Sentinel AMA Recap with Crypto Society -18th March 2021

Crypto Society

15 min readMar 19, 2021

Bilo 2000,

Welcome to the Crypto Society Telegram channel! It’s an honour to host you in this AMA

We are fortunate to have 3 guests with us here today

Please tell us a little about yourselves

Peter Mancuso | Exidio,

Hi @Bilo_2000 Thank you for having us here today! I am the COO of Exidio, the software company building on Sentinel. I have over 12 years of experience leading diverse teams and bootstrapping companies, I have worked both cross functionally in pre-revenue and Fortune 500 companies. @DanExidio introduced me to Exidio and Sentinel during our MBA program in Boston. I’m excited for this AMA today!

I will let @DanExidio and @ironman0x7b2 introduce themselves

Dan Edlebeck | Exidio,

Yes, it should be great!

I’m Dan — CEO of Exidio. I first got involved in crypto while serving in the United States Peace Corps in Costa Rica. I began a personal journey discovering personal finance and understanding traditional markets and quickly went down the crypto rabbit hole. I have always been a follower and early adopter of emerging technology so it was a natural fit. It’s been a great five year journey since!

Tony Stark,

Hi, I am Srinivas Baride, working as CTO at Exidio. I am from India, and have 4+ years of professional experience in development. Worked on multiple things including Backend, frontend, cloud, Blockchain, dApps etc.

Bilo 2000,

Thanks for the intro and it’s our pleasure to host you three; Please tell us a little about how this project started?

Dan Edlebeck | Exidio,

The project started in very native crypto fashion — there were a core group of developers that were tinkering around with the ideas of better privacy and the ability to have a truly anti-fragle tor network.

That was the concept of decentralized VPN, This was in early 2017.

From there, developers worked together to form the p2p network, a bandwidth sharing marketplace. It has scaled significantly over three years and then in 20202 the network grew to the point it needed company to build on top of it and ensure the right team supporting it. That’s how we formed Exidio just less than a year ago. Done

Bilo 2000,

Thanks.Can you tell us about why you thought SN needed to be built and what problem it solves?

Dan Edlebeck | Exidio,

Instead of centralized VPN companies that collect user information, Sentinel is an open source, encrypted, peer to peer bandwidth marketplace for anyone to use. People can build and use secure VPN applications or make passive income offering bandwidth to the market. With this fraemwwork, there are many contributors to the Sentinel code base. Done

Bilo 2000,

Awesome! How would you describe SN if you were talking to someone unfamiliar with digital assets?

Tony Stark,

When browse through Internet, you leave some footprints on everything you visit, like IP and location. So, it’s easy to track you back and find your activity.

Traditionally the VPNs are used to unblock the websites and secure yourself from leaving these footprints. But the popular centralized VPNs are still logging your data eventhough they say they are not. And it’s easy for government to block any website our content on Internet.

Bilo 2000,

Great — Thanks

Also, following up on the previous question. What is the SN token used for? Can you describe the Tokenomics?

Tony Stark,

So with Sentinel which is a decentralized VPN where no centralized authority owns the node. Like AirBnb and Uber, all the nodes are hosted by community, and the bandwidth consumed by users. It’s the Airbnb of bandwidth

Dan Edlebeck | Exidio,

Yes, I’ll share an image and then explain it!

Bilo 2000,

Thanks pls do

Dan Edlebeck | Exidio,

Bilo 2000,

Just finished looking it over — your staking setup is quite nice!

Dan Edlebeck | Exidio,

The SENT token is multifaceted within the Sentinel dVPN Protocol ecosystem.

It is used for the following purposes:

- Payment: you can pay for access to dVPN bandwidth using the Sentinel token

- Governance: with the token you can vote for proposals on the protocol on-chain

- Security: as a Validator staking the token, you are validating the blockchain and all transactions on it

- Staking rewards: by staking the token you earn a great staking inflation, this is a very attractive staking incentive in our opinion

- Work Token: 20% of the revenue generated across the network accrues back to token stakers

It may also be used in different DeFi applications like collateral for a packaged stablecoin in the future or borrowing and lending mechanisms.

