Give us an overview to your background?



I am a physicist by training, having studied at the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute) between 1991 and 1997 that has informed my approach to solving complex problems in both industry and business. I have founded a number of start-ups including SMS Traffic between 2000 – 2013, a platform that enables businesses to integrate customers’ and employee’s mobile technologies. The ability for technology to break down barriers between separate parties has been one of the constant traits for my career.



What drew you to blockchain tech?



I started to develop an interest in cryptocurrencies and in particular the underlying blockchain technology in 2014. Rather than focusing on the speculative gains short-term investors were making, I really wanted to see how distributed ledger technology could be applied to mainstream industry infrastructure.



What led you to create the Obyte platform?



Although I was very impressed by the early pioneering blockchains that gained attention (in large part due to the increase in token value), I could see there were considerable flaws and problems that would prevent it being adopted by the mainstream in the future. High energy usage, scalability and existence of a privileged class of miners made me think there had to be a better alternative and this informed the design of Obyte.



What makes DAG so significant?



Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) enables anyone to add information or data to the ledger. In centralized systems, only one party was allowed to add transactions to the ledger; in blockchains, only a select few - the miners - are allowed to do it; in DAG, everybody is allowed to write to the ledger. DAG also improves speed and throughput: instead of having one single chain of blocks, data can be added to any number of parallel interconnected “lanes”.



Where do you see DLT in five years?



Given all that has happened in the last five years since I became involved in DLT, I am very cautious about making concrete predictions, however we are beginning to see some trends that I think will become more accepted by the mainstream. These include, greater acceptance of decentralisation of databases and use of DLT for data management (instead of siloes like we currently have). I also envisage greater use of DLT for fiat currency transfers, currently it isn’t accepted by many outlets, the ability to bypass banks and mainstream infrastructure could enable developing markets to make great leaps forward and unleash huge economic and technological development.



What are the main challenges to mainstream adoption?



People are understandably conservative in adopting new technologies, particularly those related to their private wealth. How DLT companies foster a culture of trust and assurance with the people and companies they seek to serve will be fundamental in determining mainstream adoption. Creating that level of assurance takes time and constant education so that people are better informed.



What are the industries you envisage as being most likely to be disrupted by DLT?



Currently Obyte has identified the following four areas to focus on that are the most amenable to using DLT: P2P betting, Tokenization of assets, IOT and charitable giving. We have a number of case studies that include companies for peer-to-peer sports betting, Venezuelan universities looking for student sponsorship as well as a donation scheme to match donors, producers and receivers (also in Venezuela). We see this expanding over the course of the next five years, but we should stress that any number of industries ranging from: Financial Services, Data management, Entertainment, Legal services, logistics, to name but a few could be disrupted by the use of DLT.



What made you decide on the name Obyte?



Yes we recently rebranded from Byteball to Obyte. When we renamed, many people wondered what O stands for. While it is true that it replaces the former "ball", I also want to make it clear that O stands for Open. It speaks about the core values of the platform: open access to the ledger, not encumbered by miners or other intermediaries, which simply do not exist here in a DAG. We are going to have more Onames for the products built on top of the platform going forward.



Interview by Finyear.

