Part 1 — introduction and questions from the Telegram&Bitcointalk community
Маry Satoshi CLUB: Hello Satoshi Club! We are happy to announce our AMA session with EQUOS! Welcome to Satoshi Club😀
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: Hello, dear Satoshi Club! We are very glad to conducting AMA with EQUOS! Today our guest is Richard from EQUOS😃
Маry Satoshi CLUB: @rb2323 welcome here 😀
R B: Hi there Satoshi Club, thanks Mary and Gold Rocket
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: Hello and welcome to Satoshi Club, @rb2323!😊
Маry Satoshi CLUB: How are you today?😉
R B: Great thanks 🙂
Маry Satoshi CLUB: Let’s start our AMA 🚀
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: Introduce yourself please. How did you get to be involved in crypto & EQUOS?😊
R B: Sure. My name is Richard Byworth and I am the CEO of EQUOS and Diginex, the parent company of Diginex listed on Nasdaq
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: What is the essence of your project?
R B: I was originally an investment banker and moved into crypto at the end of 2017 after realising that the financial industry was going to be seriously challenged by this and other new technologies. EQUOS is an exchange
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: How long does it take to develop a project? What plans do you have for the future? And what can we expect from EQUOS? good background for the project 😊
R B: We are focused on bringing people a full private bank type experience. This means a place where you can go and touch all of your investments, monetize your portfolio to a better degree and improve it with derivatives and borrow and lending of your assets. Equos has been being built for two years. Today we do between 30-50mln of volume
Маry Satoshi CLUB: Long time, you prepared well😉
R B: with a core focus on the perpetual product, with options and dated futures still to come
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: Sounds great 👍
R B: Today was a big day… Today was the first day of trading and the full launch of EQO. our exchange token
Маry Satoshi CLUB: Wow, congratulations! 🚀
R B: Thanks. Holders of EQO receive a number of benefits that are unique to EQUOS.
This includes reduced trading fees, access to future airdrops, staking rewards, collateral against derivatives transactions, and enhanced interest for crypto lending. There will also be a buy back and burn mechanism implemented once the token has been fully distributed.
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: wow! Congratulations! This is a major milestone for the project.
Маry Satoshi CLUB: Were your expectations fulfilled?😉
R B: Good question…. the token was structured like bitcoin. you can only earn it (no pre sale or sale) and the earnings are every day for traders on the platform and people who continue to hold it, earn more every day through staking every 90 days supply halves
Маry Satoshi CLUB: Very nice incentives for your traders!
R B: it is issued over two years
Маry Satoshi CLUB: Not every 4 years?😉
R B: and… there will only ever be 21million 🙂
Маry Satoshi CLUB: It will be faster than with BTC😀
R B: Its early, and today was the first day of trading. But we saw issuance of 1mln today as a special issuance for traders that were active over the past three weeks. From this point forward daily issuance drops to around 100k until the first halving
Маry Satoshi CLUB: It was a special event for them?
R B: It was the activation period. We issued 10blocks today going forward 1 block per day
Маry Satoshi CLUB: Gotcha! Your traders should be very happy today!
R B: Yes people are over the moon
Маry Satoshi CLUB: What a time to be alive 👍😉
R B: And as they are earning more tokens every day just by staking / holding, very little for sale in the secondary
haha
Маry Satoshi CLUB: Sure, it makes sense 🙂
R B: If anyone is interested they should check out the whitepaper: https://equos.io/eqotoken/ . The team behind it: Kelvin, Neil and Shane have done a truly amazing job
Маry Satoshi CLUB: Sure, a lot of our members already read it, but for those who missed thus important document it will be very useful!
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: A good team is half the battle!👍
Маry Satoshi CLUB: After your intro, Richard, i want to know everything about EQUOS! We have some questions about your project from our users! Are you ready for them?
R B: Its a long doc, but the whole thing is summarized in the first three pages. Yes ready!
Q1 from Telegram user @nadee5
There are so many trading platforms…But selecting right trading platform is very important … Can you tell What are the good reasons to select EQUOS platform to trade ? What are the unique features you have introduced to EQUOS platform than the prevailing similar projects ?
R B: 1. It is part of a Nasdaq listed company – hence SEC approved and Nasdaq levels of governance and oversight
2. Operates under the Singapore regulatory framework PSA from Monetary Authority of Singapore
3. All coins are checked for provenance on the platform so you cannot end up buying tainted or dark coins
4. All listings go through a strict listing committee: no scams
5. Security personnel from government agencies and platform pen tested by NCC Group, same group that tests amazon and google
6. Products: Derivatives, Borrow and Lending (coming soon), EQO 🙂 – if you trade on EQUOS
7. KYC / AML standards – we aren’t going to get shut down by a regulator – we have the highest standards
8. We will never trade against you. We only have external market makers on our exchange. And we act as a regulator of our markets to make sure it is always fair
Маry Satoshi CLUB: How soon? Do you have approximate terms?😀
R B: This quarter will see all user defined margin, managed accounts, multiple fiat onramps (12 more!) and cross collateralisation
Маry Satoshi CLUB: How many users do you already have?😀
R B: By summer: Options, Futures, Borrow / Lend, and daily auction feature. We are a public company so I cannot unfortunately disclose information that is not in the public domain, we have not disclosed users
Маry Satoshi CLUB: Important features! Gotcha! Thank you for your answers! Ready to proceed?
