Part 1 : Basic Introduction of E-MONEY and Henrik Aasted, CTO of E-MONEY
Tiểu Mai:
Please introduce yourself briefly and E-MONEY for everyone to know
Henrik Aasted | e-money.com:
I’m a software engineer and have been working as a consultant for the past 15 years. Primarily in the financial sector, where I was, among many other things, part of creating the national e-identity solution being used in Denmark. In my younger days, I stumbled into minor fame by founding the Adblock project.
I live in Copenhagen, where I started e-Money with my friend Martin back in 2017. Martin has previously co-founded a wide range of tech startups, ranging from community-based spam filtering to algorithmic trading in the FX (currencies) market. He and is now the CEO of e-Money.
The short version of e-Money is that we issue stablecoins backed by actual bank deposits in European currencies, currently EUR, CHF, DKK, SEK and NOK. We launched our first mainnet in March with 40 validators, and are currently working on getting the first major upgrade launched sometime this month. Work on the project started 3 years ago, and have been self-funded until recently.
Our strongest advantage compared to other fiat stablecoin projects is that we have a solid technical foundation and a token model that is sustainable in ever-changing and slightly unpredictable global economies. It is important to be able to adapt to things that would be unthinkable a few years ago, eg the current situation with very low or negative interest rates for some of the major currencies.
Another important strength is our commitment to transparency. We have partnered with the auditor Ernst&Young to provide periodic proof-of-funds audits, that will build trust in the stablecoin tokens.
In addition to this, we’ve created a token model where the success of the stablecoin issuance is tied to the value of our NGM token. This enables us to build a community of partners and projects that can be directly incentivized to use the stablecoins and build an ecosystem around them.
Our blockchain allows us to have very short finalisation times (typically around 500ms), which in the longer term will make it usable for physical real-world payments.
I believe that was the very quick overview of what we’re doing.
Tiểu Mai:
Yes, thanks for your introduction
The following on behalf of VIC GROUP I have a few questions prepared for you
Question 1: Currently, the legal issue for cryptocurrencies is an issue that many people are concerned about. Does e-Money have any crypto licenses or certifications?
Henrik Aasted | e-money.com:
Good question that really goes to the core of what we’re doing.
A significant amount of the time and money we have spent so far, has been used in our talks with our legal consultants from DLA Piper and the Danish FSA. This has provided us with clarifications about our regulatory status in Europe. The conclusions from all of these explorations was that our tokens do not currently fit in one the existing, regulatory boxes.
That being said, we’re are fully compliant with KYC/AML regulation and under the supervision of the Danish FSA for this area.
The EU legislation in this area is evolving quickly, and we’re following the deliberations, expecting that they will establish a license that we can use down the road.
We’re currently finalising an agreement with an exchange to list our NGM staking token. Once that listing is in place, we’ll focus our efforts on gaining adoption for our stablecoins across exchanges, projects and networks such as Avalanche and Cosmos Hub.
I can unfortunately not name any exchanges at this point.
Tiểu Mai:
Yes, i understand that, thank you very much for the answer, and here is the second question
Question 2: As far as I know Cryptocurrencies have launched NGM tokens during the rapid development of the DeFi market, can you tell everyone about NGM? and what are the NGM staking rewards?
Henrik Aasted | e-money.com:
NGM is our staking token. It’s similar to the staking tokens of other projects such as Cosmos Hub, Kava and IRISnet. It helps secure the e-Money chain through staking.
It comes with 3 kinds of rewards:
Staking rewards from inflating the NGM supply by 10% per year.
Transaction fees from transactions happening on the e-Money chain, ie. from the built-in DEX and from transfers and staking.
Buy-back of NGM tokens based on stablecoin inflation by 1% per year. The NGM tokens bought back are taken out of circulation and burned.
This “3 layer cake” is probably best illustrated by this deck: https://e-money.com/documents/e-Money%20Token%20Rewards.pdf
In short, the NGM both secures our chain but also thrives as the issuance of our stablecoins grows.
Tiểu Mai:
Where can people buy NGM tokens?
I think a lot of investors will be wondering about this
Henrik Aasted | e-money.com:
Hopefully
We conducted a small seed sale in March and recently concluded a rather successful private sale.
The next opportunity for buying the NGM tokens will be either when our upgraded mainnet launches or when our exchange listing goes live.
Tiểu Mai:
yes thank you for the wonderful answer
Now we will continue part 2 of today’s program
Part 2: Guest Henrik Aasted, CTO of E-MONEY will answer questions from question form
Question 1: What a special for your security? And what make you confident is safe? i think security its important,please tell us about security of #E-MONEY ?
Henrik Aasted | e-money.com:
Thanks for all the great questions, people.
Security is paramount to us.
Our tech stack is based on the Cosmos SDK and Tendermint, which have received significant security attention, so we’re building on solid foundations.
Further to this, we had Certik conduct a security audit of our codebase before our mainnet launch in March. Happy to report that it did not yield any critical findings.
In addition to getting more security audits in the future, we will also establish a bug bounty program that will reward developers and security researchers for bringing issues to our attention.
