uPlexa AMA with Smart Chain Apes
On April 20th we had uPlexa team over our telegram server to answer all the questions the community had. AMA lasted for over 1hr and it went great. The team was well prepared. Here you will find the Summary of the AMA:
AJ: Hello and thank you to all of our community members who are joining us for this AMA with uPlexa.com
QuantumLeaper: “Hello! Happy to be here.”
AJ: ~ Can you please introduce yourself? What is your background? When did you start at uPlexa and for how long you know the rest of team?
QunatumLeaper: “Sure. So, I’m Kyle (aka QuantumL3aper). @meandertal and I founded uPlexa in 2018 on the premise of creating a low-power, IOT friendly PoW algorithm that was actually somewhat beneficial and profitable for users to mine. Our thought process was, and still remains, that for a truly decentralized PoW consensus, the most amount of devices and users should be able to have access to participation in mining.
I started coding at the age of 12 and loved that I could seeemingly build anything from nothing. Seventeen years later, I have built many cool projects, worked in a variety of IT settings and I still love it. I got into crypto through DOGE back in 2014. Back then I created one of the first doge chat bots in IRC that we all had a lot of fun with. Later on, in around 2017 — I started taking crypto more seriously.
It was quite apparent the world had major issues with both centralized powers and malicious actors (whether state or individual) pretty much abolishing personal privacy. Bitcoin nor dogecoin sovles the side of privacy, so I hopped on the Monero wagon. After being apart of the community some time, I ended up working with a team who built Cryptoloot (Yes, poorly chosen name). Cryptoloot was a browser-based Monero miner that allowed webmasters to monetize their websites outside of typical ads, forced popups, and selling customers personal information. IT was during this time that we were seeing about ~65% of the mining traffic was coming from mobile devices. There was this stigma back in the day, that mining on mobile devices was not at all viable.. but it was being done. Thus, we decided to opt to make an algorithm that is geared towards this type of true decentralization.
@Meandertal and I met in 2017 in Thailand. We ended up living nearby in two cities in Thailand for a couple of years. The rest of the contributors came later. CryptoMiningKB (from Netherlands) actually joined our Discord back when we had 7 members. Blake and I have known each other since highschool.
I somewhat poached CryptoMiningKB from another crypto server we both spent much time in. We still joke how he was the 7th member, and now we have >6K members in discord. mRico, CCDozer, n3alz, tjolpie, foxi3, zintus, green, cryptonym, tybiboune, polarisfm all joined as we progressed over the years, and seemingly share the same ideology around privacy and security as we do.”
AJ: So uPlexa is Since 2018. Wow. You have been actively developing since???
QuantumLeaper: “Yes, we went on mainnet October 23rd of 2018 👍”
AJ: Very important question but completly out of the topic….
Are you still holding DOGE????
QuantumLeaper: “Unfortunately, I do not haha”
AJ: If you have any question, or you would just like to win the bounty…please join
https://t.me/uplexaOfficial and tag me
~ Is this your first project together? Is the team located in the same time zone?
QuantumLeaper: “Blake and I have worked on various projects together. We worked on some older chat protocols that we never ended up releasing (lol), and then worked as freelancers. Eventually, Blake helped me a lot with my own company (Naplen), which started off as a web design company, and is now geared more towards analytics and backend software architecture for medium-large sized companies. Blake and I are both (currently) in Canada (West Coast, so PST timezone). KB, as mentioned, is in NL. CCDozer is from NL, too (I think?), and meandertal is currently still in Thailand. I probably shouldn’t proceed to giving out other details about other members who have not otherwise made their locations public information.”
AJ: I know it’s a private coin but I still have to ask
~ Are you guys privately doxxed to any company?
QuantumLeaper: “Yeah, so just to point out, uPlexa is a decentralized project. We have figureheads, such as myself, but the project is not a company and is not controlled by any individual entity. However, yes, I own both Naplen and Shopya Commerce LLC. Blake is also the CTO of Shopya Commerce LLC”
AJ: ~ Can you please introduce uPlexa to us in few words? How is this different from other projects? Basically give us a profesional shill lol
QuantumLeaper: “Haha, sure. uPlexa is a privacy based digital currency, forked from Monero. We started off on improving the cryptonight algorithm (the PoW part of cryptonote, and also the thing that kills superman). We improved the algorithm to support low-power architecture, as well as implementing a linear weighted moving difficulty algorithm to prevent flash hashing attacks. We then delivered the first android miner, alongside IoTProxy (which helps casual miners receive fair payments from pools without having to mine 24/7).
