AMA Recap: CRYPTO MINERS X PORTAL DEFI

Portal Defi is a decentralized financial platform that blends the best of Bitcoin and Layer 2. With Portal, Decentralized finance becomes uncensorable, peer to peer, and trust minimized. Just like the underlying properties of Bitcoin. Portal swaps move provable execution of cross chain contracts to layers 2 and 3, which allows the speed and liquidity of centralized alternatives, with the trust minimization guarantees of Bitcoin. Moreover, transactions are much faster and cheaper than Layer 1 transactions. Portal defi enable peer-to-peer, decentralized, censorship-resistant applications as layers on Bitcoin. Using Fabric, portal defi enable web scale, serverless infrastructure with strong privacy and security guarantees.

We hosted an AMA session with Portal Defi on 16th March.

Mr. Ramsy was the host from Crypto Miners and Mr. George was the guest. He shared delightful knowledge and unique features of Portal Defi.

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Segment 1️⃣: Introduction

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Ramsy:
Hello everyone 👋 and welcome to the Crypto Miners AMA session With Portal DeFi

To help us learn more about the featured project of this AMA session, we are lucky to be joined By Mr George

George Burke:
Hi everyone. Thanks for having me.

Ramsy:
Hello there 👋

Welcome here
Thanks for bringing Us Portal DeFi ❤️

George Burke:
I'm looking forward to chatting with you about PortalDeFi.com and the importance of building multiple layers of financial infrastructure onto Bitcoin

Ramsy:
I'm pretty sure that our Community is very much excited to learn more about Portal DeFi ✌️

So let's get started 🚀🚀

First of all Please give us a brief explanation about 'Portal DeFi' .What popped up in your mind to create such a platform in this Space?

George Burke:
Our company, Portal, recently announced an ~$8.5M raise to give birth to DeFi built on Bitcoin.

We believe financial applications should be built on the protocol that is most likely to become the base money layer. Portal makes DeFi unstoppable with anonymous, zero-knowledge swaps via the first true cross-chain DEX that’s genuinely trustless. Unlike Uniswap/others, Portal eliminates minting wrapped coins (ie wBTC, wETH) or risky staking with intermediaries. Trading across incompatible blockchains is now just 1-click, trustless and private.
Fabric protocol, our layer 2 & 3 technology powering Portal, enables building censorship-resistant communications, media and one-click cross-chain swaps, all on Bitcoin (along with all its security advantages).

The name Portal stems from our plan to be THE GATEWAY to decentralized finance.

The motive behind Portal is expression of self-sovereignty. Portal is to cryptotrading what Tor is to p2p communication. Portal is an unstoppable p2p exchange.

Our team started in 2018 by building a self-sovereign multi-currency wallet that allows people to trade at many centralized exchanges right from within the wallet interface, but quickly noticed that the biggest point of failure for the entire crypto ecosystem exists at the layer of exchange. So between 2019 through to today, we've been concentrating on making trading coins as trustless as can be and decided to focus on making cross-chain atomic swaps usable, practical, and fast. Portal, at the layer of trade, will free up so much potential within the ecosystem.

For Bitcoin to become money, we need a censorship resistant, peer to peer trading system that crosses blockchains. That's why we are building DeFi using cross chain atomic swaps. BItcoin is strengthened by building many layers of functionality.

Ramsy:
Thanks George for this great start about Portal DeFi 👌

Now let's see our second question from this segment

Q2) So what are your main features and advantages that discern you from other Projects?

George Burke:
The problems of today's DeFi and DEXs that we're solving with Portal are:
1) High gas fees: we utilize layer 2 for cross-chain swaps by which nodes can communicate hundreds or thousands of messages/transactions prior to settling on the main chain.

2) Poor UX: We agree the user experience for DEX trading has been awful so far. We have a beautiful non-custodial wallet that is as easy to use as Coinbase but self-sovereign and trust-minimized, where you can store coins and trade from within the same interface. We've worked years on developing this.

3) Asset locking & asset replication: The wrapping and locking of funds onto other chains by these so-called "cross-chain" DEXes are neither trustless nor decentralized, nor are they even cross-chain! BitGo custodies the majority of the billions of locked up BTC. As we saw with the recent $600M hack, these DEXes are honeypots waiting to happen. Atomic swaps solves this. Wrapping tokens becomes a thing of the past since coins of incompatible chains can be traded natively and without a risky middle-man. Each party's funds are only locked during trade execution and not re-bonded or replicated onto other chains for eternity.

