How's everybody doing? This time around we are talking to — Carlos Liang, Founder and CEO of Divvy.bet
Chris: Divvy Bet is the Best way to do Bets with Crypto Online — can you share what enables you to be the #1 choice for your players?
Carlos: At Divvy.bet, we are on a mission to revolutionize the sports betting industry through the power of blockchain technologies. Our platform offers a secure, transparent, and frictionless betting experience that eliminates the need for lengthy and intrusive signup processes or prefunding accounts. In fact, our users can start betting with just a few clicks and USDC already in their wallet.
But what truly sets Divvy.bet apart from other betting sites is our commitment to offering guaranteed payouts with instant settlements. Divvy.bet is governed by smart contracts and is programmed to never accept a bet that the house can't cover. Our smart contracts have automated the bookmaking process to settle wagers directly back to the bettor's wallet. This means that our users never have to submit a withdrawal request to get their winnings no matter how big.
In addition to providing the best betting experience, Divvy.bet also disrupts the traditional casino business model by empowering anyone to BE THE HOUSE. By integrating a DeFi model, users can provide liquidity to the Divvy.bet house pool and earn a yield from the betting activity. This opens up a brand-new asset class that can perform well regardless of market cycles and allows users to diversify their portfolio.
At Divvy.bet, we believe that our approach to online betting will appeal to users of all risk profiles. The risk-averse can park their funds with the house, while risk-takers can wager and prove that they are smarter than the bookmakers. We are proud to be the #1 choice for players who value transparency, security, and innovation in the world of online betting.
Chris: Great! And you do have your own token — correct? Can you tell us about it?
Carlos: Yes, our DVY token will be an integral part of the Divvy ecosystem. As the governance token, DVY holders will have the power to help shape the future of our platform. But we are also adding a range of utilities to the token that will unlock exclusive benefits for users.
One of the most exciting utilities will be the yield farming capabilities that will boost yields for liquidity providers and offer rewards to bettors for using Divvy.bet. We’ll be rewarding DVY tokens to every bet a user places. Additionally, users will have the opportunity to boost their yields by staking their DVY which will give stakers a claim to a portion of the protocol revenue will be allocated to DVY stakers.
DVY holders will also be able to take advantage of a bet booster, which will unlock better odds for promotional bets. We'll also offer exclusive raffles, contests, and other special tools and publications that will give our users the upper hand when it comes to betting.
Finally, we're planning to introduce a feature called minting bets. This is an entirely new use case of NFTs which will allow bettors to mint their bets into NFTs and have the freedom to sell them in the secondary market. Holders of the NFT bet tickets can redeem the NFT for USDC at Divvy.bet. This will open up an entirely new market for sports trading where value bettors will now have a new avenue to trade.
In summary, the DVY token will be an incredibly valuable asset for our users, offering a range of utilities that will make betting with Divvy.bet even more rewarding and exciting. We can't wait to share more details about our token and its benefits in the coming months.
Chris: What can you say with regard to the security for your users? How is it achieved?
Carlos: At Divvy.bet, we take the security of our users very seriously. That's why we've built our platform from scratch and fully onchain, unlike many of our competitors who simply white label a sportsbetting platform and utilize crypto as the settlement layer. By building everything onchain, Divvy.bet is one of the first sportsbooks that can offer permissionless and non-custodial wagering, where code and math is absolute, removing the need to trust a third party to safeguard your funds.
Blockchain technologies is still in its infancy and comes with growing pains, including the possibility of critical bugs that could expose vulnerabilities in the code. That's why we're going through an audit process with an industry-leading audit firm to make sure that we've covered all known points of attack and are building with industry best practices. We've also removed complexity from our programs to limit any additional potential vectors of attack.
Our team at Divvy.bet is taking every precaution to ensure the safety and security of our users' funds and create an environment where users can wager in a trustless manner. We stand by our offer of guaranteed payouts with instant settlements and believe that this approach sets us apart from other web2 incumbents that operate on ponzi economic models relying on future deposits to pay out current winners.
