Questions by Dennis from Gate.io Exchange
Question from Gate.io: What is Beldex, give us a short account of your project, team, where are they based and the unique features your project offers?
Answer: Beldex is a privacy-enhanced decentralized ecosystem of interoperable dApps such as BChat, BelNet, the Beldex Protocol and the Beldex Browser.
BChat and BelNet are cross-platform dApps available for mobile and desktop devices. You can download them here:
BChat — https://bchat.beldex.io/
BelNet — https://belnet.beldex.io/
The team is decentralized and is in the U.S., Europe and Asia. They are experts in their respective fields of finance, technology and marketing.
Each of the dApps we build provides a way for the user to secure their online activity. For example, BChat is a decentralized messaging application which you can use to send private messages to your friend. BelNet is a decentralized VPN service built over the Beldex blockchain. The Beldex protocol is a dApp used to anonymize transactions of other blockchain assets. And the Beldex Browser is a user-centric, privacy browser.
2. Question from Gate.io: How does the Beldex-Gate Exchange partnership contribute to the mainstream adoption of privacy-focused cryptocurrencies, and what steps are being taken to educate users and businesses about the benefits of privacy?
Answer: The collaboration between Beldex and Gate Exchange serves as a beacon for mainstream adoption by providing a user-friendly, private-centric trading experience. Educational initiatives, including contests, tutorials, and documentations, are underway to inform users and businesses about the importance of privacy in the digital financial landscape, to foster a greater understanding and acceptance of privacy-focused cryptocurrencies.
3. Question from Gate.io: How can a user participate in Beldex? What are the ways to contribute to the network? What can BDX be used for?
Answer: Users can primarily participate and contribute to the network by running masternodes. In addition to this, they can participate in our weekly quiz contests on discord and other activities like engaging with the community and spreading the word about Beldex. Community members can also apply to our contributor or ambassador program and represent Beldex in International community events online and offline.
Users can primarily use BDX to make transactions, buy BNS names, stake on masternodes, pay with BDX on supported platforms and trade on exchanges like Gate.io.
4. Question from Gate.io: How does Beldex ensure the privacy and security of user transactions within its ecosystem, and what measures are in place to safeguard against potential vulnerabilities?
Answer: Being open-source is always for the win. Being open source means that we can prioritize the technological aspect of our project instead of looking at it as a business that needs to be expanded. Beldex emphasizes privacy and security through its advanced Beldex protocol, which employs ring signatures and stealth addresses to obfuscate transaction details. Additionally, the integration of the BNS (Beldex Name Service) on BChat enhances user security by enabling transactions and communication through unique, user-friendly aliases. Regular security audits, community bug bounties, and a vigilant development team further contribute to the robust security infrastructure of the Beldex ecosystem, ensuring a secure and private environment for users.
5. Question from Gate.io: Do you have any strong or direct competition in this space and how do you address it?
Answer: Yes, we acknowledge competition in the privacy-based crypto space.
However, our project distinguishes itself through the development of a full-fledged private ecosystem that ensures enhanced privacy and security. Many chains have tried to integrate the EVM or build a anonymity-enhanced EVM using zero knowledge proofs and notably zk-SNARKS.
But Beldex is the first to try and integrate the EVM onto a cryptonote based chain. Beldex currently has a proof of concept EVM and will begin the first phase of the integration by Q1, 2024. We continuously strive to stay ahead of our competition through ongoing research, development, and community engagement to provide a superior private solution.
6. Question from Gate.io: What do you see in the future of the project in the short term and long term? What are the major upcoming updates on the Beldex blockchain? And any upcoming partnerships you can discuss?
Answer: The BNS hard fork and the EVM integration are the two major upcoming core updates. The BNS hardfork is already live on the Testnet and the team will be pushing the required Binaries next month in preparation for the mainnet’s fork. The hardfork is expected to go live by January, 2024. This fork doesn’t split the chain but introduces key features such as the Beldex Name Service aka the BNS. With this update, users will be able to send text messages and BDX to their friends just by using the BNS name on BChat. They can also host private applications on BelNet using the BNS domain that ends with the .bdx extension.
The second major update is the integration of EVM. This is largely still in the research phase and the team is looking to begin the first phase of integration by the first quarter of 2024.
Regarding partnerships, we are actively looking into crypto payment solutions and providing more real-world utilities for BDX.
