[Recap] Velas AMA on Reddit

Poster of AMA announcement.

This AMA was conducted on the world’s largest Reddit community /r/CryptoCurreny on 26th May 2020 at 11 AM PST (11:30 PM IST). Velas founder Alex Alexandrov was speaker from Velas.

Key points:-
1. Motivations behind creating Coinpayments
2. What’s going on with Coinpayments
3. What the future hold for Coinpayments
4. What is Velas, what were motivations behind creating Velas
5. What’s next for Velas

Here are some highlights from the reddit AMA :-

INTRODUCTION
Alex Alexandrov was a technical Forex and Options trader and EA developer for MT4 platform. He then chose to venture into direct sales before branching out on his own to successfully develop and manage coincable.com, an online bitcoin mining hardware supply store. Alex’s next venture was becoming owner and CEO of Coinpayments.net, a premium Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum and other alternative crypto-currency payment processor. Coinpayments’ services are trusted by over 3,000,000 users across 182 countries. Recently he brought his wealth of industry experience to his own cryptocurrency Velas. Last month Alex was the Keynote Speaker for the BlockDown cryptocurrency conference.

AMA ROUND

Thin_Time (user):
What is the goal of Velas? Do you see the AI as a means to completely remove humans from blockchain?

Alex Alexandrov (Velasfounder):
Improvement of blockchain efficiency without compromising decentralization.

We have a dynamic consensus model and have ai model pick up gossip data while analyzing cross nodes communication in detail. This allows for unbelievable optimizations in almost real-time. This way we can keep gossip and really optimize communication, this is being a simple version of course. Also, think Uber with cars on the road with blockchain incentives formula to maintain interest along with balancing security vs scalability.

One has to realize if you run ETH on a single node its actually lightning fast, speed becomes an issue with decentralization so it is a constant game, and I don't believe the solution can be hardcoded number for all situations. What if a network could reduce the number of validators to clear the backlog as an example than increase to lower when not needed and increase security?

Tokenwarrior (user):
I see talk about velasphere. Could you explain what that is exactly? Is it a Dapp?

Alex Alexandrov (Velasfounder):
It is a resource layer mixed with dapps, search engine and social chat system. we call it full digital life layer.

Monos1s2 (user):
How many members do you currently have on your team?

Alex Alexandrov (Velasfounder):
Between all my projects? which team lol Everyone we are 300 :)

Softartist (user):
We know in advance that VELAS will be listed on BITTREX GLOBAL, what other future plans do you have regarding listings on exchanges? Current exchanges seem more focused on the Asian market, when we will see something new and TOP in this field ?

Alex Alexandrov (Velasfounder):
Well we are in discussions with a few exchanges as they show great interest in us and approach us, but its nothing we can talk about until they actually decide to list us. I also am instructed while they are evaluating our code we cant discuss this.

FancyEnvironment3 (user):
I saw a video a while ago where you were talking about working on or with someone to develop blockchain that transmits over radio waves? Is that still something you’re pursuing? If yes, how is that going? If no, what made you stop?

Alex Alexandrov (Velasfounder):
I was involved in the project working on this but I didn't get along with the team and there was too much in house fighting. Sadly I parted ways with that whole group to focus on more important tasks at hand. I do love the idea and want to come back to it at a later date. I also am looking at using grants more to attracts this type of development from the community so hard to say how I will go about it or if maybe someone just does by then on their own.

I do think offline short wave nodes are important to have for remote areas in order to sync nodes and broadcast messages.

SoftArtist (user):
What is the future of Velas or what is the goal with Coinpayments in the future? What will be its usefulness in said platform?

Alex Alexandrov (Velasfounder):
Future is to add VLX as reward for improved affiliated system in cps v3. Idea is you will have 33% more rewards if you take your affiliate payments in vlx vs other coins. Cps will buy those via api and subsidize in a creative way we are looking at legally speaking.

Idea is to create real txs and constant liquidity for vlx. Additionally, we will offer 0 fees for vlx payments and conversions in cps platform, so using vlx for in and outs will be free for foreseeable future of V3 platform

Tokenwarrior (user):
Looking through your twitter, I notice you are a massive advocate for censorship resistance, do you plan on implementing anything to battle this with your current project?

Alex Alexandrov (Velasfounder):
Yes, we are launching hdd data sharing nodes end of June, which will help you earn vlx and lay groundwork for decentralized velasphere audio and video file sharing with commenting, tipping in all bridge supported coins. It will have its own user based governance we are working on atm. Files on the system will be permanent but the index wall will be moderated for obvious reasons by community members in a very similar to reddit ranking system with our twist on reputation.

One of the things I want to do is catalog all news open accreditation free video files so CNN cant delete Larry King Episode and renumber the whole season in order to hide their actions ever again. Same with providing a platform where anyone can back up their knowledge and share it.

