We carefully collected the most frequently asked questions from people who joined the community and answered them altogether scrupulously.
What is Waves Enterprise?
Waves Enterprise is a technology company formed to develop a hybrid enterprise-grade blockchain platform (having the same name) that unites public and private network approaches. Waves Enterprise is exclusively focusing on blockchain-based technologies for businesses and governments.
Our goal is to make DLT and blockchain, in particular, much more accessible for all kinds of businesses. One of the reasons that the adoption of blockchain is slowing down even in enterprises is that the first generation of corporate platforms is sluggish and inconvenient in all aspects — be it a framework approach with a complex architecture or hidden costs and many other elements.
Besides technology, a full stack of services is also available — we do consulting on blockchain use cases, we provide educational programs to address skill shortages, do premium support and much more.
Our HQ is based in Moscow, Russia. Currently, most of our customers are Russian companies. We started in 2018, but we moved really fast and already have a significant share of the Russian corporate blockchain market. This year, we are planning to start operations in other regions outside Russia, including Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
Where is the development team located?
Most of the team (including dev and sales force) is based in Moscow. We are currently recruiting regional representatives who will be responsible for business development in other regions.
What projects have already been implemented on your platform? Do you have any cases or projects already?
Yes, we already have good traction here in Russia with more than 20 projects.
For example, here are some of our more prominent customers:
– Rosetti, the largest Russian operator of energy grids with electricity settlements pilot project
– Alfa Bank the largest Russian private-owned bank and second by size, FMCG company X5 Retail Group with a decentralized treasury and a cash management system.
There are some other tier 1 Russian enterprises and governmental agencies amongst our clients and pilot projects, yet we can’t share their names due to NDA. Also we run several pilots outside Russia.
Our main technology partners are Microsoft in the field of cloud deployments and Kaspersky Lab — in the field of cybersecurity.
You say that your platform has more than 20 clients, why don’t you name each one?
We cannot disclose certain names due to a non-disclosure agreement, it is against their interests at this time. We can only say that these clients are large organizations from various fields and verticals.
What makes Waves Enterprise different from other enterprise platforms?
The main thing is that our platform is not a framework, which consists of many different components, it’s an enterprise-grade solution that can be rapidly deployed. All parts of our platform are ready-to-use and ready-to-integrate with existing IT systems and ready-to-develop further if needed. We strive to implement an out-of-the-box solution as far as it applies to the corporate blockchain, of course.
Waves Enterprise is only focused on the functionality required by real-life business cases and existing corporate customers; this underpins all of our research and development, the goal of which is how to practically implement the technology in the enterprises.
In fact, the business requirements from blockchain technology consist of the following functionalities:
– High throughput and availability
– Turing-complete language-agnostic smart-contracts with no gas or other types of commission
– Privacy of data / metadata
– Ability to integrate into existing corporate IT-landscape
– Legal & security compliance
– Service level agreements
And all of these features are combined in the Waves Enterprise blockchain platform.
Waves Enterprise is a hybrid blockchain platform, what is a hybrid blockchain platform? How does Waves Enterprise make it hybrid?
In one sentence, hybrid means that public blockchain and private blockchains meet in one ecosystem, obtaining a synergy of decentralization, coverage, cryptoeconomics, and privacy, security, legal compliance. We believe that for businesses it will be the most relevant and effective model for using blockchain technology in the not too distant future.
In our product strategy, we have three current evolution directions.
The first direction is the development of Waves Enterprise mainnet — a public permissioned blockchain. Here we have plans for network expansion, increasing the number of participants and transactions, launching new services and products based on the mainnet, introducing the marketplace, and so on.
We have our own native token called WEST, and WE mainnet is the place where WEST economics should work. In mainnet, you can use WEST for paying transactions commission, using services (like anchoring, data oracles), using products (we will announce some of them soon), leasing, running a node, or a leasing pool. The main goal here is to have a wide network with independent participants and contributors, strong native token and economics, and a variety of dApps and services for any business demand.
