AMA recap — Spectre GRP & Oraichain | Jan 27th 2021

Published in

Oraichain

14 min readJan 29, 2021

On January 27th 2021, the Oraichain team held an AMA with Spectre GRP, one of the most influential communities in the cryptocurrency space, where the Oraichain ecosystem and key upcoming developments were discussed.

1. Oraichain team attendees:

Dr. Chung Dao, CEO of Oraichain
Noah, AI Lead of Oraichain
Tu, CTO of Oraichain
Duc, CPO of Oraichain

2. Introduction

[Dr. Chung]: My name is Chung, CEO of Oraichain, the world’s first AI-powered Data Oracle. I got my Ph.D. in Computer Science from The University of Tokyo. I have been researching and developing on blockchain for 5 years. Moreover, I am also co-founder for one of the top 5 IT and AI companies in Vietnam with offices also in Japan.

[Noah]: I got my Ph.D in Computer Science from Keio University, Japan. Have been working mainly on Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence for about 10 years now.

Q&A

I. Spectre GRP team questions

Can you briefly tell us what Oraichain is?

[Dr. Chung]: Oraichain is a data oracle platform that aggregates and connects Artificial Intelligence APIs to smart contracts and regular applications. It is the world’s first AI-powered data oracle that can boost both Blockchain, DeFi, and AI. The FIRST product using AI services on Oraichain is yAI.Finance.

Oraichain has all features of typical oracle platforms (Chainlink, Band protocol, Tellor) and AI platforms (Ocean protocol).

[Noah]: In short, Oraichain is a combination of two best technologies: a blockchain ecosystem and AI ecosystem. We’d love to build a future for the community with Oraichain!

How do you guys compare to other oracles such as Link or Band?

[Dr. Chung]: The main differences between Oraichain, Chainlink and Band are:

- Oraichain supports more input and output designed for AI requests.

- Oraichain supports test cases for AI APIs. The working of these test cases is one key design in order for blockchains to go fully automated with real-world applications. Those test cases could be crowdsourcing in which any one can provide test cases and receive incentives.

- Oraichain is a bridge to connect off-chain AI models and mining data to blockchains.

- Oraichain helps gather AI scientists, data engineers, small AI companies, and individuals in one place that is very good for AI model development and quality.

For the use case of price feeds:

- Chainlink: input data can be raw data (e.g., weather data, price data)

- Oraichain: raw input data will be passed to AI models to obtain a prediction result before written on chain; Hence the name “AI-powered data Oracle”

What are your plans to build a bridge for Polkadot and Ethereum?

[Dr. Chung]: To widen our ecosystem we recognise building a bridge is important. It helps DApps on the Ethereum and Polkadot ecosystem to request and read AI data from Oraichain.

The bridge helps DApps on the Ethereum and Polkadot ecosystem to request and read AI data from Oraichain.

The Ethereum bridge is ready, and the Polkadot bridge is on-going implementation.

More details of the Polkadot bridge:

Phase 1: How feasible to integrate Oraichain into Polkadot

1. Build a dev Parachain using Substrate

2. Design payment mechanism on the Parachain to oracle scripts on Oraichain

3. Build SDK that helps developers to use the dev parachain for requesting AI APIs via oracle scripts on Oraichain and storing results on the parachain

4. Build a module that helps to share processed data from Oraichain to parachains

Phase 2: Alpha parachain

1. Run a parachain on Kusama

2. Complete the flow of using oracle scripts on Oraichain

3. Provide requested templates for dApps on the Polkadot ecosystem

Phase 3: Parachain mainnet

Our plan: to bid a parachain slot on Polkadot and provide AI services to the Polkadot ecosystem

What are the milestones Oraichain hopes to reach?

[Dr. Chung]: Our next upcoming milestones are:

- Oraichain mainnet 1.0 in February 24th

- AI-based yield farming strategies on yAI.Finance platform (production)

- Completion of AI ecosystem several key AI services such as AI Marketplace (100+ AI APIs and 3 applications), AI Data Hub, AI Request Hub, AI Publisher and Training Services.

- Ethererum and Polkadot bridges also parachain for improving interoperability to other blockchain networks.

- For more information, please have a look at our new roadmap for 2021 and beyond:

https://orai.io/roadmap

What practical business sector implementation would be a focus area first for Orai?

[Dr. Chung]: We have expertise in AI, big data mining, and DeFi. At the beginning, we want to provide a metric of ROI, risk score, and price prediction to other DeFi projects through Oraichain.

For price feed in DeFi, we can provide anomaly detection that helps to prevent flash loan attacks and wrong liquidation.

