Cryptocurrencies: Kalkulus - Q&A with core team

Kalkulus is an Italian project whose founder defines as a “deflationary digital asset”.

Kalkulus most known feature is its own cryptocurrency, whose consensus protocol has changed from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake in April. The former is based on the computing power, while the latter envisages the validation of the new blockchain blocks which is “guaranteed” by the coins already included in the wallet.
Choosing the new Proof of Stake protocol, as well as being able to implement Masternodes, allows investors to create a passive income with steady rewards (stakes).
Kalkulus allows anyone around the world to carry out instant transactions using their own cryptocurrency, whose symbol is “KLKS”. Moreover, Kalkukus aims at offering solutions grounded in the blockchain, such as an official marketplace and the implementation of smart contracts.
Nevertheless, this business-oriented approach should not neglect the user community, which the team considers one of the milestones of the entire project, as well as an example to follow to promote the adoption of cryptocurrencies and tools built from blockchains.
Basically, Kalkulus community rotates around Discord, a social network whose team members engage with users for what concerns development choices, being receptive to ideas and suggestions.
The development of new solutions and products, such as the aforementioned marketplace, the new web wallet and the “KLKS Staking Box”, is possible thanks to the continuous input of new talents to the original team, so as to allow it to grow sustainably, enhanced by people who have worked in industries different from IT.
The Kalkulus team constantly communicates the updates and the goals achieved via social networks and specific media. However, the ever-growing amount of information about blockchains and cryptocurrencies could deny the project the exposure it deserves.
The project founder answered very kindly and helpfully to the following questions, which intend to let the readers know the ideas and values at the bottom of Kalkulus, as well as the team’s insights about the project growth and the adoption of cryptocurrencies.

Q&A with the Kalkulus team
• What are the idea, the trigger and the ideals behind the inception of Kalkulus?
The passion and the curiosity about new technologies have always been with me, therefore my first encounter with the blockchain world, many years ago, was not by chance. In particular, what drove me to find out more about such topic was my intuition regarding the possibility to exchange digital values without mediation/brokerage. All of these represents the dawning of a historic revolution that, in the long term, could kick off a worldwide redistribution of the wealth and lead to a subsequent proportional emergence of new business markets and models.

The systematic and thorough research of this technology translated into my personal test of a number of systems based on blockchain platforms straight away. Kalkulus is indeed the result of previous trials conceived exclusively for study and research purposes.

This long process generated a state-of-the-art source code whose strength is a reward system that is particularly balanced and stable. In fact, the basic idea behind Kalkulus is at the same time very simple and characteristic in the cryptocurrency world: creating a digital asset with a logic that allows an actual low inflation, in harmony with the remuneration for the user-investor, who plans to support the project by simply holding a value share, even a low one.
This general concept is allowing Kalkulus to be associated with the numerous business ideas that the fast-paced evolving market is offering. If you consider also the idea of creating an engaging community, which can give a brainwave and express its needs, non-stop experimenting and adapting become almost necessary. This is how Kalkulus was born: a “Deflationary Digital Asset”, that is aware of the needs of its community and ready to interact with the constant technological evolution.

• How many people is the team composed of and who are the most representative individuals?
I myself am the project founder, known in the crypto industry as Joystick, who has successively been flanked by a dear friend of mine, Joe Kreepto. Therefore, the core team has two people in command, who work full-time on the project and are firstly supported by other two colleagues with whom we shared many work experiences in not only blockchain-oriented spheres. Furthermore, there are many developers and third-party contractors who deal with those issues we do not have enough knowledge of. The cryptocurrency universe is terrifically vast so that implementing one project requires many kinds of expertise: from marketing to design, from research to programming, from knowing the financial markets to being confident with development libraries. Inevitably, the current restricted core team cannot address every area of interest and its complications. Yet, the good news is that, following this logic, our development team is constantly growing and we intend to expand it further. Few days ago we started to work with “Futuring”, a developer team who enthusiastically accepted to join us and work together to build our multivendor marketplace that will be paired with a payment gateway where KLKS could be used.

• How many Italians are there in the Kalkulus team in percentage?
Only Italian members compose the core team and we often meet to discuss current issues; on the other hand, our contractors come from all around the world, mainly Europe and the Americas. Unfortunately, if you live in a country whose best minds flee from, it is really difficult not to turn to foreign contractors. Moreover, recruiting and selecting them require a huge amount of energy and time.

• Does the Kalkulus employee have a typical day?
Luckily, this job is very different from a monotonous and repetitive employment, so a proper typical day does not exist. It often depends on the specific period. When we are implementing important features or launching an update, our typical day may be exclusively oriented to the code and last 12-18 hours. Anyway, during less intense times, we focus on equally-noteworthy operations, such as technical support, general analysis of markets, social network update and engagement with our community. In general, our work method includes identifying and assigning the tasks to complete during the day in the morning. Moreover, on some special days, we meet with the core team to have a brainstorm, discuss analysis and evaluations and perform a growth-oriented research of the project.

