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Journey of 5ire
Recorded: Aug. 14, 2024 Duration: 0:50:58Space Recording
Full Transcription
I'll see you next time.
I'll see you next time.
I'll see you next time.
I'll see you next time.
I'll see you next time.
Hi, everyone.
I'm so happy to be doing this space with you.
Today, we're going to talk about, you take a step back and talk about the broader journey
of FIRE so far.
I'm going to request Prateek Gauri to quickly join us as a speaker.
Prateek Vivevi, the co-founder and the product Maverick is here with us.
So Prateek, let's get started while Prateek Gauri fixes his Twitter.
Yes, absolutely.
Let's do it.
I'm very excited as well and good to see everybody on the space.
Yeah, people have been flocking.
Look, there's a lot going on in the markets.
It all started with Japan.
Japan sneezed, America coughed, and the crypto market went haywire, but things are beginning
to rally up.
But us at FIRE, we don't care so much about short-term fluctuations.
We're really building something for the long run.
And every time I speak to our community, I try and remind them what's in it for us, what's
the long-term goal, and why do we exist.
And I can't think of the two main people who embarked upon this mission.
So tell us about the mission and vision of FIRE as we approach the main net.
It's a very, very big day for a layer one.
Tomorrow, India's Independence Day is when we start.
So, Prateek Gauri and Prateek Divedi, tell us how you guys got started.
How true are we still living up to the mission today?
Yes, I think it's great.
I think I will invite PG to start since he's the CEO, and it should always start like that.
So, PG, please go ahead, and I'll add on to the story from there.
Yeah, thanks, PD.
And thanks, Utkarsh, for kind of introducing everything.
So, I think a lot of the people here know how the journey began.
I mean, I've been kind of promoting this idea of a fifth industrial revolution for more than a decade now.
In fact, most of my startups, which I founded, you know, previous, like prior to FIRE, were also around the same theme of a fifth industrial revolution,
where I was trying to promote that you can actually make money while you do good.
And if you are focusing on doing good, and if you're focused on financial inclusion, and if you're focused on kind of working for the people,
you end up making more money for your team and for yourself.
So, that's the whole narrative which I've been promoting.
With FIRE, actually, the journey started, as most of you know, at a chai shop in India, where PD and I, we are childhood friends.
And we kind of had a napkin while we were having chai, and we kind of wrote the idea on a paper that, you know,
we can actually work at the intersection of blockchain, cryptocurrency, and sustainability.
And the cool part was that we kind of just invested our own money initially for the first three, four months.
We bootstrapped the company. It started in August of 2021.
Fast forward, October of 2021, we were in a very good bull market.
And we decided that, let's see, we are able to raise some money to build this product,
which was a dream of ours, to build a sustainable blockchain ecosystem,
and which we called a sustainable proof of stake.
Funny story, or a cool story, was that in October, we were able to raise about 21 million.
And it did not take us long, like we finished the fundraise in less than a month.
And after we raised the money, actually the journey of, the real journey of our side,
because we kind of assembled a very, very good team, spread across geographies,
spread across different sectors, and we decided to, we started building the product.
I mean, of course, PD can speak more on the product, but from what I know,
we scraped the whole product, and after six months, we realized we weren't going where we wanted to go.
And then we built it, we built it again, which happens in most of the product journeys, actually.
And then, you know, most of us here also know that, you know, 2022, we went into a bear market.
Things weren't easy in 2022 and 2023.
And we were heavily doing a lot of marketing.
We had a team of more than 100, so we had to trim it down to a team of less than 50.
When we realized that we were burning a lot of money month on month,
and the liquidity in market suddenly became low.
But the good thing for us was we ended up raising another 100 million on equity.
But we realized in a few months that we should retain our equity.
So we ended up, you know, giving a premium to our equity investor and retaining our equity.
So ideally now, FIRE, in terms of equity, is primarily only owned by people within FIRE.
So there's nobody outside of the core team which owns any equity in FIRE.
So this, all of this happened in 2022.
And 2023, we decided we are going to probably, you know, we were getting closer to building our tech.
And we were closer to actually launching the token.
But market in the first six months wasn't actually very good.
And we decided that we are going to go ahead with the listings in the last quarter of 2023.
By no means we knew that the market is going to get very bullish.
But it was just an estimate.
I mean, nobody can time the market.
