Elrond AMA recap for October 23
A big thank you to all that have joined us in yesterday’s Elrond AMA! Beniamin was happy to share our progress, clear the way forward and answer a series of questions in a dialogue with the community. Here’s a summary of everything.
Main points:
- We’re on track for the December mainnet launch
- Recently we had a lot of progress on tech, community and business
- From now on we have a laser focus on the mainnet launch
- Introducing Elrond Personas: Validators, Developers, Beneficiaries
With Elrond’s mainnet just around the corner, several of our plans are coming to fruition and our progress cycles are getting even tighter than we thought possible. We’re very excited about everything that is happening and we want you to share in our excitement. So here are some of the things that have been keeping us busy:
- Protocol: lots of progress with complex transactions, sharding and others, we’re on track for a full feature mainnet release
- Public testnet: 308 people from 43 countries are running 850 validators in the Battle of Nodes, with incentives to find issues with it
- Elrond Virtual Machine: We integrate several VM engines for compatibility, our WASM implementation is the fastest in the world
- Visibility: active participation in the Seoul, Dubai, Tel Aviv & Osaka conferences,with Amazon LOFT, Continental & San Francisco Blockchain Week ahead of us
- Business: Several partnerships with projects like Matic, 2key, Contentos, as well as an exclusive Binance staking program for our ERD token
Moving forward, we have a laser focus on going live with a full feature and highly secure Elrond mainnet. All our decisions and actions from now on will be made so as to converge on this one goal, with no distractions. In Nascar races every second that the driver is not 100% watching the road ahead makes the car go slower or even crash. This is exactly our level of focus in the coming period.
As such, all our technical resources will be focused on implementing all of Elrond’s staple features and to address issues coming out of Battle of Nodes. To complement our team and community, we will also engage professional audits for our code, protocol and security.
Still part of our mainnet focus is also the communication. We want to make sure our stakeholders, supporters and critics stay well informed about our progress. Perhaps even more importantly, we want to make sure our tools, documentation and supporting information is crystal clear to everyone in the Elrond ecosystem.
We therefore identified and defined three distinct Elrond Personas:
Validator — the person who operates nodes
Developer — the person that writes or integrates smart contracts & dApps
Beneficiary — a person that uses dApps running on Elrond, holds or trades ERD, is engaged with the community or with the ecosystem in any practical way.
All these personas have their respective interests and different levels of specific knowledge, and our goal is to ensure that our tools, documentation and communication directly caters to their needs, interests and attention levels.
To recap, there’s been progress on all fronts and it is all coming together for the mainnet launch, which we will have a laser focus on in the next two months. Our vision is that anyone should have easy access to the digital economy from anywhere in the world. So we make it our mission to bring a 1.000-fold improvement in blockchain performance, cost and user experience.
Thank you for your attention so far, let’s move on to your questions.
(Q&A session starts)
Q: Are there any plans to use third-party nodes post mainnet launch?
A: Yes, definitely! We are in discussion with several large staking providers. And we’ll in fact announce some of them. We’re quite excited to have lots of people with experience, adding up and teaching some of the new people that are coming up and learing within the ecosystem and so forth.
Q: What dapps will the Elrond team want to see built on Elrond in the future and what is the plan for Elrond adoption to help the network?
A: The plan for the adoption of Elrond is as follows. Usually when you build an open-source architecture, what you want to make sure is that the technology is there, it works at a scale that has not been possible previously.
With Elrond I want to make sure I outline this: we bring a 1000-fold improvement in performance right now. So we’re not bringing this improvement in performance in 2 years, as Ethereum tries to do. This is available right now, and we’re testing it in the Battle of Nodes. So this is the first step.
The second step is making sure that there is a very clear and canonical documentation, with respect to everything Elrond can do and does.
Third, we make sure that there are some tools that are tied to the VM, that allow developers from all over the place to join the blockchain ecosystem in a way that they have not been able to before. Namely, by integrating with the Wasm VM, we support several languages like C, Rust and Go at first, and we allow support for other languages. Second, in addition to the languages that we focus on, there are a few tools that developers require in order to deploy smart contracts, or to deploy any kind of applications.
