Sherpa Cash AMA Recap — August 19, 2021
AMA Recap — Sherpa Cash
Date: 19 August 2021
Guest: Sherpa Cash, Hari Seldon (@jtrollip)
Hosts: LtStakePlissken (@Ltsnakeplissken); Pedro (@0x_pedr0)
Venue: Elk Discord
Format: Text
This recap is a lightly edited transcript of the AMA with introductions and banter removed for length.
Hari Seldon (Sherpa) — Hey everyone! Great to be here
Ltsnakeplissken (Elk): Great to have you! @HariSeldon do you mind introducing yourself, as well as tell us a bit about what Sherpa is all about?
Hari (Sherpa): Sure thing. I’m one of the founding members of Sherpa and have been involved in Avalanche DeFi since pretty much when it started. Sherpa is a privacy protocol using zero knowledge proofs that allows transferring AVAX to a private wallet that eliminates any paper trail and makes it impossible to link to your identity.
Pedro (Elk): Why did you choose AVAX over other chains?
Hari (Sherpa): Great question. I like building on longer timelines. So I always think in terms of 4 years. And in that regard Avalanche makes the most sense as the network that will scale the most efficiently on those timelines
Pedro (Elk): Awesome. We’ll have to check the data, but I have a feeling the ElkNet will be seeing lots of activity flowing into the Avalanche network from our other connected chains…
Hari (Sherpa): That would be fantastic to see!
LtSP (Elk): Let’s get right into it then! The first Twitter question is from @xxxxxxx who asks:
“How do you plan to accomplish that privacy feature on tokens as $SHERPA cash without supporting illegal movements yet provide security to people who want to protect their assets? Thank you.”
Hari (Sherpa): This is a question I get asked a lot. Especially when I try to explain to “normies.” However it’s just like with any other tool being used for malicious purposes. The tool isn’t at fault, it’s how people interact with it. A sickle can be used to cut crops and provide food for a village, it can also be used to cause bodily harm. So, me personally, in a lot of ways I’m very private. If I buy my wife a present, do I want the world to know how much I spent on her. I don’t. So while I do understand there are going to be people using it in malicious ways, that’s definitely not the intention. As Tyler so eloquently puts it, we just want to provide the same level of privacy, that cash currently provides in the real world
Pedro (Elk): I don’t think you even want your wife to know what you spent! Ok, next question, from @xxxxxxxxx:
“At present, Sherpa Cash technical strength is the premise for the establishment of a privacy protection infrastructure for AVAX and ERC20. So how does Sherpa Cash output privacy protection services for AVAX and ERC20?”
Hari (Sherpa): So the way that Sherpa works is relatively simple. You have a wallet with AVAX in it, that you funded with fiat. So it’s very easy to tie that wallet to our real life identity, since the fiat on ramp would have required some form of KYC. So you take that AVAX, you deposit it in Sherpa. You then create a fresh wallet. A wallet that’s never had a transaction on. You then withdraw the AVAX to that clean wallet. Now your AVAX is in a clean wallet that is completely untraceable. The next step though is that you need gas on that wallet to withdraw, so Sherpa provides Relayers, who for a small fee, will pay the gas to fund the withdrawal. This is the most secure way to do it.
LtSP (Elk): Very cool! What exactly do the relayers provide?
Hari (Sherpa): The relayers provide the AVAX that enables the withdrawal. So you pay them a fee. I think the Sherpa relayer currently charges 0.05% and then it covers the cost of the gas to the clean wallet. The main reason for this is that funding the clean wallet with enough AVAX to withdraw reintroduces a paper trail.
LtSP (Elk): Like a Sherpa.
Hari (Sherpa): Your friendly neighbourhood Sherpa.
LtSP (Elk): The next question comes from @xxxxxxxxx on the Twitter:
“What kind of decisions are proposed with GDAO? Most projects use their native token for governance and here there is a new token. In this case will users lock up their $SHERPA tokens for GDAO tokens?”
Hari (Sherpa): We don’t actually have a new token. So I think there is some confusion here. What we have done though is the founders haven’t taken any founders token. We are donating all of them to a zero knowledge DAO. This DAO will then have the SHERPA that we originally set aside for the founders and the point of this DAO is to further the study and progression of zero knowledge. I personally believe that zero knowledge is one of those generational technologies that will fundamentally change the world. Having this DAO will allow us to research and fund projects that expand the use cases beyond just privacy but into other realms. We’ve already met with Anna from zero knowledge podcast and the Gitcoin team to talk through how we can form partnerships to do this
LtSP (Elk): I haven’t heard of Zero Knowledge. What’s their deal?
Hari (Sherpa): Probably one of the best podcasts in crypto: ZK Podcast
https://www.zeroknowledge.fm/. It’s also the technology behind Sherpa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof
Pedro (Elk): So back to this idea of shielding transactions from prying eyes and maintaining privacy… @xxxxxxxx asks about a potential competitor:
“Why would people use Sherpa instead of similar existing service like Tornado Cash?”
Hari (Sherpa): Tornado cash doesn’t work on Avalanche. If you’re on Ethereum then I’d highly recommend Tornado Cash. We’re on very friendly terms with them and they’re a great bunch. Talented, friendly and super smart.
LtSP (Elk): Now, regarding Avalanche, @xxxxxxx asks:
“Do you believe it’s easy to reach a wider user base? As the Avalanche chain is not really famous yet and Sherpa is the first project of its kind, kind of pioneer. Does it make the journey easy for you?”
