Joint AMA with Pledgecamp and GET Protocol Transcript

Rylan

Published in

Pledgecamp

15 min readApr 15, 2020

On the 13.4.2020 and 14.4.2020 there was a joint AMA with Get Protocol within the respective telegram channels.

Pledecamp — https://t.me/pledgecamp
GET Protocol — https://t.me/getprotocol

On the 13.4.2020 Pledgecamp was asked questions by the GET Protocol community answered by our President Eddie Lee:

Eddie Lee: Hi everyone, I’m the president of Pledgecamp (pledgecamp.com), a next-generation crowdfunding platform centered around accountability and trust. We are an initial Service Provider of Klaytn like GET protocol, and we are hosting our very first crowdfunding project on the platform today!

Q1. Could you explain the difference between centralized crowdfunding platforms & Decentralized crowdfunding platforms?

A. The main difference of course is the transparency and accountability factor. When you have a smart contract that defines the financial terms of the project before any money is collected, this sets a foundation of trust and also allows us to offer security features like escrow.

Escrow is designed to mitigate counter-party trust issues because payment is held in a secure account and paid out over time, rather than all up front like it is on current crowdfunding platforms. Using smart contracts for escrow is an innovation that allows us to do it at essentially zero cost as opposed to needing lawyers for contracts, a custodian of funds, mediation after-the-fact, etc. This can all be replaced with one smart contract, which is what Pledgecamp offers.

I also want to add that crowdfunding and blockchain are a perfect match because they are both decentralized systems. On Pledgecamp, the community itself is empowered to moderate campaigns and keep the platform secure with the user Moderator system. This decentralized moderation system is more efficient and powerful than a centralised one and it is incentivized by tokens that are paid out from listing fees generated by the platform.

Q2. What is the main role Pledgecamp native Token $PLG play in ecosystem? What are the benefits for long-term holders?

A. PLG is a token of exchange that is essential to the escrow smart contracts because it serves as the store of value. It can also be used for backing campaigns, offering bounties, hiring services, etc.

The benefits for long term holders is for those who would like to stake PLG and receive Camp Shares (available to non-US residents). Camp Shares prove financial stake and enable a user to become a Moderator. Moderators are trusted to curate listings and keep the platform healthy by voting when required on possible rule violations by projects.

In return, 100% of the listing fees generated by the platform are distributed among Moderators. With their stake and payment structure, they are highly incentivized to make the platform healthy and successful, and because payment is derived from listing fees, the payment has the potential to grow over time if the platform grows.

Q3. What do you think What are the major obstacles that you have faced on your roadmap and how do you plan to execute your continuing roadmap for this year?

A. Building a multi-sided platform from scratch on a new technology layer is a large task and while we may not have faced specific obstacles, it just requires a lot of work and time to execute correctly.

The virus situation this year has certainly been an obstacle, not only to our team members who live in Asia, but from a marketing perspective for the projects who were going to launch on our platform. Instead of launching in this climate, we agreed together that the right move would be to wait until people are more secure financially and there is less anxiety overall.

The good news is that we can pivot when needed, so we have decided to launch a donation campaign to raise funds for doctors fighting COVID-19 as the first project to launch. This campaign will launch in a few short hours from now here in the US.

Q4. How will my invested money in a crowdfunding project be more safe with Pledgecamp than it is now via other crowdfunding platforms? How is blockchain making it more safe/reliable? How is my investment more safu from the project failing in its mission by for example mismanagement, bad market circumstances, fraud or other things?

A. First, all campaigns will show an advertised amount of Backer Protection (escrow) that is represented by a % of funds raised. Creators receive a discount on listing fees the more escrow they offer.

Next, all backers will see the timeline and escrow terms before contributing any money. For example, you can see that they promise a prototype in 6 months, and that they will “unlock” 20% more of escrow funds at that time.

Obviously you cannot remove 100% of risk from innovation, including the factors you pointed out. However with this system, the backer knows the creator will have to put their money where their mouth is because if they don’t meet their milestones on time, the escrow funds are at risk. This means:

1. Creators will put more effort into their roadmap and determining costs instead of only focusing on raising as much as possible first through marketing.

2. Creators will set more realistic expectations because they have to hit them, giving the buyer more information. More information = less risk, always.

After reviewing the timeline and financial terms of the escrow that the creator is willing to offer, the backer can then make their best educated decision on whether or not to back.

