We were honored to host an AMA with KLON on December 16th in the DEXTools community telegram! It was jam packed with info and we were impressed with the progress and the honesty and integrity Philipp, CEO of KLON conveyed! We summarized the amazing conversation below and also rewarded $20 to 4 people who had the best questions at the end!
Below is the conversation between Wael Rajab from DEXT Force Ventures (DFV) and Philipp, CEO of KLON.
DFV: Hey DEXTools and the KLON community we have a huge AMA today. Joining us is Philipp, CEO of KLON! Can you please introduce yourself and your background?
Philipp: Glad to be here and thanks for having me let’s get it on. I have more than 20 years of experience in advertising and marketing. I have operated an independent media agency and I founded an advertising technology company with combined more than 100 employees and a yearly ad-spend of more than 250m dollars. We have used data driven attribution models to get campaign data which reflects the best possible impact of different channels on the total ROI and we were specialists in programmatic advertising. I was awarded as digital agency of the year in Switzerland. After that I stepped into the blockchain game and advised international companies and celebrities regarding social tokens and NFT Projects including famous stars and brands like Post Malone, West Coast Customs and Universal Music. After that in my brain I formed a vision of KLON and my dream was to build something with a positive impact in a future world. That’s why I founded KLON. DEXTools is one of the very early supporters of KLON and I really appreciate it.
DFV: Appreciate the trust in us, and we are looking forward to the long and successful partnership! So can you explain what KLON is and what you are hoping to achieve?
Philipp: There’s multiple layers to dig into, but I will summarize it with four bullets
- Combining Avatars with a true decentralized identity Layer
- Making you a trusted (but trust-less) partner in the metaverse
- Perfect copy of yourself
- Easy access to all the metaverses
That means, we see ourselves as a combination as a provider of Identity, avatars and make it usable in a very practical way.
DFV: Wow, very ambitious! Would love to see myself in the metaverse! Amazing work, I’ve seen the KLON examples on the website and I urge everybody to go take a look! Can you introduce the team and who is behind all the great work at KLON?
Philipp: I think many projects in the ID space are cool. Many projects in the avatar space are cool. But not many of them find a way to combine it to a real user-beneficial and easy to use product. My team is a highly motivated and skilled small group of people I really trust. Including some of my best friends. Everyone with a specific skill set. From Branding to UX design to blockchain dev.
My CTO Sandro is a long time partner of mine. He was leading the dev team in my advertising technology company and is deeply rooted in crypto and blockchain since 2015. Senior Dev Jake has worked for Unreal Engine as a Dev and also contributed important elements to Pancake Swap.
The outer layer of my core team is advisory based. Here I have people who are working hard for the project regarding network, tech sustainability and implementation. And the 3rd layer of the team is completely outsourced to selected and trustful partners, who are really committed to the project on the one hand, but also have the flexibility to scale up the workforce fast if needed and scale down if needed as-well. This keeps this project fast and flexible and ensures the financial health by not having too much overhead. Especially in these times I’m so happy to have chosen this kind of setup.
DFV: Sounds like you got a tight ship and crew! Love to see that, as you mentioned KLON brings out our personal representation in the virtual space. Some folks in the crypto scene want to enter the metaverse as an anonymous character, potentially to keep their identity safe or to simply live a new identity, does KLON accommodate this?
Philipp: KLON will become an open platform and the beauty of Web3 is that you can combine anonymity with trust. This means that as a user you will be able to use dozens of avatars. Those from KLON, but also others. Ready Player me, Adidas or Nike avatars. The important thing is that you can use the KLON ID to verify all your avatars and appear as a trustworthy partner. So if you want to be a dragon. Be a dragon =) but think of KLON as the umbrella and I guess if you want to have a virtual meeting with your boss… you could choose your high end 3D KLON and not the dragon =)
DFV: Makes sense, so you can switch from avatar to avatar and I saw you can hop from metaverse to metaverse. What metaverses have KLON collaborated with so far? Do you guys plan to release your stand-alone metaverse or is the goal to have KLON integrated in the most popular platforms?
