Recap: #FoundersAMA with AllianceBlock Co-Founders Rachid Ajaja and Matthijs de Vries

With the recent announcement of Nuant, our Co-Founders spent some time to discuss about launch and discuss updates on our solutions

The last few weeks and months have been extremely busy at AllianceBlock with many new integrations, product updates, the release of our first SDK, Fundrs live on Mainnet and the highly anticipated Fundrs first listing, not to mention the upcoming launches of TIDV, SSLP and the Data Tunnel.

However, one of our biggest milestones is the announcement of Nuant, a key step in building seamless gateways between TradFi and DeFi. Last Monday, the 26th of September, our Co-Founders, Rachid Ajaja and Matthijs de Vries, took to Telegram for a #FoundersAMA with our community.

The focus of the AMA was to introduce Nuant and its symbiotic relationship with AllianceBlock, especially how they can benefit our ecosystem and provide utility to ALBT. In addition, the founders discussed various updates on our solutions, such as TIDV and Fundrs. Let’s dive into it!

Note: The following transcript is edited for clarity, but you can also follow the discussion on Telegram here.

Matthijs: Hey guys! I hope everyone is having an amazing day

Matthijs: We have muted the chat now for the next 15 min more or less.

Rachid and I will speak first in free format about Nuant, why it was introduced and why this is good for the utility of ALBT.

Rachid: Hey guys, I hope you are all doing well. Hugely happy to be with you guys, it’s been a while.

Rachid: Nuant is the combination of Nu, the Greek letter used [as a variable] in statistics and physics to represent frequencies, and quant, representing the quantitative world.

Nu + Quant = Nuant

Matthijs: To jump straight in, we would love to clarify WHY Nuant exists.

Matthijs: AllianceBlock, as many of you know, is a non-profit foundation in the Netherlands managing the token ALBT. In 2019, we also created AllianceBlock BV as a commercial, for-profit entity in the Netherlands to focus on commercializing AB products.

Having a crypto-related entity in a traditional industry was actually not working the way we envisioned. Along the way, we learned a lot about the needs that financial institutions have when they are active in the crypto industry. We saw a huge gap and need related to data.

An entity had to be created that is commercially exploiting this, does not have crypto branding or a token under management and is active in the right area (CryptoValley in Zug, Switzerland). This is why there is now Nuant in exactly that area, and the gap being filled with the right branding/image, with the right kind of entity in the right location

Rachid: Indeed, since 2019 and our incubation at Kickstart Innovation Program, we have been speaking to traditional financial players and researching Regulation and Compliance and the optimal setup to have the compliant gateway between both worlds.

Signing traditional institutions takes time, and we saw that these institutions focused on Custody solutions. Later on, we saw the interest in the data coming from CEXes and execution platforms, and in the last two years, there has been more and more interest in the on-chain data space given the boom of DeFi.

Nuant, as a traditional company with no token, was a strategic choice to be able to focus on these institutions, being able to provide scalable data infrastructure that can be leveraged to make investment decisions.

Nuant is about Infrastructure, Data and Execution. Nuant is centralized, however, because we saw a very big interest in on-chain data and being able to do on-chain execution, decentralized infrastructure and secure [execution solutions] must be leveraged, and this is where AllianceBlock comes in.

After CVSummit [2022], we are now convinced that compliant DeFi is the next wave, having technology in line with the high standards of the traditional world with all the certifications like SOC and ISO27001 is a must to get traction from these businesses. On the other hand, a secure and safe decentralized layer is needed to be able to interact compliantly with DeFi, AllianceBlock is a must in this setup.

For example, Databricks’ 76B USD valuation with big revenue coming from institutions is built on top of Spark and other open source technologies.

Matthijs: But of course, everything is done with the utility of ALBT in mind. When we speak about revenue and on-chain execution, it’s good to understand the following:

Imagine a client with 10 billion USD assets under management (AUM). They pay a license fee to Nuant, say 60K for a year. This is revenue for Nuant, though the most interesting thing really [is what] happens with on-chain execution.

So imagine the same client executing swaps, trades, staking, etc. Even if we take over a period of a year 0.1%(!) of their AUM, it will amount to 1 million USD in fees that is [in] part utility [for] ALBT and [another] part revenue for AllianceBlock to fund employees, office, etc. This is why it’s important to underline the fact that Nuant has their own proprietary technology that deserves its own revenue, and where AB offers our proprietary technology for on-chain execution that this has huge potential.

Matthijs: Nuant and AB work in symbiosis; one needs the other, and it works perfectly in harmony for each their own successes and combined success.

Rachid: Exactly, also if you step back and you see the big picture, with AllianceBlock, we developed Defi Terminal, TIDV, Fundrs and the DEX — they are all foundational to have a complete financial infrastructure. The Bridge is an important piece as well for interoperability.

Off-chain execution gave birth to big players like Talos, a multi-billion company. Now with the growth of DeFi and the availability of data, metrics and analytics, we will need on-chain execution. When we speak about execution, it is not just about executing a trade but also investment solutions and strategies from simple to complex. In addition, we see [in] the next few years the democratization of CeFi-DeFi execution layers, and compliance must bring as much liquidity as possible.

We have been doing market research on the on-chain execution market opportunity, and below I am sending a summary:

This is the opportunity that AllianceBlock will benefit from through Nuant.

Matthijs: Of course, very important to mention all of this doesn’t dilute any of the focus on what we are working on AllianceBlock — Fundrs, Data Tunnel, DeFi Terminal, Bridge, TIDV, DEX — the development will all continue normally.

Matthijs: What do you think Rachid shall we open the chat?

