for now, our focus is about perfecting our products within the Kusama and Polkadot ecosystem. There are plenty of things that are yet to be deployed e.g dex aggregator, cross chain trading etc.

Leo Guo

[In reply to seto Δ]
We focus on the Polkadot ecosystem at first. no matter ZLK is ERC20 or BEP20, all total supply is 100M

Toga Mamora

Thanks, Leo and Francisco for putting so much effort into answering all these questions.

Leo Guo

Thanks to all the community friends

Francisco

again, thanks for having me!