Welcome, OHMies, to another AMA! We recently had the pleasure to meet the team behind Jade Protocol, an Olympus fork on the Binance Smart Chain. The Fair Launch Foundation is the same team behind Smartcoin, a viral farm coin which gained a lot of attention on the Avalanche community due to its unique mechanics.
Below you’ll find a transcript that summarizes both questions and answers from the event:
Q: Can you tell us what is Jade Protocol all about and why did you guys decided to work on that project?
Jon Ray: We felt there was an opportunity to build an $OHM fork that had a few unique mechanisms that would allow it to perform better than other forks.
Mainly we felt that there was a lack of solid marketing and we wanted to use 15% of the treasury for marketing and buybacks/burns. We also knew that TX fees on BSC were almost 200x less than that on Ethereum, which allows for higher APY. And launching on Binance Smart Chain gave us access to a large user base that we felt was underserved without a strong $OHM style product to look at.
And just to set the tone. Jade Protocol APY is at 1,717,208,536% right now :) .
Q: How was the decision to go from a token like Smartcoin to something new like an OHM fork? Were you guys experienced in this particular field?
Jon Ray: Our biggest focus has been community. The Smartcoin game is a way to create salient moments in community and direct a group of people to research various aspects of web3 and economic theory. One thing that rarely gets factored into crypto valuations is the strength of their community, but really a cryptocurrency should be valued almost the way a nationstate would be. The PEOPLE are the most valueable asset a protocol can have. We knew that if we could create a powerful community, that we could start to build a roots network that connect that community to each of our products.
SmartCoin and Jade Protocol are incubated by our Fair Launch Foundation and with such a fervent and powerful community, we’re excited to:
- tap into the hive mind and brain power of our community, but
- make our people the VCs and allow the most talented dev teams to pitch to our community, who will then be able to have a voice in the projects we launch in the future
Smartcoin and jade protocol are bootstrapping mechanisms and proofs of concept to showcase that when community is strong and powerful, we can launch to BIG numbers and grow quickly. Jade Protocol is about to cross $79 million in treasury, and $277 million in market cap. Our Asia marketing campaign hasn’t even started yet. THAT’S the power of having a brilliant community.
Q: Speaking of community, you decided to do a stealth launch instead of having any VCs or influencers after your previous coin success. Do you think that’s the best way to offer the community a launch they’re not skeptical about?
Jon Ray: Well, track record is everything, right. so we’ve fumbled a bit in our launches, but we are iterating and innovating in each launch. There’s no way we have this much success without strong supporters who understand that startups and invention is about iterating quickly and continuing to move forward. We’re building out stronger and more interesting protocols to incentivize our launches for our strongest diamond handed supporters. The biggest innovation we’re working on is our wallet scoring system.
If you’re in SmartCoin or Jade Protocol, the whitelisting tiers is just a minium viable product designed for us to get airdrops out to the most people, quickly. The “actual” wallet reputation scoring product is very robust, has a graphical dashboard, operates more like a weighted credit score, that clearly shows you violations, and more importantly, gives you a gamified path for repairing your wallet score towards a perfect score. That hasn’t been released because we’re growing our team around developing that product to get it right so that it can become a standard in all future releases.
It’s going to be really great, and i’ve been told we may be able to see a version of it for the $FLF token launch, which would be great.
Q: You mentioned an Asia-targeted marketing campaign. Can you elaborate on what that’s going to be like? And do you have any similar plans for other regions?
Jon Ray: We’ve translated all of our videos, gitbook, websites, and marketing materials into Chinese and will be starting a big push there in the coming weeks. we have other regions mapped out but will be looking at the numbers from next week and adjusting based on feedback.
Our biggest thing has been making sure the high APYs are seen by the most people through various ad networks, press partnerships, Youtube partnerships, and we have an almost 11% clickthrough rate on our Brave Browser ads. The marketing is working because once people know about JADE they want in, and then they find SMRTR through the back door and community and there’s a vicarious wallet growth that’s happening there, as well, with APRs on SMRTR rising by 1% every minute currently crossing 4,100% APR and climbing.
Q: What are you biggest plans going forward with Jade?
Jon Ray: There are some really interesting things we can do with the JADE treasury. Our biggest focus right now is getting the DAO snapshot voting for token holders launched and i’ve seen working versions of that so it’s coming soon.
Once we have token-based voting, it allows us to start to have a conversation about how we want to invest treasury funds for greater yield, what charitable things we can contribute to, and how best to think about other projects. It’s going to be fun.
