Aaron McDonald AMA 15 September 2020
Centrality is sharing the latest on the CENNZnet platform’s development and progress. To stay up-to-date on the progress of Centrality’s ecosystem, follow us on Twitter and our Telegram Announcements channel, plus join our community on Centrality’s Official Telegram, Reddit and Facebook.
Q. The Defi trend caused Ethereum gas prices to skyrocket and bugs to occur, will the same thing happen with CENNZnet?
A. In congested blockchain networks today, the costs of transactions are volatile and subject to change at any time, which makes it hard for DApp developers to plan ahead or create interesting customer models like fee-free for example. If the network gets congested for reasons outside the developer’s control, the cost of running their app goes up.
It’s silly to think that a scalable blockchain with everyday users will have highly variable fees. That won’t appeal to the vast majority of developers, entrepreneurs or users. Imagine if the cost of my Netflix subscription, which is hosted with AWS, went up when the Amazon share price goes up. That’s effectively what networks like Ethereum have with their capital asset and fee asset being the same.
It’s important to strike a balance between optimising for the usage of the network and preventing attacks.
CENNZnet has been designed to deliver predictable cost and security, the cost of using the network can be predicted over time as the gas token CPAY has a price stability algorithm and as the network grows the value of CENNZ also grows which increases the cost of an attack.
This allows the “best of both worlds” balance needed for mainstream adoption without complex solutions for users like Layer2.
Q. The Dual Token system is so good that if it works as it should, it will be a win-win situation, but it’s an absolute requirement for the CENNZX exchange to be up and running. When will CENNZX be up and running?
A. Really good observation. CENNZX and the fee exchange are both live in the network already and being used currently with the test tokens. CENNZX is an AMM also, like Uniswap but with integration to the doughnuts protocol which will allow developers to build interesting Defi products. They are accessible via the network API/SDK, so developers can start using them straight away. We plan to create a community project to add the UI to the exchange so anyone can also trade assets here.
Q. The specific way for CENNZ holders to use their staking rewards for their own benefit is to convert CPAY to BTC on CENNZX and transfer it to their wallets?
A. Each community member will be able to choose which assets they want to create liquidity for as an LP in the fee exchange initially we will launch with CENNZ and CPAY however new tokens will be added over time and using our PLUGnet integration this could include ^BTC a Bitcoin on CENNZ net too.
Q. Right now, you can use cryptocurrency in Coca-Cola vending machines in New Zealand and Australia. This should require liquidity in CENNZX, but CENNZX is not yet up and running, how does it work?
A. The first cryptocurrency added to the Centrapay network for payment was BTC, the next will be CENNZ after the migration to the network, given the CENNZX module is already live on the network. This will include LPs being able to add liquidity in any tokens CENNZ/CPAY etc. Centrapay will also be creating native digital assets on the CENNZnet for brands they are working with.
For the current network to operate before the migration we have used “proxy” tokens T-CENNZ T-CPAY T-SYLO etc.. These will be replaced by their real versions once they migrate.
A. Whether or not the Centrality ecosystem is viable will depend on how much demand there is for CPAY. Right now, Centrality is partnering with a lot of companies, is CPAY already being used?
Q. The demand for CENNZ will be driven by DApps. Developers will have to buy CPAY off CENNZ holders and use them in order to make their applications work. Or they will need to BUY CENNZ and mint CPAY through staking or they will need to become an LP on the CENNZx exchange and swap CPAY for other assets. The more apps in the ecosystem, the more CPAY in circulation, the better off CENNZ holders are.
Our token economy has been designed to encourage developers to buy CENNZ also. Developers will need CPAY to use the network, but they’ll also be incentivised to buy CENNZ to participate in the network governance.
It's important to complete the migration of CENNZ tokens to the network so that we can start minting real CENNZ and CPAY tokens for the existing DApps.
CPAY will be in use from Day one for the Dapps using the network, it’s the only way to generate transactions.