Our initial 100 AI APIs on the AI Marketplace can be used for any real-life applications in multidisciplinary domains that support a plug and play fashion.

What is the AI Marketplace and what are the plans for it in the future?

[Dr. Chung]: AI Marketplace is where AI practitioners can sell their AI APIs and others can buy them to integrate into Smart contracts. Developers can contribute to the AI Marketplace and sell high quality AI APIs built on Oraichain in exchange for ORAI rewards.

There will be 100+ AI APIs on AI Marketplace by the end of January. We are asking more AI companies to provide their AI on the Oraichain marketplace. The AI Marketplace will serve both end-users and developers.

…Kind of similar to Ocean’s Data marketplace but AI APIs 👀

[Dr. Chung]: Yes, mostly. We have a separate AI Data Hub for Data marketplace.

Can you give us more details on what the AI Data Hub and AI Request Hub?

[Dr. Chung]: We aim to be the Amazon in the AI Marketplace. AI Data Hub is the place where users will be able to contribute the datasets and create test cases for AI training and validation in exchange for Oraichain tokens. An online platform for AI-labeling crowdsourcing will be launched together with the AI Data Hub in order to collect more data from all over the world.

AI Request Hub is the place where companies will be able to call for a customized AI solution and AI specialists will be able to compete and monetize their design solutions. In Q2 2021, this hub is intended to utilize the AI Data Hub and attract attention by running several AI competitions and funding for AI projects.

Your mainnet is due to go live on Cosmos 24th Feb. Why did you choose Cosmos?

[Dr. Chung]: Cosmos network/sdk is an open source framework for building Proof-of-Stake domain-specific blockchains, just like building Node Applications with Node modules. Developers will find it easy to use and develop the blockchains out of composable modules. Because it helps build specific blockchain applications, we can optimize the code to serve one application only. Cosmos also provides a way to connect different blockchains together, which is expected to be the next generation of blockchain in the future.

What does it take to be a node validator to secure the Oraichain network?

[Dr. Chung]: Validators are fundamental actors participating in the Oraichain network. Validators are responsible for creating blocks, executing test cases to validate data from different data sources, and fetching AI results from AI providers. There are three types of validators on the Oraichain: genesis validators, trusted validators, and regular validators. The number of ORAI rewards for standard validators on the Oraichain network is adjusted to ensure that APY is 29% on average. There is a minimum 36% APY for genesis and trusted validators. Below is the ORAI requirement for each kind of validators:

- You need 2,000 ORAI to apply for genesis validators.

- You need 1,000 ORAI to apply for trusted validators.

- There is no requirement for regular validators.

Check our call for validators: https://medium.com/oraichain/call-for-mainnet-validators-oraichain-mainnet-phase-1-9c8dcc881a10

Who is currently partnered with Oraichain?

[Dr. Chung]: We partnered with Rikkeisoft, a 1000+ employee IT enterprise in Vietnam and Japan — Rikkeisoft and Oraichain to Expand AI Blockchain Technology Globally

1. Oraichain received an investment from Rikkeisoft that has secured Oraichain early stage growth.

2. Rikkeisoft CEO and Chairman have joined Oraichain’s board and will help expand partnerships in the US and Japan.

3. Oraichain will get access to the best talents from Rikkeisoft’s Human Resources pool.

4. Rikkei AI Division will help drive adoption for Oraichain’s AI Marketplace building and integrating AI APIs.

Thanks to this partnership, we are accelerating development and adoption of our ecosystem and products.

Oraichain also partnered KardiaChain:

The partnership extends further with Oraichain enhanced bridge that supports applications on KardiaChain to power AI services and off-chain data from within Oraichain’s network. Oraichain will also be a partner validator for mainnet to help secure the Kardia network, which is also reciprocal ahead of our mainnet in January 2021. KAI will also be a staking option when we launch our yAI.Finance DeFi staking vault.

We approach each partnership with a sense to solve a problem and offer a solution. It’s important we focus on growing the AI ecosystem and potential it can unlock. Thus, we hold meetings and regular calls with potential partners to establish and determine the vision and how we are aligned for potential synergy. This is always two way, and the network effects if done correctly can be amazing. We are always looking to bridge blockchain technology with real world use cases.

Why don’t conventional blockchains include AI models?

[Dr. Chung]: In the technical viewpoint, current smart contracts cannot run AI models inside and it is almost impossible to integrate an AI model in a smart contract:

- Strictness: smart contracts always follow strict rules, where an input must be 100% accurate (e.g. signature) to generate an output. But, AI models don’t give such accuracy (e.g. face recognition). Oraichain helps overcome some aspects of strictness to obtain better functionality and user experience.

