Band Protocol AMA Recap
CryptoDiffer team
Hello everyone!
We are glad to meet here Soravis Srinawakoon, CEO and Co-founder of Band Protocol (@soravis), and Sorawit Suriyakarn (@sorawit) CTO
Can you introduce yourself to the community? What is your background and how did you come to the idea to create your project?
Sorawit Suriyakarn
CTO
Hi again. I’m Sorawit, Band Protocol’s CTO. Previously before working on Band Protocol. I went to MIT got CS degree, then worked at tech companies in Silicon Valley. While working there, I was also active in crypto community. Involving with DeFi projects, me and other founders notice the problem in the centralization of data layers inside of blockchain. Thus come the idea of Band Protocol.
The main goal of Band Protocol is to become the data layer for decentralized applications. So developers can focus on shipping applications and don’t need to worry about the integrity of data they rely on, all with strong economic incentives to all the parties involved.
CryptoDiffer team
Can you name your competitors? What are the main competitive advantages of Band Protocol?
Sorawit Suriyakarn
CTO
We published comparisons with other oracles in the space in our developer documentation. https://developer.bandprotocol.com/home/comparison.html
In summary each protocol focuses and optimizes on different things. For Band Protocol, the primary objectives is to make data query intuitive for developer (a simple function call as opposed to asynchrounous callback model) and make sure data providers have skin in the game through token staking mechanics.
Happy to dive into any specific point if anyone is interested in learning more
CryptoDiffer team
What are the major milestones you have achieved so far?
Sorawit Suriyakarn
CTO
We successfully launched our testnet network on Kovan testnet with all smart contracts auditted ready for mainnet. (anyone interested in exploring can go to https://app.kovan.bandprotocol.com – governance portal, and https://developer.bandprotocol.com/home/comparison.html – developer portal). We also published an application built with Band Protocol’s stack with more than 30000 users – https://coinhatcher.com. Also, getting selected to become the next IEO is also one of achievements!
Cryptodiffer Community
Why does your startup need Blockchain?
Sorawit Suriyakarn
CTO
This one is obvious. Our goal is to become the go-to data layer of smart contracts. Hence we need blockchains!
Cryptodiffer Community
What is Dataset Token? How its mechanism work in Band Protocol and what are the benifits of Dataset Token ?
Sorawit Suriyakarn
CTO
In Band Protocol, each dataset is governed by its own unique dataset token that uses Band token as collateral to make attacking the dataset harder. To learn more about this, see section 2.2 of our whitepaper whitepaper.bandprotocol.com.
Cryptodiffer Community
What is the Band token economic model and how will its architecture ensure scarcity of the token and raise its value?
Sorawit Suriyakarn
CTO
Band token is used to issue dataset tokens, which are needed as work token to work as data providers inside of Band Protocol. As data providers (and stakers), you are entitied to fee collected in the oracle system. Thus Band token is always needed and will raise in value as the number of data queries on the system grows.
Cryptodiffer Community
1. In your updated roadmap, i saw the integrating Band Protocol to other blockchains. Can your let us know what is the reason for this? Can these integrated-blockchains work parallelly with ETH network on Band Protocol and resolve the scalability problem may occur on it?
2. Can you let us know what are major differences between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0? Why did your team decided to build Band Protocol as a Data governance framework for Web 3.0 Applications but not Web 2.0?
Sorawit Suriyakarn
CTO
1. Launching on multiple blockchain is necesary as we all know there are dapps on other blockchains outside of ETH as well. Initially, Band Protocol will work independently on each blockchain. Further down the road, we will be launching BandChain to connect all Band Protocol’s smart contracts so they can share the same security pool.
2. Web 2.0 is the traditional website run by centralized companies, while Web3 is the decentralized web. We are true believers of decentralization and hence we build for Web3.0!
Cryptodiffer Community
Band token is used as collateral to issue dataset tokens. Why Band protocol and not Ethereum ?
What is your solutions ?
Sorawit Suriyakarn
CTO
Using Band is important because it ensures that in the initial stage where the system is still bootstraping, malicious attacks cannot happen easily. The distribution of tokens at the initial stage is very essential for the success of the protocol.
Cryptodiffer Community
Will the official launch of Brand Protocol take place in October?
Sorawit Suriyakarn
CTO
The launch of Band Protocol mainnet will be shortly after the IEO ends. We will have more details soon!
