KuCoin AMA With Onomy (NOM) — Powering ONEX, a Multi-chain DEX Bridging Traditional and Decentralized Finance
Dear KuCoin Users,
Time: March 13, 2023, 1:00 PM - 2:34 PM (UTC)
KuCoin hosted an AMA (Ask-Me-Anything) session with the Co-founder of Onomy, Lalo Bazzi, in the KuCoin Exchange Group.
Official Website: https://onomy.io/
Whitepaper: https://docs.onomy.io
Follow Onomy on Telegram and Twitter.
Project Introduction
Onomy Protocol represents an innovative Layer-1 ecosystem designed to harmonize the worlds of Forex and Decentralized Finance (DeFi) via multiple vertically-integrated products (hybrid DEX, bridge hub, mobile wallet, and more), facilitating an all-inclusive asset trading & management experience. At its core lies the Onomy Network, a proof-of-stake blockchain constructed using the highly versatile Cosmos SDK framework and maintained by a distributed network of independent validators located around the globe. Furthermore, as a DAO, Onomy has multiple contributors working on building a fully-fledged ecosystem as per the Onomy Improvement Proposals, consisting of a hybrid orderbook + AMM cross-chain DEX, a non-custodial multi-chain mobile wallet supporting asset management, NFT collections, multi-protocol staking, and governance, as well as a stablecoin issuance protocol.
Guest
Lalo Bazzi — Founder of Pendulum Labs, Contributor to Onomy’s DAO
One of the Founders of Onomy since December 2020. He has been an ex-Microsoft, ex-Fidelity, in crypto since 2017 and an early adopter of DeFi products. Highly engaged in the Cosmos Ecosystem and advocate for the app-chain thesis, and spent most of his time contributing to business development for Onomy's DAO!
Q&A from KuCoin
Q: We are as delighted as our community is to be listing Onomy! However, we know this has been planned for a while. So why did your project choose to list your token now?
Lalo: Onomy's community is excited to be listed on Kucoin, an excellent exchange. Onomy launched its mainnet on November 29, 2022. The Arc Bridge Hub is live, making the Onomy Network interoperable with connected chains like Ethereum and IBC chains like Osmosis, Cosmos Hub, Injective, and more EVM chains like Avalanche, Polygon, and others.
So, the infrastructure is live, and our community has grown by 40K members, whom we call Nomads! It is great that exchanges like yours saw Onomy already had utility, recognized the protocol's value, and listed NOM. The DAO is working on so much more!
Q: How long has Onomy been in development before listing? Tell us a little about the team that got you here.
Lalo: Contributors started development a little over two years ago to converge the world of traditional and decentralized finance, specifically for Forex. The DAO is formed from members that came from every corner of 'Big Tech' and knew that the move from web2 to web3 would outmode, disrupt, and update the world's financial sector.
What is amazing is the global approach of independent contributors Onomy has inspired. Across validators for the chain, integrations with products like Mintscan, Cosmostation, and software development contributions. None of this could be possible with just one central team. That is why decentralized finance is an unstoppable force. Anybody can get involved in the DAO and contribute to Onomy Improvement Proposals, or even request funding for projects from the on-chain treasury.
Q: Onomy uses a Hybrid DEX, a combination of an order book and AMM. Can you explain what that is for participants who don't know? Why would they want to use it?
Lalo: The Hybrid DEX, nicknamed ONEX, is one of the major current Onomy Improvement Proposals. It combines the best of both worlds with an order book and an automated market maker.
The orderbook provides a familiar CEX-like experience but remains on the chain, and users retain self-custody. This enables orderbook trading many are already familiar with, along with TradingView, multiple order types (market, limit, stop), and more.
A unique aspect, and why it is a hybrid, is that the model retains the AMM. This means that liquidity providers can provide liquidity to the AMM! The AMM doesn't charge a static fee, either. Normally, on exchanges like Uniswap or others, there's an average .3% fee. ONEX is designed not to charge this fee at all. We are making it better for users. So instead, the AMM makes money by capturing the spread in the orderbook - then uses those earnings to reward LPs and programmatically buy and burn NOM.
Q: Onomy is built using the Cosmos SDK and Tendermint. Why did you decide to build on Cosmos?
Lalo: Tendermint is a highly scalable consensus, meaning user fees will be nominal. The Cosmos SDK is an incredible toolkit for blockchain networks, with governance, staking, and many more intricate modules the Cosmos community has developed for many years.
A cornerstone of Cosmos is IBC, which is like the TCP/IP of blockchain networks. Onomy believes in the multi-chain. Onomy believes in the interchain. You can only have decentralized global finance if the systems they function on communicate with global liquidity.
With Cosmos, you get the benefit of connectivity through IBC and the customized architecture of your blockchain network.
