AMA with RociFi

The recording can be found on X.

Participants:

Dhruv | Qoda

Chris | Roci

Dhruv

Hi folks, welcome. I’m gonna wait for a few people to drop in, and Chris, thanks for joining.

Chris

Hey, glad to be here.

Dhruv

All right, I think we can get started, everyone. Dhruv here from Qoda Finance today. I’m joined by Chris from Roci.

I'm really excited about this AMA. Chris and I have been chatting for a while. Qoda and Roci recently announced a partnership back in December. So we’re excited to dig into that a little bit.

Let’s get started with some intros. I am going to introduce myself, Qoda, and the Qoda team. Then I’ll head over to Chris for an intro, and then we’ll get into the questions at the end of this AMA. We will open it up to the community to ask some questions or drop those questions into the Twitter thread associated with the space, and we’ll do our best to get to them at the end.

So, my name is Dhruv Dang. I am the founder of Qoda Finance. I am joined by an excellent team that builds a couple of products including Qoda Loans and Threebalance. Our mission is to decentralize traditional financial services and make them accessible to everyone. Our flagship product, Qoda Loans, is the only fixed-rate money market using an orderbook-style exchange.

Our next product, Threebalance, is coming out really soon, next month, allowing people to rebalance their crypto portfolios on-chain in three steps.

Chris, I’m gonna hand it over to you for an intro. Tell us more about Roci and yourself.

Chris

Sure. Thanks for the intro, Dhruv. So I’m Chris, I’m one of the co-founders of Roci. We’re an on-chain credit and data protocol that is allowing users to sort of monetize their on-chain history.

We have been building this particular product for two years now. We’ve been live in the market for around a year and a half, and over that period, we’ve been able to serve around 2 million credit scores through our API to help facilitate around 5500 loans of which 1600 were undercollateralized.

We’ve also been fortunate enough to allow our users to mint around 40,000 on-chain credit credentials. So our next stage is going to not only decentralize the current system of data collection but also credit analysis, so to speak, decentralizing and turning it into a common good governed by our native asset, $ROCI. But also ensuring that that system is a common good empowers the broader DeFi ecosystem so that any project, building any sort of lending solution or any other solution where they’re looking to understand more granular insights on their users to incentivize different behaviors that they want to increase or maybe decrease. They have the ability to seamlessly pour into our data and our credit scores to be able to do that and have an understanding. So that is the biggest thing that we are now focusing on.

And this partnership with Qoda is one of those great first initiatives we’re super excited about.

Dhruv

Awesome. You know, one of the things I really love about your approach is how you take this community-wide industry-wide perspective. And it’s one of those things that really makes Roci special and I think we’re aligned that a better credit system or a debt system in crypto is really going to help DeFi unlock the next level of liquidity. That’s awesome.

I’d love to kick off the questions for you. I mentioned we have announced a partnership already. I’m curious to know what it means for Roci and your future plans with the integration with Qoda.

Chris

We’re super excited about the partnership and taking the steps with integration and also laying the kind of building blocks for something a bit more innovative and exciting in the future as well.

So, I think you and I hit it off because we see DeFi very similarly and want to push the boundaries of not necessarily replicating what we see in the real world but taking what works well and then also bringing it into web3 in marrying that with what works really well in our space too.

Like the orderbook notion from functionality that Qoda has, that’s amazing, and I think that is something that is underappreciated, but also truly, it stems from the ethos of truly being peer to peer where anyone can come in and take a look and choose to lend out their capital or put an offer up to borrow. And we’re simply just trying to really grease the skids in that regard with information. So now lenders can have the ability to look at the history of an address that is coming and requesting a loan to be able to, have some ability to assess or underwrite this particular type of user to see whether OK.

If yes, I want to fund it, or maybe I want to fund it at this rate or whatever it may be. And then as that sort of takes hold, seeing how that can be built on top of or different layers, can be stacked up to gradually push the boundary into something that is more reminiscent of what we call just customized lending.

So, users get customized terms based on their wallet history. It can be higher TVLs and lower borrow rates or boosted rewards or even, in the future, pushing into under-collateral lending. And I think as we look at the integration, this is one of those very first initial steps of laying that foundation to move in those areas. You know, moving forward. So I’m super excited about the integration for a lot of the reasons that we just discussed, and I’m sure I even forgot some as well.

