Live AMA (Hotbit) 29 Jun 2021
Q: Could you introduce yourselves to our community?
@bstr156 - Bradely, Syscoin Foundation & Marketing Team member
@sidhujag - Jag Sidhu, Lead Core Dev of Syscoin
J: hello guys, nice to e-meet you all, been in the space since 2013 on the research and development side, will hopefully have people here more knowledgeable about this space than before this AMA
B: My name is Bradley. As a Syscoin Foundation board member and a member of the Syscoin marketing team, I work alongside a lot of other contributors in the Syscoin community to advance the adoption of blockchain tech specifically by shedding light on the benefits Syscoin Platform.
Q: What is Syscoin Platform? @bstr156 & @sidhujag
B: Syscoin is a decentralized public blockchain platform that provides fast and low-cost tokens, assets, and NFTs secured by Bitcoin's censorship-resistance and hashrate via merged-mining which is green, and much more.
Some of what Syscoin offers:
- Opt-in Non-custodial Compliance for tokens
- An efficient UTXO asset platform for creating and using NFTs and standard fungible tokens that are cost-effective and more useful on a scalable network.
- Z-DAG, an ultra fast L1 protocol that enables the tokens you mint to be useful for point-of-sale and other microtransaction uses. It makes tokens low cost and very fast.
It also fills a key gap for Lightning Network as the most viable resilience fallback.
- Syscoin’s roadmap includes leading advancements including scalable smart contracts, L2 advancements through zkRollups, interoperability, as well as multi-asset payment channels for UTXO assets, all secured by settlement though Bitcoin Proof-of-Work.
Official Partnerships:
- Polygon/Matic Network
- Komodo
- Klever
- Binance
- Blockchain Foundry Inc. (BCFN:CSE)
- Quan Digital
- Elint Tech
- BIGG Digital
- Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF)
- Microsoft Azure
- International Token Standardization Association (ITSA)
- Corion Foundation
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Q: You say Syscoin is secure and fast, a lot of other projects say the same, can you back up those claims? @bstr156 & @sidhujag
B: It is true that many projects boast of speed, scalability and/or security. We like it when this is asked; It is important for enterprises and individuals to perform due diligence. There are many cases where such claims simply amount to a marketing ploy and are based on limited metrics that do not represent realistic conditions or real-world use. You will also find that many projects make fundamental sacrifices in areas like
decentralization in order to achieve perceived improvements in speed. As for throughput, Whiteblock Inc. opted to perform independent scientific case studies on Syscoin to measure overall TPS performance. This work was performed within conditions as close to realistic as possible. These studies factored WAN latency, quantity of full nodes, node hardware, and other factors to reach the most realistic estimates possible. Whiteblock provided these detailed results to the public as they did in the past for EOS and other protocols. You can view their report on Syscoin.
As for security, Syscoin’s blockchain and consensus mechanism align closely with Bitcoin Core by design, and consistently remain 90%+ compliant. Any updates to Bitcoin are quickly introduced to Syscoin as can be seen on the project’s official GitHub. This stands
in contrast to most protocols that make major alterations at the core settlement layer. Syscoin retains the world’s most proven and academically vetted decentralized means of settlement available, and builds solutions on top, whereas many projects effectively
abandon this security. Furthermore, Syscoin is merge-mined, thus “green”, and presently inherits around 20% of all hashpower on the Bitcoin network which you can see here. As such, Syscoin is secured by significantly more hashrate than Bitcoin Cash, for example.
Syscoin has also implemented chainlocks, a security enhancement that uses broad quorums to eliminate the “selfish mining” vulnerability inherent to Bitcoin.
J: To say fast and secure is to understand throughput/scale and efficiency, many blockchain projects including some in the top 5-10 are not more scalable but offer higher throughput. Throughput = how many transactions you can process by increasing processing units, scalabability = increasing transactions you can process with the same processing units To offer true scalability we must have mathematical breakthroughs and not rely on
crypto-economics, and some of these breakthroughs we are applying in our next generation design.
