AMA with Züs Founder Saswata Basu (May 31, 2019) | Cloud Storage Scalability

On Friday. May 31, Züs (formerly 0Chain) hosted a live AMA with CEO, Saswata Basu and touched on decentralized cloud storage scalability. If you were unable to watch live, you can read the transcript below or check out the videos here: Part 1 and Part 2.

Saswata: Hi guys, Saswata here. Sorry for the delay, we have moved locations about 1 mile from our original location. It fits our needs perfectly. I have a list of questions here that were asked beforehand so let’s get into them

When big exchanges, liquidity, and market makers?
 — Our plan right now is to work with Beaxy. We think they will be a great platform initially and then we will get noticed by other exchanges. It is a process and there is no reason to rush it

When 0Chain listed in a Big exchange like Binance?
— Binance does ask for a listing fee so we will see. After BetaNet we will contact them and see how the conversation goes

What shape is the mining in? Have you gotten much interest? Are any numbers available? What is the least amount we need?
 — We have several miners interested and some have the hardware ready. They are waiting for our SDK and documentation. They will get this next week so they can start the process of joining our network. This is important for cloud storage scalability. We have 20 miners from all over the world who are ready to join the network. Currently looking at the Chinese market too as there are some interested miners there which will be important for reaching the Asian community. After BetaNet we will have regular meetups at our office to try to recruit miners in the Bay Area.

Getting closer to Beta, do we know when the security audit will be conducted and by whom?
*****Clarification coming on this answer soon — will be updated

What kind of bug fixes were found during Alphanet, if any? Any additional enhancements during this time?
 — There have been bugs fixed, in most cases it is fault tolerance that we have been testing. The fault tolerance that we are testing is with one miner down, one sharder down, and all miners and sharders down to see how the network comes back. We have viewed change and bringing on external miners that we will be part of the enhancements coming. We have locking/stacking, transaction fees, script automation to help miners bring up their rigs, and staking pools: these are other enhancements ready. We wanted to make BetaNet ready for MainNet. It will have almost all the features of MainNet so that we can have our bugathon testing so we can go to mainnet.

What remains to be done on the alphanet before the betanet?
 — As mentioned: staking, contract, documentation, script automation, payment for blobbers. Those are some of the remaining items. Should be done with them in a couple of weeks so we have BetaNet up and rolling in a few weeks

When do you start the marketing? What are the plans?
 — Marketing will come after BetaNet.

Why has the plan been to delay marketing thus far? Is it a lack of faith in the technology
 — We are busy with development. We only have so many people and when you start marketing, you have to constantly work on it. So we focused on the development and our marketing plan is after BetaNet, we can have tokens out to users for shares, and downloads. These incentive plans will allow users to earn tokens for downloads and referrals. We want people to be aware of our application. We will have our SDK out so that you won’t necessarily need an iPhone app to use our network (send/receive files, download, upload, etc)

Is ZCN planning to have a new marketing manager for BetaNet?
 — Yes, we are.

Do you plan to do an interview with Oh Hey Matty? Other crypto influencers?
 — Yes, when BetaNet is launched so that they can try out our applications before asking them to look at our tech.

What conferences do you plan to speak at?
 — Will be decided after BetaNet and along with office meetups regularly. We chose a nice location for our new office so that we can do meetups in the area as well. We want to explain our consensus and why it is a good platform for applications because it is a fast and secure way to do transactions. Siva, our CTO, wrote this article on this:

What are some projects that are interested in 0Chain?
 — Several are interested in storage, some for blockchain. We are taking this in stride as we do not want empty partnerships. We have marketing partnerships but we want our SDK out there so people can use and interact with our platform. Most developer contact will occur after betanet so that they can download documentation and SDK to use it.

0ChainNet is infinitely scalable through our self-forking protocol. Can the forked chains communicate with each other? Interoperability?
 — Use they can communicate with each other and there will be interoperability. That will have a self-forking protocol at the start of mainnet. We want to get mainnet out as soon as possible so this is why we are locking down all the features during BetaNet. Then we will add 1–2 more features.

What can do 0box to avoid the illicit sharing of files? What are ZCN responsibilities? We all know what happens with platforms used by streaming users and by hackers.
 — 0Box is not reliable for this. This will be solved when the problem surfaces.

What has the PR firm been doing for 0Chain?
 — We have stopped engaging with our PR firm because we are focusing on BetaNet. We will continue when the BetaNet is launched

The Uber/0Chain comparison has some flaws. With Uber, you’re not expected to buy a new car like a mining rig. Also if you do purchase a new vehicle, there are financing options. You need significantly more capital/money up front for purchasing an MSB rig to join than you do to start working for Uber.
 — We will eventually come up with a financing plan and partner with someone who can finance rigs or do it internally. This has yet to be determined.

How much energy do you think an MSB-rigs will consume? Are there any numbers available?
— This has yet to be determined, we think about the same as a laptop. Such as a MacBook laptop. We don’t expect it to be much but this will be determined in the future.

I think I read somewhere that being a service provider will take about 1 hour of maintenance per week when using the basic service support option. What things will I have to do? Just get the software updates?
 — What you will need to do is replace hard disks because hard disks have lower MTBF or MTTF. Basically, you will need a couple visits throughout the whole year to replace failed disks. After three years you will probably need to visit the colocation center to replace hard disks — it is pretty simple actually. Not one hour per week. Software updates will not be as frequent. Maybe biweekly or monthly. With basic support from us, we will do it for you and you will not be required to be online.

Everyone talking about IOTA and coordicide these days (claiming to have solved the trilemma problem of security, scalability, and speed and that the coordinator will be removed by one of two potential new consensus methods) what is 0Chains solution for the blockchain trilemma?
 — 0Chain is better than IOTA because we have a storage platform and we are faster than them. As for cloud storage scalability. We are infinitely scalable, as secure as IOTA (they have different signature schemes that had early issues but I think were solved), and we will be faster. They still have a storage problem and we have a complete blockchain. They don’t keep their ledger and we have our sharders store our ledger.

I would like to hear a lot more about the price setting mechanism for Service Providers. How do i post my ask price for storage?
 — That is up to you. You can price your storage as you wish but if you are a good provider, you would do it around the AWS price. If you think your storage box is not as good as AWS S3, you can list it cheaper. If you look at AWS’s high-tier storage, it is expensive. If you want to offer higher-speed storage, you can ask for more. If you can provide a lower speed, you can ask for less. This also helps with decentralized cloud storage scalability.

Have a good day Mr.Saswata. Is there any updated top 500 enterprise/company partner? If so, what do they think about 0Chain?
 — We are talking to some pretty big partners, but these do work slowly. Our current focus, even if they are to partner, is BetaNet so we would push off the partnership until the network is ready. They remain engaged and interested in our technology so that is the current status.

I’m connected with many large investors who are interested in 0chain but have told me to avoid it because they know the team is running low on funding. how do you plan to save the project before funds are completely tapped out? I think you owe it to the community to make sure the ball keeps moving forward
 — I am not sure why that would prevent large investors from investing in 0Chain. Startup companies have nothing in the beginning and require investments for tech, ideas, and business plans. I have talked to some investors and they are waiting for BetaNet and our code. BetaNet is a reflection of our MainNet and if it goes well with the bugathon, then we can launch. We will also be testing our BFT and once that and bugathon goes well, we will be ready to go. Once we know we are set to go, we will announce the token swap

Has progress been faster or slower than imagined?
 — In terms of fundraising, last year we raised a lot of money from crypto investors. Now we are focusing on traditional VCs and looking at crypto VC funds. These are funds that do not move as fast as we would like. Decentralized cloud storage scalability Creates interest. We want good partners for the long term and partners with deep pockets. In the crypto space, this is important to have investors with deep pockets. With our current investors, we cannot go back and ask for more money as a lot lost money in the crypto downturn.

Can you explain our relationship with AWS?
 — Goal is to get the blockchain up and running with miners, sharders, and blobbers. We will offer this on AWS and Oracle too. We want to offer different service providers (AWS, Oracle) our services. Currently focusing on getting to MainNet to be able to offer these things!

Saswata: Since there are no more questions, I want to talk about some news. Last night, I went to an event where I presented in front of a crypto community who were very interested in our storage platform. I received a lot of positive feedback and I am encouraged that you will see a lot of positivity after BetaNet. There hasn’t been any real usage of decentralized storage. Currently, there are not many options available and they can be really hard to set up or lack cloud storage scalability. Sia is about the only company with something available for sale but event that is really hard to set up. Most companies are struggling with is and I think we are going to be the first ones that can offer 0Box-like services that provide real storage for users. We also have a network ready for the developers to build on and interact with our network.

Saswata: Thanks for watching and we appreciate the support. We have a lot of exciting things coming, 3 great products and protocols that were built from the ground up. We built these ourselves, they are not easy but they will be noticed when the documentation and SDK are out there. These are not forks or taken from other codes We have a world-class team and we will produce them! Stay patient and we are excited to show you soon.