We have had another wonderful week here at PARSIQ, announcing our status as a technology partner with Amazon’s AWS! The qualifying window for our 1m PRQ airdrop incentive is still open, and currently there is a 5,000 PRQ giveaway, hosted by The Human & Machine Podcast.
As always, this week’s AMA provides a lot of great information and insight into PARSIQ. Below is the transcription of the October 14th, 2021 live AMA with Tom Tirman (CEO), and guest Rong Kai Wong, Chief Operating Officer at PARSIQ.
The bolded questions are links to the timestamped section of the video AMA. Or, you can watch the entire AMA here.
Be sure to visit PARSIQ on Twitter or in our Telegram, and Tom Tirman on Twitter here.
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Introduction
Tom: Hi everyone. Welcome back to the live PARSIQ AMA. Today we have PARSIQ’s Chief Operations Officer, Rong Kai, with us.
Rong Kai: Hi! Hi Tom. Hi Everyone.
Tom: Rong Kai joined PARSIQ in the summer, and since September he has been the fulltime COO. He has a very impressive background. He has worked at Binance, and was part of the Singapore Police Force before that.
Rong Kai, can you give us a brief introduction to yourself?
Rong Kai: Sure. My name is Rong Kai. I’m based in Singapore. I am happy to join this AMA today. Very happy to share some of the things we have been doing. Since I became COO there have been a lot of changes, and a lot of things in the works. I am happy to answer any of your questions.
Tom: I hope you all will direct most of the questions to Rong Kai today, since he is not often able to join us for an AMA. I will try picking the questions that are directed to him. Other questions I will answer myself, while giving some updates on the projects and our initiatives, about their status in general.
Q: Before we start community questions, I have a question for Rong Kai: Why PARSIQ? Why did you choose to work with PARSIQ?
Rong Kai: It is quite a story for me. When I was at Binance, I was part of the team that invested in PARSIQ as part of the BSC accelerator fund. I worked quite closely with Tom and Anatoly back then, in order to understand what kind of technology and what kind of use cases PARSIQ could bring to the Binance blockchain. Back then, in September 2020, Binance Smart Chain was pretty empty. There were a few DeFi projects coming up, and DEXs, etc. We wanted to bring in fundamental building blocks for blockchains that other companies could build on. PARSIQ was a really, really interesting project — reverse oracle, real-time monitoring, etc. It was something we really needed, because we knew that it was something that other companies needed. When I left Binance (I left for personal reasons: I had to help the family business) I dropped Tom a message, telling him that I needed to settle some family things, but after that I am open and available on the job market. I am extremely grateful to be able to join the PARSIQ team.
Tom: Thank you, Rong Kai. We are super happy to have you on board, and we believe you can — and already are — adding a huge value, streamlining our operations, helping us grow, scale, and expand. Exciting times ahead!
Some questions have come in, so let’s turn to them.
Q: Binance is apparently launching another $1 billion fund to accelerate blockchain adoption. Has PARSIQ been contacted for eligibility?
Tom: I don’t know if that’s the same accelerator fund as the original $100 million one or if it’s some new initiative. Rong Kai, do you have any knowledge?
Rong Kai: This is something that I have really just seen very recently. As far as I understand from my contacts at Binance, they are still mainly targeting BSC, but they are really opening up the field as well to a lot of different aspects of blockchain adoption. They have something like four different categories. I won’t go into too many details about it. I would say that I don’t think the door is closed on PARSIQ. That wouldn’t be determined until we speak to them about how they are envisioning giving out the funds about what they are targeting. That is something we can definitely reach out to them about. We are actually still in very close contact with the accelerator fund team that invested in PARSIQ last year.
Tom: Yes, so we are still in good relation with the BSC team and Binance CEX teams. We are planning some things to do jointly with them. We are looking forward to working more closely with the BSC ecosystem.
Q: Can you explain technically why other projects require PRQ tokens in order to power their own instance of IQ Protocol?
Tom: A lot of projects want to implement subscriptions, or some kind of access rights to products, services, features, or content (or anything really). For them to be able to track the eligibility of the person who rents the tokens — to automate the open access for them — they will use the PARSIQ platform. They don’t have to use it; it is not a necessity. But so far we haven’t seen many cases where it just doesn’t make sense not to use PRQ for this. The vast majority of projects deploying renting pools will also be using the PARSIQ platform, and thus will also be using PRQ.
Q: MYST (Mysterium Network) will be using the Polygon chain. I guess PARSIQ will have to build the balancing between the pools at some point, but I imagine this will be a stand alone pool to begin with, is this correct?
Tom: Yes. Mysterium wants to launch on Polygon. They will have a single pool on Polygon initially. There is no balancing really needed at this point. A number of other projects who have pretty much committed also want to utilize Polygon. So, that brings us to a question of the prioritization of different chains that PARSIQ supports and monitors. There are so many; multi-chain is becoming a reality. A lot of assets and tokens exist on a lot of chains — some are migrating, trends change, etc. Rong Kai, do you have any thoughts on the prioritization of supporting multiple chains?
Rong Kai: This is a topic that has been discussed quite a few times within the company. In an ideal world, where you have unlimited resources, you would be on all chains, no matter the size of the ecosystem. So it makes sense to be everywhere. But in reality, we have limited resources and we, thus, have to prioritize. Therefore, there is a tension between current needs and current priorities (on the one hand) and (on the other) more mid-term needs and priorities. A common issue, for example: say you decide to build on a chain that is very popular now. What happens if you put a lot of resources into integrating? There is always the possibility that — and it depends on the ecosystem and how it grows, and the technical aspects — a year down the road it ceases to be as popular as it was (for whatever reason). So we must prioritize both the immediate needs and the mid-term needs. I would say that in the long term, we will likely be in as many chains as we can. But prioritization will always be a struggle between the immediate — which includes considering our client’s needs — and the longer term needs.
About integrating vertically as deep as we can or horizontally across chains: one thing we are thinking about is, of course, ETH layer 2. There are always questions about which option we should go with. Polygon has an advantage, in a sense, because they are one of the earlier, popular ones in terms of TVL (total value locked) and in terms of exciting things happening on it. It is a pretty attractive option. It is something we are already looking at. There are a lot of things coming our way on that front. But at the same time, we are not neglecting other layer 2s as well. This is happening at the same time as we are expanding our resources as well. Ideally we want to do things quickly, like integrate faster, bring in more developers and more resources, more product management talents to be able to do a variety of things concurrently. Yet, all of this takes time. We do want to do it as fast as we can. But we want to do it without compromising the quality of the integrations, the technology, or the products. So, that is something the community can look forward to.
Tom: Absolutely. The integration pipeline for layer 1 and layer 2 blockchains is quite extensive. We definitely have data that has been requested more and more frequently, which makes sense based on growth rate and TVL on those chains. But still, we would like the community’s opinion. So, today we will be posting a poll of four or five chains that are on the table right now. We will likely integrate most of them, but we are wondering what you all think about which we should integrate first.
Q: Polkadot Parachain slot auctions should start late November or early December. Will PARSIQ have integrations or IQ involvement with Polkadot by then?
Tom: PARSIQ already supports the monitoring of the Polkdadot relay chain, so you can monitor the movement of that, tracking events and everything happening there. We are in contact with at least 3 parachain candidates who really want this integration to happen. At some point we will build a framework to allow support for all kinds of substrate-based chains. That includes all parachains. Who knows, maybe in the future there will be dozens and dozens of parachains that have adoption.
Q: AAVE had liquidity problems that were solved after listing on Binance. How will PARSIQ solve its liquidity problem without a T1 exchange listing?
Tom: We can try to solve it in a number ways: we can list on more exchanges, we can do more DEXs on various chains, with bridges to those chains — or we could just list on a T1 exchange. In my mind this is just a matter of time. As we show progress and go through the process that listing teams require — again, in my mind it’s just a matter of time. It could be soon, or a little while. We don’t know the exact time lines. But I am 100% sure it will happen.
