TOP ✖ Binance DEX AMA Recap
TOP Network held an AMA in the Telegram group of Binance DEX on September 3rd. The AMA went through three segments. In the first segment, Steve answered 5 official questions from the moderator. In the second segment, Steve asked 5 questions and the community submitted their answers via Google forms in a period of 3 minutes. In the third segment, the chat was open for as many questions as possible. The community members raised hundreds of questions and Steve selectively answered some of them.
Steve: Let me take a little time to introduce myself first. Basically, I am, or was a programmer. Twenty-three years ago, I met a guy who later became the co-founder of WebEx. He asked me to join him to develop web conferencing software. However, I turned down his offer.
Later I set up an R&D team in China for him, where we were developing web conferencing software. One year later, WebEx raised funds and I sent the whole team to the U.S. That was the core R&D team of WebEx. WebEx became very successful and the company was sold to Cisco for 3.2 billion dollar. But I left WebEx in 2004 and started my own company, a video conferencing service provider. The company was quite successful and was later acquired by Huawei in 2010.
Around 2012, the mobile Internet was super hot and I foresaw big opportunities. So I left Huawei and co-founded Dingtone, which is also very successful. It already went public in China.
After being in the communication business for the past 23 years, I realized that communications should be decentralized. This is why I entered the blockchain industry.
TOP Network is a decentralized open communication network that provides cloud communication services on the blockchain. TOP offers secure, low-cost services such as messaging, calling, video, VPN, CDN, IoT data sharing and more. In short, TOP Network is a decentralized communication network. Everyone can contribute their servers and bandwidth to the network. Any communications app can connect to the network. What IPFS is for decentralized storage, TOP is for decentralized communication.
Q1: Why did you start TOP Network?
Steve: 2 years ago, we were building SkyVPN. After we released the app we quickly realized that we should build a decentralized VPN because it’s much more secure and cannot be blocked. Then we thought: Why don’t we build a network layer for every developer to build their own communication apps on? That’s how we got started with TOP Network.
TOP Network is also about communication services. It’s all based on my past experience in the communications industry.
Q2: How’s the mainnet development going? How’s TOP mainnet compared with other public chains?
Steve: Before this AMA, I was in a meeting with my development team. They told me the mainnet will be launched this month. We have over 60 developers working on TOP Network. It is a very large team. However, TOP Network is very complicated to implement. Basically we were too ambitious. That is why the launch of the mainnet was delayed for over 2 months. We already saw the light at the end of the tunnel.
Regarding the difference between TOP Mainnet and other blockchains, I just need two sentences to clarify:
1) TOP Network includes everything ETH 2.0 plans to implement, and we are two years ahead of ETH 2.0, which is planned to release in 2021.
2)TOP Network will be the first blockchain to handle millions of DAU. Our own communication apps have millions of DAU, and we will port them to TOP Network. That is a real challenge.
Q3: Can you talk a little about token economics on TOP?
Steve: The token economy is the core. How do you drive the value of a token? Buyback or burn is proven be effective to maintain value in the stock market. S&P 500 companies buy back hundred of billions of dollars worth of their own stocks. That is why the US stock market is so good right now. BNB has also proven this model.
In our token economy, TOP token will be burned. 10% of the communication service fee is burned. For example, let’s say a VPN app needs to pay 100 TOP tokens to some nodes, 10 TOP tokens will be burned. The nodes get 90 tokens. Secondly, apps need to deposit tokens to access resources such as bandwidth, storage, and CPU. Last, every validator needs to stake tokens and get votes from token holders. We will release our staking economy whitepaper this week. We will publish it in this channel and the DEX forum.
Q4. What’s your plan on building the ecosystem of TOP Network?
The number of blockchain platforms is far more than the number of Dapp developers. I mean serious Dapp developers. It is an illusion to get developers on a relatively unknown blockchain platform. Binance Chain is very successful and has a blossoming ecosystem. The reason for this is because Binance has huge number of users.
If a tiny exchange tries to copy Binance Chain, it will fail. The same issue applies to all other public blockchain platforms. Fortunately, we have a very large user base too, and the apps we have already built can be moved to TOP Network. So the users will be brought to TOP Network.
Essentially, we will not count on third-party developers in the beginning stages. We have enough users and apps. We even have two in-house game teams. They are building serious blockchain games, not those gambling games. Once we get all of these things done, we will talk to third-party developers.
Q5: What are the advantages of TOP over Telegram?
