Recapitulation of MASQ_AI PROJECT AMA event held at AMA LOVERS CLUB.
Venue: https://t.me/amaloversclub
Date: Wednesday, 21st April, 2021
Time: 20:00 UTC
The MASQ_AI PROJECT team was represented by @KauriHero and @Macvaughan who judiciously shared with us detailed knowledge and information about MASQ_AI PROJECT.
1st Segment: INTRODUCTION
Q1: Can you please introduce yourself and your background, also introduce the team working on MASQ?
ANS: Sure I can go first here ;)
As most know I'm KauriHero the Project Lead and co-founder.
I've been around the crypto space for over 6 years and have certainly learned a lot.
What attracted me first to crypto space was the unique technology and I still believe this is one of those innovations that are once in a generation, so I'm grateful to be part of it with a project that is so meaningful and the world needs MASQ to succeed.
We have close to 20 team members all across the world helping us, and more if you count the regular volunteers. Its amazing!
Within that group we have 3 developers for the Rust codebase, 2 Front End JS developers, UX/UI designers, 4 QA testers, a web developer, a marketing team, community managers, social admins and graphics designers too. Some are multiple disciplines but overall we are lucky to have attracted and retained very highly skilled volunteers
My great friend @macvaughan here is a co-founder and Head of Marketing, so I'll let him do his intro as well. I'm grateful to work with him
Ah thank you sir!
My name is Mac Vaughn and I am the head of marketing and branding!
I have a background in advertising/marketing/branding. I also own and operate a small business in that field. I help clients with visibility in the marketplace, finding their niche and helping them identify creative solutions that help them stand out against their competitors. I’ve been in the advertising/marketing field for over 15 years.
I’ve had extensive management training, went to school for graphic design and have worked with some of the top names in the world like Nike, ASUS, University of Phoenix, SONY, MRM Worldwide, and many others. I began my crypto journey in 2015 when I tried to get into mining bitcoin. I pretty much gave up on it and decided that buying it was easier haha.
In 2017 I started a company called Ico Driver which was an ICO launch support company that assisted ICOS with community growth, management, branding, web, social media and anything else that comes along with launching an ICO. We helped raise over 50 Million and worked on several well known projects at the time.
Now I work on MASQ full time with a small team of web, graphic, ui designers, community managers, and another team dedicated to social media. Our goal is to help spread the word of MASQ and help people understand how important privacy is. I also take great pride in making sure people understand our story and messaging behind our brand.
Q2: Can you introduce MASQ, what critical problems does it solve that existing solutions are not solving and what's the competitive advantage?
ANS: sure thats important of course
First and foremost we want to remind everyone and our community that MASQ Network as a project actually stands to be a platform - one that is able to grow and strengthen with our mesh-network solution. While we do envision having all the benefits of VPN and Tor technology, it's our network itself that will create an ecosystem for other projects, developers, dApps and more things than we have even thought of ourselves!
Being the foundation of the ecosystem, MASQ Node software has built this mesh-network that works on the existing internet. And it allows users to enjoy privacy and encryption in a way that also allows them to earn for serving and consume content online through their own MASQ Node, and this also shares their connection with other Node neighbors. By design the software will route traffic from all over the world, and provide the access to sites that are restricted in certain countries by the authorities.
This means that our ultimate goal, someone in a country without Google or Youtube can use MASQ and surf those sites like anyone in the Western world, and not have to worry of the normal detection that happens when you use a VPN or Tor. Sadly some countries are very strict and even hunt down users of VPN.
We want to try to bring some safety mechanisms that will help those users
We call this the 'clandestine' solution for MASQ Node software.
Q3: So MASQ is different from VPN greatly?
ANS: great question, and the answer is YES on several levels
a traditional VPN operates as a secure tunnel connection between 2 machines
a user who is referred to as the client, and a server
the server 'serves' the content to the client, so of course knows where the client is browsing
so many of the other projects in the space are great, but they are simply using existing VPN technology in a P2P fashioon
some people don't realize this when they go to the fancy website and see 'dVPN' and think - wow I can use this and pay with crypto
sadly, who knows if the 'server' they are using is logging their traffic
or worse - if it is a bad actor, working for a 3 letter organization that is collecting their log data
I'm not saying these other projects aren't good - they have a purpose and a place in the tech space.
