AMA with Torum

On the 8th of December, 2021 at 07:00 UTC, Decentralized Club had the honor of hosting Jayson Tan (CMO) from Torum for an Ask-Me-Anything session on their Telegram page with a community of over 70,000 people. It was hosted by DC Admin, May.

The session was divided into two segments. Introductions were made in Segment 1, and questions from the Twitter community were answered in Segment 2.
 
If you missed this event and would like to know what Torum is all about, you can find a recap of the interview here. Information here should be researched and should not be taken as investment or financial advice. Also note that slight edits have been made for clarity, and links in this recap lead to images, documents, or other media.

Segment 1 - Introduction

[May]
Hello, สวัสดี, 大家好, नमस्ते, Selamat!

My name is May and I'll be hosting the AMA with Torum.

Today, we have with us a returning guest from the Torum Team.

[Jayson Tan]
Hi May

It feels great to be back to the Decentralized Club again!

[May]
You're welcome! It's good to have you over again.

How's your day going?

[Jayson Tan]
Super exhausted but in a good way hahahaha

Lots of positive developments for Torum since our first AMA

[May]
:)))

I can tell! We're excited to hear all about it!

Well, before we take some questions about Torum, could you please tell us more about yourself and your job at Torum?

[Jayson Tan]
Ahhh, classic

Hi everyone, my name is Jayson. My journey started back in 2017 when I was still a university student. A close friend persuaded me to buy Bitcoin and that's how my crypto life began.

After the 2018 bear run, the same friend came back to me and pitched the idea of a social media platform specially designed for the crypto industry. It really caught my eyes as there is no clear winner in the social project vertical. Even with Steemit, Somee, or even Voice.com, something is clearly missing and wrong about their model, which results in their failure to attract the market.

We believe that the only way for a social project to emerge is to create an ecosystem around it. An ecosystem with social media as its core, integrated with the latest blockchain innovations like DeFi and NFT. From there, the idea of Torum was conceived.

I then co-founded Torum in Nov 2018, along with the friend who introduced crypto to me, Go (CEO of Torum), and 3 other childhood friends.

As the CMO, every marketing event and planning of Torum is handled by me

[May]
Still gets me every time! It's awesome!

And, say hi to that friend for us 😅

[Jayson Tan]
Sure will 🤜🤛

[May]
Great!

Let's get right into it!

Can you tell us about Torum and the inspiration that got it started?

You can just summarize since you answered a bit already.

[Jayson Tan]
Hahaha

I'll skip the inspiration part then

[May]
:)))

[Jayson Tan]
Okay so, Torum is a SocialFi Metaverse ecosystem that is specially designed to connect cryptocurrency users and projects.

Think of it as a super ecosystem where you as a crypto user can find every crypto stuff you need on Torum.

The SocialFi ecosystem of Torum consists of 4 main pillars:

Social - the crypto social media platform with over 180,000 users

DeFi - the first social-integrated yield farming platform

NFT Marketplace - A marketplace for crypto artists to mint and sell their NFT collections to the Torum community all in one place

Avatar NFT - the first PFP Avatars, integrated into a Social Metaverse

We launched the beta version of our social media platform in July 2020 and the idea was a big hit. Starting from less than 1,000 users, Torum is now home to over 180,000 cryptocurrency enthusiasts and investors from all around the world.

[May]
Oh wow!

That's a lot of growth in just a year!

[Jayson Tan]
I think back in the first AMA, we only had like 20K or 30K of users

The growth is exponentially going up

In November alone, we managed to get 60,000 new users

https://t.me/decentralized_club/669079

[May]
Wow! Somebody needs to give the CMO a raise! 🥳

[Jayson Tan]
https://t.me/decentralized_club/669082

[May]
I'm excited to hear all about the reason Torum is outstanding!

So, what innovative solution is Torum bringing to topple its competitors with similar offerings in the social media industry and #SocialFi?

[Jayson Tan]
What's so innovative about Torum is our ability to create a community that consists of only crypto-savvy people from all around the world

It might sound simple, but look at Nafter, BitClout, and other SocialFi projects

All their user base are general people with a wide variety of non-crypto interests

If that's the case, why wouldn't everyone just connect on Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit? Unlike the GameFi's Play-to-Earn, Interact-to-Earn is a broken model

How do we judge a person's content quality and distribute the reward? Everyone has a different perspective towards the same thing.

So instead of focusing on the "Earn", Torum is fully devoted to creating a social media platform that is only for crypto users and projects

Imagine all the crypto enthusiasts and projects around the world are using Torum, users can connect with projects easily, projects can utilize Torum as a new marketing channel because everyone on Torum is their target user.

We believe that creating this value is the key to a successful SocialFi ecosystem.

This is why after we have a crypto-focused social media network, we develop an NFT marketplace for crypto artists, Avatar NFT for Metaverse enthusiasts, Yield Farming Platform for DeFi investors

https://t.me/decentralized_club/669093

[May]
I can imagine it! The possibilities are endless.

Aha! These are really great add-ons

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

In detail, could you talk about the distinguishing features of Torum's SocialFi ecosystem?

