DeFi Partnership AMA — Reserve + Upbots

🔊 RESERVE AMA ANNOUNCEMENT — THURSDAY 2PM UTC — As part of exploration into DeFi and the DEX landscape, we’ve invited over Charlie Smith, from Reserve to come talk to us about mass adoption in DeFi.

👥 In Part 1 of our DeFi AMA Series. We’ll discuss the need for a user friendly interface as a gateway to DeFi mass adoption and then we’ll open it up for questions.

Start Of AMA

Welcome UpBots Community!

This is the first AMA in our community. We are really excited to have Charlie Smith here from Reserve and discuss how we can reach mass adoption for DeFi.

Thank you to all of the community members who pre-submitted questions, we will try to get through as many as possible over the next hour. At the end we will open the channel up for more questions.

Thank you for joining us today @imcharliehey ! Let’s start with the introduction first.

1. Could you tell us a bit more about your role at Reserve and what Reserve Protocol is about? Our community is really excited to learn more : )

Charlie (Reserve): Happy to. My nominal title is Head of Business Development but I’d say my function within the team is to promote network growth for Reserve. So this includes finding distribution partners for RSV and RSR (ex. exchanges, fintech services, OTC desks etc.). I also spearhead efforts to explore new markets and work on building liquidity for RSV.

Reserve Protocol provides a decentralized stablecoin solution built on Ethereum.

The stablecoin is built to be highly censorship resistant, scalable, and of course stable value.

Our main focus is on bringing that stablecoin to market in countries with high inflation and untrustworthy financial intermediaries via the Reserve App

I’ll leave it at that for now.

2. Thank you for introducing yourself and Reserve Protocol @imcharliehey ! :)

What are your thoughts about Upbots and do you feel there is a need for user friendly front-end DeFi products?

Charlie (Reserve): No problem. When I look at the space right now, I see a bewildering array of different services. We have many different centralized exchange products, lending services, and now a huge number of new defi services. Each one has their own UX.

They act as stand alone services. I think the future here is aggregation. Users want to be able to quickly take out a loan via Aave and deploy it on uniswap or Huobi from one interface.

Upbots is trying to do just that. Offer a simple unified platform from which a user can interact with many of the different services that exist in the crypto ecosystem.

3. Thanks Charlie for the concise explanation! Appreciate your thoughts : )

Let’s move on to another important one. Do you think Reserve Protocol itself or other stablecoins in general could benefit by using Upbots?

Charlie (Reserve): Yes in a few different ways.

1. Interacting with the Reserve Protocol itself is a sort of DeFi service, whether that is locking up collateral to mint RSV or in the future acting as an RSR holding arbitrager to maintain the protocol’s stability and capture value.

I think these sorts of services require a good UX and ideally one that is presented alongside the many other services our holders want to leverage.

2. The Reserve App is endeavoring to bring a big new wave of users into crypto.

Our users need sound money and crypto is a means to end for them. They also want access to financial services. Not because they’re interested in yield farming or DeFi. But because they don’t have great options today for getting interest on their cash dollar savings. I think services like Upbots could present a path forward to being able to present DeFi and CFi services to users less familiar with crypto in a way that is less daunting.

4. Good summation, appreciate the response Charlie! I had another interesting question in mind. Do you feel DeFi adoption is currently hindered due to lack of UI/UX? We have noticed Reserve is focused a lot on a great UX experience.

Charlie (Reserve): I think it is. It’s natural at this early experimental phase for that to be the case. For crypto enthusiasts, they’re happy to find a way because there’s money to be made. We are always looking down the line at where sustained growth is going to come from and I think for DeFi that means emerging markets. It means those markets that don’t have access to reliable financial services. To really rely on these services and to bring in this class of user the UX has to improve over time.

Admin: Thank you for answering the introductory questions and sharing your thoughts about Reserve, UX and current DeFi ecosystem! We have some interesting pre-submitted ones from our audience.

5. From @Sayuri1 Any plans for Reserve Protocol integration to the DeFi ecosystem? What do you think about the future of DeFi? I was wondering, are there any DeFi platforms that you talked about in the background or consulted? Are there potential partners?

Charlie (Reserve): Hey @Sayuri1 thanks for the question. Happy to say how we’re looking at the space. There is some stuff in the pipeline on the DeFi front. I see us playing two roles in DeFi:

1. We are developing unique expertise in onramping fiat into crypto (RSV) in hard to access emerging markets that really need these products. Decentralized fiat on-ramping as a service is a way we think we can generate a lot of value for CFi and DeFi platforms and their users.

2. I’m biased but I think RSV is by far the best decentralized stablecoin model. DeFi services need a good unit of account.

And I think that’s something we can offer. Stablecoin liquidity is still fairly low on many DEXs and I think there’s a play to be made there. Also, RSV and RSR are natural fits for the big DeFi lending platforms. We’re in a bunch of conversations right now on both point 1 and 2.

6. From @pim2000 Will Reserve Protocol transition to DeFi? From an app for buying, holding, and spending digital US dollars Service going into Defi. How is that Possible?How do you make that possible?

Charlie (Reserve): Our vision for the Reserve App is for it to ultimately replace our users fiat bank accounts. DeFi services will be a part of how we get there. The reason for that is that they enable us to acquire an unfair advantage over centralized competitors.