A. Do you see more companies partnering with Centrality in the future?
Q. Our venture ecosystem is always growing and we share all news about partnerships and tech updates through our monthly newsletter. You can subscribe by going to cennz.net. There are lots more exciting announcements on the way
A. I think the news of Centrality’s partnership with various companies is great, but I don’t think the value of any project, no matter how great it is, will be worthless if there are no people who know about it or seek it out.
Q. The point of our partnerships is to get more people using the network, these partners will generate awareness for their own applications (which are built on CENNZnet).
However, CENNZNet is specifically designed so that the end users don’t have to understand blockchain or CENNZ. This is important because end users just want to use an app. Nobody knows who hosts the Netflix app and nobody cares.
It’s naive to think that mainstream adoption will include the majority of users having to understand blockchain and consensus and governance and GAS. It simply won’t happen.
In the future blockchain demand will be primarily from companies developing apps on top of them, just like it is for cloud computing. Most people don’t know that the app they are using is hosted on Amazon Cloud, but Amazon cloud is still a huge business. Our success will come in the same way.
So projects that rely on their end users understanding how the blockchain works or how to pay fees etc. Those projects are unlikely to succeed with consumers in the mass market.
A. I have been a fan and holder of CENNZ since its ICO. I still intend to be a cheerleader. I think a lot of trouble, or rather difficulties, have surfaced regarding this CENNZ swap. Not many people are familiar with handling JSON files, and I couldn’t even open them on my PC. I’ve been through several swaps in the past, but this was the most confusing and tricky to understand. For future staking, please consider a holder-friendly system and operating procedure.
We agree the ETH network isn’t a very friendly place to build user-friendly applications, and while this process wasn’t ideal, we had to balance ease of use with security and decentralisation. A lot of swaps use centralised or trusted parties in their process so that makes it easier for users, but much less safe.
The good news is that it’s much easier to build user-friendly apps on CENNZnet and over 300m tokens have been put into the transition contract so this means it is working.
If people are having trouble then they can always contact our support team for help.
Q. How much funding and planning do you have for the spread of Sylo wallet in Japan?
A. In Japan, where there are so few situations where crypto-assets can be used in the real world, I believe that vending machine purchases can have a huge impact. I would like to ask you about future plans in Japan.
The Sylo team are nearing completion of Sylo Protocol Version 2 which is planned for release next business quarter. This update will significantly improve the performance of the application to bring it in line with other major consumer messaging apps. It is expected to well outperform other decentralised applications currently available in-market.
After the release of this update, we will be significantly increasing the promotional resources behind Sylo around the world to accelerate user adoption. In conjunction with this, the Sylo team are working closely with Centrapay and other partners regarding some corporate collaborations that will help make Sylo more useful in more countries around the world regarding crypto use in the real world
A. When and in what form will the collaboration and partnership with JASMY take shape? Please talk about the relationship between CENNZ and JASMY.
Q. Jasmy is a partner we are very excited about the technology we are creating together, the Jasmynet IoT platform uses PLUG technology. The Jasmy team is very experienced and they have deep relationships with large companies they are a very exciting project for 2020 and we are happy to be supporting their technology development.
A. Will CENNZ play a role in changing Japanese agriculture in the future? Do you have a project like this? I believe that Japan is a country that will sink unless there is a major agricultural reform.
Great question, we would love to work with the industry over in Japan. We have a very exciting project called TrackBack, who is working with more than 20 of the largest players in the NZ agriculture and primary produce sector. They are already talking with some Japanese companies and would love to talk to more. There will be an announcement about TrackBack coming in the next ¼ so please stay tuned.
Q. CENNZnet has been released and moved to the main net, what should CENNZ holders now refer to see the growth rate of CENNZnet? Transaction volume? Or CPAY consumption?
A. The key things to look at are TX volumes, New Accounts, Accounts holding assets, Staking Participation, TVL and DApp activity. This will drive GAS usage. We have set the initial parameters of governing the usage of GAS and we will help provide liquidity to the GAS market initially to ensure the DApps can use the network while our community figures out how to become LPs.
After this point the CENNZ token will be used to govern the way GAS fees are set so any CENNZ holder will be able to use their tokens to help adjust the GAS settings.
