The Matrix team recently held a Telegram AMA in which the community could submit questions to a community admin and have it answered in the new Telegram AMA session. Our Telegram AMA strategy is designed to communicate and address the Matrix community directly.

Today we have complied all of the AMA questions in a article for your convenience. Enjoy!

Q1) Why was the autoswap function removed? Wouldn’t it be easier that way to do a token swap?

We were originally faced with the decision of whether or not to put an end date on the token swap like many projects do. We decided it wasn’t a great look for projects to leave early adopters without the ability to swap.

We ulimately decided to open with a quick, convenient autoswap method (using a smart contract). This would be available for the first month or so. Then, we would leave manual swap options open in perpetuity.

The reason why we didn’t just leave the autoswap mechanism open in perpetuity is simply due to security concerns. The autoswap used a smart contract. The longer this smart contract was “live,” the greater the chance that someone would try to attack it.

At the start, even the autoswap took two days because we were manually keeping an eye on everything happening to make sure no one was getting up to something nefarious.

Q2) Is the Matrix Digital Economy Reach Think Tank involved with/funded by the same entity as the Matrix AI Network?

This group is best described as an alliance. Members think about and discuss industry or or other specific issues as they arise — just like a think thank would. Its certainly “involved” with the Matrix Foundation in that members of the Matrix Foundation are involved. However, it isn’t accurate to say that it is “funded” by the Matrix Foundation. There is no real funding body. Its a think thank for people to discuss issues. If a member has a specific problem that needs specific help, they are responsible for funding that solution. For example, if the Matrix AI Network needed other members’ help on a technical issue, the Matrix Foundation would foot the bill.

Q3) What is John Zhu doing these days?

Mr. Zhu’s focus is primarily on building out the future Matrix ecosystem by finding suitable partners. For example, it is Mr. Zhu who found the Litex project, etc.

Q4) Are Validation Masternodes there to validate after a block is confirmed? Or are validators confirming the actual block?

[Put another way: Are blocks sent out by the fastest miner to the preselected validator of that block to be confirmed? Or is the mining result broadcast to the rest of the mining network]?

In short, each selection cycle, 32 miners are selection to perform mining work. The first to complete the mining work notifies all the Verification Masternodes. The Verification Masternodes then confirm the block.

Here is a little more detail about what is happening:

1) 32 Miners compete to solve for the mining algorithm

2) The fastest miner informs all the Verification Masternodes

2b) The fastest miner informs all the other miners to stop working.

3) The verification masternodes confirm the block. If 2/3rds agree, the block is confirmed.

3b) If the verification masternodes don’t agree, the leader informs all the miners to keep working.

3c) If two miners simultaneously inform the verification masternodes, the leader determines which to use.

Q5) If you reduce your TPS goal from 1,000,000 to 100,000, will the Matrix AI Network still be able to achieve its future vision? If Matrix becomes a success and thousands of people use Matrix AI, doesn’t Matrix need more than 1,000,000 TPS?

There are many factors impacting TPS. One primary factor is the average individual network speed of users. If we look far into the future, the Matrix AI Network’s system throughput speed — even without changing the basic architecture — will increase alongside the increase in the average node’s network speed.

Additionally, alongside this natural development, the team is constantly tweaking the network architecture to improve efficiency. We can say that the long-term goal is certainly still 1,000,000. However, that level of system throughput speed won’t be “required” for many many years.

Q6) Why is only a very short time frame given to update gman files? Can we next time make it at least two weeks so people don’t need to stop all their lives and just rush to do the update?

When deciding how much time to give everyone to perform network updates, we need to balance the convenience of the use and the stability of the network.

Personally, I believe two weeks is way too long. I believe this would lead to people seeing the update, thinking to themselves that they have lots of time, and ultimately lead to some people forgetting to update their gmans. I personally think 3–4 days is a fair compromise. The vast majority of people will have time to upgrade their gmans as it only takes a few minutes.

Q7) Existing stakes are now flexible. What does this mean? Does flexible mean, it is flexibly unstakeable in its entirety after 7 days? Or does it mean that I can unstake any random portion of the whole amount? In other words, is flexible and fixed only differentiated by the duration of the lock-up time, or also by the amount to be unstaked and withdrawn?

There are now two types of stakes — fixed and flexible. As before, there are two major steps to unstaking your tokens. First, you need to “unstake” your tokens. Then, you need to wait a while. Second, you can “withdraw” your stake back to your wallet.

The major difference between fixed and flexible staking is as follows:

Fixed stakes are locked up (1 month, 3 month, 6 month or 12 month) in exchange for greater stake rewards. If you do not unstake before the expiration of your lock-up period, the fixed stake will auto renew. If you do unstake before the expiration of your lock-up period, your fixed stake will not auto-renew. However, you will need to wait until the expiry of your lockup time before withdrawing your tokens. In the interim, your node will still function normally.

Flexible stakes can be removed at any time. After unstaking, you need to wait 7 days before withdrawing your tokens to your wallet. You can unstake in increments. The smallest permissible amount to unstake at any given time is 100 MAN tokens.

