Blockchain Platform with Fair Distribution. Open Source. OPAIR

Hello Community. I want to introduce a new Blockchain platform OPAIR.

Introduction

Is time to present Opair, the definite crypto-platform for everyone. Our ambitions are very high. For starters, we want Opair to have a fair distribution, focusing on a mass market, developing progressive and real goals in a new platform coded from scratch inspired on Bitcoin and Ethereum to offer the best of both worlds with new developments to go a step forward into the future.

For now we are small group (three people working full-time, one external advisor and two freelancer developers) in charge of the project. Given the time we have been working on this and after looking for different ways to optimize and make more efficient the project we were able to put up a team which will help us to achieve our goals in the short term. We look forward to become the number one alternative for those who want to deviate from centralized systems by offering a platform that is focused on design and being user-friendly on one hand, and on the other that it allows to follow an upward learning curve. We are really excited with this project and the challenge that it presents itself.

We decided that Opair will also be our name, as it stands for Open and Fair which are the two key elements that we seek to fulfill:

Open Project: The code and our new language will be documented, open source and it will be found at Github.

Fair Distribution: We have been analyzing the last ICO´s and we realized that the distribution is not as fair as it should be. On the one hand, most of the distribution of the coins usually is in the hands of so few, that’s why we decided that 30% of the coin will be distributed old school through PoW. On the other hand, most developers don´t distribute 100% of the coins and they keep a portion (%) in their hands as background/developer and bounty funds, so we want to highlight that 0% will be retained by us.

• Colored Coins

Our goal is to provide support to the Colored Coins, whose objective is to represent and manage any value/asset/fungible good (like equities, bonds, commodities, fiat currencies, game items, etc.) on top of the Opair blockchain. They can be stored digitally without the interference of a third party and be exchanged for other colored coins or standard XPO in a transaction. The code that is responsible for managing the Colored Coins is in the top of the Opair blockchain, so all implementations will allow its use within our wallet and will not need a specific client. This will provide more simplicity, security, will be more capable.

• Smart Contracts

As regards Smart Contracts (to support DAOs, legal contracts, crowdfundings, prediction markets, IoT, Prediction Markets, Dapps, etc.) we decided to work with functional programming instead of imperative programming languages after doing some research on Solidity. Although neither Haskell nor OCaml, the most recognizable functional programming languages, meet our expectations we decided to work with a personalized version of Ocaml. Soon we will be offering a wiki in Github with documents on the language but if you already handle OCaml you should have no problems with it. Our approach will not be to get an easy to code language, instead it will be reaching a solid solution that it will not be easy to be manipulated but it will make a difference. Some considerations about Haskell and Ocaml:

1/ Although OCaml a fewer number collection of libraries, these have higher quality than Haskell.

2/ OCaml has more presence in industrial and financial solutions. It has a great support for parallel and concurrent computing.

3/ Haskell has typeclasses. OCaml has higher-order modules. Typeclasses are good "in the small" for things like overloading arithmetic operators. Modules are good "in the large" for structural industrial-size code bases. For Example: https://ocaml.org/learn/companies.html

4/ Both of them have strong points but we had to make up our minds and we chose OCaml for the reasons listed above. For those who handle both languages will surely agree on the fact that OCaml is easier to handle.

Furthermore we intend to meet online with Xavier Leroy, the main developer of the OCaml System to show him our modifications and insights behind our project. Some more examples: http://cufp.galois.com/2007/slides/XavierLeroy.pdf

• Market Core with decentralized reputation system

The market will allow you to buy and sell gods or services from the Opair´s platform. It will include a system of reputation in which anyone who has made business can qualify the seller bringing trust and transparency. Also it will be separated by categories and tags.

• Private chains

In those cases there will be an entity that will manage the blockchain which can change the rules, if so desired, revert transactions and modify balances and so on given that they have the write permissions (they can be either public or not).

Along by the private chains we will give support to a more descentralised (semi) alternative known as consortium chains which will be run by a pre-elected set of nodes instead of only one. Likewise, they will count with advantages with regard to the mainchain depending on the circumstances such as:

1/ It should be point out that speed of transactions will be greater in comparison to the offered in the mainchain due to the fact that there will be few nodes verified and given they are all mostly reliable it will not be necessary to verify them all. These will count with high end computers and the best internet connection.

2/ Every block chain will be configurable under certain standards that we will establish which will show the requirements and goals of their creators.

