Full transcript of the KuCoin AMA with Klever CTO Bruno Campos who talked about Klever’s blockchain, apps, exchange, hard wallet and many more topics with the KuCoin trading community.
On the morning of August 25th, Klever’s CTO, Bruno Campos, was interviewed at an AMA promoted by the KuCoin trading community on their Telegram channel.
Bruno had the opportunity to talk about many important topics regarding Klever’s achievements – the upcoming news on Klever’s Blockchain, the Klever Apps, its one-year anniversary, the hardware wallet and other subjects.
Here is the full transcript of the conversation between Bruno, Steve Baillie – representative of the KuCoin Community – and other members that were present on the chat.
Steve Baillie (KuCoin):
Hello everyone!
Welcome to the KuCoin AMA session with Klever (KLV)!
I am Steve from the KuCoin Community and your host for this AMA session.
I am delighted to have the opportunity to host another AMA session featuring Klever.
A lot has happened since the previous AMA we had with Klever and the listing of its utility token $KLV back in February.
Currently, the supported trading pairs for $KLV available in the KuCoin Spot market are:
https://trade.kucoin.com/KLV-USDT
https://trade.kucoin.com/KLV-BTC
https://trade.kucoin.com/KLV-TRX
Also, just a few minutes ago, the Klever campaign officially started, which will give away a reward pool of $30,000 in KLV to qualified KuCoin users. New KLV users (those who haven’t made any trades and deposits of KLV before the activity period) will also receive 10% cashback!
For today’s AMA session, we will be joined by none other than the CTO and co-founder Klever, who will share all the latest developments of Klever, insights and more.
Bruno Campos — CTO & Co-Founder of Klever
Steve:
Bruno is a Security Architect, Full Stack Architect and has decades of experience as a Software Development Coordinator with a history of working in the insurance, financial, banking and blockchain industries.
Bruno’s strong engineering background of Security Tech and professionally skilled in Blockchain, Java, nodejs, Ruby on Rails, golang, .Net framework, Docker, k8s, Openshift Container Platform, Kubernetes, IBM DB2, Oracle Database, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Amazon Web Services – AWS, Google Cloud Platform, and Scrum. Bruno is a passionate technical leader whose positive energy is contagious and who cares deeply for every member of the Klever family.
KuCoin Community, let us all give a warm virtual welcome to our distinguished guest, @brunocampos!
Welcome to the KuCoin Community, @brunocampos! It’s an honor to have you here for another AMA session with Klever in our community.
Bruno Campos:
Thank you KuCoin and the entire KuCoin community for having me!
Steve:
We are all excited to what you will share with us today about the latest developments of Klever and more, so let’s get started.
For those who are new to Klever.io, can you please tell us what Klever is and KLV’s role in the Klever ecosystem of products?
Bruno Campos: The goal of Klever is to create the most secure and easy to use crypto products and accelerate the adoption of decentralized finance by empowering people to equal economic opportunities.
Bruno Campos: Klever app is a simple, versatile and secure self-custody crypto wallet ecosystem, supporting the world’s major blockchains. The app offers access to 10,000+ tokens, 300+ swap pairs, and direct access to ETH and TRX-based DApps in Klever Browser. Klever is a decentralized p2p and self-custody wallet, putting the private keys in the hands of our users.
Bruno Campos: Klever Roadmap (https://klever.io/en/roadmap/) is an ambitious plan and the Klever team is working hard to scale our products for the growing demand of new crypto users entering the blockchain space.
Bruno Campos: KLV token is the fuel of the Klever’s ecosystem. It is Klever’s only and main utility token used to pay fees among all services of the ecosystem as well as many other use cases including burn-mining of new project tokens and utility through our partners such as travala.com. More than 51% of all KLV is today staked by the community, which is an amazing testimony of trust from the community that we value highly.
Steve:
Thanks, Bruno for reintroducing Klever to the KuCoin Community.
From the last AMA we had with Klever CEO Dio back in February, if my memory serves me right, it was mentioned that Klever Blockchain, which is one of Klever’s emerging platforms, is set to launch this year…
The Klever Blockchain is set to have its Testnet go live in September, with official Mainnet launch in December 2021.
