By: Geeq  on Sep 28, 2020

The SpectreGrp gave a warm welcome last week to Geeq’s go-to AMA duo, Head of Crypto Hans Sundby and Co-Founder Stephanie So. @SPECTREGRP added Geeq to its watch list in August, which was a real honor for Geeq, as their team is known for its thorough research.

Because moderators @Adouble212 and @Johnny Zcash knew so much about Geeq already, there was hardly any need to go into technical details. Instead, @Adouble212 and @Johnny Zcash dug a little deeper into Geeq’s team and how Geeq’s ecosystem and token are differentiated from all others. We hope this recap is as pleasant to read as it was to be hosted in SpectreGrp’s Telegram room.

We’ve added a few helpful links and left out most of the small talk. 😊

Moderators: @Adouble212 and @Johnny Zcash
Guests: Stephanie So and Hans Sundby

Adouble212: For those that don’t know, can you tell us what is Geeq?

Stephanie:
Geeq started out as a research effort to solve a specific need: how to back IoT telemetry on blockchain. Our CEO Ric Asselstine had begun working in IoT in 2012 or so, he had developed a full stack solution and, thinking ahead, saw the potential to back these distributed devices up to blockchain.

Coming from that direction, we view blockchain as a kind of data information management system. Other blockchain systems are flawed for those kinds of business uses, so we started over, with a completely novel approach based not so much on new cryptography, but on drawing lessons from information and communications technology (ICT).

We started over, with a completely novel approach based not so much on new cryptography, but on drawing lessons from information and communications technology (ICT).

What Geeq has now is the next new hybrid platform for blockchain data services, which will assist everyone as they decide that other platforms are too intrusive (or otherwise too costly) for them in some way.

Adouble212: What you guys are doing is definitely a game changer! And I believe that is in large part because your team is so accomplished. Can you tell us more about your team?

Stephanie:
I’d say the most important thing about our Team is that, between us, we have the practical and tactical experience to launch and grow a data service company exponentially, as Ric says, and we are all very clear on what we want this new platform and business model to accomplish.

Our CEO, Ric and two other members of our Core Team, Lun Yuen and Eric Ball – Ric is based in Waterloo and Lun and Eric are in Silicon Valley – have cut their teeth on Open Text, Intuit, and Oracle respectively, so they are experienced in executing scale-ups.

John Conley and Ian Smith provide the quality assurance for Geeq’s foundational code – they share the shining trait of leaving no stone unturned when it comes to building our new stack. And I am not shy about recruiting the best people in areas where Geeq will need to grow its scope and services.

Adouble212: It helps having a Princeton grad. 😃

Stephanie: Haha – I hope so, we have a tendency for service. 😉 We are always working to do better.

Johnny Zcash: Very impressive.

Stephanie:
I haven’t even mentioned Hans, who is our Head of Crypto. He is my favorite recruit. Because we’re a blockchain company that uses an ecosystem token, we needed an entire team with knowledge of how to go to market in the token realm to complement how to build a corporate entity in the physical realm.

Johnny Zcash: Do you have any notable partners/advisors?

Hans:
You may have seen we teamed up with Morpheus Labs to give us access to real world projects. We also took Jun Capital on as a strategic advisor to help us expand in Asian markets, then recently we announced the planned integration of Chainlink to give developers easy access to realtime price data. Most recently, we announced the plans to integrate Trustswap, this technical integration will be a huge addition to dApp developers, projects and users utilizing the Geeq platform.

Last but not least, we must give a mention to Geeqs legal team Gowling WLG which was named the 2021 Canadian “”Law Firm of the Year”” in the Corporate category by @BestLawyers. Gowling has been with Geeq from the start, providing legal advice and making sure we are fully compliant and, as an extra bonus, Tom Hunter, who was named the Corporate Lawyer of the Year in Canada, has also been an Advisor for Geeq from the beginning.

I think you can agree we have picked our partners/advisors with quality over quantity in mind.

We are also as we speak, at the end of a recruitment of a person we are looking really forward to announce. 🙂

Johnny Zcash: Here is a good one. Why is Geeq needed?

Stephanie:
I think there should be two parts to my answer, but both start from the same question, which is to ask when and how we think blockchain will be useful in the future. The general answer is blockchain can only be useful when it is too expensive to rely on intermediaries and, as you know, crypto is in part a striking back at traditional financial intermediaries.

The examples that keep me awake are intermediaries that are putting together detailed profiles of everything you do, where you go via location-mapping, what you buy, what you click on to read, what you write in your documents, what you ask Alexa.

So my first answer is, Geeq is needed because our goal is not simply to provide services, it is to build an alternative network of communication and exchange and to introduce accountability back into the system. That alternative has to be able to be completely decentralized, and Geeq’s platform is able to be that.

The second answer is, one of Geeq’s advances is to make communication and information transfer so inexpensive, and so efficient, that it’s possible to pay for microtransactions. That’s revolutionary in terms of how society can develop.

The easiest way to imagine micropayments are automatic payments from machines to machines, but anytime you can imagine progress has been held back because you can’t divide consumption into small enough units, Geeq can unlock that potential.

Adouble212: Microtransactions get overlooked. Most transactions in society are small ones!

Johnny Zcash: Geeq fixes this!

Adouble212: 😃

Stephanie: I think small transactions for some people are just as important as large transactions are for others. And yes! Micropayments have been talked about for a long time and, you’re right, Geeq fixes this. 🙂

Adouble212: So utility is big in crypto. We know most projects talk big – but don’t back it up. What use cases are you specifically targeting?

