The Sanctor Turbo Alpha Class has graduated — Demo Day Recap
On September 14, we hosted a live event that featured three demos, and three panels with industry thought leaders to give our cohort a proper send off. We are incredibly proud of the work the teams behind ThorSwap, Koii and Synchrony put in over the past six weeks. We are also incredibly grateful for the time and support provided by our wonderful mentor group.
Koii Network shows an NFT that is alive
Koii Network kicked off the Alpha Class demos, and got the audience going by teasing an NFT drop. Koii Network is an infrastructure project built on top of Arweave, and focuses on information and content generation, discovery and management.
See the Koii Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wldHByU8YLc
Al Morris, the network’s founders, shared with the audience the question that catalyzed the development:
why is it that around the world, technology gets better every single year and yet with all that growth and all that development and all these smart people solving all these problems, a lot of people’s lives don’t seem to get better?
He found the answer in the way information gets created and shared, and ultimately in how people are able to or unable to access it, and so built Koii as “an operating system for decentralization”. It utilizes Koii nodes to complete various tasks such as oracle services or web scraping and writes information directly into the permastorage layer, dramatically decreasing the cost of operations.
The team demonstrated the power of Koii by showing how atomic NFTs can be used to create live digital objects. At the event, Al unveiled the Narcissus Flower, which blooms and withers in real time, based on the amount of attention it is getting. Those in the audience got a chance to help the flower bloom and also get their own bulbs.
Source: https://koii.network/
In the coming days, Koii will be hosting a Garden Party to celebrate the Narcissus Flower and further explore the possibilities of the atomic NFT with the crypto community. You can RSVP for the September 27th event here.
Synchrony brings indexes and social trading to Solana
Synchrony, an on-chain asset management protocol on Solana, highlighted the functionalities and features that have been unlocked by scalability of the underlying layer one infrastructure. One of the primary areas of focus for the team has been the retail investment segment and the modern focus on social interaction. This is why its first features are copy trading and index creation. Copy trading enables users to get one-click exposure to particular market slices, while the creation of indices enables some crowd wisdom/reputation driven passive investment.
See the Synchrony Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyb-vw-VSU8
The indices utilized by the copy-trade wallets also exist as pools providing users an entry point and or passive strategy with a focus on the assets and instruments present on the Solana ecosystem.
The team is keenly aware of the need for data analysis for users to make informed decisions, and so it has integrated a comprehensive data analytics suite into the platform. For the fans of the Solana ecosystem, it is also going to be a place to monitor macro level statistics like TVL. With the blockchain infrastructure maturing quickly, the team believes the time is now for active on-chain asset management.
ThorSwap unveils a terminal for the interoperable future
The third project of our cohort was ThorSwap, which debuted a desktop app for the first multi chain DEX built on THORChain infrastructure. Watch the product video here.
See the ThorSwap Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2ExeKWJeGo
The video gives a sneak peak at the new trading terminal and also hints at the team’s broader DeFi ambitions. ThorSwap also unveiled its ThorChads rewards platform, which capitalizes on THORChain’s vibrant community.
Demo Day wrapped up with three exciting panels featuring industry thought leaders and cohort founders.
On the state of interoperability
First, was the discussion on the state of interoperability in the industry, featuring: Andre Cronje (Yearn Finance), Chad Barraford (Technical Lead at ThorChain), Derek Yoo (CEO of Moonbeam) and Hendrik Hofstadt (Jump Trading), moderated by Zack Seward (CoinDesk).
The Current and Future State of Interoperability: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2-66xgGcEU
The panel covered a number of key topics of the multi-chain vision. Andre and Chad shared their thoughts about how we got here and how timing and technology maturation plays a role. Hendrik gave his take on the battle for user attention, and Derek talked about how Polkadot is looking at “extending the interoperability use cases to be about more than tokens”.
This was a thought provoking discussion regarding one of the most important matters in the industry today: what the interoperable future will look like.
Solana leadership answers the call
The second panel was supposed to be about traditional finance stepping into the DeFi world using the Solana infrastructure, featuring: Anatoly Yakovenko (CEO of Solana Labs), Kanav Kariya (Jump Trading), Tushar Jain (Managing Partner of Multicoin Capital), Andrew Fraser (Founder at Synchrony), and moderated by Frank Chaparro (The Block).
Bringing TradFi to DeFi on Solana panel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF7AiDXS_Fc
However, the event of that day dictated a different narrative. The panel took place in the middle of a 17-hour network outage, and the panel gave a brief look inside the Solana war room. It was impressive to see the founder and ecosystem leader go on air and answer the tough questions during such a challenging time.
It was also encouraging to see top investors show unwavering support for the network and advocate patience. It is easy to be a believer when things are going well, however real supporters show up when the going gets tough.
The audience got a chance to see the ecosystem leaders explain what was happening, and reaffirm their confidence that what occurred was an unfortunate technical issue and not a fundamental challenge that could threaten the network long term.
The final panel discussed the nature of value and economics for creators working with NFT technology and featured: Sam Williams (Arweave), Robby Yung (CEO of Animoca Brands), Kevin Abosch (Conceptual Artist), Al Morris (Founder of Koii Network), moderated by Jon Rice (Cointelegraph).
Redefining Art, Economics & Value with NFT Builders & Creators: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2UZytNvhIo
The panel touched on philosophical topics regarding the nature of the value of art and asked tough questions like: “are we in a bubble?”
One of the most thought provoking subjects was the discussion around whether permastorage technology has undermined the value of ownership and has started to shift things towards a flex and sponsorship model. As Sam Williams put it:
And for what it’s worth in the physical space that kind of control over the art appears to be where at least some of the value comes from, um, now in the crypto art space, something much, much cooler it’s happening, but I don’t think that we have the right words to describe it yet. It would seem to me like what we have is actually sponsorship of art rather than ownership of art.
As a result we could see attention become the next driver and or expression of value, which could be a paradigm shift.
This was an exciting event, and we are incredibly proud of the graduated Alpha Class. We want to thank all of the teams and speakers for their time and thoughtfulness.
We are now in the process of forming the Beta Class cohort, so if you are a founder with an exciting idea, we encourage you to reach out to us at info@sanctor.com.
Disclaimer: This commentary is not investment advice. It does not purport to include any recommendation as to any particular investment, transaction or investment strategy, or any recommendation to buy or sell any investment. It does not reflect any attempt to effect any transactions or render any investment advice.
This post is solely for informational and entertainment purposes. It is inherently limited and does not purport to be a complete discussion of the issues presented or the risks involved. Readers should seek their own independent legal, tax, accounting, and investment advice from professional advisors. The views reflected in this commentary are subject to change at any time without notice.
The authors or their affiliates have ownership or other economic interests or intend to have interests in several of the organizations and crypto assets discussed, including ThorSwap, Synchrony, and Koii Network, as well as other crypto assets not referenced.