To make this work we had to spend some serious time on this, video and audio files will get shredded to tiny pieces encoded, encrypted, and stored on the network to always have 3 copies in botton popularity state. As it becomes more popular we network will create more full copies in geographic location of its popularity. This will allow streaming video nearly instantly as each piece will download decrypt in your browser piece by piece

WideIsland0 (user):
How would you suggest getting your foot in the door in blockchain if you’re about to finish college and enter the work force? What areas of blockchain do you think will do the best over the coming decade?

Alex Alexandrov (Velasfounder):
Well I used to be a financial advisor and wearing that hat for a second I will tell you same thing as I used to tell people in college working in that field. Start allocating 10% of your earned income and buy crypto coin, I would always recommend starting with Bitcoin if you are new, even though I am tempted to shill my own project shamelessly i do believe its good to start with Bitcoin and this will always be my answer. Once you understand it better start diversifying to projects that conduct experiments you see most potential in long term. I say experiments because even Bitcoin is an experiment imho we are all still working to try and build something special and all these experiments which cant be conducted on just bitcoin chain will lead to libraries and stepping stones to something that will form our future.

Wild-Rub (user):
How has volume shifted over time for Coinpayments? Is it similar to an exchange that sees increased volume during bull runs? Or is it more like a bank building revenue streams with small consistent growth?

Alex Alexandrov (Velasfounder):
Good question, our volume seems to be not effected by market ups and downs too much. Oddly in 2017 and years prior it was very market correlated. To give you example we saw peak 300million a month volume in 2017 for a month with average being 110. Followed by what some would describe as market crash we saw steady growth from 110 average to 220 average in 2019. We are now seeing 5–10% growth in first quarter of 2020, but slow down is mainly caused by our decision to stop adding new significant volume coins until new platform launch this Summer. We expect to get to 500mil volume this year regardless of bitcoin price, as long as its not a zero lol.

Also surprising data coins which perform best as payments are not the ones you would expect in market cap list. I actually fundamentally believe a lot of that is fake and we might be the only ones who really see whats real or not

Sweaty_Youth (user):
Can you elaborate on the container system “launch of cross-chain TX’s” in your roadmap for Velas?

Alex Alexandrov (Velasfounder):
Yeah. We are building a bridge with bitcoin, ethereum, zcash and monero to start with. Our gaol is to add external validator of these blockchain in body of our smart contracts. It will provide the enhanced smart contract API for developers to build DeFI

We also will pool headers from these 4 in order to create better random function in our blockchain. I like that selection as it gives us a good mix of coins I believe are here to stay.

SpecialPlenty (user):
How will MindAI operate with Velas?

Alex Alexandrov (Velasfounder):
MindAI is building on top of Velas it will issue Mind token on VRC20 and will use Velasphere for data storage of its AI entropy as backup, along with entire backup of ai systems. This will allow to spin it up anywhere on the planet in there is an outage on their server or have user mirrors in the future. All training of models will be paid via Mind token in Velas wallet.

Several-Berry (user):
What are the plans to scale Velas wallet plus are you planning on having a physical wallet? Will it be used as changelly in the future? and what are the other uses cases planned for Velas blockchain?

What is the diffence between Artifiicial Intelligence and Artificial intuition in context of Velas AIDPOS consensus algorithm?

From the success of coinpayments and your new project Velas, are you looking at building your own exchange or DEFi structure anytime soon?

Alex Alexandrov (Velasfounder):
We plan on releasing our own hardware wallet to run as validator for our ecosystem, due to corona it will be pushed to 2021 as it made it impossible to get around. Form my experience nothing can be manufactured in China unless you physically go there and I have built fantastic relationship in that region over the years. Another option is to acquire one to save time, there are quite a few out now and believe it or not most of them arent doing so well in sales.

Artificial Intuition it is our goal to build first 100% dynamic nodes system

The idea to have centralized AI (God) which provide initial set of training and then nodes use it as basic but extend by subjective learning (atheists) lol

It is very hard to change nodes models on the fly so the first real task is to make it possible. So even p2p, storage strategy should be customized by smart contracts.

We have working DEX prototype but its too early, we need cross chain bridges completed first, I would put us in late 2020 for this.

RepulsiveCarrot (user):
How long have you been in crypto? What made you get started in crypto? Do you see Velas as a natural progression of Coinpayments or a completely separate idea?

Alex Alexandrov (Velasfounder):
I have been in crypto since November 2011, I was looking for reliable VPN and found article about how paying for vpn with credit card was deanonymizing and author suggested bitcoin is used instead. It got me curious and I never looked back.

Velas will become decentralized version of coinpayments over time

David4Neblio (user):
What factors do you consider when adding a cryptocurrency as a form of payment to your platform?

Alex Alexandrov (Velasfounder):
Market Cap has to be in top 150 when being added. After it has been added we use own volume metric for popularity to gauge if we will delist or downgrade. On a new system we will make a better differential between merchant payments coins and wallet supported coins. Payment coins are exchange enabled to BTC/ETH/USDT (or any other tethers) and others are just for wallet keeping like erc20’s and other token ready coins.

