On June 11, Plasm Network and PolkaWarriors organized an AMA to introduce Shiden Network - The canary network of Plasm, as well as reveal their plan to participate in the upcoming Parachain auction.
Shiden Network is a scalable Multi-Chain, Multi-Virtual Machine contract hub on Kusama Network that natively supports Cross Virtual Machine communication and Layer2 scaling solutions from day 1.
This AMA was held in PolkaWarriors Global Telegram Group with the participation of Sota - Founder of Plasm & Maarten Henskens - Infrastructure developer at Plasm. Many interesting questions about their products: Shiden Network, Dusty testnet, and their plan for the future were answered by Sota & Maarten Henskens.
Below is a summary of the outstanding questions and answers from the AMA session.
1. In which area is your team currently working most intensively? (DeFi, Yield Agriculture, Stake, Dapps, NFT) and what is the most important goal you plan to achieve this year?
Sota:
NFT! Shiden Network is a general smart contract platform that supports both Ethereum Virtual Machine and WebAssembly! We are focusing on NFT use cases!
Maarten:
In the first phase of our launch, we will be focusing on NFT because of our great partnerships like double. Jump Tokyo, Bondly, and Mochi. Market. For all Crowdloan participants, we also have a rare and exclusive opportunity to get an NFT. Everyone who joins the crowdloan will get an NFT. This NFT will have exclusive utilities for the future lease period of Shiden Network. Don’t forget to get that NFT! ;-).
More information can you find here: https://crowdloan.plasmnet.io
2. There are a lot of crypto enthusiasts who don't understand the English language well enough and don't speak well. So, are you aiming to use local communities to raise more awareness of your project among these people in different countries?
Maarten:
In our latest Ambassador call, this is public for everyone to see on our YouTube channel. We announced that we will revamp our Ambassador program. We recommend everyone who is interested in joining our ecosystem to keep their eyes on our social channels. As Ambassador you can earn passive income through our unique feature of dApps staking and maybe most importantly: you will be working closely with one of the best tech teams in the Polkadot ecosystem.
Join our announcement channel to get all the latest information: https://t.me/PlasmAnnouncement
Sota:
Yes I am not an english native speaker so I know how they are feeling. Local communities matter most for us!
3. Does the Shiden Network team have a training and guidance system for newcomers to cryptocurrency? How do you attract and reach them?
Maarten:
We are working daily on updating our extended documentation and are working on creating more and more tutorial videos for future developers and new developers in the Polkadot ecosystem. Please check this out here:
https://docs.plasmnet.io
Creating a new gateway for developers building in the Polkadot ecosystem through Plasm Network
4. Can you briefly explain how the Top milestones that the Shiden team aims to execute before the end of this year or going to execute in future, will help them succeed and What Shiden may look like in 2021 and beyond?
Maarten:
Our main focus at the moment is to become one of the first parachain on Kusama. After this we have a series of updates planned this year:
- Switching from PoA to PoS
- Launch of our portal, a platform that developers can use to deploy their contracts. Where users can stake their SDN on validators or dApps and earn block rewards, integrated wallet, ...
After this, we think Polkadot will not wait very long to launch their auctions. This is one of our main goals from the beginning. Launching as one of the first on Polkadot. Kusama is still ongoing but we are already looking forward to this one. One of our long-term goals is to become a DAO.
Sota:
Our first priority is becoming one of the first Polkadot Parachains. Then we will launch the Plasm Network Portal that allows people to deploy smart contracts by using GUI.
Our final goal is to make DAO!...
5. Can you list the killer features of Shiden that make it ahead of its competitors? What is the competitive advantage your platform has that you feel most confident about?
Maarten:
Shiden Network is a scalable Multi-Chain, Multi-Virtual Machine contract hub on Kusama Network that natively supports Cross Virtual Machine communication and Layer2 scaling solutions from day 1.
In this definition, we have listed our ‘killer’ and unique features.
- Multi-Chain
- Multi-VM (WASM & Solidity)
- X-VM (interoperability between WASM & Solidity contracts)
- Layer2 (OVM & ZKRollups)
And finally, I also want to add our dApps staking mechanism that is unique in the whole blockchain ecosystem. This is where developers can earn passive rewards on deploying their contracts in our ecosystem.
Sota:
First of all, Ethereum compatibility is not original since Ethereum compatibility is developed by Parity Technologies. And I am sure that many other Parachains will support Ethereum compatibility.
So…what makes us unique in the Polkadot ecosystem?
- DApps Staking
This is a very strong and interesting feature only Plasm has in the Polkadot ecosystem.
https://docs.plasmnet.io/learn/core-features/dapps-reward 39
PLM/SDN token holders can stake on validators as well as dApps creators. By doing so, both nominators and dApps creators can get basic income from block reward. To make the long story short, you can earn PLM tokens by making applications on the Plasm Network though you have to pay a high gas fee to develop applications on other networks.