R B: lets do it
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: Thank you very much for your answers! 👍
Q2 from Telegram user @johana0012
It is my understanding that shortly after the initial launch of EQO, EQUOS will introduce the functionality to yield returns on different asset balances within portfolios in EQUOS, powered by Digivault. Will this mean, for example, Bitcoin holders in EQUOS will be able to get a return on Bitcoin? How is the main utility of EQO supported? By what percentage will EQO increase the returns available to customers by a factor?
R B: That is correct @johana0012 – as an example, if you have 50,000USD of Bitcoin, and you hold 50,000EQO against it, the yield rate on your Bitcoin will increase by 10% (minimum) – so if you are earning 5%, you will boost that to 5.5% by holding EQO at a minimum. More importantly, at every halving, EQOs power ratio increases, so after the first halving you will only have to hold 25,000 EQO to power up the yield on 50,000USD of Bitcoin
R B: the power ratio increases every halving until the last when 1 EQO powers 8USD of an asset
Маry Satoshi CLUB: So, how much BTC will i need to hold after last halving?😀 If i had 50000$ at the beginning. Sorry, EQO)
R B: haha its more about EQO, if you still hold 50,000 USD worth of BTC, you would only need to use6250 EQO to boost the yield by a minimum of 10%
Маry Satoshi CLUB: Gotch, nice numbers!
R B: so you can see how the price of eqo is engineered to go in one direction 🙂
Маry Satoshi CLUB: We should start to collect EQO now or cry later?😂
R B: Reward blocks are the biggest at the beginning – ie now. Launch was today…. so get onboarded to Equos.io and start earning.
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: Sounds prospectively😉
Маry Satoshi CLUB: Thank you Richard for your answers! Ready to jump to the next one?
R B: Definitely
Q3 from Telegram user @Karoceh
What do you think about the future competition for CEX and DEX? Do you agree with the opinion that DEX will dominate CEX in the future? Why does EQUOS prefer to build on the CEX platform over DEX?
R B: Good question @Karoceh, EQUOS was designed to welcome institutions to the industry. While DEX are interesting at this point, institutions cannot use them. We designed all the features for institutions that ultimately massively benefit retail, not least not manipulating markets or trading against them but also extremely low fees
Маry Satoshi CLUB: We got your point 😊
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: What about the security of your platform?
R B: Our security team are ex government special divisions from US and UK .Our platform is penetration tested by NCC group, one of the world’s leading pen testers, who also pen test google and amazon. security is of utmost importance to us
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: Have smart contracts been audited?
R B: Yes EQO has been audited by an external firm as well as our own blockchain strategy team
Маry Satoshi CLUB: I see that hackers will bypass your exchange😀
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: Thanks for the answer! ready for the next question? 😃
R B: we get attempts every day, of course… but our team is solid and the whole organisation is trained against spear phishing attempts. yes lets go!
Q4 from Telegram User @konditer_rolex
When I tried to go to your site, this inscription appeared: “The Amazon CloudFront distribution is configured to block access from your country ….” Of course, I found a way to enter the site, but there I was in for another not pleasant surprise. When trying to register on the exchange, I did not find my country in the list of proposed ones. And without this, registration is impossible. Obviously, now your project is not interesting to me, since it turned out to be impossible to use. But it is very interesting to know on the basis of what you set restrictions on registration and in general about the security measures on the platform
R B: Hi @Konditer_rolex – I am very sorry to hear about your experience. Unfortunately we have blocks on a few countries due to regulatory issues: US, Malaysia, Singapore and Japan are currently blocked
Маry Satoshi CLUB: Not only, i also couldn’t access it
R B: where are you from Mary? or more importantly where are you resident
Маry Satoshi CLUB: Ukraine
R B: There should not be any issue with Ukraine.. I will check with the team. I am sorry to hear that.
Маry Satoshi CLUB: Sure! Thank you! Also i want to ask you if it is mandatory to pass KYC verification on your platform or you have some limits for deposits/withdrawals without it?
R B: Mary, I will message you after and make sure we get you onboard
Маry Satoshi CLUB: Of course! Thank you!
R B: We do take KYC very seriously for the protection of everybody on the platform. It is necessary to pass KYC for withdrawals. ID is required before depositing crypto, and proof of address needed for withdrawals
Маry Satoshi CLUB: Gotcha! I see that you take seriously all aspects of your business!
R B: We’re serious people 🙂
Маry Satoshi CLUB: Btw, that’s nice that you warn before deposit😀 Because some platforms don’t do thus and users are ‘confused’ when realize that they can’t withdraw. Thank you for your answers, Richard 😀 Ready to go to the next question?