SoftArtist (user):
To achieve a real degree of decentralization, all functions should be delegated to nodes/users
1. Will it be possible to delegate in the future all the functions in the users including AI?
2. Will specific hardware be required?

Alex Alexandrov (Velasfounder):
1. Yes, we will release AI models which you can train on your own machine and run along side your node. The whole process is intended to keep it fully decentralized and community driven.

2. Well it will help to have a GPU or good multi core processor. we will have more detailed information in update and first AI public release in 7 weeks. That is our current schedule for this.

Sidhujag (user):
Are you able to leverage Syscoin’s ZDAG for instant checkouts? Being a partner of Syscoin through advisor-ship and previous engagements always helps :)

Alex Alexandrov (Velasfounder):
We work closely with Jag Sidhu CTO of Syscoin and his team. I think in new platform this along with Dash instant and few privacy coin options like P sends are all getting added :)

Doge-much-wow (user):
Why do you need a token for a multicurrency wallet? What is the end user net benefit and impact? My base assumption is they don’t care — is user research saying otherwise?

Alex Alexandrov (Velasfounder):
We didn't release a token, its a native blockchain or as like to call it a test bed for our philosophy experiment. Multi coins wallet makes sense as this wallet has no backend and never will, but will serve as a browser to Velasphere eco system.

Data sharing, video and audio hosting, social network, dapps, messanger.

All will work with coins bridges to velas and thus can be used in the ecosystem.

Imagine a chat where you can only join if you have 100k usd balance in any of the coins and will auto get kicked if balance is below (think trading groups) or groups where you can pay subscription daily. weekly, monthly, yearly to stay in and maybe even recieve participation token for time spent. This can then be used to fund project far better than ico and if you leave so does your funding and you get tokens for time spent only. Or create coin for the room send it to your friends to join and only thye can enter and burn it.

Live streamers can use it to have live streams and get paid in all these coins and so on having multicoin support just makes sense.

ExtraSynaptic (user):
When will you be adding Nano? I previously used Coinpayments to accept Cryptocurrency, but as it does not accept Nano I have since stopped using the service. We have roughly 5000 registered customers for our business and would like to help them get involved in cryptocurrency, and we feel that Nano is the ideal choice. Thank you for your time and what you have done for the community.

Alex Alexandrov (Velasfounder):
Nano will be added to Cps V3 which is set to launch as beta in June for selected customers. New cps we worked on for over 2 years now and is 1000x faster, more secure easier to use and will finally be scaled to add new coins and offer updated API.

Expected to have NANO , Stellar, Cardano, Iota, Hedera and other this summer.

Binance coin is last main net coin we are adding to current cps.

Jwinterm (user):
Can you give a bit more explanation on your new cryptocurrency? Specifically:

1. Why and how are you implementing AI to delegated proof of stake?
2. Why is the source not available for review? How can you expect people to participate in a closed source network?
3. Why was there a token swap with coinpayments coin (whatever that was) in addition to a premine?

Alex Alexandrov (Velasfounder):
1 AI is going to help with committee selection based on performance of nodes

2 As per white paper we are in experiment stage till Beta and reserved closed source. Next version is Beta, so you are welcome to hang on until then and just keep an eye on what we are doing till then.

3 We had a coin build on syscoin with idea of having asset with POS and its own version of blockmarket. Syscoin foundation decided to end this functionality in their chain along with blockmarket as a whole. I have been in talks to develop VELAS with a team and we figured it was only fair to swap people to my new project as the other one lost all its meaning due to their decision. We fully understand why they had to make those decisions and are still quite good friends (mainly legal issues) but we had to make quick pivot for our community.

All 2 billion of coins were created as cps coin. there was no premine on velas. We have 200Mil foundation and 500million unsold coins, which we can sell at later date when project requires funding. I am a strong believer funding is something that will be needed in ongoing bases as we are to compete for market shares with projects like EOS who raised 4billion usd. I personally think us with smaller raise and liquidating upon result is a fair model for out future development vs getting massive whales to tag along and dumping on us along the way as they see fit.

SamsungGalaxyPlayer (user):
How do you plan to more easily facilitate conversions to fiat?

Alex Alexandrov (Velasfounder):
We are working on this constantly. If you have not seen I appointed Jason Butcher as Coinpayments new CEO few months back so I can focus on V3 Coinpayments and Velas. He is working on more licenses and settlement partners, credit card on-boarding.

MoneroMoonBase (user):
When will Nano be added to the platform? A true currency coin with near-instant confirmation times and no fees.

Alex Alexandrov (Velasfounder):
Nano will be added to Cps V3 which is set to launch as beta in June for selected customers. New cps we worked on for over 2 years now and is 1000x faster, more secure easier to use and will finally be scaled to add new coins and offer updated API.

Expected to have NANO , Stellar, Cardano, Iota, Hedera and other this summer.

Binance coin is last main net coin we are adding to current cps.

There were over 80 comments during the live AMA.