KuCoin AMA With ndau — The World’s First Adaptive Digital Currency

Dear KuCoin Users,

Time: November 18, 2021, 14:00-15:19 (UTC)

KuCoin hosted an AMA (Ask-Me-Anything) session with ndau Collective’s John Lester in the KuCoin Exchange Group.

ndau is the world’s first adaptive digital currency. As a new category of digital asset, ndau is optimized for a long-term store of value with staking rewards and a goal of buoyancy. ndau provides all the benefits of a digital currency while promoting fair and accountable governance, dependability, and greater safety not found in existing cryptocurrencies. Simply holding ndau in the ndau wallet app allows you to earn additional ndau through Ecosystem Alignment Incentives as well as a bonus for locking your ndau.

Official Website: https://ndau.io

White Paper: http://ndau.io/wp

Follow ndau on Twitter and Telegram.

Guest:

John Lester — VP of Operations at Oneiro & part of the ndau Collective

John Lester is a community builder, product leader, software developer, and fintech pioneer. He has led projects and teams from startups to Fortune 100 companies, and his background includes neuroscience research, infosec, knowledge management, and healthcare.

John's current passions include cultivating financial technology innovations in emerging markets, building open payment networks, and advancing decentralized digital currency platforms across numerous Open Source projects.

As VP of Operations for Oneiro, he is focused on the development of ndau's software infrastructure, including next-generation versions of the ndau wallet app and expanding ndau's validator node ecosystem.

Q: Can you briefly describe what ndau is? We would like to know more about it and how it works.

John: NDAU is the first adaptive digital currency, designed to be a long-term store of value. The long-term store of value use case is actually one of the largest use cases out there.

For instance, Bitcoin is being used as a long-term store of value, a digital gold. It is an especially critical use case with the currency devaluing we are seeing across the world.

“Adaptive” means that the currency is actually aware of its market conditions, its supply is relative to demand, etc., and the blockchain actually uses this data to adjust its supply providing incentives for long-term holders.

Think of NDAU as an adaptive digital gold.

Also, NDAU is Proof of Stake and has a yield or staking bonus associated with it, where holders can earn up to 15% APR.

Q: What are the main features that distinguish you from other projects, and what competitive advantages do you have?

John: Well, NDAU is an adaptive currency, and it is specifically designed to be a long-term store of value. So all systems in NDAU are designed to incentivize long-term holding.

For example, adaptive to reduce volatility. And issued on an exponential bonding curve to offer significant upside potential.

Also, increasing yield, so the longer you lock, the more you earn.

And a floor price established by the endowment of assets that provides a floor price in the event of major sell-offs, and stabilization mechanisms that reward holding versus selling.

NDAU also has self-custodial staking, meaning you don’t give up custody to stake (Think Decentralized property rights). All these things are designed to incentivize long-term store.

Q: What are you looking most forward to doing in ndau?

John: I often look at the current market to see where we are in the tech adoption life cycle as compared to markets I have been in in the past.

Today, blockchain is still very early and users today are primarily what we like to call "early adopters". This segment of the market is typically 10% of the total market.

It’s important to realize that most value in a market is typically achieved when the next segment of adopters or users comes online. And this segment is called the "Early Majority," which is typically 30-50% of the market.

So NDAU was designed to go after this early majority, providing a yield generating, Proof of Stake long-term value store.

And remember that 50% of the world is unbanked, yet 75% own a smartphone.

So I am particularly excited to go after emerging market economies and help bring decentralized finance to the unbanked.

Q: Could you please provide some progress on your roadmap and what results ndau has achieved so far? Also, any sneak peek into 2021-2022 plans for ndau?

John: Well, the NDAU project has been in development for over 3 years, and Mainnet has been live for over 2 years!

The blockchain has been operational and running with over $30 million purchased. Today over 50% of owners hold their NDAU locked in the native wallet.

And we expect to see NDAU integrated in several other wallets too in the near future.

To date, we have launched NDAU on the exchanges KuCoin, BitMart, BittrexGlobal, and Liquid. Look for several other larger exchanges to come online soon!

Our native wallet is available on both iOS and Android and is version 2. And later this year, we will be launching a wrapped NDAU ETH for Uniswap, so keep your eyes open for a DeFi reward program for Liquidity pool providers!

NDAU's official wallet app will also have a major update early next year. And we're working on an updated version of the existing ndau blockchain explorer with advanced search capabilities and visualizations, similar to Etherscan.

Lastly, we're working on starting an Open Source bounty program that will incentivize community-driven feature development.

Q: I read on your website that the best way to create long-term stores of value is to incentivize long-term ownership where NDAU holders are given the opportunity to earn extra NDAU through "Ecosystem Alignment Incentives", but what is ndau’s plan to encourage term-holding?

John: NDAU is delegated proof of stake, and it uses Open Source Tendermint as the consensus engine.

And it has its own native wallet that enables the holder to receive a staking bonus or yield WITHOUT giving up custody of the NDAU.

Additionally, as I mentioned before, NDAU has adaptive features designed to reduce volatility. Most importantly, NDAU is issued on an exponential bonding curve which means it also has the ability to significantly grow in value.

If anyone is interested in the details on NDAU’s bonding curve, check out this knowledge base article: https://ndau.io/knowledge-base/what-is-the-target-price-curve-s-curve

As a next-generation PoS digital currency, NDAU was also designed to include many "institutional class" features, such as multi-signature key management and transactional recourse periods.

These features make it especially attractive for the global market, particularly Emerging Market Economies or EMEs.

So to sum it up, you have all these systems in NDAU that are all focused on incentivizing long-term holding.

- Adaptive systems to reduce volatility.