Bilo 2000,

Well thought out! So many meaningless structures out there today

Sentinel is in the process of migrating the new mainnet to tendermint. Did you always know you would migrate from Ethereum? If not, what prompted this decision, and when did you decide?

Tony Stark,

We launched our first dVPN application in Q1 of 2018 on Ethereum. In less amount of time, we got to know that we need to find scaling solutions, for that purpose we started looking at Layer 2 solutions at that time. Luckily we got introduced to Tendermint by Asmodat from Kira Network. We decided to move to Tendermint around Q3 of 2018 when Cosmos SDK was under active development and wanted to have own blockchain with interoperable solution.Done!

Bilo 2000,

How is this migration process going so far?

Tony Stark,

So far so good. We have completed development of blockchain and after running multiple testnets, we thought to launch mainnet on 27th March this year. And just collected the Genesis account addresses and prepared the initial Genesis file. Planning to start collect the Genesis transactions from today after making an announcement. Everything is going as planned!

Bilo 2000,

Congrats — That’s great to hear!

Tony Stark,

Thanks!

Bilo 2000,

Did you have other options (aside from Tendermint) you looked at in the selection process, but passed on? Why?

Tony Stark,

As I told we have looked at other Layer 2 solutions but we wanted have own blockchain with interoperable solution.

There are many pros with Cosmos SDK/Tendermint when compared to Ethereum and other networks. We are building a fully decentralized dVPN network and marketplace. So the Blockchain must be scalable, interoperable. With Cosmos SDK/Tendermint it’s possible to build sovereign interoperable blockchain with lower negative impact on environment because it’s bonded Proof of Stake.Done!

Bilo 2000,

Following up on my comment on staking above; Staking is a huge deal these days, and dPoS networks are really starting to go mainstream. Can you explain how staking works on Sentinel, and tell us why Sentinel would be a good choice for someone looking to stake tokens and invest?

Dan Edlebeck | Exidio,

Staking works on Sentinel similar to many other staking mechanic models on Cosmos. You can compare the Sentinel staking system to the Akash staking and bonding curve model. Sentinel worked closely with Akash as well as many other advisors in the tokenomic model and bonding curve.

Akash has the highest participation in staking across the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem — with 90% of their total circulating tokens participating in staking. Sentinel has found this model to be very attractive, thus the inflation mirrors some of those incentives. With 49% annualized staking rewards for the first six months and 43% annualized staking rewards the following six months, it would be likely that there will be great participation in Sentinel token staking.

Bilo 2000,

Totally agree!

Dan Edlebeck | Exidio,

And these benefits are not the greatest — the greatest is the aspect of the Work Token. As the network grows and individuals host bandwidth to the network, the value accrued across the network grows. This is directly translated to tokens distributed to tokens takers as 20% of all value across the network is directly distributed back to token stakers. Done

Bilo 2000,

Privacy is obviously a huge deal in general, with the rise of private data vacuums like Google, Amazon, Apple, and FaceBook. When we look more closely at it all, with what we have seen with Cambridge Analytica, with our data being weaponized against us, can you tell us some of your thoughts on privacy and why it is important to you?

Dan Edlebeck | Exidio,

Our data is deeply personal. Why? Because it’s OUR data.

We should not be taken advantage of or need to read 250 pages of tiny print to understand what may be happening with our personal information and internet traffic.

VPNs are supposed to help take this information away from our ISPs that resell this information or use it against us. However, as @ironman0x7b2 has pointed out, this has not been the case with centralized VPNs as they have been proven to log your data and can be sharing it with other parties or doing as they please with it.

