The last AMA written recap: HERE
About Acquisition
What was the core reason behind the decision where do you guys both see the synergies between Lition and TomoChain and what do you see as the future for the combined entities?
From the TomoChain PoV, Lition is a very valuable addition as it adds the dimension of product technology and business development to TomoChain. There are elements that I’m very excited like the fact that Lition is a deletable blockchain that is suitable for some enterprise use cases. If we want to bring blockchain technology to serve big financial institutions such as banks or governments, we want to bring the best technology we can to the table.
We want to incorporate that point in the TomoChain’s technology stack and bring it to the bigger use cases in Asia and around the world as well. Actually, we want to focus on the financial sector in which security is paramount and in fact, Lition puts a lot of emphasis on data control for end-users.
We’re located in different geological locations as Lition is an European project and TomoChain is an Asian project, but if we want to tackle the really big use cases and that’s what it’s all about in the end, then we need to have an entity which is very powerful, not european, not asian but global. It doesn’t have a couple of engineers on one side or on the other side but it will have many engineers. Therefore, only with a strong company, there is a viable chance that we can really transform and disrupt the finance industry and therefore, make a very lasting and sustainable blockchain solution, not just for a few technical people that love blockchain but for the mass market.
What else should we know about TomoChain and its role in accordance with the feasibility/development of Lition future?
TomoChain has government relationships in place. Over the last year we have spent time with the Vietnamese government discussing regulation frameworks, which has been announced publicly. And we have been exploring other areas of collaboration. We can’t go into any further details due to NDAs, but there is a concerted effort and a method to the approach being taken.
Short intro about TomoChain team: we have about 30 full-time blockchain devs and access to about 400 software engineers thanks to our closed partnerships and investments to some major outsourcing companies, which will help a lot with Lition tech development.
We also have direct connections with all biggest exchanges. Listing discussions usually take a long time, a lot of resources and under NDAs, so we can never promise when, or set any timeline for them (which can even ruin any chances for listing)
We are still in the transition period. Be patient with us, and support us during this time.
How does TomoChain gain from Lition besides from token value?
The combined entity is bigger and more competitive. That creates way more added values, and eventually benefit everyone involved.
What could an acquisition achieve differently that a joint venture could not?
In a cooperation you don’t act as one entity. You always have two that need to keep agreeing. There is a lot more friction than if there is one company. That’s why the large corporates like Google, Apple, etc. cooperate on smaller experiments, but when it comes to their core product, they buy.
We have been working together in the background for 18 months. The decision to acquire was not a quick decision, it took careful planning over a considerable period of time to ensure there was a match and a direction for the combined entity. We’re in this to succeed together as blockchains and as communities.
Is TomoChain Pte. Ltd. the official entity buyer?
Yes, it is.
In term of percentage, how much will you allocate TomoChain’s ressources for Lition development and expansion?
Lition’s brand and technology is going to be an important part of TomoChain’s enterprise venture moving forward. We don’t have an exact figure or percentage to give you, but we are including core members of the Lition team into that venture to maintain operations and work with us to flesh out the finance use case. And we will scale up our resources on it as we see growing market demand and fit, just as we do for our existing core products.
What are your answers to people who think TomoChain community does not have an advantage with their TOMO token after this acquisition?
TomoChain public chain competes in the same space with Ethereum / Tezos etc. while Lition is a version of private chain/ side chain/ HyperLedger. TomoChain Pte. Ltd. is a technology provider. Each products has their use-cases and we (the technology provider) commit to support them over the long-term.
Of course resources will be required to maintain Lition’s technology and business unit, but that effort is minimal compared to the synergies gained. Consider that TomoChain operates a product on Ethereum too, called LuaSwap. So we’re well versed in the Ethereum blockchain as well
And, again, we want to iterate that this is not about competing tech/communities. If Lition’s solution is the right one to use, TomoChain community members benefit right alongside Lition community members because we’re all part of the same unit and our brands/business are interlinked.
About the potential that the project can bring and achieves the set goals, how to attract new users and new investors to join $LIT and $TOMO after the acquisition and maintain long-term investment?
We’ve been having spending time with Lition team for the last 6 months right and I’m very excited with the acquisition. Many people are still not realizing that the entity after this acquisition will be much stronger, much bigger than the two team used to be. We are very competitive from now on and we can attract new users, even more new investors because we can win a bigger development and make the integration. That’ll be thing we’ll show in the future with our continuous effort on business development and technology development.
I don't understand the benefit for have 2 different tokens LIT and TOMO in one company
TomoChain solution is a public blockchain in mainnet. And Lition is a sidechain. From a technological point of view, this makes it a natural fit. And a compelling argument when the new company pitches to new business use cases. Everything from one company - mainnet and sidechain. No one else can deliver this on this scale. That’s something that would have not been possible with a mere partnership. If we want to tackle the real large use cases, we need this power. Having a L1 and L2 package is something that has never happend and makes it a lot more viable for adoption.
Technical development
Move Lition to TomoChain as a second layer?
Lition mainnet is currently operating on Ethereum. Certainly it can be deployed across other EVM compatible chains too where the need may be.
We envision a multchain future and Lition being on Ethereum is actually a major advantage. There is no need to re-engineer Lition to work on TomoChain. That would be a waste of the technology that’s already been developed. TomoChain is not planning to launch its own L2 side chain on the TomoChain Blockchain. Enterprise solutions do consider Ethereum a viable alternative as a public chain solution. That’s a key advantage for Lition as a core choice for them.
Clients have their own requirements. It’s not our goal to force them to choose something they’re not comfortable with. Providing for quality options that meet their needs is the point. It’s not about them choosing TomoChain Blockchain over Lition on Ethereum in this case
It’s about what serves them best, not about choosing one or the other. Under a single umbrella TomoChain succeeds whether a client chooses Lition or TomoChain. We benefit by creating values to end-users. That is the main and only criterion. That’s being said TomoChain publich chain has its unique strengths. Feel free to visit TomoChain’s website and/or read a few of our documentations to see where each public chain advantages are.
How will all the staking pools be transitioned to TomoChain from Ethereum on the Energy side chain?
Nothing is changing with respect to how Lition functions, including the staking, node operations, etc.
We only moved some of the LIT token to TomoChain for listing and for the future use case as people need to use the Lition token.
How will the transaction costs coming from Lition Energy work? Will the portion of transaction costs distributed as rewards for staking and nodes stay same or reduce?
(Richard answered) The staking rewards are a result of P2P trades which scale with energy customers. The more energy customers the more transactions. We’re currently at >1000 new households every month so the overall staking volume is increasing. If however more people stake their tokens, the relative returns in percent might decline
What number of tx on LIT sidechains can we expect soon ? When will all real transactions from Energy Use Case will start being migrated to Lition sidechain ? Estimations for upcoming sidechains nb of tx (including Docmosis), etc. Just some figures associated to calendar projections
Since the Lition Mainnet just launched, we will be exploring its use for sure. But commiting to specific numbers would be premature and irresponsible of us at this point.
Our team is going to be diving into current business development activities, including Docmosis and others, just give us a little patience to get through the transition phase.
Are we still on track with the whitepaper projections ? (1.5M tx/day in 2020)
Since we are exploring various options for Lition, we cannot commit to specific projections like that based on what was written in the white paper.
What about the oracle you write talking about ?
(Richard answered) This is ongoing. More on this soon.
Business and marketing development
What roadmap do we expect for Lition - Enterprise blockchain division in medium term?
Lition already has mainnet and use cases. So the main priority for enterprise division is bringing useful solutions to clients/ users. We will look for guidance to improve products from different pilots/ user feedbacks we have.
Vision wise, we spoke about the future of the project as well, and while we will continue to support the energy side, we see strong potential in the financial services sector. If you head to the new Lition website you’ll see more on that too. We will be utilizing Lition as a core part of our existing and future business development activities.
Everything mentioned above is also geared to support the LIT token since it fuels the Lition technology itself. We’re in this for the long haul together
What is timeline that you see within which you see Lition adding to the topline of TomoChain. What bottomline impact do you foresee within that timeline?
Enterprise development is a slow moving process. Conversions take time so it is hard to commit to a timeline.
That said we are seeing growing demand and interest in enterprise solutions using Blockchain. Clients in the space are also seeking various technology options to meet their needs. Lition is going to be top of mind and a core part of our enterprise solutions on offer moving forward.
Could you perhaps outline which customer requirements would require an ethereum side-chain solution and which a TomoChain and vice versa?
Enterprises can use Lition side chain or TomoChain public chain. There are many differences between them as they belong to two different categories.
The vision of how it all connects is that each major use case will run on a side chain for computation/ data storage while relying on a public chain for asset creation/ trading and security. That is how we plan to move forward. Practically you only need to compare TomoChain with Ethereum on relative basis.
In addition, some clients are seeking a purely private chain solution due to their ability control everything about it - like with Hyperledger. There are a number of applications being tested here until public chain infrastructure is widely accepted as secure and easy to build on.
Others are willing to consider Public Chain because they understand the in-built security, however privacy and being able to adjust the data in some capacity is not natively supported…this is where Lition comes in. Financial applications work well here, along with solutions requiring GDPR compliance
TomoChain, as a public chain, is great for handling a large number of transactions at a fraction of the cost from other chains. We have one client that’s working to use it for food traceability where a customer can verify the source and also the authenticity of items being purchased at the point of sale (i.e. two customers cannot purchase the exact same item). Here privacy is not a priority and the data on the blockchain is intended to remain permanent.
No way that EU based customers use software from a company that has only a legal subsidiary in Singapore. Wondering if the Energy Blockchain use-case is even allowed to use critical infrastructure from a non EU company.
Singapore is actually a key region with maturing blockchain regulation. Most Asian businesses in blockchain form their entities there for a reason. It’s a financial center that’s truly open to the future growth of our space. The main challenges with operating in the EU is ensuring that there is regulatory compliance. And Lition is built with that in mind. So it’s really the best of both worlds in my view.
Do you plan to add gprd to be regulated compliance directly in the tomo blockchain ?
Lition has key features which play well with GDPR regulations already. TomoChain’s core blockchain has its own direction. So it’s not something we’re looking to build natively into TomoChain
Is Jürgen from SAP in any way still involved with Lition as an advisor?
(Richard answered) Need to discuss more on this.
The SAP partnership of Lition is based on our formal co-innovation contract with Lition. This was handed over too.
What about Docmosis usecase, is it still on track and coming?
We’ll be following up on Docmosis and all other business development activities for sure. We need your patience to get through the transition phase
Richard said the energy usecase needs Lition because there's no other gdpr compliant solution. Baseline will be gdpr compliant. Can we have a guarantee Lition Energy will keep using the Lition sidechain and not go for Baseline?
(Richard answered) Yes. Guaranteed.
Any updates related to exchanges or upcoming business news?
To be clear that we are under NDA for almost all ongoing BD discussion. All business announcements will be made in the announcement and media when they are finalized.
Will Richard and Kyung try to gather more business partnerships for Lition in Europe since you are now an advisor to Lition?
They will keep helping the Lition Blockchain and TomoChain enterprise divison as advisors. They’ll remain active, but more on the business and technology side.
LIT token
Richard had a clear plan for Lition tokens burn reducing the supply to 100.5 Million over the next years. Will the schedule stay the same or it will change?
Regarding all the ongoing token-related plans (such as liquidity program/ token burning schedule/bridge) started by Lition Technology AG, TomoChain Pte. Ltd. wasn’t involved in designing/developing any of those and don’t control the security and movements of any wallets in 6 months since the Closing Date (28 Oct 2020) of the Acquisition according to the Acquisition Agreement. Therefore, whether and how all these token-related plans will continue are up to Lition Technology AG.
Will the Uniswap Liquidity Reward Program continue? / Will the Lition BEP2-ERC20 Bridge still be maintained? / Other token-related ongoing plans (if any)
Regarding all the ongoing token-related plans (such as liquidity program/ token burning schedule/bridge) started by Lition Technology AG, TomoChain Pte. Ltd. wasn’t involved in designing/developing any of those and don’t control the security and movements of any wallets in 6 months since the Closing Date (28 Oct 2020) of the Acquisition according to the Acquisition Agreement. Therefore, whether and how all these token-related plans will continue are up to Lition Technology AG.
Will the LIT token always be used in the future when using the Lition sidechain on Ethereum? Even IF (even if there is no current plan) the Lition technology is used on the TomoChain as L2, will the LIT token still be used?
Yes. Lit token goes with Lition’s technology, same as TOMO token goes with TomoChain public chain and technology
Feel free to leave your questions under this post, it helps us complete the FAQ in order to bridge the gap between teams and communities.