On 13–06–2023 we had an Ask-Me-Anything with CosmosClub. This AMA is available to listen via Twitter Spaces, Spotify and their Youtube channel. Also a Twitter thread around BitCanna was created.
Following the request for community questions a lot of input was received. On this page we will answer a lot of these questions. Some of them will be bundled, some of them will be answered directly.
Who is BitCanna?
To start with, we stand out compared to competitors in the cryptospace targetting the cannabis market because BitCanna is the only project founded and built by the cannabis industry. We are one of the few coins with an actual global use case.
At the start the BitCanna Team has been asked to solve multiple issues out of this industry many companies deal with back then and still do, even with the progressive legislation we see in some countries. One of these issues is global payment and the lack of the ability to get a bank account. Cannabis entrepreneurs just want to run a business like any other, but are hindered by legislation and a hesitant banking sector. BitCanna will solve this by a cheap mobile global payment system for everyone. This needs to be fast, cheap, secure and accessible. But besides that we want to tackle topics like like identification, traceability, transparency, quality, etc. We really want to make our platform a one-stop-shop where cannabis consumers can find anything they search for; being information, products or community. Ofcourse you could pay with other coins like BTC. But these are in general to expensive, to slow and developing new tools and features is difficult. Especially if you want to unlock the power of our tools on mobile, where we believe the majority of users will be.
We are currently accepted in some of the biggest shops in the industry, like Zamnesia and Royal Queen Seeds. Taking for example the latter, they give a 10% discount on any order when you pay with BitCanna, so there is actually an additional financial trigger to pay with BitCanna compared to traditional payment methods.
We are aware that the majority of our core audience are non-crypto-natives; so we really try to create tools which works as intuitive as apps we already have nowadays, like banking apps. A consumer has to be able to use our technology and underlying blockchain tech without feeling that she/he is using it. So having the benefits, without having the downsides. We will offer an unique value due to the comprehensive set of tools we will develop. Our dream is to create a thriving environment where a cannabis user and the industry can find each other and where they never have to leave the environment for anything they want to do.
What are the hardest legal issues in regards to cannabis and blockchain?
The hardest legal part is the fact to so much is unclear as we see nowadays with the SEC sueing Coinbase and Binance. Plus the fact that operating in a global environment brings complexity of an unprecedent scale, because a lot of countries have different nuances in their laws and legislation. We have regular contact with our legal advisors to make sure we are staying within the boundaries of what we can do to bring crypto to the people. But it is a long journey and takes a lot of time to prepare, discuss, process and reiterate.
Take for example the blockchain itself. In principle according to the GDPR putting the information about funds and whatmore publicly available is illegal. But since it is the core of the blockchain to be open it is already quite a nice paradox where a good way has to be found to meet legislation while still preserving the strength of blockchain tech.
At the same time we also have to watch legislation around cannabis. Some countries are more strict, other are more progressive. It makes it "easier" for us since we do not sell products, however, when designing our products we still have to take it into account. It is for example illegal in most (if not all) countries for companies in the cannabis industry to advertize. That is something which makes it hard for us as well. But we are sure we can find a way where we can deliver valuable products while still meeting legislatory guidelines.
Can you list any exciting plans for the future?
We are working in an Agile way, where we have a shortlist of things we want to do, but we take them one-by-one based on the needs we see around the time we finish a product.
Right now we are working on finishing our new Webwallet which we need to be able to upgrade our chain to a newer version of the Cosmos SDK. Also on the mobile app following after that. And we have a secret project which we have introduced as our desired killer app, but I can't lift the veil too much on that yet. It is a little bit too early, but we hope to announce our plans on this very very soon.
If you succeed in this roadmap, how will BitCanna look 5-10 years from now?
You'll be able to use BCNA as a means of payment in every dispensary or webshop around the globe. We are also the platform to go to if you need information or find your favourite products or shops. Connecting users and businesses will be done via our platform. And ofcourse identification, supply chain tracing and other features to be developed.
We don't have set facts & figures regarding growth targets. But we are targetting onboarding massive amounts of users in the future to enjoy the benefits of using crypto and being able to spend it for their favourite products, while also offering shopowners a seamless experience to be able to operate their business.
How do you see Cosmos being paramount to make BitCanna achieve what you set out to build 5-10 years from now?
Being in the Cosmos ecosytem allows us to benefit from the shared technology (e.g. SDK, IBC), while still having full control over our own chain and how we want to develop it. It makes us more flexibile than being bound to a shared main chain which you see in other ecosystems, which also gives us the opportunity to tailor the solutions to the market we target.
