OVERVIEW
VANTA is a decentralized and permissionless network that ensures real-time, secure and private connectivity. By using blockchain and crypto-economics designed for real-time networking, VANTA creates a system in which nodes participating in the network contribute to real-time data transmission and processing without relying on traditional centralized systems and networks. This system results in a low cost, functional blockchain-based network where anyone, regardless of existing platforms, can participate and use the network by using an API, an SDK, or modules to integrate with existing applications or platforms in use. In simpler terms, creative services will be provided and integrated within the VANTA ecosystem, and VANTA blockchain will greatly contribute to improving the daily lives of individuals and operations of enterprise businesses.
AIMS / GOALS
The World’s first decentralized network that enables fast and low-cost development and operation of scalable services that provide infinite connectivity
Allow individuals to create decentralized networks that perform real-time data transmissions as well as process and store that data by selecting intelligent peers, collaborating, and evaluating each other using the VANTA network protocol and the consensus algorithm.
PROBLEMS VANTA AIM TO SOLVE
Increasing network throughput and cost: Current networks and infrastructures that support various real-time networking are reaching throughput limits. This means that companies will not be able to provide reliable services since network and server costs will increase along with the increasing amount of data transmitted.
Real-time networking development costs and problems with centralized services: Many companies are limited (or even fail) to develop real-time networking services because of the cost, time, and skills required to develop and operate such services. As a result, an increasing number of companies are utilizing centralized API services that are prone to cost increase as usage increases, and to hacking or privacy issues because the data is stored on a centralized server.
Privacy concerns resulting from transferring and storing personal data: Currently, a lot of our personal data is being stored on centralized servers in order to provide smoother services/experiences, but at the cost of data being leaked and exposed to the public when the servers become compromised.
Access to data generated by devices and the data usage fees
Trust in the communication between parties and trust in the data transferred from various devices
PROPOSED SOLUTION
VANTA will solve the throughput and cost issues by making the common computers and mobile devices around the world, whose performance rapidly increases each year, contribute to real-time networking.
By building a decentralized network for real-time networking that is not owned or controlled by anyone, Vanta can provide various real-time networking APIs to companies which helps the companies reduce cost, and mitigate hacking and privacy issues.
With Vanta Blockchain, it will be possible to transparently confirm the process of transmitting, storing and deleting data. Decentralized nodes, in addition, transmit and store real-time data, which prevent hacking and excessive/malicious use of personal data.
VANTA intends to create an efficient system that can quickly and safely send and receive data in real-time by creating a competitive system that instantly configures networks according to each situation.
TECHNOLOGY
I honestly think reading the Well written white paper is the best way to learn about the technology that will be used in Vanta Network. Its clear and goes into a lot of details but I will include some notable ones in here.
The ARKAS PROTOCOL
The ARKAS Protocol establishes a new decentralized network infrastructure that connects devices and people across time and space. ARKAS, the next generation real-time networking protocol, establishes real-time, encrypted, and private data and media channels including text, audio, video, and streaming. The protocol enables real-time data transmission, processing, and storage functions by selecting peers, collaborating, and evaluating each other.
KANUS Chain
The KANUS Chain adopts Proof of Networking (PoN), which consists of self-evolving intelligent nodes along with Verifiable Random Function (VRF) and enhanced Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) to ensure scalability, efficiency, and reliability of the decentralized infrastructure.
PoN-VRBFT (Consensus Algorithm)
VANTA has created an algorithm called Proof of Networking that allows each node to contribute to real-time data transmission, processing, and storage in the network competitively. The workload of each node is verified by verifier nodes selected through VRF and recorded using VANTA’s unique workload unit called Net and Net price to prove the amount of workload and the actual value of it. This was combined with Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) and Verifiable Random Functions (VRF) to design a unique consensus algorithm called PoN-VRBFT. The KANUS Chain selects few nodes based on the trusted random function referred to as Verifiable Random Function and participate in 1) block proposal 2) verification 3) confirmation.
STAKING
Tokens are staked in Vanta for :
API Usage (application developers): Companies that want to develop and operate services based on VANTA must stake VNTs in order to transfer, process, and store data using the VANTA API. There will be an expected amount of workload per month required for each service, and service providers should stake VNTs proportional to it.
