Cui Meng, founder of Achain, recently held a live audio AMA with the Achain community on the QQ chat group. Before taking questions from the public, Cui addressed a range of topics including the Achain roadmap and decentralization. The discussion was transcribed by Achain community volunteer Wen Qing and then translated by members of the Achain team.

The AMA transcription is divided into three sections:

Section 1: Cui Meng, founder of Achain, summarized achievements during “Singularity,” the first stage of Achain’s long-term roadmap.

Section 2: Cui Meng discussed Achain’s goals for the next stage of Achain’s roadmap, called “Galaxy,” and beyond.

Section 3: Q&A session between Cui Meng and community members.

I. Achain achievements during “Singularity” (Stage 1 of long-term roadmap)

As planned, Achain has completed the Singularity Network and is entering the second phase of development, Galaxy. I will review our achievements during Singularity in terms of: technology, ecosystem, community, and partnerships.

Regarding technology, Achain launched the main network in July 2017. Achain’s core developer team had more than 30 members and several part-time developer teams. The peak value of transaction throughput was, upon launch, 1000 TPS. Our main technical tasks post-mainnet included smart contract optimization, multi-asset development, developer toolkits, Achain wallets (PC wallets, light wallets, etc.), and system support.

There are already 120+ smart contracts and 60+ Dapps in the Achain ecosystem. The well-known ones include Kcash, SelfSell, LinkEye and Vex, among others. Achain also operates as a Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) provider, creating blockchains for other projects. Achain has developed six blockchains, with more to be announced in time.

The Achain community is thriving. There are more than 600,000 token holders and over 2 million community members, from greater than 30 countries and regions. On social media, Achain has more than 280,000 followers. Achain community members have been extraordinarily active. They have contributed to the education and growth of the community, the planning and organizing of events, and they have facilitated contacts for partnerships with exchanges. The Achain team is grateful to our global community, with whom we look forward to strengthening our bond.

Regarding partnerships, there are now more than 20 exchanges that work with Achain, and many of them, like Huobi, OKex, Kucoin and HitBTC, are globally prominent. Importantly, thanks to votes from local community members, Achain is about to launch on Indodax, Southeast Asia’s largest exchange. Our success in listing with Indodax demonstrates what a strong and motivated community we have. But the Achain community also extends to enterprises. In our first stage, we collaborated with a number of companies, including the iCenter of Tsinghua University, the Chinese community of Android Studio, Google, the ACCESS Association of Singapore, GongXinBao, GMGC, Mico, and Pundi X. These are, of course, some of the best-known institutions and teams in the tech industry.

II. Forward to the “Galaxy Network” (Stage II of the long-term roadmap) and Beyond.

Initially, we coined the term “Fork Network” to describe the Achain blockchain. But this expression is not quite accurate, and Achain is better understood as a parallel blockchain network. All Achain blockchains, meaning the original Achain blockchain and the six that have been developed by Achain, are equal. Though each may have different labor distribution, there is no hierarchy. All Achain based blockchains, like the original Achain blockchain, contribute to both the Achain community and the blockchain industry as a whole.

We have taken four important steps towards the development of the parallel network. The first step was a multi-chain network, for which we generated a series of parallel blockchains. These parallel blockchains will be integrated into the interoperable networks that will be implemented in the third stage of our roadmap. The second step was to improve single-chain performance, focusing on features like capacity expansion. Third, we prepared a range of customized upgrade solutions to address real-life blockchain application scenarios. Fourth, we further developed the contractual sub-chain that supports smart-contracts.

We consider ourselves pioneers of the parallel blockchain network development model. New chains distributed on the Achain blockchain network can duplicate the Achain blockchain, or they can be different. Our flexible model allows everyone to publish their own blockchain according to their specific needs. In some cases, a customized blockchain may even improve on the original Achain blockchain.

Our ultimate goal is to interconnect different Achain-based blockchains to create a massive data-sharing network of blockchains. Such a network will, I believe, transform the way we currently conceive of platforms as independent, isolated entities.

