Interview with Portal- The First Live Streaming dApp On The Internet Computer

We interviewed Portal, a rising star in the Internet Computer ecosystem. Portal aims to combine the lucrative markets of crypto, live-streaming, and the NFT market, which has recently emerged and exploded on the Internet Computer.

1. What attracted you initially to Blockchain?

The thing that initially attracted me to the blockchain was smart contracts. I think I read an article in Wired about Web 3.0 and how it had the potential to disrupt the current Web 2.0.
I remember being incredibly impressed with the transparency and decentralized nature of smart contracts and how they could be used to replace the systems we use today that are most prone to corruption and human greed.

2. Of all the platforms you could have chosen, why did you decide to build on the Internet Computer?

When I first learned about the Internet Computer, I was impressed with the entire project. I was blown away by how polished everything seemed and how easy it was to set up a project and start developing.
I had done some tutorials and projects on Ethereum before, but the toolset you need is pretty overwhelming. The Internet Computer was utterly different, though. All I had to do was download the dfx tool, and I was up and running.

Also, the developer community was very active and supportive of new developers (super rare for most new blockchains).

3. How long has your company been established, and what is your business model based on?

Portal is very new. It’s been an idea for almost two months now and has been in development for just over a month.

Our business model is based on taking the lucrative market of live streaming (expected to reach 247.27 billion dollar market cap by 2027) and combining it with the (also) incredibly lucrative market of crypto (2.34 trillion dollar market cap currently) and NFT’s($).
Revenue sources include subscriptions, ticketed live events, token sales, NFT minting and sales, and streamer merchandise partnerships.

We’re targeting streamers who want a fair and transparent platform that focuses on community building for our initial customer base. We expect many streamers to be drawn by the ability to interact using tokens: minting and selling NFT’s, earning crypto by streaming or watching, and having ownership of the platform with token governance.

We’re developing Portal to be more open and community-oriented, and we already have features in the works that will make this possible.

4. What makes your company marketable, and what will ensure its long-term success?

I think what makes Portal marketable is the marriage between streaming and crypto. Crypto has been proving itself as the future of currency and the successor to all of the award-based systems we see implemented in Web 2.0 social media apps. It feels very natural to progress from a system of “likes” and upvotes to a token-based system where your likes and upvotes have value and can be used and exchanged.

I believe we’re just in the right place at the right time. Thanks to the Internet Computer, we’re now able to build this next generation of web applications.

5. What challenges have you faced while building your company?

At this early stage, there haven’t been any challenges. I’m sure we will have our fair share, though!

6. What overall vision do you have? Do you have a roadmap? If so, what does it involve?

I would say the overall vision of Portal is to be a thriving Internet Computer app with rich streaming communities and deep user engagement.

The current roadmap is for the MVP and covers from now until Q4 2021.

The MVP will be a fully functioning live streaming app. You’ll be able to watch public streams, login and create an account, create your own live stream, send and receive ICP and our Portal token, mint and use NFT badges to authorize users to see your stream, and earn Portal token for participating in streams (streaming and watching/interacting).

7. What advantages do you believe you have over other competitors?

I think the main advantage we have over our competitors is access to blockchain technology. If any of these other companies had been created this time we’re in, they would have created their apps with crypto.

I’m sure we’ll see a wave of early Internet Computer companies being bought up by companies like Amazon in a few years.

8. Tell us about the team

I’m currently in the process of building the Portal team. So far, as I said above, I’ve been fortunate and have found some treasured members who are just crushing it!
I am looking for a few more people to join the core team, so if anyone is interested in joining the team, find me on Discord.

9. What advice do you have for anyone working in the same space as you?

I would tell them to leverage blockchain technology. Streaming is already a success. It’s already known that people love watching things on a screen.
What’s going to disrupt the space is tokenomics; things like token incentives, token governance, token-based authorization, NFT’s (and the endless possibilities they allow), and the integration and interoperability between Internet Computer apps.

10. What other projects building on the Internet Computer are you most excited about?

I love distrikt and DSCVR so far. I think they are very well done. I’m sure I spend more time than I should.
I’m incredibly excited about the Rise of the Magni tournament that's in the works, and we plan on streaming a bunch of the matches. It’s going to be exciting!
And then, of course, all the NFT’s. How can you not love NFT’s?

11. Do you have any plans to collaborate with other projects building on the Internet Computer?

Yes! I foresee much collaboration in the future. Even though we’re a brand new app, we have a couple of things lined up already.
We plan to have players live stream the Rise of the Magni tournament, and we’re working with Toniq to make sure it's an outstanding experience.

We’re also working on plans for collaborating with DSCVR for Hackathon Season 2: The Integrated Game.

We’re actively looking for more ways to collaborate!! Come talk with us.

12. Do you have any token sales planned for the future? If so, when? Can you give details?

We do have a token sale planned for the future. No, I cannot give details.

13. Can content be recorded and embedded in blogs and social media, but only upon request of an NFT type-token issued by the creator, spawn a free link token, or buy a token for commercial redistribution?

Currently, there is no recording feature planned for the MVP. We plan to release an update shortly after MVP that allows recording clips and screenshots stored as NFT’s.
Then holders of the NFT will be the only ones that can access that clip.

Embedding the clip into Internet Computer apps if a user-owned the NFT would be very simple.

14. Will Portal be integrated with Learnd or other similar educational dApps on the Internet Computer? Most learning platforms (Udemy etc.) connect and facilitate students/teachers but rely on external platforms (Zoom/Teams etc.) for live lessons outside of their dApp.

We do plan on enabling something like that in the future though not for the MVP.

Portal would be perfect for teaching, though, and I anticipate some streamers offering subscriptions for education.

For example, you could set up a cooking class and sell NFT badges required for attendance as a streamer.
Even better, your NFT badge could be an image of a recipe card, and you would have people interested in collecting and trading them.

15. Will there be any dedicated game streaming experience/features like Twitch? I would love to see gamers switch to PORTAL, which is decentralized, so they have control over their content.

For our MVP release, we will have essential moderation, much like distrikt did. This will definitely be one of the systems that evolve over time, and our ultimate goal is to have this be completely decentralized community-based moderation.

The streamers and watchers will be the ones who vote on whether or not to ban other streamers.
They will be heavily invested in the platform and will feel an incentive to vote in the interest of Portal.

16. What are we planning for the viewers? Portal is great for streamers, but what about the supportive audience?

The viewers will love Portal. They will feel more engaged and more connected to their community thanks to tokenomics.

First of all, viewers receive Portal tokens for watching.
Secondly, NFT’s. Streamers can record or screenshot special moments and mint a limited edition set of NFT’s which get airdropped to each viewer immediately.
Viewers can then view all their NFT’s on their page and choose which ones they want to display for others to see (or buy).

Also, the subscription system we’re planning is going to be pretty great.

Missed the AMA with Portal via Telegram? Read the whole AMA here.