20th December, 2022 — One of the reasons Bitrue hosts AMAs is so that our community will gain a better understanding of projects listed by our exchange. In this “Ask Me Anything” session, our special guest is the Executive Director of XDC Foundation, Billy Adams. XDC is one of the tokens recently listed on Bitrue.
In case you missed out, this was how the Q&A session went
Q1. Could you provide a brief overview of the XDC Network?
We are a foundation launched as part of the community to support the growth and development of projects on the network. We mainly focus on assisting Layer Twos and helping them gain access to the tools that they need. In essence, we are here to build the ecosystem.
Q2. What are some of the primary use cases and capabilities of the XDC Network?
We are a Layer One EVM-compatible smart contracts platform with a focus on integrating enterprise-grade solutions and trade finance. We have a range of other projects and Layer Twos that have launched on our network. Our real focus is to make the network scalable, fast, and inexpensive which will allow a lot of these projects to consider us as a great network to build on top of. With that, we see ourselves as a premier blockchain in the trade finance industry.
We were the first to work with partners like Tradeteq, who actually created on our chain. Tradeteq has launched TRADA, TRADA Token is the first trade finance-backed security token, allowing you to invest in real-world assets. Also, back in September 2021, InFactor was launched in the trade space where we had packaged together a group of invoices into an NFT. These are some of the major highlights for us in terms of what we’ve done on the enterprise level. Impel also announced that bitcoin (BTC) has been added to its ISO 20022 financial messaging API as optional collateral for making payments on XDC Network.
Also, other similar tokenization or asset-based platforms are launching on the network as we move forward. These are generally no-code platforms for the creation of digital assets and financial instruments, DeFi protocols, etc. Platforms as such create the opportunity for digital assets to be created and the opportunity for people to own fractionalized assets.
In terms of XDC’s utility, we’ve been at the forefront of supporting these initiatives by building the network. The XDC token is the underlying utility token that powers the hybrid blockchain. The XDC token acts as a settlement mechanism for dApps built on the network. Partners running applications on top of the XDC Network include TradeFinex, a peer-to-peer decentralized platform for Trade Finance originators to distribute deals to a wide range of bank or non-bank funders. Origin, a Smart Contract Tokenization platform that enables brands and organizations to seamlessly create fixed-income instruments without the need for code, is also a partner on our network.
Q3. Can you talk about some of the projects built on XDC and what industries they are in?
To look at it in a couple of different ways, the need for trade finance across the globe is pretty significant. There are major gaps in the ability of SMEs to finance their businesses. This can mean a T-shirt seller or a farmer. Access to capital is very difficult for a lot of small businesses across the globe. Depending on where you are, it’s even more difficult in a lot of other areas.
The idea behind tokenization and the ability for there to be transparency when a company in one part of the world wants to sell products to somebody across the globe. You will have the ability to take that information, digitize it, and have standards around it.
For people to have confidence in that information, have it made available on the blockchain, and be able to then tokenize it is a huge benefit to businesses across the globe in terms of speed of transaction, the ability to have money, and the ability to operate.
Right now, the traditional banking system is obviously fairly risk-averse. The opportunity lies therein that tokenization can be available for people on the other side of these transactions. You will also be able to support and invest in companies across the globe and to do it in a very stable and regulated way. This is the direction where we really see things going. We are currently working through some of the challenges that we have in the industry today.
Q4. What are some of the major accomplishments the XDC Network has had in the last 1–2 years?
Everything is a slow process when you want to really build something the right way. We have a number of projects as an example that are or have launched as a Layer Two on our chain. We are focused on the things that are actually needed in the real world that can actually be brought to blockchain or allow blockchain to move closer to what is happening in the real world. Essentially, we want to bring the ability to transact on-chain in a decentralized way for any project or community to grow and participate in.
Just to name a few, here are some of the major projects that have launched on our network:
- TRADA launched on the XDC network as a trade finance security token.
- Securrency deployed its proprietary Digital Asset Composer on the XDC Network. It is a unique no-code platform for the creation of digital assets, sophisticated financial instruments as smart contracts on blockchain networks, and crowd-sourced financial engineering in an open ecosystem of value. It will allow the XDC Network community to easily compose financial instruments and entire DeFi protocols, fractionalize real-world assets (RWAs), and create highly customized utility NFTs.
- Plugin, a decentralized oracle platform, provides cost-effective solutions for any smart contract on the XinFin ecosystem.
- XDCNFT is the NFT marketplace on the XinFin Blockchain and is part of BlocksWorkz LTD, a UK-based technology. The XDCNFT Marketplace is one of the quickest, smartest, and most anticipated secure Marketplace on the XRC20 Blockchain.
- Impel brought Fluent’s US+ Stablecoin to the XDC Network, a Layer 1 blockchain, for more than just cross-border payments.
- Fathom is a borrow & earn platform launching now where users can stake XDC and tokenized real-world assets (RWA) as collateral to borrow the over-collateralized price-stable currency FXD. Fathom will bring other initiatives like sustainable liquidity protocol, that will be integrating, staking, wallets, tokenization and analytics.
They’re actually doing some pretty amazing work on their own as well in terms of how they’re expanding the work that they’re doing. We have a number of NFT marketplaces which have also launched on-chain and they’re continuing to grow and develop. DEXs or other types of applications seem to be growing as well. There are also stablecoins that are coming soon. Some of the algorithmic challenges in stablecoins have come up and it’s really a protocol that’s looking to offer something that’s significantly more stable in the marketplace. All of the stablecoins that have been launched on our chain are backed by real dollars, real assets.
There’s a new foray for the network itself. We see the growth of the direction of things coming in 2023. Users will see a move to quality in terms of what we believe is going to happen in the future and that’s a space where we really want to participate or at least have the network in a position where projects like this can launch on top of the network and execute the types of things that they want to do in this space.
Q5. What is the outlook for the network in 2023 and beyond?
We’ve been through now a couple of different pretty major shocks that have occurred this year. That had actually given in a lot of ways opportunities for projects that are doing real work to actually take a look at what we’ve been focusing on and where we really want to be going.
We’re largely focused on one part of what’s happening within the ecosystem in terms of developing the community and the involvement of layer twos. We’re not like a traditional foundation like the Ethereum Foundation, we are really contributors to the network along with others as well. There will be other similar entities globally that are likely to pop up like us that are supporting things regionally.
We launched out of the Western Hemisphere trying to support activities on the network 24/7 in terms of supporting the network. Xinfin launched its project out of Asia. We were really trying to support XinFin in terms of work that needed to be done 24/7 as this is a 24/7 industry.
We are carefully looking into what types of activities we can do to really support the ecosystem’s growth. We’ve done that in a lot of ways throughout 2022. Since 2021, there was a tremendous amount of work we had done around developing the ecosystem. 2022 is obviously a year of somewhat interruption but we continue to keep the path of how we can move forward effectively, and essentially, you want to be a project that continues to drive utility. A lot of our focus right now is on building out a lot of the development capabilities on the network.
The XDC community is also part of what we have been doing in the foundation, there are processes that are being put in place for projects to come to the Community. They can look for help, potential grants, or other things to work on the network to build and develop some type of service offering for Layer Two projects on the network.
We have XDC.dev as a platform that has been created (not by us). We’re participants on that platform, just like everybody else. People are constantly posting there, are active, and looking at how we can keep the conversations going and kind of direct things in ways where projects have a clear understanding of what they need to do in order to build on top of the network and what tools are available. If there aren’t tools in place, we look at what can we do to try to create those tools and put them in place.
Q6. Do you have any concluding remarks for everyone?
We’ve grown tremendously since the time that I had actually gotten initially involved in the project. Back in 2018, I actually started as a Community member. I got into some of the chats and just dove into what the project was all about and I ended up connecting with the founders at that time.
At that point, I tried to find out as much information and bring what was actually real in a lot of cases and blockchain across the board. There are all sorts of assumptions about what projects are doing or when something’s going to happen or what was going to be huge. The reality is that this is a one-day-at-a-time industry. We’re building technology and different chains out there are building in their own way too. So, we’ve taken a community-led approach. We truly are a community-based project. Pretty much most of the people who are working in the ecosystem on a daily basis come from the community. We need the community in order to grow and we seek out the Community to be able to come in and be involved in some way.
I think we’re at a point now where you see that community is much more important than it ever was before. Because you’re dealing with a lot of unknowns in this particular industry and unfortunately a lot of people have been doing things that really destroyed trust. I think the only way trust really gets built is through involvement and the opportunity for people to be involved. And so there’s a lot of different ways in which that can be done.
For example, over time, I’ve gotten messages from people all over the globe who I would communicate with and they would share their stories with me. I remember someone telling me one particular story about how they were not making a living wage. When blockchain came about, we were conducting training platforms to learn code, how to develop, and about blockchain. This particular person actually went out and got some education in it and created a whole career. He was making more money than he had ever made at that point and I think that this is exactly what blockchain has to offer. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, there are opportunities to do things on-chain. It’s just a matter of whether somebody decides to do it or not and then, you know, what they can do to get involved.
I think everybody should know XDC.dev is a great place to go to start communicating with people on a different level. We’re looking at projects that are being proposed and all sorts of different articles that are being put out might about technicalities, bug fixes, etc. There are also bounty opportunities or things like that. So you know, there’s a growing ecosystem and I think also an effort for us, as a community, to continue to become more decentralized as we go. If anyone’s out there and they want to be involved, those are the ways to do it.
Decentralized realization comes with people all over the globe coming together and finding ways to contribute.
In 2022, XDC saw considerable growth & adoption of the #XDCNetwork
As we begin 2023, let’s take a moment to look back at some of the most notable accomplishments made over the past year on XDC’s official Twitter account, xdc.dev, and XDC’s Medium blog.
You can visit these links to learn more about XDC Network and its community:
