Welcome to a new AMA today.
And as usual, today we have an exciting one.
And Chirul is our guest host and arbitral contributor who will be leading the space today.
Yeah, thank you for the intro, Shin.
And yeah, super excited about this AMA.
I know you guys have been cooking, like, building a lot throughout last year.
So, yeah, super excited to dive deep into NFT Perp and what you guys have been working on lately.
So, yeah, Jose, do you want to give us an introduction?
Yeah, thanks for having me, guys.
My name is Jose. I'm the founder at NFT Perp.
NFT Perp account will also join us and speak here relatively soon.
We are a NFT perpetual features platform on Arbitrum.
We actually launched an Arbitrum at the end of 2022 for our B1.
And now we're coming back with our B2.
We did about 500 million in terms of volume for our B1.
And we submitted that back in July.
And now we're kind of ready to come back and shake things up a bit and scale up our community size and our user base.
So we're excited to talk to you guys and share what we're building.
Yeah, congrats on the milestone.
That's really cool to see.
And I feel like what you guys are building, it's really interesting because not only it involves leverage trading,
but it also kind of brings in the fun when you involve NFTs with it.
So I want to ask, what inspired you guys to build NFT Perp?
Yeah, I think our initial intention, so a little quick background on myself.
I got into crypto around 2017.
So if people were listening to you around back in time, it's mostly like layer ones and a lot of like vaporware type of communities and investments.
But I think when DeFi like summer of 2020 came about, like we really as a community and especially in the ecosystem,
like sort of big leap forward on sharing like the power of DeFi.
And a lot of that on chain type of capital a year later kind of rotated towards NFTs.
And when it first came out, people are just kind of astonished at the idea of like a JPEG worth so much money on chain.
And I think a lot of people missed it.
It's actually a formation of communities online being together in a tribe.
And we're kind of seeing that in Dogecoin, a lot of different meme coin type of communities.
And I think to some degree, like NFTs are a version of that.
But given like different NFT collections, different visions, and we've seen projects done really well, like the Port Apes,
most recently Pudgy's, all really delivering.
And I think my initial idea was I was looking at the NFT space and I was thinking that this market is very inefficient because as a trader at the time,
you're spending a lot of money on fees alone and royalties as well.
And sometimes you're not really necessarily using the art or exclusivity that NFT provides you or getting in the community perks.
A lot of times you're just a trader, you want to get in the price action of different assets.
And trading NFTs wasn't very efficient, right?
Like when we launched NFT perp, Blur hasn't even launched.
So it was mostly on OpenSea.
And at the time, trading fees plus royalties, you have to be up at least 5% just to break even.
And you can't really shorten the assets.
So we started NFT perp with the idea that collectors and traders can trade a lot easier and you can hedge,
which allows you to have like a two-sided market for NFTs.
Because until then, it was really just loan only.
It's up only. You can only make money that way.
And we think by introducing perps, it allows people to get into NFT price actions a lot easier.
You don't have to hold the entire NFT to get exposure.
So it becomes a risk assessment, like a risk management type of tool.
So that's the reason why we launched NFT perp.
But as we start building, a lot of things started to reveal to us like, oh, wait, this could be used for a lot more different things,
which kind of drove us and motivated us to keep building and connect with different NFT findings protocols out there.
So I'll touch on a little bit of that later on.
But that's like the high level reason why we started NFT perp.
Yeah, no, I think it's an interesting concept because I remember back in 2020,
there was no NFT perp platform out there where you could do that.
Like you said, the only way to get access to the community was through actually holding NFT.
And at that time, it was probably like super expensive, depending what community you wanted to get involved with.
So, yeah, I feel like with NFT perp, what you guys are building, I think it's an interesting way to allow users to risk manage diversification.
And it's really interesting in terms of that concept.
And yeah, I do remember back then how like NFTs pretty much became the face of adoption in terms of blockchain technology, right?
I remember when a lot of people started talking about NBA Top Shot.
Not sure if you remember that, but I remember there was a whole bunch of crazy FOMO into that.
And a lot of people outside of Web 2 or Web 3 got into it.
So it was such an interesting, I honestly did not expect that to happen at that time.
I kind of thought that this NFT wouldn't be the way people outside of Web 2 would enter into space.
But yeah, it's crazy how fast the space moves.
Yeah, like a friend of mine was kind of comparing NFT to like gateway drugs.
It kind of brought in the normies in some ways.
It was like, oh, I can associate with this.
And then people started to find out a little bit more about what blockchain is all about.
What is DeFi? What is smart contracts?
And I think we kind of sit right in between the cross section of the two where we want to focus on serving that NFT community.
But understanding that we're a fully centralized protocol and we're a DeFi protocol and pretty native.
