Saito x Titans Ventures AMA Recap

We definitely enjoyed our AMA in Telegram hosted by Titans Ventures. There were a lot of awesome questions and also fantastic answers. In case you missed it, you can find the whole transcript below.

Maru: Please welcome David Lancashire – Co-founder of Saito to be here at @TitansVenturesGroup to give us an opportunity to learn more about this quality project.

David: Hi everyone. Thanks, Maru.

Maru: Firstly, let’s talk about some main features of the platform. Could you please introduce Saito Network to the community, what critical problems does it solve and what are some of its competitive advantages?

David: Saito is a blockchain that fixes some Fundamental economic problems with proof-of-work and proof-of-stake blockchains. In POW and POS blockchains, people do the work the networks pays for, mining and staking, but they don’t do a lot of other kinds of work, such as paying for bandwidth, servicing users, that the networks also need.

Bitcoin was OK because it asked volunteers to do that work. But when networks get too big and the volunteers stop, they have to ask private firms to do that work instead. And firms won’t do it unless they can make money doing it. And the only way to make money? They have to stop sharing openly.

This is the problem Saito fixes. It is hard to see at first, but we basically solve it by replacing “mining” and “staking” with a new form of work: “sharing fees from users”.

The result is a network without a 51% attack, where the people who run servers make money, so we have 2x the security of Bitcoin, and the money pays for really fast hardware.

Maru: Can you share some achievements the team has made so far? If possible, please share your roadmap also.

David:
TECH:  Saito is real. Come and see the applications / games here: https://saito.io/arcade
But the current software is JavaScript, and that will fail at 100 – 200 MB blocks. We are building a Rust client that is a lot faster and better. Our goal is supporting terabytes of data every day.

MARKETING: we are about to add other cryptocurrencies to the Saito arcade, so that developers in other blockchains build applications on Saito too. –> https://saito.io/dotarcade
We have relationships in the Polkadot ecosystem. We are working to be a better version of Metamask for Polkadot applications.

ROADMAP: 2 weeks before Polkadot marketing outreach, 4-6 months before the Rust client is ready. Staking will go live within a few months after Rust is done.

Maru: Brilliant!!! How about updating to the community the hottest news or big events of Saito Network in the coming time?

David: Let me share some tech stuff first.

This is the sort of exciting thing happening in tech (behind the scenes). The Rust version of Saito is really amazing. BUT we won’t have it out for another 4 months so what is before then?

MARKETING — outreach and partnerships with other blockchains. We announced a partnership with Elrond blockchain about a week ago that pumped the price of SAITO by quite a bit — people are starting to realize they want the sort of applications that Saito runs with their own blockchain tokens.

This is why we are excited about Polkadot outreach. Polkadot is a much bigger community, and most DOT devs do not have a platform like Metamask where they can build applications. We want Saito to be their Metamask.

Maru: The information you provided is very detailed and fruitful. However, all the members here would love to hear more about the project, also they have many questions submitted on Twitter today.

Here are some good ones I have chosen carefully for you David.

David: We love hard questions.

Maru: Good to hear that. Looking forward to your insightful answers in our community.

Maru: 1. We know that Saito has some core strengths: efficiency, high security, low cost, user-friendly, etc. Saito is decentralized to enable micropayments, social, games, and other use cases. As a regular blockchain user, or as a developer, how can we participate in Saito?

David: 1. Play the games and help us build a community. Once people understand Saito, they don’t want POW or POS networks. but most people start by playing a game.

2. Help us reach developers. We will help people build applications on Saito, but there are a lot of projects. Telling developers “Have you heard of Saito?”. That helps.

3. Saito is like Bitcoin. Holding the token helps too and we want lots of people to own some. In about six months people will be able to stake it. Historically, Saito has outperformed Bitcoin since 2017.

Maru: 2. During Saito Network’s development process to attract more users and gain mass adoption, what are the 3 most prioritized features in the coming time?  How do you plan to increase users’ experience and keep on moving forwards?

