Blockcast.cc conducted an AMA with Christian Oertel from Conflux on Asia Blockchain Community #ABC channel at Telegram, 25 July 2020, 2 pm The discussion will be facilitated by Anndy Lian & Cofounder of Blockcast.cc Jenny Zheng. This AMA lasted for almost 2 hours and the following are the interview and questions.
Time: 14:00pm BJT, 25th July 10, 2020
Guest: Christian Oertel, Conflux
Moderator: Jenny Zheng, Co-founder of Blockcast
Basic Questions:
Jenny: Welcome Chris! Welcome, Anndy! It's Great to have you guys joining us here in today’s Conflux AMA sharing session!
First of all, Chris, tell us more about yourself. What you have done before Conflux, your education background, hobbies and anything you can share.
Chris: Hello everyone, I’m Chris, and I am half German half Chinese. I got my Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering in Hamburg Germany, worked at Volkswagen and buildup a brand new factory in Papua New Guinea.
During my Master's at Tsinghua University, I co-founded the Tsinghua International Blockchain Association (TIBA), was a senior project manager at a global crypto fund and incubator Blockchain Founders Fund, and co-founded an enterprise blockchain as a service platform before becoming global marketing manager at Conflux.
In my spare time, I like to experience new cultures through travelling and dining :D, study and experience new technologies to stay up-to-date with the tech-world, and communicate with people with different backgrounds!
My favourite soccer team is: SC Freiburg, a German team in the Bundesliga ~
Jenny: I remember u speak several languages, how many you can speak?
Chris: Only three. German, Chinese and English
Jenny: That's already more than enough lol
2) We understand that you studied and worked in Europe for quite a long time. How was your life there? How is that experience affected your life?
As a half German half Chinese, I was always exposed to the Western culture from a young age, so moving there with 16 was not hard. There are differences in the University system between Europe and Asia, and people there find work-life-balance very important, whereas in China a six-day work week from 9am to 9pm is very commen.
Jenny: I work 24/7......lol
Chris: Haha, I know. Next time we meet, I'll invite you to relax for a couple of hours :D!
Jenny: I know u r extremely busy when u r on a biz trip since conflux is growing so fast.
Chris: Yes, also the last couple of weeks were super busy as we have finally launched the second phase of our mainnet - Conflux Oceanus, we cannot stop, until we build a fast, secure and scalable blockchain protocol that everyone and use!
Jenny: Congrats! u can keep on going with question 2 ^^
Chris: ok, my biggest challenge there was that food is not as good as in Asia 😛 and that mobile payments, delivery systems, e-commerce is far behind of China and Asia. Europe is a nice place, but Asia is home to myself 😄 Everything is developing faster here, and this is exciting to be part of changing the world around us!
Jenny: haha Yea it's exciting to be part of changing the world!
Jenny: How you get into blockchain? What is your role in Conflux? What excites you most in Conflux?
Chris: Heard about Bitcoin in 2010, but it seemed too complicated at that time to mine it, as I had 0 coding knowledge, and the information was hard to find. I always heard about it throughout the years but never dug into the technology behind it until I was having a skype call with an old friend of mine. And since then it has been a journey down the rabbit-hole for me.
Investing in crypto in 2017, making a profit and losing it in 2018. Working part-time in the crypto fund I've mentioned, starting a blockchain-as-a-service platform last year and then finally, having the opportunity to join Conflux Network 😄It was an exciting journey, and it has only been the beginning!
Jenny: knowing about blockchain back in 2010 is very early, and I also still remember the heat on 2017 and the down on 2018 lol
What excites me the most about Conflux? The founding team set out to build a decentralized platform to transact and communicate, a platform that would underpin a new cross-border financial system that is significantly more efficient and more secure than the current state. The ultimate goal is to create a platform that allows the world to interact in a trustless way – a truly global platform for trust.
