KuCoin AMA With Supra (SUPRA) — The Future of Blockchain: A Vertically Integrated Layer 1 Solution for Super dApps

Dear KuCoin Users,

Time: November 28, 2024, 12:00 PM -  01:32 PM (UTC)

KuCoin hosted an AMA (Ask-Me-Anything) session featuring Joshua Tobkin, the Co-Founder and CEO, along with James Preston, the Content Marketing Manager of Supra, in the KuCoin Exchange Group.

Official Website: https://supra.com/
Whitepaper: https://supra.com/documents/SupraTech-Whitepaper.pdf 

Follow Supra on X, Discord and Telegram
 

Q:  Can you share Supra’s origin story, its core thesis, and an overview of its product? Why was full vertical integration chosen, combining next-gen Layer 1, native oracle services, and the innovative SupraBFT consensus? How does this empower developers and unlock new use cases for retail?

Joshua: Origin Story

The earliest ideas originated in San Francisco in Nov 2017 (already 7 years ago) 

I was focused on trying to figure out how to scaling Ethereum 

And the core insight was... suppose we could random sample a blockchain network (Tribe) into sub-committees called "Clans" 

And then do the compute on the sub-committee level. 

But in order to random sample, I needed on-chain randomness. 

So I figured we needed Oracles on the chain too. That was when the first ideas behind vertically integrating Oracles for price feeds and on-chain randomness with a blockchain emerged.

SupraBFT aka Moonshot

This was designed along the way about 1.5 years ago. We discovered a huge opportunity to lower the latency of BFT algos to the maximum (We actually believe it is the max). Moreover, we've formally verified Moonshot.

How does this empower developers:

Devs wont have to use multiple external networks once Supra is fully matured.

Supra has built in Data Availability, Price Feeds, on-chain Randomness, and Smart Contracts. Automation and bridge are coming really soon too. 

Instead of relying on External Networks for price feeds, randomness, automation, bridge, Supra is designed to be all-in-one with full shared security. 

Using external networks introduces more latency (its slower), less security (you inherit the security of the weakest component - it's not L1 security any more if you use an external service), and devs have to manage different frameworks and multiple tokens. 

On Supra, you will only need $SUPRA.

 

Q: What are your thoughts on EVM vs. MoveVM, monolithic vs. modular architecture, and the role of AppChains and L2s? Could you delve into current industry trends, Supra's Layer 1 philosophy, and the potential challenges of modularity?

Joshua: 

What are your thoughts on EVM vs. MoveVM

we believe MoveVM is going to gain huge adoption in the years ahead. It is safer for devs (Move verifier) and more intuitive for them too. Devs from Web2 will understand Move Lang better than EVM. 

Performance is also significant advantage for MoveVMs.

Supra is designed for MultiVM support! However, we launched with MoveVM first and are rolling out EVM soon (It's in testnet) and then we're rolling out SVM (Solana) and CosmWasm too in the near future.

Monolithic vs Modular

Supra is like a Mega Monolithic [much like] a singular Node Network but it is Modular in that each component (VMs, Oracles, VRF, Bridge, and Automation) can be updated without changing everything. 

Any software that is global-scale needs to be built in a modular manner. 

Whats different is Supra is a singular network, where as in the modular paradigm each component themselves are different networks. It's slower, less secure, and costs more.

AppChains and L2s

The main drawback is broken composability and thus broken shared liquidity. Composability is like the main thing that makes blockchains really profound. 

To address this, Supra has an awesome concept called Containers. These are like L2/Appchains but on the Supra L1 itself! 

Devs can launch their own container and ecosystem, set their own governance, use their own token as gas, and set gas prices - they can also decide which other containers they interact [with]. 

Since Supra Containers all exist on the Supra L1, they are actually composable! Thus they have shared liquidity.

 

Q: How large is the Supra team, and who are your key investors? We’ve heard about some of your impressive records—could you share more about the team, your technology awards, world records, and major partnerships?

Joshua: Supra has over 100 teammates! It truly takes a tribe to accomplish what we're doing. Our team includes infrastructure developers, smart contract developers, protocol designers, front-end and back-end developers, as well as professionals in marketing, operations, business development, and more.

Key Investors

You can see them at the bottom of our official website.

More about the team, your technology awards, world records, and major partnerships

Our team is composed of incredible talent. They are world-renowned cryptographers and computer scientists that have worked at places such as Microsoft, Oracle, Visa, Consensys, and many other institutions. 

We have published many whitepapers and many have been accepted to top academic venues such as: IEEE Security & Privacy, Network and Distributed Security Symposium, ACM Computer and Communications Security, etc. 

Our network hit 500K TPS with sub-second Consensus commit latency on a global network of 300 nodes. For 300 nodes, this is a world record as far as I know! 

Also, we have 500K KYC'd token holders from our gamified learn to earn program (Project Blast Off). We literally KYC'd them all to prevent sybil. (We dont really care about their KYC details, but we wanted a fair airdrop program). I believe for a L1, 500K KYC token holders at launch is a world record too! WorldCoin has over 1M token holders, but they are L2.

