On July 23rd, 2019, Infinito’s Director, Mr. Jack Nguyen, and Co-Founder of Ontology Network, Mr. Andy Ji, took part in a special 45-minute AMA session LIVE on Youtube to answer questions from crypto users around the world on the topic of creation and adoption of blockchain apps and services.

Before the AMA, the Infinito team gathered many questions from communities via Google Form for a special giveaway of 100 ONG each for the two best questions. See the full AMA on Youtube

For convenience, we’ve compiled a summary of all questions answered LIVE during the AMA in Part 1 of this article. We will release Part 2 to cover the questions that could not be answered due to time limitations. Enjoy!

Questions Answered LIVE in the AMA

Q1: What is the development direction of Ontology and Infinito on decentralized finance (DeFi)? For example, staking ONT?

Andy: DeFi is one of our focus areas in 2019. Actually, we have already provided loan, regulated stablecoin, payment, debit card, and wealth management products to our end users. For the next step, Ontology is going to lower the barrier to DeFi and build a real, inclusive finance ecosystem. Thus we can engage more traditional users to try our crypto services on ONTO wallet and ecosystem wallets. For example, the minimum staking requirement is around 500 USD now. We want to decrease this to 1 USD through smart contracts, so everybody can participate in our staking economy in the near future.

Jack: Infinito has always been supporting decentralized finance services since the launch of App Square. By welcoming our partners to integrate their services into this gateway to decentralized applications (DApps), users can easily access and choose any service of their choice, including crypto lending, payment, exchange, stablecoins, and utility and security tokens. We are also introducing the Infinito Token (INFT) which will bring more features to people, with payment, reward, and staking.

Q2: There is great interest in decentralized applications from both user and developer communities. How can Infinito and Ontology help developers who want to build, launch, or promote DApps? 

Jack: We want to help developers — even those coming from traditional technology without knowledge about blockchain and cryptocurrencies — to build and launch their DApps in a fast and efficient manner. That’s why we have launched the Infinito Blockchain Platform. Together with our global partners and development community, we provide development modules & tools, either for a common purpose or specific usage, so that any developer can utilize them and, thus, never have to build blockchain apps from scratch again!

We also understand that getting active users is a common challenge for any DApps. To help solve this problem, we created Infinito App Square, a gateway to app user communities where their DApps can meet thousands of active users on Infinito Wallet.

With the token economy of INFT, users will be incentivized for actively using and rating service quality of DApps, which will also help us provide only the best apps to the community. We will also build an incubation program to reward developers and startups for building useful modules and DApps on the Infinito Blockchain Platform.

Andy: We really care about our DApp developer community. Last year, we launched the Ontology DApp Incentive Program – Renaissance that includes four schemes: the Early Bird Scheme, Worker Ant Scheme, Angel Investment Scheme, and Developer Support Scheme.

With the Early Bird Scheme, 50% of all transaction fees (ONG) generated by a DApp will be returned to the app developer and operator. Ontology hopes this model will encourage intuitive and effective DApps. As for the Worker Ant Scheme, the most popular DApps will receive extra incentives. The top 5 DApps will share a prize pool of 10,000 USD in ONG each week based on their user activity, daily transaction volume, and community activity.

For developers who start developing without funding, Ontology launched a customized loan program. After the loan application is approved, Ontology will provide developers with financial support for development and operation and allow them to repay the loans in the method they choose. In addition to financial support for development and operation, the Ontology team further provides developers with technical, marketing, and operations support.

As you can see, we provide comprehensive support and incentives for DApp developers and users. For the next step, we will incubate some groups of developers to empower our tech community and find more high-quality games and DApps to attract more users.

Q3: What’s your outlook on the future of cryptocurrencies? What can we do to keep increasing adoption? 

Andy: Each public chain project has to bring more real adoption to the whole industry. We are focusing on the gaming, attention economy, and DeFi applications. Ontology’s aim is to increase user experience, performance, and lower the barrier to entry. We believe that cryptocurrencies will lead the new digital economy revolution.

Jack: Cryptocurrency has been making great progress over the past few years, and personally, I believe the outlook is very positive.

Regarding adoption, the experience with crypto and blockchain for users in general is still quite limited. Inaccessibility, difficulty when using cryptos, and poor payment experience are among the top obstacles to adoption. This is why we started Infinito project — to solve these problems, thus promoting mass adoption.

Q4: Ontology’s pick for Best Question: In regards to Ontology sharding, what kind of real-life application or adoption will sharding improve to help bring the masses to Ontology and crypto in general? 

Andy: The real-life application we are working on is an ecosystem project called ALLIVE. They have an AI training-based platform which requires a great amount of computing and storage resources. This is a common issue in the distributed computing area. Ontology’s sharding solution can help solve this issue with great efficiency and quality. Their AI and big data frameworks can be smoothly linked with our sharding network to create tasks, run jobs, and use each shard’s resource by paying ONG token.

