• Ivan Gramovich, Waves Enterprise Mainnet product manager
• Carlos M. Parada, chairman of Waves Enterprise DAO Governing Council, CBDO of Tokenomika Pte Ltd.

— This year has been full of changes, full of updates for Waves Enterprise, and there are more to come throughout the year, which include moving to DAO and open source. Ivan, can you tell us about these changes?

**I.: ** Yes, this year will be full of changes, I hope, in a better way. First of all, we decided to create some kind of reliable blockchain network. I mean, all our users will have DAO to rule the blockchain itself, and every user will have a voice to develop the blockchain for the better.

Also we want to work with open source to create a platform, in which any third-party developers can easily build apps. And we want to help them.

— OK, well, do you think this will have an impact on the wider ecosystem outside of just Waves Enterprise?

I.: Sure, the main idea is building a blockchain that has DAO. The community protects itself from bad, scam products and so on. The community will decide who has a permission to work with the network, so all of this creates a very reliable blockchain, simple for users, investors and enterprises. I think this is the best option to create a really unique blockchain.

— Carlos, the next one is for you. Someone says the private sector is distancing itself more and more from the Mainnet, which is controlled now by a totally different entity. Do you think it’s true, and what plans for the Mainnet does Waves Enterprise have?

C.: This is a very interesting question. One thing we should explain to the community is that actually it is not really hard to pitch a blockchain product to a corporation. Blockchain brings many new things, many advantages to the scene. But once you start talking about transparency, immutability and all these things of a public blockchain, of our Mainnet, it’s not so easy to convince corporations.

Until now, most of our experience in Waves Enterprise was connected with private blockchain, because private companies prefer privacy and using private blockchain. The Mainnet has other advantages, and we’ll try to put more emphasis now here, to promote this part of the ecosystem more. This will be enhanced by a distributed team all over the world. Earlier we had a small team in Singapore, and things were a bit more difficult. We have big hopes for the future.

— Alright. Ivan, as for the DAO, what frameworks are being implemented and what languages are the smart contracts based on?

I.: When we decided to found our own DAO, we tried to find the best way to build the service, and we did it. Our colleagues from WE.Vote team are working on such a product, so we decided to reuse their experience. That means our DAO is based on NodeJS. Our platform uses smart contracts containerized in Docker. This is the best option anyone can offer on the market today. So our DAO will be great.

— Cool. Carlos, there has been some news about Waves Enterprise no longer doing business in Russia. The project name there changes to Web3 Tech. Is it true?

C.: Yes, it’s true. I think everyone knows about the problems and the worldwide turmoil happening with Russia. Waves Enterprise was identified as a Russian project, which it’s really not. Though there are quite a lot of products in Russia that use Waves Enterprise technology, we have decided that Waves Enterprise should fly global. This is what we’ve done with the global team.

Web3 Tech is going to take care of Russia, they will still be using Waves Enterprise technology. But for the rest of the world Waves Enterprise will handle it.

— OK, and speaking on the rest of the globe, are there any countries that are a big focus at the moment?

C.: Yes, definitely. All the Waves ecosystem collaborates widely. Recently Waves Labs was built, with headquarters in Miami. They are going to be the prime players there, in the US. In Europe we have Waves Enterprise Europe planned for some restructuring now. The Middle East is also very interesting, we have a part of our team relocated to Dubai already, we have a physical office there and we’re working right now on creating a legal entity there to start operations in the Middle East. South-East Asia is also very interesting, we have Tokenomika there with HQ in Singapore. For now, these will be four main points of attention.

— Oh, Waves Enterprise is quite spread out across the globe. Ivan, do you have any plans for NFTs?

I.: Interesting question, and a little bit tricky. We already have some products connected with NFTs, our colleagues developed an NFT marketplace which is called Raritet. It already has a few big and interesting cases. This marketplace was created to solve enterprise problems. I’m pretty sure we’ll get global here one day. Now the focus here is only on the European market, but I think we’ll deliver it globally. I’m sure that NFT marketplaces will become popular for any enterprise cases.

— What about Play2Earn? Do you have something similar to Waves Ducks?

I.: Honestly, we always keep an eye on this, but now we don’t have any plans for creating anything in P2E. We’ll create something someday, but for now let’s take a little time to come to this.

— Yeah, that makes sense. Carlos, can you tell us more about Sasha’s role within Waves Enterprise?

C.: Oh, we have a love-hate relationship with Sasha, he’s not as available as I would like sometimes :) He’s the main founder of the Waves ecosystem. We should also remember that he has a direct role in the Waves Labs as an advisor. And Waves Labs will be a part of the Governing Council in the Waves Enterprise DAO, so definitely he will have an important role.

Besides, he’s quite focused on DAO development, on how DAO is going to affect the future of the world. He has a Telegram channel to talk about it, quite interesting, and I suggest everyone interested in this topic to go and check it. There Sasha shares his point of view. It’s not like he’s the center of all, he just shares his point of view, and I’m sure many of his ideas will be integrated in the Waves Enterprise DAO over time.

— Thank you for that. Ivan, as we know, EAST is an algorithmic stablecoin built on the Waves Enterprise blockchain. Can you tell us more about it, as well as the role it plays within the wider ecosystem?