Q: How will Onomy benefit crypto's end-user? You talk about accessibility to the on-chain marketplace. How do you ensure that?
Lalo: Crypto's user experience needs a massive upgrade to onboard mainstream users into self-custody and decentralized finance. Even a casual crypto investor, if they want to get involved in staking, in governance, in seeking out exotic assets on far-flung DEXs - especially utilizing cross-chain/multi-chain dApps - have to use various browser extensions, apps, and wallets to get the full fruits of web3. This software is usually rudimentary and doesn't feel 'clean' to the average retail user.
Vertically integrated products into an Apple-esque ecosystem where everything works well together will provide enhanced democratization of DeFi and accessibility for users of all types.
The ONEX is one such product that abstracts away the difficulties of cross-chain applications. It is designed to work just like a CEX to the average user, but fully on-chain with self-custody! Especially with the integration of the Arc Bridge Hub.
Q: NOM is your protocol's native governance and utility token. Its listing is why we are here! Tell us about it!
Lalo: NOM is the bedrock of the Onomy Protocol. Its utility spans the entire ecosystem and is integrated into products. To start, NOM is used for staking to secure the network and pay transaction fees.
NOM is also used for governance of Onomy's DAO! An exciting part of the DAO is that the entire treasury of NOM tokens is governed entirely by the DAO in an on-chain wallet. This means no Foundation or central team has the keys to the treasury. It is ALL in the Nomad community's hands! So you can get involved directly in governance and get funded by the DAO to work on any contribution.
Additionally, as discussed before, NOM is programmatically bought and burned via ONEX AMM earnings. This provides deflationary pressure which is great to offset staking inflation and makes for great token economics. This applies across all exchange volumes, which means if ONEX is deployed across multiple chains (Onomy Network, Avalanche, Polygon, etc) the buy and burn is still in effect.
NOM will also be paired with assets on ONEX, and the DAO can vote on deploying liquidity from the treasury! There's more! One of the major OIPs is the Onomy Reserve, which enables NOM to be a major part of decentralized stablecoin issuance. You can start to see the vertical integration from the blockchain network itself, through NOM's utility in governance, in the exchange, AND OIPs for the stablecoin issuance.
Onomy's mission is to converge Forex and DeFi. NOM is crucial to that mission!
Q: What powers will the Onomy DAO have?
Lalo: I touched on some aspects, like liquidity deployment from the treasury to the DEX and funding proposals for anything a Nomad would like to work on. It also gets a bit more technical! Nomads can vote for chain upgrades and parameter changes and manage the network's infrastructure. Onomy took an approach to relinquish control to the Nomad community instantaneously by launching the main net.
Onomy's DAO will also let community-led proposals lead the future direction of the protocol. So the Onomy DAO fundamentally runs the entire Onomy ecosystem.
You are encouraged to get involved in the Nomad community or contribute thoughts to the Onomy Improvement Proposals (OIPs) directly!
Q: What is Onomy's vision? What are you building? Please touch on your marketing plans for cross-chain bridges, on-chain Forex, stablecoins, and other narratives.
Lalo: We mentioned $7 Trillion / Day in Forex volumes. It is simply the largest market in the world. We see the stickiness of the stablecoin market cap regardless of whether crypto is bullish or bearish. To date, US Dollars dominate the stablecoin market cap. Onomy's thesis is that the stablecoin market cap will enter into the Trillions dollars in value, and include meaningful volumes of other national currencies such as the Euro, Yen, SGD, and others.
An on-chain Forex marketplace is simply inevitable. Those stablecoins will need an on-chain home! However, for it to be successful, you need to be highly integrated with prominent blockchains. Arc Bridge Hub is important because you cannot be siloed into a single monolithic chain. Liquidity floodgates are now open!
Additionally, with the hybrid DEX, Onomy can offer a familiar experience that centralized exchanges offer - while offering the benefits of being an LP to the AMM.
Lastly, the Onomy reserve OIP aims to bring multiple stablecoin types representing various national currencies to the market and seed liquidity directly from DAO actions. There's a lot to dive into!
Q: What is your biggest hope in terms of reaction from the community when NOM lists? Of course, everyone wants positive price action, but is there anything else you're keen to see when the public gets their hands on the first NOM tokens here on KuCoin?
Lalo: Listing NOM on exchanges allows the community to get engaged and begin securing the network through delegating to validators. It also opens entry to the Onomy DAO and lets individuals become key contributors to the growth of the network and even allows them to begin submitting governance and treasury proposals, including developers securing funding to build functionality within Onomy itself. NOM holders can start getting their voices heard and can become a core part of Onomy's mission with meaningful abilities in the DAO.
The growth of the Nomad community is the goal!