Q5: Infinito’s pick for Best Question: To Infinito. There are so many crypto wallets out there on the market, and all of them can do almost the same job. In what aspect Infinito is unique from the rest?

Jack: Infinito Wallet is recognized by various communities as one of the best crypto wallets for users. Its mission is to provide a single gateway for users to freely access all types of cryptocurrencies and blockchain-based services.

We believe wallets should have a critical role in the whole blockchain ecosystem. Wallets should not only be the tool to keep private keys and make transactions. Everyone with a wallet should be able to easily access and consume different types of blockchain apps and services for their daily needs, at any time and from anywhere. This is critical to increasing blockchain adoption.

To clarify, Infinito itself is an ecosystem of crypto wallet, payment platform, DApp store, and developer platform. Infinito Wallet serves as a major component to create a great experience for users with cryptos and blockchain.

Q6: To Ontology. What criteria does Ontology use for integrating ONT and ONG into multi-chain wallets? And if supporting and adopting blockchain apps is important, would Owallet and ONTO also consider supporting other public blockchains’ coins or tokens in the future? Why or why not?

Andy:  We have already supported multiple native coins and tokens on our ONTO wallet, and we will involve more assets (whether they be tokens or NFT assets). It will be opened for our eco partners through the Dapi protocol. In our plan, BEP-2 tokens, Kakao’s Klaytn, Facebook’s Libra coin, and Bitcoin are ongoing.

Q7: How long do you think it will take for cryptocurrency to become mainstream?

Jack: Right now, we’re going in the right direction, with Amazon, Microsoft, Walmart, Paypal, Singapore Airlines, and many more enterprises working to integrate blockchain into their business models. The initiatives to introduce Libra and JPM Coin are great signals for the coming future when crypto will go mainstream. I believe it will happen in the next 2 years.

Andy: I guess that every industry will implement new architecture based on blockchain technology within 3 years. Libra is a positive signal for that. I fully support cryptocurrency and definitely believe it will become mainstream.  When we start to value trust and learn more about the benefits of globalization, fair and transparent business models, and inclusive finance, a brilliant future will come.

Q8: Will Infinito launch their own crypto rather than the current strategy for Infinito Points?

Jack: Yes, Infinito is launching the Infinito Token (INFT). The main features of the token will be a universal currency, providing simple access and staking reward schemes for ecosystem members. Infinito Point has a slightly different strategy than Infinito Token. Points allow users to claim membership and thus enjoy a wide range of rewards and discounts provided by the ecosystem services.

Q9: Will Ontology DApps become mainstream? How are you going to compete with the popular DApps from Ethereum, Steem, EOS, and TRON?

Andy: Yes, they certainly will. I have the confidence that they will become mainstream. I found that every project mentioned has met the same problem. Although there are so many existing DApps, they are all lacking active users and trading volumes. And most of them are creating wash volume and fake users. So we will focus on the quality of the DApps and bridge the gap between traditional users and new crypto users. We are looking for excellent teams to incubate massive adoptions, especially in Gaming and DeFi. And traditional users also can approach our DApp service with effortless transfer functions provided by Ontology. Bringing high-quality, useful, and user-friendly applications to our ecosystem is the key to defeating our competitors.

Q10: ONT is already the top 25th coin on Coinmarketcap, but why is ONG so far behind at rank 1,876?

Andy: Refer to the Dual Token model. The ONG token is self-mining and only generated by ONT token. I remember the ONG token has an 18-year distribution table. Right now, the generation rate is around 4% per year. So the circulating supply of ONG token is much lower than ONT. Don’t worry about the rank.

Q11: How has Facebook’s Libra affected crypto adoption, and what is its impact on future growth?

Andy: I think Libra will be the first massively adopted cryptocurrency. Facebook has 70 times as many users as Bitcoin, so it helps the whole industry to educate traditional users (i.e. old guys who have no digital wallet or bank account). People would like to learn more about crypto and try to use it. Even if Libra looks “centralized”, I believe it will be a great attempt to accelerate the whole industry and make Facebook great again.

Jack: It definitely has a huge impact on crypto adoption. Public interest in crypto has surged tremendously since that news came out. Think about what Facebook can bring for crypto adoption with Libra. Billions of users are actively using Facebook, Whatsapp, and Instagram on a daily basis. There are 7 million advertisers on Facebook network and 90 million small businesses who are using Facebook infrastructure to promote and conduct their business.

Another important thing is that Libra is backed by the largest payment networks, including Visa, Master, and Paypal. Think about the billions of Facebook users who could use Libra for payment and spending on goods and services.

