KuCoin AMA With Ink Finance (QUILL) — Shaping the Future of DAO Governance and Asset Management

Dear KuCoin Users, 

Time: December 05, 2024, 01:00 PM - 02:29 PM (UTC) 

KuCoin hosted an AMA (Ask-Me-Anything) session featuring Tony Tang, the Founder and CEO of Ink Finance, in the KuCoin Exchange Group.

Official Website: https://www.inkfinance.xyz/
Whitepaper: https://ink-finance.gitbook.io/ink-finance-white-paper-v2.0

Follow Ink Finance on X, Telegram and Discord

Q: Could you introduce yourself and how Ink Finance was born?  

Tony: 1st of all, let me thank everyone who's here today. I was trained as an electrical engineer and computer engineer, but I started my career in institutional finance as a quant trader in derivatives, asset backed trading, and global asset management. I also Co-founded a fintech and medic-AI focused VC after I left institutions. I got involved in blockchain in 2018. INK was born out of an observation and a vision.

The observation is that the real world economy, not just financial industry, but also e-commerce, entertainment, focus-economy, etc., don't have easy access to blockchain tech to move their vast operations on-chain.

The vision is bridging facilities that allow the real-world economy and ecosystem to make their transition; meanwhile to have the crypto-native world adopt some of the best-practices in financial governance and management.

Q: Could you shed some light on what Ink Finance actually is and what it offers to the industry?  

Tony: Fantastic. I think what you said is absolutely true.

In the crypto space, there is a focus on decentralization, whereas TradFi emphasizes trust and credit. If we can bridge these together, we can create a powerful ecosystem in a new financial regime - I think this is the real meaning of "transforming traditional finance".

What Ink Finance is: it’s a highly modular financial governance and management platform. It is tailored for DAOs, protocols, or any organization, regardless of their shape & form, size, or type of biz they are in, looking to manage their financial matters—whether it’s fundraising, token issuing, risk management, or compliance. Right here, the focus is flexibility - TradFi cannot become 100% DeFi in one day, they need a starting point, then transform, evolve, etc. and DeFi cannot be rigorous in one day either. they will adopt as regulations and compliance require them to.

Ink Finance allows organizations to manage all these financial operations in a no-code and one-stop fashion. It’s modular, meaning these user groups can pick and choose what they need - nothing unnecessary is imposed; this plug&play design makes the platform highly scalable to support decentralized, semi-centralized, or centralized operations. So that no-one feels that they are "forced into" something they are not comfortable with, adopt, adapt, and grow. Ink Finance gives them the tool.

In a very specific sector, Ink Finance provides an all-in-one infrastructure for real-world asset (RWA) tokenization. Most tokenization today happens in a centralized way, whereas Ink Finance enables this process to be decentralized, democratic, and transparent, while also meeting compliance and risk management needs, which are absolutely necessary for RWA to become viable.

Organizations can seamlessly operate with institutional standards while fully leveraging tokenization and decentralization bright by the blockchain technology. Not only does Ink Finance provide a no-code & one-stop shop for real-world organizations to migrate on-chain, it also brings the “best-practice” standards to crypto-native organizations to adopt effective and efficient financial governance practices.

Q: Is it challenging to approach institutions with your solutions? Do they welcome them with open arms, or do you face resistance when trying to get their attention?

Tony: Actually, that’s a great question with a somewhat surprising answer :)

If you build something, no matter how good it is, and nobody wants to use it, that’s the wrong product. We see the adoption of decentralized economies as inevitable, and this view is greatly shared by the real world institutions! The challenge, interestingly, lies more on the crypto side rather than with traditional institutions.

Crypto-native organizations often struggle with proper governance—establishing discipline and transparency. Institutions, on the other hand, understand how important it is, and most importantly, they understand what SaaS products are and why they need them to implement their governance and management policies. In Web2, SaaS solutions are mature and widely used, and no institution would want to code its own systems for operations, such as for e-commerce or asset management. They fully appreciate the cost effectiveness of a SaaS-like product such as Ink Finance.

In crypto, however, there is less familiarity with using all-in-one SaaS platforms. That’s where the gap lies. Institutions readily understand why they need tools to migrate on-chain and operate at a familiar standard. The real challenge is convincing crypto-native users to embrace such solutions.

Q: There is a term on your website—financial governance. Could you elaborate on what that means, not just for institutions but for the end user?   

Tony: Gladly! Governance is about decision-making. So, decentralized governance means that everyone in an ecosystem comes together to make decisions democratically and transparently. By its very nature, financial governance involves decision-making processes that impact financial operations. With respect to governance is “management” - the process that executes the decisions that have been made.

Ink Finance provides tools to facilitate both financial governance and management. For example:

• Financial governance includes tools for risk management rule setting, token issuance parameters, fundraising criteria, compliance policies, etc. You may call them "rule making".

• Financial management includes tools that enforce secured transfer, verified asset swap, fund distribution & settlement rules. You may call them "rule execution".

INK allows the entities to build a self-defined governance layer that sits on top of a set of chosen financial management tools. The governance layer defines who controls what and to ensure that the result of the decision-making is securely and transparently executed by the management layer.

This governance can be crypto-native, like in a DAO, or centralized, like in a corporation. Ink Finance is flexible enough to serve anyone, from influencers forming small fan clubs to layer-1 protocols, or real-world organizations like music clubs connecting DJs with fans through tokens and wallets.

