KuCoin AMA With Avalaunch — Offering New and Innovative Projects Through Decentralized Fundraising

Dear KuCoin Users,

Time: July 1, 2021, 15:00-16:19 (UTC)

KuCoin hosted an AMA (Ask-Me-Anything) session with David Donnenfeld, a director and one of the co-founders of Avalaunch, in the KuCoin Exchange Group.

Avalaunch is a launchpad powered by the Avalanche platform, allowing new and innovative projects to seamlessly prepare for launch with an emphasis on fair and broad distribution. With its values deeply rooted in the early Avalanche community, Avalaunch is able to offer projects confident, informed users who are aligned with the long-term goals of the rapidly expanding application ecosystem.

Leveraging Avalanche’s scalable, high-throughput, and low-latency platform, Avalaunch is built by users, for teams, to help grow strong communities.

Official Website: https://avalaunch.app

Follow Avalaunch on Twitter and Telegram.

Guest:

David Donnenfeld — Director & Co-Founder of Avalaunch

David has been involved in crypto since 2017 and previously was a published writer across many genres and someone with private equity experience. His investment experience and understanding of markets make him a great fit for Avalaunch.

David: Hi, thanks for having me and Avalaunch as part of the AMA series. Good to see an eye on education as DYOR is the lifeblood of crypto, plus it’s an opportunity to get to know your potent community.

Q: What is Avalaunch?

David: Straightforward question, so let me give a straightforward answer (from our website)— Avalaunch is the first protocol built exclusively for the Avalanche ecosystem to offer promising and innovative projects a fast, secure, and efficient platform for decentralized fundraising.

Now to expound a little.

What we want to do to help the space mature- crypto investors are early-stage contributors and yet, these are tradable assets. A venture capitalist has a point of entry, be it early or later stage, a perfect understanding of what they need to see before considering an investment and a much longer investment horizon. Crypto, in my opinion, has way more opportunity and innovation, but it is untethered from any semblance of guidelines.

Avalaunch hopes to be a gatekeeper of sorts that’s dedicated to the ecosystem of Avalanche. We’re looking at the box sideways; re-examining tokenomics, distribution, go to market strategies, and using more fundamentals than the number of followers on social channels. Along the way, we’re developing some innovative products and business development funnels that can foster the growth of the projects that we support.

Q: When is your first sale going to occur?

David: Ha. Fair question, and I'm glad you asked as it is something the community has been clamoring for. We anticipated June, so we’re going to be a little late, but this became something by design. As a launchpad that essentially incubates, funds, and provides “after-sales” service, there are a number of considerations. Opportunity doesn’t care about our timing, and we have to be ready to pivot. For example, we felt that partnering with KuCoin was a piece of business development too good to turn down, and it temporarily rerouted us. Being able to work with KuCoin for C-Chain integration is a victory for Avalanche, and in the bigger picture, having centralized exchange partners can be a coup for our upcoming projects. While we don’t heavily concern ourselves with market conditions, there was enough bearish sentiment to change course slightly in the very short term. We believe this was the right move. For flippers, this could be disappointing, and I understand that, although the last couple of months have been painful for any short-horizon player. To those who believe in what we’re doing, they’re going to be quite satisfied with what we are building as it's largely customized. I think it’s crucial to have some belief in the team behind the projects one supports. Gather intel beforehand because good projects won’t notify the world every time they take a slightly different tack, and we can’t just create great projects. We’ve been in contact with myriad teams, have had innumerable meetings, and our relationship with a number of them has continued even though we were not a match. Over time, people will recognize us as ecosystem supporters, but in the interim, we’re not going to defend every last choice or point out if a given project we chose not to engage with has performed poorly. The work of even the most transparent operations is completed outside the view of onlookers. Things are continually being modified, opportunities crop up, and some of them come to pass, and others don’t. Thanks for letting me vent ha. To answer the question, I’m confident we will be underway in July, and in due course, our body of work will speak for itself.

Q: What problem does Avalaunch solve?

David: Regarding the problem we solve, I won't write a book this time so - I think the lack of guidelines is a big pain point but that's me; our other directors each have their area they want to tackle. For me, though, basic fundamentals go a long way in determining what’s going to be here in the future.

Secondarily, the approach is broken as I see it. Leading up to funding, projects get a lot of mention, access to a launchpad’s list of influencers who shout about it from the rafters, which is followed by a modest public sale. Thereafter, it’s basically game over, and all it takes is one look at a launchpad’s resume after a few months to see the result. After that, volume drops, and even the best project leaders have to work under incredibly strenuous conditions as angry communities gang up. That’s wrong, and you have to remember, we are an Avalanche launchpad because we believe that this is the blockchain to build on. When Avalanche comes to the fore like we think it will, it’s only going to be as good as the projects being built on it. We take that very seriously.

