34 Burning Community Questions About Dragonchain, Answered Live in Amsterdam at Blockchain Expo
If you prefer to watch and listen to the full live AMA, you can do so on Dragonchain's Twitter account.
- When is the community side of Takara going to release, and when can we withdrawal our node earnings?
We are still dealing with legal, the other side of Takara. The stable price model has been in place for many months. It worked effectively and well. We don't know when the community side will be able to be done in the US. We will open up all the nodes, drastically reduce DDSS entry threshold, and we basically make the withdrawals standardized, with multi-factor included. There will be limits, If you've put Dragons in. And if you want to withdrawal some, you can do that. To Early Access Verification node runners, we are rewarding on a standard 100 Dragons a month and we are going to expand that towards the end of the EAP. And then pay all of those out. We are hoping to get this out soon. We are working on the capability to apply DDSS to nodes. Even for people who wouldn't have had the ability to run level 2 or 3 nodes, will be able to run their DDSS in a pooled node and obtain equitable rewards. - Can we get a timeframe for when EAP will end?
We are working directly on that right now. We are approximately 2 sprints out, so it depends on that as well testing. Within the next few months. - It seems to be a lot of development on the product, but how has that translated into increased usage?
We have a number of ongoing things with partners that are working on the Dragonchain Platform. We have MetroEDGE and on-premise blockchain solutions, so all of these things are all about increased business, usage, and adoption of the platform. We are also working right now to promote use for developers more. A lot of the SDKs are now open-sourced, with a lot of the documentation in place. We are seeing people building things. - Is there a point where more resources will be put into marketing?
Yes, we flipped some of the ways we are doing marketing, but we are shifting gears. More details in the future. - What's the actual business plan for Dragonchain?
It's the same business plan as always. If you provide a flexible platform that businesses can use, in time, it will see adoption, even if it comes in ways you don't expect. We are seeing a lot of good developments with existing blockchain users who are not happy with other existing blockchains. - How much in resources did the switch to Kubernetes take and how did it affect EAP ending?
We don't have specific metrics, but it did take a higher priority because it was for real business. EAP ending would be nice, but business is the higher priority. Without businesses running transactions/verification nodes, will not reward you as much. Anytime someone is coming in with real money/customers, we will prioritize towards that. We have added several engineers, and more on top. If you don't have the users, it's pointless. We do have projects that we pay fees on, and some projects that will spin off into their own entities. - What is the single upcoming thing you are most excited about?
The most exciting thing would be open-source plan. We are going to move as quickly as we can as the timing is perfect. We have a solid core platform and we want the rest of the world to see it. Our developers have done some amazing things that was not easy. It's a massive project and undertaking, that was originally thought to be impossible. Through open-source, we can get more contributors, and can help market because developers can see what's behind the scenes. - What is the hurdle in achieving adoption?
Noise, laziness, and stupidity. When we know we solved all these problems and we see articles like "these are the things that are unsolved in blockchain" or "These are the reasons why people can't use blockchain" . There's so many things we solved years ago, built out, and proven. We're competing against projects that have raised hundreds of millions, that have nothing, but get attention . We are positioning ourselves for what's to come. In 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, this software is very unique and special. People have been misinformed, a lot of trash is out there in the press that doesn't make sense, and crypto twitter is full of adolescence. - Do you feel US regulation is holding back Dragonchain?
Of course, everyone knows that. It’s not just us. It’s holding back the industry as a whole. If you look at it, just like Bitcoin, you had US senators wanting to outlaw Bitcoin. With this, you can’t stop it. This entire industry is going to be there. A lot of the nation states will be taking advantage of it to position themselves. It’s normal. - Would it be a good idea to move abroad after receiving patents?
We are opening other offices for one, we are launching some of the projects soon and some of them won’t be based in the US. I still think the US is a solid position, you can influence a lot being there. I think you should be anywhere, but it does matter. - For those who don’t have the Jojo token or 5MM DDSS, how can we leverage our DDSS moving forward.
A lot of that is the end of EAP. No matter your level of DDSS, you’ll at least be able to pool it into a node. With a high enough DDSS, you’ll be able to run your own node. We’re trying to make sure early on that it’s profitable before you do that. There’s also stuff with Dragonscale, we believe coming up with some partners doing acceleration. We’re trying to figure out feedback on an aspect of the pooling, but there are other things we can do to make it simple/hands off. I don’t know if it fits, so I want to ask the community - Can you provide proof of staffing?
Probably not, we are in the US so there are all types of HR laws. We can release some information on our higher-level budget. So you can see the spend on legal, marketing, and engineering all broken down. - How many employees do we have on?
We don’t have an exact figure. I would have to ask. We had a couple people just brought on, and a couple of people just left. - Can you provide proof of brick and mortar office?
We can provide proof of the Bellevue office. We just figured out where we are going to have the office in Rock Hill. Still not finalized. - Do you have any intention to release information that typical companies, especially those that are publicly traded, use to provide to investors.
I am not really interested in following the ridiculous reporting that public companies have to follow. We can release some information monthly, that would be doable and great. We aim to release as much as we can. The more the world knows what we are doing, the more obvious it will be that there is value here. - Does Dragonchain even need a community at this point?
It is extremely valuable, but we can function without a community yes. We are a company. However, we would not be able to handle the verifications that we want for decentralization and we want to expand that. - What can holders do for Dragonchain, besides providing demand and scarcity for the tokens itself? Run nodes is simply imaginary now, you might as well have the company itself run one big node.
