Waves AMAs: the most vital questions and answers
Over the last few weeks, Waves has run several AMA sessions. For those who missed the sessions, here’s a selection of the best questions and answers.
In July and August, Aleksei Pupyshev, Waves protocol evangelist and co-founder of the Neutrino and Gravity protocols, and Sten Laureyssens, Waves Association’s strategic advisor, ran several AMA sessions in the Telegram channels of Huobi, HotBit, WazirX and Tokocrypto.
Here are the most vital questions and answers from those AMAs.
Waves protocol
1. What is the biggest challenge for Waves in the future and how do you plan to deal with it?
Our challenge is the same as the industry’s challenge. Building a core blockchain infrastructure and DeFi tools is not enough. We need to connect the dots, allowing all currently fragmented ecosystems to interact with each other, so that we can build one big unified blockchain universe. This is inter-chain DeFi. The future of blockchain finance can only thrive when we break the barriers among ourselves and allow for products to be built combining the best of various protocols. The main challenge for Waves specifically is to bring more people into the blockchain space by showing that we can solve their problems with our tech.
2. Every successful project has a few stories behind the scenes. What’s the story behind Waves’ success? What was the project’s original vision and how has it evolved? Are there any upcoming Waves updates?
Waves was founded four years ago and we have had the luxury of exploring different paths, experimenting with ideas and approaches while gaining experience in a very dynamic industry. Our vision has always been ‘blockchain for the people’ and our current focus is a very precise and matured extension of the original idea of removing all blockchain adoption barriers for users.
Currently, we are focused on inter-chain DeFi, which represents technological freedom for blockchain-based finance. Inter-chain DeFi is crucial for maximizing the efficiency of individual DeFi ecosystems.
We’ve seen a lot of progress lately. Waves is growing tremendously as an ecosystem. We’re seeing a lot of attention for the Gravity protocol, and we’ve recently seen some really awesome projects partner up with Gravity and Waves, such as Tron, Ontology, 1inch, Band protocol, Fusion, ANKR and V-ID, and there are many more to come.
There are lots of updates and announcements in the Waves ecosystem every day. So, I would recommend following our Twitter and subscribing to our Telegram channels to stay tuned.
3. What makes Waves unique in comparison with competitors?
A lot of projects are building really awesome stuff. Not only some of the projects we have partnered with, but also some others who are trying to resolve the same problems as us. There is one single winning approach or solution to everything.
There are three things that can definitely show why Waves is better than many others:
- Easiness of use and integration. We offer very user and developer friendly products, like Waves Signer and the Ride programming language, which dramatically lower the complexity of tech.
- Great products on top of the protocol. Waves Exchange, Neutrino, Signature Art are products ready for mass adoption.
- Protocol security and speed. Making experience is not enough for future growth, so we build technologies that are fast, secure and ready for scaling.
4. Can you please tell me about the influence of important ecosystems and marketing that you support on DeFi projects partnering with the Waves protocol?
Competition and tribalism are common in the blockchain industry, but in our opinion, that’s the wrong way to go. The industry is very small, there are too few people/users, and we can resolve problems only by partnering and collaborating. DeFi is a thing that can bring more users to all blockchains, and we can successfully build inter-chain DeFi with our partners, such as BandProtocol, Tron and Ontology.
5. What types of benefits does LPoS (Leased Proof-Of-Stake) offer to Waves ? Why did you choose LPoS instead of other consensus algorithms, like PoS, DPoS, PoW etc.?
Leased Proof-of-Stake is one of our advantages over competitors because it is faster and less power-consuming compared with PoW and, at the same time, more decentralized than DPoS. LPoS does not have limitations on the number of block producers, and there were more than 130 last month, while DPoS blockchains usually have less than 50. You can start making blocks with a stake of 1,000 WAVES on a virtual machine costing $10 per month.
6. DeFi is an important topic in the blockchain space today. What is your teake on DeFi? Do you think DeFi will disrupt the existing financial system?
DeFi is one of the most promising trends in the blockchain industry that can drive mass adoption. Protocols like Neutrino can resolve lots of problems of the existing financial system. DeFi will make even more sense if we have interoperability and give users an opportunity of using different DeFi products in different blockchains. That is one of the reasons why we launched the Gravity protocol.
7. Security and anonymity are always prioritized in blockchain projects. Does Waves have any technological solutions or plans to enhance user trust in these issues?
Waves has a rich history without any mainnet vulnerabilities and issues. Over the last four years, our LPoS protocol has proven its robustness and security, but there is always room for improvement. We’ve also built Ride smart contracts language for better dApps security. The language helps developers to avoid security issues that encounter in Solidity.
In the most recent protocol update called “Malibu”, we added three big improvements: verifiable random function to make the network resistant to attacks, zk-SNARKs validation for better anonymity and a new dApps execution model for DDoS resistance. We use cutting-edge tech to guarantee security and anonymity.
8. How does Waves use cross-chain technology? What advantages does Waves have over Cosmos, Oracle or Polkadot?
To understand how the challenge of ‘interoperability’ can be resolved, we took a few steps back. This is a list of statements/ideas that illustrate our thought process:
- a token plays an important role in every ecosystem
- it’s a ‘catch-all’ token for data, value (often if not almost always) monetary value
- it also plays a crucial function for incentivizing people inside the network to behave in a certain way, positive to the blockchain (such as incentivizing liquidity in pools, or making sure oracles behave properly, providing accurate data etc.)
In the future, when the main functionality of a project is to achieve interoperability and connect to other blockchains, then you cannot have a ‘potential fight’ between that project, and another project it tries to connect to.
The right way to resolve this future challenge of tribalism is to have no native token in the Gravity protocol. Tokens of all chains that are connected can be used for this cross-chain protocol. If everyone uses the protocol and it’s fully open to join/integrate, it will very likely be mass-adopted, and everyone will win.
9. Does the Waves team have a training and guidance system for newcomers to crypto? How do you attract and reach them?
Previously, we were focusing mostly on developers, producing a lot of educational stuff for them, like this Coursera course https://www.coursera.org/learn/mastering-web3-waves
Most recently, we have realized how important it is to really provide information for people with various levels of knowledge about crypto. We are focusing now on general information, not only blockchain development and we’ve started building the “Community Campus” that will foster mass adoption of a decentralized web.
10. Why can decentralized applications on Waves be more convenient than ETH analogs?
You can compare transaction costs. In Ethereum, they are incredibly high now. Waves offers fixed fees and quick finalization. Also, on Waves, there is an opportunity to make transactions absolutely free for a user, as well as a token that can be used with a 0 WAVES balance.
Gravity
1. Recently, you’ve launched Gravity protocol. Could you tell us more about it?
The Waves protocol is our core blockchain, like a foundation to the entire ecosystem.
Gravity is an interoperability protocol, focused on cross-chain communication and oracle consensus. It resolves a big challenge without making a new native token, which is a pretty wild, innovative concept. Thanks to Gravity, you can run dApps, DeFi aggregators or liquidity pools across different blockchains.
Recently, some really awesome projects have partnered up with Gravity and Waves, including Tron, Ontology, 1inch, Band protocol, Fusion, ANKR, V-ID, and there are many more to come.
2. The fully diluted market caps of oracle-focused projects (like Chainlink) is going through the roof. Traders are optimistic about these projects and push them to new all-time highs. Why do you think they are so highly valued?
A token-agnostic solution for oracles and cross-chain communication, the Gravity protocol is being built on top of Waves. Gravity’s major feature is that it doesn’t have a native token, instead it will monetize oracles through the tokenomics of the blockchains that host these oracles.
Such an approach is not very attractive for traders, but it has advantages for ecosystem development. For instance, the architecture will enable Chainlink’s oracles to work on top of Gravity adapters and be monetized in any of the liquid tokens, including WAVES, ETH, LINK, BAND, USDN, NSBT, etc.
