<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hello,\nSatoshi clubbers! Another AMA took place in Satoshi Club and we would like to\nintroduce to you the AMA session with our friends from Pinecone and our guest was\n@jinhowong. The AMA took place on 16 September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nAMA session was divided into 3 parts with a total crypto reward pool of 500$ <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In\nthis AMA Recap, we will try to summarise the most interesting points for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Hello \nSatoshi Club! We are happy to announce our AMA session with Pinecone!\nWelcome to Satoshi Club😀<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our guest today is\n@jinhowong👏<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah\n🏅🎹 | Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Hello @jinhowong\nWelcome to Satoshi Club we’re glad and Excited to have you here<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nHello everyone, pleasure to be here<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hi hows going<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club: <\/strong>Welcome here, Jin👏<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nThanks for the organization<\/p>\n\n\n\n thank you<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah\n🏅🎹 | Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Fine you are welcome<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> We are happy to see you here today and\nare excited to hear more about Pinecone😀<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nI am pleased to provide as much info as i can<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> So, let’s start 🚀<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:\n<\/strong>sure<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Could you please introduce yourself and\ntell us more about Pinecone 😀<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nAbout myself: this is Jin, founder of\nPinecone Finance. I Graduated from Tongji University with a bachelor’s degree\nand Oxford University MBA, and currently served as the Secretary General of\nOxford and Cambridge Alumni Society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have been in crypto\nworld since 2017, and was involved in the founding and development of two\ncrypto projects, including Wabi Project which was listed on Binance in 2017.\nBefore that, I was a business consultant worked in McKinsey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n About Pinecone Finance:\nSimply speaking, Pinecone Finance is a Yield Optimizer on Binance Smart Chain.\nWe focus on single asset farming. By providing users with multiple farming\nstrategies, including a unique dual layer reinvestment strategy with a hedging\nmechanism and an anti-flash loan mechanism, we aim to provide users with high\nreturns while minimizing risks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other than PCT rewards,\nPCT holders can also enjoy sustainable income in BNB coming from the\nperformance fee charged for vault users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah\n🏅🎹 | Satoshi Club:<\/strong> good to know that\nyou’ve been in this space for a while and have great experience<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> 2017 presented industry a lot of clever\npeople 😃<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nNot too long, only 4 years, still learning everyday since crypto world is\nchanging rapidly<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Yes, i am always impressed with speed\nof changes in crypto😀<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nAnd defi only starts to boom for a year<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah\n🏅🎹 | Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Yes and with Bright\nminds like you.. we are sure to see more Important changes come up 😊<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nActually<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Tell our community about Pinecone team😃\nwho are there?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nI dont think i am that smart myself, my team’s brains are much brighter<\/p>\n\n\n\n Currently there are\ncirca 14 people full time<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah\n🏅🎹 | Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Team work makes this\nindustry move<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nWe are a mature team consisting of people with various professional background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The core members of the\nteam come from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, US, UK, China and other parts of\nthe world. Each has more than 15 years of rich experience in traditional\nfinance and the crypto industry, and served in senior executive positions in\nFortune 500 companies, including CEO, CTO and other C-level positions, industry\nexperience varies from blockchain, Internet, gaming, finance, marketing and\npublic relations, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other than their\nexperience and expertise, what is more important to me is the integrity and\nethical standard of the team members. All the team members are either my childhood\nfriend or long term business partners or colleagues and the team was built\nbased on the shared value of trust, transparency and high ethical\nstandard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What makes us a strong\nteam is also the synergy and team work. With people from different gender,\nbackground and culture contributing to the project, we often see the great\ncreativity and ingeneous solution coming out of conficting thoughts and\nconstant debate. That is also part of\nthe pleasure I get from working on this project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Is your team public?