Di partenza ADALfine CEO Kaspars Koskins interview series, one of the most promising companies that is revolutionizing the lending industry by using blockchain technology to disintermediate the traditional middlemen – providing unprecedented access to loans for those ignored by the traditional banking system and providing high yields for investors in a persistently low-interest-rate environment. I hope you are as excited for this conversation as we are so let’s jump in.
Q: Benvenuto Kaspars, sappiamo che sei un gentiluomo impegnato in questi giorni con il lancio pubblico della piattaforma di prestito ADALend e token questo trimestre, ma grazie per aver dedicato del tempo per parlare con noi oggi. Cominciamo da un livello molto alto: puoi darci l'ascensore per ADALend in modo che quelli di noi che sono nuovi alla finanza decentralizzata e alle criptovalute (o Web3 come lo chiamano alla moda in questi giorni!).
Koskin: È un piacere essere qui e sono entusiasta di condividere con il tuo pubblico qualcosa in più su ciò che stiamo costruendo ad ADALend e su come possono partecipare, ma prima vorrei provare a riassumere in parole povere qual è la nostra missione.
Stiamo sviluppando un protocollo di prestito scalabile, affidabile e decentralizzato che ospita gli utenti all'interno di un ambiente autonomo. Fin dal primo giorno, ci siamo impegnati a costruire nativamente sulla blockchain di Cardano, che consentirà alla piattaforma di prestito di aggregare protocolli che supportano modelli di business che danno supporto economico a miliardi di utenti.
ADALend riporterà l'equilibrio di potere tra prestatori e debitori. Consentendo l'utilizzo di risorse digitali come garanzia, l'utilizzo della piattaforma sarà diversificato a vantaggio dell'utente.
Q: Grazie per questo: puoi dire al pubblico qualcosa in più sul motivo per cui hai scelto la blockchain di Cardano quando ci sono già progetti DeFi di successo basati su Ethereum e nuove blockchain come Solala, ad esempio?
Koskin: Certainly, let me begin by explaining that Ethereum is no longer usable by the majority of people on earth due to the high transaction costs. The gas fees on Ethereum have reached hundreds of dollars per transaction over the past year. This would be unacceptable to ordinary people in the western world today but for the millions of unbanked people in the developing countries of Africa and Asia, this renders ETH useless as they need to lend and narrow far smaller amounts. Ethereum has therefore become a layer 2 blockchain for the rich and the newcomers you mention like Solana have problems with centralization and reliability. Cardano is the only truly decentralized blockchain with the required security, speed and low transaction fees required to provide a truly democratic financial solution that can be used by every human on planet earth – and our vision aligns perfectly with the Cardano Charles Hoskins who is passionate about improving financial outcomes for people all over the world, regardless of race, nationality, gender or financial status.
Q: Grazie, quelle sono parole davvero potenti Kaspars, e siamo fortunati ad avere progetti come Cardano e piattaforme come ADALend che possono portare questa visione di inclusione democratica in realtà.
So as well as the mission to do good in the world, many of our readers are executives, professionals and small business owners that are managing their own portfolios and wondering how they can preserve their capital and earn a good yield in this hyperinflationary environment when interest rates are so low. People are seeing their retirement nest egg or children’s college fund declining in real terms due to the frankly crazy macroeconomic environment we find ourselves in today in the US, Europe and many other parts of the developer world. How can these middle-class, hard-working people benefit from ADALend?
Koskin: Well this is the other side of the coin isn’t it. One of my personal inspirations to found ADAlend is that in my home country of Estonia in northern Europe, I was working in the traditional retail lending space and with credit unions savings. I have seen firsthand how people were unable to get a decent interest rate at the banks and were genuinely worried about their future as prices and the cost of living was rising far faster than salaries. The banks’ hands are tied as the interest rates are set by the Federal Reserve in the US and the European Central Bank in the EU. I began exploring Decentralised Finance (DeFi) as a way to earn a yield on my own family’s savings which led me down the rabbit hole and brings us here today.
Our commitment to ADALend lenders is that we will provide a safe secure lending platform where they can stake their hard-earned savings in Cardano (ADA) or the ADAlend token (ADAL) or the form of stable coins like USDT or USDC and earn a market-beating yield on it in the high single-digit or lower double-digit percentages. The ADALend platform is highly liquid without long-term lockups so our lenders will earn interest for the time their savings are “staked” on the platform and can withdraw anytime.
