BlockTalks x Paralink Network AMA Transcript!
Hello! BlockTalkers & Blockchain Enthusiastic!
We recently hosted an AMA with Paralink Network, on February 26th at 02.00 AM UTC. Many of you might have participated or many of not. But we make sure no one missed out from the knowledge shared by Jan Knezevic, CEO at Paralink Network 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 Questions Asked By Team BlockTalks
Q1. Could you please introduce Paralink Network to our community in layman’s term?
Ans — Paralink is a multi chain oracle platform and we decided to build it on Polkadot.
First of all, the real-world data ingress is done by Paralink Nodes through our own Paralink Query Langauge-PQL. This allows one to query SQL databases, access web APIs, scrape websites as well as access state from other blockchains. Its a robust solution which is easily extendible to support custom data sources (actually right there is an issue with the existing solutions since the technical barrier to create a custom data source is high and takes forever). Besides the data, we have support for post-processing in a permissionless way via on-chain relayer quorums as well as reliable channeling of the computation results via PQL callbacks.
The next aspect of the project is the Paralink node and its query language. WIth it, you will be able to query APIs. databases but also parse JSON, XML and HTML, support multiple data sources, apply math functions, do type casting, aggregations and much more.
The last point which is extremely important to us is the On-chain security as well as the integrity of this data. This is a huge challenge and we think that so far it hasn’t been solved properly. So in Paralink, we have something called Relayer quorums which are self-organizing data repositories with reward token mechanics (as well as slashing offcourse) which aggregate and validate real world information. Our infrastructure is built with Substrate which means we get high throughput and economically feasible computing costs. Due to this technology stack, we can also relay computation results from Polkadot to other chains as well, but also monitor reliability via public reputation systems.
Q2. What are the advantages of Paralink Network to other alternatives in the Blockchain field?
Ans — I’d like to show you a comparison table so you can have a clear picture about the advantages that we have over the current competitors. One of the biggest additions is the advanced queries and ETLs. We believe this will change the way people build dapps and think about data ingress into smart contracts.
Also, having cross-chain capabilities while maintaining on-chain validation and aggregation gives us the flexibility to do the kind of processing never possible before.
Q3. What are the major milestones Paralink Network achieved so far & what are in the future pipeline?
Ans — We have open sourced our node, launched testnet and blockexplorer. We have partnered with Plasm, Darwinia, Edgeware, Reef, Bondly and others. Paralink oracles will be used in these projects while Paralink will use Darwinias bridge to relay computational results from polkadot to ethereum.
Timeline : https://paralink.network/#timeline
We are preparing for listing in Q1. Afterwards we are going to launch on rococo, Kusama and Polkadot later this year. The relayer qourum will be launched in Q3.
We are preparing for listing in Q1. Afterwards we are going to launch on rococo, Kusama and Polkadot later this year. The relayer qourum will be launched in Q3.
We invite anyone interested to contribute. We have already onboarded developers this way after they proved to provide good code.
Questions Asked on Twitter For Paralink Network Team!
Q1. Why was Paralink tokenomics changed from 10 billion to 1 billion? What are backup tokens and when will they be unlocked?
Ans — Here are our tokenomcs:
The total supply has been reduced from 10B to 1B tokens for a purely technical reason of stabilizing BTC denominations. With BTC rising in value, the PARA/BTC trading pairs might not carry enough precision at certain price levels, causing unnecessarily high bid-ask spreads. The result of this change is that all allocations are divided by 10, however there is no change in relative terms. Exchanges call this Low Satoshi coins.
The reserve is meant for providing liquidity through market makers as well as for future repurposing into validator rewards and other ecosystem categories that might need additional incentives.
Q2. We heard a news that paralink is Integrating with Darwinia. Can you explain to us the role of Darwinia in Paralink ecosystem? Is it to provide services on Non-Polkadot chain?
Ans — As part of our short term integration we plan to deploy Paralink EVM oracles on Darwinia Virtual Machine (DVM), as well as add Darwinia Pangolin as a supported platform to Paralink Node. Developers building for Darwinia platform will be able to integrate Paralink Oracle into their DeFi smart contracts with ease, and establish the oracle services economy using Darwinia’s native token.
Some data sources require more security than others. One such example are the real-time price feeds to be used in decentralized derivative and money markets, where any corruption in the price feeds can result in large financial losses. For this use case, a reputable quorum of relayers with on-chain coordination, validation and aggregation mechanisms is required. Performing such consensus algorithm at high frequency is prohibitively expensive on Ethereum due to low throughput and high gas costs. For this reason, Paralink on-chain consensus algorithm is being built using Polkadot and its Substrate stack.
A parachain with oracle quorums is great for the Polkadot ecosystem as it provides a reliable and trustworthy oracle platform the for other parachains. However it would be great if the results of on-chain oracle aggregation and validation could be relayed to other chains such as Ethereum as well.
This is there the Darwinia Bridge Chain comes into play. Darwinia is building a first truly decentralized bridge solution, which is the primary candidate for solving our problem of relaying our computation results to non-Polkadot chains.
Q3. The data required is searched in the oracle through the Paralink Query Language, what are the particularities of this language? Doesn’t it limitate the applications that can use it, due to translation problems or makes more difficult the understanding of the oracle?
Ans — PQL is not a new programing language it is just a small subset of what developers are already familiar with: json and sql.
