AMA with Potion Lab — Nov 6th 22
Here is the recap of the AMA with NotAWalker and Black from the Potion Lab team, which occurred on the 6th of November 2022 on the Moonarch Miners group: https://t.me/MoonarchMiners
Moonarch:
Welcome every one for this first ever AMA on Moonarch, with Potion Lab!
We thought it would be nice to spend some time talking about this project, which has not seen the recognition I expected it would get — yet?
We will start with an overview of the protocol and the team, then talk about the launch, the evolutions on the app and what the future holds for the Potion Lab brand.
=> If you want to checkout the stats about the project you can currently find it in the superpin spot on the Moonarch Miners page.
So Walker and Black, let’s get to it: Potion Lab launched on the 18th of October, on BSC. It currently has $12,000 TVL in BNB and 217 users. Can you give us an overview of the project? And briefly present what makes it special compared to a classic miner.
Potion Lab — Black:
Thanks for your invitation, it means a lot for us
Our project is really young, thats true. It’s a combination of ROIDapp and classic Miner, but a bit more intelligent. Unlike ususall ROIDapp, our Project makes payout flexible depending on the market situation and Deposit/Withdrawal ratio. And unlike classic Miners, we have Ghosts (that are responsible for mining earnings) and it’s amount is always fixed. I know it sounds a bit complicated right now, but I’ll explain better when we dive deeper to the tech part
Now, in human language: The project is completely unique. The contract we wrote ourselves. We changed the economic model several times to make it all work. Compared to a classic miner, our users do not depend on the date of the deposit, because the price of ghosts is fixed. The model is flexible and balances any fluctuations, it helps to increase the end-User earnings (when the Deposit/Withdrawal ratio is high) and keep the project stable in the periods of Withdrawals
By the way, it’s almost the 20th day since the Project has been launched. So right now we’re facing our first earning withdrawals. You can see how the balancing algorithm works in real-time, increasing and decreasing the potion rate. Yesterday it dropped really rapidly because of a heavy withdrawal, and now it’s increasing (and this rise is going to be as rapid as it fell down, when the new deposits come)
We will be able to dive deeper in each of these subjects during the AMA. Can you present the Potion Lab team: who does what, where do you guys come from… Also did you work on other projects before this one?
Potion Lab — NotAWalker:
We have gathered in the current composition recently. Each of us worked in our own field/project. Before that, we worked in various crypto start-ups: data collection and analytics, sales, creation of custom projects.
Potion Lab — Black:
Our team roles, in short:
Walker — our leader and PR director. All the marketing offers, roadmaps and collaborations — that’s all his part.
Skull — our community manager. Moderating the chat, talking to people and balance the human interactions is his main role.
And me Black — I’m the Dev and tech support. You can ask any tech questions, I will be glad to help with the contract code and explain how the mechanics work.
Your contract is 100% original and even looks original in the coding style. What was the reason for not forking existing projects?
The code is also quite complex compared to most contracts I read/audit, how did you make sure it was bug-free? Is it audited?
Potion Lab — NotAWalker:
We had savings that allowed us to do some kind of creativity. We did a lot of tests in terms of project economics. Conducted bug tracking with the entire team. At the moment we have two audits: from Encrypto and HazeCrypto. We are also thinking of taking an audit from George.
https://hazecrypto.net/audit/POTIONMINER
https://www.encryptosecurity.com/AuditRecord?project=103#PotionLab
Potion Lab — Black:
Yeah, the tests were really intensive. I think testing different economic models took us even more time than writing the actual code. Tests, lots of tests, tonns of tests for every step. We’ve been comparing the behavior to other known projects. Then spotted some weak parts. Fixed it, recombined, tested again. Over and over. But we’re really proud of the mechanics that are currently implemented, this bird is going to fly high and be sustainable at the same time
On the protocol itself, could you explain the special mechanisms, like the ingredients, the boosters and most of all the infamous Potion rate?
Potion Lab — NotAWalker:
The system of ingredients directly affects the withdrawal of funds. The better the ingredients, the lower the output debuff. The purpose of such a model is to maintain the stability of the contract balance and the accumulation of new deposits.
The potion rate — is a self-written self-regulation mechanism that also automatically adjusts the amount of payments in accordance with the analysis of the following data:
- The amount of money that the project has to pay in the near future;
- Project balance.
Boosters are one of the elements of our project, which gives a chance to earn both a person with money and without it. This is because it can be sold inside the auction.
