This is a transcript from our weekly YouTube live AMA:

SPEAKERS: Anita Mlakar and Sandi Bitenc.

About AMA: On this AMA, we are giving you our Weekly update and Q&A.

AMA Duration: 40:59

Introduction:

Anita Mlakar: 00:06

Hello everybody and welcome to 3air’s weekly AMA. It is Wednesday it is 5 o’clock, maybe a minute or two beside that but we are here, of course, live every Wednesday. I’m happy to have you here. Anita Mlakar is my name. And I am the host of 3air’s AMAs.

00:27

Today of course also with Sandi Bitenc, the CEO of 3air and he will be with us in a couple of minutes. Now, I would like to invite you as I always do to be a part of this. Of course, to get involved you have more options, you can click like, you can ask a question, write it in the comment section, you can write a suggestion, write your question and of course, be a part of our channels on Telegram, Discord, Twitter, you can follow us on our social networks, we are here for you.

01:02

I always do the beginning of AMAs with a short introduction of the project, that is the 3air’s project and let me do that also now.

01:11

So, what we are trying to do is connect people of Africa to internet. We are trying to connect the unconnected and we are doing that with two technologies K-3 last mile solution and 3air internet. Once you are connected, you get a digital identity from us, you can store everything, and it is a provable record of what you have done so far. And of course, you can identify yourself with it. We also create your digital bank account, we are giving you a wallet, and we are educating you and that is the real empowerment.

01:50

The next step is providing financial services. We also have outside partners that will provide additional digital revenue streams. And once we put you through all these steps, you are connected, you’re banked, and you are empowered. Of course, you have financial tools, you have revenue streams, and the knowledge. We are happy to do that, and we are also happy to have you here to be a part of this project. Let me invite as I always do the CEO of 3air, Sandi Bitenc.

Sandi Bitenc, CEO of 3air Joins the AMA:

Anita Mlakar: 02:22

Hello, Sandi.

Sandi Bitenc: 02:23

Hello. Hi, everyone.

Anita Mlakar: 02:25

Hello, wait. (Three finger) Hello. Nice to have you here. Nice to see you, again. We are not having a special guest this time, but you are the special guest. I’m really looking forward to this our AMAs also because this is a special opportunity, of course, also for everybody else to ask questions. Sandi, first of all, how are you? And I will ask you if you are ready, and I hope you will also tell us what I mean?

Sandi Bitenc: 02:58

I need to tell you, of course I’m ready.

Anita Mlakar: 03:02

Yeah, not just for AMA.

Sandi Bitenc: 03:05

I know what you mean.

Anita Mlakar: 03:07

Okay. I will say it. This is the last time AMA is with Sandi as a bachelor, as a single man because the next AMA, he will be a married one. Oh, my god!

Sandi Bitenc: 03:25

Yeah. of course, I’m ready.

Anita Mlakar: 03:29

You’re ready, right?

Sandi Bitenc: 03:30

Yeah. It’s nothing, you know, why shouldn’t I be right?

Anita Mlakar: 03:35

Are you counting the hours?

Sandi Bitenc: 03:40

Right now, there’s still too much work.

Anita Mlakar: 03:43

Oh, my god.

Sandi Bitenc: 03:47

I don’t know, i It’s nothing that would kind of, you know, bother me or yeah, I’m looking forward to it. That’s it, but it’s not something that, you know, would be stressful. I don’t know why people are so stressed about getting married and so on.

Anita Mlakar: 04:03

You don’t know that because you’re not a woman.

Sandi Bitenc: 04:07

Petra is also not really stressed. I don’t think she’s stressed.

Anita Mlakar: 04:12

Okay. You know, it is a difference between men and women. How we take this special occasion, this special event - Marriage. But yes, at the end, it is always beautiful. It is always something special. It is something that we wished for, but some stress before and it’s normal, and the preparations and you know, what to dress, what makeup to put on and stuff like that. It is normal but yeah, you might not usually like that. We’re cool.

Sandi Bitenc: 04:48

Yeah, so I don’t really care what makeup I put out. I don’t need to stress about that. And in the end, it doesn’t matter, really. It will be nice, it will fun. I’m pretty sure we’ll have a great time. And that’s what’s important. And, you know, if you have this in mind, then I don’t know why it should be stressful.

