Q. We hear you’re rebranding the company, can you tell us more about this? @TomMarchi
Yes, we are reforming the company under the Sentivate name only. Our other services will be re-listed under TemplarTitan but their Tech related brand. Our primary concern is to redirect resources to Sentivate only and to reform the company so we could accept funding as we are pursuing that route now. We are also going to be moving things around for Sentivate China and the new domain UniversalWeb.io All docs and downloads will be hosted on there in the future.
Q. Could you also just go over over the basic concept of artifacts
Artifacts are essentially rare items that you could get from mining on the network or from us initially as we will be releasing an initial set and only those with SNTVT and or Viat would be able to get them. Artifacts modify the percentage a miner would get from validating a transaction. Say 7 people have confirmed a transaction and it’s considered to be part of the chain. If one of those folks have an artifact they would get a larger % of the mining pool. Like Cryptokitties you can trade these however there is a set amount of them and more can’t be made based on our latest rule set. They are extremely rare and it would allow those with less hardware to still get a bigger cut of the pool if they have artifacts enabled. There are small caveats here and there depending not the situation but essentially they are modules that can be enabled and attached to your wallet which is where the funds that one would get from mining go. This is a new asset class that has actual utility for the network not just a rarity principal like cryptokitties. It has real value use cases. We have another asset similar although a tad bit different called districts but those are for another AMA. Artifacts aka Gems have a visual look to them and a unique name to each with unique properties some far more rare than others. They will be tradable on the network.
Q. We heard of “districts”, can you expand a little on this and explain to the community what that is?
We have seen some uncertainty in US markets and still some flexibility outside of the US. The two main concerns for exchanges are one that is US based and compliant while the other is Asia centric and may not be US compliant but has a large impact in general although more of a focus on say China or Japan. The Asian market is huge and there is plenty of room for expansion there. It also ties into who we have spoken with regarding funding Japan specifically. Our strategy adjusted accordingly due the a ton of factors but the above are the main motives. There are more details to get into but I expect that the other questions will most likely hit upon them.
Q. Why is China so important right now. The news of the president regarding blockchain?
We have seen some uncertainty in US markets and still some flexibility outside of the US. The two main concerns for exchanges are one that is US based and compliant while the other is Asia centric and may not be US compliant but has a large impact in general although more of a focus on say China or Japan. The Asian market is huge and there is plenty of room for expansion there. It also ties into who we have spoken with regarding funding Japan specifically. Our strategy adjusted accordingly due the a ton of factors but the above are the main motives. There are more details to get into but I expect that the other questions will most likely hit upon them.
sentivate.cn is our Chinese based domain and will promote Asia specific exchanges. sentivate.com will be focused on the US compliant exchange and direct folks to there.
Q. A partnership between spaceX and starlink constelation would be freaking awesome for sntvt no ?
It would be and it would be a good fit considering out goals. I have reached out to Lew and asked for the contact as we do have a route to Elon most folks are about 1 to 2 people away from me. It’s not a pressing concern but the community has expressed interest in it so we will follow up none the less.
Q. Are you able to touch upon time frames for these listings at this time?
Listings we will never give out times but I can say that the next 3 exchanges we are speaking with and only these 3 are our concern. We get a lot of emails from exchanges and most we turn down. We have a new exchange policy that we may publish at some point but would need to verify if we could get sued for releasing the info. Essentially some exchanges are like rackets and they set up conditions that force “3rd” party market makers on projects. Those exchanges we would like to urge folks to proceed with caution. If you have seen we have removed some and are putting out a new exchange policy. Only exchanges that don’t force MMs and are BTI verified we will engage with. We will protect traders if possible from certain exchanges we feel are being used for something else entirely. I personally would like to divulge the full info but I have a feeling I may have a few lawsuits at my door by tomorrow. None the less I will see at some point if I could detail this out. One of those three exchanges has a K in it that’s all I can give out at this time. We have spoken with them and we can list but we rather do things right since we are a US based company. We must make sure we don’t step on any toes here. If we were “based” in Malta or Singapore it wouldn’t be much of a concern but we aren’t so it is.
