Decipher 2022, a second annual gathering of the Algorand foundation held in Dubai was a massive success. The active community engagement portrayed confidence in the existing blockchain technology. The following is an exclusive interview of delegates conducted by TheNewsCrypto.
About Anil Kakani
Anil Kakani is the Algorand Foundation’s country head for India. He is the managing partner of Vikasa Holdings, a business that provides strategic advice and funding to firms looking to enter new markets. Anil has more than 20 years of experience working in senior commercial, investment, and policy capacities in international markets. Anil worked as an Executive Director on the investment banking team of a mid-market financial services company in Mumbai before starting Vikasa. Prior to this, he worked as Corning Incorporated’s Director for Commercial Development and Senior Advisor to the US Senate, US Treasury, and White House Office of Management and Budget on matters of economic and financial policy.
About Nikhil Varma
Nikhil Varma is the Co-Head and Technical Lead of AlgoBharat. He is a researcher and industry consultant who specializes in decentralized company models. He has worked in the sector for almost 15 years as a developer, architect, product and program manager, and management consultant. He instructs in the areas of Operations, Data Visualization, Business Analytics, and Sustainability. He also advocates blockchain to business people and computer engineers at a number of universities across the world.
Could you tell us a brief background about what AlgoBharat is?
Anil Kakani: AlgoBharat is Algorand Foundation’s Initiative for India. Pure and simple, we are Algorand Foundation in India. We started about six months ago to explore what’s happening in the Web3 space, what Algorand’s unique offering is, and where it fits within the Web3 ecosystem in India. We began by engaging with universities. So it’s very focused on developers and companies. That’s the primary focus of these first few months to see what kind of attraction, what kind of interest. And we had a phenomenal response. Went to 7 or 8 universities, did an intro to Blockchain seminars, and had hundreds of kids showing up learning what blockchain is, Why Algorand. We did a hackathon. We brought kids to Singapore for our greenhouse hack. We have a number of university kids, and computer science students who are learning how to code in PyTeal built on Algorand. Some of those students who participated won. They were winners. We have four of the winners from our renowned hack that are here in Decipher.
The second pillar of work that we began was engaging companies, and teams that are already building. So one was, developing the capability to work with coders and developers. The others are teams that are actually building solutions already. This week, we have nine companies here from India and at Decipher that are either speaking on panels or pitching as builds that are in the build stage or in the scale stage. Surabi and Dignified, their scale, they’ve already built a solution. They’re going to launch in Q1 of 2023.
And all of these companies are the common element of launching their building in Algorand. And so that’s very exciting for us. We have everything from very early-stage companies to companies that already have tens of millions of customers. And we’re beginning their transition from web2 to web3. So we did a pitch competition and those who won came here. The ones that won our AlgoBharat pitch competition are now competing on a global scale with companies with startup teams from all over the globe. So that’s an initial intro of what we’re doing.
Nikhil Varma: One of the things that when we actually talk about AlgoBharat conceptualize, AlgoBharat, as we are going to be “In Bharat, For Bharat”.
India has been a service provider of technology to the global market. Now we want solutions to happen to be made for India, of course, with a global perspective but the idea is that if we don’t make solutions, how do we actually create that kind of diffusion in society? So that’s one of the things that I would like to add to other things.
I also heard in the panel that we have more than double the population of the US. So people getting into blockchain from India will obviously increase the customer base or the user base for the blockchain industry. What about that?
Anil Kakani: I think the point you’re talking about is Kalga Labs. They’re building this very unique solution for screenwriters. You know very much of what Algorand does is bring value back to the creator. So in the case oftentimes in India, we have talent all over the country, whether it’s farmers, musicians, artisans, or screenwriters, but oftentimes their access to the market is blocked by someone who controls access to the market. So with Kalga Labs, what you heard Abhisar say is 80% penetration by OTT platforms in the US. In India. 25% penetration. But that 25% is the size of all of India. Right. So if India even goes from 25% to 50%, that’s going to be two US populations that are going to be consuming content on OTT platforms. So better content, more unique content is going to come out of India to serve that, to feed that demand. So we are very confident that blockchain solutions will be a part of that. So we are very confident that Blockchain solutions will be a part of that building.
If you look at Staci Warden, the Algorand CEO, she talks about creating a more inclusive economy, and increasing access to financial services. More than a billion people don’t have access to traditional financial services in the world. The role of DeFi is huge within the Algorand ecosystem. It’s hard to think that you’re going to solve that problem and not have India on your radar. So when she came to us and said, we’ve got to be doing something more targeted at India because that’s core to our DNA. And were of course I come from a policy background and so I’ve worked on some combination of tech, finance, and policy to increase, to improve the delivery of services for the common person. So India is ripe for that. And the “in Bharath and For Bharath” is because we think many solutions are going to be built on Algorand to serve the needs, the basic needs of the average Indian.
