Recording of the 13 February 2022 TKNZ AMA session in the official TKNZ Discord server

TKNZ AMA — 13 February 2022

TKNZ

18 min readFeb 13, 2022

Today (13th of February 2022) the TKNZ team hosted an AMA session at 2pm GMT in the TKNZ Discord server.

You can either listen to the entire session through SoundCoud below or continue here for the written transcript.

TKNZ AMA 13 Feb 2022

Intro

Adi: Thank you for joining the TKNZ team today!

We are going to talk about the core drivers and idea behind the project, the TKNZ.gg platform and the near future. Thank you for submitting your questions and we’ll hopefully get to them all!

Before we get started, I’d like to help you put voices if not faces to the avatars who have been chatting with you on Discord.

I’ll start — I’m Adi and I’m in charge of communications — both visual and marketing.

Emil: HI I’m Emil, COO and I work closely with the TKNZ partners (present and future)

Ron: HI I’m Ronak. I’m the Chief Technology Officer at TKNZ. I lead the development team and take care of all things technical.

Georgi: I’m Georgi the CEO I give overall direction to the project and I support the team where they need me.

The TKNZ Project

Georgi: If you’re joining us now for the first time and you’re wondering “What is TKNZ?” here’s the deal.

TKNZ is built to be the Esports Museum — our platform TKNZ.gg is going to house all esports and gaming’s best moments. We are opening the doors to this Esports Museum to everyone who wants to become a collector.

On TKNZ.gg you’ll be able to own and trade awesome digital collectibles from the best creators and organizations in gaming and esports.

We have a lot of cool plans for the platform that have already been set in motion and we are going to make building your collection on TKNZ.gg a whole lot of fun.

I want to say a bit more the platform and starting a collection on TKNZ.gg

There are 2 ways to collect on TKNZ.gg — via packs and on the Marketplace.
Let’s cover packs first.

A pack is usually a bundle of 3 or more digital collectibles that are a part of 1 drop. Each drop will have a set number of Rare, Epic and Legendary collectibles that you can own, trade or keep as a part of your collection. Epic, Rare and Legendary is the tier system that we use to define the scarcity of an item and any added perks it may bring to its holder. That means that there will be the most copies of a Rare collectible and the least of a Legendary.

So how do you purchase a TKNZ pack?

You have to be quick, demand is already showing to be quite high. We’ll be announcing the drop and then you’ll have a limited time to join the pre-order. The unboxing itself is a fun experience, hopefully our TKNZ OGs will confirm that.

You get your NFTs in a pack. It’s a matter of luck if you get a Legendary or something else.

Then all your “revealed” collectibles will be stored in your collection tab until you decide to trade them…

Speaking of trading we now have to talk about the Marketplace.

The Marketplace is coming soon to TKNZ.gg. There you will be able to list your digital collectibles for sale and purchase the ones placed for sale by other collectors. In essence, it’s a peer-to-peer trading system.

Once the Marketplace is live, we’ll host its own separate AMA.

Also coming to the platform are Challenges that will help you boost your collection and have fun while doing it.

We are adding a lot of things along the way but those we think we’ll keep as surprises along the way.

Let’s get more technical now.

Blockchain

TKNZ is built on the Flow blockchain, and will expand to other chains in the future, as part of our multi-chain roadmap.

Wallet

We are starting with a custodial wallet solution. This is done to both make it super simple for users who do not have pre-existing experience how to deal with blockchain wallets, but also to ensure some of the TKNZ Superpowers were straight out of the box.

Transactions and transaction fees

The only NFT transaction fees will be on the Marketplace where TKNZ applies a flat 5% fee for each trade. The proceeds from these fees are included in our revenue share model with our content partners.

Depositing & withdrawing funds

First, we will allow users to deposit and purchase packs and NFTs with their local fiat currencies. No need to connect wallets, worry about gas fees or current crypto prices. All of this will happen through Stripe.

At the same time, we know many of our users want to use crypto currencies and we are already working on the integration of crypto payments. We will keep you posted on when we expect these to be implemented.

Withdraws will work in a similar fashion, we are working out which payment methods will make most sense for both speed and minimum costs.