Cryptodiffer Community
What is your strongest advantage that you think will make your team leading the market ??
Soravis Srinawakoon
CEO
Couple of factors: (1) technology, we offer cheaper, faster and scalable query model compared to current alternative. Our solution is much easier to integrate as well given data is already available on chain (2) go-to-market: we are focusing a lot in Asia market whereas most other oracle solutions are in the US. We are strong emerging use cases coming out in Asia and we are well positioned to capture this market (3) team: well balanced from both business and technical (very strong technically with team from MIT, Stanford (4) backer: our investors are mostly long term traditional investors like Sequoia and Dunamu & Partner (unlike those crypto VC that dumps tokens in day one). They also help intro to many unicorns of their portfolio
Cryptodiffer Community
What is the Band token economic model and how will its architecture ensure scarcity of the token and raise its value?
Soravis Srinawakoon
CEO
Band token economic is based on work token model. Data providers and token holders stake BAND/dataset token in order to provide data. Data consumers like dApps pay query fee, which are accrued and distributed back to token holders who stake and data providers. Hence, you can almost think of it as a dividend payment except you also have to perform ‘work’ otherwise it’s a security. In that sense, as there are more usages, there will be more revenues flowing through the system which make tokens more valuable as it earns more.
So unlike a regular payment token which doesn’t capture value, our token economics allow our token to capture value of the network as there are more usages
Cryptodiffer Community
1.Since Band Protocol Token will work with multiple blockchains, could we expect tokens in other blockchains and what blockchains could they be?
2. What is your main collaboration for Web 3.0?
Soravis Srinawakoon
CEO
That is correct – the current plan is our tokens will also exist in other blockchains once we implement our protocol on top of them. However, we are still actively researching on cross-chain compatibility and potentail way to simplify this as we will ultimately launch our own BandChain to connect everything. Web3.0 is a decentralized web and we believe this will not be possible without a decentralized data layer (e.g. how do you build decentralized uber without location data, how do you do financial produts if you don’t have real-time financial data feed)
Cryptodiffer Community
Recently BAND PROTOCOL is going to launch on binance exchange. what is the businessplan after launching on binance & where do you see BAND PROTOCOL in next 1 year?
Paul Nattapatsiri
CPO
Band tokens holders benefits from the usage of Band data consumption. So what plan to do is to drive adoptions, starting from the DeFi space. We are working on partnering with notable projects at the moment. We would also be drive more adoption through developer support program such as educational materials, hackathon and grants for promising projects.
At the same time we’re working with traditional company in Web 2.0 who has data infrastructure and onboard them to the blockchain space. So far the feedback has been very positive. More detail to come on this.
Cryptodiffer Community
Can you list 2-3 killer features of Band Protocol that makes it ahead of its competitors?
Sorawit Suriyakarn
CTO
There are a few important things that differentiate us from other solutions. Speed & Ease of integration: We bring data available on-chain, thus whenever a smart contract needs access to data, it can do so as a simple function call. simple and require no block confirmation delay. Economic Incentive: To work in Band Protocol, you need to stake your token and risk losing token. This is very crucial and very different from other solutions without proper economic incentive. Cost & Scalability: Since data is published on chain. Multiple dapps can consume the same data without incurring more costs to data providers. As the system grows, we expect the cost of individual queries to go down.
Cryptodiffer Community
What’s, is the mission of BAND protocol? Which types of problems will it solve?
Which types of dapps support band protocol?
Soravis Srinawakoon
CEO
Band Protocol’s mission is to bring and connect real-world data to blockchain, which allows smart contract to easily query and make use of those real-world data in their logic. This will enable much more use cases than what we have seen so far. We support all type of dApps. While initial focus is in defi that utilizes price feed, there are also prediction market that utilizes sport event data for example for sport gambling, identity data can be used across all dapps for login, on-chain governance, etc.
Cryptodiffer Community
What is the long term viability of the Foundation’s current funding model, and by extension, the Band protocol?
Soravis Srinawakoon
CEO
Other than fund raised, once there are usages, there will be revenue from query fee that flows through the protocol to data providers and token holders who stake. As a foundation that also hold token, we will be staking majority for data providers to also earn fee, which is a sustainable model. Like other token stakers, we will earn these fees as revenue so regardless of price volatility, we will have a sustainable model to operate.
