[TFIP-21] Proposal for Akemona Technologies to Provide Core Product and Business Development for TrueFi

[Ravi]

1. Preamble

Author: Ravi Srivastava, the founder and CEO of Akemona

Status: Formal Submission

Contributors: Akemona team includes members with prior experience developing the Protocol

2. Summary

As the RWA market continues to expand and become more competitive, TrueFi has an opportunity to leverage its existing market-leading Protocol & technology stack with its new governance structure to revitalize its product offerings to attract new lenders, borrowers, and issuers to the Protocol. This proposal is a plan for the TrueFi Foundation and Community to bring on Akemona Technologies’ team as TrueFi’s new core product and business development team. We would take the lead on the following roles Mr. Vandy enumerated in TFIP-19:

“5. Day-to-day website user interface (“UI”) and user experience (“UX”) tech managers
6. Smart contract maintenance
7. New product development from a technology standpoint
8. New product or counterparts liaison specialist”

Our proposed 7-month budget, through the end of Q1 2025, is USD 448,000 (see the itemization at the end of this document), paid out monthly in the form of USD 54,000 in USDC and USD 10,000 in TRU tokens.

Our offer includes services for items #5 to #8 from TFIP-19 stated above, which will be covered by Ravi Srivastava and Brady Matthews. Akemona can bring in additional staff if needed. As described below Akemona has included the enhancement of the TrueFi platform and protocol with the Akemona platform in this proposal.

Further items #5 to #8 from TFIP-19 are high-level descriptions. The Akemona team will make an assessment and add more details to the description of these activities to measure the level of effort required and derive suitable KPIs.

There will be quarterly reviews with the Board and Community via the TrueFi Forum to evaluate KPI performance under our engagement. If we’ve satisfactorily met or exceeded our KPIs, then our relationship should automatically extend for an additional 6 months with new KPIs mutually agreed to by Akemona, the Board, and the Community. In this constantly evolving market, long-term engagements are not nimble enough to adapt to new market developments and the needs of the Protocol.

3. Motivation

Why Akemona? Akemona is building the future of finance as a pioneer in digital securities and RWA tokenization. Founded in 2018, we’ve developed and launched the first regulated funding portal protocol managed by smart contracts in the United States. Akemona registered with the SEC in 2018 and received FINRA membership approval in 2020 under SEC Regulation Crowdfunding (Reg CF). This year Akemona successfully closed three small, tokenized offerings (Wolfer, PreSend, Soma) under Reg CF. Subsequently, Akemona enhanced the platform to add tokenization of RWA under SEC Regulations A, D/S, and Investment Companies 1940 Act. Through the expansion of its tokenization protocol (see Akemona wallet addresses at Etherscan and Polygonscan) which includes SEC-registered onchain transfer agent services (OnchainTA), issuance of perks as utility tokens and NFTs, partnership with ARCA Labs, and collaboration with the CAF Bank of Latin America for tokenized thematic bonds, Akemona is expanding in the United States capital market. In 2024 Akemona launched a new white-labeled tokenized fundraising platform, which is doing well in the real estate development industry in the United States.

Legacy capital market infrastructure (comprising depositories, exchanges, clearing agencies, and multiple intermediaries) is slow and inefficient, which results in long settlement times with the majority of settlements taking up to 2 days. In addition, most of this infrastructure exists only for publicly traded securities. Private securities issued under SEC exemptions do not have such infrastructure (except newly emerging ATS and transfer agents in the last 5 years). Under the SEC’s exempt offering framework, which includes Regulations CF, D/S, and A, about USD 1.5 trillion is raised each year (Ref: Capital Raising in the U.S.: An Analysis of Unregistered Offerings Using the Regulation D Exemption, 2009‐2012, and Report to Congress on Regulation A / Regulation D Performance, August 2020) in the United States. The private capital market is not only larger than the public capital market, but also it is growing at a faster pace. Recognizing this opportunity, Akemona has focused its technology on the tokenization of RWAs under the exempt offering framework of the SEC. Akemona’s tokenization protocol eliminates post-trade processing, speeds up settlement, and reduces the cost of raising capital.