Ramsy:
Moving on...

Q3) How has the experience and background of your team been effective in the success of your project so far?

George Burke:
I'm very proud of the allstars I get a chance to work alongside every day:
- Eric Martindale 10 years in Bitcoin, Head of Open Source at Blockstream and Engineering at BitPay, advisor to Lemniscap, and is the inventor of Fabric.
- Chandra Duggirala, Bitcoiner and M.D. turned entrepreneur, ran two 8-figure software businesses, and is the inventor of functional layer 2 cross-chain atomic swaps (he solved problems keeping Tier Nolan’s atomic swaps impractical until now).
- Alexey Melnichenko, 5 years architecting token & exchange design, engineer at Phantom Cyber (acquired by Splunk), designed the exchange engine at Totle.
- Manoj Duggirala Led a 150-engineer team at Invensense, designed the Apple M7 co-processor in phones and watches, ex-IBM Almaden. Engineering at Stanford.
- George Burke, 8 years in bitcoin, 3 exits in peer-to-peer/community startups incl. early bitcoin exchange Crypto Street, created the first Bitcoin debit card, and runs the world’s oldest bitcoin meetup.
- Johnny Dilley, VP of Strategy & Product at Blockstream. Conceptualized Liquid sidechains. Early VC at Pantera. 8 years in Bitcoin.
- Jack Mills, Engineering Architect of Casper Labs / RChain, and previous Director of Enterprise Platforms at Intel. Engineering at Stanford.
- Anand Suresh -- our latest hire -- helped invent Shingled Magnetic Recording drives used by Seagate, and engineer at DFINITY launching the Internet Computer (ICP) mainnet.

Here's how we came together.
Manoj, Chandra, and I had built previous 7-figure startups and wanted to solve problems in crypto. I knew the Fabric CEO Eric Martindale for many years as a friend in the bitcoin space. He was a bitcoin god. Early at a Blockstream and early at BitPay and was one of the few human beings to undestand Layer 2's and sidechains. Eric was first a mentor and advisor to our team. Johnny and Alexey worked with him at Fabric. Later they joined us to build Portal...

We're a team of crypto OGs. This is a huge advantage in already knowing WHAT needs to be built and HOW.

Ramsy:
Cool 👍

Q4) So how long did it take to develop this project? What plans do you have for the future? And what can we expect from Portal DeFi? If possible could you please share road map with us.

George Burke:
Before roadmap, let's start with accomplishments so far: We invented zero-knowledge swaps, which fix the Layer 1 "Tier Nolan" atomic swap problems. In addition, our CEO invented the Fabric protocol (the protocol Portal uses to build p2p ZK circuits for Fully Homomorphic Encryption), and has been used to build peer-to-peer communications and decentralized other apps.

With the atomic swaps integrated into Fabric, we are rebuilding the Web from client server model to an uncensorable, decentralized architecture.

As for roadmap, we can announce that in only a couple of weeks we are launching our public sale on one of the most prestigious launchpads in the world, Republic, and unlike most other high profile projects, we are allowing investors from the US. If you’d like to participate, you’ll first need to be on the whitelist, available at https://PortalDeFi.com/whitelist. We will also be announcing a number of partnerships with other tier 1 blockchain issuers over the coming weeks.

On the regulatory front, we have been seeing SEC lawsuits to various token projects for raising on an unregistered security; potentially fraud. This can result in a fine of millions or send teams to jail. Any issuer who promises an investor tokens is irreparably tethering the network token to the fundraise and will forever make that token a security. We will see any tokens deemed securities to be banned from trading on non-brokerage exchanges (which is pretty much all of them). Our fundraise is specifically designed to preserve the non-security nature of a digital asset that runs on the decentralized network, and therefore is never sold, given away, airdropped, etc. This way it can always be as freely transferrable as BTC itself.

Then there's our non-custodial multi-currency trading wallet I mentioned earlier, soon to be available in the App Store.

Last, with regard to roadmap, Portal is a completely community-driven development. The community will determine roadmap and features post-launch. We're excited to see where the community drives the project as they push the bitcoin interoperability ecosystem forward.

