Unitalk with Nabil Naghdy of Status: To make the world focus more on data liberty, privacy and security
Originally posted on 12, Dec. 2018.
The Internet has emerged since the 1990s. After nearly 30 years of development, it has gradually become an indispensable part of human production and life. The development of the Internet has experienced Web1.0 (users access information through browsers) and Web2.0 (users are both consumers of website content and makers of website content), and emerging technologies represented by blockchain technology will open the door to the Web 3.0 era.
Currently, projects dedicated to changing the world through blockchain technology are making progress, many of which focus on combining current Web 2.0 and blockchain, with open source and community as development models to decentralize things. Committed to building a decentralized “WeChat” and Ethereum technology development,Status is one of the best projects. On December 4th, after the “Exploring Blockchain Technology and Its Innovative Applications” event at Unitimes Uniacademy, Unitimes interviewed Nabil Naghdy, COO of Status. Let’s take a look at Status’s development progress and development philosophy, as well as his trip to China.
Some of our readers may not familiar with Status. Would you introduce Status a little bit? What do you guys do exactly?
Sure. So Status is trying to build in a very simple way the decentralized version of “WeChat”. So we have chat, so you can talk to people; we have a wallet and a browser for decentralized apps (for dapps) on your phone.
What are the latest updates of your project? What is your short-term plan？
So our most recent launches have been a new desktop application. So on desktop you can actually (you can) chat like on mobile. It’s kind of pair together. Our short-term road map. We have an exciting new hardware wallet. They were planning on launching. We call it keycard which essentially allows you to confirm transactions when you want to send money to someone, you tap the card on your phone and it’s an additional measure of security.
I learnt that most of your team members have stopped using Slack and turned to Status. How do you feel about that? Is that running well right now?
Yes. So we are no longer using Slack at all. It’s been about one month. There is a lot of things that we are working on to make the experience better. Yeah, it’s been good. It’s good to have people using this product first hand, because then, they know how to fix it. It’s very easy for them to fix it. And since Status is open source, anyone can come and contribute and help fix it.
So is there any bugs?
Yeah, there is definitely bugs. There is bugs and we constantly working to fix them. Especially, you know, because the technology we are building is so new, there is a lot things that come out all the time. So yea, we’re definitely still in that though.
As far as I know, users can only send texts via Status. Some Chinese community members were asking when they would be able to send images and voice message. Do you have an answer for them?
Yes. So we’re emmm. Right now we have a demo of an extension that allows you to send images and voice and videos using decentralized file storage called IPFS. And so that’s the extension that people can build and we are right now working to make that a first party to an application. So that’s definitely coming. We know that people need this feature, so that’s something we’re working on.
We did a small survey before this interview about what developers wanted to know most about your project. And we selected two of them:
1) Can you tell us the current implementation progress of Status’s Nimbus?
Yes. So right now we’re about 6 month into development of Nimbus. Our first millstone is in March which is I believe it’s running and having a Proof of Concept. And then, but we are still I would say at least one year away from seeing this deployed in large scale. And we are working very closely with Ethereum team on Serenity which is the next version of like that when Proof of Stake will get implemented, and having..emmm yeah it’s something we’re definitely working toward. So we have a team of 10 or 11 people who are working on Nimbus. So it’s a big team.
2)Is there a specific date that you think it will be finished?
No. But we have a deadline with the Ethereum Foundation. Because they would give us a grant so we have a deadline of March to complete our first milestone. Yeah, if you go to our blog, you can see the progress and what the different milestones are.
3) Can you describe the mobile ULC design ideas and current progress?
So right now, ULC is in the research phase. The one thing that we are trying to solve is the crypto-economic model, of that, which is how the nodes get incentivized. Once that’s solved, the technical part is a little bit easier than the crypto-economic part and all parts of our new protocol that we are building. So we want to combine the end to end chat along with the crypto economic layer. So that we can incentivize nodes and the node incentivization occurs along with the chat itself. So we don’t just mix two things together. We build one protocol that has both.(this sounds cool) yea it’s very interesting. Its very early but yeah.
Right now in China we have WeChat, so everyone asks the question if WeChat is the competitor of Status.
I think considering the size of WeChat, we’re nowhere near. Like it’s very hard to say that it’s a competitor. I mean it’s very well integrated into daily life in China. And I think they’ve done a great job in making things seamless, and I think it’s something we look for in Status as well as how we can make the experience as simple as possible and things like paying for meals, sending money to friends, chatting the idea of mini apps. So lots of interesting ideas.
You know what we see not is just for Status in WeChat, but across the entire Web3 ecosystem. You’ve certain things that Web2 does very well, for example social networks, and we will see in Web3 the next generation of application starting to take hold. And it will take many years for the Internet Web3 to replace Web2. So you know, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years. You know some companies are doing such an excellent job, but at the end of the day we’ll believe the decentralization will be the future.
How do you like your trip to China? Anything interesting that you’d like to share with us?
Yes, it’s been very insightful. You know we just spoke about WeChat. That’s probably the most interesting thing. Last night, I went to McDonald’s, and I went to pay, and they didn’t expect credit card. They accept Unionpay and WeChat pay. And I have a visa card and they didn’t accept it. So it was amazing that I couldn’t pay at MacDonald’s except with WeChat. And everywhere you go there is QR Code, and here in Shenzhen, it’s been amazing just walking around the Technology Park seeing the progress and development.
At the airport, it was amazing seeing how much a city has grown from when I was here 15 years ago. So that’s seeing how well integrated technology is in people’s lives very different to Europe and North America. And I think that’s amazing, and there is a lot of innovation happening here that is not happening anywhere else.
Is there anything that you think the other countries should learn from Shenzhen?
I think the rapid pace of progress and supporting technology is a big lesson. A lot of countries trying to focus on old technologies and old industries, and not focusing on what’s the next 20 year is gonna look like. And you know the way the city has progressed, and it’s been a hub for software engineering and hardware is setting up Shenzhen to be a city for the next 50 years. While the other countries that focus on, for example, like coal energy or farm or other industries, technology is at the heart of what’s here. So it’s amazing.
Do you have any other things you want to talk to the audience?
I think one thing that we’re very passion about is being open source. So we welcome any people who what to contribute, or even take what we have and build something better. For example, our hard Keycard, all the software is open source. So if you want to manufacture your own Keycard, do it. So we really encourage this idea of people taking in what’s out there and everything we’ve built, all our software, is a public-good, it’s for anyone to use. It’s to make the world focus more on data liberty, privacy and security. So anyone can come to contribute. Anyone can take what we have and make it better.
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