This model is flipped on its head with decentralized VPN where there is no one entity or company that can track and log your internet metadata. Done

Dan Edlebeck | Exidio,

We believe strongly in the ownyourdata.foundation — a great org around Digital Intelligence and education. We support them at Exidio.

Bilo 2000,

YES — It is OUR data — Love it!

So, how does this all work anyways? Sentinel is billed as a network that enables massive decentralised shared bandwidth. A dVPN is a really cool concept, but what other kinds of capabilities would this have, outside of a VPN? Are there other kinds of app’s that the system could support? And if so, are you working on anything?

Peter Mancuso | Exidio,

Great question

So the bread and butter right now is dVPN. We have also seen many Centralized VPN providers look into providing a decentralized solution. We, Exidio, could help those companies change the backend of their centralized system to a decentralized model through Sentinel

We also see another area for growth, outside of VPNs, being gaming applications. If current application today has say, 1m users, and they want to help protect their users data more they can contact Exidio and we can tie in their application to Sentinel to help protect users data. (Done)

Bilo 2000,

I see; In my mind, I can imagine a network that supports shared bandwidth can be used on a system level perhaps, to reroute traffic, protect ip addresses, and to prevent DDOS attacks and hacks. When you talk about a dVPN do you include this in the concept, or should we look at a dVPN as something that an individual will use for privacy and security?

Tony Stark,

Yes, dVPN has all benefits that you mentioned and in addition to that dVPN is for more privacy and security. In Sentinel we have relay networking concept similar to Tor but the difference is that here a user can choose the number of hops and nodes. So user have full control over routing. He can also combine multiple encryption mechanism before reaching to destination. With relay networking, it’s not possible to trace back to origin. We are using Blockchain for anonymous payment where the account address is not linked to user details and no KYC

Bilo 2000,

That’s really good. I personally cringe every single time I have to KYCPartnerships are great! I know that Spider dVPN and Velocity dVPN will be built on top of your architecture. Is there anyone else building on Sentinel at the moment?

Peter Mancuso | Exidio,

Yes, we already have one other company that has built their own dVPN on the Sentinel network — Elysium Group has built the Velocity VPN. Velocity has had great growth and success to date — eclipsing over 100,000 downloads on the Google Play store.

We have two companies that will be disclosed soon that are actively building on the network currently. There are also seven more that have reached out about their interest in building and we will be working with them as the network scales and has capacity for such large volume. (Done)

Bilo 2000,

Thanks for the explanation

Could you tell us a little bit about Game of zones? The competition ended recently. What benefit did you find Sentinel was afforded with this?

Tony Stark,

Sure.

Game of Zones. A competition conducted by ICF and Cosmos. The experience was awesome. We had to study the IBC protocol and mechanism and go through the code and find possible ways of winning the competitions.

We have competed with big players in Blockchain and won 2 out of 3 major categories.

For us, we learnt about IBC protocol in-depth and we will be having it definitely in Sentinel dVPN. With IBC we can scale the dVPN zones horizontally and can accommodate payments in multiple tokens

Bilo 2000,

(GIF — Sentinel LOGO reveal)

You recently had a Capital raise. There are some prominent names on the VC list participants. How did you approach them and what was your pitch?

Peter Mancuso | Exidio,

I am loving these clips!

Bilo 2000,

😀

Dan Edlebeck | Exidio,

Hahahah too wild!!! I love it!

Bilo 2000,

😂

Dan Edlebeck | Exidio,

Thanks for asking. Ourselves — Peter, Srini, and I work at Exidio. Exidio did not have a capital raise. The SNT Foundation is an org that has the mission of growing the Sentinel network both on the dPVN bandwidth supply and user side.

The SNT Foundation did a private offering. The Foundation’s approach was partly directly reaching out to funders as well reaching out to supporters of the network and asked for warm connections to VCs that would be interested in a Web 3.0 project focused on bandwidth sharing.

[Forwarded from Sentinel — Official Announcements Only]

SENT has raised a funding round of $3.5M led by forward-thinking institutions and accomplished industry veterans.