At this point in time, we solved the supply problem. But.. we had no real demand, especially during a bear market. So, we worked on integrations. Integrations for Woocommerce, shopify, magento, prestshop, opencart, whmcs, and nodejs. However, those were just integrations that relied on external forces for demand. So, we decided, rather than running at the same wall as the entire industry between bogus partnerships and begging Google, Amazon, and Pornhub to implement us, why don’t we build an internal use case? Thus, from there we opted to create a real, privacy-focused, decentralized VPN otherwise known as ‘Plexanet’. The release we are currently working on for uPlexa-core, ‘Steadfast Storm’, will enable Utility Nodes on the uPlexa network. Utility nodes act much like masternodes, but with more… utility. Rather than providing block validation, they will also be the backbones for Plexanet, acting as relay nodes.
In order to setup a node, one will have to stake ~2M UPX for a solo node, or 500k (25%) for a shared node. The idea is, that we are incentivizing our utility node operators via dividends to operate high-end machines to power the network. With Tor, anybody can set up a node on the network, and most do it out of volunteirship. This, although a very cool concept, has leadto problems such as slow speeds, and sybil attacks (when an entity controls 33%+ or more of the network, they are able to identify specific users based off of footprinting). In our case, it is expected of the Utility node operator to obtain a machine with a solid internet connection and some resources too boot. This is more of a business relationship between the node operators and the users, a mutual exchange of value. If the node’s do not hold up to the minimum required specs, they are deregistered from the network and lose out on dividends (block rewards). Steadfast storm will change the block reward consensus to an 80% PoW, 20% PoU (proof-of-utility) payout. However, we have also considered a 60% PoW, 30% PoU, and a 10% liquidity mining bonus payout for block rewards”
AJ: ~ Let’s look at security. uPlexa is a privacy-based digital currency. How is privacy achieved? How does it benefit users?
QuantumLeaper: “We cover quite a few concepts. Starting with the core blockhain itself, live since October 23rd of 2018 as stated earlier. The blockchain obfusticates payments via ring signatures and mixin’s. Thus, when you go to buy a gallon of milk with UPX, the cashier cannot figure out that you have X amount of Y currency to your name (Unlike Bitcoin, eth, doge, or bsc).
We then also have Plxanet, the dVPN I mentioned. Plexanet, whilst being far faster than Tor, and far cheaper than traditional centralized VPN providers, also boasts more security than either. Plexanet does not collect any user information, nor do you have to subscribe to any plans. It is simply pay-as-you-go. Esentially, you lock X amount of funds into your dVPN vault (through any of the UPX wallets), and the network will automatically pull from that wallet based on network fees. Thus, you are using a private service, being paid in a private currency, regulated automatically by a private network
When comparing to Tor, we do cost more (since Tor is free), but, good luck streaming video games, netflix, or any online media with Tor. Tor is also highly susceptible to Sybil attacks as mentioned earlier. Opposed to us, where running a node actually requires capital, and attempting a Sybil attack would cause a demand for up to 33% of the entire Supply of uPlexa (which doesn’t even exist in sell liquidity on exchanges). Plexanet is a huge project, and Steadfast storm went live on testnet at the end of last year. We plan on launching Plexanet in q3-q4 of this year.
More over, why we are here, in this group, in the DeFi space, is another privacy based use case. As you know, we just released uPlexa Bridge, which brings a layer of privacy to both BSC and ETH.
We created wrapped assets (bUPX) and are soon also going to be creating (wUPX), swappable at a 1:1 ratio via the bridge to and from the native UPX chain. This move has several advantages for all three communities (UPX, BSC, and ETH). Number one being that we are able to incentivize liquidity provisioning via liquidity mining through the upxReaper contract. Over the years, our project has suffered from a lack of liquidity and exchange listings due to centralized exchanges plaguing the decentralized industry with scams, high listing fees, and hacks. If we’re going to use decentralized currencies, we need decentralized exchanges.
Secondly, UPX acts as a layer-two solution for privacy on the BSC and ETH networks. Thus, say you’re a trader and you do not want people following your trading patterns/history. Or, say you simply want to make a payment in which you would prefer to keep secret, and do not wish to have that show on your main financial history; simply swap into bUPX/wUPX, swap into the UPX native chain, and then swap back into bUPX / wUPX again. Now, you have a wallet, on a transparent network, with no history. One of our core contributors deemed this as “wallet gapping”.”
AJ: ~ What is the special feature of PoW mining for IoT? Why did you choose this model?
QuantumLeaper: “We created an android miner to rival that of Electroneum. A company that advertised mobile mining, privacy, and a bunch of other broken promises (currently evaluated at ~$400M). Their mobile miner ended up being a “simulated miner” (that does not actually mine), they ended up premining 50% of the supply, had an ICO, and although they used cryptonote (a privacy based crypto repo), they ended up stripping all privacy from the code (lol). They broke their promises to their investors, such investors like myself and meandertal, and thus we decided to be everything they are not.