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nNo, only myself is 100% public. As you know, some of the members are based in<\/p>\n\n\n\n China, where the policy\nto crypto is not friendly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Yes, that’s true, it’s sad that not all\ncountries are friendly to crypto<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nTo protect them, I choose to fully publisize my ID so that in case anything\nhappens, I will take the full responsibility<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah\n🏅🎹 | Satoshi Club:<\/strong> But are there plans of\nmaking them public anytime, or adding to the team members who will be public<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nAs you know in China, actually there is no other defi project has a public\nfounder…<\/p>\n\n\n\n Plan to make some public\ngradually<\/p>\n\n\n\n If we are all foreign,\ni will ask all members to be public<\/p>\n\n\n\n in the Wabi project,\nthe core team was public<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> I see😀 hope one day this will\nhappen!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nonly reason is to protect them from unforeseen gov policies in mainland china<\/p>\n\n\n\n I actually think all\ndefi project should be fully transparent<\/p>\n\n\n\n including team members<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> 👍 We all think and hope😀<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you for your\nintro, Jin! We choose 6 questions from our community for the first part of our\nAMA 🚀 Are you ready for them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nShoot me please lol<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah\n🏅🎹 | Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Lets go<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nsure<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q1 from Telegram user\n@Asela1112<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Currently\nUsers Can purchase $PCT tokens on BabySwap Which is introduced to the market\nrecently. Why did you make a compromise with BabySwap while there are top\nexchanges in BSC ecosystem such as Pancakeswap? And also by staking PCT-USDT\npair, Users are able to earn $BABY tokens. Conversely by Staking $BABY tokens,\n$PCTs can be earned. In here, how much is the minimum & maximum amounts,\nUsers should have in order to participate in Staking Protocal on BabySwap? What\nwill be the Given APR for PCT-USDT & $BABY tokens Stakings? What will be\nthe claiming periods, Will users be able to redeem the rewrds daily? Most\nstaking protocals maintain a locking period like 15 days, 30 days,45 days, 60\ndays etc.. What about the locking periods of this Staking event? Can I withdraw\nmy tokens at anytime with extra fee?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nActually we have good access to BSc from previous Binance resouces. We did talk\nto Pancakeswap but as you know we currently are still small so there is not\nmuch negociation leverage, and we will definitely expect formal partnership\nwith Pancakeswap as we grows. Also Biswap and Apeswap are also in the pipeline<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact Babyswap is the\nnew partnership we have just formed recently and only launched yesterday.\nBefore that, our token has been listed in Pancakeswp for more than a month\nalready. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For staking Baby to\nearn earn PCT, there is no minimum & maximum amount in terms of how much\nyou can stake. Currently the APR for staking PCT-USDT to earn Baby is over 400%\nand staking Baby to earn PCT is over 70% and there is no locking period. You\ncan withdraw your assets or claim profit any time you want. The initial\nliquidty on Babyswap provided by us will be locked for 90 days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Better still, if you\nstake Baby to earn PCT at Babyswap, you can come to pinecone.finance to stake\nyour PCT to earn more PCT with APR as high 115%, and this reward include both\nBNB and PCT as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> When Pinecone launched?😃<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nice APR, btw😉<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:\n<\/strong>Pct\nPresale was launched on Aug-9th<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Oh, only one month😀 you’re very\nyoung!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nyes<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah\n🏅🎹 | Satoshi Club:<\/strong> will be glad to see\nPCT on Pancakeswap soon<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nactually many things have happend in a month, including the exploit<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club: <\/strong>May be you are going to partner with\nanother smaller than Pancakeswap dexs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nPct-Bnb pair is already on Pancake, we will definitely seek more partnership\nwith Pancakeswap<\/p>\n\n\n\n in the short term, yes<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> We have next question about this😃<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ready for it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nreally?<\/p>\n\n\n\n ok<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q2 from Telegram user\n@nhairym<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Please\ntell us a little about the security incidents that occurred on August 18,\ndespite the complexity of your security protocol, it could have been violated,\nprotocol changes have been made or have limited themselves to solving the perch\nand staying alert to any signs of behavior. ill-intentioned, there is the\npossibility that a similar situation could be repeated, as they can demonstrate\nto their investors and new participants that they have managed to overcome this\nbad experience and that they are trained and financially, technologically and\nhumanly prepared to go out to the cryptographic market and demonstrate its\nsolidity and strength?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nI think many users would want to know more about it<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Yes, such things can happen with any\nproject but the main thing is to learn the lesson and don’t be afraid to talk\nabout this 😀<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin\n: <\/strong>This\nis a pretty long story and I hope I won’t bore everyone here. 😊<\/p>\n\n\n\n I will answer in 2\nparts, 1. what happened and what we did\/learned<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Of course no, take your time 🙂<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah\n🏅🎹 | Satoshi Club:<\/strong> They are interested in\nknowing<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\n2. how we enhance safety measures in the future to ensure such things won’t\nhappen<\/p>\n\n\n\n The incident happened\non 18th Aug shortly after we launched our PCT staking vault. There were some conflicts between our yield\nopmizer protocol and token deflationary mechanism, and loophole was discovered\nand abused by one of our early users who managed to profit around 500 BNB\n(circa 3.5Mn Pct). The PCT price was instantly plunged from 0.095 to 0.037.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We immediately\nsuspended the smart contract and cooperated with the audit firm PerkShield to\nfix the loophole. After internal discussion overnight, all team members,\nadvisors and early investors reached an agreement to use all minted tokens\n(total of 4.9 million, 20% of the total supply during that time) to compensate\nour users, while stabilizing the price of PCT to the level before the incident.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile we also took\nswift action to trace the perpetrator and mananged to locate his hot wallet\naddresses on Binance, Huobi, Okex. He contacted us on Aug-19 after seeing our\npublicities urging him to return the fund. After a long conversation with me,\nhe returned all the lost fund. Seeing\nthe way the project team dealing with this incident, he was even more\noptimistic with our project and \ncontinues to support Pinecone in whatever way he can including buying\nmore PCT and marketing for us. Now he is the biggest fan of Pinecone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the first part<\/p>\n\n\n\n I now answer the second\npart<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Wow, this sounds like detective story\nwith happy end😀<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah\n🏅🎹 | Satoshi Club:<\/strong> The Team did a Good\nJob I must say<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nHis wallets on BSc was also marked as Pinecone Finance exploiter<\/p>\n\n\n\n He did not expect we\nreact so fast<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Yes, i see that the end of such story\noften depends on team actions, fast actions<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, currently how many\naudits do you have?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nThis incident really made us realize once again that safety should be our top\npriority. Although we set the maximum transaction limit each block, and\nrestrict the access of external smart contracts as a defensive mechanism for\nflash loan attacks, there are other security risks cannot be ignored. We will\nadopt more stringent security measures to maximize the security of the\nprotocol, including but not limiting to the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Conduct more smart\ncontract audit by leading audit firms. currently we have finished main contract\naudit by PeckShield and Beosin, and Certik audit is in the progress. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Strictly abide by the\nsecurity work process of code release including adding a role of security\nauditor internally, and insist on completing internal and external security\naudits every time a new smart contract is released<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Add PCT token price\nalert and emergency response mechanisms. For example, if the token price drops\nby 30% within 10 seconds, the deposit function of the smart contract will be\nimmediately suspended, while reducing the maximum number of PCT transfer limit\nand turning off all PCT minting mechanism until completing the troubleshooting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Launch bug bounty\nprogram sometime soon and leverage the power of community to help us\ncontinuously improve the security of our protocol<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the process of\ndealing with this crisis, I had an even greater understanding about the\nimportance of communication. If there is no communication, the blockchain world\nis just like a dark forest described in the book of Three Bodies. Each of us is\ntrapped in the chain of suspicion, and everyone is likely to become a hunter.\nOnly communication can break this chain of suspicion. This user was actually\nour early supporter and had invested quite a bit of money in the pre-sale. After\nseeing our efforts and sincerity in handling the incident, he decided to do the\nright thing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Although the origin of\nthe incident was not pleasant, the follow-up development proved that even if we\nare all strangers, even if there is a misunderstanding, as long as there is\nkindness in heart and candid communication, it is certainly possible to build\ntrust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Compared with the\ntraditional financial world, DeFi is still at an early stage of development. In\na decentralized world without supervision, trust is so rare and fragile, it\nneeds everyone including project teams, institutions, and users, etc. to\ncontinuously strengthen and protect the foundation of trust to ensure the\nlong-term and healthy development of the ecosystem. I believe this is also in\nthe long-term interests of everyone in the Defi world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\n3 companies so far, PeckShield and Beosin, and Certik<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Wow, i apploud to you!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> I see, excellent choice!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nWill be more, as you know Auditing can take time<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Hope that was first and last incident\nwhich happened to Pinecone 💪<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah\n🏅🎹 | Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Was any Serious\nLoophole detected in any of these audits?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nThere was not much I could do when it happened,<\/p>\n\n\n\n compensate 140%, using\nown money to bring price back, and trace the attacker asap. Also promised the\ncommunity that we will not run away. Shit happens, but we need to face it and\nsolve it. Long termly, we need to adopt more stringent safety measures<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Thank you for your answers! Ready to go\nto the next question?