Who’s that again? One way or another, it is already possible to run on-premise as an enterprise. When we open-source that will be one of the main points, you can run Level 1, 2,3 and probably level 4. You can run it yourself or on Azure or AWS and others. - What is your financial strategy and how much cash are you burning each month?
Can’t answer that. - What is your plan to expand your team?
We are expanding in Bellevue and Rock Hill, we are looking to expand the team in Asia and Europe. We have a few things lined up where we are building really good teams. We are open to hiring people anywhere. - When are you starting to generate revenue?
We are doing a bit of revenue, and we always want to do more revenue. The financial strategy is basically to focus on engineering and burn as little as possible. Be as efficient as possible, like we have been doing the entire time, and don’t blow money on stupid things. - I know we are not talking about secondary markets, but how do you feel about people losing tremendous amounts of money on Dragonchain, knowing how bad the token has performed?
People lost money on Bitcoin and yet that is not the primary purpose for Bitcoin. If you buy Dragons for speculative reasons, I have nothing to say. People make and lose money, we did not promote to use Dragons for speculation and investment, that is not the purpose of it. That is absolutely obvious. The amount of money that we put in to doing our legal due diligence, to make certain that it is a utility and software licensed token, which is very unique and patented, points to the fact that we did not want people to speculate. The point of this is that it is a usable token for the system that we built. We have people using it on the open source side and marketplace on day one. We have people bought it specifically for that purpose with contracts. - Do you feel responsible for people their personal losses in a personal way?
No, I don’t feel responsible for having told people about the greatness of Bitcoin. In the end its value is in the utility, just like Bitcoin. The entire crypto world has been rough for a long while. I’d apologize if you want. If you want to call me out, I apologize directly to you. If that is the reason, or if you are a paid troll, sure I will apologize. - Any information about the privacy products that are on the roadmap for quarter 2?
We went to a private event in San Francisco, one of the most interesting events I’ve even been to. It was not a normal conferences, but well placed entities with only 6 startups involved, it was amazing with a lot of really good interactions. A lot of it was focused on privacy and GDPR compliance. The ability to provide better identity implementations otherwise not possible. The way Dragon Factor is created had a lot of people interested. We are working on a couple of systems with partners and customers which have big identity and privacy components. I am figuring out the prioritization for the Dragon Factor mobile app, mostly because other things came up, but there is a lot going on there and it is very important for us. - What plans do you have in place to incentivize new retail buyers of the Dragon tokenized micro-license on the open market.
That is not a primary concern for us. We incentive companies to build on the platform and that should drive whatever it might be to use the platform. There is some potential to take some of the revenue and market buy, but we are not doing that unless it is solid and safe. If we make Dragonscale successful, and everyone participates in running nodes, and finding things to build, just go and start a business or a small project. Get off of Twitter, Telegram and Reddit and build something! I am all for everybody in the world getting rich, but that is not really my job. If you really want attention, go find a team, it happened multiple times already. Build something. That is why our marketing is going to enterprise and developers. We will focus more on developers, we want to get you building. Shut up and build stuff. - Will Dragonchain ever publish a new roadmap?
We switch focus, there is too much going on to make goals public. So we will focus more on what we are actually working on and what is already done. So you can see directly what our focus is. It made sense the first year and a bit, that we focused on the roadmap, because we were brand new and showed we are still working and what we are going to build. As we move along, we are at a point that we need to focus on the actual customers, prospective customers and other strategic priorities. - Respected to Takara, how is it coming along?
We said forever that we wait for automation, but there is too much legal. Takara works with a stable price and the whole point is that we can set any arbitrary stable price and it does not matter to the enterprise customer, because they see everything in their accounting in dollars only. We are updating it, but probably after EAP once everything is in place, once all of the changes are in place for legal that we have to go through. - Dragonchain Inc, is not allowed to solicit exchanges or listings. Can you explain the dynamics of how much assistance the foundation has been able to provide?
I am not a lawyer. The original guidance was that we can work through an agent, which is why we haven’t had some community members act in that capacity. Sometimes they brought exchanges in to us and the very first thing is that we can not solicit. So don’t ask me to sign legal documents, because that has happened. We need to be clear, safe and follow guidance. We never solicited an exchange and never considered to. - What is the timetable for the rollout of the additional Interchains?
As soon as possible. I have someone working on two different Interchains right now. We were supposed to work on storage chain for a customer for utility use, but we have to wait for a change on their API. There is a payments one coming and another one that is more of a platform focus. - Are there plans to Interchain with Binance chain?
No plans, but we like to do it in the future for interesting applications. - Many of the projects using the term Interchain, with the US patent, what legal actions are being taken for violations of patents and trademarks?
Trademarks we have to go after, but I do not know the status of Interchain as a trademark, but the patent is real. We are going through multiple advisors and legal and otherwise. If we go after some right now it does not make a lot of sense. We just wait for them to build big things and say wait a minute, you guys are violating our patents. - Does Dragonchain sell reserves in to the open market?
Those have been used for utility and partnerships so far. The team tokens have the same rules, more strict in fact than we originally planned for legal requirements and tax. They won’t or are not expected to sell on open markets and speculation. - Can DDSS be tokenized?
Absolutely, go build some stuff and I will help you. If you want to tokenize time itself, it is a massive opportunity. I would love to, but it is not a top priority. Some of our partners have a lot of interesting ideas for business and ecosystems. Tokenizing time should spark some imagination. - In the past, a series of tweets showed alphanumeric values, what was that all about.
It’s a secret, multiple proofs of evidence. - What requirements should someone have to run an L4 notary node?
Not finalized yet, but at least some level of identity and high level DDSS.