I.: Yes, sure. I’m 100% confident that a stablecoin is a fundamental foundation for any blockchain. So we spent a lot of time creating our own stablecoin, EAST. In the past we had some troubles with the stablecoin price, but we solved it with the last update, and now we have great plans for the second version of EAST. It will be more reliable than today. To build the ecosystem, we need to build a great stablecoin, so now we focus on EAST reliability and high staking rewards.

During 2022–2023, we plan to strengthen EAST by introducing additional peg mechanisms like treasury, new collateral tokens, etc. Soon we’ll announce a new version of stablecoin, and I think you’ll enjoy it.

— Carlos, speaking about initiatives, isn’t it sort of nerve-wracking to start initiatives during the period we are in, the crypto winter?

C.: When we talk about crypto winter, we mean a time when prices are low, when Bitcoin prices get low, and the market follows. There is definitely a strategic point of view when to start certain initiatives, but we can’t wait forever, so here, I think, we should focus on the technology and implementation. So we decided this is the moment, and we’ll go ahead.

— Great! That’s the spirit! Ivan, there’s a question about GWEST, will GWEST holders get airdrops from companies that join the Waves Enterprise ecosystem?

**I.: **A tricky question, but the answer will be short. Yes, GWEST holders will receive a lot of preferences in our network, they will be so-called VIP users of our blockchain. Maybe someday airdrops from companies will be on the list of these preferences, but not now.

— Carlos, you are a chairman of the Governing Council. Are they already contributing to the Waves Enterprise platform?

C.: Tokenomika has been contributing to Waves Enterprise since early 2021. We had many approaches in Singapore, but unfortunately they didn’t bear fruit as we expected. We’re working on it. All the other entities that are going to be part of the Governing Council, like Waves Labs, will definitely chip in and collaborate with us. Basically, Waves ecosystem will work together to give us a hand with this project, especially the members of the Governing Council.

One more thing to note is that we aim to look for other blockchains, other blockchain foundations and representatives to be a part of our DAO. We’ll look for the brightest minds around us and hopefully have great results. When we talk about centralization in this DAO, we really mean it.

— Will the DAO be legitimate or fake, like Vires DAO?

C.: I wouldn’t say Vires is a fake DAO… I can guarantee that Waves Enterprise DAO rulesets will be established by professionals. More info to come.

— Thank you for that. Ivan, will LWEST and GWEST distribution start at the same time? If so, when, and how do you think it will go?

I.: Actually, I think it is better to update our blockchain more often with smaller portions of innovations than, for example, update it once in a year with huge ones. That’s why we plan to launch LWEST first, and then GWEST. We will launch the DAO in two phases. The first one with a part of new features will be released at the end of September 2022.

— Carlos, the economy behind the DAO is formed by WEST, which is quite liquid. What is the solution here, given that the whole DAO is based on WEST token?

C.: The question of price is probably asked by everyone in the community. There will be certain mechanisms that will improve liquidity and impulse the machine behind all the proposals, that will feed different grants and activities. For example, EAST staking, this is what we’re focusing on.

We are aware that the price is not where we want it to be. Along with transitioning to DAO, we’ll look for more exchange listings and more marketing campaigns to spread the word about Waves Enterprise. Also, during 2022 we want to expand the utility of WEST. Our hopes are obviously bullish. Do not worry, a lot is coming in.

— Great, we’re looking forward to that. Ivan, this one’s for you. How will GWEST holders be rewarded?

I.: First, all the holders of GWEST and LWEST will have boosted rewards. Such users will have a multiplier to their rewards. Another big part of the rewards is special abilities. I mean, if you are a holder of GWEST, for example, you can liquidate EAST vaults earlier than other people on the market. It’s a good opportunity to earn money and support blockchain. With the help of such exclusive benefits the WEST holders will be rewarded.

— We discussed lots of updates in the pipeline this year. What update do you anticipate the most, which one, do you think, the community will enjoy the most?

I.: First of all, it is our DAO. I can’t wait when we launch it and see what will happen. The second one is our stablecoin. Recently we launched LP staking on Waves Exchange, so it’s a good opportunity for us to improve EAST staking. The first is DAO and the second is EAST major changes, because we want to create a really good stable coin in our blockchain.

— Great, what about you, Carlos?

C.: My vision is a bit different. Ivan is mostly programming and doing technical things. For me, the most exciting part of the transition will be distributing the work geographically over different kinds of teams. I have high hopes especially for Waves Labs, they bring new blood, and this makes a great mix. Tokenomika was basically alone creating opportunities for Waves Enterprise in South-East Asia, and then there is Waves Enterprise Europe with quite a small team. Now we have teams all around the world. Definitely, there will be togetherness and common effort. I represented Tokenomika for the last couple of years, and for me it’s a major change: new people, new blood, new opportunities to distribute the work in different geographic locations and entities. More people, more brains to spread the word of Waves Enterprise.

— That sounds really exciting, looks like there’s a lot coming over the next few months, so we’ll look forward to that. This brings us to the end of today’s AMA, thank you both for answering the questions.

You can check out an original version of the AMA on Youtube.