This raise has a significant impact on the growth and the momentum of the Sentinel ecosystem going forward, allowing for:

1) The increase in development resources dedicated towards the Sentinel Cosmos based ‘Hub’ and the Sentinel dVPN network

2) Community expansion and increased user adoption through PR/Marketing efforts as well as demographic-specific marketing efforts

3) Onboarding onto reputable centralized exchanges which allow for Sentinel’s native token to be accessible to a larger audience

Mainnet launch on 27th March.

We are very humbled by the amount of interest and support we got in this round from a diverse set of supporters of Sentinel. The protocol investment focused institutions which have participated in the Sentinel capital raise include:

Woodstock Fund, AGE Fund, Atka Capital, Pangea Blockchain, Exnetwork Capital, Zokyo Ventures, 01 Capital, Genblock Capital, Digital Strategies, Advanced Blockchain AG, Mempol Ventures

We also have prominent heads of Wachsman, AU21 Capital, Alphablock Investments, D1 Ventures, builders of Tendermint, leaders of Persistence, Akash Network, Secret Network, StakeWithUs, stakefish, SG-1, Bridge Mutual, SALT Lending, Tavis Digital, Biconomy, Giant Leaf Capital, XMonetae Capital, Infinite Lux, Crypto Guerillas, Ravindra Kumar of Frontier as well as other individual investors.

https://medium.com/sentinel/sentinels-next-chapter-the-path-to-dvpn-mass-adoption-5d8a0b2afaba

For others interested, please keep up with Sentinel at @Sentinel_Co as well at this Announcements channel!

Bilo 2000,

Thanks for clarifying the connection. It seems obvious but can you please elaborate the importance of VC investment for a project like Sentinel.

Dan Edlebeck | Exidio,

The backing has very meaningful impact on the network. With the support, Sentinel has the capacity to work with some of the most impressive and valuable minds and builders in blockchain and web networking. This has opened up massive potential for the Sentinel network going forward. It spans across the board, potential builders on the network, connections to legal, marketing, potential employees, etc. The ripple impacts of the movers and shakers in the space are nearly immeasurable.

Bilo 2000,

+++I’m about to ask you a very important question..

Our previous guests always give in to this…

🙃

Peter Mancuso | Exidio,

No pressure hah

Dan Edlebeck | Exidio,

DRUM ROLL…

Bilo 2000,

Is there any exclusive breaking news about SN that you could share with us here today?

Dan Edlebeck | Exidio,

hahahah nice! Yes, actually this is news that will be dropping SOON

Bilo 2000,

[ GIF -sulking girl]

Dan Edlebeck | Exidio,

But let’s give it here hahaha we spoke about the implications of a raise on the network…

Bilo 2000,

[ GIF — YESSS!!! ]

Peter Mancuso | Exidio,

😄

Bilo 2000,

you tease

😂

Dan Edlebeck | Exidio,

Bilo 2000,

Dan Edlebeck | Exidio,

This isn’t announced BUT we Sentinel has officially secured two of the top marketing and PR in all of crypto/blockchain as partners to help share its mission. This has been a huge area of opportunity for Sentinel as it didn’t have the capital or institutional backing to get this type of press coverage to share the impressive growth of the network. This is now changing — fast!

And now it’s announced!

Wachsman is the top PR and communications agency in all of blockchain, especially in Europe and North America.

Winkrypto is the top marketing and community messaging agency in the East, with a heavy impact/influence in China.

Bilo 2000,

[ GIF -clapping hands]

Where do you see SN next year? & Do you wish to let us know anything else that was not covered in the questions above?

Dan Edlebeck | Exidio,

As stated in the title to this blog, Sentinel is 100% focused on the Mass Adoption of decentralized VPN.With over 200,000 users already using dVPN on the Sentinel network, the opportunity to scale the network is here and now.Sentinel goes live on mainnet on it’s own Cosmos-based blockchcain in 9 (NINE!) days!