From the moment of establishment of the Achain Foundation, we have consistently adhered to an open and transparent principle that applies to all participants, institutions, and the community. We are focused on meeting our goals, and we constantly strive to improve our technology, our practices, and our communications. I value this opportunity to interact with you and look forward to answering your questions. As always, the Achain team welcomes all feedback.

Before opening up to a general Q&A session, however, I would like to address broad questions about Achain’s nodes and the network TPS, subjects around which there is much false speculation and incomplete information.

The Achain main network was launched in July 2017, and the network has generated 2.9 million blocks without any major incident. The platform has been overall, both stable and secure. For consensus, 99 agents were selected based on the RDPoS mechanism. These 99 agents, whose reliability is ensured by a range of optimization mechanisms, jointly account for Achain’s main network.

All of this information can be obtained from the Achain’s command interface. For the sake of accessibility, and to enable users to easily learn more about the network, we plan to include add this network monitoring functionality to the browser and the wallet. Since the main network launch, all of our nodes are hosted by the Achain Foundation, and all revenues from block generation are awarded to the foundation for the further development and promotion of Achain.

Our ambition is to be best in breed. To this end, we plan to soon publish the plan for node distribution and to implement in October. In the meantime, we will upgrade the Achain main network, integrating concepts and functionalities at the forefront of blockchain technology. At the conclusion of the third stage of our roadmap, multiple blockchains will be connected through interoperable networks to form a parallel network or multi-chain network. In this complex and very large blockchain network-system, the bottleneck and application issues that now confront blockchain platforms will be resolved.

Many users have asked about TPS. On normal hardware, in other words on conventional rather than on specialized equipment, the Achain parallel network TPS is 1000+. More precisely it is 1000*N where N is the number of parallel chains on the network. High concurrency solves the TPS problem. The more parallel chains there are, the faster the network.

I wish also to address questions about the foundation’s ACT address, which was changed out of a security concern for hardware devices. We are working now to fulfill our pledge to be transparent and to make the address public. More specifically, we are working on a plan whereby all members of the community, whether you hold ACT or not, can submit an email address and receive information about both the address and expenses to the account. We will also launch a mobile app that will offer a notification service with similar functionality.

I hope that this sufficiently addresses some of your general concerns. Let’s move on to the Q&A session.

III. Q&A with the Community

Community: What benefits or resources do Achain project partners and new projects bring to the Achain main network?

Cui Meng: Let me enumerate three ways Achain partners, who are also members of our community, contribute to the network. First is token issuance. Virtually anyone can issue a token and a smart contract based on Achain’s blockchain network. This alone increases the recognition and popularity of the Achain blockchain and smart contract platform. Second, recognition attracts users who interact with both partners and Achain. Third, each contract will be charged a commission of 0.01 ACT. Taken together, the net gain of these three factors is far greater than the transaction fee.

But let’s be clear: token issuance and smart contract development is nothing new, and Ethereum does this already. What sets Achain apart is the capacity to duplicate and distribute chains. This parallel chain network architecture resolves many blockchain project and development problems. This distribution also increases our user-base. When a project launches on the network and forms a community or an audience, people will know it is based on Achain, and our brand awareness grows. Such awareness will then gradually convert some of these users to ACT holders. By helping others develop on the Achain blockchain network, we gain in contributors to the Achain community, and everyone profits.

The smart contract functionality that I alluded to is something we have not yet implemented. Achain partners will be able to offer users smart contract services that we are planning to roll out soon.

Community: My question pertains to the ABCT fork of Achain. What is the relationship between the now renamed AOA and Achain? The AOA and ACT white papers make no mention of it. At present, the competition for market share on the main chain seems fierce. If the team has another main chain to work on, does it mean that their focus is split?

Cui Meng: Aurora and Achain are two different projects with two different teams. Of course, Achain significantly supported the Aurora project in its early stage. Some users claim that the Aurora team abandoned Achain to create another main chain. This is simply not true. Aurora is independent of Achain, and all Achain team members continue working on the Achain blockchain. Achain does not work on Aurora, and I do not work for Aurora. To understand Achain and Aurora going forward, consider that Achain is primarily a chain distribution network whose biggest offering is a service that helps others distribute their own blockchain. Aurora is focused on offering improved, higher-speed smart contracts. Achain and Aurora offer completely different core services. The value propositions of either are not the same.