Dhruv

Awesome. Yeah, the future is bright, I think it is the first step of many in terms of how we’re going to work together. One thing that really stood out to me was your perspective on bringing the lessons from TradFi to Web3. So I’m curious to know what your thoughts are on the good, bad, and future of under-collateralized lending in Web3.

Chris

I think it’s a great point. And you nailed the, the sort of the nail on the head there is, we can’t try to do everything like Web3 or DeFi more broadly is meant to kind of correct the sins of traditional finance, not necessarily replicate them within a blockchain setting.

So there are a lot of things that need to be taken into consideration whenever we look to push into some of these more innovative topics like under-collateralized lending. And again, being able to have the best assessment of a user’s history from a holistic standpoint is one of those particular things and of course, that includes creditworthiness.

Have they taken out a loan and repaid on Aave or Compound or any of these other things is all great information. But also, have they interacted with any addresses that are known to be bad actors in the space? Like fishing, hacks, exploits, and all these other different types of negative schemes, which, unfortunately, are more common in this space than we would like them to be. So we need to look at those particular inputs there as well.

And that doesn’t even get to the point of being able to look at what a profit and loss statement looks like for an on-chain wallet. Do you have to take into consideration its trading activities? Its yield-farming, its staking, and all these other things to be able to understand what is this address’s ability. It’s debt service capacity. So all these kinds of jargon words, I apologize. I’m a reformed banker, this is what I did in the traditional world.

You have to be able to assess those things, and then map it with the likelihood that this is a bad actor. And then furthermore, if you can layer on some aspect of real-world identity, whether it’s KYC or bank statement or whatever, it may be in a privacy-preserving manner so that the end user is not just doxing themselves to everyone on-chain.

Then, I think, we’ve got a heck of a product that is way better than anything that you’re going to be able to get within the traditional finance world. So do we, is that coming today or tomorrow? Absolutely. Not within Web3. But are we closer to it now than we were in 2022? Absolutely. Because a lot of these technology pieces that I just rambled off about are actually getting far closer to production level readiness.

And it really comes down to a mental block, in my opinion, to where people start thinking about how can we combine these disparate pieces of technology together that like we’re all kind of like conned into building from our investors. How do we bring them and cobble them together to create something that will ultimately benefit the whole and take it to where it was supposed to be from the beginning, like what it’s supposed to be?

This new and great thing helps out and erases the sins of TradFi. I’m definitely optimistic, but there are a lot of intermediary layers that need to be sorted out. And I think by partnering with very forward-looking and progressive projects like Qoda that are willing to innovate even through some of these initial steps like crawling before you run that. Ultimately, how you start the first domino, and we’ll look to see that momentum pick up over the next year or two years, especially as the bull market returns. And then, who knows what under-collateralized lending could look like in Web3 over the next 12 to 18 months?

I think everyone here listening knows there are tons of efficiencies that are way better on-chain than what you get in the real world. So if we can start really tapping into those and making it safer from all the perspectives we’ve talked about, then the sky is the limit. Obviously, and it stands, Qoda will be one of the larger beneficiaries of it as well.

Dhruv

Totally. I think we are laying the foundation, both of us are laying the foundation now for what is to come.

It’s really special how Roci is able to access the individual histories of a wallet to understand the creditworthiness of that wallet. Back in 2008 in the financial crisis, credit rating systems were under fire. And I think that’s an example of one of those sins of traditional finance. And it’s amazing to see Roci at the forefront of not only addressing the issues back then but taking a ground-up approach to say, how should this work in Web3? I think that’s one of the great things about Web3. So as a fellow reformed banker, I’m curious to know what is the biggest hurdle for DeFi mass adoption in the next year?

Chris

I would say two things. One is convincing more capital that is either sitting on the sidelines. Right now, we’re kind of in this circle, we’re just moving money in circles essentially. And whenever TVL goes up, it’s just because the price of the underlying assets that are used as collateral are going up as well, which is great. We built a huge ecosystem from nothing into something. But, right now, we’re really just moving money in circles. So we need to convince additional people who are looking to enter the arena, from retail to large institutions, whatever it may be.

