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BitcoinX: Thank you for taking the time to chat with us today. So, tell us who you are and what your position is at the Fabric Token project?
Nikolay: Thanks for having me! My name is Nikolay Nikov, and I’m a Co-Founder and CEO of Niquid Tech OÜ, the Estonian company behind Fabric Token (FT) and the entire ecosystem around it.
BitcoinX: Tell us – what is the Fabric Token ecosystem? What is the main idea behind the project and why did you decide to start it?
Nikolay: The Fabric Token ecosystem will provide a suite of products that will remove the need for expert smart contract programming knowledge when developing decentralized applications. There is a huge gap between the hype around blockchain and the actual adoption rates we’re seeing today, which is largely due to costs and difficulty of development.
We intend to bridge that gap by providing simple drag-and-drop user interfaces combined with pre-defined smart contract templates for various use cases. This will allow people and businesses to easily adopt blockchain technology and smart contracts, thus enhancing innovation in this emerging industry.
As we extensively show in the White Paper of the project, blockchain technology and its underlying smart contracts could radically improve numerous multi-billion dollar industries as well as several government institutions. We could go into specific scenarios however, on the grand scale, the level of improvement that could be provided by implementing blockchain and smart contracts into almost any industry is quite simply unparalleled, which was more than enough of an incentive for us to start this project.
BitcoinX: Blockchain technology is expected to alter the landscape and/or create efficiencies in almost every industry. In what ways does your technology address these?
Nikolay: Blockchain technology excels at removing intermediaries and increasing trust, which in theory should indeed increase the efficiency in many industries. However in practice, blockchain developers are so few and so specialized, that paying for integration of the technology into a project creates a significant financial strain, especially on startups. Developers need to understand every layer of abstraction between their code and the underlying chain, and missing even a single detail can lead to millions of dollars in losses. So while the hype is there, blockchain is still not the disruptive technology we want it to be.
We aim to change that. We will take advantage of the existing popularity of the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) standard used in most companies nowadays, and remove the need for expert smart contract programming knowledge within the company. We will accelerate blockchain and smart contract adoption in literally all industries by making blockchain development easier, cheaper and safer.
BitcoinX: When and why did you first decide to do an ICO?
Nikolay: Back in June 2017, this project was started as a hobby however, when we realized how powerful it can actually be, we knew that we needed to be fully dedicated to its purpose.
Shortly after that we started looking for the best possible way to fund the project and so we eventually decided to go with an ICO, not only because of it being the current common way for blockchain startups to get funded, but also because of the fact that initial coin offerings are fundamentally executed by the same decentralized technology they are trying to popularize.
BitcoinX: Tell us about what preparation was required to get the project to this point?
Nikolay: All of the Fabric Token team have been, in one way or another, engaged with the blockchain industry for quite a while now. So, preparation for the project was not that hard considering the immense experience we had, not only in blockchain tech, but also with all other technologies used by the project.
BitcoinX: What makes this project especially exciting for ICO participants? What makes them want to join?
Nikolay: The fact that they will hold the utility with which they will be able to easily build, manage and improve decentralized applications. Buyers of the Fabric Token can look at it this way – any person or business looking to integrate blockchain technology and smart contracts into their project or business processes respectively, will need FT to do so.
BitcoinX: Where are you in the actual development phase of the project?
Nikolay: The Fabric Token ecosystem consists of 4 components, one of which is the Fabric Token itself – the payment means within the platform. The rest are TokenGen, a simple web application for smart contract generation, DApp Workbench, a drag-and-drop smart contract builder, and the Fabric Store, a decentralized marketplace for smart contract components.
The development landscape of the project can be found in the roadmap on our official website, but in short, TokenGen is due to be released in February, 2018, and is currently fully operational. All it needs is the Fabric Token launch to end so people could pay for their smart contracts with the FT they purchased in the sale.
Development of DApp Workbench has also started as we have done extensive research and testing on the technology stack of the product, ultimately determining its architecture. The public beta of DApp Workbench is going to be released in July, 2018.
BitcoinX: After a successful ICO, what is the timeline for coming to market?
Nikolay: As stated above, TokenGen will be released right after the Fabric Token ICO ends. DApp Workbench 1.0 is due for release in September, 2018, while the Fabric Store will be put to use in February, 2019.
BitcoinX: Are you focused in any specific geographic areas?
Nikolay: The parties that have shown interest in our project have been almost exclusively North American and Western European, but software development is not restricted by borders and large distances, so we aim to reach every interested company around the entire globe.
BitcoinX: For those who have read your whitepaper and other info, is there anything else you want to add to convince them to participate?
Nikolay: I think we make a pretty strong case for our project in the white paper. It is not pamphlet-like so it might take a while to finish it, but I can assure you that you’ll find it exhaustive and convincing, especially if you’re interested in blockchain technology and smart contracts from the start.
That being said, the most frequent question I get from potential participants is “can we expect frequent good news about the project after ICO?” So, I assure you – our first product release will be just weeks after the ICO is completed. We are following the philosophy of iterative development, meaning that instead of developing for years before deploying, we’ll be releasing new features every few weeks, and judging from the emails I’ve been receiving this past few days, I’m sure this decision will be very well accepted by ICO participants.