These are tools that allow them to run the code, like IDE’s. These are tools like debuggers, that allow them to see when there are errors or bugs in their codes, and then there are other tools like templates for running smart contracts and so forth, that simplify the whole experience, and allow people to build on Elrond very easily. Build smart contracts that are — let’s say — tokens, different tokens that they want to use and so forth. Or full-fledged dapps. This is the main focus at first.
Then, we have a lot of discussion with startups and enterprises because we want developers from different parts of the world to start toying around, start playing with the technology, and start building some of the applications that they have been striving to build, but they could not do it in the other ecosystem.
And then there’s also a lot of discussion with the enterprise clients, who have experimented a lot with Ethereum, or other architectures, have been disappointed, unfortunately, because of the performance issues and cost issues, and are now sort of looking around for a project that can deliver the solution right now, that does not only promise the solution but can bring the solution so that they can see for themselves that it works, it has this high level of performance, low level of costs, and they can get some specific, customized support for their needs.
So, to sum up all of this, adoption is the main theme we’re gearing towards. Mainnet is the first step. Having the documentation and tools beyond the architecture is the second step, and then, having a lot of discussion with businesses and startups, especially developers from all over the world, is extremely, extremely important. This happens already for us, and we’ll continue to do it. In fact we’ll have a few meetups locally and internationally very soon with the new tools, the new documentation that we’re preparing.
Q: Please create a good process for swap in December.
A: Yes, so I see someone from the community mentioning that we should create a good swap process in December. We will indeed focus on this. It’s very important and we’ll try to make sure that
1) people can do it before December
2) that they can do it in a very easy way, with everything streamlined
3) and even do it post the mainnet launch, if for some reason they are not there or they’re not at home, they cannot process things, they don’t have access do their computer, then they will have time to do this.
Q: What do you think: is sharding the right and most promising way to achieve blockchain scalability?
A: The idea with sharding is very simple. With sharding you can split the network and parallelize transaction processing. If you think about it, everything that has been done with Bitcoin and Ethereum where the whole network has to process the same information, irrespective of the number of nodes that join the network, is very, very problematic. It’s clear from day one, when you create such an architecture, that you will have a bottleneck.
If for whatever reason the technology takes off, it’s clear that you will have a large bottleneck in terms of processing and so forth. So the question is not why sharding makes sense, but the question is: how do you solve the bottleneck in performance? And there are a few ways. There’s horizontal scaling or vertical scaling.
Horizontal scaling means that you essentially try to improve a certain node, and try to process more transactions within the same node by improving the hardware and so forth. And then vertical scaling means that you understand that the performance you can gain by improving a certain node is limited. You can gain like 1 to 10x in performance by optimizing hardware very, very heavily.
But then, through vertical scaling you can get 100x to 1000x in performance, and I think this is the level of performance that is required for real-world adoption. The question is not: what do we need right now? But the question is: what do companies really need in order to build on blockchain technology? So we’ve had discussions with them and they’re very, very excited right now to be able to use a technology that can scale and lower the costs, so that they can finally use it.
Q: Will Binance do the swap?
A: There is a question if Binance will help with the swap. Binance has been very, very helpful to us. And I’m sure that once we have a clear discussion with them and plan for this, they’ll be very helpful and will allow us to simplify things and do the swap a lot faster than other projects, and in a very clear and streamlined way.
Q: How can you prevent companies from copying Elrond’s key technical developments, if code is open source?
A: We’ve been thinking about this for a long time, and the main, first conclusion has been that if you build rockets, there are very few people who understand the technology to build rockets. So it turns out that our worry that someone would steal this tomorrow is not very founded. Because it means that very few people understand what the code does, how it’s structured, what it can do, and so forth.
That being said, we are in constant discussion to make sure that there is some kind of protection on the legal side. And then the main focus for us will be on the adoption side. There is basically an open discussion right now about whether a certain protocol or another will win. And at the end of the day technology will help and give an advantage to someone who comes really fast with it. And this is why we’re pushing to come as fast as possible. But the next step will be adoption. Once we have a community that is building on Elrond and is moving forward, it will be very easy to copy the past technology but very hard to copy what we’ll come up with in the future.
Q: What are the benefits for a developer, and how easy will Ethereum developers be able to switch to Elrond?
