Sergey Gorbunov is the co-founder and CEO of Axelar. Axelar is a decentralized blockchain network built on interoperability. As well as being an assistant professor he was also on the founding team of web 3 giant Algorand. In this ama, we chatted with Sergey about his blockchain network, his background, and the basics of blockchain. Check it out below! slogging This Slogging thread by Abeer, Sergey Gorbunov, Drone Warfare, Giovanni Martorella, Pamela Liang, Aman Shaikh, Felix Changoo, Melissa Schwartz and Ildar Utebaev occurred in slogging's official #amas channel, and has been edited for readability. Abeer Apr 5, 2022, 12:00 PM Hey @channel, please join me in welcoming our next AMA guest, Sergey Gorbunov. Sergey is a co-founder and CEO of Axelar, a decentralized blockchain interoperability network. He received a Ph.D. from MIT, where he was a Microsoft Ph.D. fellow. His Ph.D. dissertation was on designing cryptographic tools for the cloud using lattice-based cryptography, for which he received the Sprowls Doctoral Thesis Award for best thesis in CS at MIT. Sergey is a co-author of many cryptographic protocols, standards and systems. He is an Assistant Professor at the University of Waterloo and was on the founding team of Algorand, where he worked on the core platform design and development and led the cryptography group. Please feel free to ask Sergey anything about: Blockchain infrastructure Blockchain security Cross-chain services (i.e., interoperability between chains) Web 3 technology and its uses Abeer Apr 5, 2022, 12:01 PM Hello Sergey Gorbunov! It’s an honor to have you here! Can you start by telling us a bit about yourself, your background, and Axelar? Sergey Gorbunov Apr 5, 2022, 12:14 PM Hey everyone: Great to be here. Sergey here. I work on distributed systems, cryptography, blockchains, and other related things. Really enjoy solving problems of all shapes and forms. About a year and a half ago, my co-founder, Georgios Vlachos, and I started Axelar to solve the most challenging and important problem for the blockchain ecosystem for the coming years: how to securely connect and enable communication across multiple blockchains. We've been building Axelar ever since. Today, we have ~30 full-time members of the team, raised over $65m in funding, started our main network launch, and will soon deliver interoperability to all of web3. Feel free to ask me anything about Axelar, blockchains, security, web3, [or even academia]. 👋 7 Drone Warfare Apr 5, 2022, 12:28 PM Hi Sergey Gorbunov. You have a very impressive background. I'd like to ask an insightful question but I don't really know much about Blockchain. How would you explain Blockchain to someone completely new to the concept? Sergey Gorbunov Apr 5, 2022, 12:34 PM Drone Warfare The simplest way to think about it is of a distributed database and compute environment with strong security properties. Anyone can read and write transactions or data to it. A decentralized set of node operators executes the transactions and ensures they cannot be erased or repeated [i.e. when you send funds to a merchant, you want to make sure the funds are sent only once]. The "blockchain protocol" ensures these properties. It also can tolerate malicious nodes [up to a certain threshold] and cannot be simply turned off as anyone can participate in the consensus and continue performing the verification functions. So it's a reliable compute and storage environment that can be used to exchange and compute information jointly. Giovanni Martorella Apr 5, 2022, 8:46 PM Hello Sergey Gorbunov what do you see as the benefits of web3 for people's everyday life like how web2 really brought everyone closer together in communication? What new ways can web3 revolutionize the internet? Nice to meet you by the way. Sergey Gorbunov Apr 6, 2022, 1:59 AM I'd say that the main difference is that in web3 you're building on an open environment with global distribution. You can build on a platform that has users, distribution, and financial mechanisms to transact across the globe all on the same platform. 👍 1 Sergey Gorbunov Apr 6, 2022, 2:00 AM Since data and code are open, composability becomes one of the key benefits. Anyone can see all data, and the state of the system and build on top of it, improve, and iterate. 🙌 1 Giovanni Martorella Apr 6, 2022, 2:44 AM Amazing, web3 sounds exciting overall. Another question I have Sergey Gorbunov is what part does blockchain play in Web3 really? 