Eric Ma on decentralized VPN at Deeper Network

0:01i'm ashton addison from eventchain for investmentpitch media and the cryptocoin show and today on blockchain interviews with eric ma the cmo of deeper network eric welcome to the show and it is a pleasure to have you here it's great to see you again ashton likewise i want to jump right into deeper network because i know your team is so busy right now

0:21there's a lot of updates to cover if we can just kick it off with an overview and a focus of deeper network and some of the solutions that your team is bringing to the table in the industry right now sure um deeper network is was founded in 2018 by our ceo russell leo he previously had been at as one of the the head engineers there and he headed up

0:47um the research and development team at int what was it palo alto networks and our headquarters is now currently in santa clara california and um the product of the rest of the team we you know we have our amazing cto who built um deeper network on polka dot and he is he used to be the head of ai at amazon so we have an amazing

1:17development team um there's a lot of pressure for me from the from the marketing side trying to keep up with what they're doing and um i'm the cmo we also have our co-founder cheryl who um had previously owned um in in the crypto space uh consulting business which actually helped quantum and tron and some of these bigger projects off the ground during their ico days so we have a

1:42pretty solid team we have a team of about 30 people where some of us are decentralized and others are at the headquarters mostly in canada usa taiwan and some in china as well so that's pretty much the team and our product itself since 2018 it's pretty amazing to have a sixth generation hardware basically in development and

2:10um our solutions for that we're trying to provide for the world is basically a safer a more secure more private and fairer internet so what that means is um a hardware unit called a deeper connect it provides decentralized private network which is basically a decentralized vpn and the unit itself is not it doesn't only make you a client but it's actually

2:38also a server so you become a node when you have the unit and we've been selling we partnered with uh best buy amazon that sell our products and recently we've broken records on indiegogo which is kind of a i guess a kickstarter website i don't know if you've ever heard of it but uh we've broken records we have become the biggest blockchain product to successfully sell

3:04so much on indie google and uh we've sold over 10 000 units already since 2018 which means we currently have over 10 000 nodes around the world so we tunnel through firewalls and um you know we were able to route to different parts of the world for the vpn aspect um the you know dpn vpn centralized versus decentralized there's a huge huge difference there

3:30and then as far as the security goes we offer a seven-layer firewall um also cloud firewall which um allows for much like enterprise level um security at home so with the with the current trend of everyone working from home a lot of times the security at home is is not as safe as when you're at the office and with today's world of people owning crypto

3:54and having all the sensitive um information are are basically security really provides for um basically no prevention of hackers from entering your network as well as tracking hardware malware and privacy leaks you know data leaks and stuff like that it blocks all that stuff and uh it's all controlled through our software that you can control um on adam

4:20os and parental controls like blocks and all and advertisements so these are the two main features that have been functioning on the deeper connect and then the last part is the blockchain aspect we are going to be launching our mainnet it's been in testnet our block deeper blockchain which is built on polkadot is going to be the web3 um gateway for web 3.0

4:49so decentralized internet and we're going to be creating ecosystems for things such as d5 products nfts dapp stores and you know e-commerce decentralized e-commerce and decentralized e-services all that is going to be available on the deeper net connect and um and we're launching that in quarter three and the the coolest thing also is uh

5:16the gas that runs the whole thing is the dpr token which we're having a public sale on that we'll talk about that a little bit later and the dpr token runs the whole entire network it incentivizes uh users um to donate their unused bandwidth to the network which helps speed up the network and it doesn't waste your kind of unused bandwidth you're paying for it

5:41so might as well if you're not using it to donate it to the not donate i should say to contribute to the network and in return you can mine dpr tokens so that is our proof of credit algorithm which allows for people to mine dpr tokens using their unit the unit itself doesn't use very much electricity like some people might think uh uses less than one percent of

6:03the energy of an a6 miner so it tops out at around 15 watts so it's really uh not a lot of energy to be mining and so that helps that's incentivization and obviously for the ecosystems and stuff dpr token will be the currency of use there to develop apps to buy dabs use those services so very cool eric and yeah a lot covered there um and congratulations on that indiegogo

6:29campaign i didn't know that you launched that and just to be partnered with best buy and these other stores to actually be selling a blockchain based product and breaking records that's like a huge milestone for not just deeper network but for the industry so very interesting product and you know i've been researching into these decentralized vpns because

6:50there are a lot of problems just with centralized vpns and just the internet overall this needs a whole overhaul which blockchain is working on i'm curious with the deeper connect and the deeper network you know there's all these functionalities and it's going to make the internet better but it also can be technical is there a focus on usability or allowing this

7:12product to get to not just the power users and the technical users of the internet but you know for the average user or just the slightly above average user to need this product as well that's a great question um usability and uh is key the interface everything the box itself is plug and play and um you basically just plug in the deeper connect unit

7:37which is about the size i mean we have we have different generations so the mini itself is about the size of your palm a little bit a little bit in a longer like a rectangle and then you have the nano which is smaller than your palm and we're coming out with the sixth generation it's about um halfway through development currently and uh the pico so that one will offer

7:58wi-fi support so that one's about the the size of a thumb drive so that's quite small and just plug it in between the router and the internet and literally your your setup as far as the interface goes um you can access it through the intranet through in an ip address and the interface is a lot of graphics um we have users who have been posting on youtube

8:21um kind of not associated with us they're not working with us but they're just posting and showing the product and how easy it is to use and uh i've been loving to see those because those things are are true like an indication of how how easy it is to use and uh through the interface you can control uh toggles and different things you know turning the mining

8:40on or off these kind of things um very easy to use don't it doesn't really require any technical um issue like settings or anything like that if you have technical support if needed and we can certainly help with those kind of things um it yeah so yeah but it's very usable and uh we that was one of our main focuses because what we really want to achieve

9:05is to have every household in the world to have one of these and the price itself is quite affordable right now it's on indiegogo for 249 and um you know purchasing it you never have to pay for vpn again um so it's just one time fee and you have basically decentralized a private network for the rest of your life and all the other features the security and everything

9:27so definitely and that's great because a lot of those vpn services are on subscription and your their customer for life and you know sort of stuck under their subscription so that's really interesting that the model that you're doing it with and i wanted to talk about you know the early incentivization of these hardware uh connectors and just getting people on

9:49but it seems that you sort of touched on that as you build out the main net that you're building uh people will be able to use their unused bandwidth and their connections to be incentivized to actually get dpr tokens is that really something that is you're going to see as one of the main drivers of adoption and of course like there's other benefits to

10:10just having the decentralized vpn overall but that seems like a major incentive to have people buying this hardware and getting connected to the network yeah i mean i i see it as like like a huge bonus it's like uh buy one get three free kind of a deal you know where buy one get two free because of the features i mean we have people who purchase uh the unit just for the security you

10:33know that's obviously really important i know usually people's uh home security is not very safe and this thing anything that connects to it including iot devices cell phones and stuff that are connected through through whatever the uh the router is is protected under this thing so um some people buy it for the security some people buy it for the for the dpn and a lot of people buy it

10:55for that because it's a one-time thing you never have to pay for it again it's actually a lot very dependable the box itself you can carry with you when you travel for instance i uh when i travel to china with the great firewall i remember the first time i went there in the past i had vpn and somebody had asked told me to oh buy this vpn it'll work and when i went there it didn't work and

11:18basically i was not able to access any of my work info there for like almost an entire week it was a nightmare and so after having or received a deeper connect i'm going to china i just bring that thing with me plug it in and i have access to everything i never have to worry about oh is this vpn vpn gonna work this time or not um so the dpn um is another feature and then and then

11:42the the web 3.0 i think is bigger than anything um you know of course if you're a miner and you're you're trying to to to mine dpr tokens for its value and everything that's a huge incentive as well um so it's actually buy one get three free because we got the dpn and then we have the security and then we have the web 3.0 gateway which is uh basically the future of the

12:07internet and then we have the mining feature so um people buy it for all whatever reasons and i think just any of one of those reasons is a good enough reason to buy the unit itself at 249 really definitely and i want to touch a little bit deeper into the the mining and just the the reward of the dpr tokens can you just talk about if there are other utilities or other functionalities

12:31of dpr within the platform and does it have other use cases that create a sustainable ecosystem um well i mentioned the the um the donating of the bandwidth uh to the network so the more people that are on the network makes the the network more robust we have over 10 000 nodes now by the end of the year we're trajecting the projecting the uh the number to be a hundred thousand and

12:58in the next few years we're looking at millions of nodes um we're trying to keep up with demand we just recently opened a warehouse um in the u.s as well a distribution center so we're trying to scale as well and that's happening very quickly as far as the dpr goes um there's everything runs on it there's micro payments people who who donate uh bandwidth to the network

