Sesameseed x Ontology AMA #2 Recap
On August 22nd Sesameseed and Ontology hosted an AMA on Telegram to answer questions from the community and share current and future developments. Present from Ontology were core team members: Andy JI — Co-Founder of Ontology, and Christina LIU — Marketing at Ontology, and from Sesameseed: Juliun Brabon CEO of Sesameseed.
Below is a summary of their introductions, and their answers to the community’s questions. Note: Due to time constraints, not all questions were answered LIVE. Those unanswered questions have been included here for completeness. Also, some questions and answers have been re-written for clarity.
Christina: Hello, this is Christina from the Ontology marketing group. As you may have already known, Ontology is a high-performance public blockchain project and a distributed trust collaboration platform. The Ontology blockchain framework supports public blockchain systems and is able to customize public blockchains for applications. Ontology also supports chain networks with protocol groups.
Andy: Hello Everyone, this is Andy JI, the Co-Founder of Ontology. Very glad to be here, answering the questions from the community.
Ontology’s partnership with Sesameseed enables the community to better engage in the ecosystem. It creates a more decentralized platform for users to stake and invest in Ontology ecosystem projects with their staking rewards. This not only allows users to find a cheaper way to invest into different projects, but also helps popular projects amongst users to receive good funding. With the funding support, those projects will be able to benefit the community in return.
Juliun: Hello Everyone I’m Juliun, CEO of Sesameseed. I’m really excited to be here with the Ontology team to talk about blockchain, community and the future of a strong partnership. A Blockchain is its community. To ensure the utility of a technology a community is essential. Blockchain is able to engage a community with technology in a way that simply doesn’t exist in other technologies. Delegated Governance through a secure and transparent currency offers a community both privacy to act as an individual and the collective representation to direct blockchain technology where they want to see it evolve.
I am excited to be a part of this AMA because I feel Ontology uniquely prioritizes many of the same core tenants that Sesameseed upholds.
How does Ontology work in the blockchain ecosystem? Also, what strengths does Ontology have, compared to the other similar projects?
Andy: We have developed specific functionalities or features which will make the use and application of blockchain protocol easier for different scenarios. For example, currently, most blockchain protocols focus on asset exchange, but in real business, there are many different business processes. The whole process may involve different steps and different chains. You will need protocols to complete transactions and business processes. The solution uses the Ontology blockchain as the main chain and supports both homogeneous and heterogeneous blockchains. It allows interactions between the main chain and side-chains, and also between side-chains.
Just as our slogan “Ready for All Businesses” says, our cross-chain protocols will support more different scenarios, traditional real businesses, instead of digital asset exchanges alone. This is why we wanted to design a cross-chain protocol for that.
Can you tell us what your team has achieved so far?
Andy: Ontology is a high-performance public blockchain network. We are leading in sharding, multi-chain, and cross-chain technology. And we are able to optimize the Internet with our own VBFT, reached tens of thousands TPS in lab environment. Ontology is also a distributed trust platform and the trust collaboration system centered on DID realizes the ownership confirmation and transfer of assets on the chain with DDXF protocol.
How did Andy come into contact with Sesameseed and what does he think of the community driven mission of Sesameseed?
Andy: We aim to build a multi-chain collaboration network and trust ecosystem. So we keep in contact with the professional node operator and well-known community-driven parties like Sesameseed. Community is the key to the success of the project and an important step towards our goal of decentralization.We hope we can work with Sesameseed to serve the community better, and create more good dApps and tools to serve both our communities.
Juliun: I can’t agree more. Collaboration is key and there are developers and community members spread across chains. Working together allows us to better support distributed governance and growth. We’re excited to work together on this.
What do you think is the biggest problem that you are facing right now?
Andy: Lacking of real users and use cases. Ontology aims to bring the real adoption to the blockchain industry. So we have launched a full stack incubation program. And we try to build mature tools and open platform for engaging traditional users and developers.
Juliun: For us the challenges we face today are similar to that of blockchain itself and as Andy put it, adoption. We thrive and are successful because of an engaged community. An engaged community attracts developers, allows us to function as a community node in delegated POS systems on Blockchains like Ontology. For us yes the tools and open platforms are key for developers, but those developers are attracted to a diverse engaged community. We are challenged by constantly trying to engage our community in new ways.
Can you tell us some of the goals you are looking forward to achieving your biggest goals?
Andy: Recently we are focused on building the cross-chain network with regional public chain leaders. We are working on the tech development and governance design with NEO, TOMO CHAIN, ICON, Zilliqa, Ethereum Classic and other platforms. Please stay tuned on our updates on the united network initiative.
