Dengun

[Luís Brito]

Hello Factom community!

We are Dengun (https://www.dengun.com/en/), a Digital Group based in Portugal founded in 2009 with representation in the US, UK, and the Netherlands, working with clients from diverse industries in Portugal, Silicon Valley, New York, Amsterdam, Moscow, London, and Macau.

We are a team of 70 people specialized in Digital Strategy, Web & Mobile Applications development, UI&UX Design, and Integrated Digital Marketing Strategies.

We have been investing in Blockchain R&D for the last 3 years, been speaking and attending events like Consensus NYC and Texas Bitcoin Conference, organized some meetups with Decred, and we have developed several projects in this space, from IOTA to Hyperledger, and Solidity. We currently are developing one mobile wallet for one very notorious cryptocurrency project.

We're excited to be part of this amazing community!

Let me know if you have any questions!

Kind regards.

 

[Nic R]

Dengun's responses to the application questions are attached.

 

[Colin Campbell]

Hi Dengun - thanks for your application!

You write:

"Factom is doing something we think is very important, providing the means to others to build the applications of the future, concerning digital identity, for instance. Because of that, we think that being an Authority Node Operator will help us to dive deeper on the subject and raise our commitment to the Factom community. "

Can you expand on what exactly you plan to do to add value to the protocol, and why you need to be an ANO to begin to dive deeper on Factom?

i.e Why should we divert funds away from the grant pool towards your team?

Kind Regards!

 

[David Chapman]

Thank you for applying to be an ANO! I'll likely have some specific questions later, these are simply questions I am asking all applicants.

1. Will you commit to, if elected, having, at the very least, the executives who will play a role in this ecosystem:
A. Signup for this forum with their username being First Name Last Name
B. Have a personal picture as their avatar.

It's not a requirement that this happen and some won't care but I personally will score those who won't commit to this a little lower and I want to be transparent about that.

2. Will you commit to having a logo created and/or submitted to this area within 30 days of your election (I would provide directions).

3. Will you commit to keeping this area updated for your team (it's easy).

4. Will you commit to providing at least a quarterly update on the progress your team is making in this area.

5. If you haven't already posted them within this thread, please provide the LinkedIn of anyone you mention as part of your team.

Thank you!

 

[Matt Osborne]

Hi @Luís Brito

Number of staff working on Factom Protocol We have 2 people working in the Factom project, and we expect to have 4 more by the end of 2019.

Could you please detail what the two people are currently doing? Thanks

Commitment to protocol already demonstrated We are in the design and planning phase on a few ideas for the Factom protocol. One that we are the most excited about is the PegNet protocol.

Can you elaborate about these "ideas" in relation to PegNet? Thanks

 

[Quintilian]

Thank you for your application.

You mention you have two people "working on the factom project". If you were considering applying for an ANO-position, why have you not joined the testnet at an earlier date to gain necessary experience for operating Factom authority nodes?

 

[Luís Brito]

Hi Dengun - thanks for your application!

You write:

"Factom is doing something we think is very important, providing the means to others to build the applications of the future, concerning digital identity, for instance. Because of that, we think that being an Authority Node Operator will help us to dive deeper on the subject and raise our commitment to the Factom community. "

Can you expand on what exactly you plan to do to add value to the protocol, and why you need to be an ANO to begin to dive deeper on Factom?

i.e Why should we divert funds away from the grant pool towards your team?

Kind Regards!

Hi Colin! Thanks for your question.

Well, we are pursuing the development of a digital identity application similar to uPort, but more advanced, with medical and education records.
Sadly, we were not able to find a suitable blockchain platform to do that. Ethereum could work, but unfortunately, the gas fees make it infeasible in our perspective.
We think this is one of the strongest use cases that can be built on top of Factom. This application would bring value to the Factom project. Being an Authority Node Operator would provide us the funds to finance the execution of this idea.
If we are unable to become an ANO, we would then apply for a grant pool fund.

 

[Luís Brito]

Thank you for applying to be an ANO! I'll likely have some specific questions later, these are simply questions I am asking all applicants.

1. Will you commit to, if elected, having, at the very least, the executives who will play a role in this ecosystem:
A. Signup for this forum with their username being First Name Last Name
B. Have a personal picture as their avatar.

It's not a requirement that this happen and some won't care but I personally will score those who won't commit to this a little lower and I want to be transparent about that.

2. Will you commit to having a logo created and/or submitted to this area within 30 days of your election (I would provide directions).

3. Will you commit to keeping this area updated for your team (it's easy).

4. Will you commit to providing at least a quarterly update on the progress your team is making in this area.

5. If you haven't already posted them within this thread, please provide the LinkedIn of anyone you mention as part of your team.

Thank you!