2 of those 3 exchanges are specific to a region. 1 out of the 3 is specific to a region and it follows in line with our new plans for the sites detailed in the previous question.
Q. Can you tell us a bit about Templar Titans and how it ties into sentivate?
TT has a tech subsidiary that ties into us more directly. However, we will also be providing private networks for TT operations. For example let’s say we have boots on the ground for an operation and they need a private internal Web. We would provide that service to them directly and are roped into any Gov contracts they receive as a result. Another aspect and the part I’m most interested in is an avenue for Gov contracts that we can propose or go after directly. I’m a CTO at TT currently and that company is also expanding rapidly. Due to the nature of the operations it would be best for Lew possibly later today to hop in and detail more of that out himself.
Q. Is there a plan to release executables in 2020?
Yes, we will have .app, .exe, and we are considering a flat app approach for Linux similar to OSX’s .app. Anyone who has some experience with electron can actually do this right now with a GUI it will package it up for you and create a release for any OS. Another perk and reason as to why we chose electron. We also plan on going through the Mac App Store so we could provide an easy path to updating the app. A home-brew variety is still possible but we much rather have a more fluid approach for everyday users hence going through the App Store.
Q. Growing as employee count? Or more projects? How many are there working for TT?
Both, as we expand so does TT and vice versa. Our relationship is extremely mutually beneficial as we provide all IT/Dev related services for them. We expect more locations across the US include California and Texas up next. We are also looking at a few other states but those would be perfect hub locations from a business standpoint. Employee count is growing for TT I’m not involved in that side of things as some operations require the highest level of clearance aka a need to know basis. There are a ton of contract based folks under TT due to the vast array of operations available. I would love to detail out some of the crazy stories but I think folks can imagine. Lew is ex SEAL Team 6 take a moment to think about it and I’m sure you’ll get the picture quickly.
Q. How does Sentivate compare to other projects in terms of longevity?
We are a tech oriented company and a client focused one. It just so happened to be that crypto was a perfect fit for what we are building. It was part of the future of the Web and it was also a solution to DDOS related concerns, congestion control, connection liveliness checking, and a few other perks. We aren’t a crypto startup what we see as the guys who rush out a crypto asset get on a bunch of exchanges fail at deliverables make what they can then “leave” the company to “focus on family” or something of the like. For me this is my life and I’ll do it to the day I die. I don’t work with folks who don’t have that same mentality. We are looking at 10 years out and we play the long game. We want the Universal Web to be a house hold name and for every connected device to be on it and with very little effort required to switch over. This vision we have is highlighted well when we speak out decentralized only Web projects that think they are even remotely capable of replacing the Web we have today. It’s a pipe dream and I wouldn’t touch ideas that I know to be untrue or none viable even if it would turn a dime. To summarize we are playing the long game and we always will we want to survive and succeed not be here one year or two and be out the next. We call this internally “The Exchange Game” which we have seen only very few projects not play.
Q. I believe someone was looking for clarification about the sntvt to viat swap. How would the 1000:1 swap effect or not the economics of it all
This is an old question but it tends to resurface from time to time. A good analogy is if a Doc prescribes you 1000mgs one day and then the next time he writes instead 1gram the dosage and value is still the same. However, the rarity of it goes up as the total amount shrinks.
Q. Are there any plans to reward holders of sntvt long term directly or are you against these kinds of methods….staking coins etc.
We have spoken to a lot of folks who like aspects of staking so yes we have internally agreed that there is a form of staking during the mining process. An example with the Artifacts is (seemingly at random(current algo) someone will be awarded an artifact) however to activate and use it you actually need to load it with a set amount of Viat. This keeps Viat from going to exchanges and instead be staked on the network for an internal use case in this example that would be to activate the Artifact. We have also experimented with how mining %s are adjusted to the miners who hold more Viat in their wallets. This again keeps things more internal and ensures that folks won’t be trading it on exchanges as much keeping the circulating supply on exchanges lower. This all ties into how we would like to inject value into the smallest decimal numbers in Viat and slow emission rates. We looked at Viat like a free market capitalist economy.
