ORAO AMA with gate.io
Today we did an AMA with Mariela Tanchez of gate.io, and we figured we should collect the questions and answers in one place for those who missed it.
The participants were Nikola (Nik) Strahija, our CEO, and Tobias Lönnell, our content and community manager. Without further ado:
Mariela: let’s start with you guys first! … Tell us about how you entered the crypto space and how your background contributed to your early successes.
Nik: The first crypto I held was bitcoin back in in 2010–2011 and I received it as payment for a small project I built for a Canadian client. Fast forward to 2015 I provided data to Fortune Top 20 companies which is how I gained experience with enterprise level data requirements. The same year I started looking into crypto and in January 2017 I co-founded a crypto indexing website. This website stored tens of Billions of raw trades from over 200 crypto exchanges and extrapolated a wide range of data indicators that are not possible to obtain through default ticker-based dataset.
Tobias: I got interested in crypto in 2017. I studied Economics and political science, so I found it fascinating to follow how different countries were tackling crypto regulations differently. From there I got into trading, which got me into the tech aspect of it all. I have worked in crypto since 2018. It’s an incredible space, and I feel privileged to be here.
Mariela: Interesting. Looks like Nik is a big data guy and Tobias more of a tech guy. But definitely economics and data are two great backgrounds to have. So moving on to your project, can you tell us more about ORAO. What is your project exactly and can you tell us more about your vision?
Nik: ORAO provides general data types not just crypto pricing data which is the default and only data type for most oracle systems. This allows for a completely new ecosystem of services running on the blockchain. Providing proactive data rating assures that inaccurate bad data doesn’t get to the end user. The computation layer enables VAD (value added data), cutting costs of running and dev of dapps and simplifying them.
Mariela: Ok that is definitely something useful and necessary in the industry! So how has your journey been so far? What are some of the major milestones you guys have hit so far and why are they important?
Nik: Basic computations on the ingested data is working and we are very happy with the performance so far. We’re actively expanding it to support different data manipulation services based on the feedback from our testnet parners. We’ve deployed our cluster and are actively testing our nodes for scalability: data provider nodes, data ingestion nodes, blockchain nodes, gateways through and around polkadot.
Mariela: It seems like there is still a lot more space to grow! It also appears to be a somewhat unique product. Are there competitors out there? If so, what are some of the competitors you’ve identified (crypto or non crypto) and how are you different?
Tobias: Well yes and no. Nobody is doing exactly the same as us. That said, there is Chainlink, of course, since it’s by far the most well known of the oracle platforms, and an early pioneer in the space. Personally I like what I have seen of DOS Network as well, though they are not as famous.
As to differences. ORAO was built because we saw that there are a few bottlenecks in current oracle implementations. A few of the other oracle projects are trying to veer now from being single chain platforms to becoming blockchain agnostic. ORAO is built that way from the beginning. We are also creating a network that is data agnostic. With the explosion we have seen in DeFi oracles are obviously important, but so far oracles are providing almost exclusively financial data. And mostly simple price feeds, at that. ORAO introduces the ability to add new ‘Predefined Data Protocols’, where new data products can be created very easily. If you want to write a betting smart contract for esports tournaments, ORAO will have data protocols to support that, as you can make sure your betting contract gets reliable data. Our plan is to support anything the market demands: Flight data, train schedules, FOREX, even obituaries…
Mariela: That seems pretty impressive! And most importantly, user friendly which is always great! So there is a lot going on right now in the industry, How do you feel about the industry at the moment and where do you think you fit in?
Tobias: We feel very good. Crypto will be volatile for a long time to come, of course, but we are at a very important time now where Ethereum is facing some truly punishing scaling limitations, and so we are seeing the rise of a number of competing base layers. For a blockchain agnostic oracle platform like ORAO, this is perfect. We support Ethereum too, of course, and it will be exciting to see how Optimistic Rollups affect scaling issues. But we believe there will never be only one smart contract platform that matters again, and so the future has to be blockchain agnostic. We are also convinced that expanding the variety of data products that oracles can support will lead to a new level of growth in DeFi. We feel very good about the future.
