I started approaching CEOs and founders of projects, and ICOs to ask questions about their venture. Using the article that I wrote on How I evaluate A Project, I interview the executives to personally evaluate their project by having them talk about their Team, the Markets/Exchanges that they aspire to be in, any partnerships or features that they have managed to secure, the underlying technology behind their project, and a road map that they might have in place. This week I interviewed David S. Gobaud who is one of the Co-Founders of Mobius Network. Mobius is a protocol that connects consumer applications and high-fidelity oracles to the blockchain economy. They have managed to raise over $35,000,000.00 selling their tokens and today we hear from the horse’s mouth -a little more about the project. Without wasting any more time, I present to you the interview:
David, could you tell us a bit about yourself such as where you are from, what did you major in college, and what were you doing before you got involved in cryptocurrency.
"I’m originally from Southern California but then moved to Las Vegas where I went to high school. I majored in computer science at Stanford. After Stanford I started and ran the Software Automation & Technology (SWAT) Team in the White House during President Obama’s term. Then I got an LLM in Corporate Governance at Queen’s University, Belfast as a George J. Mitchell Scholar followed by a JD from Harvard Law. While at Harvard Law I created Pluto Mail, an ephemeral email service. After graduating from Harvard, I developed the idea for and co-founded Yoshi, a gas delivery service and participated in YC S17 (Most Prestigious Tech Accelerator). After leaving Yoshi I started Mobius."
What motivated you to gather a team together to start Mobius.Network?
"After Yoshi I reconnected with my co-founder and old Stanford friend Cyrus who got me interested in blockchain technology again. I started writing Ethereum smart contracts and realized it was hard to make and integrate a token into a game. I then realized many companies were recreating the same backend services to use tokens and this led to the first Mobius product — the Mobius Stripe for Blockchain API. Then I expanded our product to include the DApp Store and realized Ethereum was too slow, too expensive, and too insecure to handle the DApp Store volume. I then discovered Stellar which is over 100 times faster today, 100,000+ times cheaper, and much more secure."
Consider that I am an average Joe that you would see at a gas station and we had small talk while pumping gas in our cars. I have heard about cryptocurrency and I am looking to diversify my portfolio. How would you explain Mobius.Network in a simplistic way for an average Joe like myself to understand?
"MOBI tokens are not investments so if you are talking about your investment portfolio etc you should not buy MOBI. If you want to use our DApp Store you should buy MOBI!"
Is Mobius.Network on any exchanges, if so which ones. If not, are you planning on being on an exchange and what is the timeline of that happening and which exchanges?
"On-Ramps play a key role in the Mobius ecosystem — they allow people all over the world to easily buy MOBI! DApp Store MOBI can currently be purchased on the Stellar Distributed Exchange through interfaces such as https://stellarterm.com/ as well as at https://www.gopax.co.kr/, http://gate.io/, and https://stronghold.co/. We continue to form new partnerships with other On-Ramp providers to make it easier for people all over the world to buy MOBI.
It seems that Mobius.Network raised about $39 million during."
How will this capital be used to advance the project forward?
"We sold our DApp Store MOBI tokens and had $39M in sales. Our company revenue is used like any other tech company uses revenue — primarily hiring engineers. Revenue is also used to pay for cloud computing/services, servers, computers, office space, lawyers, accountants, taxes, etc."
Why did you select to raise capital using Stellar instead of Ethereum?
"We did not raise capital using Stellar or Ethereum. Our token is based on Stellar and not Ethereum because as mentioned above it is over 100 times faster today, 100,000+ times cheaper, and much more secure. We did raise almost $3M in investment capital using the YC SAFE."
What is the underlying technology behind Mobius.Network that makes you different from any other company in your niche? What industry are you looking to disrupt?
"Our patent-pending Proof of Stake Oracle Protocol (PSOP) and Decentralized Data Marketplace (DDM) is unique and more than disrupting an existing industry it is creating a new industry — global data commerce. Data is the new oil and the DDM is the NASDAQ that will enable global data commerce."
Where do you see Mobius.Network in five years?
"In 5 years I see Mobius at the center of global data commerce."
Could you tell us how you plan to reach your vision in five years?
"We are currently working on v2 of the DApp Store which will be significantly more decentralized! We are also hard at work on launching the first version of the DDM and PSOP."
David, Thank you for giving us insight about yourself, Mobius, and what lies ahead. Any final words you would like to say to the Altcoin Community?
"Thank you for the interest in Mobius and conducting the interview! I Look forward to staying in touch with the Altcoin community!"
Giving my thoughts on this project, they seem to be solving a real-world problem and already have a working platform that can be found on their website. As stated in question four, MOBI is not invest-able such as crypto-coins but rather it’s best used for utilizing their decentralized applications on their website store. With a solid team that have note-worthy credentials, and an article feature in Forbes, Mobius surely is one to watch.
Mobius Website: https://mobius.network/
Mobius Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mobiusnet
Mobius Twitter: https://twitter.com/mobius_network
