Dear Community,
Thanks all for participating in our Akash Network AMA. We really appreciate all your support. There were really good and thoughtful questions that were asked. For those who missed our AMA, this blog post is for you.
Introduction!
CryptoNationIN Admin – Hello @gosuri, Welcome to CryptoNationIN. Glad to have you here 😃
Greg – Hello everyone! Thank you. Very excited to be in my first AMA to Indian group 🙂
CryptoNationIN Admin – That’s great. Before we start, I request you to tell about yourself and about Akash Network.
Greg – I’m Greg Osuri, CEO of Akash Network. I’m an Applied Economist and Computer Scientist. As a programmer in the past 25 years, my primary focus was shipping developer tooling for the past nine years. I helped launch Firebase in 2013 at AngelHack. I founded AngelHack in 2011 to take Hackathons to the masses and expanded to 50 cities with over 150k developers worldwide. My contributions to cloud computing include helping with designing multi-cloud capability for Kubernetes in 2015. Kubernetes is currently in use by 80% of the Cloud. With economics, I gained notoriety in academic circles with my paper on Bootstrapping markets by borrowing from the future for which I’m invited to teach a Stanford class.
CryptoNationIN Admin – Could you please tell the community about Akash Network.
Greg – Cloud infrastructure — the back bone of the Internet — is increasingly becoming centralized. Controlled by an oligopoly of four companies (Amazon’s AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft’s Azure and Alibaba). The mission of Akash is to break this oligopoly using a decentralized network of computing clusters (data centers), and offering resources in a peer-to-peer marketplace to build resilient and unstoppable applications at a much lower cost than what you would pay in the market today.
That said, Akash offers a cloud infrastructure platform that’s cheaper, faster and better than current market offering — happy to dive in deeper.
CryptoNationIN Admin – That’s good to know.
Twitter Questions
Q1. Could you share us with details about the Akashian Challenge Phase 3? What are the benefits for community from this?
Greg – The Akashian Challenge Phase 3 testnet concluded on December 11th and saw over 3800 applications deployed by over 460 unique developers. The categories for these applications included DeFi, games, blogs, databases, crypto wallets, block explorers, data visualization, and more.
For a full list of what applications were deployed during the challenge, see our Github page: https://github.com/ovrclk/awesome-akash.
There were 500,000 AKT (US$ 407,598) in rewards available to the community for participating in the challenge at different capacities – there were rewards for deploying apps, running validators, completing challenges, creating community content, and more. Not only did the community benefit from having a chance to earn AKT throughout Phase 3, but they will also benefit in a broader sense because they tested the network and provided valuable feedback to the team. We can take this feedback and use it to build a better product that is easier and more intuitive to use.
Q2. How robust is the Akash staking network? Can I run a node and still be a validator? What do you do differently from various staking projects that make your platform stand-out from the pack?
Greg – The Akash network is quite robust, the testnet alone saw over 130+ nodes online on the network. Validators can certainly run a node while validating (get little meta :)) Akash alos has the highest staking ratio in the Cosmos ecosystem right now at 87.6%. For comparison, Band Protocol has a staking ratio of 82.8%, and Cosmos has a staking ratio of 71.6%. Our economic/validator model is built on the foundation laid down by Cosmos. What separates Akash from other PoS platforms, especially in terms of staking incentives, is that when the network matures and is generating meaningful fees from the Akash compute marketplace, staked AKT will earn a percentage of that, on top of the existing transaction and inflationary rewards.
Q3. How does Akash Network compare with competitors such as Dfinity, ANKR, Filecoin, etc.? In general, what is your difference, and when is it expected that users will use your technology?
Greg – Akash is a compute platform, not a storage platform. Distributed compute on Akash has ephemeral storage, so long term storage solutions like Filecoin will be a critical integration for us. We are already working with Filecoin on a solution here. Other projects in the cloud infrastructure space, like Dfinity and Ankr, are in the same industry as Akash, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), but our go-to-market is fundamentally different for the $202B industry. Dfinity focuses more on smart contracts. Their PoS improves the throughput of executions but there are limitations to smart contracts. We’ve been seeing Dfinity move closer towards Akash’s model, but haven’t looked too deeply at their source code, as they are not Opensource. Ankr as it currently stands is not permission-less or non-custodial like Akash, in that essence Ankr is similar to AWS. As we demonstrated the functionality in our latest Testnet, Mainnet 2, currently scheduled for Q1 2021, will enable users to set up their own provider, deploy their applications onto Akash DeCloud, and participate in the cloud computing marketplace – either as a provider or a user deploying their application.
