Our latest AMA (Ask Me Anything) features Reza from Sologenic! ICYMI, we discussed why the team chose to build on the XRP Ledger, the differences and benefits between XLS-14 and XLS-20 and what the team is working on (from an NFT marketplace, customizable DEX, bridging services and more, trust me, it’s a LOT!).

Check out the full recap below, and head to xrpldevs.com to join the community and tune in for the next AMA!

BiasGoose: Hey everyone join me in welcoming our AMA guest today Reza from Sologenic! Very excited to have you join us to answer some questions today

Reza please introduce yourself and the project briefly.

Reza: Hello XRPL Community! Reza here 🙂 It’s a pleasure to be here answering your questions today.

As you know Sologenic is an ecosystem that consists of different components which are all built on top of the great XRP Ledger. We have a fully customizable DEX, an NFT marketplace, payment gateways, bridging services and currently more components are in the pipeline.

BiasGoose: Excellent! Very interesting background. How did you come up with the idea to start Sologenic? What was its vision at the start and how has it evolved through time?

For example, has the focus shifted from different products over time?

Reza: Sologenic’s idea was discussed between me and Bob Ras in the summer of 2018.
The [original] idea was to use the XRP Ledger and tokenize securities, such as stocks. [Since] this is a highly regulated market and while waiting on obtaining the required licenses, we decided to expand the ecosystem. First we started with the DEX, then we created the NFT marketplace. We also created many different tools for the developers such as SDKs to interact with the ledger, as well as free data APIs.

The focus has never shifted from the original ideas, but we just keep adding more things.

BiasGoose: Turning to the NFT marketplace, what was the reason behind using XLS-14 over XLS-20 like some other marketplaces have?

Reza: This is a great question.

The way we look at Sologenic is to provide decentralized services for the end users. This question is like saying, "Why did Chase bank use Oracle instead of SAP?" or, "Why do you use MongoDB instead of MySQL?”

The ledger has/had the capability to do what we wanted, and we did it because the community needed it. This was harmless, because there were/are two outcomes:

A) XLS-20 is voted on by validators and hit the mainnet. Well, we have developed bridges to easily convert NFTs to the new standard.

B) XLS-20 is not voted on. The community still needed an NFT marketplace, we took the initiative and solved the issues that came with XLS-14D. We will continue support for in this scenario and build it even further.

Sologenic NFTs are fully decentralized and our marketplace has been around for many months now, without any issues. Of course, we keep fixing bugs and provide improvements and features.

Our end goal is to provide our community with perfect software/services. Whether it is XLS-14 or XLS-20, it is an NFT marketplace that is working.

Of course, XLS-20 is better, it's more efficient for the ledger and has many new features such as royalties. We are fully in line to "flip the switch" the second XLS-20 is live. We have been working MANY months on that. In fact, we were expecting XLS-20 to be ready sometime in April, and we finished the whole integration then. Since then, we are adding more and more features in that system.

But now we decided that we have some time until mainnet, we are porting those features into the current system and we expect them to go live at the end of this month.

I think the community should not argue about why XLS-14 vs XLS-20, we should see adoption here. We built a fully functional NFT marketplace that is doing what is expected from it, and we have many, many users using it. We are really proud to have solved the issues around XLS-14.

The main one being that XLS-14 can't do, is trading on the DEX. To our luck, we used the newly introduced "Tickets" to solve that issue. These things have taken A LONG time to think, brainstorm and develop. Our team is passionate about the product and when we see the community is happy, we get energized even further.

To end this answer, we have contributed to the XLS-20 testing and reported many bugs. How? Because we had a live system and we could experiment with live and existing data.

tldr; XLS-14 is not great, but it's doing what it's expected to do. Sologenic will shift to XLS-20 when on mainnet.

BiasGoose: Much appreciated answer on something the community wanted to hear. Could you tell us a bit more on what the process will be if XLS-20 goes live to move to the new standard? I think because it's a unique issue to your marketplace, it will be interesting to hear how this was built out.

Reza: Sure. Once we flip the switch, new NFTs will be minted with XLS-20. So when you go to the marketplace you will see ALL NFTs, XLS-20 and XLS-14. Existing XLS-14 NFTs can remain on sale, but for resale, they need to be converted.

Conversion is very simple. Users can go to the collections and click convert the XLS-20 button next to NFTs. They are taken through a wizard and once the process is done, the old NFT (XLS-14) is burnt and a new one is minted with the new standards. Only users who are the issuers and current holders of the NFT can set royalties during conversion. Along with that, metadata will also be changed to the new standard format compatible with OpenSea and other existing marketplaces.

BiasGoose: To step back into a broader question that I like to ask every guest, what made you choose the XRPL to begin building Sologenic in the first place?

Reza: I guess everybody knows the answer to that 😆
But to answer precisely, Bob was a big fan of XRPL, so we had the chance to explore the tech back then and understand it's capabilities.

For tokenization, it was/is perfect! All the regulatory requirements are within the ledger, e.g. Authorized Trustlines. It's fast, inexpensive and what I personally like most about it? It's deterministic—it's like working with an API. You know what will/can happen with any transaction, and it's very simple to work with.

btw, to add something to the XLS-14 to 20 conversion, those who are interested to see the changes in metadata, can check this:

https://gist.github.com/sologenic/9f07f09c5d00efb2764583bfcc47dc6a

BiasGoose: To finalize the AMA, a couple more questions: What are you most looking forward to in this half of the year for Sologenic?

Reza: Mostly, XLS-20. I really hope we can showcase what we have built.

But other than that, we are doing many partnerships, bridges, payment gateways AND our MIGHTY market index 😆

After that our IDO! Not our IDO, but our launchpad for anyone who wants to do an IDO.

I’m sure the Market Index will be liked by the community. It is also planned by month end 🙂

BiasGoose: Many exciting things happening!

Well I want to thank Reza and the Sologenic team for coordinating this AMA with us! I have enjoyed this conversation. Reza please share any final words or any advice to developers who are getting started on the XRP Ledger.

Reza: Thanks BiasGoose it was a pleasure to be here. I am sure the community has more questions and the best way to address them is through Twitter. Of course in a non-FUD, peaceful manner 😆

For developers: IMHO, XRP Ledger has been exploding in popularity amongst developers and projects. The developer teams, companies including Ripple and all of us, have taken the ledger to be a platform, not just for banks, but for many other things. It's easy and great to work with.

You can also check Sologenic's SDKs and APIs if you are building.