Rachid: LFG

AllianceBlock Community questions

Question: Are there any plans to include working with Cosmos ecosystem? A lot of Defi activity on cosmos and would be good to incorporate with Defi Terminal?

Rachid: Absolutely, we are looking very closely at Cosmos, they have an amazing and active ecosystem. Our first step is to integrate Cosmos to our Bridge to not only bridge tokens but also messages/metadata and data. Then we will start building, most probably in Q1 2023.

Question: Can there be a Twitter Spaces to follow [the] Weekly Report[s]? This will help community engagement in farming and increase exposure as CT is where projects get exposure. It will also allow for users to discuss between themselves and host their own spaces allowing it to grow.

Matthijs: I love the idea, I think it would be cool to have this with the product owners of each product, we will discuss it internally and come back with a plan.

Question: When will announced Fundrs projects go live for their funding?

Matthijs: dua token is working hard to be ready for the listing, bear with us in the meantime, an announcement will follow with all details as soon as we can, not MUCH longer waiting anymore from this point on.

Question: TIDV launch? September?

Matthijs: TIDV will launch together with the listing of dua token, they go hand in hand.

Rachid: To add to Matthijs’ [response], we have integrated Nucypher for encryption/decryption and leveraging their decentralized policies. In our language, we are one of three builders in their ecosystem that are leveraging their latest tech

Question: Will Nuant be public? Tradeable?

Rachid: If one day there is IPO, yes, however, we are working with our lawyers to be able to issue tokenized equity on Fundrs. Once we have the setup, we can have Nuant there. [A] few of our community members suggested this, [I] would love to hear your thoughts about this.

Question: I think we all are very interested in the interest of massive company’s licensing with nuant and after that using Alliance blocks services generating fee income. What is the goal with the fee? Buying back ALBT? Growing the company? Hire more staff? I missed that part, I think.

Matthijs: Part of the fee is directly for the token, the exact structure is something that we will announce the details of in a separate article (it will be relevant to other products as well). Buybacks or token burns are a regulatory nightmare and cannot be done anymore if you don’t want to be classified as a security, but fees will go to ALBT through a specific mechanism. Utility for ALBT is always first priority. Part of the fees also go directly to stables (stablecoins) to fund AllianceBlock as a business, “to pay the bills,” as they say.

Rachid: In addition to Matthijs’s [response], and as I said above, there is another big benefit [which] is that the platform will also be available to retail [users] through AllianceBlock.

Question: Any predictions of when this platform, with all these features available? 👀

Rachid: We are doing an official launch at DAS London, and we are targeting a version 1.0 launch in very early 2023. The platform will be for institutions, however, later on, we will have a retail version that will be launched by AllianceBlock.

Question: Any development updates on all the Data Solutions products 👀? Data Tunnel, Data Quasar?

Rachid: Development going well on Data Quasar side, there is big work on the infrastructure and scalability. The good news is that [the] Data Quasar Know Your Transaction Module is already integrated to Fundrs which means the following:

[When a user] connects their wallet to Fundrs, the wallet address will be automatically checked to see if it is linked to an illicit wallet, mixing service, etc., and a score will be given. If the score is good, then the user can go through TIDV and then be able to participate in the platform.

This is the first real use case of our compliant layer in action:
Connect Wallet → Automated KYT → TIDV (Trustless IDentity Verification) → Generate zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) → Participate in the Fundrs platform

Matthijs: Data Tunnel team is working towards a version 1.0 release on Mainnet. This will be completely done on the infrastructure of our partner Databricks and with a freshly developed frontend and completely redone backend and smart contract architecture.

Each dataset will be represented by an NFT that is responsible for distributing the royalties (from purchasing access to the dataset for a specific period). Everyone contributing to this dataset (by enhancing metadata) will get a part of this revenue forever. This is all handled on-chain. Hashes of the dataset are stored on-chain so that integrity can be verified.

Community-owned datasets can be created to crowdsource data (any data, really) with an API to create apps to collect data around it easily. Everyone that contributes data will get a part of the revenue.

Metadata can be deeply enhanced so that after a while, we can start detecting overlap between different (and perhaps obscure) datasets to combine them.

Work is also done on partnerships to grow the data ecosystem we are building and extend features on the Data Tunnel. We are really looking to create a new data economy that is fair, transparent and accessible. Values that are close to us — see, for example, Fundrs.

In October, we will start ramping up the information sharing around Data Tunnel with articles, updates and news 😎

Question: How will the ALBT token be utilized in the SSLP SDK?

Rachid: We are working on a solution to be able to generate a sustainable yield and not coming from ALBT. This is why we are working on the execution layer and the dynamic NFT to leverage our SSLP, Yield Farming strategies, and Hedging Strategies. We will be able to share more very soon.

All SSLPs will be represented by NFTs that can be fractionalized, sold, or used as collateral.

Question: Can we have AB t-shirts? 🧐

Rachid: Yessss we will have a batch in the next months!

Rachid: Thank you guys for the amazing questions! If you have any questions or concerns, please tag us here. This is the best place to have the information straight from the source.

Matthijs: Thanks, guys, for your amazing support as always! Always a pleasure to be here ❤️

About AllianceBlock

AllianceBlock is bridging the gap between decentralized and traditional finance by remedying issues in both spheres and linking them more closely. They see the future of finance as an integrated system in which the best of both worlds can work together to increase capital flows and technological innovation.

They are building this future by bridging traditional finance with compliant, data-driven access to new decentralized markets, DeFi projects and ecosystem-scaling tools such as funding and interoperability. As such, they are building a next-generation financial infrastructure that aims to provide regulated financial entities worldwide with the tools they need to access the DeFi space seamlessly.

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