You’re still hearing about new hacks and exploits every other day, so you need to convince them it’s safe, but there needs to be a benefit to doing it. If there is not a true benefit beyond speculation, then there’s no reason for these more sophisticated or slower-moving people to want to join DeFi, and I think that’s why I pound the drum so hard on this customized lending piece that we haven’t even solved that or even touched it yet in DeFi. That is a core offering everywhere in the world, at least from a traditional finance perspective, at least in developed markets.

So if we can just even say, hey, you can get customized terms based upon your wallet history, I think that’s a huge upsell, or that’s a huge bonus for what we currently have in the market, which again can allow us to layer on those additional steps of under-collateralization or other perks or other services that can truly start to rent.

Also, internally, as builders, we need to change our mindset to where it’s not just about, again, making more convoluted tokens and all this other shit as well, but about innovating and trying some of these different things, and it doesn’t need to be recreating the wheel. It just needs to be common sense things about how we can solve real problems for real people that will help the existing group of users in their space.

But then, at the same exact time, be attractive to new users to bring more capital flows into DeFi, and if we can do that and customize terms and lending and all these other things, it is such low-hanging fruit that it really behooved. So I think the mentality of founders and builders in DeFi is to not just be content with forking Aave or Compound code and slapping on new convoluted tokens and all these other things and playing games. If we can move on from that along with convincing others that DeFi is safe and there’s a value proposition in it for them, then the idea is really going to start to take off, especially as the new bull market really gets underway here as well. So that’s my opinion. Those two areas.

Dhruv

It’s great to hear that. I think it’s a rare perspective in our industry, in DeFi. And, you know, keep fighting the good fight. I think it’s really important. This is one thing I would love to see and echo.

So, your thoughts are that I would love to see the innovation outcome in DeFi outweigh the noise of innovation. I definitely feel there’s been a lot of noisiness about what protocols can do or what API they’re using, what proposal they’re adopting, and what partnerships they have. And I think partnerships are essential for the success of DeFi. But I would love to see, like you described, a real positive financial income that beats TradFi at their own game.

So, Roci made some headlines recently and launched its token. You guys have made quite a splash in the markets. Please tell us more about the $ROCI token and its utility.

Chris

$ROCI token is essentially the linchpin of the entire Roci ecosystem. So it is obviously one of the mechanisms for governance when implementing the DAO. But then, it is also one of the main staking assets for the infrastructure as we decentralize it. We’re essentially looking to take the existing infrastructure that we built from a data perspective.

And then also the credit analytics perspective that I talked about earlier on the call and migrated that from its Web2, its current form, into a Web3 form. And you can just think of it as Chainlink for credit scoring and credit data so that anyone can port into it in a trust with a decentralized manner building within an EVM environment.

The $ROCI token is that staking mechanism for node operators to keep the system up and running to be rewarded for it, but then also keep it secure as well. And then, from a community perspective, that’s the staking asset that is used for governance. So we’re going to take a V-curve approach to where users can choose to lock their $ROCI and receive a vROCI token that will allow them to vote on all governance matters as a way of making it a bit more meri democratic from a governance perspective to balance potential whale dump.

But also to ensure that the users of the community members that have the most skin in the game in regards to time lock get the largest say in being able to drive the future of the protocol. Those are its two main utility components, and then likely, as we grow and scale the Oracle component, $ROCI will be a transactional asset that protocols that integrate into it can ultimately pay for with RociFi.

In the long term, I think at the outset, we will likely not turn that switch on just at the beginning to reduce friction for users and integration. But those are the three primary utilization pieces of $ROCI.

Dhruv

Amazing. I think we talked a lot about creating real tangible value in DeFi, and you are clearly at the forefront of that. And it’s amazing that the token, arguably the most important way for the community to participate in what Roci is doing, is such a central and core piece of everything that you’re taking on. That’s awesome. Thanks for the intro.

I have one more question for you, Chris. Big picture. What do you have in store for 2024? What is Roci planned for this year?

Chris

We have a lot of things in store for this year. I think the biggest thing, especially as it pertains to this AMA, is we want to increase the amount of integrations and the smart partners that we’re working with throughout 2024. So I don’t think the number can get small, we want to make it as big as possible. Don’t get me wrong, but what got us here won’t get us to the next stage. So we want to continue to seek out and find innovative and progressive founders like yourselves over at Qoda to partner with them and integrate with them and then build great products with them as well that allow their projects and services to stand out above the rest.

