This is the second part of the interview series featuring Kaspars Koskins, CEO ADALend. Recent developments in Canada, the US, and elsewhere have demonstrated that Decentralized Financing is much more relevant than ever. ADALend is at the vanguard of this revolution in the lending industry by using blockchain technology to disintermediate the traditional middlemen – providing unprecedented access to loans for those ignored by the traditional banking system and providing high yields for investors in a persistent low-interest-rate environment.
Decentralized finance platforms are becoming more crucial than ever as the SEC and Canadian governments have shown overreach. We were overwhelmed with positive feedback after the last interview with Kasparas, so without further adieu, let’s begin.
Interviewer: We are glad to welcome Kasparas back. In our last interview, we explored the importance of ADALend for middle class people in both the west and emerging markets. If you haven’t seen it yet, could you give us a summary of the ADALend value concept?
Koskins: Certainly, first let me just say it’s great to be back here. Our last interview was a huge success. We touched upon many subjects that were important to them, and this led to many others joining us. We will be going deeper into the philosophical reasons Cardano, decentralized financial system, are so important. Recent events in Russia, Canada, and the US are just a few examples. First, I want to briefly recap the ADALend mission and vision, as you so kindly suggested.
ADALend has been working to develop a trustless, scalable and decentralized lending platform that provides protection for its users in an environment where they can manage their finances. We have always been committed to natively building on the Cardano cryptocurrency. It will make it possible for the lending platform, to create business models that provide financial support to billions. ADALend will balance the power of lenders and borrower. Digital assets can be used as collateral on the platform. The user will benefit from a diversification of the platform’s use.
We chose to build on the Cardano blockchain as Ethereum is no longer usable by the majority of people on the planet due to the high transaction costs – with gas fees reaching into the hundreds of dollars per transaction. This is unacceptable for the ordinary person in the west today and the millions of poor people in Africa and Asia who are unable to borrow or lend much smaller amounts. Ethereum can only be used by those who are already rich, while platforms such as Solana or Avalanche pose problems in terms of centralization, security, and reliability. Cardano is the only decentralized blockchain capable of providing a democratic, open-source financial platform that allows everyone to use it.
As I mentioned in our last interview – the ADALend vision aligns perfectly with that of Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson who is passionate about improving financial outcomes for people all over the world, regardless of race, nationality, gender or financial status.
Interviewer: Thank you for the summary Kaspars, it’s truly impressive what you and your team are building. Offline we were talking about the BlockFi SEC fine and the Canadian government’s actions against the Trucker’s protests. These events are similar. Can you tell us more about their connection to the ADALend mission.
Koskins: Absolutely, in recent weeks we have seen the SEC fining BlockFi $100 million US dollars for providing a decent interest rate to its users; Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has taken the unprecedented step of invoking the Emergencies Act to crack down on anti-vaccine mandate protests. They have been placed in a bank freeze and Western leaders are threatening to remove Russia from SWIFT if they invade Ukraine. Now, regardless of your political opinion on these events, they highlight how governments and institutions can, at their convenience, cut ordinary people out from earning interest on their savings, accessing their savings or transferring money internationally. I am old enough to remember when in 2013 the government of Cyprus decided to unilaterally impose a 10% “haircut” on bank accounts to bail themselves out after the financial crises and literally unlawfully stole the money from people’s accounts. I realized that it was necessary to safeguard individuals’ hard-earned wealth and started my quest into Bitcoin and Cardano, and eventually the dream of creating a decentralized financial system.
With a Decentralized Financial platform like ADAlend, people can earn a good interest rate on their hard-earned savings without worrying about the risks of the Government attacking the platform as they did with a centralized crypto lender like BlockFi or the government trying to freeze your bank account if they don’t agree with your opinions or peaceful protest like they did in Canada. The DeFi system is by definition stronger and more stable than those of centralized banks like BlockFi. While the ADAlend network and protocol are more similar to Bitcoin or Cardano, as it scales, it will be more vulnerable to attacks.
Parallel to the totally decentralized ADALend protocol, core platform, and we’re exploring offering regulated central lending services in every jurisdiction we have. They will be offered at slightly lower interest rates than those on ADALend’s decentralized staking platform. However, these services are far more than credit unions and banks. This is because we understand that while our crypto-native community members are comfortable investing the time and energy to interact with DeFi protocols, we have mature users as well – business owners, doctors, lawyers, and self-employed tradesmen who simply don’t have time to live online.