Ramsy:
Thanks George for this well detailed introduction about Portal DeFi:)

And that's the wrap up of our the first part of the AMA session ✅

Let’s now proceed to our Twitter Questions section

i hope you’re ready for that!!

George Burke:
Ready

Segment 2️⃣: Twitter Questions

Ramsy:
1)I was under the argument that Portal DeFi would combine the speed and security of centralized exchanges with the security and privacy of core blockchains to allow proper peer-to-peer cross-chain transactions. Can you describe what and how features will help you do this?

George Burke:
For some background, a layer 2 is a sequence of unsettled transactions on the main chain done for a purpose. For example, Lightning Network is a layer 2 system for peer-to-peer micropayments. However, lightning transactions -- until settled -- are not broadcasted to the main chain.

Our Layer 2 is enabled by Fabric Protocol (https://fabric.pub) and was invented by Portal’s CEO Eric Martindale.

Because the transactions take place in layer 2, you get the speed, similar to lightning network. Also, because of the ZK Swarm structure, partial fills enable aggregating liquidity just like centralized exchanges.

Portal is building a true cross-chain method of trust-minimized exchange without a 3rd party. But because these chains do not natively interoperate or communicate with another, a layer must be built above the base layer for such communication. Portal is a layer 2 system for peer-to-peer cross-chain contracting. Cross-chain contracting facilitates a variety of in-demand DeFi activities, like spot-trading, options, peer-to-peer lending, etc.

Ramsy:
2) Collaborations and partnerships are some of the most important cornerstones to help improve adoption. Can you tell us about "#PortalFinance'" current partners, plans for partnerships and what everybody stands to gain from these partnerships?

George Burke:
My marketing is always product-focused. A TRULY GREAT product can, in the early days, makes the marketing work easy. Our product is not just the cross-chain atomic swaps DEX, but also a non-custodial multi-coin "trading wallet". The software is in private alpha and allows users to trade on centralized exchanges such as Binance, Coinbase, and even DEXs like UniSwap in 1-click, right from within the wallet. It helps find the path of best execution (exchange with the best price and liquidity), sends your coins to the exchange from your wallet, executes the order, and withdraws back to the safety of your Portal wallet right after execution... all this in just 1 click.

This is a huge draw to adoption. Why? Because once atomic swaps goes live, the wallet can choose Portal as the best path of execution. For users of the wallet, instant adoption. Oh and it's the only app in the Apple App Store approved for atomic swaps.

Several blockchains are looking for bridges to swap between their token and bitcoin, but these don't trustlessly exist (yet). We have a few blockchains wanting integration for near trustless swapping and bonding between their token and bitcoin (or other tokens of incompatible blockchains). This interoperability is the holy grail of the crypto space.

One partner we can name is Aeternity...

...Another partnership is with Ankr. Check it out: https://cryptoslate.com/press-releases/portal-and-ankr-announce-strategic-partnership-to-boost-defi-adoption/

...Then there’s Polygon working with us to provide trustless bridging for their native stablecoin: https://dailyhodl.com/2021/11/17/portal-and-polygon-enter-strategic-partnership-to-boost-bitcoin-usability-in-defi-ecosystem/

...And we just announced a partnership with Chainlink: https://cointelegraph.com/press-releases/portal-partners-with-chainlink-to-bring-trusted-data-onto-its-bitcoin-based-dex

We have quite a few other big ones to name in the coming weeks too.

Ramsy:
Great collaborations 👏

3) Why do you prefer using bitcoin systems as the foundation for developing Portal Finance? What are some of the qualities of Bitcoin that DeFi can use? What effect will this have on the future adaptability and growth of Dapps and Web 3.0?

George Burke:
Oh man, I wish I was truly qualified to speak about the marvels of Bitcoin. It's not just that it's secure; it's about WHY it's so secure above all other blockchains. Historical precedence, Proof of Work consensus, global support and adoption... these are amazing factors.

Why we chose to build on Bitcoin instead of building our own:
Bitcoin provides the security; no need to implement a new system and attempt to garner superior adoption. Bitcoin is the most decentralized and secure system and we think it is the monetary layer. If you want to build functionality, financial contracts, and beyond, it makes sense to build it on top of the monetary layer vs any other layer. More importantly, layers of functionality enable bitcoin to capture the value, but not the risk of a failure of a layer 2 system.

