Concordium AMA May 30th

Concordium answers to all questions left unanswered due to time constriction

Watch the AMA with Concordium’s founder, Lars Seier Christensen, from May 30th 2023 where he answered questions from the viewers. 

We didn’t have time to answer all of the questions received during the event. Instead, Lars has answered the remaining questions with help from the team*. Read the answers below. 

Question: What industries have you seen the most interesting Web3 cases in - and what industries will you see as most web3-relevant within the next 3-5 years?

The beauty of the blockchain is that the need for tokenization of real-world assets and goods is ubiquitous. There is not one case that stands out glaringly, although there are exciting things happening within sports, fandom, and loyalty!

Question: When will Concordex launch on mainnet?

It will launch on June 26th

Question: What do you see in the future of AI?

I have followed the area for years, and I believe we are looking at a total game changer here. I do not think Large Language Models are really true AI, but it is still a really important tool that can have a serious impact on our economy and daily work. But the question is so big that I would like to expand on it in the next AMA.

Question: Are you personally invested or interested in the NFT marketplace, and if so, how do you see the proposed NFT marketplace on the Concordium blockchain contributing to the growth and evolution of the NFT market?

I am involved in several NFT platforms both in Art and Music because the space interests me. I think Concordium is well suited for NFTs as the provenance and ownership of a given NFTs is essential to its value and trustworthiness to Clients. The Agora White Label Solution that Concordium has developed and offers as a turnkey solution is an example of our strategy to offer use cases access to tools that can help them reduce development  costs and time to market. Other such initiatives will include various ID, KYC, AI and data security modules and templates that can enable fast adoption of Concordium and demonstrate the value of blockchain in various contexts.

Question: One of the big challenges for banks are KYC processes. And often with huge irritation for customers. Can you give any direction on how Concordium could support banks in solving this key challenge?

With the introduction of Web3 ID™ later this year, Concordium wallet holders will be able to provide verified credentials such as passport numbers, verified address and the like effectively supporting even complex KYC processes. We would love to see banks adopting Concordium technology, however, initial research suggests that we can expect very long implementation time as making adjustments on top of 1970s mainframes can be extremely cumbersome.

Question: How do you implement KYC on Concordium?  

For a project wanting/needing to conduct KYC on all its users/customers, working with Concordium is an obvious choice. With Concordium, it is possible for the wallet holder to share personally verified credentials, meaning data about themselves. This data is part of the data collection process called KYC. KYC is short for 'Know Your Customer,' and the keyword here is 'know.' Someone has to know who the customer is. This means that, at a bare minimum, a proper KYC has to include data that uniquely identifies the customer. This is possible with the data Concordium wallet holders have in their wallet. Here is a small tutorial that helps you implement this ID check with Concordium.

Now, from a regulatory perspective, use cases are required to take a 'risk-based approach.' This means that the level or type of KYC process needed may differ from customer to customer, depending on their business relationship. On top of knowing the customer, the use case may be required to also collect a verified address of certain customers and so on. With the introduction of Web3 ID™ in Q3 this year, Concordium will support an entire data economy infrastructure where companies that verify personal credentials and use cases in need of this data can seamlessly interact with the Concordium wallet holder.

Question: When can a new or significantly updated website be expected?

The new website is under way. We are simultaneously working on a new brand identity and a new brand developer portal so the work is expected to take a couple of months. The new website is expected to be ready after the summer. 

Question: Will we see a big marketing campaign soon?

Our focus right now is on increasing baseline marketing. But yes, there will be a big campaign in the future, likely in relation to the launch of the new website.  

Question: What is your best tip for starting your own business?

A combination of factors has a significant impact on your likelihood of success as an entrepreneur (and your happiness and well-being as being one):

1. Know something about the area you are entering. Working some years for a business in the industry you are going to disrupt, before doing your own thing. This sounds trivial, but too many see an opportunity superficially and fail to recognise that the experienced incumbents of an industry will have an advantage over them - even if their approach is currently old school, they can adjust to your challenge.

2. Bootstrapping is a good discipline, both to create a culture of maximizing the output from limited resources and to keep your longer-term ownership from being diluted too much.

3. The team you pick is more important than your big idea. Define areas of responsibility very precisely and empower your colleagues to make most decisions. Micromanagement doesn't scale and you can't do everything yourself.

4 .Distribution generally wins - meaning you need to think at least as much about sales and marketing as about products.

5. Love what you do - it's going to be tough and you need to be inspired and excited every morning you get up to work - also after disappointing and tough days.

Question: Are you planning any representative offices in other countries?

Currently we are not. We have offices in Copenhagen, Aarhus and Zurich. 

Question: Apart from the fact that we all hope Concordium will be successful, what is the biggest/worst barrier to overcome in these times and in this market?

There are a large number of projects out there, and users find it hard to assess the quality of the tech and the security of them. We need to be able to demonstrate that Concordium is a high-quality blockchain, built to high standards and suitable for serious industrial-scale projects, and ready to meet future regulations. We need to accelerate our commercialisation through awareness of our USPs and explain to use cases why you should choose your layer one very carefully. Making access easy through tooling and turnkey solutions. I sincerely believe that if a serious use case is appropriately presented with the Concordium advantages, we have a high probability of being chosen among the alternatives. But they need to know about Concordium - so awareness, PR, Marketing, and an efficient commercial funnel are key priorities for our work currently.

