PART 1. Introduction of Acala & Karura project and community questions.
Hello, Satoshi clubbers and guests of this site. Today we want to present you a wonderful project, or more precisely, this is a double project. Acala & Karura are projects created by the same team to satisfy the interests of Polkadot and Kusama users.
Acala’s all-in-one DeFi hub of Polkadot, a platform to helps you stake, swap, borrow, lend, earn, and more – all with micro gas fees.
What is Karura? Karura is the all-in-one DeFi hub of Kusama.
Founded by the Acala Foundation, Karura is a scalable, EVM-compatible network optimized for DeFi. The platform offers a suite of financial applications including: a trustless staking derivative (liquid KSM), a multi-collateralized stablecoin backed by cross-chain assets (kUSD), and an AMM DEX – all with micro gas fees that can be paid in any token.
The plan of AMA session:
- Part – Introduction and preselected questions.
- Part – Live questions
- The Quiz about Acala &Karura
The reward pool is 500$
Leading the AMA our clever and fun admins:
Gold Rocket | Satoshi Club – @GoldRocket27
Andrés M. | Satoshi Club – @AndresM77
The Representative of the project:
Dan Reecer – VP of Growth @ Acala & Karura – @dreecer
Introduction of Acala & Karura project.
Gold rocket | satoshi club:
Hello, dear community!
We conclude our today’s ama marathon series with Acala & Karura.
Today our Acala & Karura guest is @dreecer – vp of growth in Acala and Karura!
Dan reecer:
Hey! Thanks for having me
Gold rocket | satoshi club:
We are very excited about the upcoming AMA😊 Let’s start! @dreecer
Introduce yourself, please. How did you get to be involved in crypto & Acala & Karura?
Dan reecer:
Well, I took an interest in bitcoin and started studying bitcoin back in 2013 (unfortunately didn’t invest as a poor recent college graduate), but then started following more closely in 2017 when I was working in pharmaceutical brand marketing. I then flew to a bitcoin conference in Miami in Jan 2018, which led me to take an internship at Wanchain. That turned into a full-time offer where I led marketing for 1.5 years. Then I moved to web3 foundation to help launch Kusama and Polkadot for 1.5 years. While at Polkadot, I started consulting on the side with Acala because in my eyes they were the best Para chain building on Polkadot. That turned into an offer to join full-time on Feb 1, and now I’m here leading growth for the team.
Gold rocket | satoshi club:
Wow! You have a great background 👍
Dan reecer:
Haha, definitely. Well, I had been hearing the “interoperability” buzzword for a couple of years, but until Polkadot came along, no one was really executing the tech in a way that would really work. When I was evaluating the job offer, Polkadot had a lot of potential because it was created by Gavin wood who created the Ethereum virtual machine (EVM) and created the solidity programming language. Gavin is the primary reason Ethereum is what it is today. But to me, it was impossible to ignore the fact that this guy left Ethereum to create his own project that would be able to scale and improve on all the limitations of the previous network that he built. He even created a new programming language called substrate which makes it possible to easily custom-build blockchains (called Para-chains) for Polkadot and Kusama. My move to Polkadot and Kusama was really a bet on the technology and a bet on Gavin.
Gold rocket | satoshi club:
It can really inspire 🚀
Dan reecer:
So now today we have Polkadot and Kusama with these multi-chain ecosystems really starting to flourish.
Andrés m. | satoshi club:
Hello dan, thank you for the intro, would you like to add something before our first community question?
Gold rocket | satoshi club:
What is Karura? Please tell us more.
Dan reecer:
Yes, so in this diagram, you see all of these small gray squares. These are all individual “Para-chains” that are custom-built for specific use cases. These are layer-1 blockchains equivalent to Ethereum. Acala is building the defi Para-chain for Polkadot, and Karura is building the defi Para-chain for Kusama. Both of these Para-chains are built by the Acala team.
Karura will be a blockchain platform that DAPps can be built on, and our team has also already built a full application hub where people can stake, do a swap on the Karura DEX similar to Uniswap, borrow and lend with the Karura dollar (KUSD) stablecoin, and do liquid staking for KSM (which means you can stake your KSM and get a liquid form (LKSM) that you can use in DeFi while your original KSM is still earning rewards).
Dan reecer:
This is what the Karura apps look like.
Andrés m. | satoshi club:
Are you planning to connect with other chains? For example, BSC, Cosmos…
Gold rocket | satoshi club:
It looks very dignified! Thank you very much for sharing!
Dan reecer:
It’s all built and ready to launch on Kusama as soon as Karura wins a Para-chain slot auction (which is required to gain a slot on Kusama to launch). People can use the apps already on testnet at http://apps.acala.network (you can use the getting started guide to get testnet tokens).