From this point forward, the growth will all be directly related to growth across the Sentinel network. This means more nodes offering bandwidth to the network, more companies and projects building their own specific dVPN applications and tools on top of the Sentinel dVPN protocol, and more end consumers using dVPN to protect themselves online (and access geo-blocked content).

The opportunity is huge. We are seeing all sorts of interesting use cases of decentralized VPN. Check out this article in Al Jazeera about how activists are using the technology to be able to share and spread information they otherwise couldn’t.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/12/iraqs-protests-and-the-technology-of-resistance

Sentinel is not a niche network for those in specific interests (like cryptocurrency or fintech), this is a powerful dVPN protocol that is made for mass adoption. We are gearing up for a massive year ahead — and it all begins in 9 days!

Looking forward to a wild ride. Let’s all grow together on the path towards dVPN mass adoption!

Bilo 2000,

Very cool — you will definitely have more users after this AMA. We are behind you and will always support you.

Dan Edlebeck | Exidio,

[ 🖥 Sticker ]

Bilo 2000,

Thank you for your time in answering our questions here today. We are all very appreciative of your time and of the answers you have provided.

Dan Edlebeck | Exidio,

Ladies and Gentleman, we are at Command HQ, we’re ready for SS Sentinel Mainnet launch. All systems GO!

Bilo 2000,
With this, we will open up the chat for those who wish to personally thank you for your time with us here today.
Chat is open

Winner,

Can you give a brief overview for tokenomics and token supply? Would there be any form burns and buybacks? What does that aim to achieve for youand does it incIude any form scarcity paths such as stake, store, or burn?

Dan Edlebeck | Exidio,

Yes you can see the full detail of the tokenomics in this blog post below. There are no plans for token burns or buybacks as far as I know. This is not decided by Exidio but by the governance of Sentinel and the SNT Foundation.

https://medium.com/sentinel/sentinels-next-chapter-the-path-to-dvpn-mass-adoption-5d8a0b2afaba

Medium (https://medium.com/sentinel/sentinels-next-chapter-the-path-to-dvpn-mass-adoption-5d8a0b2afaba)

Sentinel’s Next Chapter: The Path to dVPN Mass Adoption

Sentinel undergoes its biggest development since the inception of the peer-to-peer network: the transition to the Sentinel mainnet with…

🥳VANOMOTE🥳,

Projects that are not traded on major exchanges remain unnoticed. What do you think about listing the token on the leading exchanges?

Dan Edlebeck | Exidio,

I believe the Foundation has plans to continue to give exposure to those that want access to the token via more exchanges.

Peter Mancuso | Exidio,

The Sentinel ecosystem would like to welcome two new regional networks

🇯🇵 Japanese Community — https://t.me/sentineljapan

🇹🇭 Thai Community — https://t.me/Sentinel_Th

The regional Sentinel community groups are not only important for the regional communication channels, but also for the global customer acquisition for the Sentinel dVPN and the other dVPN applications being built ontop of the Sentinel Network.

Sentinel Global Community Network 🇺🇳

🇨🇳Chinese Community — https://t.me/Sentinel_Chinese

🇮🇹Italian Community — https://t.me/Sentinel_ITALIA

🇯🇵 Japanese Community — https://t.me/sentineljapan

🇮🇷Iranian Community — https://t.me/Sentinel_iran

🇷🇺Russian Community — https://t.me/sentinel_ru

🇹🇭Thai Community — https://t.me/Sentinel_Th

🇪🇸Spanish Community — https://t.me/SentinelES

🇻🇳Vietnamese Community — https://t.me/sentinel_Vietnam

🚀Sentinel Main Chat — https://t.me/sentinel_co

🛠Sentinel Node Network — https://t.me/SentinelNodeNetwork

🏴‍☠️Sentinel Trollbox — https://t.me/SentinelTrollbox