Wanchain — Telegram QUIZ & AMA — April 22
On Wednesday, April 22, we had the pleasure to welcome to our Telegram chat:
Oliver Birch, VP of Communications of Wanchain
We asked him questions about the development of Wanchain, currently ranked 147 on Coinmarketcap.
Some sentences have been slightly edited for readability but the meaning has been conserved.
Summary
In this AMA, Oliver Birch, VP of Communications and Noah Maizels, Technical Marketing Manager at Wanchain joined the GAINS community to tell us about their project.
Wanchain is building the infrastructure for the financial world of the future by allowing cross-chain connections between different blockchains, whether private or public. Wanchain is the only cross-chain solution live on mainnet.
The three pillars of Wanchain are Privacy, Smart Contracts, and Interoperability.
Its token (WAN) is useful for many things (quite similar to ETH) on its blockchain and it is also used to pay fees for transactions between different blockchains.
Wanchain aims to tokenize as many assets as possible, including fiat currencies. They are working with EOS dApps and more generally dApps of other blockchains in order to obtain more cross-chain resources.
Introduction
Q — Alexandre R from GAINS: Can you tell us what you did before crypto, how you got into crypto, and if you’ve had any other venture in crypto previous to being involved with Wanchain?
A — Oliver Birch from Wanchain: Before crypto, I was in the pharmaceutical industry, specifically clinical trials. We were conducting trials for different pharmaceutical companies in various therapeutic areas, then the company was acquired by ICON plc (not the crypto Icon). I joined Wanchain in august 2017 to help with community and marketing, and have been with them ever since. Prior to Wanchain, I was involved in the altcoin crypto space (to some extent at least) but in early 2012 I wrote various blogs about the rise of bitcoin (some are online) and a few at university.
A — Noah from Wanchain: Before I got into crypto I worked in the education industry in China teaching IT, English, and doing school administration. I had been somewhat following Bitcoin and crypto since around 2012, and I began using Bitcoin to make international money transfers around 2013 (but unfortunately did not hold on to much BTC), which got me even more interested in crypto. In 2017, I began to get more closely involved in the Shanghai cryptocurrency scene, attending many local events. Eventually, I got in touch with Wanchain, and I’ve been working with them ever since on their global marketing.
Q — Alexandre R from GAINS: Can you tell us what your role is at Wanchain and what the project is about in a few simple sentences?
A — Oliver Birch from Wanchain: We work closely with our community managers on different marketing and community campaigns: reaching influencers, preparing announcements (Noah does most of our content writing), PR, etc. Aside from that, we rolled out an ambassador program where we discuss different community strategies, setting tasks, getting video tutorials out, community content, communication and outreach to other projects, and so forth. I also help with the business development on the public chain side — working with our partners like Finnexus, Rivex, etc and coming up with new project ideas and marketing for the Wanchain ecosystem along with Noah, and the others. We also have a Lanchain’s team, dedicated to the development and management of private blockchains for enterprise clients.
A — Noah from Wanchain: Wanchain is building the infrastructure for the financial world of the future. Specifically, we are doing that by focusing on building solutions to address what we see as some of the biggest issues in the world of crypto, which include privacy protection and our core focus, interoperability. We are building interoperable solutions that allow for the seamless transfer of assets between different blockchains using Wanchain’s cross-chain technology.
I’m a global marketing manager at Wanchain, but I sometimes also refer to myself as a ‘technical’ marketing manager. I do this because a lot of my work is very technically focused, including editing documentation, pushing translations and English language descriptions to the Wanchain GitHub, writing tech explainer articles, and more. I also work on marketing and business development in general, with a strong focus on content creation. I write articles and announcements to help our community know what’s going on in the Wanchain ecosystem and introduce them to new stuff that is happening at Wanchain.
Product
Q — Twitter user @lailacordi_80: Can you tell us more details about the significance of Wanchain 4.0’s T-Bridge Framework, how will it solve the problem of private to public cross-chain interoperability?
A — Noah from Wanchain: The T-Bridge framework is a standardized and universal framework for establishing cross-chain connections between different private and public blockchains. It is standardized using formal methods which means it can be easily implemented with blockchains of different architectures and in different types of computing environments. And it is universal in that it can be implemented on any blockchain, providing that blockchain has smart contract capabilities. The framework is actually pretty similar to Wanchain’s public to public cross-chain technology in a lot of ways, except that it has been further abstracted and formalized to allow for implementation in more different scenarios. For example, the role of the Storeman nodes in Wanchain’s current public to public cross-chain technology is to act as a group of nodes to monitor events on two different chains and manage locked accounts. In the T-Bridge framework, the Storeman role has been abstracted to “Protocol Mediator”, and could take many forms which are more or less decentralized than a Storeman group. This means the framework is very flexible and can meet a wide range of business requirements. I recommend you check out this article to learn more.
Q — Twitter user @AugustK95: WAN tokens being necessary to unlock the funds that are in the original blockchain, does this make the token a necessary requirement that users must have to enjoy these services? How much WAN will be needed?
A — Oliver Birch from Wanchain: WAN is necessary for a number of things on our blockchain and for communication (as fees) between different blockchains.
For intra-transactions (or internal ecosystem), WAN (very similar to ETH in this aspect) for:
- smart-contract creation
- gas
- validating and delegation
- governance (will be incorporated once the network is fully decentralized, a path we are on)
- fees for on-chain dApp tx (dex, lending protocols, and other DeFi and non-DeFi dApps coming out)
For extra-transactions (external ecosystem), WAN is needed for:
- Cross-chain node collateralization
- Bridge fees (once storemen nodes are fully open to the public, rates can be set by individuals or entities as they see the best fit)
We expect more utility to go to WAN as we expand our ecosystem and integrate other blockchains, allowing for communication to and from.
Q — Telegram user Erven James Sato: Right now there are only two Currencies in Wanwallet, do you have the plan to add currencies in the future, especially PHP (Filipino currency)?
A — Oliver Birch from Wanchain: We plan to tokenize as many assets as possible. Currencies are one of them, especially now that we are undergoing another industrial revolution.
Q — Telegram user VyachCrypto: Why is Wanchain’s cross-chain mechanism the industry leader in terms of currently usable cross-chain solutions?
How many projects have been built on Wanchain & what are the strongest points of your company that help to attract new investors on your network?
A — Oliver Birch from Wanchain: There are different technologies out there but the only one that is live on mainnet is ours. A combination of secure multiparty computation, schnorr signatures, Shamir’s secret sharing scheme (part of smPC). Not having to worry about the components of the blockchains we integrate as we’ve already integrated BTC, eth, and eos (all vastly different as you all know).
Q — Telegram user Conan: Anything you’re unhappy with?
A — Oliver Birch from Wanchain: The only thing we need more attention to is the standardization of interoperability. We know it is still a very early stage for true adoption but we hope there will be more discussions about the interconnectivity between all of the different blockchains. That is why the work Dr. Zhang and other team members are focused on, is vital to the whole ecosystem, not just to Wanchain.
Q — Telegram user Karan: What is a One-Time Account System? How it is different from a Simple Account?
A — Liam from Wanchain: Within the Wan wallet there are two addresses:
Normal address: used for doing ordinary transactions
Private address: used for doing private transactions (this is the OTA address you’re referring to)
Q — Telegram user Elly: As Wan Wallet 1.3 has just launched some Days ago, What are the Main feature that users will get to see?
What have you done to improve the user interface?
A — Liam from Wanchain: You can check out an overview of our latest release here and here.
Q — Telegram user Franken™: You said WAN is very similar to ETH but what are your advantages?
Can you elaborate more on what is Wanchain’s Storeman node?
A — Oliver Birch from Wanchain: Well, we are proof of stake now and have privacy and interoperability. We don’t have Ethereum’s network effect but we don’t have to as we aren’t a “platform for dApps” specifically. We have dApps, we have more coming but the focus since 2016 (when the research was first conducted by Jack and his research team) is on connecting blockchains. We have not swayed from this vision at all and will continue to work towards that, the true blockchain interconnectivity.
Q — Telegram user Dalmasca Blockchain: If I am a developer, How can I build my project on the Wanchain ecosystem?
If Yes, What are the requirements?
A — Liam from Wanchain: If you are interested in building on Wanchain, you can join the discussion on Gitter, you can find the link here.
Q — Telegram user Newbie — HT Holder: In case someone runs two nodes, how can we know which one is performing the work? is it randomly assigned to one of the two nodes in every epoch?
A — Oliver Birch from Wanchain: Yes it is randomly assigned. We have an epoch leader group and random number proposer groups for this purpose.
Partnerships
Q — Twitter user @SeptianPraman11: How is your work going at EEA? What other project/teams are solving interoperability with you for EEA and setting standards that you talked about?
A — Oliver Birch from Wanchain: Consensys and Clearmatics are working together with Wanchain as part of the EEA Interoperability Task Force. Our VP of Engineering Dr. Weijia Zhang is one of the few select reps of the EEA. Any project can join this working group but so far only the ones mentioned and Wanchain are working together on standards.
Q — Telegram user Sicxa: Are there any new partnerships and interesting upcoming use-cases?
A — Noah from Wanchain: One really exciting new use case is from the Wanchain ecosystem project Rivex. Rivex is building Wrdex, the first-ever Wanchain cross-chain decentralized exchange. The exchange will allow for the decentralized trading of cross-chain assets including BTC, ETH, WAN, and EOS, with more assets to be introduced as the DEX expands. This will actually be the first-ever DEX, as far as I know, to allow for cross-chain trading between these cryptos, previously you would have always needed to go through a centralized exchange to trade between these cryptos.
Q — Telegram user Rimjhim: Could you tell us Something about Wandora’s Box DAPP game that is from Its ecosystem project FinNexus?
A — Noah from Wanchain: Wandora Box is a fun betting game launched by FinNexus, a Wanchain ecosystem project focused on bringing a wider variety of digital assets to market, including assets based on real-world value. Wandora Box allows you to predict the price trend of WAN over an 8 hour period, and then win a prize if you correctly predicted the price trend. You are also entered into a lottery every time you play so you always have a chance to win, even if you don’t make a correct prediction.
Actually, at a deeper level, Wandora Box is not just a game, it is also a testing ground for some of the concepts FinNexus is working on, such as on-chain options. Options are also based on a similar concept of predicting the price trend of some assets. Wandora Box is a way for the FinNexus team to play around with some of these ideas and test them in a game form while working on the more robust development of the actual technology behind on-chain options.
You can play it here or inside the Wanchain desktop light wallet here.
Business Development
Q — Telegram user dustyllanos: Being a pioneer of what we called cross-chain, do you see cross-chain protocols will become a standard in the future of blockchain?
A — Oliver Birch from Wanchain: Cross-chain needs to be standardized. I believe most agree on this but are silent about it. It is a problem they intend to fix later on, which is fair for some blockchains. Gartner research for example published recently that 3–4 standards will lead the space in the next 3–5 years. I think they are right.
Q — Telegram user Max D: Which area does Wanchain focus on at the moment? (DeFi, Dapps,..) and which products/projects are you developing to support it?
Can you elaborate on the product and comment on the amount of interest with individuals/businesses you’re seeing in this product?
A — Oliver Birch from Wanchain: DeFi definitely. Only Ethereum has captured the DeFi hearts thus far. We are open to all sorts of dApps but DeFi is probably the biggest game-changer to blockchain use cases.
Q — Telegram user Conan: As we know, every successful project has a few stories behind the scenes, what’s the story behind Wanchain success? What was that vision when it first emerged as an idea? Are there any special prototypes or upcoming updates that you want to show/share with us?
A — Oliver Birch from Wanchain: This is a nice read.
Q — Telegram user paraphan: I’m a Rivex supporter so I want to ask when WRDEX is live, how will it contribute to the Wanchain ecosystem?
A — Noah from Wanchain: Wrdex is currently in the testing phase, and should hopefully go live within the next few months. Wrdex is built using Wandex, an open-source Wanchain based decentralized exchange framework that builds on top of the hydro protocol while also adding additional features to adapt it to Wanchain and allow for cross-chain trading.
Wrdex will play a very important role in the Wanchain ecosystem as it will allow for the easy trading of cross-chain assets on Wanchain. Wanchain has already achieved the cross-chain integration of Bitcoin, Ethereum, EOS, many ERC-20 tokens, and more to come, but it is not currently very easy to trade these assets. Wrdex solves that issue.
When it goes live you will be able to use it at https://wrdex.io/, and you can follow Rivex for the newest updates here.
Q — Telegram user Cardo Dalisay: Does Wanchain have a plan to launch your own DEX?
You have a partnership with RiveX.
What’s the role of Rivex to the Developments of Wanchain?
A — Liam from Wanchain: Wanchain has built Wandex(the backend). RiveX is the frontend operator of WRDEX, the Wanchain RiveX decentralized exchange. Head on over to wrdex.io for more info.
Q — Telegram user Kai @23: What is the significance for the Wanchain Ecosystem of the integration with EOS and how is this integration useful for both projects in the long term?
A — Oliver Birch from Wanchain: Depends on how you look at it.
Technical significance: that we can interoperate data not only “value transfer” (we also ported over RAM and CPU on Wanchain as is needed for EOS accounts.
Business significance: Working with EOS Dapps on getting more cross-chain assets, access to bitcoin, ether, etc that they wouldn’t have otherwise.
There are a number of wrapped bitcoin versions on Ethereum and projects funded solely for creating wrapped BTC on Ethereum. We want to expand beyond that and work on different use cases with different blockchains.
Oliver, Noah, and Liam thanks a lot for coming in today! It was a pleasure to learn more about Wanchain and its 3 pillars: Privacy, Smart Contracts, and Interoperability. I’m also excited to discover the DEX being built by Rivex!
I’m looking forward to more dApps coming on Wanchain.
In the meantime, we can always enjoy the great community you’ve built at https://t.me/WanchainCHAT
Alexandre R from GAINS
Thanks Alexandre, a pleasure interacting with your community. Hope to be back soon.
Please join us at @wanchainchat if your question wasn’t answered or if you would like to learn more about Wanchain.
Oliver Birch from Wanchain
It was great taking part! Thanks for having us, hope everyone learned a lot today, stay tuned for more dApps and the WRDEX release!
Liam from Wanchain
Thanks for having us guys, and thanks for all the good questions!
Noah from Wanchain
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