DEFI11 is a purpose-built DeFi gaming platform that promises to remove frauds and lack of transparency. A traditional flaw in centralized Fantasy Sports applications. We recently caught up with Ritam Gupta, CEO & Co-founder, Defi 11 and asked him questions that must be floating in the minds of potential investors.
TK: What gaps did you see in the market to launch DeFi 11?
Ritam Gupta: At present, there is a lot of scope for improvement with centralized gaming platforms abusing the authority to misuse data. They indulge in creating dummy winners, insider trading, false records are shown on their platform, and no regulations. DeFi 11 will help resolve that categorically to make the iGaming experience transparent, accountable and auditable.
TK: With the cryptocurrency and blockchain space being quite nascent, what attracted you towards fantasy sports as a segment?
Ritam Gupta: The fantasy sports market has been steadily growing if you see past data. With internet users rising significantly in India, the gamification sector will evolve. Nowadays, most people spend around 2 to 3 hours on social media daily surfing, playing games and other stuff. If they know that they will be remunerated for that effort, they would be eager to join such games. That’s why we wanted to explore the fantasy sports segment.
The Crypto market is not at the nascent level of adoption since governments worldwide want to speed up their CBDC development. Such a proactive approach means we would like to see events in Nigeria unfolding in other parts of the world as well, where citizens started trusting crypto more than fiat.
TK: Things like fantasy sports require mass adoption, which means they should be extremely simple to use. How would you solve the usability and complex steps that blockchain-backed concept would involve?
Ritam Gupta: There are no complexities involved. Technically, most people barely realize that they are playing something built on top of the blockchain. We have kept the game simple to use with user-friendly navigable features and a better user interface. We have simplified payment via credit/debit card to make the game much more simple like other games in the market.
TK: DeFi 11 brings too many elements together – fantasy sports, blockchain tech, and NFTs, and all of them are mired in regulatory issues. Do you feel Defi 11 would be able to go through all that and come out unscathed?
Ritam Gupta: Being a completely decentralised and Peer to Peer Gaming platform, technically, we are not bound to be regulation-compliant or need not hold gambling licenses. Still, to be on the safer side, we are adhering to all the compliances and are already in the process of receiving our gambling licenses.
Moreover, crypto regulations and compliances have been the first thing to be taken care of by us. We have specifically restricted participation in some of the geographies where crypto and other gambling activities are prohibited. I think that we respect the legal aspects, which will help make the project grow unscathed by regulations.
TK: The timing of your launch and IPL are quite close. Is it a mere coincidence or a well-thought strategy?
Ritam Gupta: Well, as they say – “timing is the only KEY”, we plan things with complete underlying strategies well thought of. Keeping our launch alongside has benefitted us heavily in easy user acquisition.
TK: How will the user data and their respective wallet details be secured on the platform?
Ritam Gupta: We have moved everything to blockchain on layer 2 Matic for that purpose. We are completely non-custodial – we don’t store any of the users’ private keys or wallets onto our system. Users get to save everything on their mobile devices securely. So, we will not be using the user’s data in any way.
Users will be given complete data sovereignty on our platform. On top of this, we have multiple audit partners who are auditing the smart contracts for us. Getting a third-party validation is obviously helpful, and in our case, there are multiple auditors, hence, zero security flaws.
TK: On which mining pools will the DEFI11 token be available for liquidity?
Ritam Gupta: The immediate goal is to get listed over DEXs and for that matter, the first choices are Uniswap and QuickSwap/Pancakeswap. Then comes the CEX listings on the roadmap to boost up the trading volumes by bigger numbers.
TK: In your white paper, you’ve mentioned that there will be a small number of tokens going to be lost every year. Isn’t that the same as gas tokens being burned in the next iteration of Ethereum?
Ritam Gupta: We are keeping a steady inflation rate to keep the protocol stable. You are correct on your part since we will be allowing gas payments in native tokens, maybe in the future, which will be burned in the process.
TK: You are looking at sports like field hockey, tennis and volleyball as your next expansion. Considering that in India kabaddi is gaining a bit of traction especially because of its own premier league, will you be looking at that sport too in the future?
Ritam Gupta: Maybe it is not a bad idea. Besides, we are launching in India and kabaddi is a pro sport and it has gained a lot of traction recently. However, we keep this option with our community voting for adding their favourite sport using the governance token in the ecosystem soon. So, a community governed platform eventually.
TK: Do you consider the indie-cryptocurrency exchanges as a competition since they’ll be coming up with their own NFT marketplace too? Like WazirX?
Ritam Gupta: we are totally into gaming and sports. Marketplace providers are not our competitors. Rather they can be our partners in listing our NFTs or for the INOs.
TK: Tell us about contests that will be held on your platform?
Ritam Gupta: Well, the platform hosts multiple different contests from different modules – fantasy sports contests, prediction contests, social betting contests, etc. A lot in-store, to be honest.
TK: We have heard MS Dhoni will be an investor and Brand Ambassador of DeFi11. Is it true and is any other celebrity going to join you soon?
Ritam Gupta: We won’t be naming the celebs unless we confirm the paperwork. But to give a heads up, you should be seeing many athletes joining the DeFi11 club pretty soon.