George Spasov from LimeChain on Building Secure, Trusted and Decentralized Solutions using Blockchain & DLT (Episode 148)
George Spasov joins us to discuss how Limechain is building secure, trusted and decentralized solutions using Blockchain and DLT.
George is a Blockchain Architect and a co-founder at LimeChain. Heading the technical team at LimeChain, George has experience in leading teams to deliver successful software projects for everyone – from startups like pCloud to international companies like IBM. During the past 3 years, he has consulted and designed the architecture of 50+ blockchain and DLT projects, while also remaining an active member of the public communities. He is now focused on transforming businesses and corporate processes using innovative solutions on Blockchain and DLT.
Nowadays he is focused on system design and architecture, product development, team leadership, and blockchain solutions development with technologies such as Ethereum, Hedera Hashgraph, Hypreledger, Baseline, Polkadot, Leading the innovation adoption at LimeChain, he is one of the well-known and recognizable influencers in the blockchain domain.
Links:
LimeChain – https://limechain.tech/
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/limechain/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/LimeChainHQ
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/limechainhq
*Disclaimer. None of this information is financial advice.
The following transcript was created using artificial intelligence. There will be some grammatical errors below.
00:00:02:19 – 00:00:11:21
Richard Carthon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Crypto Current, your host here, Richard Carthon, and today I got a very special guest all the way out in Bulgaria. We got George. How are you doing today?
00:00:13:00 – 00:00:16:10
George Spasov: Hey, pretty well. Thank you. How are you Richard?
00:00:16:12 – 00:00:26:02
Richard Carthon: Aw man, I’m doing great. I’m excited to learn more about LimeChain, everything that’s going on with that and to learn a little bit more about you as well. But before we get started, how about you give us a little bit of background about yourself?
00:00:27:06 – 00:01:15:05
George Spasov: My name is George Spasov, I’m co-founder of LimeChain and LimeChain is pretty much one of the leading professional services companies in the Blockchain space. We have had something like, I don’t know, maybe close to 90 different projects in terms of like consulting and development, which is like we’re a business budget of honor and I personally have been involved with the vast majority of this. Before that, prior to that, I was like going into the enterprise world, but I, for my first encounter with Crypto was essentially when I got into the ConsenSys Academy and I was one of the people that was possibly there with applying colors. And after this, we founded LimeChain and the rest is history.
00:01:15:17 – 00:01:29:09
Richard Carthon: Well, definitely looking forward to learning more about what you have going on with LimeChain and how y’all are able to create it all. What was your first introduction to the Crypto, Blockchain space? How did you first learn about it? And then what made you decide, All right, I’m definitely getting all in on this right now?
00:01:30:12 – 00:02:28:15
George Spasov: Quite a lucky break, I guess. I have a great friend called Danita, she founded the startup called Profit and the startup called Profit actually turned into Blockchain in order to make real estate tokenization. Pretty much they wanted to tokenize the deeds and they wanted it for these properties, property transfer proceeds to go to Blockchain. And she introduced me to Blockchain. I said, “Hey like, there are not many developers that can use smart construct coding, can you do so?” And I decided to start looking into what it takes to do solidity coding. And I found some friends together with me and we decided to start some coding and out of this we found that, Hey, there is a lot of a lot of demand for this, a lot of people want to smart construct develop, dApps develop. And out of this essentially was born LimeChain. So, it was kind of a lucky break for somebody who just like luckily said, “Hey, why don’t you look into this Ethereum thing?”
00:02:28:17 – 00:02:33:06
Richard Carthon: Awesome. Around what year was that roughly?
00:02:33:08 – 00:02:39:12
George Spasov: It was the beginning of 2017. It was like a little bit prior to the initial ICO boom.
00:02:39:27 – 00:02:40:12
Richard Carthon: Right.
00:02:40:15 – 00:02:48:19
George Spasov: Right around there. Like it was the time when, for example, Bancor was doing the ICOs, Status was doing ICOs, like the initialized couple.
