Cui Meng, founder of Achain, recently held a live audio AMA with the Achain community on the QQ chat group. The discussion is translated by members of the Achain team.

Hello everyone, I am Cui Meng, founder of Achain. We have collected nearly 200 questions from the community. As part of our greater effort to respond to your needs, I will address each of your questions in turn. Thank you.

As I offer answers, I’ll add in additional ideas and thoughts that come to mind. I will also invite exchange and discussion.

Q1 : Why does the price of ACT continue to fall?

Cui:

The entire market is currently in a bear cycle as it follows the course of Bitcoin. In this recession, we need to focus on technological advancements to lay the foundation for future development. I believe that Bitcoin has recently started to stabilize as market prices settle.

Q2: The market value of ACT extremely low. At its current price of $0.009 [~ RMB 0.06], the market cap falls under $7 million.

Cui:

I am afraid that this is the condition of the overall market, and that there is not much more that can be said. The common, broad perception in the community seems to be that early investors have lost their optimism and that they are aggressively selling-off their holdings. First of all, early investors are not pessimistic about the market and they are not, as some of you have suggested “hammering the market.” To reduce concerns, I will communicate with early investors and will forward their feedback to the community in due time.

Q3: Is there any market manipulation?

Cui:

No. I have never heard of it. I want to remind everyone what was communicated a few months ago. We are committed to pressing forward despite all difficulties, and we will find ways to overcome any difficulty whether related to funding or technological hurdles. Furthermore, unfounded rumours suggest that I am leaving the project. This is not true, and everyone can rest assured that I am absolutely committed to the success of Achain.

Q4: Is ACT an air coin?

Cui:

ACT is not an air currency. Our main chain has been online for one year and four months — since July 17th ,2017. It is therefore one of the earliest technologies in the blockchain industry. Our main chain is more mature than others, such as Qtum, and Achain has been running stably for more than one year.

Recently, I have been overseeing an upgrade to the main chain to prepare for anticipated technical blockchain demands. The Achain main network, Achain Plus, will meet the present and future technical needs of an evolving blockchain landscape.

Q5: Will the value of ACT or the project go to zero?

Cui:

No. We have a blockchain network, a technical team, partners, community support, and the support of global exchanges. It will definitely not return to zero. We will ensure the continued success of Achain.

I would like to address another question that is sometimes asked. Please rest assured, ACT will not be removed from Huobi or OKex. I assure you, Achain will not go to zero.

Q6: Why have you not addressed declines in price?

Cui:

Achain is currently comprised of two entities: the Achain foundation and the Achain community. We publish a weekly report to bring together the voices and dynamics of both the community and the foundation. We are always communicating via the “Achain platform” and “Achain community” public channels along with our weekly reports.

Q7: Can you tell us about the lock-up program for retail investors?

Cui:

Here are the details about the 35 million ACT that have been set aside for the community. We currently offer two options, the first one is the “loyalty program”, where the user registers their address on the blockchain. We search for the registered address to take a snapshot and scale the rewards according to the total number of registered wallets. There is no commitment to this program and the user can choose to abandon the lock at any time by transferring their currency from the registered wallet. This operation can be performed at any time. It is our way to give back to the community, hence it is not a strict lock-up program. The second option is the 30-day and 180-day fixed locks run by Kcash. Many community members gave us feedback suggesting that they wanted more than the “flexible lock-up” program, so we joined Kcash to launch a “fixed lock” program.

Our original intention was to share the 35 million ACT which was set aside at an early moment for the community. If users object to our loyalty programs, we can explore using these funds for other community-building programs. I personally believe that the current programs are good for the community.

Q8: ACT prices don’t seem to rebound after declines. Will ACT go to zero?

Cui:

ACT is not going to zero. I stated previously that we have the main network, system support, a wallet system, and community ecological support. I’m sure that ACT will not go to zero.

Q9: What factors in addition to the bear market are suppressing the price of ACT, and what remedies are there?

Cui:

This is a good question, let me make two points. First, it is costly to maintain normal operations of the ACT project. Manpower costs, market operations, branding, exchanges, etc. all require investment. When the market is strong, we spend less per month. When the market is not doing well, the portion of the expenditure is greater. The number of ACT for team expenses will be released every month with the monthly report. You can also send a message to the Achain customer service address to request that information. Regardless, we will email the details of the fund’s expenses on a monthly basis. The second is that early investors are vesting their holdings. We are negotiating with early investors to minimize the flow of ACT to the market.

Both of these factors are market-independent. Our first goal is to minimize the amount of team expenses. The second is to communicate with early investors to see if there are solutions that reduce the impact on the market.

Q10: What are your thoughts about the decline in price?

Cui:

I have mixed feelings. It is very painful and it makes me sad. I am committed to change the status quo. Failure is not an option, and my ambition is to see Achain succeed. I am confident that the long-term future of Achain is bright.

Q11: Do you have team members in the early investors? If so, are they involved in the market?

Cui:

Let me respond by saying that I do not feel that anyone would hurt the project out of self-interest. Ultimately such actions would have serious repercussions and affect everyone. Our investors will not deliberately harm the project through market activity. Going back to this question, I can tell you very clearly that there are no team members among the early investors in Achain.

