Cryptolocally AMA with Jae Chung
Introduction AMA
Eric: Hi @jaechung. Ready to rock?
Jae Chung: Yes! Super excited :)
Eric: Welcome to the @amaroom, we are glad to have you here.
Jae Chung: Thank you for having me here!
Eric staking @ exnt.io, [22 Sep 2020 at 9:05:55 PM]:
@jaechung can you first introduce urself to our community
Jae Chung: Hi, I started coding when I was 13, and started working at a couple of tech startups as a teenager. I met Hugo at a company called Jobable in Hong Kong, where we got to work on a blockchain project together. I was impressed by both the technology and the community behind it, and I started contributing to the EOS community as a developer. I wrote open-source scripts that helped start and peer nodes, and launch a network (Ghostbusters infrastructure standards). I found a vulnerability in EOS.IO that qualified for a bug bounty and wrote an automated testing suite for EOS system smart contracts (now integrated into Block.one’s codebase). I also helped launch the EOS mainnet along with a few other developers. Outside of starting HKEOS, I advised Lumeos and Uncloak, worked as a tech consultant, and started CryptoLocally with Hugo.
I am a co-founder of CryptoLocally, and I built most of the blockchain/backend side of the platform.
Eric: wow! quite the love affair with EOS there
Jae Chung: Indeed
Eric: So tell us what is Cryptolocally?
Jae Chung: In a nutshell, CryptoLocally is a non-custodial, smart contract powered P2P trading platform and fiat gateway to DeFi. One of our main goals is to make crypto and DeFi accessible to everyone in the world, regardless of their environment.
Eric: Sorry, just saw this — — — 13 years old! quite young. were you still in school when you worked at startups or did u drop out?
Jae Chung: Haha yes. I was still in school when I first started working as a developer in a couple of tech startups. I met Hugo, my co-founder when I was still in school, and I worked together for around 2 years before I dropped out of Wharton.
Eric: Awesome. now back to Cryptolocally.
“Make crypto and DeFi accessible to everyone in the world, regardless of their environment.” — How is the product achieving this?
Jae Chung: Honestly, I started building CryptoLocally out of necessity. I found the whole process of getting into crypto so complicated at first. It took me a while to realize the route of finding a centralized exchange with fiat-crypto services and get KYC verified, wait for bank transfers to confirm, get BTC, then trade BTC into alts… while losing a lot of money in fees and time along the way.
Now let’s look at DeFi. Products/tools are completely scattered everywhere. You need to understand a third party wallet like Metamask and move your funds into these wallets from the exchange to get set up. In order to maximize yield, you need to figure out at least 5 different protocols (which also costs a lot of gas fees to move around from each other).
CryptoLocally essentially puts everything in one place and brings simplicity back to the user. All you need is an email address to get started. No need to connect a bank account and wait for wires to confirm if you can use your favorite local payment method. This is a product that normal internet users can start using immediately.
Eric: Is CryptoLocally a custodial service?
Jae Chung: In terms of the environment side, some of us don’t realize that 1.7 billion people in the world are unbanked. But most of them have mobile phones. The unbanked and undocumented people simply don’t have the means to get verified and access crypto/DeFi. We want to make this accessible to everyone.
Jae Chung: CryptoLocally is non-custodial and trustless since it uses a smart contract escrow. The selected crypto is sent directly to the smart contract on-chain and is secured by the escrow until the end of the trade. This provides an enhanced layer of security to our platform. There are no middle-men and no deposit needed before trading. You’re keeping full ownership of your keys and funds.
Eric: Does it support BTC?
Jae Chung: Yes, we currently support BTC (BEP-2). We recently partnered with swingby
( https://twitter.com/SwingbyProtocol/status/1308369123794018304 ), and will bring native BTC trading to the platform soon as well!
Eric: Woah nice. Big fan of Swingby.
How does CryptoLocally differ from competitors like LocalBitcoins?
Jae Chung: 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 full 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. On LocalBitcoins, users have to deposit/withdraw their funds.
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.
Eric: Nice evolution from the simplistic predecessors.
How are the funds protected? Can you give us more information about CryptoLocally’s escrow?
Jae Chung: Sure!
In a traditional p2p cryptocurrency exchange (e.g. LocalBitcoins) that uses an escrow system, the seller needs to deposit his crypto to a third-party escrow (e.g. The seller needs to deposit his BTC on LocalBitcoins wallet).
At CryptoLocally we upgraded traditional escrow systems by using smart contracts. This feature completely removes the third party from 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 to 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 get full control of any users’ funds.
Eric: So tell us about $GIV — token. what role does it play?
Jae Chung: Right now you can earn $GIV while trading on CryptoLocally, after each trade, both users are awarded GIV based on the traded amount.
You can also earn interest on your $GIV holdings directly on the DeFi wallet.
