Actuary, cryptoeconomics consultant, entrepreneur & PhD, Ivan brings his experience in applied quantitative economics, tokenomics consulting & his passion for game theory to Jur, transcending his CFO title to ensure Jur’s robust corruption resistance.
When did you first begin to work with decentralized systems?
I’ve been interested in the blockchain environment and ICOs since 2016, studying projects, token models and trading bots for crypto.
Jur was the first project on which I’ve worked directly in the blockchain space. In August 2017 I was on the beach with my family. Alessandro Palombo, an old friend of mine, called me asking for a game theory analysis of the token model for a new ICO project. I accepted immediately, to the delight of my wife. :)
What attracted you to decentralization? What are the main advantages of decentralized vs centralized systems?
The interaction among the members of a community, if not based on a suitable incentive system, is based on emotion and therefore can be irrational. See for example interactions between people in social networks.
Now, thanks to blockchain and decentralization, it is possible to build incentive systems that lead to economically rational behavior.
This opens the way for new and very interesting applications. Among these, there is Jur which has a very strong potential for social impact.
Can you tell us a little about your role in Jur and how you expect to contribute?
When I came to Jur there was only the general idea. I have been working on the game-theory based design with the founders from the very beginning.
I started with a game theory-based analysis of the first version of the voting system that led us to several reviews of the whole system (reward for voters, token model etc.).
Then I contributed to the white paper, business plan, token sale strategy, and operating model.
I have contributed a lot of ideas and insight, but I think that the most important was to adopt a mathematical approach (game theory) to evaluate the effectiveness of the voting system. Because of this, I can ensure that the overall project is based on a really rigorous framework.
What sort of businesses do you expect will be the first to use Jur?
I think that Jur will be not the best choice for every kind of contract from the start, but I think that in specific market segments it will be the best choice right from the start.
When the execution of the contract from the two parties is easy to verify and it is possible to apply an escrow I’m sure that Jur will be the best way to ensure fairness in the enforcement of business agreements.
I expect OTC transaction will be one the first popular use cases of Jur. The transactions are simple, an escrow can provide complete enforcement, and the users are already comfortable with the blockchain.
In other parts of the economy that don’t have anything to do with the blockchain, it could take a little longer to become popular because of a lack of understanding and confidence in the power of decentralised systems.
But in the real economy, there is already a user that is excited to use Jur for business agreements. I am talking about myself :) In this past year, I’ve lost money because of the fraudulent behavior of some of my counterparties. I am very confident that a Jur contract backed with Jur dispute resolution would have protected me. We have also already received a request to use Jur to guarantee a 2.4 million euro international pharmaceutical shipment.
What impact do you think Jur will have on global commerce and why?
When you enter in a commercial agreement your first problem is the counterparty risk. Given the impossibility to manage counterparty risk, people are often reluctant to make agreements.
The most important impact will be the reduction of fraudulent and dishonest behaviors in bilateral agreements (where it is easy to verify outcomes and where escrow payment is applicable). This will happen because if the dispute resolution is fast (from 24 hours to some days) and fair, no one has an incentive to be dishonest. This impact will, in turn, lead to increased confidence in deals with strangers, allowing businesses and individuals to reach out and create new partnerships with confidence that is currently just not possible
Looking at your resume, you’ve been pretty busy. Do you have any spare time? What do you do for fun?
Well, I work a lot but I’m lucky: I am good at managing my time. I play tennis and sometimes other sports. But my favorite times are those I spend with my wife and my little son: they are a very effective way to return with my feet on the ground after having worked for hours on big and ambitious projects where seeing global problems in the extract and predicting possible distant futures are fundamental.
What are some of the biggest innovations & impacts we can expect to see from decentralized technology in the next 5 years?
I’m not a magician, but I think that the added value of the decentralization is to allow the collective rationality of community members to triumph over selfish individual irrationality. So where there is a need to harness the wisdom of the crowd and have feedback or determination of outcomes from a community, a decentralized system could be useful.
Were you into computers as a hacker or gamer when you were a kid?
When I was a kid I used to play football in the street :)
What are the largest barriers for widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies and token-based utilities?
Definitely user experience and culture.
We are in a very immature market. It was created just a few years ago and very few projects have delivered their platform. I think that most of the ICOs that have launched to date really made no sense, so they can’t reach adoption.
But now it is not so easy to get funded so only the really meaningful projects will be launched.
I think that projects like Jur that offer a truly needed and viable service will bring many people to adopt their technology. It is clear that the problem of the volatility of the token value needs to be solved. But the higher the rate of adoption, the easier it will be to solve this problem by using financial instruments.
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