- Environment: smart contracts are typically written in high-level programming languages, such as Solidity and Rust that provide stricter syntax and better security. However, AI models are typically written in Python or Java.

- Data size: smart contracts often have very small storage space, since it helps reduce transaction fees in some blockchain networks, such as Ethereum. Compared to this, the size of an AI model is relatively large.”

[Noah]: Also, blockchains are originally designed as closed books. AI models deal with the real world. It’s now the time, blockchains go out to write their stories with real world events.

II. Community questions

Test cases are one of the features of Oraichain. How to motivate an AI provider to work and deliver quality services?

[Dr. Chung]: We use test cases to check the quality of AI providers and anyone can provide their test cases to the AI marketplace and data hub as well.

What is the strategic planning put in place for marketing Oraichain to adopters in the crypto space?

[Dr. Chung]: We hope that our tech will be the best way of marketing. More to come in our roadmap this year.

How do you encourage new developers and teams to use Oraichain and create their own AI oracles? What real data and APIs can Oraichain connect to a smart contract?

[Dr. Chung]: We provide incentives for AI developers and AI data scientists who implement and deploy their AI to Oraichain.

Staking is one of the strategies to attract users and achieve mass adoption. Does your great project have a plan about Staking?

[Mr. Duc]: Yes, actually we are having a staking program for validators, token holders have a chance to be genesis as well as trusted validators for the mainnet. Since our tokens are used for many functions such as Governance, requesting AI services and more, we expect to deliver more staking programs in the future

What does the work you have been doing with Halborn contribute to the safety of Oraichain? What improvements in your platform do you expect to see as a result?

[Dr. Chung]: Halborn, a cybersecurity company is auditing all our smart contracts on yAI.finance, our Ethereum bridge, etc. The mainnet’s smart contract structure will be audited as well.

In what blockchain areas is Oracle AI technology best suited? What innovations has Oraichain brought to the crypto industry?

[Noah]: AI Oracle will suit many areas and even open more areas in the blockchain landscape.

We’ll bring AI-powered yield farming strategies, and many new token scores to analyze crypto tokens with AI.

There is some additional information we will disclose in due time.

Can I stake Your Token? What are your Staking criterias ?

[Dr. Chung]: Currently, you can stake ORAI on yAI.finance with 19% APY.

In Jan 29th, you can join our staking competition: https://medium.com/oraichain/call-for-mainnet-validators-oraichain-mainnet-phase-1-9c8dcc881a10

Afterwards, when the mainnet is launched, you will also be able to stake directly to validators and get 29% APY on average.

What is the Benefit for Holding tokens for Long term?

[Dr. Chung]: You can stake ORAI to the mainnet and get APY. Moreover, ORAI is used for payment for oracle services and AI services the Oraichain ecosystem offers.

ORAI currently works on the Ethereum Blockchain Network. But as we know, ETH has many scalability issues, Why did you choose Ethereum Blockchain for your Platform? Do you have any plans to launch your own mainnet of ORAI Network?

[Dr. Chung]: We have our own network that will be launched on Feb 24th. We provide different bridges to other blockchains like Ethereum and Polkadot.

Can you tell us about your plans for long-term? what you are currently focusing on? And what strategy will be used to expand globally?

[Noah]: For long-term, Oraichain aims to build a comprehensive system of blockchain and AI ecosystems; that will support many applications of both DeFi and the real world.

What were the main adoption plans for Oraichain in the 2020 year? Which upcoming announcements can we expect from Oraichain?

[Noah]: yAI.finance is the first use case using AI services on Oraichain. After the debut of its AI-based farming strategies, other DeFi projects will use AI-based information like risk score, price prediction, and ROI from Oraichain.

The Oraichain AI Marketplace is another main product which will include 100+ AI API and 3 specific applications very soon. One cool application might be the AI-generated NFT that should be unique in the blockchain space.

Oraichain connects artificial intelligence APIs with smart contracts and common applications. What features does your AI have to make it work automatically and error-free? Why would you use AI instead of Bots or algorithmic methods?

[Noah]: Algorithmic methods or bots are somewhat deterministic in behaviors. AI is more contextual. And, there’ll be an integration mechanism for ensembling AI predicted results. This will reduce the overall errors.

Can customers be supported by Oraichain without providing sensitive personal information? What information do you store on the system? Is presentation of information necessary? How does the system protect users from risks?

[Noah]: Yes, we’ll implement some encrypting mechanisms for protecting personal information. We don’t intend to save any data on our system. All are decentralized.

What is the vision of Oraichain? Which markets does Oraichain focus on? What will you do to drive Oraichain use cases and applications, especially in the Asia region?