So we're trying to find that intersection of the two and serve the community and users that are bullish or bearish on specific collections and kind of build this tribe our way.
Yeah. And something I'm really curious about is obviously like right now with market conditions,
I feel like we're entering a new phase in the bull market, the early stages of that, right?
And the question I'm sure the community has for you is why is now the right time to launch NFT perps?
Yeah, that's a good question.
I think, in my opinion, it usually takes a lease for a new product to launch and come to fruition and build network effect.
Usually it takes a lease like two to three months.
We think, well, you could make a case that we launched NFT perp initially for B1, kind of like in the depth of bear market.
We built through that. We did proof contraction.
And we think right now, I personally think we're in a pretty bull market.
And compared to what price was like, you know, nine months ago, six months ago, it's looking pretty well.
And personally, I think my thesis around market cycles is usually very centered around the Bitcoin holding.
And that's happening in two months, I believe. And usually the cycle lasts quite a while.
And there's a lot of different activities happening.
My personal belief is that NFT cycles as a macro trend typically revolve around capital rotation.
So like most people understand, like, OK, Bitcoin goes up.
Usually that takes with the dominance a little bit and other altcoins defy, like kind of get wrecked a little bit.
It catches up. It rotates into altcoins layer ones and defy.
And then usually meme coins and then like NFTs kind of take a bit as well.
And we think like it's played out pretty well during the last cycle.
And we think it will position itself relatively similarly during the cycle as well.
So projects that are focusing on NFTs in the moment that are doing market makers collaborations and building community products the right way,
I think, is set up for success. And we're sort of timing ourselves for that in the meantime as well.
Yeah, for sure. No, I totally agree about that.
And I feel like what's different, what's probably going to be different is that I feel like the strong communities that have survived their bear market will probably do very well in the upcoming bull market.
Right. Just because the community stayed throughout that as well as the founders of the projects that stayed and continue building throughout the bear market.
So I feel like those types of projects are definitely going to win in the long term.
So, yeah, I totally agree about that. And another fun question to have for you is why did you guys choose Arbitrum to launch NFT perp?
Yeah, so when I first launched when we first launched our V1, this was like back in November of 2022.
At the time, obviously, ETH is expensive to have any high frequency trading products on chain. And that's still the case, unfortunately.
We wanted to stay with where our ideal customers and users are. And we found that through wallet analysis and different wallet profile, we found that our Arbitrum community are very defined and NFTs aligned.
Back in the day, really NFT activities are really only happening on ETH mainnet.
So the only other NFT communities are sort of active at the time was Treasured Out and some like Blueberry Club from GMX, they were making some noises.
And we thought that DeFi at the time on Arbitrum still is, it's still very dominating and it just fits our ideal user base and community tribe that we're aligned with.
So that's what we launched on there. And to this day, we think that choice has really brought us a lot of support.
We've made a lot of friends in Arbitrum community and got a lot of support from the foundation as well. So we're very grateful for that.
We got a grant from the Arbitrum Foundation at the end of last year and recently completed through Malastone.
So yeah, we're super aligned with the Arbitrum ecosystem. The tech itself, it's obviously unparalleled.
And the community that you guys have fostered and as well as the ecosystem support.
Shout out to Luke, by the way. Luke is the, I think he had a partnership with Ecosystem at Option Labs and he's been super helpful as well.
So yeah, it just made a lot of sense for us to continue to deploy on Arbitrum and serve the community here.
And yeah, that's generally our way of thinking how we go where the users are.
Yeah, no, I think it's really cool that you guys have been working with the OG communities on Arbitrum, like the Blueberries, as well as Treasure Dao, right?
You got the small brains in there. So it's awesome that you guys are collaborating with the OGs.
And congrats on the grant from the foundation. That's really cool to see.
And yeah, super excited for you guys on that part, on the community side of things.
Do you guys plan on collaborating with more Arbitrum communities in the future?
Yeah, absolutely. So our, a quick intro, by the way. Hellmass is also a speaker here. He's our head of growth, our chief growth officer at NITPURP.
Ryan, why don't you give us a quick intro and we'll talk about some partnerships and collaboration.
Yeah, thanks for having me, guys. Yeah, so my name's Ryan. Go by Hellmass online.
Yeah, so it was really great. I got to meet Joe. I've been in NFT finance since late 2021.
I was working at 1KX at the time and started this London Dao called Goblin Sachs.
And so, yeah, I got to meet Jose working in Goblin Sachs at the time and got to know the NFT PERP team.
And 1KX actually led the last round for NFT PERP, so got to know him closely with that as well.
But yeah, that's a little bit about me. And then as far as projects we're looking to work with on ARM, so we're pretty open to collaboration.
So I think the best way to get in touch with us is sliding into the Discord. You know, you can introduce yourself there.
