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  • HurricaneSwap AMA#2 Recap— Technical Deep Dive With Hunter Cheung

    HurricaneSwap AMA#2 Recap— Technical Deep Dive With Hunter Cheung

    On September 30, 2021 @ 12:00 p.m. (PST), an AMA session was held in the Avalaunch Telegram with special guest Hunter Cheung, CTO of Hurricane Swap.

    Below we present to you a recap of the AMA with questions and answers.


    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Hello and welcome everyone to our second AMA with Hurricane Swap…the technical deep dive. Lay back, get comfortable and enjoy the show.

    Today, we are fortunate enough to have the CTO of Hurricane Swap, Hunter Cheung. Welcome to the often imitated but never duplicated Avalaunch community. @hunterhaonan How are you today?

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    Cool Dave, ready to share with you guys in any seconds!

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    For starters, please give us a bit of background on yourself. What did your career and education look like before crypto, and how did you end up focusing on blockchain technology?

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    Well, hi guys! I am the CTO of HurricaneSwap and also the first author of Roke Protocol. I majored in physics at the University of Waterloo.

    I actually started trading crypto currency in 2017, and built a start-up company named Jianan Quantitative Investment Management, and we are pretty active in both centralized and decentralized crypto arbitrage strategies. The company has continuously gained profits since the beginning.

    I also need to introduce Ted Yin, who is the chief Protocol Architect and co-founder of Ava Labs. He graduated from Cornell University with a PhD in computer science and is also my good pal back in high school. I started this idea of building a unique cross-chain decentralized exchange since the mainnet launch of Avalanche. And Ted was being quite supportive during the whole journey of building this platform. I want to use this opportunity to thank him and his team as well.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Ted came up yesterday as well. I think there’s something in the water in upstate NY as the Cornell connections in blockchain are numerous.

    Can you offer us a technical breakdown of how HurricanSwap works? How does the Roke Protocol, HurricaneStation & HurricaneAlliance come together to form something the market hasn’t seen before?

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    I will use this picture as an illustration.

    The whole process is a little bit complicated but I will try my best to break it down for you guys.

    Basically, HurricaneStation is a place where users from the BSC chain could stake their assets. Once they stake their assets, we will use the LP cross-chain bridge to cross-chain those assets to our target chain, in this case, the Avalanche chain.

    And what happens on HurricaneSwap on the Avalanche chain is just like Uniswap on the any other chain, you can just simply trade any cross-chain assets you want.

    After a series of transactions, there might be a price gap between the cross-chain asset and the original chain asset, then the HurricaneAlliance will step in and narrow the price gap by doing the arbitrage between the two chains.

    And that’s how the whole system work.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    It is elegant and not terribly complicated considering what you’re accomplishing. Nicely done.

    How long has the project been in development? Has it taken longer than you suspected?

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    Well, we basically started the idea of building a unique decentralized exchange on the Avalanche chain since the Avalanche mainnet launched, which I believe was about a year ago.

    The whole development process is on schedule but we purposefully postpone the mainnet launch date 10 days later to conduct some extra stress tests and security inspections. We might even delay the mainnet launch date even further if needed because safety is our first priority.

    I mean nothing is perfect, but I could promise our community we will not launch the mainnet if we think there might be something left we haven’t checked carefully enough.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Understood. Even the most risk on investors are not opposed to a safety first approach in DeFi now. We hopefully have begun to learn our lesson.

    How many core developers are working on the project? As a CTO, how do you divide the work between them?

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    There are 6 developers including me working on this project. I couldn’t get into more details about who is in charge of which part, due to security issues.

    But I can tell you that we used to work in a distributed manner but recently I gathered all of the team members together to make sure we could launch our mainnet as scheduled, which is October 10th.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Your public testnet has been live for some time. What learnings have you arrived at through this deployment and how has the testnet strengthened the project?

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    I mean we got lots of feedback from the community through email and other channels.

    We are receiving more than 500 emails and I think we have already fixed more than 100 bugs thanks to the community feedback.

    However, none of those bugs are security-related. So even on the testnet, the funds of our users stay safe.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    I recollect from yesterday that there were almost 200K addresses in your testnet and there were around 130K addresses altogether in Avalanche testnet at the beginning. Some big numbers.

    How much research goes into designing an application like HurricaneSwap before development can begin? Do you piece together other protocols or is this something entirely novel?

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    I mean we are basically developing something that is brand new in the blockchain ecosystem. So there is really nothing we can refer from.

    But we did get lots of help from the Avalanche ecosystem. Some developers who help build PangolinSwap in the early stage saved us a lot of time by sharing their experiences on how to deploy such a complicated contract on the Avalanche chain.

    Shout out to the developers who have helped us along the way. We cannot get this far without your help.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    This is a tight-knit community. We’ve gotten to know a number of projects developing here and it’s generally super supportive. Appreciate that Hunter.

    What has been the biggest technical challenge in designing and developing HurricaneSwap? Was there maybe a point where you thought it might not be possible?

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    The biggest challenge has to be the LP cross-chain bridge, you not only need to cross-chain an asset to another chain but also need to verify that the amount of tokens stays on a 1:1 ratio the entire time.

    As for the second question, I will use a short story to answer it. One of our core developers, whose nickname is Box, joined us when we faced lots of bugs in our original LP cross-chain bridge and could barely make this function usable.

    He magically fixed almost half of our contract bugs in one single afternoon. And when I tried to call him to find out who this hero was, he told me he was in the middle of a work meeting, so he could not pick up the phone.

    Can you imagine the hero who single-handedly saved our LP cross-chain bridge was a normal guy doing a part-time job and had to be careful not to be caught by his boss when he was doing his full-time job. Lucky, we manage to persuade him to join our team full-time and the work became a lot easier since he joined.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Big big ups to Box!

    With a system this complex, spanning multiple chains, the technical challenges around securing funds and malicious activity are immense.

    Outside of audits and technical due diligence, what mechanisms are in place, at the level of the protocol and architecture, to prevent loss of funds, accurate representation of assets across chains, and bad actors.

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    The amazing advantage of our LP-bridge is that we can ensure the security of users’ assets. The assets staked on the BSC chain could only be unstaked and sent back to the original staking address.

    The whole process works exactly the same as in Uniswap V2 because we just simply forked the mechanism to the BSC chain. So I think it is safe to say that we share the same level of security as Uniswap V2 on BSC chain.

    So no matter what happens, the users’ assets on the BSC chain will be 100% safe.

    As for the minted aToken on the Avalanche chain, we use Chainlink’s PoR service to make sure nothing is overminted. Thus, the price of the minted aToken might fluctuated because of the market movement, the number of the minted aToken will stay at the correct amount. So you will be safe to trade aToken at a correct price (HurricaneAlliance will eliminate the price gap.) on avalanche chain anytime you feels like to.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Appreciate these comprehensive and thoughtful answers Hunter.

    Next question — Right now, HurricaneAlliance is centralized with plans to progressively decentralize. Why is it important to start with this trusted setup and move to something more community-owned?

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    I mean almost all projects start from centralize to decentralize.

    Yeah, right now it is the core team’s job to decide which chain we should crosschain from and which assets we should bring from that chain.

    However, all of that will be changed once the DAO features is lived on HurricaneSwap V3, which should happen about 3 months later.

    For the moment, the reason we choose to be more centralized is because we still have to make sure all the HurricaneAlliance functions run smoothly and safely in the initial stage of HurricaneSwap V2. So we only invited some trusted names in this industry. Right now, two of the official HurricaneAlliance nodes will be Chainlink and Avalanche.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    What is the utility of the HCT token? Why would someone want to hold HCT long-term?

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    There are three practical ways of $HCT I can share with you guys right now, and the $HCT tokens will have more functions in the future.

    First is that some portion of our transaction fees will be used to purchase AVAX to airdrop to $HCT holders and liquidity providers of $HCT-related pools as well.