[Jayson Tan]
Okay, I think I covered this question here.

Social
https://t.me/decentralized_club/669100

Decentralized Finance
https://t.me/decentralized_club/669101

NFT Marketplace
https://t.me/decentralized_club/669102

Avatar NFT
https://t.me/decentralized_club/669103

[May]
Great!

Can you share the major backers of the project?

[Jayson Tan]
Yes, we have a pretty huge lineup of backers

First, we are backed by KuCoin Labs and Huobi Ventures, the investment arms of KuCoin and Huobi.

Other investors include AU21, M6, DFG, Consensus Lab, etc

https://t.me/decentralized_club/669112

https://t.me/decentralized_club/669113

We are already listed on KuCoin.com btw.

[May]
That's great! I see some household names!

What are the utilities of your native token $XTM?

[Jayson Tan]
Social Tipping
Torum users can use XTM to purchase gifts (tips) for other users on the platform. A part of the XTM that is used in gift purchases will be burned from the total supply, where the rest will be channeled to the reward pool in the Torum DeFi platform.

NFT Trading
XTM is integrated as the sole native token Torum NFT Marketplace where each NFT trade is carried out using XTM. A commission/royalty fee will be charged during the transaction, where a part of the profit will be burned and channeled to the reward pool.

Projects will need to use XTM as a form of voting power to pass on community listing proposals to activate CoinGecko pricing tag integration to the tokens of the winning project.

Users will need to utilize XTM to unlock certain premium features and functionalities like creating a clan, organizing airdrop campaigns, hosting AMA events, etc.

In the future, Torum will develop a DAO model to ensure that XTM holders can vote on development proposals and decide on the future of the project with the team.

As Torum grows bigger, the project will design new utility gamification for XTM, such as an Ads system that requires bidding with XTM (akin to Brave).

For more details, I would like to invite everyone to have a look at our whitepaper: https://whitepaper.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/torum-whitepaper-V4.0-EN.pdf

[May]
Very solid token usecase!

Great! Thank you for sharing

Dear community, please follow @torum_official_group_en for more information.

What major news should we still look forward to from Torum by the end of the year?

[Jayson Tan]
https://twitter.com/torum_official/status/1464285400680124418

This pretty much sums it all

https://t.me/decentralized_club/669128

[May]
Looking forward to these things!

https://t.me/decentralized_club/669129

Yes! Our engines are revving! 🥳

Let's now take some questions from our Twitter community

Segment 2 - Twitter Questions

[May]
How will the integration of Torum NFT marketplace and Torum Finance help realize the SocialFi metaverse?

Twitter Username: @cradled_in_

[Jayson Tan]
The integration enables Torum to attract users with NFT and DeFi backgrounds to our SocialFi Metaverse.

Once they are onboarded and stick with Torum, we can build a truly diverse SocialFi Metaverse with different crypto verticals on Torum. This is huge.

[May]
I agree.

Currently, the social networks that we all know do not respect the freedom of expression of their users. How does the TORUM team intend to address the issue of censorship in its social network since this is key within the cryptographic world where people give their opinion freely?

Twitter Username: @Gazianteplyy

[Jayson Tan]
Free speech is the essence of a crypto social network. Without free speech, crypto social networks will never exist.

Torum will continue to uphold this principle until the end.

[May]
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Torum has a unique staking feature called "Initial Staking NFT Offering" or ISNO. This is the first staking feature I encountered of its kind. Can you explain to us the mechanics and structure of this staking product and how NFTs are involved?

Twitter Username: @0JeanWayne

[Jayson Tan]
The ISNO is a unique NFTs that enables the holders to gain extra stake when doing liquidity farming on Torum Finance, our yield farming platform

For more details, we can refer to this article: https://ambcrypto.com/introducing-initial-staking-nft-offering-isno-and-its-first-project/

[May]
Good to know that you have staking and farming incentives!

What is this Genesis Avatar NFT and how is the complete avatar built?

Twitter Username: @static_current

[Jayson Tan]
Torum Genesis Avatar NFT is our first series of PFP Avatars that will be integrated into our SocialFi Metaverse. Think of it as what represents you in the Metaverse world. In the future, we will integrate it with other Metaverse and also other GameFi ecosystems.

For more details: https://medium.com/torum-official/introducing-torum-avatar-nft-your-social-metaverse-identity-dc85c0ede4d8

[May]
Awesome!

Dear community, our guest is in a hurry and we have to pause the conversation here for now!

Please cheer up, I know you had a lot of good questions.

[Jayson Tan]
Sorry, everyone!

If you wish to follow Torum's latest development, be sure to follow us here:

Website: https://intro.torum.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/torum_official

Telegram: https://t.me/torum_official_group_en

Discord: https://discord.gg/torum

Torum Finance: https://www.finance.torum.com/

Torum Avatar NFT: https://avatar.torum.com/

[May]
And it's a wrap!

Thank you everyone for your participation!

Dear guest, do stop by some other time!

Our warm regards to your friend who got you to buy Bitcoin and the rest of the amazing people at Torum HQ!

Until next time, do have a great day!

The AMA with Torum is now over.