And just to be clear for people who may be unfamiliar with crowdfunding on platforms such as Kickstarter or Indiegogo, creators on these platforms get 100% of funds raised right after the campaign is over and the platforms take their 5% cut. After that, if they fail or do not meeet their campaign promises, the backers have no recourse.

The platforms refuse to get involved, backers cannot sue because funds are classified as “donations”, and the numbers show how bad a problem this is: on Kickstarter, over 75% of projects delay, up to 14% don’t deliver, and less than 1/3 of backers ever come back to support a second campaign.

source: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2088298

Q5. How did the team of GET Protocol and Pledgcamp get to know of eachother? And is there maybe a chance they get to work together in the future?

A. We learned of each other through our status as ISPs of Klaytn! Olivier and I have kept in contact and we thought now would be a good time to introduce our communities to each other. We are happy if we could have the opportunity to work together. GET Protocol has proven product market fit in live situations and we’re definitely impressed.

Q6. What is the biggest challenge of any User on your Pledgecamp platform? & how does Pledgecamp do to keep all users with your project for longterm?

A. We plan to keep users coming back by giving them good experiences with projects that actually deliver what was promised. The platform itself will be very easy to use and does not require understanding of blockchain to use.

Q7. Are there plans on Listing of any project on the platform? What benefits will they get?

A. Projects receive discounted listing fees for offering escrow. We have over a dozen projects lined up for when the market is better.

Q8. What resources does Pledgecamp Ecosystem provides to project creators? How do they benefit from this?

A. Ton, not just crowdfunding, but support from project creation to delivery. Please see our whitepaper pledgecamp.com/whitepaper

Q9. As Pledgecamp is Decentralized platform & its both competitor’s Indiegogo and Kickstarter are Centralized, So what benefits does Decentralized platform have over Centralized platform?

A. Please see the above answer on decentralization. KS and IGG will never offer escrow to their backers due to the problems with centralized escrow.

Q10. As partners play a big role in any project’s success. So can you name some investors/partners for Pledgacmp? How klaytn will help Pledgecamp to go ahead in this market?

A. Please see pledgecamp.com/about

Klaytn offers huge userbase to expose Pledgecamp to.

Q.11 As a creator, how can I comply with data privacy rules? Does Pledgecamp curate which projects are allowed on the site?

A. No, user moderators will curate and enforce platform rules in a decentralized manner. Wikipedia is a good example of a successful decentralized curation model.

Q.12 Can you tell us more in details about the 5 primary purposes of your smart contract in your ecosystem?

A. Escrow is the main one, along with user moderation. See our whitepaper.

Q13. What was the motivation of Pledgecamp and Sidebench to do partnership with eachother? How this partnership is useful for both projects in long term?

A. Exposure to new projects; sending our projects to Sidebench will also ensure they receive quality work and can launch a successful product into the marketplace. In return, we hope Sidebench helps bring new projects to Pledgecamp.

Q14. What products are Pledgecamp actually delivering in Crypto market & what Clients are you actually targeting?

A. Our products are not Crypto products; it is just an underlying technology that powers the platform. Out first projects we have on board range from tech, to textiles, to games, art, etc.

Q15. What are the incentives and advantages for creators to choose Pledgecamp to list their projects how Pledgecamp can help the creators to promote and sell their products?

A. Lower fees, more support, more software features built-in, and in the long run, a stronger community of backers who are willing to back projects because the system works and there is trust.

Q16. How does Pledgecamp handle this balance between the givers and receivers of donations?

A. Value is pegged to USD fiat so there are no fluctuations experienced by the creator. Crypto just enables the smart contracts, no one on the platform needs to necessarily understand or want to invest in crypto.

Eddie Lee: Thank you all! Please visit pledgecamp.com to see our white paper, about us, and more. And please spread the word about our donation campaign!

The shortage of Personal Protective Equipment is real and urgent. Donating PPE can save a life, and it can keep doctors and nurses healthy so they can keep protecting us during this pandemic.

I hope everyone stays safe, and thank you for having me here today!

Concluded…

On the 14.4.2020 GET Protocol was asked questions by the Pledgecamp community answered by: Marketeer Olivier Biggs & blockchain developer Kasper Keunen.

Kasper Keunen: I am Kasper, blockchain developer at the GET Protocol Foundation. Mainly responsible for the token economics and architecture of the protocol.

The Get Protocol is a back-end service that allows ticketing companies to make their event ticketing smart.

Tickets sold using our protocol cannot be resold outside of the system. This prevents scalping and scamming. Until now the protocol has sold more than 400 000 tickets.

