Original Author: Revelo Intel
Compilation of the original text: Deep Tide TechFlow
Compilation of the original text: Deep Tide TechFlow
On this episode of The Defiant, Camila Russo joins Fantom co-founder Andre Cronje to discuss DeFi, Fantom, regulation, and the challenges of becoming a niche celebrity.
Please read below for more information.
Andre's background
Andre got into this because he thought it was mostly a scam. One of the first things he did was start his own code review blog to educate himself about technology, but there were also a lot of projects coming out that claimed to have solved some problems or solved some hard problems.
Andre was initially against the industry, and even today he still thinks 99% of projects are rubbish. However, for the 1% to be authentic projects, he has been in the industry for five years.
Whenever Andre has to deal with any legacy system such as banking, regular regulation and taxation, etc., he thinks about the luxury and freedom that being a blockchain native gets.
Another problem is that tokens change much faster than the underlying technology, resulting in a huge disconnect in the market as a whole. The main reason for this is financial factors driven by greed.
Andre believes that this has more to do with the public nature of DeFi than its underlying technology. Even after Andre left, he still didn't stop writing the background code and continued to improve Primitive.
Andre is always in communication with the team. It took him a long time to realize that there was a point beyond which he was no longer a core contributor.
Fantom
Fantom launched its mainnet in 2018. At the time, the company was already achieving high velocity but not marketing like many other teams. At the time, the only suitable option was to conduct an Initial Coin Offering (ICO).
Andre said that with limited resources, they spent too much time wrongly pursuing other areas, causing Fantom to disappear for a while.
When DeFi became popular, Fantom's advantages started to become more apparent, becoming the first blockchain with true finality, meaning that every other blockchain in existence at the time used the longest chain rule.
Fantom has made a major breakthrough in quantum computing, and at the same time has made great progress in artificial intelligence, and suddenly successfully knows how to destroy most passwords in blockchain technology.
In theory, a machine with this capability is quantum computing and AI enhanced, and all of these things could come up with a new longest bitcoin blockchain.
When DeFi started to become very popular, people started to see a lot of user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) improvements. Gas monetization allows adaptive developers to be rewarded for the gas spent on their contracts, so they have a more sustainable revenue stream.
Blockchain-based applications compared to Web2
Blockchain removes the middleman, whether that middleman is a bank, a lender, or an advertiser, it takes it out of the equation.
Business scenarios will become stronger over time.
Views on regulation
There are two types of regulation and they are hybrid but include cryptocurrency regulation. FTX is a standard company that happens to be at the intersection of cryptocurrencies and they should be a regulated cryptocurrency company.
There is a difference between trying to re-regulate decentralized cryptocurrencies and trying to regulate centralized cryptocurrencies.
That doesn't mean all anonymous people are bad, but the culture of anonymity makes it easier for bad actors to infiltrate. Qualifications are important.
The current positioning is wrong and regulators are overly intervening, pushing aside any future opportunity to have a voice in the industry.
The development of DeFi
A lot of people say that DeFi is on the decline, but it's not. By some people’s standards, these metrics are growing linearly, and by all metrics, DeFi is growing better.
Access to capital has slowed, but Andre thinks it will grow as people see more real-world assets come to market.
Real-world assets will become a narrative. It will happen, but only after the first regulatory strikes.
Traditional auditors have to use enough capacity on-chain to bring data into their existing reports for people to see its impact at scale.
There is also a lack of infrastructure and a lot of work that can be done in terms of future options.
Andre proposed some infrastructure, but he regrets that no one adopted them.
There are also more currencies being used for stablecoins, which is starting to allow for more cross-border settlements.
Blockchain does not yet have a sufficient feature set to unlock the next generation of applications. Only a few teams like Avalanche, Fantom, and Solana are working on some level one improvements.
question and answer
Q: As a public figure, what prompted you to leave?
It's both about being a public figure and being very public about the field itself. In traditional finance, if something is going on behind the scenes, there is an opportunity to deal with it. An opportunity to contact regulators privately and disclose what happened. The hyper-public nature of the blockchain is a big problem because once it happens on-chain, everyone knows about it.
This is a combination of public nature and urgency, and the highly public nature of these applications and these blockchains will incentivize all economic behavior. Don't take feedback and create other avenues for that feedback. Andre recognizes what is a problem he needs to solve and what other people need to solve. Staying sane is always difficult and not everyone survives.
Q: Where do you foresee these applications taking place in the industry?
The only meaningful construction at the time was financial primitives. Hope to see some games and some social systems in two years. Everything on the internet now can be replicated in a decentralized world with different business models. Andre would like to see some unique decentralized primitives that don't currently exist. Blockchain is simply disrupting business models, which has yet to reach its full potential.
Q: What would cryptocurrency look like if US users could not easily access it?
Andre believes that as technology and accessibility improve, cryptocurrencies will become an unstoppable force.