Think about a future when 1.7 billion unbanked people around the world can use Libra as a form of digital bank account to join the global financial system. That will be a huge adoption of cryptocurrency and blockchain.

Q12: If you were to summarize your project in one word, what would it be?

Andy: In one word, it would be trust: this is the key value of blockchain. Trust has been the greatest challenge of human collaboration throughout history. Ontology is willing to work with all our partners who share the common goal to redefine trust. That will be the foundation of a new era of the world – a digital economy world based on next-generation internet.

Jack: For Infinito, it is about “Universal Experience”. For mainstream adoption to occur, cryptocurrencies and blockchain innovations must offer people a friendly interface with easy access to its full potential.

Live questions: 

Q1: Ontology and NEO recently announced a partnership to build a cross-chain platform and establish the foundation for an exchange internet. What makes this partnership different from other projects? And what are Ontology and NEO’s duties in this collaboration? 

Andy: We just announced the new project. It is a global chain cooperation project. Right now, all public blockchains are separate and in single ecosystems. And we are separate from the competition with Neo. It’s a new ecosystem from the traditional world. It’s time for public chains to share and collaborate for the real world together. I remember that TomoChain from Vietnam has already joined the group. And other leading public blockchains will join later. We will build a real global public blockchain world together.

Q2: Will InfinitoPAY work like Apple and Samsung Pay so users can use crypto to physically pay in stores? 

Jack: We are building InfinitoPAY and the first version will enable payment features for users, but our vision is to enable and facilitate payment inside our ecosystem, between users, business, and applications. We want to create a seamless payment experience for users of various cryptocurrencies and blockchains.

Yes, InfinitoPAY will function in a similar way like ApplePAY in the ecosystem.  We are looking forward to enhanced speed, interoperability, and a payback reward scheme for active users who contributed to the growth of Infinito Ecosystem.

Q3: The biggest dilemma as of now in crypto is volatility and liquidity issues. What steps have been taken by both of your companies to overcome it? 

Jack: From Infinito’s perspective, we want to encourage users to use cryptocurrency more on a daily basis to pay for goods and services and spend on apps, games, and exchanges. This will increase usage and circulation of crypto and increase user’s demand to hold and buy, therefore increasing the liquidity of cryptocurrency in general.

Andy: I consider it from two parts. For individual users, we have to bring more real adoption to users and bring more value to our token. So the more you use, the more you gain. That’s the value of the token economy. And for institutions, to be honest, Ontology is focused on the institutional player in 2019. We focus on bringing more qualified or verified infrastructure to the institutional investors and banks. So actually, you see the new signal predict the BAT, the NYSE, the Bitcoin, and other new players in this crypto world. So we need to meet their demands, both individual and institutional players. The more players join, the more liquidity you will have. It will be a mature market in the near future.

Q4: Can you tell us about anything blockchain or crypto-related that has excited you recently, or anything new coming up in your respective projects? 

Jack: As I shared in the previous question, what is happening with the Libra coin is great news for the future of blockchain adoption. The public has been educated about blockchain and crypto through the news and discussions with Congress between Libra and other media. To me, this is a very exciting thing to see.

Andy: Apart from sentiments similar to Jack’s answer, I see a new trend in the crypto industry. In addition to Facebook’s Libra, major internet companies Telegram, Line, Kakao, and Signal will launch their own cryptocurrency projects. Combined, they have about 3 billion users, almost half of the citizens in the world. It will help educate people. People are using traditional services, and we need to find the balance of centralized and decentralized. Now, the centralized player will become much more decentralized. We are all of the same goal and are building up the real crypto world. I believe the real adoption or killer DApp will come in the near future.

Q5: Can Ontology share some update regarding your partnership with Paxos. When can we expect to have the PAX Stable coin based on Ontology network as OEP-4 token?

Andy: Actually, we are promoting the OEP PAX as a stable coin. We think that we need to promote stablecoins with suitable use cases or scenarios. So we will bring the loan, wealth-related product and debit card to Southeast Asia. We are ready to launch our products, so you will see the product soon. It will be easily integrated with the Infinito Wallet, our wallets, and any partner wallet. We can provide you with a real card, real payment, and real loans with fair fees. The amazing point is that it’s backed by the real US dollar, so it will attract people all over the globe.

Q6: When will Point Sale start?

Jack: We wanted to introduce Points to our user community with prioritized access for existing users and then for newcomers. We have been looking into all the necessary preparations and are carefully following compliance requirements as a business. Infinito Point Sale is coming, and we are finalizing all the KYC (know-your-customer) and compliance processes. With that being said, Point Sale will be conducted toward the end of July or early August. We will give you all the updates very soon on our Telegram channels, so please stay tuned!

Please stay tuned for part 2 of this recap where we will cover all unanswered questions asked during the AMA live stream and via Google Form

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