The AMA was moderated by @Sidonpee.
Sidonpee
Let’s start with the introduction question:
@henrik_hjelte Can you introduce yourself to the community? What is your background?
Henrik Hjelte
I’m the CEO of ChromaWay, the company that started the Chromia project. My background is 30+ years as a developer (got payed first when I was 15), then studied Business and other things (politics and philosophy). Worked as Finance and IT consultant. THen wanted to be an entrepreneur. started a “web 2.0” startup about a free-speech internet. Hired our current CTO as a developer. THen joined his colored-coins project, the first token protocol ie the start of blockchain in 2012.
Sorry. I’m now 50 years old, the math didn’t add up. That is why I’m the CEO and not CFO.
Sidonpee
Q1. What is Chromia? Can you tell us the technology behind it and the features that makes it unique?
Henrik Hjelte
Chromia is a new public blockchain based on the idea of integrating traditional databases, “Relational databases” with blockchain security. In the normal world outside blockchain, there is one technology that is in 100% of all enterprises and powers almost all webpages. It build Facebook, SAP, banks, blogging platforms. It is the relational database, or SQL database. Has been used for 30+ years and is still dominant with 85% market share. Why are people using it (NoSQL has been around for 15+ years)?
Because it is the best way of managing data known to mankind. Now what is blockchani? It is a way to manage data that is shared. So if you agree that blockchain is about managing data, a relational database should be an obvious technology. Chromia is a general purpose blockchain with full smart contract capabilities, just that it is a lot easier to code, even complex applications. You code with an easy to learn new programming language that combines the power of SQL and “normal languages” but makes it secure in a blockchain context. Up to 1/10 the code-lines vs other blockchains.
Sidonpee
Q2. I often see Chromia and ChromaWay being used interchangeably, what is the relationship between the two?
Henrik Hjelte
The idea for Chromia and parts of the codebase originated from the company ChromaWay. It is actually one of the first blockchain companies, we had a project for tokens before ethereum called the “colored coins” project that led to us starting a company with a name take from the greek word for color. In 2015 we did what is now called stable-coin, EURO payments based on tokens on a public blockchain (tokens on bitcoin). It was for a bank LHV in Estonia. When we need to quickly find information, we could not search the blockchain and instead started to dump everything to a relational database, and then the idea started to grow to build a blockchain around this. So we did a private blockchain, intended for usecases in land-registration, banking and more. And then came up with the idea of doing a public blockchain for it.
ChromaWay is the company that ideated Chromia and provided the first open source code for it. The Chromia pre-sale of tokens is now funding the development of Chromia, which is done by ChromaWay. When Chromia is released as a decentralized network, it will not be governed or run by ChromaWay. Of course we know it has to be decentralized, we understand the virtues of decentralization since 2012 when our CTO did the worlds first code for tokens, then started an open-source project which even inspired Vitalik (who soon quit and did his own thing). ChromaWay as a company will take a role as providing optional support and maintenance of Chromia projects (open for competition by other players).
Sidonpee
Q3. What’s the usefulness of $CHR token in Chromia ecosystem?
Henrik Hjelte
CHR can be used to pay for running dapps (normally by the developer of the dapp, not users). It can also be used as a mean of exchange between dapps, and to provide collateral/stake for providers (the ones running the blockchain), incentivizing good behaviour.
Sidonpee
Q4. What are the major milestones Chromia has achieved so far & what are your plans for 2020?
Henrik Hjelte
We have released Rell, the new programming language that is needed, and supported tooling (online Development Environment, downloadable IDE, documentation). We have release the first testnet in december, and at the same time another company 4irelabs has done the first dapp running on testnet. They could take our old code (done as a private blockchain), learn our new language Rell and port it to Chromia. That project is the Green Assets Wallet, green bond environmental impact reporting, run by a non-profit and with banks and institutions as users.
Plans for 2020 is to both release a series of dApps to showcase how fantastic Chromia is, as well as continue to develop the platform. And when it is secure and good enough, we will release mainnet.
Dapps are now being made by us as well as others. We do a decentralized social network framework call chromunity, now release to testnet. If is really cool, users can vote over moderators, and in the future users might even govern the complete application, how it can be updated. This is a great showcase for Chromia and why we use the slogan Power to the Public.
Games coming are….
Mines of Dalarnia (by Workinman Interactive). An action game in a mine with blockchain rental of plots and stuff.
Krystopia 2, novas journey. A puzzle game done by Antler Interactive.
An indie game (not done by us so I don’t know how much I shoiul;d menton), but: it is a strategy game with FULL-LOGIC ON BLOCKHCHAIN yes ubercool that is why it is in caps
A secret demo-project that we do together with Antler to showcase the technical potential of Chromia platform.