Q8) If we have staked tokens for 12 months, what will happen when GPU mining starts and I want to switch from CPU mining to join a Validation Masternode Pool?

In this very specific scenario, I would not suggest staking for 12 months. Let’s say you have 10,000 MAN tokens in a fixed, 12-month, stake as a Mining Masternode. You will not be able to take these same 10,000 MAN tokens and move them to a validator pool while they are still locked.

You will, however, be able to use other tokens to join the Validation Masternode Pool. You can simultaneously have many different types of stakes.

Q9) How/when shall we retake our nodes? I mean, I don’t want to wait 7 days because I want to change from flexible to 12 months. Is there some time slot where we can do this without waiting?

Flexible stakes have a required 7-day wait between “unstaking” and “withdrawal.”

Q10) Will there be a better overview of the stake rewards in the future? Currently, the stake rewards are transactions but if it gets back back to how it was, it will be pretty hard to get a good overview of the received stake rewards.

I don’t believe so. However, if you all make enough noise about this, we can push the development team to make it more of a priority~

Q11) Could we get a 2FA feature for the web wallet?

There is currently no plans to add 2FA features to the web wallet. Our future vision for the web wallet does not include us operating it in a centralized fashion.

With that being said, please be sure to be as safe as possible when handling your cryptocurrencies!

Q12) As written in the whitepaper and other entries in the medium articles, are we really using AI in the blockchain itself? If the answer is year, where is this AI machine hosted and who’s controlling it? If it’s hosted in “some place” then how can this blockchain be called decentralized?

Time for a little status update!

In September, we hope to replace the current mining algorithm with one of our own AI algorithms (this is on track). This will allow the 32 selected nodes to simultaneously complete mining work while training GAN networks. This is currently on track for September and is currently being run and tested on a few of our testnets.

AI applications such as cancer diagnosis, object detection and pose detection are already live.

Our mechanism to distribute the computing power of unselected mining masternodes is also on track to be ready by September.

As are the first public versions of the Intelligent Contracts.

For more details about the “larger AI machine” can be found in our new Green Paper, which should be published in English this weekend.

Q13) Are you happy with the current “random selection” of the miners? And the current selection mechanism for validators? Do you plan to make changes to the selection/election algorithms?

We will certainly continue to make small adjustments to the selection algorithms in the future. We don’t believe the correct approach is to make gut, emotional reactions when it comes to things like this. Right now, we continue to observe, collect results, analyze the data to make adjustments as appropriate. This will almost certainly continue in perpetuity.

Q14) What happens if someone edits the code and tampers the compiled gman and executes it? Are there any measure in place to handle this?

It likely depends on what someone accomplishes by doing this. However — as a blanket statement — I can say that we don’t view this situation as a huge problem and do not plan to take measures against people who successfully alter code.

The one exception would be if we deem that someone is harming the network. If we think someone is harming the network, then we will go in and make changes to ensure that they can not continue harming the network.

Q15) Do you have any updates regarding the office in the USA? Last time you mentioned some people from Matrix were planning to fly to the USA. Any updates?

No updates to share about the USA office at this time.

Q16) When will smart contract creation become available?

Regular smart contracts can already be created on the Matrix AI Network. The first version of the Intelligent Contracts should be ready to public testing in September. I say should because we are expecting a progress update in the next few weeks. After that update, we’ll have a much clearer idea about timing.

Q17) What is the free structure for creating smart contracts?

This depends on a lot of different factors. At the very high end, it shouldn’t exceed 0.1 MAN tokens. If there’s enough interest in this topic, and I ask the team to prepare something more concrete.

**Q18) What about the early rewards earned by the Matrix Foundation Validation Masternodes? Will these rewards be distributed to the early Validator Nodes as promised?

**Yes. The rewards earned by the Matrix Foundations have thus far been paid out for:

- The Mainnet Airdrop

- The Token Burn

- Testnet Participation

- Early Mining Incentives

There are two things left:

- Early Verification Incentives

- Specifial benefits to early Validators for joining the Matrix-run Validation Pool

The early verification incentives will be paid out on Tuesday.

The Matrix-run Validation Pool will open in 1.5 hours (give or take).

After that, all the rewards earned by the Foundation for running validation masternodes will have been paid out.

Q19) Will future projects like the smart rail project, smart cities and other logistics projects utilize and or create demand for the MAN token? If so, how?

Yes. MAN tokens will be at the core of the Matrix 2.0 ecosystem. MAN tokens will be used to train the AI algorithms that will make these future projects possible.

Q20) How many Verification Masternode Pools will Matrix run? Will each have 1/19 of the total stake?

The Matrix team only has plans to run a single Verification Masterrnode. Community members can open as many pools as they want.

The amount of tokens in each pool depends entirely on the community.

Q21) Can we have an update on what the core team is focusing on these days?

We’re preparing some formal/regular updates with the core team. I’d rather wait for those then just spill it all here~

Q23) Can we get a link to download backup chain data rather than always having to resync?

Yes! I am arranging that now. Will be ready in a day or two. The team already set it up but they used Baidu Cloud. Trying to get it on a more Western-friendly service. Will update shortly.