Community: The high concurrency advantage of Achain seems less obvious as other platforms increase their TPS. When will Achain demonstrate the advantage of its ecosystem, and how can we outperform Ethereum over the next three years?

Cui Meng: I’ve already said a little bit about TPS. The Achain single-chain system is designed for relatively inexpensive, and conventional hardware, and it is capable of 1000+ TPS. But the parallel network that we propose consists of multiple blockchains, each at 1000+. If there are N blockchains, then the TPS is 1000*N. Concurrency therefore vastly increases our transaction throughput. Our proposed concept of the parallel network solves not only the TPS problem but also a range of issues in blockchain application scenarios. From this perspective, our TPS is competitive with other platforms. But this said, we continuously work to innovate novel technical solutions that improve the performance, technical characteristics, and adaptability of the Achain blockchain network.

Community: Why does the A-Ecosystem project say nothing about Achain, and why is it developing its own chain, one that may compete with Achain?

Cui Meng: Note first that each project, A-ecosystem and Achain, refer to themselves as blockchain projects. Early on, a project may be ERC-20, ATP1.0 protocol, NEO protocol, or QTUM protocol. Early-stage projects issue tokens on such protocols, but then later, as planned all along, develop their own blockchain. This is how many blockchain projects work. At Achain, we encourage projects to move beyond the token stage and to publish their own blockchains if they see opportunities to solve real-world problems. This is the right way to go about our business. Many projects do not advertise that they launched on Achain or that they received our support. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that Achain collaborates with other projects, and that those projects succeed. The net result is that people become more aware of what Achain offers.

Achain cannot be like Ethereum and grant access to every technology enthusiast wishing to issue their own smart contracts and tokens off of open-source code. The smart contract function of Achain isn’t yet publicly accessible. Our current standard practice proceeds in two stages. In the first stage, smart contracts are released and tested in the test chain before being transplanted to the main chain. In the second stage, in a parallel network, we gradually open that smart contract function to all nodes. The implementation of the infrastructure for this second stage is provisionally scheduled for October.

Community: EOS hosted a hacking contest, and the Nebula Chain also held a Dapp development contest. Both offered winners significant rewards and both projects earned good publicity as a result. If the Achain platform is so mature, why hasn’t Achain hosted similar technology-related events or competitions?

Cui Meng: It is true that Achain has never held such a Dapps developer contest before. But at the same time, the number of Dapps and smart contracts on Achain is greater than 99% of all other projects. As far as I see it, we are second only to Ethereum, and it is a fact that Achain technology has a good reputation in the industry. This said, community members have asked about this before, and we have discussed it. We have agreed to host a global developer competition in Q4, after we have completed nodes distribution. This will expand Achain’s influence and help us to reach even more developers.

Community: Mr. Cui, you once said that community is the essence of the blockchain. What would your ideal Achain community be like? How do you plan to build a better Achain community?

Cui Meng: I have thought about this at length, and as I’ve suggested before, community spirit begins with sharing interests and establishing broad consensus. It then matures through intense collaboration. The essence of blockchain technology is community, sharing, and collaboration. Achain is founded on this ethos, and we seek to build a community that is transparent, open, and fair. This is our ultimate goal.

Second, we strive to enable all members of the community to participate. This means having both the right to know and more importantly, the right to express oneself.

Third, we cultivate an approach that motivates our members to contribute to our common cause, and that allows them to then see the results of their involvement. Community members should not only participate, but they should see the concrete results of their efforts. For Achain community members, seeing one’s ideas come to fruition strengthens our common bond.

On a minor point, I’ll quickly add that we’ve just received the first batch of our Achain T-shirts. They are fantastic and we will soon share them with the community.

Community: Is Achain’s lock-up plan ongoing?

Cui Meng: The Achain lock-up plan is a loyalty program that rewards long-term holders of ACT. It is our way of giving back to the community. The loyalty program will continue, unless we find a better way to reward the community.

Community: I would like to ask whether Achain has audited expenditures, Will Achain make a public announcement about its financial situation as the Quantum project has done?