R B: Always. Just keep firing them at me
Q5 from Telegram User @yellowchamp
In Equos, Fee levels are based on trade volumes. The more you trade, the less you pay. So,can you explain more about this statement? So if we trade more with Equos,the fee that we will pay will be lesser as time goes by? Can you tell us more about the Fee levels in Equos? Is there a maximum volume of trading to reach in order to pay less in trading? Thank you
R B: That’s right, here are the fee levels: https://equos.io/exchange-fee-schedule/. And to be clear, time doesnt need to go by, as soon as you start hitting higher levels on a run rate basis, your fees will drop as you pass through the tiers
Маry Satoshi CLUB: That’s really exciting!
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club: you have a good plan👍
R B: But now if you also hold EQO you can reduce your fees even further. We’ve created a fee calculator so you can work out your fee reductions, here: https://equos.io/eqotoken/
Маry Satoshi CLUB: Fantastic! Everything is simple and clear!
R B: if you scroll down on that page it shows all the calculators in fact
Part 2 — live questions from the Telegram community
Q1 from Telegram User @alyaakin
If the customer wants their private wallet keys from the Equos, will it be possible to get the keys?
R B: Hi Alya, the exchange is supported by Digivault (our highly secure custodian), if you wanted to manage the keys more directly, you can set up a direct account with Digivault, but for the exchange we manage withdrawals (transactions) through our own multi key governance process
Q2 from Telegram User @K2ice
Since you are not offering the EQO token for sale, how then can users get the EQO tokens and utilize them?
R B: Hi Hakeem, there are three ways to get EQO:
trade on the platform: you earn it daily
2. Hold the tokens – you earn more daily
or 3. buy the tokens in the secondary market on EQUOS
Q3 from Telegram User @Johana0012
I understand that by maintaining EQO in EQUOS it will also entitle clients to discounts on their trading fees. On what basis will these discounts be calculated? Will the discounts be implemented through the amount of EQO that the customer has? At how many levels will the balances be updated? @rb2323
R B: Basically certain amounts of EQO push you up through the fee tiers, 10,000, 50,000, 100,000 and 500,000 – taking you through to top fee tier in case you missed me answering Johana 😉
Q4 from Telegram User @Robotliker1
For a kyc do you have any restriction for US users? Also can you please tell me what is the daily withdrawal limit per day?
R B: Unfortunately US users cannot use our platform ay this time.
Q5 from Telegram User @anh1973
$EQO uses cases????
R B: Staking, Collateral for derivatives and loans, fee reductions, airdrops, and yield enhancement on other assets
Q6 from Telegram User @alaskasb
How does the transparent orderbook that EQUOS offers its users to trade? Is this orderbook constantly updated in the cloud? How do you control and verify the same information for so many orderbooks? Will only people who complete their KYC have access to this book?
R B: The order book is the bid offer spread. The point of that statement is that there is nobody with privileged information on the book (like at nearly every other exchange) who is effectively trading against you
Q7 from Telegram User @testercoin
After you launch other properties on this quarter what max leverage are we going to see on Equos?
R B: More products coming for sure and more coin listings all this quarter. Leverage maxes out at 125x, but we limit the amount users can do at those levels (given the volatility, this is highly dangerous), professional traders generally stick to around 3-5x
Q8 from Telegram User @Guandog
Can you explain the origins of the name EQUOS, if it has any special meaning for you?
R B: Great question Lun Mei. Equos is about equality… all our customers are treated equally. EQUOS also has implications of horses and raw power. EQUOS is focused on leading the industry as we continue to evolve the platform.
Q9 from Telegram User @Yiselen
As Diginex Group develops its other businesses, it will launch additional tokens to drive business results within those companies. EQO stands for EQUOS Origin and, as its name suggests, it is the first of the utility tokens within the group’s ecosystem. What will they receive in recognition of such? Will EQO token holders get an allocation?
R B: Yes Yiselen, that is correct. As we issue more tokens across the eco-system, holders of EQO will benefit from airdrops of those tokens as a thank you for being early supporters of the platform.
Q10 from Telegram User @azrayeni
On the website it says we will never trade against you so is it true that some exchanges trade against us?
R B: Yes this is true. Nearly every other crypto exchange has a trading desk that makes markets on their platform with all the information about who is going to be liquidated where, so if they push the market there then they can make easy money by forcing liquidations..
Part 3 – Quiz Results
In the final part we tested your knowledge in terms of EQUOS. They’ve prepared 4 questions for this part. The total reward pool for quiz was 1200$. For more information and future AMAs, join our Social Media channels: English Telegram group: https://t.me/Satoshi_club Russian Telegram group: https://t.me/satoshi_club_ru Spanish Telegram group: https://t.me/satoshi_club_spanish Telegram Channel: https://t.me/satoshi_club_channel Twitter: https://twitter.com/realsatoshiclub Website: https://esatoshi.club/ Our partners: EQUOS Website – equos.ioEQUOS Telegram – @equosio