For example, If you live in one of our target markets, say Argentina or Venezuela (but this applies elsewhere too) you likely hold much of your wealth in cash USD.

Today RSV is a sovereign digital replacement for that. Pair RSV with a DeFi lending protocol and suddenly you can get interest on your holdings too. Unlike Cash USD for which it is difficult to lend out.

7. Thanks Charlie! Last one before i open the chat for Community Questions.

@Algojali How many partners currently have trusted Reserve Protocol and how is the ecosystem growing?

Charlie (Reserve): So on the distribution side, we have about a dozen different counterparties who act as VOTCs (verified OTCs) who help onramp fiat into crypto for us in our target market for our app users. That number is set to keep growing. We are also integrated with several exchanges, that number should continue to increase too. Those include the biggest DEXs and several CEXs as well. We’re seeing a lot more interest from big OTC desks and larger players in growing the RSV market

Admin: Thanks @imcharliehey ! Glad to learn more about the Reserve Protocol ecosystem. Chat is now open for Community Questions! If no new questions come, I will continue asking the pre-submitted ones.

8. How do you plan to combat high transaction fees on Ethereum network? Can you explain the rationale behind using meta-transactions in your app?

Charlie (Reserve): Good question. The reason we think etherless transactions are so important is that requiring our users to hold eth to use our service is a huge UX hurdle.

9. You have said in the past that you will be using Matter Labs as the layer 2 solution for fast instant RSV transactions. Can you please provide an update on the progress relative to that?

Charlie (Reserve): That’s still our plan. Sorry guys my answers are going to get a bit briefer as there’s a lot of questions here haha.

10. Thanks for stopping by @imcharliehey ! Do you think upBots can help provide signals for the Reserve protocol between RSR and RSV?

Charlie (Reserve): Yes, I think we’re going to discuss some plans there soon!

11. Great content so far! What are your overall thoughts on DeFi Lending? Do you think we could get ourselves in an extreme position of debt?

Charlie (Reserve): At least DeFi lending is generally over collateralized. I think that mitigates some risk

13. “the blockchain of blockchains” that wants Ethereum’s throne. Do you really think this is possible? If yes, how do Reserve Protocol aim to solve the problem that beset Ethereum?

Charlie (Reserve): Haha we’re not an eth competitor.

14. Makes sense Charlie. Thanks for answering! Btw you should check out the Dharma App-they have a great UI and are using a somewhat similar approach to enhance user experience (hold no ETH, no gas fees)!

Charlie (Reserve): Yep familiar with them thanks! I like what they’re trying to do. I think they’re appealing to a very general audience. We are more focused on specific target markets in the developing world.

15. In the short term and the long term, what is the plan to limit the Vault’s exposure to bad assets that lose value that could cause a negative feedback loop? In the decentralized phase when users have the ability to vote on governance decisions a bad asset might get added to the collateral pool, and if its value collapses, RSV will have to be withdrawn from circulation and the Vault will try to recoup losses by accumulating more assets with RSR. If those assets are still bad though, the situation will become worse until there is a financial crisis.

For a more internationalized unit of value has the team ever considered pegging RSV to the IMF’s SDR instead of the USD so it wouldn’t be exposed to the policy decisions of any one particular central bank? Why or why not?

Charlie (Reserve): We’ve been very conservative so far in terms of what assets we support. Re: SDRs or currency baskets. Basically if you ask real users in our target markets, no one wants an SDR or a basket. Everyone wants USD. So it’s a choice we’re making due to feedback from our user population.

16. Any plans for Reserve to reach developed countries?

Charlie (Reserve): Yes the US and Europe are a priority. We increasingly think of ourselves as catering to diaspora populations. Take Venezuela for example. There is a huge population of Venezuelans living across Latin America, in the US, and in Spain. To cater to them we have to make RSV available in the developed world as well.

17. I have another one — what are your thoughts about Community? Do you think Reserve Protocol’s community has been monumental in getting Reserve where it is right now?

Charlie (Reserve):The rangers are doing their part. We have one of the best communities in crypto and I expect that community to grow and mature significantly over the next year

18. Charlie, a small question. Do meta transactions also enable lower Ethereum fees in general or does it only change who pays the fee?

How can the issue of high Ethereum transaction fees be solved? I believe Layer-2 solutions can help in this right?

Charlie (Reserve): It changes who pays the fee. It allows a relayer to pay the eth gas fee and to receive a tip in RSV from the end user. We still need a layer 2 scaling solution in place. It’s something we’re actively working on

Admin: Thanks for the questions everyone! Thank you @imcharliehey for taking your time and doing an AMA with Upbots Community! We really appreciate it.

🔉 I am very excited to announce our next Upbots DeFi Ecosystem Partner: Reserve

💻 We will be working with Charlie and the Reserve team to build a user friendly interface so Upbots users can interact with the Reserve Protocol. An exciting aspect of this will be a DeFi trading bot that will allow RSR holders to automatically perform arbitrage with the protocol. In the coming months we will be exploring additional features and innovations and we are excited to see what we can accomplish together. 🤖

Useful links:
Reserve on Telegram: https://t.me/reservecurrency
Reserve website: https://reserve.org/
Upbots Community on Telegram: https://t.me/Upbots
Upbots website: https://upbots.com/