We’ve secured a strategic partnership with Band protocol, also known as the major Chainlink’s competitor supported by Binance, Sequoia Capital and other large industry players.
Economically speaking, the expansion of Gravity’s usage and popularity will bring more attention to WAVES tokens, which are the base for the Gravity’s ecosystem.
Neutrino
1. Neutrino is a rather young project. However, Neutrino Dollar already has a substantial market cap. Could you tell us more about the project?
Neutrino Protocol is a tech specification of an algorithmic stablecoin based on volatility crypto as a collateral. Neutrino Dollar (USDN) is the project’s native token on the Waves blockchain.
Neutrino is a non-profit project focused on ecosystem development. It has always been supported by grants from Waves Labs and Waves Association. Currently, several teams of core Waves developers are working on the project. Waves.Exchange plays a central role in supporting the protocol and its token. Recently, USDN has become the exchange’s go-to stablecoin.
The team, Ventuary Lab, continues exploring the technology and proposing protocol improvements. We are also working on more low-level protocols — Gravity and SuSy to further decentralize Neutrino and enable interoperability with other blockchains, such as Ethereum and Tron.
2. Currently, the cryptocurrency market features a wide range of stablecoins. Is there really a need for so many? What is the value proposition of USDN (Neutrino Dollar)?
Algorithmic stablecoins is an innovation in the cryptocurrency industry aimed at increasing censorship resistance, automation, transparency and decentralization. A wave of algorithmic stablecoins has already started, and so far, we’ve seen four popular solutions: DAI, USDN, sUSD and USDJ. USDN comes second or third by the market cap and liquidity after DAI.
One of the major USPs of USDN is that holders can stake it thanks to LPoS tokenomics and Waves monetary structure and collect 8–15% annual rewards.
Another competitive advantage of USDN is its on-chain liquidity. A smart-contract can be used to trade hundreds of thousands of WAVES and USDN bidirectionally and without a spread.
3. What is NSBT? How’s it different from USDN?
So Neutrino dollar’s symbol is USDN. The process to create USDN is as follows:
USDN is backed by WAVES. However, the price of WAVES is not stable. If the price of waves goes up then the dollar value of the collateral in the contract also goes up, and every USDN is very well collateralized. When WAVES’ rate drops and the reserve fund is not large enough to compensate for the decline, the smart contract issues special tokens called Neutrino system base tokens (NSBT). These tokens can be purchased at any price with USDN (e.g. 10 NSBT for 8 USDN) and then liquidated at a ratio of 1 NSBT : 1 USDN on a FIFO (First in, first out) basis. NSBT can also be transferred to another account or sold on exchanges.
It’s part of a system aimed at covering for shortages and incentivizing people to buy these shortages and cover the debt of the ecosystem for a reward. It’s a very common traditional economic mechanism, implemented here for stability. Alongside that, market makers and arbitration bots, which can be launched by volunteers from the Neutrino community, also help to keep the rate stable at different exchanges.
4. You have an interesting outlook on Neutrino’s future. The next stage is Collider. What’s the gist of it, and what should we expect from the ecosystem down the road?
One of the key opportunities to trigger the long-awaited mass-adoption is giving users access to the traditional markets without any restrictions. Synthetic assets are tokenized traditional assets, such as gold, currencies, equities and indices. The Collider expansion creates a set of rules on top of Neutrino, which will enable issuing and even staking such assets.
The ever increasing demand for these instruments significantly increases demand for USDN and, consequently, for WAVES and base tokens. Fundamentally speaking, such projects are crucial for the Waves ecosystem and token holders.
Once we have a baseline for cross-chain integration with other projects provided by Gravity and SuSy, these instruments will be available for numerous other ecosystems.
Read Waves News channel
Follow Waves Twitter
Watch Waves Youtube
Subscribe to Waves Subreddit
