Web3 Leader Spotlight: Anton Agafonov
This week, we sat down with anton agafonov, Head of Product at Zilliqa, a high-performance, high-security blockchain platform for enterprises and next-generation applications.
With over 15 years of experience in crypto, fintech, and capital markets, Anton is a strong believer in a decentralized world and the freedom it promises.
Feel free to follow him on X at @agafonov8.
What inspired your transition into Web3 technologies and the DeFi space?
I was inspired to dive into blockchain before Web3 and DeFi became prominent. Back in 2015, Ethereum's introduction of smart contracts on EVM enlightened me to the potential of transforming finance towards decentralization and democratization. TradFi is centralized and discriminatory, especially considering underbanked people. DeFi offers an alternative: a transparent, open, and permissionless system that anyone can access and use.
This technology potentially decreases risks and costs by omitting intermediaries, and increases transaction efficiency, making it very attractive from a user perspective. Unlike TradFi, where legacy systems and established norms often stifle innovation, the Web3 space thrives on experimentation and collective problem-solving. This environment fosters continuous learning and growth, which is both professionally and personally fulfilling.
Does your background in traditional finance shape how you approach developing products in DeFi? If so, how?
My background in TradFi helps a lot in navigating the DeFi space. I believe that the basic fundamentals and logic remain the same across any financial product. The crucial part is to be open to new ideas and able to break the legacy system mindset. Experience in traditional finance is necessary to understand its inefficiencies and drawbacks from an institutional level rather than from a user perspective. This helps pinpoint where DeFi can disrupt.
Traditional finance is criticized for its complexity and inaccessibility to the average user and I strive to change this. I believe in a decentralized world and that financial freedom is a basic human right. My goal is to contribute to the decentralized economy and build DeFi products that will shape the financial system of the future.
What’s a cool new product or feature in the space that you think is flying under the radar and deserves more attention?
There are plenty of great products around that have the potential to change the current landscape. One of them is decentralized identifiers (DIDs). In my opinion it can dramatically improve user experience and change the way we interact with other products. The concept is to provide universal access to services beyond finance using one's digital identity without relying on centralized authorities. Users own their identity and manage personal information more securely and privately.
DIDs utilize zero knowledge tech to allow users to share only the necessary information required for a transaction, reducing the risk of data breaches and enhancing overall privacy. This is a significant improvement over traditional systems where personal data is often stored and managed by third parties.
In the financial sector, KYC processes are essential but often cumbersome and intrusive. DIDs can provide a universal solution that would fit multiple use cases across different platforms and services, enhancing user experience and trust while reducing the burden on both users and institutions. We are all used to email verification, but DIDs are a giant step forward, poised to play a crucial role in enhancing user experience, security, and privacy in the digital age.
If you were to imagine the ideal blockchain, how would you describe its key characteristics and features?
That's a tough one. On one hand, we have the basic trilemma described by Vitalik Buterin: achieving a perfect balance between scalability, security, and decentralization. On the other hand, we have to consider resilience, reliability, usability, and tooling.
To achieve mass adoption, it's important to have a scalable system that supports high throughput with low fees. However, to have a truly efficient and trustless system, it's much more important to stay decentralized and secure. Robust consensus and encryption methods are not enough.
Maintaining decentralization is crucial to ensure that no single entity has control over the network. Unfortunately, that is truly hard to achieve, and all current foundations have some level of centralized decision-making. Also, it's worth mentioning that we are living in a multichain world, and interoperability is vital to provide users with a seamless experience. There are many aspects to consider, and the more use cases we have, the more important some of them become.