Maybe Rong Kai can give us a general idea of the listing process at Binance. CZ wrote a blog post about how it works, but it is not as easy as people think. I know gamefi and meme coins are being listed fast. But there are reasons: these things generate a lot of hype and a lot of volume, and so they get priority in listing — at least that is what I understand.
Rong Kai: In my time at Binance, CZ was pretty open about this. It is not just him, but it is relatively pervasive across the industry. When we talk to exchanges and we talk about listing, you look out for quite a few things: of course there is trading volume, the underlying hype, the technology, the utility. I don’t think it is like the ICO days where any token can be listed at a fee. The problem back then was that a lot of tokens fail and so the reputation of the exchange takes a hit. Now T1 and even T2 exchanges are more wary about listing tokens. There is a lot of negotiation in terms of what is required by an exchange. Different exchanges have different standards. But by and large they are looking out for all of these kinds of things, but especially hype. The best way to list will always be the situation where you never even talk to the exchange; but because the trading volumes are so high, they list you without even talking to you. That is like the ‘holy grail’, in a sense, for any projects working with tokens. The underlying fundamentals have to be there, of course, generating hype. There are a lot of ways of going about doing it. But hype wears off if the fundamentals aren’t there. And fundamentals are something PARSIQ does very well.
In terms of other things, like marketing and hype: it is something in the works, and something we are working on. We are identifying what could be done better. There is always the fact that our business is primarily B2B (business to business) and B2D (business to developer), but the B2-community aspect is something we are going to pour more resources into. We want to work with the community, getting input and ideas, because it makes sense to reach out to our community, which is 1000s strong. In situations like that, there will be a lot of different opinions. But there will always be some gems included in community feedback. There will always be blindspots that we do not see, especially during our day-to-day grind. Community feedback will help push PRQ as a token. And even now, I don’t see a big liquidity problem, in a sense. Of the CEXs we’re listed on, take KuCoin as an example: KuCoin has shot up quite high in the rankings in the past few months. That is something they have going for them, and something that works for our advantage as well. It is always a partnership, we work together with exchanges. As we talk to different exchanges, we find they all have their own criteria.
Tom: Thanks for that Rong Kai. I also wanted to say that some US-based exchanges where we applied for listing, and where we are in contact about listing: we have made the requested tweeks in governance of the token, which have been given to auditors. They will update the audit report and get it back to the exchanges, and the listing process will resume. So that is good news on that front.
Q: Any news in relation to NFTs or updates on integrations for Elrond?
Tom: Yes on both, and especially yes to the first. We are hard at work for the NFT renting version of IQ Protocol. We have soft commitments from a number of play-to-earn games, as well as NFT marketplaces and game guilds, all of whom want to integrate the protocol. We are also having some very nice NFT integrations on the PARSIQ platform side. So stay tuned for the announcement.
Q: Rong Kai, what do you believe has been your biggest influence or change to PARSIQ since starting full time?
Rong Kai: I’ve done a lot. But I guess rather than saying something about the various work streams and things I’ve been pushing, I think the biggest things that have really happened are pulling the differing teams together, and getting them to talk with one another. They have actually been talking quite a bit. When I came in I worked with everyone, and I put a form of structure in, where we tried to get forms of outcomes and accountability and cross-team collaborations. I think we — at least on my end — are starting to see dividends. Things are clearer for everyone. I think the chances of miscommunication have dropped drastically. Also, I think in the past we had less meetings. Of course, I’m someone who doesn’t personally like meetings. So when I go into a meeting, I want to make sure that everyone’s time is not being wasted. Basically: you come in with an objective and you leave knowing what is going to happen, and who is going to do what. That is the kind of structure that I am putting in. I am extremely grateful to PARSIQ colleagues, since they are working together with me to make all of this happen. None of what I’ve just said would have worked if they didn’t believe in it as well, or if no one wanted to do it — I can’t force them. That is something that I think is a big change that I’ve brought to PARSIQ since I’ve been full-time. There are other things, like work-streams, and some fun things coming as well. But I’ll leave that to the official announcements as they come out.