🙂 Pamela Liang Apr 6, 2022, 4:16 AM How does Blockchain compare to other systems and databases when it comes to security? Sergey Gorbunov Apr 6, 2022, 2:34 PM Web3 is powered by blockchains. they serve as permissionless distributed ledgers that help organize and exchange information. Sergey Gorbunov Apr 6, 2022, 2:35 PM Traditional distributed systems and databases do not guarantee transaction or data integrity in the presence of malicious nodes on the networks. Blockchain consensus protocols and systems guarantee that data is safe and unmalleable even in the presence of malicious nodes on the network. Aman Shaikh Apr 6, 2022, 5:45 PM what are your thoughts on the differences between LayerZero and axelar networks? What are the trade-offs for developers choosing to build on either platform? Also, what are your views on allegations by the LayerZero cofounder about dishonesty, what you think? Sergey Gorbunov https://twitter.com/PrimordialAA/status/1511403360838041608?t=D1MlNr2_rnT_bz_fRpFIdQ&s=19 Aman Shaikh Apr 6, 2022, 6:03 PM Please answer sir Sergey Gorbunov Felix Changoo Apr 6, 2022, 8:18 PM Hey Sergey, nice to meet you 👋 ! I'd love to know what a cross-chain service is and what’s a good example of one? Sergey Gorbunov Apr 6, 2022, 9:49 PM Layerzero delegates trust to external oracles and relayers. Right now it's a 2/3 multi-sig setup. Axelar is a decentralized proof of stake interoperability network, similar to cosmos or avalanche. Sergey Gorbunov Apr 6, 2022, 9:51 PM Cross-chain services allow users to use their assets across any blockchain with no friction. For instance, you can transfer or swap your assets across chains with 1 click. Or if you have an NFT on blockchain 1, you can take a loan against it in application on blockchain 2. Felix Changoo Apr 6, 2022, 9:59 PM Thanks, Sergey!! Melissa Schwartz Apr 6, 2022, 10:31 PM Hello Sergey Gorbunov. I'd like to ask you more about Axelar. You said earlier that you started Axelar to securely connect and enable communication across multiple blockchains. How does Axelar attempt to solve this problem and how does it differentiate itself from competitors? Thank you. Aman Shaikh Apr 6, 2022, 11:20 PM LayerZero person made fun of the axelar team member Sergey Gorbunov why is the founder making fun of axelar? what you think sir https://twitter.com/PrimordialAA/status/1511798588208447490?t=5u5KMEOBU7ZrI89Tq3na-A&s=19 Ildar Utebaev Apr 7, 2022, 2:20 AM Hi, Sergey Gorbunov! The DAOs are very popular now, is it planned to create a DAO or partnership/friendship with already created ones in the Axelar ecosystem in the future? Ildar Utebaev Apr 7, 2022, 2:41 AM About the token. Many members of the community often have questions: -  token staking: how will it be implemented? in particular, people are interested in stаking locked tokens on Coinlist? -Will Axelar have its own wallet? -Why was the erc-20 token standard chosen for the sale? Ildar Utebaev Apr 7, 2022, 2:49 AM New blockchains.  We see that Axelar is developing and moving towards its goal. So, what new blockchains will be added to the ecosystem? BSC, Solana...? Ildar Utebaev Apr 7, 2022, 3:01 AM Community. Right now, we know about several grant programs for dAPPs developers and for finding vulnerabilities and bugs. I know that there will be activities and contests in the project's Discord soon. Is there anything else planned? The ambassador's program (besides QCP), for example? Ildar Utebaev Apr 7, 2022, 3:14 AM A question from my 8-year-old son Danis:  I want to become as smart and successful as you. Parents suggest reading a lot and doing math. Does it work? Are there any life hacks for young people like me? Sergey Gorbunov Apr 7, 2022, 1:11 PM Ildar Utebaev great questions. Really enjoy seeing a lot of amazing work coming out from DAOs. We're collaborating with a few and plan to expand our collaborations. Staking is based on standard rules in PoS systems. Users can stake their tokens with validators who participate in the consensus. The users earn the corresponding rewards for helping to secure the network [minus the commission fees taken by the validators]. Keplr, Cosmostation, and Ledger are already supported. We might develop a wallet, but for now, we're working with a lot of already amazing wallets to integrate. Axelar token will be cross-chain from day 1. Meaning you can move it around and participate in different DeFi or staking opportunities across many blockchains. So whether the distribution happens in erc-20 or native format, will not affect what you can do with the token. erc-20s have wider usability in the early days of the network as they're easier to integrate with dapps. But our goal is to have the native support as wide as possible, it just takes a bit longer in practice. We want to connect all blockchains over the coming years, including BSC, Solana, etc. [will reply to remaining questions shortly] 🔥 2 Sergey Gorbunov Apr 7, 2022, 1:46 PM 6. Community. Expect to see more dev grants, community contests, ecosystem grants, etc. We're just getting started. 7. to Danis. Doing a lot of math and programming is great. There are a lot of interesting puzzles, competitions, online contests, and study groups you can participate in. Getting into a habit of exercising regularly and eating healthy is also important. Overall, find what you're good at and enjoy doing, and do it 10x more than others and you'll be great. 🔥 2 Ildar Utebaev Apr 7, 2022, 3:39 PM Thank you very much, Sergey! Wish you good luck and prosperity in the Axelar project! We all will win together! Abeer Apr 7, 2022, 4:58 PM Sergey Gorbunov Thank you for all the insightful answers! It was absolutely fantastic having you here. Before we wrap up this AMA, do you have any final thoughts, closing remarks, or anything you’d like to promote to our readers? Sergey Gorbunov Apr 7, 2022, 7:59 PM Thanks, everyone for the great questions. check out more info at axelar. network, sign-up for discord and let's build x-chain together!

