IRISnet’s role in the success of the Cosmos Network Vision

Transcription of the AMA with Jeffrey Hu, Director of Research at IRISnet

7 min readApr 12, 2021

🌈 IRISgardians,

It is a pleasure for me to introduce you to the transcription of the AMA that took place on the Cosmos sub-Reddit at 9:30 am CST on April 1st.

On this occasion, we had the honor to host a renowned expert from the blockchain industry: Mr. Zhiwei Hu, IRISnet Director of Research.

Mr. Hu is the Research Director of IRISnet and heads the strategy and technology research as well as ecosystem development.
He was the former chief technical analyst at Huobi Research and has extensive experience in the blockchain industry & published many in-depth Blockchain research reports which have made a great influence in China.
Jeffrey Hu participated in the technology research of the China Central Bank Digital Currency Research Institute and was responsible for the R&D and implementation of blockchain projects in Guizhou and Xiong’an.

Mr. Zhiwei Hu answered in-depth questions asked by the Cosmos Community and was able to help translate extremely technical concepts into a conversational level, successfully creating an all-inclusive discussion that helps include all the members who have just joined us.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the moderator of the event, TicoJohnny, a member of the Cosmos Community who has recently began initiatives such as AMAs, Operation Grassroots as well as other efforts and who was particularly enthusiastic about helping to introduce IRISnet to the American audience that populates the /r/cosmosnetwork subreddit.

Below you will find highlights of the AMA, and some documents that may be helpful in understanding the context.
If you have any questions, the IRISnet team invites you to join them on Telegram or Discord!

💬 Community Q&A

❓ When Coinswap and iService will be live? How many uses cases Irisnet has in the pipeline as soon as iService goes live?

Mr. Jeffrey Hu: iService is already available on IRISnet.
We will integrate some apps with it in the next few months step by step as what our core dev team did on open-permissioned blockchain: Wenchang Chain of BSN.

The majority of development works of Coinswap have already been done.
But we think it is extremely important to have more intensive tests before the go-to-market.
So with 1–2 weeks’ more testing, the Coinswap app will be launched.

❓ What coins are expected to be first available on CoinSwap AMM?

Mr. Jeffrey Hu: Right now, we have built the connection with Binance Chain, so coins on Binance Chain would be available.
But since we will also have IBC enabled and built a connection with Cosmos Hub, Coinswap can also have $ATOM.

❓ Will CoinSwap have a liquidity mining campaign?

Mr. Jeffrey Hu: Sure! We will have farming pools, from day 1 when Coinswap app launches. People can stake their LP tokens, to get $IRIS rewards.
We are also talking to many partners to see more potential farming options

❓ Irisnet Coinswap is going to be like pancakeswap DeX?

Mr. Jeffrey Hu: We’ll also have a liquidity farming function.
Like Pancakeswap, we can also explore some potential applications like Collectibles, Lotteries, since we also have NFT & random number functions on IRIS Hub.
But we will not have an IFO function.

❓ What do you think the greatest barrier to the success of the IRISnet is in the next 2 years? What’s the plan to overcome?

Mr. Jeffrey Hu: I think there is no real barrier for IRISnet.
But we do get lots of things to do in the future.
For example, we will do more to support IBC.
Like adding more application layer protocol over the IBC, connecting more heterogeneous blockchains, help Cosmos/IBC tech stacks’ adoption in enterprise applications, etc.

❓ What feature has IRISnet to be better than other chains?

Mr. Jeffrey Hu: I think there are several unique features on IRISnet.
For example, iService, which can connect with legacy systems, to have their abilities to be registered as a cross-chain service.

❓ How $IRIS token will gain value in the future if every chain has the same specialties?

Mr. Jeffrey Hu: So, for sure, every chain would not be the same :)
IRISnet has many unique features, like iService.
And our progress went on well and we keep delivering at a very fast pace, like IRISnet was the first mainnet launched in Cosmos ecosystem;
The 1st mainnet upgraded after Cosmos Stargate;
The 1st mainnet which made the IBC connection with Cosmos Hub;
The1st mainnet with integrated NFT functions in Cosmos ecosystem…

❓ How do you think the demand of $IRIS will increase ?

Mr. Jeffrey Hu: More use cases are coming on IRIS Hub right now, like for example the mentioned above Coinswap (AMM).