[Noah]: Oraichain is the world’s first AI-powered oracle, it aims to revolutionize the AI, DeFi and Blockchain industries. Oraichain is a data oracle platform that aggregates and connects Artificial Intelligence APIs to smart contracts and regular applications.

Oraichain interconnects Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain technologies creating an AI ecosystem of products and services with AI as the cornerstone. The first use case of Oraichain: yAI.finance is a DeFi platform using unique AI-based features and strategies. Oraichain AI Marketplace will offer hundreds of AI APIs and different AI products aiming to be the one-stop-shop for Artificial Intelligence services.

We are looking for partners in both the crypto industry and traditional AI business. With AI-based farming strategies used by yAI.finance, other DeFi projects could be our customers. Moreover, with Oraichain AI Marketplace, we offer AI services to all end-users and enterprises.

Developers trying to build their own Dapp may need an Oracle and they will compare the cost of each Oracle service provider. Is the cost of Oraichain Oracle lower than other alternatives in the market?

[Dr. Chung]: the price is decided by AI and data providers and validators on the Oraichain. Each provider will compete with each other on the AI marketplace, so the price should be reasonable in order to attract more users.

I am an experienced developer and ethical hacker, do you have plans for a Hackathon to check the security of your ecosystem periodically and also to invite developers to build?

[Dr. Chung]: We will have a bug bounty program that incentivises developers and ethical hackers for their contribution to the Oraichain network’s security and development.

DeFi is one of the hottest topics in the blockchain field. Can you share your opinion about DeFi with us? Do you think DeFi will destroy the existing financial system? What is your project Approach towards DeFi?

[Dr. Chung]: DeFi is a hot topic and important in the current crypto industry. The first use case of Oraichain: yAI.finance is a DeFi platform using unique AI-based features and strategies. We believe that with the successful launch of AI-farming on yAI.finance, there will be more DeFi projects who will use the AI technology on Oraichain. The vision of yAI.finance is to become the reference in crypto-asset management and crypto investment funds.

Who can take part in the governance of Oraichain? Why did Oraichain implement Al to delegated consensus standards?

[Dr. Chung]: ORAI DAO is coming in Q2, 2021. You will be the governor of the product serving you. By owning ORAI tokens, you can take part in the governance, development, and future plans for the Oraichain ecosystem. Because this is a decentralized network, the project development team only creates the foundation, while you can build a bright future for it using your own tokens.

No, we don’t implement AI to the consensus on Oraichain. We still use DPoS for the Oraichain network.

Still many people don’t know anything about blockchain and there are also newcomers too. What are your plans to educate and raise awareness and adoption among the community to make more people understand about your project easily?

[Dr. Chung]: We do educational seminars for newcomers, for example Binance talk (https://orai.io/presentations/Binance-talk-Oct28-EN.pdf) and Hanoi blockchain meetup (https://blockchainhanoi.org/).

Many people doubt that the Oracle problem will never be completely resolved. What is your reaction to this? How do you see Oracle’s future in the blockchain field?

[Noah]: Blockchains are closed books. To get new data such as price or weather in order to write them down to the books, we need Oracles. Oracle is a mechanism that provides data from external sources to blockchain via smart contracts.

However, if oracles only observe the real-world events and report to blockchain, they have to rely on trusted third parties to obtain information. This causes a trust problem and requires solutions that may heavily rely on validating mechanisms. Moreover, the raw data is very limited in use compared to a wide range of potentials dapps which want to build increasingly complex smart contracts.

Oraichain introduces AI oracle, an innovative way to make Oracles which interconnects with Artificial Intelligence.

Looks good but it confuses me that there are so many other Blockchain projects. Why should I pay attention to Oraichain to give it the importance it deserves? What are you planning to achieve with your project?

[Dr. Chung]: AI-powered Oracle and Ecosystem for Blockchains Oraichain interconnects Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain technologies. Oraichain’s data oracle aggregates and connects Artificial Intelligence APIs to smart contracts and regular applications. It is the world’s first AI-powered oracle aiming to revolutionize the AI, DeFi and Blockchain industries.

Our 2021 roadmap shows our plans in more detail: https://orai.io/roadmap

About your yield farming…will there be a governance vote where Orai token holders get to vote on new tokens being added to the vault?

[Dr. Chung]: On the yAI.finance, yAI DAO will be introduced later that helps to decide updates.

We want to thank the Spectre GPR team for welcoming us in their amazing community!

About Oraichain

Oraichain is the world’s first AI-powered oracle, it aims to revolutionize the AI, DeFi and Blockchain industries. Oraichain is a data oracle platform that aggregates and connects Artificial Intelligence APIs to smart contracts and regular applications.