Q. This is something I’ve always struggled to understand
A single Sntvt for arguments sake was worth $1
A single viat would have to be worth $1000 in order for the holdings to remain the same dollar value due to the 1000:1
Using the Doc analogy the value would be the same at the time of swap. One thing I will say as we have always said is there will never be an sort of guarantee when it comes to economics that’s just morally unethical and it puts a bad taste in my mouth when I see projects playing that game. The market will do what the market wants to do. One thing I will say and that is important to that question in my eyes is the rarity drastically decreases with that figure. The economics of Viat are focused around creating value in the smallest amount of Viat. We will be seeing most transactions in decimal places not whole numbers. Combine that with a slow emission rates and it paints a very interesting picture.If any devs are out there you can write a quick simulation of this and use your friends to make decisions you’ll see exactly what we are looking at it. That’s what we do to quickly model out an economy if we want to play around with an idea. As at that point it matters what people decide to do another important notion to make. We are designing a network for people first not machines. The protocol is great for IoT but the economics takes into account people. Something I see many projects like to ignore.
Q. Thank you and yes of course market will always dictate value with supply and demand. What will the increments of viat be called? Do we know yet?
You were on the right track it’s Sents. That is on our current specification for the network. You will find that a lot of the specs we have and documentation will be making its way on UniversalWeb.io and Sentivate will transition to more of the company and crypto side of things. Similar to how it is now.
Q. @TomMarchi will people get certificates per device or is it per person? Will there be something in the future like a usb drive where you can scan your fingerprint and your wallet can popup or will wallets always be need to installed on your own device? I like the idea of having my wallet in the cloud but protected by the network and unlockable with finger/eye scan.. Is it possible for sentivate or am i just thinking scifie now?
Entirely up to the individual. Based on what we recommend the master certificate per-person then ephemeral certificates per-device or per-service or per-profile. All viable options. We want to ensure flexibility for security and privacy. Yes, we are actuated working with RFID cards right now regarding access control systems for that exact purpose. We will provide a cloud option a bit after launch that folks can encrypt and back things up like an encrypted keychain in the cloud. Similar to a lot of the password managers out today but with much stricter security. It could also just be encrypted and put on say your iCloud or google drive then downloaded to the device and decrypted.@TomMarchi If I understand correctly the master certificate is your real identity and you can have anonymous ones tied to it right? Ephemeral? Won’t those be traceable back to master? (forgot to put your name in front)
The master can be attached to a real world identity there is a process for that though. This is what ties into our solution for Gov use and voting. Without it they are all essentially anonymous by default. The Master is mainly just for signing and creating ephemeral certs which are used during the handshake process and Viat wallets. It can also be used to recover accounts if you lost say your Ephemeral cert. They don’t technically need to be but they are in that they sign the ephemeral along with the Identity Registrar or the Domain registrar depending on the cert type. The ephemeral cert has two signatures. One from its master and the other from the registrar.
However, it doesn’t need to be transmitted during the handshake process based on the current spec. However, the service could ask for it during signup to help with cases where a person may be creating more certs and accounts. It could also be used to attach a reputation to the Master cert so even if they make ephemeral ones the network could still label it as a bad actor and thus be blocked. The service could also specify in its cert that it wants the master during the 0-RTT handshake. We provide a lot of flexibility there for companies as each service will have specific needs and concerns. It isn’t trackable so to say unless they get the master or say report it. The idea here is to still have a way to block bad actors or certs from abusing a service. Accountability is lacking on the Web and services need better tools to protect their networks from attacks or fraud. Having a system where the network could report bad actors is a great first step in the right direction when it comes to accountability.
A great question was asked to us by folks we are speaking with regarding funding. “How do you know a bad actor from a good one?” Our full vision proposes hardware changes to the Web as well as our software related additions. The hardware would ensure a way to trace bad actors even if they put in false origin data. At the end of the day we are not just proposing a new Web we are proposing a new Internet. Not our main concern now but we have spoken about those solutions way back when we first opened up our BTC talk thread. Not something we are focused on now though as we have that already laid out and ready to go once everything is in the right place. The larger issues are the Web bits. The hardware would be icing on the cake and could be much further down the road.
