2020–08–11 AMA

11 min readAug 14, 2020

Editor’s Note: Thanks to Binance for organizing this AMA. Here comes the review of this event.

Guest: Jeffrey Hu, Research Director of IRISnet and heads the strategy and technology research as well as ecosystem development for IRISnet.

Q1. What is IRISnet? When was the inspiration behind the project?

IRISnet (a.k.a IRIS Hub) ’s mainnet launched at Mar 1st, 2019, so it has been running for more than a year now.

IRISnet is an Interchain Service Hub for NextGen Distributed Applications — A BPoS Blockchain that is Self-evolutionary. IRIS Hub enables cross-chain interoperability through a unified service model, while providing a variety of modules to support DeFi applications.

We are one of the earliest development team besides the Founding team Tendermint working on Cosmos open source software. Cosmos SDK is one of the most innovative software that many projects have been built upon, including Cosmos Hub, Binance Chain and IRIS Hub.

IRIS Hub is the first Hub live in the Cosmos ecosystem. IRIS Hub enables cross-chain interoperability through a unified service model, while providing a variety of modules to support DeFi applications.

IRIS Hub is designed to support not only token transfers across the internet of blockchains, but also to allow consumption of data and computing resources across heterogeneous systems.

And as mentioned above, IRISnet dev teams include Bianjie, a national award-winning blockchain technology team based in Shanghai, and Tendermint, the world-famous team that created the Tendermint consensus engine and the Cosmos project.

Q2. What is the relationship between IRISnet and Cosmos?

For those members who might not be familiar with our project, following is copied from Cosmos “About” page.

IRISnet is another Cosmos Hub and is supported by ICF and Cosmos core dev team tendermint. And IRISnet core dev team has been contributing Cosmos open source development since 2017.

While the IRIS Network focuses on providing an innovative solution for distributed business applications, it is part of the Cosmos ecosystem.

IRIS hub is going to be the first regional hub connecting to Cosmos main hub to add more reliability to the network. All zones connected to the proposed IRIS hub would be able to interact with any other zone in the Cosmos ecosystem over the standard IBC protocol.

Furthermore, by introducing a layer of service semantics, which we believe could enable a whole new set of business scenarios, IRIS network would represent an increase in scale and diversity to the interchain ecosystem.

And recently, our co-founder Harriet joined the newly formed board of directors of Tendermint.

Q3. What are the use cases, how does an individual benefit from it?

As an individual, you can use IRIS tokens to gain staking reward, also pay transaction fee, pay service fee etc. I will explain the use cases in detail.

Core use cases of IRIS tokens:
(1) At the consensus level, IRIS is the staking token used by validators and delegators to secure the PoS network while receiving rewards for doing so.

(2) IRIS token holders can participate in on-chain governance by creating and voting for governance proposals.

(3) On application level:
IRIS is the default fee token for all transactions on the network.
IRIS is the base token used by the coinswap protocol for on-chain token exchange.
IRIS is the default fee token used by service providers for binding deposit and fee collection.

And for the applications of the IRIS network,the interoperability supported by IRISnet is very suitable for those application cases requiring on-chain/off-chain/interchain information exchange and collaboration. For example, Digital assets exchange platform. We can see that Binance DEX based on Cosmos SDK has proved itself by its user-friendliness as well as performance. We’ve also built a two-way gateway for Binance Chain last year.

Q4: Could you highlight the latest collaborations?

Recently, IRISnet has promoted collaborations with BSN, Chainlink, KAVA, etc.

1. BSN

On July 20th, BSN announced that IRISnet is among the first batch of public blockchains selected for integration with Ethereum, EOS, Tezos, Neo and Nervos.

The integration of BSN and IRISnet will bring multi-win effects for all types of participants in the whole ecosystem:
- Enhance network security of IRIS Hub
- Offer more convenient DApp development support
- Provide a new paradigm of blockchain development for cross-system services

BSN is supported by major Chinese entities and corporations, and its founding consortia partners include China’s State Information Center, China Mobile, China UnionPay, and other organizations. Having close-Beta testing that began in October 2019, BSN is a cross-cloud, cross-portal, cross-framework blockchain-based infrastructure network.

In addition，we are also building the BSN interchain service HUB through IRITA which is IRISnet consortium product. IRITA Hub is designed to provide interchain services to the Dapps on BSN. Right now we are busy integrating IRITA with various consortium blockchains as well as IRISnet and Chainlink.

2. Chainlink

Besides the integration in BSN, IRISnet integrated with Chainlink through the addition of a Chainlink “oracle” module to the IRIS Hub.

3. Kava

IRISnet also collaborated with Kava to bring Kava’s DeFi services to IRISnet’s internet of blockchains to provide a technology foundation for facilitating the construction of distributed business applications.

4. OKChain

Since last year, IRISnet and OKChain have collaborated to develop the DeFi application blockchain as well as the interchain ecosystem.

Q5. Could you share some technical updates or plans?

The biggest updates including:

1) IRITA Hub for BSN and its integration with IRISnet etc which was mentioned earlier.

2) IRISnet mainnet upgrade testnet -Bifrost.

Bifröst will run side by side with Stargate’s testnet in order to test the new features of IRISnet and to test themselves the multi-HUB collaboration through the IBC protocol.

Bifrost’s goals are:
-Verify the new features of IRIS Hub V1.0 and test out IBC communication in a multi-hub collaboration setting.
-Get validators to be well-prepared.
-Help app/wallet/DEX developers to better understand the technical steps needed to test and make IBC functionality available in their applications.

Those are the new features and improvements brought in the IRIS Hub:
- Major refactoring of iService for much more powerful on-chain/off-chain interoperability.
- New oracle module enabling off-chain data feeds.
- Random module enhanced with an off-chain true random source.
- New NFT module supporting the digitization of assets.
- New record module facilitating proof of existence.
- Major code refactoring for better modularity.

Q6. Does IRISnet have token operation or burn plans?

1. IRISnet Token Burn Plan

IRIS Foundation had token burn plan since last year. In April, 2020, the Foundation launched a Community-Centric Delegation Campaign and the Second One-Year Token Burn Plan. And on August 1, IRIS foundation just completed the 4th implementation of regular token burn.

2. IRISnet Community-Centric Delegation Campaign

Delegators will be rewarded tokens as direct deposits to their IRIS Hub delegation addresses in an amount equal to their monthly delegation reward earnings, which means delegators can receive DOUBLE REWARDS.
The delegation campaign is set to start on April 1st, 2020, and will occur on a monthly basis for one year.

Welcome to scan the following QR code to download Rainbow Wallet, and delegate/stake IRIS, further receiving your double rewards monthly!

3. IRISnet Validator Rewards Program

IRIS foundation has rewarded 14 validators with a one time reward; 2) also set up the “Rainbow Validator” award, which will continually receive application forms; every month, the foundation will select up to 3 validators to receive this award and its accompanying rewards. Welcome to fill the application form to display yourselves and get rewards.

Q&A

Q1: I’m a developer, and I’m interested in contributing to IRISnet along sides earning, Do you have any Bug Bounty to check for vulnerabilities?

We ran Bug Bounty last year. We welcome all developers’ efforts to secure the IRIS Hub. Please contact us if u found any bugs. And we will do several developer-oriented activities, maybe in Q4, like Hackathon, etc. Please stay tuned 🙂

Q2: Staking is the trend now, do you have plans for staking in IRIS hub?

You can stake on IRIS Hub right now. We have a series of tutorials to help users use Rainbow wallet to stake.

Q3: Why did you decide to use the Tendermint protocol? What is the advantage of this protocol for Iris?

Because Tendermint protocol is a highly efficient BFT consensus protocol. It helps the IRIS Hub with instant finality/security as well as scalability.

Q4: Can you list some of IRISnet’s outstanding features for everyone here to know about?

I think might be the support for DeFi and other enterprise applications. Because we focusing on interoperability of blockchains and built iService funciton besides the contribution to IBC protocol.

Q5: At what development level is IRIS Hub, Rainbow Wallet and IRITA?

All of them are in production right now 🙂 But we will still developing more functions to them, like IBC, NFT, oracle, etc.

Q6: IRISnet also works on DeFi as far as I know, so what is the service IRISnet DeFi provide for users?

Currently we provided Coinswap(Uniswap-like function), Multi-assets, HTLC, random number functions. And we will continue to build more functions to support better DeFi.

Q7: Why did you choose Cosmos SDK? How does it improve IRIS ecosystem?

Because it’s very easy to use:) Highly molecularity and powerful. We also built IRIS SDK, and now it has more modules. As the process is we usually develop in our repo and test/have them on IRIS Hub, then we upstream to Cosmos SDK.

Q8: What are the requirements to be a Validator on IRISnet?

1, You have to run a full node
2, meet the hardware requirements
3, have some IRIS token to begin with:)
https://www.irisnet.org/docs/concepts/validator-faq.html#validator-faq

Q9: Can you talk about your personal background? How did you come into contact with the blockchain and join the IRISnet project? What do you think is the most attractive aspect of blockchain?

