Recap of AMA — LiftOff and DEFINFTsApes

7 min readFeb 18, 2021

Last Monday 15th February 2021, Professor T.S.C Lowe had an AMA at @DEFINFTsApesChat telegram group chat.

In this post, we have compiled key questions and answers from the event.

The AMA started with the admin asking @Professor_TSCLowe of LiftOff to introduce himself and giving a short pitch of LiftOff and his role in the project.

Professor_TSCLowe

LIFTOFF is a fully self-service, automated & decentralized ERC20 launchpad & token sale platform. Developers launch a new token along with a sale with just one button.I myself am interested in the Efficiency of Capital Markets which is the primary area of my research. As most of you are aware, Blockchain is plagued by Scams. A combination of decentralized technologies and social structures combined will combat these issues and increase the rate of growth of blockchain technology.

The primary Token for the development of a social community around LIFTOFF is $LIFT. LIFT rewards members with the following benefits:

3% airdrop from each sale, distributed proportionately,
Private channels for the discussion of blockchain technologies, both launched on LIFTOFF & elsewhere, and
LIFT NFT (LFTY) airdrops.

To earn LIFT rewards, the Member must be whitelisted, maintain a balance of 1 LIFT, and have Good Standing within the community. By requiring Whitelisting and Good Standing we will be able to add many more Benefits to the platform. There is only 2000 LIFT so it is quite an exclusive Membership.

Question 2

What are hard exits and soft exits, and what features of LiftOff make it safe from both hard exits and soft exits?

Professor_TSCLowe

Excellent question which cuts deeply into the history of LIFTOFF. A “hard exit” occurs when a scam project puts liquidity on Uniswap then removes said liquidity after the price rises. A “soft exit” occurs when a scam project locks liquidity, but then deletes its social media channels or is otherwise derelict in its duties.

LIFTOFF protects against both, although it will always be impossible to fully stop soft exits as any developer may be simply lazy and not meet the expectation of the communities.

Crash Insurance allows sale buyers to redeem their tokens at the original launch rate minus a 2% Insurance Fee. This guarantees the protection of buyer’s capital against the most egregious sorts of soft exits as if the Team is clearly not fulfilling their duties in the first week after the sale causing the price to fall.

Buyers may retrieve their original ETH. This protection covers 100% of the Sale for the first week and a decreasing amount thereafter. Gradual Payments on LIFTOFF prevent insiders from dumping tokens and encourage further development. First, developers receive no tokens so there can be no insider dumps with this fair allocation. Second, Eth to promoters and developers is paid at 10%/week over 10 weeks, and reduced by insurance redemptions. Thus the Team is heavily incentivized to do their job diligently.

Free Liquidity results from using xETH pairs instead of WETH pairs for LIFTOFF launches. xETH with XLOCK technology allows 110% of the Sale’s ETH to be allocated instead of 100%. This free ETH comes from the permanent locking of liquidity. The details are outlined in the Whitepaper but if one is familiar with ROOTKIT it operates on the same basic concept. Those are the Technical protections, but these are not enough on their own.

LIFTOFF is an open platform, so there must be an active community vigilantly watching sales and looking for the ones of the highest quality.

LIFT Members may vote to verify sales they feel are of unusual quality as a signal to the wider world of their value.

Question 3

Now to the LiftOff Presale details, what Presale information can you provide to us, also can you breakdown the LiftOff’s LIFT token metrics?

Professor_TSCLowe

At first, there will be only Tier 1 LIFT Membership. As the value of LIFT increases, additional Tiers with fewer Benefits will be released. For instance, if the Price were to increase 10x from the original Launch Price, a second Tier at 0.1 LIFT might be created. Let me provide this quick Infographic to easily summarize the Details of the LIFT sale.

Question 4

The LIFT presale token is very expensive, what are the benefits of owning a LIFT token, kindly tell us all briefly.

Professor_TSCLowe

Holding 1 LIFT allows an Individual to apply for whitelisting as long as they maintain good standing. Whitelisting applications are currently open on Discord.