The second direction is private blockchain and technological features required by businesses to integrate blockchain in their business processes and infrastructure. For example, data privacy, high throughput, scalability, integration tools, etc. are all needed to win in competition with other enterprise blockchain solutions.
Our primary focus here is large enterprises and governments. We predict that for the next several years, large businesses and governments will be the main drivers for private blockchain technology evolution and progress. A simple reason is that many of them see fresh perspectives in technology and have money to innovate. Despite the fact that large businesses want to be innovative, they are also very conservative. It is related to the size of a company, a prolonged decision-making process, complicated business processes and IT-landscape, information security policies, and the need to comply with the regulator’s requirements. All these factors make businesses very clumsy in adopting public blockchain.
Activities are getting harder concerning the usage of tokens and cryptocurrencies by legal entities. In many jurisdictions, even token terms are not defined, as well as accounting and taxation of operations and other important legal questions.
So for enterprises, private chains are much more suitable at the moment.
And, finally the third direction is about integrating the public and private parts of the ecosystem — making hybrid solutions. With the robust mainnet, good adoption in enterprises, and a lot of implemented cases, as well as technical features (like swaps, data oracles, support of Gravity protocol etc.), we can bring the synergy of two worlds closer. The much awaited day is coming, sooner than we think.
What is WEST (Waves Enterprise System Token)?
WEST — is the platform’s system token, and it is a universal asset for accessing all operations and services on the main network, as well as on hybrid sidechains.
The token can be used in several different ways:
– to pay transaction fees, as well as to purchase services on the main network.
– to get a right to participate in the network as a miner — miners on mainnet must hold a balance of WEST tokens to generate blocks
– to purchase or rent a license to use Waves Enterprise software
– also, it can be used for staking.
The token is currently available on the following exchanges:
– Tidex
– Kucoin
How does WEST staking work?
Well, staking works pretty simply. A WEST token holder can collect more tokens by leasing their balance to a network miners’ nodes or to other mining pools that participate in network maintenance. Based on the number of leased tokens, the owner can collect a proportion of the tokens that the node, in turn, receives from transaction fees on the network.
Here are some numbers:
- Total supply — 400M. More information about token distribution can be found on our blog
- Circulating supply — 38M (according to CoinMarketCap)
- Currently staked — 24M (70%)
Kucoin exchange is currently (07.2020) running a staking program with 3–5% interest.
Annual ROI on mainnet is ±3%, these numbers may change,
Do you have any plans to promote the project outside of Russia?
Yes, even though Russia is our home market, we are known here, and we have a good customer base, we plan to expand to European, Middle Eastern and Asian markets. We plan to start active promotion in these markets in 2020–2021.
How do Waves Enterprise relate to Waves Protocol?
Waves Enterprise is a separate project with an independent team, and we have a completely different target audience. Yes, our technology was once a fork of the Waves protocol, but the further we developed, the further we went from the original model and technology stack. The demands and requirements of businesses have done their job, so the intersections in terms of technology disappear over time. But this does not negate our ideological solidarity with the Waves ecosystem. We share the ecosystem’s values and are going to connect to the Gravity Protocol when it is ready.
If I don’t have a large business, how can I use the WE network as a SMB or an individual?
Waves Enterprise offers many options for using infrastructure and services for both companies and individuals. The easiest thing you can do is take part in maintaining the main network, deploy a node or lease tokens to some node. You can also use our blockchain-based voting service — during the public beta testing, its use is completely free for everyone. Besides, the mainnet has infrastructure services that can be used by businesses that own private networks, including data oracles, anchoring, and atomic swaps. In the future, we plan to launch a marketplace of blockchain-based applications not only for enterprises but also for SMBs, which will feature apps from both third-party developers and the Waves Enterprise team, so you can participate in this as a third-party developer as well.
You used to be called Vostok, why did you change your name?
Yes, it’s true. But later we rebranded the project to increase international awareness and gain synergy between the two projects: the Waves public protocol and Waves Enterprise. Also, we renamed the token accordingly — Waves Enterprise System Token (WEST).
If you still have questions, ask them here, and our team members will answer.