Coin Interview: Questions for the Interview Friday 7pm EST
What is Silk Network?Silk Network combines the best technical innovations from modern cryptocurrencies into a coherent ecosystem, thus ensuring security, anonymity and long-term viability. Our platform consists of DarkSilk, Silk and Weaver; the three parts of the Silk Network.
What is the connection with Silk Road / the Camel icon?Silk Road needs no introduction. In 2014 a group of individuals launched a crypto-currency called Silkcoin but not with the best of intentions. To gain attention quickly they decided to used Silk Roads presence as a means to lure in investors. After the initial investors got dumped, the community took it upon themselves to continue the project.
Back then there was a lot of fire and ambition in the community, and the community started to organise itself. The sparked enthusiasm and positivity gave rise to lots of camel memes. Now the camel was initially chosen to be the icon as a way to mimic Silk Road. But after the whole ordeal its meaning started to change.
Silkcoin became known for the hard and tiring struggle to bootstrap a project and present real value. Like walking through a desert landscape while chanting: “The Camel Marches On!”
So what is our connection to Silk Road?
There is none.
Why did you choose that over another icon?
The camel was chosen by the community as comedic relief, it uplifted the community in harsh times. Right now the camel represents the caravan that brought precious gifts. We purposefully are lining this up with this widely believed story and it is no coincidence that the two of the three gifts were symbolised by a scorpion and a phoenix.
Is this project/network in anyway connected with the darknet markets like Alpha Bay?
No, and our stance on darknet market is not that of “elicited” products. We merely want to provide consumers with a way to transact in privacy. There used to be a time where looking over another’s shoulder into their wallet was deemed impolite. Nowadays you are shunned if you don’t show the contents of your wallet. No citizen should have something to hide is the new mantra.
For businesses this is different, they do need to be transparent. And they also need to be responsible for the services they provide or the goods they sell. Businesses/vendors and consumers should be treated differently. It is at this distinction that the Silk Network will be different from darknet markets. As long as the market is guaranteed that the products are legit, then the consumer can have their privacy.
Before the digital era, and even today, the buyer enters the marketplace, trades with the seller for cash, takes their goods with no record of the purchase needed and no names exchanged or any data recorded. Apart from the knowledge that the seller was credited and the buyer was debited, this knowledge is only shared by the parties involved in the trade. We want to bring this kind of anonymity into the digital world.
What is the nature of the company you have setup in the UK
Silk Network Ltd is a for-profit organisation driven by its members who can mould the shape of Silk Network. Our business model is focused on two pillars, servicing our Weaver platform with its features and stabilising the DarkSilk currency (yes stabilising the currency is a profitable process).
Most crypto-organisations rely on outside funding, Silk Network aims to keep control over its own business process, and through that realise its goals. To be autonomous to that end would be a great achievement.
What kind of clients work with you?
We’ve been underground from the start of development. The clients that we are looking for are from a broad range. These can be private users, businesses or merchants looking to adopt a solution that is stable. Then there would need to be distribution locations a.k.a. banks & institutions to provide our currency product.
Also:
Private investors looking for a decent ROI
Traders looking for arbitrage opportunity
Basically, we provide the means that allow for new social evolutions.
We are also launching a development portal named Kowari. This will provide a central hub for developers to converse, share ideas, download tools and create new applications utilising both the Silk and DarkSilk Blockchain.
It is also looking like we are beginning talks with an American based private healthcare company about the the Silk(SLK) Blockchain being used to enable patient identity and record locations services, which is a multibillion dollar sector.
How is this business planning on surviving and making revenue?
Initially revenue will be made by offering services through Weaver and through the stabilisation mechanism. Even though the majority of Weaver is a free service at this very second, once the rest of the features come online, there will be also a paid account options. The profitability of our stabilisation method is explained in our brochure.
What encryption methods do you use on the network?
The Argon2d algorithm is used for Proof-of-Work mining on the DarkSIlk network, this algorithm is adjustable and can be scaled as mining becomes easier as hardware progresses. Silk is secured using the Scrypt algorithm and Proof-of-Stake.
What is Weaver?
What users will see Weaver as, is a website that you log into and are presented with a dashboard. From there they can access many varied cryptographic services such as online wallets, mining services, Stormnode hosting, encrypted messaging, the ability to pay Bitcoin invoices with either Silk or DarkSilk and API access. We also want to have a forum within Weaver to try to move away from bitcointalk as much as possible.
Users will have the option of three accounts types/tiers, Standard, Gold and Diamond, dependent on their requirements from Weaver. A standard account should be good enough for most users, but if a user wishes to have stealth addresses or algo auto-switching on the multipool, higher priority withdrawal, different payout options on the multipool or instant swap then a paid account may be an option that will better suit them. The paid accounts can also be paid for using Silk, DarkSilk or Bitcoin and are monthly subscriptions. Users will have access via an API to every facet of Weaver such as their Dashboard, Woven, Mining and Analytics.
