ArthSwap x Astar Network AMA Recap

Background: With ARSW IDO is approaching, ArthSwap has received quite some questions from the users. We have invited Maarten, the head of Business Development of Astar Network, to ask us questions on behalf of the users. This AMA took place at 1:00pm UTC on April 15th. Maggie, ArthSwap Community Lead and Megan, ArthSwap Growth Team Lead, joined Maarten for this conversation.

Maggie: Thank you so much Maarten for making this AMA happen. There’s only 1 more day until ARSW IDO so as the big day is approaching, there is a lot of information that we want to get crossed to our users. You’re the best person to ask us those questions, on behalf of the users. So thank you so much for that. And also I wanna thank Megan. Megan is ArthSwap Growth Team Lead. She herself is also a professional trader. So she is not only very familiar with ArthSwap’s development on the business side and on the technical side as well. She’s here with me today to support me answering the users’ questions. Thank you so much Megan.

Megan: Happy to be here. Good evening and good morning.

Maarten: Hi. First please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Maarten. I am the head of Business Development of Astar Network. So basically I’m here to do this AMA together with ArthSwap and give you guys some questions about how the developments are going, and some basic questions you have received from the community. I think you already introduced yourselves, Maggie and Megan, so there is no need to ask for introduction. I think we can already start with the first question: can you give an overview of ArthSwap?

Maggie: Yes of course. ArthSwap is a project on the Astar Network and it is launched on January 22 just this year. It is a one-stop Defi protocol on the Astar Network. Its primary functions are trading, staking, and liquidity mining. We have some other features coming soon which I will get into later. But after merely 3 months of launch, ArthSwap has already developed into the №1 Dex on Polkadot with the highest TVL. Just this morning I checked our TVL and it was $157M. So thank you so much for that. That’s very fast development.

Maarten: Thanks a lot. I think a lot of people, not only me but a lot of people in our community are looking forward to the new features coming because having all those features available on the Dexes is really something that we all would like to have. So we’re really looking forward to this. And the next question that I have is why you choose to build on the Astar Network?

Maggie: Sure. Astar Network is a dApp hub on Polkadot that supports Ethereum + WebAssembly. We all know that. It is launched in January 2022 as well. Since then It has become the top parachain in the Polkadot ecosystem in terms of TVL and I believe it has the most Ethereal assets transferred over. The founder of Astar Network, Mr. Watanabe, who is actually a very good friend of Megan, has been supporting ArthSwap from the marketing, technical and financial side. His company NextWebCapital is one of the backers of ArthSwap.

On top of that, what makes Astar Network so unique from other blockchains is its build-to-earn feature. And ArthSwap is one of the 7 projects to be first listed on its dApp staking platform. Not to mention that ArthSwap is also one of the first projects included in Astar Network’s Incubation program. As a return, ArthSwap is willing to optimize all its features for Astar and we consider ourselves as a ‘Astar-native’ dApp.

Maarten: Thanks. So the next question is what everyone is curious about because you are going to have the IDO. Can you talk more about ARSW tokens and its token distribution?

Maggie: Yes for sure. ARSW token is the project token of ArthSwap. From January this year up to now, users hodl ARSW as a mining reward. We also had several airdrop events and giveaway campaigns to benefit our supporters. So far ARSW remain unswappable and non transferrable. We will have to wait for the official announcement for exactly when we can do that. ARSW IDO Launchpad requires all projects to access our platform with a fixed-price project token. ArthSwap as the first project to be listed on it, ARSW token will remain constant at $0.5 until sold out. And also the distribution I think I’m going to get into tokenomics. Our total supply is 1 billion and we plan to emit all those tokens in 24 months. For now I think by the end of April, there will be 11% circulating on the market. Of all the tokens 35% of them will be given to liquidity mining and airdrop. 15% to the community growth. 10% to those who have made early contributions to ArthSwap. Dev team will get 20% and another 20% for potential investors.

Maarten: Cool. Thanks a lot. Can you tell us more about how ArthSwap is planning to increase the value of ARSW token?

Maggie: Yes I have a lot to say about that so please bear with me. I can’t talk about how the team plans to add value to ARSW token without talking about our most recently updated Roadmap. Because it’s the long term development of a project that brings increasing value to its project token right? Anyway, we have so many things in store. First is that ArthSwap will have its own incubation program in Q2 which is called ArthShot. ArthShot will dedicate itself to help other projects grow on Astar Network, because all this time we’ve been asked how we grow so fast so we would like to share those experiences with other projects. Our incubation program will provide a one-stop solution such as marketing, business growth, community management and so on. We will even introduce those projects to potential backers or VCs and help them with the IDO and listing. It’s like a whole package of support we can offer. So in the future GameFi projects, NFT projects or even Metaverse projects will be incubated by us. In Q2 ARSW is going to be listed on some major exchanges. However, for now, we can’t disclose their names but it’ll be a nice surprise.

