Public Mint AMA with Wolf Crypto
We held an AMA with Public Mint in our public Telegram channel on the 8th of Feburary.
Public Mint bridges the worlds of traditional fiat with the innovative world of crypto, offering a complete platform for synthetic fiat, which is fully collateralized, regulated and FDIC insured.
It includes a fiat-native blockchain, APIs and an embeddable web widget, open for anyone to build fiat-enabled applications and accept credit cards, ACH, wire transfers and more. No bank accounts needed.
After two years in development, Public Mint launched their blockchain in July 2020 and is now launching the MINT Global Earn program, bringing direct fiat liquidity to CeFi and DeFi, and exposing the opportunities they provide to the world at large by creating earnings-bearing synthetic fiat currencies.
The MINT utility token is central to these efforts, and will be used to govern allocation of funds and the whole protocol, and reward participants for their votes. Users who stake MINT tokens and participate in governance will receive rewards of the overall earnings of the platform, paid in USD+. No TVL is required, just MINT tokens.
15% of all earnings on the platform are split between Public Mint and MINT stakers, with the remaining 75% going to Earn participants who have supplied TVL to the platform in either USD or USDC.
At a TVL of $100m, over $250k/month in fiat rewards will be generated for MINT stakers — in USD, — plus additional MINT rewards. This value will grow as additional CeFi and DeFi partnerships allow for higher APYs.
You can also visit the Public Mint Telegram group or the Public Mint Website for further details.
Here’s what Public Mint’s CEO Paulo Rodrigues and CTO Jorge Pereira had to say in the AMA.*
*This AMA has been edited for clarity.
WC (Wolf Crypto Telegram Member)
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to another edition of Wolf Crypto AMA, this time around with the Public Mint team!
Joining us from Public Mint are Paulo Rodrigues and Jorge Pereira!
TEAM & TEAM GOALS
WC
Welcome gents, it’s our pleasure to have you here today.
Let’s start off with some brief intros, your respective backgrounds and how you both became involved in the crypto space?
PR
Hi everyone, I’m Paulo, CEO at Public Mint. My background is in Banking and Payments. I used to work for a Clearing house and Payments Processor for 15 years. During that time I was involved in Retail Payments (Visa, Mastercard, Domestic Schemes, ATM network) and wholesale payments (SWIFT and Real-time Gross Settlement systems). I had the chance to work closely with regulators and was also part of heavy lifting certification processes like ISO20000, ISO27001 and SWIFT Service Bureau Certification Program. This gave me a clear understanding of what it takes to manage high scale mission-critical systems in payments and for the long run.
It was when I was leading the SWIFT Service Bureau in Portugal, that connects all the portuguese banks to the SWIFT network, that I came across crypto & blockchains.
The Satoshi paper was a revelation moment for me when I read it back in 2014, and at that time I understood the importance of bringing instant settlement to the masses instead of keeping it to a subset of banks at the RTGS system level. It quickly became apparent to me the importance of push payments coupled with the instant settlement capability, and how they would revolutionize capital efficiency at all levels of the society.
Built and managed a DLT Banking working group, engaged with banks and help them assess the key use cases but then again, always working with a very conservative audience.
Long story short, I quit that comfortable job and moved into the blockchain space in 2017 and built a Blockchain competence center in Lisbon with a small team of 10 people dedicated exclusively to blockchain development, mainly focused on Hyperledger platforms (Fabric and Indy mainly).
I had met Jorge from previous interactions and we shared a similar vision, although coming from different backgrounds. We agreed that this could be quite complementary and that’s when I happily accepted Jorge’s invitation to join the core team at Public Mint, back in 2018.
2,5 years have gone by and here we are today presenting a working fiat-native settlement platform (launched last July) and a breakthrough app that is being built on top of the Public Mint’s money system.
JP
Hi, I’m Jorge, Co-founder and CTO at Public Mint.
I’ve been doing product design & engineering for about 20 years now, in a variety of areas, mostly through my software development company Seegno, based in Portugal.
Back in 2013 I joined as CTO at crypto-startup Uphold in San Francisco. I designed the early wallet UI with good old Balsamiq and 5am coffee. I architected and built the early multi-asset trading engine, together with an initial group of 4 people that grew to 50+ people in about 18 months.
At Uphold, my team was responsible for Product Design, UX Development, UI Design, Architecture, Mobile & Web Application Development, Platform Development, System Architecture, Blockchain, System Operations, Treasury Operation, Technical Security, Customer Support and supporting every other aspect of the business.
All this… it involved significant learning and working closely with various units: Compliance, Risk, Fraud, Payments, Security, Legal, Treasury, Finance, Marketing and various Business Units. I’ve had the chance to work with a stellar team of professionals that somehow made it into the blockchain world from the IMF, World Bank and VISA, and whom I’ve had a chance to learn from.
About 4 years later — mid 2017 — Uphold was humming along with an exceptional team, so I left to pursue other ideas. I joined decentralized UK bank BABB as Interim CTO for a year, co-founded an enterprise forex company Wayfex and founded Fintech Server, a platform for building crypto-enabled solutions, on top of which we built Slyk.io, a me-commerce platform which helps entrepreneurs get to market quickly, grow and sell.
In early 2018 the idea for Public Mint was formed, Halsey came aboard as co-founder and seed investor, with myself as co-founder and CTO focusing on Product & Engineering. I invited Diane and Thomas soon after, respectively as CFO and Legal Counsel, and invited Paulo as COO, who’s since then taken on the mantle of CEO about a year ago.
And yes, I know, these last few years have been pretty active, and I credit all this activity to the fact that building things has always been my hobby, and that I’ve been lucky enough to meet a lot of people who’re better than myself on a lot of things, and whom I’ve kept on working with.
I see Public Mint as something foundational not just for the world of crypto, but also to help unleash the next wave of innovation for money. If you want to know who I am… I am tremendously excited to be doing this — that’s who I am. :)
WC
Uphold huh, I’m sure I’ve heard that name before…Can you give me more of a TLDR on that business and what you guys got up to there?
JP
Yeah, sure! Uphold was one of the first wallets to connect US banking rails to Bitcoin. In the first couple years it supported 20+ fiat currencies, a handful of crypto assets and precious metals.
Uphold was also the first crypto startup that betted on full transparency, and has kept a permanent public record of all its assets and liabilities.
It’s since transacted a whopping $9B, with over 32M transactions, and is currently sitting on over $1B in assets.
They kept on improving the product since I left mid 2017, and now support over 100 assets. In addition to Crypto, Fiat and Precious Metals, they’ve recently added US equities and ETFs, all from within a simple app that still stays true to the original vision of “anything to anything” conversion. They managed to build something that should put Coinbase and Robinhood to shame, and as far as a centralized project goes, they’re one of the most complete out there.
PR
Fun fact, I actually met Jorge while he was still at Uphold (at that time called BitReserve). In 2015 we had conversations about joining, but ultimately it didn’t pan out. We then lost track for a few years, and when he got in touch with the Public Mint opportunity, it just made sense!
WC
Interesting, so this isn’t your first time building something in the crypto space… Can I ask, why leave such a successful business like Uphold, especially one you’ve spent so long building and start something new like Public Mint…
You felt the need to complicate your life with a token? Haha
JP
Well, one of the dreams at Uphold was to build a platform for anyone to build money-enabled apps on top. That ended up not being really viable, primarily because of its centralized nature, regulations, and business model as a whole.
So, eventually, Uphold ended up focusing on what it was best at: its trading business, and there’s only so much innovation you can do there.
Also, Uphold is, at its core, still a fully centralized project, and its challenges were no longer technical or product. Most of the time was spent on adding new assets, security and ensuring regulatory compliance. The company was — I believe — profitable when I left, and it comes a time where you realize your work is done.
So, I left. I had a few ideas I wanted to pursue, and went on a startup-launching frenzy.
The main one was to create a system that brought the best of crypto into fiat, and which separated transferring ownership of funds from the actual movement of funds. A system without a single entity bearing the weight of all the liabilities and regulatory burden, which just impedes progress and innovation.
That’s how the multi-layer design of Public Mint came to be, with its multi-custodial layer, multi-jurisdictional KYC layer, multi-blockchain layer and application layer.
As for launching a token, I’ve always thought that there are too many tokens out there, and I look at a token like I look at blockchain: a solution to a problem, not a goal in itself. But I guess we can hash that out in a bit.
PR
Yeah, my own experience with blockchain is different, more focused on building for banks and solving Big enterprise problems (KYC, Trade Finance, Supply Chain). I think this variety of perspectives is what makes me and Jorge such a great team.
JP
You bet. Our whiteboard brainstorming sessions are a thing of legend!
WC
So past yourselves, who else is involved in Public Mint…I’d love to hear a bit more on them and their backgrounds and experience before we move onto the project itself.
JP
Well, Halsey Minor, who was a founder at CNET, Salesforce, Google Voice and Uphold, came into Public Mint as a co-founder and initial seed investor. He’s a mentor and a friend, and has been immensely supportive of what we’re doing.
I also ended up inviting Diane Gray-Smith as CFO and Thomas Brooke as Legal Counsel — both of whom I had worked with at Uphold in the same roles, which just made it so much easier to start rolling on day one.
We’re also lucky to have Rafael Torres as our VP of Engineering, he’s been doing software development for about as long as I have, and is leading the product and engineering team, most of whom I had worked with before as well.
In addition to the management and compliance teams, we have 13 people in product & engineering, split across Architecture, System Operations, Blockchain Engineering, Application Design, Backend and Frontend. I believe in small teams where everyone is very talented and well compensated, rather than the corporate approach of throwing dozens of people at a problem.
This team will be 25 people in a few months, and that’ll carry us to our next phase.
THE PUBLIC MINT BLOCKCHAIN
WC
Ok, so with the team stuff out of the way, give me your elevator pitch on Public Mint, what it is, what it does, what problems it sets out to solve and whatever else you’d like to pitch me on along the way!
JP
Public Mint is essentially a platform for building applications that handle money, without having to deal with the complexities of banks. I could say it essentially offers on-chain banking, and as such solves a number of problems by giving fiat money the same properties of crypto: self-sovereign, instant settlement, peer-to-peer, programmable and secure.
Let me give you an example. Let’s say you have a DApp with a web UI. Now… you want to receive USD, but can’t really just add Paypal or any other payment processor. Let aside considerations about their terms of service, it’s just not technically possible, because as a DApp you have no backend to process the callbacks confirming payment.
Public Mint solves this problem: with under 10 lines of code you can add a button that allows users to take funds from their bank account, and receive it at an on-chain address. So, Public Mint offers something that I’d say is comparable to an “on-chain banking experience”, where you can onboard funds, and they use blockchain technology to send them around.
At this point, we realized that there was something missing from this equation: a way to offer an interest-bearing account. And the solution was obvious: to leverage CeFi and DeFi to offer earnings, while reducing risk by distributing funds through various entities.
This is how the Earn program was born, and how we designed the MINT token to solve a governance problem.
PR
It’s worth noticing how banks offer low interest rates — you’re lucky to get 0.2% and still retain free access to your money. On the other hand, via CeFi we can easily offer 6%+, and much more once you bring in DeFi to the mix.
However, CeFi is still complex and muddled with crypto slang, and even more so DeFi — they’re out of reach for the regular folks out there.
In other words, there is tremendous potential in connecting people that are not into crypto, and bring such fresh liquidity into the ecosystem.
This is why we’re in the process of building Public Mint Earn.
WC
Amazing, we’ll get to the Earn program and the MINT token in a bit, but first I’d like to know, what makes a fiat blockchain a fiat blockchain…i.e how is a fiat blockchain different to any other blockchain?
JP
We started Regulation first. 2,5 years ago we went and talked to the OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) to get some preliminary assessment on whether what we were planning to do was feasible or not from the eyes of the regulators. We did not have an approval letter obviously (no one would give you one — not then, not now) but basically they did not give us a thumbs down, which meant we were on the right track.
The fact that Public Mint does not touch the funds and that we rely on Regulated Custodial Partners and Banks for the underlying Multi-Custodial Structure made them more comfortable.
Once that was cleared, we started further defining the product, testing out several types of blockchains.
Also, most traditional blockchains operate with their own core currency, which is used to pay for fees and around which the ecosystem is built. For Ethereum, for instance, that is ETH, transactions are in ETH, fees are paid in ETH, and any other asset represented on chain (eg, ERC20 tokens, NFTs, etc) all rely on ETH.
On Public Mint, on the other hand, we wanted to remove the friction, volatility and uncertainty of using a new currency, and just use fiat instead. Currently we have USD, and soon EUR, and a few others. So, if you’re sending USD to someone, you pay the fee in USD, and if you’re sending EUR, you pay the fee in EUR. There’s no need to own a 2nd currency to operate the blockchain, just fiat.
WC
Explain to me how this difference enhances the network or the end user experience…I mean I use ETH a lot and I’m quite happy paying in ETH…though not as much as I”m paying right now!
What’s the difference to me as a user and you as a network if I’m using USD instead of ETH…same same no, gas fees are gas fees?
