By: Geeq  on Oct 6, 2022

In late August, Geeq duo Stephanie So and Hans Sundby returned to oddgems and his community for an AMA. Geeq had a lot of news, and oddgems extended his hospitality from the originally planned one hour to two, to accommodate. Thank you, oddgems!

Without further ado, here is our recap of the AMA, condensed for clarity and with links added for those who would like to learn more. The full transcript is published by oddgems on Medium.

Oddgems: It’s a pleasure and an honour for us to have you here in our TG family and for me hosting this AMA. I have to say the team at Geeq are doing some amazing work. For anyone that’s new to Geeq, feel free to visit https://geeq.io/ and learn more about it. Also, we had an AMA here previous year, feel free to go through that as well, here’s the link to that – https://t.me/oddgemsfamilia/350442.

1. Firstly, congrats on your new funding! So you got pretty serious support from GEM Digital, which is a major fund focused on investing in utility tokens around the world. What attracted them to Geeq?

Thanks! It is our understanding and observation that GEM had and has a keen interest in this space as evidenced by their actions and commitments. When it comes to Geeq in particular, we’re also pretty confident it is what most other audiences seem to be picking up on and that is the team strength, the technology itself, and the steady headway geeq is making toward adoption. And how that headway looks like it can repeat again and again. So, we are extremely pleased that they chose Geeq.

2. I would guess they loved Geeq’s micropayments concept. 😉

Yes! Geeq’s micropayments at scale were demonstrated last year and is a part of the validation layer, which is so resource-efficient and broad-reaching. It’s also part of what we can bring to any payment solution.

3. In your latest technical update, you talk about strong interest from enterprise clients. Can you tell us more about that? What problems are they asking you to solve?

We’re finding out some of the pain points that hold enterprises back from the potential that they have known they had all along. They know and want to do better with the data that they have, but sharing between departments is still difficult.

There are rich sources of untapped data; however, if something goes wrong in the transfer of data between departments or if regulatory violations (especially to do with the handling of sensitive data) are compromised, not only is the organization responsible, it could have dire consequences for the data owner.

From an enterprise’s perspective, lack of sharing is inefficient: it’s a problem created by lack of trust. Well, lack of trust is exactly what Geeq’s technology is designed to solve, and the general problem of requiring formal, clear attestations about how the data are transferred and used: who has custody, and who gave approval — using Geeq Data to create permanent records are attractive, because it eases the concerns of being able to share data responsibly.

This is a problem we see over and over again, which means Geeq Data is a solution that can be used over and over again. Scaling the business works best when you have a solution that can be re-deployed easily — and Geeq’s technology is especially attractive because it is secure, non-intrusive, green, and scalable.

4. This would be the Geeq Data (app) and I reckon this also has something to do with the partnership that you had with 0chain before.

Exactly. All the work we do is at our place in this new tech stack. For those who have been following the development of Geeq Data, we are really putting the blockchain portion to work. But the data can reside where our users want them. If they want decentralized storage or complicated data broken up into sophisticated and even more secured data blobs, like 0Chain is doing, that’s absolutely possible at some other layer of the tech stack.

5. Aren’t there already a lot of blockchain solutions for enterprises, from bigger brands? How are you convincing these companies that you’re a better option?

Well, there are and we’re lucky to be late because Geeq’s solutions have been specifically designed to be easy to adopt and use, and we have the software experience and perspective on users’ practical needs that consultant-types and large legacy company cultures may be at a disadvantage in implementing.

We get how fast the world is moving and the kinds of tools businesses will need in the future. They will need to be fast. They will need flexibility. They will need low cost solutions and to be able to spin up as needed. They will have cybersecurity concerns that Geeq actually helps them with, rather than adding to the security concerns enterprises already have.

We’re also aware of the kinds of services we want to use ourselves. I think building systems with that in mind is one of Geeq’s strengths.

And – we’re low cost. Who can resist all of that? I don’t see much of our competition lasting long.

6. There’s a lot of debate around proof of stake vs proof of work. Geeq has a completely different mechanism, doesn’t it? How does that compare in terms of carbon footprint and security?

