MahaDAO AMA with MultiChain Apes
We were pleased to have MahaDAO team over our telegram channel for a quick AMA. Steve and Pranay were well prepared and very transparent on their answers. Both, me and the community, had many questions about this gem.
MahaDAO is World’s first non-depreciating currency. $ARTH is a decentralized algorithmic currency that aims to fight depreciation. They also have $MAHA token as a governance token that empowers the token holders to vote on savings rates, stability fees, direction, strategy and future course of action for the ARTH coin.
Here you will have a summary of the AMA
AJ: Welcome Steve. May we start?
Steve: Absolutely! full steam ahead.
AJ: ~ Can you please introduce yourself? What is your background? When did you start crypto and for how long you know the rest of team?
Steve: For sure! Hey guys, steve here co-creator of MahaDAO along with @pranaysanghavi. My background is in computer science and math and I’ve been into crypto for over 5 years; I’ve been both rich and poor in my life and so here to build MahaDAO as a way of creating a community that eradicates all the problems in today’s world like poverty, discrimination, wealth inequality etc…
Pranay: Hello! My name is Pranay Sanghavi, and I’m the CoFounder — handling the business, ecosystem strategy and investment side of things in MahaDAO.
A quick background: I started my first company when I was 19 while in college, in telecom & networking space. Setup 9 sites in Mumbai with over 7000+ business customers and exited all of them within a period ~3 years. I have close to 20 years serial entrepreneurship experience starting, advising and scaling up multi-million dollar enterprise including Fortune 100 Corporates in Information and Communications Technology Businesses.
Now bringing my skillsets & experience to grow the ecosystem at MahaDAO.
AJ: So we have a tech wiz and a successful entrepreneur
~ Is the team located in the same time zone?
Pranay: I’m in Dubai
Steve in London
Gaff in Mumbai
Pooja in Toronto..
I can go on..
Prof Zoran in Belgrade..
You get the idea — lol
And we keep roaming as the work demands
However, we like to believe that there’s no central team behind this. It’s a community effort and we are all simply the most active members of the community.
AJ: Is that the same Zoran Kole from twitter?
Or different Zoran?
Pranay: Nope
- Prof Zoran — GMU economist — at Belgrade Serbia
• Nenad- Quant research
AJ: ~ Is this your first project together for you Pranay and Steve?
Pranay: Steve and I have been part of Intellibuzz for many years, more than 5–6 years now and have also done various projects
In Blockchain, AI, and even some research projects in Crypto
Key members from our team and advisors go a long way — we have a history.
AJ: ~ How many people are part of MAHA at the moment?
Pranay: Close to 25 people.
AJ: I focus a bit too long on the team and team intro. In my opinion it’s important for the community to understand who’s behind the project.
Pranay: Sure, plus, we have a strong set of Advisors.
- There’s Lester Lim, our go-to guy and usually our first point of contact whom we trouble for any advise!
- Then we have Chirdeep Chabra as our Strategy Advisor. ExFounder at Ocean Protocol
- Ajit Khurana, the ex-CEO of ZebPay
- Alex Albano, our marketing advisor who is our go-to person for anything related to community & her in-depth marketing knowledge is a great add
- Dalpat Prajapati, another design advisor, the design guy at Matic who was at the forefront of all decision making with everything related to branding & designing with a knack of creativity he has shaped & defined MahaDAO’s persona
- Mr. Karan, guiding us with in legal & regulatory matters
And many others (Matt, Winston, Daku, etc)
We are all explorers and believers.
AJ: ~ Are you guys looking to expand more as you grow?
Pranay: The team will have to grow as MahaDAO grows, If you look at the roadmap, we have excitign things planned in the future. The mission will require many smart and passionate members to drive it forward.
AJ: ~ Can you explain MahaDao in few words? What is your main goal for this project? How is different from other DAO projects?
Pranay: MahaDAO picks up where previous decentralised autonomous organizations left off, introducing to mankind the concept of a valuecoin, as opposed to a price-stablecoin.