JP
Imagine you pay USDC $50 to someone via the Ethereum Network. Let’s put aside how that’ll cost you a hefty 10%+ fee.
The recipient then wants to send it to their bank account, so they’ll need to find a service (eg, exchange) that accepts USDC. But they won’t be able to send it… they’ll need to somehow get ETH, send it to their address, so they can even send the USDC to the exchange, to then sell it for ETH (and suffer additional fees).
All this may be practical for people in the crypto space, but it’s just not practical for everyday people, let alone for companies. These complexities kill adoption on their tracks, and if we don’t meet people in the middle, we’ll never take crypto technology to the masses.
PR
Well, if you are a crypto savvy user, going to an Exchange and buying some ETH is trivial stuff right? But think about the people that don’t know anything about blockchain. Just the thought of interacting with MEW is a nightmare. How would these people ever be part of the ecosystem if the only currency they know is the fiat currency?
That’s why we’ve created the system that is seamless all the way. From the native currency, paying fees in fiat, and using an app, soon to be launched, that will enable a simple interaction to deposit funds with a click and using the features and terms they are used to (USD, Wire, ACH, credit card).
WC
I guess this would be the ideal time to ask you your opinion on stable coins…seeing as they too are “fiat” and are predominantly ERC20…
What issues do you see with them and how does Public Mint’s chain and native fiat differ from/improves upon them?
JP
To me, stablecoins are validation that there is a need for a solution like ours. Stablecoins began as a way for people to hedge against USD, and be able to exit their positions (Tether), address cross-exchange arbitrage, etc.
So, my point is, fiat-backed stablecoins came to exist within a niche, to address problems in the crypto space. But they were not designed with end-to-end user experience, and are largely not viable for widespread consumer and business usage.
Think about this… global value is already siloed across different fiat currencies, resulting from different jurisdictions, compounded by the fact that institutions also create silos (eg, your USD at Paypal is not interoperable with your USD at Skrill or USD at your bank).
On top of that, these stablecoins create more silos where value is not fungible nor interoperable. If you own USDC you need to go through an exchange if you want to convert to PAX, DAI, USDT, etc, even though they’re all just meant to be dollars. This doesn’t make a lot of sense when you think about it… and that’s where Public Mint comes in.
USD on Public Mint is just that: USD, regardless of how it came into the network (stablecoin, wire, card, etc). And once it’s there, it’s fully fungible.
So, where stablecoins create a way to represent USD on top of the blockchain, Public Mint reverses the structure, and puts real money UNDER the blockchain, held at regulated institutions that have holding money as their core competence (eg, banks), and then on top of that, gives that money all the freedom to be handled just like crypto. Open and interoperable.
Sorry if I get a bit carried away here, this just seems such an obvious thing to do, and I’m so excited we get to do it first!
WC
What about other projects that claim to do fiat on the blockchain, how does Public Mint differ to them?
E-money is a more recent one that comes to mind…
PR
The main difference is that, for example Monerium — the company involved in the project — is essentially an e-money licensed company (I know, it’s confusing that the project shares the name with the actual License), and such a license is relatively easy and affordable to obtain in Europe.
JP
Exactly! As an example, you can arguably get an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) in Lithuania for less than €500k, including capital requirements, and it normally takes less than 6 months to get the license and have it passported to all other EU member states. Other member states such as Ireland, Czech Republic or Malta also have relatively accessible processes.
This is not to diminish what Monerium did here — there’s a lot more they’ve had to do to build a business — but just to put my point into perspective. For a company to follow this strategy to support USD, they’d be faced with the daunting task of getting MTL licenses on 50+ states, which is just unbearable (believe me, I saw Uphold trying this route for years) — it takes literally years and millions of dollars to obtain and maintain.
If you want to support other fiat currencies (eg, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, etc), you’ll have to go through licensing processes in the appropriate jurisdictions. This requires a huge team and — very literally — hundreds of millions.
So, this ease of entering the space is one of the reasons why you’re seeing a number of startups in Europe, and this strategy of getting your own license works great if all you’re doing is Europe. There’s nothing wrong with that, and I think it’s great value.
However, my experience at Uphold has shown me the limits of having your company do “everything”. So, whereas Monerium is essentially a regulated money transmitter that chooses to run their ledger on-chain, Public Mint on the other hand delegates roles such as custodians to regulated institutions across different jurisdictions.
It doesn’t itself touch funds. So, to add new currencies and payment methods, we create partnerships with established institutions (banks, trusts, exchanges, fintechs), rather than try to go out there and obtain the licenses ourselves in all global jurisdictions.
In many ways, in the ethos of decentralization, we’re trying to distribute regulatory and custodial responsibilities. We envision working with dozens of institutions, and offering a simple, on-chain experience to all the assets they support.
Another way to think about the difference is this: Public Mint will certainly work with existing e-money institutions (like Monerium) to offer EUR on-chain.
So, somewhat candidly I’ll just say that to me, e-money is a potential partner — and that’s how Public Mint being structured as it is, actually allows us to look at the world from a perspective of cooperation, not so much competition. We can work with just about any fintech or financial institution.
PR
That’s right. We don’t see Monerium as a direct competitor. As a matter of fact we’ve already identified some synergies and informal conversations are underway through our network of contacts. We live in a time where cooperation makes a lot of sense to a lot of people.
WC
Ok, so if I understand that correctly, if you wanted to support, say the Mexican Peso in South America, you’d just need to partner with and add a supporting banking network like you have for the USD and that’s it… the Peso is then enabled for all users on Public Mint?
JP
That’s essentially it. But more importantly, we don’t even need to work directly with banks. We can work with any fintech that can keep custody of funds, and outside the US it’s often quite easy.
PR
Fun fact, in the last three weeks since we started growing our community, we’ve already had conversations that may lead to launching support for three currencies — and that’s without any direct efforts from our side.
We’re focused on Earn first, but that’s surely part of our roadmap.
WC
As far as I understand, for Public Mint, the fiat aspect of things is tokenized, but isn’t a token…
You’ve referred to this Synthetic fiat in your resources…how exactly does that work?
PR
Synthetic fiat in this context is just the technical term for a digital representation of a currency backed by the liabilities of an institution or group of institutions.
It’s the same technical term being used by the central banks that are now starting to wake up and look into Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC)
But let’s pause for a second to recognize we’ve been doing this for decades now, with centralized systems. When you send money to your Paypal account, you get USD balance inside Paypal, but the USD has to be sitting in a bank somewhere, right? And you trust Paypal to give you your USD back, right? Same applies to the SWIFT network. Digital representations of dollars.