Geeq has a completely different mechanism, yes. 🙂

Very briefly, the security model for PoW and PoS depends on one major incentive to prevent malicious behavior, which is to increase the cost of attack by requiring people to put skin in the game. They boil down to having a security model that depends on increasing costs. The more value they have on-chain, the more it makes sense they’d want the entire blockchain attack to get more expensive.

Our view is those models (a) won’t be sustainable, (b) ignore a lot of other vulnerabilities, possibly out of a sense of false security, and (c) encourage “moats” for defense, which is counter to the entire blockchain-decentralization ethos of providing greater access to the benefits of technology.

Also, those mechanisms to induce more skin in the game (in order to increase the costs of attack) is kind of like a game of whack a mole — it requires effort to keep trying to sustain the momentum, and eventually there may be so many incentives that the security models may be obfuscated.

Geeq’s approach is different. Simplicity is the key to security.

As for the green footprint, that really boils down to not having a monolithic chain. At Geeq, each use case sits on its own boat: they have their own network, with no shared overhead, so a transaction takes about as many resources as it needs — instead of a user cross-subsidizing an entire system that they may not use.

7. So you have a solution that is really scalable and adaptable to different use cases. You’re starting with Geeq Data, but what’s next?

Geeq Data is on its way to being productized for enterprise, and as we’ve worked with our strategic partners, they’ve asked for more features. The next step on the roadmap is to do the same process with NFTs, which builds on the Geeq Data code, and we’re amazed at how much the private sector is so hungry for private NFTs. Again, the full feature set translates beautifully to public instances once it goes through our product development cycle.

I have to bow down to our amazing Chief Architect, Lun Yuen, who has taken software systems from inception to international mass adoption, Quickbooks, and more.

8. So, NFTs are going to be so big in the metaverse! And that will also rely on efficient micropayments — you have a solution for that, don’t you? 😉

Yes to that again. 🙂 I appreciate you know so much about Geeq. Yes, when Geeq’s public NFTs are ready, they will be easy and inexpensive to mint and transfer securely.

For those who are new to Geeq, Geeq’s technology does not depend on smart contracts. Instead functions are being developed as standard transaction operations that are settled immediately on-chain.

By that time, we expect there will be mass marketplaces, and we already demonstrated Geeq’s micropayments functionality last year. It’s very gratifying to see each piece fall into place. We knew concentrating on building reliable generic pieces would do that — and are enthusiastic about others seeing the possibilities too.

9. It sounds like you have a lot of potentially very cool technology, but there’s a big challenge in achieving actual adoption. How are you going to really get your solutions into the hands of corporates?

Well, I’d like to make an announcement! We have added a new strategic partnership this year that takes us a giant step forward toward real adoption at major clients. 🙂

Our new strategic partner is Rowbot, a cream of the crop technology firm, based in Canada but whose tech has been used globally for years, as a leading data analytics firm, trusted by huge clients.

They have moved to a model of providing self-service, easy-to-use, no-code data management capabilities to the non-technical users in businesses, which is exactly what their large clients need: for smaller teams to get bigger results.

They’ll be able to leverage all their experience in dealing with sensitive data and in incredible quantities — we’re talking about big data, for ML/AI data-driven data products.

They’re already commercialized in multiple global financial institutions, and Geeq will provide the validation layer, not only for the enterprise databases that will use their data products across departments, which fits into the first use case I mentioned but also will move Geeq Data to be able to demonstrate our scalability at the levels these customers will demand.

Oddgems: Are you implying real-world revenue-generating partners or crypto-related projects? 👀

Stephanie: We’re talking about real-world revenue-generating partners.

I think the crypto-related projects will lag in this regard. They are primarily caught up in the security = cost model. Enterprises want some way to have security without escalating costs, and Geeq meets that criteria.

Oddgems: Oh wow! That’s crazy. 👀💥

I just opened this deck you shared https://software.geeq.io/ to see if I could find anything, did I just spot the two clients here on page 11? Are those the ones or these are completely different ones you’re talking about?? 👀

Exactly. 🙂 You found the Easter egg. And I wanted your community to know it first.