Juliun: We’re very much focused on community building, and empower that community through Decentralized Governance (something Ontology specializes in). Our goal is to help encourage blockchain adoption in a way that supports the community. By being involved in how blockchain technology is shaped, we can help shape this industry to live up to its roots of Decentralization and fair representation. Our goal is simply to encourage and expand community participation to see blockchain succeed as a community-first technology.
Are there ideas/projects that you’d be looking for that are specifically suitable for Ontology or would any good idea work on either Blockchain?
Andy: Ontology is ready for all businesses. For example, we think that LinkedIn is suitable for the Ontology platform. We can use our DID and data exchange technology to help CV management.Interestingly, ONT-ID use cases has been included in ISO use case repo.
Juliun: We are constantly engaging with developers, we seek any developers looking to build on Ontology or currently working on projects on the blockchain to support. Really anything can help drive the blockchain forward towards further adoption is something we support.
Are there any ONT projects that already applied for the SEEDGerminator?
Juliun: Yes there are actually, we’ve already met with several developers that want to build on Ontology. We’re currently in the process of finding the right fit to present to our community to fund.
Is there currently a DEX platform in Ontology? or will SEEDGerminator make one for them?
Andy: There’s only one existing exchange named ONT DEX. But we are looking forward to involving more. Ontology is a high TPS platform with very low transaction fees.
Juliun: We have several very close partners in the space as much of our community know and this is an initiative we would love to support.
To make Ontology become more valuable, besides having good partnerships, good teams, more users, what else do you think Ontology can do?
Andy: Ontology should upgrade to a blockchain internet. Each public chain project is building an isolated island, Ontology is the bridge connecting every single island to become a complete continent.
What plans do you have to help drive demand and scarcity for the token?
Andy: Our goal is to bring more massive adoption and make them active. We are looking for high-quality dApps to be built on top of the Ontology platform. Meanwhile, we will upgrade our economic model to a hybrid staking reward model. Multiple tokens and DeFi products will be included into our economy ecosystem.
Just looking around, I see the staking functionality, and see many nodes that say “Node is full, not available for voting”. Will SS’s node ever get full?
Andy: There might be some misunderstanding on this question. Actually, some nodes belong to professional node operators and do not open the staking function. Ontology has high requirements for staking, which shows that Sesameseed is a really good partner to us.
When will the Sesameseed node officially be available for voting? Will it be possible at some time to vote with less than 500 ONT? Will it be better to stick on multiple chains or just one?
Juliun: Sesameseed is now open for staking through OWallet, as of release 0.9.15. There is a newly created Dapp section that allows users to participate with Sesameseed directly. We’ve done a few things to make this a little simpler through this smart contract. Users will be able to vote at any time, and stake as little as 1 ONT. Rewards will be returned to voters daily as SEED token. In regards to what chain is best, they’re all treated the same, and rewards are balanced.
About SEED token, how is the compound interest calculated and paid out? Is there a certain threshold that you have to hold to earn the compound interest? Are you required to have ONT address to get the SEED reward when I stake ONT? Are ONT SEED and TRX SEED two different tokens? Is there a direct exchange SEED/ONT like SEED/TRX?
SEED token is quite unique. It’s a 100% pegged token, backed by node rewards earned and redeemable for those tokens its pegged to. Doing this allows us to maintain a consistent compounding stake on the blockchain by participating fully with node rewards. In regards to SEED on Tron Vs SEED on Ontology, they’re both treated exactly the same, and are equal tokens. Holding a seed equates to your participation on Ontology regardless of which you hold. Through a direct swap of TRX seed to ONT seed is not open today, we will be launching an application in the near future with this, amongst other features included.
Which wallet do we need to receive seed reward Ontology or TRON wallet?
Juliun: Any wallet that allows staking for Sesameseed through our custom governance contract is eligible for rewards.
In the future, is there any privacy features in ONT? Can ONT add privacy addresses as an option for users who don’t want their transactions to be recorded?
Andy: Yes, privacy is of importance in blockchains. A key aspect of privacy in blockchain is enabling shielded transactions as you mentioned. Now we are working on this aspect and believe that it will be deployed on our TestNet in this quarter. Besides, as a distributed trust collaboration platform, Ontology is implementing anonymous credentials. With this technology, each individual can selectively disclose personal information to a specific set of entities.
All current projects are concerned with the speed and quantity of transactions. Old projects have also improved their network. So what else does ONT need to bring to investors ?
Andy: To be honest, we are not focused on speed right now. Increasing the usage of TPS is our main focus. Scalability and interoperability is a big task for the whole industry. We will keep improving our underlying platform in the long run.
I’ve been holding ONT since the private sale and the price just keeps dumping. I’m not sure if the team is even actively working on it. I saw that you’re quite up-to-date with the projects development. I was wondering what your opinion is on Ontology at the moment?
Andy: Development tasks are almost done. The next big step is to implement our framework and increase the adoption rate.