Yes, we will have bridges to bitcoin and Ethereum. Acala also just recently received one of the first compound grants from the compound team to build a “starport” bridge between the new compound chain and Acala. There are also some teams building bridges to the Cosmos and other chains. I haven’t heard about a BSC bridge yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see that soon too.
Dan reecer:
Ren protocol has already integrated with Acala as well for RENbtc.
Andrés m. | satoshi club:
Congratulations, it seems you are reaching great milestones👏
Gold rocket | satoshi club:
Why did you decide to choose Kusama?
Dan reecer:
Well Kusama and Polkadot have almost the exact same technology, but the communities have become quite different. KSM holders have a significant amount of demand for DeFi products, just like the dot community has a huge demand for DeFi. Karura (http://Karura.network) is serving the demand of Kusama, while Acala will serve the demand of the Polkadot community. We look at it like a traditional company opening a branch in two different countries to serve both populations.
Andrés m. | satoshi club:
It’s true, both are strong projects with a big community
Andrés m. | satoshi club:
@dreecer we have collected some community questions for you, ready to proceed?
Dan reecer:
Sounds great.
Preselected questions about the Acala &Karura DeFi project.
Gold rocket | satoshi club:
Q1 from telegram user @juansb07
You say that the Acala DeFi platform is “all in one” as it has the ability to help users bet, trade, borrow, lend, win and more, all with micro gas fees. But could you explain to me how they do it without any inconvenience? Do users have to complete a KYC to access these tools? And how do the “micro gas” rates work? Are they really minimal?
Dan reecer:
Acala and Karura will be open, decentralized platforms similar to Uniswap, maker, compound, etc. Where they are open financial tools not requiring identity. One of the main user experience differences between Polkadot/Kusama DAPps and Ethereum DAPps is that these will use the “Polkadot.js” browser extension instead of Metamask. The other major difference Acala/Karura will have are the gas fees. Substrate allows us to customize gas fees at the blockchain level, instead of eth DAPps having to just accept what Ethereum requires. So, in our case, we will make gas fees as low as possible (can’t be $0 or there would be spam transactions). The complexity of the transaction will impact the gas fee price, but they will always be very low (if I had to guess, usually under 50 cents USD).
The customization for defi also allowed us to create “bring your own gas”. This allows gas fees to be paid in any token, so there’s no need to find aca for Acala or kar for Karura. For example, if you bring ETH to Karura, you can do a swap and pay the gas fee in eth instead of having to go find KAR.
Gold rocket | satoshi club:
Sounds good!
Andrés m. | satoshi club:
The very complete answer, So what will be the main benefits for holders?
Dan reecer:
Well, one of the things I’m most excited about is that Karura can be used by end-users on day 1 when we launch. Our goal is for Karura to be the first public Para-chain to launch on Kusama, which will be a lot of utility to token holders. For example, 6% of the entire kar supply has been set aside for early liquidity providers. Since Karura has a fixed supply with no inflation, this means early lps will be earning a percentage of the network jusy by providing liquidity. The KARcommunity will also be able to use Karura for swaps, KUSD loans, and KSM staking as I mentioned before.
Gold rocket | satoshi club:
By the way, what options does Mandala provide to the user?
Dan reecer:
Some details on the liquidity rewards
Dan reecer:
Mandala is just the name of the testnet.
Mandala = testnet
Karura = mainnet on Kusama
Acala = mainnet on Polkadot
Andrés m. | satoshi club:
Thanks for the clear answer, would you like to proceed with the next question?
Dan reecer:
For those interested in the KUSD loans, the Karura DEX, and liquid KSM staking, here is a youtube playlist showing live demos of all of these products:
Gold rocket | satoshi club:
Thanks a lot for this clarification.
Dan reecer:
Yes, that works. I can stay for 15 more minutes.
Andrés m. | satoshi club:
Q2 from telegram user @victorogb
Kusama has been said to be a ‘cypherpunk heaven’ for developers looking to move fast and push the limits of what’s possible. Karura plans to integrate and capture this vibrant developer community via Kusama and also assist substrate developers with world-class tools and platforms for financial applications. Can you carefully outline some the “haven of benefits” and financial tools Kurara will offer developers and budding innovators and how will the synergy between developers and Kusama, effectively benefit Karura?