Partnering with Rowbot is one way that we’re showing this new tech stack — and one thing we like to say internally to each other is that not only are we bringing the best kind of tech from each of our fields, but doing so will keep each of us innovating in synergy. There’s no stopping this kind of natural pairing, as they find out how to do better with validated data by Geeq, and we find out the kinds of services that will use the kinds of data their clients entrust to them!

I could drop some hints about the kinds of clients they’ve had in the past, too, if you like. 🙂

Oddgems: That would be icing on the cake, go ahead. we’re all ears!

Stephanie: For you!

I have two examples, without naming the names of the clients, but you’ll recognize the caliber of clients where the Geeq-Rowbot tech stack will be deployed.

The Rowbot founders have worked with a top US/Global Insurance company — creating a no-code “digital twin’ of legacy systems, enabling legacy data validation and facilitating a large-scale data migration.

Also, they have worked with a Top 3 Canadian bank, to automate data alignment between multiple operational systems.

What Geeq now adds to the table is the validation of the data and validation of access to the data — which will give Rowbot data products an edge in assuring their clients that the data integrity of their products is unparalleled.

Oddgems: I’m simply stunned, there are like top projects in the top 100 that don’t even have real-world revenue-generating clients or partners, most of them are simply ghost chains. And here we have a tiny microcap with such epic clients and partnerships. UNREAL!!

Stephanie: We’re working!

And I so appreciate our Geeq Community, who has trusted us through the quiet times when the NDAs and legal arrangements and strategies and details have had to be worked out.

10. Again just wow, great news! But for retail investors like myself, it’s all about the token. How does the enterprise route benefit the token value and utility?

From our entire team, we are very aware of this question for retail investors. We made a conscious decision last year to prioritize the development of private instances before the public mainnet for the long-term, sustainable future of Geeq, and I know the factors behind that decision are extremely complicated and not the kinds of things we discuss — as they are going on — in public. We do try to give updates as much as we can.

I would like to address this as head-on as possible. In fact, here is a message from our CEO to your community:

It’s our observation that with all that is and has happened in the world, trust deficits are increasing. Whether within organizations or entities or governments or between. And this is where the increasing need, demand, acknowledgment for some external validation, some way of reducing that trust deficit, emerges. Which triggers going “outside” for validation, which is where the private to public or private/public hybrid model comes into play. And hence the demand for the public version of geeq and therefore token utility to reward validators.

It is also not lost on us, that a very good portion of all that we are developing for enterprise does nothing but strengthen and is in line with our path to the public version of the geeq protocols. When geeq emerges publicly it will have not only “main net” utility but applications that can function within the protocol that we believe will drive adoption fairly aggressively. Never any guarantees as always but that is what we believe and we are now getting that belief affirmed and reinforced with the current path to market discussions. So not only is it of great interest to our community, we are seeing it as being “pulled” by expected users as well. Vision meeting reality. Push meeting pull.

Geeq CEO Ric Asselstine

From my perspective, which is closer to the dev level, I want to assure whoever is paying attention that all development devoted to the private features and instances, and testing, go hand in hand toward being hardened for the public and main net development.

We began with the idea of secure payments, at scale, which is what most projects do when they think about a blockchain and we knew there would be a way to scale applications on that in an economical and decentralized way, given our multi-chain architecture.

We knew we had something special. The kinds of applications and features we’re discovering now, that have true demand in the private sector, which we think means the public at large will love (secure private NFTs that have already been scaled for a large enterprise issuance, to take the closest example) — permissioning for applications, which can take place when a public dev wants a chain, without relying on a smart contract for multi-sig?

These are features we will bring to the public. And value drives volume, which drives utility.

11. So in the future do we expect some of the protocol/chain fees to be paid in GEEQ tokens or Fiat as well?

Yes, although the degree and arrangements will vary according to business contracts, and some are yet to be negotiated, as I’m sure you’ll understand. But we are extremely aware of the importance that it always comes back to the utility of the token in the public environment, which we are bootstrapping as we go.

There’s also a lot of headway in clearing the way for graduating the private chain business to a hybrid private-public chain solution, which was one of the methods I’ve been championing from the start for all sorts of reasons, including the fact it really embeds public chains as part of the enterprise world.

Oddgems: Ok, so the previous question was the last from my end, are you free to take few questions from the community? If so, I’ll open the chat for the public just for few minutes as it’s already past 90 mins mark.

