Host：Hello everyone! Welcome to the AMA, I am the host of this AMA, and I am very happy to be the host of this AMA! This issue of AMA is about ENVELOP.
Host：ENVELOP is a flexible cross-chain tool set that can endow any NFT with new functions (economic settings, on-chain royalties, leasing mechanism, time/value/event lock, etc.), and help users realize NFT value preservation and provide an anti-fraud system. Today, we are very happy to invite Aleksandr S, to share with you this theme “Cross-Chain Protocol “ENVELOP”, Adds New Features to NFT”.
Question List：
Host：We know that Envelop had participated in the “Binance Hackathon”, won the top 10 of the competition and was recognized by CZ，the CEO of Binance.In addition, Envelop had also received funding from Rarible, the head platform of NFT. There is no doubt that Envelop can be considered as a star project.
First of all, please introduce why you chose to found Envelop and what is the original intention or goal of the project?
Aleksandr S：First of all, we chose to found ENVELOP because we’ve seen several issues on the market that are stopping the industry from developing further and increasing the speed of innovation. The issues were easy to outline: Devaluation, Liquidity and Royalties. We brainstormed this for a bit and came up with a protocol covering all the possible aspects of outlined problems. This is how we came up with ENVELOP, a flexible cross-chain toolset that gives any NFT new functionality (economic set-up, on-chain royalties, rental mechanism, time/value/event-locks), protection of devaluation anti-fraud system that is now easily implemented in GameFi, Marketplaces, Art, Metaverses, and non-pledge NFT-rentals.
Host：Many members of the Envelop team have several years of experience in crypto.
Could you please tell us more details about the background of the team members?
Aleksandr S：Yes, sure. We have a diversified experience which we believe is one of our strongest core, internal assets.
Our team has more than 8 years expertise in crypto-space, 15 years at executive IT-product management at FinTech, E-commerce, IT-consulting as well as entrepreneurial experience at many succeeded Hi-tech projects, combined with professionals from blockchain, crypto-trading and startup backgrounds.
Host：Now NFT market is very prosperous, and there are many traditional games, film companies and artists. However, we must admit that many problems are hidden under the river, such as many NFTs have no value, just hype.
In your opinion, what are the key problems in the NFT market?
Aleksandr S：As we mentioned previously, we have identified several issues such as devaluation, liquidity and royalties.
Devaluation included such aspects as NFT price discovery mechanisms are not effective and transparent; most NFTs lose their price in the midterm; the buyer does not receive any economic benefits/guarantees from the purchase.
The liquidity issue means that it’s complicated to sell most NFTs as the market doesn’t have enough liquidity; existing NFT liquidity pools offer unfavorable price; there is no guarantee that NFT will be possible to sell.
When we talked to the artists, another large issue they mentioned was the royalties. The authors could get royalties only on marketplaces where NFTs were minted, however, there were no advanced setting of royalties on marketplaces.
Host：Envelop, a flexible cross-chain toolset able to give any NFTs new functionality such as economic set-up, on-chain royalties, rental mechanism, time/value/event-locks, protection of devaluation, and so on.
ENVELOP consists of three parts: the protocol, the Oracle and the index.
Can you give us more detailes of the specific functions of each part and their use cases.
Aleksandr S：ENVELOP is a DAO created in 2020.
It consists of four elements:
Protocol;
Oracle;
Index;
Token.
The protocol protects the user purchasing the NFT by creating a collateral storage facility from the complete depreciation of the asset. The protocol works exclusively with onchain activities.
The oracle safeguards the user by analyzing the onchain and the off-chain behavior of the asset inside NFT. It creates a map of its genesis, movement, freezing, and other transactions. In addition, Oracle considers the main actors associated with NFT: the issuer (publisher), distributor (platforms, etc.), buyers, etc.
The oracle consists of a scoring system used to evaluate an asset, as well as an anti-fraud system, which, on the one hand, notifies the owner about changes in the data of assets embedded in wNFT; on the other hand, it provides complete information to the parties in transactions of sale, lease, and pledge.
The Index aims to tokenize any niche, industry, or market using secured wNFTs, which act as micro-Indices: the sum of the niche wNFTs gives the industry figure; the sum of the sectoral sector indices — Market Index, etc. At the same time, the final Index is not directly linked to any fiat basket or crypto-assets since it is an objective indicator of the NFT segment.
The token is a connecting element of the Protocol, Oracle, Index and can be used:
Outwardly: through the structure of a micro-DAO, when everyone can, through the NIFTSY pledge (pledge 2.0), become a member of such a DAO, distributing the expenditure and possible income part in proportion to the contribution.