We have a few partnership request tickets that you could open up. But like, honestly, my DMs are always open, too.
So if you have interest, if you're a protocol on Arbitrum, have interest in NFT PERP, feel free to DM me.
So my DMs are open and I'll read them all and entertain any type of partnership. We're definitely open to it.
Yeah, I'd like to speak to that. We're very keen to partner with different learning bar and protocols and PERPs, creating funding strategies.
So they're currently in a few works and we'll announce that with you guys. So stay tuned.
Yeah, that's cool. And yeah, by the way, Hellmass, nice sombrero. I love how you both have matching sombreros. We're almost matching, but...
Yeah, it's like the little version of Jose. The little type one version of him.
When we have a lot of users on the protocol, so you get a raise.
Yeah, it'd be pretty funny if you guys did like a trading competition where there was like an entity involved as a prize. That'd be pretty cool to see.
So we've actually consistently done that over really like the last over a year, 14, 15 months.
I think the first competition that we did on NFT PERP, we gave away Azuki beans, little pudgies, I think other side NFTs.
And we've done quite a few. We've partnered with DYDX to give away some hedgies and also the GMX Blueberry Club with a few blueberries as well.
So yeah, there's always going to be competitions and events happening on NFT PERP and will make it really fun for people that are trading.
And even if you lose money, if you get mostly liquidated, you also get a prize as well. So we always try to keep it fun.
Yeah, that's really awesome to see. Yeah, it's cool that not only if you lose, you still win.
And also touching on the protocol itself, I know you guys are working on a V2 and there's a countdown going on right now.
So I was wondering, do you want to touch on V2 a little bit and talk about what are you guys excited about for V2 and what are some of the differences or new features that users can expect?
Yeah, so the V2 countdown, let's just say the number is getting really, really small.
And you guys can expect something to happen very, very soon with regards to NFT PERP V2.
So for those that are maybe not too familiar with on-chain PERPs, so there are a few different mechanisms out there.
You have the GMX style, which is a sort of like trader versus house type of model.
And you just use an Oracle price to settle different prices.
And then you have protocols like DYDX, which is a completely on-chain type of option order book, on-chain settlement type of setup.
And then you have Petro protocol, which is using AMM liquidity on Drift, by the way, on Drips, on Solana.
And they also have this AMM liquidity plus the order book.
So NFT PERP V2 sits right in the middle of the spectrum where it has AMM liquidity for liquidity providers on the AMM to provide liquidity on their select ranges.
And then at the same time, we also have limit order books.
And the reason why we do this is because there are pros and cons of different mechanisms, right?
So usually the AMM mechanism, the pros is like there's always a liquidity available.
But for some reason, the LPs aren't able to perhaps maximize their positioning or easily adjust different types of strategies, usually more passive.
And on the order book side, it requires a decent amount of collaboration with the market makers to make sure you have decent amount of liquidity on the exchange.
But the pro is it's very good for price discovery. It's what people are used to for the longest time.
That's why Binance is using it. That's why Coinbase is using it.
So what we've done here at NFT PERP V2 is we've kind of picked the best from each different mechanism.
We've combined it all together. And it's a hybrid protocol. We call it Fusion AMM.
That allows you to, as a taker, you have your option to when you take a market trades, it automatically routes the position for you for finding the best pricing in between AMMs and limit order books.
So we're really excited to bring this out. I believe there's probably less than there's a lot of per protocols out there right now.
But it's probably less than five or even three protocols out there that's doing a hybrid model where you have AMM plus limit order book liquidity.
The one thing that we'll bring on online this time, which I believe was we're probably the one of the first hybrid AMM plus motor book protocol that has our order book entirely on chain.
So our order book system designed by Wright, our smart contract engineer, it's a entirely on chain.
So you are there's no off chain order matching. They rely on an off chain matching engine. There's no trust needed.
So we're really excited to bring this out. And our vision is the perfect place for us to debut this new product.
And we think it's highly scalable. And it's going to be a system that really caters to NFT users that want to go long, go short on assets.
So yeah, this has been a long time in the works project and we're super excited to get this out.
Yeah, all that sounds really awesome. So super excited for that. And on the community side of things as well, you guys have an alpha incentives program.
Do you guys want to talk a bit about that on how on what it is and how the community can get involved?
Yeah, I'll let Ryan cover this part. Yeah, yeah. So so basically, in the next couple of weeks, we're going to be launching a incentives program where we're going to be giving away.
I would say a pretty sizable portion of, you know, the NFT network and VNFTP tokens.
But basically, it's the program we're going to be running over, let's call it the course of, I don't know, four to eight weeks, maybe six weeks as a base case is a program that rewards users based on like trading volume if they deposit it to the insurance fund or AMM.