❓ IRISnet has connections with enterprises, for example, the ChainLink oracle module on BSN is used by Hyperledger Fabric and consortium enterprise blockchains like Baidu’s Super Chain and WeBank’s BCOS.
Can we expect $IRIS iService to be used more by companies for things related to big data computation combined with on/off-chain permissionless/consortium blockchains combo.
This will eventually bring notable fees to the IRIS network as they will reach many transactions per day?

Mr. Jeffrey Hu: Yes, I think so.
That was exactly iService should be: bringing more enterprise applications on IRIS Hub.

❓ Are there any privacy developments in IRISnet?
There is Secret Network on Cosmos Network but I know that IRISnet has enterprise plans offering a different type of privacy market.

Mr. Jeffrey Hu: Impressive that you made so much research into IRISnet!
Yes, we have some privacy computing services integrated into the enterprise version of the IRITA blockchain product.
I think these privacy computing services can also be integrated on IRIS Hub when it is appropriate.
And would be also very happy to see Secret Network connected to IRISnet through IBC :)

❓ I noticed that IRISnet is listed as a partner, what are the plans with that partnership? Will Starname be integrated into the NFT marketplace on IRIS Hub?

Mr. Jeffrey Hu: Sure!
I think Starname could be integrated on IRIS Hub when it is ready.
After that, many apps including NFT marketplace on IRIS Hub could use Starname.

❓ Does IRISnet plan to have its own stable-coin or adopting another from within the Cosmos ecosystem such as USDX?

Mr. Jeffrey Hu: We are planning to introduce more stable coins on IRIS Hub.
For example, we will leverage the Hash Lock function to have stable coin BUSD on IRIS Hub from Binance Chain.

❓ Any plans to connect with Terra and bring its stablecoins like $UST on CoinSwap? I guess eventually with IBC most Cosmos blockchains will use Terra stablecoins.

Mr. Jeffrey Hu: Totally agree!
We can definitely connect with Terra by IBC when both chains enabled IBC transfer.

❓ Irisnet had some intentions to be worldwide or just in Asia?

Mr. Jeffrey Hu: Yes! Sure! Right now we have several global communities.
English, Korean, Philippines, Italian, French, Hispanic, Arabic.

❓ Harriet Cao had an interview with Citizen Cosmos but aside from that there isn’t much content on Spotify, are there any plans to do more podcast interviews?

Mr. Jeffrey Hu: Would love to!
Last time, I was invited to [At Stake] by Ken | Cypher Core and really enjoyed it. Here is the link.
So if there will be a chance, I’d like to participate in more podcast :D

❓ Are there plans to stand out in the NFT marketplace?
Are you using any iterative testing to adapt to the market?
If so, could you share a few things being tried or have been tried?

Mr. Jeffrey Hu: IRISnet is the first mainnet that integrated the NFT module in the Cosmos ecosystem.
Right now, there are more than 10k NFTs minted on IRIS Hub.
Many crypto artists publish their art-works by NFT app: Uptick.

A new record was made yesterday:
an artwork was sold for 2000 IRIS on Uptick quickly after it was posted on Uptick.

And what would make NFT on IRISnet and the dApp Uptick outstanding?
And one important reason is the connection with the interchain.
So we will definitely iterate it in the future by introducing many innovative functions, like interNFT, transfer NFTs by IBC.
We will have some more artists publish their works in the future.

One thing we tried before is that: first we and Uptick team came to an idea that makes Uptick App be an events ticketing system.
But when the app nearly put on production, the collectible function is added because it is very important and useful now.

📚 Resources

Are you curious to learn more about IRISnet?
Here are the articles for you:

🎞 And don’t miss the Replay of Mr. Hu's participation at the Cosmos IBC Party!

About IRISnet

IRISnet (a.k.a IRIS Hub) is an Interchain Service Hub designed to support the next generation of distributed applications. Built with Cosmos-SDK, IRIS Hub enables cross-chain interoperability through a unified service model, which supports not only token interchain transfer but also trustworthy data consumption and computation invocation across heterogeneous systems.
IRIS Hub is the first self evolutionary blockchain launched in the Cosmos ecosystem.

IRISnet dev teams include Bianjie, a national award-winning blockchain technology team based in Shanghai, and Tendermint, the world-famous team that created the Tendermint consensus engine and the Cosmos project.

💌 Get in touch with the IRISnet Team!

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