KuCoin AMA With Pocket Network (POKT) — Accelerating the Future of Web3 Infrastructure. Decentralized.

Dear KuCoin Users,

Time: October 18, 2022, 12:00 - 13:07 (UTC)

KuCoin hosted an AMA (Ask-Me-Anything) session with the Co-Founder and CEO of Pocket Network, Michael O'Rourke, in the KuCoin Exchange Group.

Official Website: https://www.pokt.network/

Whitepaper: https://docs.pokt.network/

Follow Pocket Network on Telegram and Twitter.

Guest:

Michael O'Rourke — Co-Founder and CEO of Pocket Network

Michael is Co-Founder and CEO of Pocket Network, a blockchain data ecosystem for Web3 applications. Prior to building Pocket Network, he owned and operated a blockchain development agency, and was on the ground level of Tampa Bay’s largest Bitcoin/Crypto meetup and consultancy, Blockspaces, with a focus on teaching developers Solidity. Michael first got into bitcoin in 2013, and his interests quickly grew much deeper. In 2016, writing smart contracts and making discoveries in API services for Ethereum gave Michael a unique perspective on what is required to provide a vertically and horizontally scalable infrastructure service in a decentralized manner.

Q: What is Pocket Network?

Michael: Pocket Network is a web3 infrastructure middleware protocol that serves blockchain data to decentralized applications. Pocket has surpassed 1.4B+ daily RPC requests (relays) across a decentralized network of ~20-30k+ full nodes that are globally distributed across 20+ countries and routing requests across dozens of blockchains, including Ethereum, Polygon, Harmony, Solana, Avalanche, BSC, Gnosis Chain, Optimism, Near, Moonbeam, Fantom, Evmos, and more. Since Pocket's Mainnet launch in July 2020, more than 200 billion relays have been serviced on the network, with the sources of those relays becoming more diversified across our supported blockchains over time. We are already a key part of the multichain world servicing much of the crypto industry, and we've been growing fast.

Q: What were the motivations for starting this project and some real-world problems/pain points that Pocket Network aims to solve?

Michael: Pocket Network was founded after identifying a centralized bottleneck in the decentralized App (dApp) development tech stack, where Ethereum was relying heavily on a single service SaaS provider to provide accurate API data. Like many crypto projects, they may be decentralized at the protocol level but rely heavily on centralized node service providers to fetch data. Pocket uses an incentive structure to solve for full decentralization, meaning the software and how it is hosted and dApps administration also becomes decentralized. This brings 100% uptime to dApps.

Pocket Network's RPC nodes enable decentralized apps to communicate with blockchains, essential for querying information and performing transactions as blockchain adoption increases. Examples include retrieving wallet balances, smart contract event logs, and interacting with DeFi liquidity pools - we are now servicing more than a billion of these "relays" daily. We have scaled up along with the adoption of our service by Web3 developers. RPC nodes are also required by exchanges, wallets, and analytical tools

Q: What are the utilities and benefits of your native token, POKT?

Michael: Pocket Network uses a native cryptocurrency, POKT, to create a permissionless, two-sided marketplace between independent node providers and developers that want to query data from a blockchain for their dApps. The network is designed to maximize the efficiency of web3 dApps by optimizing speed and quality of service, minimizing downtime to virtually zero, and providing cost efficiencies for developers. Designed as a "stake for service" network, POKT is purchased and staked for access by both dApp developers (demand-side) and node providers (supply-side) to participate in the network.

On the demand side of the protocol, dApps have access to 250k daily relays for free and will pay for consumption beyond that. They have the option to pay with a credit card, and the POKT will be purchased and staked on their behalf, or they will have the option to bring their own POKT based on the usage required.

On the supply side of the protocol, node operators stake POKT to participate in serving the network. Node operators must provide quality service to the blockchains networks they choose to support to be rewarded for their service. Nodes get chosen pseudorandomly to participate in work sessions to relay data to applications and earn POKT (for doing that work). It's full-node incentivization at work and tackles a huge need for decentralized infrastructure across the entire Web3 space.

Q: What are Pocket Network's unique selling points compared to other similar projects in the industry?

Michael: The best analogy of Pocket Network is a decentralized version of Infura (parent company ConsenSys; $7.2B valuation) or Alchemy ($10.2B valuation). Instead of requesting data from a centralized consensus node running on AWS, RPC requests are routed across a globally distributed and decentralized network of nodes that run across dozens of varieties of setups providing antifragile infrastructure for the entire web3 ecosystem.

We partner with large enterprise customers (many "competitors" becoming our distribution partners in the future with a B2B2C model, such as with our current partnership with ANKR) who want to use Pocket Network as a way to achieve a higher degree of decentralization in their infrastructure, accelerate their multichain support, reduce their downtime across regions, and convert their recurring OPEX into a digital asset for throughput.

Based on our tokenomic model's ability to incentivize our decentralized node network to dynamically scale up and down based on requests from the demand side, Pocket Network will continue to be well positioned vs. centralized alternatives to support the explosive growth in new protocols and app-specific chains across L2's, subnets, supernets, parachains, and the proliferation of networks we will continue to see emerge (in addition to the L1 support that we provide)

Q: What is the growth potential of web3 infrastructure, and what is Pocket Network's market share in this space?