Verifications and KYC

TKNZ.gg takes affordability and money laundering obligations very seriously. We are partnering with SumSub for Identity and Address verifications, as well as Source of Funds and Source of Wealth checks, when necessary. We are creating a smooth user experience that will allow you to use the platform without any problems even when KYC verification is triggered.

The TKNZ Future

Emil: What is the masterplan?

Simply put — To unite the gaming and esports community under one roof and allow everyone to become a collector.

We are going to do that by aligning ourselves with the right creators and organisations and empowering them to create meaningful digital collectibles that the fans want to own.

We want to be innovators in this field, and we count on you, our community to tell us if something is cool and you want more of it.

We have a lot of interesting things planned but I’ll stick to the official roadmap for now.

After the marketplace and individual and guild challenges, multi-chain is one of our top-priorities.

Another one is expanding the TKNZ Superpowers and making them a central part of the platform

We are also working on integrations with a couple of web3 projects, one of which is Ready Player Me. I’ll keep the other to myself for now.

Sometime in the next months we will launch our token. We are preparing for it to happen on the Polygon blockchain, as described in the tokenomics document.

This will be a key enabler for a lot of things. Expect a separate AMA on this topic.

The last thing I want to mention is our plan to link everything together with a lifelong dream of ours. To create an intricate and fun game. It is very early days to talk about this, so I apologize in advance for ignoring any questions about this. We will communicate more when we can.

Questions

Adi: Now let’s answer your questions!

Disclaimer: I’m not going to even attempt saying your usernames out loud, I just don’t need that pressure. I’m sure you’ll recognize your own question and you can always do some detective work in the AMA-questions channel. We’ve also included some questions we get asked often and a few that we received privately.

Please tell us how you decided to create this project? What inspired you? Were you inspired by the success of such projects, or did you decide to make money and choose an industry where there are fewer competitors? Or maybe you are game fans? I would like to know what inspired you to create this project

Georgi: Great question! Honestly, it is a combination of things.

First of all, we are all gamers and we still play whenever we have the time. I played some CSGO last night, got wrecked but still had a lot of fun. Maybe will try to sneak in a Civ6 game today too.

I’ve always watched esports and have been a huge fan. Emil was part of the esports world for a while, on the inside.

But we were inspired too. By NBA TopShot mostly. Their idea of digital collectibles really made sense for us and that’s when the TKNZ concept really started taking shape.

I don’t think we have ever looked at any other industry or analysed how competitive the market is.

It has always been about something we are passionate about and an exciting technology that makes so much sense and opens up many possibilities.

What are TKNZ Superpowers?

Adi: TKNZ Superpowers are the abilities of TKNZ NFT to have an extra kick to them.
From unlocking exclusive events, gaining access to secret places, meeting with your favorite creators and getting discounts — certain Epic and Legendary TKNZ Cards will possess certain abilities.

They will be quite exciting and will vary wildly from one TKNZ partner to another.

The idea here is to forge undeniably powerful NFTs that kick other NFTs butts!

What interactions can be made with NFTs besides collecting?

Adi: This one is closely related to what we just spoke about.

TKNZ Superpowers will make certain NFTs very interactive. The types of things we want to make available to the holders of these NFTs are super exciting and we’re already in talks with our partners on building those in the TKNZ Cards.

Another action you can take with your TKNZ NFTs is trading them. And that’s again a part of what Georgi talked about when he mentioned the Marketplace which we working to deliver soon.

Even more is to come but it’s too early to talk about here so we’ll all just have to wait for it.

Why Flow?

Ron: We love Flow! It was super important to us not to contribute to everyone’s concerns when it comes to creating NFTs on the blockchain.
We know Flow is almost infinitely times more energy efficient than other blockchains, and for us that’s a BIG deal!

We are proceeding as a Flow-first platform.

Surely you are already in the know when it comes to the TKNZ plan for a multi-chain future and that is a slightly different topic, so I’ll stop here.

What is a multi-chain future?