More comin in 2020: Other dapps from other companies, one in impact-tech
Games is a great way to show scalability and features BTW.
I didn’t mention that Chromia is very scalable (everyone says that). But it is true, and with no tradeoff vs decentralization
well, but I can also see enterprise projects going into more of public blockchain direction and hybrid, and there I think Chromia can really shine
Sidonpee
Q5. Revenue and adoption are the main points of all projects, can you tell us your Business model and how you generate revenue?
Henrik Hjelte
Chromia itself is a public network with no intrinsic business model, but participants in the network has. For example Providers make money from supplying quality hardware running dapps and the core software, dapp developers have individual business models.
I already told about about ChromaWay/Chromia, but ChromaWay the company can provide support/maintenance and various services and add-ons for Chromia. It is very similar to how normal open-source vendors make money.
Still up to competition from others, and without control over the Chromia network. We need it to be independent, otherwise it has no value.
So it is sound business to have it decentralized as well, who would care otherwise?
Sidonpee
Q6. Regarding Chromia’s blockchain game (Minesofdalarnia), I’m quite sure that vast majority of game lovers would be anticipating for it release, could you please share with us the likely date it will be released?
Henrik Hjelte
Yes I can
We have made very good progress recently, and I can happily share that MoD is planned to be released now in Q2.
Anastasia
Meanwhile you can check the Mines of Dalarnia Social Media page for recent updates on the game https://twitter.com/Chromia_Studios . We publish development updates there often.
You can also sign-up for early access on https://www.minesofdalarnia.com 😉
Sidonpee
Q7. Recently Chromia welcome Malcolm Lerider who was formally a Senior R&D Manager for Neo Blockchain as its new team and family member. When he was with Neo, he worked together with the community and was able to build the project from a top 50-something market cap project to a top 5 market cap project. Should we be expecting a replica of this at Chromia in the nearest future?
Henrik Hjelte
Yes. we are very excited to have Malcolm on-board, he is very knowledgeable in the area, and his expertise will definitely help with achieving that. Malcolm recently published an article where he introduced himself as a new member of Chromia. You can read it over here, if you haven’t already: https://medium.com/@MalcolmLerider/i-am-joining-team-chromia-b25d527b5b6f
Sidonpee
Q8. Green Asset Wallet is absolutely an amazing starter in the Chromia blockchain! I would like to hear how you guys see the future business development possibilities in the next /6/12 months? Are there specific business areas, geographical locations, which you want to focus on most?
Henrik Hjelte
Thank you, yes, it is nice to have a project that is enterprise, and green too as the first one.
We are working both to reach out but also support inbound requests for projects, I shared some above.
Sometimes with business development, ChromaWAy might find a customer/prospect but we don’t know where it will end. We think however, and Gartner too, that enterprise blockchain is gradually looking more at public blockchain projects.
I think DeFI, tokenization of assets and things like that is interesting.
Also, hopefully someone will be inspired by our solution to a free, open, user-governed decentralized social web, what we are now showing with Chromunity. Jack Dorsey, are you listening?
We don’t have a particular geographical focus though, and really it is a generic platform use-case agnostic.
We use games to show potential and scalability, but who knows maybe other applications will be more. It is not only up to us.
Sidonpee
Q9. Who are Chromia’s strategic investors and partners? What criteria/ process do you follow in evaluating your partnership deal with them?
Henrik Hjelte
We have some strategic investors and partners that have helped us during the way, I think maybe I should not mention them here with the risk of forgetting some of them, and I have no time to check if we should mention them, We (and the partner) look at how we can help each other on a case by case basis. There is no simple scorecard that we can follow.
We try to avoid vanity partnership deals with no real meaning
Sidonpee
Q10. Why did Chromia develop a new language called Rell (Relational language) for dapp
programming?
Is the development of this new language really necessary?
If yes, what are some of its unique features that cannot be found in other existing languages/environments?
Henrik Hjelte
Yes it was necessary. We need the features of relational alegbra. It is is a mathematical basis, very similar to logic, that has only had basically one implementation (SQL). But SQL was not secure enough and lacked features that can be used in a shared context like a blockchain. Everything needs to be secure. Also we wanted to add blockchain features, and make it look more like “normal programming”. Now some of the readers might ask? Can’t you do this on the EVM? No. Ethereum does simply not have anything similar to a relational database, and it would be technically infeasible.
Some others may ask? How can you compete with the EVM /pet-project that have soo many developers etc…?
My answer is : we are building on top of a virtual machine called Postgresql. Check how much time, optimization and money has been spent on that virtual machine…
I think it is 20 years or more of development time, maybe more.
