Polkastarter and Stratos AMA Recap

You can see the original AMA conversation on Polkastarter’s Telegram Channel here.

Polkastarter

Hi everyone and welcome to another exciting Polkastarter AMA, this time with the founder of Stratos, Bin Zhu. Welcome Bin, and thank you for taking the time today to join us! @NotBoxBin

Bin Zhu, Stratos

Thanks, I am very glad to have this opportunity to meet all of you guys.

Polkastarter

Woohoo! We will first have a few questions to Bin Zhu directly, before we open it up for community questions. Let’s get started!

Bin, could you please first introduce yourself?

Bin Zhu, Stratos

Yes, as the founder of Stratos, I have over 20+ years of experience in software development across multiple platforms and technologies.

Previously, I was the cloud team founder of MindGeek, where I built the complete big data ecosystem and led the entire team to provide data services to more than 100 millions users per day across all the countries in the world.

I was also technical cofounder of Faimdata, an AI company providing consumer data intelligence solutions via computer vision for retailer customers.

With experiences working across the generations of technology innovations, I am leading the Stratos team to build the next generation of decentralized data mesh that enables the uses of blockchain technology across industries.

Done, thanks.

Polkastarter

Big data and AI — super interesting background! Excited to learn how you're bringing that experience into Web3  with Stratos 💫

Can you tell us more about the vision behind Stratos, and why are you launching it?

Bin Zhu, Stratos

Stratos will be a solid infrastructure for the entire blockchain industry in a decentralized manner.

Stratos offers Blockchain, Storage, database and Computation services, the user and developers can combine the 4 different services together to customize their own product.

The goal of Stratos is to be the foundation (Decentralized Cloud) of the Blockchain industry and help the blockchain industry to get rid of centralized Cloud service.

Why are we launching it? Because there is no such infrastructure which limits the development of the Blockchain industry. We are here to change this situation. 😃

Done.

Polkastarter

That's an exciting vision!

Can you tell us more about the team behind Stratos, and how your experience has led you here? We at Polkastarter are big believers that the team and talent behind the project is one of the most important factors for success 💫

Bin Zhu, Stratos

Thanks!

We know there are some teams that worked on or are working on the blockchain infrastructure project, but why we can make it happen?

As founder of Stratos, I have more than 20 years experience in the Software industry and delivered lots of successful enterprise level projects for different industries.

In the previous 7 years, I built a complete big data ecosystem for Mindgeek which offers services for billions of users across each country in the world. The platform can handle millions of traffics per second. The Huge amount of data will be distributed to multiple data centres across the world.

So, my mission is to take the valuable experience and knowledge to rebuild a new decentralized platform to benefit the entire blockchain ecosystem.

Stratos team is formed by a group AAA developers, they come from Canadian National Railway, Amazon, Expedia, Huawei, Alibaba etc. Each of them has top enterprise level development experience.

Also, there are around 1/3 team members comes from Mindgeek, they worked with me for the big data platform. Each team member will take advantage of rich developing experience to contribute to the Stratos project.

Bin Zhu, [19.05.21 15:14]

✅

Polkastarter

Wow that's quite a team —  some serious experience at scaled companies across the stack (and across the world!)

So let's talk about Stratos competitive advantage. What differs you from other similar projects?

Bin Zhu, Stratos

Stratos contains blockchain, decentralized storage, decentralized database and decentralized computation. But today, let's just do a comparison between Filecoin and Stratos.

Filecoin is a project based on IPFS, providing users with file storage services, but there are several key issues that need to be resolved

1. BitTorrent file Transportation protocol

The file will only be transferred when someone requires it, and the file can be removed by the miner at any time. So Filecoin (IPFS) doesn't fit business requirement

2. Proof of Storage incentive model.

The PoS model does not help the network to develop according to a healthy model, but encourages miners to only focus on storage instead of balancing storage, computing and network.

Stratos use the Proof of Traffic incentive model, just like all major Internet companies, traffic is the source of value rather than storage. YouTube, Google, Netflix does not rely on storage to obtain users, but earns revenue through huge traffic advertising. So PoT is a more health and suitable model than PoS

Stratos does it differently.

