Q: When it comes to blockchains I agree that they need their own coin but what about dApps? The most utility of the dApps is to “fuel to the ecosystem” let’s be realistic, it’s only meant to raise funds and its use is inefficient in comparison to the usage of host chain tokens. Would it be possible for Iotex and would the team be willing to apply legally to launch security tokens on its chain? That may not be the main usage of the IoTeX, of course, but let’s think about it: if there are people who have an idea for a “killer dApp” and want to raise funds to accomplish the idea and also to get living out of it. This dApp’s developers have also come to a conclusion that for their dApp only Iotex blockchain is suitable perfectly. In this case if dApp developers are able to launch a security token of their own, this is what happens: They get the funding they need, for their dApp people are able to pay in Iotex tokens meaning less work and pain for consumers to use the product, for Iotex it is better because native token get more demand, therefore, project thrives even more, investors of the dApp get the share of developers profits out of dApp, everyone is much happier than in case of somewhat useless dApp utility token? Can you think about it and explain what do you think?
A: Thanks for the first question! We don’t 100% agree that future tokens launched on top of IoTeX will only be for fundraising purposes, but we can see where you are coming from due to the lack of real utility in many ERC-20 tokens today. One big problem with so many tokens today is the lack of real-time conversion services. However, cross-token exchange services like Changelly make it seamless to convert tokens in real-time. In other words, DApp users can “pay in IoTeX tokens” and the conversion to DApp-specific tokens will happen in the background for seamless user experience. There is a lot of interesting work being done in cross-blockchain interoperability as well, so we see a future where cryptocurrencies will be usable across various platforms — in fact, this is fundamental for mainstream/enterprise adoption to replicate the user experience of something like traditional fiat currency (i.e., when you swipe a credit card in a foreign country, users should be able to spend in whichever currency they choose without foreign transaction fees). Like many other platforms in the blockchain industry, we need to provide the services and tools necessary for companies/developers to build out end-to-end solutions.
Regarding your questions on security tokens, we also see it somewhat differently. Security tokens by definition do not have utility — it simply represents fractional ownership in the company. It allows private companies that have not yet IPO’d the opportunity to sell portions of the company similar to stocks. Eventually, we will add support various types of utility tokens (fungible tokens e.g., ERC-20, NFTs e.g., ERC-721, stable coins) and we are closely monitoring the progress to see when / which solutions we can integrate into the IoTeX ecosystem.
Q: Congratz on open-sourcing Iotex Explorer which is definitely an amazing way to work with the community in the same direction! This accomplishment aligns with some thoughts of mine: is Iotex planning to patent any of its innovations or will everything be open-sourced and available for everyone? In some cases preventing competitors from plagiarism would help and in the other case, there are advantages as well. What is the thought process on that?
A: Great question! For our innovations, we have two ways to deal with them. Our very core consensus mechanism, infrastructures, and related algorithms are written in our academic papers (yellow paper, DKSAP-IoT, etc. and will be more in the future). Since they are accepted by world-class academic conferences, they are protected by the law which cannot be plagiarised by competitors. It is similar to the patents. The rest of our innovations will be open-sourced to the public. We hope in this way we can make more contributions to this industry development.
Q: One of the advantages of blockchains and at the same time very important part of it to figure out is the lower cost to communicate. What does the team think in regards to network fees: can a blockchain be free (transactions costing no fees)? Or is it a must having fees to reward the block producers apart from block rewards (maybe there is another way to incentivize them)? If fees must be incorporated then how does Iotex team seek to meet the equilibrium so that peers are not overpaying when communicating and block producers are optimally incentivized to keep the network secure?
A: That’s a great question — regarding network fees, as we are open source, anyone can use our code for free if they are the ones that will provide their own servers / maintain their respective networks. This should be very helpful to prototype. However, to participate in the broader IoTeX network, there will be some type of fees involved.
I think you answered your own question in the last sentence. As you said, there is an equilibrium point where blockchain users (i.e., those paying IOTX tokens to run transactions and smart contracts) and blockchain miners (i.e., those that receive rewards to maintain the network) are both optimally incentivized. However, this equilibrium point is not something that can simply be defined using math or theory. This will ultimately come from lots of experimentation to figure out the crypto-economics that will achieve the long-term success of our blockchain. This is why we will incrementally build out our Mainnet over 2019, with the full launch of “Mainnet GA” in Q4 2019. At the beginning of Mainnet in Q1 2019, the network will be sensitive and we will need to experiment with real-life transactions. In addition, usually, there are multiple models for rewarding/incentivizing the BPs, e.g., subscription model (one pays X IOTX for using the network for Y blocks), pay-as-you-go model (pay tx fee for each tx), staking model (one freezes IOTX for using the network). Assuming the blockchain users and miners form an efficient market, the tx fee (no matter which model) will finally settle on the equilibrium.
Q: Which are your plans to develop business in South America? It will be harder to introduce iot here talking about adoption? I’m from Argentina .
A: Hello! We have seen some adoption of blockchain technology in South America, but more for financial use cases. We feel like blockchain & IoT will be next. Maybe not from a consumer standpoint (it seems you are implying consumer IoT such as smart homes has not yet taken off in Argentina), but surely from an enterprise standpoint.
One area that we see could be adopted soon is traceability of assets (e.g., agriculture, oil) and more transparency. One thing we have read about is the corruption scandals in several major South American countries like Brazil (e.g., operation car wash), where even government officials took bribes at the expense of the general population. Much of the issues there had to deal with a lack of transparency in how funds were spent and what types of physical assets came out of the spending. Blockchain & IoT can add the traceability and immutability that will add much-needed transparency — we hope to see this happen soon.
