KardiaChain CTO Huy Nguyen targets one million users after mainnet launch

Ashton Addison: How did your background lead you to start KardiaChain?▶ 00:01

Huy Nguyen: Before Kardia I was a tech lead manager at Google for about 10 years, and that's where I first learned about blockchain. I was a lead on one of the decentralization projects there. I embraced the idea of decentralization long before the Bitcoin surge in 2017, because I figured blockchain could be a game changer. About three years ago, in 2018, we identified the problems with interoperability in the blockchain space, and that's where the KardiaChain idea came from.

Ashton: What are the goals of the KardiaChain blockchain and its ecosystem?▶ 01:43

Huy: It took three years, which is a long time. At first the idea was very tech-oriented: we wanted to build something spectacular that could connect all the blockchains together. But we realized that to bring blockchain to real use cases, we needed real mass adoption. In late 2018 we came back to Vietnam through a government-created program and saw huge potential. There's no legacy infrastructure, and people here embrace anything new. In 2019 our team moved from London and Silicon Valley to Vietnam and reworked our strategy around mass adoption, starting in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. Our slogan is "accessible blockchain for the millions." Because we can work with governments and enterprises here, we help them blockchainize their existing services, with the blockchain running in the background, separate from cryptocurrency. We believe that in five years blockchain will be everywhere, like AI and machine learning is today. You don't know AI is running behind your email or Google search, and blockchain will be like that.

Ashton: What is the most unique part of KardiaChain's technology?▶ 04:44

Huy: Our dual node technology. It's the first non-invasive interoperability technology that lets different blockchains communicate without changing their infrastructure. We demonstrated it to the Neo team by joining their system non-invasively, bringing its data to another blockchain and carrying it across entirely through our smart contract. They were impressed, and we partnered with them soon after. It's very cool in the public space, but it brings even more value for private blockchains. Governments and enterprises want their own chains because they don't want to share everything publicly, but at some point they need to share data with each other. For example, a university may want to share a score with an employer without exposing unnecessary data. We apply the dual node concept across the border between public and private chains, so they can go through KardiaChain and share only what they want to share. That has been a strong selling point for the enterprises and government bodies we work with in Vietnam, and we have multiple contracts with government, a telco company and education services.

Ashton: What does the mainnet launch mean for KardiaChain and the industry?▶ 07:43

Huy: It's a significant event for our journey, even bigger than a listing or an investment, because it means a real journey has begun. It's a new chapter in our company's history, and now everybody can see publicly how KardiaChain can be used. Today's mainnet is more like a small test version, with only hundreds of people who did the early token swap coming in to stake, delegate and see how the system works. In about a month we'll open the token bridge swap, and the vast majority of KAI holders will come on board. We already have a KAI membership app, used mainly in Vietnam, with almost 150,000 accounts so far. Mass adoption starts small, and as people see useful things we can bring them, they'll use it more. So far it has been good, and we hope it's a new beginning.

Ashton: How will you grow the application ecosystem and attract developers?▶ 09:51

Huy: We approach it on three fronts. First, we already have real applications running on KardiaChain in the private blockchain solutions we offer enterprises, such as tracking and supply chain. We can find a way to bring those across into the public chain. Second, KardiaChain is EVM compatible and uses Solidity for smart contracts, so Ethereum developers and decentralized apps can come over natively. We support more than 6,000 TPS with five-second confirmation, and we made it cheap for the sake of the Vietnamese people, who don't have ten dollars for each Ethereum transaction. That comes at a cost to the network, but it's fine. Third, we'll run competitions of some kind to attract new developers. In about three months we'll also open our cross-chain dual node services, so you can write a smart contract that crosses from one blockchain to another. For example, you could exchange a CryptoKitty on Ethereum for one on KardiaChain at the same time. Developers can do it now, but only in a fairly hacky, hardcore way. We need to make the SDK and API friendly, and we're building a markup language we call KSML to make it easier.

Ashton: What are the next steps and milestones for KardiaChain in 2021?▶ 13:50

Huy: Our clear goal is to have a million users on KardiaChain by the end of the year, and we've broken that into three major milestones. First, in about a month, maybe two at most, we'll open the gate for everybody to come on board with a complete token swap from ERC-20 to the native token. That means the network has to be stable, wallet and chain support has to be done, and technical standards like token listing have to be defined. Second, by the middle of the year we'll complete the cross-chain technology with the markup language ready, so people can write cross-chain smart contracts. That will create new kinds of apps people have been trying to build for a long time, and it will help private blockchain teams expose their apps to the public. Third, by the end of the year we plan to fully open the public chain to the private sector. Then all the solutions we've built for government and enterprise can come to light, and that's where I believe a true hybrid blockchain solution can take shape.