Divi Live at Five: March Recap

If you’re in a rush, here’s a quick recap:

• Wallet sign-ups: 18,886 people are excited!
• Masternodes: All-time high of 1724.
• Be aware of scammers: We will never send direct messages about an update. All updates are pushed through the application itself to ensure your safety. Never respond to unsolicited communications!

• Crypto market recap: Bitcoin slightly down from its high, with some healthy consolidation over the past week. Many people are touting this bull run as over as the crypto market consolidates. We will have to wait and see if the big players push on to set greater all-time highs!

• FATF guidelines: The financial action task force released updated guidelines for virtual asset providers that may affect non-custodial wallets in the future. This has highlighted just how important upfront compliance is in this rapidly changing environment. Read all about the FATF guidelines below.

• Divi Wallet update: With over 400 people testing, we’re ironing out all of the small kinks expected for an application used across different operating systems and devices. We received phenomenal quality assurance feedback, and our third-party security audit began last week. Once this audit is back and staking vaults have been tested (beyond our internal testing), we will be ready to start the launch!

• Divi contest winners: The Divi.gif competition was a resounding success. Our Divi Giphy page looks amazing. All winners are announced below, so check them out!

• Interview with Albert Castellana: We were excited to speak with Albert Castellana of Stakehound and talk through our new partnership!

• Community AMA: Nick answered all of your pressing questions about announcements, DeFi, and the wallet.

Here’s your full recap

Financial Action Task Force crypto guidelines

• It’s important to remember that these are just guidelines. It does not necessarily mean that these guidelines will become law in your country. However, they set a precedent for international governments, so their impact should not be underestimated.
• Stablecoins are a big focus. Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) are increasing in popularity, and many governments are already establishing theirs.
• Virtual Asset Service Providers: VASPs refer to wallets, exchanges, and any provider of virtual assets. There has usually been a distinction between custodial and non-custodial, with non-custodial not being considered a VASP. What this means for us: in the future, even non-custodial wallets (such as the Divi Wallet) may be required to complete KYC (Know your customer) and AML (Anti-money laundering) procedures.
• Smart contracts and dAPPs: The guidelines also touched on smart contracts and dApps, including NFTs. The guidance is worded in a way that makes it sound that if a platform offers the sale or purchase of tokens that may increase in value, it is considered a VASP, and thus subject to KYC and AML legislation.

Getting into the legislative arena:

We don’t bring this up as FUD, or to be negative. It’s unrealistic to expect crypto to remain unregulated forever. We need to put pressure on the legislative process to make sure we don’t get stuck with terrible laws. People can actually contribute to the FATF guidelines, as they are open source. Call your representatives, let them know your stance.

Divi Projects and Ventures

Divi Wallet Update

Development is progressing incredibly. With over 400 people testing, we’re ironing out all of the small kinks expected for an application used across different operating systems and devices.

We received our first quality assurance report, which was conducted by mindfulQA. Along with their standard report, we received the following feedback. We think you’ll like it:

“Overall the app design itself is amazing. We virtually never see apps that have so few device-specific issues. The UI looked sleek across the 20+ devices tested. In general, the performance was pretty consistent across devices/OS versions as well.

Although we noted issues in the sheet, test leads agreed that the concept and design do feel revolutionary in the crypto space (I know I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know).

From reviewing it personally, I am going to instruct our accounting to include the option to pay invoices in DIVI (for all clients going forward). I believe in the long-term viability of what a game-changer DIVI and the wallet app are going to be, and I am excited for launch”

Thanks to MindfulQA for conducting rigorous quality assurance and for their kind and motivating words!

Security audit and next steps

The next step for us is our security audit, which began on the 25th of March. This should be completed within 7-10 days. Once we’re 100% confident that there are no security flaws, we can proceed with the wallet launch. Some of the last functionality to be pushed to our testers will be staking vaults. We have been testing these internally, and we couldn’t be happier with the results.

As far as we are concerned, the app feels and looks ready. We’re getting the last pieces in place, and launch is just around the corner.