That, in-combination with working with Cryptoloot, and seeing the power these devices do in fact have, as well as how there’s over 21B+ IoT devices in the world, it just seemed to be an obvious solution to a complex problem that nobody else was adequately working on. What easier way to get into crypto than being able to download an app to your phone and start mining? Want to pay for a cheaper, more secure, more private VPN but don’t know anything about crypto? Try mining on your phone for a few hours to gain access to the network. If, at that point, you’re statisfied, continue onwards with mining (supporting the network), or finally take the time to learn how to use exchanges and wallets now that crypto actually provides meaningful value to you in life.”
AJ: ~ You have 4 opportunities for mining now: CPU, AMD/NVIDIA GPU, Android devices. It is logical to assume that the GPU shows the best results. Can you tell us about the specifics of each method? Is there any way to calculate the approximate results for different types of hardware?
QuantumLeaper: “GPU’s are actually the least effective on the uPlexa network. The UPX2 algorithm is geared towards low-power architecture such as the ones on your phones or tablets, or even your computer. We have a lot of users come in complaining that their GPU rigs are not profitable on our network due to electricity costs. Yeah… that’s kind of the idea, haha”
AJ: ~ What the system requirements are for Android devices to mine?
QuantumLeaper: “No requirements. We support both armv7 and armv8 devices, so even if your device is 7+ years old, you will be able to run the miner.”
AJ: ~ How does liquidity mining work, and when does that start?
QuantumLeaper: “Liquidity mining, for bUPX on BSC, starts tomorrow:
https://bscscan.com/block/countdown/6764000
The core contributors contributed 5M to the upxReaper contract. There is also a 1% tax on all bUPX transactions (other than buying). Thus, in the past 6 days we have seen another ~750,000 bUPX go into the upxReaper contract due to said tax. Those rewards, will be used for a 30 day period, starting tomorrow, to pay liquidity miners. After which, taxes will continue to provide liquidity incentive, as well as potentially allocating some of the current uPlexa block rewards towards liquidity provisioning bonuses. Users are also free to donate to the upxReaper contract, if they chose to do so, which will be allocated during the next LP reward period.
The way it works, is pretty standard. Provide liquidity for the bUPX/BNB pair on Pancakeswap, take your CAKE LP’s, and stake them on the platform (available at https://bridge.uplexa.com/staking). After liquidity mining starts, you will immediately see rewards coming your way. The rewards are solid. I would say the ROI is far greater than that of the crazy inflated Canadian real estate market, even when we surpass a few million dollars in liquidity. However, the liquidity mining event will not cause massive dilution nor devaluation of UPX, so nobody should expect to go from roller skates to a lambo in a night, nor will we see enough supply being ‘given out’ to outweigh our demand. We will have a video on the platform on how to farm/liquidity mine before the contract starts pumping out rewards.
More information may be found here:
Señor: Well, just on the regulation side of things. While I think your stance on resisting regulators is an honorable one, I guess I’m curious as to how you actually plan to do that. Let’s say uplexa becomes the next big privacy chain. Regulators decide they hate you. Release an announcement: “uPlexa is ‘banned’ in the US.” What happens then?
QuantumLeaper: “Sure. So, by no means do we support money laundering, fraud, or any type of malicious activity. We do honor privacy. If the state was to become completely totalitarian and ban privacy, I would still be fighting for privacy, so would many others. I would likely move long before then. But even if core contributors vanish, the project will go on (considering the majority of people working on uPlexa now, are all anonymous). The way we’re setting things up right now between BISQ, Pancakeswap, and Uniswap, as well as a decentralized VPN allows users to continue to use and trade UPX regardless of authoritarian leaders dictating who can do what. The US banned gold back in the day, and proceeded to buy everybody's gold. Not long after, the fiat was massively devalued (kind of like what’s happening now). This time, if the state comes to force you to sell your assets, they won’t be able to (unless they torture you, so if that’s the way you see it going, get out!)”
AJ: uPlexa is already prepared for integration into popular e-commerce platforms via plugins, and there are libraries for in-house development. In addition to this, you are also planning your commercial platform called Shopya.
~ What will it be? Tell us about your e-commerce business.
QuantumLeaper: “Sure. So, when previously operating Naplen as a web design company, I started obtaining quite a few clients in the ecom industry. I started doing more advanced work for some of our topmost clients, such as Shopify plugins and applications built to their custom needs. After quite some time, I realized how lackluster Shopify was (even on the Shopify $2k/mo plan). Then, you have WooCommerce, which is far too technical for the average business owner to operate (which then requires more developers, sysadmins, and scaling can become a pain in the butt). Thus, Blake and I opted to create an eCommerce platform that offers more out-of-the-box functionality than Shopify, at cheaper costs, by using modern frameworks rather than building off of some old dusty Ruby monolyth.