Can you tell us more about Klever Blockchain, its development and future vision to provide a simpler and more powerful crypto experience for both regular users and businesses?
Bruno Campos: Klever Blockchain (https://www.klever.finance/) is a permissioned network powered for transactions and staking by KLV which validator candidates need to stake to master nodes in order to be eligible to become a validator. And the governance token KFI will be used to propose and vote for changes in the network, while KFI holders will receive Application fees and DeFi system fees.
The Klever Blockchain will have built in native features and triggers at the blockchain core level, eliminating the need for vulnerable smart contracts while enabling all essential features that smart contract blockchains support today. Those features include stake, delegation, freeze, unfreeze, swap, loans, to mention a few.
Bruno Campos: So called Klever Apps (kApps) will be approved by KFI holders through a governance process (proposed and voted), and developed by the Klever team natively in the blockchain.
All kApps available in the blockchain will use Klever’s Security Measures to avoid security breaches and remove the threat of scammers’ attempt to enter the ecosystem.
Klever blockchain uses a rotative Delegated Proof of Stake with Simplified Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) consensus mechanism, powered by 21 validators per epoch. Each validator needs at least 10 million KLV staked to be eligible, out of which at least 1 million KLV must be self-staked by the validator themselves.
The PBFT algorithm consists of a three-phased protocol: Pre-Prepare, Prepare, and Commit. Together, they form the core of the PBFT consensus algorithm:
Pre-Prepare: Primary node is responsible for verifying the requests and generating corresponding pre-prepare messages. Then, the Primary node will broadcast pre-prepare messages to all Replica nodes. After receiving the messages, Replica nodes will verify the legitimacy of those pre-prepare messages and then broadcast a corresponding prepare message.
Prepare: Gathering prepared messages. After a certain node gathers 2f+1 prepare messages, it will announce that it is ready for block submission and start to broadcast commit messages;
Commit: Gathering commit messages. After a certain node gathers 2f+1 commit messages, it will process the native requests cached locally and make corresponding changes to the system state.
Bruno Campos: Based on Proof of Stake (PoS) network consensus mechanism, Klever’s blockchain chronology is organized into slots and epochs.
A slot is the minimum time delay between each block where an elected Masternode will be proposing a new block. The initial slot time is 3 seconds and can be updated by a network proposal.
Epochs are sets of slots defined by a fixed time, each epoch lasting 1 hour. This parameter can also be upgraded by a network proposal. At each epoch end, a net set of masternodes will be selected as next Epoch validators.
When an epoch starts, initially 21 (this number can be changed by network proposal) masternodes are chosen randomly according to the previous hash to be the validators for that epoch. A masternode can be chosen to be a validator more than 2 times in a row.
The Klever Blockchain which will function as the foundation of the entire Klever ecosystem, and is a project we have been researching, developing and working on for many years, honed by our extensive experience of operating and maintaining 100s of nodes on dozens of blockchain networks for our wallet and exchange operations.
Klever Blockchain is a game changer for KLV and the entire Klever ecosystem.
Steve:
Indeed, you have provided what I asked for about Klever Blockchain when I asked you to tell us more about it
From the get-go, security has always been on top of the list of Klever…
Wallet security is an area that Klever has focused a great amount of energy to develop and become market leading in.
Can you explain the security measures that go into securing the Klever ecosystem?
Bruno Campos: Security in Klever is done by all teams and collaborators as securing our users funds permeates every aspect of our product development.
We have a strong company culture that empowers each member of the development team to be the watchdog of our products from a security perspective.
Our Cyber Security specialists are focused on keeping all the systems and infrastructures safe and compliant with the Klever products’ business needs. So they do constant and repeated penetration tests, ethical hacking and code analysis to ensure that we are safe!
Bruno Campos: An essential part of our cyber security architecture and a crucial component in keeping our global users secure. On code analysis, each line of code that is submitted to our git repository, is searched for security vulnerabilities through SAST and DAST cross tools.
Each line of code used in the Klever ecosystem of products is built in-house and proprietary only to Klever for security reasons and not to depend on 3rd party sources for our operations and safety measures.
We are also focusing on strong user awareness and education inside and outside of Klever to make sure we stay ahead of scammers attempts to defraud our users and mitigate against any type of malicious attacks.
On the proactive measures we take, our Devsecops Team is always searching for ways to improve our security standards and technologies, hardening our infrastructure and services, performing training and searching for the best tools to fit our security needs.
We are also committed to be compliant from a regulatory standpoint and insured to protect our users around the world, our greatest asset by far.
Steve:
Speaking of security, your Klever Hardware Wallet development is in full swing, and pre-sale of Klever Hard Wallet will commence in Q4 2021.
I also saw a tweet from CEO Dio about it…
Tell us more about why the Klever Hard Wallet excites you so much personally?
Bruno Campos:
We are developing the Klever Hardware Wallet from scratch through one factory assembly line. This means developing the tech from the design to the machines that will produce the hardware, all in-house. So the project is so exciting in tech terms. The whole team just talks about bit and byte literally nonstop!
Bruno Campos: A hardware wallet is a special type of crypto wallet which stores the user’s private keys in a secure hardware device, without being connected to the internet.
The connection between the Klever Hardware Wallet and the Klever app is done via a USB port or Bluetooth connection, the choice is up to the user. Both interfaces support Custom HID profile, which provides the flexibility of a standard driver in all operating systems, eliminating the need to develop a specific driver for each operating system.
Bruno Campos: Custom HID profile offers the possibility to use the interface with any custom device with only the limitation of 64 bytes per transfer for full-speed devices, making the Klever Hardware Wallet very versatile and able to be used by all.
Klever Hardware Wallet applications are not meant to run standalone, but rather assist a host process (on a computer or smartphone) to perform a secure task, such as signing a message, transaction, encryption, decryption, etc.
Therefore, the device is commonly addressed using a command / response scheme, where the application sends an output report and the device responds with an input report.
To ensure greater security of data transferred through the HID profile, two security protocols will be used: the RSA asymmetric key protocol and the AES symmetric key protocol.
The following steps show how to assemble the data packets to perform the key exchange.
– Generate 16 random bytes as your AES_KEY.
– Add the AES_KEY in the protobuf payload field and encode the protobuf into Raw_protobuf.
– Add the size of Raw_protobuf (2-bytes wide) at the beginning of the array to generate the Raw_data.
– Encrypt Raw_data with RSA PKCS1_v1_5 to generate the Full_payload to be sent to the hardware wallet.
– Break the Full_payload in small frames of up to 62 bytes (HID protocol limitation) and send them through the HID protocol.
After the key exchange process, it is possible to send protobuf structures through the AES protocol. The following steps show how to assemble the AES packet to be sent via HID.
– Build the Raw_data by adding the protobuf size (2-bytes wide) in the beginning of the array.
– Encrypt the data with AES in mode CBC to generate the Cipher_data.
– Get the 16-byte Nonce generated with AES and add it to the beginning of the Cipher_data to make the Full_payload.
– Break the Full_payload in small frames up to 62 bytes (HID protocol limitation) and send through the HID protocol.
In order to deal with special situations of bit flip or attempted attacks, some fault-tolerant features must be provided to keep data integrity and security under these circumstances. Special features are listed below:
– Maximum packet size: fragmented messages have a maximum length of 1024 bytes. This limit must be checked upon reception of a fragmented message
Sequence of id’s: fragmented messages must start with a 01 id, followed by a limited quantity of 10 id and finish with a 11 id. In any case this sequence is invalid, reception of further bytes must be suspended.
– Sequence numbers: every message, either non-fragmented or fragmented messages, must also comply with proper sequence number, where each following report must feature the sequence number incremented by 1.
– Signature of messages: each fragmented message has a 65-byte signature as the last field in the Protobuf format. After the last fragment has arrived, signature must be computed and processing of message should proceed only if signature is valid.
Bruno Campos: as I said @SteveBaillie, it is pure bit and byte my friend!