Q: Hi, team! I communicate a lot with people who are not familiar with IT and crypto in particular. Several times I tried to get them involved in the IoTeX project and ran into a bunch of problems. There is a very large entry threshold, a lot of new terms that prevent new people from becoming interested in projects. What solutions do you see for these problems?
A: Hi there — we agree that our project is pretty complex to explain. Not only do people need to know what IoT and blockchain are separately, but also what is possible when they are combined. For this, we have spent more time in the past couple of months writing blogs/primers, such as:
Blockchain & IoT: What’s it all about?
Blockchain’s Role in Today’s Internet of Things (IoT) Landscape
Please share it with your friends! Education is a big priority for us in the coming months.
We will keep on publishing more of these primers, which over time will provide people with the necessary information to better understand what we are trying to achieve. We will also produce more short videos and write more blogs to share about specific use cases (e.g., smart home, renewables, supply chain, etc.)
Q: In my opinion, IoTeX will be the perfect platform for great things. My question is how is the team making sure that the promotion and the marketing parts are being optimized on because that is very important for many people? What I’m saying is that people believe that the development of Iotex has been outstanding but how will the infrastructure be offered to the wide masses? How is Iotex exploring new possibilities? Every company is seeking to expand has to explore on their own but I believe that smart company like Iotex would also put efforts on a first-mover advantage and present themselves directly or indirectly to their potential users so through which channels does IoTeX make themselves known for every possible user that would benefit from it?
A: We agree that first mover advantage is important, but we believe more strongly in our ability to build the BEST blockchain platform. This will take some time. In the near future, to get more attention to our platform we will be attending several IoT-focused conferences and also general technology conferences such as CES!
Regarding marketing / bringing our technology to the masses — we are staffing up the team accordingly. We just brought on a new Head of Global Enterprise (welcome Rizwan!), who will bring our technology to traditional enterprises. The nature of these engagements with enterprises is extremely sensitive, so we are not able to share updates with the community until things are 100% finalized. However, we are also working with blockchain companies and will continue to share progress. We are also planning on hiring more marketing resources, especially leading up to our Mainnet launch in Q1 2019.
Q: blockchains in blockchain architecture, the idea behind it and the result it is set out to achieve is intriguing, How is the acceptance since it has been introduced?
A: IoTeX’s blockchain-in-blockchain architecture is very unique — we also see many projects seeking to adopt this architecture, which shows the strength of our concept. We will be releasing the very first subchain provisioning and initial cross-chain communication in our upcoming Mainnet Preview code release in November.
Although developers cannot yet fully utilize this functionality yet, we are already speaking with many companies on how they would want to utilize such an architecture. What we have heard is they see incredible value in being able to parallel process different types of transactions, as well as choose the architecture/programming language that best suits their use cases. More to come!
Q: Recently I’m looking at different blockchain projects using D-PoS variants for their consensus, like EOS and Lisk. It seems that D-PoS leads to the establishment of “pools”, acting like cartels, with negative effects on the communities (e.g. offering incentives to those who take away their votes form specific delegates belonging to the opposite cartel). These cartels seem to be whales, getting richer and keeping themselves voted in forever, preventing independent delegates (often giving lots of contributes to the community for free) to become block producers. Did IoTeX think about a solution to avoid these “pools” taking control of the block-producing in IoTeX?
A: We have similar concerns about DPoS. The in-house design of Roll-DPoS is an improvement of DPoS aiming to solve this centralization concern. The idea is to have a much larger pool of delegate candidates (by voting and staking); when it comes to who is responsible for BP for a particular round, our decentralized algorithm (known as DKG+random beacon) decides which candidate goes for it. In the long run, this random PoS candidate pool will grow bigger and bigger encouraging the participation of more community members, much larger than the number of “wales”.
Q: Hi, how do you rate the renewable energy industry? Do you think it is possible to combine your technology with this direction? or there are predictions for the future of cooperation
A: Yes — we are actually very bullish on blockchain & IoT’s application in the renewable energy industry. Today, many projects focus on the trading of renewable energy (e.g., solar power), but we also see huge applications in predictive maintenance and management of renewable energy infrastructure. In the next 20 years, the entire world will see MASSIVE projects to replace traditional fossil fuel infrastructure with smart renewable energy infrastructure. We are 100% sure that blockchain will play a huge role in the management of data across multiple energy providers / suppliers.
Another thing to think about is how to optimize the production of energy. Today, it is not easy to identify the reasons for suboptimal energy production — with a transparent distributed ledger like blockchain, it will be easier to track the performance of solar PVs and other devices. Most importantly, it is very difficult to integrate smart meters (which are very small / resource-constrained) to the blockchain, so we believe IoTeX will shine in this use case.
Q: During the latest bounty campaigns, as you said, you received a large number of offers for the Testnet name, that is, many transactions have passed. Tell me how many network errors have been detected and will the launch of mainnet be delayed due to them?
A: We did come across some bugs through the latest bounty campaigns, but that was expected. We actually chose our campaigns very strategically — as you may have noticed, our first campaign tested simple token transfers, the next one tested smart contracts, and the last one tested voting. These three types of transactions are extremely important for our network, and we are glad that testing this functionality at a medium scale helped us improve the reliability of our network.
Although we did find some bugs, none of them were major bugs (more small fixed / edge cases). The launch of our Mainnet will not be delayed (IoTeX always delivers on time!).