Dan reecer:
One of the main things to keep is mind is that with Karura and Acala, the DeFi products called “primitives” are built into the blockchain itself. This is significant for Karura because these are essential building blocks that other Kusama developers can come and use to build their own apps on Karura leveraging these defi primitives. For example, a dev team could come and take the Karura DEX to use in their own DEX aggregator application, or they could use the KUSD stablecoin to build their own fixed income product. The best part is that Karura and Acala can upgrade without forks, so we can continue to build more and more functionality into the chains with a simple blockchain upgrade (unlike Ethereum which hasn’t been able to change/upgrade since it launched years ago)
Andrés m. | satoshi club:
Btw, I think it will help to increase the ecosystem use cases.
Gold rocket | satoshi club:
Agree! Upgrading without forks is a huge benefit! 👍
Andrés m. | satoshi club:
Thank you for the answer, ready for the next question?
Dan reecer:
Yep. Really good questions, by the way.
Andrés m. | satoshi club:
Q3 from telegram user @meml97
On Acala we can get involved on something you called consortium where we can jointly govern and develop the platform, can you tell us more about this group? How can we govern and develop Acala network and how can we be part of it? Also, while looking at Karura’s page I noticed this option isn’t available. Does this mean we can only get involved on Acala? Or by joining one of these platformdwe are already part of the governance and development of the other one?
Our community is highly interested in this big project😃
Dan reecer:
Great question, and probably something we should add to a future iteration of the Karura webpages.
So, the answer is no, you can get involved in either network, just like today there is separate governance for Kusama and Polkadot ecosystems.
Both Acala and Karura will have extensive on-chain governance operations that govern the network and make decisions on the future. Acala and Karura will both have a “council” of people that are elected by token holders. There will also be specific ‘committees’ that help govern the financial products, like the stablecoin and liquid staking protocol. These will likely be crypto finance experts like gauntlet who we just partnered with (the team that works with aave, compound, maker, etc.).
As a token holder, we’ll definitely encourage as much participation as possible, including voting, discussing governance proposals, electing council members, even running for council yourself.
You can check this out for more info on Acala/Karura governance: https://wiki.Acala.network/learn/basics/governance-overview
Andrés m. | satoshi club:
There will be different governance levels due to the number of tokens?
Dan reecer:
The quantity of tokens will only impact things like votes. The council members with the most tokens voted for them will be the ones who get to make decisions on behalf of the network participants.
Andrés m. | satoshi club:
Great work, it shows transparency👏
Dan reecer:
I’ve got to run to a meeting. The biggest thing to watch out for are the Para-chain slot auctions on Kusama, where Karura’s goal is to be the first Para-chain to launch and bring you all these DeFi applications. You can learn more about that process and how it works in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq87jboe4tk.
You can follow Karura on any of our social channels here , and follow Acala here.
If you have any other questions, feel free to reach out to me on twitter: https://twitter.com/danreecer_
Thank you so much for having me, and thanks to the participants for all the awesome questions!
Andrés m. | satoshi club:
Thank you so much for your time dan, it has been amazing info that you bring us
Dan reecer:
Would be great to do it again soon. Thanks for hosting
Gold rocket | satoshi club:
It’s a pity that you had to leave! Thank you very much for your answers! We are waiting for you with the project update!
Dan reecer:
Hey actually I can stay. I’ll have a teammate cover me for the other meeting. I didn’t realize there were a lot more questions.
Andrés m. | satoshi club:
Thank you, so we will proceed quickly😁
Andrés m. | satoshi club:
Q4 from telegram user @yellowchamp
As an all-in-one defi platform to helps stake, swap, borrow, lend, earn, and more – all with micro gas fees, when are you planning to launch Acala mobile application for easy access and better use of Acala users and traders? Can we expect it for both android and ios mobile? Is this plan will be one of your goals this year as the development phase of Acala network? Thank you
Dan reecer:
Another asset trading platform) and Polkawallet, one of the first wallets in the Polkadot ecosystem. We are working closely with the Polkawallet team to make Acala and Karura mobile optimized. Yes, you can expect ios and android, as Polkawallet is available on oth platforms today.
Once Acala is live, then we will work to make our products available on mobile, such as the DEX, stablecoin, and liquid staking.
Andrés m. | satoshi club:
There any approximated date to the launch?
Dan reecer:
Well, first crowd loans and Para-chain slot auctions need to start on Kusama. I’m hoping those will start sometime in may, but we will see. Then once auctions start, Karura can try to win the first auction to launch on Kusama.
Then after things are working well on Kusama, then Polkadot will begin to start Para-chain slot auctions. This is when Acala will be able to try to win an auction then launch on Polkadot.
This is the path to earning a slot on Kusama or Polkadot. You can learn more about that process and how it works in this video I mentioned earlier.
Andrés m. | satoshi club:
Thank you, don’t forget to share the coming announcements with us.