Michael: We estimate that web3 infrastructure is already a ~$15B+ market and growing at a CAGR of ~68%. As a result, we expect this market to be $120B+ in the next five years as mass adoption occurs from web2 enterprises and native web3 dApps. Given the value proposition of decentralized infrastructure outlined previously, Pocket Network has been able to capture single-digit market share while growing at a rate faster than centralized alternatives (some of which have now become Pocket partners), and we expect this network growth rate to continue in light of the flywheel that drives our growth.

This growth flywheel is as follows: as dApp infrastructure improves, Pocket Network attracts more users, which results in more relays being serviced by the supply side, leading to more POKT rewards for operating nodes and an increase in the profitability of nodes and turn, incentivizing more people to run nodes. Furthermore, increased diversification of nodes boosts Pocket Network's redundancy and decentralization, resulting in better service, attracting more users, and returning us to the flywheel's beginning. As this flywheel effect continues, Pocket expects to gain market share in this growing market.

Q: What are some of the latest achievements and milestones of Pocket Network so far?

Michael: In January 2021, our entire network serviced about 140 million data relays per month. We are now servicing almost ten times that amount per day. Chains like Polygon have 300 to 400 million relays serviced on Pocket Network daily. As our network has scaled efficiently with rising demand, we keep seeing quarter-over-quarter growth.

Integrating new chains on Pocket Network has been and will be essential for the growth of the protocol. We remain focused on supporting the multi chain future and being a crucial connecting piece across the entire web3 space, which will help catalyze our continued growth. We currently launch support for ~3 new networks per week, and we have a clear plan to scale to 250 supported chains by the end of 2023. This also helps to set us apart relative to centralized alternatives that have a more narrow focus on supporting mature networks

We've also seen the Pocket DAO "come of age" in 2022, and it continues to help us differentiate as a middleware protocol operating with Web3 principles top of mind, where participation in the DAO carries weight and impact.

Q: Do POKT holders have the right to participate in the governance of the project?

Michael: We foster an open and collaborative community effort toward the betterment of the network and its participants. As a pioneer in a new era of democratically-governed digital public goods, our DAO means that you, our community, will control some of the most critical aspects of our protocol and ecosystem.

We are incredibly proud of the decentralized governance structure outlined in the Pocket Network constitution and the novel proof of knowledge gamified approach to earning a DAO vote, where knowledge and engagement allow you to become a voter (rather than "Pay to Play"). Over time, the decentralization of Pocket Network's governance has become a major differentiator compared to centralized infrastructure alternatives. In addition, it has made Pocket Network a more attractive option for those looking for a solution that abides by a "crypto ethos."

You can follow the growing Pocket Network community and idea meritocracy across our Forum, and DAO decisions. We are focused on scaling through our community, with developer bounties and demand generation referral incentives that the DAO is funding

Q: Where can interested supporters learn more about Pocket Network?

Michael: You can find everything through the following links!

Official Website: https://www.pokt.network/

Network Stats: https://poktscan.com/

Economics https://docs.pokt.network/learn/economics/

Supported Blockchains: https://docs.pokt.network/supported-blockchains/

Public Roadmap: https://app.dework.xyz/pokt-network/public-product-roadm/overview

Research: 8-key-research-pieces-on-pocket-network/

Community: https://docs.pokt.network/community/

Lean Governance Thesis: https://bit.ly/LeanGovernance

Developer Bounty Program: https://app.dework.xyz/pokt-network/v1-protocol

Referral Program Details: https://twitter.com/PoktNews/status/1562488029918670849

Careers: https://angel.co/company/pocket-network/jobs

Blog/Newsletter:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/POKTnetwork

Official Telegram Announcements Channel: http://bit.ly/POKT_AnnouncementsTG

Official CN Telegram Channel: http://bit.ly/POKT_TelegramCN

Unofficial Community-led TG Channel for POKT Price Discussions : http://bit.ly/POKTunofficialTG

Q: Do you consider community feedback?

Michael: While Pocket was designed by myself and my cofounders, shortly after we launched, we enabled it to be governed by the community and Pocket DAO. If you see our forums, you'll see how incredibly active our community is in deciding the protocol's future.

Q: Are you a global project or a local project?

Michael: We are very much a global project. Our team is across 15+ countries and six time zones around the world. We have a translated website for China and plan to continue to expand our presence across the world.

Q: Can you give an overview of your Tokenomics?

Michael: Our economics model is detailed in our documentation. Developers stake POKT to pay for the service, and nodes stake POKT to have the right to do work for developers. More info here https://docs.pokt.network/learn/economics/

Q: What is the most ambitious goal of your project?

Michael: If you believe, as I do, that Web3 will be as big as the internet, then every application we use within web3 will need access to a full node at some point. Pocket's goal is to become the primary full-node infrastructure provider for all web3. That's a lot of data we need to provide for the world.

Q: Do you have a whitepaper? Can you share?

Michael: We decided to move our whitepaper to our documentation. It is a living project, and specs change over time. You can learn more here.

Q: Can you please introduce us to your partners and collaborators?

Michael: We have many collaborators that we are quite proud of. Take a look at our blog to see who's the latest!

Q: What is your strongest advantage that will make your team lead the market?

Michael: No one has been thinking about decentralized infrastructure for as long as we have. 6 years and counting!

🎁 Participate on the Pocket Network AMA quiz now for a chance to win 150 POKT!

The form will remain open for five days from publishing this AMA recap.

KuCoin and Pocket Network have prepared a total of 30,000 POKT to give away to AMA participants.

1. Free-ask section: 750 POKT

2. Flash Mini Game: 9,000 POKT

3. Post-AMA Quiz: 20,250 POKT

. . .

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