Ron: Multi-chain means…

Enabling our users to transfer their NFTs from their current chain to their desired chain. That could be for many reasons. A few that come to the top of my head:

You want to take your TKNZ NFTs to a metaverse that is on one of our other chains
You want to take your TKNZ NFTs to a different NFT marketplace
You want to take your TKNZ NFTs to a wallet or gallery that is on another chain

Multi-chain is not going to happen overnight. It requires two-sided integrations and keeping multiple states in sync, which is no easy task.

The first stage is to ensure our Flow connection is set up in the right way to enable NFT transfers.

Then, the next step is to build the Bridge to the second chain. More importantly, the logic of the Bridge, because we would want to re-use that logic with each subsequent chain.

And when that is done, the next chain integration comes in play. Then testing, and finally — release to our users.

At the moment it looks very likely that Polygon will be our first step on the multi-chain journey. Expect more news on that soon!

What are TKNZ OGs?

Adi: TKNZ OGs is the name and role within the TKNZ community we’ve given to our early comers who have been with us from the start.
As most of you surely know, you can obtain the TKNZ OG role in 1 of 2 ways:

1. Be an early community member on the TKNZ Discord server

2. Have successfully entered the TKNZ giveaway (which was closed on 28th JAN 2022)

More info on this is available in the announcements channel

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF BEING AN OG

⏰ Early access to all TKNZ drops

🐣 Be the first to know about new features

👀 Sneak peeks about all upcoming drops, details and release dates

🗝️ Exclusive access to OG-only channels

💪 As we grow, so will the powers of our TKNZ OGs.

When is the next drop?

Adi: We are organizing the details around it and we’ll update you asap. Our Discord community will know first — that’s a promise!

Any new partner announcements?

Adi: Partner announcements are tricky. Even when an agreement has been signed that doesn’t mean we are free and ready to announce it. We want to be considerate of our partners and give them the time they need to prepare to communicate the big news.

In short — the second we have the green light to share the great developments — we do.

I’m personally pushing for that all the time.

Valve said that they are against blockchain and NFT on their platform, how do you plan to negotiate with them?

Georgi: We have not had a meeting with Valve yet.

We have however had meetings with others where NFTs have not been welcomed warmly so we know most of the concerns people have.

We don’t necessarily agree a lot of them.

The thing with our project is we are not doing NFTs for NFT sake, we are committed to delivering valuable and community-centric digital collectibles that are fun to interact with.

So far, we’ve been able to clearly communicate that to all current and potential partners. Our approach is to educate and break the stigma around taking advantage of the NFT technology.

The TKNZ team strongly believes in the digital future of collectibles — we see no way around it.

Is it going to take a little while longer for some people to get on board? For sure, as with everything, and we do see certain complexities within those organizations that we sympathize with.

Honestly, I love this question and it’s an almost existential topic at this point, especially when you leave names out of it and talk about the future of the blockchain and digital collectibles as a whole.

Happy to talk about it for hours but maybe we can continue it in the chat afterwards?

Write in #general and we can talk it out.

Will there be significant moments from the past (2–3–5–10 years ago)? Or will only fresh moments be added that will appear during the development of the project?

Emil: We want TKNZ.gg to be the Museum of Esports and as such, this would include memorable past events and moments too.

Of course, it depends on the content owners (our partners) and what they want to do.

But we will definitely advocate for it.

Do you have any plans to make a drop, related with Dota 2 competitions? Like The International or Majors?

Emil: No immediate plans. Again, going back to the question about any new partnerships.

We have things on the stove that we can’t share.

With Dota, we don’t have anything in the production pipeline as of today.

But even if there was, you’d still get the same answer. Hope that’s equal part confusing and helpful — that’s the intention 😀

You can count on us keeping you updated in our announcements channel.

Will there be CS:GO NFT’s: player cards, team cards, game moments, stickers, etc.?

Adi: It all depends on our partners and the content they want to bring to our platform.

Since CSGO is one of the most popular games in the world, I have no doubt that soon there will be CSGO collectibles on TKNZ.gg.

Adi could you tell us about marketing? For example, integration with bloggers/streamers on Twitch/YouTube, advertising in specialized communities and projects/networks, maybe NFT staking & farming etc…

Adi: Let’s get into it!

