Summary of our previous event “Close Talk with Z.T.”

 This write-up will provide a summary of our previous event “Close Talk with Z.T.” Comments or questions are welcome at telegram.

1.What’s the relation between Fortuna and Fota?

Fota is a mostly centralized platform and Fortuna is Fota’s next decentralized iteration. In laymen’s terms, we will slowly move modules of Fota to our main net and make other necessary additions/optimization eventually we will have Fortuna.

2. Will there be any incentives on the centralized platform for the Fota token?Yes, there are two main reasons. On the one hand, we have analyzed the situation from both a technical and a financial perspective, and have decided that going straight to a DAPP would not be smooth and intuitive. Just look at BTS and some other decentralized exchanges. They face many problems. And our solution is more complicated that those exchanges since a derivative platform is multitudes more complicated than an coin exchange (exchange for the underlying). For example, a mature margin system takes CME 200 people 5 years to complete. On the other hand, a better approach is to start from a centralized platform and slowly move modules of it on the chain. For example, given the current technological capability of DLT matching algorithm of traditional exchanges are much more efficient and suitable than doing so on chain. However, we could slowly move ledgering and data storage on chain and thus makes transaction history enjoy the benefits of the blockchain tech which I believe I don’t have to elaborate since you all probably know (traceability, immutability etc.) but eventually everything will be decentralized and by that time the DLT tech would be much more mature given the speed at which it evolves.

3. The circulating volume is around 4.15 billion right now. Why does it keep increasing lately, Z.T.?

If you look at the top 2 addresses, especially the top 1 address of Fota. Most of the out transactions are small, usually around a few scores of hundreds. These are mostly used to give incentives and rewards to the community in addition to that one of our early seed investors got a portion of his shares of Fota lately and those are the main reasons we see the supply increase. The team have yet used the foundation for any other reasons.

4. What is the current plan for attracting institutional traders once the platform is live?

Even though our focus is now on retail investors at the current stage, we are indeed also talking to some institutional investors such as market-makers in the Chinese OTC equity option market and the exchanges and capitals in Singapore.

5. Do you see yourself partnering with one of these institutions?

Yes, for sure. We are building relationships with those institutions but the actual collaboration would have to wait for Fortuna.

6. Do you think Fota will be a product with an excellent user experience?

I think Fota will be a great product. We put a lot of thoughts on it. When I designed it, the goal is to make it professional but easy to use. Mostly importantly, the system of Fota, unlike those of some other derivative exchanges, are not a make-shift idea. For example Fota’s margin system is mathematically complete, a feature I don’t see on any other crypto futures/derivatives exchanges. It has to do with measure theory so I am not going into details on that this time. but maybe sometime we can discuss this with math savants.

7. I know you mentioned that we would partner with Certik. When will that happen?

In fact, we already have a partnership with Certik. We even started a organization called Yale Consensus. We are working with Certik to provide an API for users of Fortuna to use Certik’s formal verification services.

8. Hey, Z.T, I was wondering what are the bottlenecks that Fortuna is facing right now?

I don’t think there is any bottleneck but there are indeed lot of details to work out. This is why we are choosing the route of doing Fota first and then transition to Fortuna. A lot of the modules of Fota can be reused in Fortuna and we expect to learn a lot from our experience making Fota.

9. How can we access to your tech team directly? Will there be a help desk or something like that?

Unfortunately the only way to access technical support for BlackFriday is to talk to admins here first. This is due to the fact that BF is just a usable prototype. We intended it as a demo however we made it usable anyways. If you have any trouble with it, feel free to contact admins here. For Fota however, we will have a full support team and customer representatives.

10. ZT, the other day you mentioned you were meeting JD on a business trip. Can you share any details on this and does it pertain to Fortuna?

Yes, I met the head JD.com’s blockchain lab on my trip to Beijing. Their focus is on data. In other words, they would be a data provider like Bloomberg for cryptos. We are still discuss how we could work with them tho but currently we have no solid plan for that yet.

11. Can anyone create a derivatives product on the Fortuna platform? What’s the process for adding investment products to the platform?

You would use the contract templates provided by other nodes of Fortuna in order to do so. Furthermore, if no current templates are suitable for your specific derivative, you can create your own template. This requires some coding and professional knowledge but will also earns you Fota as incentives.

12. Any advises on personal investment in the blockchain field?

This is a difficult question haha. I wish I could answer that here but that would be irresponsible. This deserves a whole session, haha.

13. Does Fortuna use Fota to pay its payroll?

Great question. Actually that is the second reason I haven’t had the chance to mention yet. and yes it does. The second reason for use to make Fota first is to generate steady cashflow since we do not fleece retail investors.

14. What are the major markets of Fortuna?

The derivative market is huge. This question also depends on how you catagorize “markets” (by underlying assets or geographically etc). We currently have plans for cryptos and equity options/futures market. With a focus on jurisdictions with a more open mindset on the blockchain tech. To be specific, we are working on acquiring licenses in Singapore, UAE, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. The largest market are definitely North America and China, but they also have very strict regulation regime. So our plan is to start from more friendly places and when we could prove our model and products we will spend more resources on those bigger markets. The above answer is for Fortuna. For Fota, since we are focused on cryptos, our target market is the entire crypto community.

15. Will you poach some more talented people from other companies? On this note, could you tell us a bit about Wei Zhu’s role in the company and how he will contribute to Fortuna.

With him, my team (Finance/Quant team) works a lot more efficiently since I cannot do everything myself. Currently he is in charge of R&D on topics such as crypto market momentum, market microstructure etc. He also helps a bit with our market-making strategies but his focus is more on research. We believe we need someone like him since research is also a very important aspect of the finance industry.

16. Would you be able to give the community a few points on who he is and where we poached him from?

He is the director of Derivatives at Credit Suisse, Wall Street. I got to know him from a common friend. We discussed what we do and he was quite impressed and interested and eventually he joined.

17. There are currently 70 team members, how much more do you plan on growing the team in the next 24 months?

24 month is a long time for the crypto community. We actually are planning on reaching 100 in 6 months.

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