Q: How will this $1 billion Binance funding, specifically 50% funding the NFT trend, affect the NFT renting marketplace on IQ?
Tom: I don’t see how it can be anything other than positive, because right now the fungible utility token market size is far bigger than the NFT market size. The TVL will obviously be larger with fungible tokens. But if the NFT market starts growing exponentially, as many expect it to do, then that means more opportunities for IQ Protocol and more TVL for the IQ NFT marketplace.
Rong Kai: Just to add something to this: I can’t speak for the $1 billion Binance funding, because they may have different criteria and might be looking at different things, since it is a different team as well. But back when I was at Binance, in terms of the accelerator fund, it was relatively specific. That is, the funding was for a certain purpose, with clear objectives and deadlines that were put into the contract that we signed. That is something — alluding to the previous question — I don’t see why PARSIQ wouldn’t benefit from this overall trend. We can definitely reach out about this funding.
Q: Rong Kai, what are the top operational challenges you see in PARSIQ that you would like to solve?
Rong Kai: Hopefully I have solved quite a few things already. Right now, though, what I can say is that the things I’m working on are expansions of teams. We want to do a lot of things. When I came in, I helped compose a strategic roadmap and came out with a clearer vision and mission statement — it is actually on our website now, by the way, under the ‘about us’ section. I wanted these statements to be spelled out as concisely as possible. Ideally it could be something super short and direct. As you know, I have a background in the Singapore police force. The mission statement of that force was just five words. The point is, if we have a clear and direct mission and clear and direct vision, then we are well prepared to face various types of problems. This is because we will always know the direction we are heading towards. We will know what inherently fits the company’s mission. Thus, when we face something that may seem like a good choice, after comparing it to our vision and mission we might realize it doesn’t quite fit with where we are going. We are then able to better ask, “should we do this?”
Then there is the roadmap about what we want to fill in — it’s really about knowing where we are going and then filling in the pieces along the way, as we step towards the vision we wanted and have laid out. Internally, it is still a living document, a work in progress. Eventually we will find that there are new things we need to do, and go about putting resources into them. But right now, in terms of challenges: we are expanding in order to meet all the goals that we really wanted to accomplish. There are a lot of things in terms of the expansion of the products. We will be sharing our product roadmap with the community.
But internal to the company it’s not just a product roadmap we are working on. There are a lot of things that the entire company needs to come together and work jointly on as well. When a new product comes out, sales needs to be able to sell it, marketing needs to be prepared beforehand, and as the product gets ready we need to plan a launch date. When we launch a product we need to have considered the questions of how we will launch it: On what platform? What is the messaging? How will it be branded? What will the graphic design look like? All of these details need to come into place. To me, as COO, it is always about asking “what can be done better?” Perhaps there are things that we have done very well in the past. But I always must be asking if there are things that can be even better. How do I oil this machine? To me, that is the top challenge right now. Things have already improved. It’s all about being ready as products come forth. This includes getting the community excited and mobilized, considering the timing of when we release news and announcements — not being too early or too late. These are some of the things that we are learning about from past experiences.
Q: Is Evan Cheng still an advisor?
Tom: Yes. He is still an investor and advisor. He will be on board long term.
Q: When will be possible for interest accrued in IQ Protocol to be paid out in other tokens besides PRQ?
Tom: You still receive interest for staking in PRQ. But we will add the option of you being able to pay rental fees or subscription fees in other assets. We will also integrate a DEX, for example, PancakeSwap, that will swap the payments into PRQ. So users can pay in other assets, while stakers will receive the same asset that they are staking.
Q: When will the IQ Protocol token be launched?
