Note: At the “Dfinity: Restart Unlimited” welcome dinner hosted by Dfinity, Winkrypto, and Lianwen on October 28, Dfinity founder Dominic Williams returned with seven questions from Chinese investors. The questions cover multiple topics such as technology trends, development languages, Chinese communities, and exchanges. Dominic Williams fully demonstrated his importance to the Chinese market. The following is the full text.
The first question is: What is the difference between the DFINITY Foundation and Internet computers?
The DFINITY Foundation is a Swiss non-profit organization responsible for the development and promotion of Internet computer protocols and related technologies. For example, we work with data centers around the world that support the ICP protocol, which created Internet computers. Because the funds we have raised are abundant, in the future, we will continue to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the research and development of Internet computers and vigorously promote the development of Internet computers. The Internet computer is an extension of the Internet’s functions. It expands the Internet from a simple global public network to a local hosting service that can support software, data and calculations by using advanced smart contract technology. The purpose of Internet computers is to serve as many humans, software logic and data as possible.
The second question: DFINITY’s ambitions go beyond the blockchain world. When competing with Alibaba Cloud or Amazon’s AWS business, what are the main advantages of Internet computers? If these giants do the same thing, how will Internet computers survive?
Before answering this point, let us first consider Ethereum. People use smart contracts to build on Ethereum because it supports the creation of systems that traditional IT systems and traditional cloud services cannot create. For example, Ethereum is a tamper-proof platform with features that support autonomous software and tokenization. Internet computers can do all these things and more. Internet computers use more advanced smart contracts to support people to create websites, corporate services, ultra-large-scale Internet services, Defi, etc. This is a completely different form. The Dfinity Foundation created a demo application called Cancan, a clone of Douyin, and we introduced some new features, such as tokenization. Such a thing is simply impossible to do on the traditional cloud. It can run on the open Internet completely autonomously.
Internet computers also enable development teams around the world to raise funds for their research and development through tokenization. Therefore, many operations that people can perform on Internet computers cannot be performed on traditional clouds. Anyone who is interested in this field can come to study and understand the working principles of Internet computers more deeply, which is very worthwhile. Because it redefines the nature of software, this is truly something completely unique. And we think these qualities will attract the attention of the whole world.
We also studied the history of the Internet. As early as the 1990s, people said that people can do better with AOL or Microsoft’s information highway. But in the end, the world prefers a public global open network. We believe that for similar reasons, people will choose to build systems on open Internet computers. In the long run, this will produce a very powerful network effect, because systems built on Internet computers can interact at almost zero cost.
The third question: What are the barriers for developers to adopt the Motoko programming language? Are there any plans to promote Motoko?
This is a very good question. First of all, I want to remind everyone that everyone can use any programming language that can be compiled into Web Assembly to develop on Internet computers. Now, DFINITY SDK supports Motokoo and rust two languages, and may support more development languages in the future. At the same time, developers can freely use other languages to create their own SDK. Therefore, the success of Internet computers has little to do with Motoko’s success.
Having said that, we always believe that Motoko is a very exciting new programming language. It was led by Andres Rosberg of the Dfinity team.
Rosberg is the co-founder of Web Assembly and still leads the standardization process of Web Assembly. This is a complement to the powerful functions of Internet computers, so that all developers can easily build systems on Internet computers. Motoko is a very easy to master language, with very powerful functions. At the same time we have also seen universities and schools begin to teach the Motoko programming language. And I believe that in five years, Motoko will become one of the popular software development languages.
The fourth question: How does Dfinity encourage developers to create more applications on Internet computers?
Ok. First of all, the currently popular method is that blockchain projects pay a certain fee to developers to create various demo applications, and then declare to the media that their system has been adopted by a large number of developers. However, the applications they paid the developers to develop soon became bots or disappeared. Such an approach is not pursued by the Dfinity Foundation. Now, we have a very active and successful developer incentive plan, which will be launched soon and start to distribute incentives. We also have a related venture capital fund (Beacon Fund), which is also very willing to invest in projects developed on Internet computers. We will put all of the above into practical action.
We also pay great attention to working with other teams to build real killer apps. Compared to before, I think this is a breakthrough we will see soon. Ethereum has an excellent developer community. They created many different things, not because someone paid developers money, but because they believed in Ethereum. There are many outstanding developers in the Ethereum ecosystem. But the challenge they face is that Ethereum has many limitations beyond Defi, which limit their scope of development.
So far, the most commonly used application on Ethereum is CryptoKitties. But once congestion occurs, the entire network is almost paralyzed. Internet computers provide a more powerful platform for development. It can directly provide users with a better user experience. For example, you can create a website directly on an Internet computer. Users do not need tokens to interact with systems built on Internet computers. Most importantly, it will become very easy to create scalable applications on Internet computers, so it eliminates many restrictions and makes possible the impossible for developers before.