Hi David!

Yes for all!

LinkedIn profiles of our team:
Luís Brito: https://www.linkedin.com/in/obritoluis/
Luis Sena: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luis-sena/
Jorge Alves: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jorgeandrealves/
João Guerreiro: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joão-filipe-guerreiro-78545893/

 

[Luís Brito]

Hi @Luís Brito


Could you please detail what the two people are currently doing? Thanks



Can you elaborate about these "ideas" in relation to PegNet? Thanks

Hi Matt! Thank you for your questions.

1. They are currently working in collaboration with Paul Snow on the planning and software architecture, more focused on the web platform.

2. We’re at the very beginning of our collaboration and are going to be focusing more on the web platform. However, we have discussed details on how the pegged token will function and how we should get the assets price information.
We also discussed that this should follow the Dai Stablecoin concept.

 

[Luís Brito]

Thank you for your application.

You mention you have two people "working on the factom project". If you were considering applying for an ANO-position, why have you not joined the testnet at an earlier date to gain necessary experience for operating Factom authority nodes?

Hi Tor! Thank you for your question.

That's a fair point. We’ve just started a couple of weeks ago working for the PegNet project. We didn’t have the time for doing that earlier. Although, we did the set up of a follower node and made the application to join the testnet. We’re waiting for a reply.
We know we’re rookies on the Factom ecosystem and that we have to show more proofs and that being an ANO is a huge responsibility, but we wanted to apply anyway and learn with the process.

 

[Matt Osborne]

Although, we did the set up of a follower node and made the application to join the testnet. We’re waiting for a reply.

Hi @Luís Brito . Can you provide the date you applied? Thanks

 

[Luís Brito]

Hi @Luís Brito . Can you provide the date you applied? Thanks

Hey Matt.

Yes. Wed, May 1.

 

[Anton Ilzheev]

Hello, Dengun, thank you for application.
I ask this questions all ANO candidates:

1. With what efficiency are you going to operate?

2. If your efficiency is lower, than 60%:
2.1. What have you already pledged to the Factom? It's a good practice, when ANO candidates pledge works in advance before being elected.
2.2. Do you have an experience in running business? What kind of businesses it were? Please tell us more about it, so we can understand your strengths and what expect from your ANO if it will be elected.
2.3. What a minimum number of hours per week are you going to work for Factom? Do you commit it?

3. Do you participate in any other cryptocurrency projects? If yes, please reveal details.

 

[Luís Brito]

Hello, Dengun, thank you for application.
I ask this questions all ANO candidates:

1. With what efficiency are you going to operate?

2. If your efficiency is lower, than 60%:
2.1. What have you already pledged to the Factom? It's a good practice, when ANO candidates pledge works in advance before being elected.
2.2. Do you have an experience in running business? What kind of businesses it were? Please tell us more about it, so we can understand your strengths and what expect from your ANO if it will be elected.
2.3. What a minimum number of hours per week are you going to work for Factom? Do you commit it?

3. Do you participate in any other cryptocurrency projects? If yes, please reveal details.

Hi Anton,

Thank you for your questions.

1. In our proposal, it's stated 50%.

2.1. We don't have anything pledged. We're preparing what will be a digital identity web and mobile application. We want to be fair, so we're open to raising our efficiency before we have anything pledged.

2.2. Yes, our company was founded in 2009. We have a team of 70 people specialized in Web & Mobile Applications development, UX/UI, and Integrated Digital Marketing Strategies.

2.3. 20 to 30 hours. We commit to that range.

3. We use other blockchain tools, languages, frameworks, etc, to develop solutions for our clients, including cryptocurrency projects. Although Decred is our client (we cannot reveal details about it), we're not participating directly in any other cryptocurrency projects.

 

[Jay Cheroske]

I've decided to ask all prospective ANOs the following:

• What experiences do you have running dockerized applications?
• What are some things you learned while running your testnet servers?
• How have your ideas about mainnet infrastructure changed as you have become more familiar with running factomd?

Apologies if you have already answered one or more of these somewhere else.

 

[Luís Brito]

I've decided to ask all prospective ANOs the following:

• What experiences do you have running dockerized applications?
• What are some things you learned while running your testnet servers?
• How have your ideas about mainnet infrastructure changed as you have become more familiar with running factomd?

Apologies if you have already answered one or more of these somewhere else.

Hello Jay,

Thank you for your questions.

1. We use Docker in every application we develop. It's our default virtualization software.
2. Unfortunately, we didn't have yet the opportunity to run testnet servers as we didn't get feedback regarding our testnet application.
3. We're in the exploring phase. There's a lot we have to learn. As we dive more into the details of factomd we'll have our own ideas regarding the mainnet infrastructure.