OroPocked participated in a live AMA session on the Bitbns’ Telegram channel (https://t.me/Bitbns) on December 9, 2020. OroPocket was represented by its CEO, Mohit Madan, and his COO, Tarusha Mittal. This is the transcript of this meeting.
Bitbns: Hello Everyone. This is Vaibhav from bitbns team, I will be hosting today’s AMA with @oropocket team. We are very excited to be joined by Mohit Madan , and Tarusha Mittal, CEO and Co-founder of ORO, to share insights about Rise of DeFi in India and their project!
Tarusha Mitall: Hi Everyone!
Mohit Madan: Thank you for the warm welcome, and this wonderful opportunity Vaibhav. We’re glad to be here to interact with the audience of the largest exchange in India.
Bitbns: We’re honoured to have you guys here for today’s AMA. In brief community members can read about this project at oropocket.com and prepare your questions for the community round. We will now start with round 1 introduction. Can you please give an introduction of ORO pocket and OpenDefi project?
Tarusha Mitall: Oropocket is the user interface for the OpenDeFi protocol. OpenDeFi is creating a bridge between real world assets and the DeFi space. We are doing this by tokenising real world assets and offering a slew of financial services on top of these assets.
Website: https://opendefi.finance
Whitepaper:
Mohit Madan: The entire crypto ecosystem right now stands at less than 600 billion dollars. A giant like Fidelity, or blackrock manage multiple of that, in their portfolio. They can just gobble up the entire crypto market.We’re trying to expand the ecosystem itself by tokenizing real world assets and building financial services on it. In our PoC we have been able to tokenize GOLD and SILVER. We’re now working on tokenizing other commodities, stocks, ETFs and are also exploring NFTs like real estate, art, etc.
Bitbns: This sounds great. Tokenized GOLD & SILVER will be totally game changer in crypto world considering its huge mcap and investors support. Many of our users were asking that. What are the major utilities of ORO, Is there any defined tokenomics to ensure proper growth of ORO token ecosystem?
Mohit Madan: ORO is the Governance token behind OpenDeFi network, which is democratized in nature. Using ORO users would be able to vote on any protocol level changes. Financial benefits include getting loans at as low as 1.5% per annum, earning yield on GOLD, SILVER (and soon other asset backed tokens), getting inflationary benefits. For detailed tokenomics, please check this link:
Bitbns: Good to know that ORO is a governance token which means community will have the power to make decisions allowing better growth of OpenDefi and ORO ecosystem. And loans for as low as 1.5% per annum is literally soo awesome considering the huge amount of interest banks take while providing loans.
Mohit Madan: All the participants of ORO tokens including team, investors, advisors have a very strict unlock schedule, which is one of the factors that is helping us in making ORO into a breathable economy.
Pre-collected Questions….
Q1. How does tokenised gold & silver investement works? Are user’s investement insured & do you have partnership with some audit firms to maintain better trust in crypto and real-world asset world?
Mohit Madan: Yep, we have all seen Mr. Bachan’s ads of 1% per month Gold Loans, well, guess what — with ORO you can get 1.5% per year Gold loans — that too, instantly without any credit checks.
Bitbns: This is the actual beauty of Decentralized Finance allowing consumers to avail better and cheaper financial services at ease.
Tarusha Mitall: Yes. These assets are 100% insured and audited. Users can access the audited report from a third party auditor to feel comfortable in the knowledge that their investsment is safe.
Mohit Madan:
This is one of the most important parts of our project. In order for us to tokenize any real world asset we need three parties:
1. Insurer: To ensure the underlying assets are completely protected.
2. Custodian: To ensure tokens represent the rights to the asset.
3. Auditor: To ensure everything is running smoothly.
Yep, top it up with a fiat gateway like BitBNS and you have a killer combination. Simple, economical and flexible — the future of finance.
Bitbns: That’s great. So, Every rupee worth GOLD, SILVER etc purchased on this platform is backed by real-world asset.
Tarusha Mitall: 100%
Mohit Madan: Yes, 1 gold token represents 1 gram of physical 24 carat investment grade Gold.
Q2. What are the steps taken by oropocket team to tackle issues like high fees and slow transactions while supporting cross-chain?
Mohit Madan: One of the biggest problems with the ethereum network is its ability to scale. To make sure we’re able to grow effectively we are using Matic and Tezos. Matic enables us to get high throughput of 7200 bps, while Tezos enables us to process transactions at low cost and offers great on-chain governance. This also enables our assets to be made available to these chains, enabling their users, investors and developers to get an easy access to asset-backed tokens
Bitbns: Okay so that’s the reason to choose 3 chains to build oropocket token. I truly admire the way you guys have built ORO ecosystem.
Q3. In the end of this round we will love to know about your work background and what inspired you to tokenise real world assets via Decentralized Finance?
Tarusha Mitall: I have been an entrepreneur for a decade now and been in crypto space since 2013–14, tinkered with mining et al. This is my 2nd crypto startup — i was also on the founding team of one of the first ethereum exchanges of India. We started with this idea because we truly believe that users should be in charge of their own finances, their financial freedom. In the last 6 months, nearly 5 banks have failed in India — it is about time that something be done about it. OpenDeFi is about empowering users to be able conserve, create and maintain their wealth. It is about financial freedom.
Mohit Madan: Since the beginning of this year, 5 banks were on the verge of collapse and 3 banks have merged. Everytime a bank shuts shops — millions of people lose their life savings. It breaks my heart to report that just the PMC bank debacle resulted in almost a dozen suicides. We wanted people to have control of their finances. We wanted to make sure this NEVER happens again. Using OroPocket users can park their funds in assets(like Gold, Silver) instead of keeping their money in the bank. We are working on offering all services that a bank offers including lending, borrowing, earning interest, asset-backed debit card, asset-backed UPI payments etc. With us every asset is 100% insured, unlike the banks that offer insurance only upto Rs 5Lac. And we fall under bailment, which means in the worst case scenario — if OroPocket shuts down, the assets are still owned by the users and our insurers and custodians make sure of that.
Bitbns: Bitbns team is glad to be part of empowering users to attain financial freedom with @oropocket.
Mohit Madan: The support that BitBNS is building with DeFi projects will make amazing financial innovation accessible to the masses.
Community Questions…
Q1. Could you please elaborate more about your tokenomics? What’s the total supply and what kind of plans do you have regarding the token unlocks in the future?
Mohit Madan: In order to make sure ORO is a breathable economy, we have very strict unlock schedules:
- Seed investors: 10% on TGE, and 22.5% every quarter.
- Private investors: 20% on TGE and 20% every quarter.
- Advisors: 1 year cliff, and linear unlocking from month 13–24.
- Team: 2 year cliff and linear unlocking from month 25–48.
Q2. What companies are you partnered with or seeking to partner with in future?
Tarusha Mitall: We are actively bringing in defi partners to the network in the form of vatious partnerships. Having said that, there is no threat per se, cefi and defi have to work in hand in hand to solve problems at a macro level for people.
Q3. How is oro dealing to impermanet losses sir?
Mohit Madan: Oro is a positive sum network — it can never go in debt(since all assets are backed by physical assets in 1:1 ratio).
Q4. Please give us some details about your roadmap going forward, how do you plan to onboard users and gain more adoption?
Mohit Madan:
Our testnet goes live this month. Our apps are already live on android and ios:
Q5. What is your strategy for building a strong community? Do you agree that the power of the community will lead your project to develop globally? What services do you provide to the community?
Mohit Madan: Strong community is like oxygen for a DeFi project. We have a strong, close knit and growing community @oropocket.
Tarusha Mitall: We are trying to ensure that the platform both in terms of assets and the services that are being offered are inclusive so that a real problem or a pain point is being resolved by us for people. We are partnering with the best operators in the space to ensure that the adoption is high. We also have a kickass ambassador program ( we just announced rewards worth $3500) to create awareness :)
Mohit Madan: We also have a very rewarding ambassador program:
Q6. For a project development first of all main priority is having enough fund. Does your team financially capable to run this project? Do you have enough fund for it’s developement Can you tell us that how your project generate the profit?
Mohit Madan: Yes, we have just raised a million dollars from some of the best investors, operators and institutions.
Q7. What are the plans to educate and raise awareness and adoption among the community to make more people understand about the project easily?
Tarusha Mitall: We are creating a lot of content on our socials and youtube plus have a kickass ambassador community which is helping us in getting the word out.
Q8. Using OroPocket how users can instantly invest in assets like stocks, art, oil etc other than gold and silver
Mohit Madan: Right now the app supports Gold, and Silver. Soon, users will be able to invest in other assets as well. Our app is available on both android and iOS:
Q9. At this point, do you think you need exchanges as a binance to keep growing? Or is it better to forget those things and focus on other activities?
Tarusha Mitall: It is all about balance :)
Q10. What are some of the major achievements that OROPOCKET has achieved and what milestones are planned ahead in the next 6 months, 1 year and 5 years?
Mohit Madan: Here’s our Nov recap:
Q11. Ambassadors play a very important role in every project, Do you have an ambassador program? If yes, how can I be one?
Q12. Many projects rug pulled and exit scam recently. Why should investors trust your project not to do the same?
Mohit Madan:
- Great and public team.
- Top tier investors, and operators.
- Over 1 dozen partnership in just last 60 days.
- Listing on top tier exchanges like BitBNS, BitMax
- Almost a million dollar of liquidity on Uniswap
to name a few :)
Q13. Increasing Token price, make Token Valuable, Building Community Trust. From 3 aspects above,. I want to ask,. Which one the most important for you? If all above are import ant for you,. Which one that Will you do first??
Mohit Madan: Building financial solutions that people love and use every day. :)
Q14. Mainly in india most people have tonnes of gold in their homes…does opendefi has any solution for this wastely lying gold in house?
Mohit Madan: Yep, we have plans to enable users to exchange their Gold for Gold tokens, and vice versa.
