Our Co-CEOs, David Hanson and Nicolas Gilot hosted a brilliant Q&A session on Twitter to answer your questions about the Ultra Mainnet Launch. In case you missed it, we’ve detailed the questions asked by our Blockchain PO, Rami James, and the answers to your most burning questions.

Let’s jump right in!

Q. What’s been the most difficult step of launching Ultra Mainnet?

Launching Ultra Mainnet was no easy feat. Strategic planning, determination, and knowledge were all imperative parts to the successful development and launch of the Mainnet.

David explains that on a company level, one of the most difficult parts of the process was growing the team. Ultra has a complex hiring process that involves tests and several steps (all to ensure we have the right talent for the job) and it’s been pretty challenging doing so with such a big milestone ahead of us.

Rami mentions that it’s extremely hard to build something that no one has built before. This is evident in the many challenges that the teams faced during the milestone. Nicolas expands on this point and states that the most difficult step was planning ahead. Because the tech Ultra is building is so cutting edge, it’s been hard to estimate how long each step of the process will take. Our team can’t look at other projects and easily estimate the steps to completion based on a precedented trajectory. This isn’t possible because no one is doing what we’re doing and no one is building an ecosystem that’s powered by blockchain in the way that we are.

All three agree that they’re happy that we’ve gone through the hardest part of the project (getting Ultra Mainnet launched) because our NFT standard V1 is ready so the core aspect of the platform has been completed. However, they remain level-headed and understand that there’s still unlimited amounts of work to be done to bring the overall vision for Ultra into fruition.

Q. Why is Mainnet not accessible even now that it’s launched?

Nicolas and David explain that indeed, Mainnet is live and it’s already possible to transfer tokens. Right now, developers can build apps and whatever else using Ultra tools.

The next step is hooking up the Mainnet to the Ultra platform itself, which will allow access to those functionalities.

During the following waves, our focus will be to monitor and improve our platform’s integration with the Mainnet. We’ll be leaning on our excellent beta testers and game developers to assist in providing a top-tier experience that everyone expects.

Once the Mainnet has been hooked up to the Ultra platform, users will be able to download the Wallet-only client. To make it clear, the wallet is an app within the Ultra platform (the client), and the Wallet-only client is technically the same client that is used by beta testers. It’s simply limited to one accessible application (the wallet) for now. If you’re not part of the closed beta, you’ll only have access to the Ultra Wallet.

Here, you’ll find your referral link, wallet ID, and the token swap feature (more information on this in the next question). Once the Ultra Games, NFT Marketplace, and other apps become available to the public, your client will automatically update with access to the various parts of Ultra’s ecosystem.

Q. Do I have to swap my tokens?

Before we get into this question, we want to make it clear that we’ll be releasing a dedicated article surrounding token swaps in the lead-up to the Wallet-only client becoming available to everyone.

David gives a little more information on this in the Q&A session, expanding on the fact that there will be a permanent bi-directional token swap function in the Ultra Wallet. There is absolutely no risk if you don’t swap your ERC20 tokens immediately — swap them or don’t swap them, it’s completely up to you, UOS tokens will permanently live on both Ethereum and the Ultra network.

Basically, because the infrastructure we put in place is very generalized, we can use this to act for our own Token Swap from ERC-20 tokens to native tokens and for future token transfers between chains.

Q. Are there AAA partnerships in the pipeline?

Nicolas delves deep into this question and explains that Ultra has 150+ developers (AAA, AA, and Indie) on board and ready to upload their games onto the platform. Announcing these developers and uploading games onto the platform is a matter of timing. Once the platform is hooked up to Ultra Mainnet, developers will be able to upload their games and make sure people that have access to Ultra Games can play them.

He reveals that we’re also in talks with large brands within the gaming space and there’s a lot of interest in what Ultra is developing. Specifically, Ultra’s use cases are resonating extremely well with these brands and we’re exploring different ways to collaborate with each brand that is authentic and effective.

Rami chimes in with some thoughtful comments about his initial interest in Ultra. He recounts that the most interesting and fun aspect of working on the Ultra project has been the process of making sure we answer key questions about Ultra’s blockchain tech: What’s terrible about blockchain today? How can we improve it? The Ultra team has facilitated a space that allows us to not only ask these hard questions but work toward providing answers and solutions even before others within our field.

Q. When does everyone get public access to the platform?

This is a question we get quite frequently and we think it’s super important to make its answer as clear as possible for everyone.

Nicolas goes into the finer details of our 3-step beta wave structure, explaining that we decided to onboard users in this way for several reasons:

• Gradually adding new users onto the platform over the course of Wave 1, Wave 2, and Wave 3 improves the stability of our client.
• We want to get users on the platform as soon as possible to gather feedback on the UX and UI, further improving the platform’s design as we develop all the features we’ve planned throughout the year.

Wave 1 started in December 2020 and beta testers have given the team great feedback on what they like about the platform and what can be improved. Since then, we’ve implemented various changes and are very happy with the outcome of this wave.

The Wallet-only client will be released in July and everyone will have access to the Ultra Wallet. Users can sign up to the platform, secure a unique username, access the token swap feature, and use their referral link. Shortly after, Wave 2 will start and we’ll be giving more community members extended access to the ecosystem.

The duration between Wave 2 and Wave 3 will be a lot shorter than that of Wave 1 and Wave 2. We’ll be ramping up the onboarding of users during this stage and thousands of you will eventually have access to the platform.

After the third wave, we’ll be releasing the open beta which gives everyone access to even more features.

Q. Can I stake?

And finally, Rami asks Nicolas and David the ultimate question: When can people start staking their UOS coins? They didn’t disappoint with this answer and revealed information that hasn’t been shared publicly until now.

David goes into detail about the staking reward system’s purpose, which is to provide priority to certain users when the network reaches its capacity.

This feature is super powerful because anyone can sponsor transactions under a smart contract with set conditions. Its first utility is technically already working but the second utility has yet to be added. Its purpose revolves around rewarding users for staking UOS with extremely rare NFTs. Randomly generated numbers will allow us to fairly and appropriately reward these rare NFTs to users that stake.

The second version of the NFT Standard has even more functionality and we’ll be able to extend the functionalities of existing NFTs. We’re well ahead of the curve in this aspect and it’ll be an exciting upgrade to our staking rewards program.

We really enjoyed answering your questions and giving you some exclusive information about what we have cooking up. To listen to the whole session, head here and make sure to follow us on Twitter to stay updated on the next time we go live!

About Ultra

Ultra is the first entertainment platform providing all key games industry services under a single roof, accessible through a single login.

Built around our PC games distribution store, Ultra Games, our platform will provide access to countless centralized and decentralized services: Discover, buy, play and sell your games and in-game items, watch live-streaming feeds, interact with your favorite influencers, participate in contests, compete in tournaments, and much more.

Ultra has been built to provide endless value for players, a fair playing ground for developers, and a whole new world of opportunities for the games industry.

For more information, visit ultra.io and onultra.io and follow along on Twitter, YouTube, Telegram, and Discord.