But they are not new innovations on solving this issue online of being truly truly secure and private with your web browsing as a service
I would also say the biggest difference is that what we are doing has never been done before and will be the worlds "First" mesh network in this space. So we are vastly different.
a "dMN" if you will
also the main factor for the viewers to learn too, is that unlike the VPN example, MASQ will send the traffic across at least 3 other user nodes, so its not a single P2P client-to-server connection
it uses the 'mesh' to provide more obfuscation and thus making sure that the other node users providing the services to each other don't know much about eachother as well
layers of obfuscation - which is like how Tor works
its very technical so I'm keeping it simple for readers 😅😅.
Q4: We have some dVPN of cause which we believe should offer data privacy but according what you said earlier
There could be some loopholes
Can those loopholes be detected through audit?
ANS: very good question indeed
in theory, MASQ won't be detectable from audits, unless by some miracle a 'government group' captured several node users who are connected to a single user
what I mean here is if you imagine the mesh network is a big web of connections
and in a big web, the big mama spider sits in the centre, and theres baby spiders all around connected to it
if you capture one spider, even the big mama one, the web is still intact
you would have to capture 3 or more of them, to prove they are connected to the one in the centre, before 'they' could provide that any of them are using MASQ on the internet
because there is no single point of failure - the web has loads of connections
in the sense of auditing data, the data is encrypted across MASQ just like all VPN tech
you can't 'break' the encryption - its nearly impossible.
Q5: Can you briefly describe the top milestones you have achieved and your target milestones with timelines, also share your roadmap?
ANS: at the moment our milestones have been based around our software development and market expansion in terms of growth, outreach, liquidity and community.
I would say our biggest milestone is that we are community funded
no ICO
no presale
we started with nothing and our community helped us get this far
we have the best community
We are listed on 2 DEX and 2 CEX
and we are eyeing many others
I would also say that one of our biggest and most recent milestones is the launch of our new website and evolution of our branding ( www.masq.ai) - we hired and brought in as many experts as we could find to help us with our colors, messaging, User experience and all the things that would help people really understand what masq is from even a quick glance.
agreed @macvaughan the new website was a large piece of work that really tunes us into the new evolution of not only our brand, but the crypto space itself
We have covered several of these milestones...
most exciting is that we have finished an alpha version of the electron desktop app by porting over the existing GUI we created in 2020.
No one has seen this publicly yet
in simple terms, there exists installers that will open, install and run MASQ software in Windows, Linux and MacOS right now
But they are in testing now for stability
what I will add here is that this means installing for the average user is simply running an executable file - no command line, no code, no special process
this is HUGE for us in the last 30 days
i have to thank our specialist squad (cloud MASQ warriors) for achieving this in a short time
We have the best team
and that next version of the GUI is being worked on
oh one more thing for our community
this has not been previewed yet, but this is one of the new GUI screens for a new user
i mean cmon! what project looks as professional and modern as that in this space of networking and dVPN tech?
big thanks for suiux for his brilliant work - these wireframes took months to complete
perfection takes a while 😅❤️.
Q6: Can you briefly describe your PARTNERSHIPS so far?
ANS: We have begun talks with a few other projects and gone to the outreach phase. As these are finalized we will make some exciting announcements.
But to be fair, we want our first test networks and our initial ETH mainnet rollout to be established before we have formal partnerships made public ;-)
but I will add that we have been approached by 2 unique projects that have noticed our work, and want to know more because they have seen how we are totally unique and superior to the other dVPN projects out there already.
Q7: Can you give an overview of your Tokenomics, and the UTILITY of the $MASQ Token?
ANS: sure this is an important component of the whole project and on many peoples mind
overall the $MASQ token is the fuel of the network - i know that sounds cliche but it is an inherent driver of the ecosystem
if you don't have $MASQ, you cant use the software to surf the web
therefore to earn $MASQ you can do 1 of 2 things:
1. get some $MASQ tokens through our liquidity partners
2. run MASQ Node and leave your machine to start 'serving' content to other users
as MASQ Node runs data across the network, every Node that interacts on a data route will earn some $MASQ for moving the traffic through.
the user trying to request facebook.com or youtube.com will pay these nodes $MASQ for getting them the data for that website
so therefore $MASQ is a pure utility token
in terms of tokenomics, the structure of the distribution was announced on our medium - essentially we have no VC, private investors or major whales, which is healthy for our community
all team tokens remaining are for development funding and marketing - devs, advertising campaigns, staking rewards and liquidity providers
we have kept our public promise on these things
37,500,000 Total supply
17,004,247 Circulating.
2nd Segment: LIVE Questions
Q1: What is the difference between CORES Packets and Neighborhood and how does Gossip actually helps the network to stay secure?
