Date : 15 October 2021
Time : 04:00 PM UTC
Guest : Mr. George Burke (Co- Founder & CMO)
Venue : https://t.me/Crypto_Talkzs
Website : https://portaldefi.com/
Host : Hello everyone 👋 and welcome to the Crypto Talkz AMA session with Portal Finance.
Mr. George Burke : Ready to start. Thanks everyone!
Host : Glad to see you here
Thanks for bringing Us Portal Finance❤️
1️⃣ Introduction Segment
Q1. Can you briefly introduce yourself as well as Portal defi? and from where you get the project name? What does it mean to you? And why you choose this name for your project?
George Burke:
My name is George Burke, a co-founder at Portal. Our team started working on this since 2018 but I’ve been involved in bitcoin since early 2013. Always a believer in censorship resistant, egalitarian technologies.
I built a bitcoin/altcoin exchange in 2013 which was sold. I later went on to build the first bitcoin debit card in the US called FreshPay.
Prior to crypto, I launched the first “netflix for books” subscription club.
I also currently run the first-ever bitcoin meetup – Silicon Valley Bitcoin – SVBTC.org – first started by Roger Ver and Andreas Antonopolous
The name Portal stems from our plan to be THE GATEWAY to decentralized finance. The motive behind Portal is expression of self-sovereignty. Portal is to cryptotrading what Tor is to p2p communication. Portal is an unstoppable p2p exchange.
Our team started in 2018 by building a self-sovereign multi-currency wallet that allows people to trade at many centralized exchanges right from within the wallet interface, but quickly noticed that the biggest point of failure for the entire crypto ecosystem exists at the layer of exchange. So between 2019 through to today, we’ve been concentrating on making trading coins as trustless as can be and decided to focus on making cross-chain atomic swaps usable, practical, and fast. Portal, at the layer of trade, will free up so much potential within the ecosystem.
For Bitcoin to become money, we need a censorship resistant, peer to peer trading system that crosses blockchains. That’s why we are building DeFi using cross chain atomic swaps. BItcoin is strengthened by building many layers of functionality.
Q2. What is your mission and vision to build this project? What you want to achieve through your project in future?
Our company, Portal, recently announced an ~$8.5M raise to give birth to DeFi built on Bitcoin.
We believe financial applications should be built on the protocol that is most likely to become the base money layer. Portal makes DeFi unstoppable with anonymous, zero-knowledge swaps via the first true cross-chain DEX that’s genuinely trustless. Unlike Uniswap/others, Portal eliminates minting wrapped coins (ie wBTC, wETH) or risky staking with intermediaries. Trading across incompatible blockchains is now just 1-click, trustless and private.
Fabric protocol, our layer 2 & 3 technology powering Portal, enables building censorship-resistant communications, media and one-click cross-chain swaps, all on Bitcoin (along with all its security advantages).
Q3. What strengths does Portal Defi have to compete with competitors?
1) The first strength is our team.
I’m very proud of the allstars I get a chance to work alongside every day:
– Eric Martindale 10 years in Bitcoin, Head of Open Source at Blockstream and Engineering at BitPay, advisor to Lemniscap, and is the inventor of Fabric.
– Chandra Duggirala, Bitcoiner and M.D. turned entrepreneur, ran two 8-figure software businesses, and is the inventor of functional layer 2 cross-chain atomic swaps (he solved problems keeping Tier Nolan’s atomic swaps impractical until now).
– Alexey Melnichenko, 5 years architecting token & exchange design, engineer at Phantom Cyber (acquired by Splunk), designed the exchange engine at Totle.
– Manoj Duggirala Led a 150-engineer team at Invensense, designed the Apple M7 co-processor in phones and watches, ex-IBM Almaden. Engineering at Stanford.
– George Burke, 8 years in bitcoin, 3 exits in peer-to-peer/community startups incl. early bitcoin exchange Crypto Street, created the first Bitcoin debit card, and runs the world’s oldest bitcoin meetup.
– Johnny Dilley, VP of Strategy & Product at Blockstream. Conceptualized Liquid sidechains. Early VC at Pantera. 8 years in Bitcoin.
– Jack Mills, Engineering Architect of Casper Labs / RChain, and previous Director of Enterprise Platforms at Intel. Engineering at Stanford.
Here’s how we came together.
Manoj, Chandra, and I had built previous 7-figure startups and wanted to solve problems in crypto. I knew the Fabric CEO Eric Martindale for many years as a friend in the bitcoin space. He was a bitcoin god. Early at a Blockstream and early at BitPay and was one of the few human beings to undestand Layer 2’s and sidechains. Eric was first a mentor and advisor to our team. Johnny and Alexey worked with him at Fabric. Later they joined us to build Portal…
…2) The second strength we have is the problems we see in the space and the unique solutions we’ve built.
