AMA Recap: Firepot Finance
Date: March 23rd, 2023
Host: Skinny G
Guest: Tom Daniel — CTO
Hello, Raccoon family and crypto enthusiasts!
We recently hosted an AMA with Firepot Finance. Here’s the AMA transcript for those who missed the live session. We sincerely hope you have as much fun reading it as we did while running the AMA!
Table of Content
Introductory Questions
SkinnyG | DeFiRaccoons: Hope you are all ready #raccoonfam! Today we’re having another educational AMA with Tom Daniel from Firepot Finance! As you know there will be 2 parts, the muted part where me and Tom will be talking about Firepot Finance in general as well as the latest news and updates!
So Tom can you give us a brief overview of what Firepot Finance is and what problem it aims to solve in the crypto space?
Tom Daniel | Firepot Finance: Firepot is building what we’re currently calling Coinflow. One dashboard, many chains, and a single wallet. I will elaborate a little on this. One of the greatest problems in DeFi is user experience. We are all familiar with having to juggle dozens of wallets just to navigate DeFi and navigate between many different websites. Our platform is a single place to access your assets on DeFi and discover new opportunities while still maintaining full custody of your assets. CeFi user experience with the innovations of DeFi. Powered by an omnichain wallet.
SkinnyG | DeFiRaccoons: 100% have to agree with you, its one of the same issues as to why mass adoption won’t take place until we solve the onboarding process of new users. So would Coinflow be able to track a users onchain activity from all chains which the users is active on?
Tom Daniel | Firepot Finance: Yes, but more than tracking you also interact with your DeFi assets among multiple chains and can take action on them. You do this without needing to worry about switching chains or bridging tokens because those technical details happen on the back end. We keep everything fully decentralized and self-custodial, allowing you to hold or swap between native assets on their native chains.
SkinnyG | DeFiRaccoons: Personally this sounds like an absolute game changer for me alone! An easy to use platform that I can do all my DeFi activities from sounds like absolute Heaven! Could you share information about your own as well as your team’s background and experience in crypto and finance industries, and how these experiences contribute to Firepot’s vision?
Tom Daniel | Firepot Finance: I’ve been a crypto enthusiast for quite some time. I bought my first Bitcoin in 2013, minded 10M Dogecoin in 2014, and launched my first crypto startup in 2015 where I was building a wallet on XRP Ripple before Ethereum was very mature. Then I move on to an AI startup and now I’m excited to be back into crypto where the technology has matured enough to build revolutionary products! A little more about our team…
Ben, our new CEO comes from an M and A background and has launched two startups with acquisitions and recently launched a crypto startup and token before Firepot.
We’re a global team with a base in Latam and continue to hire globally.
SkinnyG | DeFiRaccoons: So it’s safe to say you are an OG in the space! I hope you still have some of that BTC and doge coin! So the whole team at Firepot are OGs in the space! That’s amazing to see, whenever I hear boomers say Crypto is dead I always laugh because I know we haven’t seen anything yet! On the topic of AI, this may be asking for some early Alpha but has the team at Firepot thought about integrating AI into Coinflow at all, perhaps to make the user experience even better?
Tom Daniel | Firepot Finance: It’s been amazing to see the crypto space grow, but it has also lost Satoshi’s true vision over the years where most users continue using CeFi. That’s what drives me to build Firepot to restore Satoshi’s true vision of self-custody and decentralization!
A little on AI…
I’ve also done some building in the AI space and it’s another passion of mine. We’re focused more on true DeFi and the omnichain technology right now, but yes, we have some ideas regarding AI integration into our platform such as opportunity recommendations based on your risk profile. DeFi opportunity discovery and investment automation are key aspects of the Coinflow platform.
SkinnyG | DeFiRaccoons: Would you be able to elaborate on the key features of the Firepot Finance platform, such as liquidity pools, yield farming, and staking options, and how they function?
Tom Daniel | Firepot Finance: We like to say three things. Unify — Discover — Automate.
You access multiple chains from a single place and a single wallet.
You discover yield farms, liquidity pools, staking, and lending opportunities on those various chains and platforms. We aggregate, rather than create them ourselves. We also make it a one-touch action to enter a farm for example, without needing to go through multiple steps.
And can automate between various chains and their native assets. Say you have your salary paid on Polygon. You can program that to DCA into native BTC, ETH and the remaining amount into USDT savings account for example.
SkinnyG | DeFiRaccoons: So if I am understanding correctly users are able to access Curve lending protocols through Firepot/Coinflow?
Tom Daniel | Firepot Finance: Correct, we provide easy access to the money legos of DeFi, integrating directly into smart contracts such as Curve. I’d like to mention and clarify that the core product, Coinflow, is still under development. We have an operating DEX on AirDAO’s L1 in which we’ve conducted a lot of market research and interviewed our customers.
SkinnyG | DeFiRaccoons: Amazing, this definitely solves one of the biggest issues which you mentioned earlier, new users first experience, I still remember the first time I started yield farm and how confusing it was!
Would this mean that one day users may be able to access all of their NFTs as well and stake them from Coinflow as well?
Tom Daniel | Firepot Finance: We will definitely integrate NFTs, although we are starting out with fungible token integration first.
SkinnyG | DeFiRaccoons: I noticed that Firepot does not have a token as of yet, so how does the token $AMB play a part in the Firepot Finance ecosystem, and in what ways does it support the platform’s growth and sustainability?
Tom Daniel | Firepot Finance: Yeah, we do not yet have a token, but believe a token is an important part of the Web3 ethos and technological revolution! So it’s important for us to launch our token to provide access to Firepot’s growth.