Paralink data requests can be made via PQL definitions, which are JSON based descriptions of ETL (Extract, Transform & Load) jobs. PQL queries are done via SQL like interface which generalizes over common data structures (JSON, XML, SQL), and includes basic post processing utilities such as math functions and type casting.
The data collected from multiple sources and aggregated with a function like median or mean, validated using validation conditions and then returned to the caller’s smart contract of choice via the callback.
Q4. The Paralink Whitepaper says that Paralink security model have 3 differents versions with different cost, so can you explain us Which they are and how much is needed to pay for each one?
Ans — To satisfy all kinds of applications, Paralink offers 3 security models with different cost, convenience and security characteristics.
The Simple oracle is the most convenient and accessible. This is meant for use inside corporations for services that are not connected with financial instruments (logistics chains, Production chains, etc.)
The trusted oracle solution is similar to Chainlink and other trusted oracle solutions as it is dependant on the source of the trusted information to be perfect at all times. This has shown itself as a big liability especialy with the recent coinbase api outage which unfairly liquidated defi assets holders.
The on chain consensus solution is unique to Paralink at this time and it is the most secure solution at the moment.
For more info about the pros and cons of each solution check here:
https://docs.paralink.network/whitepaper/security.html
https://docs.paralink.network/whitepaper/consensus.html
https://docs.paralink.network/whitepaper/reputation.html
https://docs.paralink.network/developer-guide/oracle-quorums.html
Q5. Paralink has already raised $2.8 million, really big success, congrats! And I think more importantly, you got backed by really notable investors such as LD Capital, Kenetic, 3Commas, Genesis Block Ventures and NGC Ventures. How did you achieve this? Is that the scope of project, or is your team known by a good previous project, or maybe your advisor (CEO of Reef Finance), or marketing…? Your approach will be a good sample for other new projects.
Ans — We have worked on our product for quite some time now and were self funded until January when we finished our fundraising. I believe our succsess could be atributed to multiple reasons such as great core developer team, long term business relationships between team members from previous projects, and as with anything in life there was a bit of luck for sure:)
Questions Asked by our BlockTalks Community Members during live Session to Paralink Network Team!!
Q1. One of your services that has caught my attention is the one that provides randomness to random games, a service that is not usually seen in an Oracle. How do you achieve this? What system do you use to generate random data? Doesn’t it have the possibility of being manipulated by any validator?
Ans — Paralink provides hardware based source of entropy for use in smart contracts.
Unlike the real world data ingress, the entropy generation is a trusted service. We believe that having stronger guarantee of true randomness from inherently stochastic, natural processes is more valuable than a quorum based, potentially weakly seeded pseudo-random process.
Paralink Entropy as a service can also be used as a seeding mechanism for 3rd party PRNG’s.
Q2. Where did you get the inspiration for this unique project idea? And what influence will we have on the crypto industry due to the project? BRIEFLY EXPLAIN THE features/improvements you are planning to add to your products in the near future and the Ecosystem?
Ans — We decided to build it in q2 of 2020 after looking at other oracle solutions and seeing that the technology stack they are built on isn’t sufficient for providing a stable and resilient service. That is why we decided to build on polkadot to achieve higher throughput and add sufficiently expressive ETL systems and an advanced querying language which we felt were lacking in the current solutions.
Q3. What are the benefits of holding PARA token as long term investment? Can you tell us about the motivation and benefits for investors to keep the PARA token in the long run?
Ans — PARA can be staked in to the relayer quorum and stakeholders can receive rewards based on their reputation. Demand for the callback functions paid with PARA will mostly come from projects so PARA holders can hold them speculatively if they expect the demand for the service to increase in the future as that would also increase demand for the token.
Q4. Will you make corporate partnerships in the future? If you do, in which areas will you have partnerships?
Ans — Yes we have investors that are well connected with traditional corporations. The issue is that we need to have main net ready before we can partner with any corporation as they are interested in a working solution. The relayer quroum will be launched in Q3 and that is when we will approach these corporations that already know about us but are waiting for us to finalize mainnet. I cannot name the corporations but they are global giants in banking, telecommunications and ERP markets.
Q5. 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 — Paralink does not hold users funds, and PARA token is used only for utility purposes so it is not categorized as a security in any country.
Q6. Binance smart Chain blockchain is having high transaction speed and cheap gas fees, Are you planning to launch your mainet or switch to other blockchains in the future?
Ans — We are preparing a big announcement on this topic next week. Make sure you check our social media channels if you are interested to find out:
https://t.me/paralink_network
https://t.me/paralinkannouncements
https://twitter.com/paralinknetwork?lang=en
Q7. How will you distribute PARA tokens? Will Lockdrop DOT tokens for the community like Plasma, also explain your Tokenomics
Ans — We are looking into the Lockdrop distribution mechanism but havent finalised our decision yet. We are leaning towards having something similar as Plasm.
Q8. What is your top 3 things for priorities in 2021? Could you share some plans for the upcoming year?
Ans — Partner with 50–100 projects. Launch main net with Relayer quorums, obtain a parachain slot on Polkadot.
Here are some important links of Paralink Network 👇
🌎 Website: https://paralink.network/
📱Twitter:https://twitter.com/ParalinkNetwork
📢 Medium: https://blog.paralink.network/
