Meet Pendulum’s Co-Founder: Alexander Wilke

The Pendulum team is led by Co-Founder Alex Wilke, who has six years of experience with SatoshiPay and 18 years of operational experience. Alex is German, based in Berlin, and works out of the Pendulum main office in Berlin. We asked Alex seven probing questions so the Pendulum people could get to know him personally!

Below are the questions and Alex’s answers.

1. Origin Story — Can you tell us a bit about how you first became interested in the blockchain space?

I was visiting a Bitcoin meetup in 2013, finding it mindblowing that you could transfer a financial asset similar to money over the internet with just software. I wanted to try it out, so my test was to:

i) Buy Bitcoin (there were no exchanges, so I bought via LocalBitcoins).

ii) Make a payment in a pub in Berlin Kreuzberg that accepted Bitcoin back then. It worked, and I got food and drinks!

The moment my payment went through, I knew something big was happening. Moving value without trusting any person was and still is very disruptive.

2. Favorite Projects — Pendulum aside, which Web3 project(s) are you most excited about? No financial advice ;)

I love testing out a lot and like Ethereum, Polygon, Fantom, Aave, Curve, Beefy, Lyra, Mai Finance, MakerDAO, Gnosis Safe, Zapper.Fi, Debank, Paraswap, Slingshot, Uniswap, Sushiswap, and Opensea.

I am not too active on DeFi protocols right now, but I liked looking into Popsicle Finance, Impermax, and Tarot. If I have to narrow it down to just a few that I am most excited about, it would be Aave, Paraswap, Beefy, and the whole Polygon ecosystem.

3. Values — Many people are driven by different values in the crypto world, such as privacy, freedom, economic inclusion, ‘in it for tek’ etc. What values drive you the most?

Direct ownership of financial assets without intermediaries is mind-blowing in terms of security, transparency, and the ability to audit reserves 24/7. Having open-source software audited 24/7 by hackers worldwide adds to that too. Doing all this by just downloading a software/app and creating a private key is mindblowing again and great for financial inclusion!

4. Pendulum Journey — Now you are working with Pendulum, how did your Web3 journey bring you to Pendulum today?

Our mission was to utilize blockchain technology to support mass user adoption since 2016 with SatoshiPay. Our journey followed this path:

Facilitate micropayments for publishers

Support cross-border transfers (we hit the limits of blockchain scaling capabilities back then)

Build Web3 infrastructure that would support these payment use cases with Pendulum

5. Learning — What’s your biggest learning in blockchain so far? It can be investment related or any silly, crazy Web3 story.

Big institutions and banks are not the main drivers of web3 adoption and disruption — the users are. With SatoshiPay, we spent lots of time with bigger corporations to work out use cases and PoCs. Those corporations moved too slowly.

6. Vision — Where do you think Web3 and the crypto industry will be in 10 years? What kind of impact would blockchain have had on the world?

My four predictions include:

1) Increased international trade (goods and services) by more people accessing the internet and blockchain technology to exchange value.

2) There are many more options to invest and use financial services as a parallel financial infrastructure is being built that not only includes more users to use the services but also provides services (liquidity provision for DEXes, insurance etc), which is the real disruption.

3) Web3 builds a deeper connection to the real world. More activity and track records plus decentralized IDs will enable undercollateralized borrowing/lending, which will add a lot more options and inclusivity to people worldwide.

4) Tokenized shares, stock trading, and combining that asset class with any other DeFi service.

7. Alpha — This is the last question, so can you please share some alpha or advice for the community? Maybe a tip or learning from your experience in crypto that might help them grow.

Nothing new: DYOR (do your own research) and stay safe!

We want to thank Alex for taking the time out of his busy schedule to answer these questions. It is great to hear insights from a true early adopter and builder in the crypto space who is a key driving force at Pendulum. If you would like to ask Alex or the Pendulum team any questions, connect with us on our socials!

About Amplitude

Pioneering the internet of fiat. Amplitude is the sister network of Pendulum on Kusama. It will act as a testing ground for Pendulum applications and network parameters and be powered by the AMPE token.

About Pendulum

Building the missing link between fiat and DeFi through a fiat-optimized smart contract blockchain based on Polkadot’s Substrate. Allowing traditional finance fiat services to integrate with DeFi applications such as specialized forex AMMs, lending protocols, or yield farming opportunities. Developed by SatoshiPay.

Keep your eyes on the Pendulum!

Twitter | Telegram Announcements | Telegram Community | Discord | Reddit