Q: What is the token utility for XAVA?

David: The primary feature of the XAVA token is staking in order to access sales. That's the expected utility and a strong one, but our tokenomics include some pretty cool features. For one, we have time-weighted staking, which allows users to build a sort of equity in their stake. There are also features being worked on that will allow users to essentially hold their stake so they won't feel pressured to participate in every sale—just the ones they like. Also, we have some forthcoming products that will require the XAVA token in order to interact with the feature set.

Q: You have a strong board of advisors. How did you manage to line up such talent?

David: For sure. We were fortunate.

They are a select group of individuals who have been deeply invested in the Avalanche ecosystem from the beginning. We wanted to support Avalanche, not just build on it.

I mentioned how trusting the team is vital for a person who is investing in crypto. These individuals took a lot of time to meet and even grill us on our vision and how we intend to achieve it. They are part of the fabric that is Avalanche, so as much as we wanted to get their support, we were also doing our own research. We learned that they are not only highly competent but experienced in crypto. They’ve been through the market cycles and all that goes with building a blockchain as big as Avalanche, so we are honored to have them sharing their experience, guidance, and perspective. We are proud to have run the gauntlet with them, i.e., answering their questions and concerns, and were able to meet their approval. We think it says a lot about what we’re up to, and with their continued contributions, believe we can realize great things together.

Q: What sort of actual changes to fundraising do you think are most important for the future?

David: I could write a manifesto on this, but I'll try to keep it brief.

I believe the tokenomics of newer offerings are going to evolve. As of now, it is very lopsided from entry to exit. We’ve certainly learned about this. Historically, private and seed investors are long-term holders who invested at a time when liquidity was years away and got rewarded for their patience. In crypto, it doesn’t work that way. You have early-stage companies becoming quickly tradable assets, and far too often, the earliest investors are the culprits that abandon the projects.

Personally, I’d like to see some price uniformity across tranches to begin. A big multiple for someone who has been holding for years and took the most risk makes sense, but when it’s a matter of a few months, that’s another story. And contributors need to demonstrate value. The logo of your company should not be all you offer. Currently, we’re exploring different types of parameters for token releases. Despite being tradable, most cryptos are very liquid, and this isn’t going to change any time soon.

New projects need support. They will find their way, make mistakes, pivot, react and build. Being under a microscope with a group of people ready to dump is not ideal.

A launchpad can actually support a project beyond the launch. This is another thing that should change. The incredibly myopic short-term grab for gains is soon going to be a thing of the past. Retail buyers have smartened up some and aren’t as keen to blindly buy into massive spikes on day one. The only beneficiaries are private sale people looking to unload. I think we’re going to see creative vesting and carefully thought through tokenomics whereby someone who finds a project a few months after listing is actually still early, not light-years late.

Overall, the space is going to become blockchain agnostic, but I think launchpads will find their niche and become more specialized. Perhaps you’ll see some early-stage focused launchpads as well as those that prefer more developed projects. Larger and smaller hard caps may be best served on a launchpad branded to appeal to those buyers, and of course, blockchain-specific crowdfunding sources. We chose that route because we are all crypto devotees and believe Avalanche is a genuinely interoperable long-term solution. For our part, we will endeavor to build out a suite of products that support this growth and will ultimately make us more than a standard launchpad.

Q: So many scam projects around us. And almost 82% of projects with anonymous teams do rug pull. At this point, why did you decide to remain anonymous? How can we trust Avalaunch?

David: We are not anonymous.

Q: Tell me how your project is different from others? Is your project a local project or a global project? Can anyone use your services from anywhere in the world?

David: Indeed global, but we are compliant, so only participating countries are allowed as we opted to perform KYC in order to guard against manipulation.

Q: What impact do you believe XAVA will have on economic growth?

David: Economic growth in the ecosystem - I hope we create sustainability by supporting projects that are somewhat future-proofed. No one has a crystal ball, but I do believe that we support people first and their ideas. True blockchain entrepreneurs can adapt to changing environments, and nothing changes more quickly than this space.

Q: Does the Avalaunch project have any coin burn/buyback system or any plans for token burn for increasing the value of tokens and attracting investors towards stake for investments?

