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AMA Recap: Ask Max Anything in February 2021

On Wednesday, February 3rd, Max Kordek, CEO and Co-founder at Lisk, hosted a live monthly AMA (Ask Max Anything) on Lisk.chat. He answered questions regarding the interoperability, DeFi, Lisk Core 3.0.0, financials, NFT, and much more.

In this blog post, we recap the full live AMA session and feature the questions asked by community members, as well as Max’s answers.

By Lisk

04 Feb 2021

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On Wednesday, February 3rd, Max Kordek, CEO and Co-founder at Lisk, hosted a live monthly AMA (Ask Max Anything) on Lisk.chat. He answered questions regarding the interoperability, DeFi, Lisk Core 3.0.0, financials, NFT, and much more.

In this blog post, we recap the full live AMA session and feature the questions asked by community members, as well as Max’s answers.

Max opens the AMA:

Max: Hello Everyone, Thank you for joining in on my new monthly AMA with the great name Ask Max Anything. Please note that we are aware that we need to begin to take Lisk discussions outside of Discord and Lisk news outside of Lisk.io. Please rest assured that we are slowly rolling that out. However, for today I’m very happy to answer any question you might have here on Discord. I’m looking forward to it, let’s begin!

Frederik: Hi all, when will the marketing be launched?

Max: In February our plans will be settled and documented, ready to be executed. For that, we have contracted up again with Wachsman PR to get Lisk onto the news portals, participate in more interviews and podcasts again and be at the forefront of this crypto revolution. It was a conscious decision to stay in the shadows last year. One might see that as a bad or good decision. This year it is our conscious decision to step out into the limelight again, so that's what we are going to do starting from March.

futurewind : Hi. How are the interoperability LIPs evolving?

Max: All LIP topics are now fully specified. There is currently a total of 18 LIPs planned. However, this still might change. We will update our roadmap on Lisk.io soon to reflect the new objectives, so you can expect some new insights from that. The research team is currently busy drafting the LIPs which will then be presented at Lisk.js in spring and published to the Research Forum shortly after. Some of the LIPs are rather supportive than essential to our Interoperability Solution. Therefore, once they are ready we will publish them sooner to the Research Forum. This will likely not happen this month.

w0lf : Max, any good news for Lisk this year?

Max: The launch of Lisk Core 3.0.0 which brings: No cartels, better DPoS algorithm closer to PoS, dynamic and therefore cheaper fees, new address system and therefore no initializations anymore, higher scalability in terms of TPS, better multisignature system, and a huge amount of security, stability and technical improvements. I said it once in a podcast and I'll say it again, this is likely the biggest hard fork a live blockchain has ever seen before. A consecutive improvement of the Developer Experience with blockchain application bootstrapping, new plugins, and many more big improvements for developers to build blockchain applications. Additionally, the finalized research of our Interoperability Solution written down in around 18 LIPs will be ready to be published by spring at Lisk.js. After that the implementation will begin as soon as possible, so also further news can be expected on this still this year. It's going to be a year full of news.

Heisenberg : Heyhou. For which purpose these 5- or 6-digit amounts of monthly "Marketing" expenditures are used? I never saw any Lisk campaign/promo/commercial/relevant articles at bigger/well-known establishments/etc. anywhere at crypto- or at "real" world over the last few years.

Max: We will introduce a slightly different format for our financial update to make the separation clear between our costs for promotions and marketing team members. Before we put all those costs into the same category. In November we made a larger acquisition which will be revealed in the coming months, therefore the costs in that category were higher than usual. However, in general, the majority of these costs are for the Marketing team members in Lightcurve which the Lisk Foundation pays a daily rate for. With that daily rate, a lot of other costs are also being paid for, e.g. the office, operations team, servers, software licenses, hardware, or a big chunk for taxes. That's why it might have seemed high in the past. Please await the new financial update for more clarity on that. I hope it will be an improvement to the confusion.

Tom - endro.io : Hi Max. Has HQ / Lightcurve done any research on how Lisk can grow its ecosystem in between Ethereum, Polkadot, Cosmos in 2021? I am wondering as new institutional applications are coming to these ecosystems and have the potential to grow their networks exponentially. How could Lisk convince these players in 2021 / 2022 that it would also be a viable partner / SDK to play with or if Lisk already talks with large enterprises to help grow that ecosystem?

Max: We have done many preparations to make ourselves ready to get in contact with enterprises. Our first focus remains however on the individual developer and to give them the best possible tool they can imagine. For that, we will start a new Developer program this year with more lucrative rewards to incentivize developers and startups to build blockchain applications on the Lisk platform. Business development will be my focus area after we finish the Marketing strategy this month.

ducktank : Hey Max, you still have open positions at Lightcurve How is the process of hiring going so far?

Max: It's going good. The Lisk Mobile Developer position just came online. However, I heard from Oliver that the Backend Developer position is receiving some interesting applicants. The positions for the department I'm taking care of (Marketing & BD) are receiving interesting applicants as well and I expect to fill these positions within the next 1-2 months.

someonesomeone : Any plans for wrapped Lisk which could be traded on Ethereum dexes?

Max: No, we really hope that with our new developer program later this year our community will build amazing things (talking about production applications and not proof of concepts here). From our perspective, you wouldn't see a wrapped LSK on Ethereum, but rather a wrapped Ethereum on Lisk. We focus on the Lisk ecosystem, that doesn't mean that third party developers have to do the same.

anonimowy891: What is the estimated time for finishing implementation of these new 18 LIPs?

Max: These 18 LIPs are not even fully written yet that's why we have no estimation so far.

pg1: Anything holders need to do for the hard fork?

Max: Just always remember to initialize your account! Else, no need to do anything.

Jurre | Moosty: What are your greatest learnings (personal or professional) since the time you started with Lisk in 2016?

Max: Too many to write all of them down. Some that are currently in my head:

  • Always minimize and simplify your plans. Everything will take longer and will be more complex than it seems in the beginning.
  • It's all about making the customers happy and listening to their feedback. It's not about making the team, lawyers, or my ego happy. Vet everything with as much data as possible.
  • Essential quality & more content > Great quality & less content.

I could write a book with all of these learnings.

lorence : What's your marketing plan?

Max: To be finalized this month and then you will see the execution of it. Next to everything we are already doing and many improvements, one difference is to start making announcements outside of our own bubble and to build hype. We have so much to show and this year we will begin to show it.

Cryptoism : What is your vision of Lisk at the end of 2021? Will offchains work properly? Would you add new infrastructures for DeFi and DEXes? Will Lisk ever become interoperable with other blockchains?

Max: At the end of 2021 I see us win back the glory and strong position again. Next to the things I mentioned before I foresee a bigger and more positive community, production ready blockchain applications being developed, less selling pressure on the markets, and yes, a break into DeFi. As Oliver formerly mentioned, we see the possibility to add interoperability to other blockchains in our next roadmap. First, we have to add it to our own ecosystem.

LISKer: Hi Max, I have a question. Although Lisk has some name recognition in the Japanese crypto markets, few people in the general business layer know about its existence and contents. The key to the success of the ecosystem is not to focus on one application (or project), but to establish an official or certified business promotion organization (General Incorporated Association) with financial support from LiskHQ, and to get more companies to participate. At least in Japan, we believe that such a system is necessary. Receiving financial support from LiskHQ is very important because it leads to the trust and credibility of the business promotion organization. If we can establish a trustworthy business, promotion organizations, media, law firms, and corporations will be able to participate in the ecosystem with confidence. I'm planning to set up a business promotion organization (general corporation), is it possible to get financial support from LiskHQ? Thank you.

Max: This depends on the amount you require. From my experience, simply establishing an association and speaking to lawyers never helped. You would really need to attract developers and investors. That's why I messaged you yesterday night, to talk about your plans. I will message you tomorrow again.

tobohl : Any future plans about LML? Cooperation with GNY? Contact and cooperation with Madana?

Max: I'm honestly completely out of touch with LML and GNY. I just saw their token mooning on #trading channel on Lisk Discord server. Our Lisk SDK v5.0.0 is ready to be used. So if they were serious about using Lisk they have every chance to do that now. I can unfortunately only say the same about Madana. They have contacted us recently so I'll follow up on that one soon. However, the answer remains very similar here. Our Lisk SDK is ready, so everyone can use it to build a non-interoperable blockchain application. The interoperability aspect can simply be added later on. So it's really up to the projects now.

dbradshaw : I think it's a difficult balance between promoting a positive product with definite improvements and hype. Perhaps that was a 2017/18 mistake.

Max: Hype has the unfortunate side effect to front run everything, it will always be faster than anything else. So at one point, you will lose control of it. The problem of 2017/2018 was that we were not ready product-wise.

lisk89: Hi Max, what are the plans to attract big investors?

Max: The plan is really to start talking to them and showcase Lisk. So they start buying LSK for future development purposes of blockchain applications. I think our products speak for themselves and we are currently in a strongly oversold market for LSK. However, this is no investment advice and just my personal opinion.

minions: Max, what do you think about the initiative to create a Polish Lisk Blockchain Center?

Max: I love it! I really hope it will be successful and will be executed in a similar effort like Lisk Center Utrecht. Be warned though, it's a huge workload.