We have been working with some teams, and we believe that these teams will have the opportunity to develop killer apps in the future. I can’t reveal too much at the moment, because many projects are still in development. Here, I will talk about two projects. The first is the Origyn project in Switzerland. Origyn is building a pan-industry system for the watch industry. In the beginning, there were some very high-tech technologies that could identify the authenticity of watches through fingerprints. But now you can distinguish all kinds of Swiss watches by listening to the ticking of the hands and taking pictures. Since Internet computers are blockchains that can be expanded infinitely, all of these can be stored on the chain.
The Origyn project also used some very interesting cryptoeconomic models to attract watchmakers. Once they successfully promote their model to all major watch manufacturers, they will set foot in other luxury goods areas. I think anyone who is interested in pan-industry platforms can learn about Origyn’s project. Another project is called Dragons. This is a massively multiplayer online game developed by the team that developed Neopets. Neopets is the first large-scale multiplayer online game with nearly 100 million users. It was absolutely revolutionary at the time.
The Dragons game is also very exciting. When these applications have truly entered the mainstream, the total number of Internet computer network users can rapidly increase to millions.
The fifth question: Dfinity has been away from China for two years. Do you have a series of plans to promote the use of Internet computers? How does Dfinity view the Chinese market and its developer community?
Yes, very good question. First of all, as we all know, Internet computers have a deep relationship with China, such as Wanxiang and Distributed are very early supporters of DFINITY.
I myself have been to China many times. The reason why China has not come to China in recent years is because we have been busy establishing the Dfinity Foundation. We have established research centers all over the world. And hired some world-class cryptography and computer science research personnel and engineers. Organization building is a difficult task, involving a lot of work. We just focus on building Internet computers. I reappeared because the Internet computer was finally about to be officially released. What I can tell you is that we have a strong desire for the Chinese market, and we will return to the Chinese market without hesitation. Therefore, we will first cooperate with Chinese data centers, although the government’s firewall and local laws and regulations will bring some additional complexity.
But by 2021, we hope to see some Chinese subnets in the Internet computer network. Second, we believe that the potential of Chinese developers is absolutely huge, such as Douyin. Therefore, we believe that Internet computers are a huge opportunity for Chinese entrepreneurs and developers. First, they will more easily obtain venture capital and move towards internationalization. Second, the Internet computer platform can provide domestic developers with a better tool to compete with existing Silicon Valley companies.
For Chinese teams, entrepreneurs, developers, and investors, this is an opportunity to rebuild the Internet ecosystem in an open form. Therefore, China’s technical expertise in mobile and social fields can be applied to Internet computer platforms and reshape the Internet ecosystem. I hope that in the future China can play an important role as Silicon Valley.
The sixth question: Early investors need to lock ICP tokens (previously DFN) for at least one year. In the current rapidly changing market, how can this approach better protect the interests of investors?
Yes, first of all, any early participants who contribute to the Internet computer project are extremely advanced and noble in conscious thinking. Everyone involved in the project will realize that this is a completely different blockchain project. In the long run, we believe that if necessary, we are willing to spend several years of research and development time to achieve our goals. We will not stop moving forward until the entire world begins to be built on Internet computers, just like Defi. We have a revolutionary feeling and have helped the world rebuild the Internet ecosystem, making full use of Internet services and similar things. Therefore, it will take decades. Some people think that the value of Internet computers may reach one trillion dollars or more. I don’t know what will happen in the future, but time will tell us everything. So in this case, the one-year lock-in period may not be so good. As the value increases, it provides very short intervals.
However, what we have to do is to enable investors to participate in the governance mechanism of the network nervous system. Therefore, we are likely to let icp tokens be distributed before the neuron form in the network nervous system belongs. These neurons will have a lock-in period. However, this will enable investors to participate in governance and receive voting rewards before their tokens are vested.
Obviously, all of us must consider the formation of the market. If too much liquidity enters the market, it will not help anyone. In the early days, we need to ensure that the market has enough time to take shape and that market makers have time to build reserves so that they can handle greater liquidity. This is in the interests of Internet computers and investors. We will focus on ensuring that all work is done in the best way to ensure the long-term growth of Internet computers while also protecting the best interests of everyone.
One last question: Does DFINITY have a listing plan for icp tokens in China?
We have recently carried out many activities around the Sodium milestone. In China, we held several events and more than 50,000 people watched one of them. This aspect also reflects China’s strong interest in Internet computer projects. It has also attracted considerable attention worldwide. I have not personally participated in the communication with the exchange, so I cannot tell you the details. But I can tell you that we are very willing to cooperate with major Chinese exchanges.
Currently, we have multiple projects going hand in hand to ensure that our cooperation with exchanges can be as smooth as possible, and to ensure that our cooperation with global exchanges complies with local laws and regulations.
Ok. Thank you all for asking these great questions. I am very happy to answer these questions. Hope everyone can enjoy the rest of the night. I also look forward to visiting China in the near future. Please look forward to our future activities. Thank you!