Q12: Early investor release problem

Cui:

Some community members have asked about early investors releasing ACT into the market. Under current market conditions, we are committed to communicating with early investors to stress the importance of not liquidating holdings. There is a constraint until the market improves.

Q13: The price of the currency is so low, and we assume that this is mostly caused by the early investors. Have the team ever thought about negotiating with the early investors, buying their coins back, holding them in the foundation, and not letting them circulate in the secondary market?

Cui:

Our project is over a year old, and most early investors decided to divest their holdings within the first 12 months. There is only one early investor left. As I mentioned in my response to the last question, we will definitely negotiate and seek an effective solution.

Q14: What about the node distribution plan, why has it not been implemented so far?

Cui:

First there will be a systemic upgrade of Achain’s main chain. Achain’s main chain has been stable for 16 months and now it is considered old relative to the blockchain industry. Our current priority is upgrading the main chain. The new Achain Plus main chain will support the distribution of nodes. The old main chain is showing its age which makes this upgrade the highest priority.

Q15: About the main chain upgrade and node announcement, are there any specific plans and implementation rules?

Cui:

We have been exploring the new main chain upgrade for the past 5 months, and the Achain Plus code has already been batch uploaded. The test network is scheduled to be operational within the next two weeks. During this process, we will seek the community’s suggestions for improvements and innovation. After the new test network is stable we will notify the community about the super node distribution plan. Currently there is no specific time for the node distribution, but the test network should be online within the next 2 weeks.

Q16: Is the ACT node plan active? & Why wasn’t the earlier mentioned node development plan implemented?

Cui:

Please refer to the previous response. We will communicate the node distribution plan after Achain Plus is stable. This decision has been made with the best interest of the community in mind.

Q17: Can you publish all 370,000 addresses?

Cui:

This is definitely not a problem, however I do not understand the purpose of announcing the addresses. What value does this provide? The community previously published the ranking for all addresses. This list of addresses contains much data. If anyone needs this information please contact us via the QQ or WeChat customer service number, and we will assist with exporting all the addresses. If the purpose is only to satisfy your curiosity, please don’t contact us because it is wasted energy.

Q18: The browser can’t query the total number of ACT.

Cui:

At present, the browser does not provide every statistic, but this feature will be added later. The total coin supply is initially 1 billion and the blockchain is unchangeable. Others also analyze the Achain main chain browser allowing multi-party data supervision.

In the case of node rewards, all blockchains have a block reward, whether it is a POW or a DPOS mechanism. ACT’s block awards reward 5ACT per block to maintain the normal operation of the node. When Achain deployed the main chain, it issued 1 billion ACT tokens. There are 5 ACT tokens for each block.

Everyone cares about the total amount of ACT. It is easy to calculate the total. The total amount of ACT = the number of blocks X 5 + 1 billion

The current total = 4249680 X 5 + 1 billion = 1,022.4 million

After the upgrade of the main network is completed, the sub-nodes will be carried out. At that time, anyone can apply to become a node agent. This part of the production block reward will belong to the node.

Q19: What is the super browser?

Cui:

This is one of my pet projects. We are building a browser that catalogues data across blockchains providing users a one-stop query. An address can be queried regardless if is the address or transaction of Ethereum, Bitcoin or EOS. This is a relatively large project that has been temporarily shelved, due to the current market volatility. Other features of the super browser include address monitoring. You can input an address and receive an email every time a transfer occurs for the supplied address. This feature will be available to our community members when they associate their blockchain address with their email address. Whenever a payment is made to the Foundation’s account, an notification email will be sent to everyone. The email notification will notify the member a foundation account contribution has been made to reward our growing community.

Q20: The old wallet cannot be synced

Cui:

I personally often use this wallet. I cannot determine if this is an individual issue, because my wallet usage may be different from others. Please notify our customer service or contact a volunteer community member. We will work with you to resolve this problem.

Q21: Why is the Achain code update so slow？

Cui:

Let me briefly restate that Achain’s old main chain launched in July of last year, after a tremendous amount of development. As a result of our hard work all the code uploads were able to be quickly deployed. Our team’s efforts offered a stable solution for 16 months. Achain is regarded as a quality blockchain network with a long history of stability. Only few updates were required, and because of this, users monitoring GitHub concluded that we were not active. Now that we have proposed the new Achain Plus main chain the Github code changes will be more frequent. Achain’s new main chain upgrade has been discussed internally for a long time, and much of the work has been completed. The new main chain will soon pass testing. In addition to this, we will also publish complete technical documentation and development tools to encourage adoption and DApp development.

Q22: There seem to be many problems with contracts.

Cui:

We will not put too much energy into the old main chain. We are now concentrating on the main chain upgrade. We will complete the upgrade of the main chain in middle of the winter, and by summer, we expect to reap the rewards of our work. Our new main chain will offer stronger contract performance, greatly improved ease of use, and scalability. Secondly, we will build a more complete account system. We are committed to share technical information and promotional materials with the community.