In essence, Ink Finance allows organizations to manage their financial systems while creating a shell of governance around them. It’s this balance of financial tools and governance flexibility that makes the platform accessible to everyone.

Q: Your token was just listed—congratulations! Could you explain its utility?  

Tony: The $QUILL token is essential to Ink Finance protocol in the following ways:

1. Access Features: on-chain entities must buy and stake $QUILL to unlock certain platform features, or else they cannot use Ink Finance; plain and simple

2. Staking and Lending: normal token holders can pool & lend their $QUILL to DAOs or institutions, to earn staking rewards, PLUS any negotiated rental income that can be memes, gaming assets, NFTs, or stablecoins.

3. Governance: Any $QUILL holder, whether they are users of INK facility, or just retail holder, can all participate in the governance of the Ink Finance ecosystem.

This three-pronged utility of $QUILL as a turn-key capital, a lending asset, and a governance tool makes it a unique and an integral part of our platform.

Q: Where can we find $QUILL?

Tony: $QUILL is listed on KuCoin and BingX. It’s also available on Avalanche’s largest DEX, Trader Joe. We are actively working to expand our presence on more platforms to make $QUILL accessible to everyone.

Q: Do you have a message or statement you’d like to leave with our audience?

Tony: I’d like to thank everyone who has supported Ink Finance, including the audience today who cares to know about us. This project is about more than just technology—it’s about empowering individuals and organizations to collaborate in financial decision-making and management.

We believe this is the beginning of a new era of collaborative DeFi, or credit-based DeFi, where credibility and trustworthiness are the key. Join us as we build a foundation for transparent and efficient decentralized finance. Together, we embrace the trillion $ real-world economy on-chain. We can reshape DeFi.

Q: What types of organizations can benefit from using Ink Finance's platform, and what are the key features that make it attractive to them?

Tony: INK is not a one-hat-fits-all solution. On the contrary, any entity can use it, because of its highly flexible design. I will give you a few examples:

1. Any influencer or KOL who wants to meet their followers on-chain and build a financial relationship via tokens and wallets;

2. Any DeFi protocol that wants to pool liquidity together - so called feeder pools.

3. Any real-world consumer platform that wants to monetize their ecosystem.

4. And obviously, RWA originators who not only want to issue an asset token but also wants to face their investors.

Q: Can you explain the staking engine and its benefits for DAOs and token holders?

Tony: There are two concepts here:

1. INK can build a staking engine for any organization; what they do with that staking engine is 100% up to them - for governance, for qualification, whatever. They don't need to write any code, if they use INK, this feature comes with it;

Now, INK's own staking engine.

Ink Finance protocol itself is managed as a "meta" DAO; and $QUILL is its governance token.

Any org that uses the INK facility must own and stake $QUILL to turn on their desired features.

Any retail holders can stake into INK's staking engine to govern Ink Finance while earning rewards;

Any group of retail holders can pool $QUILLs together to stake and lend the staked position to earn the staking reward + any bespoke rewards

Q: 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?

Tony: I love this question! First of all, good utility follows the basic logic of supply-demand; QUILL is a must-own turn key asset for any org who uses INK. as we adopt more and more orgs, they must buy (or borrow) $QUILL; it's that simple.

Second, the lending utility. Many orgs cannot afford to buy QUILL or are not allowed to buy QUILL (real-world institutions and companies) but they want to use INK. so, they have to borrow from normal QUILL holders. this makes every normal holder to receive bespoke income - you may like meme DAOs, gaming DAOs, asset managers, etc. you earn emission, and you earn the rental income paid by these groups

Q: Do you have any official social media channels, like Twitter, Telegram, or Discord, where I can find the latest news about QUILL? I've come across several fake groups on Telegram and Twitter, so I want to make sure I'm following the right ones. Can you provide the links to your official channels?

Tony: Here’s the link to our official website (main dApp can be launch there), X (Twitter), Telegram and Staking. You can buy $QUILL on KuCoin.  

Q: What role does the community play in the development and growth of your project? Are there any special incentives for active users?

Tony: As previously answered, Ink Finance manages itself as a meta DAO.

It will have a community sub DAO that can be managed by all sub DAO members; the INK MAIN DAO will send various financial resources to the community sub DAO; various campaigns, events, quest and bounties can be proposed by the members.

Again, I will emphasize on $QUILL's lending feature; all community members can pool their tokens together and stake; now they can choose to lend to any DAO (meme, gaming, KOL VC, etc) to earn bespoke income offered by the DAO you sponsor - if they don't pay, you stop the lending.

There is a generous allocation of $QUILLs for the community users. you can compete to be the community leader and design events and campaigns that benefit Ink Finance; and you will be rewarded transparently.

🎁 Participate in the Ink Finance AMA quiz now for a chance to win 12.20 QUILL.  

  The form will remain open for five days from publishing this AMA recap  

KuCoin and Ink Finance have prepared a total of 10,000 QUILL to give away to AMA participants.

1. Free-ask section: 60 QUILL

2. Flash mini-game: 1,220 QUILL

3. Post-AMA quiz: 8,720 QUIL

Sign up for a KuCoin account if you haven’t done so yet, and ensure you complete your KYC verification to be eligible for the rewards. 

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