TOKEN2049 - The Decentralized Future: Interoperability And Scalability

my name is Matthew spoke I'm the founder of the Aon Foundation um to my left is jackl the founder of wanchain uh to his left Kai of the seller Network rang Chen from elastos Josh from icon and Jun Lee from ontology I think most of you know these projects so we don't need to go too too deeply into who everybody is uh you can obviously find out more about us online or or follow everybody on Twitter uh we got our Twitter handles up um so I'm going to start us off we'll we'll give a a couple of themes that we want to go through both around scalability and interoperability and also just different perspectives I think as to how different projects are solving this problem uh but to kick us off you know seeing as tonight as the etherum super Meetup um I figured I'd ask the starting question um and anybody can jump in on this one but ethereum 2.0 it's coming so why do we need any other solution out there um so Jack we start with you yeah uh I'm a ethereum fan certainly and uh um I I would think that uh in Chinese World there are 360 different Industries right uh you you at least you need a couple chain to solve you know different problems right and uh we are following the first steps of uh certainly ethereum right I hope that they'll be very successful but at the same time there are a lot of problems we're trying to solve I think inity is one of them there not looking at it at this moment so many other problems to solve and suddenly we want to connect all these different chains I think that's very important and Kai we were talking about this earlier but um seller is working on a layer two solution uh both for the ethereum network as well as definity um if you think about the future road map of these protocols what's important about layer 2 why do we need it today why do we need it after potentially layer one solution start to become more scalable yeah I think that's a very good question yeah so uh so first like the the idea of L scaling is basically you move most of your transactions op by only resulting to the blockchain when you want to dispute the state or settle the state okay I think the question like can be answered by like uh in in the long term and also in the short term okay so in the long term I think that depends on like the ultimate goal of like a pro scalability yeah so uh so ering like we can continuously improve the scalability of their blockchain we we have like 1,000 TPS 10,000 TPS even 1 million TPS but is that really enough yeah so uh I think the ultimate goal of blockchain stability should be aligned with the current Internet skill so basically if you look at the current Internet scale basically every second there will be like 53 terabytes information being transferred on the uh on the internet so no matter how like uh how scalable you improve upon the current like layer ones blockchain there still be some Bott neck because essentially the performance of your blockchain system will be bottom neck will be no better than a system where a single node arbitrate basically error traffic so that's a kind of performance bot neck so in the long term we should like need a way to scale out the the blockchain just like today's internet so that's I think why the layer two will come in long term in the short term I think the answer is that uh uh we can immediately start to using the speed up provided by layer 2 right now uh so for example ser. 2.0 it may still take one or two years to for for the developers or for the customers to use that but right now uh for example with sers network SDK and uh you can basically start to uh have like tens of thousands like a TBS on top of e serum right now yeah so so Jun we were we were talking last night a little bit about um the the obstacles I'd say that are still stopping um mainstream Industries mainstream companies from using I think we've heard a lot over the last couple of years TPS TPS TPS scalability is one problem what are the other problems that are stopping us or are we ready for mainstream users and and what else do you think are those gaps that need to be solved by the industry yeah to support the mainstream business especially different industry they have two key things SW why is they a lot of need a deeply cation not only in the application Level also infrastructure level they need a deeply application and to reach to the production level you need a kind of flexibility and of course include scalability another point is when you support a real business M business you need to link a real business process currently we are building trust based on the technology no matter smart contract or digital assets all is technology to support TR but then in the real uh scenario B scenario most trust is from legal system from Community from people by people or company to company those kind of TR should be integrated to a decentralized mechanism you need decentralized identity data exchange reputation contract signature service all is kind of um the the the kind of scalability of kind of model support real so it's more important when you integrate it with different it system or or even permission blockchain or other public blockchain that is platform can support a real business for that yeah and and I think you know one of the perspectives that that we've been putting a lot of focus in on this this topic of mainstream adoption is really that some of the Bas layer protocol designs are interesting but from an app developer's perspective it's almost too complicated they want something that kind of gets surfaced up as a tool or a piece of infrastructure that's easier and easier for app developers to use rung we were talking briefly about what elastos is up to uh you guys are building out