AMA Recap: OMNIA Protocol & Crypto Stalkers

7 min read

Last week, on 06 of May 2022, we organized an AMA session with the Crypto Stalkers community.

Here is the AMA transcript:

Navi:

Hello @alphacristi Welcome to Crypto Stalkers 👀

Cristian | OMNIA Protocol:

Hello everyone
Happy to be here today 🙂

Navi:

👋
Glad to host you here today! 😃
Should we start with our AMA session?

Cristian | OMNIA Protocol:

Yes! Ready 😄

Navi:

Q1: Please introduce yourself and give an insight about what is OMNIA Protocol? What’s the reason you named like that?

Cristian | OMNIA Protocol:

My role at OMNIA Protocol is CEO, I have a PhD in the field of privacy enhancing technologies. I am mastering the cryptography for more that 6 six years with a wide experience, ranging from research and academic presence to designing and developing secure solutions according to industry standards.

Omnia Protocol is a decentralized infrastructure protocol for securely accessing the blockchain, so that no single point of failure will ever disrupt blockchain applications or wallets integrating with it. Omnia has a strong focus on privacy which gives you untraceable access to the blockchain.

OMNIA in latin means “Everything” and implies the concept of Omniscience and Omnipotency. In other words, we think that nodes shall be the God into the Machines. We assume that our solution will be everywhere in the blockchain ecosystem, it expresses our ambition in the crypto space.

Navi:

Glad to know about you 😃
So we’ve invested at right place 😁
Can’t wait to know more in next Questions.

Cristian | OMNIA Protocol:

happy to answer all the questions out there

Crypto Stalkers:

Next Question ⤵️

Q2: Briefly can you tell us about what comes in you mind while creating OMNIA Protocol? What are Blockchain Nodes? Can you explain to our community?

Cristian | OMNIA Protocol:

Sure.

We started OMNIA after some research on current state of privacy in blockchain ecosystems, where we find a huge gap on off-chain privacy.

Then, we realised that despite the fact that on-chain privacy is widely addressed (Blank Wallet, Tornado Cash, Monero, etc), the off-chain privacy is missing, especially when it comes to blockchain related applications.

There is also this pain out there with the centralised node providers which often become central points of failure. We have seen many examples with DEX, DApps going down because of this central node providers. Axie Infinity hack is another example how centralisation fails the web3 space.

To explain in a few lines what are the blockchain nodes, they are basically the interface when communicating with the blockchain, either when one decides to read data from it or to write data (e.g. make a transaction). Every interaction with the blockchain translates in a request sent to blockchain nodes, they hold the data, participate in the consensus (validators or mining nodes) and let other applications to read/write from chain.

done, i hope this answers the question

Navi:

Very well. Thankyou for detailed answers

Ah yeah, you’ve targeted a good audience and I’m really glad to know you’re solving a real issue 😁

Navi:

Q3: What’s the latest developments about products & services of OMNIA Protocol? What do your think about demerits of “Untraceable blockchain nodes”?

Cristian | OMNIA Protocol:

We recently added some features in our app (app.omniatech.io), including managing the endpoints generated so far and also added Avalanche and Polygon chains.

There will be coming soon a new update to make our authentication compatible with the EIP-4361 standard. The app is live since the beginning of this year, and allows anyone to freely generate endpoints and use them directly in their web3 wallet for a private & decentralized connection to blockchain.

Untraceable blockchain nodes refers to the possibility to interact with the blockchain a complete private way, without disclosing personal data such as IP address, metadata, behaviour or any other info that can be collected by centralised node providers or malicious actors.

Navi:

Multi-chain!! 🙌

Cristian | OMNIA Protocol:

yep, hard work behind the scenes

Navi:

Mostly agencies and centralised Govt financial institutions uses nodes to track people activity

Next Question ⤵️

Q4: Please elaborate the Business Model of OMNIA Protocol? and how it works? Also share Tokenomics.

Cristian | OMNIA Protocol:

The tokenomics can be viewed on our website (omniatech.io) in top right corner, but there is an super cool medium article going in depth with the utility and the usage of OMNIA Token in the ecosystem: https://medium.com/omniaprotocol/omnia-tokenomics-and-token-utility-c77037386753

In regards with the business model,our model is Software as a Service (SaaS), we basically allow users to generate subscriptions based on their needs (very granular) for which they can generate endpoints in order to privately access the blockchain.

There is also the second part of the bussines, the resources pool which is consisted by users which enrol their nodes (via staking) to earn passive income (which is generated by the tokenomics and the paid subscriptions).

Navi:

Sure 🤝
So users have to pay to access the services 🤔?

Cristian | OMNIA Protocol:

Now is on a freemium model, free to use. But in future there will be subscriptions for higher rate and performance 🙂

Navi:

Yeah for better understanding and adoption I believe its a good step!

Cristian | OMNIA Protocol:

and also good for the feedback, we do hear our users 🙂

Navi:

Early adopters enjoys the perks for finding this gem so early 🙂
Yes yes!
Feedback helps!

Next Question ⤵️

Q5. Can you let us about competitive advantages does OMNIA Protocol have over other alike projects? Are you the one solving this issue?

Cristian | OMNIA Protocol:

Yes, we are the pioneers when it comes to the privacy aspect at the infrastructure layer on the web3 space, actually I think we just invented the “off-chain privacy” terminology .

In regards with our differentiator from other projects, we strongly believe that the privacy we bring is going to change the ecosystem.