A: I think the advantages here are very, very relevant and important, especially for Ethereum developers. First, you will have an architecture that is 1000x more scalable than Ethereum. Second, you have a VM that supports different languages, other than Solidity. Third, you have the possibility to run your code directly from Solidity and run it into the Elrond VM. And fourth, you’ll have some tools like IDE’s, like templates and so forth to allow you to not only run the code that you have written or used in Ethereum, but also come up with new stuff and be able to deploy it really fast.
So I think all of this makes a very strong case for developers to try Elrond out and see what’s happening. Another major point is we will also have a program that incentivizes developers to move from these platforms as soon as the tools and the documentation is ready. So stay tuned for that.
Q: On the business side, is there or do you desire a partnership with Cosmos or Polkadot?
A: For sure we appreciate the progress Cosmos has come up with, also the progress Polkadot has come up with. In fact, we know some of the people from both Cosmos and Polkadot, and try to have a conversation, have some kind of peer review for different things that we want to focus on. So there is room for collaboration and partnerships, but the focus right now is to ship the mainnet. This is the leverage that we have, and this is the leverage that will open many, many doors for Elrond. This is where we focus right now.
Q: Do you have a bootcamp, a developer bootcamp or training for developers that want to join the Elrond ecosystem?
A: Our first step is to have the VM that supports several languages as I have mentioned. The second step is to have this kind of very good documentation that explains the whole process and tools and everything that the developers can use if they want to jumpstart. And then, based on this documentation it will be very easy to create some courses, some more detailed information for specific people. So we’d love to see something like that and maybe some of the people in the community will want to engage and transform some of the materials we put forth in either courses or bootcamps. I think this will be a great opportunity for them to gain recognition within the ecosystem and also contribute very , very heavily.
Q: What are the benefits of other coins to switching on Elrond?
A: There is a discussion right here about the standard that we want to implement and the secondary ecosystem that we intend to create. So, as soon as there is an exchange that supports on the Elrond either a DEX that is built on Elrond, and focuses on the Elrond ecosystem, or this thriving community, and both validator, developer and entrepreneur community, then there will be a huge benefit for switching. Right now, I think the main point would be: if you need high throughput, and really low transaction costs, if this performance part is what you need, then it would make sense to come on Elrond and we’d love to talk about that.
Q: How long will the staking service on Binance last and is there an increase in annual interest rate for staking?
A: First question: this kind of staking program on Binance will last until the mainnet launch, and after the mainnet launch there will be a different staking program that will very likely be available. To the second question, the interest rate for staking on Elrond will be probably 5 to 10x to what it is right now on Binance. So the interest rate will be very, very significant and we want as many validators as possible to join before the mainnet launch.
What do you intentionally do to increase the demand of Elrond as a token and why should the community and investors shift to Elrond from the other projects in the ecosystem?
What we do, and what we think is the most important is exactly what we’ve outlined before, so, we build an architecture that has not yet been built before, and we want to ship it as fast as possible. This brings a very, very huge increase in performance and can bring the adoption we so much desire in the blockchain space. If the performance and the architecture works, then there will be a very significant demand for the Elrond token from the people that want to build on it, use the architecture, and so forth. Why the community and investors should take a look at Elrond is specifically because:
1) when you want to invest or put a stake into some particular project, you want to take a look at the team, what the team is doing, if they’re focused, if they can deliver. And I think the response to this question is fairly obvious. We’ve solved what we thought were the most pressing problems in the space two years faster than Ethereum. And just a note: Ethereum does sit on hundreds of millions of dollars, and yet the money has not been able to speed up the process. So we do have this.
2) in addition to this you want business development. You want adoption that is happening either to startups or to enterprises. And as you’ve seen before, we are in discussion at several different conferences with key strategic partners with which we want to collaborate and do proof of concept. Show that Elrond can be implemented and works at scale. Because this is what we actually do.
