ACCESSING THE GLOBAL MARKETPLACE

Dr Yana Leonova, Founder member of London Blockchain Foundation meets with Dr Irina Heaver to discuss how Blockchain can give the most vulnerable entry to a global marketplace.

YOU’RE ACTIVE IN THE BLOCKCHAIN SPACE. TELL US MORE ABOUT THE PROJECTS YOU’RE CURRENTLY WORKING ON THAT ARE UTILISING BLOCKCHAIN IN THE REAL WORLD ECONOMY.

I am focussing on the economics of agriculture, I’m a strong believer in technology, tech that actually benefits people and brings real value. The world is developing so rapidly, everything is so digitised, especially in the developed world, but also in developing countries.

If you look at statistics from the United Nations you will see around 1.7 billion people don’t have a digital identity, they don’t have access to banks - they don’t really exist. But on the other hand, they have mobiles, they have social networks. They have access to this global community even though they aren’t recognised by this community.

I saw how the proper understanding and application of Blockchain can actually benefit people, and create trust and transparency. it’s sold. You can see that in a traditional economy the Haitian farmer - who has a very basic income - is making only 2% of the value of the price that this mango is sold for - and the other 98% just disappears. Proper implementation of Blockchain can help eliminate the middleman and bring access to the global marketplace for the most vulnerable in our society, give them a digital identity and lead them to funding.

Recently I was involved in a project in Haiti. And the Haiti government, together with the World Bank set up a Blockchain for small farms and you can now trace products from seed-to-sale.

It’s not only about profit but helping to solve social issues, reach people, educate people and gather peoplegiving them a feeling of community - of being international people in the world.

THERE’S A LOT OF INNOVATION COMING FROM THE BLOCKCHAIN SPACE - WHAT ARE YOU INVESTING IN?

Take the mango, which is gathered by Haitian farmers, you can trace its lifecycle all the way to Walmart where

I’m risk averse, and all this trading is very much speculative for me. I believe in digital assets in general and I think it’s a very predictable stageeverything is going digital now. I am not going into cryptocurrencies myself, but for digital assets like security tokens, yes I am. Currently for me Bitcoin is very speculative. I don’t see an asset link behind it, just hopes and predictionsbut it’s not really backed by anything valuable in my opinion.

DR. MARWAN ALZAROUNI, CEO OF THE DUBAI BLOCKCHAIN CENTRE, AND MEMBER OF THE GLOBAL FUTURE COUNCIL ON CRYPTOCURRENCIES AT THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM, SITS DOWN WITH DR IRINA HEAVER FOR AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW.

YOU ARE QUITE AN ACTIVE MEMBER OF OUR CRYPTO AND BLOCKCHAIN COMMUNITY IN THE UAE - TELL US WHAT’S KEEPING YOU BUSY AT THE MOMENT.

We do a lot of stuff here in the UAE and also internationally. I am a member of the Global Future Council on Cryptocurrencies - which is part of the World Economic Forum. We try to shape the crypto space to make it more everyday for the normal person and for the regulators.

When it comes to the Dubai focusI’m part of the Dubai Future Council on Blockchain - I play a different role there, which is centred more around regulation. I also head the Dubai crypto task force. We look at the laws issued and give them feedback, as well as organise studies around tokenisation and crypto in general - bridging the gap between the regulators and the businesses that move to the UAE.

WHAT IS THE MOST INNOVATIVE THING COMING OUT FROM THE DUBAI REGULATORS RIGHT NOW - WHAT ARE YOU MOST EXCITED ABOUT?

Right now we’re in this foundation phase, which means allowing the technology to actually be regulated - not harshly but within a wireframe kind of structure. That will allow future regulators to come in and regulate things like transactions on the Blockchain, smart contracts, tokenization and NFTs and other tech. We need to have some kind of framework, especially when it comes to things like KYC and AML. We need to have some kind of protection mechanism, to protect not only the companies that are going to be based out of the UAE but also the consumer as well.

WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO MOVE INTO THE BITCOIN SPACE?

For me it was through law enforcement. Back in 2012 I worked for the Dubai police as a forensic investigator and during one of the conferences I saw a presentation on how Bitcoin was used on the Silk Road and I thought to myself - this is traceable and I think Bitcoin can be traced, because it’s the concept of knowing your transactions - and that’s when I really dug deep. I realised this is not only used for listing activities but can also be used as both the medium of exchange and a store of value. It’s amazing, we’ve never seen this in the history of mankind before.

TALKING ABOUT BITCOIN BEING A REALLY GOOD ASSET AND A REALLY GOOD STORE OF VALUE. WE SEE COMPANIES LIKE TESLA WHO ARE PUTTING 1.5 BILLION OF THEIR TREASURY INTO BITCOIN - DO YOU SEE GOVERNMENTS PUTTING THEIR TREASURY INTO BITCOIN ANY TIME SOON?

This will eventually become a normal, everyday thing. Usually the first to jump in are all the people who will recognise any kind of new technology, often criminals who try and take advantage of it. Then the private sector and eventually the government.

The likes of Tesla and Microstrategy have already put them in their treasury and so I think it’s only a matter of time for us to see the government moving into this space.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST EXCITED ABOUT RIGHT NOW? ARE YOU DOING ANY WORK IN DEFI OR NFT PROJECTS?

I’m very much into NFTs right now and before that DeFi - but this is only 2 aspects of how revolutionary this tech is. We’re still very early in this space, there are many more things that will come in. Once we overcome the scalability issues and other minor things, we are going to see a huge boom in this space, with new players coming in, new ideas - not just from us but from the younger generation.

Micropayments is an amazing space. I think we are underusing it right now. Everyone is paying subscriptions and this subscription economy is not sustainable. It makes sense to create some kind of economic model where you pay for your content graduallyeven for browsing the internet..these kind of micropayment projects will eventually become the norm in the future.

WHAT MAKES DUBAI A GREAT PLACE TO LIVE, WORK, AND PLAY?

It’s all about the people that live here and the culture we create here. With Bitcoin you will not really understand it unless you try it - it’s the same thing with Dubai - you will never appreciate it until you come here. When it comes to setting up a business it’s really important to choose the right jurisdiction, and I think for crypto the most friendly right now is the DMCC. Start very agile, start very small - but start in the right jurisdiction.