How would you describe the event, Decipher?
Nikhil Varma: Connecting. I would say it’s a lot of learning. There are many things that we do not know about the platform. Getting to meet all these people and their vision of what’s happening in the space and the coming businesses and getting that kind of positivity, going back with more steam and yes, you know what? We’re going to make a difference, not just create.
Anil Kakani: Yes, if you think about when Decipher is happening right now, it’s in a very difficult market. But you look at the energy like you would never tell. And part of it just speaks to not only Decipher is the annual gathering for Algorand that brings together investors, developers, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders. It’s very content-heavy. It’s not just a RA RA, it’s not a hackathon. This is really what’s happening in the ecosystem and what we have to look forward to in 2023, So if you were to ask what the message of the decipher is, “This is our time”. I think what we’ve seen in the last year is he said, we were doing all the right things. We didn’t anticipate that there would be some bad actors that would cause such disruption in this crypto market. And Silvio Micali, our inventor, yesterday talked about this is the winter, but what are we doing in this? We’re preparing for the future. We’re not running. The Algorand is in this for the long haul, but this is our time.
What is your view on the “buying-in-the-dip” attitude?
Anil Kakani: We don’t talk about this with an Algorand hat on from a personal perspective. It’s like, yeah, sure. But you only do that if you think that a platform or a solution has longevity. Right? So, yeah, oftentimes you look at the stock market, if the value falls, you can either think, that company is going away, or that it’s a good value right now. But if you think it’s a good value because you think it’s going to go back up. Right. So we’re very bullish. Of course, we look at the kind of investments that Algorand is making in the future. Obviously, at this time of struggle, we’re tightening the belts, but we’re not shying away from investing in the future. Investors will make their own decisions. They have to assess their risk appetite. But from our perspective, Algorand is here to stay. We’ve got a great future ahead.
Nikhil Varma: And also this whole mentality of buying and selling up and down, that’s not something that we subscribe to. Our objective over here is to make a difference. That’s just noise. But just to people who are kind of talking about buying or selling, should I buy, should I sell? What we would recommend is to look at what the platform is doing. Look at what are the applications that are coming in, look at everything on these platforms. Unlike most companies, it’s transparent. You can go and see what is being built on this platform. Every single block that is being committed, what transactions are happening then make your decision. Because if it goes down it can go even down more or it can go shoot up. Not even trying to forecast what is going to happen there. But whenever you make any investment as an invention, you look at the company first. You look at who’s the leader, what is happening in the company, what are the plans of the company, and who is the outlook. So I think people should try to stop just buying on hype.
Anil Kakani: At Decipher this year, we have almost ten companies at other chains that have been active in India. They do monthly meetups all over the place. We really have been doing it the Algorand way. No to the ground. Not flashy, but really engaging looking where Web3 makes sense for a company. And in just a few months, we have ten companies that are here in this bear market announcing that they are building on Algorand. These are amazing companies, from DeFi to smart contracts to Bollywood to NFT markets to everything. These are companies that of course, they see what’s happening in the market, but they also see the technology. Many of them have played on other technologies, and other platforms and they want to be on a multi-chain platform that has the key features that make Algorand such an attractive technology. The scalability, the low transaction fees, the no forking, and decentralization, are core and offcourse the sustainable aspect of Algorand that has been the technology.
As you were saying about transparency, now the centralized exchanges are getting into Proof of Reserve. They are like we are also stating it is the last opportunity to bring out stability in the market. So what do you think about this?
Nikhil Varma: There are two sides to this. Proof of Reserve is taking one step. It’s like, you know, I’ll show you my wallet and I’ll show you that I have $500. But then I’m not telling you that the $500 that I have is taken as I have a $5,000 loan. So under this, you tell me what is your flow of liabilities, and essentially this means that every single thing with decentralized exchange has to be done through smart contracts. We don’t have that kind of mechanism right now. That’s a welcome step but that’s not enough information for you to be able to make a decision that the exchange is safe, as a matter of fact. And exchanges have been doing all kinds of things which are good. The idea of exchange is to be able to find that kind of to be able to have interoperability, to be able to list people who can buy. What I believe is that all these things will only make sense when there is one platform that is going to make a real solution. When we have real solutions, all these things would kind of have a much smaller set of tokens that will make it to the next stage. Because now anybody can have a mint token. You and I can mint while talking. That doesn’t mean that we don’t want to make a business case but once we have a corner set of tokens that are really serious, then we can also change serious tokens.
We have another side, the meme coins. Like the popularity coins which run only on the base of popularity or the social media likes or shares they own. So what’s your take on those coins?
