What is the most influential feature that would encourage someone to invest in Ardor?
Ardor introduced so-called “child chains.
On Ardor, the consensus is done on a Mother Chain that handles all verification for the platform. Fees on this chain are paid in “ARDR”. Child Chains only record the transaction ledgers, and these transactions are sent to the Mother Chain for validation. Fees on the Child Chains are paid in a native token that is unique to each Child Chain. These fees are paid to so called “bundlers” who have the task of exchanging the child chain tokens to ARDR and these “bundlers” are the once submitting the bundles to the Mother Chain for verification.
A side effect of this architecture is that it is possible to remove the content of transactions from child chains after a period of time and just leave proof of the actual occurrence of transactions in the form of a hash. The role of “Archival Nodes” will be introduces which will keep a copy of the full ledger.
This means child chains can be very light weight and users will not have the problem of bloat.
Another innovation is that Assets will be tradeable across ALL child chains, which opens up the possibility of a true decentralised market, including dedicated child chains which will contain Assets pegged to currencies.
Initially with NXT, at lot of the crypto community were frustrated with the initial ICO. With a lot of the whales leaving over time do you think Ardor could give NXT a fresh start?
This is one of the reasons we do the Ardor distribution like we do it. We have a 9 month period of trade to first accumulate Nxt and then to trade the Ardor Token on the Nxt Asset Exchange. This should lead to a much better distribution than Nxt ever could start with. We also want significantly increase trading volume, which at the moment has increase from 30,000 to peaks of 4 million USD per day.
In the space of a few days we have seen the NXT price go up over 100%, how do you interrupt the jump?
We don’t. Our aim is to just put our information on Ardor and show it to be a good investment. There will be rises and falls, as is normal. We hope to establish a new support level higher than we currently have, it is impossible to control the price to the extent this question implies. Traders will speculate and they are free to. We try to make sure people understand the fundamentals of their investment and are confident this will ensure a good support over time.
I heard you left your full time job for NXT. What lead you to that decision?
When I started in Nxt in 2013, I decided that I would try and make a paying job out of it within three years. If it hadn’t become viable by then, I’d try a different tack.
My main aim has always been to strengthen the basics of Nxt in such a way that people can work from these. This means websites, points of contact, unified message, a vision and procedures. I was lucky to find like-minded people along the way, like Dave Pearce whom I have worked with for over two years now.
I’ve now reached a point where I feel comfortable to quit my day job and move to a full time working schedule for NXT. It was also needed, as I was on a 80 hours per week schedule at the end, and that is simply just unhealthy. Right now, I am very happy with the way I have set up my work. I work for the platform via the Foundation and on my own projects via my startup Blockchain Wizards. This also allows me to offer jobs to some people whom I consider undervalued in the community. We are just beginning to create an economy for Nxt and Ardor. There is a lot I still want to do.
The announcement of NXT 2.0 (now named Ardor) caused a lot of controversy initially. A bulk of users moved to WAVES with Sasha Ivanov. Looking back on it now, do you think it could've been handled a little differently?
Yes, it could, but that side is not up to us.
The Nxt Foundation very specifically has chosen NOT to have devs in its board, nor do we interfere with the devs. From a governance point of view, that introduces levels of conflicting interests that should be avoided. We have seen what happened when Gaven Adresen was on the board of the Bitcoin Foundation and how every proposal by him was subsequently questioned.
We have a group of very talented and dedicated developers. They also have a stubborn streak a mile wide. I consider this a good thing. They are stubborn because they take a very long view of the platform and will not introduce things they consider to be harmful. I often wish them to be more tactful, but sometimes a no is just a no and no amount of sugarcoating will change that.
People should leave if they want to do things their own way and cannot get that in a project. That is normal and healthy. Sasha now has a brand new platform to develop his own vision with, and the people who are looking for that will be attracted. Crypto is not a zero sum game, not for a long time yet. So I consider all this as a healthy growing pain.
In the end, and this is true for any crypto project: it’s the devs who make the final calls. They will listen carefully to all parties involved and then make their decision. It would be unrealistic to think this will always please everyone.
What are some potential real life uses for Ardor?
As Foundation, we are actively talking to banks for trade clearance, document and license management, trading opportunities with pegged currencies and ticketing possibilities.
One of the things on my personal radar are loyalty systems, secure messaging systems combined with a piece of hardware and governance possibilities.
There have been slight hints there maybe some big news in the background that cannot be revealed, could we get an hints?
I can say we are talking to banks, both local and national government in the Netherlands, and larger IT businesses. We have a new member on our board who works at Sopra Steria in France to give an idea what level we are working at.
We are also very active in creating collaborations like we have with the Linux Foundation and with Civic Tech Amsterdam.
Some of the things we are working are already taking a year. This is normal. It’s also sometimes frustrating to us as we understand people would like to see real solid results. I can only say we are doing our utmost and will communicate anything we can when we can.
You have been doing a lot of public talks about NXT over the past year. How has the audiences been responding to NXT technology?
Surprise mostly!
Nxt has always worked under the radar, so most people are amazed this is all already working. Our Asset Exchange is more than two years old, yet often people seem under the impression we I am describing a proof of concept.
The industry has changed a lot! People are open and interested and the maximalism we saw last year seems to have subsided. So every speaking engagement is generally a joy to do. I am looking forward to doing a lot more this year and I hope that I will gain a lot of new acquaintances and friends in our growing community!
ARDOR INTERVIEW