AMA with Züs Founder Saswata Basu (July 5, 2019) | Cloud Storage Network

Question: What is your timeline for adding a marketing specialist to the team?
Answer: I have engaged a couple marketing teams. I think it is late to add a team member because it takes time to understand our value proposition of cloud storage networks. Basically, I am engaging two or more marketing firms to talk to influencers, and target the Chinese community, and developers. This uses grassroots marketing to basically have them learn more about 0Chain, storage platforms, and all the protocols we have developed. We are getting the word out there and we need to engage more than one person. Obviously, I will be driving it but we are using firms that have connections to developers, influencers, and media outlets. We are working on getting users from Chinese and Asian communities which is something we have not done in the past. So we are searching for users and developers from those communities to help develop additional applications on our platform.

Question: Any updates on marketing or VCs?
Answer: VC perspective, we are looking at Asian VCs and investors. We are looking at those exchanges such as Binance and KuCoin as they list many altcoins. Now that we have all the products, my time will be focused on marketing and messaging our value proposition and our products and protocols.

Question: Can you explain how fiat purchases for storage will work? Can you clarify the correlation between the token holders and 0box users who will directly pay via fiat/credit card? How do ZCN holders pay for storage if there is no 0Wallet connected to the 0Box app?
Answer: 0Box is a decentralized application that is geared toward non-crypto users as well as crypto-users that want to pay via fiat/credit card. If you are a large user or application that wants to use the 0Chain cloud storage network, you can use SDK to pay directly to blobbers. 0Box app makes it easy for users and developers to use the services without worrying about the crypto aspect. We are targeting users who value privacy and transparency; those who do not want to log in, use emails to upload files, and for their files to not be visible to other entities. This applies to and appeals to a bigger market. That doesn’t mean you can’t build an application on our platform and only charge crypto. We encourage people to write such applications during the hackathon. How we manage the tokens on the backend is that we will purchase tokens as users come on. Then, we will pay the blobbers directly with these purchased tokens. Team tokens will ensure network security as we do not want to risk that at this point. If a user purchases 1Tb of data, we will purchase the ZCN and use that.

Question: Will there be more than one app? I don’t see the wallet in the latest 0Box version
Answer: Yes, there will be a 0Wallet version that will be released in the upcoming week or the following week. It has a lot of functionality that is not relevant for someone who just wants to use 0Chain as a cloud storage network. For 0Wallet, it is geared toward users who want to lock/stake, and protect tokens so that’s why we have the split-key protocol. If one device gets hacked, you will still be protected

Question: When can we expect 0Wallet?
Answer: Next week or the following

Question: Updates on beta? When can we expect external miners?
Answer: Hopefully a few weeks, keep tuned

Question: How many external miners/rigs do you have ready to join? When will delegation pools be available?
Answer: I believe we have 15+ worldwide ready right now. When BetaNet is up and running, you will be able to see how many are present. I believe will see more as MainNet approaches since a lot of people have confirmed they will join with external rigs. We have will have a program with our partners that will provide cabinets in data centers with 1Gb connectivity in 8–10 markets in the USA. We currently do not have anything internationally but we are looking to add more partners so that if a miner wants to join in, they can have a low-price data center. This will be transparent.
Once you see the 0Wallet app you will be able to see the delegation pool info. This should be in the next couple of weeks

Question: When will 0box be released on the App store?
Answer: This should happen in the next couple of weeks. We want to add the Stripe integration, and fiat integration and then release them into the store. It will take a couple of cycles and the store approval takes a week. We will try to do it this month.

Question: Can you lock tokens without using a storage service? To generate interest
Answer: Yes, you will see that on 0Wallet as it will be one of the features to lock tokens for interest. You can also stake tokens to receive more by adding to a miner/sharder

Question: General timeline updates?
Answer: 0Box, 0Wallet, BetaNet should be in good shape/form and close to production-ready by the end of this month so that we can do hackathon/bugathon in august. This way, we can be ready for exchanges to list our native tokens. The team is doing marketing in step with the latest updates to release info about our product, protocols, and 0Chain. An SDK has been released so we will see engagement in hackathons to develop our community worldwide. The goal is for new apps to be developed or to integrate existing applications to use our cloud storage network. We want to create relations with apps and exchanges. Hackathon hopefully in August to ensure the security of our network. Exchanges take time and are layered-marketing as we need to partner with smaller ones to get more attention. Money and fees are the main goals of exchanges, so once volume picks up, we show our product, and we will see lower fees to be listed.

Apps

Question: How do you integrate 0Wallet with 0Box as you lock ZCN on 0Wallet, not 0Box for free storage?
Answer: 0Box and 0Wallet are separate. 0Box is a fiat-only dApp, where the payer is 0Chain. This way it appeals to the masses, non-crypto users, and they do not need to worry about crypto. 0Wallet is to store, send, lock, and stake ZCN in a secure manner using split-key technology

Question: How does this impact the value of ZCN?
Answer: The price of ZCN would reflect a) data, b) dApps & businesses using it to pay for storage, c) users using it to earn 10% or more interest based on lock or stake, d) paying service providers, and e) users using it for cross-border payment for services, like other cryptos. ZCN is a new class of crypto assets based on data. 0Box is just one dApp using 0Chain Storage. I expect hundreds more, followed by thousands of businesses and enterprises.
When purchasing storage on 0Box, fiat will be used by 0Chain LLC to purchase ZCN on the open market. We are committed to not using team tokens will not be used for this.

SDK

Question: And all the users that bought ZCN do what? The admin’s always said that we could change ZCN for storage at 0box. Now it is only fiat?
Answer: No, we will buy ZCN. You can always use SDK to directly interact with the network, and can also come up with a different storage app and business model. That’s why we have Hackathons. Again 0Box is one type of storage app to showcase an example. 0Chain cloud storage network is designed for more Apps and dApps to be built on it.

Question: Are there CDN-like features implemented in 0chain? From my understanding data on the cloud storage network is stored on multiple blobbers for redundancy reasons. I am thinking of something like static content delivery as an alternative to e.g. S3 from the latency closest src
Answer: Yes, for S3 and enterprises, CDN and Egress are big values for the comparative cost they pay today.

Question: Any numbers for SDK download/uploads?
Answer: We don’t track the cloning of the SDK on GitHub. Not sure how to track this but I will look to see if there is a way to do so. Once we do the hackathon, we expect to see more applications using our SDK

Saswata: Thanks for joining us for this AMA on this July 4th extended weekend. We are excited for you to see this all come together. We released an updated version of 0Box Native app available on TestFlight for iOS. Expect to see some more changes, like Stripe integration, before release. Some businesses and VCs are excited to see a consumer app on blockchain. We hope to have more news next AMA about marketing, the tech and exchanges. Thanks for joining and we will see you later!

Saswata offered a further explanation in the 0Chain Telegram group.

1. 0Box will compete with DropBox, iCloud, and Sync, where users pay only $10/mo and use fiat. We want a mass appeal. This will help introduce people to ZCN, and gain visibility, and we expect a small percentage will buy ZCN.
2. If you want to use ZCN for your storage, and have a lot of data, use the SDK or CLI tool yourself. If the market is big, and there is interest, I’m sure someone will develop a UI for this. But there are legal aspects of liability that the provider needs to sort out and can be a complex issue.
3. If you are an MSP or reseller of storage, we will have a separate program. Stay tuned.
4. We will not use team tokens to buy storage. They are to preserve the security of the network. We want to be the best secure blockchain network and with our client-side split-key technology will be the only network with an end-to-end high-security platform to store value.
5. We will buy ZCN on an exchange and pay the blobbers. $10/mo is not that much ZCN. Of course, if we have 1 million paid users, then it is substantial, but that’s a good thing, and will attract liquid exchanges and MMs, as they make money on the spread.

Scale

6. Guys, let’s think big and keep things in perspective. There is 35 Zettabytes of data today. The expected growth is 175 Zettabytes in 5–6 years, according to IDC. If we capture 1 Zettabyte of data on our cloud storage network, the ZCN price will be in triple digits. And this is not considering the usage of ZCN as an asset, locking for interest, or speculation, which it will be at that point.
7. 0Chain is the first to mechanize the decentralization process. It is an inside-out process of today’s cloud storage. The winners are data centers, carriers, system/disk vendors, and IT guys who are MSPs. The first consumers of storage will be 0Box and MSPs. But later dApps and enterprise applications will use the SDK to store data on our platform.
8. MSPs today resell storage and profit on the markup. With 0Chain, they not only make money on reselling storage, but they make even more on their rigs.
9. 0Chain is attractive to PoS miners of blockchain. Miners will need to be in the active set or committee for them to make money, and they are required to stake enough, otherwise, they are left out and their rig becomes useless. 0Chain offers miners a new revenue source that is limitless and they are not limited by mining income.