But we kind of decided we're going to launch the token on 5th of December 2023 on Bybit.
We secured the listing.
And we decided that we're going to first do an ERC-20 token.
And then, you know, we're going to migrate it to the mainnet in 2024.
Four, another, I think, cool story is that the token did very well because of the community.
I think a lot of people actually, you know, in 2023 knew we, you know, they were not very happy with the delays that we were doing.
But they also, I think, understood that everybody, you know, most of the community members, we've made a lot of investments, right?
So FIRE would be one of the investments that everybody made.
And same with us, right?
We've also made, like, more than 100 investments.
So we know, you know, that what we were doing at FIRE was primarily much better than others.
I mean, not to point fingers at anybody.
But a lot of tokens actually didn't even launch.
And we still delivered on a lot of the promises.
And we decided to launch and the token did very well.
And then we saw three months of a kind of a bullish market when Bitcoin actually went from, you know, about $40,000 to about $72,000 before it actually fell.
So that was when we launched.
So it was a good launch.
And 2024, I mean, on the side, we kept building our tech.
It's never stopped.
I think, like, Utkarsh, you started saying that we, irrespective of the market, we have been building.
So kudos to our tech team who's been building since the last three years.
So we are finally now at a stage where we are rolling out a mainnet, which I think is one of the most important pieces in our journey.
The SPOS is finally going to be, you know, live and people can actually play with it.
People can actually start building on top of FIRE.
So we're excited about it.
I think there are more than 200 to 50 projects which are already going to build on FIRE, which I think the BD team has done a fabulous job at getting those projects.
And, you know, we are very grateful to a lot of projects which still believe in us and our mission and align with the way, you know, we look at the world.
So as I think our mission and our vision from day one has been something which we like to call the fifth industrial revolution where FIRE derives its name from it.
We still are true to our vision and mission where we want to impact a billion plus people.
So, you know, it looks pretty grandiose, the vision, but that's, I mean, if you were to, you know, dream, then you should always dream big and, you know, work hard to turn it into a reality.
So we will keep working at it.
I think we'll keep building.
I think the journey is now, I mean, every time we deliver on something, we feel that the journey is just starting.
So I think FIRE, it's going to be like a FIRE 2.0 where till now the token was kind of pretty speculative because the price of the token is also speculative because the mainnet was not live.
Now, after tomorrow, I think the mainnet after being live, then a lot of projects can actually build on FIRE and a lot of people will see more utilities.
I think people, you know, folks in the team are kind of very bullish.
They're launching a game now.
So a lot of things are actually planned and I'm personally very excited to see how it all unfolds.
And, yeah, so very excited for the future of FIRE.
You know, the dream we saw in a chai shop actually back in 2021 is now turned into a reality.
And most of us, you know, understand blockchain crypto.
So we most of us know, whoever is listening, that it's not an easy journey.
It's not easy to survive the bear market.
It's neither is it easy to actually deliver on promises you made.
And then finally, you know, because it takes a lot of money, it takes a lot of resources.
It takes a lot of a very good team to actually deliver it.
So I think we are lucky that we've been able to accomplish this goal.
But I think the journey is now just starting.
I think the FIRE 2.0 starts tomorrow when we are live with our main net.
And I think now we are going to probably focus a lot on getting a lot of builders, which we already are.
I think the BD team has already been doing a fantastic job on getting a lot of builders.
I think the tech team is also working very hard on, you know, building a lot of utilities and building a lot of features, which none other blockchain kind of gives.
A part of the gas fee, I think, is going back to the community, which is, again, something that was decided by the tech and BD team together, which is amazing as well.
We are seeing an overwhelming interest, again, from a lot of investors, actually, who are reaching out to invest into our OTC round, etc.
So a lot of good things have actually started to happen.
And we are still not in the bull run because Bitcoin is still trading at about 60,000.
So it's still not in the bull market.
So you might call it a pre-bull market, but we are not still in the bull run because Bitcoin is exactly where it was, I think, in 2021.
So you haven't crossed that level.
So I think if when the bull run actually hits, I think we are going to witness a really good upside for a lot of the builders, a lot of the stakeholders, a lot of investors, which we are really excited about.
Because I think fire was primarily made for the people where we want to achieve financial inclusion, impact a billion plus people using the technology that we've been able to build.