Cui Meng: The Achain Foundation has not conducted an audit. As I suggested, anyone will be able to submit an email address to receive information about our expenditures. Everyone can also consult the blockchain browser to determine spending. We are working to find a company or credible team to audit the foundation, and until that process is complete, we will transparently share information about our expenses.

Community: What can the ACT coin do?

Cui Meng: ACT can be used to issue tokens, to publish smart contracts, and to distribute blockchains on the Achain network. These three actions consume ACT and increase demand through scarcity for the coin.

As a mature public chain, Achain continually strives to enhance its position in this new era of blockchain economies. The process of building a public chain like Achain does not end after you write code. I have often cited the quote: “You can copy my code, but you can’t copy my community.” The Achain community may not be as large as Ethereum, but that is because not anyone can issue a token or smart contract on our platform. But the result is that our community leads in brand and in the quality of its applications. I should also add that we have the lead in technology. From what I see both at home and abroad, Achain has the strongest team and the most advanced underlying public chain technology.

Community: Why did Crypto Dogs fail?

Cui Meng: We are the world’s second blockchain platform to launch encrypted pets. Unfortunately, users judged our Crypto Dogs to be relatively unsuccessful. Given that this encrypted game was basically a trial, I think that it was inevitable to encounter problems. The key for us is to learn from the experience and most of all, to improve. Ethereum’s Crypto Cats similarly failed after it went viral for a little while, and it now barely survives. But in terms of Achain, we are asking ourselves what we need to do better. Looking to the future, we have found partners to develop games based on Achain, and these relationships attest to our influence in the industry.

Community: Can you add a ranking function to token address?

Cui Meng: Yes, we will forward the request to the Achain browser developers. This is in fact part of our plan, and we will look to implement it as quickly as possible.

Community: Is there a plan to list Achain on Binance?

Cui Meng: We note that this is a frequent question and plan to list with them. We have submitted an application and are in communication with Binance, but no specific schedule has yet been determined.

Community: Can you address transparency and spending by the team?

Cui Meng: We are working to address spending via email updates, as I suggested earlier, and will implement more advanced tools to further increase transparency, which is one of our core values.

Community: Why don’t current market prices and values reflect our leading technology?

Cui Meng: I don’t know how to answer this question. I am confident that our hard work will win market acceptance in the future.

Community: Achain updates on Weibo are not timely. Many people in the Chinese mainland use Weibo for news and updates. Will the team work on more frequently posting to Weibo?

Cui Meng: Some users claim that because I updated Weibo more frequently last year, the price topped, and that because I do not now update Weibo as frequently, the price has fallen. I don’t actively use social networks like Weibo or WeChat. I can post more frequently to Weibo if it is helpful for the community.

Community: What impact does the China Central Television report on blockchain have?

Cui Meng: I saw the discussion of ACT in the report, which is both gratifying and worrying. We are a model example of a platform with usable applications that address real-life problems. However, the price of ACT may not yet reflect our successes.

Community: The SMC team has abandoned its operation and us. Can you please help?

Cui Meng: First of all, Achain is an open source public chain. Any blockchain project can be developed on Achain. We cannot control how these projects are made and how they operate. Like Ethereum, we are a platform with several hundred projects that we do not manage. But since the issue has arisen here, we will communicate with the SMC team about their operations, and we will urge them to communicate with you.

Community: What institutional investors does Achain have?

Cui Meng: Achain launched last year. We received investments from outside the blockchain industry as there were basically no institutions inside the industry at that time.

Community: Asch’s cross-chain has been released. How is Achain doing on cross-chain technology?

Cui Meng: Our parallel network is in development, and we have a preliminary technical solution for cross-chain technology. We are testing prototypes and will share our results with the community once we have finalized our solution.

Community: What about token prices?

Cui Meng: I have been closely watching the price of ACT. But as founder, I am not in a position to express my views, which may have an unfair impact on price.

Cui Meng: That will be all for today. Thank you very much. Please note that we are working to develop solutions that enable our community members to easily answer questions or offer feedback. We look forward to holding more dialogues like this