CryptoLocally AMA Recap

AMA time: 2020/09/21 20:00 (UTC+8）

CryptoLocally is the most promising DeFi product I have seen recently. Although there are many local OTC platforms and merchants in each region, CryptoLocally has successfully integrated them together and realized smart contract trading, which means CryptoLocally has decentralized part of the OTC business and achieved a breakthrough in peer-to-peer decentralized trading. As there are no other platforms implementing this function during this period, CryptoLocally can be regarded as the OTC unicorn in the current DeFi projects of its kind. This convenient OTC service manner will re-expand the scope and promotion of Crypto’s trading, setting a new milestone for inclusive crypto finance.

Today, we are glad to invite Hugo, co-founder of CryptoLocally, to our community to give detailed introduction to why CryptoLocally is a unicorn, and what are the features of this unicorn?

Welcome to our AMA, Hugo. Would you please give a self introduction of yourself?

1, Self-introduction:

Hi everyone, thanks for having me.

I’ve been working in tech teams since 8 years now, started my professional life at UBS and AXA, then left the corporate world for an online gaming company in Berlin, helped startups as a UI/UX consultant in Paris and finally moved to Hong Kong where I leaded product teams for a couple years. This is where I met Jae (cofounder) and we decided to start a business together. We first started a block producer team (hkeos.com) on the EOS blockchain, built bloks.io; now the most used block explorer for EOS.IO chains and finally launched CryptoLocally together.

2, Several questions about CryptoLocally

Thank you for your introduction, Hugo. Here comes the first question of our AMA.

Q1：I am amazed by the innovation of CryptoLocally. It is no exaggeration to say that its functions and goals will make it the world’s largest OTC market maker in this industry. I would like to ask Hugo why CryptoLocally has not appeared in the market until now?

A1：We have been bootstrapping the product with a small team since last November, we started with a marketplace for EOS.IO token exclusively and then added other chains like BEP-2, ERC-20 and TRC20.

CryptoLocally was built from the ground up from our team. We have been mostly focused on the product side until now and even without an enormous marketing budget our user-base kept growing organically. Now we have a vibrant community with 15K+ users all over the world and it is still growing month to month.

Now that we have a fully working product and also found product/market fit. We are using this token sale to fuel our engines and shoot for the stars :). We are also looking to invest more into branding, PR, social media and influencers to keep traction growing on the platform.

Q2: We know that the traditional OTC market is faced with problems in the trading center such as delayed releasing from user end, so how will CryptoLocally solve these problems?

A2: At CryptoLocally we upgraded traditional escrow systems (used on other P2P platforms) by using smart contracts. This feature completely removes the third party from a trade while keeping a tight security layer throughout the trading process.

Smart contract escrows enable users to trade among themselves without having to deposit their funds on an exchange wallet. The assets are directly sent to the smart contract address and released only when the seller confirms the payment reception. CryptoLocally doesn’t hold custody of users funds.

In case of disputes or issues between users, both parties have the possibility to report bad behaviour or ask for help while opening a dispute. For example, if the buyer doesn’t pay or the seller doesn’t want to release the escrow，each of them can easily open a dispute by clicking on the button “Open dispute”. In this case, the smart contract (Escrow) will be locked automatically and our support team will promptly contact each party to obtain evidence to substantiate the claim. After reviewing each side’s evidence, the support team will release the escrow if the payment has indeed been made. If the payment hasn’t been made, the funds will be returned to the seller.

Q3: Hugo, could you give us a detailed introduction to CryptoLocally because I am afraid that our understanding of it is partial. Since the functions of CryptoLocally operates normally already, I think there must be many special and hidden functions we don’t know.

A3: The most recent one is a DeFi feature called the “Finance Wallet”. Currently, you can use it to earn interest on $GIV, $ETH, $DAI, $USDT, and $USDC, but we plan to offer more tokens in the near future. To start using the Finance Wallet you just need to set it up in a few simple steps, send funds or buy directly on CryptoLocally and then simply toggle the earn interest button to start earning. That’s it. You can find a guide here: https://cryptolocally.com/zh/eth/how-to

Our core feature is still the P2P marketplace where a lot of different coins and tokens are available for trading (ETH, BNB, BTC, WAX, TRX, EOS and more). Trading on CryptoLocally is a simple 5 step process, and an escrow smart contract ensures that the transaction is completed securely and successfully. Our platform was built to be easy to use, and new traders can start trading immediately because there is no KYC verification.

It’s also important to mention that we are non-Custodial, there are no middle-men and no deposit needed before trading. Our escrows are powered by revolutionary smart contracts. You’re keeping full ownership of your keys and funds.

We also reward our most active users. This is why we developed a referral program, with which you can earn 10% of CryptoLocally’s fee for every successful trade your referrals make, and earn 20% of CryptoLocally’s fee if the seller and buyer of a successful trade have signed up with your referral code. On top of that, you earn $GIV every time you AND your referrals complete a trade!

Last but not least, $GIV is CryptoLocally’s native token, you can earn $GIV while trading and gain interest on your holdings on our Finance wallet. A very small portion of the circulating supply (1%) is tradable on Binance Dex and CryptoLocally but the public sale is coming very soon. Stay tuned

Q4: CryptoLocally realizes peer-to-peer transactions through smart contracts. How does CryptoLocally help users capture the real-time token prices?

A4：Yes, great question.