There are a couple more cool features like boosting your offers or buy fees rebates with your $GIV.
On top of this we are currently building two major DeFi features around $GIV;
First, CryptoLocally Vaults (CLVs) which are non-custodial, smart contract-based algorithms deployed across multiple chains. The CLVs will work in the background and apply strategies that optimize yield for users that invest in the vault pools.
This will allow users to earn a maximum yield on their crypto assets across all chains, all in one place, with the click of a button.
The second one is 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.
Eric: Pretty cool utilities
Speaking of DEFI — What’s your take on the current state of DeFi and where do you think it’s headed?
Jae Chung: At CryptoLocally, we absolutely believe that DeFi is a transformational technology. We also believe that it has the potential to disrupt the existing financial system by providing a viable way for the world’s unbanked citizens to gain access to financial services. The problem has been that there isn’t a simple and easy to use a solution in decentralized finance, which has been a barrier to mass adoption of DeFi and financial inclusion.
Our new DeFi feature, the Finance Wallet, allows you to earn interest on your cryptocurrency and this feature has been seamlessly integrated with our trading platform. It presents the easiest way to enter the DeFi space and will make mass adoption and financial inclusion possible.
Eric: Ok. let us proceed to the community questions. @jaechung please allow 2 minutes or so for the questions to drop. then after that, you can pick and choose the best questions to reply to.
Jae Chung: Sure. Excited to talk to the community!
Community AMA
Q: All transactions are protected by an escrow until the end of each transaction. Kindly Explain more about this ESCROW PROTECTION and how do you resolve Disputes between Traders.
A: In case of a dispute between the two parties, 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.
Q: As a community-based project, how can I donate my quota for your success? Do you have a Global Ambassador Program or a Referral Rewards System?
A: We do have 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 will also earn 1% in GIV of the value (in USD) of each successful trade your referrals make! Example: When someone you referred successfully trades 1,000USDT, you will then earn 10GIV.
Once you’ve signed up and you are logged in on Cryptolocally, on this page: https://cryptolocally.com/en/earn you can find your referral link, monitor how many users have signed up with your referral code, how many referred trades have been completed, the total referred trade volume per crypto and the total referrals’ revenue that you can claim.
You can transfer your referral earnings whenever you want and instantly to your personal wallet.
Q: Is it possible to eliminate human influence and make full use of the smart contract when using Escrow during trades on CryptoLocally ?
A: Yes, it’s possible to remove human influence because we use a non-custodial, smart contract-based escrow during the trades. Users do not need to trust a third party or worry about someone coming in and intercepting their funds.
Q: I notice CryptoLocally team had a lot of AMA’s in many crypto communities and collecting feedback from the community. Are there some big updates coming up?
A: We are very attentive to community feedback and suggestions. This gives us a constant flow of information to keep improving the experience on the platform.
To go even further down this road we are currently 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.
Q: Can you list some of CryptoLocally outstanding features for everyone here to know about? What are the products that CryptoLocally is focusing on developing?
A: We are currently building two major DeFi features around $GIV;
First, CryptoLocally Vaults (CLVs) which are non-custodial, smart contract-based algorithms deployed across multiple chains. The CLVs will work in the background and apply strategies that optimize yield for users that invest in the vault pools. This will allow users to earn a maximum yield on their crypto assets across all chains, all in one place, with the click of a button.
The second one is 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.
Q: What is the minimum transaction value and how fast is the transaction? Many many cryptos do #cryptolocally support?
A: There is no maximum amount that you can buy or sell on CryptoLocally P2P, the minimum amount of crypto that you can buy or sell depends on the cryptocurrency. Example: The minimum for ETH is 0.2ETH but the minimum for EOS is only 1EOS.
We have over 20 cryptocurrencies listed on CryptoLocally. More will be integrated in the future. Through GIVernance, users may be able to vote for cryptos to be listed on CryptoLocally with their $GIV.
Closing Remarks
Eric: @jaechung can you invite everyone to your groups and channels?
Jae Chung: Sure! We welcome all of you to join the GIV Guild. Thanks a lot for having me here today. Please tune in on the channels below to receive important updates! We have a lot of exciting announcements coming and the public sale coming very soon.
Telegram: https://t.me/cryptolocally
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cryptolocally
Eric staking @ exnt.io, [22 Sep 2020 at 9:57:05 PM]:
That wraps it up! Thanks for taking the time @jaechung
Jae Chung: Thanks so much!
Eric: Will try the website soon. Gotta have em Giv tokens!
To be eligible for any prize on the Cryptolocally AMA you need to do the following:
1. Sign up at cryptolocally using this link: https://cryptolocally.com/en/user/register?ref=12G5a
2. If you won the AMA best question, we will ask for your username on the website.
3. The Team will send the prize on your Cryptolocally account