Conflux is led by a team of luminaries and pioneers in the industry. All team members are top degree holders, to name a few Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Tsinghua University, and are with diversified and elite backgrounds. The core team is prominent and well-recognized scientists in the fields of the distributed system, programming language, cybersecurity, cryptography, and game theory. Before Conflux, most of them worked in Wall Street and Silicon Valley.
It's very nice to work and communicate with smart people every day, and it's nice to see changes step-by-step!
Jenny: yea Conflux team is famous for being the team with the highest average IQ
Anndy: We met quite a few of the members. All are smart people.
Jenny: And the chief Scientist is the only one who won a Turing award in Asia
Chris: You guys are smart as well!
Anndy: Everyone here = smart to be in this industry. Tell us more about Conflux, what problems it solves? What is the application scenario? What is your happiest and saddest moment while developing it?
Chris: Sure! Let's have a look at Bitcoin and Ethereum. Bitcoin solves the problem of having a secure and decentralized digital asset recognized by many people - BTC 😄Ethereum solves the problem of automating tasks involving the decentralized digital assets through smart contracts, current hypes like liquidity mining are not doable on the Bitcoin network.
What both of them fail at is: scaling! As their networks are easily congested, the transactions fees are high (limiting the number of users using the network, and the throughput is nowhere close to visa or mastercard (if we need a target of a truly global payment system)
Conflux Network is not reinventing the wheel, but improving it, keeping the best from all worlds and upgrading it so that everyone can enjoy the benefits and to explore unknown territory! And all this, while being secure, decentralized and fast.
Anndy: How different in terms of specs and deliverables when compared to Eth and BTC?
Chris: Let's use the metric TPS (transactions per seconds):
Bitcoin: 4 - 7
Ethereum: 14 - 21
Visa: 3000
Conflux: > 3500
Jenny: Very impressive, even faster than VISA!
Chris: Exactly. And since Conflux Network is smart-contract compatible, developers can also do more than Visa.
Anndy: Fast is one aspect. The ability to scale is good. With such speed, what kind of use cases are you working on? Taking over NASA? LOL
Chris: Hahaha, Not for now, but maybe in the future!
Jenny: Keep my fingers crossing on that!
Anndy: Real business application is the draw for Conflux. Eager to hear.
Chris: A well-known Chinese aircrafts company will be storing their data on Conflux, so that they will have an immutable audit-trail of their data. One major aspect we are working towards is DeFi and in the long-term, our aims are to realized faster remittances for everyone!
Anndy: Is Conflux working with BSN in China too?
Chris: This we can disclose in a couple of months 😄
Anndy: The blockchain and crypto market have been changing. What do you want to see in the near future for this industry?
Chris: One of our partners has built a DEX on top of Conflux called moondex.io, where assets from different blockchains can be traded on top of Conflux like on a centralized exchange but fully decentralized and faster than all current DEXes.
Another team is working on FLUX, a lending and borrowing platform. We are reaching out to different stable-coin projects for integration so that more people around the world can use it.
With our transaction costs being 1000x lower than Ethereum, you can use any amount you want to experience DeFi unlike on Ethereum, where some smart contract execution cost up to 34 USD yesterday.
In the future, I see User adoption, better regulations, increased user-experience, fewer scams, and real-use-cases that can benefit everyone!
Anndy: If one of the future scenarios is to reduce the cost of the transactions, it will be wonderful. Let's get into something more practical for our 3000 community members. They want to know more.
Tell us about the tokenomics and how individual investors like our community members can participate in and benefit from it?
Chris: Sure, Let me talk about our Genisis-Block 😄
5 billion CFX will be released which will be unlocked gradually as Conflux Network launches. This is the distribution:
- Private Equity Funders: 16% of the genesis tokens, released over two years.
- Genesis Team: 36% of the genesis tokens will be awarded to the founding team, released over 4 years and serve as a capital pool.
- Community Fund: 8% of the genesis tokens, unlocked within four years.
- Ecosystem Fund: 40% of the genesis tokens will be offered to community developers supporting the DApps, and will be unlocked within four years.