Stephanie:
We have IoT and micropayments specifically targeted (as you can imagine, machine to machine). I don’t know of another platform that will be able to handle the volume and security for IoT data that Geeq’s platform can and we have connections in IoT and smart cities. We also have another application for micropayments that we are already working on, so stay tuned for that.

I think the nature of Geeq is dual. On the one hand, those of us who are already working on Geeq are determined to show what we can do. However, Geeq’s platform architecture separates validation from the application layer, so we are truly DApp-agnostic, with no smart contracts in the validation layer.

Since we offer scalability, networking, and the ability to transfer any size payment with security, our core business model is to service others’ applications while “eating our own cooking”, another Ric saying.

Adouble212: I see you are using edge security, can you explain what that is for us?

Stephanie:
Yes! Edge security pushes security into the hands of the end users. It functions as something like a built in lie detector test for you to protect your accounts.

The essential hesitation to go from a trusted intermediary of your accounts to a decentralized system is that with a trusted intermediary, you know where to go to adjust your accounts and so you have some protection against fraud. Of course, you pay for it as you know.

If a store charges you for items you didn’t order, you dispute it with the credit card company and they sort it out, but they charge you a lot for carrying a balance.

With a blockchain/crypto account, there are still people who might potentially try to defraud you (the simplest case is they’ll try to tell you your tokens aren’t where you left them), but with Geeq’s Edge Security, an honest user can dispute that immediately and continue using an account where their tokens are securely held.

Adouble212: Patent pending?

Stephanie: Yes.

Adouble212: Wow! Mr.Wonderful from Shark Tank would be proud.

Johnny Zcash: Should we discuss the PoH protocol? In laymans’ terms?

Stephanie:
Proof of Honesty is really a no-consensus consensus. Since code is law, each individual node must follow code is law and provide proof. If they can’t, they’re detectable by Edge Security.

This way, everyone who queries a node will get the right answer (which is what consensus should give you as the validated truth) or a detectably manipulated answer.

Johnny Zcash: I love it! We need something like this.

Stephanie: I’m glad – I love it too. It’s a very neat trick because there is no collusion that is possible to evade detection.

Johnny Zcash: It looks like it could be a game changer for sure!

Stephanie:
Well, it is in terms of information and markets. Imagine what it will be like for two individuals to check, asynchronously, on the ledger and coordinate on the same verifiable information. From an economics standpoint, it solves some asymmetric information problems that haven’t been solved before in a decentralized way.

I get very excited about that. Might have geeq’d out a bit hard there.

Johnny Zcash: It’s ok most of us are Geeqs too especially @MrBusinessIntelligence. We love Geeq here!

Stephanie: It’s very gratifying to be able to say all of this and see a flash go off. Thank you!

Open Questions:

Q1. Can the Geeq community expect a demo soon?

Stephanie:
Yes, we’re definitely working on it. We know that’s what the community wants to see and get their hands on. We should be able to show some robustness as the first step. What I’d like (although it’s not up to me) is for there to be a demo where people can play as the attackers. That will have to happen in test-net, anyway.

Q2. Are there more patents incoming?

Stephanie:
Yes, we have been working on that all this summer.

Johnny Zcash: On the subject of patents. No one else can use PoH (Proof of Honesty) as it’s being patented, is that accurate?

Stephanie:
That is and isn’t true. It’s true that PoH was submitted for patent quite awhile ago. However, remember Geeq is a public blockchain platform. So, in theory, everyone can use it if they choose to.

What happens in the validation portion of Proof of Honesty is that nodes are paid automatically in $Geeq. It makes sense to have one large ecosystem.

Q3: What the expected time frame for mainnet and real world usage?

Stephanie:
Mainnet is expected next year and real world usage will be worked on at the same time. Geeq’s Team will have applications that show how it is used, and we’d like to recruit developers who have their own ideas before then as well.

Johnny Zcash: Can someone fork Geeq if they wanted to?

Stephanie:
No! Geeq is built for interoperability and the way that is achieved is by being certain that all the ledgers are validated under the same protocol.

That way, one blockchain ledger on Geeq can check another one and be certain they’re both honest. If someone forked Geeq, they’d lose those properties. However, there is an upgrade path, which is different.

Johnn Zcash: No GeeqCash or GeeqLite guys!

Stephanie: Not for $Geeq, no. 😇
I don’t want to leave the impression that there are any limitations in what people can build. For those who don’t know, Geeq is a multi-chain platform, not a main-chain blockchain. So there need not be any interaction between blockchain applications if there is no need to. On the other hand, someone could build an entire ecosystem of applications on top of Geeq.

It’s only the Geeq validation that can’t be forked.

In other words, the “forking” of applications, if that is desired, can be accomplished through issuing a new blockchain application.

Johnny Zcash: Understood, thanks for the clarification!

Thank you so much Stephanie and Hans for coming by. I see big things in the future for Geeq! What you’ve accomplished is very impressive! I don’t want to take too much of your time. I’m sure you are very busy!

Stephanie: We keep busy! It’s always enjoyable to break up the day and this has been great, thank you.

Johnny Zcash: You are welcome! Spectre Group wishes Geeq the best of luck and success!

Stephanie: Please feel free to send people to ask questions anytime in our Telegram or on Twitter. You made it easy for us this hour by knowing so much ahead of time. 🙌🙌

Hans: Thanks so much for having us guys! Spectre is an awesome group and community. Keep doing you and hope we are able to get back in here once the testnet is out.

Johnny Zcash: We’d love to have you back! Thanks again.

Adouble212: Thanks guys!