 

Q: How does Supra help developers succeed? Can you discuss your approach to marketing, community building, and the Supra ecosystem fund? What resources do you provide to ensure developers thrive?

Joshua: How does Supra help developers succeed?

Developers are our main focus as they are the ones that will use our infrastructure to build new things that couldn't be built before -- that needed a Vertically Integrated all-in-one Blockchain like Supra -- that is designed for MultiVM support, automation, price feeds, on-chain randomness, cross-chain comms etc. 

We'll support them with educational content such as webinars and tutorials. I also want to get to a point where we even have like Live Chat technical support! 

Also, we will introduce the best projects to our investors too.

Supra does have an ecosystem fund. We've saved over 10% of total supply of $SUPRA for this fund, it is meant to be distributed over 3 years and designed to be worth at least $100M USD. 

To gain access to that, projects will have to compete in our "Super dApp Showdown" also known as competition. 

Winners will get a slice of the ecosystem fund, intros to VCs, have an opportunity to be showcased on the Killer Whales TV show, and also have a week on our gamified Learn to Earn platform Project Blast off and in front of our 500K+ KYCd token holders to help them launch. 

We want to give devs a ton of attention. We bring the infra and tools, they'll bring the creative ideas and applications that create value for end consumers.

Q: Where do you see the blockchain industry heading with the technology Supra is bringing to the table?

James: Yes indeed! So interestingly, I oversee the marketing of the Super dApp Showdown! It's incredibly exciting.

We have allocated a $100 million "ecosystem fund" that we using to award the best dApps who build on Supra in various seasons of the SDS (Super dApp Showdown), which officially gets underway in January.

Along with various portions of the prize money, winners will also get featured across our social media channels (350k followers), email databases (1m +) - this empowers both our users and the projects, because they will immediately have users, and the users will be able to claim various airdrops etc. from these winning projects.

In addition to that, the best of the best will get a chance to be featured on the hit TV Show "Killer Whales", the Web3 version of "Shark Tank", with whom we have a very close collaboration.

This is arguably our biggest collab, with such a big brand as Killer Whales, we have already seen remarkable traction with the Super dApp Showdown.

But additionally, [our] partnerships within the Move ecosystem have been key, with us being key partners in the MoveCon, and actually being the hosts of the first online MoveCon (of course, SUI and Aptos have made MoveVM incredibly popular).

We also have remarkable collaborations with teams from the Hedera ecosystem, Ethereum ecosystem, etc. where builders are currently preparing to deploy versions of their protocols on Supra's L1 within the next few weeks!

 

Q: Where can I buy SUPRA token?

James: You can buy SUPRA on KuCoin, of course!

Q: What is Supra's (SUPRA) income model? While many projects emphasize their 'long-term vision and mission,' we'd love to hear about your short-term goals. What are you currently focusing on to achieve them?

James: Well, we have already generated a successful business model around our Oracle price feeds and dVRF. Of course, as an L1, dApps that build and deploy on Supra will need certain amounts of Supra to purchase block space etc. In addition there is Gas for what we foresee will be a multimillion tx ecosystem (albeit one of the cheapest Gas models in Web3). 

 

Q: What benefits do $SUPRA token holders gain from holding their tokens long-term?

James: You will be able to stake your Supra (we actually have a vault lockup campaign starting soon, keep an eye on our social channels for that!). 

Q: Beyond your core features, what’s a hidden gem or unique aspect of your project that most users might overlook

James: Our Containers product isn't being noticed enough yet. But this is HUGE.

Q: What’s the primary focus of Supra right now? Are you concentrating on community growth, market expansion, exchange listings, or product development?

James: Most of the efforts and "manpower" is going into making sure the L1 is running efficiently and smoothly so dApps can deploy without any hiccups, and of course our Starkey wallet operational to the highest level.

Q: What are the upcoming phases in Supra's roadmap? What exciting developments can users and developers look forward to in the coming years?

James: You may check Supra’s roadmap here. 

Q: Who is the ideal consumer for your product? Have you incorporated community feedback and requests into the development process to generate new ideas? Understanding the target audience is critical for success, as failing to do so often leads to project challenges or even failures.

James: Our primary audience is developers and those passionate about decentralization. We want passionate decentralization (web3) devs to build their dApps on Supra, because we believe we can offer them the best and most efficient infrastructure to produce a world class dApp that users will love. If our infra is world class, then the users will be happy because the dApps will be too!

 

🎁 Participate in the Supra AMA quiz now for a chance to win 10 SUPRA.

 

 

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

 

KuCoin and Supra have prepared a total of 5,000 SUPRA to give away to AMA participants.

1. Pre-AMA activity: 1,725 SUPRA

2. Free-ask section: 550 SUPRA

3. Flash mini-game: 1,000 SUPRA

4. Post-AMA quiz: 1,725 SUPRA

 

Sign up for a KuCoin account if you haven’t done so yet, and ensure you complete your KYC verification to be eligible for the rewards.

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