JP
Exactly. Public Mint is similar in concept, except using open, interoperable blockchain technology, and distributed regulatory and custodial responsibilities.
When you use our bank-to-chain feature, you send in money from your bank account and get an on-chain balance which you can transfer at will, immediately, in a peer-to-peer manner. This is a huge difference.
When you use chain-to-bank, you’re requesting the custodians to accept the digital fiat back and give you bank fiat instead. In fact, internally we often quip that Public Mint is the core for an open and interoperable Paypal, Venmo or similar service.
WC
Explain to me this, you have a blockchain that moves native fiat around the place…but how does fiat actually get into the chain or ecosystem in the first place…and I guess in the same respect, off the chain?
PR
When you deposit funds into an address on Public Mint, you send fiat to one of our custodial partners (eg, as a wire transfer to a bank account indicated by the system). Upon reception, the custodial partner triggers a confirmation process that results in fiat being represented on chain at the destination address.
So, in essence, you hand over your fiat in the physical world, and it gets digitized onto the blockchain.
Withdrawing funds from the chain is similarly easy. You call an on-chain “withdraw” method, and that cryptographically proves your ownership of funds and destroys tokens, while the backend that is connected to the legacy system takes that instruction and executes a transfer from the custodian to the destination bank account.
JP
This essentially allows onboarding and offboarding of funds, which internally we call “bank-to-chain” and “chain-to-bank”.
Here’s a visual overview of flow of funds:
WC
How and when do you reconcile the amounts stored on chain and access your banking network…Is this something that happens as money goes in and out?
JP
There’s two parts to that, the first part is technical integrations that allow us to be notified when funds are fully in custody, so we can issue the tokens, and so that the opposite happens as well.
PR
The other important side of it is auditing. We had our soft launch in July, and we are already planning a first independent audit to publicly attest that the dollars in custody match the exact same digital representations of dollars that are present on the Public Mint blockchain.
This is part of the independent review process that encompasses not only the Custody but also checking that the right policies and procedures are properly implemented according to the BSA Compliance Program that we have in place.
WC
So this is all working now right? I can set up an account and move some USD into it now?
JP
It sure is! We launched last July still in stealth, with just a few users. You can deposit funds via ACH in the US, or via wire transfer just about anywhere in the world.
Soon we’ll support deposits via debit/credit card, and USDC, with other stablecoins to follow. In the meantime, we’re focusing on increased usability and simplicity, and all that design and research will make it into our product in the next few months.
So yeah, you can pretty much use it right now.
WC
Now I’m just a dumb crypto guy, so I don’t know too much about banking stuff…what is FDIC insured, how important is “fully-collateralized” and does this side of things make Public Mint a digital bank?
JP
In the US, the government protects citizens against banks failing by guaranteeing that if a bank fails, customer assets are protected up to $250k per customer, per institution — insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
So, if you have $500k, you need to split that into two accounts, at different banks, or risk losing part of it if the banks fail. We do the same under the hood, and funds in Public Mint end up spread out through a network of 200+ banks, which means you can hold much higher balances than $250k, and still be insured.
Fully collateralized means that for every $1 on-chain, there is $1 on a custodial partner, and that such funds are not being used for risky investments or whatnot.
In short, funds are held by our custodial partners and not used for anything else so there’s full reassurance that if you decide to withdraw money to your Bank account, the money is always there, waiting for your instruction.
PR
In the EU there used to be Deposit Guarantee Schemes (DGS) with EU-defined minimum standards, but implemented at the national level, but we now have the European Deposit Insurance Scheme, which offers coverage against bank failure up to €100k per depositor per institution.
Singapore has its own Singapore Deposit Insurance Corporation (SDIC) with $75k limits I believe, Japan has its own Deposit Insurance Corporation of Japan (DICJ), so on and so forth.
WC
Right so you have a network of banks that holds the funds that sit on your network right?
How is this different to say USDT or USDC… don’t they have a banking network that holds their funds too?
PR
Well, we know USDT (Tether) is not fully backed 1:1, so they can’t guarantee that every USDT will result in a dollar. Tether continues working because there’s no mass exit — what is called in legacy terms a “bank run”. If there was, the people holding the last 25% of USDT would not be able to get their USD. So, the comparison stops here. Businesses or consumers will never accept that risk, so Tether is not really even in the same race.
As for 1:1 backed currencies like USDC, yes they hold funds in a similar way, through segregated bank accounts. However, USDC is just one currency which is not interoperable with other USD stablecoins, and doesn’t support EUR, etc.
Public Mint is a blockchain where USD, EUR and other currencies can cohabitate and trade, with costs of $0.05 per transaction, with instant finality in 3–5 seconds.
And similar to how we see e-money and other licensed entities, we can easily work with USDC as well.
WC
I note that USD is the only supported currency on the network at this point in time.
I assume that since you support USD you also support US users…and you’ve mentioned EUR a few times now too…how about other currencies?
PR
We support USD and users from just about anywhere in the world. We’re the only company that I know of that offers an immediate way for Dapps, fintechs or exchanges to receive USD, without the need to have an US bank account, with no fees for receiving funds.
We started with USD because that’s the hardest one, but also because it’s the largest currency fiat, and there’s tremendous value in being able to offer USD accounts to people all over the world.
We have plans to support all the major currencies, and we’re seeing interest in smaller countries wanting to launch their currency on-chain. We have our eyes set in adding EUR support in the next few months, but we may very well get to 20+ currencies until the end of next year. Many of these things are not fully under our control, so we’re looking to underpromise and overdeliver.
WC
Define to me “just about anywhere in the world”. I’ve been in business and crypto for a long time now and it’s usually about the caveats….
Who can actually use Public Mint as it stands and from where?
PR
Anyone, anywhere in the world can hold any supported currency in their Public Mint address.
However, anyone who wants to transfer funds from their wallets to their Bank accounts or vice versa is subject to limitations imposed by the bodies that control such currencies, which typically includes sanctions (for instance as defined by the OFAC) and KYC/AML requirements.
They’re also bound to comply with the regulation of whatever country they are residents or citizens of, such as capital controls rules.
That is all sorted out seamlessly at the custodial layer using the already established Banking rails and relationships. Hope this makes sense.
JP
That’s why Public Mint implements a layered multi-jurisdictional system. To start, you need no KYC to transact in between on-chain wallets, seeing as that’s fully decentralized.
However, actions that send or receive funds from or to external systems (bank wires, debit/credit cards, stablecoins, etc), are subject to various different requirements, as imposed by the relevant entities. There’s no magic way to wave those away, that’s just the reality.