Static typing is one feature we add that SQL doesn’t have (you can detect bugs at compile time)
Yusuf
What have been the major obstacle Chromia has faced in the past years while developing its idea?
Whats the benefits for developers at Chromia? Why should we use Chromia instead of your competitors?
Henrik Hjelte
Obstacle: Technology/software developement is hard sometimes, difficult to predict when things are ready.
Major benefits for developers: A LOT EASIER to code COMPLEX applications. I’m serious. If you are frustrated with blockchain development, take a look at the ease of use of Rell/Chromia
LA LA
DeFi is projected to buzz up in 2020 and is on everybody lips, what ROLES does Chromia play in the innovativeness and future of DeFi and how does it spearhead adoption of DeFi using blockchain solution?
Henrik Hjelte
Finance would be almost unthinkable without relational databases, the power core banking and more. An exchange is a table of bid and ask, and you match them. This is very easy to do with our tech.
Sujit
If any Dapp is created on Chromia Blockchain! Then is there any Gas fees charged by Chromia? Whats the concept of fees for Dapps on Chromia Blockchain?
Henrik Hjelte
No gas per user fee. The application pays for hosting, like a cloud. Normally the developer, unless the developer hands over the governenace of the application to someone else (maybe the users).
Sujit
If any Dapp is created on Chromia Blockchain! Then are there any Gas fees charged by Chromia? Whats the concept of fees for Dapps on Chromia Blockchain?
Henrik Hjelte
No gas per user fee. The application pays for hosting, like a cloud. Normally the developer, unless the developer hands over the governenace of the application to someone else (maybe the users).
Mayowa
Most blockchain projects have donated to COVID-19, but no news from Chromia. How will you contribute to fight COVID-19?
Henrik Hjelte
I had to answr this: I spent my free weekend time on a covid-19 hackathon the other week to do a solution to share medical equipment across countries. It is on our facebook I think @anastasiazudina maybe you can share
Anastasia
We want to do our part for the ongoing covid19 crisis. Therefore, we were participating in the critical initiative HackTheCrisis. During the virtual hackathon, we tried to find good solutions for the new unique challenges that we now as a society are facing. https://www.facebook.com/chromaway/posts/2171037456376083
Mayowa
Chromia creates a new lightweight programming language called RELL. How is this different and better for programmers than other popular language like Solidity, C++ and Java?
Henrik Hjelte
When you think about a large Java project done for say a bank. Ask the developers what OTHER thing they use? DO they ONLY use Java and store files on a server? Or do they also use a database. You will find that in 99.9% of cases they ALSO use a relational database. No one would EVER think about doing a solution to manage data with ONLY Java, C++ or whatever.
Alejandro Urich
For the development of the Dapps, do you only support Rell? Is it possible to program in another language that works with Chromia?
Henrik Hjelte
Because we require both relational database properties and more security than SQL, currently Rell is the only choice. It is really easy to learn, and in all cases if we allowed a “normal” language it would miss the feautures of relational databases.
zafer metin
Mr Henrik What are the advantages of Postchain used for Chromia? How is a consortium provided to database management with distributed control?
Anastasia
Thank you for your interest in Postchain uses! We have an article written what answers exactly those questions: https://blog.chromia.com/postchain-for-the-public-scaling-relational-blockchain/
Stay At Home
As I know providers will be chosen by Chromaway, so how is it decentralized due to choice is totally in Chromaway?
Henrik Hjelte
Initial providers. We will migrate to a model where ChromaWAy has no more say than anyone else. But we need to bootstrap and start. Better to choose good initial providers.
David Prince
What is your long-term vision about the industry which Chromia is working at? Are you afraid someday there will be another Project with more innovative technology can replace Chromia?
Henrik Hjelte
Well. Blockchain is about managing data (in a shared context). I’m repeating myself but the market leading (85%) for 30+ years slution to manage data is a relational database. We are now the only relational database + blockchain. Who knows, maybe some better way to manage data will be invented? But even NoSQL who has been around and bark like a little dog has after a decade or more time only 15% market share. I think our tech will stand the mark of time.
Sidonpee
The AMA session with the Chronia team has finally come to an end.
We’re greatly astonished having a well-articulated AMA session with Chronia’s CEO Henrik Hjelte @henrik_hjelte and community/social media manager team Anastasia @anastasiazudina in the community👨💻👌
Also, we are indeed overwhelmed by all our esteemed community members, for your support and enthusiasm for the project.
For more information and to be part of the project, you may join the Chronia’s community here via:
Telegram
(https://t.me/hellochromia)Chromia — Official English Group
The official Chromia community group by ChromaWay. Where dapps thrive!