Weaver is also what handles the stabilisation mechanism, however, long term we are looking to decentralise this.
What is Woven?
This service enables users to swap between DarkSilk, Silk or Bitcoin without having to have any knowledge in trading or the use of exchanges.
The user selects an amount of DarkSilk, Silk or Bitcoin to “weave”(swap), Woven then gives a live price including the conversion fee and the user is required to then confirm the swap.
Once confirmed, the swap is carried out instantly if the user holds a Gold or Diamond account, otherwise it is queued and paid out when the next available payment slot becomes available. However, in most instances it will be instant.
What is the difference between Silk and DarkSilk?
Codebase, they are very similar, but differ in terms of features. They are both based upon 0.11/0.12 Bitcoin. Silk, however has Proof-of-Stake that pays 2SLK per stake reward and there is no Proof of Work period, whereas, DarkSIlk has no Proof of Stake but an unlimited Proof of Work period with no block halving and a static reward of 1DSLK per block.
In terms of features, Silk contains a decentralised DNS, MultiSig UI and a Watch-Only Address UI for the Qt wallet and even though it has ToR connectivity it isn’t aimed as strongly towards anonymity as DarkSilk is. However, we are looking at adding Stealth addresses and adding our our own ring signatures to Silk.
DarkSilk contains the same features as Silk in terms of the decentralised DNS, MultiSig UI and Watch-Only UI but also has the anonymity features of Sandstorm, Stealth addresses, ToR connectivity and ToR control. Currently we do not have ring signatures within DarkSilk, but this is solely because we want to create our own for both Silk and DarkSIlk.
This is simply on a codebase/feature level, the key difference between the two coins is how they operate off of each other via the stabilisation mechanism in Weaver, DarkSilk being the currency and Silk the asset/collateral. (Mark elaborate more here)
What are Stormnodes?
Primarily for the end-user they will use the Stormnode network to process the mixing of their coins for Sandstorm sending and the signing of their InstantX transactions
For the user wanting to invest in the Silk Network and DarkSilk, then the Stormnode is an excellent option. Their collateral cost is 1000DSLK, which is locked whilst the Stormnode is running. During its operation users receive Stormnode rewards of 0.382DSLK and offers a great return on investment.
Another benefit of the Stormnode network is the budgeting system. Proposals can be made by any user on the network which is then voted upon by the Stormnode owners/operators. Voting power is given to those who have invested directly into a Stormnode and are actively increasing the anonymity of the network.
Silk Network will be directly utilising the Stormnode proposal platform to allow the community to vote on the direction of not just DarkSilk but Silk, Weaver and the whole Silk Network.
For the network, a benefit of the Stormnode network is the use of them as a second tier of security. A Stormnode can confirm other tasks on the network, completely independent of the network itself, which allows for further applications to be developed by other developers and assigned to them. An example of a trustless quorum already running on the network is InstantX. Stormnodes pre-sign the InstantX transaction with the required confirmations for it to fully confirm i.e. 10. This whole process takes around 4-5 seconds to complete, from the initial send and the other party receiving a fully confirmed transaction.
One of the projects we are looking to enable via the Stormnode network is a decentralised exchange, which has been worked upon Silk Network and Johnathan Turrall of MetaLair.
The Stormnode network within DarkSilk really does add an amazing factor to the Silk Network as a whole and its evolution.
Is this network over the ClearNet or does it use ToR?
DarkSilk is operational over Tor and contains Tor Control to give functionality via RPC. Silk does also support connection via ToR and will have ToR Control added in a later release, this isn’t as much a priority for Silk(SLK) as it is not the privacy-centric coin within the two-coin binary system. I2P however will be added to DarkSilk to give further option to the end user.
How are you compared to other privacy-centric coins like Monero or Dash or ShadowCash?
DarkSilk is right at the top tier of privacy-centered crypto-currencies. Dash has its functionality with Masternodes much alike DarkSilk does with its Stormnodes but lacks Stealth Addresses or Ring Signatures which Shadowcash has, however, Shadowcash lacks the Dash functions. Then there is Monero which has Stealth Addresses and Ring Signatures but doesn’t have Dash features and as value goes, as far as we can see, it is based upon the pretense of it being accepted on Alpha Bay as a payment option, however, OpenAlias is a nice feature and we will be looking to adopt a similar feature to both DarkSilk and Silk.
DarkSilk will launch with Stealth Addresses, Stormnodes(Masternodes), Sandstorm(Darksend), InstantX, ToR support and not just have the tools under the hood, but will look the part too.
