Interview with Banyan Network CEO, David Zhou
Can you tell us in short, what does BanyanNetwork do and what does it aim to achieve?
“Banyan Network is a fusion of big data network based on blockchain technology called Data Fusion Value Chain Network (DVN). It is also the world’s first distributed ecosystem of data economies raised and built by team experts in the field of data analytics. Banyan Network covers data collection, cleansing, integration, and applications. Our goal is to focus on blockchain enabled trusted data connection, third-party data integration and governance, data applications and open market development, building a positive interactive value-linked network of data benefits by establishing standards, providing channels, and issuing tokens.”
“BBN is a pure utility token. The mission of BBN is to refine the incoming raw data into curated data to drive the AI industry. The purpose of our protocol is to protect privacy and data security, ensuring the concept of our 3 laws of data value is used in our protocol, dApp, and platform. Not only do we want to materialize the data value, we also want to promote and transmit this data value through data fusion.”
The 3 laws of data value:
First law: data devalues if unused in accelerated manner;
Second law: data value comes from data circulated which include data exchange, data refinement, and data usage;
Third law: fused data promotes value add.
David, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how did you and Kelvin Long get in touch to start the project?
“I have known Kelvin for over twelve years while I was doing my internship in Silicon Valley, we became personal friends over many outing events and badminton. Kelvin and I are both serial entrepreneurs, he returned to China before I did and founded Union Pay Smart. I also returned to China in 2014 through government talent acquisition process and was eager to do something together with Kelvin. During one of last year’s gatherings, Kelvin and I were discussing potential opportunities in the big data industry and landed on several ideas using AI and blockchain technology.”
What is the use of the BBN token in your business model?
“We are planning a series of applications in the big data and AI industry and hope to involve spending BBN to purchase our and our partners’ services.”
The roadmap ends at July 2018 with “DVN First Application Online”, what are the future plans for Banyan Network after Q2 2018?
“We will explore more applications that can be landed for immediately usage and can resolve the trust issue using blockchain technology. The roadmap will become clear in the end of Q2 2018.”
“We have a 3-step strategic roadmap, first dApps, then protocol, and finally a platform leading to an ecosystem. Our timeline is to have the first dApp released in Q3 2018, protocol released in Q1 2019, and platform released by the end of 2019.”
Data is the future, how does Banyan Network stand out compared to other (Big) Data projects?
“One of our competitive edge is the super data sources we have currently connected. We have data sources from government, major payment and financial industry, and large telecom companies. We can provide many rare data resources to our partners and customers.”
“We will make sure to apply our 3 laws of data value in our 3-step strategic road map (dApp, protocol, and platform).”
You seem to have strong connections to UnionPay Smart (Kelvin Long, Shannon Zhao and Ryan Gao). I’m following the Telegram group as much as I can, from what I understand is that UnionPay does not like all partnerships to be made public. Why is that and how are Banyan Network and UnionPay Smart of importance to each other in the business partnership?
“We do have a very strong connection with UnionPay Smart since it was co-founded by Kelvin. UnionPay Smart and many other super data sources are among our close partners, however, in the contract with such partners, it’s clearly indicated not to use their brand name such as UnionPay or UnionPay Smart in any shape or way as all these large companies do not like to be in the PR under the dark without their formal marketing department’s approval. Thus, we don’t want to actively market this kind of partnership.”
“One of our competitive edge is the super data sources we have currently connected. We have data sources from government, major payment and financial industry, and large telecom companies. We can provide many rare data resources to our partners and customers.”
Another thing that caught my eye, Loopring and HPB are angel investors (I like that a lot!). But Daniel Wang (CEO of Loopring) and Bob Wang (CEO of HPB) are also advisors to the team, how is Banyan Network related to Loopring/HPB, and how will the projects cooperate?
“Both Daniel Wang and Bob are good friends of Kelvin. Kelvin has provided a lot of support for HPB in its early days as an adviser. BBN is looking to be one of the first applications on HPB’s platform. BBN and HPB have announced the strategic partnership in March 2018. BBN and Loopring are currently exploring a strategic partnership.”
For now you are using Ethereum, but you hinted towards AntShares/NEO, HPB or other independently developed technologies. What would make you consider switching platforms?
“We are building our dApp on top of mature platforms, currently the Ethereum platform is the most mature, thus is our current choice. As HPB becomes mature, we will also build our dApp on top of HPB’s platform.”
General information
Token supply & Private sale
The total private sale contribution: 10,000 ETH
Total Supply: 1,000,000,000 BBN
Current Circulating Supply: ~120,000,000 BBN
Circulating Supply after everything is unlocked: ~400,000,000 BBN
Social Media
Website: http://www.banyanbbt.org/
Telegram: https://t.me/BBNGlobalFans
Where to buy BBN?: https://www.bibox.com/exchange?coinPair=BBN_ETH
Reddit: TBA
Twitter: https://twitter.com/banyan_network
My (FYIcryptoz) Twitter: https://twitter.com/FYIcryptoz