Transcript: AMA with 0Chain CEO, Saswata Basu | March 22, 2019
On Friday March 22, 0Chain hosted a live AMA with CEO, Saswata Basu. If you were unable to watch live, you can read the transcript below or check out the videos here: Part 1 and Part 2
Saswata: Hi guys, Saswata here from 0Chain. First I want to start off with some general comments. This is the second live AMA session. Looks like we have a couple people joining, but I want to start off by saying I know you guys are excited about alphanet and wanting to test it out. We will have it out as soon as we have our test process done. Basically our testing is done with a smaller cluster, so it takes a little longer to complete. It is looking really good and this is something no one has seen before. 0box is a new product that no one has seen. It will start on iOS, and then an android version next followed by desktop. Timeline is iOS, android, and browser. For the desktop version, we are thinking about doing it with a different desktop version. Instead of doing it as an app, we are thinking of doing it as a direct sync approach, which is what people will use the most. You can think of 0box as an app like dropbox, but it is a better performer and more secure. It is a zero-trust, faster performance than Dropbox or Box. So again the timeline is iOS, Android, desktop and direct sync.
Question: When are we going to see code on GitHub?
Answer: You won’t see the code until after Betanet. While we are doing the releases of the different 0box updates, we will provide detailed stats. This will show how miners and blobbers are coming together. This will show additonal insight into our network.
Question: How are employee members being paid?
Answer: Both cash and tokens, like all Silicon Valley companies. So they get a salary and tokens.
Question: Does the company still have funding for the next 2 years?
Answer: First, we are almost done creating our 3 products: 0ChainNet, 0box, and 0Chain wallet (split-key, most secure wallet in the crypto world). Once these products are done, the idea is to expand the business. We will probably raise money to expand our business because we think we can leverage our net. With 0box and the wallet, we are showcasing that you can build dApps on our network and using 0ChainNet to provide services to enterprises. This is our frame of mind and we don’t have the mindframe of 2 more years because we are close to being done with the development. We will need funding for future projects and marketing. Our products are all encompassing, focused on enterprises and consumers, not just the crypto market. 0box can be used by enterprises instead of AWS or Oracle cloud. There is no reason that AWS cannot use our service and offer it to other enterprises. We are looking for funding to expand our business since we will already be releasing our three products. We have these products now and they cater to enterprises, consumers and the crypto market.
Question: Timeline for 0wallet?
Answer: Right now our focus is 0box. When we release the android and desktop versions, we will update you with an idea of when it will be released. It will probably come right after the release of those two.
Question: Are you guys still having fun?
Answer: Yes, we are still having fun but sometimes it is frustrating to see the impatience. From our point of view, we want to deliver and it can be difficult to estimate the amount of time it will take. When you are testing something, it is a blockchain environment, it is a run-time environment. We put in certain conditions that can be difficult to test. There can be failures after 100k rounds. We are getting closer to having three different test platforms that will help us have a better idea of when things will be delivered. In the future, I won’t say things (like dates of release) until the tests have passed the first two rounds.
Question: If mainnet would have been launched at $1 and then dropped by 90% would the system have been out of wack?
Answer: That’s the beauty of our system. There will be a few papers coming out soon in addition to our website upgrade. The papers will be published on the new website, just waiting on them to be finalized. One of the papers will be on the evaluation of the token. We have done analysis and simulation of the token based on data asset. What we realized is that the current value is far lower than what it needs to be when there is data on our network. This actually provides a stabilizing force for our network. It is better than a stable coin as something tangible is stabilizing the price (data). Our papers and blog posts will help educate people on this new token currency that doesn’t yet exist.
Question: Website date?
Answer: Next week.
Question: New economic evaluation paper?
Answer: Either end of next week or the following week.
Question: What does the value need to be?
Answer: We’re projecting the value to be at least one dollar. If we have 4 PB of data, which is 0.0001% of data out there today, the value would be around 1 dollar. We have not finalized this but it should be done in a few days. We should have the results out in the open.