Tokenized digital securities can be traded 24x7 and are settled immediately, providing full transparency of trade and pricing. In addition, issuers can issue dividends in the form of NFTs and utility tokens, which investors can redeem through the OnchainTA protocol, which became operational in 2024. The Akemona protocol enables borrowers and issuers to accept investments in any ERC-20 token of their choice (for example, TRU, TUSD, USDC, etc.). The tokenized securities issued by borrowers/issuers through the Akemona protocol have a minimum holding period depending on the regulations under which they are issued. After the holding period, investors may trade tokenized securities peer-to-peer through the whitelist of investors in compliance with the securities acts.

TrueFi is DeFi-centric and while the expertise of Akemona is on the TradFi side, lessons learned will easily carry over to DeFi and enhance the experience. Akemona’s expertise in TradFi complements TrueFi’s focus on DeFi. By leveraging Akemona’s institutional knowledge and proven smart-contract development, the experience from the TradFi world will enhance TrueFi’s DeFi and make the system safer while preserving its open and innovative nature. This collaboration with Akemona enables TrueFi to bridge the gap between traditional and decentralized finance without compromising the core principles of DeFi.

The Team

• Ravi Srivastava, CEO: Ravi conceptualized the Akemona platform as a regulated securities tokenization platform using smart contracts and blockchain technology. Ravi has extensive experience in corporate finance, technology, and the regulatory environment of financial markets. Before founding Akemona, Ravi was with Insurance (Travelers), Private Equity (Trident, Zenith), Healthcare (Kaiser Permanente), Technology (Dell), and Banking (Bank of America, Reserve Bank of India). Ravi Srivastava is based in Orange County, California.

• Brady Matthews, CTO: Brady Matthews, a co-founder, developed all the smart contracts for the Akemona and OnchainTA protocols. In addition, he defined the technology architecture of Akemona. He is recognized as the leading expert in blockchain technology in the United States. Brady has over 12 years of experience building complex enterprise applications on a broad range of software frameworks, platforms, and devices. Following agile methods, Brady has led large teams with on-shore and off-shore staffing to deliver high-quality web and mobile applications, scaled for millions of users (Accenture). Brady lives in Dallas, Texas.

• Marina Mataraga, Partner: Marina Mataraga, a co-founder, brings inspiration and deep thoughtfulness to our operations. She developed the original requirements of the Akemona smart contracts. Marina has contributed to Akemona on a part-time basis as needed. She is an industry-recognized leader in horizontal integration and problem-solving. Marina has experience in Healthcare, Finance/Banking, Manufacturing, and Retail. Marina has led a globalized product organization of 300+ people with sales and support to multiple customers with accountability to evolving federal regulations (Dell). Marina is based in Texas.

• Akash Patel, Lead Software Engineer: Akash has been working with Akemona 24x7 since the beginning. He is a highly trusted partner who brings a strong work ethic to software development. Akash stays ahead of the technology curve and makes sure that we have minimal to no technology debt. Akash has a deep understanding of the technology behind Akemona and OnchainTA and what makes it work. Whenever we are making enhancements and changes to the system, Akash provides valuable insights that make our processes better and faster. Akash is based in Gujarat, India.

• Divangi Barvaliya, Software Engineer: Divangi has contributed to Akemona full-time since the beginning. She distinguishes herself as a very methodical, process-oriented, and focused software engineer. Divangi deeply understands our systems, processes, code base, and business rules. She has implemented most of the business rules in the investor and borrower/issuer portals’ code base. Divangi lives near Toronto in Canada.

• Engineering Contractors: Akemona has contracted with engineers responsible for the early development of the Protocol. This experience will provide Akemona with the ability to quickly onramp into TrueFi’s tech stack and begin executing the product roadmap efficiently.

Why TrueFi? TrueFi has a successful record of making credit more accessible, transparent, and programmable by bringing debt infrastructure onchain. TrueFi has strong brand recognition across the crypto community. Akemona has developed a regulatory-compliant platform for the issuance of tokenized bonds, which TrueFi can leverage through its marketing outreach in the community. Using the Akemona platform, TrueFi is well-positioned to develop new lines of credit (LOC) products, which leverage the efficiency of blockchain technology and lower the cost of capital. Akemona and TrueFi partnership has the potential to position TrueFi to enter the institutional capital market in the United States and across the world.