00:02:49:03 – 00:03:38:21
Richard Carthon: Right. And why I like to ask that question is because you’ve seen the roller coaster that is the Crypto, Blockchain space, the rise up to Bitcoin’s first all time highs of near 20,000 all the way back down to 3,000, all the way back up to 10 to 12, all the way back down to three again to where it is now, it’s over $30,000 as the day of this recording. When I first started Crypto Current, we were going down the bear market from 2018 even to like early 2020, one of the things that I really appreciated about the guests that I’d bring on the show where the, just building stuff to last, building it to actually work, not really just trying to go out and raise as much money as you can and then try to like make your quick buck and dip out like, actually building something for the future.
00:03:38:24 – 00:03:59:13
Richard Carthon: And I know that you know, at LimeChain that’s a lot of what you’re focused on is making sure that the projects that you work with are built to last and survive the test of time and are going to be here for the future. Can you kind of speak a little bit to how you’re able to create this company and what y’all do and how y’all are helping to further that commitment to creating something that lasts?
00:04:01:04 – 00:04:10:28
George Spasov: Yeah, yeah. I’ll take the specific point that you made there about, that you said there about the bear market. So, essentially you remember after the initial ICO boom, there was like a huge crash on the Crypto, you know.
00:04:11:04 – 00:04:11:19
Richard Carthon: Right.
00:04:11:21 – 00:04:42:11
George Spasov: Like, almost like one time, an all time high, like I don’t know, a 1,400, then it went down to 80 bucks, I think. What was interesting is that from day one, what we decided to combine with my other three co-founders is that we are actually going to filter out the people that we work with to projects that actually had, I’d say not that monetary long term look into the Blockchain development and Blockchain as technology to provide value for their service.
00:04:42:21 – 00:05:22:01
George Spasov: So, we were kind of looking at this time because when the Cryptocurrency market crashed, essentially a lot of professional services companies had to lay off a huge percentage of people. We were one of the pretty lucky ones that we did not lay anyone, but we were able to actually steadily grow a little bit, even in our market. This is something that we were and are still very proud of and we attribute this to the filtering criteria. The more that we were filtering, the more interesting use cases were there for Blockchain and we were actually exposed to unique innovations.
00:05:22:03 – 00:06:06:27
George Spasov: We were exposed to, for example, meta transactions, all the way back into 2018 when a little group called MetaCartel now actually exploded into a fully fledged DAO that was giving grounds. But we were one of the first people in there that we were thinking, Hey, how can we do this relaying thing?, How can we improve the user experience for people?, How can we have better tools?, All these things. So, I say most of what we are doing, we were focusing on the Blockchain as a value proposition. Not that much was a monetary proposition, but the technology it brings a lot of business to end users, to people. And we were also focusing on tooling and raising as much as we can our expertise as innovators.
00:06:07:21 – 00:06:35:00
Richard Carthon: That’s awesome. And just like you said, the fact that during that time you were able to grow and find some really great projects that are set to have a really, really good trajectory into this next decade. If you can, can you speak to services that you’re able to provide? So, after you vet and you make sure you find some really good opportunities, what are the expertise and skills that you’re able to bring to these projects?
00:06:35:29 – 00:07:34:14
George Spasov: So, all of this started with smart contracts slowly to development. So, we were able to develop different types of slewed smart contracts, not only tokens, not only crowd sales, but different business logic smart contracts, which most of smart contracts in 2017 were essentially crowd sales for tokens. And what we were focusing more on the development side of the start contract, on the business side of the smart contract. And we were able to actually get deep expertise in this part. And a lot of companies were coming for us in order to build the business models on top of solidity, smart contracts. And also Viper, we added Viper to this. Soon after, our clients essentially said, “Hey, guys, you’re great, but if I hire you, I also need to hire somebody to do my website, then I would need to hire somebody to do my, if I need the backend services for some reason.”
00:07:35:00 – 00:08:41:17
George Spasov: So, we actually in this time, we decided to add these things so that our clients can have like a one stop shop with us. And we were able to start proposing solutions that are not purely smart construct based, but essentially Cryptography based in the spec sense of like there are two solutions, like rollouts, like plasma, like state channels. We had the honor to be able to implement this technology in working projects with some of our clients. So, historically evolved from these smart construct builders into full Blockchain system builders. We were also approached by several other networks apart from Ethereum. We started building stuff for EUs, we started building stuff for Eternity, we started building stuff for Polkadot, essentially properties that came also with building tooling. So, we are now also apart from smart construct and business applications, we are also building tooling for different chains, so they can be easier and more developer friendly with this access.
