Today, I have interviewed Arthur Falls, Director of Communications of on their and future projects. Dfinity uses a decentralized network to create a secure “Internet Computer” designed to host the world’s business systems and data. Dfinity is listed to organize a token sale in Q2–2018.
1) What problem are you solving, why do you need the blockchain technology and what are the main pillars of Dfinity that differentiate you from your competitors?
DFINITY is building a world computer that is compatible with applications written for some other world computer platforms (Ethereum).
Because of the advanced design of DFINITY, it will be suitable for use by traditional businesses looking for a zero maintenance, perfect security, 100% uptime hosting solution for their business logic.
DFINITY uses the WebAssembly virtual machine designed collaboratively Apple, Microsoft, Google and the Mozilla Foundation. The goal of WebAssembly is to create a single standard for running applications in-browser.
This will create a universal software standard, and encourage the use of remote (cloud) processing and data storage. We can expect to see a migration to a totally new way of building applications in which most application data and logic is stored in the cloud, and is transferred to the device as needed.
DFINITY will offer a “protocol that behaves like a platform”, providing a unique service that is differentiated from centralized cloud offerings by its resilience and non-existant maintenance requirements. To be clear, DFINITY sees AWS and Microsoft Azure as it’s competitors.
By repeatedly generating unmanipulatable, unpredictable, verifiable, deterministic randomness (technically pseudorandomness), DFINITY can unpredictably elect a committee to notarize block candidates and randomly decide which of two valid blocks should be added to the chain. This means that finality can be reached in two blocks which can be created in as little time as half a second. That is to say that finality can be reached in one second. The production version of the network will be slowed to 3.5 second block times however, to ensure robustness and uniform performance.
That randomness, also called the “Random Beacon”, or “heartbeat” of the network can be used to elect committees to lead the finalization of blocks on shards, enabling infinite scaling.
There are three critical components to DFINITY: A blockchain based data store, the random beacon which is the heartbeat of the network, and the WebAssembly virtual machine.
It is critical to ensure the social consensus of the users is manifest in the operation of the network. As such, a governance system known as the Blockchain Nervous System (BNS) is used to govern the client version, freeze undesirable software, and potentially change the state of the blockchain. The BNS is still in a design phase but an avenue that is being actively pursued is liquid (delegative) democracy with a Sibyl resistant component.
At DFINITY, we talk about a NASA for decentralization because we believe that once the protocol is live, the initial effort required to maintain the network will be huge. For this reason we are building a team of brilliant engineers and academics to rival NASA.
2) What value are you adding to your industry value chain and which are the main obstacles to the success of your solution?
We are building a protocol that provides all the things a Decentralized Application needs to function, and is also suitable for use by traditional business.
3) Why did you decide to launch an ICO and why do you need a public Token Sale?
Given the current regulatory environment we are no longer considering a traditional ICO. The two primary roles of a Token Sale is to raise funding and distribute tokens among the stakeholders of a project. Given recent SEC guidance it appears that funding and token distribution may be in the process of being decoupled. DFINITY will move forward in a way that minimizes risk and will look for solutions to these challenges separately.
4) How does your token function within the platform and why is it needed? How did you decide the total supply and distribution among stakeholders?
The protocol economics are still in deep research. The DFN token is used to determine influence over the internal governance system and distributed to miners who provide computation and storage to the network. Users are also required to exchange DFN for computation. To participate in governance or network provisioning (mining), an actor must place a security deposit in the form of DFN. The token is in essence and access token. It is also transferred in return for the services of those provisioning the network.
5) Where do you see the value of your token in the medium to long term and the ultimate benefit for the token holders?
The DFN token is primarily an access token. It is used to control the ability to influence governance, provision the network, and access the services of the network. The benefit to holders is access. The DFN token is not a speculative asset, it’s value is not a concern of the project.
6) Thinking about the future, what are your plans after ending the ICO? Are you afraid that the volatility of the cryptocurrency market might affect the economy of your project in any way?
As above, the DFN token is not a speculative asset and its value relative to anything external to the DFINITY network does not bear on its role as an access token.