    Secondly, if you pledge some $HCT, you could become a verification node of HurricaneAlliance in the future. Even if you only pledge a small amount, you can still get a small share of that verification node’s arbitrage profits.

    Lastly, in the future, we will add DAO features to the $HCT as well, so users could choose which original chain they want us to cross-chain to the Avalanche chain and what assets we should bring from that chain as well.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Excellent and Symington mentioned the burn feature as well. The utility is quite robust actually.

    What component of HurricaneSwap will eventually be subject to governance? Have you taken inspiration from other protocols in this area?

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    HurricaneSwap is a community-driven project, according to the tokenomics of $HCT, our native token $HCT represents holders’ many rights, and one of them is the right to vote.

    After we launch the mainnet, $HCT holders are expected to participate in project governance. That means if you think Polkadot or Celo is a good choice to build, you can get some $HCT and make a proposal, then vote. If the community says YES, we will definitely do that.

    I think the idea of HCT governance is mostly innovated and we will try our best to make HCT an interesting token to hold and play with.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    What has the experience of developing on Avalanche been like? How does it differ from other chains?

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    It is just like building on Ethereum. However, it’s much cheaper and faster to deploy the contract.

    I think the total cost for deploying the whole program on the mainnet is only several thousand dollars. I mean, this kind of low-fee and fast-speed infrastructure of Avalanche really helps developers to just want to build more, and I think that’s great for the Avalanche ecosystem.

    As for the differences, we actually received help from early-stage developers of Pangolin Swap. So all I can say is that Avalanche is a friendly community for developers. We aim to grow with each other instead of fighting with each other.

    For me personally, I’m open to help any developers who want to build on the Avalanche. Feel free to contact our coreteam (coreteam@hurricaneswap.com).

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Avalanche is super friendly for developers and projects are very cooperative with each other. For sure. Will we ever see HurricaneSwap deployed elsewhere?

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    Sure. Our LP cross-chain bridge could be deployed on any original chain A and we can cross-chain those assets to any target chain B.

    So all of the combinations of A and B are possible, just simply use your imagination. We could cross-chain from Avalanche to BSC, we could cross-chain from HECO to BSC as well. So yes, HurricaneSwap will definitely be deployed on many other chains in the future.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Final question before we move on to Twitter so let’s make it a fun one — What aspect of HurricanSwap are you personally most excited about?

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    Best question of them all!

    HurricaneAlliance. This is a brand-new way of earning APY instead of simply farming on a swap. And the APY for HurricaneAlliance should be much higher than simply staking on the farming section.

    Let the numbers talk. You guys will be impressed and will want to join the HurricaneAlliance in the future. Not to mention that becoming a node of HurricaneAlliance requires pledging some $HCT. We will try our best to make your $HCT more valuable in the future. (“Pump it!”)

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    That is cool and the numbers don’t talk…they scream!

    Now, first up from one of our 50,000 faithful over on Twitter — @PoetraNet1 What was your situation in the testnet stage before IDO, were you satisfied with the testnet, what kind of feedback did you get from these tests?

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    I think, to be honest, the testnet results were very surprising to the whole team, to everybody in the team and we did not anticipate that the testnet would get such a huge amount of attention.

    I can give you some numbers to back up my theories, like 30% of all the testnet wallets hold $HCT tokens and more than 85% of all the testnet trading transaction volume were happening here on HurricaneSwap. Even the testnet $AVAX had an OTC price because people want to purchase testnet $AVAX to participate in our testnet events. Can you imagine a ‘fake’ $AVAX having an OTC price? You basically can get it for free.

    And that’s how this testnet event was going. It was phenomenal. And we also got a lot of feedback from our users. According to their needs, we’ve made a lot of adjustments to the UI of the V2 and also fixed many bugs. We have really good confidence about launching our V2, which should happen on October 10th.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    @RJM_500 Can you tell us if you have “Buyback and burns” mechanism in HurricaneSwap? I would like to know how the buyback percentages are divided into dividends?

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    Bro I get your point. However, to answer your question straightforwardly, I think we will have the buy-back feature of $HCT but not in the near future.

    But I do believe that if you nice folks willing to join this project on this early edge, you should be rewarded if the HCT ecosystem is booming, So instead we choose other approach’s to make your HCT more valuable in the future.

    I think 1‰ of the transaction amount will be used to buy back $AVAX and airdrop to $HCT holders. Also, you can single stake $HCT in our farming section to earn annual profits. In the near future, you could also pledge $HCT to become a node of HurricaneAlliance and get some portion of the profits. We will work hard to make your HCT more valuable, if you join this AMA, I consider us as band of brothers, and brothers fight together!

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Love it. Giving them the skinny Hunter. Our ecosystem rewards are slated to give our longer term stakers benefits, but people look at the short-term and want it now so I’m with you 100%.

    @Thom_Barber How does hurricane swap differentiate itself from other dexes like sushiswap or pangolin?

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    Roke Protocol is our core technology and killing part compared to other DEXs. The whole point about HurricaneSwap is that we are not cross-chaining the actual token itself, we are using LP token to cross-chain the price movement of that asset.

    And because we are cross-chaining the price movement instead of the token itself, the whole process will be much faster.

    It takes only 2 to 3 seconds for the price movement to be transferred from the original chain to the target chain, according to our closed V2 testnet result.

    The other amazing advantage of LP-bridge is, we can ensure the security of users’ assets.
    The assets staked on the BSC chain could only be unstaked and sent back to the original staking address. The whole process works exactly the same as in Uniswap V2 because we just simply forked it to the BSC chain. So no matter what happens, the users’ assets on the BSC chain will be 100% safe. As for the minted aToken on the Avalanche chain, we use Chainlink’s PoR service to make sure nothing is overminted.

    A treat to those nice gentleman’s who stay with us the whole time. V2 Hurricaneswap Station screenshot leaked!

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Nice. Appreciate the alpha. Any time you can throw “killing time” into an AMA, I’m impressed.

    @elif611_ How does hurricane swap attempt to address and mitigate temporary losses in LP pools?

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    You basically earn not only LP profit but also $HCT as well. However, $HCT will only be distributed to those $HCT-related pairs. We are also considering using $HCT to reward people who provide liquidity on the BSC chain. I think all these combined should not only cover the impermanent loss in LP pools but also earns you a lot of the extra profits.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Last question Ser — then, we’re going to unmute to chat, open the floodgates and you can pick 5 that rock your world.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    We’re going to unmute the chat for a couple of minutes. Thanks for all the banging answers and one of the more informative AMAs I’ve been a part of

    TONEY Bear Gem Hunters

    I wanted to follow your project for the long term. Where i can get all the latest news about your project? Do you have Twitter/Telegram/Discord community? If yes can you share the link here because there is a lot of fake telegram/twitter groups?

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    Here are our official social media link, I wish you all could give it a try and join our community, no matter if you are an investor or a user, just join us.
    Twitter : https://twitter.com/HurricaneSwap
    Telegram:
    -English Group: https://t.me/HurricaneSwap
    -Simplified Chinese Group: https://t.me/Hurricane_zh
    -Announcement: https://t.me/HurricaneSwap_Announcement
    Medium: https://hurricaneswap.medium.com/

    Manuel Neuer

    Where can token be bought as at now, what exchanges is it available?

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    I think the only place left to do IDO is on Avalaunch right now, so you are in the right place. And I think the OTC price for HCT on MEXC is already 6 times than the IDO price, so this is the last chance to purchase HCT at IDO before listed on the centralized exchange.

    Katherine Langford

    Do you also build NFT ?

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    We do have an interesting idea of building an NFT cross-chain bridge, you will be informed in the future about more details.

    NFTmoon

    How can the community contribute to the progress of your project? Do you have a Governance model? Do you care about community request while you decide?

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    Once the DAO feature is lived I think Hurricaneswap will be 99% community driven project and yeah we will listen to the community request unless it is security related issue we will still step in when needed. We will be with this project the whole time, from beginning to the end.(Hopefully it will never end LOL!)

