Satoshi Club AMA recap
Robocop | Satoshi Club
and today our guests are – @Martin Birch and @ilia_obrazcov
Welcome guys to Satoshi Club!
Mary | Satoshi Club
Ilia, Martin could you please introduce yourselves and tell us more about Smartlands Network
Martin Birch
Hi everyone this is Martin Birch, Non-Exec Chairman of Smartlands group. We are an asset tokenization platform in n which owners of real assets such as commercial real estate or SME owners to name a few can list and sell minority stakes in their assets on the platform with the whole process registered on the blockchain.
Ilia Obrazcov
My name is Ilia Obraztcov and I’m the CEO of Definder (previously known as Smartlands). We’re developing the world-leading platform for the tokenization of real economy assets. And we were the first in the world to tokenize real estate on the public blockchain, available to buy for the retail audience (in 2019, in the UK)
Martin Birch
The buyers of coins on the platform thus have a pro-rata ownership of the asset. We also are able to offer tokenized debit instruments
Martin Birch
Sorry I should have written Definder not Smartlands as that is the new name of our holding company
Robocop | Satoshi Club
so for now we should call Definder instead of Smartlands network ? or
we can keep calling Smartlands like usual?
Ilia Obrazcov
SLT is a utility token, that fuels all the activities in our platform. Especially all the participants of Definder/Smartlands ecosystem have to collect all the fees and SLT, and the portion (33%) of the collected fees goes as staking rewards (without increasing SLT supply)
Mary | Satoshi Club
As i know most of the existing before real estate blockchain project failed, do you know why? What different you build and why you should have succeeded? Because personally i think it’s a great idea to work with real estate using blockchain, but it’s still looks like a dream
Ilia Obrazcov
Definder – is a new name of our ecosystem and holding company.
SLT – is our utility token, issued in 2017 on the Stellar Network.
and Smartlands – is our brand for real estate and agriculture vertical.
We decided to rebrand, to more focus on the long-term vision (DeFi for real economy assets, more directions for investments, etc.)
Ilia Obrazcov
Our main competitive advantage is a unique positioning, as not only tech/smart contracts/infrastructure provider, but as a complete alternative investment platform, a one-stop-shop solution both for the asset owners and all kinds of investors (retail, HNWIs, family offices).
Mary | Satoshi Club
Gotcha. Btw, could you tell us about your team? It should be big and strong to create such a project
Martin Birch
This is a complicated question but I would argue that the main difference with Smartlands is that we are creating a complete infrastructure that is fully legally compliant with the laws of the country in which it operates. For example, in Liechtenstein we have created a subsidiary, hired the best law firms, and made sure that we have become part of the legal and business environment. This process has required a large (6 figure) investment in Swiss Francs but has the effect of allowing us to operate as part of a recognized legal structure in a country that is globally well respected for its financial stewardship. I suspect earlier projects just focused on the crypto aspect of their business and did not overcome all the legal requirements to support their operations.
Mary | Satoshi Club
I see you take everything more than seriously than you will be the first who succeed
Mary | Satoshi Club
So, what about team
Robocop | Satoshi Club
do you have main office for Definder team? on which country or do your team spread around the world?
Martin Birch
Yes, we already carried out tokenization of student halls of residence n the UK back in 2019 which made us fully compliant with the UK laws at the time, we were also the first to carry out a real estate tokenization project on the Stelar blockchain. We are now in the process of rolling this out globally – our ultimate target is to tokenize $1 trillion of assets globally.
Ilia Obrazcov
Our core team is – 10 highly skilled professionals with great track records in investment banking, finance, and tech.
And we’re closely working with multiple contractors, including top lawyers in Liechtenstein and Ukraine, IT and blockchain specialists, marketing, etc. In total, more than 30 people.
Mary | Satoshi Club
Even in Ukraine not sure about it, as the law on virtual assets was vetoed by the president🥲
Martin Birch
We have an office in Kyiv, but our CMO is based in the UK, our CEO is in Vilnius, I am British but I live in Kyiv, we have team members in Liechtenstein, we are truly a decentralised company which you would surely expect from a company breaking new ground in the DeFi space.
Ilia Obrazcov
Our main office is currently in Kyiv, where we’re building our first alternative investment platform for the local real estate assets (average net profit in USD for the commercial real estate in Ukraine is about 10% annualized).
And in Liechtenstein, we’re building our holding company and licensed vehicle for the tokenization (until virtual assets law in Ukraine comes into force)
Robocop | Satoshi Club
that’s really great and professional team Definder have
Mary | Satoshi Club
Guys, thank you for your intro, we are really excited to see your answers from our community now!
Robocop | Satoshi Club
Q1 from Telegram user @Ajpaa
SMARTLANDS announced few days ago the change of its brand name to DEFINDER to better reflect the company’s move into more different spheres of business and new geographical areas. Prior to this change, you have established leadership in the real estate and agriculture tokenization market. So my question are what are the specific reasons you decide to rebrand and why did you choose DEFINDER as new brand name? Which other business directions are you expanding to and which specific opportunities does such businesses offer your platform and users? Which new geographic areas are on your radar for expansion?
Robocop | Satoshi Club
some of them already answered but i believe you still have some story to add
Martin Birch
That is not correct the law was not vetoed just sent back to parliament for some fine-tuning. The main issue is that the original law demanded a new authority be created to oversee crypto activities. President Zelenskiy rightly pointed out that Ukraine already has an SEC so why create yet another government institution, he suggested that the crypto and blockchain laws come under the jurisdiction of the existing SEC. We are well connected within government circles and the feedback we are getting is that the President’s answer does make sense and we expect it all to be signed in the coming weeks.
Mary | Satoshi Club
Hopefully yes, we all are waiting for it
Ilia Obrazcov
There are two main points that we were using when choosing the new brand name for our holding:
1st – is the “DeFi”. The main pain point for security tokens currently in the market – is inability to put them into collateral. We’re solving this with the DeFi approach.
2st – is the “Define”. We feel that we’re actually “defining” the shape how security tokens will work globally, integrate into both a real and crypto-market economies.
Ilia Obrazcov
We also want to explicitly point out, that the SLT token remains the one and only utility token for the whole Definder ecosystem
Robocop | Satoshi Club
I also wanted to clarify why you chose Stellar blockchain for $SLT token?
Mary | Satoshi Club
What benefits will SLT tokens holders have? What are their usecases?
Martin Birch
Ilia is also answering the question on our new name but here is my input as well. You will all be familiar with the fact that Google rebranded as Alphabet and Facebook as Meta Group, this is because Google had become more than just a search engine and Facebook more than just a social media site. Smartlands was initially created to tokenize land-based assets such as farmland and real estate but since our founding, we have noted multiple opportunities in other areas such as NFTs, SMEs, data centers, agricultural produce, and so on. We felt the name Smartlands did not fully reflect all the business verticals we have developed. From the token holder perspective, however, SLT will always be the currency of our ecosystem across all business verticals and 33% of all fees generated will be returned to qualifying SLT holders who enter our “soft” staking program
Martin Birch
The SLT token is the currency of the Definder ecosystem, all assets which are ICOed on our platform generate fees, typically 5% for a new listing with an additional Euro 5,000 listing fee. We only accept payment in the SLT token so the more business we do the more demand there will be for the SLT token. There are of course only 7.1mn in existence of which around 5.5mn are in circulation so you can see the rarity factor of having a limited circulation with no mining possible can only be positive for the trajectory of the SLT quote as we start to generate fee income and return 33% of this to our qualifying holders in a fee pool distribution.
Robocop | Satoshi Club
great utility token, where we can buy $SLT?
Ilia Obrazcov
Besides really good connections to the Stellar team and all the Stellar family, there are a couple of killing points regarding the tech:
1st – Stellar is one of the best DLT designed specifically for all potential operations with fungible tokens (therefore – suits all our tech needs out of the box).
2st – Transaction speed and costs. Since we’re focusing on retail investments and all kinds of DeFi, it’s really a strong competitive advantage to be able to settle all the operations in 5 seconds with a sub-1-cent-fee.
3rd – Ukraine. Stellar is building a great presence in the local market, including the CBDC. Having our tech developed on the same blockchain where the national currency will be issued – is a huge thing, that will greatly increase the adoption (especially the connection with the traditional economy, banks, custodians, etc.)
