WAX & Bancor Live AMA Recap

WAX Token integrates Bancor Protocol to provide token liquidity for millions of gamers!
Yesterday (Nov. 14) at 12:30pm PST we hosted a live #AMA with both WAX and Bancor’s founders. We discussed both projects, the integration and more burning issues for the token space in general.

During the AMA, great questions were brought up by both communities and were answered by all of the founding team members. Incase you missed it, here’s a summary of this engaging session:

Q: WAX is partnering with Bancor as with Kyber in order to assure liquidity. However, particular to Bancor--given that Bancor assures ERC20 token liquidity only--what will become of the partnership once WAX moves to its native blockchain as tokens won't be ERC20 anymore?

A: Galia: Bancor also has cross blockchain support in our near term roadmap, and we'll be following our community wherever they need liquidity.

Q: Who are the Wax end users and what will they use the token for?

A: Willia Quigley: The WAX Platform is designed for the 400 million people worldwide who trade virtual items. These virtual items are primarily generated from popular online video games. The founders of WAX created the first video game virtual item marketplace in the late 90's. That became the largest video game virtual item marketplace in the world. We then created the largest 'skins' (cosmetic virtual items)marketplace. Both of those marketplaces are centralized and WAX will be the first decentralized marketplace. Lots of reasons why this industry needs to shift to a decentralized model from the current centralized consignment based model that dominates in the industry today.

Q: How will Wax use both Kyber and Bancor?

A: Galia: In our view, the more liquidity, the better. We don't see these solutions as either/or, but both/and. Through the Bancor Network, WAX Token holders will be able to convert their WAX continuously via a smart contract, based on formulaic prices according to the Bancor Formula. In other decentralized exchanges, they will be able to buy and sell them from/to other holders.

A: Willia Quigley: WAX will work with Kyber and Bancor and other platforms to enable holders of WAX to convert their tokens into other tokens. The key thing to remember when looking at all of these blockchain businesses is that this is an ecosystem. Interoperability is essential for making the blockchain industry thrive.

Q: Is the plan to launch connectors for all top erc-20 tokens (regardless of their team's cooperation) by end of year still intact?

A: Guy: Yes

Q: What kind of liquidity can we expect for the Wax Token in the Bancor Network?

A: Eyal: One of the advantages of the Bancor protocol is that the issuer can adjust the liquidity level of the token. The price movements and trade volume can be monitored and the liquidity can be adjusted to balance the volatility as needed.

Q: Have any non blockchain companies/ICOs shown interest in creating tokens?

A: Galia: Yes, the industry is on the verge of mainstream adoption with new players entering the space every day. Some from closer arenas such as gaming and loyalty points, others from as far across the spectrum as you can imagine. Tokenization ultimately is about encapsulating and transferring the potential of a network - very few businesses and verticals that will not ultimately be interested in doing so.

Q: What is the status of Bancors cross-chain development? I know that the Team is planning on collaboration with cosmos and Polkadot, are you aware of the wanchain-team? Any specific news on that Front?

A: Galia: Nothing specific to report here, we're aggressively exploring every direction the network can expand to deliver on the promise of liquidity…

Q: Another question for WAX: In what games can I use your platform?

A: Willia Quigley: Good question. The simple answer is that any game that has a tradeable item will work with WAX. There are $50 billion worth of in game virtual items traded annually across several hundred video games globally. I believe WAX will expand this market even more by making it possible for anybody with a website to create an OPSkins like item listing place and use WAX to safely trade that item with another person anywhere in the world.

Q: Will WAX token be a Smart Token or a Token Relay?

A: Galia: WAX will be a Token Relay holding both WAX and BNT as connectors.

Q: Won't WAX's attempt to make any ERC20 token usable on Opskins undermine the very utility of WAX tokens as a currency? I mean, we know that WAX tokens will eventually be utilized within the consensus model later on, but why use WAX tokens now as a currency, if ERC20 tokens (which may be more accessible on exchanges) could have exactly the same function on Opskins?

