In this interview, Ashton Addison speaks with Cobo CEO Huh Kobo Tole Messiah about the Nami project, which aims to address the scalability issues of the Ethereum network. Nami has built a layer 2 solution that moves transactions from the main chain to a different layer, improving transaction speed, finality, and reducing latency and fees. Additionally, Nami’s architecture allows for interoperability with other blockchains. The user experience is still a work in progress, but Nami is working on building simpler interfaces for non-crypto users. Nami is also looking to expand through partnerships and port the project to other blockchains.
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Introduction
I’m Ashton Addison from Event Chain for InvestmentPitch Media and FinTech News Network, and today on Blockchain Interviews, we have Kobo Tole Messiah, the CEO of Nami, and Hoobae Kobo. It’s nice to have you on the show. I think that’s going to be a great conversation today. Thank you. You’re very welcome.
The Nami Project
If you could kick it off by giving a little bit of background on the Nami project. I know that your tagline is “The Future of Blockchain Scaling,” and I’d love to know a little bit more about what that means and what the project is about.
The Challenges with the Ethereum Network
Absolutely. So we started with the project approximately 20 months ago out of pure necessity. We have a background and history in the content space. We wanted to build a product around content, but we knew scaling was an issue. So we literally got tired of waiting for the companies to develop scaling solutions only on the Ethereum network. And we ended up doing that ourselves. Once we started doing so, we realized that most of the other projects had a very different approach towards scaling. They were focused only on TPS or throughput, and we took a more holistic approach. And that’s how Nami was born, whereby we not only fix throughput but also latency, finality, and transaction fees.
Solutions Provided by Nami
That sounds great, Kobo. I’ve personally been using the Ethereum network for almost five years now, and I’ve experienced it when it’s fast and when it’s slow. And don’t get me wrong, it’s a great network, but at its worst, I did have transactions that were held up for days at a time when the network was backlogged. So if you could elaborate for the audience a little bit about what are the exact problems that are going on currently with the Ethereum network and how exactly you’ve provided those solutions.
Nami’s Layer 2 Solution
The blockchain, by itself, if it is an open decentralized blockchain, it is always going to be slow. For the time being, that is the way it is designed. It is not the central recipient. It is designed for security and other attributes. Now, the way we have fixed it is by building what’s called a layer 2 solution, which consists of taking transactions from the main chain into a different layer. In this case, it’s Nami, which, yes, it is also centralized today, but on the layer 2, transactions can happen fast. The finality is immediate, and there is no latency. Furthermore, we also have the possibility of really knowing how much a transaction is going to cost to a user before it happens. Now, those transactions eventually, once you want to withdraw from the protocol, will be committed back to the main chain. And the way we have been able to do that is by again building this layer 2, which is still a noncustodial solution, meaning that we don’t hold people’s money. You basically deposit money into a smart contract, and then from the layer 2, any applications built on top of the layer 2 can access those monies and resources. So today, we have a product called QB Core, which is basically a wallet manager that also allows you to perform payments on the Nami network. So you can deposit money and then from there, you can access that money onto the Nami layer and then perform payments, which are fast, cheap, and with immediate finality.
Competition and Uniqueness of Nami
And I know that Ethereum has had these scaling issues since its inception, essentially. Aren’t there other possible layer 2 solutions that you’re competing with as well? And what makes Nami so special and unique?
Nami’s Differentiators
Yes, there are many of them, many other solutions being built right now. We were particularly waiting for Plasma, which was, is a project from OmiseGO. What makes this different is the most immediate point that comes to my head is that Nami’s is built today. So quite a bit of those other projects are still in the whiteboard or are being developed. Our solution has been in maintenance for 10 months now. And the other thing that makes it very different is that we don’t only fix the scalability issue that we were talking about before, it also fixes the latency and the finality of the transactions and again, the predictability of the fees. And what is even a major point in time south differentiation between our solution and the other solution being built is that our architecture of the protocol, the architecture of Nami, is quite generalized. And that allows us to port Nami to other blockchains to be able to build an interoperability bridge. And that is also a phenomenal upside of our architecture.
User Experience with Nami
Interoperability is definitely great to have, and another must-have, I would say, is user experience. And you know, front-end interfaces. How is Nami doing with the user experience as we’re trying to grow the adoption of the Ethereum network? Is it as easy to use for somebody who isn’t familiar with Ethereum or with blockchains, or is it still quite technical?
Nami’s Focus on User Experience
That is a wonderful question. Now, to be able to achieve a good user experience, that represents a completely different level of abstraction. So first of all, going back to the previous question that you asked, as something else we have done that separates us from the other solutions is that we have pretty powerful and pretty simple developer tools. Now, these developer tools are to be used by developers, and then these developers can build those products that you’re referring to. Now, those developers will build whatever the designers have given them or their bosses have told them to build, and that would be represented in a specific user experience. It is true that the user experience today is below average in the crypto world. They are clunky and complex interfaces. And we would like to think, in fact, we’re seeing that over the last 18 months, we’re seeing that some of the products being built today are better, easier to use. Now, the product we have built, which is Liquor, is still targeting crypto enthusiasts. But we’re working with other companies like, for example, MDX and Regional Exchange, which shall be building a protocol that is targeting users of the Ethereum network, and those guys do not have any crypto experience, or at least we should assume that they shall not have any crypto experience. Consequently, that interface that has to be built has to be like any other payment solution in the world. Right? So think about PayPal, think about here in Norway, you have the protocol DIPS, which is very successful and it’s very simple. So you don’t need to know anything about gas, you don’t need to know anything about front sections or anything like that. Simply put, you should enter your details, have access to your balance, and be able to perform quick payments.
The Future of Nami
Congratulations that Nami has been launched. It sounds like you guys have done 20 months of hard development to get to this point. I’m curious to know, what is next? Are there more upgrades and developments on that network? And what’s in the development roadmap? Or are you guys good to go?
Nami’s Continuous Development
The never stop finishing or developing a product. So the moment somebody says the product is built, that means the product is obsolete. So that is a kind of a basic premise in the software world. What is next for us is interoperability. We have right now signed agreements with a very large blockchain company that would like us to port Nami to their blockchain. And that means we will then be building interoperability. And then we will have a very easy mechanism and interface to be able to access resources of both blockchains.