Cryptodiffer Community
My question is do Band have to pay data providers for data? Take an example, if i want to fetch data from stock market, I have to pay Bloomberg or Reuter to get those data. And it is very expensive. So at this stage, not many Dapps are really workable > no revenue. will you able to afford this high cost and how ?
Sorawit Suriyakarn
CTO
Each data provider is responsible for the cost incurred from getting the data on to blockchain. They will, however, get compensated by the cost of queries that dapps need to pay to access data. Query cost that dapps pay is governed by community and can be set through on-chain voting to make sure that the economics make sense.
Cryptodiffer Community
Band token is used as collateral to issue dataset tokens. Why Band protocol and not Ethereum ?
What is your solutions ?
Soravis Srinawakoon
CEO
If we use ETH, any ETH whales can literally 51% attack the system and also influence governance decision in protocol upgrade as they don’t have any skin in the game. We will also be affected by other events related to ETH ecosystem. Not to mention, we are meant to be cross chain so we expect to have our protocol and tokens on other blockchains as well. Using ETH won’t be feasible.
Cryptodiffer Community
Why Binance Launchpad?
Soravis Srinawakoon
CEO
This one is easy, we strive to be the best and partner with the best. Launchpad allows us to distribute our tokens globally and provide liquidity for all type of users / developers. Binance also has a long term vision to integrate all ecosystem in blockchain which we pretty much like to take part of.
Cryptodiffer Community
1. As per your whitepaper ZRX is one of your competitor in this crpto ecosystem. what makes BAND PROTOCOL TOKENS different from ZRX token.
2. Why BAND PROTOCOL choose ERC-20 Platform ? why not BEP2 ?
Sorawit Suriyakarn
CTO
1. I don’t think we list ZRX as one of our competitors. We only cite their token governance model in section 2.3.
2. Band Protocol needs to be ERC-20 initially because the main usage of token is to secure data oracle available for smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. BEP-2 token, at the current technology, cannot do that. We are working on making Band Protocol available on other blockchains as well and that’s on the pipeline.
Cryptodiffer Community
Why are you Introducing Band Project in Bearsih Market? Specially When the Alts Coins are bleeding badly? Don’t you think it will affect Goodwill Of Coin & project in Market?
Soravis Srinawakoon
CEO
We continue to develop and launch product regardless of market sentiment. Our products are ready to use, we have many dapps integrating and partnership which we will be announcing soon and hence it is a good time for us to start pushing. It may affect goodwill of coin but we believe that with our good tech + good token economics (low market cap, low circulating supply, launchpad, no private token unlocked, this reduces a lot of price pressure unlike other projects)
Cryptodiffer Community
1.Do you think Band is at the forefront of data management for smart contracts and decentralized applications?
2.What are Band Protocol’s collaboration with Certik? What is the huge role that Certik plays for Band Protocol?
Soravis Srinawakoon
CEO
We think that there is only one player which is Chainlink in this huge billions of dollar space and we can compete with them in terms of technology and go-to-market. Both of us (and blockchain industry) are still in early stage so we are able to capture value in this space. We collaborate with certik on oracle design and security of the system as Certik does formal verification. Certik has done and will be doing audit for many blockchain projects so we can create strategic ecosystem easily.
Cryptodiffer Community
1. Band Protocol connects smart contracts with trusted off-chaininformation, provided through community-curated data providers. How you guys made it possible?
2. What Technical problems you faced to make it possible?
Sorawit Suriyakarn
CTO
This is very broad question, I recommend going to our whitepaper for more technical details http://whitepaper.bandprotocol.com 🙂. Specifically, section 4.1 will explain the mechanics that we creatre and name it Token-Curated DataSources that allow community to curate and mainnet set of honest data providers with some security guarantees. Let me know if you have further question and I’ll be happy to answer!
Cryptodiffer Community
What is the BAND? Why is the Need of BAND Platform in Crypto Space? Why you Came up With the name BAND?
Soravis Srinawakoon
CEO
Band is when you group something together. We are layer 2 protocol which essentially provides a bridge between layer 1 blockchain solution (e.g. ETH, EOS, etc.) and dApps (e.g. decentralized finance) and also real-world information (web2.0, public API) so think of ourselves as the one connecting everything, BANDING everything together. Band is truly essential because without reliable data layer that connects real-world data with blockchain app, smart contracts are not able to process any logic that requires real world data.
