Web3 Leader Spotlight: Zoltan Fazekas
This week, we had the pleasure of chatting with Zoltan Fazekas, Head of Research at Zilliqa. Zilliqa is a high-performance, high-security blockchain platform designed for enterprises and next-generation applications. By addressing limitations in scalability and security, Zilliqa ensures real-world usability across various industries, including finance and gaming.
Zoltan is a strong advocate for the pivotal role of education in mass blockchain adoption. He teaches blockchain courses at universities and collaborates with both startups and large organizations to drive the widespread adoption of blockchain technology.
Feel free to follow him on X at @Zoltan_Fazekas.
What first drew you to blockchain technology, and how did your career evolve from that initial interest to your current role at Zilliqa?
It was the combination of technology and ideology that fascinated me from the beginning. I started studying Bitcoin in 2015, then Ethereum and other protocols soon after. I started teaching blockchain courses at universities and working with blockchain startups and large organizations trying to drive blockchain adoption.
Among many other projects, I built a privacy-preserving voting protocol using zero-knowledge proofs, one of the most exciting areas in the blockchain space, which led me to a startup specializing in zk-cryptography as CTO. Finally, I joined Zilliqa in 2022 to design a new blockchain that we will launch in the second half of this year.
In your opinion, how crucial is interoperability for driving widespread adoption of blockchain technology?
Fragmentation in the blockchain space is one of the biggest challenges. While some ecosystems have developed their cross-chain communication protocols, we're still far from all chains being connected and providing a seamless user experience.
Intent-based cross-chain protocols are a promising approach to abstracting the complexity of bridging assets and interacting with dapps across different chains. However, there is more potential for interoperability than just token bridges. A good example is re-staking protocols, which allow stakers on one chain to secure other chains without bridging their tokens. Interoperability is critical for large-scale adoption, and that's one of the main goals of Zilliqa 2.0, our new chain I mentioned earlier.
Do you foresee more traditional educational institutions incorporating blockchain education into their curricula in the future?
Education is critical for mass adoption. Users need to better understand the benefits of a blockchain, and how to interact with it. Software engineers should learn how to build secure applications using blockchain technology.
When I was asked to integrate blockchain into the computer science curriculum of a university, I decided to combine the theory of distributed systems and cryptography, including advanced topics such as zk-SNARKs, with a lot of practical exercises, such as secure smart contract development, to prepare my students for the job opportunities that await them in the Web3 space.
I really enjoy teaching these courses, but the preparation is quite time-consuming due to the rapid evolution of the technology. While other professors can use the same course materials for years, I have to update most of mine every year.
What aspect of the Web3 space scares you? What aspect most excites you? And why?
What scares me a little bit is that a lot of people have come into this space just to make a lot of money with little or no work, and they don't care about the values and goals we're trying to achieve: empowering people to protect their digital identity and assets, decentralizing power to prevent abuse, replacing blind trust with secure solutions. Worst of all are the scammers who misuse these values and narratives to deceive people. They have done a lot of damage to the reputation of this space.
I also don't like it when competing teams bully each other on social media. We have a common goal and should join forces to drive mass adoption. However, I believe in our values more than ever and am excited about what we can achieve in the future. Web3 is more than a technology, it's a movement. And movements that change the world take time, often decades.