Q. What are the benefits of companies using CENNZnet?
A. The CENNZnet blockchain is optimised for providing a better and safer user experience. Our tech is built into the runtime of the network. This provides developers with deeper APIs to create much better consumer experiences than traditional smart contract networks. Our library of open-source protocols that can be used as building blocks to create a decentralised application (DApp) business.
This component-based design gives startups flexibility over their product while ensuring a standardised look and feel across all DApps. It also provides users with a uniformed experience across the ecosystem.
This component library allows start-ups to access all of the open-source tools from the CENNZnet toolkit, including single sign-on, smart wallet, payments rails, data APIs, in-chain gas station, messaging protocol and permissions protocol to name a few. In addition to these tools, users can seamlessly move between applications without being subjected to traditional approaches to customer application onboarding.
A. I’d like to know what exactly your future marketing strategy is for Centrality. I’ve been waiting and believing in it, but the fact that the price hasn’t gone up in the meantime makes me anxious.
Q. Growing value is a community task. We’re part of the community like you are, all successful projects have communities that help those projects to become successful.
From our side, we’re moving into our mainnet operations and have started to increase our marketing in both China and Korea, and we’re already seeing some great results. We’ve launched on two new exchanges, with more to come. We’ve hosted 3 AMAs with these exchanges and have been pleased with the quality of the community. We’ve grown our community channels to include 3 WeChat channels, Kakao and also a Korean Telegram group. The CENNZnet Twitter channel has grown by 2500 people in the last couple of months and @centraliyai has grown by 3000.
We’re running a separate digital campaign that targets countries outside Asia, including Europe and the US.
Achieving our mainnet migration and mainnet staking is a critical goal in growing the value of CENNZ. It will allow developers to use the awesome features of CENNZnet which will drive demand.
A. I heard that CPAY prices will be Stable, but when will the price be determined?
Q. The price of CPAY will be determined by the market ultimately. However, the CPAY algorithm is designed to ensure that price stability is achieved in line with network growth.
Q. Currently, the total number of CENNZ tokens issued is 1.2 billion, Will the amount not swapped be reduced from the total number of tokens issued after the token swap is completed?
A. Yes correct. The total amount on the CENNZnet will only be created from swapping CENNZ ERC20 tokens. If they are lost, or not changed from the ERC20, the total supply will be less on mainnet!
Q. When is the next time you plan to announce the news that we are excited about?
A. Stay tuned we have lots and lots of news in the next few months
Q. I heard you’ve signed with a North American promotion company, has that company already yielded any results?
A. We are working with several companies in North America, some good things coming.
Q. Do you have plans to expand into European and African market?
A. Our focus at the moment is SEA, Japan, China and the U.S but we are always open to opportunities, we have two ecosystem ventures based in Europe, so I expect we will grow there too.
Q. I know you don’t state about price, but what are your thoughts on the current situation where the price is below the ICO price?
A. As you say the price is something that we don’t comment on in these forums, but the price is a function of our activity and the community’s activity, so we all need to work together to create value.
However, it’s important for us to finish the plan together and get CENNZ onto the mainnet where it can be used by developers and create demand for the token this is important if you look at the top 20 projects they all have their token on the mainnet.
Q. Do you have a specific market-cap target, or a CMC ranking to reach?
A. I think we have more than enough to be a top 20 project and some top 10 projects have fewer users and less activity than us so we believe there is room for us there too.
Q. When is PL^G’s migration to the mainnet?
A. The plan is to activate this after the CENNZnet migration as per our other announcements. But we will be standing up a testnet shortly. We will also release the new PLUG roadmap which has some exciting news for our community.
Q. In the September 2019 Centrality report, ‘We have begun work on validating the Doughnut protocol in combination with Libra’s Move contract VM,’ What is the current status of the project?
A. We completed the work to validate if Doughnut could be used, and we found that they could. Libra has been going through some challenges of its own with regulators so we’re focusing on our other exciting banking opportunities for now.