And, of course, whoever's kind of, you know, worked alongside us, invested with us or built with us, we want them to make profits because it is ideally a theory that we are promoting of a fifth industrial revolution where profits should meet purpose.
So the purpose is good and the profit should definitely be good.
That's what we want to achieve.
So, yeah, I think I spoke too long, but I think it's been a long time since.
Yes, you've been back after a while, busy doing work.
Glad to have you here.
Please stay on.
Prateek, do you want to tell us the problem that we started fire with?
Yeah, yeah.
And a bit of the product vision.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, yeah, you, PG mentioned a lot of things that I had in my mind.
So, in a way, yes, PG.
But let me circle back to what the problem statement initially was.
Initially, the problem statement was that there is no blockchain that is sustainable in the truest sense of the word.
Of the word, which means that a lot of blockchains talk about sustainability and it's all up in the air.
That was the original problem statement.
For me, I was not that much of a believer in the sustainability field because I had a very, you know, Prateek has a very deep, PG has a very deep knowledge of the industry.
I'm more tech and blockchain.
So, I did not know what, I thought it was more of a, you know, money wash kind of a thing, which in some cases it is.
So, that problem statement basically got us thinking, what if we can change the paradigm in a way where we can make sure that this whole, you know, white, greenwashing that happens cannot happen anymore.
How do you do that?
You do that by financially modeling it first because as long as things are up in the air, people will just do whatever the hell they want.
So, when you're able to financially model things, then you have something to follow.
So, that was the first thing.
Now, this is already available in some capacities, you know, there's modeling of ESG and so on and so forth.
But then we realized that financial modeling is not enough.
Financial incentivization is important.
If I'm supposed to do something sustainably, but I can cut corners in my company, then most of the business owners will cut corners and try to make more profit.
And I don't really blame them for it.
You know, so, the issue was to make sure that you incentivize people as well for these practices.
So, that's when the idea of FIRE came along where we wanted to create a blockchain with a consensus mechanism so that people can bind on top of a blockchain which financially incentivizes sustainability.
Now, this sounds a bit blue sky in nature, but at the core of the concept is very, very simple.
You have many, many choices for a blockchain, for building your products.
You have Ethereum, if so, on and so forth.
Then you have FIRE, which is making sure to do good work progressively in the field of sustainability.
So, when push comes to shove, four, five, six years later, when this profitability will be synonymous with sustainability, then you will be choosing FIRE by default.
That was what our vision was.
We built the blockchain, then we realized that we built it wrong, as PG said.
So, then we scrapped it and we built it again.
And, of course, this led to a lot of delays and so on and so forth.
But now, the way the system works is a bit more advanced than what we originally envisioned because the company, of course, has gone through a stage of sort of coming of age, maturity, and so on and so forth.
So, we realized that while building this consensus, we are also getting a lot of sustainability data on blockchain.
So, what that does is that it democratizes that data.
Right now, this data, it is a multi-multi-billion dollar industry and it's primarily in the hands of, they work as, they act as holders, they act as gatekeepers of this data and it's very difficult to deal with.
So, one of the other missions and vision of the company has now also become to democratize all the sustainability data in the world.
What happens, what is the use case for that if I am a government organization and I want to make sure that all my companies, all the companies that are in the country are adhering by these pointers, they can use something that is there, verifiable on the blockchain, which for them also is good because then there's not that much scope for greenwashing.
And for us, it's good because they'll be using our modeling because they're the first ones to model all of this through the consensus on the blockchain.
So, that's one, you know, route that we have taken that we've built a blockchain.
On the blockchain side, you have choices, many, many choices.
You will probably choose FHIR if you care about sustainability.
So, then you have all your bigger companies, governments, and so on that find us a bit more attractive.
Then you have the data game.
This is on the FHIR level as well.
Now, you know, funnily, when we started building, we wanted to also make sure that there are some technological advancements that we do, some problems that are already there in blockchain.
So, I'll not name all, but I'll give you a couple of examples.
So, we decided Substrate is very, very, it's a perfect ecosystem for us to build because for what we want to do, the kind of consensus we want to implement, Substrate provides the best sort of, you know, a structure.
Now, the issue was that Substrate is not as popular as Ethereum.
Fair enough, you bring in Ethereum.
Now, what is the other issue?
You have EVM, you have Substrate and FHIR now.
Now, you have two addresses.
You have to use one address on FHIR and one on Ethereum, EVM, the virtual machine.