    Yến Nii

    When THE BEAR MARKET COMES, WILL your token PROBABLY DUMP? Are you prepared for this bear market? How will you handle the panic of your Investors?

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    I think there is really no bear market for the on-chain world, I mean the market will always find the next hot spot, from DeFi to GameFi to NFT. I don’t care if somebody decide to dump, it is their token and it will be their choice to make, but those with diamond hand I think will be rewarded the most in the long term.

    Superr Mann

    Who is your investor? How do you generate revenue to sustain the project? What are your goals to the end of 2021 and beyond?

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    Some of the big name investors including Huobi Ventures, Bybit Investment department, A & T capital, they not only invested in us but also helped us along the way. As for the revenue, most dex has really stable cash flow, so I personally believe Hurricaneswap will stick around for a long time. As for our goal on the developing side was to launch Hurricaneswap V3 before the end of 2021 and got listed on more centralized exchange in the near future.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Well done!

    Hunter Cheung| HurricaneSwap

    Thank you Dave and thank Avalaunch community for giving me this wonderful chance to share with you nice folks, stay with us and long live the bilockchain!

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    @hunterhaonan many thanks Hunter. This was informative for sure and you made it interesting. Appreciate the bit of edge too. I hope that our community will diamond hand their way to HCT rewards. Again, let me throw a link up to your socials —

    Twitter : https://twitter.com/HurricaneSwap
    Telegram:
    -English Group: https://t.me/HurricaneSwap
    -Simplified Chinese Group: https://t.me/Hurricane_zh
    -Announcement: https://t.me/HurricaneSwap_Announcement
    Medium: https://hurricaneswap.medium.com/

  • HurricaneSwap AMA#1 Recap— Project Overview with Symington W. Smith

    HurricaneSwap AMA#1 Recap— Project Overview with Symington W. Smith

    On September 29, 2021 @ 12:00 p.m. (PST), an AMA session was held in the Avalaunch Telegram with special guest Symington W. Smith, Founder of Hurricane Swap.

    Below we present to you a recap of the AMA with questions and answers.


    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Today, we are fortunate enough to have the founder of this heavily anticipated project with us, Mr. Symington Smith. Symington, welcome to our active, vibrant and lovable Avalaunch community. @Symington_Smith How are you today?

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    Hey everyone!

    I’m good. How are you doing today?

    Thanks for having me here, it’s a pleasure to share the latest news about HurricaneSwap with you guys.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Good thank you. We have a lot of questions for you today so let’s not keep the good people waiting. It is definitely our pleasure to have you.

    So let’s get right into it

    For starters, please give us a bit of background on yourself. What did your career and education look like before crypto, and how did you end up focusing on blockchain technology?

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    I’m the founder of HurricaneSwap and also VP of the Beijing Chamber of Commerce in Thailand.

    I’m half Chinese half Swiss, but actually I’m American.

    I grew up in Beijing and that’s why I have lots of Chinese friends and business partners

    And you can see some of the investors of HurricaneSwap are China-based.

    I graduated from Peking University in 2018, and then I went to King’s College to study globalization and global affairs.

    During my time in college, I started getting into Bitcoin and I found out there are so many captains of all kinds of industry holding Bitcoin and getting excited about the future of blockchain.

    Then I realized I must dig into it.

    So I joined the Oxford Blockchain Strategy Programme

    I know it’s kind of nerdy

    But I have no tech background, so the way I get into blockchain is, I learn.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Being nerdy has been a good thing for awhile.

    That’s an impressive and varied background to be sure.

    What is HurricaneSwap at the highest level and what problem is it solving? Why is now the moment in time to be building this protocol?

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    At the first glance, it seems like HurricaneSwap is solving the problem of cross-chain.

    However, at its core, HurricaneSwap is actually solving the problem of the lack of high-quality assets on the Avalanche chain.

    High-quality assets are rare and highly valuable to a newly developed chain.

    On the one hand, the ecosystems of different chains are relatively independent

    Even mutually exclusive sometimes.

    On the other hand, there is not too much demand for technical innovations for DeFi.

    At the beginning of DeFi, there were a lot of amazing innovations, such as lending, DEX, and yield farming.

    However, recently, there’s no more phenomenon innovations like before.

    This is completely normal.

    In this case, I believe it is getting harder to find a unicorn project on a new chain.

    When it comes to Avalanche, there’s an urgent need for high-quality assets, we can see how much effort they put into AVAX Eco.

    As a DEX based on Avalanche, HurricaneSwap is designed to bring valuable assets from other chains to Avalanche.

    When we started HurricaneSwap, we were actually worried. It seems like Ethereum will constantly dominate the blockchain world, and new chains developed by CEXs (like BSC and HECO) do not have a competitive edge except for lower gas fees.

    However, in recent months, we have seen SOL, NEAR, MATIC, and most importantly, the rapid development of AVAX, which are all exciting news to us.

    As long as there are more than one chain in the market, there will be demand for cross-chain transactions.

    As long as there are more chains growing up, there will be more valuable assets

    Then our competitive advantages will be maximized.

    So now it’s time, it will be the perfect timing for HurricaneSwap to launch next month.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    It would be appear at first glance to be a straight cross-chain play, but, like so many good blockchain endeavors, it’s more. Your points are noted and sound.

    How long has the project been in development? Was there a long research and ideation phase before work began?

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    We got the idea of HurricaneSwap one year ago

    And then our CTO, Hunter, started to crew a powerful team. They only took 4 months to finish the development of Roke Protocol, and completed HurricaneSwap V1 in June this year.

    It didn’t take too long that we got the idea of building a cross-chain DEX on Avalanche.

    Before beginning the process of ideation, it’s important for us to have a clear mandate for moving forward.

    Me and Hunter, we know Avalanche at the very beginning

    Avalanche is designed for DeFi, and it is powerful enough to provide us with the best development space.

    Also, we noticed transactions on Avalanche are very active.

    However, according to comparative data of X chain and C chain, the number of users participating in the Avalanche ecosystem is far fewer than holding or trading $AVAX.

    That means a large number of users have recognized the value of Avalanche, but they never get involved in the Avalanche ecosystem.

    And that’s the moment we realize that there’s a huge opportunity to build a cross-chain swap on Avalanche.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    You mentioned Hunter so maybe it’s a good segue to tell us a little bit about the core team and how it came together.

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    As you can see, there are 4 members in our core team

    Hunter is our CTO and he is also the first author of Roke Protocol, which is the most innovative part of HurricaneSwap.

    James is pretty experienced in crypto investment, beside that, he is also good at marketing and IMC, so he’s leading our marketing team.

    Ted is co-founder and chief Architect of Ava Labs, it’s an honor that he could be our chief adviser and he really gives us lots of support and help.

    Actually, Ted and Hunter, they are friends in high school, they are both from Chengdu.

    James is my classmate in Peking University, we have been friends for seven years.

    So basically, we all know each other very well and I think the relationship between us is pretty solid.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Well as a half Chinese, half Swiss American who grew up in Bejing, I’m sure your friends come from far and wide.

    It’s a great ensemble cast for the project. I assume there are multiple approaches to solving the problem of cross-chain liquidity. Why is HurricaneSwap’s current architecture the optimal solution?

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    Yes, I agree with you, there are many solutions of cross-chain liquidity, like cross-chain bridge.

    Actually, the cross-chain bridge was designed to be a low-frequency tool, like WBTC or RenBTC.

    Technically, it is quite difficult to develop a cross-chain bridge.

    Also it’s hard to earn profit as a cross-chain bridge, because users will not trade if the transaction fee is too high; whereas when the transaction fee gets too low, the mechanism of Nodes would fail which would lower transaction efficiency and raise slippage.

    In the case of most cross-chain swap, they actually develop a cross-chain bridge and then find out it’s hard to make a profit, so they decide to make it as a swap.