Stephanie: Absolutely!

Community Questions, answered by Stephanie

Q: Will the $Geeq token be essential on Private chains? If partnerships are enterprise/private focused, and the $Geeq token is not needed on private chains, it has little relevance to the community at this stage.

A: No, not on all private chains, and certainly not as we are testing with private clients. The process with private clients is: onboarding — testing and feedback — and then meeting their needs. If their needs are completely private, then it is up to the company to work out what happens to Geeq tokens in a separate way.

Q: As far as I know, investment was a commitment not the actual investment amount yet. When do you guys expect to receive the investment?

A: These will come with milestones and the agreement was made before the latest technical release. We expect soon and often. 🙂

Q: What is the one thing that keeps you up at night that may cause the vision to stall? What is the one thing you think people don’t understand well enough that gives geeq absolute advantage?

A: Nothing keeps me up at night anymore, not that funding is secured, it is clear we have a direct pipeline for demand for now and future products that are recognized as head and shoulders above the competition. Literally nothing.

The one thing people don’t understand enough is that security matters and simplicity matters. Security through complexity is dangerous; smart contracts are vulnerable; bridge hacks are vulnerable, inherited security models are vulnerable, security that depends on costs are a treadmill that is expensive to maintain … and Geeq has thought through all of it AND found ways to avoid those problems.

Q: For me it feels still all uncertain for retail investors.. is it possible to update the tokenomics with clarity? Because “depends on contracts, etc” is not giving that much certainty.

A: The tokenomics have always been the same, we’ve commited to that.

‘It depends on contracts’ is simply a reality of the business world, and I know it’s uncommon to see if you are used to token projects. But we’re not a token project that says: here’s the way it’s always going to be (and then change it later). The reality for us is, the mission is the same (blockchain useful and accessible for everyone), but the ways in which we convince people that Geeq is for mass adoption will differ as we go along.

Q: Wen mainnet?? We are hearing since 2020?

A: We’ve defined the additional features list. Mainnet will be released when the technology is hardened.

Once the features are released, that’s it. There will be no changes to the protocol, no major bounties for bugs … because that testing will be done in a professional way, the way software companies do it, ahead of time. And once we release the platform to the public, they will know that what they see and get to use easily is what they get, they can fire and forget, they can count on Geeq.

All of which may take more time than you’re used to … but will result in more stability at the end.

Q: Your protocol papers say that 1 third of the node fees go for Geeq Corp, why not give 100% to the ones running the nodes if the idea is to create an open protocol? Also, what’s the status of the patents you issued for approval?

A: Because we wouldn’t have the incentive to work this hard, this long, to make the quality product we want. Also, we have Geeq for Good that we want to support. Also, there will be plenty to go around. This is more of a philosophical discussion that we could maybe take to Geeq chat. 🙂

Re: patent status — I guess you’ll have to stay tuned.

Oddgems: Thanks a lot Hans and Stephanie for answering our questions related to Geeq. As usual, I’ve learned a lot through this AMA and hopefully many would have as well. Amazing well-detailed answers. LOVED IT!!

I wish the entire Geeq team the very best and hope they succeed in the long run, short term is just noise anyways 🙂

Stephanie: We really appreciate the opportunity — not only the opportunity to answer questions I know are really important for those both new and old to Geeq, in this neutral forum, oddgems. And also for the encouragement and commitment of time to really get into the detailed answers. 🙏

Geeq Links:
Website — https://geeq.io/
Twitter — https://twitter.com/GeeqOfficial
YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/c/GeeqOfficial
Telegram — https://t.me/GeeqOfficial
LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/company/geeq/

Oddgems Links:
Twitter — https://twitter.com/oddgems
Medium — https://medium.com/@oddgemsofficial
Telegram Group — https://t.me/oddgemsfamilia

To learn more about Geeq™ follow us:

Website ~ Grab a Coffee ~ http://www.geeq.io/news/

Telegram ~ Join us for a chat ~ https://t.me/GeeqOfficial

Twitter ~ Keep up to date ~ https://twitter.com/GeeqOfficial

YouTube ~ Feast your eyes ~ https://www.youtube.com/c/GeeqOfficial