Transcript of AMA with FUSION Executive Director Charles Poliacof

FUSION Executive Director and Head of Industry Adoption, Charles Poliacof, was in the FUSION official Telegram Channel on the 16/8 answering questions from the community. You can check out the transcript below!

Question: What’s your strategy for adoption in the finance world? Are you targeting existing finance big shot companies or looking at smaller entrepreneur firms to lead the way first?

Charles: Right now, when you look at projects like Axoni or others, they are building on top of Ethereum. There’s a lot that Fusion will be able to provide as a technology partner through DCRM and time lock that will offer more robust functionality especially when you start to talk about the creation of financial instruments. From what I have seen, people are focusing on cleared transactions when I believe the larger opportunity set will present itself in uncleared transactions. We also need to ask ourselves an existential question… do we continue to be a public chain or do we start to embrace a more bifurcated approach where we look to have a public chain and support a federated model as well (the latter is still TBD)

Question: You mentioned in the previous Q&A that Fusion may introduce new functionality, did the discussions regarding this led to anything viable yet?

Charles: I don’t like to talk about things until there is something to talk about. Otherwise it ends up being conjecture and speculation. What I can tell you is we are doing a lot of research in the OTC space. There are some functionality elements that we believe we can continue to develop that will serve as a differentiator. Once we feel comfortable with it we will share it. For us every conversation, interaction, meeting, etc is always a learning experience and something that allows us to continually refine our thinking and approach.

Question: What’s the situation with the lock-in issue? Any update on that?

Charles: I am not all that technical so forgive my explanation. From what I understand there is an issue on the timing of the blocks. Timing is inconsistent and needs to be addressed. We will not release the code until it is 100% ready. Otherwise, trust will be hard to recover.

Question: Charles, what do you think about big companies like Google, Microsoft, etc.. Can they make the same product or your technologies will protect by patents?

Charles: We have patents but that is not really the issue. If the marketplace is large enough, you can feel rest assured there will be other entrants.

Question: Charles can u comment Andre Cronje situation? Is he still advising fusion after timing of that announcement?

Charles: Andre is very involved in the manner I described. He is actually actively working on reviewing the code and DJ and team are working on getting him complete access. Once this is done, he will hold a Q&A on this. There was no point in having him here today if 50% of his responses would be “I have not done enough research or have had enough access to provide a thoughtful answer”

Question: Considering your the business strategist what is your plan for fusion? Please Be specific and give timelines. Not looking for a generic customer service answer (said respectfully).

Charles: My plan for Fusion is to continue to function as a complex adaptive system within a complex adaptive environment. We are having a lot of dialogue with a lot of folks and we are building the team. The short term focus for 2018 is 1) get main net right 2) Identify key stakeholders and partners that have digital representations of assets that can interact with our platform 3) Fill in the many missing roles we have today 4) Institutionalize the brand.

Question: Many ppl here are concerned that Fusion has not delivered anything yet, but you guys are in contact with govs and big companies and institutions. How is it possible? Why would big players listen/meet to you guys? I believe you have something to show them and capture their attention, right? Could tell us what do you have now to use in that purpose?

Charles: Everyone is having dialogue with everyone. There are a lot of projects and most of them are built on top of something else. Our plan is to be that something else. Also, when building a product, it’s impossible to have something finished right out of the gate. Often times it is that iterative feedback loop that helps to shape the right product that is massively accretive to our user base.

Question: how confident is DJ and the team in delivering the tech?

Charles: DJ has been extremely confident. Delays do not equate to failure. Delays are an admission that we are not ready yet. I would rather be delayed a year and deliver something extraordinary that will reverberate in the marketplace than deliver something half baked in 30 days just because those timelines are convenient.

Question: Some members of community are worried that fusions crowdsale wallet holding ETH hasn’t been converted to fiat for business operations. Half of the value of that is now gone due to ETH price decline. Will fusion struggle to operate in the next year with only half the funds available to them?

Charles: Our burn is very low relative to cash on hand. We have several years’ worth of runway.

Question: How near or far do you think banks are from being able to adopt FUSION? Do you see them as building on top of FUSION for in-house purposes or instead using fusion via using a dapp such as an exchange built on FUSION? Do you have any real progress in terms of partnerships in the banking space? Secondly, any chance of letting us know more about who and levels of progress on these supposed government initiatives? Lastly do you feel confident on the levels of lock up (targets) proposed previously by DJ (I think it was 100bn)..?

Charles: Anyone that has worked with banks knows they take a long time. There are a lot of initiatives in place I am not at liberty to discuss. I already addressed the public chain / private chain question. Partnerships will be announced when formalized. Getting the tech right is the most important thing.

Question: How did you first came in contact with Fusion and what was your initial reaction for discovering of different functions which are being built on it.

Charles: That question will take me a long time to answer! I only have 8 min left but feel free to PM me at another time and I will happily share the story.

Question: It’s a very curious question. Hopefully you can share this answer with us “just for fun” when you have some time in the future to write it up.

Charles: When I have some time later on today, I’ll write it up and share it with you to share with the community. Believe it or not, Andre actually had a lot to do with it (blame him!).

Question: How are the discussions going regarding the competence center in Europe?

Charles: I talk to the folks at the competency center often. They are waiting on code and the yellow paper (like everyone else!).

Question: Fusion mentioned it was looking for partnerships (back in early April) and approached universities in US, China, Netherlands, Russia, Belarus and France. Is there been any progress with the universities in these countries? And are they being used as a resource to help tackle the recent problem in the code?

Charles: Focus is important right now. We are having a lot of conversation but we don’t want to boil the ocean. Since I have joined we have become more opportunistic with our dialogue (I met with a professor yesterday about doing a paper on token economics using a game theory approach)

Question: Still no timeline for mainnet ?

Charles: I can make one up for you if you like or I can simply tell you that until we resolve these issues, there is no main net. I prefer being transparent.

Question: Which govs are you talking with? Australia included?

Charles: Not AUS. Would welcome an intro.

Question: What are your vision for long term ? And with Dubai is there any progress ?

Charles: Our vision is to the the platform that facilitate the exchange of values. We continue to be focused on that long term vision. it will take a long time for us to get there. First you need assets represented in a digital format. That’s what everyone is working on and those are the type of partners we are looking for.

Question: Charles do u have closed GitHub that u work on? Should we expect any code reviews on that part?

Charles: I would expect a more open approach to communication and technology. We are growing the team to be able to support it. This firm has grown very quickly in a short amount of time. Sometimes you experience growing pains. It happens to all companies. We are actively working on rectifying it.

Question: What is your strategy to improve the market by adding FSN on other exchange?

Charles: I don’t think about those things. That is up to other people in the organization. I am focused on execution. We deliver a killer platform, the rest will take care of itself. Just remember that in the short term the market is a voting machine and in the long term it is a weighing machine. I never ever ever ever ever focus on the short term.

Question: Do you believe we will have any other partnership announcements this year?

Charles: I believe we will. We are having a lot of great dialogue but then again, until we have something signed, I am hesitant to announce anything.

Question: CMO when?

Charles: CMO annoucement is coming. Some of you have already figured out who she is (she is actually on this channel watching me type this :wink:). CTO will be announced when we find one. We would rather have no one than have the wrong someone.

Question: Should fusion be seen as an enemy of ethereum or you consider it as another entity?

Charles: Fusion is inclusive. Interoperable.

Hope you enjoyed and thanks for your awesome and challenging questions.