API Usage (end-users): In cases when an application developer does not have sufficient funds to continue providing its services, a sudden influx of users, or when required by the business model of the service, developers can set staking rules for their end users. When a new user joins the service or uses the service heavily, the developer can allow the end user to stake the additional amount of tokens required for its workload
Joining as Nodes: Worker nodes that perform real-time networking jobs and participate in the consensus round are required to stake an amount of VNTs in proportion to its workload. Any device can participate in the VANTA network as contributors. They will be working on various real-time networking jobs, verifying each other, generating blocks, and receiving rewards. Participating nodes can be divided into job tracker nodes, worker nodes, or verifier nodes, depending on their roles in the network.
TEAM HIGHLIGHTS
The VANTA team comprises of engineers and executives from global
corporations such as Oracle, HP, AWS, Samsung, and Microsoft. The
VANTA Network is developed by PhDs and developers from top universities
in South Korea with educational backgrounds from UC Berkeley,
Carnegie Mellon, and Georgia Tech.
Joonhyuk Seo - CEO of Vanta. Has over 12 years of experience in IT & Telecommunication industry from ORACLE (JAPAC) and HP. He is also a founder and CEO of Voiceloco, the parent company of VANTA.
Andrian Park - Technical Lead at VANTA Network. Founder of Gamedetect communications, a search engine designed for games in 1999. He worked as a data scientist for 2 years at SK Planet, Korea’s first multi-screen premium video service.
Martin Jung - Technical Analyst and Senior Technical Consultant at Oracle for more than 6 years. Experience in product management working as a Senior Technical Product Manager at Amazon Web Services
Inwhee Joe - Professor at Department of Computer Science in Hanyang University, SEOUL. Ph.D. Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech.
More details about Vanta core developers can be found here
MAIN ADVISORS
YoonSeok Choi - Vice President of Microsoft Korea, Senior Director at Oracle
ChangNam Choi - Regional Head at Oracle Apac Cloud Platform
Henry Chung - Managing Director, Draper Athena Fund
More details on Vanta Advisors
https://medium.com/vantanetwork/vanta-network-advisory-board-de7e8f936346
Advisors seem to be really experienced and capable of developing the network. Something to note; none of the four advisors have Vanta Network in their LinkedIn profiles. Not necessarily a bad thing but worth pointing out.
PARTNERS
The VANTA team has established strategic partnerships with the following:
MICROSOFT KOREA - VANTA will provide a cloud communication suite integrated VANTA API with MS "Teams" (formerly "Skype for Business") to enable inbound/outbound calling features and target SMB customers with AudioCodes & Softbank Commerce (retailer).
ORACLE - VANTA is working directly with Oracle ISV/OEM business unit as an ISV (Independent Software Vendor) to expand our reach to not only consumers but also to enterprise customers. VANTA will be promoting and selling innovative VANTA services to a variety of customers around the world by joining the Oracle Partner Network. VANTA Services – UcaaS (ciao, scheduled) and voice and video APIs will be available in Oracle Cloud Marketplace.
Hanyang University - HANYANG Univ. MNI(Mobile & Network Intelligence) Lab will contribute for VANTA as the main research lab. For efficiency and enhancement of VANTA’s Intelligent Network, MNI lab is developing & validating PoC (Proof of Concept) models of consensus algorithms and data routing algorithms.
MakerDAO -VANTA Will be Accepting Dai Stablecoin for Qualified Investors in Presale, and is looking forward to exploring MakerDAO’s upcoming Multi-Collateral Dai to allow VANTA token to be held as collateral for Dai.
Voiceloco - The VANTA Network project is backed by Voiceloco, a Korea-based telecommunication startup that is specialized in software-based IMS and client m-VoIP engines(iOS/Android/web), in use by some of South Korea’s largest conglomerates, including Naver, the #1 search engine of South Korea, Lotte, and SK Networks.
Sejong Telecom - Sejong Telecom Co., Ltd., is a key telecommunication carrier with a nationwide optical communication network. Sejong Telecom and Voiceloco run UCaaS Smart Service now. They are planning a new blockchain business with VANTA.
Rocket Fuel - RocketFuel consists of top minds from cutting-edge companies such as Snapchat, Uber, Airbnb, Accenture, McKinsey and more. Some of their blockchain investments include Oasis Labs, Chromapolis, Aergo, AllBit, ICON, VeChain, Chainlink to name a few.