3/ Transactions will be far cheaper than the mainchain given that only a few nodes will have to be verified (there will be no need of charging if there is only one person who processes all of the transactions).

As you can imagine these blockchains offer a more efficient, faster and outstanding solution mostly for companies and financial or governamental organizations who can use it for auditing, developing or optimize their organization. Also it will work as a testing ground mostly to test smart contracts, develop or just to play around. Even though in most cases public chains are outstanding, it is equally true that in particular cases a greater control over the chain is imperative. We want to offer along with our platform a solution for both cases.

• Alias System

We want to create an ALIAS system. It will work with a registration, similar to domains, to leave behind those long and tiring traditional adresses. This will benefit especially but not excusively to businesses who wish to join our network.

• Decentralized debit cards

Debit cards were in our minds since day one, for it is one of the preferred payment methods of customers nowadays and we aim to mass market adoption, so this goal may not be too surprising. The idea is to eliminate all the intermediaries in the process in order to save time and money, and also the unwanted consequences that brings centralization (frozen accounts, delays, usage of our own private information, etc). Note that it will have disadvantages such as if you wish to create and load your own cards you will need to have a particular hardware. On the other hand, there will be lots of payment terminals/point of sale terminals that will receive a special update with a custom firmware made by us in order to accept our debit cards (this will happen with payment terminals/point of sale non- EMV compatibles). In most terminals compatible with EMV (for more information about EMV visit: http://www.emv-connection.com/emv-faq/ and https://www.level2kernel.com/emv-guide.html) will work without any problems but you can still use our firmware to have advantages like counting with Opair´s branding or offer high performance.

It is a system that still needs work on optimization in further tests because we are running tests that run on approximately 8 to 9 seconds per transaction. Said function is going to be one of the first to be optimized in our Beta version (you can find out below how to participate on Beta version).

Our final goal it is that any person can create their own debit card, anywhere, and a few moments later, carry it out and about without difficulties. We would like to be the firsts in launching this feature that we will be seeked and cherished in the near future and as we are an open source project we would like to share it to all the community as we understand this philosophy as a benefit that benefits the community as a whole. This will also allow growth, improvement and usage from other projects. We understand that Emunie is working in a similar solution but it still not publicly available therefore if we manage to keep it up and running steadily in first place, it will be brilliant. We would like to have a meeting, given the territorial closeness with Fuserleer, which can be very beneficial for both projects. We will try to arrange a meeting between Frank and Fuserleer in the future.

• Crowdfunding platform

We aim to create a platform that can boost any innovating idea that needs resources or budget to take off. You just need to set a goal, rewards and a deadline. Another perk is that you will find the security that brings a decentralized platform, open sourced and without intermediaries taking big percentages from investments.

• Transactions speed and Scalability

When we speak of scalability, we must speak about one of the most important problems found in blockchains nowadays, that’s why we want Opair to be prepared since day one to support more transactions per second than Bitcoin’s network allows and to offer a top speed for each transaction (seconds, not minutes). This has to be a must-have if we want to reach all audiences and that it enables its use all over the world.

Ideally we would like, for starters, to get a 200 tps and build up from there as usage grows (as a remainder Bitcoin’s network is restricted to a sustained rate of 7 tps due to the Bitcoin protocol restricting block sizes to 1 MB). Even though there are current solutions that offer 1000 tps (or more) we believe that they are not following the line of work that we would like. We are taking into consideration a lot of elements like blockchain size, internet bandwidth, processing power, private chains etc., when it comes to outline the course that our solution will offer and analyzing the different alternatives on this subject. On the other hand, regarding private chains, as we said before each of them will be completely configurable under some standards in which the needs and goals of the creators will be reflected. Also given the features mentioned above, they do not have scalability issues, at least not in comparison to public chain.

More information will be available on our White Paper.

• Privacy Solutions

This is a distant future fieldwork because it is something we do not want to overlook but we understand there more pressing fieldworks before focusing on this matter.

Speaking about current solutions we discourage the implementation of ring signatures because it “only” generates more layer of anonymity in transactions and not full anonymity. At the moment we do not have clear the path that we will establish in this matter and this will be something we will definitely define in the future given its importance.

After analyzing current technologies, we consider Zcash proposal is outstanding and it is the only one that offers the level of anonymity that we want to give Opair. Zooko Wilcox and their team behind Zcash have a great solution in their hands and they are a sample of the innovation that can be achieved in that area. Any workthrough regarding the matter will be communicated through our media channels.