Martin Birch
Good question we are on the Stellar SDEX of course and the most active live quote is on the WhiteBit exchange, I might add that you can sign up for WhiteBit in minutes and they currently do not demand KYC for withdrawals below 2 BTC
Robocop | Satoshi Club
Q2 from Telegram user @Highpee
You launched an alternative investment project in Ukraine and this program is designed to enable users become a fractional owner of profitable assets. What does it mean to become a fractional asset owner and is this going to benefit DeFi investors? What is required from interested users who may wish to register and become a fractional asset owner and is this opportunity limited to Ukrainians? How do you identify lucrative assets suitable for investment and how do you intend to lower the buy-in threshold so as to ensure that it is accessible and affordable by many?
Ilia Obrazcov
I will answer re the benefits, and I’ll focus on the processes.
Our main goal – is to open the Ukrainian market for investors across the globe. In Ukraine, there are lots of profitable investment opportunities but the local market is quite immature – therefore available only for big players who can afford all the bureaucracy costs.
Using our tech and legal framework we will be able to streamline all the processes, and naturally open the market for capital from abroad.
Since our blockchain platform automates all the processes, we can afford to lower the minimum investment threshold to dozens of dollars and can accept also crypto investments.
The main and only requirements to participate in the ICOs on the platform – are to pass automated KYC process and register the Smartlands Wallet.
Martin Birch
That is several questions so here it goes …. imagine a shopping mall, fully let and always busy, imagine you go there many times a month to do your shopping. You as a private citizen have no chance in becoming a partial owner of such an asset as its value will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. However, if the ultimate owner of the mall were to ICO a minority holding in the mall on the Smartlands platform they would raise additional cash for their own needs and give the general public the chance to become a minority owner of the business too with that partial ownership recorded on the blockchain and underlying asset protected by a custodian. So if the mall was worth say $500mn and the owner(s) ICOed 10% they would raise $50mn by issuing for example 5 mn coins at $10 or 50mn coins at $1. Each coin would entitle the owner to a pro-rate minority share in the ownership of that asset, entitle them to a pro-rata profit share in the asset, and over time as it went up in value give them a capital gain. To take part in this process end users simply need to download the Smartlands (Definder) wallet and transact their activities through it
Martin Birch
As to how we identify assets, we are ideally looking for high-quality commercial property with long term tenants producing a good yield
Ilia Obrazcov
Regarding the quality of investment opportunities. At the current stage of the project, our team is hand-picking the lucrative investment opportunities (leveraging our inside knowledge in the market).
Later on, when the ecosystem matures, we expect lots of investors and investment opportunities to be available, and therefore the market forces will define the quality aspect.
However, as the licensed entities, the participants of the ecosystem (brokers, issuers, etc.) will be always obliged by law to conduct a basic due-diligence of assets to protect the investors.
Robocop | Satoshi Club
Q3 from Telegram User @Cheriemike
In SmartLands Network,every user is allowed to become a Validator of the the network participating in maintaining consensus and network governance.But to become a Validator are there some basic requirements these interested users have to meet before becoming a Validator on your platform?Since you have given the opportunity of being a Validator to all users,how about users who may not want to be a Validator what what tasks are given to these ones?Can you also talk on Delegation freezes token users account,what connection does it with a validator transactions?You also mentioned a Block reward paid in the $SLT token an incentive for running a Validator and Delegating token.So can you tell us what the Block reward includes?Please explain Thanks
Ilia Obrazcov
Validators thing – is probably an old news
In 2020 we were unsure regarding the overall direction of the Stellar Network and our fit in the Stellar future. Also there was no “Ukraine” in our plans. We were focusing on the ecosystem development and developing our own blockchain using the Cosmos SDK.
But in the end of 2020 we signed the major partnership with Empire State Capital – Ukraininan investment bank (is a managing partner in ESCP). Also we got a confirmation from Stellar to align our plans, roadmap, and future features with Stellar roadmap and improvement proposals – ultimately, confirmed that all our dreams regarding SLT staking, DeFi, loans vs. collateral, auto-invest, ecosystem thing, all can be developed utilising Stellar. And of course CBDC and the presence of Stellar in the local market.
And that was the tipping point for our project. All the “stars aligned”, we redefined our plans and started to build an investment platform for Ukrainian real estate.
Robocop | Satoshi Club
Do you want to add something or lets go to next question?