Hari (Sherpa): Easy and hard are subjective terms. For me it was relatively easy. I posted a message on Discord asking if anyone wanted to build it and then got introduced to some absolute legends that came in and added immense value. Then we got tremendous support. I think I was just lucky. The people that work on Sherpa are so talented. So there’s great things about Avalanche, it’s not as established as Ethereum, but that allows you to make a real presence here. So I’m a glass half full kind of guy
LtSP (Elk): You gotta stay positive! Talent is one thing, but attitude is an important ingredient.
Hari (Sherpa): Agree with this so much. One of my favourite quotes is from Goethe “Be Bold. The Mighty Forces Will Come to Your Aid.”
Also for anyone else building, just be a little paranoid. There are a lot of sharks in the water and people will offer to help your project, but really they’re just mercenaries. Trust people that love building
Pedro (Elk): So, obviously we’re all here for the tech… but like @xxxxxxx, not all technical experts. They ask:
“Regarding all cross chain projects right now, would you consider developing your project(s) on other ecosystems? My question is also linked to power / green efficiency (Harmony, or even Cardano in a near future).”
Hari (Sherpa): We are heading to a cross chain future. That’s obvious to me. So I think there’s opportunities going cross-chain. I’ve looked at Moonbeam as there’s no real ecosystem there and could be a good strategic move. It depends on the team, really. We’re a DAO, so I’m just one voice of many. I love the idea of doing ground breaking stark stuff and also there’s some cool stuff Panther is doing. So anything is possible at this stage
LtSP (Elk): Yeah, I think cross-chain is important too. Sometimes comes up at Elk, you know.
The next question is from @xxxxxxxx regarding security:
“Flash loan attacks and Rugpulls remain the two biggest security problems of DeFi, and the security of investors is not fully ensured. Does the SHERPA project have a different approach and set of measures against SECURITY issues compared to other platforms?”
Hari (Sherpa): I’d argue another big security problem is regulators coming in and coming after founders. But I’ll leave that for another day. Rugpulls are difficult to quantify. There’s a scale. So if someone rugpulls in a month, it’s generally widely considered a rugpull. But if an established project rugpulls you over the course of a year, it’s still a rugpull. For example I see some projects with Tokenomics that are definitely rugpulls depending on where you sit on that particular fence. So it’s about aligning your expectations for the token. In terms of security, it’s about getting audited and surrounding yourself with decent white hats. This is particularly challenging since they’re so rare and they charge an arm and a leg. So it’s hard for smaller projects to afford the good guys like Halborn. In that instance peer reviewed code is also a great step. Platforms like Immunefi can greatly help in this regard.
So many people see audits and assume it’s safe. And then you read the audit and it was for an ERC20 token and that’s it. Alot of it is smoke and mirrors. It’s a really challenging problem. Even Sushi just had an exploit that samczsun found. So even very established projects make massive mistakes.
LtSP (Elk): For sure! Humans are the real problems! :laughs:
Pedro (Elk): Indeed. Last question from twitter before we move onto those from the #ElkHerd:
The “trusted ceremony” is an interesting process in getting engagement with the community. It doesn’t feel very anonymous though because they have to verify using Twitter or Github. Is there a reason for the need to be identified? Is this ceremony only a one time thing?
Hari (Sherpa): The only reason for that was because people wanted to be eligible for the airdrop. A lot of people did it anonymously. I know I did.
We also wanted to incentivise it as the more participants we had, the stronger our privacy is.
LtSP (Elk): Always better to hide in a crowd, if Assassin’s Creed has taught me anything. So, let’s move on to a couple questions from our #ama-questions channel!
@xxxx asks- “Is there a plan to expand to any other chains ? now with ElkNet it’s easy to transfer funds anywhere.”
Hari (Sherpa): Yup, we’d like to be on other chains, but we still have to get a lot of features out before we can consider other chains.
Pedro (Elk): @xxxxxx asks “Sherpa is on sale with a beautiful ido and it continues to progress quite well, can you briefly talk about what differences and innovations are waiting for users on sherpa in the coming days?”
Hari (Sherpa): Our UX is a lot more intuitive for users. MetaFox is really passionate about making software easy to use. So it’s a key differentiator for us. Also obviously speed on Avalanche helps a helluva lot.
LtSP (Elk): @xxxxxx ponders: “Do you have plans to integrate privacy into DEX-es? Is that a viable use case for you?”
Hari (Sherpa): There’s been some interesting discussions about this. At one stage we talked at length about a gasless subnet with a DEX on it that people could onboard and offboard from. There were some implications for DDOS but there’s some cool directions we could go.
Pedro (Elk): @xxxxxxxxx would like you to expand on what we have to look forward to…”What kind of things will Sherpa do to stand out from the rest in the future? What are your plans?”
Hari (Sherpa): For me I always want to innovate and swing for the fences. But our strength is in our unity and in that regard the future direction of Sherpa will be very much up to the DAO.
LtSP (Elk): @xxxxx asks “Where does sherpa get its power of secrecy? İf enough people don’t use it, what will happen to Sherpa?”
Hari (Sherpa): If people don’t use it then there’s no product market fit. Having seen the interest though and looking at how widely used Tornado is on Ethereum, I think it’s safe to assume we’ll get a fair bit of users.
Pedro (Elk): Sherpa being the main option of Avalanche is great…lower gas fees, better UX, and super easy for the #ElkHerd to get a private wallet by sending funds instantly over the ElkNet.
Hari (Sherpa): Thanks for having me, this was a heap of fun. Really great meeting the #ElkHerd and seeing your project flourish! Here are some more links to Sherpa Cash:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sherpa_cash
Telegram: http://t.me/sherpa_cash
Website: https://sherpa.cash/
Pedro (Elk):Thanks so much! Keep BUIDLING…we are happy to have you as part of the cryptoverse
LtSP (Elk): Seconded!
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