Meet Waves Association members: Luca Silvani
Luca Silvani discusses prospects lying ahead for the blockchain space and the “DeFi bubble.”
Q: Could you, please, tell us briefly about your background?
A: I was born in 1977 in the United States but, apart from a few short stays there, I’ve always lived with my family in Italy, near Rome. Always passionate about machines and computers, in 2004, I discovered the GNU / Linux world by installing my first Gentoo-box (still running). In 2009, I graduated in philosophy with a thesis about intellectual property, information technology, free software and knowledge management, then launching in 2012 my own business in ICT infrastructure management and software development.
Q. When and how did you get interested in blockchain?
A: As I believe many of us did, I took my first steps with bitcoin: intrigued by this mysterious distributed system, unclearly developed by whom, after some unsuccessful mining attempts, on July 7, 2016 I invested 5€ to get 0.00833347 BTC on Coinbase, rapidly forgetting about it. A year later, I sold the coins at double their value: that triggered a chain of sales, purchases and exchanges in many other cryptos, including NXT, LTC, ETH and, of course, WAVES.
Q: How long have you been involved with Waves and what was your first encounter with the project?
A: In this case, I also have the exact date available: my entry in WAVES is dated June 9 2017, when I exchanged via Shapeshift 1 ETH for about 39 WAVES.
Q: What specifically have you been doing for Waves and what has been your role in developing the Italian language community?
A: What immediately convinced me to join the Waves army was the choice of proposing itself as a completely alternative and independent blockchain, rather than relying on already tested platforms as many initiatives built on Ethereum did in that period — ever heard anything about the “golden ICO age”? After some time, more and more convinced about the project, I proposed myself as an Italian translator for the progenitor of the actual Waves.Exchange platform, which led me here today with about 32,000 words translated for 3,800 keys. I also follow the official Italian telegram channel, although, to be honest, I don’t have much time to participate in the various conversations :)
Q: As a member of the Waves Association, what do you think are the most vital tasks that lie ahead for the association?
A: I think that the goal to pursue is to define a strategy to make mass adoption of blockchain technology a real thing. Only after this crucial step Waves will be finally able to show its true potential, proving to be one of the fastest, most functional, cheapest and efficient blockchain solutions.
Q: What are the main challenges that the blockchain space is facing at this point? What are major opportunities?
A: As already said, I believe we need to fill the gap between blockchain technology and stable mass adoption, despite the fact that many solutions to everyday problems are clearly already achievable. Just as an example, consider food production chain traceability: such a large amount of information is extremely problematic to manage in a traditional way, since all the collected information has to flow into a centralized processing system before being eventually delivered back. We can overcome all this through blockchain adoption, collecting and distributing information much more easily while ensuring its immutability automatically. What is still missing is the intermediate layer able to act as a link between needs and solutions, in a simple and practical way, which I believe is what we need to define and develop in the first place.
Q: What is your take on the rapid growth of the DeFi segment in recent months? Do you think we’re seeing a bubble?
A: Speaking about a bubble for blockchain is wrong from a terminological point of view: the phenomenon of “bubble” is certainly suitable for economic-speculative contexts, such as the stock or real estate market, in which an asset is necessarily associated with an economic value. But when we talk about the “bubble”, we are talking about the crisis of the exchanged value and not of the platform which delivers operations: the reason why some blockchain systems ended in a bubble is due to the value gradually recognized by users, which led to pure speculation. Therefore, a new bubble, perhaps even bigger and strengthened by a progressive increase in the adoption of DeFi functionalities is by no means to be excluded. But blockchain technologies such as Waves, able to help to exchange values in a secure and decentralized way, but also of guaranteeing the authenticity for an artwork, the origin of a product or the execution of a contract, I doubt will end up simply bursting like a bubble — provided the will and ability to be all of that and possibly much more.