Cryptodiffer Community
I have a question as to whether we can use the Band on the mainnet and (2) does it support pricing for any ERC-20 tokens, or do they have to be whitelisted by the team? Band not?
Sorawit Suriyakarn
CTO
Shortly after IEO, Band Protocol will be available on mainnet and token holders will be able to start staking for data providers they trust and earn portion of the query fees in the system. For pricing data, we will have community voting to decide new dataset to be added to the system. The process will be transparent and our initial data providers will try to accommodate most price pairs.
Cryptodiffer Community
What are the main Key Features of Band Protocol and who needs the Protocol like Band Protocols ?
How much Difficult is to creating smart contracts or Dapp on Band Protocol ?
Soravis Srinawakoon
CEO
Key features can be found on our website in detail but basically we offer cheaper, faster and more secure data oracle solution to dApps. All dApps developers would need to use us if they want to access real-world data and use it in their dApps. The ease of integration is one of our strongest selling points. We require 0 blockchain confirmation, and developers can literally copy 4 lines of code to start using our data. Super easy compared to Chainlink where you need to pause your smart contract, wait for 3 blockchain confirmations to receive your data, and resume your operation. It complicates smart contract
Cryptodiffer Community
Where can you see BAND in the next 5 years?? What should be expected by us and by you as CEO?
Soravis Srinawakoon
CEO
In 5 years, we expect to be the go-to data layer of web3.0 – connecting all type of data to smart contract. Ranging from traditional stock and commoditiy prices to enable decentralized global financial products to real-world identities to enable universal login/reward. You can expect that we will be pushing hard to enable more type of blockchain appliations and reach mass adoption.
Cryptodiffer Community
1. If blockchain service is activated through the oracle of band protocol, what kind of blockchain killer app do you think would be then?
2. In order to achieve the mass adaptation of blockchain, I think it is essential to bring external ecosystems into blockchain system through oracle. So, what industries can have the greatest impact through the technology of band protocol? In other words, what industry is the main focus of band protocol?
Sorawit Suriyakarn
CTO
1) There are a lot of possibilities. Decentralized finance, insurance, supply chain, prediction markets & gambling, on-chain identity and certificate verification, and more. All these applications require decentralized source of data they can trust in order to operate without a single of point of failure. We believe all these apps will be possible with the coming of Band Protocol. 2) Our initial focus is decentralized finance, as it is probably the hottest space right now in crypto. Over time, we will expand Band’s dataset to support more industries.
Cryptodiffer Community
1. Whats the current total circulating supply of Band token including Binance launchpad ?
2. What is the main mission of Band Protocol and what are the development plans of Band token ?
Soravis Srinawakoon
CEO
Current circulating supply is ~17%. ~13% from public sales ~4% from our ecosystem fund – these are controlled by us and will be used for airdrops, developer grants, marketing campaign, and subsidize our initial data providers (will be used to stake so also reduce it out of circulation) and dApps (help pay for initial query fee) to bootstrap the ecosystem.
Cryptodiffer Community
1. How would you introduce the concept to people who have not heard of band protocol before?
2. What do you think is the biggest obstacle or challenge band protocol will face? How do you plan to tackle that challenge?where do you see band protocol in 5 to 10 years from now?
Soravis Srinawakoon
CEO
This is why we partner with Binance to reach global market. Our investors are also very global (e.g. Sequoia, top global traditional VC) so they help us to connect with local ecosystem. We value our community and have already established key person in China, Korea, and Australia (to handle US/Europe). We will be expanding our team to cover major areas.
Biggest obstacle for BAND is bootstrapping the ecosystem for both data providers and data consumers (dApps) at the same time. This is the reason why we have ecosystem fund to subsidize both sides and make it much easier to convince them to join as our initial partners. We have already made number of partnership, which we will be announcing soon.
Also in order to mitigate that, we are partnering with many layer 1 solutions as all of them ALSO need traction. Right now, regardless of their scalability, it will be very hard for any dApps developers to build any meaningful dApps without accessing real-world data. Most existing defi relies on centralized oracle which defeats the whole purpose of using smart contract in the first place.
By partnering with layer 1, they help us with resources (both monetary and developer resources) so it allows us to scale very quickly.
Cryptodiffer Community
1. How do you solve the coin flipping attack in voting? Or Band protocol intentionally avoid dealing with this because it can’t solve it? Or maybe Band protocol has a solution for it? Can u expand on that?
2. Band protocol seem to be a combination of other protocols (e.g. Foam, DIRT, Chainlink, etc) with some improvements like speed, ease of integration (economic incentives to have skin in the game are being done by every TCR) but what is the main breakthrough of Band protocol that no other data layer protocol is doing beyond just offering improvements? Can you specify what Band is doing that no other data layer protocol has done already?
Sorawit Suriyakarn
CTO
1. We do not have direct yes/no voting for choosing data providers. Rather token holders continuously stake for data providers they trust. And at the eventual stage, the schelling point will lead to the most trusted data providers getting selected for the top spots. For governance voting, it does not have monetary reward so there is no incentive for coin-flipping attack. 2. To our knowledge, there’s no on-chain oracle that has security guarantee through direct monetary incentive / community curation yet on mainnet. In addition, we focus a lot on developer experience and cost. The end result is a cost effective and easy-to-integrate way to make your smart contracts consume data from Band Protocol dataset. It’s very simple you can try it now at https://developer.bandprotocol.com/devs/connect-with-band.html on Kovan testnet
Cryptodiffer Community
Whats the role of your partners(Sequoia, dunamu,Seax,Certik) in the projects ecosystem?
What do these partners benefit from being a partner of Band?
Soravis Srinawakoon
CEO
These are questions from previous round which we think is good to answer from Yusuf. Our partners are very hand on when it come to helping us as they operate as traditional VCs, unlike crypto VCs that are looking for quick profit (they invest with 10 years horizon unlike 1 year crypto fund). For example, Sequoia introduces us a lotof their portfolios for our potential partnership. Help with recruting, scaling team, legal, and general advices of how to run a good startup. Dunamu owns Upbit (largest Korean exchange) and is very well connected in Korea so they help us with local partner. What do they benefit? They invest in BAND so if we are able to reach adoption, they will receive financial return.
Cryptodiffer Community
How can band protocol demonstrate that it is efficient , faster , scalable and trustable and better than existing oracles ?
Do band data governance module change while working with different kinds of Blockchain like POW , POS , DAGS , HASHGRAPH ? Since the idea of governance , deployability of smart contracts is different in all of them ?
Soravis Srinawakoon
CEO
By our protocol design, pushing data on-chain allows us to achieve these advantages. How to prove? You can easily try it out (check our https://app.kovan.bandprotocol.com for quick example of integration). Our query fee is currently set at $2 but if you query price data using Chainlink with 7 data providers, it will cost you $7 – you can see this on-chain transaction: https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9ac4c02df89e86570454920a62bf59ed58f4cf6d1f2188e03ad679e13b0129d6
Cryptodiffer Community
1. How your project will overcome from Attacks ( Sybil ). And How one is secure on your network . And also what about PRICE FEED ORACLE ?
2. How one can become Data provider ? How much we can get from fees portion ?
Sorawit Suriyakarn
CTO
1) We use Band token and dataset tokens are the governance power in the system. Thus Sybil attacks will not affect the integrity of the system.
2) To become data providers you need to stake the minimum required dataset tokens as specified with the protocol’s governance parameters through community voting. Then data provider candidates with high supports of token holders in the system will be entitied to work in the protocol. 3) As a token holders you can stake for data providers you trust, and earn portion of fee collected in the system.
Cryptodiffer Community
Why did block Egypt from participating in the IEO ?
Although in all the previous IEO projects it was not blocked.
You blocked Ukraine and one hour later you unblocked it, I hope you do the same with Egypt to allow many Egyptians who wants to participate in the IEO.
Soravis Srinawakoon
CEO
We are doing our best at the moment. Legal takes time.
But we listen to our community and will try our best to accommodate everyone.
We also need to make sure we protect our project and control our legal risk so hope you guys understand as well.
Cryptodiffer Community
If data is on-chain, not deletable, how is privacy of sensitive data?
Soravis Srinawakoon
CEO
Right now, we are dealing mostly with less sensitive data. In the future, we have a plan to tackle this privacy issue by processing data off-chain with proof-of-verficaition on chain. We will be releasing detailed public roadmap soon but you can also check Binance Research.
There are also technologies that are coming out such as Enigma and secure enclaved computation so we are actively researching and exploring many options.
Cryptodiffer TEAM
Thanks you for the answers 🙂
This was really cool and we are proud to have our fist AMA with such great project!