Community Questions:
Q: How will the SMRTr-AVAX cross-chain LP bonding work, and how soon can we expect it?
Jon Ray: I‘m still waiting final details on what this will look like but my guess is that this will be part of the underlying roots structure that feeds into $FLF.
Q: How will you be handling token dilution with your high APY and bond discounts?
Jon Ray: We’ll have to see how tokenomics shift after countdown, but there’s a plan in place to stabilize apy and doing some interesting things to make sure there’s continued traction in the ecosystem.
Q: Does jade protocol and the smart team trying to do anything physical?? Maybe donating to charity??
Jon Ray: Yes, we are actively looking at charitable opportunities brought to us by the community and once snapshot voting goes live, people will be able to create proposals for quorum review.
Q: What does a typical day look like for you at the moment in regards to the Jade project?
Jon Ray: As the community liaison, my goal is to make sure all feedback from the community is heard from the dev team and founders. i spend a good deal of time in Telegram and Twitter just listening for feedback and good ideas, then surface all of that to the team I’m also involved in 1 or 2 AMAs each day, and do a lot of outreach to people on twitter and youtube who i feel would be a good fit for our project and who i want to have in our camp i also try and create as many educational materials as possible to help get community questions answered.
Q: Will Jade protocol still be an active token after the launch of FLF? And what impact will your holdings have when FLF launches?
Jon Ray: I think we’ll have to wait for further messaging from the team, but my understanding is that these products will all have an interesting interplay that points to our ability to launch the best projects in crypto together as a community.
Q: One of my first transactions I sold $5 of smrtr by mistake, is that going to screw me over?
Jon Ray: We are rolling out a wallet repair system in the future that will allow you to get back in good standing.
Q: How long can the current APY be sustained? Can you give an estimate? and also what is the current runway?
Jon Ray: I’ve been told a runway metric will be rolling out soon that will give more context on this.
Q: What is the key difference that makes Jade stand out as a gem and not just another OHM fork in the drawer?
Jon Ray: The biggest factor with JADE is the powerful marketing engine behind it and the incredible community of diamond handed holders who because our our wallet reputation system are learning how to think long-term like an affluent investor, rather than someone just trying to flip for a quick buck JADE promotes a healthy ecosystem of investors who want to work together rather than just another farm full of pirate degens taking selfish market actions we’re working together to win together.
Q: You mentioned that SMRTr is your baby. Will Jade just be a side project until next phase/fork, or will there be some innovative features coming to Jade that make it have long term potential?
Jon Ray: These all work together as part of a roots system that will ultimately connect all projects in the Fair Launch Foundation ecosystem what’s great is that the more track record we have, the more people know this isn’t a rug and so it allows for a safe, profitable crytpo experience that continues for the life of FLF, SMRTR, JADE and beyond.
Q: What is the lowest APY can go?
Jon Ray: I guess the range right now is 0% to 10,000,000,000%.
Q: Is it better to buy Smartcoin or Jade or can you advise on the relative weight of my portfolio on these two projects?
Jon Ray: We’ve been told that JADE and SMRTR will have a swap ratio value exchange into $FLF but we dont’ have all those details yet, so watching, and turning notifications on for the official twitter channels of JADE and SmartCoin is best, but they have alluded that SMRTR LP = best, SMRTR = second best, JADE = third best.
Q: I know this is a bit general — but since Jade is one of the successful (so far) projects but the field is crammed with scammers, this would definitely hurt the good projects as well. What do you think could be done and do you plan to do some sort of coop with other successful projects to raise awareness both about the entire field and the good practices?
Jon Ray: Again, I think track record is key. We’re developing a reputation over time for building fast, iterating quickly, becoming profitable, and honoring our community. Remember, this whole project is less than 2 months old! (seems like years!) as we continue to deliver and build better and better, that reputation begins to precede us the team is on the phone with SO MANY notable people in the crypto space who are stoked about the future of what we’re doing here. I think there will be ample opportunity for partnerships in the future.
Q: Is Jade phase 3? Will there be 7 (or 6) more forks until FLF launch? Is each phase a different fork?
Jon Ray: The game phases are related to SMRTR. Jade Protocol is its own thing in many ways. We’ll be accelerating the game and new messaging will be released about what next. However, I noticed the gitbook was updated at smartcoin.farm with a bunch of info about the “game”.
Q: Will there be opportunities to withdraw earnings soon without damaging reputation?
