On the 11th of June 2021, Lokesh Rao, Co-Founder & CEO, Trace Network, was live at the Crypto Daku Robinhooders Community Telegram group, to provide community members with insights on Trace Network and how they intend to revolutionize the NFT Space, recent developments, future plans, upcoming updates, and also provide answers to community questions and queries.
In order to ensure clarity to my readers, this article has been divided into two segments; the first segment, provides full account of questions asked by the moderator of this AMA session (highlighted in bold letters), while the second segment provides account of the questions asked by the community members during the session.
SEGMENT 1: Interview with AMA Moderator
AMA Moderator — Welcome Lokesh Rao, thanks a lot for joining . Before we start AMA, we will love to know about your role and day to day work experience in project.
Lokesh Rao —
Sure. I am Cofounder and CEO of Trace Network. I have been actively building solutions for enterprises using DLT and Blockchain technology since 2017. Have worked with various global brands and fortune 500 companies in the past in luxury, lifestyle and fashion domain. Now, this past experience has helped me and team to recognize & work on the critical challenges faced in Supply Chain industry and solving them with the use of blockchain tech. We are currently busy as well excited to bring 1st Limited Edition Luxury & Lifestyle Products NFT Marketplace -Bling.
AMA Moderator — Curious to know: can you tell how you started in crypto?
Lokesh Rao —
Well, like everyone I also heard the BITCOIN name first. I was introduced to Bitcoin in 2013, but couldn’t understand its real utilities . Later in 2017, I got to understand the blockchain space in detail while being part of some conferences and then there was a lot for me to explore.
As I mentioned , I have always been into conceptualizing solutions for the Enterprise Space and strategizing the adoption process for them. Couterfiet products, inefficient ways to exchanging the data across various partners of ecosystem and challenges in getting funds for production due to cumbersome process laid by financial institution , has always been setting up challenges for everyone in Supply chain industry. I started working on these challenges with blockchain and later in 2019, I met my current partner and cofounder Sunil to discuss the same and thats how Trace was born.
AMA Moderator — Nice. Can you tell us all more about project, the idea, how it started? and specially why its needed?
Lokesh Rao —
Trace’s is mainly about 3 main problems and each product/module of trace is working towards solving them . First is solving the problem of counterfeit product, traceability, ownership, visibility in distribution channel of brands. This was solved with our NFT product, which allows brands to issue goods using NFTs for the purpose of digital ownership and originality, which will be released as 1st product. With the same aim, the first thing with NFT we are trying to building a better customer and brand relationship. Bling Market Place will be live by June end. More info about it is here.
Second, where we will enable business networks to share their data in a secured and anonymous manner with their chosen business partners, hence simplifying the process of data capturing at businesses. This will reduce the cost of duplicate data entry, and will also bring more transparency and efficiency to the whole process. This phase, will enable end to end traceability of the products on chain, being verified via Trace wallet.
And the final phase is where using this data to use act as proof of business, we will open financing options for businesses, where they can either take early payment or loan against their invoices or seek working capital financing from the protocol.
AMA Moderator — Can you tell about tokenomics and token utility?
Lokesh Rao —
Essentially, trace token is going to be acting as a key governance attribute to be used by token holders for voting and enabling various protocol parameters especially in the enterprise defi segment.
Further, trace token will be used as fuel for minting NFTs for the millions of merchandise every year. White Label Algorithmic stable coins are going to be key for cross network settlement, trace token will be used as a benchmark for managing the volatility of stable coins being minted.
Plus, token will be used for various community incentivization programs and other market outreach programs. These are essentially some key token utilities that we have structured so far.
Refer to this Article for detailed tokenomics.
AMA Moderator — Can you tell us about market pie you are trying to conquer, your competitors and your SWOT analysis for your offerings?
Lokesh Rao —
Here we are talking about multiple billion dollar Supply Chain industry and their serious business challenges. There are multiple projects solving the issue of ownership of products , sustainability using NFT, some are trying to solve the data integration issues, some are just being a liquidity providers, but actually, there is no ONE shoe fit for all, but to mention TRACE Network offering solutions for end to end process chain of the brands from community building to enabling blazing fast working capital financing. In fact trace is all about 3 components, Merchandise NFT + Integrated dataexchange + Enterprise Defi.
AMA Moderator — What will be your mcap on launch on 1st day: without liquidity?
Lokesh Rao —
600k USD
AMA Moderator — What are next 100 days plan Tech wise, Business development wise, and User acquisition wise?
Lokesh Rao —
Trace team looks at bringing some interesting merchandises and offers via NFTs from global brands to it’s users within 2021. Along with that we will be solving the problem of broken connection between the brands ecosystem partners by onboarding them on trace network, where they will be able to exchange the transactions using SDKs bounded with respective transaction smart contract.
Launching BLING first …We already have already onboarded couple dozen of brands to be launched for Bling which will be released in due course. Further we are in discussion with various projects for a mega user onboarding.
SEGMENT 2 : Community Questions
Community Question 1 — Could you please tell me just a little more about the team and some of their backgrounds? I have personally seen many projects launch with inexperienced team members, and some of those didn’t go so well due to easily avoidable mistakes?
Lokesh Rao —
We are two co-founders and have an able team of professionals as part of the main teams with experience in Blockchain, enterprise tech and global Solution foot print. You know, building consumer tech product and building enterprise tech product these two are completely different ball game altogether.
Community Question 2— What are the plans to educate and raise awareness and adoption among the community to make more people understand about the project easily?
Lokesh Rao —
We are working with our able advisors to enable reach into various different geographies and building solid regional communities for both awareness and adoption.
Community Question 3— Where does the project name come from? What does it mean for you and why did you choose that name for your project?
Lokesh Rao —
TRACE is a name identified to stand out for its mission to enable traceability into supply chains along with information backed into an NFT for stronger traceability of the products. Further, defi financing is also going to be linked with the traceable proof of business, which going to be enabled by decentralized data exchange. Hence TRACE exists in every component of Trace Network.
Community Question 4—I want to learn more about TRACE NETWORK but very little information, the community is relatively empty and little information is shared. What strategy does the TRACE NETWORK team have to develop the community and retain users for the long term?
Lokesh Rao —
I completely understand. We have released our whitepaper for better understanding of project, token utilities and community engagement programs. Here is the link.
Community Question 5— Do the token holders have right to participate in the governance of the project? On what kind of decisions can they vote on about the project?
Lokesh Rao —
Yes, as mentioned above, trace token is going to be acting as a key governance attribute to be used by token holders for voting and enabling various protocol parameters especially in the enterprise Dei segment. Like voting for brands to be onboarded on BLING would be decided by tokenholders.
Community Question 6— Community support is one of the biggest aspects of a project’s success. Most projects have programs that interact with their users. Does you have any special plans to attract and expand the community and improve the user experience?
Lokesh Rao —
Trace token holders will be able to get various incentives from the brands onboarding trace network including trace project itself. In fact this community project is going to be the first module going LIVE, right after the token launch which is happening on this June 15. Further, as we go along there are many stand alone products of trace network which will require trace to be locked for minting various NFTs at consumer level.
Further, imagine trace holders funding the financial needs of global brands and participating in the manufacturing of some international products. as a result being rewarded with real returns or brand specific programs. All these are some community incentivization and engagement ways, we have thought of. More will be worked up with our abled advisers in future.
###Community Question 7— Who is your investor? How do you generate revenue to sustain the project? What are your goals to the end of 2021 and beyond?
Lokesh Rao —
We get paid from the enterprise companies we onboard for using the services we will be building on top of protocol for them. However, using protocol will be completely decentralized and can be used to any company at their will. Details are covered in whitepaper.