Mariela: That is definitely something to think about. The more support the bigger the growth right? So let’s finish with the future. Where are you heading in the next few years and what are the next major updates for you?
Nik: The next major updates to the codebase are going to be geared towards supporting more blockchains, more parameters will be used for data stream rating and data provider reputation and the frontend auctions app. We keep a changelog and development milestones on our at wiki https://wiki.orao.network/development
A few years down the line, we expect ORAO to be the de-facto standard. Prior to that, we will open a new era of what is possible on the blockchain.
Mariela: Great! We will definitely be looking forward to it! So now we will open the floor for questions from the audience!
Chichima: Binance Smart Chain (BSC) is trending right now. Is your project interested or is there a plan to enter the world of BSC?
Nik: Yes. We are actively working to expand our list of supported blockchains to Binance Smart Chain as well.
CRYPTONECO: The Events of Crypto projects and most of the platforms related to the projects have been prepared in English only. So how do you plan to reach non-English speaking local communities around the world? Also, to increase the recognition of your project Do you currently have an ongoing Ambassador program?
Nik: Prior to mainnet we will publicize our Ambassador program which will reward Ambassadors with ORAO tokens.
Jennifer: How is ORAO token uses for in ORAO ? How to keep motivation to hold ORAO tokens in the long term? How will you plan to dominate market?
Tobias: You will be able to stake ORAO to become a validator on our network, which does not require developer knowledge. 20% of the total supply of tokens is reserved for validator rewards, so there will definitely be an opportunity for early holders to secure rewards by helping to protect the network.
Mars Crypto Community: Could you tell us about your unique features that will encourage and encourage a potential investor to invest in your project, what makes you different?
Nik: Proactive & real time data stream rating, proactive & real time data provider reputation, support for all different kinds of data types, compute capabilities to lower the cost of entry for new dapps and services and to lower the cost of running the same services. On top of that, we support as many blockchains as possible.
John: Which one of these aspects important for you?
1-Increasing Token Price&Value
2-Empowering Platform Development
3-Building Community Trust
4-Expanding Partnership Globally
In what order?
Nik: 2 — empowering platform development is of utmost importance. We’ve seen what bad oracle data can do to good projects. Right now if you want to build an esports distributed app you’re going to have to build your oracle just for that dapp. ORAO allows for this datatype from testnet onwards.
No luck: Eth gas fee is crazy high. So, do you have any plan to move on other Blockchain such as BSC or other L2 solution?
Tobias: We are building ORAO to be blockchain agnostic from the ground up. So yes, we definitely have plans to expand to just about every chain we see demand for. BSC was successfully hacked the other week, so we are holding off on that one. That said, most of its code is the same as Ethereum’s, so it’s not difficult for us to support it, and once we have some confidence in the security of the chain it will be an obvious point of expansion.
K e l l y: The smart contract is susceptible to failure..Your smart contract Has been externally audited?
Nik: Our token contract is being audited by reputable auditors and we’re asking for a second opinion on top of that.
Naushad: Marketing is a main element for every project, so that everyone know the potential that a project can bring is vital to achieve the goals set. What is your stratagem to attract new users and investors to your project and keep them long term?
Nik: Stay tuned to our twitter and telegram announcement channels. We will be announcing exciting partnerships beginning this week.
Nathan Macdonald: How do you feel or do you feel satisfied, when you look back to the day when you have started this project?
Tobias: For me, I first started working with ORAO in September last year. It has been incredibly cool to help ORAO grow. Yes, I feel very satisfied with all the progress so far, and am excited about the future as well.
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That’s it for the AMA. Make sure you check out gate’s own telegram community, which hosted this wonderful AMA for us. As always, if you want to dig deeper into ORAO, check out the rest of our articles here on Medium, and our website and whitepaper. Also do visit our telegram community, where you can talk to members of our community and our team.