KaiLaN : Are there any plans for the future, how to monetize the Services of lightcurve, or how to generate any income path to finance the development of LiskHQ apart of the BTC holdings?

Max: Yes. We are having multiple options, one of them is to build our own blockchain applications. More about that at a later time. Our utmost goal is to become self sustainable so we are not dependent on our ICO funds anymore. For now, however, we would like to fulfill our ICO promises first.

Tobiasz: So, hodling tokens at Lisk mobile wallet is enough to participate in hardfork? Could it be kept at exchange?

Max: Yes keeping it 'within' Lisk Mobile is safe and yes it can also be kept at an exchange of your choice. As long as it is initialized!

dbradshaw : Given the amount of BTC you have and knowledge of Blockchains available in the foundation, have LiskHQ not considered placing some BTC in an investment/long-term crypto trading fund with a manager who also understands markets?

Max: I'm in Bitcoin and the blockchain industry to stay far away from fund managers and Wall Street. It might not be the best decision, however, it's one I made out of conviction. In terms of investing in a crypto fund, for now, I didn't see the reason. I believe BTC is the most stable choice for a Foundation and it has proved us right. In terms of some robo crypto funds, I think the risk profile is too high for us.

dbradshaw : Thanks, I was just commenting there. Though my actual question about whether you think LiskHQ should have a crypto investment fund to diversify some of the BTC you have is of more interest. As I believe with your technical knowledge you could make gains. A meeting once every month with someone researching and proposing investments and the tech team reviewing could increase your development stash substantially.

Max: We wanted to diversify however we were stopped by far too much bureaucracy. I agree it would be good, but for the time being, we are simply staying true to Bitcoin.

Paco: What are the economics to fund the Lisk Foundation once your current funding is gone? You have approx 3 years at the current burning rate, right? And costs may increase in the near future due to aggressive marketing.

Max: We have monthly financial meetings. During the last financial meeting which was reported in December, we had a run-rate of 11 years with BTC and Cash, and 12.6 years with LSK included. However, yes, costs might increase in the near future but we also plan to make profits at one point. See my answer above.

noelg75 : Hi Max, can you update us on javascript related difficulties and how is your technical team confident in overtaking them? (ie: BigNumber, nonces, etc)

Max: Everything is already solved. JavaScript now supports big numbers, we have a typed system with TypeScript. I would love to hear other reasons to not choose JavaScript in 2021. Feel free to send them to me via DM.

MinskyBoy : Hello Max, I recently lost my "long-term" hodl Lisk tokens because of the private key vulnerability. Perhaps I should have been aware of this problem but I trusted Lisk would use appropriate Private Key encryption. Can the Lisk project make some sort of accommodations for people with my problem? By the way: a hacker has moved my tokens to his Binance account and I cannot get Binance to help me.

Max: I'm deeply sorry for your loss. We have tried our best in getting the message out to every HODLer. The problem isn't with our private key encryption but rather that an account just doesn't really exist on the blockchain before it has one outgoing transaction. Therefore, the private key encryption couldn't kick in. To explain it in layman's terms. For us, it's impossible to know who lost their LSK this way and would set a very dangerous precedent. That's why we can't make any sort of accommodations for people with that problem. We are working at full speed to improve the situation with Lisk Core 3.0.0.

Liskpro.com: Hello, First of all, I would like to thank you for your time. It’s greatly appreciated to see you around more often. I have a question regarding Institutions. So far Lisk is a quality blockchain, with a great team behind and that’s something big institutions can rely on. Will you provide (HQ or LightCurve), institutional consultancy to help to build things on top of Lisk? (For example: help a government to start building applications on top of Lisk)?

Max: You are very welcome. It's been great for Oliver and me to be more active here again. Being closer to our community is a top goal going forward. In regards to your question, it all depends on the case. If it's an encapsulated case of a government or big company we might think twice about that, however, for the time being, we are not planning to start a consultancy or agency model with Lightcurve. At least not until Interoperability is successfully implemented.

anonimowy891: Do you plan to create NFT Lisk limited token? And AirDrop?

Max: Our Interoperability Solution might have exactly the custom module you need. My lips are sealed. Stay tuned for Lisk.js 2021!

Max: Thank you everyone for all your questions. It was a pleasure chatting with you today. As usual, you will find a recap on our blog at a later time.

Mateusz Abramczyk: Thank you all for the interesting questions and thank you Max for your time.

Thanks to everyone in the community for their participation in the live AMA on Lisk.chat.

Lisk has embarked on an exciting mission to enable developers to create decentralized, efficient, and transparent blockchain applications. Stay up to date and join us on: