Ergo AMA Wrap-Up, November 26

Last week's AMA with Dan Friedman and Alex Chepurnoy was full of great topics, covering everything from future exchanges, business adoption, Ergo’s scalability and Layer 2 solutions on the blockchain.

Dan provided an overview on future exchange listings and the processes that go into making that a reality. Currently, the team is gathering all the legal information necessary to work with top tier exchanges as certain legal issues need to be addressed. Since most of these exchanges are regulated, they need to know how a token was issued, how it is being used and whether or not it could be classified as a security. In tandem with the legal work, the Ergo team has procured the services of a market maker to increase Ergo’s performance in terms of generating more volume and liquidity. 

Dan offered more insight into continuing business and marketing strategies as the Ergo Foundation nears its incorporation in Singapore. Going forward, it is a priority to add infrastructure that supports the community so that Ergo can grow outwards. Business involvement and business use cases, especially as they relate to Layer 2 solutions, are also priorities to attract more business and more adoption of the Ergo Platform. Dan pointed out that Ergo’s ability to scale with ease will allow the platform to serve the needs of small, medium, large, and corporate/enterprise-sized businesses - this opens Ergo up to endless opportunities within its ecosystem.

With regards to the marketing strategies, Dan informed the community that Ergo has retained the services of a marketing firm and that Ergo will be releasing an expanded social media plan and revamping the current feel of the Ergo brand.

Alex provided numerous updates from the developer side of Ergo. He mentioned that since Ergo is mostly grassroots, someone on the team has been assigned to identify, collect and compile information about all the projects in the ecosystem. Additionally, he talked about the Solana bridge that SuSy (formerly Gravity) is building with Ergo and  the need for liquidity. He also discussed plans for more ErgoHacks due to their high success rate and new wallets (specifically the Android wallet being available for iOS users). With ErgoDEX, the team is waiting for Emurgo to complete support for the dApp connector before users can enjoy the full functionality of that DEX. 

One of the more important updates Alex discussed addresses the emission schedule of ERG tokens. He informed the community that he has submitted a proposal to adjust the emission schedule through a soft fork that would see the release of ERG tokens extended by approximately 30 years (while maintaining the planned fixed supply of ERG). He asked the community to keep an eye out for this announcement and to offer feedback on this proposal.

Lastly, Alex informed the audience that developers are preparing to release 5.0, which will increase the efficiency and execution of smart contracts (5-6x faster).

AMA Questions and Summary

The following is a summary of questions posed by the audience during this AMA. There is everything from business plans to developer news and some humorous discussion about what Dan and Alex love to eat. Please visit the Ergo YouTube Channel to enjoy the archived broadcast (AMA with Dan Friedman and Alex Chepurnoy) for the full discussion. 

What area of business do you see using Ergo?

Answered by Dan Friedman

• Ergo is its own niche - it can be compact and big at the same time
• Ergo has the potential for a big piece of the market share for digital identity, blockchain-based authentication, blockchain-based logistics and layer two solutions
• It can scale to meet low, middle, and large-scale business cases; the versatility of Ergo allows us to be effective at all business-sized cases
• To continually gain market share is to be flexible in what you can do and provide

Do you see Ergo in the future having games, casinos and a metaverse?

Answered by Alex Chepurnoy

• Some projects during the recent ErgoHACK explored casinos
• Games are a big discussion - expect that to be something that will be explored on Ergo in the future since it is so popular in the blockchain sphere

How are you going to get NiPoPoWs and Oracles to come into their own?

Answered by Alex Chepurnoy

• There are already some applications but working on more external applications.
• Being worked on right now is support for NIPoPoWs on the node and P2P support with full security guarantees.
• Currently, 250-300 nodes on the network, but targeting 1000’s of nodes for a bigger network.
• Light nodes for a secure network as bootstrap times will be dramatically reduced (hours/days -> minutes)
• Support NiPoPoWs for the sigma-rust library (of which several dApps are built)
• Mobile clients with full security.
• Proofs of NFT’s
• Possibility of addressing internet connectivity
• Oracles - new Oracle for ETH but oracles are needed for different applications, so there will be a need for more oracles.
• Community interest in oracles is growing.

Who do you see as Ergo’s biggest competitors?

Answered by Dan Friedman

• “Competition is 10% reality.”
• Believes there is a need for many blockchains and that Ergo brings something unique
• Don't see competitors so much as seeing other legitimate blockchains as colleagues working in the same space; they have their own tech and niche.
• It’s all about market share and engaging and taking that market share
• That being said, market share can be shared amongst different projects; things we do with other blockchains can be symbiotic
• “Our biggest competitor is our reservation about going forward with this project!”

Do you think Ergo will have Layer 2 similar to Cardano/ETH to help with scaling and/or alternative solutions?

Answered by Alex Chepurnoy

• Studying and reading about layer two solutions a lot lately.
• No clear winner here - could be plasma roll-ups, hydra, etc, depending on application.
• We will have different layer two solutions co-exist.
• Better to concentrate on what's needed, like LETS, miners, etc.

What plans do you have to attract devs to Ergo?

Answered by Dan Friedman

• This deals with mass adoption.
• Would like to have a program similar to Plutus Pioneers program at Cardano to attract new devs to the ecosystem
• Create an incubator for those looking to create a business on Ergo

Answered by Alex Chepurnoy

• We have ErgoHack and grant programs that we hope to continue to develop to attract new developers. 

What is your marketing strategy to reach adoption from developers mainly based in the USA and Canada?

Answered by Alex Chepurnoy

• We need more applications to attract devs
• Combine them on top of ergo 

What are your thoughts on being considered by Charles as an experimental platform that other crypto projects can use? Any plans on becoming the Kusama of Cardano?

Answered by Alex Chepurnoy

• Already some examples of application prototypes, yes - it’s perfect. One example is the stablecoin protocol which Cardano has used in its research for their stablecoin
• The UTXO model is tricky.
• The Ergo community is diverse - grassroots, anonymous developers. A community member launched SigmaUSD - this is the strength of P2P finance.