3) our vision and mission is to create the tools and user experience necessary, to allow everyone, everywhere to connect to the digital economy. And how we do this is through our architecture and other products that we intend to build. So if we do this, it’s clear that there will be a strong demand. A second thing is that we have a lot of awareness and a marketing campaign prepared specifically for the mainnet launch, and to make sure that once the technology is live and it works, the developers that are interested in the technology can start building on it. So this is part of it, and then the second major point is that once mainnet is live, staking will happen. Through staking, a lot of the circulating supply is taken out of circulation. As you know, the demand — essentially the price of a token or a cryptocurrency — is a function of supply and demand. If through staking you take a very considerable amount of the supply out of circulation, and you increase demand by overdelivering in terms of technology, in terms of adoption, and in terms of what you planned and promised, then I think we’ll see a very, very interesting effect on that.
Q: How do you envision the use of Elrond 5 to 10 years from now?
A: Now, this is a very, very interesting question. A lot of the discussion right now is on how blockchain will solve the problem immediately, in the next 1 or 2 years. But there is almost no question that 5 to 10 years from now, we’ll most likely have blockchain embedded in everything that requires a transaction. Just because that at scale, blockchain solves the transaction problem. Once you have a technology that works, there’s no good reason why you won’t have the transactions done on blockchain.
So let me just go into two directions with this. First, we see that Elrond could be used sort of like a Swiss bank in your pocket at some point where you can send/receive money on the internet, you can stake and receive some interest there, you can get some collateral and loans that are accepted or rejected immediately. And even going one step further, you can exchange in any currency you need, both crypto and fiat, and also have a sort of card to spend, if cards are still a thing in 5 to 10 years. The idea being that you should be able to do with an app in your pocket everything you do right now with money, everywhere. So if you have this app in your pocket, it doesn’t require you to have a bank account, it doesn’t require any other kind of information for you other than having the wallet, and being able to use it. So if this is one of the directions, this will have a very, very huge impact. There are many services that can be added on this foundation that I have mentioned, but this is one of the major directions that we’re thinking of and really like about what Elrond could bring in the next period.
The second thing is that you can just think of machine-to-machine transactions. I’ve used this example a few times, you can see Teslas already being able to be summoned, self driving, and in the very near future — like, 2 to 3 years from now — you’ll be able to summon the Tesla. But the key thing is that while the Tesla drives on the road it will require charging. And when you charge it, at some point, you need to be able to do machine-to-machine transactions. This is a very specific and simple use case that we’ll probably see very soon. We’re very excited of how things look on the longer term. We need to focus right now, but the transition to a crypto economy, where crypto is abstracted away and you can use crypto like any kind of money, this is very, very exciting.
Q: How can we get Elrond products such as T-shirts?
A: We’ll share some information and have some challenges for the people that want to get a T-shirt or a swag. It’s exclusive, the community members that have been with us and are providing a lot of feedback and support will very likely get one soon, so cheers to them! And all the other ones, just do some cool stuff, help us, bring some contributions and we’ll try to make sure that you get one of these T-shirts.
Q: Regarding the validators, what’s happening on this front? Is there any UI being developed for validators?
A: We’re quite excited to have a few well-established validators from other ecosystems joining the Elrond ecosystem. Two of the validators are Staking Capital, which we’ve met at Osaka, and had some really good discussion with. We welcome them very much, you’ll probably see some announcement about this soon. Another very good validator and an established one is Dokia Capital. You probably know them as well. They are part of Cosmos and many other ecosystems. In Elrond we try to make sure that we have room for really experienced validators that bring a lot of knowledge, feedback and support, but also make sure that the small people can join and have a say, can learn things and Elrond can be their first project to validate on.
Q: Do you have any plans to launch dapps together with the mainnet?
A: Yes, hopefully we’ll have a game at least. There is a discussion on this front, it’s ongoing. We have some other people that, as I’ve mentioned, are trying to build on Elrond, and we are very, very excited for them as well.
(end of Q&A session)
It’s been great! I think we have covered a lot of things today.
The really important part is that the mainnet is on track. We’re trying and doing everything we can to launch this in December.
There is a lot of effort put in by the team on all fronts: development, business, marketing, and so forth. There is a lot of effort with the community, the validators and the Battle of Nodes part.
Make sure that if you want to get some question answered, or engage us in any way: either come on Telegram, shoot us an email or ping us on Twitter. If you’re around in San Francisco during the next period, in Germany, or in Romania also, we’d love to hear from you! Come, say hi. We’re very, very excited to bring this new architecture in the blockchain space.
Thank you for your support!
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