Potion Lab — Black:
I can describe all this in a spooky tech language, but my time has not come yet :) But I’ll try to tell it in a simple way:
Potion rate is active for all the users. It just balances the deposit/withdrawal ratio to increase earnings and keep the contract stable (and, therefore, makes sure that every user will eventually get their profits as it was promised).
Ingredient Level is different for every user and depends on their activity (drops on Withdraw and recovers naturally or by using Reinvest)
The way I see it, the ingredient system is somewhat related to the 6 mandatory compounds we have on some projects, except once you are at the highest level you can stay there until you withdraw. Would you agree?
Potion Lab — Black:
Not exactly. It’s a bit more simple. Your Ingredient Level is just one parameter than can be in to 6 different states. It balances the project payouts by applying a debuff on your Withdrawals. Many users think it just cuts the earnings, but in reality all your earnings are safe and waiting for you. Low Ingredient level just increases the time (temporarily) you need to make your earnings available to withdraw.
The debuff levels accordingly to your Ingredient Level are:
Excellent: No debuff
Very good: -30%
Good: -40%
Bad: -50%
Very bad: -60%
Awful: -80%
The logic behind that is pretty simple: all the earnings of your account are stored in Potions. Earned potions get converted to BNB at the moment of Reinvest or Withdrawal. If PR is high you just progress in finishing your plans faster. When it’s low — it just slows your plan down. Without any BNB loss. This logic is pretty similar to making all the payouts in a Token. The only difference — tokens are not safe (can be printed or rugpulled) while Potions are regulated automatically by the contract.
There is also a section on the app for Auctions, can you elaborate on that? Did you already have some?
Potion Lab — Black
Yes, we have Lottery and Auction sections. It can look like a standalone feature made just for fun, but it actually has a lot of sense in terms on our Ecosystem.
Lottery will help us to make more live interactions with our users. For example, we can find digital artists or talented youtube influencers to promote our Project. As a reward we can let them participate in Lottery and win prizes like Boosters or BNB rewards. And their name will be there in the list, with a hint attached (reason why they deserve to take part in the current Lottery). I think it’s really important for our community and seamless Project<>Community interactions.
Lottery also brings flexibility and balancing to the economic model: it’s the only way Boosters (that increase your Plan Profits) can be obtained. By the way, we’re going to start our first lottery to the end of this conversation :)
Ah that’s what I was about to ask! Announcement coming then!
Potion Lab — Black:
Auction is another important part of our community life. But, unlike Lottery, it’s rather P2P interactions between our users. Project itself doesn’t make any trades at Auction. It’s just a platform that helps users to sell or buy Boosters by placing/buying lots. The Booster price is going to reflect the Project health and popularity in real-time, which I find an important part of economics and monitoring.
Every new Lottery round and its rules (which will be different every time) will be announced in our channel by Walker beforehand!
Potion Lab had a rather good launch considering the current state of the miner scene, but did not really get the attention I felt it deserved after that. What do you think about it? And what steps are you taking to try and bring new people into it? Also, any reason why the Auction and Lottery have not already been used?
Potion Lab — Black:
Lottery has not been used so far just to let our first users to pay more attention to the basic mechanics. Starting a Lottery without proper understanding the Project would, I believe, cound puzzle our users. We’re trying to do everything step-by-step, and would like every User to know precisely how everything works and how actually good it is ^.^
We’re not hurrying with spreading rumors and other shady schemes. We have time and patience to explain everything, to describe the model and, eventually build a decent friendly community ❤️
Potion Lab — NotAWalker:
We think that many did not understand our project. At the moment we are working on creating simpler informational materials, as well as an animated video guide. In addition, we work with local YouTubers to attract new users. We are also working on relaunching advertising in ad networks
Potion Lab — Black:
Yes, a detailed video guide that will replace all these old-style FAQ and Whitepaper is coming. I personally get new information easier in video-format. Of course, the written guide will stay available for those who loves short and precise data :)
I liked the design of the first version of the app, but it was a bit confusing (not using the usual terms like Invest or Compound for example). The V2 looks even better, but most of all has much more explanations of the various features. What was the reasoning behind all the changes?
Potion Lab — NotAWalker:
We talked to people from the community and came to the conclusion that many people did not understand the project. Therefore, we decided to quickly change, simplify the design and add instructions.
Potion Lab — Black:
The first design was fancy and looking really good to me. But, lets be realistic, it was overcomplicated. As I have already mentioned before, we’ve spent really long time testing and reworking our contract code and implementing various complicated mechanics. And for me, as DEV, it wasn’t obvious how hard it could be to our newcomers to make their first steps in understanding the Ecosystem in total.