Lending is an incredibly competitive space. And there’s such a low-hanging fruit to be able to allow these innovative and forward-looking protocols to potentially leap to the front of the pack as we turn the corner into the new bull market because they’re able to solve a problem in a better way than some of these larger players, which quite frankly don’t need to be innovative because they don’t want to cannibalize the existing cash cows that they have because they’re the number one players in the market. So we want to continue to find these people out and work with them and integrate with them. So that’s first and foremost, and try.

The second component is getting our Oracle network that I spoke about before, getting to the point where it’s up and running. I am always cautious to talk in specifics because tech can come back and bite you. But our goal is to be able to certainly have that on the test that is being played within Q3 of this year.

And we would ideally love to roll out the first version of that of a full web3 essence of it. Before 2024 hits out, I want to make it clear that we are still serving and humming along within the web2. And that can be ported in by any of the partners that we work with, QoDa included. But like the full web3 decentralized manner is something that we’re building out with great care, also, something that we think we can get done in 2024.

And probably the last thing of note is starting the DAO process again, making sure that we’re transitioning everything over from to a community-owned and decentralized manner because the biggest thing that makes this place great is the hive mind of different interests of different people, of different expertise and backgrounds from anywhere in the world. And for this project to be successful and long-term, we have to tap into that full force. And I’m incredibly excited, and I think the DAO, along with Roci, is that mechanism for the community to have engagement and also skin in the game.

That is the biggest thing that we’re really looking to initiate and get handled this year as well. So those are three things in 2024 that we have our eyes firmly set on, and hopefully, we’ll be able to knock those out without any delays.

Dhruv

I am so excited about what you just described and seeing these updates come through in 2024. It is really impressive what you’ve achieved, and it is really exciting to be a part of your community. You know, I’m a community member of Roci, and I see the energy that your entire community brings to your project. It’s been really, really fantastic. Thank you for answering my questions.

I believe you may have some for me.

Chris

Yeah, definitely. I think at a high level, you mentioned your background as a reformed banker, but we’re on your AMA, so I’m sure everyone has a general understanding of Qoda, but maybe there are some newbies here. So why don’t you just give them the full spiel? Then we can dive in with some maybe harder-hitting questions for you.

Dhruv

Yeah, that sounds great. So, here's a bit of my personal background. I actually started my career on the trading floor in Singapore at Deutsche Bank as a graduate. And in the graduate program, you get to experience a bunch of different desks. So, I had a short stint on the credit trading desk. I worked in flow rate sales, structure, and product sales. So, I got to see a lot of what a bank does on a fixed-income trading floor.

And the way it works is it’s based on relationships and the size of your bank balance. That’s really what influences your access to real financial markets, and the vast majority of us as individuals never really get to see that.

So when we started Qoda in 2021, we had all this knowledge about real financial markets. I’ve been involved in crypto since 2013. I remember signing my own Bitcoin transactions on the terminal and feeling like I had no idea what I was doing. But I wanted to bridge these two worlds as many people have been doing in DeFi and do it in the true spirit of DeFi, which is decentralization, making the best of what finance has to offer accessible to everyone.

And we did this with our first product, Qoda Loans. We launched on Arbitrum One in August last year. Qoda Loans is the only fixed-rate, orderbook-style loan exchange that is 100% on-chain and where users can lend and borrow at fixed rates. So you don’t have an unpredictable cost of borrowing, and you have predictable returns. Even though these loans have a fixed maturity date, you can exit them early and earn the interest that you’ve accrued or pay for the interest that you owe only for the time of your use.

It’s something that no one else is doing.

We’re excited to be able to partner with Roci. Roci has this incredible financial infrastructure of credit histories and account histories. Qoda has a public portfolio page for every trader interacting with our platform because it’s fully on-chain. So, it’d be great to marry those two ideas of someone’s credit history with that Qoda portfolio.

We’re launching new products. We’re not just stopping with Qoda Loans. We’re launching Threebalance next month.

Threebalance is the only self-custodial portfolio rebalancing tool that is also dealing with on-chain liquidity and on-chain assets. It’s really easy to make finance accessible to everyone by making sure our products are easy to use. That was some feedback we got on Qoda Loans. It’s a great tool, but it’s built for institutions, so we needed to make a product that’s more accessible to everyone.

