Shyft Network Telegram AMA — RECAP
Hello everyone! Welcome to the first official Shyft Network AMA.
It has been quite a ride so far and we are very excited for what’s in store for Shyft Network.
So, why don’t we start by introducing the co-founder team that will be participating today.
Chris Forrester and Bruce Silcoff, please give the community a short intro, who you are, what role you play and, more importantly, why
Bruce Silcoff:
My name is Bruce Silcoff and I am a Co-Founder of Shyft, Head of Enterprise and Global Services, and CEO of PerseID.
I am a serial entrepreneur with a 30+ year proven track record of success across more than 25 businesses. I have always been focused on incubating game-changing technology solutions that solve real world problems. I am currently consumed by all disruptive blockchain solutions.
Before joining the management team at Shyft, I was a pioneer in the loyalty industry, managing some of the world’s most recognized reward programs with over 300 million customers from over 100 countries. Loyalty programs involve alternative currencies and are all about big data. As such we were doing innovative things like digital wallets and predictive modelling long before ApplePay and AI were made popular.
I was first attracted to Shyft as a seed investor because I recognized the potential behind the pioneering vision to use blockchain technology as a more efficient and secure KYC/AML solution. As I learned more about blockchain and its transformative power, I knew that the world was headed for a paradigm SHYFT and I wanted to be at the leading edge of this next industrial revolution…so I joined the company full time and am now a proud member of Team Shyft!
I bring value to the company by leveraging my experience, thought leadership, strategic guidance and an expansive network for collaborative partnership opportunities.
Chris Forrester:
Hi everyone :) I’m Chris, a co-founder and acting CTO of the Shyft Network.
Day to day, I’m the one building the tech, designs, diagrams out, helping strategize, and helping the other engineers get the best results possible from any given scenario.
Juan Aja:
Awesome, for those of you who don’t know me, I’m Juan, a co-founder and army of one, managing multiple tasks for Shyft Network including marketing, communications and operations.
My background is in law and business, I practiced corporate and securities law before changing paths and breaking into blockchain.
Why? because I believe, at my core, that blockchain is a path to enabling people to take ownership of their own wealth. That type of freedom is invaluable.
So, we are going to do a round of questions. We’ll open the chat briefly so the community can post their questions. The team will select seven questions and respond. If we have time after that, we’ll do the second round of 4–5 questions.
I also want to remind everyone that we cannot comment on price and listing, so please stick to Shyft Network as a transformative technology 😁
Also, very important, we’ll select the top 5 questions for a total price of $200 USDT/C reward to be divided among them, so make them count!
FIRST ROUND OF COMMUNITY QUESTIONS:
🅡 Tom:
Do you plan on partnering with more governments on top of the government of Bermuda?
Bruce Silcoff:
Yes. Our plan is to show and sell our DiD framework to other jurisdictions by demonstrating a solution that has been deployed and actually works. Bermuda is the first of hopefully many jurisdictions.
Richie Boy:
What do you see as the best outcome and network adoption for Shyft?
Juan Aja:
So, there are a number of best-case scenarios here:
1. DeFi. Thanks to Shyft Network, institutional players step in, now confident that they can trace sources of funds and know that they are not enabling money laundering or financing terrorism. This brings about a new wave of decentralized financial services and products. More capital = better options and funding.
2. VASPs are compliant and using Shyft Network for all their KYC/AML. After seeing the effectiveness that the industry has on enabling users to do more with their wealth, governments finally understand that blockchain is a technology built to improve the lives of individuals.
3. Incredible new use cases are built on the platform, e.g. Digital Identity, Notarial services, digital rights management, all enabling businesses and users to finally work as GLOBAL citizens.
Bruce Silcoff: This functionality of the Network is intended to facilitate entirely new data marketplaces that empower individual users through an opt-in consent framework that protects their personally identifiable data. By building a more secure and efficient “data superhighway” for interoperable data exchange, the best outcome for network adoption would be rapid scaling by bringing together high volume data users with large holders of data (i.e. networks). That is why strategic partnerships with sector leaders of the industry, exchanges/vasp’s and with governments and their populations make sense as they will help us scale the network fast.
Bart E:
Hello, I see there are a number of other groups working in this area. What partnerships have you made that make you believe SHYFT will be used universally? As opposed to other ventures.
Chris Forrester:
Our work with the exchanges via FATF-required regulatory processes (the “Virtual Asset Service Providers”) gives Shyft’s technology and public blockchain infrastructure the demand requirement for continual progression.
Given our team’s product cycle (VASPs with our Veriscope product, and government-vetted digital identity solutions like Perseid, we believe we have enough top-down product cycles with major partners to service the network for years.
