AMA Recap : Glitch Protocol

The Selective
9 min readJun 28, 2021

[we are joined in the AMA by Aram, Rohan, and Chief— the head of marketing, head of R&D, and CTO respectively]

Question 1 :
First, let’s start off with a quick overview of what Glitch is. . . Can you briefly explain the mission of Glitch, then we can go over specifics later.

Rohan :
Glitch is a blockchain with its primary focus towards encouraging/promoting development of and nurturing decentralized applications (dApps) and decentralized financial activity that aim to cater to the masses. Its underlying structure and customizations are focused exclusively towards dynamic defi projects, I.e to support the applications that expect to have a wide range of transaction types and in order to do that, need complete decentralization, scalability and security for the end users.

Once we are successfully able to achieve our goal of being ‘the absolut foundation/base/OS’ for defi implementations that really define and achieve the capabilities of a decentralised network then the next phase would be to connect with other existing blockchains and achieve complete interoperability because we realise that all existing solutions out there are unique and strong in their own niche, and will eventually co-exist with one another.

We will be going testnet in the next two days and mainnet shortly after..

Mission :
Alright, so to sum it up in a simple way, as you do on the site : Glitch wants to be the “Operating System” of defi. . .

Aram :
Yes to put it simply, in about a sentence, we are specifically focused on DeFi. GLITCH is perfectly positioned to support mass adoption while simultaneously rewarding all ecosystem participants, cutting transaction costs, and increasing speeds.

Mission :
Got it. I know there is a fair amount of competition in this space, as it’s a huge opprotunity in defi, so. . .

How does it compare to other protocols in terms of performance?

Rohan :
Single chain architecture purposefully built for trustless money markets, DeFi and dApps from the layer one.

In contrast to existing blockchain ecosystems, GLITCH is not intended to be a jack-of-all-applications. Rather, its underlying structure and customizations are focused exclusively to support trustless money markets and financial applications, all of this within a single chain architecture to avoid any interchain conflicts (as observed in the recent Avalanche issue) while providing a strong, scalable ecosystem for dApps to nurture in.
One competitive advantage is our native GEX(DEX) which would compliment the revenue sharing model which is also a feature that distinguishes Glitch from other blockchains.

Mission :
I see. What do you envision “adoption” looking like for Glitch? Do you have any ideas for potential investors, or maybe traffic milestones the team is looking forward to?

After this we can dive into the upcoming testnet, and talk about that. . .

Chief :
Hey, so growth has a number of aspects to it in addition to your typical acquisition tactics we really focus on the pull and stick from a product perspective. Our utility has to be a real value add to the market and we are designing products that are easy to use for all identified personas with geographically agnostic functionality. It has to be easy to use for both developers and end users the tokenomics with the fixed fully minted supply is strong for most if not all investors.

1/ GEX is looking to provide minimal slippage for large swap volumes.
2/ Glitch sibling dApps are built UX / customer in mind first
3/ Partnerships follow the theme of 2/ to make it easy for new blockchain users to use our platform

Aram :
When speaking about full adoption, we also don’t just mean developers building on the layer one, because you can have lots of projects built but you need a fully active ecosystem. A full ecosystem of dApps — full use of GEX w/ deep liqudity, wide range of users / participants with revenue sharing from every participating dApp && more. We’re not just making a layer one blockchain for DeFi — it’s an entire ecosystem to kickstart glitch as a widely used, scalable chain.

Question 2 :
This week will be cultimating (on the 30th) with the launch of the testnet. Can you tell us about what we can expect from the testnet & eventually with the full launch?

Chief :
Testnet will be an iteration of the products to support the path to Main Net. We launch testnet with the Explorer built by us first. This will be followed by a web based wallet also built by us allowing users to interact with the test net more easily. This will then be followed by the availability of increasing network functions with increased access to additional features provided on our explorer site. We will then begin to onboard more nodes and lots more

Mission :
Alright, and do you have a timeline on these releases? And how about the GeX?

Aram :
There will be a high level roadmap posted on our website soon, so stay tuned for that which will give a much better idea of our plans and timelines moving forward

There will be a testnet GEX before mainnet launch. The GEX is critical to the revenue sharing model, and this must thoroughly tested before main net

Mission :
So basically on the 30th you’ll be releasing the initial version of the Glitch “foundation”, and building some crucial tools on it over time in preperation for other devs to come in and build dApps in the ecosystem. . .

Question 3 :
Glitch has done a great job of securing solid partnerships.
Can you tell us a bit about the philosophy behind which partners you choose, and the utility that some of the major ones bring, just to paint the picture?

for context

Aram :
The partners that we select are purposeful partnerships — we are only focused on partners and integrations that make sense. That’s why you see us make announcements with specific projects that help build GLITCH long-term

Rohan :

  • BIRD: Brings Credit score to the blockchain, a huge plus for the GEX and other financial apps on Glitch
  • Chainlink & Api3: Oracles for data and pricefeeds
  • Polygon: Have apps run parallel on both networks, to fulfill the interoperability motive
  • Bonded: Expanding the financial access to holders without selling GLCH
  • Cellframe: Quantum signatures and multiple signature types
  • Orions liquidity boost for the GEX
  • Zico Law and Cyber Unit for the legal aspects
  • Darwinia for NFT transfers across blockchains

To name a few 🙂

Question 4:
Obviously attracting dApps to the ecosystem will be one of the biggest challenges. How does the team intend to approach this?

