Eric : Welcome @JPMullin. Thanks for taking the time to join us here for the AMA.
JP Mullin : Hey everyone. Glad to be here today, thanks for the invite Eric!
Eric : Can you introduce yourself to everyone?
JP Mullin : My name’s John Patrick Mullin, and I’m the Co-Founder and Council Member at MANTRA DAO!
Eric : Tell us about your crypto journey. What was your first experience with crypto?
JP Mullin : I would be happy to share a bit more about myself and the project. I’m originally from the US, but spent nearly the last 10+ years abroad having done my undergraduate studies in Spain, my first masters in Germany, and my second in Shanghai. After that I worked in traditional finance doing research on FinTech and blockchain for one of largest Chinese investment banks, Guotai Junan Securities. I joined the crypto space fulltime in 2017, but was active since 2015 and bought my first bitcoin (unforutunately just a few) in 2013. I moved to Hong Kong in 2018 and helped set up a crypto exchange and advisory firm, before launching the HK offices of a US licensed brokerage business that has the only SEC license for distributing digital securities. After that I joined the Rio DeFi team as an advisor, and most recently have been focused on building and launching MANTRA DAO. A DeFi DAO focused on Staking, Lending, and Governance.
Eric : Wow. that brokerage in the US, still running? Interesting journey there!
JP Mullin : Indeed! They recently did the Spencer Dinwiddie, NBA contract earnings tokenization deal!
Eric : Nice man. Congrats!
So what is Mantra Dao?
JP Mullin : Currently we’re in the middle of a fundraise, and I’m the one building the book, so it brings me back to my banking days a bit hahah.
So MANTRA DAO is a community-governed DAO that’s built for the Polkadot ecosystm that focuses on staking, lending, and open governance. We have built our project on a substrate-based blockchain called Rio Chain, that is created by a sister business called Rio DeFi. You’ll notice, I’m an advisor to their project as well.
Eric : So its a DAO, what can people do in it and whats the benefit of joining it?
JP Mullin : That’s exactly right. Users can think of MANTRA DAO like a community-governed bank (although we don’t really like to compare ourselves to that) and they can come and earn enhanced interest on their staked and lent assets, as well as access lines of credit with crypto as collateral and even win prizes in our MANTRA POOL distribution game.
Eric : It has a token called OM. What does it do and why is it named OM?
JP Mullin : And of course with the OM token they can stake it and take part in the governance of the project.
Let me share a screenshot about the uses.
So as I mentioned, we are a Polkadot ecosystem project — users can come to our platform and stake their DOT and KSM for example and earn additional interest on their native token staking rewards.
Eric : Great stuff. Why OM? is there meaning to that choice?
JP Mullin : While I must say, I’m not a very religious person, I do believe I’m a spiritual person, and when we were coming up with our branding concepts, we were trying to think of things that embodied taking control of your financial well-being, concepts that were very Zen and peaceful in nature. We started down this path and then we came to the idea of Mantras which are phrases or sayings meant to bring about a state of inner peace. We believe our product will allow our users to be at peace with their financial future, OM is one of the most important Mantras and when hummed/chanted, it bring calmness to the individual saying the mantra.
Community AMA
Q : How can we users increase our reputation within the Mantra DAO ecosystem?
A : We’ve built in an internal reputaion protocol (kind of like a credit rating system) called the KARMA Protocol, that allows users to build up their reputation or credit worthiness through the good things they do within our platform and in the crypto space. This allows us to better assess the riskiness of lending to certain individuals and will open up all kinds of doors such as allowing for undercollateralized loans, better interest rates, etc.
Q : Explain more about your Staking, I read that I can earn both KSM and DOT and OM. Can I call this interoperable staking?
A : Rio Chain allows for cross-chain interoperability so we will have both cross chain staking and lending.
We will start with DOT, KSM, and OM staking that gives additional staking rewards in OM on top of the underlying asset rewards.
We will add additional staking assets through community votes and proposals.
We will also allow for liquid staking through our bonded derivative staking as shown below.
Q : PolkaDefi is expected to dominate the 2nd half of the year. As a Defi project that strives to continuously deliver innovations, how does Mantra DAO aim to dominate the #PolkaDefi ecosystem?