These hardworking individuals will be able to receive high-interest rates on crypto and stablecoin savings in a tightly regulated environment. We are working with the regulators on a jurisdiction by jurisdiction basis – beginning with my home market of the European Union with an Estonian entity, followed by the United Kingdom with a London HQ, and then the United Arab Emirates, with a regulated entity in the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC). The US and Canada will follow next on our roadmap. We are learning from Nexo Celsius, BlockFi and other market participants as we prepare for our entry. We believe that to truly revolutionise finance you need to disrupt the system from inside and out, and this is why we have adopted a two-pronged strategy of rolling out a DeFi protocol and a CeFi business in parallel globally.
Interviewer: Thank you Kasparas, it’s tremendously exciting to hear how your mission is evolving over time and how each misstep and overreach by governments only makes the ADALend value proposition more compelling and essential to protect the hard-earned savings of ordinary, hard-working people all over the world.
So to move from the philosophical and strategic to the tactical, let’s roll up our sleeves and talk about how you and the guys are executing this mission in the trenches. What is your progress in technical and commercial work?
Koskins: Thank you for the kind words, yes it’s both exciting and frightening to see how the macro events in the news make the ADALend mission ever more vital each time we speak. This motivates us and strengthens our determination to achieve a worthy goal: providing wealth protection, financial security, and financial inclusion for investors and savers of all sizes.
Technically, Ali Krynitsky has been appointed as our new Chief Technology Officer. He brings many years’ experience in leading Enterprise and Consumer Software Development and Technology projects and a team of dedicated, skilled and diligent developers.
Ali’s strong academic and research background makes him an excellent choice for the research-based peer-reviewed process to build Cardano. His technical expertise is unsurpassed, and he has worked with some of the most interesting technologies like Swamm Networking. We are very fortunate to have Ali building for ADALend. Ali shares my opinion on how the macroeconomic and political events of today are accelerating the importance and relevance of ADALend and having been born in the former Soviet Union Ali understands all too well the dangers of government overreach into private individuals’ ability to earn and keep their wealth!
Ali and his team worked tirelessly to make the most of the Cardano knowledge repositories and the latest research to help them develop their Plutus- and Haskell-powered staking platform and lending platform. They also focused on improving the UX to create the best FinTech experience. We have found that one of the barriers to mass adoption of DeFi protocols it the poor frontend user experience that scares off the casual user so we have endeavored to ensure that the user experience of ADALend’s DeFi and DeFi projects will be as slick and user friendly as the latest consumer applications that we expect and demand in the present environment.
On the business development and commercial side, we are busy building relationships with the regulators in Europe, the UK and Dubai to ensure we don’t hit any roadblocks like BlockFi did along the way. Another area we are focusing is the upcoming launch of the Public IDO in March. This will see the ADAL token being offered to the public.
Interviewer: This is great news! Ali and his team have delivered the goods. The technical roadmap for technical development has been moving at an impressive pace. There are some interesting developments on the commercial side, it seems! We last spoke to you when you were involved in private sales. Can you please tell us about the launch of the ADAL token and what our readers can do?
Koskins: Absolutely – in the world of crypto the public launch or IDO is similar to the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of a tech company. ADALend is currently in the final stage of its private sale so it’s similar to buying Google, Amazon or Apple stock before their IPO. ADALend’s private sale will end on February 28th. This would make it the final date you can purchase ADAL tokens for a substantial discount. Launch will take place in March’s first week. A limited amount of ADAL tokens, which will then be traded on several exchanges and launchpads simultaneously, will go on sale in the second week. While the initial price for ADAL tokens is $1 USD, the price may fluctuate in the first few days of trading. It is important to sign up early so you don’t miss out.
Email your friends to find out more information about ADALend, or register an interest in receiving the last allocation of tokens for private sale at a discounted price. [email protected]Please include the subject line CEO INTERVIEW. Our team will then add them to our priority list and get back to you as soon as possible.
Interviewer: As always it’s been both educational and inspirational talking to you. Thank you for your time Kaspars.
Koskins:My pleasure. I wish you and all your readers a successful month and quarter.