Monthly competition: Divi.gif

This month we ran a competition to find the best Divi gifs you guys could create! We had hundreds of entries with so many incredible creations! However, there could only be 10 winners, and the tweets are below:

https://twitter.com/IgorBerezin3/status/1370087125157298178

https://twitter.com/MikaelMleczko/status/1374502778437918725?s=20

https://twitter.com/joaoenmanuel/status/1374219884779999235

https://mobile.twitter.com/Elvismarq2712/status/1374067348206989314

https://mobile.twitter.com/ruth89248428/status/1374390047756087303

https://mobile.twitter.com/bmt0011/status/1375203663237373952

https://twitter.com/bergh44/status/1375219121231691777?s=21

https://twitter.com/leaze/status/1373263650518138884

https://twitter.com/MrMasternode/status/1368819144573906948

https://twitter.com/nilesmomma/status/1375191752362106890

Thank you to all entrants!

Stay tuned for this month’s competition

Special Guest: Albert Castellana of Stakehound!

We were thrilled to be able to sit down with Albert Castellana (at 1:30 am!) and discuss Stakehound, the future of DeFi, and how Divi will leverage this. We’ve summarised some of the key ideas below:

Albert on DeFi

Albert: Cryptocurrency has been attempting to disintermediate the financial space through peer-to-peer transactions. If you continue this idea, then you look at how we can borrow, lend, and trade without these intermediaries. DeFi is essentially trying to recreate legacy finance platforms and services on the blockchain.

DeFi is made possible by liquidity pools

Albert: DeFi is based on people creating these pools with their assets, locking them securely in smart contracts, and then putting these pools to work in various ways. They can be borrowed against or used to facilitate trading through automatic market makers. The possibilities are endless, and the decentralized pooling of funds facilitates this.

How can assets be put to work most effectively? How can we do so much with the same assets?

Albert: Cryptocurrency used to be an ecosystem that was made up of many separate islands. Each coin had its own. There was no way to move between these easily. Stakehound is here to build the bridges that allow participation between islands. Stakehound puts DIVI into secure custody, stakes it, and returns stDIVI an (ERC-20 version) at a 1:1 ratio, and this can be used to participate in liquidity pooling. This is how the idea of ‘yield farming’ is produced. You have a collateralized asset that is returning DIVI, and then you’re putting the stDIVI to work, which will return trading fees.

What is Stakehound?

Albert: Stakehound was founded to fill a gap between layer one protocols (blockchains) and DeFi platforms. We wanted to provide a way that people didn’t have to choose between staking and DeFi. Using a wrapped approach, we’ve achieved this. Using secure custody (Fireblocks and Copper), we are both compliant, and secure. Non-compliant products are unattractive to institutional investors and companies, who we want to be attracting.

Community AMA

Is it possible to participate in the stDIVI liquidity pool with less than $1000?

The minimum staking requirement is $1000. There is no minimum stake amount for staking, so people can stake their way to this minimum to enter the liquidity pool.

Do I need Ethereum to participate in DeFi?

Yes, you do need Ethereum. You will be able to buy stDIVI without ETH, which requires a KYC and AML process. If you want to enter the liquidity pool (LP), you will need stETH.

Any info on lightning works?

It’s coming along nicely. Lightening Works has an entire office down in Costa Rica working full time on this development. The creator app is looking phenomenal, which allows users to create comics and turn them into NFTs. There is a comic coming out soon, so keep an eye out for that on our socials.

Any updates on the tier-one exchange listing?

It’s moving along. Outside of that, we cannot comment due to our non-disclosure agreement.

Will we see a Divi exchange in the future?

Maybe. It’s not something I would rule out, but it requires a massive amount of resources. Don’t forget, the wallet will have exchange-like functionality, with fiat-to-crypto, and crypto-to-crypto swaps.

Will there be the ability to lock up your Divi as collateral and borrow against it?

Yes! Once you have stDIVI, you can participate in a wide range of lending protocols, such as Celsius Network.

Will DIVI ever have a fixed quantity?

Probably not. However, this may be changed with governance later on. A lot of people think that because there are a lot of coins, we have ridiculous inflation. We have an inflation rate that is lower than that of Bitcoin for the first 10 years.

When will we hear about the US banking partnership?

When the papers are signed, we cannot talk about these things until they are signed. You’ll know when we know. We’re excited to get these over the line. Negotiations take time, and we’re happy with how they’re progressing.