A : Awesome question! I am a huge fan and supporter of Polkadot including being a Polkadot ambassador myself.
We are very excited for the transferability of DOT in the near future.
Asides from being a validator on both DOT and KSM networks, we will also become a Polkadot parachain later in the year during their auctioning process, once the economics are a bit more clear of course.
Q :What inspired the founders to create MANTRA DAO? How would you introduce the concept to people who have not heard of MANTRA DAO before?
A : Originally we were thinking of having a btc-backed stablecoin built within the Rio DeFi ecosystem, but as we continued to develop this idea, it made more sense to use multi-collateral lending and cross-chain staking within a DAO. We love the triangle concept of PolkaDefi, PoS, and DAO!
Q :What is the governance model of OM token? How will your staking ecosystem ensure fairness and balance in the amount of power in decision-making in the community between large and small holders?#mantradao
A : To date, most governance models are extremely difficult for most users to take part in.
I’m just going to rip this from the WP, but will summarize after..
In order to submit a proposal and vote within the MANTRA DAO ecosystem, a member must first hold and stake OM. Each staked OM represents 1 vote within the MANTRA DAO system. In order to propose a topic for voting, users will need to deposit USD $100 worth of OM as collateral. If the proposal should fail, they will lose the OM, but if the proposal passes evaluation from the council, then the vote will proceed. If the proposal receives a simple majority (51%) of the votes from the valid voters (staking OM), then the depositor will receive their OM back as well as an additional amount of KARMA for helping the ecosystem.
The process for voting is as follows:
– 1 week for proposals
– 1 week for evaluation of proposals
– 1 week for the voting of proposals
– 1 week for the implementation of proposals
OM holders who stake OM will be allowed to propose changes to the MANTRA DAO ecosystem including, but not limited to, changes in:
– Interest rates
– OM Inflation level
– Ecosystem grants
– Adding additional staking assets
– Adding additional lending products
– Etc.
The MANTRA DAO Council is currently comprised of 5 Council Members. The Council Members will serve 2-year terms and will help guide the proposal, evaluation, voting, and implementation process for MANTRA DAO. Every two years, there will be a vote for the next MANTRA DAO Council Members, with the maximum number of Council Members being set at 9. The Council will always maintain an odd number of councilors to never allow for a tie during the evaluation of proposals. The maximum number of consecutive council terms by any Council Member is set at 5.
It is also possible within our governance model that the MANTRA DAO Council can create sub-councils that specifically focus on certain topics, such as the MANTRA DAO Financial Council. The overall MANTRA DAO Council holds veto power over any sub-council.
Essentially the Council Members are the gatekeepers to the community voting process, and will have to listen to the community to see which votes should be brought forth for a community vote. I am one of the 5 Council Members.
In order for me to do a good job at this role, it is imperative to be closely involved with the community and listen to their feedback, suggestions, concerns.
Of course if I do a bad job, I can also be voted out and kicked out. I will do my best to make sure that doesn’t happen!
Q : Will your plans and programs continue to maximize the attractiveness of the MANTRADAO? What is your roadmap to ensure price stability, attract new investors, and sign important collaborations?
A : We are very very happy that we’ve had such success in our token offering so far, without having done any real paid marketing asides from a few AMAs here and there. We think this is the best way to go direct to the community and grow organically. But we are also excited to really turn up the marketing and promotions as well as launch the staking program we’ve designed which we think is economically speaking, VERY attractive. Asides from that we will have our MANTRA POOL lottery game, and the gamified KARMA Protocol where users can check their KARMA scores on a leaderboard!
Q : The sharing economy is getting colder now, the business mode is yet to prove it, how would you make sure that decentralised mode will work?
A : I wouldn’t say our model is part of the sharing economy necessarily, rather we are creating a new and improved decentralized version of the financial system. Governed by our community members!
Q : Why did you decide to use Rio Chain as the basis for MantraDAO? What advantages does it offer over other types of chains?
A : MANTRA DAO is built on Rio Chain, which is a Substrate-based Blockchain that operates within the Polkadot ecosystem to provide cross-chain compatibility. In addition to being a Council Member of MANTRA DAO, I’m also the CEO of Rio DeFi, the company that built Rio Chain.