In Q3 we have collaboration with IP companes. LP stands for Intellectual Property and there are a lot of world-famous IP companies in Japan, representing Japanese Manga and animation projects. So the leaders of ArthSwap have actually started our negotiation with some great IP companies in Japan to venture into this business. We were hoping to collaborate with some Tier-1 companies in Japan. The possibilities are endless. In Q3, we also have dual mining, NFT Launchpad and NFT Staking.

And that takes us to Q4. In Q4, we have Order Book Function and some other derivative products. We will enable our users to create derivative products around projects listed on Astar Network, ArthSwap, and Arthshot. As you can see there are a lot that’s coming and it’s going to be very exciting.

Maarten: Thanks a lot. We’re looking forward for the IP projects to come to ArthSwap. And the incubation program I’m very excited to hear about it. So you have an IDO coming, can you talk a little about how many projects are you trying to launch?

Maggie: So our launchpad is going to be released on Apr 16th and ArthSwap is going to be the first project to be listed on it. After that as to which project will follow because for now, we would like to, sort of keep it as a secret. But it’ll be a very nice surprise for sure. There are going to be a lot of projects to be listed following ArthSwap. Like I mentioned earlier, all the projects are required to enter our launchpad with their token price being fixed. That’s the same with other projects. However, there might be different IDO designs with different project to be listed. For example, for ArthSwap IDO, there is no vesting, and the distribution method might vary as well.

ArthSwap IDO will start exactly at 11:00am UTC on April 16th. Our total supply is 1 million. There is no whitelist. So it’s basically first come first serve basis until sold out. How users can participate in this IDO is that they can just deposit USDC and USDT and ASTR. They can just deposit 1 of the 3 tokens mentioned and the good news is that users will receive 20% discount if they use ASTR. That’s pretty much all the information that I know about ARSW IDO. Unless Megan you want to add anything?

Megan: After ARSW IDO, the next project to do IDO with us would be at the end of April. Maybe 2 weeks after. The next IDO will be done at a fixed-price. Please wait for the future updates to see which project will be listed. You might be able to guess because some projects already announced that they will do IDO with us but for the official announcement please stay tuned.

Maarten: Thanks a lot Megan. Let’s move on to the next session. In this session I will ask you the questions asked by the users. We collected those questions through Typeform and we selected 3 questions and we are going to ask Maggie now and you will answer it. After this we will have a 5-minute break and users can use the General Chat Channel to ask questions as well. We will pick 3 questions from the users, and we will do the final ending for this AMA. So the first question is from Andik32144#3347. His question is: As we know, DeFi hacks happen frequently. how do you deal with it and what will you do to provide investor safety and comfort?

Maggie: Thank you so much for your question. Security has always been ArthSwap’s №1 priority. That’s exactly why ArthSwap forked PancakeSwap and copied their source code in the first place. Copying other projects, especially successful projects’ source code happens everywhere in the crypto industry. Because one thing about smart contracts is that once it’s been deployed, there is no going back, there is no reversing or second chances because the reason why we use smart contracts is that we want to eliminate human interference. Right? Therefore, to ensure the success of a project, the best way to get a head start is copy another successful project’s source code and in our case, we decided to fork PancakeSwap. That’s the first reason why the security level is high. Also not too long ago ArthSwap passed the audit by Quantstamp. Quantstamp is the most prestigious and largest source code auditing company in the crypto world and if we have passed the audit by such a company, I’d say our project is pretty safe. I hope that answers your question

Maarten: Yes that’s perfect. Yes in the crypto world, the can always find the source code in the GitHub and projects always fork other projects and to make it your own. That’s the same with you guys using source code from PancakeSwap and then make it your own. So the next question is from SYAFITRIE#8214. He is from Indonesia. His question is: Community support is one of the biggest aspects of a project’s success. Most projects have programs that interact with their users. Do you have any special plans to attract and expand the community and improve the user experience?

Maggie: Yes. From the very beginning of the project, we wanted to do everything we can to involve the communities. Not only have we found more than a dozen of amazing community managers who come from different parts of the world and speak different languages to engage with our users, but we also have opened 18 local channels on Discord and Telegram. We have set up ArthSwap local accounts on Twitter such as ArthSwap Chinese, ArthSwap India, ArthSwap Germany, etc. News and articles about ArthSwap are translated into different languages and are shared on Twitter, Medium, Subsocial, etc. on a daily basis. We do this because we want our users to know that no matter where you come from, what language you speak, whether they are new to crypto or have been in this business for a while. There is always a way to engage with ArthSwap.

To engage our users on a deeper level, we have ArthSwap Navigator Program that are looking for talents who are good at community management, content creation, art creation, event planning and so on. They will receive ARSW tokens as a reward for their work and really just there to help out with the community because I had navigators asking me if it’s okay for them to answer the users’ questions in the general chat channel and I was like yeah of course. We would love to have you guys help out with the community. For those who have been contributing to our community a lot, there is definitely a chance for them to play a bigger role in ArthSwap.