For instance, if you want to deposit a USD stablecoin, you’re subject to Public Mint’s global KYC/AML program, which adheres to OFAC rules and BSA Compliance. If you want to then connect to a bank account, you may have to provide some additional information, as required to our custodial partner in the US. If you want to take out EUR, you’ll be requested any extra information required by our EU custodial partners.
Long story short, this allows you to start using Public Mint in a decentralized manner with no personal information required, and offer only the information needed to use the services you want to use, as you go along. The user discloses information on a need to know basis.
PR
By the way, an important thing to add is that Public Mint has its own BSA (Bank Secrecy Act) Compliance Program and Officer and we’re a Money Services Business (MSB) registered with FINCEN.
WC
Out of interest, how many other projects offer native fiat rails into crypto for US users like Public Mint does?
PR
There’s only a handful of services out there that can accept USD from the US banking, and the ones that do — such as Coinbase — often do so via a banking license. Most of them, however, don’t support all states.
For instance, at this time, Kraken does not offer service to residents of Washington (DC) or New York (NY). Binance had to open a separate entity — Binance US — which launched in 2019 excluding 13 states, and right now is still excluding 10 states. The list goes on.
JP
Right. And those services are primarily focused on onboarding USD to propel their trading activity.
Public Mint is not directly related to trading, and it’s unique in that it allows any dapp or app to onboard funds directly into an address or smart contract, without having the user navigate elsewhere.
With literally less than 10 lines of code you can add a button to a dapp or website and receive funds on an address of your choice, without the user ever leaving your site. And this deposit is lossless: you wire $100 in, you get $100. No other system that I know of allows you to do that.
Even services that allow you to add a “buy crypto” button on your own site, are going through exchanges in the background. You may be able to pay with USD, but you won’t be able to receive USD. You may be able to buy a stablecoin, but you’ll end up paying high fees — including network fees — to do so.
Public Mint is the only service I know of that allows you to convert USD in your bank account to USD on-chain, without any fees. In a way it’s kind of having everyone able to “mint” their own money onto the blockchain — hence the name “Public Mint”
WC
So this all sounds very cool, but explain to me an actual use case for this…
I assume there might be a few, as fiat rails are pretty important in themselves…not all of us want to leave money in crypto forever and some of us want to cash out our gains…or double down in a bull market like the one we’re in, but I’m also mindful of the fact it currently costs me a fortune to send USDT/USDC/DAI around the ETH network and as I’m just a small fish, I can only imagine that is much much worse for some much much larger players…
So how do you see the Public Mint blockchain being used by individuals, enterprises, projects themselves and anyone in between?
PR
Using USD as an example, with Public Mint you can handle USD without needing an USD bank account, you can program it, and anyone can build apps on top of this open programmable form of USD.
For instance, as an exchange, you don’t need to worry about maintaining USD accounts, and people don’t need to be holding USD at the exchange. An exchange that supports Public Mint essentially allows people to hold USD on their own wallets, and then have those USD at the exchange max 5 seconds whenever they want to trade.
This *is* a step in decentralizing liabilities, and letting people control their own money, which you just don’t get with stablecoins.
We’re in conversation with a number of exchanges for this very same goal. For exchanges, it’s a real no-brainer to allow users to deposit USD, without having to worry with all the banking and regulatory issues.
JP
Public Mint is pretty foundational, so… it’s a bit like thinking… what’s the use case for money? ;)
A simple way to think about use cases is this: what could you build if there was a real crypto-dollar, with all the properties of a smart-contract enabled blockchain, and also with access to generate earnings on chain (which is where Earn comes in)?
As a company, if you get paid in USD, what would it mean to have the ability to immediately start earning an yearly APY 50x larger than in a bank? As a fintech handling USD, what if you now have these abilities too, to use yourself or extend to your users?
PR
Even for big corporates that are now listening to Michael Saylor’s (Microstrategy) advice on Bitcoin to find better ways to manage their Treasury, it still feels like a lot of risk, while with Earn, you not only get lower risk but also the ability to instantly move the funds around when needed.
JP
Exactly. The possibilities are endless, and I’m excited to see what people are already building with Public Mint, and what we ourselves are building.
WC
Speaking of building atop of…we live in a predominantly DeFi based crypto world now…I’d love to know if you have any intended use case that is specific to DeFi?
I know one of the many complaints of those looking to participate in the DeFi ecosystem is the pain points and friction of entry into the ecosystem…can Public Mint help with this?
PR
Maybe not for the community that is listening to us, but DeFI is still a big mystery for a huge part of the population, even within crypto.
The advantages of the MINT Earn program are the fact that it insulates the end-user of all the complexities of the DeFI world. The Earn program comes wrapped with a nice interface that let’s people tap-into the DeFI world without having to be crypto experts.
We’re very excited to soon be able to announce several partnerships with some leading DeFi insurance providers that will get us to the next level of DefI by enabling insurance nicely embedded into the EARN Program.
JP
DeFi is still very much a niche for most people. You need to suffer through all the crypto slang, find an exchange that will give you service and accept your USD, and buy into a stablecoin. Then you also need to open a crypto wallet (Metamask, MEW, etc), and get some ETH to operate your wallet.
If you’ve ever thought about User Experience (UX), you’ll quickly realize how these amount to extreme barriers to adoption, that only the most motivated and knowledgeable people can overcome.
With Public Mint, any DeFi project can add a button to their UI to take USD from the user’s bank account, and receive USD on-chain, which they will even then be able to offboard in bulk using stablecoins if they are operating on another blockchain.
WC
That’s probably a really great segue into some of the tech stuff on the chain component of things, before we move onto the application and Earn side of things…
You say your chain is EVM compatible, but what does it actually run on?
JP
We’ve selected an enterprise-grade version of Ethereum that came out of Consensys called Pantheon from Pegasys. In Sep 2019, Pantheon became part of the Hyperledger community and got renamed as Hyperledger Besu.
Public Mint runs a heavily adapted version of that, which makes it a fiat-native enterprise grade implementation of Ethereum. It benefits from a huge community and brain-power of the Ethereum community as well as the enterprise-focused community of Hyperledger.
WC
Why did you choose to build on Hyperledger as opposed to other chains…what was the benefit of doing so past being compatible with ETH?
JP
A simple way to put it is if you have an Ethereum address, you have the same address at Public Mint, so that was something we wanted to preserve. Same private keys manage addresses on either chain.
Then, we had other criteria, like TPS, finality, quality and modularity of code, etc. We built proofs of concept with Geth, Parity, Quorum, Tendermint, and their various forms of consensus, and the one we liked the most for our purposes was IBFT.
