Ishan Pandey: Hi Matthijs, welcome to our series “Behind the Startup.” Please tell us about yourself and the story behind AllianceBlock?
Matthijs de Vries: Hey, I’m Matthijs De Vries, Co-founder and CTO of AllianceBlock. I’m an avid techno lover and a data & coding enthusiast. Since our inception in 2018, AllianceBlock has been committed to the vision of creating a platform that is capable of protecting both builders and community members from scams or fraudulent behaviour. As early proponents of the values and philosophy of decentralized technologies, Rachid, myself, and Amber jointly envisioned a fair, transparent, inclusive, and participative system of fund-raising, incubating startups & having an engaged and strong community.
Going back to our inception in 2018, Rachid and I decided to meet halfway between where we both lived (the Netherlands and France) so we chose Belgium. We originally met in a Telegram group, had similar ideas and decided it was time to see if we could turn our ideas into a reality. We spoke at length about the issues plaguing the crypto sector and wrote down our ideas on a napkin. The core values mentioned earlier, fair, transparent, inclusive and participatory, remain true to AllianceBlock’s ‘No Mercy’ values today. The only difference between then and now is the vastness of our offering and the growth of our product ecosystem. We couldn’t have envisioned this growth back then while writing ideas on napkins.
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Ishan Pandey: Please tell us a little bit about AllianceBlock and how the platform plans to establish a fair, transparent, participative, and inclusive ecosystem.
Matthijs de Vries: We believe everyone, regardless of their wealth, status or education, should have an equal chance to participate in the (democratized) opportunities that decentralized finance brings. However, participants must be able to do so in a way that doesn’t promote irresponsible or unsustainable practices. Since AllianceBlock’s inception, we’ve always operated with transparency, fairness, sustainability and inclusiveness in mind. Our interoperable suite of DeFi tools works together to ease the operational burdens on busy founders. From launching a fund-raising round to helping setup liquidity and staking solutions on our DeFi Terminal and DEX, to bridging tokens between different chains. Community members, projects and builders can free up time and resources to focus on growing their core business.
Through our revolutionary peer-to-peer funding platform “Fundrs”, we’re bringing to life our focus on fairness and inclusion - anyone can leverage and utilize the Fundrs platform to gain access to pre and private funding rounds. Not only VCs or wealthy individuals, but the platform is also completely transparent, enabling anyone to view, review, analyze, comment, participate and contribute to a project they believe in. Contribution doesn’t only have to be through providing capital, you can also provide expertise or guidance for projects, earning rALBT, which is a representation of reputation in our ecosystem. Sustainability was a core focus when we first met in 2018 and the ICO boom was a key reason for this.
Through the implementation of a Fundrs DAO and milestone-based financing, we ensure projects coming on board are sustainable and reputable for the long term. Lastly, inclusiveness is at the heart of the platform, whether you have or stake ALBT (to earn rALBT), or provide skills, knowledge and expertise: anyone can participate and feel included inside our ecosystem.
Ishan Pandey: Do you think by employing blockchain technology, platforms will be able to enhance monitoring and bad loan recovery in addition to transaction facilitation and can also support much-needed financial inclusion in P2P lending?
Matthijs de Vries: Yes, inherent in blockchain technology are transparency, lower costs, improved security and speed & efficiency improvements. This can only be a positive for financial institutions. Costs can often impact monitoring; the higher the costs, the less oversight. Reducing the cost to monitor increases the chance that negative patterns and behaviours can be identified, ensuring a higher chance of picking up bad loan behaviour and aiding in recovery. Additionally, security is a core aspect of blockchain technology. Information is stored immutably and executed using immutable programmed rules through smart contracts, making it hard for hackers to steal or hack. This improved security is vital for transaction monitoring.
Financial institutions’ key focus is security and blockchain technology is an upgrade on old and outdated core banking systems. Obviously, no technology is safe from hacking or fraudulent activity but the risk is reduced. With audited contracts following best practices, risks are drastically reduced without inducing the typically huge recurring operational costs that are normally needed to secure infrastructure.
Having control over your own wallet and being able to have a low barrier to accessing decentralized financial products are inherent properties of blockchain technology, and are, therefore, fundamental for contributing to financial inclusion.