Today’s DeFi and DEXs have problems with:
1) High gas fees: we utilize layer 2 for cross-chain swaps by which nodes can communicate hundreds or thousands of messages/transactions prior to settling on the main chain.
2) Poor UX: We agree the user experience for DEX trading has been awful so far. We have a beautiful non-custodial wallet that is as easy to use as Coinbase but self-sovereign and trust-minimized, where you can store coins and trade from within the same interface. We’ve worked years on developing this.
3) Asset locking & asset replication: The wrapping and locking of funds onto other chains by these so-called “cross-chain” DEXes are neither trustless nor decentralized, nor are they even cross-chain! BitGo custodies the majority of the billions of locked up BTC. As we saw with the recent $600M hack, these DEXes are honeypots waiting to happen. Atomic swaps solves this. Wrapping tokens becomes a thing of the past since coins of incompatible chains can be traded natively and without a risky middle-man. Each party’s funds are only locked during trade execution and not re-bonded or replicated onto other chains for eternity…
…3) Third strength is the motivation every member of our team has — to provide the best ecosystem for Bitcoin to succeed.
The motive behind Portal is expression of self-sovereignty. Portal is to cryptotrading what Tor is to p2p communication. Portal is an unstoppable p2p exchange.
For Bitcoin to become money, we need a censorship resistant, peer to peer trading system that crosses blockchains. That’s why we are building DeFi using cross chain atomic swaps. BItcoin is strengthened by building many layers of functionality.
Q4. How important is the community to your project? and How can we collaborate or help share token for the development of the project?
The Portal network WILL BE decentralized, but first is being built by our core team, and soon become open source prior to network launch. Fabric protocol is already open source and anyone can contribute. We welcome you to join us. Check it out: https://github.com/FabricLabs
With regard to roadmap, Portal AND Fabric will be both completely community-driven development. The community will determine roadmap and features post-launch. We’re excited to see where the community drives the project as they push the bitcoin interoperability ecosystem forward.
Q5. Could you please provide some progress on your Roadmap and what results Portal Defi has achieved so far?
Before roadmap, let’s start with accomplishments so far: We invented zero-knowledge swaps, which fix the Layer 1 “Tier Nolan” atomic swap problems. In addition, our CEO invented the Fabric protocol (the protocol Portal uses to build p2p ZK circuits for Fully Homomorphic Encryption), and has been used to build peer-to-peer communications and decentralized other apps.
With the atomic swaps integrated into Fabric, we are rebuilding the Web from client server model to an uncensorable, decentralized architecture.
As for roadmap, we can announce that in only a couple of weeks we are launching our public sale on one of the most prestigious launchpads in the world, Republic, and unlike most other high profile projects, we are allowing investors from the US. If you’d like to participate, you’ll first need to be on the whitelist, available at PortalDeFi.com. We will also be announcing a number of partnerships with other tier 1 blockchain issuers over the coming weeks.
On the regulatory front, we have been seeing SEC lawsuits to various token projects for raising on an unregistered security; potentially fraud. This can be as little as a fine of millions or as bad as going to jail. Any issuer who promises an investor tokens is irreparably tethering the network token to the fundraise and will forever make that token a security. We will see any tokens deemed securities to be banned from trading on non-brokerage exchanges (which is pretty much all of them). Our fundraise is specifically designed to preserve the non-security nature of a digital asset that runs on the decentralized network, and therefore is never sold, given away, airdropped, etc. This way it can always be as freely transferrable as BTC itself.
Last, with regard to roadmap, Portal is a completely community-driven development. The community will determine roadmap and features post-launch. We’re excited to see where the community drives the project as they push the bitcoin interoperability ecosystem forward.
2️⃣ Twitter Segment
Q1) Nowadays, Staking and farming protocal take place in most of the finanacial platforms. Will #Portal_Finance involve with staking in order to attract more customers, investors towards to the platform?
We’re not yet revealing this to the public. What we can reveal is that there are node operators or “facilitators” in our model. All facilitators get paid based on the value of trades they facilitate. Portal’s revenue, as well as the revenue of any facilitators is tied to the growth of the network and userbase. Every wallet downloaded can be configured to run a facilitation node. The whitepaper goes into facilitators more extensively. Please see the whitepaper at https://portaldefi.com
Q2) Portal allows peer-to-peer atomic cross-chain transactions. But One of the problems of being a BTC holder is that withdrawing money from one platform to another requires high fees, will it be the same with Portal? Or how to reduce them using the same blockchain?
For some background, a layer 2 is a sequence of unsettled transactions on the main chain done for a purpose. For example, Lightning Network is a layer 2 system for peer-to-peer micropayments. However, lightning transactions — until settled — are not broadcasted to the main chain.
