@Raini-Ng Crowdfunding is an option, though we need assistance from someone who has experience in organising this. The real funding issue is that we need money for the code audit and listing on a CEX before we can go to mainnet and this could be a substantial amount, even if we limit the code we audit to MPC code, C3Caller, veCTM. Unfortunately this is not cheap and is why Jerry mentioned the figure of 1 million. Let's see how our new deck and RWA focus goes down with VCs.
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@avgCrypto Completely agree with you about creating manageable goals. Thank you!
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To be clear - we won't get VC funding unless we present a UNIQUE and INNOVATIVE proposition for funding. They are interested in backing the next unicorn, not another cross-chain interoperability protocol. We may get some backing from other sources such as DAOs, crowd funding and private funding, but I'm not sure we will get 1 million USD.
Regarding performance across market cycles, let's not forget that stable coin based RWA strategies are favoured in bear markets.
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Continuum was founded as a DAO for very good reasons (we all know about what happened to Multichain). Being a DAO and having exclusively open source code is the only alternative to a centralised company led project and for me this is non-negotiable.
But having spoken to a large number of VCs over the last few months, I do not think that this is the issue at all. In fact if a VC is looking for a preferential token allocation on different terms from early investors (i.e. a 4 year lock of veCTM with voting rights), then this for me is a huge red flag. They likely want to do a quick 10x from Seed to Series A and dump on retail as exit liquidity. If a VC believes in our long term vision, then this would not be an issue. But like I said - I think that other factors are in play
Typically this is how the conversations with VCs have gone in the past - I emphasise that we are building a public good for web3, with no central control and as a trusted base layer for cross-chain dApps. This does not get a strong reaction (neither hostile or positive). Sometimes they will point out that there are other solutions (L0, Axelar etc.). They simply don't care that we are Autonomous and have no central control. I then point out the security advantages of MPC, but again this does not bring a strong reaction. Usually they simply don't know what MPC is and I do not have enough time with them to explain it. I say that we are integrating non-EVMs (TON, NEAR, Solana, SUI). This is more interesting to them, since we are entering unploughed ground here, but not enough. I say that we have incubated an open source router, but some say to me that the profit margins are not very good anymore and that there is a lot of competition in this sector. The feeling I get is that this was the last bull run's narrative.
So I don't particularly agree with your analysis @Insomniac The main issue is that we need to align our goals with TODAY's narratives.
Recently I attended ETHCC in Brussels. I went to many side events. By far the most exciting one was the RWA event. There were many new RWA protocols, VCs and tradFi representatives there (e.g. Stripe, VISA). The packed audience were voting on how long it would take the next 1 trillion USD of tokenized RWAs to arrive. The consensus was 18 months. There was much discussion about how tradFi could increase their profit margins by a few percent by cutting out middle men using DeFi. Also there was agreement that RWA was much more immune to bear/bull market cycles, since investors typically use USD stable coins. Several panellists said that almost all alt coins would die, that retail would only hold stable coins and that mass adoption of blockchain would not come from the 'casino' of trading alt coins, but only through more sober investing though useful investments such as :
- SME loans
- Invoice financing
- Fractional tokenised assets such as real estate, rental properties, commodities (including gold)
- Bonds
- Securities (e.g. equity)
Interestingly (and this is where i think that our opportunity lies), some panel contributors talked about how early block chain was in this field and how the solutions still do not exist in DeFi, leading to prohibitive costs for participants, poor access to liquidity, regulatory challenges, poor user experience with wallets and more.
When I got back from ETHCC, we started to develop a deck that re-focused Continuum towards RWA. Here is the link to it and I would value your views on it : https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1-5FEB905Ff54cDkKnkauCilbT8OQdWU0Rn2u29JVYbE/edit#slide=id.p
We have sent this new deck to some VCs and I would say that the feedback is quite good, but it is early and as Insomniac points out, it takes time for the discussions to bear any fruit. I think it is fair to say that not all contributors believe that we should pivot 100% to this new narrative, rather than maintaining that we should address ALL sectors (e.g. GameFi, AI, liquidity aggregation etc.). I think that we should pivot with COMMITMENT now and focus exclusively on bringing RWA products to RETAIL investors by creating cross-chain solutions to cheaper faster blockchains like TON, Solana, NEAR and SUI - playing to our strengths. What do you think? Please read the Deck and comment here. Some feedback we have got is that this is aspirational and that we do not have our new RWA Toolkit yet. We are in the same boat as Axelar and Wormhole here - no one has developed solutions yet, so it is a race. This tells me that we are in the right direction though. We need working Proof of Concepts for things like fractionalised cross-chain NFTs for assets and the ability to access RWA vaults on Ethereum from non-EVMs etc.
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