as you call it the new web um how do you view you know what the interaction is going to be between a regular developer and the protocol or what's going to be the gap between that developer and the tools and pieces of infrastructure that they use to build their Solutions on top of elastos or on top of any other blockchain system well uh when I uh run into blockchain two years ago uh 2016 uh I run into the word uh notion of world computer right um basically I've been doing operating systems or uh computers for 35 years um that's uh the idea actually if you see everybody is having a arm raise about who is doing a better world computer let's say uh but then when we compare the old computers there are real-time computers scientific computers full tolerant computers you know automous uh driving kind of uh uh machine learning kind of computers right we have definitely is not one siiz fits all how many people realize actually on this iPhone right there are at least four 40 CPUs 40 computers can to build this one computer and on uh like Mercedes-Benz at least 100 uh computers right building into a Mercedes-Benz like uh a autonomous driving computer uh iPhone on the whales right so uh basically when we see um different computers uh we we have to go back to the fundamentals can we build a network of computers that's very very important and also when you build an iPhone with 40 computers and which one is the uh one running apps which one is running at the user level like a virtual machines running on top of lit which one is really running as infrastructure as the core uh backbone CPUs right so that said we are building this new web of computers new web of computers not only web of uh blockchain computers also consists of iPhones and Android phones right normal computers and also the virtual machines uh in the month in April we're going to announce this new smart web this is a new incarnation of another www web www web is a web of data and can we build a web of of code and uh so we are going to run like ethereum SE chain at the user level on demand say Linux you can run multi-processes on demand can you launch multiple ethereum side chains on demand so we are going to have ethereum compatible set chains um next month and we are also going to run Neo smart contracts we're going to have a name coin we're going to have uh ipfs running at the infrastructure level the storage we're going to have like uh Depots right and also merge mining with bitman currently we have about uh 1 million uh setup boxes running this uh uh smart Network currently running uh at this point we have about half million active node because some machines are off some machines are on so that's what we have right now we don't really scale up in the way we borrow actually from we are standing on giant shoulders we don't really do like ethereum side chain or NE side chain or like bit main kind of uh uh Bitcoin chains right but we borrow the code put them into a web of of chains and computers so you know one thing that you said in there that that makes me think of Icon um network of computers uh icon you know you guys have been involved since very early on and setting a lot of the discussion around interoperability obviously W chains in in a very similar space um what's your view on this concept of networking between blockchains uh what's going to PR that to become a more real part of how these systems evolve uh we were talking a little bit about standardization there's different people working on different styles of interoperability uh what's icon's perspective on this and how are you guys solving that again uh we uh we are waiting kind of like a remittance a year kind of uh networking but I believe those uh we call them uh FR chains currently we have our own main chain but we do uh expecting you guys are contributing because uh there are different computers on the internet so we do expect different kinds of world computers uh for to uh build this new internet and on top of this uh new internet we run virtual machines virtual machines like uh virtual web services on demand web services without website is what we're shooting for because when we talk about dabs we are literally talking about three things one is of course uh the like side chains right and of course never forget there also website and uh the browsers or the clients so if let's say crypto Kitty dabs is something you cannot shut down by a third party so if you have a crypto Kitty but then the crypto Kitty company shut off the uh the website you have a kitty but you cannot run the kitty basically you lost your assets can you have a smart web without uh websites web services without websites launching web services on demand right and with a browser no more offchain onchain everything is leveled um Josh what do you think if I come back to your original question about yeah right okay so well as some of you might know that actually I conect started as you know private chain solution provider right so basically we are also of course we agreed that it is very very important for us to make an interoperability between the really big in a public platform but also we we have a little bit of focus on now mean which means that there are a lot of also private chains on the world and then we are trying to also make some kind of connection between the private chain and also our public chain which is basically interconnected with the different private chain that we built by using our Loop chain engine so um uh because I mean for example you know like we are working for example with some of the banks in Korea which basically pretty much hesitate to really have some kind of connection with the public chain but then we we try to integrate some kind of time tapping feature from the public chain to be able uh so that they can actually use our time tapping to validate their transaction in the private chain so those kind of actually a trial that we trying to make it is kind of uh it's very uh interesting and meaningful know step to make some kind of connection between the private and public chain and also coming back to the question about the standardization you know there are a lot of also interesting actually standards making body on around the world because interoperability is not just the blockchain you know focused issues inter is needed in every you know technology sector this is why uh there are several standard making body such as like know International standard organization ISO like International telecommunication Union itu which is basically un organization but they're really trying to make some kind of institutional approach to make stand that right but I mean I don't want to say that actually we need some kind of really you know one single you know technical standard which should be you know used by everyone but rather what they do is try to you know identify what are the really minimum technical requirements what are the minimum consideration that you know we have to think about if we wanted to make really interoperability between different Technologies so by doing that we can avoid a situation where a lot of you know the unnecessary multiple efforts done by the multiple people right so we can avoid that so but the problem is that if you go to this kind of standard making meeting you know you know mostly they are like the government people people like Academia you know they have some kind of different perspective and there's no really dialogue Channel between this kind of you know institutional people and act tech technology expert that we can see here so basically what we want what we wanted to do is to make some kind of dialogue together with this kind of you know institutional appro so this is why we currently actually you know participa in some kind of standard making process with the iso and itu and then uh this this is the point to make us really dialogue together with them yeah thanks um and I think we're going to I I want to leave a few minutes but before uh for for audience questions but before we do uh maybe we'll quickly go through and I I think one question that I get often about about the Aon project and I'm sure everybody else gets is we're all working on very very ambitious technical road maps we're working on things that have very meaningful Global impact some of us will make it some of us will not time will tell um it takes money to do that how many of us have thought about the time it's going to take for our solutions to make it to mainstream adoption and how do we make sure that we maintain kind of sustainable I don't know if you can call them business models but call them sustainability within our organizations to make sure that we're alive by the time we get there I mean I think many people in the audience probably saw the last couple of months we've seen two major announcements coming out of the NM Foundation where it doesn't take much for a large project to come very very close to the edge um so maybe a question for you Jack and we'll quickly go through and I I'll say quickly just so that we can get to some audience questions so quickly go through and give your perspective about sustainability within your projects sure uh we get this question a lot as well right we are targeting let's say have enough fund right from the our initial fundraising and also a lot of coins we still have in control right we're talking like at least multiple years or up to 10 years uh around that time and based on of course based on the uh the crypto market right and we will we'll we'll adjust our spending right um if the market goes up and we'll spend more right but at at this time we are following all road maps and pretty much complete the 1.0 2.

0 3.0 and this year we're doing 4.0 which is U integration with u pivate change solution right so we pretty much follow uh I mean the milestones we Define in in our white white paper so as long as we were talking into that uh multiple years uh you know we have enough funding to support this Network we should be fine uh at the same time uh we we have other mechanisms we certainly once we have this nonprofit organization running this uh non nonprofit Network we still can have uh for-profit businesses uh that's self- sustaining to build applications on top this network right and and we can continue to raise funds uh through many me mechanism like stos or or traditional VCS um um many other ways continue to fund this all I mean this network certainly I think once we get the cross chain working let's say you know Bridge with Bitcoin big bridge with ethereum and many other chains you know all in the same network there will be a new economy I'm sure that there will be a business model for us for everybody yeah I I think that's a very good question so I I think the the key thing like at least for for C work is uh is like in order to be sustainable just like using the the fund we have raised so far is not actually a sustainable way so the same of C NW work in 2019 is actually to find and explore a legit business model that actually can generate new revenues yeah and uh as as a layer two project we we we first time we enable a highly interactive applications on top of eum and also we can enable instant payments so we're thinking about how can we find a basically a legit business model on top that and just like a few weeks ago we just launch a like a new product uh user facing product it's called s x which is basically a e Esports gaming platform for mini games so basically you can play for example some games like uh goo or chess games to