Our Layer 2 is enabled by Fabric Protocol (https://fabric.pub) and was invented by Portal’s CEO Eric Martindale.
Because the transactions take place in layer 2, you get the speed, similar to lightning network. Also, because of the ZK Swarm structure, partial fills enable aggregating liquidity just like centralized exchanges.
Portal is building a true cross-chain method of trust-minimized exchange without a 3rd party. But because these chains do not natively interoperate or communicate with another, a layer must be built above the base layer for such communication. Portal is a layer 2 system for peer-to-peer cross-chain contracting. Cross-chain contracting facilitates a variety of in-demand DeFi activities, like spot-trading, options, peer-to-peer lending, etc.
Q3) Portal Finance uses Fabric protocol (the protocol we use to build p2p ZK circuits for fully homomorphic encryption) has been used to create communications between peers and other applications. What is the Fabric protocol? How does this protocol work? benefits?
Fabric is the protocol for peer to peer message passing and contracting using bitcoin as the security layer. All of the layered networks built using Fabric can use portal to exchange into Bitcoin and other assets.
Fabric splits contracts into “ZK Swarms” — allowing all network participants to agree to contracts on their own terms. These are “multi party contracts”, with each peer earning Bitcoin for computing their part in the program. It does this at “layer 3”, which provides the privacy PLUS fungibility of transactions.
But why zero-knowledge? Why privacy?
How can a decentralized exchange layer be truly censorship-resistant if traders are known and addresses can be traced? So, Fabric technology enables ZK circuit creation which, when implemented, opens the door to a whole host of new methods of obfuscating transactions without losing verifiability.
For Bitcoin to become money, we need a censorship resistant, peer-to-peer trading system that crosses blockchains.
Q4)Portal is a DEX that enables cross-chain exchanges between different block chains with planned support for the main public blockchains built into the bitcoin network security. But why did Portal Finance build its Built on Bitcoin project and why not BSC, Ethereum or Polkadot?
1) Building a secure layer 1 system is incredibly hard. We don’t want to do that; Fabric uses the layer 1 system that already exists and therefore we use Bitcoin as OUR layer 1.
In Portal, the contracts don’t depend on anything other than Bitcoin’s and Ethereum’s securities. We are harnessing the security of Bitcoin and ETH, the atomic swap contracts are minimal. Independently audited and tested to the max by a truly decentralized network before going live over the course of the past 5 years.
Unlike wrappers and bridges, these coins are not re-bonded into Portal and are not honeypots. The community treasury does not contain exposed user’s funds. The exposure is limited only to the token which is being traded — NOT what is bonded. This is the main difference between the Portal project and other so-called false “cross-chain DEX” projects. The flaw in bonding/wrapping is double the exposure for a breach in security; be it theft, risk, hacking. It’s like making a duplicate -or a triplicate- of your house key. The Portal project is designed to protect your key- the reliance on simple and native atomic swaps means there isn’t anything to expose. This is possible through the use of Fabric Protocol technology, which is an internet built on the layer 1 blockchain of bitcoin – the timechain itself.
2) Bitcoin provides the security; no need to implement a new system and attempt to garner superior adoption. Bitcoin is the most decentralized and secure system and we think it is the monetary layer. If you want to build functionality, financial contracts, and beyond, it makes sense to build it on top of the monetary layer vs any other layer. More importantly, layers of functionality enable bitcoin to capture the value, but not the risk of a failure of a layer 2 system.
Q5) Portal could be perceived by many as the expression of self-sovereignty, being to the crypto trade what Tor is to Peer-To-Peer communication. So, how does Portal mark a before and after in an evolutionary loop in the technology of atomic exchanges between chains?
Imagine the ability to go anonymous with your payments on bitcoin. Coinjoin-like transaction obfuscation services, but much cheaper, quicker, and actually anonymous because it operates at layer 2 and layer 3 instead of several layer 1 burdensome transactions. Any coinjoin transaction is well-recognized by just looking at the wallet, and could be flagged. Instead, any layer 2/layer 3 obfuscation looks simply like a Lightning transaction despite maybe dozens of participants.
Several blockchains are looking for bridges to swap between their token and bitcoin, but these don’t trustlessly exist (yet). We have a few blockchains wanting integration for near trustless swapping and bonding between their token and bitcoin (or other tokens of incompatible blockchains). This interoperability is the holy grail of the crypto space. One partner we can name is Aeternity, another about to be named on Monday, and we will continue name the other partners over time.
Something cool that Fabric’s tech and Portal’s non-custodial atomic swaps wallet will enable is the ability to make a paymennt in one asset but the receiver receives a different asset, where it was automatically swapped in the same send transaction. Imagine only holding Chainlink but wanting to send someone Solana. Or only holding DOT and wanting to send someone BTC. Portal will enable this in the future. Can’t wait.
