Nanjunda is a value chain catalyst with actionable insights into disruptive innovation and value creation. Pioneering initiatives like Waste Impact, Pivot Labs, and House of Genius speak volumes about his sterling conviction and stellar commitment towards serving the larger cause of the community. Unassuming to the core, keen to join any cause-driven conversation for the sheer pleasure it brings, and free of the baggage of claims and counterclaims, he belongs to a rare breed of thought leaders who neither forget nor overlook the fact that thought leadership thrives on the fuel of thoughts, not the funnel of followers.
Before we move to the Q & A with Nanjunda, here is a synopsis to put the subject matter in perspective:
Ginni Rometty, charismatic leader and innovator, and co-founder of OneTen and former CEO of IBM, has scripted one of the best odes to the transformative power and potential of the blockchain technology.
“Anything that can conceive of as a supply chain, blockchain can vastly improve its efficiency- it doesn’t matter if it's people, numbers, data, money.”
The formative span of this phenomenal paradigm can be traced to the year 1991, when the dynamic scientist duo of Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta developed a computational solution for making time-stamped digital documents tamper-proof using a cryptographically secured chain of blocks. Following a brief lull caused by the lapse of the 1979 Ralph Merkel patent of the hash tree concept popularly known as Merkle tree, the blockchain waves roared again in 2004, when noted crypto activist Hal Finney introduced the seminal Reusable Proof Of Work (RPoW) prototype that resolved the sticky double-spend problem of tokens. And finally in 2008, the unknown commander (or commanders) of the Jungle patrol, the Phantom popularly known as Satoshi Nakamoto, an epic character befitting a Quentin Tarantino thriller, brought life and fame for distributed blockchains. And the rest was a lot of history, along with some geography and a bit of civics, in the course of the exasperating evolution of blockchains.
More often than not, the murmured laypeople conversations around blockchain, one finds, are often partial functions of the vociferous debates around cryptocurrency, so much so that many consider Blockchain synonymous with Crypto. Your thoughts.
In my opinion, it is only natural to associate Blockchain with Cryptocurrency. We often forget that it is Bitcoin which gave birth to the Blockchain.
It is like Osho's quote; “The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never."
There was DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology) but not Blockchain. Having said that, Cryptocurrencies are the applications of Blockchain, which is what the community currently can see and perceive. There are many more business applications which are not known to the public at large, and hence the perception of the synonym. Till recently, the applications were also limited and with the evolution in Blockchain technology the perspective is bound to change as the applications will be across sectors and with the adoption of Blockchain for CBDC by over 100 Governments across the globe, the perspective is clearly changing and lately has even become the buzzword, as the "future job". We just have to make sure that we bring more relevant use cases to the fore as even Metaverse, though touted as a use case for Blockchain, in its current limited possibilities, does not necessarily be built on blockchain. In the same breath I would like to specify that the potential of Metaverse in the context of Blockchain is HUGE and perhaps a little distance away.
Further to question one above, could you share a primer for the benefit of our readers how blockchain can help various sectors like BFSI, Energy, Real estate, Media, Health and the like?
One can answer this question in a couple of ways, one, by taking up each sector, and two, by talking about the possibilities of solutions using Blockchain. I will try the other approach; which is to quote a few core aspects of Blockchain and then see how it could help solve problems across the sectors you mention.
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT)
This will enable faster processing and scale of operations while not having to expand centralised infrastructure in BFSI, Energy, Media, Health and others such as Public administration, Mobility, education.
Immutability
Immutability is like a magic pill that has the power to solve a host of problems in BFSI, Real estate, Media, Health and others like Public administration, mobility, education, by enabling transparency, reducing risk, improving (compliance) enforcements and the like.
Identity Management
With the increased adoption of the Digital economy across sectors, it is becoming far more critical to manage user identity safely, securely and effectively. Blockchain enables far superior business operations across sectors and spheres.
Tokenization
One of the biggest traits of Tokenisation is its sheer ability to facilitate businesses to engage and ensure effective value sharing among all (not notional) stakeholders. This can protect the small borrowers in BFSI, while ensuring transparency among the large borrowers without impacting the weaker business pulling down the stronger business given the fact that tokenization is a culmination of all the core features of blockchain. There are other palpable benefits in Energy management, Media & entertainment monetisation and rights management, real estate asset management, Health infrastructure management and administration, equitable distribution of essential services, smarter mobility infrastructure, ecosystem development, creating new models of education infrastructure, and enabling a dynamic learning ecosystem to keep pace with a fast-evolving world.
