First off, here’s the Twitter Space hosted by Tezos Common.
Olivier answers some of the questions asked by the community as a Part 1 of this AMA:
👉https://twitter.com/TezosCommons/status/1588946504399876097?s=20&t=B22MYeTSVNNq4rRCA3ELvg
As a Part 2, here are detailed answers to the community’s questions asked through the Google Form that was submitted recently.
👇👇👇👇
We also want to remind the community that what’s important for any business is Product-market-fit. It is not something you can make up out of the blue with simply money or a CEX listing. These are for speculators and expecting a token to skyrocket in the current market conditions would be dellusional. Product-market-fit can take time and multiple iterations until we get it right. We are focusing on the products, feedback and we know where the pain points are and what has to be improved. We released our MVP a month ago and now our product is being delivered in phases. Each one of them is prioritized as per the amount of work it takes to deliver.
SMARTLINK ROADMAP
What is the Roadmap for Smartlink V1 Marketplace? Open API? ETH Support? Standalone Escrow? New features?
Smartlink V1 is not finished and new features are still in progress, such as:
- EVM Smart Contract integration (ETH): under development, expected in December 2022
- Public Open API (Escrow Standalone): under testing and publication, expected by end of November ‘22
- Paid Ads: Coming but still waiting for more transactional volume
- B2C retailer integration (Merchant accounts)
We are also considering your feedback for any features that might need improvements.
What is the current status of ICO funding? How funds have been spent?
Smartlink published a post on Medium back on May 8th and 13th, 2021 to give full transparency on the usage of funds. (shorturl.at/begin & shorturl.at/anPZ1)
- 100% of Ethereum and Bitcoin tokens were sold.
- 30% of Tezos tokens were sold. 60% were staked and withdrawn gradually to finance upcoming development needs and operations. 10% was used to provide liquidity to decentralized exchanges.
- 500k$ were refunded to unallowed country users or undone KYC.
Here are the details:
Smartlink raised $2.5M during its public sale on May 5th, 2021 market prices.
On May 13th, 2021 (cf. Medium), we decided to sell some of the crypto assets for Stablecoins. We made the transactions on May 28th, 2021.
After the transactions and Market correction, Smartlink’s funds were worth $1.7M and not $2,5M as of May 5th, 2021.
Out of the Stablecoin converted (worth 1.1M$), we spent the funds as follows:
- 60% on Technology developments
- 20% on Marketing, Communication, and Community Management
- 5% on Legal and Accounting firms
- 15% on Operations (OPEX)
Smartlink still holds 153,000 XTZ from the ICO (62.7% of the ICO collection, here : Staked: tz1Z2jrFLnQnKwYxt2Tt7HGqt6o3yXjdBNi2, Baker: tz1YiuvpfeVAHbnU8akcWErNfQGFHNQ7F45z, and LP on Vortex).
Our treasury being made up mostly of XTZ (52%), Smartlink’s total cash/crypto assets as of 11/07/22 is $403.5K.
SMAK is also solely correlated to XTZ at the moment and could be an additional future catalyst should the market pick up.
How will another funding round work? Incentives for investors?
We are working on getting fresh investors on board to develop new partnerships. We are currently building our strategy to raise funds by mid-2023 in order to continue the Marketplace developments and get sufficient traction.
The funding round structure is not finalized at the moment but investors are looking at equity funding way more than tokens. There is no timeline or amount yet. Our main objective is to find investors that can promote the Marketplace and support our communication with Crypto users. We had to revise the way we monetize our solution. Smartlink will make money through fees and advertising using SMAK tokens as an internal medium of exchange but also through the regular fees that are in place for other tokens. The way we will use the proceed from other tokens has yet to be reassessed as the regulatory framework keeps evolving when it comes to staking and buy-back.
Historical SMAK Holders will benefit from the rise of the Marketplace and the use of SMAK Incentive using the functionalities (Token locker, Marketplace, Ads…) when the marketplace gets the needed traction.
If the extra funding won’t be a success, how do you plan to continue the project?