There is so much to say actually, but here is a link if you want to know more about it: https://medium.com/conflux-network/conflux-networks-economic-model-pre-mined-token-distribution-and-proportions-f92fe00696ea
Everyone can participate in the ecosystem development, help Conflux grow and benefit from it.
If you are a developer, I recommend checking out the grants-program that we just launched here: http://grants.confluxnetwork.org/
And we do many events within our community and with other communities as well, people can participate in the ecosystem development and earn tokens 😄
Jenny: Please tell us more about it? how to join in this bounty system and earn token.
Chris: I warmly everyone fo join our communities to stay tuned with all of our latest events in different regions here:
Global: https://t.me/Conflux_English
Vietnam: https://t.me/confluxvietnam
South Korea: https://t.me/ConfluxKorea
We have a bounty platform: bounty.conflux-chain.org
The goal for the Bounty Platform to engage users with the ecosystem development, where you can earn FC coins for contributions. The FCs are our FanCoins . FCs can only be earned in the current phase before we launch our mainnet. Once the mainnet launches, FCs will be swapped to the native tokens CFX on a 1:1 ratio.
Today's lucky winners who win the prize please go to register on Conflux bounty platform: bounty.conflux-chain.org
Exactly, this way we can distribute your FC prices and you can #hodl them (recommended) or trade them on monndex.io
Jenny: Today's lucky winners who win prize please go to register on Conflux bounty platform: https://bounty.conflux-chain.org/invitation/2fw@zD6s7k, and private message Admin Jenny your bounty ID to get your prize~
Jenny: Share with us an inspiring quote for our readers. Eg “I believe in blockchain, it can change the world.”
Chris: Does it have to be blockchain-related?
Jenny: Nope.
Chris: "Jede Lösung eines Problems ist ein neues Problem." - Goethe (a German writer and poet). It means, every solution to a problem creates a new problem.
Jenny: Haha that's y our financial system is so complicated.
Chris: I like this one, as it motivates me as an engineer, to never stop finding solutions, as there will always be problems!
Jenny: OK, Now here we come to our selected Twitter questions~ 3 questions to be chosen on Twitter, each winner will get 50FC in reward~ And if your question didn't get picked, you still have a chance in our Q&A session, in the end, ~ 7 questions to be chosen live, each winner will also get 50FC in reward~
Twitter Questions:
1) 
Chris: The quick answer is: yes! LISSX creates an ecosystem through which individual corporations, regulators, and institutions enjoy a frictionless way to participate in the massive and misunderstood life settlement market. Currently, the average person cannot sell their life insurance policy on their own, they must sell their policy through a broker — a process that is long overdue for improvement. LISSX is solving this problem in developing an exchange platform that benefits all parties involved in the life cycle of life settlements, across multiple countries.
As one of the largest networks for efficient transaction verification on the planet, Conflux Network brings a heightened level of maturity to the LISSX platform. This partnership allows for seamless life settlement exchanges and increased scalability that provide unequivocal expansion opportunities.
(This is a quote from the Lissx founder in regards of answering the question, I couldn't answer it better)
You can read more about the LISSX partnership here: https://medium.com/conflux-network/conflux-network-partners-with-lissx-to-build-a-life-settlements-exchange-platform-e6186221375f?source=---------14------------------
2) @Mahi55833889: Shanghai Government is agreed to set up a Blockchain Research Institute with Conflux. How It Happens. The Government is Believing Conflux Great one. Will you please Explain about this and what is the current stage of this project?
Chris: The Tree-Graph Institute with the Shanghai Government has been established for over 6 months now. Conflux Network is the only government endorsed public blockchain in China, as we follow the regulations. This is also one important factor of why Conflux Network and not any other blockchain company in China.
The Institute is now building a top tier research team, lead by Prof. Andrew Yao and Prof. Fan Long, to contribute to the rules and standards of discourse in the age of distributed systems. As this is also an incubation platform, we will be gathering talents, technology and applications. The Research & Incubation Center will agglomerate industrial leaders and shape the future from the very start.