00:08:42:04 – 00:09:25:11
Richard Carthon: Yeah, no, it makes a lot of sense. And the use case of being able to build that, you know, before we got on the show, one of the things that I think really resonates is as you’re building all this out, making sure it’s very secure and making sure that it is done properly and with a good foundation so you don’t have to go back and do double work. As anyone knows who works in the startup space or the tech space, not building your platform on stable footing and having to go back and do technical debt is a big challenge. So, I believe that’s one of the main things that y’all focus on is making sure that a lot of that piece is set up properly, but then also the business side of building out the business enterprise is also taken care of.
00:09:26:09 – 00:10:14:03
George Spasov: Absolutely, absolutely. And this is something again, important about professional services. I think professional services in general have quite a good rep, but I don’t think that they’re fully appreciated. But what’s important for everyone to know is that if you have a professional services company that does smart contract development, essentially Blockchain development, you’re essentially hiring people that have done it. They have done it in other projects that they have taken other approaches to life. And most of the time, when you decide to hire, because there is this huge survation for Blockchain developers who especially, finding a person that probably has comparable skills or coming from a different direction, that now transitions into Blockchain development.
00:10:14:10 – 00:10:37:24
George Spasov: And you know, that Blockchain development has its own different ways of thinking, its own different ways of breaking stuff, its own immutable ways of you have only one chance to deploy to the mainnet. And the more experience you have with this, the better you know where things can break down. And I feel that here is where the professional services company can excel just based on experience to the things that they have been able to do.
00:10:39:02 – 00:11:30:18
Richard Carthon: I think that’s great. I mean, you bring up a really good point of, in a lot of jobs, you have the ability to learn and mess up and be able to recover from it. Whereas on Blockchain it’s immutable. Just like you said, you mess up launching to mainnet, that’s a big deal, it’s a huge setback and you can’t afford to do that. So that’s a really, really important point and you know, something I do think people, without having that prior experience, wouldn’t even really think to know to have that basis when building something out. So, thanks for bringing that to our attention. But with everything with the professional services and everything that’s going on, how do you see, coming from a year after COVID and as the world is becoming a little bit more connected through being able to work remote and everything else, where do you see this type of work going in the future?
00:11:32:14 – 00:12:37:07
George Spasov: I’m massively optimistic towards the Blockchain space and the Blockchain development all because it is, like the signs are there. You know, that the giants that are buying Cryptocurrency in order to hatch. You have seen more and more enterprises adopting or at least trying, dipping their fingers into Blockchain in order to solve like, age long problems that they were not able to solve previously. So, I’m massively optimistic. For me. 2019, 2020, if you look at the enterprises lines, these were the years where enterprise was like dipping their toes. They were like trying stuff, proving some concept, stuff like this. And for me, 2021 and 2022 are going to be years that I think we’re going to be looking forward into the Blockchain space, into Blockchain development, as a new tool that was undiscovered. It is going to solve problems that were like, very hard to solve previously due to trust issues.
00:12:38:27 – 00:13:11:12
George Spasov: My favorite code from one of the leading experts is that the Blockchain has the potential to do for the enterprise communications and enterprise resource planning earpiece did for internally for the enterprises, meaning that earpiece enabled enterprises to know what the right hand knows what the left hand does and the left hand knows what the right hand does. But this does not happen between companies.
00:13:11:14 – 00:13:50:17
George Spasov: And now when we are connecting ecosystems, you need this trustless layer that’s going to allow Company A to know what Company B does without disclosing too much information, without placing authority and power in a third party that is going to synchronize them together. And this is where enterprises are now starting to figure out, Hey, there is something that is going to be beneficial for all of us here, let’s figure it out. And we have seen it in 2020 that like a lot of proof of concept around this concept for that. I know that one of your previous guests, John Wolpert, probably spoke about this.
00:13:50:19 – 00:13:51:04
Richard Carthon: Yeah.
00:13:51:06 – 00:14:23:10
George Spasov: That there is a wonderful, wonderful think tank activity like growing group Baseline Protocol that I mean, it’s awesome, especially for enterprise. In terms of DeFi, like Blockchain development for public networks, I think DeFi’s here to stay, we can see it in the prices. Even if the things break down, I think that the foundation is so fundamentally sound that the thing is here to stay I think.