How will your team ensure that Ontology remains the top platform and keep pace ahead of your competitors, in the next 5 years and beyond?
Andy: Ontology has a solid strategy which can be divided into two parts: 1) Technical and infrastructure level. We have already made good progress in scalability on different levels, sharding, multi-layer, and cross-chain. 2) Ecosystem and real business. Just like our slogan, “Ready for All Businesses” implies, we have created the bridge to link different real businesses in different situations, even in different legal systems, such as the decentralized identity — ONT ID, and the decentralized data exchange protocol — DDXF. In the next phase, the reputation system will also be put in place. We already have many business engagements with different industrial partners from enterprises and financial institutions to new start-ups.
Hi Andy, can you explain the one single advantage of Ontology over every other blockchain? Can you simplify it by using layman terms or analogy?
Andy: In layman term, most blockchain platforms are building operating system, like Apple, Android and etc, what we are building is the operating system + application marketplace, like iOS + App Store. We can activate users to use the platform from the developer side and the end-user side.
If staking through Sesameseed has already open, and reward will be given as SEED Token, it means that DEX to exchange SEED to ONG must be available too (because Swapping SEED Ont to SEED Trx not yet available), otherwise voters cannot monetize SEED Token (OEP-4) Or SS will provide exchange service from SEED token to ONG?
Juliun: That’s a really great point. The TRX/SEED swap has been open and functioning perfectly for over a year. There is some complexity though today. SEED is not just pegged to ONG; it’s pegged to both ONG and TRX. Meaning if you were to redeem SEED you would receive both TRX and ONG. The only way we are able to support this functionality is through a very unique application, which allows the user to instantly create a wallet for both chains. This is ~8–10 weeks into development already and we’re hoping for our beta test to launch in the next few weeks. We’re actually going to be sharing many more details early next week about this.
Is SEED token a utility type token? And is the redemption of SEED token done via smart contracts or is it done via Sesameseed?
Juliun: This is what’s interesting about SEED, Since it never had an ICO, was never Sold, no set amount was ever reserved for founders, 100% of the token is actually backed by node rewards. We firmly fall into the utility area. The redeem and swap functionality is all done on chain by smart contract.
Can you explain in layman terms the dual token model of ONT? I partially got the idea from the article of your CEO, I believe its a game changer for both developers and users.
Andy: You can treat ONT as a virtual miner, ONG is the rewards you get from mining. The rewards are the only token used in transactions and etc in the whole blockchain network. Therefore people will hold ONT as virtual miner to generate ONG rewards to use as fuel in the blockchain network. There is no inflation to our dual token. The supply for both token is fixed.
Are there any fee associated with swapping of rewards from either SEED one’s choice reward?
Juliun: No. Actually Sesameseed covers all fees. This includes the redeeming of rewards which are actually sent out daily to all stakers and SEED holders.
I understand that rewards are based off USD value of Sesameseed rewards, so let’s say rewards on chain A are 4% and chain B is 3% it would be safe to say that SEED rewards would be higher on chain a as well? Dollar for SEED.
Juliun: Actually SEED is structured such at the amount of tokens released into supply ensure a constantly increasing peg. Therefore the rewards will scale for each individual chain and actually balance across the two in proportion to the USD value of how many rewards each chain earns. Chain A makes $300, Chain B makes $600, Chain B participants have more seed distributed in proportion to voters as well.
Will seed be issued in fractions on ONT?
Juliun: Yes, SEED is currently fractionable on Ontology.
Lastly is there any direct way to swap ONG for ONT or is it strictly through exchanges?
Andy: Not yet, but it’s in our product pipe line. We may provide ONT SWAP function in our ONTO Wallet in the near future.
Will PAX be issued on Ontology Blockchain soon as announced previously? How is development coming on that?
Andy: We are waiting for more support from exchanges and wallet. Actually most of the development tasks have been done.
There is an important tool used for checking status on the go, is there any plan from Sesameseed to have something similar…like the defunct ontstaking website?
Juliun: Really good question. I can honestly say this, we are here to support developers, though we are certainly going to build tools, I would be much happier to support a developer to do the same. We have a funding platform called SEEDGerminator, 10% of all node rewards go here and are used to support developers. If you know anyone that wants support or to build what you’re looking for, they should certainly reach out. We’ve helped fund quite a few projects like this on TRON. Everything from small games and market capitalization trackers to wallets and decentralized exchanges.
Will my SEED earn rewards if it’s on tipbot or do I need to transfer it to my wallet?
Juliun: Yes, All SEED everywhere earns SEED.
Using OWallet Sesameseed node is on number 22 (Page 3), I try to stake, appear to me the stake unit is still in 500 ONT, while in medium announcement you mention “Staking with as little as 1 ONT”?
Juliun: You’ll need to update your OWallet and vote in the dApp section.