Olivier Biggs: Hi guys I’m Olivier, marketeer at GET Protocol. Any ticketing company worldwide can use GET Protocol to issue 100% digital smart tickets.

Get stands for ‘Guaranteed Entrance Token’. This is a bit of wordplay of course, but also has to do with the way the token is used. GET is a utility token, that is used as a type of fuel in the ticketing protocol.

For every ticket sold using the protocol, GET is needed and eventually burned. So, in a way, the GET token is needed for entrance at an event.

Our team, based in Amsterdam, now has nearly 30 people. About 12 front and backend developers, a sales team, international business developers, marketing, customer support and more.

Q1. What are the important achievements GET Protocol has achieved so far? And what will you do to maintain its position as well as GET Protocol branding?

A. Since our founding there have been many highlights (and plenty of learning moments as well!)

I will list off a few milestones that I think are noteworthy:

- We have sold over 400.000 smart tickets, making over 100K people blockchain users without them even knowing it.

- None of our tickets have ever been sold for profit by scalpers or used in ticket fraud. Something we are very proud of and which has gotten us quite some media attention. Here’s an article that I like:

decryptmedia.com/4928/how-comedy-artist-jochem-myjer-beats-ticket-touts-with-guts-ticketing-blockchain

- We recently launched a new ticketing company in South Korea, that will sell tickets there for big events as soon as things go back to normal. Something we are looking forward to very much! Here’s some more info on that if you are interested.

https://medium.com/get-protocol/update-february-20-international-expansion-dabff47d426f

With this new expansion, we have also fine-tuned our white label proces, meaning that any ticketing company worldwide can easily make use of the protocol. We have already received interest from parties from over 40 countries for this, so the next step is rapid international growth. :)

Q2. Get Protocol is working on Smart Ticketing solutions, But can you explain the role of Blockchain in Ticketing? Which problems you’re think that Blockchain can effectively solves & without Blockchain its Impossible?

A. By using blockchain we can add a set of unique functionalities to the tickets — without making it harder to use these tickets. By registering the tickets to the blockchain, we make the ticket interoperable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMrsgLuGug8

Q3. where can we use get protocol? cinemas? transportation?is it like a credit card that can buy tickets online? how can they assure the safety of buyers?

A. So GET Protocol can be used to issue tickets for any location or moment where there is any form of admission, whether it is with paid tickets, like a concert, but also museums, public transport, things like that.

Up until now the ticketing companies that are using the protocol have mostly done so for concerts and theater shows, but more recently we have also done more dance parties (like Amsterdam Dance Event) and our partner in Korea will sell tickets for some very big K-Pop events as soon as Corona virus is under control.

Besides this we are realising that our tech and system provide some interesting possibilities in this time of quarantine and lockdowns, so we are exploring what’s possible there in the short term as well.

Our tickets are 100% programmable, so any event organiser can determine the rules for their tickets. They can decide whether they want them to be resold or not. These tickets ‘live’ digitally on your smartphone, and can never be copy/pasted or extracted in any other way.

On top of that we have developed many cool new features that prevent scalping or safety issues, such as the rotating QR code:

Here’s more info about the expansion into South Korea and future K-Pop tickets, which is very exciting!

https://medium.com/get-protocol/update-february-20-international-expansion-dabff47d426f

Q4. As Get Protocol has set the target that by 2022, 50% of the current total supply will be burned. What planned have you made regarding this to ensure to hit scarcity target?

A. For every ticket we register on the blockchain, a certain amount of GET is needed as fuel. Essentially giving GET the same function as Gas has with Ethereum. Without a sufficient amount of GET burned a ticket registration will be be deemed valid. As the GET Protocol is fully operational, we are able to project the amount of tickets to be processed in upcoming years. Due to this, we are able to make this scarcity projection.

GET is needed for every interaction with a smart ticket. A portion of this GET is burned with every interaction. This leads to an increase in scarcity over time. We have made a tool that you can use to make projections on this scarcity in the future.

You can try it out here:

https://get-protocol.io/token/#scarcity

Q5. For GET PROTOCOL: What are your plans regarding Maximizing the token exposure? Do you guys have any plans to list this Token on big exchanges?

A. For sure! We have always been pretty careful about not falling for crazy listing prices and chasing the hype dragon, as we have seen many projects go under that way.