If finding new investors take more time than expected we’ll keep collecting users’ feedback, continue marketing in the Tezos and EVM Chain ecosystems (Once Ethereum is implemented), and work on partnerships while developing the features.
If the extra funding will succeed, how do you make sure it won’t dilute the current holdings of SMAK users?
Smartlink’s team members are also SMAK holders and believers. The goal is not to make a bad deal but rather strategically align the interests of all stakeholders. Given the harsh market conditions, investors are much more interested in an equity investment than in acquiring tokens. We will make a deal that is beneficial to all historical investors and if SMAK tokens are part of the deal, there will be a lock-up period to avoid any market manipulation.
How can we make sure the team won’t try to sell their tokens if the project doesn't take off?
70% of the core team’s tokens (8% of the total supply) that will be unlocked in December 2022 will be officially vested for another 12 months on our Token Locker app.
You have “offices” in Canada, France, and Madagascar. Who is working from there? How many people and their roles? Blockchain developers?
Our team is working remotely with the company being incorporated in Estonia. The Smartlink team is comprised of 3 full-stack developers, two community managers, one CTO, one product manager, and one CEO. We also have 2 people in Madagascar who are working on business development in Africa.
We are also working with Freelancers all over the world for specific purposes (Marketing, Finance, Legal, Dev, R&D…).
Blockchain partners and Freelancers are mainly based in France and the number varies depending on the development tasks.
We are working on our recruitment needs for our next phase of fundraising so this will change over the next year.
Do you plan to make a Cardano contract?
The next contract integration will be announced depending on traction opportunities and what our priorities are on the development side.
How will the ETH escrow work exactly?
EVM Smart Contract will work exactly like Tezos Smart Contract but with a standard 1% commission fee and no discount on the fee. In order to benefit from SMAK utilities (Discounts, Ads etc) users will have to switch to Tezos Smart contracts to make the transactions.
Vortex-related questions
Vortex has been co-managed by some of the Smartlink team members and two partners (Pyratz Labs and Smartchain). The v2 still requires some work to be done by developers to be functional as our indexer ran into complications multiple times which delayed the delivery. The different teams have had internal issues and turnover which didn’t help the development side.
We are currently discussing with the different initial partners to find the best way to manage Vortex in the future. Once we have all the details, an announcement will be made on Vortex socials. We are working towards finding the best possible way to improve the situation.
Why did you promote the SMURKS launch as if it was really close and all of a sudden it stopped?
First of all, there was an issue with the developers who worked on the contract and the project has been extremely delayed. In the meantime, priorities have shifted and the SMURKS will remain in the oven until the market gets better and an opportunity to go live arises.
When realistically are we expecting to see v2 of SmartLink?
Smartlink V2 is a long R&D run where the CEA helps us with an MVP delivered last September. We have a very good infrastructure to create new key features such as:
- Decentralized Identity to confirm users’ identity and build trust (using IPFS): MVP already in place for testing.
- A complete escrow system that allows the buyer and seller to lock the funds up until the end of the transaction and wait for parties’ confirmation to unlock them: MVP already in place for testing.
- A smart contract for shipping to associate all stages of shipments with Proof of integrity at each transfer of the asset: MVP already in place for testing.
All these modules are 80% complete but need to be developed and tested before being put into production. Note that the front-end developments have not yet started.
There are several hurdles that need to be addressed:
- Problem with the buyer’s incentive to complete the transaction of receiving the asset.
- Partnership with carriers who agree to use our Escrow contract.
- Medium and long-term encryption mechanism (ECIES).
- The digital signature mechanism for on-chain agreements, and for oracles.
We have been working closely with CEA to develop this new contract. We still need some time to optimize the contract and integrate it with Smartlink Marketplace.
We expect the Smartlink V2 modules to be released gradually up until Q3 2023.
What about shipping integration for V2?