Hyperledger Besu implements IBFT 2.0, and has a really professionally organized codebase, and after a few months of heavy testing, it emerged as the best choice. Also, with Besu we tap into the skillset of the Ethereum developer community as well as the Hyperledger developer community.
WC
You briefly mentioned it earlier but as it was brought up again in your last response, and as much of it’s a 2017 style question, it is kind of timely considering how expensive and clogged the ETH chain is atm…
What’s the TPS of the Public Mint network and what’s the fee structure for transactions on the network?
JP
Lowest consistent value is at around 300 TPS, which allows over 25M transactions per day, which for comparison is over 20x the maximum of the whole Ethereum mainnet. This will continue to go up as the underlying technology evolves, but it’ll serve us well for years to come.
PR
The cost of a USD transfer is USD $0.05, regardless of the amount. Deposits from wire/ACH are free of charge, whereas the cost of withdrawal is USD $5 for ACH, USD $20 for Wire (US) and USD $50 for Wire (intl) — more info at https://wallet.publicmint.io/fees.
WC
On the Public Mint chain all fees are paid in fiat, so I have to ask… why the MINT token… what’s its purpose if not for gas?
PR
This is where we need to clearly understand the separate layers of Public Mint. The blockchain is the Settlement Layer, with native USD and smart contracts, which sits atop the other layer (custody, kyc,). This allows the basic operations like deposit, transfer and withdrawal.
In the Settlement Layer, fees are charged in the currency being transacted. So if you’re transacting USD, any fees are paid in USD.
However, on top of Public Mint anyone can build products like loans, savings, etc. That’s where the MINT Earn program comes into play and its MINT token. The MINT token is not for gas.
JP
Exactly. The Earn program is an application built atop the Public Mint platform, which we’re building ourselves due to its strategic worth for the whole Public Mint ecosystem.
The MINT token is purely for Governance purposes, which in the Earn program means voting on various parameters, particularly on how to allocate the TVl to the various CeFI and DeFI partners. MINT tokens are required in order to create proposals and vote, and voting is required in order to be paid in USD for your contribution to governance.
WC
Why did you choose to build the Public Mint chain first and then introduce a token and application on top of…and how did you fund the project while building all of this?
PR
The project was initially funded with traditional equity funding, like most other fintechs. We’ve been at it for over two years, and could have continued like that for at least another year or two.
The Public Mint vision and strategy results from the accumulated years of experience of our team in building ecosystems, managing payments systems, providing best in class user products.
We needed to first build the building blocks on top of which Products will now come to life. We’ve got an investor that has supported us in making this vision come to life.
The Earn Program is a Product in itself that we believe will become very successful because it benefits from the underlying platform. In return the Platform will also benefit from the Earn Program that will bring liquidity and people to the system. This is a reinforcing effect that benefits both the platform and the Earn program.
We expect many other products to be launched on our network, whether we build them ourselves or others do.
THE PUBLIC MINT EARN PROGRAM
WC
Ok, so with the boring chain stuff out of the way, let’s get into the dApp you’re both building on the chain and launching a token for.
Public Mint Earn….What is it, why should I care about it and where does the MINT token come into play?
PR
The Earn program leverages CeFi partners and DeFi projects to offer an earnings product. The important aspect here is that distributing money through various providers is a very effective way to reduce risk.
However, to implement the Earn program, we need a governance body that acts like a funds manager, but instead of relying on the minds of just a few, we’re tapping into the wisdom of the crowds to manage that TVL through voting mechanisms provided to the MINT token holders that stake their voting power.
We believe we’ve built a model that has the right incentives for Earn to become a very appealing product able to present to the masses a curated version of the best of the best CeFI and DeFI offerings, all within a nice and simple app interface.
JP
You see, with the Earn program, we can offer earning accounts, and we’ll do so via our Public Mint mobile app. But quite importantly, any service or application that supports Public Mint can also make use of the Earn program through their own UI.
The miracles of composability, right? :)
This is gold for any one — fintechs, dapps — that need to deal with USD.
Suddenly, you can skip all the complex, regulatory and tedious parts of connecting to USD, and not just that, you can also offer your customers the choice to get USD earnings.
WC
Just to make sure I understand this correctly, you take funds from both crypto and “normie” users and you move them into CeFi and DeFi…
Can you give me a high level breakdown of how this all works?
JP
Anyone can take USD and move them to the Earn smart contract, obtaining USD+ in return, which represents their stake in the project. The Earn smart contract splits it across different pools, one for each CeFI or DeFI partner.
Seems simple, right? :)
WC
How does this differ from any other CeFi or DeFi aggregator?
PR
Well, the Earn program is a kind of aggregator that is extremely easy for anyone to use, regardless of how familiar they may be with crypto. It benefits from Public Mint as a whole in that it can take funds directly from the banking system, operates with tiny fees and is based on a decentralized governance structure managed by token holders.
In addition to that, we benefit from the virtuous cycle of incorporating many different use cases, all of which can bring in funds to the platform.
JP
Interestingly enough, we can — and likely will — work with CeFi and DeFi aggregators. Once again, our strategy is to be inclusive and leverage the best options out there. It’ll be up to the MINT governance community to decide which ones to work with.
WC
I see from the whitepaper you’re splitting TVL up into different allocations and providers…explain to me how this works in practice, who these providers are and how funds are allocated to them?
I’m especially interested in the DeFi side of things here…
JP
So, for instance, let’s say the MINT stakeholders have voted to allocate 30% to Celsius Network, 30% for Nexo, 20% for some DeFi protocol or aggregator, 10% for insurance and 10% for fast withdrawals.
Now let’s say I send $1.000 to the Earn contract, that results in $300 for Celsius, $300 for Nexo, etc. Then later in the day you send another $1.000, that’s $600 for Celsius, etc.
On each settlement period — daily to start with — the total amount allocated to a partner gets sent out. Depending on the partner, some accept it on-chain, others prefer a bank wire, others will take USDC, etc. Whatever the mechanism, allocated funds are transferred in bulk to the partner.
Specifically for Ethereum-based DeFi projects, the Earn smart contract can trigger an on-chain withdrawal via USDC, and directly send funds to DeFi projects. Earnings or farming from those eventually get sold for USDC according to parameters voted on by MINT stakeholders, and sent back to the Earn contract, thus generating earnings.
Finally, also at Settlement time, earnings are tallied, and USD+ is rebased to include these new funds, which effectively means USD+ balances increase proportionally for everyone.
WC
Run me through the earnings side of things. How will users who add TVL into the platform earn on the Earn platform?