4. TrueFi & Akemona Q4 2024 and Q1 2025

• Protocol enhancement I (Phase 1): The first phase of Akemona’s involvement with TrueFi will be to align with the Board and Community on a refreshed TrueFi product roadmap. The Wallfacer team proposed a very well thought out roadmap on June 6, 2024. We propose starting fresh with a Town Hall on October 1, 2024, where the Board, Community, and Akemona team can have an open discussion to whiteboard out proposed protocol improvements. We can begin the conversation with Wallfacer’s proposed improvements and then field additional proposals from the Community, before working with the Board to align on a draft TrueFi Product Roadmap through Q1 2025 for the Community’s consideration.

• Protocol enhancement II (Phase 2): Enhance the TrueFi website and protocol by integrating the Akemona software to create a TrueFi capability for borrowers/issuers to launch their own debt/equity security tokens for raising onchain funds under SEC Regulation D 506(c)* for lenders to make investments under the same regulations. Borrowers will be able to (1) create an offering, (2) accept investments using TRU, (3) if needed, collateralize the assets purchased from the funds raised, (4) pay back the principal and interest/dividends using TRU, (5) reward investors using utility tokens, which investors may exchange for TRU. Lenders will be able to loan funds to the borrowers using TRU. To achieve these goals, Akemona will integrate its white-label tokenization platform with the TrueFi website, so that it works seamlessly with the website. The Akemona tokenization platform manages the entire lifecycle of tokenized assets from issuance to redemption in compliance with SEC regulations. The addition of this capability will enable TrueFi to enter the largest capital market in the world and provide services to borrowers/issuers for a fee.

Akemona will provide “Test-the-Waters” capability to potential borrowers/issuers under SEC Reg CF on the TrueFi website. Under the current SEC regulations, an issuer intending to raise funds under Reg CF may use any platform to reach out to potential investors to record their intent to invest in the issuer’s future tokenized offering. Upon successful completion of the “Test-the-Waters” campaign, an issuer will have a reasonable forecast of how much they expect to raise from their onchain tokenized offering. To achieve success “Test-the-Waters” campaigns require significant outreach and marketing to potential investors. Akemona will bring its experience to guide the regulatory-compliant marketing of tokenized offerings. Potential borrowers/issuers do not have to decide the regulation under which they intend to raise funds before completing a “Test-the-Waters” campaign. Therefore, a “Test-the-Waters” could be a generic campaign.

Upon successful completion of a “Test-the-Waters” campaign, if a borrower/issuer wants to raise funds under Reg D/S by selling tokens to investors, they can do that on the TrueFi website. If the borrower/issuer decides to raise funds under Reg CF, Akemona will make its tokenization platform available to the borrower/issuer at cost, since fundraising under Reg CF requires the offering to be conducted on an SEC-registered funding portal.

Borrowers may use regulations D and CF for issuing long-term debt or lines of credit. Due diligence and underwriting for the issuance of debt could be performed by a debt underwriting company, like, Cicada Partners. For Reg CF, the funding portal is required to perform a reasonable review. However, Cicada Partners could provide additional due diligence on top of the reasonable review for the assessment of risk, which would act as a credit enhancement.

Expanding the TrueFi protocol to Reg CF may present intriguing opportunities. Reg CF tokens are the only tokenized securities that can be traded peer-to-peer among non-accredited investors after the holding period of one year. In addition, non-accredited/small investors from all over the world (excluding countries barred under the OFAC) may invest in Reg CF tokens issued under the laws of the United States. Private companies with scale, e.g., Substack, have been very successful with Reg CF. Real estate investments in the United States through Reg CF for non-accredited/small international investors could potentially offer protection of principal and growth. Similarly, a Reg CF offering could be used to create a whiskey fund, which could offer an excellent risk/return trade-off. Issuers are allowed to raise up to $5 million in 12 months under Reg CF by issuing debt, equity, membership interest, future revenue, and future equity.