Q: Is Syscoin an Ethereum competitor? @bstr156 & @sidhujag
B: Syscoin has recently revealed its vision to deliver a coordinated platform that will combine the best aspects of Ethereum (Turing-complete smart contracts) and Bitcoin (the most proven secure settlement and UTXO efficiency), and provide all of this in a way that scales to the demands of smart cities and beyond by using the latest advancements in areas like zero-knowledge proofs. This tech will also provide generalized cross-chain interoperability that is trustless, to foster a broader ecosystem of blockchains. The goal is to achieve a live testnet for this new technology by the end of August 2021. The vast majority of the project’s resources are allocated to achieving this. It is considered Priority #1. By employing Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work to smart contracts, this platform will be quite relevant as a safe and performant alternative to Ethereum as Ethereum moves more towards its experimental Proof-of-Stake model in order to achieve its own take on scalability. While Syscoin’s NEVM will certainly be perceived as competition to Ethereum 2.0. However, we simply view it as the most viable alternative for enterprises and individuals who need smart contracts, DeFi, etc, who happen to consider secure settlement and true scalability to be high priorities. Our attitude as a project is one of cross-project cooperation more than maximalist-type competition. Willingness to work together is part of how this industry will make blockchain tech truly viable for massadoption.
J: Syscoin encapsulates Ethereum and adds more, Syscoin = Bitcoin + Ethereum
Q: What makes Syscoin decentralized? @bstr156 & @sidhujag
B: There are many facets of decentralization, so I'll cover those points relative to Syscoin Network: Syscoin’s network consists of around 2,600 registered full nodes (more or less) that are independently operated, all of which serve both validation and archival roles. This alone puts Syscoin well ahead of the vast majority of blockchains in the area of network decentralization. There is also an untold quantity of non-registered full nodes, so the real quantity is well above 2,600. Coin distribution: Having been mainnet since 2014, SYS is well-distributed. The majority of top wallets are held by exchanges. The rest is held among many different owners. Consensus Algo: As mentioned earlier, Syscoin adheres to Bitcoin Core as the consensus “gold standard”. That means every full node validates transactions before they consider them valid for onchain settlement. This stands in contrast to many protocols that utilize a subset of nodes or a limited number of validators that hold a special role. Merged-mining: Syscoin is mined by Bitcoin’s own miners and is currently secured by around 20% of Bitcoin’s hashrate. Services and protocol enhancements: Syscoin’s industry solutions are designed to
leverage decentralization wherever possible, and to the greatest degree achievable. ZDAG is a leading example and you can learn more about how it works. Source code: Syscoin is an open source blockchain protocol like Bitcoin. That means anyone can see the source code and submit pull requests to add improvements or enhancements. The project is open to your participation. Governance: The Syscoin project is funded primarily by decentralized community governance. Syscoin’s governance is very similar to DASH. Overall, Syscoin is one of the most decentralized blockchains in existence. That's the reality
Q: Why should i invest in Syscoin? @bstr156 & @sidhujag
B: Phew! That could be long, but I'll try to boil it down. I'm sure Jag will have something to add. Syscoin’s design is largely based on feedback from enterprises who seek to use public decentralized blockchain technology in the real world for mass-adoptable applications.
Many of these are the corporate clients of one of our main contributing partners, Blockchain Foundry Inc. (a publicly traded company on the Canadian Securities Exchange: BCFN:CSE). These enterprises wish to gain benefits like lower liability and lower infrastructure costs offered by a public blockchain, yet they also consider security and regulatory compliance top priorities. Syscoin provides all of that. Overall, Syscoin’s development path is primarily focused on solving the greatest challenges and needs facing the blockchain industry on the path to mass adoption. As such, Syscoin has consistently led the way in blockchain tech advancement, and will continue to be the relevant blockchain of many firsts. We consider Syscoin NEVM to be the industry’s next big evolutionary leap. Syscoin also has proven itself resilient to market-wide conditions and adversity where many other projects have met their demise. J: if you want to get in on an early Bitcoin or Ethereum, but put them together, you will find you are a very early adopter of Syscoin, even though we are old project we have had many cycles as we have done our research, which is nearing completion upon the next update as we switch to building on layers on top as applications
Q: Can I stake Syscoin? @bstr156 & @sidhujag
B: Syscoin is a little different than most projects in that regard! Syscoin is Proof-of-Work. However, you can earn SYS! You can earn SYS by collateralizing your SYS to operate one or more incentivized full nodes. By doing this you will receive standard SYS block rewards on a near daily basis. You will also gain substantial seniority bonuses for operating those nodes for an extended period. Furthermore, this enables you to participate in Syscoin’s community
governance. To operate a reliable and honest full node is a real service to the Syscoin network and operators are rewarded for this rather than for simply holding some coins aka “staking”. Syscoin’s upcoming NEVM will also make it possible to introduce your SYS into the world of DeFi to earn yield in various forms. To learn more about operating an incentivized full node, check out https://sysnode.info
Q: Syscoin has been around for a long time already, lots of older projects have failed, what did you do to stay relevant and grow in this volatile industry? @bstr156 & @sidhujag
J: in post eth2.0 world, you will find many if not all other smart chain projects will fail, and many other bitcoin clones will fail as well as there will be no need for PoS projects that have smart contracts or anyone trying to claim to be a more "cheap" fast chain that supports scalable financial applications. With fundamental breakthroughs in cryptography and expressiveness of EVM, along with security of PoW we have hit the cutting edge that any other chain has not achieved. Ethereum in Post Eth2.0 will suffer from security issues similar to all other PoS projects (its not inflation resistant like PoW is,
also nothing-at-stake attacks etc), the market will have a choice to settle on a L1 with EVM + BTC PoW vs L1 PoS (ETH2). For this reason, there really will be no need for other chains outside of BTC and a few others like SYS/ETH because we will have anough scalability on L2 to solve fee issues to onboard billions of people. zkRollups is the biggest breakthrough of our industry since the invention of blockchain itself.
Q: I read that Syscoin offers NFT support, are there projects using your NFTs? @bstr156 & @sidhujag
B: Our addition of NFT support for out token platform is pretty recent. That went live with Syscoin LUX (4.2) not very long ago. We have several projects currently building applications on top of our NFT platform.
There are several projects that are building on Syscoin’s NFT platform. These include LUXY (https://luxy.io a decentralized marketplace for artwork, music, etc), House of Kibaa (https://houseofkibaa.com extended-reality NFTs), Skimdom (https://skimdom.com NFTbased game),
and REVXM (https://CollectDeFi.com NFT platform for sports and entertainment). We expect even more to come on board.
J: On blockchain foundry side we do have a bunch of enterprises in the works as well which are waiting for our NEVM in order to start integrating
Q: Do you have anything exciting coming up soon? @bstr156 & @sidhujag
B: Yeah, quite a bit actually. In addition to some pending announcements, we recently disclosed a substantial development update where we announced our plan to have a functioning NEVM testnet operating by the end of August 2021. We have also been very busy with many business development efforts that will bear fruit, so stay tuned!
J: some exciting research we are doing: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2105.03521.pdf (EIP1559 stationary analysis and applying to Syscoin)
one of the reasons Vitalik wants to do PoS/Sharding is because of light-client efficiency, so our answer to that is proof-carrying data (PCD) using succient non-interactive arguments of knowledge (non-zkSNARK based) such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRyep--q6jU we can solve light-client security to make users be able to get small proofs that the entire blockchain is valid within a few kilobytes of data, like downloading the chain within a few milliseconds and few thousand bytes from trustless servers.. this will enable regular users verify the integrity of the entire chain on your smart phone or embedded device so Ethereum doesn't need to move to PoS it can achieve VISA scale if it wants through zkRUP's + PCD for light client validation, however they are going to make the change anyway, and Syscoin will be there to solve it thsi way with the state-of-the-art academically verified cryptography while retaining full decentralization of PoW
B: Here's some very in-depth material on our design approach to NEVM:
https://jsidhu.medium.com/a-design-for-an-efficient-coordinated-financial-computingplatform-ab27e8a825a0
https://syscoin.org/home#roadmap
Q: What development plans do you have for Syscoin? @bstr156 & @sidhujag
B: Well, in addition to all of the above regarding computation (smart contracts) we will continue advancing L2 tech across the board. That includes ongoing research on secure multi-asset payment channels - something not yet achieved, but which Syscoin will be able to do considering we adhere to the UTXO model on our PoW settlement layer. You can be sure that Syscoin will remain on the leading edge of cryptographic, computation, and network research to help blockchain evolve faster and better. That's practically Syscoin's heritage.
J:
1) PCD for light client security
2) zkRUP (voilition or zkPorter model) with solidity transcompiling (this is the flippening moment as matter-labs has already announced transcompiling coming in the next month or so)
3) we launch our NEVM on testnet very soon in few weeks
4) we onboard enterprises and clients to DeFi/NFT usecases
5) we have some business/branding related initiatives takign place which will make some noise
6) we have a compliant solution on Syscoin UTXO asset layer which allows assets on Syscoin be fully regulatory compliant in any jurisdiction this is useful for security tokens or stablecoins/CBDC use cases which we are fully exploring, we are meeting with SEC next few weeks and Canadian regulators such as OSC to ensure they have full visibility of our solution and potentially give us green light to promote it to the targetted industries with "no-action" outcomes ideally
Q: Do you have any Coin Burn / BuyBack systems or any $Token Burn plans to increase thevalue of Token & attract Investors to invest?
J: eip1559 will be used in NEVM meaning fees will be burned on the NEVM chain
Q: Smart contracts are prone to failure and many projects fall victim to this, costing users money and the project discrediting. How reliable and secure is your smart contract? Have you audit it through any of the parties?
J: the Syscoin Foundation will have launchpad's to engage service providers like Blockchain Foundry where we will GATE project for security and kyc on project owners etc this will be fed into wallets to give "check mark"
Q: What are the highlights of your project and products that you believe will help you succeed? How revenue is generated to sustain the project, and what plans do you have to attract more users in the future?
B: As a platform, Syscoin's capabilities are broad in scope, yet complementary to each. Our primary highlights are that we deliver scalability while retaining Bitcoin's security model and nearly 20% of Bitcoin's own hashrate. Our token platform with our unique Z-DAG tech is unparalleled. NEVM is a very big deal for blockchain as a whole and is the biggest highlight right now.
Q: How will Syscoin handle 4 big problem of blockchain: security, speed, scalability andinteroperability?
J: for interoperability you need expressivness which we solve using the EVM, security/speed/scale = zkRollup with L1 security, the trilemma is pretty much solved with similar security of Bitcoin but a bit better since we will have chainlocks (irreversability after masternodes "vote" to lock the chain in after a block is seen consistent across the network
Q: How I can use SYS for in SYSCOIN ecosystem? What are the benefits of holding it in the long term?
J: its the gas/utility to drive smart cities/iot and tomorrows autonomous finance world
Q: 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?
J: Syscoin notary solves this, project can opt-in for their tokens to become fully compliant and use notary to do pre-transaction compliance.
Q: What are the key milestones on Syscoin's roadmap - both things Syscoin have already achieved and things that we can look forward to? Any partnerships and short/long term technical milestones that Syscoin want to talk about or bring some attention to?
B: Sure. Years ago Syscoin was the first decentralized marketplace on a blockchain. Since then the project has evolved massively. Syscoin was the first major blockchain to implement SegWit. Also, more recently, the first to implement Taproot on mainnet -before Bitcoin. We were the first to take Satoshi Nakamoto's own "snack machine" concept (probabilistic security) and make it a functioning reality with Z-DAG, using Bitcoin own mempool code and a high-throughput relay network. We've achieved a lot, and much more is coming, particularly NEVM. Much to look forward to.
Q: Does your project support staking program?if yes. how is your stake system work, what is the requirement for user if they want to stake in your platform?
J: 100k SYS for a masternode, also you get 50% of the tx fees on SYS and you will get 35% bonus for seniority after 1 year and 100% after 2.5 years bonus so longer you hold more you earn in relation to others100k SYS for a masternode, also you get 50% of the tx fees on SYS and you will get 35% bonus for seniority after 1 year and 100% after 2.5 years bonus so longer you hold more you earn in relation to others
Q: Why you build your token on Ethereum blockchain? As we all know Ethereum has scalability issues? Any plan to move on other blockchain or mainnet?
J: we have our own mainnet and with proper scaling plan if you read https://jsidhu.medium.com/a-design-for-an-efficient-coordinated-financial-computingplatform-ab27e8a825a0 you can see
B: Syscoin is its own blockchain. It isn't built on Ethereum, although a SYS ERC-20 token might exist on Ethereum.
Q: What Technology SYSCOIN using and why it’s better than the existing one?
J: its the most state-of-the-art design without making network asynchronous assumptions such as SOL/AVA and some of these other newer smart chains that are competing with eth. We believe BTC = holy grail security, ETH = holy grail smart contract so SYS = BTC +
ETH, but scale happens on zkRollup L2
Q: "STAKING" is one of the STRATEGIES to ATTRACT USERS and HOLD USERS. Does your GREAT PLATFORM have plan about Staking?
B: Sure. Operate an incentivized full node and earn SYS! It's like staking on steroids, and it's better for the Syscoin network than Proof-of-Stake.
Q: Current NFT is a hot topic, but are NFT not just for art. Does Syscoin think that more real world use cases will emerge for NFTs as time goes on, why should we take NFTs seriously?
J: NFTs are in their infancy stage, there will be many other verticals such as "green" intiatives on blockchain which will be trends and many other new trends, NFT's will always be one of the first and strongest usecases of blockchain, they will be involved in many digital/physical connected settings, there is nano tech you can use to deploy and make the connection between physical objects (with digital signatures) and digital (NFT) to put into metaverse or marketplaces.. this is where we will see new explosion of NFT's next boom
Q: Do you consider Syscoin a web3.0 blockchain? If yes will solidity contracts be easily migrated to Syscoin blockchain, if no, what language will smart-contracts be built in?
J: if you can use web3 you will be able to use NEVM
Q: Your project has great features. There must be an experienced team behind. Can you tell some about your team and their experiences in the market?
J: we have over 100 years of blockchain experience collectively, the founders of syscoin have been in the space since 2012 and foundation members aswell from early bitcoin days, we have seen what works and doesn't work with blockchain technology, i've personally been a CTO explaining blockchain to enterprise folks every day and also coding in bitcoin/eth world every day since 2013/2014
Q: According to the project's roadmap- what are your most important next priorities? Does your team have enough Funds and Community to achieve those milestones?
B: Our biggest priority is achieving NEVM. First testnet, then on to mainnet. The answer isyes. We have the resources. Syscoin is funded through decentralized governance, and also has many volunteer contributors.
Q: Can you list 1-3 killer features of this project that makes it ahead of its competitors? What is the competitive advantage your project has that you feel most confident about?
J: PoW + BTC + NEVM + zkRUP
B: + Z-DAG + Affordable token platform. That's six.
J: + Notary (which works today and doesn't exist on other chains even stellar which tried to do similar but not as nice concept like Notary)
B: Notary = optional non-custodial compliance that token issuers can adapt as regulations change, to ensure transactions follow their rules before being approved. and approvals are enforced by Syscoin's decentralized network
Q: In the long run, why should we trust and follow you and your project? How do you raise awareness and elimination of the doubts of investors / partners / customers?
B: Syscoin has been around for a long time. The first mainnet was 2014. We've been through lots of bulls and bears. We raise awareness using everything at our disposal, and we focus a lot on educating people about blockchain and Syscoin in general. Once one has a thorough understanding there, they see the real value of Syscoin and tend to become long-term supporters.
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Essential links:
Recommended market tracker for Syscoin: Messari
Official website: https://syscoin.org
Follow https://twitter.com/Syscoin
Join the Syscoin community Discord
Finally, if you are looking for a comprehensive and up-to-date link collection to about 25 exchanges, masternode hosting providers, wallets, downloads, latest news, videos, news releases, social media accounts and more, don't forget to visit and bookmark https://syscoin.network/syslinks For the latest headlines, you may want to bookmark https://syscoin.network/sysheadlines