Questions by Users During the AMA Questionnaire:
Question by Dexter: English is a widely spoken language. How does your initiative intend to raise awareness of its project in nations where English is a second language?
Answer: Good question. Beldex intends to localize our content in regional languages in order to make it easier for international communities to learn, understand and familiarize themselves with the project. For this purpose, Beldex had launched International communities on Telegram
- Arabic — https://t.me/beldex_arabic
- Russian — https://t.me/beldexrussiangroup
- Vietnamese — https://t.me/beldexvietnamesegroup
- Spanish — https://t.me/beldexspanishgroup
- Japanese — https://t.me/beldexjapanesegroup
- Turkish — https://t.me/beldexturkishgroup
- German — https://t.me/beldexgermangroup
- Portuguese — https://t.me/beldexportuguesegroup
- Korean — https://t.me/beldexkoreangroup
- Chinese — https://t.me/beldexchinesegroup
2. Question by Jesse: How does BNS ensure that domains hosted on BelNet remain free of censorship and maintain an additional layer of privacy and security?
Answer: The applications hosted using BNS domains are free of censorship because they are supported by a decentralized network of Beldex masternodes. The domain is hosted on BelNet, which is behind a layer of onion network. The IP that hosts the domain is obfuscated — it is mapped to a BelNet address, which inturn is mapped to the BNS domain.
Sample IP: 192.156.1.35
BelNet Address:
http://675wmqqbzg6nqs688e1n3bti6ter4kt5q4u5bs1c4quutpnyxsxy.bdx/
BDX domain: https://explorer.bdx
Thus, certain attack vectors such as DNS spoofing and website defacement are averted. Any user who tries to connect to a BNS domain is routed through the masternodes. The location of the domain where it is hosted is unknown to anyone other than the host while the host also doesn’t know the IP address of the user. This adds a layer of privacy and security to both the host and the user.
3. Question by Blaze: How does the decentralized BelNet VPN work? Tell us the decentralized aspect of BelNet when compared to traditional VPN service platforms?
Answer: In a traditional VPN service, your request is routed through a centralized server that’s owned and hosted by the VPN company. Your IP address is visible to the VPN company, which then masks your IP address with that of the server you’re connected to. While the destination (the application that you access) cannot see your IP, the VPN company very well can.
In BelNet however, your request is routed through the masternodes on the Beldex network. And there are over 2000 masternodes of which over 90% is run by community contributors in various parts of the world. Your request makes a minimum of 3 hops before it reaches the exit node, which connects to the destination server. Thus, only the exit node IP is visible to the destination server.
With traditional VPNs, if the data center facility that hosts their VPN servers goes down, the service goes down with it. In BelNet, even if part of the network is unavailable, the rest of the network will keep the service alive and afloat.
Similarly, attacks on traditional VPN servers can lead to downtime in their service with the incentive being ransomware or some kind of bargain from the company. But with a decentralized open-source VPN such as BelNet, there’s a very large area to cover in the sense that it is difficult to compromise a large number of individually run nodes while the incentive to attack is close to none.
4. Question by Sam: How is BelNet faster than other onion routers? How does Beldex establish faster and easier tunnel connections for routing the connection?
Answer: BelNet employs a combination of onion routing on a decentralized network with a minimum of 3 hops for faster and easier tunnel connections. The speed of your connection, however, depends on the quality of the masternodes, exit nodes, and your own Wifi or Cellular data. To ensure maximum throughput and better quality of service, BelNet has certain benchmarks that exit node contributors should adhere to. These can be found here: https://beldexcoin.medium.com/exit-node-selection-criteria-new-reward-plan-d24228db968d
Out of the 20 exit nodes currently available, 3 are run by the Beldex foundation and 17 are run by a select few exit node contributors from the community. The list of active exit nodes can be found here: https://belnet.beldex.io/belnet-exit-node-list
In addition to this, users can run their own exit node on BelNet for their personal use using the ‘Add Custom Exit Node’ option. The custom exit node, unlike the foundation and community run nodes, can only be used by the user who adds them.
5. Question by NFT Kid: Can you provide the current number of validators and the technical prerequisites for establishing a masternode?
Answer: There are currently 2137 masternodes on the Beldex network and this is subject to change. At any given time in the past year, the network has had a minimum of 1800 masternodes. The hardware and software requirements to run a masternode and information on hosting platforms that support Beldex masternodes can be found here: https://beldex.io/masternode#En
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