The day before the launch we started receiving lots of questions that were obvious for us, but really complicated for someone who’s not familiar with this Project. We reworked our Whitepaper and called more people to moderate the channel and added more hints and explanations. But at the end of the day we made a really challenging decision: we’re going to create a brand new desing. After launch. In a couple of days. Right now =D
So we decided to gather all the questions from our community, create a completely new interface, wire and regroup all the information and links. And.. here it is, our V2 went live! :)
By the way, we still keep monitoring the community and change some details in the main interface time by time. Every day. We have many different ways to test the understanding and CTR, so we’ll be trying to improve the current website, FAQ, Whitepaper and video Guide in future
This is kind of an uncommon behavior as people in DeFi are often just launching and “on to the next”, instead of trying to improve their current project. So what’s coming next for the Potion Lab brand? It looks like you are committed in continuing to support this first project for now?
Potion Lab — NotAWalker:
In the future, we would like to create some kind of ecosystem around this project ( it`s secret so far ;) ), but first we need to raise this project to the levels it really deserves
Potion Lab — Black:
Yes, we’re working hard to improve the project. Unlike many one-day projects being created nowadays, we decided to give all our time and put all our efforts into building a really decent Long-Term platform that users can understand, use on daily basis and trust to. It’s challenging, but we are ready for that and it’s pleasure for us to build such an interesting and complicated thing. It’s also pleasure to see how people start understanding the mechanics and actually using it!
Questions from Moonarch members:
Bell: how many days does it take to go up 1 ingredient level does anyone know how to answer me?
Potion Lab — Black:
Thanks for your question. Your Ingredient Level recovers naturally every 2 days (48 hours), you have a special counter in your user Dashboard. You can also increase your Ingredients by using Reinvest (this works once per day, 24 hours), you also have a counter for that. In addition, you get “Excellent” ingredients if you made a relatively high deposit (see your Deposit section, the neede value is mentioned above the ‘Amount’ field). You can get more info by reading the “Info” section at the end of every page, Sir.
Crypto Acee: Hi. the potion rate has been decreasing, it was 1.003 yesterday and it is about 0.885 at the moment. Why does it fall and what does the fall impact? Is it related to the generation of the BNB?
Potion Lab — Black:
Since our project is really young and every Withdrawal has its impact on the Potion Rate balancing system, and since it’s ~20 day since the Launch, you see the first wave of Withdrawals right now. In Long-Term this system will start working more smoothly and seamless. Right now it demonstrates it’s functionality. I know, many users have FUD feelings right now since they might have bad experience with other projects, but we’re actually really happy to see our system working so well.
0xOurea: Hey, does the team plan to get KYC?
Potion Lab — Black:
We’re considering to pass KYC, but right now we have lots of other ongoing offers and collaborations (Georde Stamp audit, this AMA session, ADS offers, Youtube Video Guide and partial collaborations with other Platforms). We will announce every of these steps, including KYC, in our channel later, please stay tuned!
James: How do you plan to spread awareness of your project in different countries / regions where English can’t be used well? Does you have a community approach for them to better understand project ?
Potion Lab — Black:
There is already English and Spanish versions of our website available. We have also created a special PH group and woking on French group and version. We’re going to add more languages in future, but it takes time and effort to make everything precise and understandable, so please be patient ❤️
Crypto Acee: Something happened since I did my re-catch yesterday. It’s completely different now. Am I still in or did is this a new thing? Do I get my money? What do I do?
Potion Lab — Black:
Your earnings are safe, Sir. When the Potion Rate comes back [1–2 days from now] to 1.00 all your BNB will be there available to Withdraw. Even if you use Withdraw right now, your profits won’t be lost, it just takes more time to finish your plans when the PR is low. You will eventually get your Final Profit as promised, no worries! ❤️
I’m Tig: Could you provide us a bit more information about what you guys describe as a self-regulating system? This is only question 😅
Potion Lab — Black: Self-regulation system is based on [ Ingredient Level system + Potion Rate system + Lottery/Auction price forming naturally ] and therefore gives a better and more precise reaction to any changes in market situation and user behavior. They work together, balacing the project, making it more stable and making sure that every user will eventually get their Rewards as promised. Unlike other projects, we don’t cut the Rewards, we just slow down the whole Project farming speed, so nobody actually loses anything and everyone benefit. We follow our promises, that’s the basic idea around all those mechanisms.
