It’s time for another interview as hot as a morning cup of coffee. Today we are speaking with Krasimir Raykov — the CTO of weiDex.
Krasimir has a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science Engineering and more than 6 years of experience in complex systems development, back-end development and a strong understanding of C/C++, Java, and Solidity. He has been working for several years in the automotive industry designing and developing software components for top OEM — Ford, Renault, Daimler.
Krasimir has always been passionate about the latest technologies and after playing around with “Internet of things” he found himself interested in blockchain. Very soon he became a Solidity guru and started leading courses for Smart Contract Development with Solidity in educational projects such as Software University and Telerik.
In 2018 he became a co-founder of weiChain — a Blockchain consulting company and a CTO of its most ambitious project — weiDex — where he oversees the company’s project delivery and solution architecture.
As Krasi likes to say about blockchain “there is no other technology with such an immense potential to disrupt completely our world both in economic and social aspect.”
Let’s see why.
- You are deeply involved in the blockchain industry. What are the benefits of the Blockchain that you most admire?
The internet did change a lot of things — almost every aspect of our lives, from the way we do shopping, the way we collaborate with our colleagues, the way we communicate with our friends and family, the way we manage our finances and much, much more — it gave us freedom and access to the whole human knowledge at the tip of our fingers. The problem with the internet is that the freedom part is almost gone. The whole internet is composed of several billion-worth-top-tech-companies that are expanding and getting more and more power every single day. Our data and privacy are being exploited for profit. The average user cannot surf the internet without being tracked or watched. Believe it or not, these tech companies know you better than yourself. So back to the point about Blockchain. The blockchain tech gives us the opportunity to build a borderless, trustless and privacy-oriented decentralized peer-to-peer networks that will bring back the thing we lost on the Internet — our identity. Take the Bitcoin network for example — unlike traditional banking and payment systems, it is based on decentralized trust. Instead of a central trusted authority, in Bitcoin, trust is achieved as an emergent property from the interactions of different participants in the Bitcoin network. You can use the network to send any amount of money you want to anyone anywhere (no matter if you live in Europe and he/she lives in Japan) in just a few minutes. You don’t need permission to do that, you don’t need to pay any taxes and you can do that from your phone.
2. How would you explain to your grandma what blockchain is?
I would say: “Collaboration between people that do not know each other, but still, they follow the same rules and ethics. Thanks to that collaboration we can have the infinite computational power and infinite possibilities”
3. We are still waiting for user-friendly and engaging apps built on a blockchain. When are we going to see the mass adoption of blockchain and how?
Well, currently we have a shitload of shitcoins. Almost all of these coins/tokens were built to take advantage of the cryptocurrency hype, and nothing more (well, they are shitcoins after all). When I first heard about the ability to build on top of the Ethereum blockchain I was filled with excitement and awe. Then Cryptokitties came — a trading card game — single-handedly flooded the Ethereum blockchain and made gas prices skyrocket. How can we expect to see the next wave of decentralized applications, with billions of users when a silly trading card game can make the blockchain unusable for the casual consumer? However, since then the Ethereum network has evolved a lot and it’s still being improved. Moreover, we shall soon see Eth 2.0 which will be a game-changer for the whole space IMHO. With the recent DeFi movement (decentralized finance) we observe a lot of traction — dApps like Compound, Uniswap, and MakerDAO are being used by more and more users. DeFi ideas and tools are open, so the building scales through compounded open source. Their programs are trustless in the sense that the execution of the critical logic is censorship-resistant. So I believe that the first “killer dapp” will be either something in the DeFi world or something game-related. When? I hope it will be really soon.