What do you think is the biggest problem in the Cosmos Ecosystem now?
Having no central chain like on Ethereum creates a lot of friction amongst projects, because everyone wants to prove their project is better than the other. Whereas we as an ecosystem are in the best position to benefit from all the differences we have in the ecosystem. Specialisation of chains also brings the ability to bring new features which you can't see in any other ecosystem. We need to find that magic trigger to reach cooperation instead of competition.
If you were just getting ready to launch tokenomics now, what would you change from your current version?
One thing which would be nice and could be explored in the future is lowering the basic inflation, but where people can get some kind of bonus to their APR after doing effort for the project. It would be cool if rewards were not totally free, but are more rewarding for the people doing their utmost best to make a project a success.
On which social network is your community most active?
Our main activities happen on Telegram, Discord and Twitter. All our articles, dev updates and blogs can be found on our Medium page. On Facebook we only place the announcements.
Do you have a plan to attract interest in the community?
We want to be one of the very first projects who bridges the gap to the "real" world. A lot of projects are focussed on servicing the crypto-space, but for major success we can't focus only on the people who already have crypto. The massive success will be to onboard new fresh people. Although we are ofcourse bound by legal restrictions in our channels, we stimulate people to talk with eachother about the pride they have in growing cannabis and more.
How is BitCanna working towards creating a seamless user experience for those who may not be familiar with cryptocurrencies?
We are working hard to make using BCNA (being for payments, staking or something else) just as easy as using a banking app which are widely used.
Is KYC verification required before one can get signed up on BitCanna platform? If yes,which company have you partnered with that's responsible for this KYC verification?
No KYC required to use the platform. Getting funds to be able to buy BCNA might require KYC though through the required use of a centralized exchange or a broker.
What strategy will you implement to bring non-crypto-natives into your ecosystem? How do you keep a balance between developing the technology and also improving the value of your token?
We are targetting non-crypto-natives in general looking at the demographic of the audience in the cannabis industry. For that purpose we try to develop our products as simple as they can be, making sure that people can use crypto without knowing they use crypto. I have compared it in the past with Swift, the international banking network. Before the war in the Ukraine a lot of people didn't know what Swift was, while it was used widely across the world. We want to reach that point with our technology as well.
Is there any tutorial video or educational material to teach and educate users on how to get acquainted with the functionality of BitCanna? If yes, how can I access this video?
We have created a video a while ago regarding a payment using BCNA and Cosmos Pay. Due to other priorities we have not created new ones just yet, but it might be a nice item to return to.
Do the token holders have right to participate in the governance of the project? secondly, you tell us about the motivation and benefits for investors to keep the your token in the long run?
Holders of BCNA indeed have the right to participate in governance. Crypto was started to bring power back the hands of individuals, so we also urge people to exercise their rights in voting :)
Holding BCNA can be quite an interesting feat. You can ofcourse do the standard DeFi things, but because we are also accepted on multiple locations in the real world as means of payment you can also use your rewards to get desired products. If you build up a nice stack it might even be that you will never have to spend a single dollar or euro anymore, because you can buy your seed, equipment and what more with the rewards from your BCNA stack.
In what way, purely as a user, can I benefit of BitCanna Trail? Can I verify the product's legitimacy or only track it on chain?
BitCanna Trail is meant to store all relevant information surrounding a final product you can buy as consumer. Starting with the farm where it has been grown, all intermediaries who have been involved in the supply chain and all relevant test reports which are made to ensure quality. This is something which is on our roadmap, but requires a lot of time to develop. A lot of legal difficulties have to be tackled here plus the method to retrieve data from the blockchain in a very fast manner to offer the requester the best experience.
Does BitCanna have plans to own its own NFTs on cannabis pfps?
We already have our own collection of NFTs which has been airdropped to supporters of the project. We did an airdrop in april 2022 and a public sale following after that. When the market turned bad we decided to close this public mint and burned one unminted Buddhead every 5 minutes until we reached the end of the collection. We thought it was fitting to burn our Budds :P
Find our collection here: http://www.hubble.tools/collections/bitcanna-buddheads
Tell us more about Cosmos Pay. For example; is the plugin free to use or will you charge fees? Will there be other integrations for e-commerce platforms? Can I install the plugin myself as shopowner? Will you do customisations to the plugin?
