BlockTalks x ARDOR AMA Transcript!
Hello! BlockTalkers & Blockchain Enthusiastic!
We recently hosted an AMA with ARDOR Blockchain, on 6th October, at 1PM UTC. Many of you might have participated or many of not. But we make sure no one missed out from the knowledge shared by Alberto Fernandez, Software Engineer and Business Developer at Jelurida. So here we are up with the AMA transcript, for those who missed the live session, this blog post will be a saver & feeder of knowledge for them.
INTRODUCTION
Alberto Fernandez — I’m Alberto Fernandez, software engineer and business developer at Jelurida. Jelurida is the company that develops and maintains the Ardor blockchain. I’m from Spain but I’ve lived in several different countries so I don’t know where I am anymore.
Introduction Questions Asked By BlockTalks
Q1. Could you please introduce Ardor to our community in layman’s term?
Ans — In a nutshell, Ardor is a blockchain platform that has all the features that top solutions are aiming to have. These features are:
- Multichain with a unique parent-child chain architecture. Recently the layer 2 protocols of the second top blockchain was discussing exactly these terms, which they want to “try” to implement
- Consensus-as-a-Service, the security of the whole network relies on the parent chain ARDR, or root chain are other projects that are copying our technology like to name it. This approach is way far more secure than side chains, that relies its own validation process to secure their transactions. The consensus is Proof-of-Stake
- All Ardor chains are interoperable
- High scalable
- Easily customizable-yet-compatible blockchain solutions.
Who is behind Ardor? It is developed by Jelurida a for profit company based in Lugano, Swiss. The main child chain of Ardor is Ignis, a permissionless chain that everybody can access, issue tokens, trade and use all the Ardor features. Important to say that Ardor was launched in production in January 2018 after being on Testnet around 1 year, so it is not a whitepaper or an intention, it is a reality ready to be used!
Q2. What are the advantages of Ardor to the other alternatives in the Blockchain field?
Ans —Ardor does not have the limitations of the existing single chain / single token architecture of top blockchains such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. The problem with these early products is that for example if your token becomes very popular it also becomes very expensive to use, making companies avoid such risks.
It is 100% Proof-of-Stake, which eliminates the need for expensive hardware to secure the network as well as high energy consumption.
For a company that wants to deploy its own blockchain network, Ardor offers a hybrid solution: The company operates their chain while the Consensus-as-a-Service guarantees the security of their transaction.
It is also possible to have a permissioned chain, which makes it possible to operate with securities and legal compliance tokens that nowadays it is hard to achieve in the decentralized world. Ardor is also coded in Java, the learning curve of Ardor is extremely lower compared to other blockchains.
The smart contracts framework allows either smart transactions for complex conditional transactions, voting while the lightweight contracts allow us to deploy smart contracts in shards. The latter are stateless instead of relying on the consensus of the blockchain.
Currently, one of the biggest constraints for a company to develop a blockchain app is to force their clients to buy tokens to pay the transaction fees. Ardor solves this issue with the feature called zero-fee transactions, which makes possible for a company to sponsor their client transaction fees after whitelisting their accounts.
An important matter is that the company Jelurida, representing the developers of Ardor, has several revenue sources including activity on the Ardor platform which mainly includes the issuance of new child chains and also licensing, consulting, and training for private chains, while other blockchains are “alone in the dark” without any company backing up their services.
Q3. What are the major milestones Ardor achieved so far & what are in the future pipeline?
Ans — Since Ardor was released, we have worked tirelessly to get the following features: Lightweight contracts, Android full node, hybrid permissions on public networks, Shamir Secret Sharing and Paper Wallet, we run loadtest and published the benchmarks, better UI, and so on
In other terms, we launched a new web, official Ardor documentation, we got more clients and we have taught many Ardor sessions for companies and digital schools.
Marketing wise, every week we publish our weekly wins with the major achievements of the week: https://www.jelurida.com/news/weekly-wins Ardor has been mentioned in crypto important media such as Cointelegraph, yahoo, iHold, Coindesk…: https://www.jelurida.com/press
We are very proud that the Ardor mainnet hardfork was successfully completed as planned on September 22, following the effective Ardor 2.3.2 release that introduced important features such as: Zero-fee child chain transactions, the setting of account control with zero max fees, and the availability of child chain control on mainnet.
In addition to introducing such great improvements for newcomers to get onboard, the Ardor blockchain hardfork also activated the Triffic child chain, which is a gamification app that is becoming very popular.
Last week, as several coRporate customers were asking, Ardor is part of the Microsoft’s partner network and they published the Azure Ardor app. From now on, setting up an Ardor node within an Azure network is a matter of clicks, it does not require maintenance as it updates automatically, hence it offloads the operational work for a company to be part of the global Ardor network. We also launched an official Ardor docker image.
In the future, we are already working to release the pruning feature on testnet and the directors are drawing a new strategy for the next years, we realize that the market is changing very quickly and we will have to adapt to the circumstances while not losing our identity. In the future I can see a milestone getting done: Ardor will have very important customers and the adoption will be increased.
Questions Asked on Twitter For Alberto!
Q1. Reviewing your twitter profile I could see that you shared a publication of Jelurida Africa’s work. What is Ardor’s opinion about the African market? Are you developing any project in this region?
Ans — The African market will boom sooner or later. It is a matter of time if you check the figures. While it is developing, it can be seen the huge need for blockchain technology. Most of their problems can be solved thanks to the blockchain technology to prevent counterfeiting, fraud, and making cross-border payments smoother for instance. We have a Jelurida office in Nigeria that currently is developing the following projects:
1. Digitized local currency for e-commerce and Fintech purposes. This is for the OICL https://oduainvestment.com.ng/. It is likely to be used for purposes or solutions in Agriculture, e-commerce, job creation, etc
2. A prototype for a University Certificate use case where we’re using Ardor and IPFS. We have client relationships with 2 Nigerian universities and Africa Leadership University in Rwanda in partnership with Africa Blockchain Institute.
3. Ardor was Sponsor for the Africa Blockchain Developers Call Series. The solutions that will be deployed in the last month of the ABDC series by the participants to win a prize.
We also have other clients that we can’t disclose yet 🙂
Q2. Regarding your last update and the activation of the Triffic children’s chain, how do zero-charge children’s chain transactions benefit the project, its capital and the quality of the services it offers?
Ans — A recent feature introduced in the 2.3.2 is that it is now allowed to send zero-fee child chain transactions even from accounts not yet registered on the blockchain. For a gamification app such as Triffic, which most of their users do not know about blockchain it makes their users’ transactions seamless. They don’t even know that they are dealing with a blockchain but they will be. Back in 2018 when we were in gaming conferences that were facing this problem with Ethereum, we realized how important is this feature for this field.
In terms of the Triffic project, it opens the door for not only crypto users but world wide users that have a smartphone. Can you imagine how big could a gamification blockchain app be with no restriction to be adopted by non-crypto geeks? It is a feature that will affect very positively these applications
Q3. A big problem today is the cost of developing on the blockchain. This is mainly due to the shortage of programmers who understand blockchain technologies, how could Ador provide solutions to these types of problems?
Ans — The learning curve of Ardor is one of the fastest in the blockchain sphere. Ardor is written in Java and it has a fully operation API. So no need to learn new programming languages, you can use your favourite programming language with the API or use Java.
For instance, we provide learning services about our technology and for a Java programmer it takes less than 4 days to start developing for Ardor. And if the programmer knows what is blockchain about, even less time than that.
Q4. On your website it says that Ardor uses an innovative grouping system
who is in charge of grouping the different transactions from the secondary chain to the main chain blocks? How does this grouping system work?
Ans — This feature is called bundling. The bundlers are run by corporations, individuals or companies that want either to benefit from arbitrage of the transactions or bundle their own chain transaction.
It works as follows, when a child chain transaction is submitted, a bundler collects it and gets the transaction fee in the child chain (ie: IGNIS) but pays the fees to the validator (forging node) in the parent chain token ARDR. Does it sound simple? It is a great idea that opens the door for many other customizations and evolutions of the software. We are sure that this smart architecture is the way to go.
Q5. In a news item on your website you mention Bitswift. What role does this company play within Ardor and what advantages does your association with them bring you?
Ans — Bitswift has their own chain called BITS and it is one of the first Jelurida’s clients. It is backed by a Canadian company called Bitswift that has deliver several interesting products within the Ardor ecosystem, such as the BTC and ETH pegged assets, as well as their own tokens:
They also have a software called Bitswift Remote Agent deployed now on over 150 systems, mostly running across non-profit organization infrastructure protection their endpoints and servers. This software potentially can be part in the future of the Ardor network.
Questions Asked by our BlockTalks Community Members during live Session to Alberto!!
Q1. Due the feature of Child Chain Interoperability many objects such as assets, account, properties, currencies… are “global” for the whole ecosystem and can be accessed from any child chain. Is it mandatory for all this kind of data input by users? Couldn’t that represent a privacy problem?
Ans — That is why we are constantly evolving the permissioned child chains. When a child chain is created, you can choose what are the features that your blockchain wants to have. For instance, it is possible that you do not want to have data cloud, or the marketplace.
In terms of privacy, the messages can be encrypted only the sender and receiver can decrypt the communication.
Q2. Could you talk about the steps to follow so that a node can participate in the forging? Must it meet certain guidelines?
Ans — You can participate with at least 1000 ARDR, but it is maybe very difficult to find a block with that quantity of ARDR. 250.000 ARDR will make you find a block per day more less nowadays.
You have also the option to participate in the node program rewards: https://ardordocs.jelurida.com/Node_Reward_Program
Q3. Security is always one of the biggest concerns as an investors. What kind of forms of security do you offer for i.e. the Ardor platform and how do you ensure the customers’ assets safety?
Ans — We implemented the following features:
- Ledger Nano S/X app integrated directly with the Ardor user interface
- HD wallet: https://ardordocs.jelurida.com/Login_Page_Tutorial#Default_Login_.22Seed.22
Finally, we are working to be integrated in legal digital assets custodian companies approved by institutions.
Q4. Currently Ardor is holding a Node rewards program for its user,
My question is, How to participate in this program?
And what kind of feedback does Ardor hope from this program especially for its platform and community?
Ans — Here you have the information https://ardordocs.jelurida.com/Node_Reward_Program
The program was already a success, the Ardor nodes were increased a lot thanks to this initiative.
Q5. Jelurida, Ardor, Nxt, Ignis — Sounds like they are from a Sci-Fi film. Is there any interesting story behind these names?
Ans — Yes, while Jelurida are the combination of the founders of the project, the rest of the names were either chosen by the community behind Ardor or by the BCNext, the first NXT developer back in 2013.
Q6. As individual user, How can I contribute to the development of Your Project? Do you have Ambassador programs? And what is the benefits for me?
Ans — We do not have an ambassador program yet, I suggest to start contributing to the community as an entry point.
Q7. Regulation is very important. Projects are closed in many countries for failing to use proper regulations and permits. To be worldwide; how do you handle this problem?
Ans — We are currently based on Switzerland, which offers a proper regulation for a business like ours. We fully comply with the regulation and we make a due diligence to our customers. It is not possible to launch a child chain without demonstrating the your business is legit.
Q8. Safety and security are always the most important things. What is the security mechanism of Jelurida to ensure user assets do not become the target of hacked?
Ans — Since 2013 we have suffered hacks attempts everyday. None of them was successful. As long as you protect correctly your private key, you are in the safe territory. To prevent attacks, we also have the hardware wallet option.
Q9. Adoption is one of the most important factor that all sustainable blockchain projects should focus to be more attractive in the invertors eyes. Can you tell us what Ardor has done and plan to do to achieve adoption in the reality, real use cases, our real society?
Ans — We have real use cases that are not based on speculation as 99% of the projects out there. These use cases vary from institutions and goverments to big size corporations.
Q10. What is the roadmap for the next six and twelve months? The Covid-19 pandemic is very complex, how will it affect Ardor’s development plan? What is the future direction of this project?
Ans — Still on the making, we will announce the news soon. The Covid-19 pandemic has affected several customers but internally it did not change how we work.
Q11. DeFi is the new frontier and already buzzing in 2020, what roles do you play in innovativeness of DeFi and what’s your approach to DeFi and ultimate DeFi solutions?
Ans — Indeed it is buzzing but it needs much more development to be something to consider. While the idea of providing pair liquidity might be good, the collateral failures and risks exposure is extremely high. We are already in DeFi with our DEX (asset exchange, coin exchange and currency system).
Here are some important links of ARDOR👇
Official Website — https://www.jelurida.com/ardor
Twitter — https://twitter.com/ArdorPlatform
Telegram Chat — https://telegram.me/ardorplatform
ARDOR Forum — https://ardorforum.org/
Slack — https://www.jelurida.com/slack/
Reddit — https://www.reddit.com/r/Ardor/
Discord — https://discord.com/invite/wkcmqff