Question: Why was the hardcap removed?
Answer: The hardcap was removed because we are mining for tokens as opposed to pre-mined tokens. The inflation rate is now adjustable, not fixed, through our governance protocol. Unlike other crypto projects, we will have a governance protocol live from the beginning.
(Start of video 2)
Question: How do you know the value will be around $1?
Answer (Saswata): 0box takes in fiat currency to buy storage on 0ChainNet. If dropbox were to buy storage on 0ChainNet, they would have to pay blobbers, buy and stake tokens. This would cause the token price to increase. When 4PB of data is added to the network, it is coming through 0box or another app, which is paying the blobbers. This causes the token price to increase.
Derick Fiebiger: The token valuation estimation is based on:
- A) A conservative assumption of total storage on the network
- B) A lower bound INTEGRATED value in the underlying token. Not speculative, which is nearly every protocol token
- C) The price of this lower bound integral value scales with the network’s total storage service (eg 4x more blobbers joined the network? well now so does the network size and thus the lower bound integral value of ZCN). And this is an assessment based only on its storage service. It doesn’t account for other applications operating services on 0ChainNet, or any speculative utility value.
- D) 1.00 is 10x from current price. This is incredible for a cryptocurrency to have a base value, regardless the price of Bitcoin or the overall crypto market. Once 0Chain is live it changes the standard for digital tokens (eg “my crypto has a base value of $X.XX, your crypto’s value is speculative and likely priced purely on future utility of its network”)
Question: High-level explanation of the governance protocol?
Answer: Governance will be based on staked-based voting. Anyone can propose a change in the governance. If you want to increase inflation from 10% and you want to change to 5% or 20%, then there will be votes for and against it. There needs to be a threshold for it to pass. There will be time for this to go to a second round, and anyone can basically vote. Each vote is based on tokens that you burn. It is an expensive progress so you don’t game the system. This can go on forever until one side wins. It is a ping-pong voting scheme where the yay/nay votes go on until one side wins. This then becomes the new protocol. There are 3 changes:
- 1) Configuration Change: like inflation. This is a fast change that would be seen after n-number of blocks.
- 2) Longer time period changes that would occur after much deliberation.
- 3) Code-Based Changes: would take more time and be a rolling upgrade.
These are all built into the protocol. This will also be published on the website in the next week or so.
Saswata: While I’m waiting for more questions, we had a paper accepted, the proxy re-encryption paper, for the Marble Conference in Europe which is a big deal. We are excited about this and I will send out a tweet about that next week.
Question: Pricing per TB?
Answer: We don’t dictate pricing, this is based on the blobbers. They can charge on their break-even price all the way to prices like AWS. I will be writing an article about the pricing, buy vs rent, and tech for miner, sharder and blobber. This will outline the calculation for the ROI.
Question: Speed of alphanet?
Answer: Depending on the location of the miners, if they are not too spread out, I think it will be about 1 second for stead-state finality. There are different types of finality: steady-state finality, block finality, transaction finality, and we are working on deterministic finality. Steady-state finality is about one second.
Question: 0box plans for fun marketing?
Answer: We will be testing this out. By sharing a link from a video or image link on sites like Twitter, Facebook. For X number of shares you get rewarded with some ZCN. This is part of our plan for our viral marketing.
Question: Is ZCN a good coin?
Answer: I think it will be a top 10 coin in the near future, but I don’t know when. When people realize we are not just another crypto project, but we are cutting-edge technology, they will realize the value of ZCN. Unlike other cryptocurrencies, we have a mathematical valuation of our currency.
Question: There are errors and wrong info on the V Label for Binance.
Answer: I will have the ambassadors look into that. I do not spend much time working on that aspect. (Here’s a Medium post on 0Chain joining Binance Info)
Question: What do you expect from DAPPCON?