00:14:23:12 – 00:14:50:28
Richard Carthon: Yeah, I agree. You touched on a lot of great things. I mean, just like said with John talking about Baseline Protocol and having two companies whose tech that you don’t want to reveal to each other, but still letting them talk and getting the information that you need to reach consensus and to show that it’s really there, I think is super powerful. And once that’s figured out and is being implemented, that’s going to just vastly make business dealings way better as we move forward in the future.
00:14:51:06 – 00:15:31:04
Richard Carthon: I agree that DeFi’s here to stay, it’s not going anywhere. It might still have some from a price standpoint fluctuations up and down, but foundationally, what has been built is solid. On that, as you kind of like kind of take a bird’s eye view as we kind of step into this next decade of tech innovation and even economic innovation, as the world is paying a lot more attention to Cryptocurrency and Blockchain is now being seen as a useful technology to build infrastructure on. Where do you think we’re headed as an industry as we kind of like look into the future?
00:15:33:09 – 00:15:58:23
George Spasov: I think that the Blockchain world is starting to fly towards Ethereum 2.0. I don’t know when this is going to happen, but I think that this is a milestone that has been like, the more and more I see it in white papers and conversations that, Hey whenever Eth 2.0 comes, we’re going to do X. So, more and more people are waiting for this to happen, so, I’m very hopeful for the time when Eth 2.0 is going to drop.
00:15:58:25 – 00:16:42:02
George Spasov: Also, I’m looking forward to more and more interoperability because different chains, and not even Blockchain, you can have like, hash graphs that have specific use cases, specific trends that are like not present in anywhere else. So, I’m looking forward towards interoperability between these networks. And I have seen multiple networks, even with our clients that are like now trying to figure out how they’re going to interoperate with each other in making this huge progress. So for me, I’m turning a hopeful eye towards Eth 2.0 and towards interoperability between different chains because a lot of smart people have worked on different chains. When we had the chance to combine them together, I think it’s going to explode.
00:16:42:19 – 00:17:15:21
Richard Carthon: I agree. It’s amazing what happens when you start building bridges between islands. And interoperability has been the hot topic that I’ve spoken with a lot of previous speakers about in 2020. And it sounds like we’re getting closer and closer to that being an actual reality and I think that’s coming a lot sooner. I’ve always been personally bullish on Ethereum, and again, everyone listening, this is not financial advice, but I’ve always been an Eth fan and there is so much being built on top of it that like it’s almost one of those things that’s it kind of too big to fail.
00:17:16:01 – 00:17:39:05
Richard Carthon: But at the same time, too, if everything lines up and does what it’s supposed to, there are so, like you could see, just so much happens so quickly because, like, you’d have the right things in motion for these companies that are building on top of it for it to explode. So, that’s, I’m pretty excited about that as well. But, you know, George, I really do appreciate you spending some time with us, dropping all your knowledge with us today, but what is a final thought that you want to leave with all of our listeners here today?
00:17:40:21 – 00:17:57:00
George Spasov: Well, the final thought is that Blockchain is here to stay. The Blockchain development, the Blockchain a value service is here to stay. And keep believing, keep digging, keep building and we are all going to make it very, very soon I believe.
00:17:58:01 – 00:18:05:16
Richard Carthon: Absolutely. Well, again, thank you so much for sharing with us. What are some ways that people can connect with you and also can learn more about LimeChain?
00:18:06:21 – 00:18:15:20
George Spasov: Yeah. Well, you can find us pretty much on any social media. But Twitter, you can find LimeChain at lunch at LimeChainHQ and you can find me at G Spasov.
00:18:17:11 – 00:18:23:05
Richard Carthon: Perfect. Well, again, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. And for everyone listening, stay Crypto Current.
Crypto Current will be guiding all of you who are new to the cryptocurrency world to becoming a cryptocurrency and blockchain expert. Crypto Current was founded to give access to information to everyone on current events occurring in cryptocurrency and blockchain in a digestible way. Since its creation, we have created content that impacted thousands of people through its podcast, blog, and social media.