When creating an offer on CryptoLocally, you can choose which price source you want to follow (e.g. Binance, Coingecko or Bittrex) and we are fetching prices from those exchanges APIs. On top of this you can choose to set a premium or discount price by choosing a percentage over or under price source.

Here is how it looks like on the platform:

On the platform, prices get updated automatically based on the price source and the price gets locked only when a trade is opened (buyer/seller makes an offer on a listing). This is where users agree to proceed with a trade at a specific price and amount.

It is important to note that CryptoLocally can be used for arbitrage. Many of our platform’s users trade above or below market prices. You can find offers that are already available on CryptoLocally with a lower price than on other exchanges. If you buy from these offers, you can make a profit by selling at higher prices on other exchanges. You can also easily create an offer and choose to buy crypto at X% below the current market price or sell crypto at Y% above the current market price.

Q5: Where do the main users of CryptoLocally come from? Will the issuance of CryptoLocally tokens (GIV) focus and reward on the active areas?

A5:The product is most popular in North America, Europe, Nigeria and some countries in SEA, but we want to expand our community and focus on new locations like Indonesia, China, Vietnam, Ghana, Argentina, and Venezuela for example. We will create special campaigns/promotions and partnerships to reach people in these locations.

Our Public token sale will not be restricted to our current user-base nor specific locations, I can’t disclose too much information about it but pretty much everyone will be able to participate, at the condition to follow our announcements and be fast of course :).

We are rewarding active users in different ways, as mentioned earlier, you can earn GIV while trading on CryptoLocally, through our referral system and also earn interest on it directly on our new DeFi wallet! You can also get a silver or gold status by staking GIV on CryptoLocally, having a silver or gold status will give you up to -50% commission fee when you complete a trade on the platform + you will also earn even more GIV when you complete a trade and through our referral system.

Finally, we are working on GIVernance; GIV will evolve to be a governance token on the platform, offering a truly decentralized solution. Voting rights will offer GIV holders the ability to control the level of inflation, interest and free float (by way of token burns), vote on CLV strategies and finally vote for new listings on CryptoLocally.

Here comes the free question and ask session. All the group members can raise questions they are interested in, we will choose high-quality questions so Hogo can reply.

Q6: How does CryptoLocally ensure the security of fiat currency funds for users in various regions?

A6:Since CryptoLocally is non-custodial, you never have to deposit FIAT money on the platform at any time. During the trade, the buyer pays the seller directly using a payment method they agreed on.

The crypto assets are directly sent to the smart contract address and released only when the seller confirms the FIAT payment reception. CryptoLocally doesn’t hold custody of users funds.

To ease the FIAT part of the trade we kept adapting the platform to our users local needs, we already support over 30 payment methods around the world. These include local payment methods like WeChat Pay (China), KakaoPay (Korea), ChipperCash (Africa), PayPal (Global), etc. Gift cards just got listed as a payment method too!

Learn more about our trading process by reading our guide here: https://cryptolocally.com/en/eth/how-to

Free questions and answers

Here comes the free question and ask session. All the group members can raise questions they are interested in, we will choose high-quality questions so Hugo can reply. The winners will share $GIV reward worth $100.

User1: What is the composition of the CryptoLocal team?

Answer: We have a diverse and experienced team, Jae (co-founder) is a brilliant backend and blockchain engineer, he found a vulnerability in EOS.IO that qualified for a bug bounty and also helped launch the EOS mainnet along with a few other developers. Jae and I met at a company called Jobable in Hong Kong where we got to work on a blockchain project together. We ran a block producer team (HKEOS) together before building CryptoLocally.

We are also very happy to have great advisors that joined us in this adventure. Benjamin Rameau and Dan Clarke are Ex-Binance, Jack Huang is managing partner at One Block Capital. They are all helping us tremendously.

You can find the full team on our white-paper: https://cryptolocally.com/en/blog/giv-whitepaper

User2: What do you think is the biggest problem facing DEFI? What innovative design concepts have CryptoLocally made to face this problem?

Answer: DeFi is expected to democratize financial services. Unfortunately, at this time, access to DeFi and digital assets in general remains fragmented, complicated, expensive and slow. For the unbanked or the millions of people living in emerging economies, or people who live in regions with restricted currencies, this is sometimes outright impossible.

We are making it a very simple process, signup, deposit on our Finace wallet and click the toggle button. That’s it, you are earning interest and there is no lockup period.

User3: Where is the advantage of the project, can it be used on a well-known trading platform, and where is the reliability of the project?

Answer: Comparing us to other P2P platforms;

First of all, we have a wider range of coins and tokens available for trading compared to LocalBitcoins or Paxful. On CryptoLocally, you can trade EOS, ETH, TRX, USDT, BNB, and more (20+ tokens).

Second, there is no KYC verification needed for P2P trading on CryptoLocally and the DeFi feature. You can start using our platform right after signing up with your email address. This is because CryptoLocally is non-custodial, meaning that we are never in control of your funds. Instead, the selected crypto is sent directly to the smart contract on-chain and is secured by the escrow until the end of the trade.

Third, we’re the first P2P trading platform with a DeFi feature! We recently released the Finance Wallet, allowing you to earn interest on your cryptocurrencies, hassle-free. And finally, we have our own native token called GIV. You will earn GIV every time you or one of your referrals complete a trade on CryptoLocally.

Thanks Hugo for joining our AMA and sharing so much valuable information with us. Thank you all for watching this AMA. EncryptClub will work hard and bring more wonderful content for you in future.