David: We think the biggest thing that will attract users to Saito games and applications is the ability to use other cryptocurrencies with them. This is why we are doing our Web3 Foundation Grant work.

This helps developers understand Saito apps. It gives other communities an excuse for talking about Saito. So it benefits us in many ways.

Also, everyone likes poker and boardgames are fun. Some people just care about the games. You can relax and chat with other Saito users online anytime here —> https://saito.io/arcade

Maru: 3. What are the highlights of Saito’s technology and products that you believe will help you succeed? How revenue does Saito generate to sustain the project, and what plans do you have to attract more users in the future?

David: These questions are fine — but they assume that all blockchains are basically the same. I understand that people are looking to speculate in tokens, and so they care very much about 2 months/4 months/8 months, etc. I have tried to explain above what we are doing short-term, but maybe I can give a more important answer here. Bitcoin is broken. Ethereum is broken. ALL PoS networks are broken. Today on Twitter everyone is complaining about “miner-extractable value” for instance — they have realized that POS networks can be attacked by miners/stakers for money.

Saito does not have these problems. We aren’t building Saito to be “blockchain #5243” or “blockchain app #52343”. We are building Saito because we need Bitcoin. And Bitcoin is broken. Saito is a bet on economic fundamentals.

Maru: Sounds great! We’re excited to learn more.

David: There is no 51% attack. There are no “discouragement attacks. We can talk about these problems if people would like, but the short answer to “what are the highlights” is that — Saito works, and it doesn’t break. It doesn’t require us to have volunteers and miners and stakers can’t attack the network for profit. This is why people are getting excited, and this is why it is great to reach out and talk to people. We want people very much to understand Saito because we see the blockchain space as having three developments: Bitcoin. Ethereum. Saito.

Maru: Very insightful answer! I hope it can shed some lights to members’ inquiry.

4. I think many people here are quite interested in the $SAITO token, both utility & structure. How does $SAITO work as a utility token for the network and how does it benefit both the network and the owner in the long term. Is there any reward mechanism for holding $SAITO?

David: When you use the network, you will get a little bit of Saito from advertisers. You use this Saito to pay your TX fees. Those fees go to your ISP / Internet / Saito-node provider.

So the biggest “utility” of Saito over other networks is you don’t need to pay to use the network and you can get paid for using it. It is a bit like BAT token except BAT is a monopoly (a single company controls the advertising network). With Saito anyone can make an advertising module. So what is the utility? A very cheap data network (4x cheaper than POW and POS per byte), that gives you the tokens you need to use it for free (or for watching advertisements), and advertisers need to buy tokens from ISPs to use.

That is in the long-term. There are lots of other ways to make money. But that example is one big difference — we think it really matters that people don’t need to BUY the tokens themselves as long as they can get it from advertisers.

Maru: This is useful information for investors. I would love to hear more.

5. Why did Saito choose the Polkadot ecosystem? What role does it play in the development of the project? Does Saito plan to convert or expand the ecosystem with Ethereum, BSC, Solana? This is also the last question in Part 2

David: Infura is a monopoly ===> Ethereum is broken.

Polkadot knows they do not have a solution. Saito gives them a solution. And they give us big community of developers who need Saito. The work we are doing for the Web3 Foundation Grant has been about making friends and showing the Web3 Foundation what Saito does. It’s a lot easier for people to understand Saito if they start by thinking “it helps me run DOT applications and I want to run DOT applications”

Maru: Really appreciate your amazing answers during the first 2 parts. Let’s continue with the last part of today’s AMA: Live questions from Titans Ventures Community. In this session, we will activate the chat feature for 2 minutes and All Members can immediately send their questions.

SAM: Why you build your token on Ethereum blockchain? As we all know Ethereum has scalability issues? Any plan to move on other blockchain or mainnet?

David: Exchanges can easily add ERC20 tokens. People need to withdraw from ETH to SAITO to use their tokens on-chain or stake them.

Thầy: Do you have any Coin Burn/Buyback systems or any Token Burn plans to increase the value of Token & attract Investors to invest?