Reinout Wijnholds ✤:
Hi there! Happy to be here.
So, the way I see Shyft is that it tries to bring a connection from already registered KYC information to another platform, so you’d not have to give up all the information at all the companies. Is this correct? If so, I see that blockpass has a similar vision, how would Shyft network be better than them?
Chris Forrester:
Yes, much like how current O-Auth solutions function (google et al.) what needs to happen is an equivalent “log in” event to any transactional purpose. Whether it’s participating in a legitimate complaint activity like sales, exchanges, swaps, and (in specific jurisdictions) ultimately people can extend the Shyft platform as regulation evolves to incorporate new requirements of how assets are moved.
Our primary advantage is that we can incorporate other’s oraculized services into this routing network, with opt-in at the very top of it so that the user, at the end of the day, is in charge of their relationships and not the other way around
Master Yi:
Today, the community figured out that this wallet moved the token to gate.io. As we believe that this exchange is unofficial. And then, the token moving out from gate.io and sell immediately on Uniswap. Can you clarify for the community about these suspicious transactions?
Chris Forrester:
Hi, great question and as always transparency is important — so this move was originally said by me to be happening a couple of days ago. We are striving to be 100% transparent preemptively, and so far we’ve hit that mark. We’ll keep doing so.
The answer to this question: Any liquidity that has moved in this respect, was to partnered ecosystem professionals who are working on distributing liquidity in order to meet incoming demand requirements.
Tim S:
Has Shyft had any direct contact with regulators in the US, and in particular the incoming chair of the SEC?
Bruce Silcoff:
Shyft has taken a collaborative approach to drive success. To ensure adoption and validity, we have to be in ongoing dialogue either directly or indirectly with regulators like the SEC, OECD, FATF, etc.. to make sure that our solution(s) are compliant.
Philippe 🇧🇪🇧🇷:
Could you elaborate a bit on current and planned partnerships and community partners, and how it will add value to the Shyft proposition?
Juan Aja:
For sure. We are currently focusing on four main verticals:
1. VASPs that are affected by the Travel Rule. These are exchanges, and other service providers that will have to deal with regulation;
2. DeFI, a longer play as DeFi is still somewhat in the early stages. Working with platforms that enable DeFi applications;
3. Governments. As Bruce said above, we are working on the deployment of a Digital Identity solution for Bermuda, once the product is deployed and proven, we plan on taking it to other jurisdictions, and
4. Infrastructure that expands capabilities of the Shyft Network
Master Yi:
Exchanges have partnerships with Shyft — do they use shyft network as a solution for KYC? If not, when and how can they use it?
Bruce Silcoff:
We are first working with exchanges to deliver our Veriscope solution enabling them to comply with FATF’s new Travel Rule. KYC/AML and other products/solutions will also be made available to them in time.
Philippe 🇧🇪🇧🇷:
What is the next big milestone after Mainnet Launch?
Chris Forrester:
That’s a great question -
So there are a few things that will be happening in the next weeks on the product side, and they’re all excited for the community.
The first will be a specific interaction point w/ metamask UI to have an extra reward from playing AMM LP liquidity up. We’ll have more details very soon but anyone that is currently providing liquidity should be eligible. This may happen before mainnet launch!
The second will be an incredible offer to *anyone with any erc20 stablecoin liquidity of specific well-known types*, to receive SHFT token rewards simply by taking a zero-risk 1:1 pegged movement of your existing assets into a wrapped version with opt-in compliance features. We’ll be releasing details on this amazing program shortly after mainnet launch has occurred!
Of note — we may give the community winners & those that *submitted all the documentation but simply did not win the lottery for the whitelist* a chance at early usage/rewards from these!
Sol M:
I love the name Shyft. It’s catchy, can you give some insight on why you went with that name, and how you plan to use the name and brand to enhance marketing?
Bruce Silcoff:
Thank you. So do we! While founders may have their own reasons why they like and chose the name Shyft… I like it because it best reflects what we are doing: Creating a paradigm Shyft in the way data is managed…and even the way we spell the word shift :)
Dan:
Without market adoption, don’t you think that it is a bit premature introducing your own blockchain?
Juan Aja:
Not at all. The enhancements that Chris and her team have built, the products and target customers, the technology itself, all of them require very specific security and resilience features. The scope of what we are building here requires its own infrastructure from the get-go.
youri:
Nobody knows Shyft right now, when is marketing starting?
Juan Aja:
We started building Shyft more than three years ago, but we had one thing very clear: build first, market later. That’s why we flew under the radar for so long. There are thousands of projects out there doing a ton of marketing on just a whitepaper. We decided not to do that, and now, Shyft Network is almost live.
