FOLLOW THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD

Yellow is an ecosystem of Blockchain products and services for Web3 Internet of Finance. The Yellow Network promises a new generation of Financial Information Exchange Networks, aggregating order books of all participants, and globally scaled by the state channel technology. BLOCK sat down with their CEO, Louis Bellet.

Tell us a bit about yourself and your passion for innovation. How did your personal journey start?

From the moment I first touched a keyboard I knew I’d found my life’s passion in information technology. I love coding and hacking, mainly focusing on cybersecurity. I’m also a serial web entrepreneur with over 20 startups under my belt. When the time came for Web1 to scale to Web2 elastic cloud, I went hardcore on Big Data and Cloud infrastructure, pioneering cloud adoption for EU retail banks and companies. I want my professional legacy to live on in the hundreds of apprentice developers I mentor in Yellow, Openware, and our free Hackademy. I teach the younger generation of Blockchain developers to think outside of the box and code smart.

How did you get into the blockchain industry - what inspired you to shift your focus to it full time?

Since Napster, my greatest passion has always been Peer-2-Peer tech and connecting people. Needless to say, when the Blockchain technology and Bitcoin were released, I dedicated a lot of time to research and tinker with it. I believe we’re on the verge of a financial revolution, and just like Cloud infrastructure had to scale to keep up with ever-increasing Internet usage, so will the modern Fintech infrastructure.

The crypto exchange market is quite crowded. How did Yellow manage to stand out from its competitors?

Yellow doesn’t compete – we connect. Blockchain is about interconnections and a vibrant ecosystem that allows people to enjoy seamless transactions from dApp to dApp working together. Almost every Blockchain project can find a traction point to connect and work together. We’ve already established strategic partnerships with many top-tier projects in the crypto space.

I BELIEVE WE’RE ON THE VERGE OF A FINANCIAL REVOLUTION, AND JUST LIKE CLOUD INFRASTRUCTURE HAD TO SCALE TO KEEP UP WITH EVER-INCREASING INTERNET USAGE, SO WILL THE MODERN FINTECH INFRASTRUCTURE.

Despite growing tremendously in scale over the last couple of years, DeFi has yet to achieve the stability reached by traditional financial institutions. What’s holding the financial revolution back?

Crypto finance lacks traditional finance's trusted infrastructure and maturity to protect retail investors. Blockchain tech and DeFi are not there yet. Traditional finance has scaled just fine without any Blockchain technology. State channel’s tech can tap into billions of transactions per day, better than any Layer-1 or DeFi, and we can scale Blockchain solutions to where modern Finance needs them. Still, we should learn from traditional Finance how to scale responsibly. We can scale through a new generation crypto-clearing-house. Imagine a multilayer accounting system on Blockchain with collateral like banks trade, and they have liabilities to each other.

Look at the traditional finance ecosystem – just in the US, FINRA oversees more than 624,000 brokers. The combined market cap of top-20 stock exchange operators is over $115.7 Trillion. There’s a clear separation of responsibilities between custodian banks, brokers, and exchanges, enabling investor protection. The legal framework is defined and in place.

Now let’s take a look at crypto finance as we have it – brokers do not really exist in crypto, although about 400 small exchanges are functioning as ones. People randomly trust their funds to unlicensed crypto traders.

The combined crypto market cap is barely above $1.5 Trillion. Of course, even though the exchanges claim to be “regulated,” nobody actually licenses them. There is no separation of responsibilities – modern crypto exchanges act as an all-in-one unlicensed bank, broker, and exchange with no possible auditability and accountability. To ensure the crypto revolution happens, we must learn from traditional finance and define the trusted crypto infrastructure that protects the investors. Tell us more about the Yellow Network project.

Yellow builds the Web3 generation network for global remittance and liquidity sharing based on cutting-edge scaling state channel technology called the Yellow Network. It’s a significant undertaking, but together with our remarkable technology partners, we will power it through and make Crypto and Blockchain tech helpful to people globally. In the end, when the new trusted crypto infrastructure is in place, it shouldn’t matter to retail customers that it was crypto under the hood that made it possible.

Yellow.com will be one of the peers of the Yellow Network - what are the benefits of having a decentralized exchange portal?

Yellow.com will be an example of a Yellow Crypto Franchise business and showcase the potential income model so that crypto brokers can see the benefits of participating in the Yellow Network.

Last but not least – can you recommend any cool new projects we should keep an eye on?

I think the potential of state channel technology initiated by StateChannels.org is very underrated and the most promising Fintech scaling strategy out there.

IN THE END, WHEN THE NEW TRUSTED CRYPTO INFRASTRUCTURE IS IN PLACE, IT SHOULDN’T MATTER TO RETAIL CUSTOMERS THAT IT WAS CRYPTO UNDER THE HOOD THAT MADE IT POSSIBLE.

WHAT WE ARE PROPOSING HAS NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE AND IS A GUTSY SHIFT IN HOW BLOCKCHAIN NETWORKS, STORAGE AND CLOUD SERVICES WORK.