4. What do you think is the biggest challenge for blockchain at the moment?
Undoubtedly — education (as a user challenge) and UI/UX (as a development challenge). Users must be educated about the basic pillars of blockchain and most importantly the values they will receive for using a blockchain product. And then, the developers need to implement the blockchain solutions that will provide the same user experience as every non-blockchain application does. I think those things are already happening and they are happening simultaneously. Most of the people talk about “scalability”, but I think that the scalability will come before the actual need for scalability. There are a lot of options to consider if you need scalability — state channels, plasma, zk-snarks…
5. There is one keyword connected with blockchain and it is “decentralization”. Do you truly believe in the decentralization and to what extent you think it can be achieved?
A good friend of mine once told me that decentralization is a tool and not a target. A tool that can give us permissionless and trustless services, thus giving us back our data, privacy, and independence. We all know from history that nobody is fully satisfied unless independence is achieved in its wholeness. In our case, this means the system should be entirely decentralized. There is no place for some kind of semi-forms and fake models. The whole idea behind blockchain is to avoid centralization and to introduce decentralization via technology.
6. Despite talking about decentralization, we are currently going through a process of shaping up the regulations in the industry. Do you agree that we really need regulations and, if yes, to what extent?
There are already regulations — on the protocol level in all networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum. And I believe only such must be applied because they will be accepted by the community and they will be visible and transparent for everyone. Regulations from the outside will most likely fail because at some point it will be impossible to stop someone from doing something on the network. Well, unless the whole internet is shut down, which won’t happen.
7. Why do the world need crypto (or why not?)
I think that’s part of the evolution of money. In the beginning, there was no money. People engaged in barter, the exchange of merchandise for merchandise, without value equivalence. Then we have Commodity
Money -> Metal -> Money in the Form of Objects -> Gold, Silver and Copper -> Paper Money. And finally, we have the Monetary System. The system is regulated by appropriate legislation and organized from a monetary unit, its base value. Currently, almost all countries use a monetary system of centesimal basis, in which the coinage dividing the unit represents one-hundredth of its value. The next chapter of the history of money is taking place right before our very eyes, and it’s up to us to get involved early or let the opportunity pass. One of the oldest and most prevalent things in history, money has stood the test of time and taken on many shapes and sizes which have evolved as time progressed. Today, money is continuing to change as we are witnessing the emergence of cryptocurrency in many existing industries. As such, physical money and large notes are on the decline, paving the way for digital currency to take on a much stronger role in the global economy.
8. What do you think will finally stabilize the crypto market (make it less volatile)?
The volatility shows nothing but the immaturity of the market. Once the market is mature enough, the volatility will go down. Actually, the volatility is already low. The moves we see in Bitcoin are not only thanks to the speculators but also thanks to the scarce nature of the asset.
9. Do you use DEXes (decentralized exchanges) to trade your assets and what is your opinion about them?
Yes, I use. However, most of the people prefer centralized exchanges. They are still very popular and they are used on everyday bases for trading by almost everyone in the crypto space. They are easy to use, accessible and rich of all kinds of existing tokens but yet — they are centralized. It means you do not hold the control of your assets, you pay fees to trade, you have to involve and trust a third party, you have to stick to their policy, you have to reveal your identity and provide personal information. DEX’s are out there, but there are still in the very early stage, something like the email clients back in the 90s. With the development progress, we shall see more and more people jumping on the DEX train and forgetting about the centralized exchanges. My thesis is proved by the actions of the big centralized exchanges like Binance and Bitfinex. They already have a DEX version, so I assume that’s the future.
10. The community has recently come out of the crypto winter with great disappointment and doubt about the efficiency and the real purpose of most ICOs. What is the last promising and innovative ICO that you’ve come across?
I’m not that into ICOs for a long time now. I followed the hype around the IEO (Initial Exchange Offering), but nothing caught my eye.
11. What advice would you give to the blockchain startups which have just begun their journey with great enthusiasm but a relatively small amount of experience?
- The first thing you should do is ask yourself: Do I need blockchain for the thing I do.
- Stay up to date.
- Don’t try to raise money you don’t need.
- Get into the community
- Reuse as much as possible, don’t start from scratch.
- Make a lot of pivots, till you find the right kind of product.
Thank you for your time!
