7 min readOct 31, 2022

Recap of the Twitter Space: Wayru updates with CEO and CTO

The WayruNetwork had its Pre-sale last month, it was a successful one as people around the world bought Genesis devices and also pool tokens. The project knew it was time to tell the community what it has been up to, hosting a Twitter space is a great way to do that. It was hosted by Charvel Chedraui (CEO) and Franco Antón Gallo (CTO).

The space started with an introduction by the CEO, who announced the presence of Franco also. Then made it known that an airblock and a Genesis device will be given out at the end of the space to those who interact and make the best questions towards the end of the space. Charvel introduced himself and also what Wayru is all about. Wayru is a decentralized Internet network built on Algorand, trying to disrupt the status quo of how people receive Internet services and/or provide services as well.

Franco was then introduced officially to the community as the CTO, he has been on the team for two months. He has been introduced through Medium and Twitter posts but the space was the first time he will be having a direct conversation with the community. He introduced himself and talked about his experience and how happy he was to be leading the technical area of Wayru. Franco has led multiple startups majorly in the technical area, startups he led were about management, crypto, and fintech software mostly in Latin America (LatAm). Won numerous awards including the best tech entrepreneur in Argentina. He is a public accountant and a business administrator.

His strength is leading and organizing teams for a solid administrative base, he has been fascinated with the discipline of the group towards accomplishing their goals. Charvel mentioned how someone with Franco’s expertise is needed to make the team and project move faster toward their goals.

Events after Pre-sale

= Genesis devices are shipping and on the way to their owners, dozens have received theirs and are testing already. Pictures of those that have gotten theirs can be found on Discord. The devices were in the fulfillment house in Miami and are now shipped out to Australia, India, Chile, France, Belgium, and all over the world.

= The CEO made mentioned people that reached out to him on not finding the Application on Google Play and App store. The project is experiencing a delay in getting the approval to list the Apps, but there should be no cause for alarm as the Web app is ready to fill in pending the approvals. The Web app is ready for the testnet in the first week of November, and participants get rewarded.

The CTO, Franco, then talked about the updates on the technical side. He mentioned that the testnet will be opened on the first of November, the exact time is not known but it will probably be the afternoon in Eastern Standard Time. He talked about what it felt while building at Wayru, and how it made him feel like an explorer of a new world. How fulfilling he feels in connecting with people who do not have Internet access, fulfilling much of their necessities. The project is built on Algorand and uses all the Algorand blockchain has to offer, ranging from tokens to NFTs. He then explains what NF nodes are.

NF nodes help the NFT created by Wayru to keep track of all traffic that goes through all Hotspots of our network and keep track of all rewards earned on the network. There is going to be a 100% transparent policy where everyone will be able to check the traffic and earnings. He is learning every day and Wayru is a new technology and new development.

= The team will be attending some events in November, most notably the Decipher event. Wayru will have a stand alongside Algorand where participants will get to know how Algorand through Wayru is disrupting the tech comm industry. The team will set up WiFi for participants where they will get to experience the network and how people will be making use of it.

Update on Quito

For the past month, Wayru has been deploying infrastructure in Quito, a big city in Ecuador. The pool token sold during Pre-sale will be activated there and more cities will be added along the way. The project has covered a little above 30km of fiber, planning to deploy up to 60km of fiber before the end of the year. The team is doing the deployment of the network and also the deployment of the infrastructure simultaneously, $5,000 to $10,000 in monthly revenue is expected with only the piece of network deployed in one city. It will grow exponentially when people join.

There are over 4.3 million homes in Ecuador but 2.2 million Internet-connected homes (including business), which is a deficit of almost over half.

Location Partner program.

This is for people that are not in the coverage of where Wayru is deploying in Ecuador but still want to be part of the ecosystem. They will be acting similarly to a node operator but the difference is that they buy devices while Wayru deploys them in the range they cover. The rewards will be lower compared to node operators.

Those in LatAm will be able to use their local currency to pay and get connected, this is to make it easy for the residents as they are not used with crypto wallets. They will get to use the blockchain even without them knowing.

About the Testnet

The testnets will be closed once, only those who own pool tokens or Genesis devices will participate for the first 2 to 3 weeks. After taking care of those supporting the project since the beginning, the testnet will be open for everybody in the ecosystem to be able to participate. The shop will be opened again for those looking to buy pool tokens and genesis devices.

Questions

1) Have you had the opportunity to test the Wayru Network yet and how big was the user base? What was your experience?

Answer: When we started the Miami accelerator back in December, what the project offered to have up and running was a first test node in a low-income community. Right now, the project has a couple of dozen access points deployed in a place called Monte Sinai which is one of the most vulnerable communities you can imagine in Ecuador. There are a little over 2,000 users trying out the network, although it was not connected to the chain while we were testing their OS.

The experience has been awesome and got requests from other communities to bring the project to them and even charge for it because they knew it was limited. The plan is to use the testnet to try out the network when connected to the Algorand chain, and they will be rewarded for it. Testnet will last fit 5–6 months.

2) What is the plan for Wayru in Africa?

Answer: The team understands that the necessity of connection is not just in LatAm but in the whole world, even in the United States of America. The project is focusing on a city before expanding to other countries. In the whitepaper, there is a federation of ISPs and ISO in the box. One of the next steps of Wayru is to onboard ISPs that want to use our system to provide connectivity to their clients. This will reward ISPs for participating, open for ISPs all around the world.

The team has been analyzing the best way to expand the network fast and bring connectivity to more people in other places. Africa is in the plans for the next 3–5 years, some ISPs will be onboarded next year and might cover your area.

3) About expanding, I wanted to know how many devices you think would have to be in a community for it to be a viable option for an Internet connection.

Answer: It depends on a lot of things like the community; the topology of the community, and if the community has enough connectivity to only rely on Genesis devices to create a whole new network for everybody to access it.

4) Your long-term goal is to connect with other providers to connect with your network so it won’t be only Wayru Network.

Answer: We want this network to turn to Wayru Network. Smaller providers leverage Wayru by turning their operations to Wayru’s. They will be operators of that specific sector and we sell pool tokens for that specific area. We can help them expand but this network will turn to Wayru Network. Even though we do not operate them, they will use our platform which will allow us to set a standard that needs to be taken for the network to operate correctly and get their rewards.

5) For the Hotspot that operates outside of Ecuador, is there an incentive beyond the beta testing phase that will make people want to keep their hotspots on?

Answer: By participating on the Testnet, you will be earning real rewards that will be airdropped to your account when you are on the mainnet. There will be rewards.

6) Is there any advantage or way to connect multiple devices in one location?

Answer: There will be interference. You will be earning based on the usage the device is generating. Connecting multiple in one spot is not the best use in other locations like a restaurant.

7) How long will the testnet be?

Answer: 5–6 months

8) How many Competitors do you have? And what makes you stand out?

Answer: We have several competitors in other chains, an example is Helium. It is probably the largest decentralized network in the world. Helium has 1,000 Hotspots worldwide and makes $7,000 a month. Wayru’s approach is different, we want to end the year with more revenue than that, showing how investing in Wayru is more profitable. Connecting people first, profit is secondary.

You can listen to the full space here: