Portal Defi AMA – CRYPTOTITANS

we hosted an amazing AMA with Portal Defi on the 20th of June

And here we will put some of the best questions:

Q1. Can you give a brief introduction of yourselves to our community?

My name is George Burke, a co-founder at Portal. Our team started working on this since 2018 but I’ve been involved in bitcoin since early 2013. Always a believer in censorship resistant, egalitarian technologies.

I built a bitcoin/altcoin exchange in 2013 which was sold. I later went on to build the first bitcoin debit card in the US called FreshPay.

Prior to crypto, I launched the first “netflix for books” subscription club.

I also currently run the first-ever bitcoin meetup – Silicon Valley Bitcoin – SVBTC.org – first started by Roger Ver and Andreas Antonopolous.

Our company, Portal — https://portaldefi.com — late last year 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).

Q2. In such market conditions, many projects are failing to survive. What are the possible biggest challenges Portal might be facing and what’s the plan to operate in this market?

Bear markets shake the tree and the dead or dying fruit fall to the ground to rot. Only the strong and growing survive to ripen. We think of the situation as this. All scam projects will come to light. All weak management teams will fade away. What remains will be only the best projects that solve real problems. We like to think Portal is among this 🙂

Q3. How valuable you think community is for Portal and what benefits they will get from using Portal products?

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.

Portal’s P2P cross-chain atomic swaps relies on community. We hope to continue to stoke that fire.

Q4. To continue what you said just now, what changes Will Portal Finance bring to DeFi and Blockchain space?

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.

And here we will put best questions from our members and Portal Defi fans:

Q1. I see that you announced a partnership with Bitcoin sidechain protocol Mintlayer. Can you tell us what are the expectations of Portal from this partnership? Why does Portal need Mintlayer’s support? Do you want to expand your partnership beyond Mintlayer with other platforms?

For Mintlayer I can’t reveal what lies deeper, so I hope you don’t mind if I quote the press release:
“Both Portal and Mintlayer are committed to enabling users to interact with the DeFi ecosystem in a private and secure environment with the lowest possible fees. The addition of sidechain assets issued on Mintlayer will increase the number of trading pairs available to Portal DEX users. The partnership will benefit Mintlayer by making its assets accessible to a larger user base through Portal’s DEX network.”

For the broader ecosystem partnerships:

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.

First 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

a…We even have a partnership that, for the first time, brings shares of pre-IPO companies (like Klarna, SpaceX, Automation Anywhere, Epic Games, and Cross River Bank) directly to the Bitcoin blockchain: https://cryptobriefing.com/portal-and-highcirclex-to-tokenize-pre-ipo-equity-on-the-bitcoin-blockchain/

Hope that offers a taste of how we’re partnering with others

Q2. What are the strategies and tools of Portal, to compete with other projects with a server model that tends towards centralization by design and architecture with others that tend towards decentralization and have conquered the DeFi market?

To answer this, you need to know what Portal is and its underlying technology, Fabric. – https://fabric.pub

1) Fabric is the protocol, built ON BITCOIN, for peer-to-peer message passing and contracting using bitcoin as the security layer. All of the layered networks built using Fabric can use portal to exchange into Bitcoin and other assets. It is a natural fit to have the team unified and aligned.

2) Portal, built on Fabric, is enabling atomic swaps for coins across incompatible blockchains; trust-minimized trading using the security model of bitcoin.

3) Here’s what’s so exciting and unique about atomic swaps:
Atomic transaction means either the entire cross chain contract (typically updating of both ledgers) happens all in one piece. For example, if you “atomic swap” your Bitcoin with someone’s ETH, either you get their money and they get yours, or nothing happens. It provides guarantees of a secure execution of an exchange without a trusted third party.

To fix the problems that have made layer 1 “tier nolan” atomic swaps impractical until today — such as miner front-running, long transaction times, lockup griefing, and all-or-nothing order execution, first we are utilizing Layer 2 for fast communication and coordination, including the ability to recompose orders into smaller chunks to create execution that is fungible, and therefore

scalable. It’s done through the Fabric protocol (the protocol we use to build p2p ZK circuits for FHE), has been used to build peer to peer communication and other apps. We utilize Fabric like a Lightning Network that is purpose-built for trading.