A: Willia Quigley: Thank you for asking this question Kim. I really appreciate it. As someone who has been an active ICO buyer since MASTERCOIN invented the concept, one thing has deeply troubled me. What is that? That many ICO issuers - as a FINAL product - give the buyers a basic ERC20 token. What is the point of that! You can just use bitcoin or litecoin or any other token for that. WAX tokens power smart contracts. Those smart contracts drive the WAX Platform ecosystem. So the WAX token and the ERC20 token are fundamentally different. We are keeping the ERC20 token around however because once people have it, they are free to use it as a simple medium of exchange. No reason to eliminate it if someone wants to use it for that purpose. Hope this is clear. And I hope you and others will really hold token issuers accountable in the future to not just issue ERC20 tokens as a final product. How does that advance the state of the blockchain ecosystem.

Q: So, there will be a separate blockchain in 2018?

A: Malcolm: Yes, WAX starts with a tradable ERC20 token and then adds its own blockchain in 2018.

Q: How will the ERC20 token and the new WAX token correlate in price and usability? Will the ERC20 token be deemed unusable after the "fork"?

A: Malcolm: The ERC20 token will definitely be stored value and may have additional functions. But as stored value, it will definitely be useful. They will not perform the function of item trading per se, but loading your WAX account (or OPSKins or the thousands of other sites using WAX one day) it will work great.

Q: As It's been stated, WAX does not have a lock-up period for the private pre-sale. So basically the big investors could dump the coins immediately to take home their profits.

A: Willia Quigley: we could talk for a long time about whether lock-ups are valuable, and to whom they are valuable to? The IPO issuers have for years pondered this question. What I can tell you is that there is no evidence that lock-ups are smart or useful for token buyers. Here is an anecdote. My partners and I were the largest buyers of the Ethereum ICO. We watched as it rose from 5 cents at the ICO issue price, to launching at 25 cents to rising to 76 cents. To then collapsing to 15.6 cents or thereabouts. I know a middle aged woman - no finance experience - who bought those ETH at between 15.6 cents and 25 cents and held. Who did she buy those ETH from? Theso-called 'smart money' investors who dumped their ETH right after the ICO - made 5X - and thought they were brilliant. If those smart investors had been locked up, where would all of the ETH supply have been for people like this woman to acquire? My own feelings are that lock ups are not useful nor beneficial to the broader community. They operate like price controls. Distorting the true value of the traded item due to artificial scarcity and potential for manipulation.

Q: So early WAX erc-20 will be primarily currency and "speculation" for holders until blockchain is up?

A: Malcolm: The ERC20 token will have utility. We don't talk about speculation as this is not an investment or security.

Q: Can you expand on the utility? It won't be doing exchanges via Transfer Agents, right?

A: Malcolm: The first Transfer Agent is based on OPSkins current functionality. The TA function will be operated by an API protocol that will connect to the smart contract. The ERC20 token will enable this function to a point, but will not be able to support all functions necessary for a fully formed transaction.

Q: When companies buy token BNT as a reserve will bancor make a public announcement for the size of the investment and the date of integration? Such information is crucial​l and if not made properly and in time could be suspicious (maybe inside trade). Imho all relevant info should be announced the moment of agreement.

A: Galia: We don't announce in advance the timing or quantity of integration BNT purchases as this can create speculation. Teams are free to buy their connector tokens in any way and timing they choose. We of course will announce material milestones to the community such as commitment to adopt the protocol and what parameters have been selected (Token Relay vs. Smart Token, connector width and balance, time of activation.)

Q: When will you activate the token relay?

A: Galia: Regarding timing of the Token Relay activation - the WAX Token distribution will take place 30 days after the end of the Token Sale (Nov. 29th + 30) and the WAXBNT activation will take place in the following week.

Thanks everyone for joining, it's been awesome to interact with both vibrant communities here tonight.

For any on going questions to the WAX team, please head over to t.me/waxtoken - for any Bancor related questions we'll always be here as usual. We'll also post this AMA on Reddit for anyone who missed it.

For future events and ongoing discussion about the Bancor Protocol, join our Telegram group https://t.me/bancor and subscribe to our monthly newsletter.