Anita Mlakar: 05:09

Yes, you’re absolutely right.

Sandi Bitenc: 05:13

It becomes stressful when you try to make it for someone else, you know, and then show everything is like, I don’t know, like, so if you do or try not to blow everything out of proportion. We had somebody helping us out of it. And they were trying to blow it out of proportion. So, we needed to really tune it down, you know. But it isn’t about, everyone else. It’s about us and that’s it. And for us, we know what we like, and there is no need to show everyone. Everything else and I am never the guy that will try to impress someone else. Just, you know, I just don’t care.

Anita Mlakar: 05:58

Yeah, good for you. Sandi, now, usually people take couple of days off before that, and after that, but you’re still working.

Sandi Bitenc: 06:07

Yeah. I like to work for me working is, let’s say most of the time is like, it’s hard to say relaxing but for sure it isn’t, it’s more or less fulfilling. It can be stressful at times for sure, but I do like to solve challenges. And you know, I think goals, that’s something that I really like. So yeah, I’m still having meetings and calls. And just today there was a developer’s meeting, and we went through some things. But then next week, I will be somewhere on the road. I’ll still do the AMA, but I’ll be somewhere on the road. I’ll take some friends. And also, a part of the 3air development team with me, and we’ll go a bit around Slovenia. And yeah, try to have some nice time without work. Let’s see how good this goes. But I’m pretty sure that a few of us will be working on the road.

Anita Mlakar: 07:19

Yes. Well, thank you, Sandi, for being with us. Thank you for taking the time being here also to answer the questions but I just had it in mind. It would be so nice. You know, I didn’t think that before that you and Petra we’re on right now. And then I would ask Petra the same questions as I am asking you, of course not about 3air but about these feelings and then we will see the difference or maybe not?

Sandi Bitenc: 07:46

Either way, Petra is listening. I’m pretty sure yes, she was already commenting. So, she’s around somewhere.

Anita Mlakar: 07:52

Okay. Petra, please do write down. What do you think? And I know Petra is ready, because we are online every day and I’m really looking forward to that. And I will be at your wedding. And of course, if you will allow me maybe then we can also publish some picture in our channels, but it is all up to you. I promise you if Sandi and Petra say yes, I will do it.

Sandi Bitenc: 08:18

If you take care of it. Yeah, sure. I don’t think I’ll be running around with a phone there.

Anita Mlakar: 08:24

No, you will not. You will have other things to do.

Sandi Bitenc: 08:29

Yes.

SKALE recap:

Anita Mlakar: 08:30

Sandi, we had really nice AMA last time. I was really enjoying our guest. It was, of course the CEO of SKALE, Jack O’Holleran. And so many questions were asked, we also said that maybe we will repeat such AMA one day. And Jack said, “Yes, why not?” So, we’re looking forward to that too. And I also saw that some of questions were coming on later on. So yeah, this was a really nice one. How was your feeling?

Sandi Bitenc: 09:02

I really liked it. I do like Jack, he is one of the smartest guys I ever met. And we’re also chatting now and then. And we’ve been on a few calls before. So, he’s the guy to get the answers about SKALE, that’s for sure. And it is a big part of 3air because we are building on SKALE. So, I do think we need to have him on the call, again in let’s say, a month or two or something like that.

Anita Mlakar: 09:38

Yes, absolutely. We learned a lot about SKALE and their project update V2, also the outlook for the next year and about the project that are live already and also integration of 3air on SKALE. So yeah, it was really a nice conversation.

Sandi Bitenc: 09:57

There is so much in the pipeline there but it’s going to be really awesome. Once the project starts coming out, they are actually coming out already. So, I’m looking at the at the chains mostly because of the technology and I really, really like what SKALE has done. So, in sense of the technology, they’re really good. And I see now that the adoption is slowly coming, there was no adoption before there was V2, because it was just impossible. You could put up a standalone app, but it was impossible to kind of interact with some other apps and so on and that’s really crucial. So V2 is bringing this. So, the interchain inside SKALE interoperability so that different apps can on the same chain because it’s not technically the same chain, every project has its own chain. So, what V2 has done is allow for easy communication between those chains within SKALE. So that’s a totally different level. And I’m pretty sure we’ll see the adoption that SKALE deserves coming now. And also, it doesn’t really help to be launching in in a bear market or something like that.

