DAPPCON 2018: Trade and Token Networks - Don Mosites (Airswap)

Transcript

good morning everyone I'm dawn bositis with a company called air swap I'm one of the co-founders but we've got an incredible team of 25 between Brooklyn and Hong Kong I am here today to to talk a little bit about trade and token networks and how we feel about these topics I personally come from a background of Technology startups small and large over the last 10 or 12 years and it's been really exciting to work in this space and watch it watch it develop as as quickly as it has and I personally was in Berlin maybe around 20 years ago and has just

been waiting for a great reason to come back and see such a dynamic city develop as quickly as it has and have heard such incredible things and it's great to be here so back to trade and token networks we've heard pretty consistently and I think we often share the sentiments that centralized trade is a systemic risk and what I mean by this is that centralized crypto exchanges cannot provide the foundation that we need if they're constantly under attack and are being hacked and our funds are being taken away they're mismanaged they're going under there's a lot of trust we're placing in these exchanges and it's simply not a suitable foundation so if we think about decentralized trade and

attempt to define that in simple terms atomic swaps are something that we can actually perform between two peers and a smart contract where the execution of settlement of a trade is combined personal wallets give users control over their assets until traded so there's no centralized custody and prices can be communicated by any medium between peers so just given block chains that support smart contracts we can perform these atomic swaps and leave custody in users hands and can think of decentralized trade as beginning with two peers and a smart contract there are many combinations of peers that are trading in different ways

maybe there's oxygen systems off chain between peers or oxygen systems on chain like we just heard but essentially beginning between two peers in a smart contract so if we imagine a nice group of peers either floating around on the open web or saving the people in this room if I for example want to announce that I'm trading a token I can do that and just by saying that if somebody else the room wants to trade that token or has something to offer to me that connection can be made so to actually make that connection between peers there has to be some discoverability so

communicate some communication and a terrace walk we provide this peer discovery and therefore unlock decentralized trade as we see it a great question asked ourselves is why does trade matter in the dap ecosystem at large so there's many excellent financial applications for blockchain technology but ultimately what does trade enable in this ecosystem and we believe it's these token networks that are that are coming to life when a token comes online these tokens can drive network participation and growth they're designed with mechanisms to promote specific

objectives and they can offer both the right and incentives to participate in a decentralized network and these tokens are ultimately built for consumption rather than investment they have utility they're meant to be used not meant to be profited from so that is an important distinction if do you go through the thought exercise of what a consumer token is also utility token and how these consumer token networks can be built so ultimately if you think of it in those terms then buying a consumer token is joining a network and by holding its token you can use a first intended purpose but ultimately you are buying the token and you are among other peers that hold the token and can likewise participate so this is why we introduced

the air swap widget once you've made the decision to buy a token based on the utility of it or the the quality of the network you want to be able to do it in a safe and a quick way so the widget that we've developed you can just simply punch in an amount of a token that you'd like it'll actually bring you a price from many prospective peers that are anywhere in the world and you can buy it in place and this is something that can be embedded in any web site and supports ledger treasure meta mask and likewise on mobile so between between trust wallets status toshi cipher recently opera mobile air swap works out of the

box and it is backed by automated makers and these are individuals and teams that build software that run as peers in the network so there's a counterparty to every trade trades are performed on the swap contract which we developed and deploy it onto the main net over a year last year and it's been it's been running since actually as for the the automated makers be sure to check out our developer chat if you have any interest in taking a closer look we've got some awesome people in there and and we're working very hard on our developer documentation and likewise that our github we have the contracts that we use and with the widget buyers get the best price with no trade fees as we don't

take transaction sorry we don't take trade fees there are transaction fees to run the actual trade so this is a great scenario for for the end user when they want to be able to quickly and safely by that token and join that network so we welcome token teams to grow your network and to add the widget and adding the widget is as easy as dropping in a javascript file and running a JavaScript it has a set of callbacks that you can implement and you can just pop it up when the user is ready to join your network they can make the purchase dismiss the widget and then get back to work in the context of your app and to this point there's 12 awesome teams here who have already implemented the widget

or are underway addicts is one of the one of the sponsors today I believe were actually closer to 16 or 17 different teams that are that are on the radar and and really for us the more the more the more these teams see what this can do with the more obvious the choice it is so we think of this in terms of enabling quick and safe purchases to join consumer token networks and the proof of the pudding is in the eating and many teams have have joined us in that effort but what does it mean to actually be connected to a token network so to hold the token you can use it for its

intended purpose your among other peers to do as well but if we think about a decentralized network and maybe define it as as something that has capabilities built into smart contracts and these smart contracts can emit events you can execute transactions on them you're interacting with the network in this way you can actually watch these events you can see the information what's happening on the network the activity for any given token network there's a set of activity that defines what that network is and so being connected to that Network means you can actually see and you can actually read and filter and

react to the events in this network and to be a good good participant it means to coordinate and this is among other members other people who hold the token other people who would like to participate and likewise are either incentivized or encouraged to be a part of this network and [Music] are also communicating and working and playing whatever the activity is on a given network whatever it means to participate coordinating among members likely off chain is a very valuable concept finally and ultimately to participate as a holder of a token you are thinking in terms of what the token is used for you're among a group of

peers there are things happening on the network and as a result you're able to focus to engage and to act as a member of that network and between these three concepts to watch activity to coordinate among members to participate is the the the coming vision of a ver swap and the next phase of what we what we see and what we want to enable and if you think of us today as automated liquidity and instant trades and in a decentralized way for safe and quick purchases then think of us tomorrow as the consumer token Network experience and we welcome

everyone to join us on on August 8th at our offices in Brooklyn we're going to be hosting hosting an event and talking more and providing a view into this into this vision of the future so we welcome you to grow with air swap if you are a token team if you're thinking of deploying a consumer token if you have you should talk to us and we can help you grow your network visit us at airsoft at I am thank you okay thanks Don so we have a few questions here and all of them have to do with your business model okay and specifically if you're not taking any

fees how are you making money so the I mean the model that we've employed to this point is that there is actually token on the network and so we have sold this as a membership token or something that you stake to actually make yourself discoverable to other peers and so this is the the way that we sold this token is essentially the way that that we have collected the the proceeds for for the business so the the way that that model works again if the the core value prop is pure discovery then being able to make yourself discoverable to be a counterparty to those trades is something that's valuable and so staking the air swap token is is what enables

that okay great thanks very much thanks