Q. What do you hope CENNZnet will look like in a few years? What strategies will you use to ensure it happen?
A. As always we are focused on CENNZnet being the most used DApp network for consumer applications, that’s what it’s designed to do. We will continue to build great technology, grow our ecosystem and grow the network utility. The mainnet is really an accelerating moment for CENNZ because the opportunities for people to use it to build with and will provide the opportunity to really grow after the migration.
Q. Please tell us what is currently going well and what is not.
A. The Azalea network launched in June and we successfully upgraded more than 300,000 Sylo users. Our token swap is now underway, and we have close to 400million tokens in the transition contract. Just a reminder for those of you who haven’t sent your tokens — you only have another 2.5 weeks to go.
We have upgraded the permissions framework to be more capable and we are about to launch a new explorer.
Once the transition wallet is complete, we’ll focus on public staking, and from that, we will upgrade the network to community-controlled governance.
In terms of challenges, of course, we have all been impacted by COVID to some degree. We would always love to see our developer community growing faster too 😊 but in general, the team is in a good space.
Q. When will CENNZ net be completely out of centrality’s hands?
A. We would like to see community governance within the next 3–6 months. However, this will rely on the community stepping up — staking their tokens, participating in, and governing, the network.
Q. CENNZ holders want to know in what specific situations CENNZnet will be used. It would be great to hear reports from time to time on what cases CENNZnet is actually being used in the future.
The primary use case for CENNZ is to provide network security through staking. CENNZnet will be used for many things on top of this, along with the CPAY token.
It's great our community is interested in usage and we are consistently keeping you up to date with our partnerships, however, most of the building activity will be ramping up after the main net token migration as it’s necessary for CENNZ to do this migration to be truly valuable to the network. So please help us achieve this first step.
Sylo is the biggest success story on CENNZnet right now. They have a huge number of continued users, more than 10x the nearest DApp and more than 5x the downloads of their nearest competition in blockchain messaging.
Q. Will the Jasmy tokens remain ERC20 tokens in the future?
A. Jasmy is best placed to answer these questions, but as their partner, we’re committed to helping them become successful.
Q. Will Jasmy also use CENNZnet? Or Plug?
A. Jasmy is one of the enterprise businesses building on Plug. Some of the other businesses are nearing their launch. We’ll announce these as soon as they are live.
Q. CoverUS has already released an app, but is it not a decentralized application using CENNZnet yet?
A. CoverUS is doing some awesome things in their market to help solve some important problems with access to healthcare, blockchain integration is on their roadmap and we are ready to help them 😊
Q. What are the future plans for Centrality once CENNZnet is fully completed?
A. Community growth is going to be our main goal. There are a couple of key audiences for this:
New token holders — we’ve already started building these outside of Japan, with the listings on new exchanges and our marketing campaigns.
Developers — we’ve created a new team whose role will be to engage the developer community. We’ve already created the CENNZnet bounty programme, CENNZnet grants DAO and Reddit pages. We will be ramping up the effort in these areas once the transition wallet is complete.
Q. I think development is going well although with the Corona situation, but are you working well with your partners (Wanda and InfiniVision)?
A. We have a huge ecosystem of partners and we are working with companies every day to grow our value with them. Keep an eye on our channels for official announcements about these activities.
Q. Since Singlesource is recognised by the Australian and New Zealand governments. will people in New Zealand and Australia be using a Single source digital ID in the future?
A. SingleSource is already being used to validate credentials for NZ companies and NZ has just approved the new national digital identity trust framework we are working closely with the industry on how to leverage SingleSource to advance digital identity in NZ.
Q. I recognize that using Centrapay, we can tokenize any type of asset or product, but what specific assets are you looking to tokenized? Will it be able to tokenize real estate, Coca-Cola products, game items, fiat, etc.?
A. Using the Generic Asset module that we developed at Centrality, developers can tokenise anything. The rails we’re building with Centrapay will allow us to connect these assets to many many payment points around the world when a merchant chooses to connect to those assets.
We already have some exciting products lined up with our partner companies.