Robocop | Satoshi Club
Q4 telegram user @Rotoxy
As a real estate investment protocol, you will generate a solid stream of revenue from closed deals and you have created a fee pool which is intended to demonstrate your commitment on premium sharing with your qualified token holders. Can you explain what it required to be a qualified token holders in order to enjoy this premium sharing feature? Will the sharing be done at a specific interval, randomly or on a project to project basis? What amount of generated premium from the fee pools will be shared to qualified holders and how do you determine the amount that each will person will get?
Ilia Obrazcov
is covering Q4, and I can answer the next
Martin Birch
To become a qualified holder the holder simply needs to “soft” stake their SLT holding through the Definder / Smartlands wallet. The minimum requirement is Euro 1,000 of SLT to qualify, the exchange rate is fixed at the start of the month and applies to the remainder of that month. All qualifying token holders are then due to sharing in the fee pool distribution which represents 33% of the fees generated in that month. This is shared on a pro-rata basis among the qualifying holders based upon the number of tokens staked and the number of days staked in that month. I might add this is “soft” staking and holders can unstake their SLT at any time. This also, of course, helps to further reduce the amount of SLT in general circulation which, if one understands the concept of elasticity of supply and demand can only be good for the direction of the SLT price over time.
Mary | Satoshi Club
Affordable minimum and good profit
Martin Birch
That’s the idea
Robocop | Satoshi Club
Q5 telegram user @Orlemys
The next product scheduled to launch on your platform is Smartlands Secondary Market. Would you explain what are the use cases of said Market? You talked about Exchanges and DEXes and MFT licenses; could you explain how it all works? How do we as investors benefit from this Secondary Market? What can we do?
Ilia Obrazcov
While is answering regarding the benefits and necessity of the secondary market, I will cover mostly the tech and roadmap aspects.
The secondary market for securities is the holy grail of the whole idea of putting the real economy assets on the blockchain. There is a natural barrier – the secondary market should be compliant with all the requirements defined in securities laws (these are, frankly speaking, very similar in almost all jurisdictions).
So, we’re developing a compliant secondary market, first, it will be released as a “bulletin board” (auction-style market, currently the best example of such type of marketplace – is a modern NFT marketplace).
Later on, our ultimate goal is to have an exchange-style market with the order book (MTF license).
Martin Birch
We are a str9ong believer in giving investors in our ICOs an exit strategy, while some investors are happy to tie their funds up for years this is not true of everyone. So, in order to address this and make the Definder / Smartlands world attractive to as many potential investors as possible, we have created both the legal and technical structures necessary for a secondary market. This will be run as a bulletin board type market where investors in our ICOs can sell their coins by placing offers and buy more by placing bids. It will also allow the issuer of the ICO to buy back their own cons as well if they want to increase their ownership over time. As I mentioned earlier real estate tends to go up in price over time and this will be reflected in the market price of asset quotes on the platform so to lock in any capital gains some holders may want to sell their minority interest in an asset by selling their token, which also means someone else has bought them. Our secondary market will give them a safe, legally compliant place to do so with the whole event recorded on the blockchain for everyone’s security.
Martin Birch
Thank you there are numerous articles written by our team on our blog which can be viewed here https://definder.global/news/ and choosing the blog option
Ilia Obrazcov
Ultimately we want the secondary market to be transparent and convenient for investors. And also – we want to give them more options rather than just to liquidate their portion to fiat. Therefore, we’re focusing on not only providing the secondary market but also providing an ability to borrow liquidity by putting security tokens into a DeFi-style collateral pool.
Robocop | Satoshi Club
Q6 telegram user @Modrumz120
With the high rise of cyber attacks today, I read from your website that compliance oracles are the optical solution given the current development level of infrastructure for securities issued on the blockchain. It’s known that popular blockchain such as Ethereum with high security and others have been victims of cyberattacks. Can you tell us, How safer smartlands network is compared to other networks? What’s the main advantage of compliance oracles in this case? How will compliance oracles work to make your platform more secure? Thank you. What amount of generated premium from the fee pools will be shared to qualified holders and how do you determine the amount that each will person will get?
Robocop | Satoshi Club
its last question from part 1, next will be live section from community prepare for the storm
Ilia Obrazcov
It’s like two questions
First, regarding security – we consider the Stellar network itself as a highly secure public ledger, governed by one of the best available consensus options – Stellar Consensus Protocol (the evolution of federated byzantine agreement consensus).
