SparkPoint AMA with ViteX: Knowing the Ecosystem and the Future of SparkDeFi
The community gets up-close with SparkPoint’s CEO and CTO to know more about the company and its upcoming SparkDeFi platform.
SparkPoint Innovations Inc. Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Andy Agnas together with Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Rico Zuñiga participated in an Ask Me Anything session with ViteX on September 3, 2020.
Ask Me Anything or simply known as AMA is a popular way of communicating in Reddit with key persons or teams. However, the host ViteX made this session a little bit different by using Telegram as the AMA platform where the ViteX community raised questions for our CEO and CTO about SparkPoint and their upcoming SparkDeFi platform.
But before we dive deep into what happened in the SparkPoint AMA session, let us get to know our host, ViteX.
According to VITE’s Medium:
ViteX is developed on the Vite public chain, which features high throughput, fast transaction confirmation, zero fees, cross-chain gateway and more! The community has 100% autonomy to mint tokens, build cross-chain gateways and create trading pairs. Our order book is fully open via API, which allows others to launch their own exchanges based on liquidity in ViteX.
ViteX is a DEX developed on the Vite public chain and features absolute decentralization, higher security of digital assets and robust economic models for both sending/receiving transactions and confirming transactions.
On August 24, SparkPoint was listed in ViteX Exchange, expanding the company’s growing list of exchanges for its token. There’s a total of 9 exchanges (ViteX included) where $SRK is listed as of this writing.
Now, let’s get it on with the highlights of the SparkPoint AMA session. Here we go!
Q: What is SparkPoint? What is unique about it? What are your platforms? How does it differ from other crypto or blockchain projects?
Andy: The company behind SparkPoint is SparkPoint Innovations Inc., which is a duly SEC-registered company here in the Philippines. It was founded on October 5, 2018. It aims to fast track mainstream adoption of blockchain and cryptocurrency. Our first product is SparkPoint Wallet, a non-custodial mobile cryptocurrency wallet that supports various cryptocurrencies and exchanges them through our built-in exchange. Also, we will have an incoming major wallet update this month wherein it can now support Dapps browser like Uniswap. We are also working to have a VCE license so that we can legally support fiat integration in our wallet.
Education is at the heart of SparkPoint. We have recently launched SparkLearn, a crypto-enabled online learning platform that focuses on blockchain, cryptocurrency, financial literacy, and other relevant topics. We believe that through SparkLearn, we can bring more awareness and promote the adoption of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
We also have the SparkPlay platform where we are currently adopting the Play to Earn model. P2E is an emerging paradigm in gaming where a significant chunk of value goes to players. Using blockchain, players can truly own game items and earn cryptocurrency rewards. SparkPoint is also diving into Decentralized Finance (DeFi) with its SparkDeFi platform. With SparkDeFi, SRK holders are able to stake their tokens by providing liquidity. This entitles them to earn from transaction fees plus bonus SRK rewards for staking. Staking, trading, borrowing, and lending are to be done in a secure, transparent, and inclusive way through smart contracts.
Rico: I think what’s unique about SparkPoint is its underdog mentality. This motivates us to go the extra mile. And considering we’re from a developing country (Philippines) we have to work doubly hard to overcome infrastructure challenges, government inefficiencies, corruption, etc.
Andy: Aside from that, SparkPoint is a non-ICO crypto project and our approach is pragmatic. We primarily focus more on product developments without leaving behind our project’s marketing. We do not build hype rather we are working around the clock to meet our roadmap or timeline. One thing that is unique about SparkPoint is that we are releasing a monthly roadmap and we are trying hard to accomplish it within the month.
Q: What is SparkLearn? How is SparkLearn beneficial to new crypto users? What can we gain from SparkLearn?
Andy: SparkLearn is an online learning platform that primarily focuses on cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology, and financial literacy education. New crypto users can learn a lot about those subjects particularly in minimizing risks in crypto investments and avoiding scam projects. More details here: https://sparkpoint.io/learn
Q: What are your plans for the remaining months of 2020 and your targets in 2021?
Andy: These are our targets for this 3rd quarter of 2020:
- 1st SparkDeFi Dapp: Liquidity Staking
- The official launch of SparkLearn
- SparkPoint Wallet Major Update: Uniswap Integration
- Central Bank Virtual Currency Exchange (VCE) license application
- 2nd Buy Back and Burn Program
- 3rd Game Announcement and Development
- Partnership Announcement
- Team Expansion
For the 4th quarter:
- Revised White Paper with DeFi
- 3rd Game Beta Release
- 3rd Buy Back and Burn Program
- Partnership Announcement
- Onboarding SparkLearn Course Creators
- Team Expansion
We are actually ahead of the beta release of our 3rd game which will be launched this September.