- Multi-Virtual Machine and Multi-Chain Future
Plasm Network is a multi virtual machine. This means that we support both Ethereum Virtual Machine and WASM so that you can deploy Solidity, Vyper, and ink! contracts on Plasm Network. In addition to that we support multiple platforms. We are currently making Secret Network bridge, Ethereum bridge, and more. (Disclaimer: Acala may have a similar vision)
- Layer2 Implementations
Currently we are implementing ZK Rollups and Optimistic Virtual Machine. In the future, dApps developers can deploy contracts both on L1 and L2. We assume a lot of Ethereum projects will use Rollups solution. They can use the same architecture on Polkadot so that they don’t need to waste their work on Ethereum when they make a multi-chain application.
- Community Driven Project
Plasm Network is a community driven project. We distribute 65% of the total supply to the community members through lockdrops. In addition to that, I know that many projects only raise funds from very selected VCs with huge discounts and community members can’t get tokens at the early stage. This is not our philosophy. We distributed tokens to our users first without receiving any funds. Then we raised funds from VCs. I believe that this makes a difference in the long run.
6. How do you keep your platform safe for Investors, and is your platform protected from hackers? And how do you manage if there's an attack on your platform, including the personal data of your platform's users? Is your platform ready for this?
Maarten:
This is so great about the Polkadot ecosystem, the shared security of the Relay Chain. All our code/contracts are audited by external firms. Plasm Network is very transparent about everything so also all our audits can be found in our Github.
This is a great place for all developers to check out:
https://github.com/PlasmNetwork
7. Why do developers need to deploy smart contracts on Dusty Network before deploying on Shiden? What will you do to really complete the mission of being a friendly and multi-functional coding environment for coders?
Maarten:
Dusty is our testnet. This is the best place for future developers to test their contracts and dApps first before going live on our mainnet Shiden or Plasm. As soon as we become a parachain, developers who already build on Dusty can easily transfer their contract to Shiden. Check our documentation on how to deploy contracts on Dusty. https://docs.plasmnet.io
8. What wallets can currently support your tokens? Are there plans to add up extra features in your ecosystem in the near future? What plans do you have on your roadmap for 2021, in the short term and long term?
Maarten:
All supported wallets and exchanges can be found on our one-pager https://crowdloan.plasmnet.io. Besides having support from top-tier exchanges like Kraken, OKEx, and Kucoin, we are also the first Polkadot project that got support from Binance. For the Polkadot auctions, we will be supported by all top-tier exchanges.
Sota:
Some of Polkadot wallets like Fearless, MathWallet support us! And exchanges will list our token soon. And we are financially backed by Binance, OKEx and Huobi
So, we can say our token will be listed once the network is ready
In the live questions sections, Sota & Maarten did answer several short questions from the Polka Warriors community.
1. Who are your strategic investors? And what will your Roadmap for 2022 look like? What is your ultimate goal for this year?
Sota:
We just raised $10,000,000!! And we will have a strategic round after becoming a Kusama Parachain!! We keep the momentum and make the best smart contract platform on Polkadot!
https://medium.com/plasm-network/plasm-shidens-stake-technologies-closes-10m-strategic-fundraise-to-build-multi-chain-dapp-hub-8fe799473f51
2. While you build your project, do you take into account community feedback and demands?While you build your project, do you take into account community feedback and demands?
Maarten:
Community Driven Project
Plasm Network is a community driven project. We distribute 65% of the total supply to the community members through lockdrops. In addition to that, I know that many projects only raise funds from very selected VCs with huge discounts and community members can’t get tokens at the early stage. This is not our philosophy. We distributed tokens to our users first without receiving any funds. Then we raised funds from VCs. I believe that this makes a difference in the long run. When becoming a DAO community is very important, they are needed to build this project.
3. To deploy a contract on your testnet-Dusty Network, we need to compile our contract. So could you conduct for me how to compile the contract and deploy on Dusty ? What if I am trying to deploy Solidity smart contracts?
Maarten:
Please have a look here. You can find tutorials about using our EVM module and how to deploy WASM contracts.
https://docs.plasmnet.io/build/smart-contracts
Tutorial videos are also available.
4. Those Investors & Partners, who have invested in how will you make sure that they get good returns & how will you Protect the Busy for them?
Maarten:
That's the great thing about lockdrops and crowdloans. We never have control over your funds that you lock up.
After the lease period you will get your KSM/DOT back! It's like a staking mechanism where you lock up your tokens for a duration of time and get rewards in return.
5. What ambition do you want to achieve in 2021?
Maarten:
Becoming one of the first parachains on Kusama and Polkadot.
But we need your help with achieving this! Please go to https://crowdloan.plasmnet.io and support Shiden Network becoming one of the first.
6. What are the use cases of your token, and how are we as users motivated to buy and hold long term? Will new use cases come along time?
Maarten:
- DApps Staking
- Network Staking
- Transactions
- On Chain Governance
- Layer2
More information: https://docs.plasmnet.io/learn/token-economics/usages-of-plm-tokens
Those features will also be for SDN tokens.
7. What are the most reputable teams you have been a part of (aside from SHIDEN)?
Maarten:
Not the answer to your question but I just wanted to share our partner in the ecosystem.
Very reputable teams in the blockchain industries!