Could you share a snapshot of information on the essence and evolution of Nija Venture Impacts?
While I was evangelising and consulting on designing and adopting Distributed economy models for businesses across sectors, amid the Blockchain technology evolution and the advent of web 3, I could see an effective way to monetise a distributed economy model. I began with advocacy, then moved to consulting, and now we are building products and solutions that will make it easy for startup or a large enterprise to adopt Web 3.0. To fast track the adoption of blockchain technology skills, we also incepted Future Start, a learning platform offering Blockchain training programs from a practitioner's perspective that we deliver through colleges at very affordable prices.
How would you put tokenization in perspective? How does one address the key challenges surrounding it, especially those impacting fraud preventions strategies? How far are we from a fool-proof solution?
Tokenization is not a new concept. The world has been using it for a long time. Libya under Gaddafi had tokenized Petrol dollars and was distributing the earnings post nationalisation with all its citizens. Even today, many of the western nations have a social security system, which is a form of tokenizing national wealth to facilitate key components that the state treats as essential to its citizens.
In India, there are many schemes targeted at the poor in terms of distribution of food, pension, lending for small businesses and women and such. All these can be delivered or administered far more effectively through Tokenization. The concept is partially employed in businesses in the form of ESOPs but it is limited to employees alone. Tokenization can help extend it to all stakeholders such as contractors, suppliers, collaborators as well.
Your question on fraud prevention is most important. It is imperative that we have clear ground rules which are scrupulously followed. Fraud happens because of human greed and an effective governance framework and strict adherence is the only way to ensure such things don't repeat.
In the context of Blockchain, I would like to bring attention to the pivotal function of Governance, which is a fundamental building block for building a Distributed economy model venture in the Blockchain realm whether DAO (Distributed Autonomous Organisation) or DAC (Distributed Autonomous Corporation) Unlike a traditional organization, a Blockchain based business in the Web 3 (I do hope that we will see more traditional and web 2.0 businesses migrate to web 3.0) enables all stakeholders to have a say on the Governance towards ensuring compliance. Precisely why the fall of FTX (bankrupt Cryptocurrency exchange in USA) triggered an widespread argument in favour of going decentralised, as FTX was a centralised exchange compliant with US SEC laws.
Talent cultivation and management seems to be a formidable challenge in Blockchain – how does one attack this problem?
It is true that there is a serious short supply of talent in Blockchain technologies, but given that it is an evolving field, most of our educational institutions are still operating legacy systems, which can’t change overnight. With the new Education policy in place, many institutions are quickly adopting, a few have no option but to adopt, and some are being compelled to adopt. Consequently, much churn and disruption is underway. Many Blockchain technology companies are offering training programs and building their own communities. There are loads of training materials online. Like I mentioned above, we are even offering many courses through colleges at affordable prices and we will continue to launch more programs. There are many such efforts coming up every day. We just have to go on skilling more people and perhaps also re-skill those who are in mundane jobs, as in today's times it does not matter what certificate you hold or experience you carry, as long as you possess the right skill.
To attack this problem effectively, we will have to develop new programs either at bachelor or even MBA programs offering tailored programs like Blockchain business analyst, Tokenization, Tokenomics, and they can be made sector-specific to facilitate faster and effective resource enablement in respective organisations.
Why, in your reckoning, are most people in the blockchain space focused on the ‘decentralization’ paradigm instead of ‘distributed’ which you have rightly stressed as integral to blockchain? Is there a legacy hangover which prevents the majority to look beyond decentralization or is it about the suitability of a particular network architecture in line with specific needs or does the problem lie elsewhere?
You said it, it is indeed the legacy hangover, Bitcoin makers chose DLT for its ability to enable decentralisation. Also, if you remember the white paper, the core of Bitcoin was decentralisation from an aspect of Proof of Work and consensus mechanism, the Technology has evolved to ensure we use minimal energy, and there are already technologies who have gone carbon neutral for some time now like, Solana, Cardano, Algorand, Avalanche and few more.