Ramsy:
4) Due to its exclusivity, DeFi has a number of concerns, including slippage, rugpulls, fees, Smart Contract security,weak network, and endangering users' real-world safety.What is the #portal_finance method to fixing these issues, especially for the next generation of techs?

George Burke:
1) Building a secure layer 1 system is incredibly hard. We don't want to do that; Fabric uses the layer 1 system that already exists and therefore we use Bitcoin as OUR layer 1.

In Portal's DEX, the contracts don't depend on anything other than the trading pairs' native chains... say BTC<>ETH. We are harnessing the security already built into Bitcoin and into Ethereum; the atomic swap contracts are minimal. Independently audited and tested to the max by a truly decentralized network for the many years the chains have been live.

Unlike wrappers and bridges, these coins are not re-bonded into Portal and are not honeypots. The community treasury does not contain exposed user's funds. The exposure is limited only to the token which is being traded -- NOT what is bonded. This is the main difference between the Portal project and other so-called false "cross-chain DEX" projects. The flaw in bonding/wrapping is double the exposure for a breach in security; be it theft, risk, hacking. It's like making a duplicate -or a triplicate- of your house key. The Portal project is designed to protect your key- the reliance on simple and native atomic swaps means there isn't anything to expose. This is possible through the use of Fabric Protocol technology, which is an internet built on the layer 1 blockchain of bitcoin - the timechain itself...

...2) Fabric splits contracts into "ZK Swarms" — allowing all network participants to agree to contracts on their own terms. These are "multi party contracts", with each peer earning Bitcoin for computing their part in the program. It does this at "layer 3", which provides the privacy PLUS fungibility of transactions.

But why zero-knowledge? Why privacy?
How can a decentralized exchange layer be truly censorship-resistant if traders are known and addresses can be traced? So, Fabric technology enables ZK circuit creation which, when implemented, opens the door to a whole host of new methods of obfuscating transactions without losing verifiability.

For Bitcoin to become money, we need a censorship resistant, peer-to-peer trading system that crosses blockchains...

...3) Bitcoin provides the security; no need to implement a new system and attempt to garner superior adoption. Bitcoin is the most decentralized and secure system and we think it is the monetary layer. If you want to build functionality, financial contracts, and beyond, it makes sense to build it on top of the monetary layer vs any other layer. More importantly, layers of functionality enable bitcoin to capture the value, but not the risk of a failure of a layer 2 system.

Ramsy:
5) Speaking of Portal, a layer 2 system for peer-to-peer cross-chain contracts. So I want to ask, What is Layer2 called?And also What is the difference between Layer2 & Layer1? Finally, what is a Cross Chain Contract? Because many people are new and curious.

Here is our last question from twitter

George Burke:
Oh man, I wish I was truly qualified to speak about the marvels of Bitcoin. It's not just that it's secure; it's about WHY it's so secure above all other blockchains. Historical precedence, Proof of Work consensus, global support and adoption... these are amazing factors.

Why we chose to build on Bitcoin instead of building our own:
Bitcoin provides the security; no need to implement a new system and attempt to garner superior adoption. Bitcoin is the most decentralized and secure system and we think it is the monetary layer. If you want to build functionality, financial contracts, and beyond, it makes sense to build it on top of the monetary layer vs any other layer. More importantly, layers of functionality enable bitcoin to capture the value, but not the risk of a failure of a layer 2 system.

Ramsy:
Thanks for Your Valuable Answers❣
And that's the end of our twitter question segment

Now Moving on to our last segment - Live Q&A

Shall We Go mate?

George Burke:
Let's go

Ramsy:
Lets go,

Segment 3️⃣: Live QnA
(In this segment group was opened for 60 seconds and Miners sent hundreds of questions. Guest choose some best to answer)

1)Jayden:
Where can I currently buy Token❓

George Burke:
We cannot discuss tokens or token price. Why? On the regulatory front, we have been seeing SEC lawsuits to various token projects for raising on an unregistered security; potentially fraud. This can be as little as a fine of millions or as bad as going to jail. Any issuer who promises an investor tokens is irrepairably tethering the network token to the fundraise and will forever make that token a security. We will see any tokens deemed securities to be banned from trading on non-brokerage exchanges (which is pretty much all of them).