• Beta Rules

• They will be open to all users. There will be no restrictions and anyone who fills the form (bear in mind there is a maximum capacity) will be able to participate. They will be open in order to show more transparency but, we hope that all participants follow our guidelines so as to insurance the Beta’s success. While each Beta version will have the goal of finding bugs in the code and trying out the new features, it may also have a specific objective. For example, to make a hack or stress test.

• Each Beta version will have a documented version of their Github’s results so that those users who could not participate, can access them.

• As we said throughout the thread, the idea is to launch a basic platform shortly after the ICO ends to start the distribution and, at the same time, try out the first Beta versions of our new platform. Once we have our first stable version we will transfer everyone to it on a pre-set date so as everybody is on the loop and no one is taken by surprise. The mining will continue on the new platform taking into consideration the stage found under the rules set it in here. We estimate that we will have the first public Beta two weeks after we finish distributing the ICO and the first steady version two months after the ICO. It may seem like a lot of time at first, but in order to achieve a solid and steady development it is truly a short one. Fortunately, we have been working on this project for months now and our expectations are high.

• They will be announced on our website, in Medium and on this thread along with all the information required on how to participate.

Term 1 – Pre – Ann

• Announcement
• Web
• Signature Campaign
• Blockexplorer and tools
• Translate the thread
• Bounty
• Donation FAQ

Term 2 – Development

• Extensive White paper and wiki about our new programming language on Github.
• New wallet, focus on easy to use for everyone and mass market adoption.
• Alias System.
• Decentralized debit cards.
• Light client
• Implement trusted system and market core .
• Support for assets-contracts via colored coins.
• Smart Contracts. New programming language based on OCaml.
• Private Chains.
• Decentralized voting, messaging & mailing system.
• Crowdfunding platform.
• At this point, we want to focus on the speed and scalability of our platform.

• Name: Opair (XPO)

• PoW+PoS (Fairly distribution)

• 96,000,000 Total Coins

• 3% Annual Interest

• Minimum Stake Age: 12 hours

• Block Reward: 55 coin per block – until 525600th block

• Block Time: 60 seconds

Opair ICO will commence on July 26, 2016 (GMT-4/EDT) and end on August 26, 2016 (GMT-4/EDT)

The total XPO supply stands at 96 milllion and will be distributed in the following proportions:

• 70% of the coins will be distributed to early supporters in ICO procedure to participating users based on their contribution in the total amount of the raised funds. The sale procedure will be taking place at https://www.opair.co/invest/. In our site we are offering a SSL encryption and a two-factor authentication security.
• 30% of the coins will be distributed on PoW phase until 525600th block.

There will be discounts for early participants based on the following schedule:

• First&Second ICO day bonus. Users who buy Opair coins on the first two days will receive a bonus of 25%.
• Users participating in the campaign the first week (but not the first two days) will receive 20% bonus.
• Users participating in the campaign the second week will receive 15% bonus.
• Users participating in the campaign the third week will receive 10% bonus.

Due to the usual delays and problems that happen on the launch and for security reasons, we decided to make the distribution of the coins manually. When the process is completed we will perform the distribution in the first 24-48 hours. The process will be carried out both on the web and in a spreadsheet for internal use to avoid any problems and ensure a stable and fair release for everyone.

We established a minimum of 0.0015 BTC to participate.

Important

Frank, our founder, proposed to create a gGmbH -it is similar to a tax-exempt LLC but in Germany- to manage the funds gathered at the ICO, which we think it will be a wise move and it will offer more transparency to our project and the security for to the XPO holders to know that we will not act irrationally or for our own profit. Therefore after discussing this matter and given that Frank lives in Germany we decided that the idea of creating a gGmbH or another type of organization will bring reassurance and confidence to our investors.

Due to the fact that we do not count with a legal consultant, after doing some research, we came across with Winheller Attorneys Tax Advisors firm, who we think will meet our needs. You can find more information about them at: http://www.winheller.com/en/nonprofit-organizations/nonprofit-limited-liability-co/set-up-a-nonprofit-llc-in-germany.html. What made up our minds was the fact that they have worked with Bitcoin (http://www.winheller.com/en/banking-finance-and-insurance-law/bitcoin-trading.html) and that they accept BTC to hire them. Even though we have not reached them yet, we plan to do so shortly to discuss our project and as soon as we have some information we will post it.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/OpairProject
Web: https://www.opair.co/
Github: https://github.com/Opair
Slack:
Email: [email protected]

Team

Frank H. Rettig (CEO / Founder)

I´m an accomplished IT professional with vast experience in the development and delivery of IT solutions for over 20 years now. As a developer, I have known for being a strong leader with a high level of teamwork, excellent communication skills, proactive attitude & thinking outside the box mindset.

