Authentication of “truth” is a watchword for an age where “alternative reality” is a zeitgeist for the times.

Unfortunately for those individuals and companies who need to integrate such confirmations into business or legal processes, there is no alternative to proper and accurate verification of truth. Proper identification and verification are critical to industries that include everything from logistics to the remote opening of an account, to the delivery of a product to your house.

Verifier is a service provider now directly addressing this issue. Using a unique website, and mobile interface, they have designed a system that can verify identity and authenticity both online and in person.

How does this work? Kind of like Uber, the service allows identity checks and even the release of local “agents” to verify the required “truth.” Imagine you were a company that required delivery of a valuable product to a certain address and were required to get the specific signature of a certain person you have never met before.

We recently sat down with Dmitry Nazarov, the founder of Verifier to have a chat with him about the project as well as finding out their thoughts and insights.

Dmitry. Thanks for joining us today. Can you tell us more about yourself and Verifier?

I am an entrepreneur with a number of solid and conservative businesses in Telecommunication and Electronics industries. In the last year, I also started production of “miners” for cryptocurrency mining. I think it would be fair to say that I built very successful and sustainable enterprises that give me a certain feeling of stability. But the conservatism kills entrepreneurship. My business is 16 years old and widespread over 15 countries and includes very sophisticated logistics. My skills and ambitions required a search for modern and high margin business.

We offer a tool to the community that will help people to deal with each other in a secure and much more comfortable way

And that’s how I became involved in the Blockchain industry. And then Verifier project appeared. Verifier is a first attempt to combine events from real life and digital reality. We want to build an international system of events confirmation. Did you notice how often should we trust random sources of information about events in business, news that can appear to be fake, counterparts’ promises on quality of the product?

I’d love to have an instrument that would allow me to get some proofs before making a decision about purchasing something from the factory or to perform information check on some stories in the press or make due diligence remotely. But the world is not perfect enough. What can we use now? We either face huge costs that only corporations can afford to confirm and verify objects, documents, assets etc. or need to rely on our intuition and experience.

In an elevator pitch kind of statement, would it be fair to describe what you are building is a blockchained KYC application that can be used in the real world as much as it can be also used in all-digital applications?

I would say that KYC is one, but not the only use case of Verifier. There is a big need for verification service in the P2P segment as well and that’s why we decided to go into the Blockchain community and launch ICO instead of staying centralized and control everything ourselves. We offer a tool to the community that will help people to deal with each other in a secure and much more comfortable way. As for corporate use cases, I am sure it could be interesting for retailers, because they need to control merchandisers, for insurance companies, financial organizations, that need to verify pawns, etc.

How did you come up with the idea and what was the thought process behind it?

I was at a Blockchain Conference, listening to some speakers from Ethereum Foundation. They mentioned that there is a huge problem with transferring data from the real world to the smart contracts. I started to think about this problem and at some point, the idea appeared. At first, it was only about reliably providing data to the Blockchain, but when you start imagining where else it could be applicable, you see the ocean of opportunities.

What is the biggest problem within the industry or do you think there is a gap in the market for Verifier to fill?

Let’s look at smart contract industry (we can call it industry I suppose), it is a hundred-billion-dollar market right now. Any smart contract begins with an event, either it is a transaction to a certain wallet, or occurrence of an insured event, or anything else. And it works perfectly in virtual reality, where events and consequences are digitalized. Let’s imagine for a moment, what could happen if this technology comes to the real world. What if there would be a strong connection between processes in the real world and smart contracts? It was almost impossible until now. There are no universal and reliable technologies that can securely transfer data from the real world to the virtual. Of course, there are some projects that try to build networks of oracles, but they still based on virtual technologies. So how can we link these worlds without having Skynet at the moment? Is it possible only in the far future? I do not agree with this. I am sure that it was impossible to solve this problem by thinking about it in terms of programmers’ paradigm. I tried to think about the solution of this problem from other perspective and I am sure that our team does literally revolution and a big step to eliminate this disconnect. We want to make a hybrid system of cooperation between humans and machines. Agents that perform verification are people that will be armed with a tool that combines all top technologies: GPS, Timestamp, P2P (uberization), decentralization and Blockchain. This was not possible for example 5 years ago, because technologically we were not ready. But now we are standing at the frontier of the next evolution cycle.