Question: How do you like the quality of projects building on Concordium now and what is missing?

Quality continues to increase, especially seen by our commercial team throughout the grants pipeline. Concordium is project agnostic, so putting the finger on what is missing is quite impossible, although we have our sights set on DeFi, ESG, and many others. 

Question: What are the top 3 use cases running on Concordium today?

Energinet, Concordex, ClimaFi, Overlay. Take a look here

Question: What opportunities do you see in China, now that the Chinese government seems to be embracing Web3?

China is different in its requirement to control and approve in detail the functions of blockchains used there, and the lack of approval of the usual tokenomics models used in blockchain. Nevertheless, China is interesting in that they really embrace blockchains playing by the rules. It's a different market, but one where Concordium seeks to play a part with experienced and compliant Chinese partners.

Question: Will your platform gather new ideas to grow and compete with other market platforms based on market demands?

Yes, we monitor market trends and demands, and take that into consideration when we prioritize new initiatives and projects.

Question: You recently mentioned that VCs and PE companies are looking at valuations in terms of equity instead of tokens. Could you elaborate?

A year or two ago, VCs generally focused on tokens and valued them higher than Equity due to the immediate liquidity and Retail interest in tokens. As this liquidity often turned out to be a mirage and tokens fell heavily in valuation, focus has reverted to more traditional Equity stakes with a longer term view and Equity and Tokens are valued more 1 to 1, where earlier tokens traded at a premium.

Question: At what stage a project should be in order for you to consider investing? And does the Concordium team act as a VC or also help develop the projects it finances?

Concordium does not act as a VC, although our grant projects do receive funding for technical integrations. Generally, grant applicants should have at least an MVP, roadmap, high-level integration plan, and answer why Concordium is a great fit for the specific project. 

Question: Ethereum was founded in 2013 and launched their token in 2015. Concordium was founded in 2018 and launched the CCD token June 9th, 2021. Seems Concordium is 5-6 years behind Ethereum. Do you see this as a problem being around 5 years behind the biggest blockchain and how do you plan to compete with the bigger blockchains that have been in the space +5 years longer than Concordium.

Of course, the ID could be a game changer. Products and technology develop continuously over time. Ford Model T was a great innovation in the automotive industry, but you would not say that Ferrari is at a disadvantage because they started later? There will always be improvements to Technology and new challenges, and I would actually say they are generally favored by being able to learn from earlier generations. So I don't see this as being “five years behind” at all, but rather having the advantage of knowing what worked and what didn't in early generations. Neither Ethereum or any other project is guaranteed an eternal position as the market leader and in fact I believe the landscape will look completely different in 5-10 years. Developers and use cases move over time, and this will also happen in the blockchain industry. Remember, it is still early days and the longer term winners cannot be determined yet. At least it would be first time in economic history if the early generations would forever be the leaders. I don't think it will be the case in blockchain either.

Question: You guys have an active developer grants program, is there a plan to have an ecosystem growth fund?

Our robust developer grants program will be aided by an ecosystem growth fund in the future. For more information about grants please look here.

Question: It was explained that block time would be reduced a bit along with the upgrades and the optimization that would happen during Q1 and Q2 yet the block time remains unchanged?

With the upgrade to ConcordiumBFT, the new consensus design for Concordium, the average time between blocks will be reduced. Even better, the variance time between blocks will be significantly reduced. This means blocks will be produced much more consistently and users will experience much faster finalization - all the time. ConcordiumBFT is scheduled for release on mainnet later this year.

Question: Regarding mysome.id when can we expect Twitter and/or youtube to be included? And do you think about doing marketing together with bigger influencers on these channels?

Each SoMe platform has its unique setup, visually as well as technically. Therefore, prioritizing the next one is also a matter of evaluating what additional changes are needed to support it. In addition to implementing several adjustments to the basic setup, we are in the process of evaluating the options when it comes to advancing the core setup forward. In essence, we are looking at scaling the offering vertically and horizontally at the same time, and this work is still ongoing. We are planning to work with influencers but it’s too soon to determine what will be the right timing.  

Question: Could you please share your vision regarding tokenization of real assets. How will it move forward? Which assets do you see going first? When will this become a mainstream or revenue vehicle not just experimentation?

I consider tokenization one of the major use cases for blockchain. It opens up for democratizing access to investing in hitherto very difficult-to-access assets. Fractionalisation of high value RWA assets is a very important development for investors wishing to diversify their portfolios and service providers looking for new products to offer. Many projects will arrive on the scene in the next 12 months - in areas of real estate, financial assets, IPR, high value artworks, automobiles and other assets hard to access. Price discovery of such assets is also an important aspect of making them more tradeable with more actors.

Question: As a photographer I see a Big need for some kind of documentation that a picture is real and not altered or constructed with AI. Is that a possibility?

Yes, it is possible and actually a very important feature to document the genuity of files, being pictures or other files.