3air’s DID/Wallet App Presentation:

Anita Mlakar: 11:29

Great, really. Sandi, what you wanted to do last time has also introduced us to an app, and you said you will do it this time. So maybe we should, I hope now to see your presentation.

Sandi Bitenc: 11:47

Well, let’s try it. The last time I had some problems sharing it as on-screen share, because it’s a phone app. So, what we’ve done is we created a demo application for our digital identities. And you need an app for it. So technically, you could do it as a browser application but it’s really hard because what you need to do is, you need to do a lot of QR code scanning. So, to actually being able to control the camera and everything, it does need an app. So, I needed to share my screen here. And I couldn’t, so what I’ve done now is actually, I put my phone, on my desktop. So that’s actually what you see here is coming directly from my phone. And I can still use it here on the desktop. So, but you’ll see it’s my phone because we’ll actually get the camera going.

13:07

So, it is a demo app. So, just don’t look at the design, the design is coming later, it just now it’s the functionalities, and there is no texts, and so on. So how it works is you click “Start”, you probably won’t be clicking Start when it’s really light and the digital identity will be stored on chain. So, if you want to store something on chain, you actually need to generate your private and public keys. And it’s actually the same process as with a wallet. And what we did, we are using the Ether standard. So, this will actually allow us to use the public key directly as a person’s identifier. And it will also allow us then to use this as a regular wallet. So, you’ll be able to hold your identity and also everything else that comes with it. So, every other verifiable claim, you’ll be able to hold it in your wallet. And also, every other crypto that you use. You’ll be using, you’ll be able to hold in your wallet.

14:27

So, this is going to be a crypto wallet also. So, we’re creating our own crypto wallet now with the digital identities. So, these are the regular seed phrase. Again, you don’t need to try it because there’ll be nothing there in this wallet. It’s just going to be for demo purposes but just give me a second because we’ll need to validate it. So, you can then click “Continue” and we need to put in the first word. Let’s see if I got this right. Okay, so now we actually created a pair of public and private keys. So, the private keys are stored in the vault in your device, in your mobile phone. And the public key is actually, you can think of it as the same as your wallet identifiers, something like this.

15:47

So right now, really easy, it’s the wallet. For now, it’s empty, you have some of your personal profile, and here’s actually then the QR code and just allow this. So yeah, here it is. Okay, so now you see it is my phone. So, we are doing this like totally live and this is our back end. So, this is how our back end looks like. And here you can actually create the verifiable claims so not everyone will have access to this for now, only 3air has access to this and we can only create some verifiable claim and you’ll see it after. I can get it on my phone. So, let’s put Sandi, identity and my nationality.

17:09

Okay, so now submit data, and this is not going to be only this data, you can put whatever in here, you know, your credit score, your driver’s license, any education, whatever. So, let’s try and scan this. Okay. Let’s allow it. And here it is. So, this is now came from the back end now to my phone, this is on my phone stored. And I can add it to my wallet. I can name it something and then confirm it then this is now stored directly on my wallet. And I can actually use it, I can share it with someone if I want. So, I can click it share my QR code. And then if somebody else scans it, he’ll actually see what’s in this credential.

18:18

There will be multiple levels of what you can share and also, there will be the option from some verifier to request the data, and then he’ll have the QR code, and you’ll scan it, and then he’ll just get back the information that he really needs and that you are proved. So, this is kind of now the flow. And you can just then store, if we would go to the back end and add another one and scan it, I would just be able to put it in here like how many verifiable claims as I want. So, it’s not only thinking about this as your ID because it’s so much more, it can be an ID, but it can be a lot of other things, whatever you need to kind of verify that you’re in possession and in and it can be digitized the then you can store it as a verifiable credential.

Anita Mlakar: 19:21

Wow looks amazing.

Sandi Bitenc: 19:26

Cool, right?

Anita Mlakar: 19:27

We have some comments already. Eugene is saying, nice. Looks great is another one. This is awesome. So yeah, you can of course write this down. What do you think about it? How do you like it? And if you have a question, just write it in the comment section, great Sandi.