I enter the blockchain industry since 2016, did some blockchain projects in China. And worked formerly as chief analyst in Huobi Research. And I found IRISnet is a very promising project. And I got quite interested in crosschain work the IRISnet team doing. So I joined the team 🙂

Q10: Today, DeFi seems to have become a hot topic for many popular platforms (such as Ethereum, Vechain). How does IRISnet view DeFi in your strategy?

We have developed a lots of tools/modules in our infrastructure to support DeFi Applications as mentioned above, like coinswap(uniswap-like). All of these are made full prepare of the DeFi, especially for cross chain application when assets can be transferred freely between chains by IBC.

Q11: What are the major milestones #IRIS achieved so far & what’s are in future pipeline?

We’ve our mainnet launched & several functions ready. And we will continue to contribute some more important features like IBC. You can see detailed info of our roadmap.

Q12: Recently you’ve taken some serious steps forward with your roadmap and timeline, i.e. partnering with Kava for DeFi. What are the next objectives and milestones that you are focusing to achieve for the IRISnet ecosystem?

Next objective is our testnet: Bifrost, and to support Cosmos Stargate upgrade. And we will continue to collaborate with BSN to bring more use cases of the crosschain protocol.

Q13: How can I earn the “Rainbow Validator” award?

You can run your validator on IRIS Hub, make contributions to the ecosystem:) and tell us about them by filling the form https://forms.gle/tRDcYeFue7rdeRWy7

Q14: Is it possible to note that IRIS will take an active part in the blockchain-education sphere?

We will have some developer education programs maybe later this year, to help developers build upon IRISnet/Cosmos

Q15: What advantages will IRITA offer compared to blockchain products like Hyperledger and Fabric?

I think there are many advantages:
1. Consensus: Tendermint vs Raft
2. Interoperability: IBC
3. Token Support
4. Privacy computing ,etc.

Q16: IRIS Hub, like the Cosmos Hub, focuses on interoperability. In general, we expect interoperability to become a huge topic in the coming years. How do you think that will affect staking?

I think IBC will help the staking. Like secure the staking between blockchains by IBC

Q17: what the meaning words of HOUYI, KUAFU, NUWA, PANGU in your project roadmap?

They are all heroes/heroines from ancient Chinese mythology. They overcame many difficulties in creating the environment which our human-being can live. Also IRIS is the Greek goddess as the faithful messenger between heaven and earth:-). Bifrost is from Norse Mythology. We love beautiful stories from different cultures.

Q18: Do I need to kyc to use RED PACKET feature ?

No. You can just download rainbow wallet to experience the RED PACKET feature. Rainbow Tutorial: Red Packets (Hongbao)& Video Tutorial: How to Send Red Packets on Rainbow Wallet

Q19: Is IRISnet also useful to non-crypto people? If yes, how?

Yes! We are also working on with some partners to bring low-barrier for non-crypto users. Perhaps we will make some announcement recently.

Q20: There is 30% of IRIS tokens are reserved for ecosystem development,how is it going to be used?

Ecosystem development funds have been used to support bug bounty, validators, developers as well as community builders. We have grants set up for these purposes.

Q21: How and when do you plan to implement defi?

Actually we have implemented some DeFi protocols as mentioned of Coinswap before:) And we will contribute more DeFi applications, both in infrastructure & application protocol

Q22: Why the name “IRIS”?

Actually, it is named by a cat, a cat’s name🙂

Q23: Can IRISnet node operator also process IRITA BSN blocks?

The persmissioned blockchain product IRITA has the ability to interact with different blockchains, public or permissioned. If there is a demand for the interoperability between IRIS Hub and IRITA blockchains, it is very easy for us to implement

Q24: What is the New Roadmap Update on the Iris Network?

KUAFU: NOV 2019 — JUN 2021
In this stage we are aiming to accomplish the connection of IRIS Hub with applications blockchains through IBC. We plan to upgrade IRISnet mobile client to support those applications. The third stage will also focus on upgrades to the IRIS network in order to support our planned advanced IRIS Service features.

HOUYI: BEYOND JUL 2021
The fourth stage will focus on further technology innovations to the IRIS network, SDK and mobile client, as well as developer engagement.

Q25: I am new on IRIS platform, What is the requirement to stake IRIS? Is there any special app or program to stake?

There is little requirement for staking. You can use rainbow wallets to do so: https://www.rainbow.one/