With the TKNZ marketing we haven’t even started yet, honestly.

So far, we have organically reached 12k registered users and growing on TKNZ.gg in less than 2 weeks.

There are a few different initiatives when it comes to marketing and a lot of people and organizations we’ll be joining forces with!

When it comes to our esports-centric potential userbase we are going to activate our partner’s communities. That means that the millions who follow our partners get immediately exposed to the TKNZ platform, project and products.

We are in constant negotiations with esports, crypto and other figures who will partner and help us grow TKNZ.

We have a lot planned around community, user generated content, onboarding and activating partners to help us with marketing. One example is Flow’s and Polygon’s commitment to give us a nice push.

What awards do you have planned for the community? For people with special roles? Or helping your project? Are there any events planned in terms of airdrops or raffles for activities? What kind of awards will be given out?

Emil: We are going to be a very community-centric project.

A lot has been planned and special roles are at the centre. More will be revealed literally in the next few days regarding new badges and perks they can unlock.

I trust you know our commitment to our TKNZ OGs and that’s not going to change, if anything it’s only going to get more amplified.

To airdrops — BIG YES. Raffles — absolutely.

Awards will vary but packs, both part of partner drops and TKNZ exclusive ones, will be in there.

Is it difficult to turn your product into reality? What are the main problems you have encountered and are facing in development?

Ron: Honestly, the biggest problem is that we have too many great ideas but too little time.

The product will be constantly evolving, implementing new ideas and features but also adapting to feedback from the outside world.

It’s super challenging but even more gratifying creating and developing in this space when we see how users respond to the product and features.

What end goal do you want to achieve?

Georgi: The team loved this question! Our plans for TKNZ.gg go beyond anything we can explain right now. Hopefully we can get you as excited as we are.

Let’s start with the plan — the plan is for TKNZ.gg to be The Esports Museum. All digital, all in one place.

Take the lifecycle of an esports event for example:

You can buy or win the tickets on TKNZ, those tickets are NFTs that also unlock different perks, like backstage access or digital items from the event.
You attend the event by entering a special TKNZ mini-verse dedicated to that show. You hang out there, watch the show, chat with people, all in a unique environment, created solely for this purpose. Whether it is VR or not, it will be extremely impressive.
A bit of backstage info for everyone on the call, we are already in talks with our “environments” partner and the things we’ll build together there are amazing.
As the event ends, the most epic moments that happened have been minted as digital collectibles and are now available to purchase or win.
These moments can then become part of your collections. And, of course, you can trade them if you want. You compete in special challenges to unlock even rarer collectibles, forge TKNZ cards and do all sorts of other activities to become the ultimate collector.
You and your clan can even unite and complete special tasks.

That’s just one example of how the TKNZ world will be always buzzing with opportunities and activities for users.

Now imagine your collection can become a deck you can use to challenge and defeat other collectors.

But I know we won’t stop there.
We are building an esports metaverse that will utilize NFT technology to fulfil every need in the lifecycle of a fan.

With which payments are we going to start after the normal fiat version?

Georgi: I think I covered part of this in the beginning, but let me go through it in short.

We are starting with local fiat currency through Stripe and then we are going to enable cryptocurrencies a bit later.

As for specific payment methods, they will depend on your country. Most users will have options for cards and bank transfers, other will have more local options available.

If you are interested in a specific payment method or currency, please open a ticket and we can let you know.

Which region will be the focus: Europe/America/CIS? Or will everything develop evenly? Or will it all depend on the game?

Georgi: The platform is open globally, so by default we are not targeting any specific region.

In practice though, that hugely depends on our partners and their followers. If they are concentrated in a certain region, that inevitably translates to the TKNZ.gg userbase too.

And we will accommodate all communities from all regions.

You said that there would be multiple networks so that users could decide where they wanted to be. Will it be made so that in different networks the rewards will be fundamentally higher or lower? And, if so, will the bonuses that will be issued in the future depend on the network in which the user was (more reward or less)?

Georgi: I’m going to have to assume we are being asked about the multi-chain future of the platform.