The largest benefit is the 3% airdrop from each sale, which is distributed proportionately to all members. The LIFT tokenomics were designed around an assumption of 300 ETH per week of sales such that with a 25% discount rate the Price should double from the hard cap. The other benefits are not directly economic but are rather the result of having an exclusive community that is able to educate itself in the discrimination of good sales from the bad.

Question 5

Is LiftOff innovating with NFTs at all now or in the near future and can you brief us of the possibilities of how you can integrate NFTs to the LiftOff community and Platform.

Professor_TSCLowe

To begin, the role of LFTYs is a way for the community to build a shared aesthetic & a feeling of brotherhood. I do not want to discount the importance of these facts as unity is required for the community to effectively congeal itself around LIFTOFF. I am considering other uses for LFTYs & other NFTs in the future. Specifically, nonartistic NFTs would serve as a way to ensure sales beyond the initial 10 weeks. For instance, imagine if a simultaneous auction for Insurance Contracts was held along with the initial sale at a variety of target dates. Or alternatively, NFTs represent liquidity coupons that may be redeemed for ETH as the value of the underlying liquidity increases. These topics are still very much in the Early Stage of research but are critical to future developments of LIFTOFF.

Of course, I am a fan of the LFTY artworks. They are purely Aesthetic at this time and do not serve any purpose although such fact may change if the LIFT community desires.

These will be airdropped to LIFT sale participants and early holders who become LIFT members. Each LFTY has a unique mint number, and these will be airdropped by the size of LIFT holdings by members in order. Specifically, the sum of the LIFT bought in the Sale plus the LIFT held at a random block between 7 & 10 days after the sale completes.

Check this link: https://opensea.io/assets/lfty.

Today NFTs are primarily known for their Aesthetic value, and this is true for LFTYs as well. I do not believe this will last, as the value of NFTs for the purposes of Insurance, Liquidity, and many other financial products are quite obvious. Perhaps they may even serve a use in cross-chain liquidity, although this is still quite uncertain. I am working closely with our partners at Penguinswap to research options for allowing access to Uniswap Liquidity on other chains. This research faces many extraordinary barriers and may never be resolvable. That said, NFT insurance products maybe a piece of the puzzle. This research is not ready for publication yet but is ongoing.

Question 6

Can you state how presale funds will be spent? Any team tokens, audits, and profitability analysis of holding LIFT tokens?

Professor_TSCLowe

These are several questions so let me address them one at a time. The Lid Protocol Team & myself do not require additional funds at this time so no raised funds will be kept. 90% of ETH is going to LIFT liquidity & purchases with 10% going to marketing and promotion. Similarly, no team tokens will be held although Team Members are allowed to participate in the sale and purchase LIFT off the market.

LIFTOFF is audited by Halborn, the same security firm that services Coinbase, Bancor, and Stellar. Additionally, LIFTOFF has been extensively tested both through automated scripts and on Ropsten. On Profitability & Expected Return on LIFT membership, the primary economic benefits are the 3% airdrops and can be calculated with three major assumptions:

(1) The proper discount rate, perhaps 25%

(2) The amount of average weekly Sales on LIFTOFF, perhaps 300 ETH

(3) The percentage of Tokens held by LIFT Members versus non-members, as only Members receive the airdrop.

Question 7

Developers are able to change their launch time after they set via the platform?

Professor_TSCLowe

Once the Launch is created, the time cannot be altered. The Development Team is working on additional management tools for developers to allow some limited alterations. Currently, if a launch is set to the wrong time, the developer must request blacklisting and recreate the Launch.

Question 8

What if a project called scam transacted (of course noticed later) via Liftoff? What is your responsibility?

Professor_TSCLowe

LIFTOFF has built-in protections against scams but these are not perfect. Accordingly, it is vital for token buyers to carefully consider which launches they select. If they are not able to devote the time required to said selection, they should heavily weigh the verified sales voted by the LIFT Members.

LIFTOFF is an open platform that comes with both advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is ease of access to all. The disadvantage is said ease of access can be exploited. LIFTOFF combats this with the three innovations of crash insurance, gradual payments, and free liquidity but only with an active and vigilant community can these protections be enhanced further.

With these collections of questions and answers, we hope that you, the community was able to know us better.