Sandi Bitenc: 19:50

Maybe, here this is technically how a verifiable credential looks like. So, there was the context is just what standard we are using. And then you have the type, then you have the issuer. So, the issuer is really important, the issuer right now will be 3air and 3air has its own digital identity identifier. So that you know that this came from somebody trustworthy. So, that’s the main thing. And then, you know, any governmental institutions can be here for instance, a university can be an issuer and so on. But also, anyone can actually be an issuer, but it comes down to who you trust and who you don’t trust.

20:41

Then you have this, you have the information about the issuer, and then you have your credentials. So, you know, then this would be my ID because I received this credential, and my document ID would be here and date of birth. This is something that has been created before. So just can see how it actually looks like in the backend. And then you have some parts with the proof and some tokens and those things. And this is actually from today’s meeting, just doing some creative stuff there. That’s really creative.

Anita Mlakar: 21:35

This is how creative work happens, right? And brainstorming and how ideas come up. Okay, we have great news Sandi. Richard is saying, “This is great in combination with buying 3air telco connectivity, NFTs”.

Sandi Bitenc: 21:55

Yeah, absolutely. So, you’ll be able to identify yourself with the digital identity, and then the NFT will actually prove that you have access to the internet. And then the NFT is actually the one that will grant you the internet connectivity.

Market update of the past week:

Anita Mlakar: 22:16

Great. Wow. So yeah, thank you, Sandi, for explaining all that. And also, for giving us the presentation, it is much easier to see that way. And what we talked about earlier, is also Sandi, that you will just give us a little update on the market. From your perspective, of course, what is happening? How do you see it as you’re following it?

Sandi Bitenc: 22:42

Yeah, absolutely. So, there’s still work being done in the background. And I think next week, I’ll have some really nice updates about a new launch pad. You know that we will working with and potentially some more exchanges and so on. So, let’s see, if we are really signing this in the next few days, then that will be awesome. And that’s just adding and adding and adding to the successful token launch that, you know, we are at we’re planning to perform once the market turns a bit bullish. And let’s see now, July, started a bit better than the previous months. I’m not 100% sure that this is now the turn, it probably isn’t really the turn that we are still looking for. But let’s see, what happens.

23:51

So, what’s been really bullish for me in the last few weeks is that we saw heavy outflows from exchanges. So, everyone is just trying to take all the crypto off of exchanges. And, you know, some would think that that’s a bad thing but it’s actually a good thing. You usually take crypto out of cold storage, put it on the exchange because you want to sell it. That’s when you see a lot of inflows into the exchanges, it usually means that the price will probably drop in the next time but when people start taking crypto off of exchanges, then probably they’re not intending to sell it. So that’s why this is kind of bullish.

24:45

I do think that the majority of this is like a bank run right now. So, everyone is taking things off of exchanges because there were so many projects exchanges or any other yield generating platforms or something like that they were really running out of liquidity. And they were suspending withdrawals. And we talked about that in the previous AMAs. And I think everybody’s right now scared about keeping crypto on any exchange. And I do recommend you though. You don’t keep your crypto on an exchange, if you’re not intending to trade with it, or sell it or whatever.

25:33

If you want to keep and hold it, then it’s always good to just take it off of exchange, put it into cold storage, or at least have it on a noncustodial wallet. So that nobody can limit you in regards to withdrawing it or selling it or doing whatever with it. So, the problem was, of course, Celsius was the one that went down that limited withdrawals that suspended them actually in total. And they had a big liquidity crisis, they still do. They didn’t come out with some recovery plan yet, there’s a lot of talk about how they want to do it, and there are a few options. But they didn’t decide on any yet. So, it’s either they go into file for bankruptcy, or they try to just, you know, bail themselves out with the help of the community or something like that. But this hasn’t been decided what they did do is and that’s really good is they paid off some loans that they had on MakerDAO. They had quite a big loan there, they took it out and the liquidation price for Bitcoin was around $13,000 US dollars, and there was a lot of whales, probably trying to get the price down to that level just to liquidate them and then buy their Bitcoin, you know, as cheap as possible, but they actually paid out the majority of the loan right now. So, their liquidation price went down below $3,000. And that’s probably not going to happen that Bitcoin would go so low. So, there were far away from that.

