BlockTalks x Babylons AMA Transcript!
We recently hosted an AMA with Babylons, on August 31st at 1PM UTC. Many of you might have participated or many of not. But we make sure no one missed out from the knowledge shared by Egemen Hocaoglu, Community Manager at Babylons. So here we are up with the AMA transcript, for those who missed the live session, this blog post will be a saver & feeder of knowledge for them.
Introduction Questions Asked By Team BlockTalks!
Q1. Could you please introduce Babylons to our community in layman’s term?
Ans — Babylons is the first ‘truly’ community owned NFT marketplace on Binance Smart Chain with low gas fees (NFT creation cost on blockchain), fast transactions (NFT interaction speed on blockchain) and easy-to-use minting (NFT creating = minting) platform where a user can create environmentally sustainable NFTs, collect from amazing artists and trade with others while being involved in a fully functional Decentralized Autonomous Organization that uses the BABI governance token to operate, get rewarded and also socialize in our colorful community.
Q2. What are the advantages of Babylons to other alternatives in the Blockchain field?
Ans — Being built on top of Binance Smart Chain differentiates us from most of the big platforms however, this barely scratches the surface of what we have to offer.
We have a weekly reward system that financially incentivizes the active users of the platform, both buyers and sellers are eligible to weekly BABI airdrops. Almost half of our total token supply will be distributed to the community via these weekly airdrops. First batch was sent out just yesterday! Also gamers can trade their NFTs on Babylons and be eligible for these airdrops which creates a unique Play to Earn mechanism for the gaming industry combined with the power of NFTs.
While doing so, we only take %2 from buyers and sellers which also makes us stand apart in the competition with the lowest commissions as well as lowest gas fees. Revenue that is generated through these %2 commissions are also used for deflationary mechanics like buy & burn programs and some percentage of it goes to the stakeholders as stake rewards. First buyback and burn was also yesterday, also native staking will be live very soon with enhanced security already audited.
Oh also most importantly, we care about our community above all. So that we always listen to their feedback and suggestions, which we know that’s not the case with most of the other marketplaces. Please dig into our official pages and stay tuned on announcement channels because we have quite a lot going on :)
Q3. What are the major milestones Babylons achieved so far & what are in the future pipeline?
Ans — App.babylons.io went live on BSC mainnet at the end of April this year which was the biggest milestone imo
Going over 1000 users and NFTs on the platform can also be considered a milestone because we saw that Babylons is something people sought after and they like how it is now, plus helping each other to make it better like in an ideal DAO mindset.
Then $BABI token launch was a major one as well, after selling out both IDOs on ChainBoost and TrustPad, now trading both on PancakeSwap and Apeswap where you can do yield farm on BABI — BNB pair as well!
First token burn worth 50K USD and first weekly buyback have also occurred yesterday together with the first of the weekly BABI airdrops for NFT traders to be continued for 365 weeks spreading token supply distribution over 7 years.
In the pipeline, we have cross chain support coming, auction mechanism, collaboration feature, fractional ownership, more language support, and most exciting for some, native BABI staking is coming in the following of previous milestones. Certik report of all smart contracts will be published also %100 resolved in the coming weeks together with some platform updates. We have quite a lot planned, you may look at this article to see what is planned for the near future.
Questions Asked on Twitter For Babylons Team!
Q1. A few hours ago you at Babylons performed the first big $BABI token burn of your platform. How often do you expect to do this kind of burning within your platform? Will you keep this practice in the future depending on the needs of the project or the users?
Ans — We will buy back and burn BABI tokens each week, the amount of the burn depends on the volume traded on Babylons NFT Marketplace. We will also have big burn events each 6 months which will make BABI even more scarce! Since Babylons have DAO vision, the conditions and limitations in our genuine p2e mechanisms are all subject to change according to the will of the Babylons Community.
Q2. Since Collateral Ventures stands out among its strategic partners, I would like to know, is Collateral Ventures the investment arm of Collateral that coined NFT using Babylons technology to raise funds for the projects they incubated? What benefits does it bring to the ecosystem?
Ans — They basically used Babylons NFT marketplace as a token launchpad. They minted NFTs on Babylons and the users who got or bought them, these NFT holders got airdropped of their own tokens. This utility of NFTs used in a similar manner solves a lot of problems for a lot of projects and it is a brand new era. We will definitely have more support and activity on this side of the business.
Q3. One of the most iconic features of Babylons is their decentralized DAO. This characteristic differentiates Babylons from the rest of the common marketplaces. Can you explain how it works exactly? How can people vote to determine the direction of Babylons?
Ans — Babylons has quite a unique governance model as a DAO utilizing BABI tokens. Our weekly reward system combined with our stake reward mechanism creates the base for Babylons DAO. Stakers get stake rewards earned from buy-sell commissions in $BABI. Artists, creators, collectors and gamers earn BABI as they participate in the marketplace volume. BABI gets more scarce as burn events take place and everybody wins!