And then also, there's going to be a referral component on top of it where if if the user does refer people and based on like the metrics of the people that they refer, there would be like an additional boost on top of the initial rewards that the person would be receiving.
So we're going to be running. Yeah, we're going to be running that during the the alpha period. And, and yeah, we're excited for it.
And also the the the the platform is going to be gated during that time as well. So you will need like a referral code or to be on the white list to participate.
So referrals are going to be like a key component of that. And I guess like for reference, like, you know, if you were to like peg it against another, you know, protocol, it would be similar to like what what blur did way back when they launched, I guess it was probably about a year ago.
You could use that as like a benchmark. And then
But yeah, I think that's that's the general overview of it.
Cool. Yeah. And what can what are you guys supporting any collections on there?
Yeah, so coming out of the gate, we'll be supporting the lady as the first pair on the project. Sorry, on the on the same on the exchange. And then the second pair will be pudgies.
First and foremost, we'll, we'll keep that private until we make the announcement. But you can expect a lot of the blue chip collections to be added to the perp. Well, for the most part, we'll have just blue chips only.
Nice. Yeah, no. Yeah, I really love the Malay community. And, you know, they've also been building a lot on arbitrum, such as Senko. So, yeah, really cool. See how you guys are supporting their community as well.
Yeah, very basic community in that they've been with us since pretty early on when we launched the one and actually represented a good amount of our users. So I want to make sure they're highlighted in our first debut for v2 and then pudgies will be next and a few more coming soon.
Yeah, the, the ladies are like the ultimate DJs. So it's awesome to see that you guys are supporting them. And you know, another cool thing that you guys are working on as well is the mafia nuts NFT. Do you guys want to touch a bit on that?
Yeah, so mafia nuts NFT is something that we introduced last year. And the idea of the mafia nuts NFT is just kind of creating this community persona that we have at NFT perp, where people that trade on NFT perp, and the idea is that they can kind of accumulate volume and different metrics with their NFT state.
And with the NFT state gives you additional perks for trading NFT perp. And that's like highly involved with the incentive programs that we're going to be launching during the alpha program. So, you know, I guess that's a little alpha for you guys.
The focus of mafia nuts is really recognizing user contribution to the protocol, whether you are a AMN LP, you're an insurance fund provider, you're a market maker, or you're a trader on the protocol, different efforts trading on the exchange, we think should be, you know, rewarded.
And that's like our way to kind of accumulate different users on chain data with the NFTs itself. And there's going to be a lot of different plans for mafia nuts for nb2 alone and a lot of gamification stuff we plan for.
So, yeah, we're very focused on mafia nuts in our roadmap. So obviously not financial advice, but if you're planning to be a user on NFT perp, highly recommend you have one because it will give you additional perks for just trading on NFT perp itself.
Major alpha there. But yeah, you know, on the roadmap as well. What are some things the community can look forward to for 2024?
Yeah, so, you know, the vision for NFT perp, as we set out to do is to really allow NFT markets to have a equilibrium around longs and shorts and efficiency. So there's different products that we're currently in the pipeline and we're designing specifically to address NFT liquidity and allow different participants in the space to tap into liquidity.
Tap into liquidity a lot easier using NFT perp. And our intention is to create this liquidity flywheel in the NFT ecosystem. So that like by doing perps, market makers or loan providers, borrowers, traders can really perform like strategic trading or arbitral strategies using NFT perp itself.
So I'll kind of pause there. And I think that's like the core focus for NFT perp going forward and will be, you know, kind of introducing ourselves to different environment, a lot of different users to trade on NFT perp with different NFTs.
So yeah, definitely stay tuned for NFT perp in the next three to six months.
Cool. Yeah. And, you know, in case people have like any questions, where can they go to ask questions?
Yeah, definitely go to our discord. Our discord. I think the link is just discord slash.com slash NFT perp. And yeah, if that's what you could have to the profile to the profile is at NFT perp.
So send us a DM if you need to give us a mention or just go to our discord community. We have a lot of people in there will be happy to answer any questions you have.
But if you guys are looking for access for NFT perp V2, definitely go to our discord and there will be ways that you can get a wireless spot. So yeah, make sure you hop in there and say hi.
Cool. Yeah. And I think we covered everything. So I know we're towards the end of the AMA. So before we end, do you guys want to mention anything else to the community?
Ryan, do you have anything?
I mean, nothing on nothing really on my end. If anyone has any questions, like happy to feel questions for a minute. But yeah, I don't have much. I think we covered most of it.
Cool. Yeah, well, appreciate you both for coming on Jose and Ryan. Super excited for 2024 for you guys. And yeah, for the community. If you guys have any questions about NFT perp DM Hellmass or join our discord.
So yeah, appreciate you guys for coming on and have a great week.
Thank you guys. Thank you. Have a good one.