Tiểu Mai:
Yes thank you for the great answer, here’s the next question for you
Question 2: Currently, Asian attaches great importance to Blockchain technology, is this a great opportunity for E-MONEY ? How is the E-MONEY project planned to develop in Asian?
Henrik Aasted | e-money.com:
We’ve definitely noticed that crypto is big in parts of Asia. We went to the Buidl conference in Seoul a couple of years ago, and definitely hope to return to that and other conferences when it’s possible to travel again.
By the way, hope Vietnam is coping well with the pandemic.
The current focus is on establishing stablecoins for European currencies, so far the Euro, the Swiss Franc and the Scandinavian currencies. In the longer term we want to support all of the G10 currencies, and definitely want to make in-roads in Asia with the yen, the won and perhaps the đồng.
Each currency added carries a significant investment in regulatory exploration and compliance, though, so we will have to choose the next jurisdictions carefully. But I’m optimistic that we’ll be able to make the move sometime next year.
Tiểu Mai:
Question 3: Can you briefly explain how the Top milestones that the E-MONEY team aims to execute before the end of this year or going to execute in future, will help them succeed and What E-MONEY may look like in 2020 and beyond?
Henrik Aasted | e-money.com:
Tiny recap of 2020 so far: We launched our mainnet in March of 2020, followed by a small seed-round token sale. During the summer we scaled up our marketing efforts and recently conducted a successsful private token sale.
Before the end of the year, the NGM tokens will be listed on an exchange, and we will have performed our first mainnet upgrade. The token listing has unfortunately been slightly delayed due to an unfortunate security incident at an exchange we were in talks with, which forced us to look for alternatives. Things are fortunately looking promising now in that area.
Once the basics are in place, we’ll focus on business development and increasing adoption of our stablecoins by partnering with exchanges and projects as well as integrating with networks such as Avalanche and Cosmos hub.
We’re also planning to work on making more accessible UIs for our services, eg. wallets and an interface for our DEX.
You can read up on our history as well as our plans for the future at https://e-money.com/timeline/
Tiểu Mai:
Thank you for the answer, here is the next question
Question 4: Do you have a plan to attract non-crypto investors to E-MONEY and how? What actions to raise awareness about E-MONEY in the non-crypto space especially for new users?
Henrik Aasted | e-money.com:
The long-term vision for our stablecoins have always been for a future where blockchain technology is being used in real-world applications.
That’s one of the reasons that we chose to implement dynamic blocktime, which means that a transaction is usually finalised in less than half a second on our chain. This should allow for a user experience comparable to paying with a credit card. We expect a future where the blockchain tech has become “invisible” to the user, who may not really know or care that it’s a blockchain being used in the backgrund.
That being said, this future is still rather far away, and our immediate focus is on adoption in the crypto space. We have high expectations for the future of blockchain interopability, which will allow our stablecoins to be used in unpredictable and interesting contexts.
Tiểu Mai:
Question 5: What are the most difficulties you’ve faced in carrying out the E-MONEY Project? Do you have to be accountable for any institution and comply with any regulation?
Henrik Aasted | e-money.com:
Establishing the foundations of the company has been quite challenging so far, but we’re fortunately starting to see some great pay-off now.
The work has been divided between regulatory exploration, tech development and establishing relationships with banks, auditors, lawyers and authorities.
We’ve had an extensive and constructive dialogue with the Danish FSA and specialist lawyers about being regulatory compliant and our KYC-AML obligations. On the tech side, we’ve been following along with development of the Cosmos Network and its SDK.
In general, I’ve spent more time talking to lawyers than I expected to do in the course of my entire life.
Part 3: All members can ask anything directly about E-MONEY
Question 1: If we talk about cryptocurrencies- there are many regulations- how does the E-MONEY team deal with regulations where too many laws and regulations are used by the currency system in certain countries? @nichiao
Henrik Aasted | e-money.com:
We’ve dedicated significant resources to comply with the current European legislation, and plan to continuously dedicate resources to following along with this evolving landscape.
Question 2: The advantage of E-MONEY over other projects is what you call the deflationary index fund can you tell me more about that in more detail? What is the long-term benefit for a E-MONEY investor? @mcdermottgodfre
Henrik Aasted | e-money.com:
The value of the NGM token is tied directly to the amount of issued stablecoins. This is achived by using the interest mechanism to continously buy back and burn NGM tokens using the built-in dex. This model is familiar from some of the exchange tokens.
Question 3: The hot new term in crypto is “YIELD FARMING”. So Do you have a plan to develop the Yeild Farming system? @kingcrap5
Henrik Aasted | e-money.com:
We do not have plans for this. That being said, our model is designed to allow our tokens to be used in other chains and dapps, so there is an opportunity for someone to decide to use them in a yield farming context if they want.