Another thing that I want to mention is that we always listen to the users’ feedback and address their concerns and questions. Our Announcement channel has been really busy all the time because whenever we saw users’ comments or feedback. Some of the valuable feedback we always report back to the team and the team would issue an announcement to respond to the users. For example, Some of our users were questioning how we came up with the IDO price. They think it’s a little bit too high. We immediately shared the marketing research we have done with them. Like what metrics we have taken into consideration and we also updated our Roadmap and shared with the users. We want them to know that ArthSwap is not one of those projects who made money in the crypto business and they just get up and leave. We’re aiming for the long term. We want to grow bigger and stronger with Astar Network.

Maarten: And we have the final question from gw#2180 from the USA. Can you explain it to me has the team behind ArthSwap have experience with any other crypto projects?

Maggie: Thank you for your question. The answer is YES. So our team is a multinational team. A lot of people might this is a Japanese project and the team is made up of entirely Japanese members only but no. We have team members coming from the US, Canada, I myself is in Canada, Germany, China, Thailand and Japan of course. ArthSwap’s official languages are English and Chinese. By the way, I speak Mandarin. So I would like to give a shout out to ArthSwap Chinese supporters. Thank you guys for supporting us.

And the business side of the team includes those who are familiar with the trading systems of brokerage firms and those licensed by the authorities to handle derivative products. Megan, for example, she herself is a professional trader and has worked for Capital Market in Japan in developing trading and booking systems. The development team includes past Grant recipients from the Ethereum Foundation and the Web3 Foundation. They are not just experts in crypto app development, but have extensive knowledge of smart contracts. I hope that answers your question.

Maarten: Yes thank you. Now let’s move on to the questions from the community.

Maggie: Yes I will give a cue in the general chat channel and during those 5 minutes, Megan and I will pick the questions together and prepare for their answers at the same time.

Megan: Yes before we get to that part. I want to say we might get a lot of questions about how to join IDO. We have already published an article on Medium explaining that. So you can go check it out. And I think the biggest news is that when you use ASTR to purchase ARSW, you will get a 20% discount. This is no way a financial advice. It will be my personal choice but I think it’s nice to get the discount.

Maggie: Okay 5 minute is up. The first question we have picked is from @roffett|MEKAVERSE#3302 . She is asking when the ARSW token will be made transferrable. To that I would say we are in various conversations with several exchanges. We can’t disclose their names and the content of our conversations with the exchanges, but we will be able to bring you news about listing soon. As for the IDO, even if you participate in the IDO, the distribution of the tokens will take place later. This means that you will not be able to claim your ARSW immediately, but the team will airdrop them after the IDO.

Maggie: I think someone asked about staking. @joe483092#2028 is asking when the staking feature will become available. To that I will say we plan to implement the staking feature as soon as possible to reduce token selling pressure; the staking feature will be modeled after Defi on the Solana chain, which has many cutting-edge features. Users can earn returns at a higher APR depending on how long you lock your ARSW tokens. We are currently considering locking periods of 2 weeks, 1 month, 6 months, etc. We will be able to offer a much higher APR to those who lock for six months. I hope that answers your question.

Maggie: The last question is from @thelong. He is asking what is the eligibility to participate in the IDO. So we do not set any eligibility or requirements for users to participate in ARSW IDO. That means anyone can participate. There is also no lock period. Just remember to set yourself a timer and when the time comes, you will be able to purchase the ARSW tokens.

Megan: Someone is asking why ArthSwap is only offering 1% of the total supply for this IDO. It’s actually not 1% but 0.1%. “Does the project intend to lockdown the number of coins?” He asked. I have to explain the purpose of this IDO. Please know that the purpose of this IDO is not to simply raise funds. Our goal is to get more people get ARSW tokens through IDO. We want more attention from non-Astar users. And you guys have already had the opportunity to get ARSW by providing liquidity to ArthSwap but we want everyone in the crypto world to get to know us. We want everyone to join us.

Megan, Maggie & Maarten: Thank you everyone.

About ArthSwap

ArthSwap is a one-stop Defi protocol that aspires to be the main DEX on the Astar Network. Its primary tasks will be trading, staking, and liquidity mining, with other capabilities to be added before long.

The primary focus will be on expansion within the Astar Network ecosystem, and the team is hence eager to optimize all features for Astar, referring to it as a “Astar-native” dApp (decentralized application). Essentially, ArthSwap is to Astar what Trader Joe is to Avalanche, Quickswap to Polygon, and Uniswap to Ethereum. Be sure to check out the official website as well as the Twitter, Discord, Telegram and Medium channels for more information along with regular updates about the IDO.

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