27:30

So that’s good. Whatever additional liquidations we can prevent, it’s probably good. But what’s not good is that the other project went into some liquidity issues. So, we now have Babel finance. That has issues with either suspending withdrawals or just limiting them, then there is BlockFi, there’s CoinFLEX, there’s Sequin loan, there’s BOLD, BOLD is actually a big one that went into problems and also Voyager. Voyager also I think last week, they totally 100% suspended withdrawals. There is already some sharks around that are trying to acquire those big projects.

28:21

Then what we have is a Fear and Greed index went up to 19 right now, so if you remember correctly in the previous week, it was around 10 or 11, I think. And then before that it actually went down to seven or around eight. So, it’s still a lot of fear, but it’s far better than it was last week. What’s surprising to me is actually that the altcoins are outperforming Bitcoin and that’s a bit unusual for a bear market. Usually, it’s like Bitcoin rallies really hard and the altcoins are just lagging a bit behind. It’s more or less, because people in times like this, they usually go a bit, you know, into less riskier investments. And bitcoin is the least riskiest of all the crypto. So, it’s kind of interesting that the altcoins are right now outperforming Bitcoin. It could be positive. So it could be that will see an altcoin season far sooner than it was expected. And of course, we are an altcoin.

29:39

So 3air is actually an altcoin and it’s a new altcoin or it will be a new altcoin. So, for launching a token This is really good. So, we do want to launch in an environment where the alt coins are actually moving up faster than Bitcoin does. So that’s kind of a good sign, I think.

30:03

what’s not such a good sign or maybe it is, actually, is that the miners have been selling off quite a lot of Bitcoin. So, I think this was also a big downwards price pressure in the previous month, we don’t have the statistics yet for the majority of them for June. But in May, they were selling quite hard. And of course, you know, they need to pay the electricity bills and so on. So, like, usually when the miners really capitulate, so that they sell off, usually, that means kind of it can be a bottom sign. So, in that sense it can be good, but, you know, the total economy is not really the best. I’m pretty sure that the recession will be confirmed. So, you know, technically a recession is two quarters of negative growth of national GDP, and I think we are for the second quarter, we are around -2% or something like that. So, everyone right now is talking about the recession.

31:27

I do think that the traders, the Wallstreet, there was so many signs that we are entering a recession, or we already are in a recession for a few months already. I do think that a lot of this is already priced in that’s why we also dropping the equity markets. Equity markets actually right now are valued again. The evaluations of the equities are right now under their usual average. So, they were really going up and blowing everything out of proportion but it’s not only the worst quarter for crypto, and I think we didn’t have such a bad quarter in crypto since 2011. I think Q3 was around something similar or a bit worse. But the equity market was actually I think it’s the worst half a year or starting the year since 50 years, I think, in the 70s. It was something like this happening.

32:44

So, the problem is the global economy is really bad. And this is taking Bitcoin and crypto market down with it. But as said, the evaluations now are, I think, fair, or even, you know, a bit below the average. So, I do think things can start turning and it was exactly the tech and the risk on stocks were the ones that really got hammered. And they’re the ones that are looking for the cheapest right now. So, even looking at Google or Amazon or something like that or Tesla they’re really hammered down.

33:24

It was interesting that this month actually started with the Dow going down and the NASDAQ was actually going up. So, this is not usual. So, it’s kind of something similar as altcoins going up faster than Bitcoin but there was actually the Dow was dropping and the NASDAQ was a bit gaining. So usually, you don’t see that. So, it’s quite a lot of funny things happening. Just by the feeling, I would say, it feels like really the bottom of a bear market where everyone’s so bearish, everyone would just want to leave and there’s so much Fed in the big companies failing. The minor selling usually this means - Okay, you know, we probably cannot go a lot lower. It doesn’t mean that we cannot go lower.

34:27

So, the Fed US, they still have a lot of power. If they decide to do some funny stuff, there. We still can go lower, that’s for sure but they have a bit of trouble. I think their quantitative tightening, it’s just not happening. They predicted I think $45 billion out of the economy but I think they only managed $9 billion, something like that. It’s just the Dow crushed themselves with the economy. Also, the dollar index is so high, it’s crazy. And I also don’t think that the Bitcoin can really on an uptrend, on a rally. If the dollar index is so high, it will need to come down and it will need to come down it just, it also makes everything that US tries to export is too expensive because the dollar is worth so much. You can see now also with the Euro its almost 1:1, right? We never had that. This was now an update.

