AMA with CEO Dmitry Gerasimov: July 13, 2023

Hi everyone! I’m Dmitry Gerasimov, CEO of Demlabs and the Cellframe project.

The most significant event in the history of our project — we have launched the Cellframe mainnet! We restarted Backbone (the core network of our ecosystem) with a new set of software and configs.

You can now run your masternodes on the Cellframe network and earn validator fees.

So, today, we are holding a special stream dedicated to this event, and now we will tell you all the details!

‌Today we have the following topics:

Mainnet launch and work on related functionality.

Project statistics.

How to launch your masternode.

Launching the bidirectional bridge.

Plans for the development of KelVPN, Node.sys and other projects.

And, Cellframe’s marketing objectives.

Mainnet launch. Functionality

The first topic is Launching the mainnet and working on related functionality.

Let me tell you what has been done on the release candidate since the last stream. Now it is no longer a release candidate — it has become a master version.

• We improved the spam filter;
• Added verification of orders by validity of masternode key signature;
• Ported developments and fixes from the master branch to the release candidate;
• Updated Cellframe Dashboard to make it work with the release candidate version of the node.
• We also finished a new network balancing mechanism;
• Made the final changes to the conditional transactions mechanism;
• Fixed several bugs related to duplicate data during flood synchronization.

‌To show you the development progress visually, we have here a table of gitlab commits for the period from the previous AMA session to the launch of the mainnet:

Cellframe project statistics

‌And now let’s move from the data from the last month to the statistics for the Cellframe project in general.

The Celleframe Network project started in 2017. There were only five employees at the start, and work on the code was done in a closed project. More active work began in 2019. That’s when we appeared on Gitlab, and 14 developers were working on the code base. By the way, you can track early commits from late 2017, so this is verifiable.

In total, 38 developers have participated in building the platform. Some of them continue to work with us, and we are still in touch with the others. In any case, we hope that they are also proud of the product that we were able to create together and continue to develop. This year 26 team members took part in our projects.

‌In total, 73,223.56 hours have been spent on the development of Cellframe projects since 2017, 4,111.62 hours on management, and about 4,000 more hours on design. And these are only the hours that are taken into account in the time logs.

We have calculated that it would take one person more than 100 years of life to do this work alone. 100 years — that is the age of Cellframe at the moment of mainnet launch…

‌In just four years since the start of the Cellframe project on Gitlab (since 2019), 3276 merge requests and 16160 commits have been made. For clarity, we have collected commits for all our projects in a table.

How to run a masternode. mCELL

Moving on. Next in line is another important topic — the launch of the Cellframe masternode. We receive a lot of questions from the community about this.

So what does it take to run a masternode? The first condition is that you must stake tokens for a total amount of at least 10,000 $CELL. By staking, you get special mCELL tokens. They serve as confirmation of your stake on the Cellframe platform and are used only in two cases: to unstake tokens, or to delegate keys and start a masternode.

For every 1000 $CELL you stake, you get 1 mCELL. This means that to run a masternode you will need at least 10 mCELL. When staking, you agree to lock up your tokens in order to gain the ability to delegate your key for verifying blocks.

The more mCELL you use, the greater the weight of your masternode in the consensus. This increases the likelihood that your masternode will sign a new block.

Important note: when starting a masternode, you can use the mCELLs received for different stakes, but you need to carefully consider the unlock period of these tokens. mCELLs will be locked for the duration of the operation of the masternode, and without them you will not be able to unstake and receive your staking rewards, at least for that moment. We will be able to fix this in the future and allow you to receive rewards and unstake during your masternode status.

For now, to receive rewards you will have to revoke the locked mCELLs. By doing this, you will lose the role of the masternode in the network, which means that you will have to connect it again. The easiest way to avoid this is to create a new stake for the duration of the masternode.

‌How to run a masternode: Technical requirements

‌Now let’s discuss the technical requirements for your equipment and network.

In order to run a masternode, you need to have:

Your Device: A home PC, a separate VPS in the cloud, or Raspberry Pi 4, or or Orange Pi will work.

When the masternode is online as a network validator, it participates in the consensus and can receive a commission. The more time you are online, the higher the commission. It’s recommended to be online 24/7 as much as possible.

Your Operating system: Linux or MacOS is required. Better to have Linux for now. We are now debugging the assembly of Cellframe Dashboard for Windows with nested mode inside. We plan to release it in the near future. Cellframe Wallet for Android with the new node is still in development. This will allow you to put up a node on Android, by the way.