Solana

Avalanche

Cosmos

Algorand

Chain

fees

Funding

Ledgers

Microsoft

Slack

Twitter

Making Influencer Marketing Seamless with Web3 Creator Platform Edge

Taking Auction Houses to the 21st Century With Portion CEO Jason Rosenstein

2021 - HackerNoon Contributor of the Year - VIDEO-GAMES

2021 - HackerNoon Contributor of the Year - GAMING

2021 - HackerNoon Contributor of the Year - MICROSOFT

Nominated for 2022 - HackerNoon Contributor of the Year - Slogging

Nominated for 2022 - HackerNoon Contributor of the Year - Pc Gaming

Nominated for 2022 - HackerNoon Contributor of the Year - Gaming Industry

Nominated for 2022 - HackerNoon Contributor of the Year - Hacking

Too Long; Didn't Read

Download free Tech Leaders Productivity Report!

Explaining the Blockchain with Axelar CEO Sergey Gorbunov

Explaining the Blockchain with Axelar CEO Sergey Gorbunov

About Author

Comments

TOPICS

THIS ARTICLE WAS FEATURED IN

Related Stories

Untitled Story

10 Best GBA Games of All Time Ranked by Sales

(1/100) Crypto Countdown: Golem

A Research Report on the Trader $JOE DeFi Platform

07/03/2018: Biggest Stories in the Cryptosphere

05/02/2018: Biggest Stories in the Cryptosphere

10 Best GBA Games of All Time Ranked by Sales

(1/100) Crypto Countdown: Golem

A Research Report on the Trader $JOE DeFi Platform

07/03/2018: Biggest Stories in the Cryptosphere

05/02/2018: Biggest Stories in the Cryptosphere

Light-Mode

Classic

Newspaper

Dark-Mode

Neon Noir

Minty

HN StartUps