RECAP: Shield’s AMA Session on Discord

7 min readJul 15, 2021

On the 8th of July 2021, Shield’s Discord Community hosted Mr. Charles, one of the key Team members of the Shield project in a live Ask-Me-Anything (AMA).

The AMA session was conducted by Gabby, Shield Discord Community Admin.

The AMA was divided into 3 segments which started with questions from the Community Admin followed by Community live questions chosen by the Guest, and finally, questions from the Guest to the Discord Community

A BRIEF INTRODUCTION OF SHIELD PROTOCOL AND THE HOST

ShieldCharles:

Hello Shielders! I’m Charles from Shield protocol. I’m a continuous entrepreneur in the Fintech industry and ex-founder of a listed company. I’ve worked in crypto for 3 years and I have experience in running centralized exchanges and now building Shield Protocol.

And the reason for me to be a contributor to this project is that our team believes that only a decentralized blockchain network based on a fully non-cooperative game can build up a secure, stable, and open derivatives trading market in the long run. Shield project is user-oriented from day 1 and tries to satisfy retail traders’ demand that cannot even be full-filled in the centralized exchange (e.g. 0 position loss).

With the DeFi boom, we strive to bring innovative financial products on chains embedded with non-custodial, trustless, and disintermediated features of DeFi. Therefore Shield has the potential to reshape the future of the derivatives market and build the infrastructure of decentralized derivatives.

QUESTIONS FROM THE DISCORD ADMIN

Question 1

Gabby: What is a derivative DEX? How does it work and why should one choose to interact with one?

ShieldCharles:

This one is a good one! Derivatives DEX is a decentralized trading protocol consisting of a set of on-chain smart contracts. Users can complete derivatives transactions directly through a decentralized wallet connection protocol. Compared to traditional CEX transactions, DEX has the advantages of non-custodial assets, transparent transactions, borderless trustworthiness, easy access, and no intermediary tax.

Question 2

Gabby: What would you say resulted in the last bull run and why has it slipped into the bear market faster than anticipated?

ShieldCharles:

The bull market of 2020 is driven by bitcoin production cuts, a major global release, and the full implementation of blockchain applications such as DEFI and NFT. The current bear market is a pseudo-bear market, more accurately described as a market pullback due to policy regulation. The fundamentals of the major factors driving the 2020 bull market have not materially changed. On the contrary, DEFI and NFT are poised for even larger growth as better public chain infrastructure such as the upgraded ethereum in London, layer2, and other high-performance public chains mature after the phase correction ends.

Gabby: Awesome! Saying a pseudo-bear market, is it suffice to say the bull run isn’t completely over then?

ShieldCharles: The answer is yes.

Gabby: I trust your judgement. Thanks for putting my curiosity at bay.

Question 3

Gabby: Recently we heard of some groundbreaking success of a Derivatives platform called dYdX. What can we look out for in Shield as it is a derivatives dex like the aforementioned?

ShieldCharles: From my view, dydx is a technical application of layer2 that has made some progress. We believe that starkwear’s layer2 solution lacks composability and is highly centralized, and that the current dydx is not strictly a DEFI product.

Shield has been committed to building a 100% decentralized protocol from day one, and we have used innovative product design and the first financial product innovation like the invention of perpetual options to create a true derivative DEFI product under the current public chain infrastructure. Because we believe that only by adhering to the decentralized nature of the protocol, dex can play a more revolutionary feature than CEX.

Question 4

Gabby: Someone said the bear market is a blessing in disguise for Shield and other derivatives DEXs to break forth and become more popular. How apt Is this assertion with respect to the remaining parts of 2021?

ShieldCharles: This is true. Most centralized derivatives exchanges are also born out of the Great Bear Market, because it’s during the bear market that people’s attention is drawn away from the plethora of projects and starts to focus on the demand for trading mainstream assets, and that’s when the demand for derivatives exchanges goes through the roof. This is the window of opportunity for the rest of 2021, or at least a few months of it.

Gabby: Your precision in answering our questions amazes me. Thanks. We only have one more question for you.

Question 5

Gabby: DeFi has become a very popular trend in the crypto space. Would you say that derivatives DEX is actually the big picture of DeFi right from its inception?