PR
To start with, they’ll be able to use ACH in the US and wire transfers globally, as well as USDC. Down the line we expect to add credit card support and other stablecoins.
WC
What about MINT token holders. What part do they play in the Earn program?
PR
If you’re just holding the token, you’re a part of the community, but not really playing a part in the Earn program, or getting any rewards from it.
On the other hand, those who choose to stake MINT and actively vote, will essentially get paid for their work.
This intrinsic utility factor is very important to highlight particularly from a perspective of not being understood as a security.
WC
Just double checking, you can supply TVL to the platform and Earn USD on that TVL OR you can simply stake MINT tokens and earn a percentage of everyone else’s TVL?
JP
You can supply TVL and earn USD from the Earn program, and early on you’ll also receive additional MINT tokens as a reward for coming in early.
The first 20 months we have an amount of MINT tokens allocated to be distributed as a reward to those supplying TVL. In other words, all addresses holding USD+, in addition to fiat earnings will also be paid an amount of MINT.
As for MINT holders, they can stake MINT and vote, in order to get paid the proceeds from the Earnings fee. This payout scales with TVL, so the higher that goes, the higher the earnings — for the same MINT stakers — are paid in USD.
WC
Can you give me some sort of indication as to the earnings for both MINT stakers and users who add TVL to the platform?
JP
Users who bring TVL to the platform, earn based on our CeFi partners and DeFi products. For instance, if our combined CeFi and DeFi reaches 20% APY, users will be making 17% APY, and MINT Stakeholders receive 3% APY for their Governance efforts. Notice we’re talking USD-based APY, not tokens.
In addition to this, during the first 20 months, to compensate people joining early on, there’s also a pool of 60M MINT tokens to be distributed proportionally to those who keep TVL on the platform. Also during this period, there’s an additional pool of 20M MINT Tokens to reward those who stake MINT and participate in governance.
So, early on, there’s USD-based revenue and additional MINT tokens to compensate for early low TVL and lower APY, and gradually it becomes *solely USD-based revenue*. The MINT rewards are all pre-issued and programatically allocated, and there’s no inflation after the initial rewards period.
WC
It seems to me you have two distinctive value propositions here, those for the crypto crowd and those for “normies”.
Let’s go through both…normies first…
What’s your pitch to normies to use the Earn program…and how are you going to break through the noise…and normie concerns that “crypto is a scam” to get them to actually use the product?
JP
As an aside, we’re a fintech that uses blockchain technology, outside the crypto space, we’re not really seen as a “crypto company”. Not that I resent the monicker, but it’s an important difference in positioning. Ultimately, most crypto companies are fintechs anyway. ;)
People you call “normies” amount to what’s generally referred to as “consumers”, and there’s a whole discipline of Consumer Marketing at play here.
These people will not see any crypto-based messaging, and will instead be exposed to a simple, yet powerful value proposition: deposit USD, and earn an APY 50x higher than your bank, without having your funds locked. And this is as simple as it is a powerful value proposition.
PR
This is where Halsey’s experience with growing Fortune 500 companies comes into play, and these efforts will include a combination of partnerships, resellers, traditional media advertising campaigns, PR, as well as other means such as influencer marketing — there’s over 12 different channels to consider.
To sort through all that, we’re in conversations to onboard a seasoned marketing agency who’s worked in the crypto space as well as traditional consumer fintech, and that’ll go a long way to building and launching our consumer marketing strategy.
WC
How about crypto users? Most crypto users already have money in the “system” and the ability to self manage their funds into CeFi and DeFi…so what’s the value proposition to those users?
PR
There is a large swath of crypto users who are not everyday traders, and who’d appreciate a way to park their funds and earn passive income, without the risk of putting all their eggs in the same basket.
For instance, Cred was a CeFi provider that had troubles recently, which at its surface was comparable with Nexo and Celsius Network. Would you not prefer to hold your funds distributed through various CeFi providers instead, and also benefit from some degree of insurance that is transparent, while also having a community that you know you can engage with, with vested public interest in making things work? That’s what we offer.
JP
I’ll say this, as someone who’s been into crypto for over 8 years nowy, lost money on Mt. Gox, had funds at Bitstamp when it got hacked, saw Cred go under… nowadays I tend to buy and hold, and I no longer have time to engage with the DeFi flavour of the day.
So yeah, I’d really appreciate a way to make use of my funds without making use of my time, and without the issues that come with having to entrust my assets to a single entity.
Public Mint Earn aims to do just that: give everyone, regardless of background or crypto-savviness a way to take advantage of the best of CeFi and DeFi, while at the same time contributing to all these projects by bringing in fresh liquidity, and making liquidity more efficient and accessible.
WC
You mentioned the Earn program is going to be available via a mobile app. Do you have any screenshots of it and when will it be available?
JP
Well, we’re putting together a clickable prototype to give you a sense of what we’re doing. In the meantime, I’ll share two screens, just bear in mind this is early design work and mock data:
Main app screen, where you can see your USD balance, the balance you’ve got in the Earn program, and your MINT tokens at current market price.
Then, this is a mockup of options for MINT token holders and Governance:
MINT TOKEN UTILITY
WC
We briefly touched upon some of the current MINT token utility in the previous questions, but how about you give me a bullet point summary of the various use cases within the Public Mint ecosystem?
JP
Simply put, MINT stakers can make new proposals and vote on proposals that include:
- Changes to the Governance process include changing vote thresholds, majority requirements for any Proposal, or even the minimum amount of MINT tokens required to publish a Proposal.
- Proposals for Fee Changes include modifying the Earnings Fee, the Unstaking Fee and the Transfer Fee.
- Proposals for Operational changes include anything to do with timings, such as the Settlement frequency, or the amount of funds that are allocated for Unstaking or Insurance.
- Stability parameters: each parameter in the system will have an inherent maximum change per vote, and the minimum timespan between votes. As an example, changes in the Earnings Fee will be limited to changes of 1% every 3 months. And the “3 months” part is a parameter in itself.
Last but not the least, as we mentioned before, MINT stakers who engage in the governance process are paid a portion of the earnings (15%). So there’s utility there in separating who’s doing Governance work and who is just holding the token.
PR
Also, it’s likely that as we consider launching new products in the future and try to make use of MINT token utility. That’s something we’re keeping in mind, but obviously not ready to discuss now.
WC
I’d love to know more about the governance aspect of things and how that relates to MINT stakers choosing which DeFi assets are available to assign DeFi TVL towards?
JP
The first phase will be focused on CeFi, which provides a baseline for consistent revenue — some of it daily and compounded. That means in the early days we’ll have lower global APY, which gets offset by the reward program.