Rico: We’re focusing on DeFi for the remainder of this year and beyond, not just because it’s the “in” thing right now, but because we strongly believe that decentralized finance is the future. My son when he grows up may never have to open a bank account.
Andy: Yes and all details of our roadmap in 2021 can be found at https://sparkpoint.io/roadmap.
Q: What are the benefits of joining the SparkPoint ecosystem? Are you going to provide incentives/rewards to users who provide value and drive growth for SparkPoint?
Rico: We have a bounties platform called SparkEarn which we launched a few months ago. So far, it has rewarded hundreds of users already (I need to check the db for exact numbers). Early supporters who received 10,000 SRK tokens upon joining have benefited significantly from the token price’s appreciation.
We also concluded our year-long staking program in June 2020 and have distributed a considerable amount of SRK to long-term holders, albeit manually. This is also one of the reasons why we’re now looking into DeFi to make our next staking more convenient, automated, and less centralized compared to our first one.
Aside from that, we also have our regular and fun gaming tournaments where top players can win SRK tokens.
Andy: In addition to SparkPlay where users are rewarded in playing, we have also SparkEarn where users can earn SRK and sponsor’s tokens by doing social or bounty tasks.
Q: In what ways does the SparkPoint network generate profit/income to support the project? How can the income model be beneficial for both investors and the project?
Andy: Currently, we are generating revenues through ADS, IAP, and NFTs. We are using 70% of earned revenues to buy back SRK tokens from the open markets and immediately burn them. As per our roadmap, we will have a quarterly buy back and burn program. Since SparkPoint is already generating revenues, we do not rely much on selling SRK from the development wallet to support our product’s developments. With this model, we believe that SparkPoint will be sustainable over a long-term period of time, hence investor’s confidence increases. More details can be found here: https://sparkpoint.io/#revenue-model
Q: DeFi is the hottest trend in the crypto space this 2020. What would your DeFi platform look like?
Rico: For now, we don’t want to reinvent the wheel too much. We would just like to leverage proven approaches like Ampleforth’s Token Geyser contract. In fact, we just launched a staking contract on Ropsten yesterday based on this Token Geyser contract. With this approach, we’re leveraging any security audits made in the previous contract which minimizes our risk.
Andy: Liquidity staking is a win-win situation both for SparkPoint and our liquidity providers. We are also considering normal staking in our SparkDeFi.
Rico: We’re also taking a careful approach to launching our DeFi solution to avoid a similar fate as YAM. In our SparkDeFi platform, stakers who provide liquidity in Uniswap (and maybe SushiSwap too in the future) will be rewarded with additional SRK tokens from our ecosystem development fund. This is instantly an advantage because the SRK token already has some liquidity and value attached to it compared to new DeFi projects that still need to attract attention and build a community around it from scratch.
Q: SparkPoint is built on Ethereum Blockchain which has congestions and scalability issues. Do you have plans to develop your own blockchain or migrate to other blockchains in the future?
Rico: We love Ethereum but it’s very expensive right now to transact.
So while waiting for Eth2, we’re also looking into other chains such as Binance Smart Chain. In fact, I was just in a meeting with Binance reps to explore this potential pathway. And since we’re still in an early testing phase for our SparkDeFi, we’re not locked in yet with Ethereum and it is still open to other platforms.
Andy: Aside from Binance Smart Chain, we are also looking at the Polkadot network because it has decentralized WEB 3.0 Blockchain interoperability features to power our DeFi and other platforms.
Rico: We’re also very interested in Dapper Labs’ Flow Blockchain (the creators of CryptoKitties) with its promise of speed and reliability without the use of sharding. As for developing our own blockchain, I think we’re not at that level yet in terms of capability and resources available. Maybe in 3–5 years, we can revisit this idea of having our own blockchain, and maybe by that time we’re ready.
Oleg: Very interesting! Let me offer you our Vite chain: fast and free transactions based on the DAG and HdPoS consensus
Rico: We’ll definitely check this out! @OlegEnthusiast!
Oleg: Great, thanks, Rico!
Andy: Wow, will look into it also.
SparkPoint has a lot in store for its community and we are surely making ways to uphold and realize our vision.
Learn more about SparkPoint from the following links:
Official Website: https://sparkpoint.io/
2020–2021 DeFi Roadmap: https://sparkpoint.io/roadmap
SRK-ETH on Uniswap: https://srk.sh/uniswap
Telegram: https://t.me/SparkpointOfficial
Telegram Announcements: https://t.me/sparkpoint
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sparkpointio/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sparkpointio/
GitHub: https://github.com/sparkpointio
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sparkpointio
CoinMarketCap: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/sparkpoint/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sparkpointio/