$AMB is our partner’s token, AirDAO. We’re the first ecosystem partner and share $AMB rewards with our community as well as Firepot $HOTT token rewards after it launches. $AMB is used for gas of the AirDAO L1, voting, and staking rewards.
SkinnyG | DeFiRaccoons: How does Firepot Finance approach risk management and mitigation, especially given the high volatility and uncertainty in the crypto markets?
Tom Daniel | Firepot Finance: Good questions and risk are actually one of the most important factors of concern that our users have expressed in a recent survey.
First, we’ll provide simple risk scoring for each DeFi opportunity based on a number of factors such as smart contract audits, is it lending or liquidity with impermanent loss, etc. We plan to partner with some of the existing risk assessment platforms that focus exclusively on this problem.
Secondly, we’d like to provide more insight to the user from TradFi risk management. Recommending risk-adjusted return strategies that you see on platforms such as Wealthfront. I’d like to add a little bit on security risk here…
SkinnyG | DeFiRaccoons: So that would mean if a protocol had to be hacked or become a rug in anyway, it would become blocked to help prevent users from potential loss of funds if I am understanding correctly? Please do share, security is a very important factor which many people forget to pay attention to!
Tom Daniel | Firepot Finance: In addition to investment, holdings, and DeFi risks, there is a fundamental risk that doesn’t get talked a lot about in DeFi. That is the risk of self-custody in its current form. Self-custody currently has a central point of failure with the recovery phase and it is one of the most critical weaknesses of DeFi that must be solved.
We’re solving this problem by removing the need to manage a recovery phrase and purchase extra hardware. There’s no way DeFi can go mainstream without simplifying self-custody. We integrate social recovery and extra security layers of account abstraction to solve some of these problems.
SkinnyG | DeFiRaccoons: What solution have you come up with for this? Self-Custody is a big threat which most people dont realize. Perfect example is all the people who forgot their bitcoin wallet passwords from 2013/2014 and now they can’t access there funds at all!
Tom Daniel | Firepot Finance: Yeah, losing access to your self-custody wallet is a huge issue, but self-custody is essential for true DeFi and Satoshi’s vision!
The first is using a technology called MPC to protect the wallet’s secret seed (basically a password). This allows transactions to be signed without the secret ever being constructed preventing it from ever being stolen by being copied or phished. This decentralized signing is protected through multiple factors of authentication, many of which already exist on the phones we carry with us every day even such as the face, finger, and passcode authentication.
To continue….
Secondly, it’s very important to provide recovery mechanisms in case of a compromise and suspicious activity. Banks provide customer support, withdraw limits, and account locking when suspicious activity is detected. We can begin replacing these same protections with decentralized alternatives like social recovery.
SkinnyG | DeFiRaccoons: So it is completely different to a multisig wallet which requires an external wallet to authorize the transaction?
Tom Daniel | Firepot Finance: Yes, it’s actually quite different, in that a multisig requires other wallets with their own seed phrases to connect and be part of the multisig. MPC does still have the ability to add multiple parties with varying levels of access to a single account/wallet. Multisigs are getting better with innovations like account abstraction of offline signing, but it’s still more constrained than MPC in my opinion and harder to integrate multiple native wallets together into a single point of access.
SkinnyG | DeFiRaccoons: That does sound revolutionary! Exactly, in my opinion Multisig wallets are a great tool for businesses which have large treasuries/ multiple owners which need to authorize transactions from a business perspective! A single point of access for an individuals use is going to be a way better option!
How does Firepot Finance plan to address regulatory challenges and compliance requirements in the DeFi space, and what steps are you taking to ensure legal and regulatory compliance?
Tom Daniel | Firepot Finance: Regulatory concerns are very challenging, especially with no clear path in the US and the SEC going after so many projects. We consult legal opinion and will continue to do so, but we’ll likely need to restrict certain jurisdictions from our token launch through KYC.
It’s really hard because I truly believe that tokens open up access for people all around the globe to invest in companies and projects. It’s a true technological revolution that has never been seen before, but it’s being damaged by legacy regulation and force! We also have ambitions of being a DAO, which may lighten regulatory concerns, but that also comes with its own challenging and is still very immature in my opinion.
SkinnyG | DeFiRaccoons: How do you plan to expand and grow the Firepot Finance platform in the future, and what new features or services can users expect to see?
Tom Daniel | Firepot Finance: We plan to launch our automation and discovery first on a few popular chains, then polish the experience with the omnichain wallet. We’re taking it one step at a time and will really focus on perfecting those features first. You mentioned NFTs, so we’ll likely explore that and how we can integrate more security and enhancements through AI.
Firepot Finance
Telegram: https://t.me/firepotfinancechat
Twitter: https://twitter.com/FirepotFinance
Website: https://www.firepot.finance/
About Crypto Raccoons
A community for everything related to DeFi, NFT, IDO, Blockchain, and much more. We share our analysis, and fundamentals and hold AMAs with all sorts of projects!
That’s all we have time for today, until next time, consider joining our socials underneath to join our DeFi Discussion!
🦝 Join DeFi Raccoons Community
🦝 Get the latest Raccoons News
🦝 Drop a follow on Medium
🦝 Follow us on Twitter
🦝 Our AMA Calendar
Now for a disclaimer — I’m not a financial advisor, anything you read on my Medium isn’t financial advice, it’s a log of myself doing due diligence on and talking to projects, please verify any and all information presented (error reporting welcome) and make your own decisions.