It is based on three pillars: investment, incubation, and service. This basis serves to support the development of sustainable blockchain projects. The Conflux Decentralized Application Fund will select outstanding incubation projects on the Conflux public chain, and provide them comprehensive support in terms of policies, funding, and technology. By creating an incubation platform, gathering talents, technology and applications, the Incubation Center will agglomerate industrial leaders and shape the future from the very start.
3) @iGaveUpToPickaw: Can you share some recent achievements done by #CONFLUX project and whats the Future Roadmap of #CONFLUX project for project developments?
Chris: This is a long one 😆But I will keep it short and about our recent developments. We have just celebrated our second anniversary on 2020.07.18 and launched our second phase of the mainnet – Conflux Oceanus. Prior to Oceanus, we have launched the first phase of the mainnet – Conflux Pontus – in April.
During Pontus, we have launched our DEX ecosystem, started several mid-scaled mining campaigns, cross-chain mapped 7 assets onto our network, made many new partnerships (Fliqpay, DeFiner, Lissx, MovieBloc, ZIP), attended and hosted many global events, launched a technical community DAO and 10+ projects have been chosen by them to be developed on Conflux, launched Community Developer Tutorials organized by the Community in China, etc. just to name a few things we did in the last 3 month.
Besides this, we have had a research paper accepted by one of the most renowned scientific publishers, continuously improved our technology, and launched more developer tools for everyone to use.
You can read more about our achievements and what you can expect from us in the upcoming month here: https://medium.com/conflux-network/oceanus-phase-2-is-live-7147e1d5c225 (https://medium.com/conflux-network/oceanus-phase-2-is-live-7147e1d5c225)
Jenny: Thanks Chris, for your sharings, but we are not over yet hahah. Now ill reopen the group chat so everybody can start to ask questions freely. You can choose 7 questions on the floor.
(Tons of questions flooded into the room...)
1) By Venkatz K , Decentralization is the Key of Crypto. But using DAG Structure the Decentralization is Questionable then Why Conflux choose DAG?
We have improved the traditional DAG structure to what we call Tree-Graph. In the so-called DAG structure, each block has only one edge in the figure, and in Conflux's Tree-Graph structure, each block except Genesis block has two edges: the parent edge points to the father node and There can only be one father; the reference edge points to other blocks, expressing the Happens-Before relationship between different blocks. If you only look at the parent side, the structure of the book is a tree; if you look at the parent side and the reference side at the same time, the structure of the book is a picture. The tree diagram structure refers to such a structure that contains a tree in the diagram.
The Tree-Graph Consensus mechanism made up of the parent edge is very important to Conflux's consensus mechanism. It enables machine nodes in the Conflux network to decentralize and securely agree on the full sequence of blocks and transactions. The structure of the tree determines the choice of the pivot chain, and the choice of the pivot chain further determines the full order relationship of the block and the transaction. Therefore, it is better to refer to Conflux's book structure as a Tree-Graph structure than to generalize it into a DAG structure.
In contrast, some other existing DAG-structured projects, such as IOTA, Byteball, etc., have their own disadvantages: either do not support full sorting of transactions, cannot support smart contracts; or can't use decentralization The way to achieve the node's consensus on the full order of the transaction, sacrificing security.
2) By Mahathi, PONTUS, OCEANUS, and TETHYS will run separately ? or the Features of these three will be combined after the Tethys Release?
Chris: This is a good question! Actually, Pontus, Oceanus and Tethys are the names of each phase of our manner. Conflux Pontus, was launched in April, and everything we needed to launch, debug and test, has been completed, which is why we have launched Conflux Oceanus on the 18th of July. So the quick answer is: they will run one after another, and when Tethys launches, our completed mainnet is launched. Also, all features of Pontus and Oceanus will be included in Tethys!
3) By Raymund Anora, What is your outlook on the future of #CONFLUX in crypto? What can you do to keep increasing adoption to the whole industry?
