Interview with Freedom NFT: A Decentralized Peer to Peer Social Network

We interviewed Elisa, the Business Director from Freedom socialFi platform. Freedom is a social NFT platform on DFINITY's Internet computer, which aims to enable free peer-to-peer communication between users and creators to possess the connection between themselves and fans, forming a simple, convenient, secure decentralized social network.

1. Please tell us about you, your name, position in the project, your credentials, etc., so that we can introduce you.

Hi, Good afternoon. This is Elisa, the Business Director from Freedom SocialFi Platform. I have been engaged in blockchain & cryptocurrency for five years, and my previous experiences have been in the hardware (semiconductor) space, but I am excited to work on developing blockchain technology that will open up more opportunities for more people. ICPSquad is a solid and robust DFINITY community. We are delighted to be invited to have an AMA with ICPSquad and look forward to communicating and collaborating with ICPSquad in the future.

2. Can you tell us about your project?

Freedom is a social NFT platform on DFINITY's Internet computer, which aims to enable free peer-to-peer communication between users and creators to possess the connection between themselves and fans, forming a simple, convenient, secure decentralized social network.

3. What benefits do you think the Internet Computer has over other L1 blockchains when it comes to creating NFTs?

There are three reasons why we choose IC to deploy Freedom Social Protocol. SocialFi has been in existence since 2017, but some of the critical issues have not been effectively addressed, such as: not being fully decentralized, slow interaction response, and high GAS costs.

Many SocialFi applications only host user assets or props such as Tokens and NFTs on-chain. In contrast, data used by users, such as messages and posts, are hosted in centralized cloud storage, which is a more dangerous structure for social protocols.

If the SocialFi application is fully decentralized, the current blockchain network interaction speed is insufficient to reach the Web 2.0-millisecond transmission and reception network speed. In the case of network congestion, it may even fail to send. It may take two minutes or even half an hour for the other party to receive a message.

In most cases, due to the high GAS costs, sending a message to your friend on the Ethereum network can cost nearly $100 as gas when the ETH network is congested. Building Freedom on the IC could effectively solve these problems, as we can store all user data on ICP by NFTing it, solving the problem of semi-decentralization. The IC has a transaction speed of 115,000 TPS, allowing Freedom to send and receive messages in milliseconds in terms of social experience. Internet Computer has a built-in Reverse Gas service in terms of GAS fees. The Reverse gas model built into the InternetComputer is a GAS fee rebate model, so users don't have to pay Gas fees when enjoying Freedom services.

Imagine running Freedom on Ethereum and having to pay nearly $100 in Gas fees for a single message, which does not fit the "SocialFi" scenario. Users have a very high demand for interaction when using the SocialFi app, so it would be undesirable for the Freedom platform to require users to pay a gas fee for their actions on the network, so we believe the Reverse gas model will be the most important building block for the explosive growth of the Freedom platform.

4. Do you have further plans to work with ICP Squad in the future after this initial sale?

Of course, I mentioned at the beginning that ICPSquad is a robust and powerful Dfinity community. We are very excited to be working with ICPSquad and look forward to interacting and collaborating with ICPSquad in the future. As we are a social platform, we hope that ICPSquad will be able to experience our products and offer suggestions in the future and that Freedom will be able to bring more fans and other web3 experiences to ICPSquad.

5. What advantages do you believe you have over other competitors?

It is common to have competitors, especially in the blockchain industry. But in the socialFi space, I believe Freedom can serve its users better. I'll talk about it in three ways. Firstly, the compatibility between blockchains. I mentioned earlier that Freedom will be compatible with ICP, ETH, BSC, AMAX, and Matic, the five public chains in the first phase.

Secondly, Freedom is entirely free for users, thanks to ICP, and its GAS model is a reverse GAS fee, which means that Freedom bears the GAS fee consumed by the user sending messages, not the user.

The last point is how Freedom sends messages, generally within 2S, and can be as fast as milliseconds. So users will have an outstanding experience when messaging each other on Freedom, and we are constantly optimizing this. From these three points of view, I believe Freedom can better serve users in the WEB3 social space.

6. Do you have any partners? Please tell us about them

We have received grants from Dfinity Foundation, which I think will be announced soon. Our team is talking to many investors now; we will update you when the partnership is confirmed. Stay tuned.

7. Tell us about the challenges you have faced while building your project?

Our biggest challenge is the compatibility with various public chains. We need to make the underlying protocols compatible with Freedom so that all public chain users can directly log in to Freedom with one click. This is why all five public chains are currently able to log into Freedom on this test network. Each public chain has a different underlying protocol, so our technical team needs to understand the protocols of each public chain and develop compatibility, which is a substantial and complex progress.

8. What are your short and long-term achievements and targets?

The beta1.0 testnet is around the corner, and we are now working on testnet warm-up events to attract more users to experience our beta1.0 product. This is where users could blind their address from ICP, Matic, ETH, AVAX, and BSC and generate Freedom Decentralised Identity. FreeID and Display all NFTs from the above five networks in one account and experience the multi-chain wallet management system.