Philipp: Yes! Definitely, we will not launch our own Metaverse project. We are focusing on users being able to move around the metaverse and on users actually being able to do useful things with their KLON identity. We see ourselves as an enabler, for both the users and the metaverses. To underline this: it will be possible that you can equip your avatar with university certificates, further education certificates, credit rating information. which is beyond the game-like use-cases we see now.
We have many partners in the background, we work with the guys from Bloktopia, Netvrk, Metaarrow, Metavision and many many more… But the thing is, that the focus is straight to the use-cases for the users from day one. Independent from all the existing metaverse projects.
DFV: Awesome! What network is KLON being launched on as the goal is for everybody at some point to have their own KLON, it would need to be affordable and will it be multi-chain?
Philipp: Our home chain will be Polygon, but we will be multi chain from the beginning. The most important thing is security in this game, and we have developed a great way to bridge between the chains without being too vulnerable regarding attacks to the centralized elements of traditional bridging. But still, this needs a lot of eyeballs and effort.
DFV: Definitely, you guys are taking on a lot! Will you be able to transfer your KLON or sell the KLON? Have you ever thought about somebody selling their identity and that being used for either good or bad?
Philipp: No, that will not be possible. One KLON identity per person. Not transferable. Otherwise our use-case is not given. Of course, every single scam you can think of has been done. but to unlock the full potential of a KLON you need to verify your identity and your liveness. Otherwise it wont work.
DFV: Great, can you go into some of the added utility for KLON holders and what incentives they may see for holding the token when released?
Philipp: Regarding the token utility, KLON will be used as transaction currency. You will need to stake KLON tokens to actually use the product. You can buy and sell items on our marketplace and buy premium features with KLON tokens. Interesting is that we are building on a lot of B2B partnerships and we will use KLON also for these partnerships. A part of this is used for deflationary mechanisms in the eco. We will release more utilities with the release of versions and lastly governance features will follow further down the timeline.
DFV: Looking forward to it, a ton of utility off the bat as well! I saw that KLON reinvests 49% of all assets directly into KLON’s associated Metaverse projects. Can you go into more detail of what the funds are being allocated towards (Land, NFTs, Coins, ect)?
Philipp: That’s a great question and I’d have answered this question a little different half a year ago. But let’s get it on: We talk about a more or less traditional structured product that minimizes investment risks for users and is managed via algorithms.
This means that based on various qualitative and quantitative signals, the share of a certain coin in the portfolio is increased or decreased. The FTX case has shown us, however, that we have to be extremely careful and have an absolutely integrity based system that is as safe in bear market situations as it is in bull market times. We can’t afford to play ever At the same time, on the legal side, we have to be absolutely perfect in many markets. We have a very good concept, but we will only launch this part of the product when we have clearly assessable signals with regard to regulation, auditing, etc.
We don’t want to take a risk on a “nice to have” part of the product — and that’s this feature — that we can’t assess. So, don’t expect this feature to be launched in 2023. but in 24… I’m really confident!
DFV: Rebalancing is important, and I love that you are very serious about minimizing huge risks and keeping it on the safe side. Makes total sense, you wouldn’t want to rush this! I believe this is going to be huge!!
Now a question you probably get asked everyday! Do you guys have a TGE date in mind?
Philipp: I love the question =) Look at the markets. We are almost ready to launch the MVP. But in these markets. No way a launch will be successful. We’re financially stable and have enough runtime to wait until markets turn green. That’s what I said in the beginning. I’m happy that we did not blow money in the first half of the year. So we are safe, and have at least 18 months of dev time And that’s what we have agreed on with all our investors and partners… if possible Q1 2023.
DFV: Im a huge believer! Very impressed with everything so far!
We talked about market conditions right now, so how does KLON plan to stay ahead of the competition with the excessive launch of Metaverse/NFT related projects and being in a bear market?