Nikhil Varma: This is where we have a very divergent view. From what we are into serious business over here, right? And what these bring in is they are just trying to ride the tide here and be like, “good days for crypto, people are buying tokens. Why don’t we just make a token, create a lot of air and people buy that token” and we don’t know what’s going to happen after that. Sometimes they make the token and then build the storage. By the way, many countries do not allow token sales unless and until there is a utility-tied token, right? So the first sign is when a token is not available in many countries, that means that there is something wrong. Second, where is that token incorporated? The third is the token transparent. Fourth, how many applications does it even have? What is the purpose of that? So these things have to be clearly laid out. Otherwise, all these meme tokens or celebrity tokens or ‘buy my token and I will do something later’ kinds of a thing are just promises, which sometimes can work and sometimes can’t.
Coming to India, there are a lot of regulations for the cryptocurrency sector. Amid these, recently, India has launched its CBDC – digital Rupee (e₹). What’s your say on the Indian government and cryptocurrency?
Anil Kakani: We are really bullish and our focus is on India. So we’re not just trying to do something in India for the global markets. Obviously, our companies will have global solutions but we see this as building on the tremendous platform that India has already created with India stack. India’s regulations will evolve over time. Our focus is really the technology – blockchain, building on blockchain solutions that actually make a real-world impact for average Indians. So at some point, the ecosystem, the tokenization, all that has to come into play, but it’s really not. Regulations evolve all over the world, and we think they will in India as well. And I think we’ll cater to them. And most of what we’re doing right now isn’t affected as much. Again, we’re not focused on who’s buying or who’s selling out. The point is people are going to make their decisions based on the tax rates and stuff that India has in place.
Nikhil Varma: In India, we have GST and personal taxation systems, there is a whole stack built around that by the Government of India which provides APIs for pilot integrators to be built in, to be able to build things. And we would encourage our innovators to be able to integrate that stack. In fact, I wrote a white paper also, which talked about how blockchain can be the accelerator for the Indian stack. As of now, the India stack has been used by a very small set of people. We will take all of them and stay within the realm of regulations. We’re not talking about a non-government system. You want to work with the government. We want to make a difference in people and if the government is not an integral part of it, how will we do it? So, absolutely, we just need transparency. We bring in more opportunities and social inclusion. That is the key idea.
As you said, India, as we’re building and in the near future, looks forward to many blockchain-positive rules or announcements from the government. So what other country or geography do you think is blockchain-positive? Is any specific region or geography in your mind?
Nikhil Varma: South America. The blockchain is coming in a really big way. In those economics, there are different kinds of tokens that have been created. Yesterday we saw one token called ALGO token, which tokenizes your crop. Also, Africa is amazing. See, the idea of blockchain is to provide social integration. That was the whole idea. Then we started getting into lots of other things around it. So wherever you don’t have a voice, whatever the problem with the common person getting up to the top, that is an ideal candidate for this.
Anil Kakani: I think for me, again, Nikhil has more of a global perspective. For me, it’s all about India, delivering the power of blockchain for India, in certain geographies, where there is much more volatility with currencies. We certainly see in those markets, government leaders seeing crypto and blockchain as an alternative to address some of that instability and volatility. India doesn’t have those issues. India has strong leadership. I think there is over time, Indian policymakers will recognize the power of blockchain and, you know, in those, use cases will just come. I think we’ll see them come. It’s a new technology. We’re learning every day all over the world. And I think crypto is here to stay. That’s not going anywhere. And I think our job is to make sure we’re helping, we’re supporting, we’re nurturing the development of those use cases that really make a positive impact on the lives.
According to you both, who’s that impactful or the key person in current blockchain technology?
Nikhil Varma: Silvio Micali. And the reason is, he’s the one. He’s a thought leader. He’s created an amazing platform. The whole idea of the zero-knowledge proof is the whole concept of privacy as well as validation. So you don’t need to tell me everything to be able to get, like in India, with this one thing, I’ll complain, every time I go and visit my family anywhere in India, they would ask me for my cell phone. So that person would write down my cell phone number in the register. Now, what’s stopping that person from giving that to a sales company? Would you make random calls over to me? As long as I am a validated person, why do you need to have my coordinates? So if I can give that person a token that I am a valid person with a valid identification and you don’t need to know my validation, that should be good enough. So these are some things that a blockchain wave solution, a Web3 diffusion in society will definitely help.
Anil Kakani: The real game changer type, Silvio is the genius, the mathematician, the cryptologist behind it. I come from a policy background, and so for me, the connection between science, technology, and what Staci Warden, the CEO of the foundation, connects to it, which is using technology to make a difference in the lives of real people. So the tagline, ‘Real World Solutions, Global Impact’, comes from Staci to me. Right. And so that’s what attracts me because I’m a policy person. So if I just think about crypto as just a technology and don’t have that connection between technology and the impact, the positive impact on the lives of people, then to me, it doesn’t fit. And so, certainly, Silvio is the genius of technology, combined with Staci’s vision of how we use that technology to make a difference.
