Vasily Sumanov, 2020 Noonie Nominee, is a Crypto Enthusiast and Material Sciences Academic

Vasily Sumanov from Russia has been nominated for a 2020 Noonie in the Future Heroes category. The Noonies are Hacker Noon’s way of getting to know — from a community perspective —  what matters in tech today. So, we asked our Noonie Nominees to tell us.

Vasily is a crypto enthusiast and material sciences academic with publications about high-capacity Li-on batteries under his belt. Here’s what he had to share.

1. Which 2020 Noonie have you been nominated for?

Security Advocate of the Year

2. Tell us a bit about yourself.

I am a computer science/blockchain researcher with an academic background in materials science (it is an emerging discipline on the intersection of chemistry, physics, and mathematics). I made a lot of stuff devoted to novel high-capacity Li-ion batteries in the past (published 4 academic articles and one patent).

Since 2013 I am a crypto enthusiast and since 2017 working full-time in the blockchain industry as a researcher and token engineer. I postponed my Ph.D. defense for this reason (it will be finally defended on 25 Sep 2020, and is devoted to the modeling of intercalation processes in inorganic 3D structures).

For the last three years, I actively worked in the blockchain space in employee and advisor positions, including a year in Akropolis.io (Defi project). Also, I contributed to several media, including hackernoon.com and have been approached for expert comments for cointelegraph.com. I achieved good results in token engineering - I found a serious vulnerability in the design of bZx Protocol and won a second-place on the first token engineering hackathon ever (Diffusion 2019, Berlin, hosted by Outlier Ventures).

Since late 2019 I have been working as a Head of Research in Cellframe, a blockchain network aimed at providing infrastructure for the future of the Internet. It is developed in plain C with Assembler optimizations and is very resource-efficient. The "killer feature" is that Cellframe's contracts (we call them as "blockchain services") can directly operate with computer memory, CPU, HDD, Internet channel, and other resources.

It provides an ability to launch decentralized web services such as VPN, CDN, Cloud storage, video streaming, and many more without crutches (for example, in blockchains like Ethereum you cannot do it in the same way). Also, this protocol is secured by post-quantum encryption and some other modern tools. Our project is in testnet phase and we launched Kelvpn.com - an open-source decentralized VPN. Now, kelvpn.com is used by 3,000 users worldwide.

Besides my work in Cellframe, I am an active contributor to the token engineering community being a member of the Review Group. This group is established to provide assessment standards and review economic models of blockchain projects and dApps. Also, I have a small website - technomads.wtf, which is devoted to web3 and lifestyle of digital nomads.

3. Tell us about the things you make / write / manage / build.

I am working as Head of Research in Cellframe (cellframe.net) - a protocol for launching decentralized web services based on blockchain/DAGs secured by post-quantum encryption. Recently, we launched free decentralized VPN and now have 3000 active users on board.

Besides this, I am involved in tokenengineering.net as a member of Review Group and make some economic research/mathematical modeling devoted to digital assets (system design, economic models, valuation possible attacks, etc).

Also I have my own website technomads.wtf, where I and my friend publish some stuff about web3/digital nomad lifestyle (we have narrow user base, but our articles were retweeted by Parity and some other top-grade projects in web3).

4. What are you most excited about right now?

I am excited that people all over the world can be involved in all modern tech and tendencies just using a computer. Even if you are from very poor country, you have a chance.

5. What are you worried about right now?

I am worried about the fact that current economic system is dying. It looks like we will have "dark years" in the near future - declassing of a lot of people (middle class), high inflation of fiat currencies, government defaults, a lot of people losing their jobs and all of this will result in a mixture of cyberpunk and small places with high-end civilization. So, it will be really not easy for humanity to survive it in good shape without a lot of criminals, deaths, extreme political regimes in certain countries, etc.

6. What's the most useful advice you've ever given somebody?

Never invest in the project if you don't understand how it really works (especially mining of cryptocurrencies and ICOs)

7. How has the pandemic changed your life and/or career?

It didn't change my career, but it provided me with a lot of opportunities and made me more productive and consistent in my work and writing

8. If we gave you $10 million to invest in one thing right now, where would you put it?

Network for decentralized web services for everyday usage

9. What's an opinion you have that most people don't agree with?

Majority of Governance and Payment tokens have almost zero value from economic point of view.

10. Which apps can't you live without?

Telegram, Discord, Google 2FA, Zoom, Metamask and Spatium (crypto wallets)

11. What are you currently learning?

Currently I am diving deeply into Python and cadCad tool for modeling complex systems.

For much the same reasons Hacker Noon decided not to put good ideas behind pop-ups or paywalls — nor abuse your personal data to target you with creepy ads — we also decided that you don’t have to be an influencer or have 50k followers on Twitter to earn the recognition that comes with a 2020 Noonie Nomination. 

Make somebody’s day and nominate them to be recognized in the Internet’s most independent and community-driven awards: NOONIES.TECH.

Most importantly, don't forget to vote for Vasily: Security Advocate of the Year.