Jon Ray: The idea is to have the final wallet reputation system be a weighted, running score, just like your credit score. With your credit score, you know that sometimes you’re going to want to run up your credit cards, but if you pay them down, your credit score goes up. We know people need to take profit, but there will be weighted scores for various actions. For instance, suicide compounding daily will be weighted much more heavily than taking profits once a quarter.
Q: There was a crash in Jade after it started, after which they promised an airdrop to compensate those, who bought Jade before the crash. Should we wait for that airdrop?
Jon Ray: Malicious pirates. We’ll design future launches in ways where this won’t happen. Airdrop has already happened. Jade Protocol looks to be stabilizing (we had 120% price appreciation in the last 5 days), so you’ll have to weigh whether it matches your investment strategy.
Q: Will we need to migrate our Jade to FLF when it is launched?
Jon Ray: Not sure of mechanics yet. I’m on a need to know basis for $FLF stuff.
Q: Do you foresee (4,4) bonding coming to Jade?
Jon Ray: This will likely be something we can create a proposal for once snapshot voting is set up.
Q: In Jade, if I unstake to buy bonds, do I get penalized?
Jon Ray: No, just don’t sell JADE.
Q: You mentioned that SMRTr is your baby. Will Jade just be a side project until next phase/fork, or will there be some innovative features coming to Jade that make it have long term potential?
Jon Ray: The biggest innovation to Jade, in my personal opinion, will be working with the community to find creative use cases for the treasury.
Q: Bear market is coming, do you have any plans how to survive and maybe strive while in it?
Jon Ray: The best thing to have in a bear market is a strong community of diamond handed HODLers. We have that.
Q: Do you have current plans to start any new projects that we should know about before FLF?
Jon Ray: $FLF is going to be a kind of crypto Y-combinator where the best dev teams in crypto can pitch to the community (us) and we’ll get to act as the people’s VC, working together to determine the most profitable opportunities.
Q: How is jade able to sustain such large bonding discounts?
Jon Ray: Magic internet math. More info on future tokenomics and how all these system work together will come with time as it’s ready.
Q: Do you have any plans to implement some of the V2 improvements that Olympus is doing, such as bonded tokens being staked while vesting?
Jon Ray: Likely things that people can create as proposals that we all vote on in the future.
Q: I would like to ask how the wallet inspection is going to work, we have seen trend of only hold in community but how to rectify if someone sold by mistake or can you elaborate how the actual thing will work?
Jon Ray: Wallet repair coming in the future with a weighted wallet score.
Q: What is going to happen to Jade after 14 days, when the game begins? Will the APY stays the same as it is now? Can you explain what is the game?
Jon Ray: What happens when countdown hits zero? <something interesting>
More details on the game, here: https://smartcoin.gitbook.io/smartcoin-tokenomics/the-game.
Q: There’s $11.5 million for buybacks and marketing currently have you guys used any of these funds for buybacks or are you guys just saying you’ll buy back like you did with SMRTR WHICH THE BUYBACKS never occurred ?
Jon Ray: The problem with the buybacks is that malicious market actors were using these buys as exit liquidity and it was actually hurting the protocol. The team has not forgotten about these and has a more strategic way of utilizing them in the future when it will be most impactful. We did a twitter vote RE: jade buybacks and community voted to put this money towards bigger marketing campaign (for similar reasons).
Q: Jade end goal is FLF, is it really worth it to hold until the end of the countdown? With the high APY there is a very high chance that many will sell beforehand. Would the diamond hand suffer from the player who do not play by the rule? Are there mechanism in place to support the diamond hand till the end?
Jon Ray: More messaging about $FLF will be coming out highlighting plans. so i’m going to wait and listen for that messaging. If $FLF is a billion [trillion] dollar launchpad and the market prices that in, then we as investors can decide the better play: short term profits or visionary wealth for long-term thinkers.
Q:Guys, been debating my good friend about this project, he says it’s too good to be true, he says with this APY it can’t be sustainable in any way, can you give me an explanation to show him, how and why this is sustainable?
Jon Ray: APYs will eventually stabilize. We are the 4th largest rebasing platform now because of this initial APY and marketing push. Many of those people will stay with the protocol long term. So APY will stabilize and the community we attract will support long term growth.
Q: I have a question regarding the upcoming SMRTr-AVAX bond. So Jade is on BSC, but that pair is both on AVAX network. In order for you to connect Jade Protocol, we need to use BSC network, but if you want to bond smarter-avax, you need to connect to avax, but if you connect AVAX, then Jade Protocol website will say wron network? Is my understanding correct?
Jon Ray: There are some unique mechanisms being developed to create a more “network agnostic” approach that i think will be pretty cool.
Our socials:
