Oort (CCN) Computecoin interview: Building the Web3 world with better decentralized data infrastructure

Author: Chen Yiwanfeng, Corn
Interview: Computecoin founder, Dr. MAX LI
With the success of the Ethereum merger, the market has shown a good development trend, and discussions about Web3 have become increasingly heated. Many people speculate that the market will usher in a disruptive revolution. But for the current Web3, the user base and popularity are still facing great limitations.
If we understand Web3 as a new paradigm of network applications where users can manage and use their own data, there are still many difficulties to overcome. For example, we need to truly solve the problems of web2 data monopoly and business power centralization, as well as more talents and institutions investing in web3 technology. More importantly, we need to launch web3 applications that are more attractive than those of web2 giants in order to truly subvert the existing Internet thinking and usher in a new era of the Internet.
Computecoin was born in this context. Computecoin is abbreviated as CCN. Computecoin is a Web3 data infrastructure that can be applied simply and on a large scale. Computecoin adopts a user-centric design and provides a full range of decentralized data solutions that developers and users can quickly master without knowing Web3. Computecoin is supported by hundreds of thousands of nodes around the world, allowing users to enjoy the various advantages of decentralization without compromising speed, scalability or durability.
In this article, Ostrich Blockchain had the honor of interviewing Dr. Max Li of Computecoin to answer everyone’s questions about Computecoin and lead everyone to explore how Computecoin will open a channel to Web3 for Web2 users.
What pain points does Computecoin solve for Web3 infrastructure providers like Filecoin?
Interview transcript
1. It is understood that Computecoin (CCN) is the world's first aggregator of data centers and various computers. What is the specific positioning of Computecoin? Please let Dr. Max Li give us a brief introduction.
Dr. Max Li：
Computecoin’s positioning is essentially to be the data infrastructure for Web3, and this Web3 data infrastructure is to provide users with the complete Web2 user experience. And the entire product performance is the same as Web2. The pain point that Computecoin wants to solve is to enable current Web2 users to easily use the Web3 infrastructure.
2. It is understood that Computecoin provides a unified API interface, allowing Web3.0 applications to be easily and quickly deployed in decentralized computing power and storage networks. So what is the reason that prompted Computecoin to think of using the API interface to break the current deployment dilemma? In addition, what other technologies does Computecoin use to advance the project?
Dr. Max Li：
Providing the same format of API interface as Web2 is to let Web2 users have the experience of Web2, and let Web2 developers seamlessly connect to Web3 cloud services without any learning. The specific implementation means is that the user experience on UX is the same as Google Drive or Baidu Cloud Disk, but the difference is that after the user's file is uploaded, it will automatically enter the decentralized storage network.
The purpose of the API in the same format as Web2 is to allow developers to build their own applications on Computecoin without learning anything new, because most of the current developers are Web2 developers, and the proportion of Web3 developers may not even be 1%. Web2 developers are very familiar with Web2 APIs and SDKs, but Web2 developers need to learn again to develop on the Web3 network, so we provide Web2 developers with the APIs and SDKs they are familiar with. By calling the API, the backend calls a completely decentralized infrastructure.
From a technical perspective, Computecoin is a completely technical company. It has previously obtained two core US patents related to decentralized networks and has great advantages in scientific research and technology. Of course, this is also our technical barrier.
First, if you want to provide users with a completely Web2 user experience, then a lot of work is required technically. As a data infrastructure, Computecoin focuses first on storage, and making the performance of Web3 storage the same as that of Web2 cloud service providers is actually very challenging. Therefore, providing a Web2 user experience is a very challenging technology.
Second, Computecoin aggregates all decentralized storage networks, including Filecoin, Storj, Crust, etc. Aggregation itself is a challenging technology, because each of them has its own main chain, and Computecoin also has its own chain, so being an aggregator is equivalent to connecting all chains, which is what we often call interoperability.
Third, privacy is an important label of Web3 data infrastructure. Web3 must truly return privacy to the public rather than concentrating it in the hands of centralized suppliers, so Computecoin will use many privacy technologies, such as zero-knowledge proofs and other encryption technologies.
Fourth, Computecoin can reduce the overall cost to a very low level through the optimization of the entire network and technology. Compared with the storage cost commonly used at this stage, it can reduce about 70%-80%, or even more. These costs are mainly saved in bandwidth costs. You should know that in data storage, data storage itself does not cost a lot of money, and the bandwidth cost of data upload and download accounts for the majority, accounting for about 90% of the total cost. So how should we make better use of these idle bandwidths to ensure that we can reduce the overall cost? This involves the technical layer, such as load balancing and scheduling algorithms.
3. Currently, the price cost of Web2 cloud services is still relatively high, so Computecoin’s provision of low-cost cloud services to global computing power demanders has become one of the many advantages of Computecoin. So from the user’s perspective, in addition to low prices and strong privacy, what other competitive advantages does Computecoin have compared to traditional cloud service providers?
Dr. Max Li：
Compared with traditional cloud service providers, our biggest competitive advantage is privacy, which is completely absent in traditional cloud services. The second is cost. Computecoin can reduce a lot of costs. Secondly, Computecoin is more stable because we do not have a single point of failure problem. Because it is decentralized, there will be no server downtime problems.
In addition, the security aspect will be better than that of traditional cloud service providers, because centralized cloud servers are all in computer rooms, and many hackers are purposefully attacking these computer rooms. Therefore, centralized service providers will have some data leaks and thefts from time to time. If it is completely decentralized, this situation can be effectively avoided. For example, if we are doing a file storage now, the file will be encrypted by the user terminal after it is uploaded, and then it will be cut into hundreds or even thousands of copies through coding theory, and then stored in hundreds or even thousands of nodes. Each node in the world may only receive one or two copies, which greatly increases the difficulty for hackers to steal files. First of all, hackers do not know which nodes store the fragments of this file. Secondly, even if they know, hackers do not have the right to take these fragments back from these nodes, because they also need private keys to get these files back. So in terms of security, this is a big improvement.
Finally, Computecoin has a better coverage rate because it is decentralized, so there are not too many influencing factors in reality, and it can cover some economically underdeveloped areas. However, the main competitive advantages are cost and privacy.
4. The ultimate goal of Computecoin is to become a growing infrastructure to support and involve all these applications of Web3. So how does Computecoin drive economic growth in the CCN ecosystem? Can you explain the logic of the economic model in this regard in detail?
Dr. Max Li：
In the design of Computecoin, most tokens will be rewarded to computing power and storage providers. There is a core point in the economic model, that is, we will not have blind growth in computing power, because from an economic point of view, a healthy economic model must have a balance between supply and demand, and the entire economic model is spiraling upward, rather than only having a supply side without a demand side.
Therefore, based on the above reasons and many economic models studied, Computecoin finally decided to return to the essence of business, that is, the growth of our total computing power of the entire network is controlled, and it is driven by the demand side. For example, assuming that the entire network currently has 100G of meta-computing power, on average only more than 50% of this 100G of meta-computing power is used by real users. Simply put, 50G of the 100G storage space has been used, then we may expand the total computing power of 100G of the entire network to 150G, and allow new suppliers to come in and contribute another 50G. In other words, the supply side and the demand side must grow together, and the supply side is completely driven by the demand side.
Similarly, if the network has a capacity of 100G at the beginning, but no formal users have joined, then the 100G will remain unchanged and the supply side will not increase. We will continue to develop users, and only after real users come on board will we expand the capacity and expand the entire network to 150 to 200G.
5. Computecoin has a very strong team, including professors from Columbia University and technical directors from Qualcomm Research Institute. I believe that with the efforts of the team, they will definitely present us with excellent products. What are the eye-catching applications of Computecoin at present? Could you please share them with us?
Dr. Max Li：
First of all, Computecoin itself will also develop some ecological applications. On the other hand, Computecoin will also hold hackathons with some partners to encourage the developer community to create applications. As of now, the C developer community has built some applications, such as decentralized DEX and NFT trading market. The biggest difference between the NFT trading market and OpenSea is that OpenSea’s metadata is stored on centralized cloud services or several centralized nodes of IPFS, while Computecoin’s NFT trading market’s metadata is directly stored on Computecoin’s decentralized storage platform DSS, which is decentralized.
In addition, the Computecoin development team is also building a decentralized mailbox, which is to completely remake the Web2 mailbox such as gmail. The user experience is the same, but the mailbox content is stored on DSS. As we all know, the content of current mailboxes, WeChat, etc. is actually completely transparent to the service provider, but the content of decentralized mailboxes is encrypted and stored on DSS. Only the sending and receiving ends of the mailbox can see the content, and no one else can see it. This is impossible for traditional servers.
We have also launched a cloud disk based on decentralized storage, which is similar to Baidu Cloud, that is, a cloud disk service, but completely decentralized. For example, if you want to encrypt and store the photos in your mobile phone, you can directly transfer them using our cloud disk. The whole process and user flow are the same as using Web2 software such as icloud. Just check the photos and upload them directly. In addition, there are also many game applications that have a lot of data that need to be stored, and these data can be directly stored in our DSS platform.
6. In terms of application logic, Computecoin also has backward compatibility, which means that Web2 applications can run on a single powerful Computecoin node. To achieve today’s results, I believe that many difficulties have been overcome in technology and design models. Can you share the problems encountered behind the design of Computecoin and how it was overcome?
Dr. Max Li：
There are certainly many challenges, because we need to provide a user experience for Web2 users. For example, if a user wants to search for a file, they can usually just enter a keyword and the result will appear. However, if it is on other current Web3 storage platforms, you certainly can’t do it. This is the difficulty we have to overcome.
In addition, Computecoin is currently building Deimos, an edge node network, which has several main functions, one of which is fast data query and access. This is purely technical support. We will build this network to achieve fast data search and query.
7. In the current market situation, do you think market fluctuations will affect the development of Computecoin?
Dr. Max Li：
I think the current market does not have a big impact on us, and I even think it is a good thing. Because in a downward market, many unreliable projects will be screened out, so at this time both users and capital will pay more attention to whether the project can solve user pain points in a down-to-earth manner.
In a bull market, everyone likes to hear beautiful stories. If you have a good project, it may be drowned in many stories and fail to develop well. However, in a bear market, everyone returns to the essence of business, and users will become more rational, instead of following the trend like in a bull market. At this time, those who work hard on projects can get more attention and have greater opportunities.
In addition, in a bear market, everyone will definitely pay more attention to product trends. In early September, the Bate public beta version of Computecoin’s decentralized storage product DSS was launched, and everyone’s feedback was very good. The second version of the product will follow soon, with more new features to strive to make the user experience better.
8. How will the emergence of Computecoin change the Web3 infrastructure track? What is the team’s future vision for Computecoin?
Dr. Max Li：
The biggest problem with Web3 right now is that there are no formal paying users. It can also be said that Web3 has not yet gained popularity. Judging from the current market, the user base of the entire Web3 market is very limited, and many Web3 projects cannot gain popularity at all.
Computecoin’s previous survey showed that nearly 97% of ordinary users will encounter more or less difficulties when using Web3 apps, and even using a digital wallet will cause many problems, which is the same for ordinary users and developers. Therefore, I think that in order to truly bring Web3 to the next level, there must be a product like Computecoin that allows Web2 users and developers to easily use Web3 applications. This is the root cause. Otherwise, no matter how good the product is, no matter how good the story is, no one will use it.
This is why Computecoin positions itself as the data infrastructure for Web3. We want to provide users with a complete Web2 user experience and become a channel to Web3. Users and developers do not need to learn anything to enter the world of Web3. Only in this way can we truly accumulate a large number of paying users and return to the true essence of business.
Guest Comments
Dr. Max Li：
At the end of the interview, I would like to share with you some theoretical thoughts about the current environment. First of all, the opportunities of Web3 are very large. We are discussing Web3 now, just like discussing the Internet in 1997. You can imagine discussing the Internet in 1997, looking back at that time. All these big companies like Twitter, Facebook and Alibaba appeared after that. Of course, the cost of education at that time was also very high. At that time, no one understood the concept of the Internet, and many people thought it might be useless. Therefore, the opportunities of Web3 in the later stage are very large, and many well-known Web3 projects will definitely emerge in the next ten or twenty years.
Second, I would like to quote Xiao Feng's point of view: Web3 is not going to revolutionize Web2. Web3 is a product that emerged naturally. There is the so-called evolution. There are many things that are native to Web3, such as the new ecology and new products of NFT, and those that have evolved from Web2, such as the storage track. These can all be redone with Web3, including all of our current social media, whether WeChat or Twitter, which can be redone in a decentralized way to return privacy to every individual user.
Therefore, there will be a group of Web3 native projects that will eventually break through the siege. Maybe one out of 10,000 will slowly grow bigger and stronger. Another part is transformed from Web2. If a project successfully transforms and continues its success in Web2, it will also be a very successful project in Web3. Of course, this transformation is not only about technology transformation, but also includes the company's organizational structure, operating model, etc. In fact, they all need to be transformed once, which is of course normal and is very normal in the development process of such enterprises.
The third point is that, in fact, the biggest problem with the entire ecosystem and various aspects of the Web3 project is that everyone is not focused on the true business essence. What is the so-called business essence? It means that you need to make money in business, your ecosystem and your project need to continue to develop, and you need to have a steady stream of cash flow, and this cash flow cannot be achieved by currency speculation or financing. You need to truly solve the pain points of your customers, and what you do must have paying users. But right now, it seems that no Web3 project has been truly profitable so far (excluding exchanges).
So what is the reason for this situation? Entrepreneurs, including investors, never thought about this project like Web2. Simply put, they did not consider the project from the user's perspective, whether users would really pay and use it. They also did not think about where the users were, how to contact them, and convert them into paying users, and how much the expected benefits would be.
The above ideas are very standard thinking in Web2 startups, but no one seems to discuss them in Web3. The final result is that a lot of money is burned, and although the product is made, no one uses it. Of course, Web3 also has many different and good ideas from Web2, but I think the thinking of returning to the essence of business has not changed.
In my opinion, in the Web3 community today, no matter what role you play, the idea of ​​returning to the essence of business is very weak. People's thinking is more focused on decentralized governance and token economic models, etc. A lot of energy is put on this, but they have not returned to the essence of business to see where my real customers are and what they need, or like Apple, I create demand for you, you don't know what you need, I tell you what you need. I think this includes from product design to use. No one has considered the user experience too much, which is incorrect. That's why our main goal is to penetrate the Web2 user group on a large scale, let Web2 users come in, let developers and end users come in, provide them with a complete Web2 user experience, and let them use Web3 products seamlessly.
The Web3 community, if you add everyone together, is actually only a few million people, which is very small. In the Web2 community, there are probably billions of people around the world. So we need to break out of the community, so how can we break out of the community? That is, your real things should be designed and developed for these billions of people, not just for these millions of people. This is a more fundamental and substantial thing.
Author: Shen Xiaoran@ostrich blockchain