SORA Card — Meet the People Behind the Project
We speak with Mathieu, the SORA Wallet project manager, and Beno, who is managing the SORA Card initiative, ahead of the SORA Card launch
As we draw closer to the registration and KYC release for SORA Card, we had a chat with two people who are actively contributing to the integration and realization of the SORA Card fiat banking wallet into the open-source decentralized SORA Wallet and the Polkaswap DEX.
Mathieu is the Applications Project Manager and he’s responsible for the delivery of the open-source self-custodial SORA Wallet.
Beno from SORA Biome is contributing to the delivery of SORA Card to the SORA Community.
Can you summarize what SORA Card will look like at launch?
B: SORA Card is the name for the fiat banking wallet with IBAN and debit card functionality that will be available in the decentralized, open source, self-custodial solutions: SORA Wallet, Polkaswap DEX, and later also in Fearless Wallet — the DeFi wallet for the Dotsama ecosystem.
You will have all regulated banking and standard traditional finance features: an IBAN, SEPA, and SWIFT transactions, a virtual debit card that can be topped up with fiat or XOR from your self-custodial crypto wallet, Google Pay and Apple Pay compatibility, etc., in the same app as your crypto assets in self-custody.
Next to that, you also have a physical debit card that allows for payments and cash withdrawals with very competitive limits. We involved the community early on by surveying them about their (crypto) card usage and banking app preferences. After all, this is a product by the SORA community for the SORA community. We want our community to really stand behind the product, use it and promote it.
M: SORA Card continues building on the vision for SORA — Many Worlds, One Economy. The SORA Card will enable the SORA community to seamlessly bring together the fiat world and the crypto world.
Who are you targeting?
B: The initial user base is likely to mainly consist of SORA, Polkadot, and Kusama community members since they will be most familiar with SORA, as well as any crypto user who appreciates a good user experience and the privacy and self-custody of DeFi.
Since the initial card and wallet will be denominated in EUR, our main target region for launch will be the EEA. Next year, our offer will expand to the USA with USD, and the UK with GBP, while adding multiple other currencies to the wallet.
Next to that, the solution should be very welcoming for users who want to have their first exposure to crypto investments, with a feeling of safety by being able to swap back to fiat in the same app.
What are the features of and differences between the SORA Wallet and Fearless Wallet?
M: While the features of the SORA Wallet and the Fearless Wallet are pretty much the same, Fearless Wallet is focused on the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystems as a whole, while the SORA Wallet is focused mostly on the SORA ecosystem for now.
For that reason, Fearless Wallet enables its users to participate in parachain crowdloans and stake their Dotsama ecosystem assets.
On the other hand, the SORA Wallet hosts the Polkaswap DEX. This enables you to swap and provide liquidity with all the assets supported by the SORA network, including assets bridged from Ethereum, and soon with assets from other EVM-networks and of course the Dotsama ecosystem.
Because it is the best DEX in the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystems, we plan to integrate Polkaswap directly into Fearless Wallet really soon too.
What are some of the challenges you face with the integration?
M: Bridging the TradFi and DeFi worlds directly into your mobile wallet is fairly new, and it is a pretty exciting challenge. We need to ensure that we provide the best possible experience to our community while making sure we comply with the current regulatory framework.
Furthermore, SORA Wallet and Fearless Wallet do not store any data from their users, which is usually not the case for traditional financial applications. So we needed to come up with an architecture that could bring together those two worlds (TradFi and DeFi), without compromising on users’ privacy.
What makes you most excited about SORA Card?
B: I like my crypto and finances decentralized wherever possible, and ideally not at the cost of a good user experience. At the same time, I am a big fan of Revolut and how they set the standard for neo banking. Unfortunately, their crypto services are not entirely what I expected as someone who understands the benefits of DeFi and has experienced self-custody. Revolut’s crypto service might be good for people looking for their first crypto exposure and to hodl.
What excites me the most about SORA Card is that we are working on delivering a Revolut-level neo banking experience, within an app with constantly evolving DeFi features. I can participate in TradFi economy with the same app as I would use for DeFi; staking, providing liquidity, and soon participating in decentralized governance — all of this without compromising on the user experience.
M: I’m a proponent of decentralized finance because it enables me to freely use my assets. The world is evolving but we cannot expect everything to change instantly.
If I want to hold my assets in a decentralized manner, continue to pay for my daily expenses, and transparently report my assets to the government and tax services, I need to have a gateway to the fiat money system. This gateway between the traditional finance world and the decentralized finance world is usually where things become more cumbersome than they should be.
So with the SORA Card right inside the SORA Wallet, I could finally get the best from both worlds seamlessly.
It seems pretty clear what SORA Card can do for individuals. What value does it add to businesses?
B: From the start, we can already facilitate basic business accounts and KYB. This will definitely add value for ADAR.com clients. Over time, we want to have distinguished features for business accounts to accommodate the ever-growing demand for classic enterprises’ access to crypto, and to accelerate DeFi adoption on the enterprise level, while remaining connected to the well-known TradFi environment. At the same time, we can offer a unique solution to Web3 companies who swear by decentralized solutions and are welcoming a fiat on/off ramp to accelerate the adoption of their innovative businesses.
We are having conversations about some specific use cases that are difficult to cater with exclusively TradFi or DeFi solutions — SORA Card offers the potential for many new solutions.
M: I think that in the same spirit as SORA Card aims to make the world of decentralized finance more accessible to individuals, SORA Card can make this back-and-forth journey between TradFi and DeFi seamless as well for businesses that want to experiment in this new world, while keeping most of their operations connected to the traditional finance world.
As I just previously said, we cannot expect things to change instantaneously, therefore we need to enable individuals as much as businesses to fearlessly touch the water and experiment with decentralized finance services with the best technology we can offer.
WEN?
B: We are on track to have a product launch EOY. Exact dates and more details will be provided as soon as they are confirmed.
Pre-registration and KYC will happen at the beginning of November. You will want to be among the first 5,000 applicants to receive a free SORA Card in combination with the SORA Wallet with no annual fees.
Read more about the key features of SORA Card and the differences with other crypto cards and banking solutions.
Follow this space to stay updated on SORA Card and other SORA news, bookmark soracard.com (website coming soon)
SORA Card | Value Freedom
About SORA, Polkaswap, and Fearless Wallet
SORA is a new economic system aimed at creating a supranational multiverse economic system with built-in tools for decentralized finance (DeFi). The SORA network implements a new way of parachain architecture on Polkadot and Kusama network, with the capability to bridge external blockchains (like Ethereum) to the Polkadot ecosystem.
One of the DeFi applications that will run on the SORA network is Polkaswap, a noncustodial liquidity aggregating, cross-chain AMM DEX designed uniquely for the Polkadot ecosystem with boundless liquidity through its one-of-a-kind Aggregate Liquidity Technology (ALT).
Fearless Wallet is a bespoke mobile wallet designed for the decentralized future on the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystem, with native support for iOS and Android platforms. A premium user experience, fast performance, and secure storage for your accounts. Fearless Wallet will integrate Polkaswap for easy, decentralized swaps of assets.
Connect With Us
SORA community:
Twitter | Telegram | Reddit | YouTube | Announcements Channel
Polkaswap community:
Twitter | Telegram | Reddit | YouTube | Announcements Channel
Fearless Wallet community:
Twitter | Telegram | Element | YouTube | Android App | iOS App
SORA Card — Meet the People Behind the Project was originally published in SORA on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