Rohan :
Constantly working towards developing a full service ecosystem, this is reflective in the grants program and how we approach onboarding potential dApps and also developing dApps inhouse, we would very much like to see a stable coin, privacy coin, lending and an nft platform alongside a partner launchpad by the end of year, minimum.

There will also be a dev focused community and a hub that will support them more closely when the time comes after the testnet is in its final phases

Aram :
We have allocated $2M for dapps to build on our ecosystem. [for grants] This is just one small part of the bigger picture, though. we have glitch grants that will incentivize developer engagement initially to become an official glitch dapp

And if you’re a dev, you can check out the initial grants program here: https://glitch.finance/developer/glitch-grants/ Learn about the great benefits you can get if approved

Mission :
Nice. Before moving onto our last question, just because I think it’s important but also a bit confusing at first : can you speak a bit about the revenue share system in the glitch ecosystem, and it affects transactions / gas / etc?

I know you mentioned it before, I just think it’s important to explain it very clearly.

Aram :
Sure, we have an initial diagram first and we will put a small explanation behind it

In sense, buy pressure = major potential demand

Chief:
Validators need to be rewarded and the txn fees (given how low they will be) alone are inadequate to make it viable to be a validator. In addition the GLCH token is fully minted so no additional GLCH on blocks. The Revenue share takes all the revenue we make through dApps (in various ways) and buys GLCH through the GEX and a sub protocol. This GLCH is then given to the Network (validators and stakers)

Question 5 :
Everyone knows the value proposition of Glitch is quite high, it’s clear. But now that we’re facing a shaky market, what can you say to assure investors that Glitch won’t fail in the eventuality of a bear market?

Aram :
We had a successful raise in December and leading into January. We are not all that phased with possibly entering a downward cycle/bear market, which let’s be real, is most likely not the case due to the macro worldwide economic environment.

We are a project with super strong fundamentals from a tech perspective and a strong business operation so we can survive and flourish in any market.

GLITCH pushes on as we are so much more that any market cycle, we are focused long-term.

Rohan :
Price is volatile and moves violently, that is just the nature of cryptocurrencies. We’re keeping our heads down and pushing things out as promised since the key focus is delivery.

Unlike most projects we don’t rely on the value of our coin to successfully deliver on the project.

Mission :
Excellent ! Good to hear about the resilience of the project. I just know this is on a lot of people’s minds recently, so I want to start addressing it with every project.

Audience Question 1 : @If_I_DM_You_first_Block_me
In DeFi, bots form a major headache and extract millions of dollars (if not billions) through sniping, front-running, etc. Are there any anti-bots components built or being built into the GEX to combat this?

Answer :

Audience Question 2: @chad_traders
Why partner with an l2 if they are supposed to be a fast l1 already

Answer :
Well we are not partnering with an L2 to build on top of us. We partnered with them so defi apps can run parallel on both networks, which will be the first step towards interoperability for Glitch.

You can read more here: https://medium.com/glitchfinance/glitch-is-joining-forces-with-polygon-a9e7c6a29eb2

Audience Question 3:
Glitch can grow and come bigger, network usage eventually increases. How does Glitch maintain its speed and low fees

Answer :
Glitch will maintain its low fees with the help of its revenue sharing model, where excess revenues will help indirectly pay off the transaction costs via the vault. Revenues will go back into the network from dApps

Audience Question 4:
Hey guys. Quick question about the 3k TPS. Some projects like Hedera claim 10k TPS but these are only normal transfers from wallet to wallet. They actually do around 15 TPS (similar to ETH) when transactions interact with smart contracts. So my question is, can Glitch do 3k TPS on smart contracts?

Answer :
3K TPS will be the minimum speed, with tx finality times of 1–2 seconds, and increases as the network grows. More users that are active in GLITCH ecosystem = higher TPS speeds. In any case, TPS is not all that matters, you can have a very fast blockchain but if it is a ghost chain, then it doesn’t matter. Additionally, the unique benefits of the revenue sharing model will help differentiate GLITCH, especially since we’re also a layer one for DeFi, not “jack of all trades” like ethereum, avalanche, etc.

Audience Question 5: @cryptorat
Glitch has a lot of partnerships, can you speak about bird.money? I was an early investor in it, and am curious why you chose them and what you see in them to useful for glitch?

Answer :
I answered this in one of the earlier questions, credit score on blockchain is a no brainer, especially for ecosystems like Glitch which are focused at financial applications at the core.

We have explained in-depth here : https://medium.com/glitchfinance/glitch-is-teaming-up-with-bird-money-76c07423ffd8

Audience Question 6 : @slavetocrypto
Why has glitch chosen to develop the GEX app firstly? what if another competitor wants to develop an exchange on the glitch “OS” is this possible?

Answer :
Very much possible, but GEX will always have an edge over the others as a native dex and the revenue sharing model around it

Audience Question 7: @mizzlegrizzle
Has the 3000 tps been stress tested? Is that for p2p or in an open market?

Answer :
We’re going test net in two days, will figure out then. Upon testnet launch, we’ll do a significant number of additional stress tests that we’ll be able to share with you guys.

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