Ask Me Anything (AMA) with iOlite.io - Smart Contracts in Any Language - A Steemit Exclusive

Six weeks ago I attended a two-day crypto conference in Amsterdam (DagVanDeCrypto) and got to meet a lot of interesting people and projects. I kept in contact with a few of them that I found particularly interesting and one of them is a project called iOlite.io. They recently launched their new website so I thought it would be interesting to do another deep dive into the project and ask them some questions and share the information here on Steemit.

Below you find all the info in the form of an Ask Me Anything (AMA) post. Answers were given by several members of the team including CEO Alfred Shaffir, Marketing Manager and business development Hosam Mazawi, Co-Founder & CTO Dmitry Kuzminov, and digital publishing editor Travis Byrne.

Enjoy!

AMA with the iOlite team

Q: Let’s start with the basics. What is iOlite in one sentence?
A: You can think of iOlite as a trainable language-translator API on the blockchain, i.e. you can program in any language (including natural ones such as English) which can then output to any desired programming language (like Ethereum Solidity).

Q: Cool! And how will the project make the world a better place?
A: Initially, iOlite will be providing a solution to the current barriers that people and businesses face when writing smart contracts. They will now be able to write these in plain English. In the future, some day it would be very easy to imagine iOlite playing an integral role in how we communicate/interact with machines and learn to make AI more sentient.

Q: What is the origin of the name of the project, iOlite?
A: It shares the same name as the gemstone, which has a history of being known as a ‘viking’s compass’.

Q: Where are you based and where is your project officially registered?
A: iOlite has representations in USA, Germany, Ukraine, Poland and Israel. The company is registered in Estonia, and our management team is located in Israel.

Q: Can you tell something about the current team, like size and specialties?
A: Our CEO, Alfred Shaffir, is the founder of a project called Polycoin which also utilizes smart contracts in a way to bridge gaps, like iOlite. Dmitry Kuzminov, our CTO and master of reverse engineering, has over 20 years experience in fields such as software development, design & architecture, R&D, project management, etc. He also has over 8 years of blockchain experience. Vladyslav Makarian is our core developer. He is a software engineer, smart contract expert, and has a passion for blockchain & IoT.

One thing about iOlite’s entire team (13 members and 9 advisors) is that everyone communicates positively with each other, and there is a strong sense of trust and honesty. This is very important to us as we wish to promote a positive community, which is integral to the platform’s success.

Q: Time for the most popular question. Why does your project need a blockchain?
A: There are two main reasons why iOlite requires blockchain: 1) iOlite requires a huge database, and since this is a community toolset, it requires a decentralized database, which can be securely accessed by any and everyone in the iOlite network. 2) We need a compensation mechanism for the contributors who teach the iOlite FAE (Fast Adaptation Engine) different languages.

Q: And the other popular question. Why does your project need a token?
A: Similar to how things are working in the Ethereum network, iOlite also requires “gas” to be used for every transaction done over the network. In addition, we need to make sure that our contributors (experts) are compensated for their support in teaching the FAE new languages. Additional economics is having authors of Smart Contracts share their work for fees in iLT tokens.

Q: Who is responsible for the quality of the written code (e.g. if any written and used smart contract turns out to be wrong)?
A: The code libraries in iOlite have two streams. There is code in the main library which is manually approved by iOlite foundation members, and there is more “at-your-own-risk” code available in the “staging” stream. The staging process is a clever system used to analyse metrics (such as code usage, interchangeability, developer reputation ranking, etc.) in new structures proposed by contributors. This is so that foundation members get accurate market-backed data for their considerations to approve these terms into the base library.

The burden of responsibility will always be upon the author of a smart contract, although there are many safety-check resources available in iOlite, such as: unit-testing, contributor auditing, and usage statistics of code. Early on, while being much less true for formal languages, it would be wise to make sure that contracts written in a natural language are reviewed by a developer. But this is expected to diminish as a ‘requirement’ the more our platform becomes adopted and optimized.

The short answer is that we are providing technology to supply documents of intention. Traditional financial and time costs are still incredibly reduced whichever level you are entering from.

Q: Why would I use iOlite as a traditional business?
A: Because it will give you the ability to write smart contracts in any natural language. You will save money on hiring a blockchain developer, and you will be able to implement a new cost-saving & automation technology, in any languages that you and everyone else at your business understands.

Q: Why would I devote my time as a programmer on the iOlite platform when there is high demand for my skills elsewhere?
A: There are many incentives for various programmers. iOlite, as a decentralized knowledge hub of collaboration, is very attractive for researchers and academics. For career developers (researchers too), they can choose their own work by contributing code they decide, and then get paid every time someone uses their expressions.

Q: Can you tell more about where the tokens come from that are used to reward to programmers for writing code?
A: Sure, it is a topic which will certainly become more interesting over time. Our initial platform will be piggybacking on Ethereum as its inflation model satisfies our current needs. Because iOlite’s code and smart contracts are stored in the blockchain, programmers will be compensated based on frequency of their signed contributions in a mined block. This is in part due to a mining contract in the FAE, 5% of the mining reward is allotted proportionately for fees; distributed to the programmer(s) of code used. There will also be PoS implementation for ‘promoters’ to receive something like a royalty, as they have an important role of locking tokens to new structures in the staging process. This acts as an anti-spam filter plus an additional market demand measuring tool.

The important understanding here is that these fees are paid out through mining rewards, not directly by users, only complete smart contracts will have a set-cost determined by its author.

In Phase II of iOlite, once the FAE is self-sustaining and improving through contributors, we will be working on supporting AI based PoW algorithms which could receive fees according to usage of information that was generated by the miner. We are aiming to reach the coveted model of transaction fees providing the total energy needed for the system. This will all be defined in a new white paper when that time comes.

Q: What do you see as your biggest two challenges for the coming 12 months?
A: 1) Maintaining community interest, and 2) establishing new mainstream collaborations in academic and commercial sectors.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to share that is interesting to know your project?
A: It is encouraging to know that while we are fixing the smart contract barriers problem first, iOlite has endless potential for many other applications in the future. Being community oriented, we will steer this potential towards solving problems based on our users’ needs. The end goal is a decentralized universal translator.

Q: If somebody has a specific question, what is the best way to contact you?
A: That would be email: [email protected].

Q: What is the most frequently used word or bad joke at your office?
A: If you want to get Richard upset just send him When Lamboooo, When moooon … it’s also the best way to get his attention.

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That was it for the Q&A. I would like to thank the iOlite team for their cooperation and the time they have taken to answer my questions. Let’s wrap up with some more general information :-)

For the people who are interested to contribute, here are the details about the upcoming Token Generation Event (TGE):

• Public presale (25% bonus): March 20th - March 27th
• TGE Phase 1 (15% bonus): March 27th - April 2nd
• TGE Phase 2 (10% bonus): April 2nd - April 9th
• TGE Phase 3 (no bonus): April 9th - April 14th

More information:
Website: https://iolite.io/
Medium: https://medium.com/@iolite
Telegram: https://t.me/iolite
Twitter: https://twitter.com/iOliteLabs

I hope you enjoyed this post. Since it is the first one in this form, don’t hesitate to leave me any feedback in the comments about the type of (expected) questions, style, or just general comments. It is highly appreciated :-)

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Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor, trader or developer. I am just a blockchain & cryptocurrencies enthusiast. Make sure you do your own research, draw your own conclusions and do not invest any money that you cannot afford to lose.