Ishan Pandey: Can you please explain the concept of peer-to-peer funding and how platforms allow for safe and efficient financial access without requiring users to engage with the more complicated and expensive bank processes?
Matthijs de Vries: Peer to Peer funding is transferring funds to projects/companies or individuals from one person to another, matching lenders with borrowers and funders with seekers. Instead of the intermediary being centralized, funding and financing flow more freely between people. So in our case for the Fundrs platform; projects can apply to be listed, go through the vetting process to ensure the project is sustainable, provide the relevant information, i.e., development timelines, whitepaper, tokenomics etc and then list so the community can understand the project in detail. Then, the official TGE enables the participation of the community in the pre-fundraising rounds. Peer to Peer funding removes the necessity for centralized entities, whether that’s VCs, bank loans or private investors, and opens up financing to individuals, creating a fairer and more inclusive way to fund and be funded.
The old adage that over 50% of startups fail remains true in our industry. Within crypto, it’s often because of an abundance of funding at the start that causes founders to lose focus and mismanage their funds. AllianceBlock overcomes this with milestone-based financing. Projects seeking capital only get the funding they need to complete the next milestone. The community has a vote in whether the milestone has been reached or not.
What’s more, participation in Fundrs is based on a reputation that can be earned by adding value to the ecosystem. This is a fair mechanism that allows equal opportunity for everyone. No need to have a lot of funds, a high education or come from a good background: if you can prove to add value, you earn a reputation and can grow in the ecosystem.
Bank processes’ are inherently complex and time-consuming. Utilizing old technology that relies on core banking systems creates complexity, whilst banks’ absolute focus on safety compromises the customer experience. Blockchain doesn’t suffer from legacy systems & to gain a competitive advantage in the space, customer experience has continued to be a core focus. Allowing for safe and efficient financial access is an evolving and ever-changing process in blockchain. Through KYC checks in combination with trustless identity verification, users can safely, compliantly and efficiently gain access to platforms or liquidity pools without compromising on the values of decentralization.
Ishan Pandey: How can the blockchain ecosystem replicate the user experience of a traditional centralized exchange while maintaining decentralization and transparency?
Matthijs de Vries: It depends on what we mean when we say user experience. For the most part, there are fundamental differences between the way that centralized and decentralized exchanges operate. Centralized exchanges typically use order books where the trader can see all the bids and asks and market makers facilitate trading by providing liquidity to the market. Decentralized exchanges use automated market maker smart contracts, which is an inherently different user experience because it’s designed to settle trades automatically without the need for a counterparty.
So ultimately, replicating the user experience isn’t necessarily the goal. Still, at AllianceBlock, we want to make using a DEX as attractive as using a centralized exchange by removing barriers to liquidity and adoption. This means reducing the risk of impermanent loss to make it more appealing for liquidity providers through innovations like single-sided liquidity provisioning, enabling anyone to provide liquidity in a single token. Furthermore, as user experience in DeFi still has a lot of room to grow, we put much effort into continuously improving UX in our UI instead of shamelessly copying what others are doing. The lower the barrier to participation, the closer we come to adoption.
Similarly, innovations like compliant pools where participants have to be KYC-checked will create a more favourable environment for institutions. All of these developments preserve decentralization and transparency while making DeFi more attractive.
Ishan Pandey: By 2025, blockchain technology is expected to be worth $40 billion, as it has grown from an expansive mechanism for securely storing crypto operations to a potential substitute for traditional finance. What are your thoughts on the emergence of blockchain?
Matthijs de Vries: Well, as the Co-Founder of a blockchain project, I’m unashamedly biased in my views on the emergence of blockchain being a good thing! And I absolutely believe that it has the potential, if not to substitute traditional financial vehicles, to serve the centralized and decentralized financial spheres as an infrastructural technology that can enable instant settlement between peers without using intermediaries. This just hasn’t been possible in the traditional finance system to date. I know many that were frightened by traditional financial products and felt too overwhelmed to jump in. When they got introduced to crypto, although initially confused by its complexity, they felt they had power over their success and felt included and embraced by the community.
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