Ready to the next question?
Dan reecer:
Sounds good
Andrés m. | satoshi club:
Q5 from telegram user @amirjosh
According to your tokenomics, 20.25% of $aca token will be reserved for Acala team. Why such a high percentage of token allocated to the team, while the ecosystem development just have 5%? Are you going to lock the team’s token?
Dan reecer:
We have over 50% of the supply set aside for the community. This includes rewards for crowd loan participants, rewards for early liquidity providers, ecosystem development, and treasury tokens which will also be used for the ecosystem and for providing liquidity to our defi protocols.
Andrés m. | satoshi club:
Do you have any community events at the moment?
Dan reecer:
The founding team’s tokens have a 1.5-year lock and a 1.5-year vest (3 years total). You can see the token schedule here:
Gold rocket | satoshi club:
Thanks for clarifications! Ready for the last question of this part of the ama or want to add something?
Dan reecer:
We do not have any community events at the moment, but we just had one called build Acala that recently ended. There are 3 primary ways to get involved with Acala as a holder:
- Participate in the “crowdloan” for Acala’s Para-chain auction, lock/bond dot in the crowdloan module on Polkadot to support Acala’s bid for a Para-chain slot. In return, aca will be airdropped upon Acala network launch based on participants’ level of support. This is the main token distribution event for Acala, at least 11% of the total fixed supply will be distributed this way.
- After the mainnet launch, there’re liquidity programs to incentivize usage of Acala’s defi protocols. A total of 6% of the total fixed supply will be distributed this way.
- Contribute to Acala treasury via the build Acala event in exchange for aca (the first one just ended). The proceeds will be contributed to Acala’s on-chain treasury then be allocated to the decentralized sovereign wealth fund (DSWF) to bootstrap liquidity, ensure the stability of Acala dollar, and sustain the long-term operation of Acala such as bidding for a Para-chain slot. The treasury is essentially value-under-management by the Acala network governance. Read more here.
The best way is to join our newsletter to hear about future events: http://linktr.ee/Acalanetwork.
Dan reecer:
Yes, sounds good
Andrés m. | satoshi club:
Q6 from telegram user @nataliyakil
You have a sufficiently large and detailed form to apply for the Acala ambassadors program. A candidate for participation in the program has to provide a lot of information about himself, not yet being in the team? And if he does not pass the selection? How will all personal data collected by you be protected? Or are you inviting all candidates who apply for cooperation?
Satoshiclubbers let’s join to know more about the coming events🥳
Dan reecer:
Yes, we have a very personal and hands-on approach to our ambassador program. It’s a completely volunteer-driven program, and most information on the form is optional. We already have people in the program who are anonymous, and that’s totally fine with us. All the data is protected in our system and is never used for anything besides contacting you about the ambassador program (and the newsletter if you sign up for that). At the moment, we have unbelievable demand for the ambassador program, so please be patient with your onboarding as we do personal onboarding in small groups, so we’re only able to process a small amount each week.
Andrés m. | satoshi club:
How to join? Could you share the form to apply?
Dan reecer:
Yep the ambassador signup form is listed here: https://linktr.ee/Acalanetwork
Andrés m. | satoshi club:
Thank you, I know some of our users want to apply. Well, @dreecer thank you so much for your answers in this first part of the AMA.
Gold rocket | satoshi club:
Thanks a lot for your answers and clarifications! Now get ready for the most impressive part of our ama – the live questions!
Dan reecer:
Sounds great
Andrés m. | satoshi club:
The second part is the live segment, we will open the chat and community members will post their questions, you should choose your 10 favorites and answer them.
Let’s go🥳
PART 2.Questions about the Acala & Karura project from the live chat of the telegram community.
In this part, we open a chat for the crypto community for 120 seconds. Then the guests from the Acala &Karura crypto project choose the top 10 questions. The 10 crypto enthusiasts have earned cryptocurrency in the sum of 100$.
Q – 1 from a telegram user @Eminet001@Eminet001
SUCCESS of a project also depends on how large the community is, so my question is do you have plans to spread awareness to both crypto users and non-crypto users in the world at large for them to adopt your project, especially non-English speaking countries,
Or some communities are restricted from accessing your project?
Dan Reecer:
Yes, I totally agree. At our last count, the Acala and Karura community is now at 204,000 globally across all our channels. We have a team in China, so one advantage we have is that we have a strong community in both Asia and the western world. We are also starting to work with a provider to help us get into new regions, such as Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, and Vietnamese languages. This is one of the most fun parts of community building!