David: there is no inflation in Saito. So the hardest part is marketing. The value will increase as people understand Saito. We are very early.

Sang: What is the competitive advantage of your project? Can you point out the strengths of your project that other projects do not have to attract investors?

David: no 51% attack, cost of use is 25% of POW and POS chains. and the blockchain supports VERY HIGH data throughput. nothing will be able to compete with Saito at scale.

SI: Currently, NFT is very hot, do you think you will apply NFT technology to your products in the future?

David: Our work for the Web3 Foundation is all about allows Saito applications to use other cryptocurrency tokens (and NFTs). If you want to build a “cyberpunk” trading game on Saito, you can do that.

Bobby: Can you indicate a feature that you like best about the platform so that it can compete with other competitors? What are you most confident about for your platform? Do you have plans to get users to choose your platform?

David: In all other blockchains, 51% of the network can team up and earn 100% of network fee revenue. Saito is the only blockchain where this is not possible. This isn’t really a feature, it’s a revolutionary advance!

Thinking: Good day David, almost 80% investors have just focused on price of token in short term instead of understanding the real value of the project. Can you tell us on motivations and benefits for investors to hold your token in long term?

David: Saito is a utility token. I understand that some people approach utility tokens as speculative investments. We want people to be buying for the right reasons. I will say that one of our biggest investors doesn’t even want ERC20 tokens. If you understand Saito, why would you think we are anywhere close to the top of where Saito will go?

Stevens: Who is Saito ‘s biggest rival? In the future, does Saito have a plan to beat their rival or cooperate with them? I think that will be a huge step forward for Saito.

David: We are competing with permissioned networks — “blockchains” that are controlled by small groups of people and who pretend to be “open” only in name.

We are also competing with public ignorance. If people understand what Saito was, the price would be much, much higher than it is.  Both of those problems are hard to solve. Part of the solution for us has been talking about Saito so that people understand. And so that the people who do understand can take part in the project.

Alice: Hello David, I have a question, how do you plan to attract users, incentivize them in the early stages of deployment?

David: What seems to work is saying, “you can use this Saito app using __ cryptocurrency.” Then people don’t think about “Saito Poker” as “Saito Poker”. They think about “Saito Poker” as “Ethereum Poker” or “Polkadot Poker”. And users in all of those communities are much friendlier, because suddenly Saito is their friend instead of a competitor.

Tomeka: Although ETH 2.0 is delayed to next year, but it will solve all exist problem of ETH and become the best choice for dApps in future, so do you think this is a threat for your project and how could you overcome this barrier?

David: ETH has 100 hardcoded economic variables. And every design change like EIP1559 is a massive additional tax on users. They tweak their economic variables every 6 months.

I love ETH as an investment (I first purchased at 8 bucks) but they don’t know what they are doing. They think their problems are technical instead of economic. Once people realize their issues are actually economic, Saito will be the #1 beneficiary because that is what we solve.

Thầy: What difficulties have you encountered during your development process? How many products have been built on your platform? Can you share some highlights from them?

David: The hardest thing is explaining to people how Saito works, so that they understand why we are different. Let me share a quick video that I think helps though:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SaitoIO/comments/ogzabl/saito_in_2_minutes/

look at this video — it will help explain WHY Saito is different. and it is fun ????.

Maru: We can wrap up the AMA here David. And for those whose questions didn’t get selected in this segment, don’t worry you guys because our Guest would love to answer them after the AMA in Saito Network social channels:

• Website: https://saito.io/
• Arcade: https://saito.io/Arcade
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaitoOfficial/
• Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SaitoIO/
• Discord Server: https://discord.gg/HjTFh9Tfec
• Telegram Announcement: https://t.me/SaitoIOann
• Telegram Chat: https://t.me/SaitoIO
• GitHub: https://github.com/saitotech/saito-lite
• Medium: https://saitoofficial.medium.com/
• Blog: https://org.saito.tech/blog/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRUhZVAUH4JyWUFmxm5P6dQ

David: Perfect — this is a good stopping point Maru, and thanks Maru and J.