When designing Rio Chain, we prioritized security, speed, scalability, and interoperability. We operate across blockchains to leverage the strengths of each. Rio Chain is able to process up to 3,000 transactions per second, finalizes blocks within 2 seconds, and offers very low transaction fees (<$0.01).
Rio Chain comes ready-made with a comprehensive suite of tools. Rio Wallet is accessible from either a smart phone or web browser, enabling users to store a wide variety of digital assets. Rio Block Explorer allows anyone to easily monitor the network, view transactions, and check wallet balances. All of this technology will be utilized by MANTRA DAO to create one of the world’s leading DeFi dApps!
Q : What are the Algorithms and technology used by MANTRA DAO for fast and scalable transactions?#mantradao
A : I think my response above answers this one too.
Q : A Flaw was discovered on Polkadot ecosystem recently, now Mantradao is built on Parity Substrate for the Polkadot ecosystem, does this ensure Security, does this ensure ease cross-chain interactions? #mantradao
A : MANTRA DAO isn’t built on Polkadot, but rather it’s built on an entirely new blockchain that interoperates with Polkadot. We are not relient upon Polkadot, but we are very big believers in the long-term potential of that blockchain and ecosystem. That being said, we will also look to integrate many other public blockchain networks!
Q :Regarding staking in Mantra DAO, is there a minimum amount required? Is the token required to be locked for a while? What are the steps we have to follow to do staking?
A : There are currently no minimum amounts to be staked in our system, and the locking mechanisms outside of OM will be dependent on the underlying staking/bonding mechanism of the underlying blockchain. For example DOT has a 28 day bonding period.
Q : Speaking of MANTRA POOL, I read that 25% of the MANTRA DAO Foundation’s assets staking rewards will go into a pool on a weekly basis, What are the conditions to enter the pool and stand a chance at being selected in the raffle?
A : MANTRA POOL is a crypto savings game that allows users to participate for the chance to win a percentage of MANTRA DAO Foundation’s staking rewards. Every week, the protocol will select randomly generated winners. Users are able to enter the MANTRA POOL by burning OM to generate an entry.
Users can gain entry into the MANTRA POOL in 2 ways:
Burning OM, where 1 burnt OM = 1 entry
Depending on a user’s KARMA level, they will have automatic entries into the MANTRA POOL
25% of all the staking rewards generated by MANTRA DAO Foundation’s assets will go to funding MANTRA POOL. This basket of rewards is given out in their native assets, e.g. DOT, KSM, XTZ, OM, etc. Users will have the option to convert all these assets to OM with additional earned interest if they so choose.
We also will allow for sponsored MANTRA POOL giveaways, where companies can sponsor a distribution using assets of their choosing. These will run separately from the staking reward-generated MANTRA POOL offerings.
Q : Mantra DAO has had several AMAs this month. As a feedback, how has that influenced your community? What benefits does it provides to your communities and users?
What are your plans after “INITIΛL MEMBERSHIP OFFERING”? What will be the focus of your team be after the sale is successfully finished? You clearly have a focus on adoption; will you look to conduct more marketing, more business development?
A : The AMAs we’ve done have been awesome ways to get directly into the community and allow them to understand more about our project. They are a great way to get access to crypto native people who are curious about new projects and come to join our community afterwards to learn more and give feedback.
Our IMO has been wildly successful so far, with both the private and pre-IMO rounds being WAY over subscribed. The pre-IMO particularly is 16x oversubscribed.
That being said, this is just the beginning, and we are excited to continue to roll out additional features to our product, list on more exchanges, and build up our client base and AUM for staked assets!
Closing Remarks
Eric : Ok, Thats a wrap! Great stuff @JPMullin. Can you invite everyone to the official telegram and twitter?
JP Mullin : I think that’s about it for me, but thanks so much for having me today! It’s been a pleasure, and I’m certainly excited to continue to work with AMA Room down the line!
Please come and join our TG community — we have a lot of exciting announcements coming, and our Pre-IMO opens on Saturday.
Follow our twitter as well for more info as well! https://twitter.com/MANTRADAO
Eric : Thanks everyone!