Making Cosmos Pay available for the complete ecosystem was a "Thank you" from our side. We benefit from the centrally developed Cosmos SDK, which saves precious development time on our side. When our developer Atmon3r noticed that with minor adjustments we could open up the plugin to other Cosmos-SDK-based chains we went for it to make the plugin more versatile than BitCanna alone.
Right now we have focussed on WooCommerce and Shopify, and moved on to our mobile app to ensure frictionless usage for our end users. In the future we might onboard other e-commerce platforms to make it possible for more webshops to use our plugin.
Using the plugin is easy. To start with, installation and usage does not require any fee whatsoever. BitCanna is not a party in this and will not charge a fee for using the plugin. We have designed it to act as peer-to-peer transactions as crypto is intended to be and only transaction fees for the blockchain apply.
To help with the installation of the plugin we have created guides. We won't do the installation in the webshops (and we will not do shopspecific customisations on the plugin) but in just a few clicks you can already install and start configuring the plugin. As shopowner you can now accept BCNA ofcourse, but also ATOM, OSMO, JUNO and STARS. The prices for these currencies are obtained using the API from CoinGecko, except for BCNA. For BCNA we have created our own price oracle, which takes the prizes from CoinMarketCap, Coingecko and Osmosis directly to give the most accurate price. Also note that the plugin is not limited to usage within the cannabis industry, but can be installed in any webshop using the WooCommerce or Prestashop platform.
As a consumer you can do a payment with any wallet you want, as long as you make sure the receiver address, amount and memo match what is shown in the payment screen of the plugin. The memo is required to recognize payments. We do the check on receiver address, amount and memo to make sure the shopowner and customer both get what they want. In theory it should be possible to send the funds also from an exchange, but it is not recommended (note that it also only works on exchanges where you don't have to verify the receival address). Rather use one of the high quality wallets out there to manage your funds (Keplr, CosmoStation, Leap or our own BitCanna webwallet).
Important note: We will never be able to access your funds. That is the whole point of crypto (not your keys, not your crypto). You are the sole owner of your funds as it should be.
Could you tell us about the ways to get funds on the platform?
Right now getting your hands on BCNA is the hassle we know from a lot of altcoins. You have to get ATOM or OSMO via a broker or a CEX and then swap on Osmosis or using an aggregator. But we are working on methods to make it way more accessible in the near future.
I will start my CBD farm in France next years. Is BitCanna going to offer incubators for structures of my type where people can invest in them?
This is something we talked about internally, but have not made tangible yet. Stay tuned for more news around this. It will also require some work to investigate the legal side of things.
When will the mobile version come back and can we get a refer a friend program?
We are working on the mobile as we speak. Not final deadline yet to be communicated, but stay tuned. When the mobile app is out and shops start to use it, you can buy your weed with BCNA in the store around the corner.
Refer a friend programs are again a difficult legal subject. Our legal advisors tell us to avoid that for now in the current regulatory landscape and work on other methods to attract users.
However, it is free for the industry to run their own programs like Royal Queen Seeds does with respect to payments with BCNA.
Partnership is very important for every project. Can you tell us about some of your partners and who you plan to collaborate with in the near future? Any plans to make partnership with other pr?
Some of our partners are the biggest players in the industry, like Zamnesia and Royal Queen Seeds. We will work on expanding our set of partners to accommodate as much as we can within the cannabis industry. In the end we want to be the go-to place for both end consumers as well as the industry itself.
I see recently, a list of Validators up to hundred in number were published BitCanna for delegation purposes. Next, members of community or users will commit their funds to the Validators through delegation.
Choosing a validator is always a delicate process. Things like uptime and spot on the validator list are important, but also look at what a validator contributes to the project. Trying to avoid staking at the top ranked validators is also important to make the chain itself less sensitive to disruptions. On average validators do their utmost to take care of their delegations.
We have a list of validators who contribute for our project and who are fit for delegations.
Token burn is beneficial to any business in terms of regulating the number of tokens in circulation and offering greater incentives to investors. Is there a strategy in place for token burn in your amazing project?
We have been looking at token burns as a potential topic for the future. Nothing tangible on that field just yet, our pimary focus is first to deliver some of our core products to drive utility to our project.
Do you have any plan for traditional gamers? Can you share it? How many characters in the game? Who are they? When will the test version of the game be released?
We don't have a game at this stage. It is something we really like to do, but it hasn't hit our priority list just yet. We have some other major topics to tackle first.