It's not easy.
So, we first figured out a way to make sure that you will be able to transfer your coins over both your addresses.
Makes it a bit easier.
You don't have to have two different liquidities.
You just have one coin and you transfer it over to different addresses with a Substrate and EVM ecosystem.
Still not very convenient.
Then we figured out, and I think, don't quote me on this, guys, but I'm pretty sure that we're the first ones to then map all of this into one address, which is in FHIR, Substrate and Ethereum, which are two different chains with two different, you know, sort of structures for hexes.
But you have only one address, which is not an easy task for, but I really congratulate the tech team to be able to, you know, have this in the repertoire to be able to implement this.
But I think for the first time, you will be able to use just one address for two different, essentially two different programming languages, two different blockchains in a way.
So, very, very excited to have that implemented because this is something that's not been achieved.
Some other things were some, you know, everyday problems in blockchain that nobody, everybody does, but nobody really talks about how to solve them.
Like, if I'm, and I've mentioned this many times in AMS before, if I have to send $10,000 to somebody, I first send a dollar and then I send $9999, which makes absolutely no sense in 2024.
But we're all scared.
So, for that, we came up with secure transaction where you pay a little bit of a feast in FHIR, but you will make sure that the transaction is always going to the right address.
And it's always going to the right blockchain.
If it doesn't, your money is not gone.
So, I think billions and billions of dollars are lost.
I've lost them as a lot of money as well, sending it to just wrong addresses and wrong blockchains.
I think it's an important use case to solve.
So, those are some advancements that we've done.
There's many more, but I'm not going to bore you with every single thing that we've done.
The vision of the company is to make sure that on the blockchain side, we bring in as many projects as possible, especially the ones that care in the sustainable development of the world, which is sort of inevitable.
And also to make sure the company is cash positive by bringing in different revenue streams through, as I mentioned, data and secure transaction models and games and so on and so forth.
So, for us, right now, the mission has become, now that the technology is there, it's implemented, the token has had some time to breathe, it's went up, it went down.
I mean, you guys know how it works in terms of tokens, the private sale people are taking profit, no issues with that.
But now that we are launching the blockchain, we want to make sure that there's as much usability and scalability as possible and have as many use cases built on it.
So, that's sort of a very, you know, simplistic, medium-term vision for me.
We're not looking at 2030 yet.
We are looking at something for 2030, but for now, it's important for us to bring as many projects as possible on fire.
So, that would be that, Utkarsh.
Can you guys hear me?
UA got kicked off.
It's okay.
I will continue.
It's right now just me and PG.
So, PG, in your head, once the mainnet launches, what is the short-term, medium-term and long-term goal for you after tomorrow?
I think the short-term goal, I think, would be to, you know, for a lot of people to actually start building, you know, on the mainnet, on fire.
And a lot of KOLs to actually tweet about fires that people know, you know, a lot of the people actually don't even know who we are, right?
So, we want as many people as we want to know about us so that they start building.
So, I think a lot of hype creation in the next few days, I think, should definitely help us because I think in any layer one's journey, I think mainnet is one of the most important pieces.
And we are finally, you know, we are finally there.
So, I think knowledge dissemination is one of the most important pillars that I'm looking at when I think of short-term goal.
In median term, I would love to see good TVL and a lot of projects building on fire from different sectors, you know, whether it be, you know, gaming or DeFi, DEXs, etc.
There's a lot of those kind of projects building on fire.
In long term, well, if I look at long term, I say three to five years plan.
And that's how I look at things would definitely want fire to be one of the top 10, you know, projects in the world and finally achieve the vision and the mission of impacting, you know, millions of people.
And the final goal is, of course, I mean, we know it's a billion people, but we'll take our own sweet time to reach there.
So, you know, reaching millions of people, a lot of people benefiting using our tech as blockchain becomes more mainstream.
Yeah, I'd just like to add on to what the co-founders mentioned.
Our long term vision has always been very simple to democratize sustainability, build a decentralized internet and do that via sustainable blockchains.
Very simply, it means that it's a digital playground.
We want as many powerful applications to use our underlying technology.
And we, of course, want to be mindful of market fluctuations.
But ultimately, it is a digital playground.
And that's what we're trying to do.
When organizations partner with us, when companies take grants from us, what we hope is that they turn out to be the next equivalent of the most powerful and interesting companies in the Web 2 space, transpose to Web 3.