😀<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nTo be honest, our protocol is pretty complicated. It is a combination of yield\noptimizer and reflective token. There is a certain conflict between these two\nmechanism, which is reflected in our newly launched PCT staking pool. If there is no PCT staking pool, it wont be\nfound. So Audit company did not<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sure, let’s go<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q3 from Telegram user\n@Jamesxmen<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n You\nhave planned to add a Cross chain interoperability to Polygon network. There\nwere not sufficient details on this headline. So please give a sneak peek about\nthis Cross Chain interoperability to Polygon network? Will you make $PCT tokens\nas compatible with ERC 20 since $MATIC is an ERC20 token? When will you migrate\nto other alternative Blockchain networks like Ethereum, Polkadot, Solana? Will\nthere be a cross chain Bridge also that support more currencies including with\nERC20, TRC20, BEP20 in 2022 year along with the event of Cross Chain to\nPolygon?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nWhen we made our roadmap two months ago, Polygon was a rising star and it was\nnatural to select them as the network we want to add cross chain functionality,\nespecially because Ethereum, BSC and Polygon are all based on ERC 20 standard,\nwhich make it easier technically as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However things change\nreally fast and we have seen even faster growth in Solana and some interesting\ndevelopment in Ethereum Layer 2 recently. Cross chain is still one of the key\ndevelopment in Q4 in our road map, but which one to go to and how we are going\nto do it depend on the market environment and the business needs of Pinecone.\nThere is no point doing this just for the sake of ticking the box, as a\nbusiness, we will have to go to where the ecosystem is sound with more active\nusers, in order to drive the business growth and financial success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Hm… If tomorrow, let’s say, Cosmos\nwill develop faster than Solana?😀 Will you think about this\nopportunity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nPossibly, it will be based on several measures: 1. the foundations (tps, cost\netc), 2. Infrastructure like main dex and lending, 3. users and tvl, 4.\ntechnical compability 5. financial measures includingh tokenomics<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Gotcha! We will definitely follow\nupdates from you 😊<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q4 from telegram user\n@Ajpaa<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n PCT\nHolders can earn performance fees (30% of the farming profit) produced by\nPinecone vaults in BNB, the BNB rewards are distributed once in every 5 days.\nPCT Holders Simply can go to the website and click \u201cHarvest\u201d button to bag\ntheir earnings. Can you briefly explain the concept of the performance Fee and\nhow it works in your ecosystem? How is the performance fees (30% of the farming\nprofit) distributed to PCT Holders? What happens if a PCT Holders did not\n\u201cHarvest\u201d the BNB reward after 5 days? Will the reward be automatically lost?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nFirstly, this is not an updated version lol. Users can claim BNB reward anytime\nthey want now, even if they wait their bnb reward will never be lost<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Will you update it? Or users need to do\nsomething to see updated version?😀<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nThis was indeed the rewarding mechanics we designed initially. However after\ntesting it for a while, we realized there were a few issues associating with\nit. Firstly the APR is hard to calculate and estimate which makes it difficult\nfor uses to make a judgement on how much money they can make. Secondly people\nwould love the choice of being to able to claim their rewards anytime to\nreward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Considering of such, we\nchange the reward system to the traditional staking model. But the good part is\nwhen you stake your PCT in the vault, other than the PCT rewards, you also\nreceive BNB rewards which comes from the performance fee and you can claim any\npart you want and any time you want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> How much BNB and PCT rewards were\nclaimed since launch?😀<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nWe use 30% of the performance fee to reinvest in PCT, when people claim bnb,\nhalf of the performace fee will be distributed to users in bnb<\/p>\n\n\n\n hmm, I need to ask the\nteam for details. In terms of BNB, I think around 600bnb has been distributed\nto users<\/p>\n\n\n\n PCT part is difficult\nto cal, the Apr for pct on ave is around 100%<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Great numbers 👍<\/p>\n\n\n\n Understand 😀<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you for your\nanswers! Ready to jump to the next question?🚀<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nsure,<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q5 from Telegram user\n@Cheriemike<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n NFTs\nare becoming popular in the Cryptospace and Pinecone plans to improve it\u2019s\nyield optimizing product by including Gamefi Financial NFT in it\u2019s platform.My\nquestion is,What plans have you put in place in achieving this?What kind of\nNFTs games will you integrate on your platform?Have you made plans of When your\nNFTs be available?Will you also build your own Marketplace or you will make use\nwith other marketplace like Open Sea etc?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nsorry the dev told me more than 1000 bnb profit has been distributed to users\nalready<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary\n| Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Ohhh, that’s really cool 👍<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah\n🏅🎹 | Satoshi Club:<\/strong> Thats an impressive\nnumber for a young project<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong>\nwhen TVL grows, this number will also increase hugely<\/p>\n\n\n\n different from the\nnorma coin pool, the PCT apy can decrease if more people stake pct<\/p>\n\n\n\n but the BNB reward will\nincrease as TVL grows since it is from the performace fe<\/p>\n\n\n\n I answer this question\nnow<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jin:<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n