3️⃣ Telegram Live Q & A Segment
Q.A lot of scam projects lately. Pulling the rug creates a loss for investors. why should we trust your project? Aren’t you going to do the same?
Convincing investors to invest is not our primary objective. Obviously it is a great side effect of our efforts, however we are not in the business of soliciting investors. We are more concerned with developing a product that the community trusts, uses, and, most importantly, embraces. Portal the network doesn’t depend on us, and is not controlled by us – the ultimate security. You want p2p systems to be secure against any 1 point of failure. The participants in the Portal network make or break the system- not us. Once it is live, because the community is the wind in the sales, the decentrallized community has complete authority over the network.
ETH is not scalable today and ETH 2.0 may not be scalable either. We’re in need of layered solutions on top of the base chain to build scale.
We believe financial applications should be built on the protocol that is most likely to become the base money layer. That’s why we are building DeFi using cross chain atomic swaps. BItcoin is strengthened by building many layers of functionality.
When trillions of dollars of financial contracts are running on crypto chains, it creates an entire economy that politicians wouldn’t dare over-regulate for fear of collapse. DeFi, when finally applied to Bitcoin, is how we will protect Bitcoin from nation state attacks.
Q2.❇️ One of the innovations that by Portal Finance incorporates is the “Portal Swap Protocol” which according to you helps to maintain the privacy of commercial data. Can you explain how it works? What are the flaws that it corrects from the current DeFi in terms of privacy? What things can be achieved with that level of privacy?
Today’s DeFi and DEXs have problems with:
1) High gas fees: we utilize layer 2 for cross-chain swaps by which nodes can communicate hundreds or thousands of messages/transactions prior to settling on the main chain.
2) Poor UX: We agree the user experience for DEX trading has been awful so far. We have a beautiful non-custodial wallet that is as easy to use as Coinbase but self-sovereign and trust-minimized, where you can store coins and trade from within the same interface. We’ve worked years on developing this.
3) Asset locking & asset replication: The wrapping and locking of funds onto other chains by these so-called “cross-chain” DEXes are neither trustless nor decentralized, nor are they even cross-chain! BitGo custodies the majority of the billions of locked up BTC. As we saw with the recent $600M hack, these DEXes are honeypots waiting to happen. Atomic swaps solves this. Wrapping tokens becomes a thing of the past since coins of incompatible chains can be traded natively and without a risky middle-man. Each party’s funds are only locked during trade execution and not re-bonded or replicated onto other chains for eternity.
Q3.Can you explain how is Your Tokenomics distribution? how many tokens will be minted ? and how many tokens will be locked by the team??
We cannot discuss tokens or token price. Why? On the regulatory front, we have been seeing SEC lawsuits to various token projects for raising on an unregistered security; potentially fraud. This can be as little as a fine of millions or as bad as going to jail. Any issuer who promises an investor tokens is irrepairably tethering the network token to the fundraise and will forever make that token a security. We will see any tokens deemed securities to be banned from trading on non-brokerage exchanges (which is pretty much all of them).
Instead, Portal’s fundraise — happening END OF THIS MONTH through a compliant securities offering on the best lauchpad in the world, Republic — is specifically designed to preserve the non-security nature of a digital asset that runs on the decentralized network, and therefore is never sold, given away, airdropped, etc. This way it can always be as freely transferrable as BTC itself.
For more info on this, see the writeup we did on this compliant fundraise model here: https://blog.portaldefi.com/no-ico. Compound and Chia used a similar mechanism.Yes, NFTs are hot.
I already see incompatible siloes being problematic because an NFT on one chain cannot be accessed through smart contracts on another chain.
Since Portal is all about cross-chain, trustless interoperability, I can see a future where we may be able to bridge the gaps between siloed NFT platforms. I also see a future where a single NFT can be bonded with several FUNGIBLE tokens being minted for fractionated ownership. Fabric’s technology would enable Portal to build both of these awesome NFT-features… HOWEVER, our roadmap is community driven and they will be the ones to direct the development team down that path. We shall see!
OK, that’s all the time I have for answering questions
This was exciting and fun
Host: Thankyou so much For your valuable answers and information about Portal Finance,
It Was Pleasure Hosting An Ama With You.
Please visit https://portaldefi.com for more info
Is there anything else you would like to share or you want us to know ?
And last, Republic, one of the most prestigious launchpads in the world, is hosting our public sale at the end of October and you may participate by first getting on the whitelist at https://go.portaldefi.com/whitelist.
Community, if you would like to learn more about Portal Finance, here are some useful links for you:
Telagram: https://t.me/portalgroupchat
Twitter : https://twitter.com/portal_finance
Website: https://portaldefi.com/
Medium: https://medium.com/@Portal_team
Discord: https://discord.gg/5BShgKqEQc