ShieldCharles: DEFI is gobbling up Cefi and TradFi is becoming an unstoppable trend, just as steam engine trains replaced horse-drawn carriages. And derivatives trading volume is proven to be the biggest piece of the pie in both CEFI and tradfi. Although temporarily limited by the performance of the public chain, it is foreseeable that the defi protocol of derivatives represented by Shield will be the next big thing in the crypto world.

COMMUNITY LIVE QUESTIONS

QUESTION 1

@Arfnyk: How is SLD tokenomics model? And how do you make sure that SLD price will get better for next since the crypto market looks so bad now?

ShieldCharles: I love your question but it is complicated to explain the tokenomics model in a few sentences, so I just got you the link of the article talking about this. Hope it helps! https://news.bitcoin.com/shield-protocol-tokenomics-for-a-trustless-and-long-term-value-decentralized-network/

Question 2

@ANOTHERNPC: Can you please explain how risk-free perpetual contracts tackle the lack of liquidity problem in on-chain perpetual contracts?

ShieldCharles: Risk-free perpetual contract applies dual liquidity pools mechanism that contains public pool and private pool. Public pools aim for individual traders, which is quite similar to liquidity mining. Private pools aim for sophisticated traders and institutional market makers. Once professional market makers take over the major counterparty risk in the private pool, the common users who participate in the public pool will take lower risk. With the incentives of liquidity mining, both private pool and public pool will be supplied significantly more liquidity.

Question 3

@AllenTim: What has been the pioneer’s insight and reason for their conception intending to make the shield the first none-intermediary tax and borderless derivatives exchange protocols in the history of the crypto world?

ShieldCharles: Before the birth of blockchain, most systems of governance in human society, including the familiar banks, exchanges, Internet majors, and social institutions were built on a zero-sum game. Zero-sum game systems pinned their hopes on leaving organizational functions, or providing order to combat entropy growth, to a few centralized strongmen.

But as we will see later, a governance system based on zero-sum games is an unstable structure that moves to the left or to the right as the power of the game parties changes, a structure that from day one determines the convergence of power to the strongest side of the game leading to the collapse and reconstruction of order over and over again. Shield Protocol is such a non-cooperative game network, which can only be stable in the long run if the game is played by multiple parties for their own good without caring about the interests of others.

Question 4

@PhoenixBee: “Shield wants to be the first none-intermediary tax and borderless derivatives exchange protocol in the history of humanity” What are the challenges faced so far towards actualising this and how have you overcome them?

ShieldCharles: Derivatives have been proven to be the most sophisticated financial product for decades in the traditional financial market. And it’s extremely difficult to expand the derivatives market and attract new users without the proper engagement of brokers. In this case, Shield designed the first decentralized brokerage system.

Fortunately, Shield’s well connected in the developers’ ecosystem, so we have sufficient technical resources. We will also launch the grants on Gitcoin to connect with Defi developers in the long run.

Question 5

@Rita Schiling: What is your global marketing plan in 2021?

ShieldCharles: We have implemented a global KOL strategy and partnered with two leading accelerators to build the international community with its administration and operations, assistance in brand constructions, promoting Shield in the multi-regional market, and multi-social platforms expansion.

For now, Shield has achieved solid collaboration with the leading KOL/community covering the US, Russia, Turkey, Thailand, Vietnam, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Taiwan, etc. Thanks to Shield’s decentralized brokerage system, when they promote Shield, they can also earn the commission higher than CEX.

Their efforts not only lead to Shield global ecosystem and BD but also contribute to local user acquisition. Besides, we also linked two experienced crypto accelerators to improve Shield’s influence and enhance the global Media & Press exposure.

LIVE QUESTIONS FROM THE GUEST TO THE COMMUNITY MEMBERS

Question 1

ShieldCharles: After we go live on the BSC mainnet, we will open the liquidity mining of the public pool. What is the annualized rate of return that everyone wants?

Answer: 20 percent

Winner: Rita Schiling

Question 2

ShieldCharles: Since we got the broker system, would anyone like to be the broker?

Answer: Yes

Question 3

We have set a 90-day vesting to prevent malicious liquidity miners in the public pool. How many days of vesting do you think is appropriate?

Answer: 60–90

Winner: JustAnotherNPC

SHIELD PROTOCOL COMMUNITY SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS

Telegram: t.me/Shield_Dao

Twitter: https://twitter.com/shield_dao