• The swap ended in mid-April. What do you personally think about Proof of Work and Proof of Stake? What do you think could be a possible amendment of the consensus protocol you are working on?
Assuming that the readers know the main differences between the two best-known consensus systems, PoW and PoS, it is out of the question that we prefer the latter. Our recent swap has implemented the Quark algorithm (Dash/Pivx fork), a PoS/Masternode consensus method, with See-Saw workings. For the future, we are planning to activate the so-called Budgeting-System, a method to allocate funds, which envisages the vote and the participation of the Kalkulus Masternode holders. In this context, I do not want to be too technical but I hope I gave some key words to those who would like to examine this topic in depth.

• How did the swap go in terms of stress and work dedication?
April 14th 2018 – the last day to swap from KLK to KLKS. On the technical side, after two weeks from the launch, the new Kalkulus blockchain is appearing to be very stable. The rewards and the practically immediate transactions, thanks to the “Instant-Send” technology, have been released correctly in relation to the assigned SeeSaw Mechanism. After hard months caused by long working hours and the subsequent stress, the excellent results we obtained paid us back considerably.

• What is the relationship you have and that you intend to have with the Kalkulus user community?
We always try to involve our community, listening to its diverse ideas and opinions, even regarding the project development. This is the reason why we define our project as community centric. We use our Discord Channel for this purpose a lot, promoting surveys and particular discussions, in order to develop a sincere relationship with the members of our digital community. It is on this channel indeed that you can take a look at in-depth analysis and previews.

• The Kalkulus’ medium-term goals you pointed out are enhancing its exposure, trying and rely on new exchanges and having a marketplace where it is possible to carry out KLKS transactions. What are your long-term objectives?
Aware that this vision conceives Kalkulus such as a constant work in progress, our long-term goal is for Kalkulus to grow so much it will be systematically adopted by a community as wide and varied as possible, which uses decentralised consensus and value-exchange techniques. A huge, active, engaged and free community.

We are currently promoting many multi-faceted initiatives and our roadmap has been adjusted upwards a number of times. Herein, I would like to announce that the Kalkulus Staking-Box launch is fast approaching. This is an all-in-one product based on Raspberry-Pi3, both cost-effective and low-energy (5v), which allows you to benefit from all the advantages of a full-node wallet and be at the forefront 24/7 to receive the rewards forming the investment interest of every stakeholder. Anyway, I advise you to take a look at our official social media to follow in particular the different implementations we plan on releasing periodically.

• What do you think could enhance the exposure and the adoption of cryptocurrencies?
First, it is undeniable that there still are many communication barriers to break in order to convince more and more people to adopt cryptocurrencies as a real alternative to common money systems. Furthermore, consumer safety and protection, or at least the perception the end users have of them, should be safeguarded more, to reassure them the cryptocurrencies are safe to use, from a legislative point of view too.

Additionally, we all know cryptocurrencies are in great competition with other payment methods (VISA/MasterCard credit card, mobile payment apps, etc.). This is why we should offer more advantages than the competitors do, such as low costs and faster payments.

Another crucial step that would support a wider use of cryptocurrencies could be encouraging more and more sellers, stores and online stores (the more renowned they are, the higher their attractiveness will be) to adopt them, so as to stimulate consumers to do the same.

Surely, a cryptocurrency offers many advantages, but there is still so much to do about its technology, marketing and safety, before it can really take off. It is worth mentioning that the Blockchain comes with a series of applications that are basically unlimited, therefore, optimistically, I think the mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies is just a matter of time. Cryptocurrencies can be used in the day-to-day life (purchasing goods and services, creating ATM networks) and additionally, the blockchain allows anyone to cooperate and develop professional and contractual relations, without needing a third-party mediation to approve its validity.

• What course of study do you recommend to those wishing to enter the cryptocurrency world as a developer?
As already highlighted, the Blockchain has definitely a lot of application areas. Therefore, the skills related to the specific field one wants to work in are always to be deepened and nurtured. Predictably, the other sphere of expertise a person needs to develop is IT, in particular the blockchain programming language. This has a number of facets, each one requiring a different level of knowledge: the closer you get to the source code, the more skills you need to acquire to edit and reprogram it as needed. Anyway, simply cloning a pre-existent code requires a significant effort by those who are not too well versed in such subject.

Specifications:
ALGO: Quark
COIN SUPPLY: 20.000 KLKS
BLOCKTIME: 60 seconds
MASTERNODE COLLATERAL: 20.000 KLKS
BLOCK REWARDS: 15 KLKS

For more informations:
Website: http://kalkulus.trade
Twitter: @Kalkulus_team - https://twitter.com/kalkulus_team?lang=it
Discord: https://discord.gg/4qA5hrh
BitcoinTalk: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3205060

WHERE TO BUY:
https://wallet.crypto-bridge.org/market/BRIDGE.KLKS_BRIDGE.BTC