AMA #1 With Apollo
by Marvin Dumont
Here are questions and answers from the AMA (Ask Me Anything) session held on Jan. 16, 2020. Follow Apollo’s official Telegram for more AMAs.
COMMUNITY QUESTION #1
The primary reason I came to Apollo was because of privacy. So I was disappointed when Private Ledger was removed from the updated roadmap. The current privacy features of Apollo is no doubt, world-class.
But as readily pointed out in the Technical Paper, Private Ledger was the final implementation that would guarantee 100% anonymity and privacy. So what’s the team’s final decision on implementation of Private Ledger? If it’s still on the table, when should it be expected?
Steve McCullah, Director of Business Development, Apollo
We have had to make some tough decisions on which features to prioritize. In regards to Private Ledger, we chose to hold off for a number of reasons, one of which is that the move to DAG (directed acyclic graph) will make it obsolete, as it is a post-blockchain DLT. And that requires its own solutions.
We had originally considered changing the direction of Apollo to fit where we are going with Fintech, but after much deliberation, we are going to work to keep Apollo’s future within our original vision.
COMMUNITY QUESTION #2
Initially, Apollo was considered a DAO with the team charged with the fulfillment of the roadmap and further development of the project. But now the team is becoming a corporate body (a company) and hence a for-profit organization. What’s the relationship between this company and the project? How is the company associated with the project? How is the company different/separate from the project?
Steve McCullah, Director of Business Development, Apollo
The connection between the Apollo Blockchain and the new company, Apollo Fintech, is simple. As with other cryptocurrency founding companies, Apollo Fintech will hold its copyrights and IP. It will be the entity that represents it, develops it, and pushes it.
The biggest benefit of this is that large investors, especially those at the institutional level, place a major emphasis on IP and the value that adds. It protects the value of the project and adds value to the managing company.
COMMUNITY QUESTION #3
The last update you gave regarding Fast Apollo Protocol was that there’s just one element left for the implementation to be complete. Has this been released?
I ask because it’s now marked as completed on the roadmap, but the effect is not visible on the blockchain. Fast Apollo Protocol is supposed to enhance Hermes blockchain with sub-second transaction confirmation. Of course, we’re already fast enough at the moment, but Fast Apollo is beyond speed — it’s the protocol that allows the development of distributed exchanges among other things.
Steve McCullah, Director of Business Development, Apollo
Yes, the majority of it has already launched. Elements of Fast Apollo are meant to work with DEX transactions, for example, and this has been implemented. The interesting part is that even now, our transactions are much faster than they look.
Elements including the refresh rate of the front end, latency, and other variables can keep the user from seeing a transaction as complete, and [a transaction can] appear as though it’s taking longer than it is. We have had a significant amount in our dev queue, but we will be releasing something in the near future that will allow the user to experience that speed by reducing the variable mentioned.
COMMUNITY QUESTION #4
Is there any reason why we couldn’t have a small coin burn to help increase the value of #APL?
Steve McCullah, Director of Business Development, Apollo
A coin burn wouldn’t help the value of APL unless those coins were in circulation already. We could burn Foundation coins, but those aren’t being sold on exchanges anyway and are designated to support Apollo’s development for the long term.
COMMUNITY QUESTION #5
I was wondering if there are any updates regarding oracles for your upcoming smart contracts?
Steve McCullah, Director of Business Development, Apollo
We are working on smart contracts now. We have a new Technical Paper that will be launched with our big release. This will detail our approach and reveal the direction.
COMMUNITY QUESTION #6
Steve, will you be doing more video interviews with news of our updates and new direction?
Steve McCullah, Director of Business Development, Apollo
As for me personally, we are working on a potential media plan for Africa, where certain elements are documented and released to the community. As far as the project in general, we have quite a bit lined up. The next big media appearance is AJ [Mora] on NASDAQ early next month.
COMMUNITY QUESTION #7
Who are the main competitors with the new strategy? Can you describe why APL will beat them out?
Steve McCullah, Director of Business Development, Apollo
I love this question, although to answer accurately requires a very complex answer.
Remember, we are releasing information on nine new products publicly and working on others behind the scenes. These products fall into three major categories: government, commercial, and consumer.
From a business standpoint, as a whole, we have competitors in a number of industries. The thing to remember, however, is we are never going to spend resources developing a product that is not better than the best solution available at that time. Everything that we have designed has been designed in a way that improves on existing solutions. Apollo has given us a truly remarkable leg up on nearly all of our blockchain products, not just because of its speed but also sustainability. Sustainability is critical in the government sector, specifically, which limits competing solutions drastically.
From a category standpoint, we have no blockchain-based competitors within the government solutions category. We are the only blockchain company we are aware of that is currently designing the solutions we are designing.
On the commercial side, Ripple will be our main competitor. We are better for a number of reasons, however, all of which will be revealed with our new products.
On the consumer side, we have obvious products that everyone knows about, such as the CEX. Regarding the exchange specifically, our biggest competitors are Binance and Coinbase. We are implementing a great number of things that will make us much more attractive than either and realistically, even both combined. A few of those things are physical locations, a customer service team equipped to process KYC and user requests near-instantly, better UI, regional bank accounts for instant deposits and withdrawals, significantly more fiat options, and much more that will be revealed soon.
I will go ahead and release the hint regarding our new product here as it ties in nicely.
As far as the overall vision, we are designing Apollo Fintech in a way that every product we add increases the overall value of all the others.
The thing that gives us the biggest advantage, and ties much of what we are doing together is our new product, which has been confidential until now.
What Apollo has been commissioned to do with Blockchain, this new product will do for the internet. Together they will be a very powerful ecosystem providing a large number of solutions and services, both centralized and decentralized. Once we have fully finished development of both, it would be easier to list who we are not in competition with than to list who we are. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to explain why we will be significantly ahead of the competition without revealing more information, but I can say there is no product on the market that is similar to the vision we have for this new product.
COMMUNITY QUESTION #8
How will Apollo Fintech set us up for success?
Steve McCullah, Director of Business Development, Apollo
If you read my previous answer, you will have a rather complete answer to this question.
In summary, it adds enormous value for a number of reasons, one of which is that almost every product is tied into Apollo, so with its success comes Apollo’s success. When we go to a government to pitch an idea, for instance, every solution we have to offer increases the chance that they will utilize our product ecosystem.
COMMUNITY QUESTION #9
You’ve said that APL won’t be used like Ethereum gas to process national currency transactions. Presumably, there will be a transaction fee. Where will those fees go (i.e., to forgers holding APL, forgers holding national currency, somewhere else)?
Steve McCullah, Director of Business Development, Apollo
Fees would be in the currency itself, and they would go to the forgers and node owners. It may not use Apollo for transaction fees, but it will utilize Apollo’s main net. What this means is that the current blockchain will power everything, and each user and merchant will have an Apollo ID, along with the ability to exchange instantly to APL.
Apollo (APL) all-in-one currency combines nearly all features of mainstream cryptocurrencies into the fastest blockchain in the world. Boasting features and advancements such as the first implementation of database sharding, as well as adaptive forging, atomic swaps, two-second blocks, encrypted messaging, decentralized marketplace, decentralized exchange, decentralized applications, and decentralized file storage, Apollo stands as the most feature-rich cryptocurrency on the market. And one of the most advanced.