MahaDAO, which has launched ARTH, a decentralized non-depreciating algorithmic token, which derives its value from a basket of uncorrelated assets called as Arth Global Measurement Unit (GMU) .
MahaDAO’s mission is to protect the wealth of citizens from the harmful impacts of inflation — via our valuecoin ARTH
And provide financial independence and financial growth.
ARTH is a sanskrit word means Economic Prosperity — a goal of human life
The erosion of value of currencies that only seem stable made us create MahaDAO and ARTH to attain security through global norms and correct this systemic flow in our current economy.
Joshua: AJ would like to pitch in here and ask them to draw a parallel between Maker Dao and MahaDao for better understanding of their model! (feel free to use other examples — Libra)
Pranay: Yes, in fact the analogy is great — to explain in further detail MahaDAO is primarily a dual token system
MAHA is similar to Maker — Governance and utility token
ARTH is the valuecoin similar to DAI — but very different in its impact
Joshua: So it’s the bundle of assets that it is pegged to that differs?
Pranay: While DAI is pegged to US DOllar — a fiat currency, which constantly uses value as more and more are printed evry hour, ARTH is not dollarised
Speaking about ARTH — yes, ARTH is pegged to a Arth Global Measurement Unit (GMU) — a basket of assets.
AJ: Are these percentage going to change in the future?
Steve: Yes this will change based on governance
Pranay: Yes they will change a little bit or as needed as per the feedback from the economy. Governance will decide with the inputs from economists around the world (refer to economic hackathon program)
Global measurement unit (GMU) is a decentralised, objective measure of value, consisting of several assets — some of them are traditional, well known financial assets and some are new age, digital financial assets. ARTH is backed by (pegged to)
80% fiat
15% gold
5% bitcoin
if fiat goes down; gold and btc goes up
if btc and goes down; fiat goes up
(usually they behave in an anticorelated manner)
AJ: ~ In how many chains are you at the moment? Where do you see your biggest volume?
Pranay: MahaDAO is on Eth and Polgyon and our focus for the next few months is to roll out the products while focusing on partnerships, adoption and growth/volume follow.
Urvesh: Kindly join our social media channels for all the updates.
Main chat: MahaDAO
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheMahaDAO
Announcement channel: @MahadaoAnnouncements
Website: https://mahadao.com/
Discord: https://discord.com/invite/mahadao
Pranay: MahaDAO has a cross chain strategy, we have also partnered with Elrond, and Maha shall be ported to other blockchains in time.
AJ: ~ When can we stake $MAHA tokens? Are you planing to add another staking pool soon?
Steve: We are working on a new product that’ll allow MAHA holders to lock their tokens and use it for governance, so that should be coming out in the next 30 days.
Pranay: MahaDAO has partnered — and is in discussion to partner — with many exciting #DeFi protocols, DEXes and other ecosystems to deliver great value to the community members.
AJ: ~ How many tokens are part of MahaDAO at the moment? Can you explain in few words the purpose of each one?
Steve: At the moment there are three tokens
- MAHA the governance token
- ARTH: the stablecoin/valuecoin
- ARTHX: the fee bearing token for the ecosystem
AJ: ~ How does ARTH stays competitive in the market? What kind of value it has for your holders?
Pranay: ARTH is for students, shoppers, tourists, businessmen, employees, passengers, institutions & governments. Anyone exchanging or storing value.
ARTH is kind of non-dollarised
A real true currency that if left in your bank account will keep appreicating inherently — intrinsically
Unlike say USDT, DAI, or a US$ itself
Unlike stablecoins which are pegged to the US dollar, the world’s first valuecoin ARTH is pegged to Arth Global Measurement Unit (GMU), a basket of uncorrelated assets in the ARTH vault, and maintains (and even appreciates) its purchasing power regardless of wider market movements.