TrueFi could charge a fixed fee of USD 5,000 to USD 25,000 from borrowers/issuers who use its services to issue and sell tokenized securities. The fee will depend on the platform services provided to a borrower/issuer. Under the regulations, TrueFi cannot charge a success-based fee or commission (for example 2% of the amount raised on the platform) from potential borrowers/issuers. Similarly, test-the-waters services could be priced at USD 1,000 to USD 1,500 depending on the support needed by a potential borrower/issuer. Potential borrowers/issuers may pay these fees in TRU.

*Akemona will provide its full suite of software, which includes Regulations D 506(c), 506(b), S, A, CF, and the Investment Companies 1940 Act. Initially, Reg D 506(c) may be most suitable. If necessary and legally feasible, Akemona will provide options to enable the issuance of unregulated or lightly regulated tokens in jurisdictions that allow such issuance.

• Protocol enhancement III (Phase 3): The other area, which may be of interest is the Investment Companies 1940 Act. We would propose to launch a tokenized mutual fund under the Investment Companies Act of 1940 to create a fund that invests in tokens launched under Protocol Enhancement I. Such a fund could allow accredited as well as non-accredited investors to invest in the expanded TrueFi protocol. The sale and distribution of these tokens will be onchain through the protocol. This fund will require registration with the SEC, which is time-consuming. However, it may be possible to partner with some companies that already have funds registered with the SEC to speed up the launch.

5. Akemona’s Mandate

Why use an external technology service provider? By providing a white-label platform Akemona’s regulated offering can help the TrueFi community enter the largest capital market in the United States with its RWA products within 4.5 months.

Audits of Akemona

• Highland Security audited Akemona smart contracts and the code base in September of 2023. No red flags were found. 24 risks were identified in the yellow (low to medium risk) category related to cloud services, network security, and smart contracts. We fixed 20 of those low to medium-risk issues. The remaining items are low priority, and not related to smart contracts.

• On October 20, 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) initiated an examination of OnchainTA. On December 7, 2022, the SEC identified four deficiencies. We resolved all those deficiencies by June 8, 2023, to the satisfaction of the SEC.

• On December 22, 2021, the SEC initiated an audit of Akemona. They closed the audit on December 30, 2021, with no comments.

• On August 17, 2021, FINRA initiated an examination of Akemona. They closed the examination on January 28, 2022, with minor comments.

Akemona’s Mandate. Launch the project at the beginning of October 2024 to deliver a seamlessly integrated SEC-compliant tokenization platform for the issuance of tokens to the TrueFi community by February 15, 2025.

6. Proposed Roadmap / Statement of Work through Q1 2025

Phase 1

• Product

  • Align on a refreshed TrueFi Product Roadmap through Q1 2025. Based on Wallfacer’s most recent roadmap, these were the proposed initiatives:
    • Index Vaults & ALOCs
    • Multichain Expansion
    • ALOC Dynamic interest curves
    • UI/UX Improvements
    • Website Improvements
    • Community & Governance Improvements

• Execution

  • KPI: Refresh and finalize TrueFi’s product roadmap on or before October 31, 2024.
  • KPI: Set and publish monthly KPIs based on the final product roadmap on or before October 31, 2024.

• Phase 2

  • Product
    • Investor Portal (buy tokens and indicate interest in test-the-waters)
    • Borrower Portal (launch offerings and test-the-waters campaigns)
    • Admin Portal (manage offerings and test-the-waters campaigns)
    • Transfer Agent Portal (This will require TrueFi to form an entity for registration with the SEC. Until then, OnchainTA can provide such services at cost between USD 1,500 and USD 3,000 per year per offering for supporting tokenized securities.)
    • During the planning exercise, Akemona will obtain feedback for customizations from the community and develop a plan to implement that feedback.
  • Execution
    • KPI: Investor Portal integrated into a subdomain of TrueFi (e.g., invest.truefi.io) for investment in offerings using TrueFi ERC-20 tokens.
    • KPI: Borrower Portal integrated into a subdomain of TrueFi (e.g., issue.truefi.io) to create tokenized offerings in the Investor Portal for investments
    • KPI: Admin Portal integrated into a subdomain of TrueFi (e.g., admin.truefi.io) to manage offerings.