What do you think is the biggest problem Verifier will solve and why is the problem important to solve?

It would definitely be a problem of mistrust between counterparts during the deals that Verifier will solve. Whenever you are entering into a new business relationship, proper Due diligence must be made. You need to make sure that you are dealing with reliable people and that they will deliver what they promise. Mistrust kills businesses and blocks development in all spheres of our life. If we could solve at least part of this problem, it would be a great breakthrough in international business and economics.

Editors Pick: Verifier ICO

Why did you choose to use Ethereum as your blockchain of choice?

We trust Ethereum technology and find it the most reliable, clear and efficient platform that meets our needs at the moment.

In the whitepaper, you make a point of stressing that this is “real world” Uber-esque verification in a unique way. It is an interesting analogy. How did you come up with that?

I think it was obvious to use the technologies that are available at the moment for solving that exact problem. Uber made a revolution by digitalizing a very traditional and routine service. But it was not possible to create it until smartphones were spread across the board. Same with Verifier, it was not possible to create it without commonly used smartphones, or without Blockchain technology or without GPS.

Regulation-wise, what are the toughest challenges you will have to over, come (on a global basis)? And from where?

I think the biggest challenge would be competition with Governments for the right to verify individuals’ data. This might be a very tough challenge in some countries and it would require crystal clear vision of our mission and lots of legal work.

What are the services you plan to offer that excite you the most?

I love the idea of asset verification for banks and financial organizations, as well as for P2P lending platforms. Also, the problem of fake news could be efficiently resolved with help of Verifier. We think of different ways Insurance companies could verify the occurrence of insured events. Dating services could also use our application for their customers.

What has been your happiest moment so far working on Verifier? On the flipside, what has been the most painful, or perhaps the most regretful decision you’ve made with Verifier?

I think it was the moment when I raised USD 500k in just 14 minutes after explaining the idea.

It was recent SEC decision about token regulation that forced us to postpone ICO until we register our token at SEC.

What is the indicator you are looking for to tell you that you have begun to achieve your mission?

I think that the first 100,000 downloads of Verifier app would be a very clear message that we are moving in the right direction.

Tell us more about the VRF. What are its selling points and what does it do in the system?

VRF will be the internal currency that will support the infrastructure of Verifier project. You may pay for verification with your VRFs at any time. The sexiest thing about VRF (apart from having the product ready) are estimated number of transactions, we plan circa 100M transactions in the first two years. Secondly it is the order book that we would implement similarly to order books on the stock exchange or Forex. This will constantly create demand for VRF tokens. Also, there will be the strictly limited emission of tokens. Furthermore, we are currently registering our token at SEC and ESMA in order to comply with regulation and guarantee protection to our future token investors. Finally, the inevitable growth of AML/KYC requirements will be beneficial for us and VRF investors, because the need for such service as Verifier will continuously grow.

What do you think is the biggest challenge or obstacle Verifier will face? How do you plan to tackle that challenge?

I strongly believe that there are no challenges or obstacles that we cannot overcome. Since the start of the project, there were hundreds of situations that seemed to be extremely complicated, but we successfully resolved all these issues.

Moving on to more personal stuff, what does a typical day in your life look like?

I wake up in the morning, do some exercise and then the normal day of an entrepreneur starts, which generally means loads of communication with other people and making decisions.

Can you express one personal opinion of yours about the blockchain? It doesn’t matter if it’s negative or positive, we just want to hear your thoughts on it.

I admire Blockchain. This is a technology, that will help people in solving a wide range of problems and would make lives simpler. I strongly believe in upcoming decentralization of processes and I am excited to think about societies that make use of it and governments that start implementing and using Blockchain technology instead of fighting against it.

Finally, what other personal goals (besides your career) do you have in life? Is there anything else in life you want to achieve?

Well, I’d love to run a Half Marathon this year.

That concludes our Interview with Dmitry Nazarov

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