Anita Mlakar: 34:27

Wow. Sandi, there are really uncertain times, but still world must go on, you know, business must go on. And what I’m really looking forward is to this reviews of yours because even if I’m not following it all the time, at the end of the week, or let’s say in the middle of the week, you are giving us a full report so that I can just get an idea how things done and I’m sure I’m not the only one. And it’s really helpful. So, thank you very much.

Sandi Bitenc: 36:08

Yeah, sure. And something like this, this is not something that will be turning tomorrow or something like that it is once a week is I think enough, if you really want to have the big perspective, you won’t be missing much. You don’t need to follow this every day. But in general, I still think that things are gonna start turning. I’m not really sure if this is the tipping point yet, as I said, but I’m more looking like, things are probably going to turn in September. This is kind of my idea but let’s see what the next few weeks bring.

Can the Ethiopia team give a presentation in a future AMA?

Anita Mlakar: 36:46

Okay, so you’re actually calming us and giving us reassurance. It’s good. So yeah, looking forward to things changing, of course, Sandi, Richard wrote or had a suggestion, actually he is in a way always suggesting this. And you also ask the team that visited Ethiopia to give a presentation in an AMA, pictures, plans, status and so on. Yeah.

Sandi Bitenc: 37:19

Well, let’s see, I think I’ll ask them. Absolutely.

Anita Mlakar: 37:25

Yeah, we had some pictures, of course, videos, also in our channels, but it’s always nice to have them here. Live, to talk about it. So, if an opportunity, of course, it would be nice.

Sandi Bitenc: 37:37

Yeah. We cannot lay out all the plans. We still need to be a bit careful with the competition there. You know, the competition in the telecom space is fierce and we already poke the hornet’s nest a few times. And yeah, I got stung a bit. So, we need to be a bit careful. What exactly we show because we are disruptive to them. So, we just don’t want to scare them too soon. But let’s say something probably can be done. Yeah. But for sure not next week because we are travelling. But then the week after I think, yeah, it’s possible.

Anita Mlakar: 38:27

Okay, thank you Sandi. I think we did cover what we wanted to cover. Is there something else to add before you rush into, let’s say another half of your life or how should I say it is? I think it’s great. What is awaiting you.

Sandi Bitenc: 38:46

It’s one event. It won’t change anything in my life.

Anita Mlakar: 38:54

I know. But it is a nice thing to happen. So, I’m really looking forward.

Sandi Bitenc: 39:03

I’m really happy we’ll be celebrating together.

Anita Mlakar: 39:09

Every celebration is nice, you know, so yeah really. Thank you very much.

Sandi Bitenc: 39:14

I heard something that you’ll sing.

Anita Mlakar: 39:18

You heard it wrong.

Sandi Bitenc: 39:19

I did not. I’m pretty sure I heard it right.

Anita Mlakar: 39:25

At the end if you want to just let go everybody there just say goodbye then I can sing.

Sandi Bitenc: 39:33

We just need to time it, right?

Anita Mlakar: 39:36

Yeah, we have to arrange that before we do the AMAs. Talk how we will do is. I’m joking. Looking forward to that wishing you a really nice end of the week. Nice Saturday and everything that is coming with it. I promise you dear community that I will take care of some Pictures, of course then post them in our channels so that you will see what is happening. And we will meet again Sandi, next Wednesday you will be on the road maybe me too, because this is now summertime. And we are going around a lot, but it is nice. It is nice to have the opportunity also to meet people, to meet in person what we will do actually this Saturday also so thank you. Thank you for being with us.

Sandi Bitenc: 40:29

Yes.

Anita Mlakar: 40:30

Wishing your dear community all the best. Stay with us. Stay tuned to be a part of our channels on Discord, on Twitter, on Telegram, of course, stay here on YouTube, subscribe to YouTube channel if you’re not subscribed yet. We are here every Wednesday with you and looking forward to conversations, questions, comments, and having you around. Thank you very much and have a great Wednesday.

Sandi Bitenc: 40:57

Bye bye.

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