• Phase 3 (TBD in conjunction with the Community)

7. Funding

Itemized Budget

1. Investor, Borrower/Issuer, and Admin Portals Service Fee: USD 25,000 per month (includes full support, ongoing maintenance, enhancements, and customization for TrueFi)
2. Brady Matthews: USD 150 per hour, estimated: USD 24,000 per month - smart contract maintenance plus UI/UX of the TrueFi website and other online assets.
3. Ravi Srivastava: 30 hours per week: USD 15,000 per month (includes support for new product and technology leadership and development, technology infrastructure, foundational work, regulatory analysis/compliance, community coordination, joint business development, etc.)
4. Total: USD 64,000 per month (USD 448,000 for 7 months)

Terms

1. USD 64,000 is payable at the start of the project.
2. The remainder is payable monthly on the 1st of each month upon the presentation of an invoice by Akemona.

Ongoing Budget After the Initial Implementation

Investor, Borrower/Issuer, and Admin Portals Service Fee: USD 15,000 per month (includes full support, ongoing maintenance, enhancements, excludes customizations).

Customizations to Investor, Borrower/Issuer, and Admin Portals (if needed outside the regular release schedule): USD 125 per hour.

Brady Matthews: USD 150 per hour - smart contract maintenance plus UI/UX of the TrueFi website and other online assets owned by TrueFi (Any effort towards the customization of Investor, Borrower/Issuer, Admin Portals will be excluded from this, and charged under customizations at USD 125 per hour).

Ravi Srivastava: USD 125 per hour (includes support for new product and technology leadership, and development, technology infrastructure, foundational work, regulatory analysis/compliance, community coordination, joint business development, etc.)

Governance Steps
As the proposal does not fall under the simplified governance exemptions, the proposal will require the following steps:

1. Forum Posting: A 72-hour posting period on the forum to allow the community to provide feedback.
2. Snapshot Vote: A 48-hour Snapshot vote will be conducted with the options: “OK to vote on Tally,” “Not OK to vote on Tally,” and “Abstain.” At least 5% of staked TRU must participate in this Snapshot vote to meet the quorum.
3. Amendment Period: If the 5% quorum is met, with a majority negative vote, a 72-hour period will follow to allow for any amendments or discussions before the proposal is posted to Tally.
4. Tally Vote: Otherwise, the proposal will be posted to Tally for the final vote.

[TheSkyHopper]

Thank you for posting! Nice to see a proposal - attempting to work in relation to TFIP 19!

A couple of questions to start:

1. From a community management aspect - to re-invigorate the community and overall social media footprint for Truefi, what initial ideas do you have? As there’s quite of bit of implied managerial areas in the proposal, how do you expect yourselves and Akemona team to be visible in these areas (as yourselves and as Truefi representatives)?

2. What are the biggest challenges do you see combining a SEC regulated group (company/people) and a DeFi DAO?

[Ravi]

Thank you very much for your comments and questions.

The Akemona team believes that to expand and fully realize the possibilities of DeFi, we need to bridge the gap between traditional and decentralized finance without compromising the core principles of DeFi. From this point of view, our role will be to simplify and present to the Community the advantages and efficiencies DeFi can bring to the TradFi world in order to create a broad understanding of the opportunities.

I agree that there will be several managerial decisions. However, that will make it all the more important for us to formulate the questions and simplify those decision areas for the Board and Community. We will use all relevant Community forums and social media to simplify, explain, and communicate our assumptions and decisions to the Community. Simplification and communication with the Community will help us seek feedback. At the same time, it will help us with our decision-making. Secondly, we will develop products/markets that expand the economic value and impact of TrueFi’s DeFi solutions. We believe our leadership in delivering successful solutions will reinvigorate the community.

The framework of existing SEC regulations was created almost half a century ago. With the availability of DeFi, several SEC regulations can be more efficiently satisfied using blockchain technology, without losing the high-level guardrails those regulations sought to provide. One such example is counterparty requirements in trading. The biggest challenge in bringing together our groups is building a mutual understanding of complex trade-offs between the TradFi and DeFi worlds. We are strongly committed to building that mutual understanding, which will enable us to develop and launch products that drive DeFi adoption in the broader financial and capital markets.

Please do not hesitate to let us know if you have additional questions.