With Threebalance, you can rebalance your portfolio in three steps using the same ideas and math that the largest fund managers in the world use, and you can do it in your wallet, and it doesn’t matter how small your assets are, as everyone has access to it.

Our team is also really small. We believe in building. The vast majority of our team are builders, engineers, and marketers. People who want to take products to market and our community.

So this is really who we are. That is our identity. It is about community, making finance accessible to everyone, and doing it better than the banks currently do in TradFi.

Chris

I couldn’t agree more with everything you said. And, again, I think I was having a call earlier before the AMA, and the power of a fixed rate, a fixed term, is so underappreciated within DeFi. We started there with Roci as well, and to see Qoda picking up that ball, but doing it in a very differentiated manner through an order-book style, it’s an underappreciated aspect that I hope will become more appreciated and also tapped into by more people within DeFi, both lending and borrowing over this next particular cycle. So, it is something that is definitely near and dear to my heart.

You talked a little bit about Qoda and the partnerships with Roci as well. Are there any particular use cases? And I spoke a little bit about this as well during my Q & A there too. But what are the use cases that you’re interested in that can be unearthed from your perspective with this partnership between Roci and Qoda, which might even continue into under-collateralized lending with the guidance of these Web3 credit scores?

Dhruv

That’s a great question. Allow me to dream a little bit. We’re starting with our first step, which is getting Roci credit information scores on Qoda Loans portfolio pages. When you can see what someone’s lending and borrowing, you can see what that credit score is. So, you know this trader already supports under-collateralized borrowing. It’s something that we’ve built, and it’s being audited. It’s actually live, and we haven’t onboarded any under-collateralized borrowers yet because we want to protect our lenders, and we need to do it in a way that we are very confident that lenders will be protected and understand the risks of lending to an under-collateralized borrower.

I think that the next step is thinking about how we want to structure our markets. Roci credit score is an amazing tool that gives us a look into an individual’s creditworthiness. But we need to focus on mass adoption and scale, too. So maybe we can launch a market where people can borrow under-collateralized if they meet certain criteria based on Roci credit scores, and we can tune those markets such that the collateralization needs to be a minimum amount like 80% instead of 120%.

So we’re introducing under-collateralized borrowing; maybe that market is trading at a higher premium than the over-collateralized market. And what we can start doing is seeing how creditworthiness trades at a financial level in TradFi. This is called credit default swaps. That’s the market.

But I think we can start small and start humbly and work towards that with Qoda and Roci partnering together.

Another way we can look at this is how lend positions work on Qoda. So when you lend dollars, you get given something called a qToken, and that qToken represents how many dollars you’ve lent plus the interest you’re gonna earn by maturity.

Now, if you’re lending in an under-collateralized market, the system works exactly the same.

But we can wrap these qTokens into LSDs, Liquid Stake Derivatives, allowing people to go in and out of these different markets based on their creditworthiness. So, I would love to see a Roci-scored market trading as a Liquid Stake Derivative. And this is just me dreaming of the vision, right? What is the ideal case when we’ve succeeded right in this partnership? And we got to work back from there, and the first step starts humbly with showing credit scores on our portfolio pages.

Chris

I absolutely love it. I mean, there are things in there that you mentioned, which were a part of our original vision two years ago, whenever we were building this, that you and I never personally discussed. So it’s cool to see that intersection of thoughts, but then also, at the same exact time, going back to that spirit of innovation and that spirit of progress as well. So I completely agree with you. First things first. Need to crawl before you run with having data available for users clear and present to be able to understand and start assessing the different behaviors and different characteristics of potential borrowers and allow them to express that both borrowers and lenders in a free market way.

So, I think we’ve pounded the drum fully on under-collateralized lending. Let’s move into some other things just talking about, I guess, recent events. BTC ETF is one of the more notable ones, and I’m sure there’s no other no shortage of headlines. How are some of these things framed in your thinking as to what 2024 could entail or hold for DeFi and the whole?

For Qoda, as well.

Dhruv

The Bitcoin ETF approval in the US is a phenomenal achievement for all of us. I think collectively, as community members, we should be patting ourselves on the back because all of us helped make this happen. And, of course, the leaders of the funds and the people really pushing for these ETFs played the largest role and credit where it’s due. But I think it has been the result of community support.