Now that we are entering the Korean markets, we also want to make sure our token is available widely in Korea as well. We will have a big listing for Korean traders in the upcoming period, which will be big for token and project exposure, as we will also be selling tickets for some big events there. This is a completely new market that we’ll be tapping into.

We have big ambitions beyond that as well. It feels a bit strange that we have significant adoption with hundreds of thousands of users, but are relatively low on the CMC ranking. Right now our goal is to become a top 100 project, and I think we can achieve this!

Q6. When the total circulation increases day by day, this is a big problem for investors. Does GET Protocol team have any plan to burn token or increase the lock up period?

A. The total circulation of GET decreases with the completion of every ticket cycle. So it actually will only become less and less over time! The burn takes place at the end of every quarter, the most recent burn of more than 100.000 GET can be seen here:

https://medium.com/get-protocol/the-burn-back-report-q1-2020-d39047305419

Q7. Do you see who your biggest competitor is at the moment, and what do you think about your own project versus those projects? What’s weaknessess in your project ?

A. Kasper: There are several other crypto projects that have a similar role. Aventus (AVT) and Blockparty (BOXX) come to mind. The biggest advantage we have is that we have a fully operational ticketing company backing us. This allows us to constantly test our product with real world consumers. Evidently this is quite a unique position in crypto as most projects are not generating any revenue.

Last year alone we sold 400 000 ticktets to main stream user. In most cases these people where not aware they where using a blockchain product. We believe that this is how real adoption should take shape.

Olivier: Here’s my take:

The ticketing industry is massive — worth billions and billions of dollars. We have high ambitions, so we aim to be the worldwide data standard for tickets. Already our own ticketing company GUTS Tickets is taking clients away from big companies such as Ticketmaster and Eventbrite, and we expect this to only continue.

Event organisers and fans are tired of being ripped off and abused, and our system shows them that they don’t have to be anymore. We have a highly agile team of 15 developers who are constantly updating our innovative system. Traditional ticketing companies have years and years of legacy software, which makes them very unflexible.

I think our biggest weakness is our ‘newness’, but we are proving ourselves with every new event. :)

Q8. What can you offer to solve the scaling problem that many decentralized projects have? And how do you overcome the threat of centralization in your blockchain?

A. Great question. As a operational ticketing company we often have to service large ticket sales. Our biggest ticket sale to date netted about 50 000 tickets within an hour. We have found that registering these tickets on the main-chain (Ethereum) in real time isn’t practicle. Because of this we developed a side-chain solution. This side-chain set-up loops back to the main-chain every hour.

So in short; we have solved this challenge by technical innovation. Specifially we used Statebox contracts and IPFS for data storage.

To add to this; in this blog we explain how we use nodes to interact with the sidechain: https://medium.com/get-protocol/get-documentation-progress-nodes-codes-412f668504da

Q9. For each project, community factors contribute to their success. So, what strategies does Get Protocol have to develop community and retain users in the long run?

A. For sure! We have a very welcoming and knowledgable community that we are very proud of. They are very involved and we are very appreciative of them. We have found that once people understand our mission and see our traction, they usually see that we are not just another hype project.

We put a lot of effort into monthly update blog and provide as much transparency as we possibly can. If you want to come and see for yourself, you can join at: t.me/getprotocol

Q10. What are the biggest challenges of building a product and functional user experience for crypto users? What are the biggest obstacles for mainstream adoption of crypto?

A. This is a good question — I think that a lot of projects in crypto go very far with their idea before checking and finetuning their actual market fit. We have been selling tickets for events for several years, so we have seen all the challenges and demand from the users and clients.

Users don’t care about if a product is innovative or transparent if it doesn’t do what they want it to do. We have spent a lot of time listening to demands and finetuning our system to make it easy and fun to use. It takes a lot of time and dedication, but luckily we have both! And we also have a great team of hard-working developers, very important. :)

Q11. What can you offer to solve the scaling problem that many decentralized projects have? And how do you overcome the threat of centralization in your blockchain?

A. Preventing centralization is indeed a challenge. We have taken several actions in our token economics to ensure centralization from happening. One of these actions is the addition of staked nodes. These nodes will have a similar function as light nodes used in Klaytn. We have written extensively about this, you can find more details about our nodes on our blog.

Thanks for the time and questions guys! Here’s some last important information:

Our blog has all the latest info about the project: https://medium.com/get-protocol

You are all very welcome in our Telegram community as well: t.me/getprotocol

And be sure to follow along on twitter: https://twitter.com/GetProtocol