And by doing so, by getting governments, companies, startups all involved, we are slowly ushering to what we define as the fifth industrial revolution.
It's a long term process.
It's a process where it's very difficult.
And we have made some mistakes.
I want to be very open about that.
But those mistakes are when you try to do something ambitious, the path is not spelt out.
So I'm going to invite Prateek Dravedi to talk us through some of the roadblocks and challenges that we had to overcome, say, from the product standpoint.
And then Prateek Gauri can comment on some of the challenges that we had to overcome from the operational standpoint within the bear markets and so forth.
So PG, over to you.
And then PG.
I'm sorry, I got kicked off in the middle.
Twitter maybe is having some issues.
Sure.
I mean, there's two words I've come to hate whenever used together as far as the product and blockchain is concerned.
It's called cyclic dependencies.
So it's sort of easy to say that you can change consensus.
And what we'll do is that we'll just create a calculator and the SPSS model will bloom in a week.
It doesn't work like that.
So once you go about changing heart of any blockchain, there are so many cyclic dependencies that come in that you have to pretty much not just go line by line and fix everything, which takes thousands of man hours, but also make sure that the new issues don't come around when you're fixing those things.
So one of the biggest issues we had was the issue of approach when we started approaching building fire the way we wanted to build initially in 2021.
It took us a good four or five months to be building this blockchain.
So as I mentioned earlier, it was a very hard decision, but we had to start back again.
So I'll never forget the day when we made that decision.
So that was one of the biggest issues as far as the product is concerned.
One more thing I feel, and I think this has affected us to a lesser extent because we try to be very open-minded with investors, everyone.
I mean, we have, in fact, like a group of investors just in one group where they just keep on telling us, I mean, projects don't really do that.
They want to initially just do, like get the investment and that's done.
You'll get your tokens, but we want to make sure that you communicate as much as possible.
So one more issue that comes along when building a product is tunnel vision.
You would not able to think what else can be done, but we were lucky enough to make sure that there's enough external experience coming in from different facets of the industry itself,
wherein we were able to come up with all these new modules, why use two different addresses, let's try to map it, let's try to make sure that it's all a unified system and so on and so forth.
So it was difficult for us initially to come up with those sort of solutions, but the more we opened our minds, the more we realized that there are things that have not been done that can be done.
There's something new that we're doing now.
So I'm not going to talk about it because it's really, really blue sky.
If we're able to implement that, it's going to change a lot of things in the space itself.
So I would like to, you know, keep it to myself because maybe a year later and it takes at least a couple of years to implement if we are able to do it at all.
So challenges are mostly in terms of, you know, finding the right people to show the direction.
But I think we have corrected our course quite a lot.
I think we were pretty amateurish, if for lack of a better word, for the first six months of running the company.
But I think we have come around and I think now the machinery is way more well-oiled.
And Pratik, Gauri, did you have any operational challenges or, you know, difficult times that you had to go through?
So you can perhaps reflect on, of course, market conditions, but also, you know, dealing with investors and others in case you want to comment.
I mean, before he says anything, I have to mention that, you know, it doesn't matter what you're doing.
And I think PG will second me on this opinion.
But it doesn't matter what you're doing.
If the market is red, you're doing everything wrong.
And if the market is green, you're doing everything right.
So that's something that as somebody who just deals with only product, I mean, of course, I'm a co-founder, so I deal with the business side of the marketing as well.
But, like, I love the product side of things.
For me, I was like, man, I was doing the exact same things I was doing three months ago.
How is it suddenly right?
And then three months later, I'm doing the exact same thing.
But now suddenly everything is wrong.
So that's a very difficult pill to swallow.
But that's sort of a little bit of my opinion.
But PG, carry on.
I think PD, I think I would echo his comments.
And then pretty much there's similar thoughts here, UA, where, you know, you might be doing the right thing.
But when the conditions or the market conditions aren't favorable, then investors start to question you.
And I mean, when you put yourself in their shoes, I think you understand.
Because I mean, I think, you know, I've been a founder.
You know, I founded eight companies.
So, you know, this is the ninth one.
And then I've invested in more than 100 companies.
So, you know, when you look at all of that, I know when I wear, you know, when I wear my investor hat, I would also get worried when the market is down.
And it's so, you know, I think when you ask about challenges, I think that's something that makes you, you know, mentally strong as a founder.