Question: What is the current TVL and what do you expect for 2024?

The total number of staked CCDs currently amounts to approx. 8.7 billion CCDs. Based on the current USD-price per CCD, this corresponds to a total value locked of USD 76 million.

Question: What are the top 3 things that you personally look the most forward to in terms of future developments that can act as a trigger for positive momentum?

1.Building more tools, modules and templates that will demonstrate the value of blockchain in many processes and make them easy to implement for businesses.

2.Focusing on building more extensive solutions of ID functions and Verifiable Credentials as this will be cornerstones as we build a safer digital world and economy.

3.Creating more awareness and visibility for Concordium. We compare very well to more well known layer ones and we “only” need everyone to know about it.

Question: Would a use case within Unconditional Basic Income (that is; the tokens will be given away on a monthly basis, indefinitely, earning value and profits on transaction fees) be acceptable, if done scientifically and professionally?

If anyone wants to build such an offering on Concordium there is nothing prohibiting them from it. All the tools and technology needed to build it are readily available. 

Question: TPS - Q2 is soon over, what is the current TPS capacity and is there more clarity on the target level after all short-term upgrades and wins?

When running steadily, with emphasis on uptime and integrity of the network, it is safe to say that Concordium blockchain can easily support a TPS of 500+. In test scenarios also much higher, which obviously puts a high stress on the nodes in the network making it less stable (kind of how some other blockchains operate). With the introduction of ConcordiumBFT later this year, we expect to more than double the throughput as we are able to shorten the time between blocks/finalization a lot.

Question: I don't understand the business model of Concordium. How does the company/foundation generate revenue to fund operations? What are the primary sources of revenue for Concordium?

Concordium Foundation currently generates income from two sources:
1. Concordium Foundation generates income in CCD from staking its own CCDs, which generates CCD staking rewards.

2. In addition, Concordium Foundation receives 10% of all rewards generated from the minting of new CCDs and from transaction fees.

Concordium Foundation is currently funding its operations from its cash fiat balances of CHF, EUR, and USD. Down the road, Concordium will ultimately supplement its cash fiat reserves by the sale of CCDs. Such sale will be planned and executed in a way that minimizes the market price impact, eg. by selling in off-market transactions to VCs and other larger investors.

Question: Will there be integration with Arbitrum?

No. Arbitrum is a scaling add-on on Ethereum. We are working on other ways to scale the Concordium blockchain.

Question: Which industries/sectors are currently the most receptive to the Concordium Blockchain offerings?

We see a range of sectors that are receptive to Concordium, just off the top of my head rewards programs are keen to tokenize for greater composability, alongside many other sectors. 

Watch the video to hear the live answers to the questions below. Use the timecodes to skip to specific questions.

AMA Video Timestamps

00:00 Intro

01:00 You have been very active the past couple of months hitting many locations. How is Concordiums key main differentiators perceived?

03:23 Have any big partnerships with industry peers been initiated, such as other blockchains, infrastructure projects? Anything you can mention?

05:27 What happens to the CNS domains that people have already bought? Will people get a refund for it or an extension and when?

06:39 When can people see a transparency report from Concordium?

07:52 What is the partnership with 2021.ai about?

11:35 What exactly is wrong with notabene that can’t be resolved after this long? Will you expand ID verification provision to ease onboarding? 

14:17 What are your plans to create demand in the short to medium term?

19:25 Why is Concordium doing so many things related to ID?

22:43 Will it be possible to buy CCD directly from the Wallet?

23:57 There have been consultations from various regulatory authorities for crypto regulation, and although most proposals will have KYC, AML & CFT it is important that contributions are not left for meme projects. Is Concordium making submissions? 

27:30 CCD inflates over 3 Mio daily. Currently this adds just liquidity and price pressure. Will staking rewards (inflation) remain at this level indefinitely? What are your plans and reasoning? Any plans for burning coins?

29:50 Are you going to make more videos showcasing the new features of the new wallet versions and of other features?

32:35 What is the progress with the new marketing team and your marketing efforts?

35:04 I observe a significant rise in developments, communication, and marketing, amplified by the self-organized "Concordium Army." How do you plan to attract more investors like VC, Private Equities, Family Offices?

35:30 What do you expect to be the most important content for Concordium the next 3 years and what is your price prediction for CCD in 2026?

38:13 You travel a lot to different countries for the active expansion of the Concordium ecosystem (Spain, Japan, etc.). Do you have any visits to CIS countries in the future? (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Moldova)

41:40 The importance of on ground meetings and an invitation to reach out

44:23 Could you please share your vision regarding tokenization of real assets. How will it move forward? Which assets do you see going first? When will this become a mainstream or revenue vehicle not just experimentation?

47:43 Given the rapid growth and potential of the NFT market, I'm curious to know your thoughts on the opportunities it presents. Do you believe there are untapped areas or unique advantages that Concordium could leverage in this space?

*Remaining questions answered in this article are written by Lars Seier, Torben Kaaber, Holger Fischer, Jørgen Hauglund, Torben Rene, Anne Korsgaard, and Mikael Breinholst.