    However, they barely know about trading so they can’t give users a good trading experience.

    HurricaneSwap is different.

    We are designed with true needs and always thinking from user-side. For example:

    What do LPs need?

    Higher profit, fewer steps, and absolute security.

    What do users need?

    More choices of high-quality assets, lower slippage, and absolute security as well.

    HurricaneSwap takes each and every single one of the needs into account, and does not compromise on any of them, which makes HurricaneSwap a unique swap comparing with others.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    The dilemmas, the trade-offs, having to optimize for varying agendas i.e. the things that people don’t see until you’re underway.

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    exactly

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Although you broached it earlier, maybe you can say a little more on why you decided to build HurricaneSwap on Avalanche?

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    Like I was saying, I think Avalanche has so much potential

    It’s designed for DeFi, it’s powerful to build, the transactions on it are pretty active.

    And most importantly, we see the gap between X chain and C chain, it is a huge opportunity.

    What HurricaneSwap aims to do is attract more $AVAX holders and traders to participate in the Avalanche ecosystem

    We can benefit Avalanche and create more value by providing more diverse cross-chain assets.

    So it’s beyond “we chose Avalanche”, it’s more like, we need each other.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    This kind of struck me earlier. People are active on the network but not yet engaged due to the lack of quality assets. It’s the hidden thrust behind Hurricane Swap.

    On another note, I could not help but notice that one of your advisors is Ted Yin, the chief Protocol Architect & Co-Founder at Ava Labs. How has he helped bring the vision of HurricaneSwap into reality?

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    I believe everyone here is familiar with Ted

    Besides being the Chief Protocol Architect and co-founder of Ava Labs, he is also the first author of HotStuff.

    HotStuff is revolutionary when it comes to protocol, and not to mention the breakthroughs of Ava Labs, about which Hunter might have more to say.

    Maybe you can ask him about this in the next AMA.🤓

    For me personally, I believe the biggest help from Ted is actually in making the idea of HurricaneSwap come true.

    Ted is an expert of protocol for sure, but the best of him is that he is always receptive to new ideas.

    When we first came up with the idea of HurricaneSwap and told him, he was so supportive, and joined us as an advisor right away.

    But recently we realized that he actually started the development of Avalanche Bridge at that time.

    That means they already had the solution of cross-chain, but Ted still encouraged us to develop HurricaneSwap. That means a lot to me.

    Besides supporting us on the technical side, Ted was also referring investors to us during our private fundraising, like A&T.

    So basically Ted is not only an advisor to us, but also a very good friend who is always being supportive.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    He sounds pretty invaluable especially when it comes to taking an idea and putting the proverbial meat on the bone.

    How do you view other DEXs built natively on Avalanche? How might HurricaneSwap work to elevate the entire ecosystem, instead of competing with it?

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    A few years ago, there was no such thing as DEXs nor cross-chain swap.

    But there is always demand for “cross-market” trading.

    For example, you can trade both stocks and bitcoin on Robinhood. It’s actually a kind of “cross-chain”.

    At present, AMM brings more possibilities for cross-chain trading.

    For example, let’s suppose you are a professional trader, you know the price correlation between U.S. dollar and bitcoin, you also know the price correlation between U.S dollar and gold.

    Then theoretically you already know the price correlation between bitcoin and gold, then maybe you want to short gold with Bitcoin or whatever. But you can’t trade like that actually.

    It’s impossible in the traditional market due to the regulation, different pricing arrangements and of course the liquidity.

    However, in the case of AMM, technically speaking, you can trade bitcoin/gold directly.

    Imagine that, how cool it is!

    As for me, I don’t think we are competing with other DEXs on Avalanche.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Now that would be an awesome pair for Peter Schiff.

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    lol

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Didn’t mean to interrupt you but thought I’d take a potshot at Schiff.

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    I get it, no worries.

    At this point, the most important thing is to boost the ecosystem together.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Agreed. I think people overplay the element of competition when you have a space with such vast potential. You put a restaurant in the middle of nowhere and no one comes. You put 20 of them, even in a remote place and suddenly you have a destination.

    In what ways is HurricaneSwap designed to support the HCT token holder? What is its utility?

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    Here you can see the tokenomics of HCT.

    As the native token of HurricaneSwap, $HCT represents holders’ many rights.

    First of all, the right to vote. HurricaneSwap is a community-driven project, after we launch the mainnet, $HCT holders are expected to participate in project governance, including token listing, marketing plan, community development and so on.

    More importantly, users need to burn $HCT to vote. Based on the experience of CEXs, that kind of listing activity could burn hundreds of millions of tokens.

    Further, we see $HCT holders like our shareholders, so we will reward users who hold and stake $HCT with 1‰ of our transaction fee profit.

    That’s a lot.

    And there are two more special parts about our rewards mechanism.

    First, the reward will be issued every day, so the price fluctuation of $HCT wouldn’t affect users’ benefits.

    Second, the reward will be issued in $AVAX, which means we will buy $AVAX in the secondary market and reward it to $HCT holders.

    In future, we will explore more $HCT application scenarios, and you can stay tuned to our website for more information:

    https://hurricaneswap.gitbook.io/hurricaneswap/faq/7.-tokennomics

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    At this stage, what can you tell us about your business development? Are you actively seeking collaborations with other projects and protocols? Is this something that HurrucanSwap benefits from?

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    At this stage, we just finished the testnet promotion of HurricaneSwap V1, there were almost 200K addresses in our testnet

    This number is amazing as there were around 130K addresses altogether in Avalanche testnet at the beginning.

    Meanwhile, we have already completed the development of V2. PeckShield is doing the security audit, we also invited some white-hat hackers to help us to test.

    So I think the most important thing right now is making sure HurricaneSwap V2 could launch on time, it’s scheduled on 10/10.

    Once the mainnet is live, if everything goes well, we will establish more business partners.

    And we will definitely look for business partnership opportunities in AVAX Eco at the first stage.

    You see, Avalaunch is one of our investors, Mark helps us to get in touch with lots of influencers and introduce HurricaneSwap to so many AVAX users.

    And JD Gagnon, co-founder of BENQI, he invested in us as well. Also Pangolin, we talked to them at the very beginning and we both agree that there should be more cooperation between us.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    This is very impressive stuff. Shoutout to @dubpluris As you noted earlier, you and Avalanche need each other.

    You just answered that. Mea culpa.

    Your mainnet is currently set for October 10th, shortly after the Avaluanch IDO. What part of the roadmap does that deployment represent? What can we expect as a user in 3, 6, and 12 months?

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    I’m proud to say, so far, everything is on schedule.

    Speaking of future plans, I think the most important thing for us, or any cross-chain swap, is to continuously expand to new chains and new assets.

    Within the unique design of HurricaneStation, we could build our station on each chain rapidly .

    Furthermore, HurricaneSwap is a community-driven project, so we will definitely make it DAO.

    It won’t be easy to achieve decentralization, but we will try our best. After we launch the mainnet, we will announce plans about DAO very soon.

    Besides, our tech and product team are so creative, so I believe you will see more trading features and new functions on HurricaneSwap, like vault on HurricaneStation, we already have plans on that.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    This migration is never easy but you’ll have such a framework in place, hopefully it will continue to run elegantly.

    To keep a theme alive here — how does HurricaneSwap benefit the entire Avalanche ecosystem?

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    First of all, we believe in Avalanche.

    That’s the most important thing.

    Because of that, benefiting Avalanche is our first priority.

    Actually the whole design of HurricaneSwap is to benefit Avalanche

    We aim to bring more valuable assets to Avalanche. That’s what Avalanche needs most at this point.

    Besides, I have lived in China for many years, so I’m quite resourceful in China.

    I can see that Avalanche attach great importance to China market and the whole Asia market, so I hope I can help them to expand into new markets in Asia. Let more people know about Avalanche.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Final question before moving on to the Twitter questions — You alluded to it earlier with the vault so maybe you can expound a bit more. HurricaneSwap also sets out to offer a suite of DeFi tools beyond a DEX. What does the long-term vision of HurricaneSwap offer to its users?