Tom: This depends, because we are not on a tight schedule. If you think about the big DeFi protocols — e.g., Uniswap or dYdX — they launched the token only after they had actually shown some progress, once they had captured some value (with TVL, adoption, etc.). This is our goal as well. We want to get more exposure for the protocol. We hope the community will help us with this. We will do what we can to show some great progress with the TVL, with the number of users, and to capture value before launching the token. We hope to do it in the first half of 2022. But, like I said, it all depends on our work, and our work together with the community.
Q: How did PARSIQ perform at Token2049? And, will PARSIQ be attending other events like this in the near future?
Tom: We performed very well. Not everyone could come because of COVID restrictions. But there were a lot of great conversations and a lot of great leads to follow up on with potential clients and partners. It was really good. Right now, visiting these high profile events and being seen is a good way to generate exposure and awareness. About other events, we have a pipeline of events to look forward to. Most importantly Solana Breakpoint in Lisbon, where I am a speaker alongside many interesting speakers, such as Anatoly the CEO of Solana, Sam Bankman-Fried from FTX and Alameda, and other people. PARSIQ is also hosting a pre-event for this conference. So, we definitely expect to gain some traction there.
Q: Rong Kai, in your experience, what are the most important areas in which PARSIQ can improve? And, what do you see as the biggest obstacle in PARSIQ’s future?
Rong Kai: I wouldn’t say that we are not already doing these things, but there are two things we are currently emphasizing. The first is that we want the things we are doing to have network effects. So, basically, IQ Protocol feeds to the main platform, which feeds back the other way. If there are new things we plan to do, they should be such that the sum is greater than the parts. The second thing we are working on and improving is being our own best customer. We are seeing that with IQ Protocol: PRQ is there and we are using it because we saw a need for it. But others will benefit from this as well. I think that this will be something like a hallmark of PARSIQ as we go along.
As for the obstacles for PARSIQ’s future: there are a lot of companies with similar products. They will have great technology. We will have great technology. The whole idea is to get our message across in the best way possible. This is a lot like what Binance does. They always say that they are not competing with other companies. Instead, they just do the things as they find necessary. I think that this is something that PARSIQ needs to do to maintain our course and not lose sight of our vision. We will make sure other people know we are doing great things. I think that PARSIQ’s future will turn out right.
Q: Are there any plans to get PRQ listed on Solanas DEXs?
Tom: We have had multiple great calls with Radium, and we have been in contact with Bonfida. We will list on a Solana DEX. It is not a huge priority right now. But its actually not that difficult to do. There is just one issue: if we bridge to Solana without the governance features, it would defeat the purpose of those features on ETH and BSC. And if we wish to implement those features on Solana before bridging there, then that is something we have to sort out before listing. But I don’t see why not, since we already have everything set for it. We will list it at some point, but there are no hard dates.
Q: Rong Kai, what do you see as the top potential opportunities for PARSIQ in Asia?
Rong Kai: Wow. Asia is a huge place. It has the majority of the world’s population. Asia is very diverse, and we are blockchain agnostic — so that is where the question comes in. Because Asia is diverse, there are a lot of competing needs. There are a lot of untapped markets that we can get into, untapped chains, untapped companies that are looking for use cases. Entering into these untapped opportunities would be the first potential. The second would be investment. In terms of funding, and in terms of growth, Asia is extremely exciting. Even back when I was at Binance, I think the usership in Southeast Asia was always growing. The general population in Asia is very young — by that I really mean a lot of Southeast Asia and a large part of the Middle East (which is on the Asian continent), South Asia. There is a lot of money and capital that is untapped. They are constantly looking for exciting new projects: it’s a lot about talking to them and informing them about what we do — showing that we are unique not just in technologies and use cases, but in terms of the vibrant community we have. I think those are the top potential opportunities we have in Asia.
Q: Will the overall TVL of IQ Protocol be shared across chains or will each chain have their own pools? How does PARSIQ plan to make this work?