The multi-chain future does not affect the way the platform will work in its core. It simply gives you the option to take your NFT in the blockchain where you want to use it. For example, you may want to take your TKNZ NFTs to a metaverse or another NFT-compatible project.

Jacke, if that’s not what you were asking, please write to Team TKNZ and we will get back to you.

YouTube and Twitch are the two main streaming platforms for broadcasting esports moments. Is there a possibility that your “NFT” work will infringe the copyrights of any content uploaded or streamed on streaming platforms?

Emil: Streaming platforms do not own the content that is being streamed.

Platforms like Twitch and YouTube do not have copyrights claims over any uploaded or streamed content on their platforms.

The creators own all their content and the associated intellectual property rights.

We have licensing agreements with the creators of the content.

What about a collaboration with Project Galaxy?

Ron: We are always very open and positive about synergies and partnerships.

With regards to Project Galaxy, we don’t have anything planned yet but will explore the opportunity and will keep you posted for important news.

Do you plan to expand the team, if so, what kind of specialists do you need?

Ron: We are almost always looking to expand the team.

At the moment we are focused on finding the right people to add to our development team. Full Stack Developers and DevOps Engineers.

If there are people in our community who are interested, please create a ticket from the support channel and provide your portfolios.

A significant part of our community is made up of Russian speakers, with whom would you like to cooperate?

Adi: It’s still early days in the community building aspect.

We are super thankful to our Russian-speaking community members and that’s why we were so quick to dedicate a special place for you — your Russian-speaking channel.

As Emo mentioned, we are going to be very community-centric as a project and we will definitely be looking to all of you to tell us what you like. Your feedback is appreciated and will be rewarded.

When it comes to partnerships we are already in contact with some Russian-speaking communities and hopefully, we’ll have some news to share on that soon.

How quickly can you achieve your goals?

Adi: As Ron said, it’s a rollout really. It’s about taking it step by step, releasing the more fundamental functions to begin with and taking the chance to create something new and very exciting.

Georgi: I want to add to that a bit.

We receive a lot of emails from people asking how they can join in some capacity, either as investors or partners. So, we are looking at ways to accelerate our plans.

That’s quite exciting and promising at the moment. It’s an incremental process, we get your feedback on the way and adapt to what we see works best.

What did the numbers mean? What is 1.1?

Adi: I’m not gonna tell you yet.

First, another very exciting bit of news is coming about the OG NFTs. You’ll get to experience that, and I’m sure you’ll love it, the team has been testing and we are super excited.

And further down the line I’ll tell you what the numbers mean, don’t worry.

Are you looking into the possibility of arranging tournaments under the TKNZ brand?

Georgi: Yeah, this is a super exciting one and ever since the beginning we have been thinking when it will be a good time to start creating esports history and esports events ourselves, so this will inevitably come.

It’s not happening in the next couple of weeks but it’s coming.

At some point you will see TKNZ competitions in one or more esports for sure.

Emil: And as you can see, we already have some partners on board who are into the event organising space.

Are integrations with metaverses planned (Sandbox, Decentraland, etc.)?

Ron: At this point we aren’t looking into such collaborations but of course, down the line we are planning to add more and more utilities and features to be integrated with metaverses.

So, that’s all I can say right now.

Do you plan to introduce your own token? If so, what will be its application?

Georgi: The token is something we are super excited about and we’re working on it right now. It’s coming in a few months but I can’t commit to a date yet.

If you want to read more about it, I suggest you go through the tokenomics document (https://tknz.gg/tokenomics)

It will be used as part of the platform economy. Both as a currency and to reward certain user behaviors.

We are also planning to create a token ecosystem through our partners and their sponsors, so the token becomes a payment option in many places, not only the TKNZ.gg platform.

If you read the tokenomics, you will find out more about it.

Wrap-up

Adi: This is all we’re going to cover today. Thank you very much for the questions. If your question wasn’t answered — don’t worry. It will either get answered in the general chat or in the next AMA.

Hope everyone had a nice time! Thank you for sharing your Sunday with Team TKNZ!

We’ll be looking to make these a once-a-month-tradition and we’ll be bringing cool guests on here too!

Stay safe!