Steve: Telegram is a serious competitor. They have very good technology and a very large user base. However, the technical approach that Telegram adopts is simply wrong. This conclusion is based on their whitepaper. Since Telegram has not modified their whitepaper in the last 18 months and their code is not public yet, I’m not sure what their current implementation is like. They are supposed to release something in October.
Q6: What are the use cases for TOP Tokens? How will the use cases benefit the value of TOP token?
TOP has two independent but interconnected platforms — TOP Network for cloud communication services and TOP public blockchain platform. Here are a few use cases of TOP tokens on the two platforms.
1) Communication Service Fee
2) Deposit for Nodes
3) Deposit for Resources
4) Transaction Fees
Q7: If an individual wants to develop a messaging platform/App by using TOP Network, how can he/she develop that App on your platform and what benefits can you provide him/her?
Steve: You build the user interface and we handle the communication stacks. Traditionally, you may need a year to build a communication app, but now you will only need a few weeks. You do not need to host your own networks, which saves you tons of money.
Q8: How does TOP network have more than 60 Million users in a very short time?
Steve: My team built three communication apps before we launched TOP Network.
And those app can be perfectly moved to TOP Network. The apps have over 80 million users.
Q9: What have you learned from decades of experience as a serial entrepreneur and how does it benefit your business strategy in the blockchain industry?
Steve: Build a solid product. Assemble an A+ team. No illusions, be realistic.
Q10: Where can we see the working progress of TOP Chain? How many developers are involved in it? Can you explain how the three layers of distributed ledgers is better than a single layer? Does this provide more efficiency too?
Steve: We have over 60 developers working on TOP Network. Single layer ledger has its limits. You cannot ask the main chain to handle so many things. We separate financial and business logic. In addition, we implement a built-in layer 2 state channel.
Q11: Why does TOP have more inclination to Cloud Communication service products? Any specific reason? Why not other fields?
Steve: We are communication guys. I have been in the communication industry for over 24 years. I have built Web conferencing, video conferencing, messaging apps, VPNs…So many communication businesses and all of them were successful. Communication is in my blood. Decentralized communication and decentralized storage are two areas that Blockchain can really help. We will start from the communication service industry, and we will move to other industries. Remember I mentioned, we have two large in-house game teams. They are building some serious games, true blockchain games.
Q12: Can you talk more about the sharding technology mentioned in TOP Network whitepaper? How to ensure nodes are randomly selected in shards? And how is your sharding technology different from that of Zilliqa and Quarkchain? People generally consider sharding as a difficulty in the blockchain industry, but how do you overcome the challenges? (one of the BEST 5)
Steve: Sharding is very difficult. However, the concept of sharding is not new. Zilliqa is not true state sharding, only compute sharding, which is of no use. Quarkchain has some fundamental restrictions. For example, it asks each account to split into multiple sub-account, one shard one sub-account. It is impossible to use that.
Q13: What kind of measures will be implemented to secure the chain with sharding and its security liabilities? (one of the BEST 5)
Steve: Remember, we have a three-layer architecture. After a transaction is verified in a shard, it will be audited by the advanced network. So even someone controls a shard, there is no way to bypass the advanced network. We are far more secure than ETH 2.0. It has only one layer network.
Q14: Can you briefly explain how the top three milestones that the TOP Network team aims to execute before the end of the year will help them succeed and what TOP Network may look like in 2020 and beyond? (one of the BEST 5)
Steve: You will quickly see TOP Network gaining the largest number of DAU, in the millions of DAU. You know why Block.one, the EOS team is developing the “Voice” app, because they found they don’t have enough users on EOS. We have well planned and have crystal clear strategies.
Q15: Can BitVPN be good enough to challenge the strong firewall of some countries?
Steve: So far, no countries can block it.
Q16: Can you convince me why I should use your DApps on blockchain (especially your SkyVPN service) instead of other centralized apps ?
Steve: VPN apps are very dangerous. They can collect so much information about you. Decentralized VPN cannot know which website you visit at all.
Q17: As the market is going down and many new projects are dumping their ETH to cash out due to revenue generation problem, what’s your future plan for revenue generation for seamless operation?
Steve: Remember, we have applications that generate sustainable revenue and profits. Even though we didn’t raise a huge amount of funds, we have revenue. That is why we can have such a large developer team.
Q18: Right now it seems the decentralized communications network supports the development of VPN and Messaging apps. What is the next planned communications function e.g CDN, VoIP etc.?
Steve: Decentralized CDN and storage are under development now.