Stratos data storing and querying will be more efficient. Stratos has a global and decentralized indexing service, and provides more suitable slices and replications to ensure that user's data will never be lost. If some nodes where the user data is offline, Stratos will transfer the data to different regional nodes at any time to guarantee that the number of replications is great than 3

So we like to say, Stratos storage network is not only a storage, but also an acceleration network, which we also call "Decentralized CDN".

✅

Polkastarter

Proof of Traffic — that's really interesting. Storing, querying and acceleration 💫💫

Thanks for going into that detail, that sounds like an exciting vision for the decentralized cloud!

Can you tell our community a bit more about your $STOS token, particularly about the upcoming token utility and your token generation event (TGE)?

Bin Zhu, Stratos

Sure，users of the Stratos network are debited STOS tokens based on their volume of data moved through the network. The Proof-of-Traffic algorithm transparently charges the user based on indisputable transaction records recorded on the Stratos Blockchain.

STOS token utilities:

* STOS will be staked/delegated to validators to secure the Blockchain network.

* STOS will be issued as Proof-of-Traffic mining reward.

* STOS will be consumed in the payment of the transaction fee.

* STOS will be prepaid for Stratos Resource Network service traffic fee.

We will generate STOS token on the same day as IDO on our  great Polkastarter platform which is May 28th, 2021.

✅

Polkastarter

Woohoo! Really looking forward to the IDO on May 28th!

We'd love to hear a bit more about your upcoming roadmap. What key features are you developing for Stratos?

Bin Zhu, Stratos

Yes, Stratos has 2 layer milestones:

Layer1 Stratos layer

Milestone 1, Blockchain and Storage

Milestone 2, Database

Milestone 3, Computation

Layer2 Product layer

Milestone 1, Acceleration network (Decentralize CDN)

Milestone 2, NFT makret

Milestone 3, Oracle solution

Milestone 4, Data aggregation solution

Milestone 5, Edge computing network

Right now, the team is working on the blockchain and storage, we will deliver the testnet in June and will build the acceleration storage.

✅

Polkastarter

That's a really exciting roadmap!!! And impressive.

What upcoming development are you and the team most excited about?

Bin Zhu, Stratos

Great!

Actually, I enjoy working with my Stratos teams and am very excited every day, because I truly believe Stratos is changing the blockchain industry every second.

Please let me share a couple exciting products which will be built on top of the Stratos.

1. Acceleration Network (Decentralized CDN)

Stratos decentralized storage not only allows users to upload or download data very efficiently, but also allow users to play the audios or videos cross network directly instead of downloading it first.

This will be a big impression for each user and developer could take advantage from this feature and make "decentralized YouTube" or "decentralized Apple Music" possible.

2. Evolution NFT

The NFT platform is developed by a combination of blockchain and decentralized storage. It not only provides users with transactions for the ownership of digital assets, but also provides transactions for the usage of digital assets.

For example, the musician could sell the copyright of music once, or just let more fans to listen to his music. Normally musicians keep the copyright and sell CDs or cassettes to fans, it can't be done on the current NFT market but Stratos NFT market.

When Stratos launches the NFT market product, the NFT platform will be changed from an auction platform for luxury goods to a digital market for all the people. Products such as music, video, games, legal contract templates, etc. will be easily traded on the platform.

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Polkastarter

Evolution NFTs sound super cool — excited to see how that evolves! Just the beginning of what NFTs can do for sure, and will be sure to watch how that grows on Stratos!

What would you say are the specific problems you are solving, both in the space in general and for the community?

Bin Zhu, Stratos

Stratos is an infrastructure project rather than a consumer project, so it is closer to ToB than ToC. So basically users will use lots of applications which are built on top of Stratos. At the same time, the Stratos team will also implement Stratos products as well base on Stratos infrastructure.

Just as the earth needs air, water, soil and sunlight, all things in the earth grow can't without them. Stratos provides blockchain, storage, database and computing services to the entire blockchain ecology, which will also greatly promote the entire blockchain and vigorous development of the blockchain industry.

Stratos believes that not only the blockchain industry, but also in fact traditional industries also need decentralized solutions.

Stratos decentralized CDN, evolved NFT, decentralized database and decentralized computation are all required by the traditional industries as well.

Therefore, Stratos will form a closed loop within the blockchain industry, and at the same time, it will help the blockchain industry to open a window, so that the blockchain can be better used by the traditional industry. More applied business scenarios will make the blockchain industry even stronger.

✅

Polkastarter

"not only the blockchain industry, but also in fact traditional industries also need decentralized solutions." —- here here to that!  🍻🥂

Ok — before opening up the chat to questions, could you please share with our community your website and social media channels, so they can make sure to follow you and be kept up to date on your progress?

Bin Zhu, Stratos

Sure, I am more than happy to share 😄

Official website: https://www.thestratos.org/

Medium: https://stratos-network.medium.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Stratos_Network

Telegram Community Channel: https://t.me/StratosCommunity

Telegram Announcement Channel: https://t.me/Stratos_announcement

Discord: https://discord.com/invite/tpQGpC2nMh

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/75432298

Polkastarter

Great, thank you Bin, we'll be sure to follow along!

Let's open the chat for a brief window to give our community a chance to ask their questions, and don’t forget, that after the AMA, Bin will choose the best question and hand out one allowlist spot for their IDO on May 28 (don’t forget you will need to KYC fast and on time).

[QUESTIONS]

Polkastarter

Wow!!!! 🤯🤯🔥🔥 That's a lot of great questions, thank you! It's always so great to see this community in action!

Bin will read through and pick some questions to answer now.

QUESTION: @chapitor

Does the Stratos Database use the Oracle blockchain solution or does it have its own independent core solution?

Bin Zhu, Stratos

Stratos will work on it differently, Oracle solution is not very decentralized, actually it more close to centralized solution. Stratos will work with NoSQL core and convert the distributed NoSQL to decentralized database

Thanks!

QUESTION: @bropropher

As we all know, marketing is essential for every project. What strategy do you plan to STRATOS to attract more Users, thus becoming the authoritative gateway, the preferred platform for DeFi? What are the benefits when I hold $STOS ?

Bin Zhu, Stratos

Maybe we can recall the other story. The goal of Stratos is to be the top decentralized cloud in the market.

Think about the Google stock price 10 years before and recheck it today, see the difference?

So we believe the STOS value will be bigger when the Stratos network is getting stronger.

QUESTION: @arij3key

Why Go language was chosen for Stratos Blockchain?

Bin Zhu, Stratos

There are lots of P2P communication work that needs to be done in the Stratos project. Go has nice features in this field and performance is good as well. That's the reason. Thanks!

QUESTION: @telemetry15

First question, as with AWS, will tools be put in the hands of developers to quickly migrate to your platform? For example, moving an ecommerce store to the Stratos ecosystem. The second question, will it be possible to charge costs with your $STOS token?

Bin Zhu, Stratos

As we know, this is a big challenge, but we will do it step by step.

Stratos team will build demo applications on Stratos first and open source them to get more attention from developers. We welcome the community to try our demo app and even just clone it and build your own.

My goal is that Stratos will be an ecosystem, not only a project, we will be a Stratos store like "Apple store". For sure everyone joins the store, the STOS token is the only "currency" can be spent.

QUESTION: @awesomedivya

Only getting users, holders etc is not everything. In my opinion, a project needs to deal with solving a real world issue or problem. What is the problem that Stratos project primarily focuses on?

Bin Zhu, Stratos

For sure, actually we already met some big company and shared what we are doing now. They are interested in Stratos and I believe we will cooperate with them together, bringing them more potential values. That is what I mentioned, Stratos will open a window to outside of the blockchain industry.

Thanks Everyone, I am SORRY I couldn't anwer all your great questions.

Congrats Pubg OPEN CUP, you are the winner 👏

Polkastarter

Congrats @telemetry15! The Stratos team will contact you in PM and give you all information regarding KYC etc.

Thank you Bin for your time and for the illuminating answers on Stratos. Really looking forward to the launch of $STOS on May 28, and to welcome you to the Polkastarter Family and continue working together in the future. 💫💫🎉🎉

Bin Zhu, Stratos

Thank you, thanks Polkastarter and thanks to the great community of Polkastater!!!!

Polkastarter

A great community indeed! This will be the end of this AMA, thank you everyone for joining us! The chat will now open back up.