Dear Community,
Thanks all for participating in our Avalanche 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 – We’re joined by @jayksofue VP of Marketing 😀🙏
Jay – Hey everyone!
CryptoNationIN Admin – Welcome Jay! 🥳
Before we start – I request you to introduce yourself and the project 😊
Jay – I’m the VP of Marketing at Ava Labs; we’re building Avalanche, an open-source platform for launching decentralized applications and enterprise blockchain deployments in one interoperable, highly scalable ecosystem. Prior to Ava Labs, I was the Head of Marketing at Fluidity and AirSwap and also was a strategist at Ogilvy, where I co-founded its first blockchain marketing group. I am also the co-founder of BlockMarketers, a virtual and in-person community for marketing executives in the blockchain industry.
You can find more info about Avalanche here: https://avax.network.
Twitter Questions
Q1. What role does the community play in the Avalanche? What have you done and will do to attract people to join Avalanche and build a thriving community?
Jay – Community is huge for Avalanche, especially the developer community. Since mainnet launch in September 2020, we’ve been focused on building out our resources for devs. Making sure that it’s the best and easiest experience to build on Avalanche.
A few things we’ve done:
- Build out the Discord community: https://chat.avax.network (we’re at 5.3k members)
- We just refreshed our dev docs: https://docs.avax.network
- We just launched a developer-focused Forum: https://forum.avax.network
We also have a hackathon running with over $37,000 in prizes. This is ending on November 17. You can register and participate for free: https://moneydance.io
Q2. If you could sum up the Avalanche project in one word, what would it be? What are the main features that make up the value of AVAX. Can you share some of them?
Jay – Open – Main features, highly-scalable (capable of processing 4,500+ transactions per second), transaction fees are extremely low (a fraciton of a cent USD!), transactions are finalized/settled under 1 second. We’re also focusing on making it easy to build on Avalanche. For one, we have Solidity running on Avalanche, so those developers who have been building and expirimenting with Ethereum can also try Avalanche.
Q3. How does your staking mechanism work? Are AVA coins locking? How do your node systems work and how many node operators do you have now?
Jay – For staking, I would look at our docs. It tells you everything you need to know: https://docs.avax.network/learn/platform-overview/staking
In terms of nodes, we have just around 610~ validators worldwide. You can check how many there are in real-time: https://explorer.avax.network.
Q4. What is the basis for Avalanche scalability and what consensus mechanism do you use for validation? What are the requirements to become an Avalanche validator? Is it cost-effective to use without powerful hardware and resources?
Jay –
- Avalanche uses the Avalanche consensus protocol: https://medium.com/avalabs/avalanche-consensus-101-99c68a3e3159
- Validator requirements, would also review the same link as above: https://docs.avax.network/learn/platform-overview/staking
- Very efficient, these are the requirements: https://support.avalabs.org/en/articles/4064879-technical-requirements-for-running-a-validator-node-on-avalanche
You can even run an Avalanche node on Raspberry Pi 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlur1nef4-E
Q5. Avalanche has two consensus engines: Avalanche and Snownan. What are the differences and comolementarities between each?
Jay – Avalanche and Snowman both use the Avalanche consensus protocol. The main difference is, Snowman transactions are ordered, which work well for use-cases like smart contracts.
https://medium.com/avalabs/avalanche-101-an-overview-of-the-internet-of-finance-7cdc5a2bee46.
Telegram Questions
Q6. What are your plans and vision on including stablecoins to add value to the network and the DeFi ecosystem that is about to emerge?
Jay – We have a lot of stablecoins on deck. Many you all probably recognize. I would stay up to date with these announcements in our Telegram: https://t.me/avalancheavax.
Q7. DeFi is booming. Defi is becoming a trend. It’s become a popular issue lately. Is AVA just following that trend? Or are you well prepared to enter this space?
Jay – We have a lot of DeFi projects ready to leverage Avalanche’s tech. Chainlink, BiLira, Polyient Games are some of the many that have already committed. You can read all of our announcements here: https://medium.com/avalabs.
Q8. When will the world stop being afraid to use dApps? What is Avalanche doing for the mass adoption of dApps technology?
Jay – Good question. I dont think the world is afraid. It’s just hard to use them still. Think about your grandmother using MetaMask. That probably won’t happen. Though I’m in the camp to think that crypto may be more for sophisticated traders. But still, usability can be improved. Avalanche is making sure we focus on education and usability first, while also generating as many innovations as possible 😉
Q9. At the moment, is it possible to connect Avalanche with other blockchains like Ethereum or Polkadot?
Jay – Not right now….but soon 🙂
Q10. You are doing Ama’s in all group & almost answering same types of questions again and again? How do You feel about it?
Jay – This is actually the first AMA I’ve done since….maybe July?
Q11. What is your strategy for marketing and for Mass Adoption ? How do you evaluate the support from the community?
Jay – Strategy is understanding our target audience and making sure they are engaged in every step of the way. If someone’s curious about blockchain? We’re there to help. If someone wants to know the difference between Avalanche and other layer 1s, we’re there as well. Minimizing friction is key.
Q12. How confident is Avax will be a successful project and have a large community?
Jay – Extremely confident 🙂
Q13. Southeast Asia is a very vibrant market and most exchanges are competing campaigns here to entice users and grow,with Axie you see how Southeast Asia is and do you plan to develop & expanding here?
Jay – We’re already there: I would check out all of the communities we have on our main Telegram: https://t.me/avalancheavax.
Q14. How easy is it for Ethereum dapps to be completely deployed or move to Avalanche?
Jay – Very easy: https://docs.avax.network/build/tutorials/platform/deploy-a-smart-contract-on-avalanche-using-remix-and-metamask.
Q15. Everything on Avalanche is a subnet, and every chain is part of a subnet. How does this jerarchy work? What are the advantages of dividing and subdividing into subnets the network?
Jay – Subnets enable private blockchain networks on Avalanche; enterprises and institutions can use Avalanche’s speed and performance while keeping their datasets private.
Q16. How is possible to do Staking with avalanche considering that you don’t use the POS Consensus?
Jay – Avalanche is a PoS platform 🙂
Thank you to Jay Kurahashi – Sofue (VP of Marketing), and Community for participating in the AMA. Have a nice day