Q4. As an investor what makes me to buy and hold $AKT for long term?Also does $AKT have any burning program?
Greg – Akash is a proof of stake network with an economic model similar to the Cosmos Hub (with a much bigger reward pool). Rewards obtained from staking AKT provides excellent incentives for holding long term, especially for the first year of our Mainnet, where inflation started at 54% Annualized APR and is now gradually decreasing, halving every 3.75 years.
As mentioned earlier, staked AKT will also get a percentage of Revenue generated from the Akash Network’s compute market, similar to online marketplaces. For more details on the earning potential, please see this post: https://akash.network/blog/the-earning-potential-of-akash-token.
Q5. What is the advantage of the Akash in attracting developers to and build dApps on your blockchain? How does Akash attract developers to build dApps on Akash ?
Greg – Crypto developers, like any other developers, need to run servers (for testnets, mainnets, frontends, etc…) Workloads running on Akash not only cost effective, but are Unstoppable, this is especially great for front-ends for decentralized apps and oracles. A few other things that attract developers to use Akash DeCloud:
- Lower cost: Akash users set the price, providers compete to win the work at that price. This way the price is always lower because it’s naturally driven by the laws of demand and supply.
- Improved productivity: A human centric design that lets developers do more with less.
- Private and Permissionless: The application is secured even with someone who has physical access to the server and no one can stop you from using Akash
Q6. We are actually seeing integrations happen across several blockchains at the moment. Currently, akash is working on which blockchain. How scalable and interporeable is the blockchain platform @akashnet_ is been built on?
Greg – Akash is a sovereign blockchain built using the Cosmos SDK. As such, it is a part of the Cosmos ecosystem, and with the upcoming implementation of the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) Protocol, Akash will soon be able to directly interact with other compatible chains within the ecosystem. Some of the potential integrations that’ll be great for Akash are: Filecoin (Storage), NuCypher (KMS), Handshake (DNS), Orchid (Bandwitdth), Kava USDX (Stablecoin) etc.
Q7. COVID 19 has slowed many economies around the world but as a crypto business has it affected you negatively or positively?
Greg – With people becoming remote workers as a result of the crisis, demand for cloud compute is higher now than ever and expected to continue growing quickly into the future. This benefits us at an industry fundamentals level. In addition, the team has been working remotely and managing remote teams for years already. This means that the switch to remote is a huge advantage for us.
Q8. Can normal PC user with a standard home PC with some harddisk space able to sign up to offer their idle computing power for akash network or is it only for datacentre to sell their spare capacity ?
Greg – With a bit of an effort, users with ordinary home computers may be able to provide compute on the Akash DeCloud. To serve the hobbyist market initially, we are developing the Supermini (an ARM board with NVIDIA GPUs). The Akash Supermini is a plug and earn device that allows anyone, even non technical users, to become Akash Cloud Providers. See more here: http://akash.network/supermini.
Q9. As we know, Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) is a protocol that allows heterogeneous chains to transfer value (i.e. tokens) or data to each other. So what problems will it solve in the Akash network?
Greg – Akash partnered with the Interchain Foundation (ICF) to accelerate the development of the IBC protocol and bring it to market: https://akash.network/blog/akash-partners-with-cosmoss-interchain-foundation-to-accelerate-development-of-inter-blockchain-communication.
By helping bring IBC to market, Akash will reduce the barrier to adoption by allowing other currencies to access our cloud compute marketplace and pay for cloud compute, and cross-chain exchanges of value will be transformational.
Q10. What is the Portfolio Battle event? Do I have to pay any kind of registration fee to create my portfolio?