Q: Please tell us a little about your partners. Who have you worked with on the way to bringing Onomy to market?
Lalo: Onomy is lucky to have prestigious partners. Teams from Avalanche, Polygon, Aurora, OKX Chain, Neon from Solana, Moonbeam from Polkadot, and others have contributed to integrating their chains to the Arc Bridge Hub - and the DAO can vote to deploy Onomy's products on them directly! That enables Onomy's products to be utilized by various global communities, and not only Onomy itself. A truly agnostic approach that provides value all around!
Aside from other blockchains, there are also major contributors to infrastructure. The validator set includes Cosmostation, Chorus One, Forbole, Citadel One, and others that are in the process of onboarding! Joining the validator set is permissionless, so feel free to check out our official documents if interested.
Many software contributions were made, such as integrating Mintscan, and Cosmostation, utilizing the BigDipper explorer from Forbole, and amazing support working with Cosmos-oriented firms like Informal Systems and Strangelove!
Support of Onomy's DAO includes the former Maker Foundation Executive team at UDHC, Bitfinex, and many others with incredible experience in stablecoin systems and Forex. I am incredibly grateful for the support Onomy has inspired and for every Nomad out there! Onomy's ecosystem is here for anyone to get involved!
Free-Ask from KuCoin Community
Q: Can you explain your approach to security auditing and testing your platform and who conducts these audits? What steps have you taken to protect against the risk of hacks or cyberattacks on your platform?
Lalo: There's a significant approach to security. Contributors to the ONEX, for example, turned what was initially a theoretical design into TLA+ specifications. TLA+ is a formal language used to formally verify the logic before its use in an implementation language like Golang or Solidity.
Onomy worked with Informal Systems on the formal verification process for the TLA+ specification of ONEX. Code is also open-sourced, so the community can do various testing, and the DAO could offer whitehat rewards. Additionally, audits are done with NCC Group. An international enterprise-level cybersecurity firm. They audited the Arc Bridge Hub, for example.
Q: Please explain about your Tokenomics.
Lalo: Please see the NOM token metrics. Around half of the supply is locked in the on-chain DAO treasury, which can only be unlocked via a successful governance proposal. No central team or individual can access the treasury, not even myself as a founder. Also, the founding team can't force quorum or pass proposals ourselves. This also shows the commitment to the Onomy DAO and decentralization from day one.
The Founding team is vested over three years with a 12-month cliff, and all private purchasers before Onomy's launch are vested between 24-36 months with a 12-month cliff. Even the staking rewards follow the vesting schedule.
This goes to show the commitment to the long term. You can view current token supply information at Explorer or Mintscan.
Q: What is your plan to spread awareness about your project in different countries? Do you have local communities like Indonesian or Thai so they can better understand your project?
Lalo: Organically created communities across Vietnam, Latin America, Spain, and so much more have been organically created. So it's really exciting to see these efforts started independently worldwide.
Discord currently has around 15 active languages in specific channels and various Telegram groups for specific languages. Some contributors are based in Indonesia and Thailand as well, so maybe we have an Onomy party with everyone.
Q: Do you have a video tutorial so we can learn more about your NOM project? Do you have a YouTube channel or something? Can you share it with everyone?
Lalo: Inviting everyone to watch the following explainer film for a deeper dive into Onomy's vision of converging Forex and DeFi, made by incredible contributors.
👉 Onomy Protocol: Bridging Forex and DeFi
While I'm at it, our contributors have published numerous articles, guides, and relevant resources about Web3, finance, and beyond via Onomy's Medium blog. You can also check out Onomy's Crew 3, visit us, and give a follow on Twitter.
Q: Tell us more about your bonding curve offering. What does this do for users of Onomy?
Lalo: It was the first product Onomy launched alongside the mainnet! Bonding curves are crypto-economic token models that automate the relationship between price and supply. It is a decentralized automated market maker that is on-chain with community-driven liquidity.
Instead of pre-selling tokens on a launchpad, there is fair and equal access whereby tokens are minted continuously over time via an automated market maker contract. Users can obtain bNOM using ETH, and the Arc Bridge Hub enables you to bridge bNOM from Ethereum to native NOM on the Onomy Network.
Full details of our bonding curve can be found here.
KuCoin Post AMA Activity — Onomy (NOM)
🎁 Participate in the Onomy AMA quiz now for a chance to win $10 in NOM!
The form will remain open for five days from publishing this AMA recap.
Giveaway Section
KuCoin and Onomy have prepared a total of $2,000 in NOM to give away to AMA participants.
1. Pre-AMA activity: $400 in NOM
2. Free-ask section: $50 in NOM
3. Flash mini-game: $400 in NOM
4. Post-AMA quiz: $1,150 NOM
. . .
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