Q19: What have you achieved with the buyback of TOP tokens and what potential future updates excite you to share with us?
Steve: We have already bought back over 250 million TOP tokens. We will continue the buyback. We will launch the mainnet and we will run some of the initial nodes. Running nodes requires staking. So the tokens we bought back will be staked into those nodes.
Q20: There are lots of communication barrier, and countries like U.S. pentagon are in constant watch. TOP Network is decentralized but up to what extent do you have to offer for privacy? Will you comply with rouge regulations?
Steve: When we were running our previous communication business, we had met lots of rouge regulations. That is part of the reason why we want to move to the decentralized communication network. For example, if the FBI comes to me, I have to hand user information to them. However, once an app is decentralized, we have no information.
Q21: You have planned with your tech team that the release of mainnet is within this month. Then what would happen to Binance DEX’s token? People will eventually move out of BEP2 for the mainnet. Or will you still support trading on the decentralized exchange? If not unified, the transaction will be greatly reduced. Traders will hate it.
Steve: BEP 2 TOP token will still be available after the mainnet is launched. We will provide a swap bridge so our token holders can swap to/from between the native TOP tokens and BEP2 TOP tokens.
Q22: Why is the name of the project TOP Network?
Steve: We implemented a protocol, which is called Telos Open Protocol. It is a communication protocol. TOP means Telos Open Protocol. That is where the name of TOP Network comes from.
Q23: Your plan to buy back tokens for Staking has both advantages and disadvantages. In the short run, it will help TOP network improve its computing power and increase its stability and security when it starts. But does this make the TOP network more centralized? Get most of the blocks out of your nodes, and the other nodes that come in later can only get a few blocks out, right? (one of the BEST 5)
Steve: By buying back some tokens, we can contribute some of the seed nodes. However, the majority of nodes will be hosted by the community. Unlike EOS and Tron, TOP Network is truly permissionless. Everyone (for example people like you) can contribute nodes to the mainnet. The number of nodes is not limited. The opportunity to produce blocks is only related to the stake of the node no matter when the node joins the mainnet. TOP is truly democratic and decentralized.
The nodes we contribute will gradually phase out. The interesting situation is that nearly every TOP team member wants to host a node because the barrier of hosting a node is very low and the return is amazing.
Q24: Will the current users have an option to remain on the centralized version, or will they all be ported over? Will the current users notice any big difference on the Top Network main net? (one of the BEST 5)
Steve: No, once an app is moved to TOP Network, all the users will be migrated automatically and transparently. Most users won’t even notice any difference in the initial phase.
About TOP Network
TOP Network is a decentralized open communication network that provides cloud communication services on the blockchain. TOP offers secure, low-cost services such as messaging, calling, video, VPN, CDN, IoT data sharing and more.
TOP Network is also a high-performance public blockchain platform designed to handle real-world business of any size or volume. Powered by innovations including three-layer network, two-layer sharding, two-layer lattice DAG and PBFT-PoS*, TOP can process several hundred thousand transactions per second on the blockchain.
The long-term mission of TOP Network is to build a public blockchain infrastructure for all Dapps. Our world-class team of over 100 developers is striving for this goal.
TOP Network originated from the common underlying network layer of Dingtone, CoverMe and SkyVPN, three communication apps built by the TOP team before the blockchain project. These apps, having attracted over 60 million users in total, will be ported to TOP Network upon the launch of TOP and generate huge volumes of transactions in the TOP ecosystem.
TOP Network was founded by serial entrepreneur Steve Wei and his colleagues in late 2017. Steve was one of the earliest employees of WebEx in the 1990s. After WebEx, he founded a successful video conferencing software company which was acquired by Huawei in 2010. In 2012, Steve co-founded Dingtone, a public listed company operating popular communication apps such as Dingtone, CoverMe and SkyVPN.
TOP Network has closed $15 million early investments from prestigious institutional investors and individual billionaire investors, including DHVC, Fenbushi Capital, NEO Global Capital (NGC), Ontology Global Capital (OGC), LD Capital and more.
Please find more details about our listing proposal here:
https://community.binance.org/topic/721/proposal-for-listing-top-network-top-on-binance-dex/16
TOP Network official website: http://www.topnetwork.org
Stay tuned with TOP Network:
Email: contact@topnetwork.org
Telegram: https://t.me/topnetwork_top
Twitter: https://twitter.com/topnetwork_top
Medium: https://medium.com/@topnetwork
Steemit: https://steemit.com/@topnetwork-top