What stood out for me was the initial trading activity of these ETFs. I think that the swell of volume and support for these ETFs far outpaced any other ETF launch in recent history. I could be wrong with that, but that was my understanding of it, and it really shows that there is so much interest in what we’re doing, but there are barriers to entry, getting a wallet or knowing how to store your coins safely, interacting with Metamask using DApps, knowing where to go for liquidity. It’s not easy right now, and I think what we’ve seen is there is huge demand through the Bitcoin ETFs, but teams like Roci, Qoda, and others need to do more to enable the transition from TradFito DeFi.

So I think in 2024 we’re going to see a lot of teams that have been building through this bear market, heads down and shipping product and building great relationships and partnerships emerge strongly and have learned lessons from experience on how we can do financial services better with smart contracts than TradFi.

And I think as that demand starts transitioning to on-chain from off-chain, we’ll see a lot of protocols are much more successful. That’s my prediction for DeFi. I think the protocols that prioritize onboarding these users will succeed.

In terms of real-world assets, I think that’s a huge narrative that’s spoken about quite a lot, and we’ve talked about Liquid Stake Derivatives already. Liquid Stake Derivatives are the abstraction that allows protocols to build real-world asset support.

There’s a lot that’s preventing real-world assets from coming into DeFi in force regulations and integrations with service providers.

But once they’re there, the protocols that support Liquid Stake Derivatives are going to make, I think, a killing because they’re the ones that are going to be best positioned to take advantage of that wave. We’ve touched on how Roci credit scores can play an important role with Qoda Loans, lend positions wrapped into LSDs. It’s tough to add any more to it because, again, we think very similarly.

Chris

But thinking 1, 2, 3, 4 steps down the board, you have been one of those builders that is thinking along those particular lines. And it’s not a question of if it’s when other builders start thinking in the same exact ways that we can start putting these solutions and then putting it in place to show the powers that be like the new capital again, individual or institution or whomever it may be that there is this whole other world that can solve their problems in a far more efficient way. So kudos there for talking about 2024, more broadly, just wrapping that up. What does Qoda have on deck for 2024? Love to hear more.

Dhruv

Yeah, we have quite a few plans for this year. We are going to be launching our new road map soon. So stay tuned for that.

I mentioned that Qoda Loans really took flight last year’s fourth quarter. We are launching Threebalance next month. We’ve talked about that.

We are also launching the Qoda DAO with the QODA token at the end of Q1, and we’re very excited to announce more details about that in the coming weeks.

Later on, beyond Q1, we will be providing LSD support for Threebalance and Qoda Loans in Q2. We’ve just figured out how we’re going to do that, and we’ve started implementing already. In Q3, we’re launching a new stealth mode product that we haven’t made any announcements about yet, but it’s in development, and I’m really excited to share information about that later this year.

Chris

One of the interesting things you’ve mentioned before is talking about a token. The magic word of $QODA token. So please feel free to share any additional details about it.

Dhruv

Yes. So, full tokenomics will be published really soon. We just need to make sure we do everything by the book first.

I think a theme of this AMA is like how we transition from a small protocol to a big protocol and it has to happen one step at a time. The same is true for us. Our ultimate objective is the full decentralization of Qoda services.

But we need to take into account that the core team plays an extremely important role in the first few years. And so what we’re going to do is launch out DAO with staking and governance this year and over time as each month as each month goes by for decentralized Qoda’s products and services further and further. Once the products that we have are decentralized, we’re going to decentralize the leadership and decision-making by handing them off to the DAO.

It’s something that I think has not been covered much in DeFi or DAOs in general so far. So it’s a bit of new territory for us as a community. But it’s something that we’re working towards. Ultimately, the core team should be irrelevant when the DAO is fully decentralized. And that’s what we want to do. We want to make ourselves irrelevant. So, it’s 100% owned by the community through the $QODA token.

One thing that we’re also going to announce with the tokenomics as we prepare for our TGE and token sale in March is revenue share. So this is something I’ve been working on with legal, and it’s something that we’re going to do. We’re very excited about it. So all of Qoda’s products and services will share their revenue with this one $QODA token.