Steve: it’s very simple; in terms of defi
- ARTH is a better store of value and trade
- ARTH will allow you take loans against crypto collaterals
AJ: ~ Can you talk about ARTH loans in polygon? What APYs do you offer and what kind of terms do you have at the moment?
Pranay: ARTH Loans is a decentralized borrowing system built on the ARTH protocol that allows you to draw 0% interest loans against your collateral.
ARTH loans is launched on Polygon.
Steve: For sure!
ARTH loans allows you take loans in ARTH from a set of crypto colalterals (namely ETH & MATIC but more to come in soon)
which means you can put down your ETH for example, take out a loan in ARTH and then possibly do things like sell the ARTH for more ETH (effectively going a leverage long on ETH).
Joshua: So rephrasing a bit more! USDC holds $ in real world to back digital currency. So as a basket of assets how is it held?
Pranay: Yes synthetic gold, and synthetic versions of the other assets are employed in this case.
Joshua: Awesome so the sources of where these are bought from are on the website?
Pranay: So these synthetic versions are not actually held in custody, but when you deposit the collaterals, it is automatically distributed as per the proportions and the value is pegged. Thats one of the uniqueness of the protocol.
AJ: ~ How many farming pools do you have active? Are you planning to add more in the future?
Steve: At the moment we have farming pools, with polydex, dfyn and cosmic swap; we plan to add soon sushi and quickswap as well; and potentally a lot more DEXes as well.
AJ: ~ What’s the TVL on ARTH protocol right now?
Steve: At the moment we are sitting around the 1mn from v1 and v2; however this will grow the moment leverage comes into the picture.
AJ: ~ How do you pick currencies to keep in the basket of 10–12 different currencies?
Steve: The currencies are chosen based on the contribution to global GDP. So at the very top will be the USD and Chinese yuan; and then bottom will have other currencies.
Pranay: Please check the simulations and modeling done in our whitepaper • MahaDAO Whitepaper
https://docsend.com/view/grhugnk8nm2qz4xt
Of how the currencies were selected.
Urvesh: Learn more about ARTH loans here. https://t.me/MahadaoAnnouncements/479
AJ: ~ How do you plan staying competitive in the market long term? What is your strategy for the product development?
Pranay: Yes, if you look at the roadmap on our website, there are innovative products planned — and so far we’ve covered about say 25% of our journey in the product space.
Steve: Atm we have two more products being pushed out on our roadmap; combine that with AMAs like the one we’re doing right now; along with more exchange listings, maha should be flying in the short term.
Pranay: Some of the products shall also be built by the community which will be supported / backed by MahaDAO grants and other tech/dev/legal/business support.
AJ: ~ When would we see these product live? Any exciting announcement right now? lol
Pranay: Well, this one is live 😄
https://t.me/MahadaoAnnouncements/479
It was launched 15 August 2021.
The other product shall be expected around early next month — the exciting features and other development we’d rather announce it in a grand way.
Steve: next product is MAHA staking and locking
third product is MahaLend — a leveraged farming protocol
fourth product is Oracles — a decentralised oracle platform
fifth product is a surprise in December.
Joshua: Just a crazy idea! Could you guys get someone on the team or an expert who could try specializing on Cardano Smart contracts and when they launch integrate with their blockchain as well! From a marketing stand point this would be an absolutely crazy marketing push you can do and tech perspective too opens up Maha Dao to a whole new market of users as well!
Pranay: Maha has a cross chain strategy, its a great sugestion However we have to consider Cardano in the plan yet.
Steve: Absolutely! Cardano is pretty dope! we will definitely be building on that.
AJ: ~ What are you doing to attract more people to use your platform?
Pranay: With MahaDAO & ARTH, it’s a conscious effort to solve a genuine world problem faced by a more than 2 billion people on the planet any given month! Erosion of hard earned wealth.
Steve: marketing, partnerships and exchange listings.
Pranay: It’s not geological, or has a niche — it’s for everybody. For this very reason, I think the most immediate task at hand for us is to form as many value-adding partnerships as we can for the welfare of the community.
• In the short run, we are focusing on building a set of full-proof products that embodies all of what we are promising & community growth.
• In the medium term, integrating ARTH with other #DeFi projects, other chains and forming strategic partnerships (including CEX/DEX)
And in the long term — its all about adoption. .it’s a matter of time before “real economy” stuff starts happening with ARTH. Settling imports and exports, buying houses and cars, paying employees and contractors.
AJ: ~ Who are your biggest partners at the moment? Do you have any new partnership coming up?
Pranay: Yes we are on the continous effort of collaborating with great partners. There is no ranking as such in terms of small or big, but we believe currently Polygon are our closest partners in terms of the product strategy.
A list of some of them can be found here — https://mahadao.com/about.html#mahadao-partners
AJ: ~ Everyone wants to know about your short-term Marketing Plans. Can you share with us your marketing strategy?
Pranay: Yes as I just mentioned,
• In the short run, we are focusing on building a set of full-proof products that embodies all of what we are promising & community growth.
• In the medium term, integrating ARTH with other #DeFi projects, other chains and forming strategic partnerships (including CEX/DEX)
Its easier, safer, more fun and better to step on the pedal when the engine is strong and robust.
AJ: Guys thank you for joining us today, is there anything else you would like to add?
I don’t want to take anymore time from you.
Pranay: This is a great community and the questions were very genuine
The members are awesome — I loved to be here.
Questions from the Community
- Question from Martin
“When can we expect listing to more exchanges for Maha? We really need a more healthy volume 🙏”
Steve: Now that our core products are out we are focusing on exchange listings, partnerships and more liquidity for MAHA/ARTH.
Pranay: Martin has a valid point and its a part of our strategy — thanks Martin for the genuine question.
- Question from Joshua
“So Dai and other stable coin projects operate by having a backing of 1 USD per 1 USDC (example) SO with regards to the bundle of assets in the ArthCoin What is is backed by”
Steve: ARTH is backed by
- 80% fiat
- 15% gold
- 5% bitcoin
- Question from @farhaddawood
“Noticed Pranay going with ARTH in white background as of recently , while the site and logo’s are basically a dark theme.. So what goes..”
Pranay: Oh, thats our designer Mitul who has created some lovely brand assets around the brand guidelines of MahaDAO.
- Question from Angelo
“Is your code audited? How many companies audited your code? We know that one is not enough anymore lol”
Pranay: Security is very important to MahaDAO and for any genuine decenralised project. We are audited by multiple 3rd party agencies
Certik
ImmuneBytes
Hacken
The audit reports and the details are shared in our medium blog.
- Question from Farhad
“Hypothetical question, suppose say the volatile collateralize assets lose 80% of its value, which would require all loan positions in volatile vaults to be liquidated. How will maha loan handle these dooms day scenario? Will the TVL drop to all time low.”
Pranay: Liquidation and under-collateralization events are handled very efficiently in the protocol, much similar to say MakerDAO.
Steve: Usually a 80% drop happens in a span of a few hours so there will be enough time to liquidate; further the protocol allows multiple loans to be liquidated in one shot.
- Question from Jake Paul
“How many projects are lined up for the mahadao launchpad so far”
Pranay: We are not a typical INCUBATOR or a LAUNCHPAD with a pipeline of projects. So currently just 1.
But our each project is a giant one in that it propels the adoption of ARTH by leaps and bounds.
(there is one more in the pipeline but I’d rather share it at the right time)
You already know the name of this project, right?
The world’s first #DeFi bank
I’d invite Jake ånd other members to join that group.
- Question from real world
“when bsc and eth chain for arth and arthx. it is not enough polychain for us”
I think he’s asking when will we have BSC and ERC chain since Polychain is not enough.
Pranay: Yes, BSC is obviously a part of the cross chain strategy — stay tuned. First we’d rather have the products out and then keep expanding to various chains.
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