While there are also other projects that want to decentralize the nodes, we take this opportunity to also create an off-chain privacy layer in the blockchain ecosystem — a missing piece from our point of view.

you know the saying, “ the chain is as strong as it’s weakest link” ? 😅

Navi:

👀
Great! 🔥

Cristian | OMNIA Protocol:

happy to go deeper if needed 🙂

Navi:

You’ve provided great details easily understandable

Time for next Segment

Cristian | OMNIA Protocol:

Looking forward 👀

Navi:

Now dropping Questions from Twitter Segment!

Q1: I read that OMNIA aims to provide a scalable private blockchain network for the DeFi space. Can you tell me what you mean by private blockchain network? Does this mean it can’t trace the txn ledger on the private blockchain system?

Cristian | OMNIA Protocol:

So, first of all let’s define 2 notions which are different: security vs privacy.

We have them both covered in our project, but they are not the same.

When it comes to the privacy aspect, in order to fully private you’ll need an end-to-end approach. This breaks into 2 parts:

– off-chain

– on-chain

On chain privacy is assured by the privacy pools and privacy coins such as Monero, Tornado Cash,etc. but they only hide the reciepient/sender and maybe the amount

But in fact, when one makes a transaction from their wallet, they are also disclosing their IP address, pattern of behaviour, other metadata. This is were OMNIA comes in.

we make sure to make the transcation private & secure from the moment you clicked on your wallet untill the moment the tx gets included into the blockchain 🙂

Navi:

Total privacy!!

Thank you for responding.

Next Question ⤵️

Q2: Omnia aims to bridge the privacy gap between on-chain & off-chain activity with unshakable added value that differentiates them from other centralized Node Providers.What are the key features in Omnia that differentiate and gives you an added advantage over other Node Providers?

Cristian | OMNIA Protocol:

Hmm, thanks a good question.

For the differentiators i have already gave some anwsers. But it comes to the key features of OMNIA we have some points here that strikes out from competitors.

The most important aspect is the privacy aspect which isn’t covered by anyone, yet. We approach this by using mixnets in order to mitigate the risks.

Then there is the decentralization part, because now most of the central node providers have this issue of going down. Even some DEXes (e.g. 1Inch) because of these issue.

If someone choose to use OMNIA, then they will have a decentralized approach to acess the chain.

Also, we have more feature around the security such as default frontrunning protection, allow anyone to earn passive income by hosting nodes

So we are not just a simple node provider service. We try to innovate, step by step while makeing the access more reliabile and private 🙂

Ibrar Rasheed ||CRYPTO STALKERS:

I like the way you answer 🙌

Omnia differentiates a lot in positive aspects from other node providers

Crypto Stalkers:

Next Question ⤵️

Q3: Could you tell us about the competitors that OMNIA has? do they have similar features? Or is OMNIA really a pioneer in incorporating privacy into the different solutions you offer?

Cristian | OMNIA Protocol:

Sure, we have competitors but only in the aspect of node descentralization.

With the off-chain privacy we are pioneering this.

And as i said before, we try to add more privacy-oriented features on top the app so that we create a ecosystem value to the web3. Such an example is the frontrunning protection or the ability to protect users from scam (rejecting tx which are intended to go to known scam address, etc.)

Ibrar Rasheed ||CRYPTO STALKERS:

Perfect 🙌

Crypto Stalkers:

Next Question ⤵️

Q4: You point out that “In standard blockchain ecosystems, only mining nodes are incentivised. With Omnia, non-mining nodes are also rewarded”, but could you tell us then how many types of Nodes they will have? and we will be able to participate in all of them and generate income?

Cristian | OMNIA Protocol:

So, in the current state of the blockchain there are 2 types of nodes that can earn revenue: mining nodes (proof of work) and validators (in the proof of stake based chains)

But not everyone has such a node/validator.

Then, there is this type of fully synced node which basicaly is a node with all the data available so people can make requests to read/write to chain.

We allow everyone to onboard these fully synced node to OMNIA and reward them for being up & running. These can be developers that already have a node, un technical people that simple wants to spin a node in 3 clicks, or node provider subscriptions which are not fully used.

We support now Bitcoin, Ethereum, BSC, Avalanche and Polygon chains

but more networks are constanly added 👀

Ibrar Rasheed ||CRYPTO STALKERS:

That’s really unique

Good luck for upcoming ones🙌

Crypto Stalkers:

Next Question ⤵️

Q5: Omnia users can customize their own subscription plan, based on their blockchain request rate needs. What are the different subscription plans that Omnia offers? What are the requirements to access each subscription plan?

Cristian | OMNIA Protocol:

Good one, there is no requirement to access the plans

Anyone can go on app.omniatech.io and generate the subscription based on their needs.

Ibrar Rasheed ||CRYPTO STALKERS:

That’s perfect 😍

Cristian | OMNIA Protocol:

Basically anyone can choose the number of days for the subscription to be active, the daily requests and the RPS (requests per second).

Ibrar Rasheed ||CRYPTO STALKERS:

What about yearly subscription?

Cristian | OMNIA Protocol:

That’s to allow users which simply use the endpoints in their web3 wallet and also for big companies which have a lots of requests (e.g. DEXes).

Yep, that’s possible 🙂

Ibrar Rasheed ||CRYPTO STALKERS:

Perfect 🙌

More about the live questions, please follow the telegram discussion here.