Chris

I love that, make the core team irrelevant. Couldn’t have said that better myself. I think that is the goal of every core team: to build such a vibrant ecosystem and community of contributors and individuals of that high mind that have skin in the game so that the core team is irrelevant. They’re just another cog in the wheel of this well-tuned machine moving on. So that was absolutely amazing wording.

I’ve got one last question here just so we can be respectful of time to make sure we’ve got enough time left over for anyone who maybe wants to ask any questions. You talked a lot throughout the AMA about Qoda Loans and Threebalance. And then, obviously, we were just speaking about the token launch as well as the DAO. How can the community get involved in all three or one of three or whatever it may be?

Because again, as we’re talking about building up that presence, how can the community get involved in any of these key core initiatives that you’ve spoken about on the AMA?

Dhruv

I love that question because we love engaging with our community, and it’s something I wish we had more of.

It is something where we’re a bit hamstrung on resources sometimes. So, if we take a bit of a bit of time to respond, I apologize in advance. But there are a few ways to get in touch with us.

We just launched a Telegram chat, a single chat called Qoda Finance Chat. We can talk about all things Qoda with other community members and chat with the core team. I’m in there, and I try to keep up to date with all the messages.

Also, Serhii is our marketing manager and community lead. He is excellent. He really loves taking care of everyone. So he’s usually there if I’m not.

Next up is Discord. That’s where there’s a bit more structured dialogue. So if you have ideas, I know a question came through from Big Wiz. I’m going to answer it now. How can you contribute to Qoda and share ideas for our products?

It’s through Discord. We have a ticket system where you can open a ticket and then have this special channel where you can actually talk about your idea or make a proposal. A lot of people have been using it already. So that’s really the best way. What usually happens is Serhii picks that up, and he shares it with the core team, and we have an internal discussion, and then we try to get back to you as soon as we can on Discord. That’s one way to have a really high engagement with us.

For people who just want to stay up to date on what’s going on with Qoda and learn about what we’re doing — follow us on X. We have the Qodaof Finance X account. We also have two other accounts, Qoda Loans, and Threebalance, that are linked to Qoda Finance. If you’re going to follow one account, it’s Qoda Finance.

Those are the best ways to get involved today.

Chris

Awesome. So I don’t have any other questions I think unless you have any other items that you want to ask or button up, I think we can open up the floor for questions.

Dhruv

Awesome. Thank you so much, Chris. There are some great questions.

It’s really nice chatting with you. I’ll just say, that we have a lot of shared ideas and philosophies and even a shared background, I guess in TradFi it’s been really wonderful, sort of having some back and forth today. Let’s open it up to the floor.

BallsLikeKingKong. You want to know when the QODA token launches. So, in March this year, that’s the plan. Stay tuned on X. We will post an update soon.

I know we had Lady Trader Ra has joined us and request to speak. I’m gonna give you access in case you want to say something.

LadyTraderRa

I have a question. Like both of you, your teams are absolutely phenomenal. These are like my favorite projects, my favorite teams, my favorite leaders kind of coming together and collaborating, right? And trying to do something in the DeFi world. So I want to, I’m really interested in learning more about the partnership between Qoda Finance and Roci. Where do you see the most value out of this partnership for the current investors? For Roci, because a lot of us have invested in Roci and we are also looking at Qoda, as a potential investment. So, where is the most value from this partnership? From the investors’ perspective?

Chris

I’ll just hop in and take that one. The value is like driving things. So, at the beginning of the call, we’re really just talking about how to take DeFi to the next level of building products and services that actually solve a problem for the existing users who are already in the space.

But then also for the next batch of users that we’re looking to draw over, which can be individuals or institutions. And this is one of those very core, early-stage partnerships that ultimately get that there.

So, as we talk about where value is and this central governance asset that drives both of these ecosystems forward beyond the core team. This is the greatest example of driving true value, solving real problems with another builder that is innovative. So for us, if we had 100 more Qodas, I think the clear value accrual to the ROCI token, not just from staking and revenue share but also for holders as to how they vote and choose to make updates to the project, whether that’s different data stand or whatever it may be. I think the clear value accrue is super straightforward and probably likewise just in other different areas.

So again, I think there’s tons of low-hanging fruit and huge design space for forward-looking projects and teams to really leapfrog ahead of some of these other larger projects within lending that have likely gotten a bit complacent because they’ve got cash cows that they don’t necessarily want to disrupt.