Chris: It's also said on the website that you have Zero hidden fees? Is everything transparent?
Carlos: Yes, at Divvy.bet, we pride ourselves on being the most transparent sportsbook in the world. We achieve this by building our platform on-chain and ensuring that all transactions passing through the Divvy.bet ecosystem are visible to anyone through the Solana blockchain explorers. We do not charge any fees for placing bets and generate revenue by taking a small cut from the protocol revenues, with the majority of the revenue going directly back to the LPs. All this information is viewable via the anchor data emitted from our programs, ensuring complete transparency for our users.
Chris: Amazing! Can you tell us about your NFT marketplace?
Carlos: Absolutely! Our team at Divvy.bet is excited to explore a completely new use case to NFTs and introduce them to the world of sports betting. By allowing users to mint their bet slips into NFTs, we are opening up a whole new world of possibilities for bettors to interact and trade on our proprietary marketplace. This innovative use of NFT technology will enable our users to exit positions prior to the conclusion of the wager, creating an entirely new market for value bettors.
Chris: And how old is the company? How the core team all got together? What are your backgrounds?
Carlos: I came up with the idea back in July 2020 after I fully understood what DeFi was. I took about a year to write the business plan to make sure that the idea behind Divvy.bet was viable and disruptive product. The building really started in late 2021 after I entered the Solana hackathon to build a POC and leveraged that experience to raise a seed round to formally build a team and bring Divvy.bet to life. Through that experience I was able to put together an incredible team of blockchain maximalist who were excited about a distributed future.
The Head of Growth and Marketing is Moe Rahim and he’s my best friend of nearly 2 decades. He was the first person I called when I had my eureka moment back in 2020 and it was with his support that gave me the confidence to pursue this seriously. He fully joined Divvy.bet in March 2022 to help me bring this project to life. Prior to Divvy he managed the sales operations at BitGo and Mik Mak bringing in a wealth of experience on how to execute on ideas and setting up organizational structures to increase productivity.
Eric Miller is one of the people I met during the hackathon and he helps with Divvy.bet’s strategy and execution. He’s fairly new to the web3 world but what he brings is decades of experience on how to manage and run a successful startup. He currently owns and operates a restaurant and is also a project manager on 9 figure luxury construction projects.
Keisuke leads our tech team and he found us through social media publications and absolutely loves what we were building. He’s a seasoned Rust developer that has bought many projects from idea to launch and also has worked on several blue chip Solana projects such as Marinade.finance.
Chris: What are you looking forward to in the next quarter?
Carlos: Core focus is launching mainnet! We started the year off with a devnet launch followed by a betting contest which was extremely well received by our community. As a result, we were able to collect valuable feedback that helped us improve the overall experience on Divvy.bet. Now we’re gearing towards mainnet by going through a security audit to ensure that we’re providing a safe and secure platform for all to use. We’re currently targeting for that to complete and launch mainnet in March!
Divvy.bet is currently on its Alpha version, therefore, the platform is currently only supporting Moneyline, Spread, and Total Points wagers. We’re focused on expanding our offering and looking to support additional bet types such as parlays and prop bets this quarter! We’re also well aware of the importance of being on mobile and have plans to be mobile compatible later in 2023.
Chris: Thanks! Any last word? Where can we follow you?
Carlos: 2022 was an extremely tough year for everyone in the crypto space. The fallouts at FTX and Almeida have exposed the fragile nature of the system that operates in secrecy and immoral business practices. The gambling industry is no stranger to such events as many operators have defrauded their client base by pulling similar maneuvers and disappearing with client funds. It’s crises such as this that clarify the true merits of what we’re building towards at Divvy.bet. It was born out of the DeFi revolution where we solve these issues with complete transparency where code and math are law.’
We encourage everyone to check out Divvy.bet’s devnet and follow our socials (Discord and Twitter) for the latest updates on our upcoming betting contests. Thank you for the opportunity to share our vision with you.
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