Question 4: Where I can buy NGM ? Do you have plans for listing on more exchanges in this quarter? @alanisabshire
Henrik Aasted | e-money.com:
We are planning to make the NGM tokens available on an exchange in the near-term future. There was significant demand for a public sale after we closed a fairly over-subscribed private sale, so we’re also planning a small public sale. The timing and details of this are not ready yet, though. Keep an eye on our announcement channel or our primary channel. https://t.me/emoney_com
Question 5: What is your plan for global expansion? At present, which market does $EMONEY focus on, or is it focused on building and growing to gain customers, users and partners? @starshades007
Henrik Aasted | e-money.com:
We’ll focus our efforts on establishing partnerships now. We’re aiming for exchanges, projects and networks such as Avalanche and Cosmos.
Lots of on-going conversations, and we recently onboarded a new COO with significant experience from this type of work to help drive that forward.
Question 6: Where is the “ E-MONEY “ name coming from and what is the logo representing? @CSNDer
Henrik Aasted | e-money.com:
The e-Money name is because the founders are techies with very little talent for fancy marketing names. 🙂 The logo represents global payments and fast transsfers of value.
While the name is a bit unoriginal, it has actually resonated well with our talks in the finance and banking industry. This aligns well with our goal to bridge traditional finance with the opportunities in crypto.
Question 7: Using crypto is not easy for everyone, how do you plan to teach people who do not use crypto to learn how to use eMoney? Is an academy viable? @Winterkom
Henrik Aasted | e-money.com:
A good and easy user experience is a major obstacle to general crypto adoption at the moment. Fortunately, we see a lot of projects addressing this, and hope to participate as well. A good and safe user experience is essential to our vision of payments for the mainstream.
Question 8: What is the support of eMoney? Is it all in physical shape? Or is it just numbers? Does eMoney really have a backup? Is it auditable? @Winterkom
Henrik Aasted | e-money.com:
The assets backing our stablecoins will be held in bank accounts and government bonds of the same denomination, ie. no exchange rate risk. The holdings will be audited periodically (we’re aiming for every 3 months) by Ernst & Young. The audit reports will be published on our homepage.
Question 9: Why did e-money choose to cooperate with Cosmos and Tendermint? How do these projects support e-money and vice versa? @duybaoxzx
Henrik Aasted | e-money.com:
The Cosmos stack has several advantages: It did away with proof-of-work and replaced it with the far more sustainable proof-of-stake paradigm. It also provides instant finality, ie. once your transaction is in a block it will not be reversed, which means a farewell to long confirmation times.
Finally, we see the promise of blockchain interoperability as the future, where an ecosystem of blockchains will exchange value. Cosmos’ IBC is a very strong contender for providing this, enabling “credit transfer” of tokens, which is conceptually identical to a traditional bank transfer.
This means value can now be moved freely across chains without the need to do an “atomic swap”, a comparatively inefficient process requiring the exchange of tokens coordinated on two chains at an agreed upon price.
While the e-Money chain is built using Cosmos technology, we expect to support more networks through bridging. We are currently considering Polkadot, Avalanche and Ethereum integrations in the not too distant future.
Question 10: Smart contracts are vulnerable to bugs, and even recently three big new DeFi projects were victims of this, costing users funds. How efficient and secured is your smart contract, and did you ever audit it via any external party? @kuhlmangregoria
Henrik Aasted | e-money.com:
We had Certik do an audit before our mainnet launch. It fortunately did not reveal any major flaws. We plan to have more audits as the software evolves down the road.
Question 11: I want to learn more about E-MONEY ; but the information is very small;the community is relatively empty and less; what strategy does E-MONEY team have to develop the community and maintain long-term user? @CSNDer
Henrik Aasted | e-money.com:
You should be able to find most information on our homepage at https://e-money.com/. If you’re missing something, please get in touch and we’ll try to answer. You can ask in our Telegram group at http://t.me/emoney_com
Question 12: To put it plainly, blockchain projects in the countries in general and the world in particular, the reality of the project is still only on paper. So what is your goal for your platform and users to connect closer together and, furthermore, to make both parties profitable? @Tai1304040
Henrik Aasted | e-money.com:
We are very aware that many projects do not leave the “whitepaper and idea”-phase. For our part, we self-financed for 2.5 years before launching our mainnet in March (https://e-money.network/) and only then raise some capital in a seed-round. We feel that weøve built a solid core-product that is now ready for adoption and for people to join the community.
Question 12: Most of investor just focus on the price of token in short term instead of real value of project. Can you tell us the motivation and benefits for investors to long term? @husaeno
Henrik Aasted | e-money.com:
Our token model is based on buy-back and burn of NGM tokens. The size of the buyback pool scales with the number of issued stablecoin tokens, so if you feel that the product looks promising and want a piece of that, the NGM token should provide a way to be a part of it.
This design also enables us to have an ecosystem fund from which we can provide grants for projects and people that work to extend our network.
Question 13: Why does E-MONEY still use Ethereum blockchain while it has a slow speed and high gas fee?Do you have any plans to launch your mainet or convert to other blockchains in the future? @nichiao
Henrik Aasted | e-money.com:
We have our own chain (https://e-money.network/) which is built using the Cosmos SDK. This enables us to have a high transaction throughput and keep our gas fees low.