But in short, these are the types of partnerships that ultimately drive the biggest value back to the community and the token holders of it because this is ultimately what pushes the ecosystem forward beyond the floppy stuff that we see every other day on Twitter, like this is the true meat and potatoes, so to speak.

And again, if we had 100 more of these that would make me super happy, but I’ll just have to settle for this partnership taking Qoda, to the top three or top five lending projects within DeFi, so to have won Qoda of that particular caliber will be just as good as having you 100 potentially as well.

Dhruv

Awesome. Thank you so much for the question, LadyTraderRa. Give her a follow. She’s got some great alpha on her account. Thanks for stopping by Chris. That was a great answer. I totally agree. It’s about driving token holder value, and you, you’re right, like the incumbents in the space have gotten complacent. It makes much more sense to borrow at fixed rates on Qoda in an under-collateralized way, thanks to Roci’s credit scores, than over-collateralized at floating rates on Aave, for example. And this partnership makes that happen, drives up activity, and delivers that value to token holders.

Walt, I’ll give you the floor in a moment. There’s one question that’s come through from Nduati. He is one of our core team here at Qoda. It’s a great question. Will all new Qoda products be folded into the token? The answer is 100% yes. All products are designed to be decentralized and designed to operate on-chain using QODA tokens.

And as I mentioned earlier, our end state is fully decentralized as a DAO. So we are working towards that and as a result, every product will contribute its revenue towards the revenue share. Hopefully, if we’re able to achieve this with community support, luck, and skill, we’ll be able to turn that revenue share into 100% revenue share with the DAO across all of our products.

Great question. Shout out to Nduati, and he’s a great engineer.

I have Walt requesting to speak. We got five minutes left. I’m gonna give you the floor.

WaltKnowsMoney

Hey, hey, how is everybody doing?

I’m so glad I caught this space. I am so happy because I’ve been trying to meet up with you and we missed each other a couple of times. So I’m just happy that I caught this space, and then Roci, I’m happy that this was available in the space as well because I’ve also been looking into how are they going to innovate the whole credit reporting and all of that stuff. So that’s amazing to see. So I’ll be doing a deeper dive on that. I already joined Discord, but I’ve been following Qoda for a while.

For Roci, my question would be for you and Qoda, actually, have either of you seen or considered going cross-chain or adding anything with Algorand? I’m just curious because I’m really big on Algorand, but I still go cross-chain to do other things. So I’m curious about that first.

Chris

I’ll just take this one, and then Dhruv, you can hop in afterward.

Yes and no. The short version is we’re our only primary constraint is EVM compatibility. So that is where the largest repository of our data comes from for credit scoring. We can’t look at Algorand Grand or anything else that doesn’t come from the EVM architecture. However, we do have a partnership and integrated with a company called Gora.

They are on Algorand, and they actually have our credit scores already integrated into their Oracle network. So if you have an Algorand address and EVM address, and you’re looking to play both worlds we kind of have a hack for that on Algo, but like specifically having a presence, not there just yet. Gora is sort of our front-facing play into that particular ecosystem, and we’re talking with other lending projects on that chain right now, like Folks Finance, about how we can be bigger players in that particular market.

Dhruv

Thanks, Chris, and great question, Walt. You know, it’s something that we have talked about internally. We are multi-chain native. We love this idea of being multi-chain.

We have to weigh up the engineering resources we have and the products we’re launching with Threebalance, I think there’s real potential to launch on Algorand. It really depends on our upstream liquidity providers, everything in DeFiI is integrated. So it really depends on the integrations that we have.

But it is something that we have our eye on keenly, and we will be sure to publish an update as soon as we make a decision. It is one of the chains that we are looking at.

WaltKnowsMoney

Ok, great. So that means you guys will be coming home soon. We’ll see you. All right. That’s good. I appreciate the work you guys doing in the space.

Dhruv

So, we are going to have to wrap this up to be respectful of everyone’s time. Thank you very much to everyone who joined and everyone who asked questions, I really, really appreciate it to the people who caught this later but weren’t able to make it live. Thank you for listening to this and staying tuned. Follow Roci, follow Qoda Finance, and we really appreciate you.

Stay tuned.

Chris

Thank you, guys.