And I think that is very, very important for the long term, for long term success.
Because there is no thing in the world which kind of just does a parabolic up.
And you have to have a curve where you go down, go up, go out, go down, go down.
And that's what real success looks like.
So, you know, so we had our own fair share of challenges from the business side, from having, you know, suddenly, you know, we were spending so much money back in 21-22.
To suddenly feeling that, you know, let's be a little frugal in 2023.
Then by the end of 2023, you're again thinking that, oh, yeah, you know, the tragedy is looking solid.
Let's spend more.
Then suddenly you feel, ah, the market might go bad.
So let's, you know, make sure that you have enough runway for the next few years.
So, you know, those kind of things you learn with time.
And I think it's been a great learning experience.
I think challenges and failures teach you much more than successes.
That's how I feel.
So, you know, whenever PD and I are kind of joking, I always tell him that, you know, I think this journey has taught us much more.
I don't think we started this for money, to be honest.
It was always started because this was a dream, right?
And we wanted to make this a reality.
And we all know that when it actually becomes a reality, we will make a lot of money.
But that's a byproduct.
So I think the learning has been immense, where 2023 was a rough year because of markets and also because a lot of people had invested back in 2021.
So they were waiting for the token listing because that's the only way you can actually liquidate your holdings.
A lot of people wanted to do that.
And we did face a lot of pressure and flake from investors.
A lot of media also, you know, wrote a little negative about us.
The same media which were writing so positive in 21-22, they were negative.
And honestly, when the token did well, they again started writing positive.
So I think media, investors, all these stakeholders, I think it's a journey which you as a founder learn.
And you know you can't do much about it.
You can just keep doing the same thing again and again.
And one day you will be successful.
So I think that's where we are at.
I think now we are pretty nonchalant.
And I don't think I'm pretty bothered about these things.
You know, we still do the same thing again.
Like BD mentioned, the tech is building from the last three years.
They'll keep building for the next few years.
You know, BD still was doing partnerships a few days till a few months back.
They'll keep doing that for the next few years, right?
You know, we were still doing the same thing.
Marketing is doing the same thing.
Was engaging with a lot of KOLs.
You're doing the same thing again and again and you'll keep doing it.
So I think ups and downs will happen.
But ultimately, I think people who stick to what they're doing, I think ultimately would taste success.
And I think it'll be similar to a dot-com thing.
You know, 1990s, 2000, early 2000, you saw so many companies.
But, you know, by the end, you know, when 2010 hit and after that, only few companies survived.
And they're right now, when you look at it, they're like valued at more than 100 billion, not even like in billion.
So I think if we were, we can stay true to our mission and vision for the next few years as Web3 kind of grows, I think we will be right up there.
Yeah, and to add to that, you know, you need to have thick skin.
That's very, very important.
I mean, truth be told, it's not hidden from anyone.
There's a lot of flack that came our way.
And most companies would, or most founders would just fold, like your fold is not worth it.
But for us, it is worth it, because I know what we're trying to do.
And once, if and when we're able to do that, all of this is going to be worth it.
So it's okay, like I'm okay taking a couple of, you know, hurling abuses from Twitter, because I know what's going to happen in the next two, three, four years.
Yeah, then there are a couple of questions on marketing and community and what that means to us.
So I can take that and then you guys feel free to add anything.
Look, when you try and do marketing for an ambitious project, whether it's this one or anything else, you just have to be keeping the longer term horizon in mind.
Because if you do too well, there will be a lot of positive appreciation.
There will also be some pushback.
It's part of the game.
Similarly, if you are succeeding, things will be applauded when the market is down, for example, everything will feel right.
So our job is to actually retain sanity.
Look, if the market is in the green, it doesn't mean that you're doing things well.
Sometimes a rising tide can lift all boats, you know, if you have a bad product or a good product.
The opposite is also true.
If the market is in the red, you could be doing everything right and be punished just because of the market.
Look at, you know, I think something happened to him or is this me?
PG, can you hear me?
Yes, I can hear you.
Can you hear Rutkarsh?
And the crypto community is a very interesting one.
We've seen quite a few cases here from the pandemic to the market fluctuations to some of the scams that happen in the street.
Okay, but let's try and keep being...
Pritik, Gauri, Dheri, any comments on the community, thoughts?
Rutkarsh, I think your network is acting up a little bit.
Could you say that again?