‌The hardware requirements for a masternode are generally low. The main thing is to have at least 4 GB of RAM. Video memory does not matter, since only the processor is important for the node.

To make money as a service provider, the requirements for hardware may be different depending on the services themselves. For example, training and running artificial intelligence models will require a video card. For VPN, you will need to have wide broadband.

Another of the main recommendations for the node is the Internet with a minimum speed of 1 MB / s.

The team plans to keep the technical requirements low and optimize the node to reduce them as much as possible.

‌Another important condition for your node is: a public (or white) static IP address.

A dynamic IP address can make it difficult to maintain a masternode if it changes frequently. Because of this, your masternode may fall out of participation in the consensus and lose profit.

You also need to use IPv4 protocol.The ability to use an IP address with IPv6 protocol will be added in the future. It’s practically implemented, and we will finish it in the near term.

Detailed instructions for running a masternode are available on the Cellframe Wiki.

https://wiki.cellframe.net/en/soft/masternode

‌The video instruction is currently in the works and we will post it on our YouTube channel.

Expanding functionality: Launching the bidirectional bridge

‌Now let’s discuss our upcoming plans for developing and expanding the functionality of the network. The next important milestone in the development of our project is the launch of a bidirectional bridge. This will happen at the same time as integration of our native protocols with centralized exchanges.

Now we are clarifying the list of tasks that we need to implement, but we have already identified the most important ones:

• The first is the security check. Over the next months, our team will be conducting a detailed internal code audit. We have already begun this process, but it will continue until we are sure of total safety. Then an external audit will be carried out.
• ‌The second task is to improve performance. In particular, we plan to introduce code for homogeneous sharding (mesh sharding) and hard forks. In this way, we can significantly increase the speed of transactions in the network.
• The third task is to expand functionality. We plan to restart the Cellframe DEX, expand the API for services, and add other new functionality.

We have a new big goal, which means we have a new roadmap! Have a look at the Gantt chart for the functionality we need to add to run a bidirectional bridge

These aren’t the final dates, just approximations. I believe this will end up being shifted, as happened with our development plan for mainnet launch. But it won’t be an endless process, let’s say.

Ecosystem projects. KelVPN

‌‌‌Moving on. The next topic is the development of Cellframe ecosystem projects after the mainnet launch.

First of all, let’s discuss the immediate plans of the KelVPN team. KelVPN, of course, is our decentralized VPN service.

On July 17, on Monday, the KelVPN mainnet will be launched! We congratulate the team, and will continue to inform you about KelVPN’s development.

KEL token holders will be able to run their masternodes to validate transactions on the network. To become a KelVPN network verifier, you need to have 100,000 KEL or 100 mKEL. The KelVPN network will also allow masternodes to post orders to provide VPN service for.

By the way, you can run a Cellframe Backbone node and a KelVPN node on the same hardware at the same time. You just need to delegate keys from both your CELL stake and KEL stake.

KelVPN website: https://kelvpn.com/

‌‌‌Ecosystem projects. Node.sys

Now let’s talk about Node.sys — a project in the Cellframe ecosystem which we are actively developing together with our partners.

The goal of the project is to connect customers with a network of high-tech DIY creators who have their own professional equipment and are ready to take production orders.

Node.sys is a decentralized IoT platform with its own blockchain, which is run on hardware nodes — specially-designed miniature computers.

For those of you who prefer ready-made solutions, you can buy these hardware nodes. They do not require additional configuration, and also can be used to bring up your Cellframe or KelVPN node. They are not limited to just Node.sys. It’s a universal solution.

Node.sys also plans to start production of Cellframe hardware wallets. But first it will start to produce ready-made Cellframe hardware nodes. So if you want to launch your own master node, and don’t want to dive deep into the configuration, you can just purchase this completely ready, zero-configuration solution. Just purchase and run your node.

Earlier this week, the Node.sys website was launched. It contains all the most important information: the white paper, tokenomics, and information about the team and advisors. By the way, I am personally an advisor on this project.

The next stage is developing the Node.sys platform, with a personal account interface for interacting with clients and placing or paying for orders.

Node.sys website: https://nodesys.io/

‌In addition to KelVPN and Node.sys, we will also continue to develop ConfCall, our video conferencing service, and also our decentralized platform for running and training artificial intelligence algorithms.

But we will not be limited to our own projects. We will develop the Cellframe ecosystem and build a community of developers.

Let’s talk about our marketing plans.

Cellframe Marketing

Now we present our key marketing goals:

• Creating and supporting a growing community of software developers
• Raising awareness of the Cellframe network in professional environments.

