A community call with Lead DeFi Developer Nic Duerr
Last week, we invited our community members to join a call in our Discord talk channel, to discuss their questions and their ideas for Fluid’s next steps.
Read on for Nic Duerr’s explanation of the differences between our web and mobile apps, community discussion of target audiences and marketing, a tech and product Q&A, and more.
It’s packed with content, so feel free to use the table of contents to navigate.
Table of Contents:
Web App vs Mobile App
Nic Duerr, the lead DeFi developer at Fluid, answered community questions on the differences in functionality and target audience for the web and mobile apps.
Q: What will be the main difference between the web and mobile app?
Nic: The web app will be more geared towards the DeFi-focused people who know how to deal with their own noncustodial wallet, who know how to keep track of their private keys and backups, and who know how to link it to their own wallet. And they know what to do next: they can then go to other DeFi protocols and invest directly into that manually. They have the full choice of the entire DeFi world.
On the mobile app, we abstract away all that complexity. It will be a simple version of the DeFi world for normal users, so that they don’t have to deal with their own noncustodial wallet or research protocols and figure out which ones are legit.
Basically, we will build a mobile app so that it’s super simple for people to go from their bank account to the benefits of DeFi without having to deal with the complexities of DeFi. They will be able to invest into a select set of crypto assets, and they will be able to invest in savings products that we are building on top of the DeFi world. There should be a one click option to buy Ethereum or buy FLUID, or invest in a savings product that will generate yield on their USD, EUR, or other currency.
Long term, the idea is actually that we have both a simple and an advanced version, both for the mobile app and for the web app, so that you can switch seamlessly between the two apps. As the initial step, the simple version will be in the mobile app. The more advanced version, where you need some DeFi background or crypto background, will be in the web app. And eventually, we will build a simple version in the web app and advanced version in the mobile app as well.
Q: It’s great to hear that you’re adding a simple version and a complicated version. Can you switch between them? Are they linked through your account?
Nic: Yes, it’s going to be the same account. Right from the start, you will be able to use both with your same login credentials. The only difference is that on the mobile app, initially, you won’t be able to connect your Metamask or a noncustodial wallet. Initially, that will only be on the web app.
Ideally, if you want to do crypto stuff with your noncustodial wallet, you would use the web app to redeem your DUSD. Then, you can switch to your mobile app on your phone, and your dollars that you’ve just redeemed through the web app will be in your bank account.
Q: If I’m buying ETH on the mobile wallet, will I be able to access it via the web app?
Nic: You might see it as an ETH balance, but it will be in a custodial Treasury account, managed by Fluid. If we have people buying a lot of ETH, that won’t sit in hot wallets, most of it will sit in cold wallets that are managed by us. You will have the option to withdraw that from your custodial mobile app to any Ethereum address that you want. So you can still buy ETH through the mobile app and then withdraw it to your own Metamask wallet.
Q: Why did you choose the option of a custodial wallet for mobile, rather than generating a wallet that you have the option to export?
Nic: We’re choosing this setup because we want to have a super simple version where people don’t need to know or understand anything about wallets and private keys and they won’t need to export their private keys or anything like that. As soon as we have both the simple and the advanced version, you’ll be able to connect your own wallet and then it will be fully noncustodial and everything will be under your control.
Target Audiences and Marketing Roadmap
Fluid has a very different model to the traditional commercial banking sector. With an easy on and off ramp, and other game-changing product offerings, the next step is getting the word out.
On the road to mass adoption, our community members suggested various strategies for clarifying and communicating to our target users:
Crypto natives and normies
There are two main audiences. One which is crypto natives — people who can handle Metamask and their own keys. And the other is normies, how you get your parents or friends using the service. They are two very different markets, and the challenge has always been how to talk to both of these audiences.
On the crypto side, big articles can get traction. They can also be reached with banner ads on sites like Coingecko, for instance.
One community member suggested that reaching normies may be harder, because they constitute such a huge proportion of the world. It poses a challenge to communicate the product in a way that doesn’t sound scary, as crypto often does to people. We need to articulate that Fluid is a very secure bank account that gives a normal user better interest than normal banks.
Specific target groups
Fluid’s products will offer opportunities across lots of demographics and geographical areas.
In order to attract people in a more systematic way, community members suggested identifying key demographics and target user personas (by age, gender, level of experience with crypto, and geographic location) for each product offering.
Once these personas are identified, it will be more straightforward to identify the most effective communication channels to reach them.
For instance, the first iterations of the web and mobile apps are clearly targeted at different groups, with the web app targeted at users who are already comfortable with crypto, while the mobile app is designed for those newer to the space. Products in the pipeline will continue to appeal to diverse demographics. One participant on the call offered the example that the non-KYC accounts with limited deposits may appeal to those playing Play to Earn games and wanting an easy on and off ramp for their crypto funds. Speaking to this demographic will require a different approach to — for example — crypto-curious young Europeans who are looking for a crypto-native alternative to services like Revolut.
Each target group requires distinct communication strategies and will identify with different product offerings.
Variety within crypto
The community generally agreed on the need to address people in the crypto space as a first priority. However, as a whole space, it is too broad to constitute a meaningful niche. Within crypto, there is a wide variety of experience and engagement. One participant offered the example that there are people who have just bought a few ETH and are only using one or two centralized services every few months. On the other hand, there are degens who spend hours every day using a variety of different services.
There are millions of people in the space as a whole, so addressing all crypto users as one segment is a difficult task. It takes a lot of marketing funds to raise awareness, and to get consistent coverage on industry media channels like CoinTelegraph.
The general community consensus was to focus first on demographics that are very distinct and community-aware, as they are easier to communicate to, in order to increase downloads and active users initially. One participant also suggested that these are also the users who will be most likely to speak about the product to others.
Concluding Q&A with Nic
The call concluded with tech updates on liquidity, cards, DUSD listings, and Sushiswap routing.
Q: What are the plans to bring in liquidity?
Nic: If you’re frustrated that the liquidity has taken us so long, then I can promise I’m more frustrated. There are legal papers that are still being drafted by the lawyers, which we need before we can complete the OTC deal with our partner.
The good news is that they’re offering us very good rates, and those will be the foundation of our solution to the liquidity problem in the future. Once we’ve set up this OTC flow, we can forward these rates and this OTC availability to our users. There will be options to buy and sell crypto assets through the new protocol that I’m developing right now, and these will be basically without slippage, since we will go in the background through these OTC deals.
It’s taking much longer than I would have liked, but at least the good news is, we will make much better use of it than just a single OTC deal to the liquidity pool.
Also, as soon as we have a bit more liquidity, it will be easier to arbitrage even smaller swings. We have seen that the peg has been getting more and more stable all around since people from the community have set up their own arbitrage flows and are minting DUSD and selling it, or buying DUSD at a discount and redeeming it. As soon as there’s liquidity, it will be more profitable to arbitrage smaller swings, and that should keep the peg even closer to where it should be.
Q: When will the problem with Sushiswap tracking the old wrong pool when you want to buy or sell FLUID be fixed?
Nic: I had somebody on it, and unfortunately, that didn’t end up solving the issue. Somebody else is now following up with Sushi, and will bother them until we get an answer regarding why it actually isn’t routing properly, because it should be.
All our tokens are fully ERC 20 compatible, and are based on the openzeppelin. So there is no reason why the router shouldn’t pick them up properly. I’m not sure what the underlying issue is. We have people on it, and I hope it will be fixed very, very soon. If not, I will take a look at it myself.
At the time of writing, the Sushiswap routing issue has been resolved. :)
Q: What are the plans to get the correct market cap on CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap?
Nic: We still need to issue a few new shares based on Alex Vik’s investment, as well as the employee shares, so that the total supply of our FLUID is equivalent with the amount of shares that is registered with the Swiss regulators.
Initially, the functionality to issue new shares wasn’t built in. It’s a normal process for any registered company — like Tesla issuing new shares — so we need to be able to do it as well. I need to build it and then we will upgrade the contract. Once that has the correct total supply, then we can update the stats on CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap.
Q: What’s the status on virtual cards and physical cards?
Nic: I don’t know about physical cards. The virtual cards are going to our testing environment this week. They are implemented on both front end and back end, on both the mobile app and web app. They will run through our QA processes and then they will be available.
Q: What has been Alex Vik’s impact, and what is his vision for Fluid?
Nic: He’s definitely super involved much more than I would have thought or I’ve ever seen another investor be involved in a company. He emails Robert every day and is in all of our strategic calls where we decide on the next steps for the product.
He’s definitely excited about the possibility of digital cash accounts, and believes that we can achieve widespread adoption through making it easy for people to join and for them to send money. Beyond that, he is supporting us with even the new ideas we are having now with the liquidity pools and the solution for that. I talked to him yesterday on the call for quite a few minutes.
He’s really been an asset beyond the money he brought in, and I think it will only grow from here. As soon as we have more of a stable product and a mass market product available. I think you can have a real impact on making that visible to a lot of other people.
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