Answer: We’re expecting exposure to academic communities to validate our new protocols. We want validation from the academic side, which will make it easier to go to enterprises and ask them to adopt our protocols or use our public network. Enterprises have the option to use the private or public network, both available to their customers. For them to do this, we need papers to be accepted and published in conference papers. These conferences are refereed and accepted by the technical-program committee. It is good to get your papers published at a conference rather than just published on your site.
Question: Does 0Chain use DPoS?
Answer: DPoS is delegate proof-of-stake. 0Chain uses POS, which is permissionless so anyone can be a miner. The way we are handling it: We have multiple generators which solves the DDoS problems, squared-staking solves the Sybil problem, and VRF where you don’t know the leader (in our case you have multiple leaders).
Question: Do you sense the public sentiment of blockchain is changing? I feel the lay person is afraid/weary
Answer: The public sentiment of blockchain will change eventually, it is just a matter of time. When more people understand blockchain/crypto, it is like a black box. They can’t distinguish between one protocol vs another, it will just take time. We are the third generation of blockchain, and we are cutting edge. We have had the Bitcoin and Ethereum cycle, and we are hoping that 0Chain will be the start of the third cycle. Every market needs a trigger point and what we are doing is of so much value. There is no reason we cannot trigger the next crypto bull market.
Question: The ROI will be dependent on token price?
Answer: The way I will write the blog is based off the market price. How you value the token price is another concept and it will be up to miners/sharders/blobbers to decide how much they charge. If their cost basis is 1/10 that of AWS (20 cents per gb), they could break even at 2 cents or go all the way up to 20 cents. From there, they can decide where they want to charge and assess the risk of the token price.
Question: Where are you in terms of progress with telecoms?
Answer: We are at various stages. We will keep you guys posted but they are some very large companies that are as large as AWS. We are working with them on various fronts. We are more so in the “weeks to months” stage with these companies rather than years. They are awaiting alphanet, just like you guys. They want to know how they can work with it and they are excited about it. We are delaying the alphanet so that we have enough testing and can have less hiccups when we go live.
Question: Prospects for ZCN in the gaming industry? Any specific plans?
Answer: We are not specifically targeting the gaming industry as there are already crypto projects targeting it. We want to stay in the enterprise space where there is a need for storage and security. That’s where we think our strengths are. The only area on the gaming side that we would work with would be the storage aspect, like storing video games. That would be like any dApp. They could use 0box or use our SDK to store data on 0ChainNet.
Question: What can the community do to help spread awareness?
Answer: When we have the website updated and all the papers upload, you should go all out and tell people to look at it. We will do everything we can on our end for marketing strategies. But you can explain how good our project is and get people to look at our products. If you look at Bitcoin and Ethereum, they did not have marketing arms. It was word of mouth that they were excellent products. We are in that category, in that league when compared to other projects. We have three useful products that everyday people can use.
Question: update on DHLS partnership?
Answer: DHLS is not a partnership yet. I want to preface that by saying that anything you do with the government moves really slow. It is basically an identity-fraud solution that can be applied to any government. This is a need they have and we are trying to get our foot in the door. It is a small project that they are going to be testing out and hopefully adopt. We are not relying on them but hopefully they will be our partners.
Question: Any patent pending?
Answer: Yes, we have several patents pending. That is in the works right now. As you know, the acceptance of patents takes quite some time but we have several filed.
Saswata: I want to close out this AMA by saying hang in there. We are developing great products, it is not there but it is coming. Things are coming and we are having fun. The reason we are having fun is we are doing something so innovative. Just hang in there and when you see it, test it out and share it so more people can test out our app. We look forward to hearing your feedback and looking forward to more releases. The first release will be alphanet but we will have different code updates that are going on in the background. Thank you and have a great weekend.
Thanks for taking the time to read and watch our AMA. Please tune in for next week’s episode of AskFeebs which is hosted on our subreddit r/0Chain. Feel free to submit questions on the thread for us to answer.
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