CEA Research & Development has delivered a concept to integrate shipping companies and onboard intermediaries. The goal is to create a Smart Contract that transfers responsibilities from one-third party to another. Smartlink will not develop its own shipping services but aims to onboard companies such as UPS, FEDEX…
Shipping companies are not yet mature regarding Blockchain integration. Onboarding shipping companies into our Smart Contract solution might take some more time. Nevertheless, the current Off-chain delivery tracking can still be used to confirm a successful transaction.
What is the plan for governance?
The governance topic has been subject to different ideations since we first announced it. The recent structural changes within the team and the evolution of Smartlink developments have raised additional questions regarding the use of governance on a semi-decentralized platform.
Smartlink won’t be a DAO in and of itself. We are evaluating the best way to integrate a form of governance that wouldn’t be a waste of time for Smartlink to develop or for SMAK token holders to use.
We’ve noted that the community didn’t overall appreciate the initially proposed version and we have decided to postpone this part for when the product is fully functional. Our priority is focused on taking the product to market with the primary utilities being put forth.
What incentives are in place for SMAK holders?
Smartlink will offer several incentives for SMAK holders including:
- Fee discount on the Marketplace
- Fee discount on future Escrow API
- Token locker SMAK fee, today you have to pay 15,000 SMAK as a fee to lock up your tokens
- New ADS Features coming: Get your listing featured at the top of the page (ADS paid in SMAK)
- New incentives might come in the future with new functionalities.
MARKETING & COMMUNICATION
How do you plan to bring in volume to the marketplace? Marketing plan? Community involvement?
Smartlink is a marketplace for goods and services that must deal with local transactions. Like Kijiji, Craiglist, or Leboncoin, more than 90% of transactions are hand-to-hand locally. In addition, both the buyer and seller must accept payments in crypto-currencies, which amplifies the difficulty of meeting global demand.
This product needs a Go-to-Market strategy that allows supply and demand to meet physically in a sufficiently large area.
We are launching a marketing campaign in 2 specific areas:
- Lagos, Nigeria: 33 Million crypto users, a very active market, good influencers, and communication channels. Lagos can serve as a pattern for many African countries as well.
- Paris, France: 3,2 Million crypto users. Many opportunities for communication partnerships, and a good experiment for Western countries.
Marketing Plan
We will engage on several communication channels:
- Press Releases
- Influencers: TikTok, Youtube
- AMA in collaboration with local Partners
- Social Media Growth (Paid ads)
- Partnership with Real product companies (mostly IT hardware goods)
- Newsletter
- Organic Media Release
In addition, we’ve launched a Listing Game for Marketplace users where you can win prizes when interacting in the real world.
This marketing campaign is planned from Dec. 1st, 2022 to Feb. 1st 2023.
Community involvement
The community will be involved to reinforce the marketing campaign by sharing all communications and participating in events (games etc…). Adding as many listings as possible will help spread the word and reinforce the referral strategy.
Will Smartlink seek to increase exposure and more usage of the token investment locker?
The token locker is a nice additional feature and serves only the Tezos community as of now. We keep this feature handy for any project that wants to use it. We will communicate more about it during our marketing campaigns to come.
SMARTLINK FUNCTIONALITIES
How will you handle disputes in the future?
The dispute resolution feature will come with shipping integration only and goes as follows:
If the conditions are not met, both the Buyer and the Seller could start a dispute, which would escalate through several phases according to certain time ranges set into the Escrow Smart Contract and which may eventually involve a Mediator. The Mediator would collect the evidence presented by the Buyer and the Seller and would eventually emit some verdict in favor of one of the two parties.
The Smartlink app dispute resolution services will allow users to raise tickets and follow up on the arbitration process through the app.
The Smartlink platform handles dispute resolutions off-chain while the funds are safely kept in the smart contract. The system relies on a built-in chat feature dedicated to solving disputes on the platform and the potential intervention of a mediator if the parties can’t agree to the new terms. Resolve Disputes Online (hereinafter: RDO) or a similar solution might be used as a dispute settlement mechanism.
More details on pages 21 and 22 of the Whitepaper.