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    Now we define ourselves as the 1st liquidity cross-chain DEX based on Avalanche.

    The mission of HurricaneSwap is to provide users with a high-performance, low slippage, low-cost and seamless cross-chain trading experience.

    I would not overstate our vision, because trading itself is awesome and should be respected.

    We will just stick with the product and satisfy all kinds of needs from users

    Speaking of vault, I cant tell more details actually 🤭 But you should be suprised.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Your core competency certainly fills a massive need. Now, moving on to the Twitter questions. Much of this has been covered already but feel free to expound upon as you see fit.

    From @JaysonHinrichs1 Staking is the new trend. What staking options are available for $HCT token? Are there any incentives for staking? What are the various ways to earn $HCT token and are there any limits to amount of $HCT I can earn?

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    There are many options available on the Farm.

    I can’t tell you the specific options at present, because there might be some changes during the test time.

    Once we launch the mainnet, you can see it on our website: hurricaneswap.com

    Like I mentioned, we will reward staking users not only $HCT, but also $AVAX as a share bonus.

    You can get $HCT from staking for sure, meanwhile we will have all kinds of trading activities after mainnet launched, so you can get extra $HCT as reward.

    There’s no limit to how much you can earn, but you should follow the rules of activity.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    @amiich_ I’m curious about the team’s record. I think it is important to invest on a project who has a reliable workers. Do the team already worked on something related to crypto industry and how many of you in your team?

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    All members from our team are experienced in crypto before. As you can see, Roke Protocol is our original development and so far everything in the developing process is on schedule.

    That’s because our tech and product team are mostly from CEXs and crypto wallet.

    And members of our marketing team used to work for crypto funds, media and community.

    So you can see there are more than 42K people in HurricaneSwap TG group, and 45K followers on Twitter. It only takes us 2 month to get there.

    Thanks to our wonderful marketing team, now we have a strong community and everything is organic.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    There was a lot of visibility for the project dating back and the amount of testers you attracted is testimony.

    @wannkid How does hurricane swap fit in the $avax ecosystem with power houses like
    @pangolindex and @traderjoe_xyz already there as well as strengthening @LydiaFinance
    (with 2 bridges!)

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    HurricaneSwap is different from any other DEXs or cross-chain DEXs. That’s the key point.

    I could say, the Roke Protocol and LP-bridge mechanism are highly experimental and forward-looking.

    Besides, like I was saying, we are not competitors as we have a common goal to make AVAX Eco more prosperous.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    @Kirillova9Vika What kind of partnerships with different projects/platforms/protocols can we expect from HurricaneSwap in the future? Could you give us some examples of how other projects can leverage HurricaneSwap ?

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    I already talked about our plan of business partnership in Question 10 at the previous session.

    But I can share a list of all investors and partners that we are working with.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Last one from Twitter — @zotov_mitya Does HurricaneSwap use a vesting period system to avoid dumpers?

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    I think the best way to avoid dumpers is continuously increase the value and application scenarios of $HCT.

    Generally speaking, the rewards of holding $HCT are quite generous, you can earn extra $HCT by staking and meanwhile you can get $AVAX as dividend.

    So it’s a better choice to hold $HCT rather than dump it.

    Thanks for all the question from Twitter.

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Thank you for everything so far. We’re going to unmute the chat and allow community members to ask a few questions. Please choose five that sing to you.

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    Thank you all for the questions!

    Avijit Sengupta

    Is your project is global? Do you plan to develop more in some areas where english is not basic language?

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    Yes, HurricaneSwap is global because we are a DEX, there should be no country limit.

    And we do have plans to develop more countries which don’t speak English. Like Vietnam, Korea, and also Turkey, Indonesia and so on. They have much potential.

    Since we launched testnet, we could see there are over 100K users from 160+ countries and regions participate in HurricaneSwap.

    So we realized that it’s not enough to do English promotion only.

    Then we started to work with community ambassadors, they come from different countries but they know HurricaneSwap pretty well and they could promote HurricaneSwap in their own language to their own people.

    Will Smith

    From where you get your project name? What is the main motivation behind your project? do you have any story to share?

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    Hurricane means a storm.We’d like to make it become a true storm in the crypto market.

    Besides, we use “Hurricane” because both “Hurricane” and “Avalanche” are natural disasters.😅

    Fox H

    How do you think the future development potential of the Avalanche network will be compared to Ethereum, BSC or Solana?

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    I think Avalanche is advanced comparing with other networks, that’s why we chose to build on Avalanche.

    Although Ethereum and BSC have more or less first-mover advantages, I always believe that transactions tend to migrate from chains with higher fees and slower speeds to chains with lower fees and faster speeds.

    I think it is inevitable for various transaction-related applications to migrate from the Ethereum and BSC to Avalanche. So it’s not about Avalanche taking over Ethereum or others, it is more about each chain giving full play to their strengths.

    Nguyễn Tony

    Security and anonymity are always prioritized by BlockChain projects in the development of project platforms and technologies. So, does you have any technological solutions or plans to enhance user trust in these issues?

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    I agree with you, security is always the first rule, especially speaking of DEXs.

    We have seriously considered about security at the very beginning. That’ why we create a new mechanism to make cross-chain transaction.

    Also, you could check the security audit report if you’re interested: https://github.com/peckshield/publications/blob/master/audit_reports/PeckShield-Audit-Report-HurricaneSwap-v1.0.pdf

    Not Me

    Are you plan any Exchange for token listing?
    Please tell some details about the Listing?

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    We haven’t make any official announcement of listing yet, but you can actually see the listing plan from our IEO partnership

    Also, there are some CEXs in our investors list.

    I think that’s all for today

    Dave Donnenfeld| Avalaunch

    Symington, thank you very much for your time today. As informed as I was, I learned something and am really coming to appreciate the vision behing HurricaneSwap. It’s robust and indeed more than what it appears to be at first pass. I think our community is lucky to have the opportunity to participate in the sale and I look forward to the technical deep dive tomorrow. Thank you again.

    Symington Smith| HurricaneSwap

    Thank you again for having me!

  • HurricaneSwap AMA#2 — Technical Deep Dive with Hunter Cheung

    Join us in the Avalaunch Telegram group for the second AMA with the HurricaneSwap team.

    Our second AMA will feature HurricaneSwap CTO, Hunter Cheung, where we will be covering the project from a technical perspective.

    In addition to Avalaunch’s questions, we will be giving the community two opportunities to ask theirs, and we will be rewarding the 10 selected questions with $25 USDT and $30 HCT each, for a total of $550 in prizes

    Date & Time

    AMA Contest Rules

    To be eligible to have your question selected, you must:

    🐣 Follow: Avalaunch & HurricaneSwap

    ✈️ Join: Avalaunch Telegram & HurricaneSwap Telegram

    ♻️ Retweet: Tweet & Tag 3 Friends


    There will be two ways to submit questions:

    1. Commenting on the Twitter post announcing this AMA
    2. Live during the AMA

    Shortly before the AMA, we will select the 5 best questions from the Twitter thread and those will be asked during the session.

    During the AMA, we will open up the chat for community questions. The 5 best questions will be selected by the guest for answering.

    If your Twitter or community question was chosen, you will be contacted to receive your prize.

  • HurricaneSwap AMA#1 — Project Overview with Symington W. Smith

    Join us in the Avalaunch Telegram group for the first of two AMAs with the HurricaneSwap team.

    First up is HurricaneSwap Founder, Symington W. Smith, where we will be covering the project at a high level. The focus of this AMA will be the business development, vision, road map, and post-IDO plans.