Q – 2 from a telegram user @highpee
The HOMA PROTOCOL of the Acala network will be able to tokenize users staked assets as L-Asset. How will the Homa Protocol aggregate the supply of each user participating in staking & issue L-Assets for the locked assets in the staking pool? What can be done with L-Asset?
Dan Reecer:
Yes, so in Acala’s case, we will provide liquid DOT staking. This means that we will aggregate the DOT of all people staking on Acala, then distribute that evenly amongst the validators. When a user wants to unstake early, they can do so using Acala, and the DOT they redeem for their LDOT will be taken from a pool on Acala. To me, LDOT is the most exciting and gamechanging product that will come with Acala. With LDOT, you essentially unlock the utility of your DOT – this can be used to take a loan for aUSD, can be used to provide liquidity for LP rewards, it can be used in swaps for other tokens, etc.
We are also going to bring LDOT and DOT to Compound Chain with the “starport” we are building to Compound, and we’ll bring Compound’s CASH token to Acala/Polkadot.
Q – 3 from a telegram user @vedamatrix
In order to be faster, you must do fewer tests. As Kusama is there for pushing the limits and goes faster, won’t this be a security problem for Karula?
Dan Reecer:
Kusama has a marketcap of around $4b at this point, which means that it provides robust security for parachains. We see Kusama as a super exciting place to build since it will allow our dev team to launch exciting new products on Karura. But these products will never be launched without first being rigorously tested on test net.
Q – 4 from a telegram user @alptrader
Which one do you think can be a parachain sooner? Acala for Polkadot or Karula for Kusama?
Dan Reecer:
Almost 100% certainty that Karura will come first, because parachain slot auctions will start on Kusama first. Polkadot parachain slot auctions won’t start until after there are several parachains already live on Kusama.
Q – 5 from a telegram user @alyaakin
What this the main task of Acala? Is it created for providing lending and borrowing money for other parachains?
Dan Reecer:
Acala is an ‘all-in-one’ platform that people aren’t really used to yet. In Ethereum DeFi, you have to hop around to different websites to get things like an AMM DEX (Uniswap), borrowing/lending (Maker), staking liquidity, stablecoins, etc. With Acala and Karura, all of these products will be available in one place, and with extremely low gas fees. These will be live at http://apps.acala.network (you can already try today – get testnet tokens here.)
Q – 6 from a telegram user @smelekin
Why do you think Acala is the best para chain on polkadot?
Dan Reecer:
I came to Acala because of the quality of the team and the technology. There is only one Substrate Developer Academy on earth, which is where people are learning how to build on Polkadot and Kusama – this academy was founded and is taught by the Acala CTO, Bryan Chen. Bryan and other Acala developers are not only working on Acala/karura, but also contributing to the Substrate/Polkadot/Kusama code too. I also know that DeFi is the #1 proven use case on Ethereum and in crypto in general, so I don’t see any better way to start the Kusama and Polkadot ecosystems than to have Karura and Acala be the first public parachains to launch. Plus, it will be a lot of fun for users because with Karura and Acala, you’ll actually be able to use the parachain. In almost all other cases, you’ll have to wait for DAPPs to be built on the parachains, which could take months.
Q – 7 from a telegram user @Ratash99
Can you explain what are the parachain auctions and how to participate in them?
Dan Reecer:
This is too much to explain in a paragraph, but I explained it here in only 8 minutes 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ87jBOe4Tk
Q – 8 from a telegram user @Mamitabella
The products offered by Acala under Polkadot are interoperable with other chains Assuming Parachain with Kusama too?
Dan Reecer:
Yes, with any para chain or DAPp on Polkadot or Kusama, everything will be fully interoperable. This slide will help explain.
Q – 9 from a telegram user @atillayeni
What is Gavin Wood creating right now? Is he working on with Kusama?
Dan Reecer:
Gavin just posted this Kusama para chain launch tracker on Github this morning. This is definitely where most of his focus is right now: https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot/issues/2902
Q -10 from a telegram user @RosemaryBianco
𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞 “𝐀𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐚 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐊𝐚𝐫𝐮𝐫𝐚”? 𝐃𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐨𝐫 𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐧?
Dan Reecer:
Acala comes from a buddhist god of protection. The origins of the name Karura comes from a divine creature in Japanese, stemming from a race of gigantic birds in Hinduism. According to Japanese mythology, the karura is said to be an enormous, fire-breathing bird which aligns with the Karura network’s bold and powerful intentions.
Part 3 – Quiz about project
In the final part, we tested the knowledge in terms of the Acala & Karura project. They’ve prepared 4 questions for this part, so everyone could be a part and answer. Participants had 10 minutes to answer. 300$ was distributed between the winners.
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