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Disclaimer: This interview and the information contained herein is not intended to be a source of investment, financial, technical, tax, or legal advice. This interview cannot substitute for professional advice and independent factual verification.
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This week, we very proudly unveiled our latest project, a great resource for the whole crypto space. The is the world’s first crypto-focused search engine. And we think it looks pretty good:
The Reason and the Many, Many Features
Increasingly, the “go to” search engines and sites cannot be trusted to provide free and open access to information, especially about crypto. Moreover, the way that search results are organized reinforces old, irrelevant hierarchies based on selling the user products, not providing credible information. All the worst instincts of centralization led to restrictions placed on users, like Google’s recently announced that will also . DeSearch is the BitClave mission in action, and the lessons we learn from this launch are helping us to create the best general-use search engine we can build as we take on the big, centralized players.
You can utilize DeSearch for all your crypto information needs and curiosities, in one easy dashboard and without advertising. It gives you the top crypto news from trusted, relevant websites, and it works intelligently to gather the essentials on whatever topic you fancy. DeSearch’s powerful search capability also looks through the top sites used in the blockchain space, searching Telegram channels, BT, company and influencer Medium content, and Reddit, for the deepest dive on ICO and all crypto information — and fast! Use DeSearch to keep up to date on crypto exchanges, find a strong ICO, track your favorite dapps and developers, and quickly get the useful content that is restricted on the old search sites. You can get to know DeSearch on its .
Launching this Week on Product Hunt
It became very clear to our team in the past few weeks that it was time to get DeSearch out and usable to the crypto community. We think that all the latest news about anti-crypto actions by the big internet platforms show that the crypto community needs an ad-free space dedicated to crypto. We also wanted to step-up and create a search engine that doesn’t just replace Google, but surpasses it. All the features our team has put into DeSearch prioritize usability, relevant content, and privacy, and make DeSearch a great crypto resource.
Product Hunt was a perfect fit to share the DeSearch engine with the public for the first time (after our community soft launch). Because the feedback on DeSearch will go straight into the development of BitClave, we wanted to reach the widest audience possible and gain the insights of ’s rich product community. We have really big plans for BitClave and hope to grow our community and users. We are already finding the feedback from sharing DeSearch on our existing channels, with BitClave users and among the many thoughtful crypto space commentators useful. So a big ‘Thank you!’ in advance, for checking out and giving us the feedback to improve.
We hear you! We’ve been on the receiving end of much feedback already, and we wanted to address some of the most pressing questions and comments. Let’s get into it:body[data-twttr-rendered=”true”] {background-color: transparent;}.twitter-tweet {margin: auto !important;}
so uses Google Analytics to protect users data and searches? 😂😂😂 JFYI
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We are striving to make a decentralized search engine, and that is absolutely our goal. Right now, as DeSearch is in alpha, we are using tools like Google Analytics temporarily to give our development team feedback on the search’s features. This way improvements can be made to the platform before DeSearch becomes a completely decentralized ecosystem. Once we address the challenges and work on the feedback we receive during this soft launch, the platform will be running by itself without any intermediary, as promised.
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While the crypto specific engine is a bit underwhelming now, its actually nice to see a product brought to market versus the usual all talk approach common in other alts/ICOs.
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Thank you! It was important to us to share this initial version of the search to share our progress and gain the insights of the community, so that all the features we add into the ecosystem are ones that will be truly valued. We hope DeSearch will soon sweep you off your feet!
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This is actually pretty cool. I wonder if they collect as much data on you as Google does…🤔
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Absolutely not! All information in this stage is completely anonymized, and as soon as the development team in able to incorporate the feedback given during this stage into the platform, DeSearch will be the first fully-decentralized crypto search in the world.
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when i look up "binance" then should be the first result or at least on the first page, right? 🙂
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Actually, the Binance page comes up as the second result, after its trading value. It’s important to us that DeSearch provides a holistic view of any term to increase its utility to make it a resource for the crypto community.
To the many commentators and users, thank you! We are pleased to have your very helpful feedback and be able to incorporate it into our platform. Please stay tuned for more developments, responses, and features.