Philipp: I hope my opinion is not unpopular, but let’s get it on. What’s happening in the market is a clearing of the land and, from my perspective, a long overdue correction. It cannot be that projects that really just suck, allocate so much money and rip off the next ponzi scheme. I think we have all seen that enough. And quite honestly, I’m happy about the current situation. It gives us, as a serious project, time to develop a serious product that is also effectively useful and solves a problem. And it takes attention away from crap projects and makes it harder for scammers to get money. So we’ll see how it goes, but I think the time for scam projects is running out.
As far as KLON is concerned, I can only say that we are very careful with our investor’s money and have our burn rate under control, so that we have enough runtime to develop and then launch when everyone is a bit happier again.
DFV: Agreed, I believe only strong projects and teams build out in these market times. Most scams/ponzis don’t survive markets like this.
I definitely learned a lot here, and I think everybody watching did as well. I have to ask for everybody watching that wants to get involved with KLON, can they still support the project, are there more IDO opportunities?
Philipp: Here I have to refer to our other very esteemed partners like Enjinstarter, Blokpad etc. You can participate through them. We have become very conservative in our launchpad strategy, because currently even the big players in the industry cannot keep their commitments. That’s why we don’t intend to expose ourselves more. But you’ll be the first community that gets informed about updates regarding the IDO
DFV: Awesome, our community would love that! Sounds like you guys are committed to only working with loyal and trustworthy companies instead of anybody who wants to just give you money! I like the integrity
You have answered everything amazingly today and I’ve sincerely enjoyed this AMA. I have to ask what you think about DEXTools? And the future of DeFi?
Philipp: I can’t say too much about this without drifting into philosophy. What I do know is that DEXTools has been an honest, loyal and truly serious partner of KLON from the very beginning. and I really mean it. I can only speak highly of DEXTools. From the very first call with Tom, I had a very good feeling, and I am proud to have such a competent partner on board.
Regarding DeFi? I am a romantic and believe in great potential. Overall, DeFi has the potential to significantly improve financial inclusion and bring financial services to people in unbanked countries who may not have access to these services through traditional means and I think ultimately this case will bring DeFi the success it deserves.
DFV: I truly believe so as well, coming from an unbanked country my self. I understand the mission and it will succeed! Could have not answered it any better myself That was an exciting and info packed AMA! Let’s check in with the community and see if they have any questions!?
The community had tons of questions for KLON, they seemed to love the product and we had a huge inflow of messages, support, and questions! Below are the 5 questions that qualified and each user won $20 for asking! Make sure to join us on our next AMA! Community questions below!
@Sojib00038: So many projects just like to speak about the “long term vision and mission” but what are your short term objectives? What are you focusing on right now?
Philipp: The short term objective is, that our MVP, which will be available when we launch the token, brings an immediate use-case for an everyday user. That’s the goal, I don’t say by now, what exactly, but we want to generate the feeling, that you really are missing something if you don’t make your own KLON
@Julius_guerrero_92: We do understand that increasing your KLON-Score unleashes your KLON’s full potential. Can you enlighten us on what some of these potentials are?
Philipp: The KLON Score is a way to have exclusive access and premium features and so on, thousands of options. If you have a great KLON score, you may get front row seats on a virtual fashion show, or you are capable of attending a specific event or you can enter rooms that are not available for people with a lower score!
@Railgun10032: How will KLON bridge the gap which users from web2 experience when they transition to web3 world? How will you explain Decentralized Identification to web2 users?
Philipp: The avatar design is not the key, the ID is the key, and you are only verified. If you are verified as a person.
@PepayaCC: How are avatars in the metaverse being used for identity, business or marketing purposes, and what are some examples of innovative or successful applications of this technology?
Philipp: Think of this: you deal everyday with AIs of companies, chatbots and so on. It’s time to scale yourself, right? Your KLON will be the scalable version of you. You will be able to let your KLON make the first 1000 job interviews and this is the future of a scalable me.
About KLON
Klon.ai makes lifelike avatars called KLONs so users can access the metaverse. Using several chains, KLON securely joins various metaverses. By enabling users to switch between metaverses with a single click, it consequently offers a seamless metaverse experience.