I also wouldn’t say that “nobody” knows us, we have communities in >5 languages, generating more than a million impressions per month for the past three months (when marketing started ramping up). And there’s a lot more to come. My co-founders have been hosted on the industry’s top podcasts and our press releases go out on top media.
Bart E:
Thanks for answering our questions. You’ve outlined payments of SHFT will be needed to access the SHYFT network. Will this be enough to propel the token forward, or will you introduce other methods to draw prospective investors to the token?
Bruce Silcoff:
It all comes down to the basic economics of demand and supply. We are focused on the demand side by building or attracting viable and revenue-generating business use cases for our protocol. The more users we bring to the ecosystem, the more transactions happen, the more SHFT tokens are needed to pay for those transactions.
Golden Ape:
Hello team, love what you do!
What is the plan for NFTs, do you see an application or a play in that sector?
Juan Aja:
There is a play for NFTs. But that’s a bit further down the line…
Peyman:
What’s your stake program plan?
Juan Aja:
We will be releasing a blog post on this soon (not in the next few weeks though, we have mainnet and other partnerships to discuss).
Reinout Wijnholds ✤:
How are you planning on getting Shyft out there in the world. A successful project has to be seen by others. Do you have new partnerships in mind?
Juan Aja:
We have a growing BD team and it will be, along with product and marketing, one of the key activities that Shyft Network Inc. will focus on post-mainnet launch.
We are focused on building an ecosystem of VASPs, tech integrations, and developers.
Base:
Give us an announcement u said we should expect something 😊
Bruce Silcoff:
We are committed to and always hoping to share any and all good news with our loyal community of supporters. As such, we hope to share news related to technology advancements and milestones, strategic partnership signing, industry events (i.e. hackathons, conferences) and anything else deemed worthwhile.
Juan Aja:
We are still on track for mainnet in April. Testing has gone incredibly well and everything is coming together.
youri:
Is there any competitor with shyft for the same use case?
Juan Aja:
There are some that do small pieces of what Shyft is capable of doing, the reality is that they CAN operate and interact with SHYFT. Shyft is not a product, it’s a framework.
Kras:
Do you plan to focus on marketing as well, in order to make Shyft more popular among the crypto world?
Bruce Silcoff:
Up until recently, we have been focused on taking a whitepaper vision and making it a reality. Now that we have accomplished this, our amazing marketing team has started to aggressively spread the gospel through multiple social mediums. We recognize the importance of a strong community and are committed to growing it virally by sharing exciting accomplishments and interacting in manners such as this or conferences once things return to normal.
🅡 Tom:
As you know there has been a lot of confusion regarding the Shyft token economics, and despite the very good medium articles you wrote about it. People have a hard time making distinctions between the active circulating supply (actually trading in exchanges), and the circulating supply that is used by the ecosystem and therefore not really circulating. Could you give us an estimation of what would be the active circulating supply tradable on exchange) in 4 or 5 months.
Chris Forrester:
Hi, so there are technical 193m tokens in the circulating supply based on the initial schedules.
I’d like to take a moment to just describe and entwine a bit with my previous response about the various community-reward sub-products we’ll be releasing shortly — these were engineered with an expectation of a specific reward-for-work.
If that specific reward means more now than before, fewer tokens will be entering the market, because the reward rate can be reflexive relative to the work performed.
So these numbers are *maximums* but depending on reward cycles may be significantly less in token amounts during a specific time period.
For reference, the *absolute maximum supply* of the aforementioned community-reward programs were ~5.5% and ~4.5% of the network respectively, over a 15 and 10 year time period. At this point, the number of tokens for said rewards is vastly overestimated in the distribution number I just gave.
Juan Aja:
Ok, so we are wrapping up the AMA. Thank you very much everyone for participating.
AMA Winners ($200 USDT/C)
Thank you all for your questions; we were very happy with the results of the AMA and will organize more in the near future. As promised, the winners of the AMA contest are:
- Master Yi
- Philippe
- 🅡 Tom
- Bart E
- Reinout Wijnholds ✤
Please reach out to our admin, @HodlShark, and we’ll set you up with your reward!
About Shyft Network
Shyft Network is a public protocol designed to aggregate and embed trust, validation and discoverability into data stored on public and private ecosystems, and facilitate information transfer between permissioned and permissionless networks. By incentivizing individuals and enterprises to work together, Shyft Network allows for the layering of context on top of data, turning raw data into meaningful information.
More INFO
Website: https://www.shyft.network/
Telegram Group: https://t.me/shyftnetwork
Telegram Announcements: https://t.me/ShyftAnnouncements
Twitter: https://twitter.com/shyftnetwork
Medium: https://shyftnetwork.medium.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/NJ7bZTCnm6