    In addition to Avalaunch’s questions, we will be giving the community two opportunities to ask theirs, and we will be rewarding the 10 selected questions with $25 USDT each, for a total of $250 in prizes

    Date & Time

    AMA Contest Rules

    To be eligible to have your question selected, you must:

    🐣 Follow: Avalaunch & HurricaneSwap

    ✈️ Join: Avalaunch Telegram & HurricaneSwap Telegram

    ♻️ Retweet: Tweet & Tag 3 Friends


    There will be two ways to submit questions:

    1. Commenting on the Twitter post announcing this AMA
    2. Live during the AMA

    Shortly before the AMA, we will select the 5 best questions from the Twitter thread and those will be asked during the session.

    During the AMA, we will open up the chat for community questions. The 5 best questions will be selected by the guest for answering.

    If your Twitter or community question was chosen, you will be contacted to receive your prize.

  • HurricaneSwap x Avalaunch — IDO Announcement

    HurricaneSwap x Avalaunch — IDO Announcement

    As Avalaunch continues to grow, we are excited to bring you more sales that, we believe, will shape the future of the ecosystem. The next IDO we are proud to offer our community is HurricaneSwap, a cross-chain DEX, with a focus on LP provision, built natively on Avalanche.

    Registration will begin on September 27th and the IDO will take place October 4th, with details posted in our sale section.


    Overview

    Avalaunch has been working with the HurricaneSwap team for many months and is fascinated by their potential as the first cross-chain liquidity DEX on Avalanche. The application is made more powerful when you consider the competitive fees on Avalanche and the opportunity to provide a user experience not available anywhere else.

    While NFTs have made headlines as of late, the infrastructure building that can support liquid markets and improve a user’s exchange experience is critical for a Layer 1 to thrive. HurricaneSwap has an accomplished team with equally strong backing and partners, including Huobi Ventures, KuCoin & Avalaunch.


    At A Glance

    Built on Avalanche, HurricaneSwap is truly a next generation cross-chain decentralized exchange which aims to offer unmatched performance, the lowest fees on the market and a more seamless, user-friendly experience. There are three pieces of unique architecture which make up the HurrcaneSwap protocol.

    • Decentralized — censorship resistance platform that is unrestricted and requires no KYC with a stated commitment that “there is no centralized control.”
    • Secure — guards against hackers by way of an LP-bridge, known as Roke Protocol. The protocol is a “bidirectional verification mechanism,” rendering it virtually impossible to attack.
    • Fees — a 2% fee on cross transactions are currently the lowest in the market.
    • Efficiency — two steps and ~15 seconds to complete a cross transaction.

    HurricaneSwap Token Distribution and Vesting

    Total Supply: 2,000,000,000 HCT

    • 1.2B — Liquidity mining — emitting 1,000,000 HCT per day upon TGE
    • 220M — Round A — 3-month lock-up from TGE, followed by a 12-month linear release
    • 200M — Hurricane Alliance — 300,000 HCT per day after TGE
    • 200M — Team — 6-month lock-up from TGE, followed by a 12-month linear release
    • 80M — Marketing — Media, branding, and community strategy. 100% unlocked
    • 80M — Round B — 1-month lock-up from TGE, followed by a 12-month linear release
    • 20M — Public Sales (IDO/IEO) — 100% unlocked

    Funding Numbers

    • Private A Round: Raised $2.2 million at $0.01/HCT
    • Private B Round: Raised $1.4 million, $0.0175/HCT
    • Total Public Rounds (including Avalaunch): Raising 600K at $0.03/HCT
    • Hard Cap: $4,200,000 USD
    • Circulating Supply of HCT Post-TGE: 100M HCT*
    • Market Cap at TGE (based on circulating supply): $3,000,000 USD*

    *Both the circulating supply and Day 1 market cap do include tokens that may be provided for liquidity.

    Note: Although the 80M marketing tokens are unlocked, these tokens are to be used in market making as well as liquidity and airdrop rewards. Counting them towards the Day 1 cap is a personal decision one must make.

    1.3M HCT a day are unlocked as liquidity mining rewards (1M) and for the Hurricane Swap Alliance (300k)


    Hurricane Swap’s IDO Schedule

    As a native Avalanche cross-chain endeavor, HurricaneSwap’s team has done a great job of creating awareness and finding avenues to create distribution for the HCT token. Their public sales are taking place on the following:

    1. HurricaneSwap.com — September 26th 2PM UTC — Allocation: 100K USD
    2. DuckStarter — September 26th 2PM UTC — Allocation: 100K USD
    3. Westarter — September 26th 2PM UTC — Allocation: 50K USD
    4. Zb.com — Sep. 26th 2:00 PM UTC — Allocation: 20K USD
    5. MEXC — September 26th 2PM UTC — Allocation: 80K USD
    6. Avalaunch — October 4th 6AM UTC —Allocation: 250K USD

    The Hurricane Swap IDO on Avalaunch

    It is worth noting a few things about the Avalaunch IDO:

    • It is 100% unlocked, and no tokens will be released until the Avalaunch IDO concludes.
    • HurricaneSwap’s public sale will take place across multiple platforms.
    • The public round has been removed, and the sale will be offered to only validators and XAVA stakers.

    Avalaunch Sale Distribution

    • At least 90% of the sale will go to the community XAVA stakers
    • ~10% will be reserved for validators of the Avalanche network
    • Any leftover tokens from validators will be offered to stakers

    Sale Size: $250,000 USD

    Tokens available: 8.33M HCT at .03 USD (Total Supply: 2B HCT)


    Registration Schedule

    • Registration Opens: 9/27/2021 at 3:00 p.m. (UTC)
    • Registration Closes: 10/2/2021 at 6:00 a.m. (UTC)

    Sale Schedule

    • Validator Round Begins: 10/4/2021 at 6:00 a.m. (UTC)
    • Validator Round Closes: 10/4/2021 at 6:00 p.m. (UTC)
    • Staking Round Begins: 10/04/21 at 6:00 p.m. (UTC)
    • Staking Round Closes: 10/05/21 at 6:00 a.m. (UTC)

    Final Thoughts

    Avalaunch feels that HurricaneSwap will come to be a foundational Avalanche application. With a long history inside the ecosystem, and a focus on Avalanche’s architecture, the vision is very much in alignment with our forecast for the network. Typically, projects that launch with this level of momentum and ambition have raised well into eight figures, but HurricaneSwap’s hard cap is very modest by comparison. The entry price is higher than what we typically encounter and the unlocks are fairly aggressive. However, we believe that this speaks to a well-backed team, with the ability to execute and attract significant TVL.

    After working closely with the HurricaneSwap team for several months, we are confident that their roadmap will add significant value to the native application ecosystem and the dominance of Avalanche as a Layer 1.


    HurricaneSwap Links

    About Hurricane Swap

    HurricaneSwap is the 1st cross-chain liquidity DEX based on Avalanche. With the innovative LP-Bridge mechanism (Roke Protocol), users can trade popular assets of other chains without leaving Avalanche. Taking advantage of Avalanche, HurricaneSwap provides users with a high-performance, low slippage, low-cost and seamless cross-chain trading experience.

    Website | Twitter | Telegram

  • BitMart Joins Forces with Avalaunch to Incubate and Foster the Avalanche Ecosystem

    As the pioneer of integrating the Avalanche public chain ecosystems, BitMart focuses on building a dossier, a body of work that will show its pedigree over time. To accomplish this, it is paramount that we build mutually beneficial relationships during the foundational stages of our development and the projects we support. The overarching focus is cultivating lasting relationships with teams and projects that can leverage what our platform offers in a mutually beneficial way.

    To that end, we look for established networks that can aid in our collective development: It is not enough to conduct a sale. For us, it is essential that we can plug these projects into a thriving post-sale environment for the benefit of everyone involved.

    This is why we are proposing a strategic collaboration with Avalaunch. We believe that Avalaunch has endured, established itself, and is starting to find its stride. As individual endeavors, we both have significant upside, but there is still much we’d like to accomplish.