By the way, we are announcing an opening for the position of technical administrator in our communities. This person will work with our team to organize hackathons and online meetups for developers. They will also compile training and support materials for those who want to develop in the Cellframe ecosystem.

We will give a test task to the candidates who apply, and then the second stage will be an interview. The best candidate will become our new dev community guru.

‌‌Back to the list of key marketing goals:

• Launching the grant support program for development on Cellframe. So far, the details of the program are under development.
• Restarting the Ambassador Program
• Organizing the International Cryptography Olympiad (https://crypto.nsu.ru/en/olympiad/) ,developing video production, and launching our Cellframe merchandise line.
• Working with exchanges (after the launch of the bidirectional bridge). We will combine this with the launch of native CELL token integration into centralized exchanges!

And now I will answer the questions you sent for today’s stream.

Questions

Will we be able to run a master node on mobile devices?

Yes, soon we will release Cellframe Wallet with this ability. However, I am not sure that every mobile device will be suitable for this, because there is custom firmware for mobile phones that make it switch off for better economy. And not all such behavior can be tweaked. Anyway, the most popular mobiles and stock devices should work fine.

When will DAO take place? And how will it be conducted?

Stay tuned, we will talk about this. I think the first DAO votes will be at the end of this year.

Cellframe and KelVPN have completed staking programs. Are there options for staking that are not implemented yet but you would like to add later?

Yes we are planning to expand our limit-order decentralized exchange with AMM algorithms. So it will be a hybrid system based on limit orders, but with AMM bots with transparent algorithms, transparent behavior. And these bots will accumulate liquidity, so there will be special staking programs for AMM liquidity providers. But that will be after the limit-order model is launched in the near-term.

Cellframe offers tokens in two legacy networks — BNB Smart Chain and Ethereum, and also in the Cellframe network itself. Are there any plans for expansion to other networks, maybe Polygon or Solana?

Yes, we have such plans. Right now we are working with Cardano, Polkadot, and Cosmos. Maybe we will integrate Solana and Polygon as well.

Mainnet has been launched. Is it now possible to develop and launch new products on the Cellframe blockchain?

Yes! By the way, you could have started before the mainnet. But now you can run and test your products on release-ready software.

Do you have plans to integrate the native Cellframe token with various CEXs?

Yes, of course.

Question about network metrics. How do you estimate the approximate price and speed of transactions?

About a few cents, and about between 10 seconds and one minute — that’s the average time for transaction finalization at the moment.

How many nodes can be run on one device?

It’s not limited.

When will the first t-dApps be available?

Right now some are already available, such as KelVPN!

Cellframe has a really cute chipmunk mascot and stickerpacks with him. Are there any plans to release NFT based on it?

Yes, we are planning to release NFTs based on our animation and drawings, and also I’m planning to release an NFT collection of my personal photography of real-life chipmunks.

Those were all the questions you sent us in advance.

Let’s move on to questions in the chat:

I’ve been waiting patiently for years for this day!

Yes, I’ve also been waiting for about six years. It’s incredible.

So now we can download the software?

That’s right!

Cool intro!

Thank you! Our animators will be happy to hear it.

If this mainnet works like heaven and we get into the top 25 I will name my son Dmitry!

Hahah, I appreciate it! Too many warm words. I’m impressed. You are awesome!

Lots of kind words, looking for questions. Guys, I love you!

Can you create a new scan where I can see all numbers of Cellframe network?

If you’re talking about our explorer, yes, we have plans to extend it.

Is there a possibility to run a master node on Dashboard?

Yes, it’s possible. There is a special MacOS build linked on our site that is specially configured for the master node.

If I am staking my CELL can I also run a master node at the same time?

Yes, that’s why you have mCELL tokens. So you have staked and obtained mCELL, and with that you can delegate keys for a master node and earn on it.

Tutorial video?

It’s coming!

When will we be able to find out the TPS of CELL?

We will start to measure it when we cover the first steps in our new roadmap. I’m talking about homogenous sharding. With sharding, we will see how our TPS grows with additional shards. That’s why we need to run shards. And we will be able to show that, for example, here we have 10 shards — we call it Cells — or we have 10,000 Cells. For example we can imagine that we bring up 100 shards, and we have 1M tps. Something like this, I believe.

Ok, that was all the questions!

Ladies and Gentlemen, it was an incredible day. I was waiting for this for six years, and I believe many of you were waiting for years for this. Now we have released. It’s not the end, we still have milestones, we have goals. But this will be remembered as a really great day.

Thank you for all your support and for all your warm words. Goodbye, see you next time!

We are CELL! We are HERE!