keyTango sitting down with DuckDao
Last week on the 20th January, it was announced that keyTango was to become the latest DuckDao Tier 1 Incubation Project. DuckDao is a community-funded, decentralised digital incubator that provides crypto start-ups with access to financial resources, marketing and support in order to foster growth. This project will involve delivering a successful token sale, as well as building organic community growth.
Having graduated from Outlier Ventures Base Camp program, this new partnership is a fantastic opportunity to build on what we have started and take the next step into mass adoption in the DeFi world. Overall, we aim to be the principal gateway to DeFi products, by providing a simple UI/UX to guide and demystify new users around the complex space.
keyTango CEO Dan Danay sits in an AMA with DuckDao:
Duck: Can we start with an introduction to yourself?
Dan: I am a graduate of the Israeli Naval Academy and I did my MBA at MIT Sloan. After that, I worked in Microsoft for a bit, then started a robotics company called Airmada, which went through YCombinator. My first exposure to crypto was in MIT where I had crypto OG’s in my class. Back in 2018 I joined another classmate, Guy Zyskind at Enigma MPC. Then I started keyTango (Guy ended up being our first investor)
Duck: What does keyTango stand for? Is there an interesting story behind the name?
Dan: keyTango = key + Tango; as in cryptographic keys and Tango as in it takes two to tango. Hinting on composability in DeFi; where you can interact with one contract… that leverage multiple contracts
Duck: So DeFi, DeFi, DeFi! It’s all the rage in crypto, but it’s still pretty foreign to the real world. From your analysis, who are the main users of DeFi products and is the utility/real world adoption realistic with your product?
Dan: I think DeFi was meant to be inclusive, but beyond basic product it is not — it is only used by a few. We want to provide crypto users the easiest gateway to DeFi so they can use it. There are 1 million monthly active users for MetaMask — these people can participate; we just need to make it a little easier for them. We want to do it through a better UI/UX
Duck: Sounds great….but if you’re going through all this trouble then it seems that DeFi is more than just a trend correct? Not just a temporary fad for the time being?
Dan: I think it is much more. It is an amazing arms race of almost perfect competition and innovation. It already provides amazing tools to people who can/know how to use it. For example, in traditional finance you need millions to participate in market making — in DeFi you can do it with a few bucks. It’s really mind-blowing stuff; it can change the entire financial system. If you add all of the little guys together, you can achieve great things
Duck: Kind of like what DuckDao has in mind ….great minds think a like!
Dan: Lol, there is a reason why we are working together!
Duck: Will the UI be user friendly for ppl who are not tech savvy such as myself?
Dan: We aim for crypto people, but folks that don’t understand yield farming or liquidity pools yet. We want to make it easy for any metamask user to participate in DeFi. This is something we share in a deck:
I think Discovery is a big missing piece today — like, where else do newbies go to discover what is available? DeFi Pulse? Twitter? Kind of hard to discover unless you are living it
Duck: I agree….so it’s like you’re holding their hand and helping them get through this minefield
Dan: Exactly just this one step — from holding tokens, using metamask, to actually participating in yield farming, liquidity pools…
Duck: Alright so now let’s talk about the token $TANGO….what role does that play in your platform and why would users be encouraged to accumulate it?
Dan: Tango!!! It is a governance token, similar to YFI and other governance tokens in DeFi. We will be able to release more specific data about its functionality soon.
Duck: Will there be offering of synthetic stocks or options?
Dan: Not really. We are not about trading or ROI — we are about better UI/UX to DeFi. Think Yearn but with UI/UX for newbies
Duck: Will there be an audit process in place to ensure holders of adequate security practices?
Dan: When needed, yes. The first and most important security is to educate newbies on relevant risks, so they know what they are betting on. Then we plan to introduce garden walled launches for products that touches funds, increasing sums slowly and lastly, yes, also audits when needed. Any product that is not audited will have a disclaimer, so it is clear and above board.
Duck: Project websites are the gateway to project awareness for new users, but I’ve noticed that your website is not complete yet. Is there an ETA on the website?
Dan: Yes, we are launching our closed beta version next week to gather feedback from early users. We are working toward a public launch this quarter.
Duck: Who would you consider as your closest competitor and do you think you have the skillset on the team to compete?
Dan: Yearn, at least from an investment products perspective. And I wouldn’t say we are absolutely better. We are just optimizing for a different crowd. We are also similar in a way to dashboards like Zerion or Zapper.fi
Duck: Can you briefly explain the top 2021 milestones for the project?
Dan:
TGE > Launching our web-app > First features other than the educational content will be:
1. Tailored onboarding- where we provide tailored advice given users past transactions
2. “Rapid unwinding” where you can swap multiple ERC-20s into stable coins in one click, basically exiting all your positions at once
> We plan to set up the DAO > Unique reward programs > And most importantly, increase user growth on our platform
Community question: What is the most ambitious goal of the project? I would appreciate it if you could share with us any upcoming updates? What should the community look for?
Dan: When you look at crypto market cap in compared to DeFi and CeFi TLV (total locked value). You can see that about 95% of crypto is still idle, sitting in wallets, generating no interest. We want to help people invest these funds in DeFi. We think that if we solve the complex UI/UX, we can attract a significant part of these funds into DeFi and impact the overall DeFi market size.
Sign up for our beta: www.keytango.io
Telegram: https://t.me/keytango
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TangoKey
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXSPmZ4BBT_QAA7w0NjKBIQ/