We also want to have massive support for cryptocurrencies, unlike most of the leading ecommerce solutions (without the reliance on a third party crypto payment processor). The project has been and is being built with scalability in mind, incorporating a complex backend architecture consisting of a custom horizontal sharding algorithm, containerization management via Nomad & Consul by the HashiCorp project, and plenty of other modern, cutting-edge technologies.”
AJ: ~ I saw your whitepaper was an old version of 2018. Are you planning to update it anytime soon?
QuantumLeaper: “I do have a revised copy, but we have also thought about scrapping the WP altogether. We have achieved most of what was originally written, and we are not begging for investors.
Rather, we are actively working on solutions to complex problems and looking for users to incorporate such solutions into their daily lives. We do have some solid information on our knowledgebase
(https://kb.uplexa.com) as well as our medium (https://medium.com/@uplexa)
AJ: ~ How $UPX will be profitable in the long run?
QuantumLeaper: “Mining, Utility Nodes (staking), and providing liquidity (staking LP tokens) are all options that will provide ROI’s for those looking to profit from uPlexa, on top of price growth as we continue to build out our services. As for contributors, we did do a premine of 7% of the supply in 2018 when we launched. Some of which we have already used for exchange listings, bounties, some minor marketing, translations, development, and some are allocated to the original founders. We do have a pool of funds in both UPX and other cryptos to afford more marketing and developments, audits, etc.”
Questions from the Community
- Question from @mihaidordea “Noob question: any ideea what value should I choose for the ‘fixed difficulty’ setting for a i7 10th gen? Right now I’ve set it to 1300000😁”
- QuantumLeaper: “I do not know on the top of my head, that may be something we should add to our hardware statistical library found here:
https://kb.uplexa.com/index.php?title=Main_Page#Hardware_Hashrate_Database
If he reaches out in #mining on our very active discord, he’ll find somebody with an appropriate response quite quickly 👍 I would assume default difficulty rates set by the pools should suffice, too”
- Question from @zaratrusta “Privacy it’s an ever important topic in today’s world explored by many businesses that bring different solutions, what core technologies Plexanet will introduce that will make it a unique offering?”
QuantumLeaper: “So, Plexanet is using onion routing, much like Tor. Your encrypted connection gets relayed and hopped through 3 relays, all of which only know the prior and next IP address, making it a lot more private than traditional providers. On top of that, the nodes are not all controlled by one provider. As mentioned earlier, no customer data is stored, everything is pay-as-you go, and the cost will be cheaper than that of traditional VPN providers.”
A quick summary of what onion routing can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJfdrWx_mi8&t=1s
- Question from @zaratrusta “Plexanet is going to be Uplexa brain child to be released soon, what’s the team strategy(ies) to bring it’s awareness to the masses? Will it involve partnerships with other projects.”
QuantumLeaper: “Without marketing, you could have the greatest technology — and never be made aware of.
I cannot go into full detail on our marketing plan at this time, but I can say our current marketing strategy, this time around, consists of:
- Working with various crypto influencers
- Getting on more decentralized exchanges to increase our audience, liquidity, and ease of access
- Getting on at LEAST one highly reputable centralized exchange
- Releasing video ads (ppv) specific to our upcoming dVPN
- Attending crypto meetups and conferences again once the “C-Word” starts to dissipateA
- Continue to bring newcomers into crypto and privacy through our noob-friendly IoT miners (such as the android miner), and our dVPN”
- Question from Bilboblue
“Most projects have to make compromises as they grow. What will Uplexa not compromise on?”
QuantumLeaper: “We will not compromise on privacy, nor security. If something needs to be delayed because testing, debugging, or a security audit is taking too long — so be it. Nor will we ever bend backwards like Electroneum did to please regulators by destroying our blockchain and making what was once a private chain into a transparent chain.”
- Question from anon
“When will the Android Miner be Updated with XMRigCC”
QuantumLeaper: “Good question. I will ask Bendr0id if he’s ok with us doing that.”
- Question from @CCDozer
“Now that you are on DEXes, do you also plan to list on larger CEX, like Kucoin / Poloniex etc. ?”
QuantumLeaper: “Yeah, as mentioned earlier this is a huge priority right now. Even though I disagree with much of centralization, I do realize it is a part of our society, and it is a tool we must make use of. So having at least one very reputable centralized exchange is certainly high up on the list of goals”
Question from anon
“Dogs or cats”
QuantumLeaper: “Cats. The less maintenance the better. (I love both though) haha”
Thank you for joining us guys! Here you will have the links of uPlexa
