Lodge Letter #48

Market outlook still unknown — no change there! Community AMA covers a multitude of questions. Elk SDK Alpha edges closer.

Community AMA with the Elk Team

This week saw a mass gathering of the Elk team in a community AMA where questions were asked through Twitter, Telegram, and Discord beforehand, and in person during the stream.

This Lodge Letter will cover some of the answers, and next week will see more of the two-hour discussion published.

If 90–95% of crypto projects will fail in the next 5 years (a debatably potentially possible probability (wow - Ed)), why will Elk be one of those that remain? What strategic decisions have been made with long term viability through volatile markets and with regulatory landscapes in mind?

Elk has always been a long-term play with a focus on tech. As we continue to provide a service, and add functionality to the ElkNet, bring partners on board and spread into other ecosystems, we have every chance of being there when the sky stops falling.

Baal, Elk’s founder, added, “I think that no crypto project can survive without generating some kind of revenue. Yield farming is nice, but as they say, when you don’t understand where the APR comes from, you are the APR. Elk generates revenue through ElkNet fees (currently, on average, a little less than 1k ELK per day)

But, generating fees is not enough. We need to be building something that will have a clear use-case. Our focus is on cross-chain, which is likely to remain a very big opportunity in the future (as long as multiple chains exist). In order to remain alive, we need to keep building and delivering on our roadmap. We have a good track record so far and we are not planning on stopping.

We have never had an exclusive type of approach: we want to collaborate and partner with other projects (even cross-chain projects), and we will continue to push for that in the future. When enough people use a service, it has a good case to justify its continued presence!

Regulation: this is very uncertain, especially when it comes to stablecoins (relevant to Elk since $CHFT is on the Roadmap). However, we are paying attention to new regulations and we will make sure that our products remain compliant as much as possible. Of course, regulation may introduce delays that we cannot always control (e.g., swap with a centralized ElkNet vs AML).

Baal again added, “I personally believe that regulation will be a catalyst for the market. We just need to hope that regulation makes sense and does not stymie innovation.)

Security will always be on everyone’s mind in DeFi; Elk has a good record of not being hacked. But are there further steps to increase security without compromising scalability?

At this point, the riskiest step we will be taking is to decentralize the network, where a malicious majority could, in theory, take over and print money. We will mitigate this through progressive decentralization. Other steps taken involve audits, monitoring, and our new insurance fund for exploits that will let us amortize the risks.

Considering that we are in a bear period, how does Elk Finance plan to improve itself until the next bull? What new features and chains will we see in another bull?

We plan to build on our roadmap and expand that whenever/wherever it makes sense. Since we are in a bear market, we also need to be clear with our community that some features may take longer to deliver. We are 100% committed to delivering on the roadmap (as we have already), but manpower and funding can impact the estimates we provided previously.

In terms of new chains, we are currently in talks with a good few in order to integrate them. It is too early to discuss details, but we have some big names coming and, in time, some non-EVM chains as well. The beauty of bear markets is that the concentration can be on careful development rather than reactionary and potentially frivolous decision-making.

Would love to see governance structures for Elk holders implemented, such as more influence on which farms to incentivize and how much. What is the realistic time frame for an Elk governance portal and how much governance would be allowed at first?

This can chopped into a two part answer:

• We are currently figuring out exactly how the governance structure will work, and what is the best way to govern Elk in its cross-chain environment. We are probably a few months away from launching any official governance. The community does have a voice now though. By contributing to discussions and proffering ideas in our social media channels you have the opportunity to shape the growth and direction of Elk.
• With respect to farms, we have a different plan in mind which we have named Farms-as-a-Service. FaaS means that anyone will be able to create a farm for the ElkDex and leverage our contract’s code. We will be whitelisting farms that are trustworthy, and awarding ELK in a much more granular manner to farms of interest.

Concerning these two Legos in the Elk future, we have to ask our community for a bit of patience, as this is a pretty intense development effort to fit it into our roadmap (which is already pretty full). FaaS, while an interesting and exciting idea, is perhaps trickier to prioritize since farming is not our #1 priority. Cross-chain ElkNet development will take precedence.

Looking to the future, let’s finish this week with a question about the team’s well-being and what resources are available to maintain momentum for Elk.

Team salary — is the current ELK allocation enough to sustain dev and other operations after the decrease in price? Can we get some current figures of available monthly budgets in dollars?

We have a budget of $10–20k per month for the team, and with many of our team being part-time, this is sufficient for now, but yes it could be made easier with an increase of income or token price. The team is committed to the long-term outlook and so are continuing to drive Elk onwards regardless. We plan to increase the available amount using partnerships and VC funding soon, but we can operate for quite a while on current resources.

Once we incorporate, funding becomes easier. We just have a lot to figure out, like most projects, depending on what happens to the price. However, we are committed to delivering on our roadmap whatever the market action.

Team org — can we know how many people are in each department, are they doxxed, how many are part time contractors vs full-time employees?

More info will be provided when our team page is added to the website. But you already know several voices, others have appeared in photographs and videos, and Snake is the de-facto face of Elk at this stage. Expect to see more of the team as the future unfolds.

We have five developers on the books and another is poised to join in the near future. The Elk half-dozen! They’re doing Ralph’s bidding and we hope you stick around to see what is to come.