Chris: Many blockchain companies have great technology, but one aspect everyone is trying hard on is community building and developer adoption. In regards to community building, we have launched Conflux sponsored PUBG tournaments or TikTok campaigns to not only do the traditional community expansion of blockchain companies.
We have expanded our communities to Vietnam, South Korea, Africa and will start a community for Russian speaking regions next week and Turkey as well. We are never stopping the expansion.
For developer adoption, we have launched our grants program, so that developers can realize their dreams on Conflux. One thing I have to mention is, Conflux Network is Solidity and EVM compatible, so Smart Contract Developers can easily migrate their existing work and deploy it on a technological superior blockchain network.
We are making new partnerships every month, and besides pushing developer engagement ourselves, we have a Technical Community DAO, which has already approved grants for community members to develop on top of Conflux.
Since Bitcoin and Ethereum Networks are the most commonly used networks, we have created a cross-chain asset protocol for interoperability of different blockchains.
If you're interested about the tech behind the cross-chain asset protocol ShuttleFlow, I recommend this article:
https://medium.com/conflux-network/conflux-shuttleflow-a-cross-chain-asset-protocol-15ad6b2a9539
4) By Venkatz K , Recently the Phase II OCEANUS is coming to Live. How is the response to that from the developers? What's your Plan about Releasing the Final Phase TETHYS?
Chris: Developer adoption is increasing day by day, if you're a developer I strongly recommend joining our Discord channel: https://discord.com/invite/aCZkf2C, Or our forum: forum.conflux.fun
I was super happy to find out, that a project called "Bitquery", integrated the Conflux Network on their unique Network Tracker without any knowledge about it actually, you can find it here: https://explorer.bitquery.io/conflux_oceanus.
And since we are PoW, based and you're interested in mining with your CPU for now, please visit http://mining.confluxnetwork.org/ for more information about the participation to earn some additional FCs by contributing to our network!
5) By Jadmine, What is your strategy to survive in the long bear market especially now Defi coin are now booming how #Conflux competitive?
Chris: Right now the market seems bullish, at least in my opinion. Besides the two projects moondex.io (DEX) and Flux (Lending and Borrowing) that have been launched or are being launched, we welcome everyone to build on top of our DeFi ecosystem. On this landing page you can find more information about our DeFi ecosystem: https://defi.confluxnetwork.org/en/
I'm still unsure whether this DeFi Liquidity Mining thing is sustainable. One problem I see for sure is that only whales can benefit from it, and since the market is relatively new, it's riskier than other existing DeFi platforms.
Jenny: 5 questions taken, 2 more to go~ im getting many private messages as well, hoping to know more about Conflux but due to time limit I think Chris can come back later next time to join in us ><
6) By SH, How safe is conflux for investors? Would you like to talk about your legal and security Measures?
Chris: During our private funding phase in 2018, the biggest investors of Conflux Network are traditional VCs like Sequoia China, IMO Ventures, MetaStable, or Baidu Ventures, just to name a few. The only reason why we are the only publicly endorsed public blockchain company in China is that we follow the regulations. We do not plan to change this.
As for the security of the network, we work with many 3rd party auditing companies to ensure a high-level of security. But from a networks perspective, we have integrated many mathematical proofs to show that attacking the Conflux Network, or trying to be faulty miners will not benefit!
7) By Venkatz K , why Experimental node is not from India. India is one of the biggest populated country a big platform for crypto. what are the minimum criteria for experimental node test?
Chris: If you have more questions about running a node just ping me. I also strongly suggest our developer documentation: https://developer.conflux-chain.org/ for setting up your private node of you want!
Jenny: Thx Chris! Thx for joining us today!!!
Jack: Thanks for AMA @ConfluxCris , give my 2 hours and learn,
Chris: And a massive applaud to 
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Original Source: https://blockcast.cc/interviews/blockcast-cc-interviews-christian-oertel-from-conflux-every-solution-to-a-problem-creates-a-new-problem/