We are planning to release our beta 2.0 this year. We will launch the much-anticipated Space and YourPage. They are fascinating, and you can post articles, moods, or get followers on your page to gain revenue. The Space module is more in line with the meaning of Freedom, and you can post anything you want here without any restrictions. Each space will be bound to a unique Freedom NFT as proof of ownership.

This NFT will witness the ownership of the Space and all the social data of the corresponding space, so it has unlimited upside. In the meantime, Freedom DAO will be launched at this stage in the hope that people will get better involved and provide us with more thoughts and ideas.

Also, the creator incentive scheme is being launched in beta 2.0 and is a creator incentive model built for Space and YourPage.

As we all know that the most important thing about a social product is the users, so how to attract them to Freedom is an important issue. The creator incentive scheme helps Freedom tap into a wide range of talent and more quality users. We believe that this is the only way to keep the user base growing in the long term.

In addition, the platform has been optimizing the entry barrier of socialFi for non-crypto users to attract more non-crypto users to Freedom through simple operations such as one-click login, multi-chain management, integrated management of NFT, etc.

Freedom has a One-Click Mint NFT function, in which all data information is presented and stored on the blockchain in the form of NFT. This function is also given to users.

For example, some artists do not know how to use blockchain technology to mint NFT for their artworks, and they can use Mint NFT and upload data for one-click creation without researching the complex blockchain technology. In addition to Mint NFT, peer-to-peer instant messaging, group chat, and Giveaway will be available to everyone in Beta 3.0 this year.

9. Give us some details about your roadmap?

At present, we are mainly in the testnet phase. It will be released with the user address binding NFT identity - FreeID system and personal space in the NFT display function and multi-chain wallet management system after the main online. Meanwhile, a multi-chain (ICP, ETH, BSC, AVAX, Matic) wallet management system V1 phase will open.

When Version 2 launches this year, we will open the much-anticipated Space and YourPage function. These two modules are fascinating; you can post articles, moods, or get fans on YourPage to gain revenue.

Each space will be bound to a unique Freedom NFT as proof of ownership. This NFT will witness the ownership of the space and all the social data of the corresponding space, so it has unlimited upside. If your space has enough fans and is active enough, its potential is limitless.

In the meantime, Freedom DAO will be launched at this stage, and we hope that people will get better involved and provide us with more thoughts and ideas.

10. Currently, many decentralized social networking projects are being implemented on the IC and other blockchains, so what is your advantage in attracting users?

There are currently many decentralized social networking projects on ICP, but I have mentioned some of Freedom's core competitive advantages, including the ultimate user experience. For example, the login operation of Freedom does not require authentication of many complicated things, only a simple wallet to login to Freedom in one click and display all NFTs on the IC network.

At present, the proportion of NFT projects in the DFINITY ecosystem is very high, with a total of 230+ public projects in the DFINITY ecosystem, 70+ of which are NFT projects,

While they combine some of the features of IC, such as storing NFT metadata entirely on the chain, they do not fully combine and exploit the characteristics of the IC with NFTs. Canisters (complete with Turing completion and integration of the Web assembly format) enable NFTs on the IC to have greater application value.

By taking full advantage of this layer, the Freedom platform gives all NFTs in the Dfinity ecosystem a more comprehensive range of applications, which can be These NFTs can be identity groups in the Freedom platform, a piece of text as content, or even platform props with many rights and functions.

In the future, the Freedom platform will empower any NFT project with an indiscriminate use of scenarios in an inclusive manner, thus forming the world's leading NFT application scenario by radiating through the Dfinity ecology. The platform will be the world's leading NFT application platform.

11. Many decentralized social networks launch NFTs for free for users and continuously airdrop NFTs to users. What do you think about this? Is it also a way of marketing in the future? are they not?

This kind of marketing is very tempting at the moment. Still, this issue also reflects some of the problems with blockchain technology - the NFT technology is not perfect, and the more scarce something certainly is, the more valuable it is. There are few on-chain NFTs combined with off-chain entities, such as diamonds, which are possessed by a small number of people and are thus very expensive. Still, in reality, the cost of diamonds is meager, and the production volume is very high.

12. Can you list three killer features of your project that make it ahead of competitors? What are the competitive advantages that you feel most confident about?

It is common to have competitors, especially in the blockchain industry. But in the #SocailFi space, I believe Freedom can serve its users better. I'll talk about it for three reasons.

1) the compatibility between blockchains.

Those who have read the Freedom Documentation should know that we will be compatible with Internet Computer, Ethereum, Binance network, Avalavance, and Polygon, the five public chains in the first phase.

2) Freedom is entirely free for users

Thanks to the Internet Computer, its GAS model is a reverse GAS fee, which means that Freedom platform bears the GAS fee consumed by users when sending messages, not the users.

3) The speed at which Freedom sends messages, which is normally within 2 seconds and can be as fast as milliseconds.

Users will have an excellent experience when messaging each other on Freedom, and we will constantly continue to optimize it.

From these three points of view, I believe Freedom can better serve users in the WEB3 social space.

Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions 😊