I think you were addressing us.
Let's just wait for a couple of minutes to come back.
Or I can take some questions, actually.
Let me just scroll down.
I was just wondering if you had any thoughts on the community that we have on fire.
I hope you can hear me, some of it.
Yes, yes.
Yeah, thoughts on community?
I feel we have...
We had a pretty big community, I think.
To be 100% honest with you guys, there was a little bit of a slump.
But I feel that for the past few months, the community has come back because...
Am I audible?
Yes, yes, now you are.
Yes, you are.
Now you are.
So, yeah, long story short, I feel that the community has come back and they have seen us delivering.
And I think that's really important and interesting to me.
And the only way to go is up.
And I'm going to shamelessly plug the fire game here, guys.
Like, this is the community exercise that we are doing right around and after mainnet.
It will be a lot of fun and it will make a lot of money for people.
So, please make sure that you guys play the game and post all your scores there.
So, I feel the community is alive and kicking again.
And I absolutely love it.
PG, please add your thoughts if you want to.
That was my thought.
Okay, since UA is AFK, I feel.
I mean, he's coming back.
I just saw in the group.
I'm going to scroll through some questions myself.
Can we discuss the partnerships?
I feel the team should add Karan.
I think Karan is listening in already from what I see.
So, host, please add Karan.
And Karan, I would love for you to give a little bit of a glimpse on the partnerships and the projects as well.
Hi, guys.
I think UA dropped off due to a bad connection.
I am taking over from here, PD and PG because I was listening to that.
So, yes.
I mean, it's kind of funny and ironic that you're taking over from a bad connection.
But please carry on.
I know, but yeah.
You know, guys, Karan's connection is always the worst.
But luckily today, I am liking that I'm saving the day.
But that's fair enough.
Sometimes that happens.
So, yeah.
There you go.
So, PG, you want me to read out the questions for you and then you're answering every one by one?
Sure.
Okay, perfect.
So, let's do that.
So, some of the people are asking, can we discuss about new partnerships that are not revealed, exchange listing plans?
I think both of these can be answered by you very easily.
And also, some people are very curious about token burn plans.
Yeah, I think the first one is right up your alley, Karan.
So, you had partnerships.
You had projects.
So, please carry on.
And then we'll discuss about it.
So, for the partnerships, we're aiming for a lot of builders to build on fire.
That is the main aim and the main goal.
I think everybody who attended last AMA should be pretty aware of it.
And if you're not aware, we are going to announce a lot of partnerships as we approach mainnet.
But we are not liking, because we are under NDA.
And we also want the surprise element to be there, to be very honest.
We want our partners to announce this first, then we announce it.
Because that's how, you know, more credibility comes into place.
Moving forward, the main pillars are getting DeFi on-chain, getting a native DEX on-chain,
getting a lending protocol, borrowing protocol, which gives the maximum TVL.
We are also partnering with a mining project.
Not partnering, they're building on top of us, to be honest.
Which I assume will get us a lot of TVL.
So, I would not, I can go on and on about partnerships.
Of course, it's not possible to go and tell about all 250 of them,
because you mentioned, because the question was specific for 250.
But yes, there are a lot, and you will be seeing it in the coming days.
Second, exchange listing plans.
We are continuously talking to exchanges.
It is very difficult to listen to these conditions in any market.
But, we are continuously speaking to exchanges.
And, as in when we get the first opportunity, you will see us on multiple more exchanges.
That is under the radar, and we are actively on it.
And I guess when there will be high mainnet transactions, high mainnet volumes,
especially with the tap-to-1 game we are making, and all of those things,
I think people should eventually like what we are doing, and then we can go from there.
Last question, PD.
I would want, I think you are...
No, I mean, I want to also add, guys, you guys have seen us, you know, out and about.
A lot has happened in Fyre.
We are still here.
I told you guys I will be here always.
So, please make sure that we come up with the product.
It's not just, it's not only us, where the token is going to do well, the product,
where the blockchain is going to do well.
It's also you.
So, the game is being launched.
Please go ahead, play it, and then you make money as well.
Also, one more thing to add on to, just one thing, which is a very important pillar of our chain,
is validators.
Just a surprise, we have onboarded more than 15 to 20 validators.
You should be seeing it actively running in the next, I would say, a week's time.
So, on our mainnet, so that is also a pillar.