Also, the possibilities of Blockchain beyond 'Decentralisation' are the primary drivers of government adoptions in CBDC. Understandably, a very small number of countries are opting for cryptocurrency or decentralised framework for administration. I see this as a short run in the mainstream, and I do believe the decentralised players will always be there in the fringe.
In your opinion, how would the DLT variants like Hashgraph, DAG, Holochain and the like fare in the time to come? Could there be a market for each of these besides blockchain?
Well, this is a great question.
I think Hashgraph has a great future, particularly since they made it opensource in 2022. It is not fair to use Hedera’s scale to measure the other Blockchain companies for now, as they have attracted a very different community of users and developers, where in majority essentially got into mining and creating wealth for themselves. Hashgraph, driven by Hedera, is seeking to address enterprise needs, and among the blockchain tech players, one significant player who can credibly compete with them could be Hyper Ledger. Also, they have been consistently supporting multi chain protocols too.
DAG saw some traction from few leading crypto currencies’ collaboration particularly to enable large transactions at lowest or near-zero transaction fee, but the very thing is self limiting and forces it to be centralised.
Holochain, when I first read about it, I was thrilled with their concepts. I even admire their approach to business. They are an open-source project and deploy their own business funds to further Holochain’s cause.
Most of these players are not as aggressive about building their communities globally but I think, we will see few more such players as Blockchain as a technology is still evolving and these kind of players will further help the evolution of DLT from solving much bigger problems. To answer, in one line, yes I see the future for each of them.
Clearly they are catering to different use cases, and overall I do believe that we are in the very early days from adoption standpoint. They are bringing the advantages of DLT and some of them may even get identified as Blockchain although fundamentally their consensus mechanism is different. It is important to note that even Ethereum has moved from Proof of work to Proof of stake, and we will only see everyone trying to get better. With all these transformations, we will only benefit.
You have very astutely highlighted the need to building private chains for achieving enterprise and large scale adoption. Could you elaborate on this aspect for the uninitiated?
Well, if you see most of the currently piloting CBDC projects are all built on private chains, barring few exceptions. What is important to note is that large countries and significant economic powers are clearly going for Private chains. It is natural that large enterprises will find it hard to trust Public Blockchains as the governance is not in their control, and if they are listed and which is the case with most large enterprises, it becomes difficult to justify the move to employ Public chain where governance is not in their control. Technology is key and so is security but in the case of adoption of Blockchain technologies, Governance is one of the most crucial aspects and this is where the decision will naturally be leaning in favour of Private Chains. Hence, my argument.
Jack Dorsey’s proclamation about Web 5 seems to have unfairly taken the focus away from the yet evolving Web 3 and Web 4. Your thoughts.
For those who look at Web 3, Web 4, and Web 5 in an evolutionary manner may find Jack Dorsey's claim or proclamation to be misleading or unfair or triggering confusion in an already confused world which is largely sitting on the fence in the changeover towards newer technologies. There's already lot of criticism he's attracting, but even going by what he's saying, I think that problem is still not solved (Arguments of Internet Computer aside) and while we still need to see if and how he will solve it, resolving the issue is an acute need. We live in an era where things don't necessarily happen linearly, Rather, I believe they happen exponentially. And the technology evolution that was foretold for each the web 3, 4 and 5 are all coming together in unison, I believe. With the 5 G roll out happening and the consequent technology evolution, many of these transitions are being fast tracked. The world took significant time transitioning from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. Now as we speak, web 2 and web 3 are still intertwined, and some of the aspects attributed to web 4 are already in vogue in a small way. Perhaps, we will see an overlapping of web 2, 3 & 4. And now he comes up with the idea of web 5. Not sure if it helps.
Will initiatives like SolarCoin and Harmony make a difference in terms of more sustainable blockchain implementations? Will they pick up in a big way in the time to come?
Solarcoin was one of those early well-intentioned projects but today perhaps they have the lowest returns for the coin holders since their launch. I do believe tokenisation will drive lot of such projects in future and will mean far better monetisation as well. One needs effective tokenomics with a good intention to monetise. Harmony is more of a blockchain platform and they seem to doing some interesting things. As much as I like the approach they are taking, we will have to see how they will make them relevant given the burgeoning competition. I am not sure about SolarCoin, but Harmony can pick up. Will they? Tough to answer at this point of time.