CoinQuora Exclusive Interview — Vinod Khurana, Co-Founder of Plugin and CEO of Suvik Group of Companies
Q. Kindly Introduce Yourself and What You Do?
I am currently based in Dubai; have over 4 decades of a successful career in Banking, Insurance & Information Technology in the International financial market. I gained significant expertise in the development of strategy, execution, and positioning business for growth. I am a passionate entrepreneur; a fundraiser for organizations seeking to meet their short and long-term financial goals. I am highly experienced, techno-savvy, and result-oriented with the ability to build, manage & turn around diversified businesses and have extensive exposure to risk management, business strategy, and crises management.
Q. Can You Highlight Some of the Ideas Behind Plugin? Why Did Plugin Come To Be?
Long back, in 1993, I was Manager, Zonal Computer Centre in State Bank of India in Chandigarh, overseeing mechanization and computerization of over 200 branches in Punjab, a state in India. During that period and thereafter during various postings in State Bank of India, particularly between 2005 to 2008, when I was posted at Global IT Centre of the Bank and all the branches running to more than 10,000 were being computerized, I found that if the network is centralized and if it faces any IT related issue, the entire network of the bank will be affected. I used to travel to various countries and meet various stakeholders in the IT and Financial sectors. As a concerned netizen, the things that trouble me the most are issues relating to security, reliability & various vulnerabilities for various users and data feed providers, who use centralized Oracle networks for their smart contracts because, in the future, DeFi is going to be the backbone of many financial services and DeFi empowered/Depends on the Decentralized Data Oracle Feed.
Centralized Oracles Computing acts as a single entity, which provides critical data from an external source to a smart contract, operating with a set of security features. Due to its architecture, such oracles are controlled by a single source which predominantly works as the sole source of information for smart contracts. Since it works similarly to the traditional financial system where a single entity is responsible for everything, it suffers major limitations, or we can say it has a single point of failure. These oracles have a simple architecture with lesser investment in terms of infrastructure and maintenance. Although they provide protection against game theory attacks, these are still prone to vulnerabilities to being corrupted and attacked.
In addition, the Blockchain Oracle Problems result from the inability of oracles to verify the integrity of their data. Additionally, the likelihood of malfunction and deliberate tampering varies by type. On the other hand, if the information is trusted and verified, the oracle may fail to function properly on the smart contract due to a malfunction or deliberate tampering. From a game-theoretic perspective, it can be demonstrated that the higher the value of the smart contract, the greater the incentive to compromise the system. Looking at all the above problem, I decided to start decentralized data Oracle Network called “PLUGIN”
Q. What Are Some of the Distinct Features of Plugin? What Sets Plugin Apart From Others in the Crypto Space?
Some of the distinct features of Plugin are that it is a fully decentralized oracle platform; it provides cost-effective solutions for any smart contract on the XinFin ecosystem. Plugin collects data from different external sources, consolidates, and makes sure the correct value is provided to its users at any point of time. This is the most crucial part for any decentralized oracle provider that is highly trusted by all its users. Data collected from different oracle nodes is consolidated to arrive at the correct value. In order for this kind of system to avoid vulnerabilities and provide a blockchain peer-to-peer system, any decentralized oracle provider must rely on the community to choose the data sources and validators and also on the rewarding & penalizing mechanism. Plugin uses an approach of carrot and stick for rewarding the best and penalizing the vulnerable actors.
High level of security and scalability sets Plugin apart from others in the crypto space. Another feature, which makes it superior to other platforms is the low cost of gas; in addition to the speed of transactions at 2,000 TPS, which is far ahead of existing platforms of any kind of blockchain applications that uses its data feeds. The main advantage of using Plugin is that the data feeds are being provided by the platform at a very low cost compared to any other oracle providers as also the data feeds are highly diversified according to the needs of the customers and the XinFin community. As a result, Plugin can be considered as a decentralized oracle provider which is economical, scalable, and highly trusted. The potential of decentralized applications is limitless, and oracles are an essential part for enabling them to standardize our institutions.
Q. Plugin Recently Got Listed on Bitrue and Globiance Exchange. Are There More Exchanges in the Pipeline?
At present Plugin with a ticker “PLI” is listed at HitBTC, in addition to Bitrue and Globiance. Very soon, we are going to be listed at Liquid exchange. We are also listed in two world most-referenced Price Tracking Platforms (CoinMarketCap & CoinGecko).
Q. Are there any New Projects or Upgrades We Need To Know?
In addition to development of the decentralized Oracle Network Plugin; we have been able to integrate with XDC SmartLock, an open-source platform that allows users to lock XDC away in a smart contract until a triggering event is received from an oracle data feed.
Q. What Are the Long-term Plans for Plugin?
Our Mission isto accept, adapt, innovate and deliver decentralized solutions for the global Blockchain communities, where sky is not just the limit but beginning. We seek to uplift the lives of common people with the adoption and use of the latest blockchain technologies. With the use of Blockchain technologies we hope that the businesses across the globe will become more resourceful, successful, and approachable, thus making sure that each member of society will be the primary beneficiaries.
We aim to provide bespoke services to our customers intending to avail our assistance in the following areas:
- Weather forecasting Nodes.
- Inflation data Nodes.
- Secure sharing of medical data.
- Music royalties tracking.
- Real-time IoT operating systems.
- Supply chain and logistics monitoring.
- Advertising insights.
- Original content creation.
Q. Where Can One Join the Plugin Community? And a Website To Get Updated Information About Plugin?
One can join the Plugin Development Community at Discord. They can also follow us on Twitter and Telegram. The links are provided on our website, www.goplugin.co.
Text source: News – CoinQuora – Latest Cryptocurrency and Block