Q23: How does Achain compete with other cross-chains? Can Achain’s cross-chain be tightly integrated with ACT? What is the progress of the cross-chain? Is there a design error in cross-chain? If it’s wrong, do you want to correct it early?

Cui:

I will answer these cross-chain questions together. Due to market changes and other considerations we had an internal discussion and decided to upgrade the main chain first. Admittedly cross-chain is definitely a big trend, but we realize this feature is a bit early. Our cross-chain plans are much loftier than the market demand, which lowers the value of our investment. We believe there will be little recognition from the market if we deliver this feature at present. During this cold winter, we will concentrate on building the Achain ecology, and then prepare for the next wave to ensure better market results and adoption.

Q24: Will you provide a list of team members and Achain’s published partners?

Cui:

Our community members visit us regularly. I can assure you that our team size and organizational ability is first-class in the industry. Visitors to Achain formulate their own conclusions. I think it is more convincing to hear the testimony of our community members than to hear my opinion.

Q25:How does Achain attract developers to join the community and how do you plan to complete the decentralization of the development team?

Cui:

During this relatively low market we are preparing for the future by working quickly to both launch Achain’s new main chain and attract developers to create a larger development community. I have always insisted that we should heavily focus on the technical community for future growth, especially when when the market is not good,

Q26: How many people are there in the Achain development team? Are there any foreigners?

Cui:

Our full-time team averages 50 people. In addition there are part-time volunteers, and we also have close friends overseas.

Q27: Following Zhao Meijun’s departure from the team, does Achain’s underlying code still need to be rewritten? How many core members are still left?

Cui:

I previously described the core team. Our main chain upgrade has nothing to do with Zhao Meijun, as he does not write code. This is an unfounded rumor.

Q28: Many still have questions about Achain’s transparency about the team. Should you make the team information public to allow for more interaction?

Cui:

As you well know, I am a public representative of the project. Everyone knows that at different moments, public figures confront pressures that others might not be able to bear. Consider also that market downturn could lead to insults and personal attacks on team members. As a leader, I know how to deal with such issues, but not everyone has the same level of tolerance. I don’t think that employees or team members should be asked to confront such threats. As the founder of Achain, I am responsible to the community and the team. I will try my best not ask others to face the media, because the media itself exerts huge pressure.

Q29: What is Achain’s goal next year?

Cui:

Next year is 2019, 2018 has not yet ended. What to do next year in 2019 is to take the time to lay foundations, to build, and to prepare to seize opportunities as they present themselves..

Q30: Are there plans to address DApp development stagnation?

Cui:

In addition to Achain, we have built ALabs. ALabs is involved in many important blockchain projects. It is also a very important revenue-generating entity, with many developers and resources. My plan is to enrich the Achain ecology by importing many of the resources that ALabs has at its disposal.

Q31: What are next steps in Achain development?

Cui:

I foresee widespread adoption around mid-2020, about one and a half years from now. The most important tasks at hand are development and community building. The simple plan I think is to upgrade the new main chain, and then unswervingly continue to build the community.

Q32: Has Achain fulfilled Mr. Meng’s ambitions? If not, what remains to be done? Will personal attacks on community individuals change the founder’s goals?

Cui:

I have no issues with the direction of Achain and the evolution of blockchain technologies in general. Early projects get such high attention and community support, this innate and unique advantage is really unmatched by later projects. I have endured personal attacks, and on two occasions at least, the threats have been serious. Frankly, I am used to it, and they change neither my ambitions nor intentions.

Q33: What’s the relationship between Achain and ALabs?

Cui:

Achain and ALabs are actually two organizations. Achain is a blockchain platform that launched in 2017 and that has been running for 16 months. ALabs is a blockchain laboratory that does not invest in itself. Achain is not an incubator for ALabs. Alabs is an organization focused on research and development; the research results of the laboratory contribute to both Achain and other related projects. Our aim is to grow ALabs into a global and reputable blockchain laboratory that plays an important role in the evolution of the blockchain industry and that at the same time extends benefits to the Achain main chain.

Q34: Are you satisfied with the development of Achain now?

Cui:

I am certainly not satisfied. We must continue to work hard. I am not satisfied from either subjective or objective viewpoints, so we must continue to work hard.

Q35: There is a rumor that the core team has been dissolved. Is there a stable core technical team?

Cui:

I assure you that our team is very stable and mature. The team has been maintaining the main chain for a lengthy period of time with no major problems. ALabs is also managed by a strong and stable team. On all fronts, we are involved in many well-known projects. There is no need to worry about the technical team.

It appears that I have answered all the questions. I have not addressed each question, because some submissions repeated questions that I already addressed or simply expressed frustration without asking a question. I will be available for further discussion until 8:20. Also, I don’t use QQ often, so the queries or messages to me on that platform may not be addressed. If you have feedback, questions, or suggestions, please contact our volunteers or customer service representatives via email. Please conduct your conversation in QQ if you wish to express your emotions.

I understand that this is a difficult moment, but I’m confident we can work together and build an excellent community. Spring is sure to come. Thank you for your continued support. I look forward to our discussions in the future. Farewell Achain Community.