In addition to staking and stake rewards in BABI, token stakers will have voting rights to be involved in the decision making process for the future of Babylons. These voting rights will be in effect for various decisions including marketing, management, design, business development and so on. Possibilities are endless really, we plan to give more and more utility to the BABI token and its stakers via our both existing and future partnerships to be announced.
We have plans for crowdfunding through NFTs like launchpads but selling non fungible tokens instead of fungible ones as discussed above. We have plans for a tier-based API data usage system. We have plans for in-game advantages for BABI stakers via partnerships and much more! Stay tuned to learn more about these in detail as we announce new partnerships, publish community updates, and release articles explaining these utilities.
Q4. What’s your vision and mission for Babylons project?
Ans — NFTs are an important and immediate challenge and opportunity for supporting public goods and services especially of the creative variety through the value generated “out-of-the-ether’’ and at least propose a partial but solid solution for the tragedy of the commons problem well known in economic science. We aim to pull the conception of legitimacy for NFTs into a good and community-driven direction in order to create an actual chance to found a rock-hard channel of financing to artists, charities and much more to ensure that multiple groups benefit from them simultaneously.
Q5. What is your plans for global expansion,on building and developing or getting customers and users, or partnerships?
Ans — We are onboarding Ambassador Artists from over 30 countries in order to carry our voice in both English and non-English speaking communities on the world and the web. We have also already started translating our platform and content into multiple languages where we already have 4 local language support on the marketplace. We are working with international teams, collectives and networks to ensure that our vision is carried out globally.
Also we opened an international text chat on our Discord server to encourage people to mingle there in their own languages. We will also be launching Babylonsian Artists’ Fund where we will be utilizing DAO governance and BABI tokens, together with the Babylons community, in order to support emerging artists from all around the world.
you may check them under the Genesis Collection on app.babylons.io also :)
Not to mention our strategic partnership globally to ensure our voice is heard everywhere in the world and heard right! We want to be accessible by everyone in the world, so that if there are any community members that would like to connect with us. You know where to find us ;)
Questions Asked by our BlockTalks Community Members during live Session to Babylons Team!!
Q1. Babylons’ NFT market and minting rig is currently built on top of BSC’s network, which is rare as it is usually ETH in these cases, but makes sense given the gas fluctuations. So, do you plan to expand your interoperability to other future chains, also rate-friendly like Solana?
Ans — We believe that low costs and fast transactions in BSC will enable the masses to be involved in the NFT space since all costs related are significantly cheaper than ETH, which again is the blockchain the most popular NFT platforms use, thus discouraging a big part of the society with lower incomes to get involved in the game. BSC is very user-friendly from both developers’ and end-users perspectives, also it is very easy to adapt to if you are already familiar with Ethereum. The time to consider Ethereum alternatives is now, and BSC shines bright like a diamond when you are looking for solutions to build such an NFT business as Babylons.
On the other hand, we believe in an interoperable and cross-chain future. We already partnered and started working with PolyNetwork to provide cross-chain support to the community including Solana.
Q2. It is a common knowledge that income is crucial for for the sustained growth and development of a project. What are the income generation model or channels for Babylon? What is the role of users in Income generation on Babylon and what does users benefits from the income generated?
Ans — We only get %2 from buyers and sellers in order to create revenue. That revenue is rewarded to the BABI stakeholders and also used for buyback&burn program to raise the holding value of BABI tokens in addition DAO governance utilities.
Please check our website and branch out to learn more about us!
Q3. Have you being audited ? Have not heard you talk about that security of funds is what every investor craves for and plans to escape incase of insecurity if funds,scams and rug pulls ? How strongly built are your security put in place?
Ans — We don’t hold users’ funds and NFTs on our wallets. People can easily connect their wallet and use our marketplace without depositing funds to our website. All their tokens will remain in their respective BSC compatible cryptocurrency wallet that they prefer to use while connecting to Babylons.
Long story short, users will hold their BEP-20, BEP-721 and BEP-1155 tokens in their own wallets, at the same time, they will be able to see and interact with them using Babylons platform via their own wallets.
On the other hand, we believe that security is top priority so that we are working with Certik to make an audit of our smart contracts, and that audit is already in progress, which you can follow up here:
Q4. I read that Babylons does not require users to verify, but on your roadmap there is a feature called Artist/Collector Verification System. How does this system work? What are the advantages of being a verified artist? And how is the process of getting verified?
Ans — veryone can use the platform however, not everyone can get verified. Basically you need to fill up a form where you will need to prove that you are you and your work is authentic. Only after that we verify accounts, so that there is also freedom but also moderation for better user experience and avoid fakes/copycats
Q5. On your website I found it interesting that Babylons will launch the Environmental Charity Fund to Combat the Global Warming Crisis. Can you tell us more about this? What measures do you have to combat this global warming crisis and how will you carry it out?
Ans — We are aware that each activity that use computational power like creating NFTs are causing Carbon release, we are using BSC to fight this issue because ETH is not scalable, it causes more damage when used at this popularity. Still though, there is a small carbon footprint we are leaving via creating NFTs, we will compensate that damage by decreasing our carbon footprint to zero via this charity fund.