David: No, we don't have plans to do that. We feel our tokens are of value and stand on their own merit. Burns and buybacks are often gimmicks, and in my opinion, supplies should be considered beforehand, not after.

Q: Most investors just focus on the price of a token in the short term instead of the real value of the project. Can you tell us the motivation and benefits for investors of the $XAVA token long term?

David: I think this really revolves around Avalanche as much as us. There are literally hundreds of projects that are being developed within the ecosystem. The value stems from this. Supporters and believers in AVAX should be interested in XAVA. It is a reflection of what is coming and even if you don't participate in sales, merely staking XAVA is a way to experience the growth of the Avalanche ecosystem.

Q: Do you think $XAVA is a good one for long-term holding? How can we earn by holding it?

David: I think if you followed this AMA, it is easy to see that we are building for the future and innovating on the launchpad. Moreover, the token is designed for longer-term holders, as evidenced by the time-weighted staking. More than this, as users can see, we are making business development moves like partnering with KuCoin. We are doing our best to develop a true pipeline of value adds for projects that come to us.

Q: Does your project support a staking program? If yes, how does your stake system work? What is the requirement for users if they want to stake in your platform?

David: Currently, we offer single-sided staking as well as a farming program with a number of ambassadors/partnering projects.

Q: Nowadays, the main problem of the crypto market is high gas fees. How do you plan to overcome this issue? Will you focus on the L2 solution?

David: No L2 needed when you have Avalanche. Fees are fixed and currently well under $1 USD.

Q: There are many launchpad projects in recent times like BSCPad, MakerDAO, SFUND, and many others. What makes you better than these launchpad projects?

David: We don't compare ourselves and believe there is room for the ecosystem to support a number of projects. So I won't say better, but as a differentiator, we are built exclusively for the Avalanche ecosystem and will be implementing a number of features that you won't find elsewhere. I believe we were the first to introduce the notion of time-weighted staking.

Q: Each project has interesting stories before it is created. So can you tell people about the story that gave you the motivation to build and develop a great project like yours?

David: I don't know if ours is interesting, but as a team, we wanted to do something that could contribute to crypto on the whole. We're early as an asset class, so there are opportunities and opportunists that aim to take unfair advantage. If crypto is going to last, we need projects that can take the best of traditional finance and bring it to the blockchain. We felt that fundraising, in particular, was underserved. No shortage of launchpads certainly, but a definite dearth of players who are implementing real standards and procedures.

Q: What are the marketing strategies of your Avalaunch $XAVA token project? What will you do so that your project will be visible in the crypto field and people come to explore your project?

David: I think we've done a good job attracting talent and supporters from the Avalanche ecosystem. We are only as good as they are, and to be candid, it is a pre-existing aggregated group of captive lives, so we felt that appealing to them early on was a very good marketing strategy.

Q: What's making you doubt the success of Avalanche? You keep saying "like we think it will" when mentioning future projections. Secondly, what are other directors' points of focus as yours are basic fundamentals?

David: I don't doubt the success at all. I just don't speak in absolutes when there are variables beyond my control and certainly not when projecting into the future as it is unknown. Regarding the other directors - everyone has their own particular point of view. Mark is typically more geared towards technology innovation, Kal is more finger on the pulse of trending markets, while I remain steadfast in my belief that a fundamentally rooted approach is most important. We blend our opinions and make decisions.

Q: Most of the projects nowadays are often left in the middle of an operation and often abandoned due to lack of sustainability and incapability to support growth with the market crazily fluctuating. In what efficient way will you be able to go along with market fluctuation?

David: Well, there's a lot here. I think people need to understand that blockchain projects are often startups. The large majority of startups do not work; however, the ones that do can be hugely successful for those involved early on. This is the venture model and is what drives crypto. The second part of your question - I think we all know that crypto is volatile. Having lived through a few market cycles, we all have to stay focused and keep building. This requires people to understand their burn rates and a willingness to stay committed.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to share or you want us to know?

David: Thank you for having me as a guest. I've enjoyed this. Quite a vibrant community you have. As far as anything else goes - I'd just like users to feel free to check us out at avalaunch.app, on Twitter @avalaunchapp, or join our Telegram https://t.me/avalaunch_app if they so desire.

KuCoin and Avalaunch have prepared a total of 2,000 USDT to give away to AMA participants.

1. Twitter activity: 500 USDT

2. Free-ask section: 75 USDT

3. AMA activity: 1,425 USDT

Activity 1 — Quiz: 1,000 USDT

Activity 2 — Price Guess: 300 USDT

Participation Rewards: 125 USDT

. . .

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