ROADMAP
- Q2 2018 - Project Started -
- Q4 2018- Whitepaper and Website launched
- Q1 2019 - IEO launched, Technical paper to be released and development on ARKAS protocol begins
- Q2 2019 - Test Net expected to launch
- Q3 2019 - Main Net expected to be launched with ERC20 tokens swapped out for Native Tokens.
- Q4 2019 - Once public APIs and SDKs are released, VANTA Incubation & Consulting, comprised of industry experts and advisors, will incubate dApps to be built on top of the VANTA Network for mass adoption
Above is the Vanta Network Roadmap which shows the goals they aim to achieve in other to fully develop and launch the network. Something to note is that token sale starts in January and will most likely end the same month or in February. Assuming exchange listing is quick and mainnet is expected in Q3 2019, that will leave roughly 6-8 months where the token will have no use or purpose other than sitting in a wallet.
MVP
MVP video demo showing how VANTA network provides a real-time communication backend infrastructure for mainstream applications can be seen below.
Vanta also currently has a non-blockchain MVP Voiceloco's Ciao which is like Skype or Google Hangouts. The Ciao application will be the first dApp available on the VANTA Network. Once the dApp is live, Users will migrate from the centralized version of the app to the decentralized version.
Github is currently private so I can’t look through their code to see how things are progressing.
TOKEN METRICS / DISTRIBUTION
Ticker: VNT
Total Supply: 65,200,000,000
% of Tokens sold: 35%
Hardcap: $15,000,000
35% of tokens being sold in exchange for $15m is on the high side in my honest opinion. Would have loved to see either a lower hard cap or a larger percentage of tokens being sold to initial investors.
Vesting
Team - 6.25% every 2 months for Total 32 months, first release 2 months after being listed on a centralized exchange
Advisors—25% every 3 months for Total 12 months - first release on 3 months after listed on a centralized exchange
Business Dev. - Release 10% every month after two months being listed on the exchange
R&D - The first release is 5 months after the exchange listing and 10% monthly as well
Reserve - No lockup for Reserves which will be used for liquidity services and exchange listing
TOKEN USECASE & ECONOMY
The VANTA ecosystem adopts both an inflationary and deflationary token mechanism to ensure appropriate incentives for users to participate in the network with an annual 2% of token inflation. Newly issued tokens are used to compensate the nodes performing block production and verification. The Network also incorporates a staking model to ensure free usage of the network. VNT token staking is required to use real-time networking APIs such as data transmission proportional to the amount of VNT tokens staked. Upon un-staking, 2% of the total VNT tokens previously staked are burned/incinerated. See illustration below for more clarity
SOME CONCERNS
- The hard cap is a little bit on the high side especially with just 35% of tokens being sold.
- Github is private so I cant evaluate any code they've written so far
- None of their advisors have Vanta on their profiles
- Token will have no use case after exchange listing until at least mainnet in 6-8 months
- They will be in a competitive field with companies like Skrumble Network, Mainframe, and the upcoming Telegram Network
- There is not that much awareness / hype for the project outside Korea
FINAL THOUGHTS
VANTA is a very interesting project that has some use cases I would personally try out if / when it launches such as their video/game streaming and the decentralized Skype-like dApp. During my research on them, they were very cooperative and answered my questions transparently.
This being a Korea-based project is a plus because we all know how Korean projects tend to perform in terms of ROI for their investors. Even during this prolonged bear market, Korean projects have time and tie again giving good ROI to their investors (at least for the short term)
They already have partnered with two Korean exchanges AllBit (a subsidiary of UPbit) and Cashierest so listing should be quick after their token sale and adequate liquidity available for investors. Also, their First Token Sale Event on Cashierest Exchange successfully sold out early with a total of 1,299,983,670 VNT being sold at a value of approximately $1.2 mil USD. This was only available to Korean citizens and shows that VANTA has very good awareness in Korea.
I think their team and advisors are very capable and have the necessary experience to deliver on their promises (assuming they stay true to their investors and not get sidetracked with money raised like a lot of projects do).
They have good partnerships (Microsoft, Oracle) that should help them in getting awareness and gaining clients'
All in all, its up to the team to deliver on their promises and not mislead investors like most icos do.
VANTA NETWORK SOCIAL LINKS
Disclaimer
This analysis is based on information that is currently publicly available and that was provided to by VANTA team. The above information is not financial investment advice. Please do your own research before making investment decisions. This information is for educational purposes only. I did not personally invest in Vanta.
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