    We at BitMart were fortunate to have noted Avalaunch’s continuing evolution and believe that together, we can actively drive the Avalanche ecosystem forward. BitMart is forward-looking, and we hope that our vision can fold neatly into our users’ future plans. Ideally, BitMart would like to foster the growth of the new and innovative projects we support, leading up to and following their respective launches.

    A natural collaboration could be BitMart IDOs along with Avalaunch IEOs. Combining forces will ensure that Avalanche-based solid projects receive adequate exposure, liquidity, and support to differentiate themselves from standard initiatives.

    BitMart’s network, platform, and expertise can provide added value to projects in myriad ways, and we are hoping to leverage some of these qualities while providing a pipeline of vetted endeavors to BitMart’s growing roster of listed Assets.

    For Avalaunch, having the opportunity to work this closely with a centralized exchange that is ready, willing, and eager to deploy its resources to accelerate a new technology towards adoption is something they are honored to be a part of. As organizations with shared goals, Avalaunch can synergistically contribute to the success of the worthy initiatives we jointly support.

    As part of the path to broader adoption, BitMart values the opportunity to align with such an essential partner as Avalaunch. Avalaunch’s offering of early-stage funding, exposure, incubation, and listings for promising native Avalanche projects represents an excellent opportunity to leverage a devout grassroots community. When combined with BitMart’s worldwide network, this becomes a potent force for shaping an entire ecosystem.

    BitMart would look forward to work closely with Avalaunch to push the Avalanche technology, and the teams that build on it, ahead.

    About BitMart

    BitMart Exchange is a premier global digital assets trading platform with over 5.5 million users worldwide and ranked among the top crypto exchanges on CoinGecko. BitMart currently offers 600+ trading pairs with one of the lowest trading fees in the market. To learn more about BitMart, visit their website, follow their Twitter, or join their Telegram for more updated news and promotions. Download BitMart App to trade anytime, anywhere.

  • Kalao AMA#2 — Technical Overview with Adrien

    Join us in the Avalaunch Telegram group for the first of two AMAs with the Kalao team.

    First up is Kalao CTO, Adrien, where we will be covering the project at a high level. The focus here will be on the development, technical challenges and NFT/VR Technology.

    In addition to Avalaunch’s questions, we will be giving the community two opportunities to ask theirs, and we will be rewarding the 10 selected questions with $25 USDT each, for a total of $250 in prizes


    Date & Time

    AMA Contest Rules

    To be eligible to have your question selected, you must:

    🐣 Follow: Avalaunch & Kalao

    ✈️ Join: Avalaunch Telegram & Kalao Telegram

    ♻️ Retweet: Tweet

    👪 Tag 3 friends: Tweet


    There will be two ways to submit questions:

    1. Commenting on the Twitter post announcing this AMA
    2. Live during the AMA

    Shortly before the AMA, we will select the 5 best questions from the Twitter thread and those will be asked during the session.

    During the AMA, we will open up the chat for community questions. The 5 best questions will be selected by the guest for answering.

    If your Twitter or community question was chosen, you will be contacted to receive your prize.

  • Kalao AMA#1 — Project Overview with Hassan Benahmed

    Join us in the Avalaunch Telegram group for the first of two AMAs with the Kalao team.

    First up is Kalao CEO, Hassan Benahmed, where we will be covering the project at a high level. The focus of this AMA will be the business development, vision, road map, and post-IDO plans.

    In addition to Avalaunch’s questions, we will be giving the community two opportunities to ask theirs, and we will be rewarding the 10 selected questions with $25 USDT each, for a total of $250 in prizes

    Date & Time

    AMA Contest Rules

    To be eligible to have your question selected, you must:

    🐣 Follow: Avalaunch & Kalao

    ✈️ Join: Avalaunch Telegram & Kalao Telegram

    ♻️ Retweet: Tweet

    👪 Tag 3 friends: Tweet


    There will be two ways to submit questions:

    1. Commenting on the Twitter post announcing this AMA
    2. Live during the AMA

    Shortly before the AMA, we will select the 5 best questions from the Twitter thread and those will be asked during the session.

    During the AMA, we will open up the chat for community questions. The 5 best questions will be selected by the guest for answering.

    If your Twitter or community question was chosen, you will be contacted to receive your prize.

  • Launchpad Update — Learnings & Upgrades

    Launchpad Update — Learnings & Upgrades

    We want to thank everyone that showed up and took the time to participate in the first Avalaunch IDO. For us, it was incredible to see the community come together and finally experience what we had been working on all these months. We were able to secure a meaningful allocation for our large user base and, we believe, took the first steps toward setting a new standard in the launchpad space.

    However, our work is never done. While the event was a great success, our commitment to you, our community, is to always push harder and further. The minute the sale closed, we immediately began brainstorming about how we could do better. Even after months of design and development, rigorous QA, and many rounds of user testing, there is simply no replacement for real users — and we were fortunate enough to have thousands of them.

    In this article, we want to detail what we learned, the feedback we got from the community about what could be improved, and the improvements we made to the application to make for a better sale, with bigger allocations, that could service more people around the world.


    In short, here are the most significant changes to the platform that will be developed, audited and deployed in time for the next sale:

    • Introduction of a refundable registration fee. Payable in AVAX, this is to ensure that the people who register for the sale truly intend to participate. When you claim your allocation, this fee is immediately refunded. Currently, this fee is 1 AVAX.
    • Longer rounds. Each round will now take place over 12 hours, instead of 3.
    • A reordering of the rounds. The order is now: public, validator, community staking. This will ensure that the largest percentage of the tokens available will end up in the hands of XAVA stakers.
    • All unsold tokens go into the final staking round. Instead of the unsold flowing into the next round, unsold tokens from the public and validator rounds will be set aside and given to the final community staking round.
    • Updated AVAX price. As the rounds are now much longer, the price of AVAX will be updated every 30 minutes, to account for any volatility in the market during this time period.
    • Infrastructure upgrades. We are beefing up our servers and infrastructure to meet the massive demand (in some cases thousands of requests per second) we saw during the first minutes of each round.

    While this brief outline will likely be sufficient for most users, we’d like to elaborate on the reasoning behind these updates and how we think they will lead to a better experience for Avalaunch users.


    Refundable Registration Fee

    When a user registers for a sale, they will be asked to deposit a “Refundable Registration Fee,” paid in AVAX, which will be returned immediately after claiming their allocation. The fee will be communicated prior to the registration opening. It will also be available for review in the UI.

    The need for this fee became apparent after our first sale. We had hundreds of users who registered but did not even attempt to participate. For a platform that offers guaranteed allocations, this is not ideal. If a user registers and doesn’t show up, that allocation moves into another round when it really should have been distributed amongst those that took the time to participate.

    With a better sense of who is actually likely to show up, we can more accurately model the fairest distribution of tokens which results in better allocations for everyone. The fee gives us much more confidence that when a user says they want to participate through their registration, they mean it.

    Unclaimed Registration Fees

    If a user registers, deposits the fee, but doesn’t participate in the sale, they will forfeit their AVAX and it will be collected by the platform. Following the sale, this AVAX will be used to market buy and burn XAVA, allowing for a shared benefit for all token holders through deflation of the token.

    The use of the collected AVAX may change in the future, but for now, the buying and burning of XAVA will be the mechanism by which we reward our community.


    Reordering of Rounds

    Our primary goal is to distribute as many IDO tokens as broadly as possible. However, in that framework, there is a hierarchy, and at the top is our Avalaunch token holders. The new order will ensure that the largest percentage of the tokens available for sale will end up in the hands of XAVA stakers. The new order is as follows:

    1. Avalanche Validators
    2. Public
    3. XAVA Stakers (Community)

    In our first sale, the validators went first, then the community, and then staking. Since we saw many people register but not show up, and unsold tokens were moving into the next round, this left more tokens available to the public than we would have wanted. With this new ordering, the registration fee, and the change to the handling of unsold tokens in each round described in the next section, we believe our XAVA stakers will receive the most allocation possible.


    Unsold Tokens in Each Round

    In our first sale, all unsold tokens flowed into the next round, ending with the public. We believed it would be best to let the community go first, have their chance at an allocation, and the remainder would be offered to the public. For the reasons outlined above, this turned out to be imperfect. It worked very well, but we want better.

    Going forward, all unsold tokens in both the Public and Validator rounds will be set aside, combined, and offered to XAVA stakers. Through this, we guarantee our community stakers and holders remain at the “top of the food chain.”

    Some type of “last chance round” after Community where people could rush to claim the remainder was also considered, but this strongly contradicts the methodology consistent across the rest of the platform. The last thing we want to see is a measured, thoughtful allocation process punctuated by a frenzied war for the few tokens leftover.

    If there is anything left unsold after the Community round, the tokens remaining will be returned to the team.


    As always, our commitment is to keep thinking and building. These upgrades represent the latest additions to the platform, but certainly won’t be the last.

  • Kalao x Avalaunch— IDO Announcement

    Kalao x Avalaunch— IDO Announcement

    Following our debut sale of YAY Games, the saying, “one good turn deserves another’’ is indeed fitting. As part of an enviable lineup of upcoming sales, we are proud to present Kalao as our next IDO offering. We are particularly excited about this project as the Kalao vision involves nothing less than “building the future of the digital and virtual world.”

    The sale date is confirmed for 9/22/2021 with registration opening on 9/17/2021. The details can be found below in the “Sale” section.


    Kalao Overview

    Avalaunch has worked closely with Kalao for several months now and this upcoming IDO represents a maturing project that is now poised to enter the market. Certainly, NFTs have made headlines for the jaw dropping bidding wars that have taken place but Kalao’s marketplace and “Citadel” debuts in the realm of digital art with plans to venture well beyond.

    Kalao sees an intersection between NFTs, virtual worlds and online marketplaces with an aim to create convergence across these powerful sectors. Built exclusively for the Avalanche blockchain and entirely decentralized, it is an imminently scalable solution as non-fungible tokens are unique; allowing for traceability and unimpeachable token ownership to go with nearly unlimited applications. The initial use case is to provide creators a place to showcase their wares and build virtual businesses, however, Kalao’s marketplace aims to reimagine the capabilities of NFTs to include property, ticketing and even luxury goods.

    Quick Take

    Fundamentally speaking, we feel that there is a lot to like about Kalao. It takes a fragmented space and aggregates it; housing it in an attractive destination marketplace. There are opportunities for exclusivity, streaming, virtual land and myriad potential use cases. As a platform provider and medium for all things NFT, the team is well-suited to deliver on their vision to create a sort of “ecosystem for the ecosystem.”

    Co-Founder of Avalaunch, Mark Stanwyck, notes, “As much as I like Kalao’s vision and the space they’re in, what has impressed me most is how the team genuinely understands that community remains at the forefront. From their tokenomics down to their socials, they’ve given themselves every chance for success in all aspects of their project by making adjustments to appeal to a discerning crypto public. It’s been an absolute pleasure to work with them and I foresee a long, meaningful relationship. Kalao represents a win for the Avalanche ecosystem and we’re proud to have been there at the very beginning of their journey.”

    CEO of Kalao, Hassan Benahmed, responds, “The team at Avalaunch has been there for us from the very beginning. It has been a delight to work with them and I see a perfect match between our teams as they always put the community first in everything they deliver, just as we do. We’re happy to confirm that we adjusted our public sale size from a much lower number to $550,000 USD. It will be an opportunity for Kalao to onboard even more community members. I’m very much looking forward to the IDO and am excited about bringing our great products to the market soon thereafter.”

    Kalao is accessible and easy-to-understand despite the sophisticated technology behind it. We strongly encourage anyone interested to explore the project and gain an understanding of the vision. For more details about Kalao, please visit their Medium and website.


    The Kalao IDO on Avalaunch

    • Sale Size: $550,000 USD
    • Tokens for Sale: 13.75M KLO at .04 USD (Total Supply: 500M KLO)

    Schedule

    • Registration Opens: Friday, September 17th @ 3:00 p.m. (UTC)
    • Registration Closes: Monday, September 20th at 3:00 p.m.(UTC)
    • Sale Opens: Wednesday, September 22nd @ 7:00 a.m. (UTC)

    Rounds

    Each round will last 12 hours.

    Validators Round: Wednesday, September 22nd at 7:00 a.m. (UTC)

    Public Round: Wednesday, September 22nd at 7:00 p.m. (UTC)

    Community Staking Round: Thursday, September 23rd at 7:00 a.m. (UTC)


    Funding Numbers

    • Seed: 40,000,000 KLO at .025 USD — 1M USD
    • Private: 51,000,000 KLO at.035 USD — 1.785M USD
    • Public IDO: 13.75M KLO at .04 US — 550K USD
    • Hard Cap: $3,335,000 USD

    Supply Breakdown & Vesting

    Total Supply: 500,000,000 KLO

    • Community Rewards: 209.35M KLO — 1 month lock-up followed by 120 months of linear vesting
    • LP Farming: 11.15M KLO — 1 month lock-up followed by 3 months of linear vesting
    • Sales: (seed, private, public): 104.75M KLO
    • Seed: 40M KLO — 8% at TGE followed by a 3 month lock and 24 months of linear vesting
    • Private: 51M KLO — 10% at TGE followed by a 3 month lock and 24 months linear vesting
    • Public: 13.75M KLO — 25% at TGE followed by weekly unlocks for 6 months
    • Team: 75M KLO — 6 month lockup, 36 months linear vesting
    • Ecosystem: 58.5M KLO — 1 month lock-up followed by 36 months of linear vesting
    • Advisors: 32.75M KLO — 6 month lockup, 36 months linear vesting
    • Liquidity: 4.5M KLO 50% at TGE, 50% at month 2

    Bounty campaigns

    • Private sale bounty: 2.5M KLO — 1 month lock-up followed by 6 months of linear vesting
    • Marketing sale bounty: 1.5M KLO — 1 month lock-up followed by 6 months of linear vesting


    The Kalao Sale On Avalaunch

    The Kalao IDO will take place at launchpad.avalaunch.app beginning on Wednesday, September 22nd at 7:00 a.m. (UTC).

    The sale will consist of three rounds, each round lasting for 12 hours.

    Avalaunch Sale Distribution:

    • Total KLO for Sale: 13.75M
    • Price: .04USD
    • Size: $550,000 USD
    • Vesting: 25% at TGE followed by weekly unlocks for 6 months

    Other:

    • Circulating Supply of KLO post TGE: 11.7375M KLO*
    • Day 1 Market Cap (based on circulating supply): $469,500 USD*
    • Both the circulating supply and Day 1 market cap do not include tokens that may be provided for liquidity.

    Wrap Up

    Avalaunch believes that the recognition of NFTs as art and unique assets has merely begun. As promising as it is, the equally compelling and less talked about component where worlds truly become blurred is the authentication and representation of real world assets on the blockchain as non-fungible tokens.

    Kalao fully recognizes the importance of an intuitive destination where value can be realized, created, stored and displayed. Their initiative to fill this void and application of VR foreshadows a future that we believe is worth contributing to.

    Kalao comes to market with a clearly defined roadmap, smart tokenomics, a strong understanding of the importance of community, a potent team and the type of drive and adaptability required to make such an ambitious undertaking go. We have had the pleasure of working with them for a few months now where they have made demonstrable progress on a number of fronts. We are elated to see them exposed to our community and far beyond.

    About Kalao

    Kalao is an NFT ecosystem, leveraging a cost-effective and easy-to-use marketplace, powered by Avalanche blockchain technology combined with outstanding Kalao VR capabilities. Its framework will accelerate adoption of VR technology to develop virtual worlds and sustain digital transformation of business use cases.

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