Since 2012 I have been interested in Bitcoin and various decentralized solutions. Earlier this year I started working with a small team in a new solution called Opair that we will reveal shortly. In addition I am experienced in Java/Grails, PHP, Groovy/Ruby/Perl, Javascript/JQuery, C#/.Net/C++, Eclipse, HTML, SQL/PL-SQL, Flash, Haskell/OCaml and Node.js.

Also, I worked as consultant, software technology architect and product owner on a variety of projects, national and international, big and small, successfully and unsuccessfully. I am Citrix Certified Enterprise Engineer for Virtualization (CCEE), Cisco Certified Design Associate (CCDA), Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer (MCSD) and Certified Scrum Developer (CSD). I have excellent research and adaptability skills. I'm highly prepared for teamwork and consider myself as a proactive and creative problem solver. I'm a speaker of German (native), English, French and Croatian (basic).

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankhrettig

Hao Wang (Core / Platform Developer)

I am a highly competent software engineer with 2 year and months of experience in software development, blockchain solutions and currently working on IBM in the development and research of blockchain technology. I am Software Engineer. During my studies I did an internship at Intel, and then work with them for almost two years. I am passionate about computational science and functional programming; I have experience with many languages including PHP, Java, OCaml, Ruby, Node.JS or Javascript. A creative problem solver that like to learn new technologies.

Currently I'm starting a new adventure with Opair. You can find more information on our website: https://www.opair.co/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/haowangg

Wasserman99 (Marketing Director)

Here I am! My job is to create and maintain the community of Opair being the link between the development team and community. I'll see that Opair be known by as many people as possible without neglecting to update the community and be attentive to your questions and suggestions. In essence, my work is about crafting decision-making on everything related to communication and marketing of the project. Also, I will be responsible for maintaining and monitoring our social networks.

After many months of work and planning we finally introduce ourselves to the community. We are looking forward to hearing from you.

For any questions you can send a message to this account or via email: [email protected]

FAQ

• We use the structure of several threads that caught our attention.
• We will be organizing a meeting in London in October for interested investors who can participate if they wish. We will also be present and trying to make contacts in the The Blockchain Summit and the Global Expansion Summit to be held in October in London.
• Since we are working on code from scratch, we are going to offer a basic wallet (after the ICO) which will migrate to the new platform after the distribution is finished.
• When we have enough founds, we would like to use some of them to create a division that will work as an incubator to relevant projects (can be IoT related works, DAO, Dapps, frameworks and so on) in the ecosystem we aim to create in Opair.
• In Opair, we are looking to increase our team. We want to offer key job positions in our ecosystem. Anyone interested can connect with us through the site or our email. It will be a plus to have references, previous experiences and be located in Germany or England. More details on the jobs to be covered will be announced shortly by our communication channels.
• The thread is moderated by logical reasons, I understand that several want to go unmoderated but then you cannot have a logical conversation without insults/accusations/ FUD.
• As it is obvious, since we face a large-scale project and we will need to make a crowdfunding to get the money. But given our approach it seems unfair distributing 100% of the coins in the crowdfunding. After a lot of thinking we decide to distribute 70% of the coin on the crowdfunding and 30% which will be a mineable (PoW). Thus the allocation would be fairer and would not be in a few hands.
• 100% of the coins will be distributed; we want to highlight that 0% will be retained by us as background/premine/developer funds/bounty funds. All payments will come from what we gather at ICO.
• We are seeking to make as many interviews as possible with the crypto - fintech press. It's time to spread the word.
• We are currently working on drafting an academic whitepaper, therefore, we will take a reasonable time due to detail and length thereof, but will be finished before the release of the Opair Mainnet.
• About the escrow for the ICO, we are planning to use a multisig with two trusted personalities to give more confidence to investors. This is a point not decided yet. Any suggestions are welcome.
• It is too early to talk about exchanges but we want to make it clear that Opair will not have any exclusivity and our goal is to work with Bittrex, BTC38 and Poloniex to make our platform have a simultaneous release.
• We are still looking for a name for our programming language, which means any public or private recommendation is welcome. Our desire is that the name arises from the participation of the community.