[CicadaSefton]

A lot these functionalities are missing and key to bringing in family offices, which we believe is a key under penetrated channel that is particularly keen on private credit exposure. A few quick ones from me to start:

1. Can service providers integrate their outsourced KYC policies on borrowers or is that directly owned by Akemona? Safe to assume no changes with respect to lender KYC?
2. Is Akemona a broker-dealer or do you lease a license or because it’s all under Reg CF, D, or S you don’t need a full BD license?
3. To clarify, Is this additional to TFIP-19’s budget or designed to replace some of the budget there?
   Thanks for this exciting proposal!

[Ravi]

Thank you for your comments and questions @CicadaSefton.

We designed and developed our KYC policies and processes since they are the core of all regulated financial activity. We have integrated our platform with Plaid, Stripe, Trulioo, and NorthCapital. If Akemona is managing an offering under Reg CF, we run KYC on the borrower and perform the necessary due diligence. Akemona has automated processes for performing KYC on lenders.

Akemona does not manage and control offerings under Regulations A, D, and S. We offer our platform to borrowers who use our platform to manage and control their offerings to raise funds from lenders under Regs A, D, and S. Yes, you can safely assume that there are no changes to lender KYC.

Akemona is not a broker-dealer, and we do not lease a license. We were the first to reach out to FINRA for a tokenization funding portal approval in 2019. Since a decision about digital assets was considered a policy decision, FINRA forwarded our application to the SEC. We worked with the SEC, and they gave the green light to FINRA to grant us membership as a funding portal in August 2020. This license allows us to operate an RWA tokenization funding portal and conduct borrower/lender activity using ERC-20 tokens under Reg CF.

Our proposal is within the budget of TFIP-19.

I hope this answers your questions. Please do not hesitate to let us know if you have additional questions.

[CicadaSefton]

Thanks Ravi. These are tremendous additions to the ecosystem and help solve a number of problems we and our counsel have identified and are currently solving for.

[Ravi]

Thank you @CicadaSefton. We are excited about the opportunity to work with TrueFi and its ecosystem. We will be truly honored to contribute to the goals of the ecosystem and advance the vision.

Please do not hesitate to ask if you have any additional questions.

[Ravi]

As of September 17, 2024 11:15 Pacific Time, this proposal is posted for a 48-hour Snapshot vote. Here is the link: Snapshot

[Ravi]

Thank you all for your support and thoughtful comments. Under the governance process, we have published the proposal for a vote on Tally. The proposal remains exactly as posted here. Voting will start on September 22, 05:24 pm (Los Angeles Time), and end on September 25, 11:09 am (Los Angeles Time).

We at Akemona are excited about the opportunity to contribute to your vision. Here is the link: TFIP-21 Tally Vote.

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions—we’d love to hear from you.

[Ravi]

Thank you all.

The proposal is now live on Tally.

[ryan.rodenbaugh]

Hi @Ravi , really a great post and congrats on the support on Snapshot. Of all the proposals we’ve seen come in so far, I think this one has potential to take over the work we at Wallfacer have done.

I realize I am late on commenting here since it’s already moved to Tally, but I have some questions that I believe are relevant before anyone votes FOR on this proposal.

Similar to Arkis though (which I did not comment on since it didn’t seem like it was going to make it to Tally), you have a separate standalone business with it’s own business model, outside investors, etc.

At the highest level, it’s not clear how Akemona benefits from using Truefi and why this makes sense for you to do so.

Some questions:

1. How does Akemona make money today? Is that business model in line with at all how you are charging TrueFi?
2. How well will Akemona’s existing platforms integrate with TrueFi’s current infrastructure? It feels to me that this should be scoped before any sort of engagement.
3. While Akemona has experience with SEC regulations, how will this integration affect TrueFi’s current regulatory status and compliance requirements? It’s not clear to me that TrueFi, as a platform without these same licenses, etc. will be able to integrate with your platform. I don’t think TrueFi’s rails should be touching “security tokens”

@Ravi

The framework of existing SEC regulations was created almost half a century ago. With the availability of DeFi, several SEC regulations can be more efficiently satisfied using blockchain technology, without losing the high-level guardrails those regulations sought to provide. One such example is counterparty requirements in trading. The biggest challenge in bringing together our groups is building a mutual understanding of complex trade-offs between the TradFi and DeFi worlds. We are strongly committed to building that mutual understanding, which will enable us to develop and launch products that drive DeFi adoption in the broader financial and capital markets.