Inside the project: this is how royalties can be paid in NIFTSY tokens, including (but not required).
Host：Envelop, as a cross-chain protocol, currently only supports Ethereum and BSC.
What are your next development plans and what other public/side chains will you support? Will Solana, FLOW, Enjin, etc. be your targets and can you introduce your criteria for selecting public chains?
Aleksandr S：Yes, that’s true. The protocol is initially built on: Ethereum blockchain (including via the L2 layer — e.g., Polygon) and the BSC.
In the future, it is planned to create implementations on: Flow, WAX, Solana, Polkadot, Cosmos, Avalanche, and other DRS.
We are deeply convinced cross-chain is the future of all decentralized and distributed systems.
We choose public chains by the simple criteria — security, stability, flexibility, usability. That’s very straightforward.
Host：I’m curious about Envelop’s “index” feature. What are your criteria for selecting NFT project portfolios? I would like to know if users can build their own indices and even open trading functions in the future?
Aleksandr S：Only users will be able to build. Assets inside wNFT are scored according to the selected criterias is the micro-index itself . We collect everything together only through the Oracle to display the final market index. As for trade, we cannot prohibit anyone — this is open source.
Host：Envelop adopts DAO governance, and the importance of NIFTSY token as the core is self-evident.
Please introduce the economic model of NIFTSY and the usage scenario? Could you please introduce the launch and issuance of NIFTSY in recently?
Aleksandr S：The NIFTSY token has one main function for DAO — collateral: anyone can use the Protocol, Oracle, Index and without the Token. But, if he wants to participate in the creation of some kind of micro-DAO, for example, we are making the implementation of the NIFTSY protocol in the game, then the participant needs to lay a certain number of tokens specified by the DAO ENVELOP as the minimum / maximum.
Accordingly, the final model of tokenomics depends on: a) the chosen micro-DAO; b) the timing of blocking tokens; c) the effectiveness of a specific case (one game may be more active than another).
Host：There are many protocols that focus on NFT-Fi, which projects do you think will become Envelop’s competitors?
What do you think are Envelop’s competitive advantages compared to these competitors?
Aleksandr S：Actually, there are not so many protocols for NFT — FI. We describe all competitors in blogs about once a month: Emblem Vault, Wrap Protocol, Charge Particles for example. We do not have the task of defeating competitors or getting ahead of them.
Our advantage is different: a) in a unique approach to cross-chain (see above); b) that every other protocol is inevitably a part of our Oracle, and every created NFT is a part of the index; c) we are not focused on the b2c market at all and therefore we can easily withstand another 100+ competitors
Multi-blockchain and cross-chain mechanics are the future, which means that it is not necessary to compete within Ether — you can go to Solana;
Our final product is focused on creating a closed ecosystem and monetization takes place through cases with partners that do not depend on competitors
Our main reference point for the next year or three is the market for secured derivatives and the tokenization of payment channels: it seems to me that we are not even ready to absorb the entire volume of them — it is too large.
Host：Besides receiving Rarible funding, what other institutional investments has Envelop received? What will be the future arrangement of these financing?
Aleksandr S：Among our awards, you can find: Top-10 at Binance Russia Hackathon, grant from Rarible and grant from Polygon. The Polygon grant is mainly used for development needs, particularly for Matic integration and Polygon Blockchain solution inside ENVELOP protocol.
Host：In addition to partnerships with ArtWallet and Blocsport.one, what other partners does Envelop have? Could you please tell us more about them? What kind of help do these partners provide for Envelop’s development?
Aleksandr S：Amongst the other projects we have already signed a partnership agreement with you can find PureFi, DotOracle, DeathRoad, WOW Summit and ScaleSwap. Unfortunately, we are not able to disclose other names in the pipeline yet but we can definitely ask you to sign up on Medium and follow ENVELOP protocol to stay updated with all the ongoing announcements.
Our CBDO, Alexander Kuzin, is working really hard to bring in as many value matching profiles that can help us develop not only ENVELOP but the enitre ecosystem further. We’re all quite impressed with his work :)
Host：What are the next development plans for Envelop?
Aleksandr S：We’re lauching on IDO on 21st of October, 2021. Our next steps would be to release Oracle MVP: December, 2021, Oracle v.Alfa: February, 2022, Index v.Alfa: March, 2022, Protocol + Oracle + Index v.Beta: June, 2022.
Host：Okay, thank you very much Aleksandr S for his wonderful answer. I believe that our community friends already have a certain understanding of ENVELOP, and I hope everyone can support ENVELOP more.
Thanks again to the guests and community friends for coming. Looking forward to our next meeting!