13:23people who need bandwidth can purchase extra bandwidth uh around the world and you know living in western world um i think bandwidth is not not an issue but for a lot of the parts around the world bandwidth is a huge issue and you still need to have internet in order to access it so don't don't get me wrong um this is not a replacement for the internet

13:43i don't think there's a really been a solution for that yet where you know if there's internet shutdowns and stuff like you can't really access that so you still need internet and in order to be part of the network you need to have internet and be able to contribute to the internet so to the network i'm sorry and so um with people who have very limited data um they want to

14:06purchase bandwidth to be able to access the internet more they could do that with dpr token at a much cheaper cost than they would um purchasing that data from their internet provider so that's that's a huge one um as far as the mining goes obviously that's a huge incentive and uh sixty percent of our allocation of the the total supply which is capped at ten

14:28billion is reserved for mining and um that is not going to be mined out for another 50 years from tge yeah so the rewards are very robust there and then the ecosystem itself i think is where the value of dpr is is really going to shine because of the ecosystem we're going to create so for developers who create useful dapps they can they have to basically spend

14:57dpr to be able to put their dapps on the in the store in the dapp store and uh for users they want to buy these apps that they find useful then they can use dpr to purchase those d5 we're going to have different different products that allow for dpr to be used in the d5 space and as we know the device space is moving at lightning speeds and the products that that are

15:21out there are you know nuts in terms of interest lending and also just you know different staking products and who knows what's gonna come up in the future and then there's um you know like for instance we've recently partnered with a bridge mutual which sells insurance decentralized insurance so those are kind of some e-services and products that we'll have to offer

15:46which will use the dpr token polka dot is built on interoperability i mean that was one of the foundations of it so uh by being on polka dot and having won the web3 foundation grant from polkadot we're building important infrastructure for polka dot um that's that's our dev team there and uh we're gonna be so interoperable with other networks and ecosystems that dpr um is gonna have

16:15limitless in terms of um usability and uh with you know ethereum's uh ethereum's platform cardano's all these different platforms it's all going to be interoperable so whatever is developed there will have access to as well through the uh the building of bridges between polkadot and those ecosystems definitely and thank you for all that that actually is quite a bit

16:37of functionality for dpr and i know not all of it is in place yet and we're sort of running short on time but i want to look at the next steps forward in terms of the roadmap and what's really coming out next for deeper network in the next few months to get hint at that sure um we have our public sale so it's in three days um april 5th we're on paid ignition we're

17:01also on pools and um on april 8th we will be doing our main uh last public round on tokensoft so i think registration is almost closing so you guys gotta hurry go to our website www.deeper.net and you can click into the public sale and and register there right after the public sale we'll have our token generation event and token distribution and we will

17:29immediately list on unit swap and we'll look at other dexes as well and we're in very close talks with centralized exchanges tier one centralized exchanges and we'll hopefully be listing on that very soon so this will provide uh plenty of market space marketplace for for the users of traders of dpr and then as far as development goes i think that's where our bread and butter is our

17:57products really speaks for itself and um we're currently like i said developing our deep deeper connect pico which is our next generation uh sixth generation of the deeper connect family and um that the price on that is going to be even more accessible because of we're trying to drive down the price which helps with mainstream adoption so um yeah mainnet itself is going to be

18:22launched later in q3 of this year so when mainnet launches that mining will start and um the building of ecosystems will start we'll we have a lot of partnerships kind of online that's kind of uh scheduled with with these kind of developments and um let's see what else is going on uh expansion and scaling of our distribution uh that's a huge one you know we're

18:48trying to keep up with the demand um it's been a bit challenging i apologize for all the um people who've purchased uh that are waiting for their for their deeper connect and we're trying to ship those out as fast as we can and manufacturing those and um yeah just i think building out of the ecosystem is our main next step and um put it for the rest of

19:10the roadmap for the rest of the year and just do the next yeah great and for the viewers that are looking to follow along with all of these updates and just get into the community and learn more about the public sale and the launches what's the best way for them to get involved um you can join our telegram community uh man i never i've never memorized uh our

19:32address there you can search deeper network and join our telegram english community we've doubled um in size in the last just two months and it's been crazy um follow our twitter deeper network and um we have all the socials that are available out there i would say just go to our website it's probably we have a little tab that pops out on the bottom you can click

19:54and join um our communities there it's uh website again is www.deeper.network great eric and i will leave those links as well in the description box for the viewers thank you so much for taking the time all the best with all of these updates with deeper network moving forward and let's definitely follow up in the near future awesome thank you ashton

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