Your answer above does not provide any real answer to the question below

@TheSkyHopper

1. What are the biggest challenges do you see combining a SEC regulated group (company/people) and a DeFi DAO?

5. The fees you outline are not currently compatible with how TrueFi works as far as I can tell. You can see how fees on TrueFi work here. Of course, you can get around this by waiving fees on the LoC and just using your platform’s fees, but that basically negates the need for even using TrueFi in the first place.
6. How much has been raised through Akemona in the past? That is, what kind of network of lenders/investors does the platform currently have? What kind of success have previous offerings raised?

[Ravi]

Hi Ryan

Thank you very much for your insightful comments. I’ll do my best to answer your questions. Please feel free to ask follow-up questions if I have not clarified anything.

1. We make money by (a) conducting tokenized Reg CF raises, and (b) providing our customized white-label RWA tokenization platform and services to businesses and financial institutions. Yes, our business model is in line with how we are charging TrueFi. Please visit Akemona, Akemona-Core, and its subsidiaries to review our business model.

2. As outlined in our proposal, we will enhance the Protocol during Phase I. In Phase II, we add complementary services provided by our white-label RWA tokenization platform. The White-label RWA tokenization platform will exist side-by-side with the current infrastructure and it could use common components of the current infrastructure (e.g., KYC protocol). Our platform will interface with the existing infrastructure through our Web3 components. If needed, we will develop new smart contracts and Web3 components to interface with the existing infrastructure.

3. The core Akemona platform is a general-purpose multichain RWA tokenization platform. It is used for managing the life cycle of any type of digital asset, such as regulated, unregulated, or lightly regulated tokens. SEC regulations require a participant or an intermediary (such as an issuer, buyer, seller, exchange, custodian, or market maker) in a securities transaction to be registered or exempt under one of the exemptions. A technology platform provider that provides its technology without participating in securities transactions does not require a license. Therefore, an issuer who complies with the regulations could use our RWA tokenization platform to create and sell digital assets. TrueFi rails don’t have to touch security tokens, since security tokens will be owned and managed by the issuer. The issuer could use the platform to issue and sell security tokens, meme coins, or any other type of tokens that represent something else as long as the issuer complies with the laws of the jurisdiction in which those tokens are sold.

4. My experience has been that people who work in different areas (even if those areas are closely related) develop different vocabulary, behaviors, expectations, communication styles, and approaches to problem-solving. When such groups are brought together collaboration becomes hard due to these differences. An awareness that we may have such differences and a forced effort to try to understand new points of view become critical. I believe if we can define the problem and the opportunity, the solution will be simple. This is the reason I feel that the biggest challenge when we combine an SEC-regulated group (company/people) and a DeFi DAO will be to build mutual understanding. I’m not trying to avoid answering technical issues of DeFi, CeFi, TradFi, and emerging regulations around tokenization. But when I’m asked what is the biggest challenge, I must share my opinion honestly so that it can be challenged to help me discover new points of view. If there is a cognizance of a specific challenge, please let me know. I’ll address it and learn from it.

5. As explained in the fee details, we are charging only for the platform and services.

6. As mentioned in the proposal, we have done 3 small (but very complex) offerings this year. Please see the proposal to review our smart contracts. These 3 startup issuers (Soma, PreSend, Wolfer) raised approximately $400K+ as seed money by selling tokens to non-accredited retail investors across the world. Our larger business is providing white-label platforms and services. One of our clients has an offering of $100 million live on our platform at this time.

I hope I have addressed your questions. Let me know if you still have questions or concerns.

[Ravi]

Hi All,
Thank you very much for your kind support in approving our proposal. We will work hard to understand and exceed your expectations.

[Ravi]

Hi All,

We are scheduling a community town hall on Thursday, October 10, 2024 3:00 PM for 1 hour. Below is a Zoom link for the town hall. We are requesting you to join us. You must be logged into your free Zoom account to join (to protect us from bots).