Concerning your monitization model, could it be possible to earn MASQ using the software? If yes, can you tell us how it works?
https://twitter.com/Abumaleeq1/status/1384968377509285894?s=19
ANS: this is a good question about our tech - I think they are reading our docs.masq.ai material which is AWESOME
Thats being updated each week.
the CORES packet is a special way that the MASQ software bundles data in the network. The unique thing of the CORES packet is its bundled like an onion (in some ways similar to Tor), so each layer is openable by a node on the route to the server.
the neighborhood is important as its only made up on 4-5 nodes maximum connected to one node user.
That means that each Node only 'sees' and is aware of its unique group of neighbors, and therefore only have direct connections to these 4-5
this is by security design.
Q2: Is your products available for all countries in the world?...if no do you plan to globalize your products and allow all people in the world to use it ?
https://twitter.com/Abderrazakbk/status/1384956413127110658?s=20
ANS: Yes, anyone from around the world will be able to use MASQ. It may be harder to obtain in some countries but where there is a will, there is a way. I think the word will spread very quickly once the software has been launched.
Q3: Is MASQ a VPN? Will I need powerful hardware to access the MASQ Network and earn crypto?
https://twitter.com/Nila4u/status/1384966321683714061?s=19
ANS: MASQ is not a VPN, it is the first of it's kind "Mesh Network". You will NOT need a powerful machine to run it. You will be able to run it on most machines including laptops!
Q4: Can I earn $MASQ using the software? Is it possible or not?
https://twitter.com/police0526/status/1384962291960098818?s=19
ANS: Of course!
Q5: I read on your website that MASQ tokens are listed on Uniswap and 3 other exchanges. Could you tell us about your listing strategy for MASQ, are you trying to be listed on global exchanges?
https://twitter.com/captain_price9/status/1384964231922130945?s=20
ANS: All of our exchanges now are global! and YES! We will be listing on more exchanges as we grow. I am looking at BSC at the moment and gauging if it's something our community would like to see 🙂
Q6: 🟡 You mention that Masq is Developed on Ethereum, but what are the benefits that you can extract from this ecosystem? Why not decide to develop on another ecosystem like BSC or Polkadot? Do you intend to integrate with more chains in the future?
https://twitter.com/Rarr0103/status/1384964245712998401?s=19
ANS: I love this question. I am hoping to!! I think if we can build out a MASQ chain for other platforms that would be great!
Q7: What is the different Between Consume mode With Serve mode ? How they work in Masa network ?
https://twitter.com/findhiddengem/status/1384965744140693509?s=19
ANS: Consume is when the user is "browsing the web" and consuming data, i.e. looking at facebook, watching videos on youtube - Serving is when you are essentially "renting" out your data and uploading it so that other can "Consume".
Q8: In Nigeria where I am from, there have been a move by the Senate to introduce Social media Bill, the intention behind it is to further tightening government control over the information ecosystem and what can be said online. Peradventure this bill is approved, can a user like me still gain my privacy and anonymity online with the help of MASQ Network?
https://twitter.com/BisolaHafsat/status/1384961522556973057?s=19
ANS: sadly there are many governments around the world moving towards legislation like this.
thats a big reason for our team to keep building and developing MASQ.
10000% You are very lucky to hear and learn about MASQ today. I can tell you that in these situations, MASQ is needed more than ever. Humanity should never let dictators control our information.
CONCLUSION:
We thank you all for listening and hope you can spread the good word of MASQ and our project - we fight for freedom online and for providing tools that people need to access information no matter where you live
if you want to help translate our website in to any other languages, please join our Discord
we have a translation channel and reward translators.
Follow Us On Our Various Social Media Communities For More Update;
📣 MASQ WARRIORS! 📣
MASQ IS ON PROBIT, XT, LINKSWAP & UNISWAP 📣
🔵 MASQ ON LINKSWAP - https://info.linkswap.app/token/0x06f3c323f0238c72bf35011071f2b5b7f43a054c
🦄 MASQ ON UNISWAP - https://info.uniswap.org/pair/0xc724b925b99491b055750b37e564d17843053cd9
🟦 MASQ ON PROBIT - https://www.probit.com/app/exchange/MASQ-ETH
🔶 MASQ ON XT - https://www.xt.com/tradePro/masq_btc
🦎 MASQ ON COINGECKO - CLICK HERE
⚫️ MASQ ON COINMARKETCAP _ https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/masq
📈 MASQ ON DEXTOOLS - https://www.dextools.io/app/uniswap/pair-explorer/0xc724b925b99491b055750b37e564d17843053cd9
💲MASQ REWARDS ARTICLE:
https://bit.ly/3qU71mq
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🌐 MASQ Project 🌐
MASQ combines the benefits of VPN and Tor technology, to create a superior next-generation privacy software, where users are rewarded for supporting an uncensored, global web.
