Synaps AMA Recap

In the recent time, on 06.04 we hosted @Flolg from Synaps during the AMA Session. The AMA had 2 parts — Team Questions & Community Questions. Below we are publishing the recap of the session.

Team Questions

TJK: Let’s welcome our today’s guest @Flolg 😎

Flolg: Hello everyone 🙂

TJK: How are you today? Are you ready for our AMA Session?

Flolg: Of course happy to answer any questions 🙂

TJK: Great, in this case, let us begin 😁Here comes our first question: Could you introduce yourself? What is your and Synaps’ story?

Flolg: I’m Florian Le Goff, the CEO, and co-founder of Synaps & Anima. My journey in the crypto industry began in 2017 when I became interested in the potential of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and started investing. As I delved deeper into the industry, I realized that one of the biggest challenges was onboarding investors. Projects like 0x and Kyber were struggling to verify a large number of users within a limited time frame, which made it difficult for potential investors to participate.

To tackle this challenge, I co-founded Synaps with a mission to provide user-friendly Know Your Customer (KYC) and Know Your Business (KYB) solutions that streamline fundraising and investment opportunities on Web3. Back then, our goal was to make investing in Web3 more accessible for everyone. We now have largely expanded our suite of identity verification solutions to offer a comprehensive range of options, from basic Personhood validation to fully-regulated KYC/AML and KYB processes.

But identification is an ever-evolving challenge, and we realized that we needed a more holistic approach. That’s why we also created Anima, a decentralized identity (dID) protocol that empowers Web3 users to manage their online identity across Web3. With Anima, users have full control over their personal data and privacy, and can easily share certified information across different platforms and communities to build trust and reputation in the decentralized world.

TJK: Great! Let us come to the second question: Who are your partners & customers? Can you tell us more about them?

Flolg: Ok, I’ll try to be a bit faster on my answers so people don’t have to read huge blocks 🙂

We work with over 600 crypto projects, including some big names like Polygon, Polkadot, Gitcoin, Mina Protocol, and Qredo. And now we can add to the list C4E 🙂 Our identification services are designed to make life easier for everyone involved, whether it’s investors looking to join new projects, projects willing to improve their governance, or companies seeking to onboard users in a secure and privacy-friendly way.

One thing that’s really important to us is privacy. We know that projects want to respect privacy and people maintain anonymity, so we offer a range of anonymous claims that allow our clients to verify user identities without collecting any irrelevant data.

For example, we can confirm that all users are over a certain age limit or that vote participants are unique and not bots without asking anyone to disclose their full identity.

But of course, some clients have specific regulatory requirements that they need to meet. That’s where we come in with our customized KYC/KYB solutions. We’ve helped companies like Jump Trading, Sygnum (a Swiss bank that is crypto-friendly), and Just Mining/Meria navigate the complex landscape of regulatory compliance in the crypto industry, and we’re always looking for ways to make the process easier and more straightforward.

So our goal is really to provide flexible and adaptable solutions that can fit a wide range of needs and regulatory requirements, while always putting user privacy and security first.

TJK: Yes, anonymity & privacy are important to many of us. Ok, here we have another question: How has your collaboration started with C4E? I think this is a very interesting point 😁

Flolg: It started through a mutual connection that introduced us to each other. Initially, we began discussing how we could help C4E with the compliance aspects of your private sale. As we explained our approach to decentralized identity through our Anima protocol, we quickly realized that there were deeper synergies between our two organizations 🤝

TJK: Since we know how did it exactly begin…so…What benefits we might expect Synaps will bring to C4E? This is going to be great I am sure 👀 Let’s hear it

Flolg: Ho this one is going to be a long answer 😊

One of the key things we can offer is our compliance solutions. We’ve helped over 600 crypto projects raise over $5 billion, so we know a thing or two about navigating the compliance landscape in the crypto industry.

But what really sets us apart is our Anima protocol, which offers some unique features that we think could be particularly helpful for C4E. Here are the 3 top topics that come to my mind:

First, we have our Proof of Personhood solution. It allows for unique user identification while preserving full privacy. This is essential for preventing Sybil attacks and can be really helpful for things like airdrops. We also see a lot of potential for new types of governance beyond “1 token = 1 vote”. Our solution is well-suited for supporting new types of governance like quadratic voting — something that Vitalik Buterin has been publishing on a lot. We really believe that PoP can highly enhance the community experience and engagement.

Second, we have our claims feature. This one allows users to share certain data points about themselves without revealing their full identity. This provides greater privacy and control for users. For example, you can prove you’re over 18 years old without disclosing any other information about yourself. Here again, the goal is to help create a certain level of trust within a community without damaging privacy.

Finally, we have our Proof of Identity solution, which enables fully compliant KYC with just a simple wallet signature. We know that compliance can be a real headache, but we’ve worked hard to make the process as easy and secure as possible for users.

TJK: Wow, I really love it. I believe our collaboration will be very fruitful. Now, the last question for Part I comes.In your opinion what future opportunities lay ahead of our project? 👀

Flolg: I think the future of crypto lies in expanding beyond just financial topics. While DeFi is important, we see a need for a broader ecosystem that caters to different value propositions and user needs.

So far, because Web3 operates in a “dark forest”. In this context, trust is a scarce resource and every user is treated as a potential scammer. And since capital is Sybil-resistant by design, this has led to a Web3 that prioritizes financial power over users.

We see C4E as a key player in this broader ecosystem, with a vision for building a decentralized ecosystem that goes beyond just financial gains. We’re excited to partner with you and explore how our decentralized identity solutions can support your mission and contribute to the growth of the Web3 community

Community Questions

Question 1:
How do you rate the importance of user community? Does your project have any special programs to connect and expand the community?

Answer 1:
At Anima, we highly value community feedback and requests in our product development process. We engage with our community through our Discord server and always conduct soft launches with selected, highly engaged members before releasing new versions of our product.

Our ideal user 😉 is someone who is not only aware of the importance of personal data management but also recognizes the need to address the challenge of Sybil attacks in building a more equitable and democratic alternative to the current capital-based web3. With Anima, we can create the foundation for a new reputation system, identify unique users and help create engagement and growth systems centered around these unique members, without taking into account their investment capacity as the primary criterion.

The Anima protocol team is very passionate about governance. We believe that it is an area that still requires a lot of exploration in web3. Our Proof of Personhood (PoP) solution will play a crucial role in implementing new governance systems that better consider the interests of small token holders.

For our DAO, we plan to leverage Anima’s PoP for quadratic voting as a first experiment to equally engage small and big token holders. This approach will lead to a more fair, democratic, and decentralized decision-making process.

Question 2:
As you continue your journey, what is your next most important priority? Does your team have enough background (Funds, Community, etc) to hit those milestones?

Answer 2:
We have been working closely with many big players in the industry. So we were able to establish a very good network in crypto. We also raised funds from very good people and VCs from the industry. We have an amazing team.

The next step for us is really to spread the Proof of Personhood that we believe is a key changer in how protocols can be built. We want to be the backbone of the web3 reputation that we believe is going to emerge in the near future.

So getting some traction on our PoP, releasing our solution on multiple chains (right now we are only on EVM chains but thanks to our partnership with C4E, we will release really soon our solution on Cosmos), and most importantly, doing this switch where we have a very strong branding in the B2B area of crypto but the community doesn’t necessarily know us. So we also want to focus on growing the community by creating a protocol that can really be designed with the users. You can be sure that we will be the first one to use our own PoP in order to implement a DAO based on quadratic voting

Question 3:
How does Synaps ensure data privacy while performing identity verification?

Answer 3:
We created Synaps as a KYC provider and Anima as the decentralized identity protocol. It means that we don’t rely on 3rd parties to do the verifications.

A user can do his verification, and once done, the user can connect his wallet and encrypt the data. This is done on the user’s side so we don’t have control over this data.

So Synaps does the verification, deletes the data it has, and thanks to Anima, the user can encrypt the data and store it on decentralized data storage. You and only you have access to this data as we can’t decrypt it.

Question 4:
The only way the blockchain industry will expand and grow is if we have users who can use our products with ease. What are some of your unique features of you that will help attract more users?

Answer 4:
100% right. But right now crypto is still very new. Let’s put aside people who hope to make quick and easy money by investing in crypto. And only focus on the users. Right now using crypto projects often means a worse user experience than using a centralized platform.

So users are here because crypto provides something different. It aligns with the values of the current users.

But probably not every person in the world wants to use crypto only because of its value proposition of decentralization.

So we need real use cases. And I believe, that our decentralized identity protocol is a real use case.

If you want to do a normal KYC for a bank, you need to go through a complicated process. If you are a crypto user, you can simply sign a message with your wallet. The user experience is clearly better for a crypto user.

Our proof of personhood is also a perfect example. Fake accounts have existed since the Internet exists. It’s not a crypto problem. It’s an internet problem. Twitter is full of fake accounts. By providing our PoP solution, we allow decentralized projects to build a better solution than Twitter. A platform where bots are blocked.

Question 5:
Where can I buy your token? Any upcoming exchange listings?

Answer 5:
Definitely! We’re thrilled to say that a token is on our roadmap. But right now, our focus is on building the best technology possible. We’ve got a great community of over 25,000 users and the protocol is growing every day. Our user base is currently growing at 4% per week.

To unlock our next stage of growth, there are still a few important features we want to add. We’re confident that with a little more time and effort, we’ll have a product that’s ready to take on the world.

When the time is right, we’ll launch our token and we’ll be sure to let everyone know all about it and what it can do.

If you are interested in what we do, you can join our telegram group or our discord and take part in our community. You’ll help us make crypto a better ecosystem for the real users who have no say in most DAOs at the moment because VCs own too much of the supply

Summary

At C4E we focus on community power. This is why we invite you to participate in the regularly held AMA Sessions on our Telegram Group & Twitter Spaces. To stay up to date follow us on Twitter or Telegram.