Join our Cloud HD Video Meeting

Please add it to your calendar.

During the town hall, we will share an emerging product roadmap for TrueFi as outlined in our proposal TFIP-21.

Last week I had calls with @CicadaSefton, Christine from Cicada Partners, @Marcus_Leanos, @seanpm from Adapt3r, @vandynathan, and Viv from the foundation. I’m thankful for their time. These calls and TFIP-22 have given us a preliminary understanding of the needs of stakeholders. Our roadmap must address these needs and be aligned with the community and the market.

I’m looking forward to seeing you at the town hall.

Please feel free to share your questions and suggestions. Thank you!

[Ravi]

Hi All,

Postponement of the Community Town Hall Event

Several community members have expressed their wish to join the Community Town Hall. Due to the heightened interest, we need additional time to organize the Town Hall at a time convenient across multiple time zones. Therefore, we are postponing this meeting.

If you added this meeting to your calendar, please delete it. I’m working with @vandynathan to identify a new date and online venue for the town hall.

Please expect an announcement from @vandynathan shortly with a new date and online venue.

Please do not hesitate to post if you have any questions.

Thank you all.
Ravi

[TRUHOLDER]

When do you plan to prepare the roadmap for Q4 2024 and Q1 2025 for TrueFi?

[Ravi]

Hi @TRUHOLDER - Thank you for your question. We have the second draft ready. I’m expecting that we should be ready to release it within a week at the Community Town Hall to be rescheduled shortly.

[Jamm]

I hope so, we are getting crushed, truefiDAO has failed the community up to this point. When there’s no social media presences. The last update was over 4 month’s ago. That’s pretty ridiculous. It’s hard for anybody new to join truefiDAO when there’s no engagement on social media. The community needs to be engaged. We need to know why truefiDAO is important technology and a must for institutional investors in the rwa’s space. The work being done in the back round no body see that. It’s hard enough for ppl to have to get on tally or snapshot just to see what the future looks like for this platform. With all the up coming changes happening i hope y’all engage with the community on social media so the excitement can come back. Its soooo bad right now. Thanks for your time too

[Ravi]

Hi @Jamm - We hear all your points and thank you for your comment. We are reviewing the existing architecture and identifying what and how it will work as we move forward in the RWA space. There is plenty of hard work and no shortcuts. A lot of it is unavoidable grunt work. Having said that, I’m excited about what we are seeing. As we plow ahead and establish a cadence of communications with the community, we believe you’ll like our direction. Thanks again.

[vandynathan]

We appreciate the ongoing dialogue around Akemona’s TFIP-21 to take on core product and business development responsibilities for TrueFi. The initiative and team have already been a value-add to the DAO’s operations.

However, there has been a critical misunderstanding regarding the budget allocation for Akemona’s activities. Originally, the Foundation and several community members were under the impression that Akemona would secure an independent budget as per the discussions in the proposal. This was seen as a positive move to empower Akemona without straining the Foundation’s resources, which are earmarked for crucial roadmap executions.

Upon review, it was noted in the proposal comments that Akemona’s funding would indeed be sourced from the already approved TFIP-19 budget of the Foundation. Given the recent performance of TRU prices and our financial projections, integrating Akemona’s budget within our current allocations has proven unfeasible without affecting our operational efficiency and planned developments.

To resolve this and ensure transparency and alignment with our governance framework, and as this is a minor misunderstanding between the execution of the budget but not the content of the proposal, we propose the drafting of a new Tally proposal for TFIP-21.

This proposal will outline a separate budget for Akemona directly from the Treasury. This approach will ensure that both the Foundation and Akemona are adequately funded to pursue both the TradFi and DeFi aspects on the TrueFi roadmap without compromising on the strategic goals set forth by the TrueFi community.

As the community have already positively voted on the content of the proposal, the poll will be left to attain community sentiment over the next 48 hours before the TFIP-21 proposal is taken to Tally.

• I agree that Akemona should access their budget to execute on the proposed product vision for TrueFi
• I do not agree that Akemona should access their budget to execute on the proposed product vision for TrueFi

We look forward to your inputs and will continue to engage in discussions to refine this approach, ensuring it aligns with our community-driven governance model.