15, 20 already active, and slowly moving, and gradually increasing towards more.
So, this means the more active validators, the more stake tokens,
and especially this validator, which has come in, is one of our biggest investors.
And there will be a lot of stake tokens out there.
So, you guys would be able to see that, you know, there is a lot of on-chain traction.
The last question is token burn plans.
That would be pointed towards you, PD, I believe.
Well, I am working on it.
We haven't really totally decided that the burn is needed at this point.
But, it is there in the roadmap.
I think it is going to be more around the bull run.
So, I think let this token breathe.
Let the investors, the initial...
See, in my opinion, the toughest time for the FIRE token is still December.
Because, or I think January, because that's when the private investors are out.
But, after that, we'll be able to play around with it a lot more and have more control in that sense.
And that's why I feel the burn is going to happen more around that time.
Yes. And when we say out, we don't want investors to go out.
What we exactly mean out here.
I'm pretty much sure everybody understands.
Taking profits.
Yes. We want everybody.
The tokens will be unlocked.
We want you guys to stay with us.
And I think along the similar lines.
Am I audible now?
Just a quick check.
Yes. There you go, UA.
Go for it.
You're quite audible.
Can you hear me?
I think I'll take over again.
It's not UA's connection.
I think it's London altogether.
Because we both are based out of London.
So, these problems happen sometimes in his area.
Sometimes in my area.
So, I think right now it's his area.
So, I'll take it back from there.
So, yes.
We want all our investors to believe in us.
We are here since day one.
Answering all your questions.
I believe there are very less projects where the founders directly come, you know, directly come on the AMAs and answer your questions.
A lot of them disappear after a while.
It's been two and a half to three years since our journey started.
We are still here and we'll be there till we make it super successful.
That's the aim.
And we want community support.
And I believe you are rightly giving it.
And continue to give it.
That's it.
And all the other questions I don't think is unanswered.
But I'll still go through it.
One guy has said that I'm blocked on Discord.
I think any of our marketing team members having a look at it, please DM him or maybe see what's the problem.
They can DM us.
They can DM us.
They can DM us.
Perfect.
Yeah.
I think for as long as my voice lasts, it would be good to take more questions.
Karan, please do read the questions.
Sure.
I do want to briefly touch upon.
Perfect.
So UA or Valiogon, I guess all the questions have been answered and we are pretty much on point till we are up to date.
Okay.
Okay, great.
Yeah.
Any maybe closing thoughts?
I wanted to just double check, Karan, if we touched upon the tokenomics principle and the broader business model.
Yes, we have touched upon the tokenomics principle.
We have touched upon the partnerships.
We have touched upon what we are doing next.
We have touched upon what our aim is.
Excellent.
I would say the closing thoughts can be given by either of the partners, whether it's PD or PG, anybody, and then we can wrap it up for today.
Sure.
Again, let's start the way we started.
So PG, go ahead and I'll add my two cents after that.
I think I would like to say that, you know, I would like to thank everybody, you know, including our investors, you know, team, everybody for making all of this possible.
Because as I mentioned, the journey has not been easy, but it's been very rewarding.
It's been very, you know, we've learned a lot on the way and all I can say is, you know, we are giving it our best shot.
We will keep building till we reach our final goal of the fifth industrial revolution and a billion people, which is again the overarching goal.
But, you know, we will keep at it.
So when you talk about the smaller milestones in the journey, whether it is more listings or, you know, the burn mechanism, etc., they are all a part of the journey.
We will be doing all of that.
Now, when that happens, that's, you know, that's the whole puzzle that we all need to solve together.
But all of that will happen in the journey and we will reach our final destination and we'll all reach there together.
We started it together, we'll reach there together.
So that's my parting thoughts.
Yeah, I'm on a similar ground.
Thanks, everyone, the team, the community.
I just want to have, I just have one more thing to add, which is today, tomorrow is mainnet.
So any small thing that you can do that will help the mainnet, change your DP to fire or tweet it out, anything that you want to do, you're most welcome because you guys are going to be helping us a lot doing that.
And that's about it.
We'll see you on the good side.
And anybody who's from India and Pakistan, that part of the world, happy independence to you guys and have a great week ahead.
Yeah, thank you, everyone, once again for joining.
We really value your support.
Tomorrow is the big day.
Let's celebrate Independence Day and, of course, the launch of a new independent internet.
Thanks, everyone.