Steve:
I bet the Klever community and also KuCoin community are as excited as the Klever team is with the Klever Hardware Wallet
Moving on…
Klever recently launched Klever Exchange beta for Android and iOS, with a web version launching this month. What’s your vision and plan for this exchange product, and what part does it play in the entire ecosystem?
Bruno Campos: The idea behind Klever Exchange is to provide a simple, intuitive, safe and powerful user experience where anyone can trade, with unmatched speed and advanced security architecture.
Klever Exchange was created as a home to users who are completely new to crypto trading by providing a simpler user experience, while enabling reliability and useful features to experienced traders through market-leading speed, ironclad security, market maker opportunities and low fees.
Bruno Campos: Klever Exchange is built on top of an innovative Microservices Architecture where each component of the exchange infrastructure has its own autonomous responsibilities and functions independent from other components.
Using this architecture, each microservice is authenticated independently in our infrastructure and is identified through their own roles, functions and responsibilities.
The primary reasons for using this approach when constructing the Klever Exchange software architecture are to keep each layer of our exchange incorruptible, autonomous, scalable and immensely more secure.
Bruno Campos: These interfaces were born ready to support event connections and traditional requests, and are able to interact with user clients (Klever Exchange Mobile/Web) but also through API (Application Programming Interface) keys.
The API keys will allow users to run bots using their own strategy to negotiate in Klever Exchange following the configurations that users make while generating the bots.
And we have the custody service (Kustody) behind our banking microservice. The Kustody is responsible to isolate the private keys from the entire infrastructure, after creating private keys those PKs only exist distributed in-memory encrypted with AES with 256 bits. We are now conducting research to use SGX from Intel and store the PKs inside a segregated area of Intel CPUs.
The Klever Custody consists of three microservices that communicate with each other:
– klever-custody – responsible of basic association for off chain blockchain ops related with users;
– Klever-custody-sdk – responsible of basic blockchain ops;
– Klever-custody-signer – responsible for sign operation using the distributed in-memory PKs.
Steve:
Cool trailer by the way! Kudos to the Klever team
Klever wallet app has a global user base of over 3 million people worldwide. Where do Klever’s users come from, what real-world problems are the Klever team solving through its products, and what new features are being built for Klever 5?
Bruno Campos: Our products are used in over 200 countries and regions worldwide, with our Top 3 countries being U.S., India and Nigeria, markets that are growing rapidly in crypto adoption.
We start with the wallet app to provide a p2p crypto wallet enabling people to interact directly with blockchain technology.
The main vision is to provide an easy and user-friendly crypto wallet that even a child or a senior can use and understand the benefits of the decentralized economy. All to empower people to protect their earnings from governments and central authorities that could harm savings from a lifetime simply through irresponsible financial policies.
Klever 5, our next major wallet version, will significantly improve the user experience because it is based on an optimized events driven software architecture, resulting in a more robust, scaleable and stable product.
All features on the current Klever Wallet will be on the Klever 5 plus many new features, including:
– NFT support. (yes, NFTs are coming to Klever!)
– Buy crypto with new partners, in the form of a marketplace (Simplex, Mercuryo, Banxa, Transak, etc.).
– Integration with the hardware wallet.
– Completely new design for UI/UX.
Steve:
Awesome! We will look forward to all the new features you’ve mentioned on Klever 5
Let’s talk about partnerships…
Klever has recently partnered with prominent DeFi project Reef Finance and the exciting canary network of Polkadot (DOT), namely Kusama (KSM) network, becoming a validator on both chains and enabling their decentralized features in the Klever wallet app such as swap, bonding (staking), nomination (voting) and more.
How do you see Klever’s role is assisting other blockchain projects to excel and become more decentralized by working with you and tapping into your large active user base of 150k daily active users?
Bruno Campos:
We are always open to working with legit and innovative projects in the blockchain and crypto space. Add new communities at Klever Wallet and more than that in the Klever ecosystem is the natural way when you believe building bridges is the only way to develop and grow the whole crypto and blockchain ecosystem.
We are very happy with these new partnerships to provide more features and opportunities to our global user base, and we have many more exciting partnerships to soon be revealed, so stay tuned.
The Klever ecosystem will be a hub for the best blockchain and crypto projects to thrive within, while users get empowered through our featured-packed self-custody wallet solution and ironclad security architecture.
Steve:
Tell us more about the growth of the Klever team globally, and what your development methodology looks like?
Bruno Campos:
Klever is growing very fast.
We were about 45 people in the beginning of this year, and now we are over 120 people globally.
Bruno Campos:
Before I explain the different teams, I would like to add how much we value our community and employees. Klever is more than just a business; it is a lifestyle and a commitment to financial freedom that every community member and employee supports and engages with.
We have numerous squads dedicated to specific products, and other squads consisting of tech specialists and experts in their fields of blockchain engineering, security architecture and computer programming.
For example, the Klever Exchange squad has cross specialists in fields such as #devsecops, #QA (Quality Assurance) and #UI (User Interface), in addition to frontend, backend and fullstack software engineers, as well as product managers.
This exchange squad is fully focused on aggregating value to the Klever Exchange business and have the full power and resources at their disposal to achieve their goals.
Our philosophy is simple:
Steve:
Today’s AMA session is longer than our usual ones, but I have to ask this one last question…
Klever is celebrating its one-year anniversary this weekend, since the official launch of the Klever wallet app occurred on August 28, 2020.
What milestones and accomplishments have you been able to achieve during this first year as a new app, and what does the future hold for the Klever ecosystem?
Bruno Campos:
It’s amazing how fast a year goes by following the launch of Klever, and these are some of our accomplishments over the past year:
– Improved the native p2p wallet swap engine, optimizing speed, security and lowering the price for users by tapping into more liquidity pools.
– Klever Wallet 4 development, making it possible to plug-in new chains such as Binance Smart Chain (BSC), Kusama, Polkadot, Reef Finance, and many more.
– Klever Exchange (beta).
– Klever Hardware Wallet prototype.
– Klever Kustody.
– Klever ID.
– Klever Workspace Finance module.
– KLV now accepted at over 3 million hotels, flights and travel products through our partner travala.com.
We are working hard to evolve our products: Wallet, Exchange, Blockchain, Hardware Wallet and Klever Workspace. Our roadmap is just beginning and we have a great journey ahead, stay tuned!
For 2022 we have planned:
– Klever Bank.
– Klever Subscription.
– Klever Browser.
– Klever Pay.
For 2023 we have planned:
– Klever Hedge Fund
For 2024 we have planned:
– Klever Privacy Phone
To summarize, the future is Klever.
Steve:
On behalf of the KuCoin team and community, congratulations to the entire Klever team and community on your upcoming first anniversary.
That wraps up the first part of the AMA session. Thank you Bruno for your answers! It was indeed a very informative and visually-appealing Q&A, I should say.
Let’s now proceed to the free-ask section.
I will unmute the group but put on a 15-minute slow mode as there will be a lot of questions coming through.
Our guest, Bruno, will pick and answer as many questions as possible if time permits but only 5 participants with the BEST questions will be selected as winners. Each winner will receive 380 KLV.
@brunocampos, are you ready for the questions from the KuCoin Community?
Bruno Campos:
Yes, @SteveBaillie! let’s do it!
Crypto Finally:
Does your project have any strategic partnerships in the crypto world that you can list of?
Bruno Campos:
We have many strategic partnerships with projects we believe are as ambitious as Klever to provide a simpler and more powerful crypto experience to users worldwide. These strategic partnerships include:
– Simplex for buying crypto with credit card right in Klever app
– Travala.com that now allows KLV to be used to buy 3 million hotels, flights and travel products globally
– Reef Finance to advance decentralization of their newly launched Reef Chain, and to provide useful tools for our users.
– And of course our partnership with KuCoin, one of the best and most trusted exchanges in the world.
To mention a few.
Marcos Streeter:
Trust is very important in business, what makes investors, customers and users feel safe when working with your project ?
Bruno Campos:
Trust in business and fintech is not only dependent on technical parts of a project. The human element is as important. When you have an issue or question related to Klever Products you also need to feel safe to put these questions to the Support Team, and get almost instant reply on your issue or questions. Feeling safe comes with more than tech. Feeling safe that you always will be helped in any case is also important. That your funds are safe in any way. That’s the Klever way to build trust.
ALexander CM:
How do you plan to spread awareness about your project in different countries where English is not good? Do you have local communities like Russia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Korea, .. so they can learn easily and better understand your project? Or are you planning something that hasn’t been developed in other regions yet?
Bruno Campos:
Our app currently supports over 30 languages and we have 27 different country groups on telegram with local communities and admins educating current and new users. Our plan for expansion in non-speaking regions will include working on building grass-root movements and adapting both communication, education, marketing and expansion strategies to the local environment. We are incredibly proud of our diverse user base coming from all over the world, but our growth has only just begun.
Hassam Yosell Torres Perez:
Can I use a credit or debit card to buy crypto into the klever app? How can I check the order history? What are you doing to get the attention of big investors?
Bruno Campos:
Sure, you can purchase crypto directly and seamlessly with credit card, apple pay and debit card in the klever app.
These are the coins and tokens currently available for purchase with credit card and apple pay in klever app: BTC, KLV, ETH, TRX, BNB, XRP, USDT, USDC, CEL and KSM. We are also working on adding more coins and tokens that will be available for purchase in the klever app, so stay tuned!
The next phase will be to add a marketplace for buying crypto this way through many partners (Simplex, Mercuryo, Banxa, Transak, and more)
All you need to do download klever app at klever.io and to follow the simple steps in the video below:
Sajid Hasan:
How to participate in klv staking program? Can you explain the procedure?
Bruno Campos:
Klever Wallet opens the opportunities to anyone with a mobile device anywhere in the world to earn a passive income by staking tokens. You can easily participate in the KLV staking program by buying KLV on KuCoin Exchange and then move the KLV to Klever App.
A fully step-by-step guide is here :
https://klever.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4405701286292-How-to-stake-KLV-to-earn-rewards
Dennis $Bake $50:
Your project name seems to be very interesting. Does it have any story behind it? Can you share us with the inspiration for approaching to this name?
Bruno Campos:
The name Klever is rooted in the desire to manage our money in a smarter way. Getting out of debt and thriving financially through collaboration and not competition.
Our CEO and one of my oldest friends Dio Ianakiara comes from very humble beginnings in the slums of Sao Paulo, where he was born into debt and had to fight for survival. You can read his entire life story here (https://news.klever.io/p/from-the-slums-of-so-paulo-to-klever).
What we at Klever aim to do is to provide powerful and simple to use tools for everyone worldwide to be smarter with their money.
Dong Faunh:
Is this platform suitable for Crypto beginners?Or does it only appeal to professional users?
Bruno Campos:
The mindset of Klever is to make crypto simple, instead of difficult. So we aim to give everyone the ability to access crypto easily. Because today crypto is difficult, but it shouldn’t be. So all our products are for every type of user. Are you a beginner in crypto or a well educated user in crypto, then you can use Klever for your specific purpose, whether to hold, send, receive, charge, stake, browse web 3.0, buy crypto or use the Klever Exchange, we have something for everyone.
Steve:
That’s it for our AMA guest. Let’s give a round of applause for Bruno!
It has been truly an honor to have you as our guest for this AMA session, @brunocampos and a pleasure to have this AMA session once again with Klever.
Bruno Campos:
Thank you @SteveBaillie and thank you to all who joined, it was an honor!
Steve:
Again, on behalf of the KuCoin team and community, congratulations on Klever’s first-year milestone, and we wish you, your team and your project all the best!
KuCoin Community, for more info, updates and news about Klever (KLV), here are some key links for you:
Official Website: https://klever.io
White Paper: https://klever.io/downloads/Klever_Exchange_Whitepaper.pdf
Telegram: https://t.me/Klever_io
Twitter: https://twitter.com/klever_io
That ends the KuCoin AMA with Klever (KLV).
Many thanks to everyone for joining and staying with us until the end. Till the next AMA!
Transcription by
Maluh Bastos
Klever Editor & Writer