Our tech part, Smartlands/Definder platform – is a highly distributed and fault-tolerant compliance engine, that in a nutshell operates as a “regulated segment / regulated environment” of Stellar network, making sure that all the transactions in the regulated environment are compliant with securities laws.
And we built the compliance engine with the focus on the overall architectural security – we provide a non-custodial solution, where, while preserving regulatory compliance, every investor still holds the private key of the wallet.
Mary | Satoshi Club
Thank you for your detailed answers guys!
It’s time for live part now
Q1 from Telegram user @Ble73
I would like to know about the Role of SLT in the Smartlands Network Ecosystem and Once I Enter Into this Platform, For what Purpose I Can use the SLT TOKEN?
Martin Birch
SLT is the currency of the Definder ecosystem all fees are only accepted in SLT, if we are paid in $ or Euros we will sell them and buy SLT. The more business we do the greater the demand will be for SLT.
Q2 from Telegram user @MdLuffyo
How does Smartlands Network connect between on-chain tokens and off-chain assets, and how will these Smartlands provide consistency in between?
Ilia Obrazcov
Top lawyers solved this . This is really what our legal framework is all about. There is a traditional financial structure in place (funds, asset managers, custodians), and the security tokens are tied to the real assets in custody leveraging the proper virtual assets legislation (Liechtenstein, soon Ukraine)
Q3 from Telegram user @cryptorocks_12
What are the Target Audience of SMART LAND PLATFORM, IS Only English Community Users Can access the Platform Or take benefits from it Or you are targetting Users across globe?
Martin Birch
Global
Q4 from Telegram user @Nonerlike
Do you have registered office and location? Are you a global project or not? Do you have any plan for ambassador programme as well?
Ilia Obrazcov
We do.
Of course, we’re here for global adoption, just starting from Ukraine. And with a proof of concept, more jurisdictions will be open (as a white label)
Q5 from Telegram user @King_Raja
Smartlands- recently did a Collaboration with IX SWAP, why this Collaboration was Important?
Please tell more about it?
Martin Birch
We will be publishing more on this shortly but it represents our first steps into the Asia Pacific market, we see a lot of opportunities for us in Asia and it is quicker to JV with established players in the first instance
Q6 from Telegram user @iam12312
Why do You think that Tokenizing the real economy is really Important and how will it help the Users?
Ilia Obrazcov
From our website definder.global
Just a few benefits to begin with:
– A comprehensive way to invest in multiple real economy projects globally
– Low minimum ticket size for retail investors.
– Elimination of all trust issues related to the register of security token owners
– Settlement cost reduction
– Secondary market liquidity
– Easy and fast settlement process
Q7 from Telegram user @hmdtadel
Could an individual offer their house or apartment for sale or rent in your platform ??
Martin Birch
Not for rent but in theory, it could be sold however we are at this stage more interested in commercial properties that produce yields from tenants or business activities, we are not claiming to be a real estate agent after all.
Q8 from Telegram user @feranno
You mentioned that you were the first person to run a real estate tokenization project on the Stelar blockchain. So, why did you choose the Stellar network when starting your project?
I don’t think the Stellar ecosystem has expanded enough. Are you currently planning to integrate with larger ecosystems such as Solana, BSC, Polygon?
Ilia Obrazcov
We believe, once CBDC is live on Stellar, the landscape will change significantly
Also, we allow other cryptos to be used as a payment method to participate in the offerings, therefore there is no such thing as a barrier between Stellar and BSC/ETH ecosystems
Q9 from Telegram user @Ishan1_7
Your team is anonymous, according to what I’ve discovered. What prompted you to create an anonymous group?
Ilia Obrazcov
Ilia Obraztcov and Martin Joe Birch – are quite strange names for anonymous personas
Q10 from Telegram user @cenkkargin0666
Could you tell us about the potential customer base and target audience you would like to see on the SLT platform? Is SLT a platform created only for institutional investors, will individual users be able to join the SLT family?
Martin Birch
Definder / Smartlands is available to everyone. Yes, of course, institutional investors are important but our main business is to open up the world of investment to everyone on the same terms whether you are a millionaire or a student with a few hundred dollars spare.