Q. I think that centrality has strong connections with local New Zealand companies, is that correct? When do New Zealand companies looking to use CENNZnet start using it?
A. We don’t limit ourselves to NZ companies — but it also makes sense to be the market leader in your own country. We’ve been working with the NZ government and companies on a number of projects from digital identity, supply chains, health, marketing, tourism and banking. Many of our ventures have strong relationships with NZ companies.
Q. How should CENNZ holders make use of the CPAY they receive as staking rewards? Cash it? Use it as a fee for apps？
A. Both are options. What you do is entirely up to you.
Q. Should I use the Moonstake Wallet for public staking?
A. Moonstake is a partner for public staking and we are already working with them on staking integration. We think it is a great option for staking your new CENNZnet CENNZ tokens once the token swap is complete.
Q. Can I delegate staking directly from my CENNZnet wallet?
Yes you will be able to
If I stake my cennz from a moon stake wallet, can I stake it for a typical fee?
Moonstake will decide the fee structure for their staking pools but we are excited to be working with them.
Q. Can I use OnFinality’s services to run a stable CENNZ stake pool?
A. Yes OnFinality will allow you to create nodes for staking pools 😊
Right now, due to the DEFI craze, Ethereum’s gas prices are skyrocketing, and I used a lot of Ethereum to SWAP this time😭
Q. If CENNZnet becomes more liquid (like Ethereum) will the cost of gas (CPAY) used for remittances and other purposes rise? (e.g. issue more CPAY if the price itself is stable)
A. We have designed the CPAY token so that the gas price should remain stable, it might move up and down a little and with greater liquidity, this should reduce. However, what’s more important is that if the network activity increases, even if the price is stable then your yield will increase from your CENNZ staked.
So the idea is to increase usage and yield, not increase price. That means holders win, users win and developers win.
Q. I’ve been cheering Centrality since the ICO. Management team, please take care of yourself in this corona situation. I look forward to the News that excites all token holders.
A. Thank you so much, we will keep working hard for you and we will try and stay safe. We’re lucky to be in NZ where our government is being responsible about managing it.
Q. At ICO time, Dapps tokens running on Centrality will be air-dropped to CENNZ holders. But what is the status of this story at this time?
A. We have already done some AirDrops on the ETH network, however, on the mainnet we’ve automated this process so that people who own CENNZ can choose which assets they would like to receive by becoming an LP in the fee exchange. This lets our community choose which assets they want to be rewarded with. We will also do some airdrops once the tokens migrate to the main net.
Q. How many stake pools do you think are needed for healthy decentralization after staking begins?
A. Great question. I think that at least 100 pools would show a good level, but the network can support more, and we hope that there will be….
Q. You mentioned that CPAY prices are determined when we move to CENNZnet, but will CPAY prices be determined at the end of the swap period?
A. The market will determine the price of CPAY. Our job is to ensure that there is great innovation, a solid ecosystem of DApps building and the community continues to grow through increased brand awareness.
Q. I have a question about the CENNZ mainnet token swap. The swap process is ongoing but if not all CENNZ tokens were swapped, will it affect future CENNZ prices and staking fees?
A. If the tokens are not swapped then this will reduce the final number of tokens on CENNZnet, this is the same effect as a token burn 😊
Q. Can Centrality make it into the top 20 in the CMC rankings this year?
A. We can’t make any guarantees, but that is certainly our goal
Q. The swap is complete and staking is about to begin. Is Centrality ready to take on a new stage?
A. 100% ready and we hope our community is ready also to step up with us 😊
Q. Core holders of Centrality, like us, have the knowledge that we don’t get up and down in the price of this crypto market. That’s because we know your company that actually has a contract with a big company like Coca-Cola and is connected to the real world. However, we don’t know exactly how our holders will benefit from Centrality’s agreement with Coca-Cola. For example, if someone pays in bitcoin at a Coca-Cola vending machine and CPAY exists on the other side of it, we don’t know how much it will benefit us.