Greg – Great question! The Portfolio battle is completely free and available for anyone to participate! Each contestant gets a budget of $1000 fantasy dollars to choose 3 or more tokens for their portfolios. The tokens available for selection are from the Cosmos ecosystem, our partners & DeFi projects. With so much interest and an increasing number of registered participants, we have increased the prize pool to 2000 AKT. The 10 portfolios that perform the best by the end of the battle on December 23rd will win pieces of the prize pool. Our prizes range from 75 to 500 AKT. To get more information, register and be elligible for rewards please fill following form: bit.ly/2KmDHW8. Deadline to complete this form and join the battle is December 17, 4 PM UTC.
May the best portfolio win!
Telegram Questions
Q11. Too many projects promise magic but never release any working product or prove any revenue, Within a short/long time of release. Is your project also like this? If not can u tell us, What makes your project different from other projects?
Greg – Not just promises, but we have great product – we have over 3600 apps with 480+ developers using the platform so far this month (for comparison Polkadot has around 400 developers). Check out all these apps people are deploying on Akash right now https://github.com/ovrclk/awesome-akash.
Q12. Mr. You helped create AngelHack firebase in 2013. Since you are a computer expert and have worked on such a big project as AngelHack, can I tell you how secure your token is? And if we talk about it clearly, maybe investors will be free to worry. Because security is very important at the present time. Can you please tell us more about security?
Greg – Akash Network is one of the most secure blockchains in existance and is backed using a Proof of Stake consensus supported by 64 validators. Akash mainnet recently processes 1,000,000 block without a glitch. https://akash.bigdipper.live/.
Q13. In how many ways or what are the ways your project generate revenue? What is the revenue model? How it can be beneficial for both investors and for project itself?
Greg – See this post for more https://akash.network/blog/the-earning-potential-of-akash-token/
Q14. What is the most ambitious goal of your project? What is the ultimate vision that Your project is trying to achieve within the cryptocurrencies market? I would appreciate it if you could share with us any Upcoming Updates?
Greg – Our ultimate vision is to be Gateway for Decentralized Cloud. Right now many incredible projects like NuCypher and Filecoin have launched with little developer traction because of friction. Akash can solve this very well (considering our adoption).
Q15. What is your opinion on DeFi? What do you think is hindering the DeFi field? What hinders the mass adoption of DeFi products? What changes can Akash bring to DeFi?
Greg – It’s no secret DeFi is disrupting traditional finance at an atomic speed and Akash has the best possible solution to make DeFi truly censorship-resistant and reduce gas and development costs. A permissionless and decentralized cloud infrastructure is imperative to ensuring DeFi remains sovereign and becomes more accessible.
Akash’s offering is a truly decentralized and distributed cloud computing platform, so for DeFi applications, our contribution will be to allow their apps to run in a truly decentralized fashion, not on AWS, Azure, or the like so that these apps can truly maintain their sovereignty and security. Furthermore, from a cost perspective, Akash is going to be cheaper, so for those intending to maximize their returns and yields, Akash would be a natural fit over other centralized cloud providers. In terms of security, the structure of the blockchain itself, our validators, and our technology will ensure privacy and security for all users on the platform. This is something that we take very seriously and will be talking more about this component in depth when those features are released, so please stay tuned to those developments.
Q16. Are you a global project? Can anybody use your services from anywhere?
Greg – Akash is permission-less — any one from anywhere can use akash at any time.
Q17. Who is Akash ‘s biggest rival? In the future, does Akashhave a plan to beat your rival or cooperate with them? I think that will be a huge step forward for Akash.
Greg – Amazon Web Services
Q18. Who can become a cloud provider within the Akash ecosystem? What are the tools we need?
Greg – Any one can be an Akash Provider. Here’s a guide https://docs.akash.network/guides/provider.
Q19. From your website , we can submit problem, suggestion, idea or bug report and get reward, where we can submit that?
Greg – Yes
Q20. What is total supply of AKASH? Where we can buy it? Are your plans to focus on market or to grow community?
Greg – All answers are here https://akash.network/token.
Thank you to Greg Osuri (Akash CEO) and Community for participating in the AMA. Have a nice day.