Second, we invented zero-knowledge swaps at a layer 3. 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. With regards to revenue, all facilitators get paid based on the value of trades they facilitate. Our revenue is tied to the growth of the network and userbase. We are seeing a lot of interest from users and we expect it to only go higher.

Q3. Your CEO Eric Martindale said in an interview that Portal “has created a sovereign wallet where you control all the keys to your own assets.” Then how is Portal Finance’s wallet different from others in the market such as Trust Wallet?

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.

Q4. As I see so many projects are born with swap feature. Everything will usually release farming, staking, exchange, pool, and others. Now what I ask, what is the difference between the Portal project and all the old swap projects until now?

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 before going live over the course of the past 5 years.

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) 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.

Q5. Right now, Market is adjusting sharply, the risks are very high but also a great opportunity for development projects. What are the characteristics of your project, and how is your development strategy to be able to compete and rise to top among other projects?

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 decentralized community has complete authority over the network. Our roadmap is community driven and they will be the ones to direct the development team down that path. I’m excited to see what you — Portal’s community — wants to be built!

Q6. As a trust-minimized P2P running on #Bitcoin. Does it allow users to access the decentralized network directly from their wallet? And since it’s built on #Fabric, I beg you can you tell us the privacy, security and speed aspects of PortalFinance here?

For examples of future vision, here are other future applications possible when zero-knowledge atomic swaps reach scale:

Imagine the ability to go anonymous with your payments on bitcoin. Coinjoin-like transaction obfuscation services, but much cheaper, quicker, and actually anonymous because it operates at layer 2 and layer 3 instead of several layer 1 burdensome transactions. Any coinjoin transaction is well-recognized by just looking at the wallet, and could be flagged. Instead, any layer 2/layer 3 obfuscation looks simply like a Lightning transaction despite maybe dozens of participants.

Something cool that Fabric’s tech and Portal’s non-custodial atomic swaps wallet will enable is the ability to make a payment in one asset but the receiver receives a different asset, where it was automatically swapped in the same send transaction. Imagine only holding Chainlink but wanting to send someone Solana. Or only holding DOT and wanting to send someone BTC. Portal will enable this in the future. Can’t wait.

Q7. Could you tell us about the issues that portal finance finds in the industry, as well as how you deal with them and the solutions you provide? What do you think the future holds for portal finance, and what are your favorite features?

For examples of future vision, here are other future applications possible when zero-knowledge atomic swaps reach scale:

One partner we can name is Aeternity, another about to be named on Monday, and we will continue name the other partners over time.

Q8. I heard that your Twitter account has been suspended and hacked.

No, it was never suspended, nor hacked. We’re good.

Q9. Have you being audited ? Have not heard you talk about that security of funds is what every investor craves for and plans to escape incase of insecurity if funds,scams and rug pulls ? How strongly built are your security put in place?

We will be audited before going live, obviously.

Q10. Where can I currently buy Token?

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 SOON 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.

We are also under embargo from discussing anything about exchange listings. All I am allowed to say is that there are a number of top exchanges who invested in Portal, including OKEx and Coinbase. We’re excited to have close relationships with them and that they believe in Portal. Take that for what it’s worth.

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.

And this was the end of our AMA with Portal Defi.

You can find us here:

Website :https://portaldefi.com/

Telegram Community :https://t.me/portalgroupchat

Telegram Announcements :https://t.me/getportal

Twitter :https://twitter.com/portal_finance

Discord :https://discord.gg/tgYKpAeaWS

Medium :https://medium.com/@Portal_team

GitHub :https://github.com/FabricLabs/fabric

YouTube :https://youtu.be/kNqR0jDC59E

Whitepaper :https://docsend.com/view/pdk55ecxmuewiy8f