computer SK skills with your friends and this games are are fully decentralized and on top of existing blockchain by using the layer two technology and the players will like basically put some entry fee and get some price if if they are good at games okay so basically uh at seller we have build up a production level like infrastructure of Layer Two which basically can provide sort of like uh uh instant payment like services so basically during this process uh we can basically uh take off some of their like uh uh uh entry pH as a kind of a feed to organizing this kind of Matrix and that's something we we have we have been trying to identify what is a good business model in uh in in a later space and we actually hope to break it even in this year without any new fundraising yeah um Jun you guys are a very high-profile project at ontology maybe you know you would have a perspective that I think is probably interesting yeah first of course we have a currently have enough resource can support us to 3 years or more than that and but from the longterm stand I think uh two strateg uh one is we were involve technical service is just small part but we will involve a lot of operation buiness operation in our ecosystem different project that is long-term buiness strategy another is for the public Community Based project one thing is very important is build your reputation you should very care about your promise for the community especially your Tech technical uh Road mapap uh for example last year ony almost finished all the promise for the technical progress and people will trust you yes maybe blockchain will be next big things like the internet but who is Google who is Imaging people will choose that who is the future Superstar if you can come uh keep your promise every step people think okay you have a potential and be the Superstar they will put more money to support you that is very important because many token you have some part of allocation support your long-term development but how value how high value about this allocation is quite important so reputation is more important I think um I I know that we haven't gotten to you guys yet but I just want to make sure we're watching time um let's go to a quick few audience questions and we'll see if we can get you guys to jump in but um few minutes for questions from the audience so if there's anybody who has a dying question for somebody on stage or just in general I'm happy to continue asking questions if you don't have any okay well Josh why don't we go to you let's talk about icon and uh your path to sustainability right um so it not it might not be a really one faceal solution but from the Icon um actually this is really a realistic question for us because we already have like 150 people working in the foundation it's 70% of More than 70% of the people are develop per really definitely have to you know make our you know organization really sustainably growth so uh basically one thing of course I mean we really trying to nurture thef equos system in the public chain so to make the lot of lot of transaction happen but that's kind of a long way to go but at on the other side just like the one channel so we also have some kind of make a lot of efforts to to to expand our private you know chain you know uh uh solution to the uh different verticals because I mean there are lot we we found a lot of lot of interest from the government like you know like Insurance like Financial companies the different in vertical uh industry verticals and then uh we we've been in know building lot in know partnership in with the different you know uh organization even like International Organization even charity organization nonprofit organization who want to use the blockchain for their and improve to the their sist and that's one thing actually as a business model that we're trying to do make our organization at least mid and sustainable Ro uh well for us uh again and we uh we are one of the really really uh rare project uh exist uh well we are building a new web right I have two Role Models one is uh Satoshi uh Nakamoto and uh who disappeared right three years into the project and the other uh role model is ncape ncape started the www web but 3 years later and unwillingly um it disappeared right uh so so for elas foundation it's been year and a half for the project and the new web will be launched uh within a month I mean in April that said uh we have another two years of um reserves and uh after the two years we don't have a business model and we're willingly right after we exhaust all the uh the Bitcoins and uh the foundation will disappear and uh in the mean time we're going to launch a something called a cyber Republic which uh take over the mining uh the uh inflations uh the the coins will be managed by uh something called a SE Republic by a consensus so they vote on you can think of it's National Science Foundation right so uh everyone everyone is encouraged to apply for founding and uh there's a consensus give you founding to make sure the uh the smart web will be uh self sustaining self- running without a uh Foundation yeah that makes a lot of sense um so I think you know there's lots to cover on this topic so we're going to probably cut it there when we talk about scalability interoperability there's lots of different approaches and I think we're at that stage in the industry still where we need to be in a mode of experimentation we'll see what kind of lasts and survives uh but at the very least I think with projects like Aon and wanchain uh and seller alasa scyon and ontology there's a lot of good smart people working on some of these issues so lots to look forward to so thank you so much for joining us on the panel uh thank you everyone for for listening