Sasha Ivanov, CEO of Vostok interview with Matt Bird at World Economic Forum (DAVOS)

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Developing blockchain based cryptocurrency platform to adapt for enterprise usage
  • Enterprise-sector has most to gain from blockchain technology
  • Launched a successful open blockchain platform

FULL COVERAGE

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS: Sasha Ivanov, CEO of Vostok interview with Matt Bird

Matt Bird (Show Host, Traders Network Show): 00:00

Welcome back to the Traders Network Show broadcasting worldwide on Equities.com I’m your host Matt Bird. We’re here in Davos, Switzerland covering the 2019 World Economic Forum. And my next guest is Sasha Ivanov, CEO of Moscow based, Vostok. Sasha welcome the show.

Sasha Ivanov (CEO, Vostok): 00:16

Thank you for having me Matt.

Matt Bird (Show Host, Traders Network Show): 00:18

So, Sasha, there’s a lot of stuff going on. We chatted briefly yesterday, but there’s a lot of stuff going on here in Davos. We’re seeing definitely a, a decline in attendance, but I think we’re seeing more quality output, more quality outcomes here on the street at least. Where do you see blockchain going? Where, what’s the future of blockchain?

Sasha Ivanov (CEO, Vostok): 00:48

I think the future of blockchains is quite bright. It’s all just starting on back end. So, what we had before was the hype and also there’ll be all substantiated. And what we have now is like normal development. And for us it’s very good because we started doing blockchain around four years ago before the hype and hype was not so good for us. After it’s over, we can move forward actually faster than we could have done before.

Matt Bird (Show Host, Traders Network Show): 01:06

You know you’re dabbling in a lot of different sectors. You’re growing in an exponential rate. What are the hottest sectors right now for blockchain? From an organization standpoint? What companies should be looking into blockchain from the supply chain, from ERP, from any technical aspects?

Sasha Ivanov (CEO, Vostok): 01:22

Yeah, so blockchain is actually is a very like, basic technology. So it can be used by any kind of a business and it’s basically database. So, what business could use a database basically in, again, so you’re just a new type of database. So, for some businesses, decentralization might be more interesting for the other, I think that now it’s time for enterprise and government applications to look deeper into blockchain. And we can see a huge interest for the technology and some projects that are starting actually to work, not only to be in some pilot stages, but you have some folks in production. So, I think it’s like enterprise sector, which can make the most benefits and profit from using blockchain technology.

Matt Bird (Show Host, Traders Network Show): 01:51

You know there’s a few organizations right now that have been able to crack the government bail. We see Mauricia, we see Bermuda we’re started to see it in the European union. How is blockchain being adopted in Moscow right now and within Russia? Is it being accepted widely? Is it having the same roadblocks that a lot of the other countries are having? I mean, talk to us a little.

Sasha Ivanov (CEO, Vostok): 02:34

Yeah, I think problems with blockchain in Russia is the same as in the other countries because you have this understanding barrier, which you have to actually go through in order to start accepting and using the technology. So, people have the same problems and there a huge interest for blockchain because people can see the potential, but there is understanding that prevents projects from fast implementation. So, we are working with very different companies in Russia and also worldwide.

Matt Bird (Show Host, Traders Network Show): 02:50

Can you give me an example of some successful implementations? We hear a lot of case studies, but obviously use cases, but case studies are really where everything’s going at right now.

Sasha Ivanov (CEO, Vostok): 03:20

So, we are working, for example, with the real estate angel sees government, state real estate agency. Ah, and for them it could make sense to bring all those different databases into one ecosystem where you have everything based on the blockchain. And also we are working with companies for example that do trains. Yes. And there was some kind of a prediction for the functionality of the train when I think they need to maintain the drains out. They have to predict when the train could actually get broken. So, there is some kind of prediction algorithm combined with big data internet of things. And when you combine this with blockchain makes total sense and you have some synergy. So yeah.

Matt Bird (Show Host, Traders Network Show): 03:53

So, from the enterprise that we, we interviewed a lot of people on the blockchain yesterday and it seems that there are two sides of blockchain where we can understand there’s the enterprise level integration. And then there’s a friend and user integration. And what we’ve seen, what we’ve seen as decline of successful outcomes, at least on the business model side, on the front end, because you really have to build a network where it’s starting to look like success on the user aspect is going to be integrating into the enterprise stack and then the enterprise deploying to the front end user. What do you think about that? Do you think that that’s, that’s the direction it’s all going to go, but that corporations are going to have to adopt it before users are going to start, you know, using it to create value that wasn’t there before?

Sasha Ivanov (CEO, Vostok): 04:43

Yeah, probably. So when you do business, you have to do this now with enterprise with corporations. So but you know, if you don’t change anything, there are business models here. If you are just try to the same or you have done before, but on the blockchain probably wouldn’t make too much sense. I think you need to use the technology, but also you need to use all the good ideas that emerged within blockchain ecosystems and open blockchain ecosystem. And what we, for example, do we try to bring those ideas over to enterprise. So, we have a successful open blockchain project and we are still developing, it’s called “Waste” and I see pretty big cryptocurrency blockchain platform. And we’re trying to actually somehow tweak it and somehow adapted for enterprise usage. And it’s not only tech, but also some ideas, for example, tokenization and similar things that can make sense and that actually show us that it’s not only about the, it’s about the next generation of internet technologies. It’s about web 3.0. So, it’s not about the blockchain, it’s about something bigger now.

Matt Bird (Show Host, Traders Network Show): 05:37

We have to cut to commercial break. But I’d like to talk a little about what web 3.0 and web 4.0. There’s a lot of talk about, you know, creating decentralized internet and what that looks like. You’ve got an adept, you get a depth of knowledge that a far it’s far superior than most people out there when it comes to blockchain. So, let’s cut to the commercial break. We’ll be right back on the Traders Network Show. Don’t go away.

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