9. THORWallet AMA 2022–08–19

Dear THORWallet community,

Please find here the recording and summary of our ninth THORWallet AMA episode with the THORWallet Chief Growth Officer Pedro Isaac Lopez, hosted by Archon which took place live on Twitter on the 19th of August.

These regular AMAs are a crucial instrument to keep users and community members up to date about recent developments and important news. We will talk about recent events, product development, introduce individual team members, discuss roadmap items, and more.

Recording of the AMA

Summary of the THORWallet AMA

If you just want to get the most important insights from the AMA, you can read the below summary.

Update on THORWallet’s KPIs:

Let us have a look at the current download and usage statistics of THORWallet:

We passed both the 100M USD volume and the 200'000 USD in all-time revenue marks

Webapp revenue has increased and now is a third “revenue stream” in line with Android and iOS
Monthly Active Users: 4'000 between Android and iOS
Downloads: 31'000 (18'000 on iOS and 13'000 on Android)

We see a constant growth in download and usage numbers from week to week. All these statistics and more is now available for everyone to check any time in our new Analytics Dashboard at https://analytics.thorwallet.org/

Discussion on the Crypto market and regulation

Opinion on general crypto market sentiment

The recent relief rally across the board was mainly driven by Ethereum’s transition to Proof-of-Stake. As we continue to build in a bear market, nothing has changed for us.

Sanctioning of Tornado Cash by the U.S. Treasury

This is a complicated topic; my analysis is split into three layers.

First, I believe code is free speech and, as such, should be protected. Over the past decades, a considerable effort has been made to safeguard code as speech; this is clearly a step backward. Furthermore, sanctions on specific technology create complicated situations. We saw people sprayed large accounts with 0.1 ETH from tornado tainted-ETH; those accounts were blocked from using services like AAVE.

Furthermore, privacy is an important issue. Privacy, in my view, does not equate with illegal activity. We have seen Apple going towards higher privacy settings; or services like Whatsapp having end-to-end encryption. So fundamentally, privacy is not evil per se. But it is more critical when we discuss financial privacy. You would not want your bank to disclose your transactions, salary, and rent, right? On the blockchain, all information is public, and the exact reasons why you wouldn’t want to have your banking information disclosed apply to blockchain transactions and address information.

Of course, Tornado Cash has been used by hackers and probably criminals for nefarious purposes. But that is true for any technology. Or do criminals don’t use smartphones? There is an evident flaw in the reasoning. Don’t get me wrong, fraud, stealing, and illegal activity should be prosecuted. I just feel this is the wrong approach.

Finally, it raises questions about how decentralized Ethereum is really. We all knew USDC and USDT could ban addresses, but what about critical infrastructure like Infura? There is a lot of work to be done.

General view on regulation in DeFi

Regulation, in general, is welcome. Knowing the game’s rules is better than having no clear restrictions and letting founders do guesswork.

It is clear that blockchain and DeFi are the most significant innovation in the financial space we had in many years. Some are skeptical, but I am convinced it will change the world just like the internet did.

I feel regulation should focus on minimizing bad actors. Frauds, Ponzi schemes, fake claims, etc., instead leave ample space for innovation. It is a new technology, and people should see it in that light. Companies will fail, and large promising ideas may not work in the first iterations.
Again, let’s think back to the early days of the internet. Did many companies raise considerable funds and then fail? Did many people lose money making investments in such companies? Yes, and yes. But that doesn’t mean the technology was valuable, and eventually, great companies like Amazon survived and created enormous value for investors and end consumers.

The BEP2 $RUNE Killswitch is live

RUNE kill switch was activated and non-native RUNE will slowly lose its value. So if you haven’t migrated you can do it easily with THORWallet DEX. We provide how-to video in our YouTube channel as well as a Medium article acting as a tutorial.

Update on recent developments

FIAT on & off-ramp powered by Mt. Pelerin

FIAT on/off ramp is a critical component in the THORWallet ecosystem, therefore we introduced a great solution together with our Swiss partner Mt. Pelerin. This solution does not require KYC (Know Your Customer) up to certain thresholds.

In our first month, we had 30'000 USD in volume and our team is working to have more options available to expand access to crypto.

THORWallet DEX introduces multi-chain DEX aggregation powered by Rango Exchange

Integrating Rango Exchange has been one of the most significant projects the team has been working on. And we are super excited to have the integration released a few weeks ago. We have started with all EVM swaps, but shortly, we will use all of Rango Exchange’s capabilities.
We have a good relationship with the Rango Exchange team and want to create win-win relationships. This is a significant step to bringing permissionless multi-chain swaps toTHORWallet DEX.

Integration of Cosmos’s $ATOM

THORWallet was one of the first THORChain-based protocols to integrate $ATOM on the get-go and we are super proud of the performance of our development team!

Continuous release of new features for our WebApp

Over the recent weeks we have added more and more features to our WebApp and we will continue to do so including Rango Exchange’s multi-chain swaps!

Here is a list of some of the most important features we have added recently:

Simple & advanced swap page
THORChain LP management & analytics
WebApp Dashboard
$TGT staking
Filtering & sorting of digital assets
Integration of MetaMask, XDEFI Wallet & Keystore wallet connect options

Check out the THORWallet WebApp yourself: https://app.thorwallet.org/

New Sudoswap pool for THORWallet DEX Army NFTs

We have seeded a Sudoswap pool for THORWallet Soldier NFTs for you to easily buy and sell them in a liquid NFT DEX pool.

Quarterly $TGT Burn

Last quarter we have burned 1.707M $TGT tokens based on our regular buy-back & burn program financed by our revenue streams.

Marketing Updates

We have continuously invested in marketing for our mobile apps and will push additional educational content on YouTube through our own channel and partners and friends.

We are also extremely proud of our new website at https://www.thorwallet.org/! Check it out now!