Q14. All platform that use a SWAP mechanism, must affront 2 issues, the low Liquidity ( that cause Big spreads between orders) and Slippages, so can you tell me how you will solve this instrinsic limitations?
Mohit Madan: That’s one of the salient features of OpenDeFi — there is no price slippage. Buy for 1 cent or 1 million dollars — you’ll be quoted the exact same price.
Q15. Almost every investor is interested in large Defi projects as it delivers high returns and is fast. For what reasons can convince small and large investors to trust and invest in your project?
Mohit Madan: Instead of convincing you to invest in ORO, I’d request you to download the app and try it out. Invest only in what you love to use.
Q16. As you know Covid-19 has a large impact in the crypto Market, So How can your company maintain its project and also the team that are working hard during this pandemic?
Mohit Madan: We’re a remote first company with team members in India, Egypt, US, Hungary, Ukraine, Nigeria, Vietnam. The remote first policy remove any location related overheads or barriers and improves efficiency significantly.
Q17. In how many ways or what are the ways your project generate revenue? What is the revenue model? How it can be beneficial for both investors and for project itself?
Tarusha Mitall: We charge a transaction and there is a developer pool as well.
Q18. “Bank the unbanked”. I can see this moto in the website. We already have lot of crypto projects like omisego with same intend. How this project can outperform other competitors?
Mohit Madan: The open nature of OpenDeFi, allows other projects, dapps, chains and protocols to seamlessly integrate with opendefi. Instead of competing, we’re enabling users to join an open economy and empowering developers to build on it.
Q19. When can we expect the rollout of exchanging physical gold to gold tokens…seems very interesting…and how to make beleive the people that gold tokens are 100%backed by physical gold…indian people mainly they belive what they see physical…so how opendefi will come this mentality of indian people who are very fond of gold buying going to shops frequently?
Tarusha Mitall: Yes, in this coming quarter you would be able to get this gold delivered. This feature had to become live earlier but due to covid has been delayed. We have third party auditor reports stating the veracity of our claim of holding gold/assets.
Q20. From where you get the project name? What does it means to you? And why you choose this name for your project?
Tarusha Mitall: Oro means gold. So, gold aka bank in your pocket. :)
Q21. Do you have any new partneship recently? And what advantage of this partnership to the project?
Mohit Madan: Several — most recently with BitBNS. Other than that, we have closed over a dozen partnerships. You can read more about it here:
Q22. Where will the Real Assets be located?
Mohit Madan: We currently have 3 vaults — UK, Switzerland and Singapore. We’re working on starting a vault in India, as well.
Q23. When burn ?
Mohit Madan:
Q24. When Mars sir?
Mohit Madan: We’re listing on ascent on 12th. :-)
Q25. I can see 10% of token percentage reserved for Promoting adoption of OpFi. Can someone promote via youtube or twitter and claim the token? Is there a criteria for the partnership?
Mohit Madan: Yes, we have a very rewarding ambassador program:
Tarusha Mitall: You can DM me or any of the admins on @oropocket for partnership details.
Q26. How Micro-loans & bundling works with the project?
Mohit Madan: Yes, that’s one of the key features of OpenDeFi :)
Q27. Does the project tokenize all the assets and how? also what oropocket will do if certain assets are not seeing much traffic ?
Mohit Madan: That’s where the governance token comes in handy. Users will be able to vote for which assets should be tokenized. :)
Q28. How universal cross chain of oropockets differs from wanchain?
Mohit Madan:
Seamless, decentralized, instant.
Q29. While you build your project, do you take into account community feedbacks and demands?
Mohit Madan: Yes, there is no point in building a product that no one is going to use.
Q30. Do you have any Coin Burn / BuyBack systems or any Token Burn plans to increase the value of Token & attract Investors to invest?
Mohit Madan:
Q31. Do you have any new partneship recently? And what advantage of this partnership to the project?
Mohit Madan: Yes, our most recent one is with BitBNS. It is enabling financial innovation and access at scale. :)
Q32. Is there any eligibility criteria for Asset-backed debit card ?
Mohit Madan: During beta tests- yes. Will soon be open for all.
Q33. What your plans in place for global expansion, are you focusing on only market at this time? Or focus on building and developing or getting customers and users, or partnerships?
Mohit Madan: Right now we have quite an active global user base, that’s growing aggressively. All thanks to our wonderful community and ambassadors.
Bitbns: So, That’s all for today guys. We are ending this AMA here. Thank you very much for joining us today Tarusha Mittal and Mohit Madan.
Mohit Madan: Thank you, Vaibhav, once again for this wonderful opportunity. We’re grateful to partner with you and look forward to innovating the finance space and enabling users to get control of their finances. Cheers, everyone. To stay up to date with OroPocket and OpenDeFi, don’t forget to join our community — @oropocket.
Tarusha Mitall: Thank you everyone!
About OroPocket
Oropocket is 100% asset backed banking without the insidious, hidden charges and time consuming tedium that come with traditional banks. Invest into multiple asset classes, grow your wealth, enjoy 100% liquidity.