Instead, Portal's fundraise -- happening IN A FEW WEEKS through a compliant securities offering on the best lauchpad in the world, Republic -- is specifically designed to preserve the non-security nature of a digital asset that runs on the decentralized network, and therefore is never sold, given away, airdropped, etc. This way it can always be as freely transferrable as BTC itself.

For more info on this, see the writeup we did on this compliant fundraise model here: https://blog.portaldefi.com/no-ico. Compound and Chia used a similar mechanism.

2) ᴀᴅᴀʀѕʜ [ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ᴅᴍ ғɪʀѕᴛ ]:
Q) Do you have any plans to add Nft's to your ecosystem as this is the hottest topic in the crypto space?

George Burke:
Yes, NFTs are hot.

I already see incompatible siloes being problematic because an NFT on one chain cannot be accessed through smart contracts on another chain.

Since Portal is all about cross-chain, trustless interoperability, I can see a future where we may be able to bridge the gaps between siloed NFT platforms. I also see a future where a single NFT can be bonded with several FUNGIBLE tokens being minted for fractionated ownership. Fabric’s technology would enable Portal to build both of these awesome NFT-features... HOWEVER, our roadmap is community driven and they will be the ones to direct the development team down that path. We shall see!

3) TOMI:
How did you involve the community in developing the project? and how do you build a strong community to grow globally?

George Burke:
The Portal network WILL BE decentralized, but first is being built by our core team, and soon become open source prior to network launch. Fabric protocol is already open source and anyone can contribute. We welcome you to join us. Check it out: https://github.com/FabricLabs

With regard to roadmap, Portal AND Fabric will be both completely community-driven development. The community will determine roadmap and features post-launch. We're excited to see where the community drives the project as they push the bitcoin interoperability ecosystem forward.

We just created a new ambassador program. You’ll need to email marketing@getportal.co and we’ll send you the details.

4) Sparrow:
Do you have any Bug Bounty to check for weakness? In what way do you plan to make Your project more complete?

George Burke:
We do have an ambassador program. Just launched, actually! We welcome your cooperation in growing Portal here: https://go.portaldefi.com/ambassadors

5) BTC is future:
What are the benefits of holding your token as long term investment? Can you tell us about the motivation and benefits for investors to keep the your token in the long run?

George Burke:
Convincing investors to invest is not our primary objective. Obviously it is a great side effect of our efforts, however we are not in the business of soliciting investors. We are more concerned with developing a product that the community trusts, uses, and, most importantly, embraces. Portal the network doesn’t depend on us, and is not controlled by us - the ultimate security. You want p2p systems to be secure against any 1 point of failure. The participants in the Portal network make or break the system- not us. Once it is live, because the community is the wind in the sales, the decentrallized community has complete authority over the network.

6) Tahsin Ahmet 💥:
The portal runs on a self-hosted wallet and a cross-chain DEX. So, how safe are our assets and funds in this wallet? Can you tell us more about this wallet and the cross-chain DEX you're working on?

George Burke:
Something I forgot to mention earlier in our roadmap is the product is not just the cross-chain atomic swaps DEX, but also a non-custodial multi-coin "trading wallet". The software is in private alpha and allows users to trade on centralized exchanges such as Binance, Coinbase, and even DEXs like UniSwap in 1-click, right from within the wallet. It helps find the path of best execution (exchange with the best price and liquidity), sends your coins to the exchange from your wallet, executes the order, and withdraws back to the safety of your Portal wallet right after execution... all this in just 1 click.

This is a huge draw to adoption. Why? Because once atomic swaps goes live, the wallet can choose Portal as the best path of execution. For users of the wallet, instant adoption. Oh and it’s the only app in the Apple App Store approved for atomic swaps.

*This segment ends here*

George Burke:
Thanks for having me discuss PortalDeFi.com with you all

Ramsy:
Thankyou so much For your valuable answers and information about Portal DeFi,
It Was Pleasure Hosting An Ama With You

George Burke:
If you’re interested in participating in the upcoming Republic sale, you’ll need to add yourself to the whitelist here: https://go.portaldefi.com/whitelist

Thanks everyone. Have a wonderful day.

Ramsy:
Time to conclude this AMA session

Community, if you would like to learn more about Portal DeFi, here are some useful links for you:

Website: https://portaldefi.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/portal_finance

Telegram: https://t.me/portalgroupchat

Channel: https://t.me/getportal

Discord: https://discord.gg/tgYKpAeaWS

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/18201464

Medium: Portal