We’re also in conversation with DeFi aggregators, which early on will likely provide a faster way to connect to the DeFi space, and it’s not outlandish to think that early on that may be the primary way we interact with DeFi.
That said, direct inclusion of certain DeFi projects will happen via community proposals, and the MINT stakers community will vote on acceptance of those proposals.
WC
I note as per your previous response, that governance on Public Mint is via a staged approach, and MINT token holders won’t actually have a say in the initial phase of the network…
So with that in mind, who will and when will token holders get to chime in with their say and what’s the logic for such a slow, staged rollout?
JP
Well, for Governance to take hold, people need to get involved, and that takes time. We’ll nurture the community along with the ultimate goal of handing over full control, but it needs to mature first.
So, Governance will be implemented in three phases.
During the first phase, votes will not be binding, and will be merely for us to understand which way the community is pointing to and inform our decisions.
During the second phase, votes will be binding, but Public Mint will hold veto power, which serves to resolve edge decisions while we improve the governance process.
Finally, in the 3rd and last phase, community votes will be binding, and the governance process will be decentralized by then. We expect to continue being a voice in the community at that time, but we’ll no longer hold final decision power.
MINT REVENUE MODEL
WC
So we’ve spoken about benefits for token holders and how they can benefit off holding MINT tokens, but how about Public Mint itself…
What’s the revenue model past selling MINT tokens and how do the aforementioned token mechanics work into the revenue model for Public Mint?
JP
There’s essentially 3 fees that generate revenue:
- Transaction fee for USD transactions ($0.05). With a conservative 300 TPS, if we consider just 10% average occupation of the network, that’s about $4M in monthly revenue
- Transaction fee for USD+ transactions ($0.10 or 0.01%, whichever is higher)
- Unstaking Fee for converting USD+ back to USD ($1.00 or 0.25%, whichever is higher)
Any other additional currencies we support will generate additional fees in their own currency, but you can look at that as just more volume.
Then, there’s the core fees of the Earn program, where Public Mint takes a portion of the Earnings paid to MINT Stakeholders. As an example, let’s look at a couple years in the future, with a relatively conservative TVL of $500M, and a total APY of 20%.
This means 100M in yearly Earnings, which with a 15% Earnings Fee results in $15M, of which Public Mint will take between 10% and 30% (depending on the MINT tokens of each staker).
That’s an average of 20% or $3M in revenue fees for Public Mint, with the remaining $12M paid to those who staked MINT and engaged in voting, for their governance work.
All of this transparently calculated and automatically paid on-chain, in real USD.
This is a single product atop Public Mint, there’ll be others, with their own revenue streams. If such products require a token, that may very well mean additional roles for MINT as well, but it’s too soon to discuss that.
TOKEN SALE & SUPPLY
WC
So I note you’ve recently completed a strategic funding round… before we get too far into things, can you drop your full token metrics on me?
PR
That’s right, we’re excited to be in the process of getting ready for our public sale. MINT tokens will be made available upfront prior to the Public Sale, while others will begin vesting 3 months after the Public Sale is concluded, which happens daily in order to avoid large chunks of MINT tokens hitting the market at once, helping with price stability and is also timed to start with the release of the Earn app.
Here’s a full breakdown:
Here’s how this turns out over time:
WC
Ok so for the strategic funding round, how much have you raised and who from?
PR
We’ve raised a total of $2.5M from contributors, including (in no specific order) Genesis Block, Spark Digital, Solidity Ventures, Woodstock, AU21, Kenetic and Black Edge Capital.
WC
I note there’s a public sale mentioned there… any word on if this will be an IDO and what platform it will be on?
PR
We can’t let the cat out of the bag just yet, but stay tuned to our channels for an announcement on our public sale this week!
Hint, I can confirm it will be an IDO… get your whitelisting skills ready!
WC
Ok so just cause I’m a dumb words guy and not a math guy, can summarise the above and give me a starting market cap for the project?
JP
You’re selling yourself short, I’ve seen your analysis before, but I’ll bite. ;)
The starting market cap is $2,093,750 with $500k worth of liquidity locked in Uniswap. So the effective initial circulating cap is $1,593,750.
WC
I’ve seen a lot of projects come through here recently who have raised decent amounts of money, and then not really supported their own token on Uniswap once it’s launched…
What assurances can you give potential public sale buyers of the support you’ll be providing on Uniswap once you take their money?
PR
As we mentioned in the previous response, we’ll be providing approx $500K worth of liquidity to Uniswap, and we’ll also be running a Uniswap incentivisation program for MINT token holders who want to provide additional liquidity to Uniswap.
We’ve kept a close eye on many of the recent projects that have launched on Uniswap and we believe we have a great strategy for creating and maintaining a healthy market on Uniswap from the start.
WC
Super low brow question, but I have to finish this section with it… when CEX?
PR
I’m sure you get this response all the time, but we can’t comment on any specifics here, past saying we’re in conversation with several and a quality CEX is an essential part of maintaining a healthy market for the MINT token.
DUE DILIGENCE CHECKS
WC
Does Public Mint have a Github?
JP
We’re on GitLab, but there is not much there yet, just our web3 browser lib. Anyway, this is where we’ll publish whatever we produce as open-source:
https://gitlab.com/public-mint-community
WC
Where are you guys based?
PR
The team is pretty distributed, with most of the product & engineering team hailing from Portugal, whereas Legal & Compliance is a bit all over the US, and our CFO is based in London.
WC
Where is Public Mint incorporated?
PR
Public Mint Inc is based in Delaware, and our token issuing subsidiary in the BVI.
WC
Has the MINT token smart contract been audited and can we see the results?
JP
I’ll publish our ERC20 token soon, and we’ll have it audited. That said, I’ve personally written a few ERC20 smart contracts in the last few years, all of them audited, so this is pretty much a formality.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
WC
Ok well that’s bang on two hours!
I appreciate your guys time, I’m sure things are hectic now you’ve announced the strategic round and the public sale is incoming!
PR
Thank you Wolf — You’re the man! Really enjoyed this conversation. Talk soon.
JP
Thanks mate, appreciated. And thanks everyone for putting up with us for 2h. lol
Public Mint Resources
Website: https://publicmint.com
Telegram: https://t.me/PublicMint
Twitter: https://twitter.com/publicmint
Medium: https://medium.com/publicmint
Lite paper: http://bit.ly/3tEYmqv
Wolf Crypto Resources
Public Group: https://t.me/WolfCryptoPub
News Channel: https://t.me/WolfCryptoAnnounce
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WolfCryptoGroup