- NDAU issued on a bonding curve to offer significant upside potential, which is very important for a long-term store.

- Increasing yield, so the longer you lock, the more you earn. e.g., 13% APR for 1 year.

- A floor price established by the endowment of assets that provides a floor price in the event of major sell-offs.

- Stabilization mechanisms that reward holding versus selling.

- And self-custodial staking, which is essential!

Q: ndau gives incentives to holders of NDAU tokens, so can you explain what are those incentives to be given to the holders of your token? How are incentives being calculated and distributed? Is there any minimum amount to hold NDAU to be eligible for the incentives?

John: Earning staking income is easy with NDAU and you never give up custody to get rewards. Simply holding NDAU in the NDAU wallet app allows for the earning of extra NDAU through Ecosystem Alignment Incentives (EAI) - in other words, staking rewards.

And there's no minimum amount of NDAU you need to hold to be eligible for EAI!

You also get an additional bonus for locking NDAU over a specified period of time. For example, you could be earning +13% NDAU on a 1-year locked account in your wallet. 15% for 3 years.

These rewards are calculated continuously and awarded daily automatically directly to your wallet. Here’s a very easy walkthrough on how to set it up in the wallet app: https://ndau.io/knowledge-base/how-do-install-the-ndau-wallet-app-receive-ndau-and-then-lock-my-ndau

And to learn more about all the design details on EAI and Locking and how it all works in practice, please see these ndau knowledge base articles: https://ndau.io/knowledge-base/ecosystem-alignment-incentive-eai and https://ndau.io/knowledge-base/locking

Q: There is quite a bit of information about your project. There are certainly many things that the community does not know about ndau. Besides the questions you have received, is there anything else you would like to share with the community here?

John: Well, I believe that it is highly likely that additional currencies to Bitcoin will come along and expand the ultimate promise of blockchain. There will be protocols specifically designed for highly specific purposes (like ndau's long-term store of value) and the world of cryptocurrencies will grow into a diverse and healthy ecosystem of specialized digital assets.

Also, it's critical to always learn and optimize over time. The world changes very fast, especially in crypto!

Q: Do you have a whitepaper? If yes, please share it with us. Secondly, do you have plans for the pre-sale? Now, where can we join it?

John: You can find the ndau whitepaper here: http://ndau.io/wp. Also, ndau did not have an ICO and there was no pre-sale of ndau. All ndau has been and will be sold on the bonding curve. More info here: https://ndau.io/knowledge-base/what-is-the-target-price-curve-s-curve

Q: Many projects run into problems early in the journey. A common problem that often occurs in projects is the vulnerability of smart contracts and can lead to loss of funds. What steps did your project take to resolve this major issue and how would you prevent such occurrences in the future?

John: The ndau project was started over 3 years ago and developed by a global team of over 25 people, they spent over 1 year simply on design. It was important to also get third-party auditors like Trail of Bits to audit the code.

All of this was overseen by the Blockchain Policy Council, which you can learn more about on the ndau knowledge base here: https://ndau.io/knowledge-base/what-is-the-blockchain-policy-council

ndau’s Mainnet has been up and running now for 2 years and it has performed nicely, and we have been upgrading regularly.

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

John: ndau staking in the wallet app has a 13% 1-year yield and 15% if you lock it up for 3 years, and you don’t have to give up custody. All you have to do is hold ndau in your ndau wallet app. You can learn more about how to do this in this knowledge base article: https://ndau.io/knowledge-base/how-do-install-the-ndau-wallet-app-receive-ndau-and-then-lock-my-ndau

Q: I want to support your project. Tell us more about the ambassador program and in what ways we can participate?

John: We have a program called the "ndau nlighten program" that incentivizes community-driven activities in the areas of marketing, education and technology. You can check out the available tasks and earn ndau rewards for completing them here: https://oneiro.io/ndau-nlighten

Q: What is ndau’s market cap and how does it compare to other cryptocurrencies?

John: NDAU's current market cap is $112MM, which puts it at a rank right now of #350 out of about 10,000 currently active cryptocurrencies. You can see the data here: https://nomics.com/assets/xnd-ndau

Q: What’s the meaning of NDaU?

John: Good question! The name "NDAU" comes from the word "Endowment." The Endowment is a critical part of the NDAU system and it supports the monetary policies, so that's where the name came from. You can learn more about the Endowment here: https://ndau.io/knowledge-base/what-is-the-endowment

Q: Do you have tutorial videos so we can get to know your project more clearly or do you have a YouTube channel or something? Can you share it with us?

John: Yes! Here's an explainer video for NDAU that we created, posted on our official YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDv6qrp4GIM

We also have playlists of videos about NDAU in the news and videos created by the community! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwyd6n3vAvjwDCx38u7ZF2A/playlists

Q: Are you planning to promote your project in countries/regions where English is not good? Do you have a local community for them to better understand your project?

John: We're always looking to expand the promotion of NDAU around the world. One way of doing that is by encouraging people to create educational content about NDAU in their own languages and in sharing this content with their local communities. The nlighten program is an opportunity for anyone to do exactly this. You can create content in your own language, and you can earn ndau rewards by doing so. Check it out here: https://oneiro.io/ndau-nlighten

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

John: That's about it! If you have more questions, check out our Telegram group and be sure to explore our knowledge base at https://ndau.io/knowledge-base

KuCoin and ndau have prepared a total of 130 NDAU to give away to AMA participants.

1. Free-ask section: 5 NDAU

2. AMA activity: 125 NDAU

Activity 1 — Quiz: 98 NDAU

Activity 2 — Price Guess: 21 NDAU

Participation Rewards: 6 NDAU

. . .

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