The recent quick collapse of FTX, which not too long ago was one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, has had a significant impact on the entire cryptocurrency market. On November 11, 2022, FTX filed for bankruptcy which has wiped billions of dollars of value from the broader crypto markets. This event has led many people to understandably be concerned about investing in blockchain projects.
But it’s important that people first know that no $DOCK is held by FTX and our network will continue to operate without any impact from these events. We will continue to scale with many exciting updates coming in Q1 2023.
There are many unpredictable events and factors that can impact the overall market, but the important thing for long-term supporters is not to focus on the day-to-day prices of projects, but rather on the long-term utility and value that a project will bring to solve problems.
We held an AMA with Dock’s CEO Nick Lambert to answer questions and concerns from our community.
Question: To what extent have we been impacted by the bear markets?
I’ll first address what recently happened with FTX. While we’re not directly impacted by FTX’s downfall because Dock has never used FTX as an exchange, the entire industry will be affected.
For Dock, we’re focused a lot on good governance and financial management. One of the downsides of FTX is they didn’t have a board of directors. There was no one to look after the people running the company, giving them advice, and making sure they were making good judgment calls.
It’s understandable why people are nervous. At the end of the day, there has to be some element of trust in the people running companies. Structures need to be put in place to make sure that those individuals are held accountable to do things in responsible ways.
We spend a lot of time with our directors, lawyers, and accountants on the team making sure that when we make decisions, they are checked and verified by others to make sure we are doing things the way we should be.
To be sustainable, we’ve moved assets and spread our risk by holding a number of tokens. More recently, we’re putting more priority on holding assets that are not volatile like non-algorithmic stable coins and cash. We’re in a solid and stable position as the Dock team has not changed in size at all. We have a consistent team which is important for the continuous enhancement of the types of products we’re building.
Question: What are the most ambitious goals of the project in the future?
For Dock, the biggest goal is to become the largest independent entity and provider of identity and Verifiable Credentials. We’re well-placed to become one of the market leaders.
Question: What is one of the main priorities on the roadmap?
The mobile wallet upgrade is the biggest focus in the next two months. We’re making a lot of enhancements to it including the storage and management of credentials by users.
Question: What kind of transformations and advancements can be done with the Dock network in the healthcare sector?
BurstIQ is using Dock’s Verifiable Credential technology. Their vision is to turn any piece of health data into a Verifiable Credential. Some of the most important features Verifiable Credentials have are that they are controlled by the holder or recipient of those credentials, tamper-resistant, and fraud-proof.
If you think about healthcare records being controlled by the holder, that becomes quite powerful because it moves us away from the current status quo where if you went to a local healthcare provider and they have your records, they decide what you see and who gets your record. If you turn healthcare records into Verifiable Credentials, it should be the case that you control that information, where it’s stored, and who gets to see it. This is a significant contribution that Verifiable Credentials and Dock’s partnership with BurstIQ will bring into the healthcare space.
We’re building other technologies including zero-knowledge proofs, anonymous credentials, and selective disclosure. Selective disclosure is enabling something to be proven without needing to reveal everything to prove that information. For example, you could use selective disclosure with your own medical records. If your doctor needs your blood type, then you can decide to just reveal the blood type only to give you maximum privacy and control over your data. Those are going to be some of the exciting things that we’ll see in the healthcare space.
Question: People want to know how we are expanding, what type of marketing strategies we’re doing to increase brand presence, and if we have strategic partnerships to help us grow.
There are 3 main aspects to our adoption strategy:
- Inbound marketing
We produce a lot of content online so people who are interested in what we’re building as users or issuers can find out how Dock is doing things. If they’re interested, they’re getting in touch with us and we engage with them to see how we can help.
This has been the most effective strategy because when companies come to us first, they’re already interested in what we’re building and they’re pretty well-educated about what we do.
- Outbound marketing (more sales-led)
We are picking industries where we know we provide value and reach out to companies to see if they’re interested in what we can offer.
- Integration with marketplaces
There are many marketplaces for things like apps. But for B2B businesses, there are marketplaces for many things that some people may not be aware of. One example would be marketplaces that provide tools for developers to allow them to enable their users to authenticate and access their services like Auth0.
Auth0 is offering our Web3 ID product for enabling private and secure access to systems using Verifiable Credentials. By being in that marketplace, we’re tapping into an entirely new audience and making them aware of what we’re building.
We’ll be looking at more marketplaces in the early new year. Another example is an API marketplace for developers to be aware of Dock and try our software.
Those are the main strategies we have for growing adoption.
Question: What type of strategies do you have to attract new investors?