A. This is really important - the point of partnering with companies like this is to build new digital asset experiences on CENNZnet. That’s where the CPAY token will take effect as GAS for the network. BTC was just the first step for Centrapay, it has lots of exciting projects in their pipeline.
Q. For example, if CPAY is used for a transaction, what percentage of the profit is paid to us CPAY holders?
A. CPAY tokens are burned when they are spent. CPAY tokens are minted when new blocks are created and the new CPAY tokens are allocated as block rewards. This is what helps keep the price stable. So in one way, 100% of the fees go back to the people who stake CENNZ in the network.
Q. What if I can’t perform a token swap between CENNZ and CPAY? Will I be unable to sell on the exchange?
A. The only way to change your tokens is to go through the transition contract. Once the transition is completed exchanges will be upgrading to the new token pair and remove the ERC20.
We’ve given 6 weeks for the token community to swap their tokens. We consider this a fair amount of time — especially since there are many token holders who have already sent their tokens to the contract.
Q. In the previous pre-staking, was betting all the CENNZ tokens I owned. How do you manage this swap?
A. If you still have tokens staked in the CPAY rewards programme please withdraw them and deposit into the new transition contract.
We highly recommend swapping all of your tokens at once. You can only use an account once, so we advise you to combine your tokens into one account before you send them to the contract.
Q. Now that it’s heating up with Defi, what kind of news will centrality rush up the market and break into the Top 10?
A. We will continue to build out our plan. We have some great projects in Defi but the key to success is not just announcements and rushing its building, growing community and growing our ecosystem, which we will continue to focus on. Defi might come and go but our vision remains strong.
Q. For our avid fans, we bring profit and prosperity. Would you like more fans?
A. A large portion of our effort is now focussed on growing both the token and developer communities. You may not see our marketing effort in Japan, but we are pushing hard in Korea, China, the US and Australia.
Q. Should I leave my tokens in the exchange for the token swap? Are the exchanges swapping tokens?
A. The only way to change your tokens is to go through the transition contract once the transition is completed exchanges will be upgrading to the new token pair and remove the ERC20
Q. Will your plans and programs continue to maximize the attractiveness of the CENNZ?
A. You bet, but keep in mind we are only a piece of the puzzle; great projects require their communities to help them grow.
What is your roadmap to ensure price stability, attract new investors, and sign important collaborations?
All of this takes community effort we are only one piece of the puzzle, the most important thing our community can do right now is migrate their CENNZ to the main net this will allow us to start the next phase of the network and community development along with other exciting partnerships.
Q. Any major announcement during this AMA??
A. Not today but keep an eye out for new listings, new partnerships and new important milestones by following our channels, there are a lot coming, so I will do another AMA after the next batch of announcements coming soon.
Q. Will you move Sylo to the CENNZnet eventually?
A. Sylo was the very first DApp to move to Azalea. We transferred 300,000 Sylo users before we officially launched the mainnet in July.
Q. What was the main reason to move away from the Ethereum network? And would you advise other platforms doing the same?
A. Our plan was to build a new network from the start. Ethereum at the time was one of the only DApp network codebases around. When we initially went through the design process, we thought that the best way was to improve the Ethereum codebase. We soon discovered we couldn’t give users the experience we wanted, so we changed our direction and eventually settled on building a new code base, forked from the Substrate project, called PL^G.
This has given us the ability to put some very cool innovations right into the network, like our Doughnut permissions protocol and our CPAY fee economy and our CENNZX fee exchange.
I think it’s important that we all realise that there is no “winner takes all ‘’ in the blockchain space, different networks will be good at different things. Decentralisation relies on having more than one network, otherwise, we will centralise again.
The ETH network will have a place, a strong place, in the overall blockchain ecosystem and it’s very good at doing certain things. We will continue integrations with the ETH network for this reason. Including a project to make it easy to migrate any token from ETH and PL^Gnet integrations. If what we are doing provides a better experience for users then we think they will switch.
Our combined competition is really the traditional world, not other blockchains. The total market cap of DApp chains isn’t even as big as a mid-sized global datacentre player. So there is a lot of room to grow and win new markets together.