Users gain privacy and anonymity online, while helping promote Internet Freedom.
MASQ is much more than “just another blockchain VPN” - its a leading-edge networking protocol that provides a foundation for a privacy-based ecosystem. It’s best referred to as a decentralized mesh-network (dMN) - a world’s first in its design. A mesh-network has connections to multiple users - that’s why the network is powered from users all across the world.
https://masq.ai
Learn more -
visit the MASQ FAQ
Check out:
docs.masq.ai
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📝 SUBSCRIBE HERE FOR EMAIL UPDATES 📝
☢ ALL MARKETING / AMA REQUESTS
☢ VISIT: @MASQ_proposals_channel
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Check out the latest announcements regarding the project:
🟣 MASQ BLOG: https://masq.ai/blog
🟣 MASQ GIVEAWAY: https://t.me/MASQ_ai/29100
🟣 RECENT AMAs: #1 | #2 | #3
🟣 MASQ MEDIUM: https://medium.com/masq-project
🟣 MILESTONES: https://t.me/MASQ_ai/36100
🟣 MEME CONTEST: https://t.me/MASQ_ai/20170
🔥 RECENT SUPPLY REDUCTION 🔥
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⚫️ MASQ TOKEN CONTRACT ADDRESS ⚫️
0x06F3C323f0238c72BF35011071f2b5B7F43A054c
📶 MASQ V2 TOKEN ON ETHERSCAN 📶
—--
🎥WATCH: MASQ NODE LIVE TEST 🎥https://youtu.be/CEFZqekzdHM
🎥WATCH : MASQ GUI TEASER 🎥https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW5XsoGvEY0
Check out the Beginning of MASQ:
Initial Project Formation Announced: https://telegra.ph/MASQ---a-renewed-vision-for-Node-10-19
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🌐 CHECK OUT MASQ ONLINE 🌐
WEBSITE: masq.ai
GITHUB: github.com/MASQ-Project
GREYPAPER: https://github.com/MASQ-Project/MASQ-Greypaper/blob/main/MASQ%20Greypaper%20v1.4.pdf
TWITTER: MASQ_ai
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/masq_network/
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/MASQ-109333527560044
YOUTUBE: https://youtube.com/c/masqnetwork
SUBSCRIBE: https://tinyurl.com/masq-subscribe
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Contribute as a Volunteer:
masq.ai/contribute
Or
DM us your interest and skill-set! 🙏
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⚠️ OUR COMMUNITY RULES ⚠️
▫️Please be kind to others.
▫️Do not post inappropriate content.
▫️Do not discuss other projects.
▫️Do not discuss price.
▫️Do not post links without permission
▫️SPAM / FUD / RACISM / SHILLING = Ban.
▫️This is an English only chat, so please use English.
▫️Respect Community Managers. They volunteer as a courtesy.
▫️Violation will lead to restrictions and / or banning.
⚠️ Attention! ⚠️
❌ BE AWARE OF SCAMMERS ❌
No one from the the MASQ team will send you a private message containing any contribution address or requesting anything from you.
Block and report any fake accounts, always check in main chat if you have any suspicions of bad actors or scams
Our Admins will NOT message you first. You may contact them directly.
Official Admin list:
@KauriHero
@macvaughn
@rmrrmrrmr
@StewieP
@t_slam
@GalacticOverlord
@richter_scale
@Nuevo_Mundo
@PhueledByPho
@Brahamut
@NikitaRomanov
@rigelbowen
Official Development Telegram: @MASQ_ai
MASQ Announcement Channel: https://t.me/MASQ_UPDATES
MASQ ON DISCORD: https://discord.gg/yzPDPSxyYy
———--
🌐 MASQ INTERNATIONAL TG CHANNELS 🌐
MASQ VietNam @MASQ_VN
MASQ Japan @MASQ_AI_JP
MASQ Indonesia @MASQ_ai_ID
MASQ Persian @MASQ_Persian
MASQ Bangladesh @masqBangladesh
MASQ Sweden @MASQSwedish
MASQ Portugal @MASQAIPT
MASQ Spain @MASQ_Spain
MASQ Russia @MASQ_Russia
📢Unofficial Community Channel📢
Trading Chat @MASQ_token
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