Our main focus is to build things that have value that companies can come and use to get a business benefit. Individuals get the product benefits that make their life easier, more secure, and provide more privacy and control of their own data. If we build and market it in a really efficient way as a project, people will start to use it more and that value will spread in the ecosystem.
We’re not just trying to do some quick fix and run marketing campaigns without any real structure and innovation behind the company. We’re working as far away from that as possible because we want to bring long-term value in the ecosystem by providing solutions to organizations and individuals.
Question: Many people are not that aware of Web3. How do we pull more people to join Web3 for DIDs?
It comes down to user experience. We have to make new technology as easy and as good to use as the technology it’s replacing. And if it’s not then it won’t replace it. If you think about how much of a hassle it is to use a different web browser, it's annoying at the start and slower because you’re not familiar with it.
From the perspective of users, young people are much more privacy-conscious than the previous generation. I think as soon as these tools become great, they'll start to make that switch. They’ll start to recognize that their data is being used in a way that they might not agree with or consent to.
For companies, they’re wanting to be able to add value. It becomes more about making efficiencies where Web3 is better than some of the technologies. With Verifiable Credentials, you can issue a credential that the verifier doesn’t need to manually check if the credential is legitimate. For example, if an employer needs to check the authenticity of a university degree, they don’t have to phone up the university. They can simply check the verifiable presentation instantly in seconds and they can know who issued that credential. This verification process is much more efficient for businesses.
KYC is another relevant use case because every time we use centralized exchanges, we’re continually having to go through a KYC every time we sign up for a new exchange. Or even for exchanges we are members of, they may ask us to reverify.
Instead of having to go through that process every time, imagine if you go through the identity verification check just once and you’re issued a credential after that. So every time afterward that you’re asked to do an identity verification, all you have to do is send them a Verifiable Credential. This process is much more efficient for businesses and this can increase onboarding percentages quite massively while creating a better user experience by spending less time doing the verification process.
Businesses will adopt Web3 when they realize the benefits and efficiencies they’ll get from using this technology.
Question: We will be providing a white-label wallet where customers can have their own branded wallet. What are the advanced security features that will be provided in this white-label wallet app?
White labeling is a way for developers, companies, and projects that want to offer a mobile wallet app for their customers but don’t want to build it. They can take the essential components of the Dock wallet, switch some features on and off as they prefer, and rebrand it. Then they have a ready-to-go wallet.
Security features they would have included having custody of your own keys and credentials. You manage your own private keys with the wallet and no one else has ownership. No one can take those tokens away from you.
Another thing we built is the ability to log into the wallet with biometrics using facial recognition or a thumbprint, which is more secure than PINs and passwords. We’ve also enabled the ability to create an encrypted backup so in case a device gets lost, damaged, or stolen, you won’t lose access to your tokens or credentials. Everyone who has a Dock wallet should create a backup.
Question: Are validators selected randomly based on the amount of Dock tokens staked or a mix of both?
Validators are selected like in any Proof of Stake network. We have 2 types of validators: an active set that is actively validating and those waiting to become validators.
In an active set with Dock, there are 50 validators and the ones that will become active are the ones that have the most stake. We combine what the nomination or delegators are putting into that node (computer connected to the Web3 network) plus their own stake which gives you a total. The top 50 with the highest total are validating the network. The network itself is calculating and running elections which means that the active validator set could change based on how much stake each of those nodes has.
Question: A large percentage of investors are focused on the token price in the short term rather than the long term. Why should investors choose Dock and what are the advantages of holding the Dock coin in the long run?
It’s unfortunate that many people are focused on the short-term price, but that is the reality of the space right now. The motivation for holding Dock over the long term is that we’re building something of value with products that people are using today for commercial benefit and to make their lives better.
We have a strong team, we have paying clients, and we’re very focused. It’s just a case of scaling, growing, and to keep improving all of the time.
Question: We’ve been tracking the progress of soulbound tokens. I’ve seen many other projects getting involved with the Web3 identity space with soulbound-based products. Can you briefly explain how these tokens are different from Dock’s DIDs? What kind of similarities and differences are there to NFTs for example?
Some of the similarities are that they are both about identity. Soulbound tokens are non-transferable NFTs. Normally NFT ownership can be transferred and that is all recorded on the chain. But a soulbound NFT is intended to not be transferable. So once you get this token, it’s completely yours which makes it more effective for managing identity because identity is something you shouldn't be able to transfer.
The differences are that with Verifiable Credentials, a big aspect is that they are often off-chain. What is in the blockchain is the identifier of who issued the credential and who it is going to. A Verifiable Credential is usually held in the wallet of the holder and not on the blockchain.
Because soulbound NFTs are all on-chain, the information is there for everyone to see. Of course, because blockchains are unencrypted, you can view that information so it’s a lot less private for the individual.
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