The other side is for borrowers – many small business owners, entrepreneurs and the self-employed can find it hard to borrow money from traditional banks to buy a car, pay a downpayment on a house, invest in their business or fund a dream holiday. At ADALend we don’t do credit checks and we don’t care about salary history. Traditional banks and lenders do not recognize digital assets as collateral. We will provide an over collateralized lending facility to these borrowers where they can stake their digital assets like Bitcoin, Cardano or any other major cryptocurrency and we will lend them US Dollars or Euros against their holdings. This will provide crucial liquidity to a large number of hard-working professionals and self-employed people that were previously ignored by the banks. By the way, this type of over-collateralized lending against access has been used by the top 1% of wealthy people in the world to fund their lifestyles and investments and to optimize tax for decades. ADALend is now bringing these financial solutions to everyone that were once the privilege of the rich.
Q: Questo è davvero un obiettivo nobile – e mi piace vedere che stai aiutando le classi medie come noi e le persone più povere del mondo.
Let’s talk about partnerships, investors and technology. I understand that DeFi and CeFi (centralized finance) is a highly competitive space, especially before your Initial DEX Offering (IDO) in March 2022, but what can you share in that area without all our readers signing an NDA?
Koskin: Assolutamente: hai colpito nel segno, lo spazio sta diventando sempre più competitivo di giorno in giorno da altri nuovi progetti che costruiscono DeFi su altre blockchain e gli incumbent CeFi come BlockFi, quindi dobbiamo essere selettivi su ciò che possiamo rivelare. Tuttavia, oggi posso condividere con voi alcuni spunti di riflessione,
Dal punto di vista tecnologico, sfruttando la blockchain di Cardano, ADALend sarà in grado di attingere al vasto mercato della gestione della liquidità digitale. Creando una tecnologia che consente a chiunque di delegare il proprio denaro digitale e renderlo disponibile per un prestito, ADALend sta aprendo il potenziale per la liquidità basata su blockchain. Puntiamo a essere nativi di Cardano in tutto ciò che facciamo e stiamo costruendo la piattaforma utilizzando Haskell e Plutus e lavorando entro le attuali limitazioni degli Smart Contract su questa blockchain.
Dal lato della partnership, Input-Output Hong Kong (IOHK) ha inserito ADALend nella sua "Essential Cardano List" di progetti che sono considerati parte dell'ecosistema che supporta e fornisce agli utenti Cardano prodotti e servizi. Siamo anche elencati su CardanoCube.io e so che il nostro team di sviluppo aziendale è al lavoro su diverse entusiasmanti partnership che annunceremo a febbraio e che sposteranno davvero l'ago, quindi guarda questo spazio!
In terms of funding, we were delighted to have a highly respected Venture Capital from Moonwhale Ventures as our lead investor and our private sale is almost closed. We are now in a very good position financially and more selective in who we will take funding from, as we don’t want to favor the VCs over retail investors as many projects do. We are reserving a good allocation of ADAL tokens for our community also.
Q: This is excellent news Kasparas – I am hearing all too often that new crypto projects are providing huge allocations to the VCs who then dump on to retail. It looks like you are being far more inclusive at ADALend and giving excellent opportunities for smaller and medium-sized accredited investors to access the private sales that were once the preserve of the VC elite, as an experienced small investor myself I salute you!
Devo dire che dopo le nostre discussioni di oggi sono molto desideroso di essere coinvolto e sono sicuro che lo sia anche il nostro pubblico. Dove possono saperne di più sulla vendita privata, sul lancio pubblico di IDO e su come essere coinvolti?
Koskin: Thank you for the kind words and thank you for the conversation today – I genuinely enjoyed it and sometimes I still have to pinch myself when I realize how far we have come in the past year! Sure, we are in the final stages of the private sale now so if you or your readers would like to apply for an allocation of ADAL tokens you can email [email protected] with the subject line “CEO Interview” and I’ll make sure our private sales team responds to them ASAP. You can find more details at our website ADALend.finance
Q: Thank you for your time Kaspars, and I’ll get back to the building.
Koskin: Il mio piacere, e colgo l'occasione per augurare a te e ai tuoi lettori un anno prospero e proficuo a venire!