Tom: At first they will have their own pools. Obviously a project can display a combined TVL on the different pools that exist on different chains for their token. But there will be separate smart contracts on different chains, so they are separate pools. We do recommend that projects pick just one chain for deploying the renting pool to start, whether its Polygon or BSC. It’s just easier. The friction with bridging will eventually become non-existent. They can launch on multiple chains if they want to. But picking one first is just a better approach.
Q: Rong Kai, what challenges are there in getting the retail crowd involved and interested in using PARSIQ’s monitoring tools and thereby increasing the buying pressure that comes from using it?
Rong Kai: For the retail crowd, the technology is pretty complicated sometimes. I think the vast majority of the retail crowd may not even want to have an interest in the details of this technology, since they are not the type to just read publications. I think for crypto-natives — or the more traditional crypto-natives — there is a lot of interest in the technology itself. But, I think, with the bull market (since last year) there has been a huge influx of new capital, new people, that is just here for the ride. Of course, everyone is here to try to make money and invest it in good projects. Rightly so. But then, the idea is that you need to talk their language, you need to catch their attention very quickly. That comes a lot from community engagement and marketing, of course. It also comes not only from making the business solid, with good fundamentals and good sales, but is also a lot about timing and positioning your pitch, and being in the limelight at the right time.
About an increase in buying pressure from the retail crowd using the technology: I think the reality is that most of the retail crowd may try out our tools; but the idea of buying PRQ and creating a huge buying pressure and becoming paying customers — at the end of the day, PARSIQ is more suitable in terms of B2B or B2D. But there are other things we are working on, from the tokenomics point of view, to create buying pressure. The retail crowd moves when there is real interest, real use cases, big names, and the way you market it all to them. So that is, to me, the challenge. And that is where we can increase the buying pressure. They are not going to buy and use it on the platform. The majority will buy it and just hold it and (hopefully) stake it in IQ Protocol. That is the idea we need to push to them, getting them excited about what all of this means.
Tom: Exactly. PARSIQ does have a decently big, and hardcore community of holders and believers. The fact that one third of the circulating supply — that says a lot! Especially if you consider that there are other players who will not stake (like market makers and such). So, we can consider that something like at least half of the active circulating supply is likely in the IQ Protocol.
Q: Will the IQ Protocol token be deflationary?
Tom: We are still finalizing the tokenomics model. It is going to be really interesting. It will be designed to accrue maximum value.
Q: Is there a plan to make PARSIQ more like AWS (Amazon Web Services), where even big customers have enough to self-serve without needing to reach out to PARSIQ?
Tom: Short answer is yes, that is the idea. The long answer is that we’d probably need Anatoly here to share his vision about how PARSIQ could be the AWS for any blockchain activity and events, that anyone can connect to and freely use. It would be embedded with the ParsiQL language that would be used to process all of the events and all the data. Rong Kai, what is your take?
Rong Kai: Yes. I think it leads back to us being our best customer. When AWS first came out, they developed it because they realized they had a need for it. Amazon, at the end of the day, was first and foremost (and is still) an e-commerce company. They realized they needed AWS, and that it would be better for them to build themselves, which means they were their own first customer that they have. We are doing things that make sense for us to do because we are our best customer. And it builds from there. It is the same philosophy. There are a lot of things that will come our way as well. What we are building, big customers will be able to self-serve. Just watch the space: there are quite a lot of things to come.
Q: Rong Kai, what are your thoughts on the current PARSIQ team and advisors? Are you happy with its size? Are the advisors engaged?
Rong Kai: In terms of the team size, we are expanding.I mentioned that we are hiring. We are not hiring just because we need more hands on deck, etc. Our hiring is very targeted, with a plan in mind. We hire for a position because we have a specific need. That is something we are doing right now. We are accelerating it, even. The community will start to see more and more announcements in terms of the people we hire on the various different teams, with different job scopes, etc. That is something I am excited about. In terms of advisors, they are definitely engaged in terms of providing very good advice to us at a very high level, from many different angles. They all have their own expertise and their own experiences that they have gone through. The great thing about them is that they have a stake in the company in various ways. They do want to see PARSIQ succeed. I’m not sure if Tom wants to share more about the advisors. He has been talking to them, and they are advising not just on operational aspects of PARSIQ, but there are other things they are sharing as well (investments, etc.). That is my honest viewpoint.
Tom: In terms of advisors. Each advisor is different and the arrangements we have with them differs. Some work from a very high level, and some are very hands-on. I can tell you that we have advisors who are much more valuable to the team than, e.g., some investors. I am very happy with the advisors.
Q: Is Ncase coming out this year or next year?
Tom: I have said on previous AMAs that it will be next year. This year we are focusing on other things, like IQ, the PARSIQ platform. The Ncase technology will be utilized in the reverse triggers. It is coming next year.
Q: Will the IQ token be on Binance launchpad?
Tom: Nice question. We’ll see.
Q: What traditional corporations have been enlisted as clients?
Tom: I don’t know if you mean for PARSIQ or for IQ Protocol. For PARSIQ, as I’ve said, we have been having conversations for a while with traditional companies (meaning non-crypto projects). I am pretty sure that it is only a matter of time until the adoption rate moves to that sphere. They will need something that connects them to decentralized networks, to their legacy systems, to their centralized systems. So, in my opinion, it is a no-brainer. I can share more as soon as we sign one of them. Right now it is all either soft commitments or talks and testing.
For IQ Protocol, we have a number of projects that want to use it for their own token, projects with existing tokens, with established projects, projects that want to launch a token. We also have a few companies on board that are not crypto companies. One is a SaaS, software as a service, company; another is an app that is extremely interested in tokenizing their business and product by using the IQ Protocol. That is definitely some exciting stuff.
Q: Rong Kai, do you speak Chinese? If so, are you willing to engage in an AMA for the Chinese PARSIQ community?
Rong Kai: Yes, I speak Chinese. I would definitely be happy to do an AMA in Chinese. I speak Mandarin, which is the language that is taught in Singapore. I speak English, Chinese, and Japanese. I am happy to do it in Chinese.
Tom: I think we should do it at some point.
Q: Why can’t Binance look at TVL instead of PRQ trading volume? It is a chicken-or-egg problem, since once PRQ is listed the trading volume will increase, since the fundamentals are strong.
Tom: Personally, I think they are looking at the TVL. So let’s give it time, and meanwhile show some progress.
Q: PRQ tokens can be borrowed and rented: does this make PRQ a security token?
Tom: Not really. I mean, you can borrow or use different types of assets as collateral. That doesn’t make them a security. From a strictly legal standpoint, PRQ is a pure utility token. The Power Token (pPRQ) that you borrow is a pure utility token. The only thing that might be potentially, theoretically considered something that resembles a security by the US SEC is the iPRQ, which is the interest-bearing LP token, which you get when staking. But by the same logic, all of the LP tokens (Uniswap, Balancer, and everything else) would be security tokens. So, I don’t think it’s an issue.
Q: Rong Kai, how effective is gathering a bunch of the top influencers and doing a tech showdown of PARSIQ’s technology solutions?
Rong Kai: I think influencers are definitely an angle we will be engaging. But in terms of asking, “for what reason?” — that is another question. A tech showdown would be interesting. But we need to ask ourselves who the target audience is: Who are we trying to reach out to? It would be very useful if we are doing something with developers, say for a hackathon, or we listed some bounties and we need to generate some interest or hype within that community. There are a certain kind of influencers we want to get engaged, if that is the case. But if we want to do it just for hype, for example, just to get people to know about PRQ, then a different group of influencers would be involved. Each would involve a different strategy.
Tom: Thanks, Rong Kai, and thanks everyone for joining. This is it for the community questions. I know I had to skip a bunch of the questions, but I will try to follow up with them in the Telegram channel. Thank you for tuning in! I will see you for the next AMA in two weeks. Meanwhile we will pop into social media.
Rong Kai: Thank you, everyone, for joining the AMA. It has been a pleasure to share my thoughts with you all.
