Just as roads and bridges help people move, this entrepreneur is building cross-chain infrastructure to enable seamless liquidity movement between blockchains

With main metropolitan cities internationally turning into bustling and congested concrete jungles, satellite tv for pc cities and adjoining cities have cropped as much as present them reduction. Roads, highways, bridges, and different infrastructure have grow to be vital to the sleek motion of individuals between cities and concrete localities.

For serial entrepreneur Ramani ‘Ram’ Ramachandran, the identical analogy works within the blockchain and cryptocurrency business. 

In reality, the necessity for bridging infrastructure has formed the ideas behind his Singapore-based blockchain ventures Router Protocol,  a cross-chain liquidity aggregation protocol, and Dfyn Community, a multi-chain decentralised alternate reside on Polygon.

“After Ethereum grew to become standard attributable to its sensible contract performance,  it began seeing numerous congestion. Individuals began serving to it scale and constructed Layer 2 blockchains. Right here is the place Router is available in. Like roads and bridges assist folks transfer, Router helps liquidity transfer from chain to chain in a seamless method,” explains Ram.

With Router, Ram is constructing bridging infrastructure to permit contract stage knowledge stream throughout varied blockchains, thus enabling asset-level knowledge switch.

“With Dfyn, we’re constructing a community of decentralised exchanges throughout a number of Layer 1 and Layer 2 blockchains and plug into a number of liquidity sources throughout chains, together with the cross-chain liquidity ecosystem being developed by Router.”

Success amidst a unstable, disruptive market

Ethereum is notorious for its excessive fuel charges, and in contrast to mainstream monetary merchandise and networks constructed by Visa or Mastercard, it can not deal with a number of thousand transactions per second.

Ram believes Router and Dfyn may be part of the answer, not just for Ethereum but additionally different chains that need Dfyn to arrange nodes and leverage Router infrastructure to optimise the motion of liquidity. “The know-how is open supply and anybody can use it,” he provides.

Apart from Bitcoin and Ethereum, the highest 10-20 altcoins by market capitalisation have often modified over the past 4 or 5 years.

For Ram’s blockchain startups, whose native tokens are named ROUTE and DFYN, the important thing to continued success is fixed evolution, innovation, and listening to the group, in response to the entrepreneur.

“From day one, working a blockchain startup is like working a public firm. You all the time have your on-line communities participating with you and letting you realize when a few of your options will not be working as desired. Additional, success on this business is transient and ephemeral, so we have to always innovate and get via a number of product cycles aggressively,” he explains.

Regardless of the extremely unstable nature of blockchain and cryptocurrency, Ram maintains his religion in decentralised ledger know-how.  Within the final yr, he says the business has been extra productive than typical on account of worldwide and nationwide lockdowns. 

This has helped builders make investments extra focus and time in constructing higher blockchain merchandise, in response to him.

India’s future in blockchain

In current months, the Indian blockchain and cryptocurrency business has been rejuvenated by a Reserve Bank of India clarification stating that its 2018 round stopping banks from dealing in “digital currencies” is invalid and can’t be cited anymore after it was put aside by the in 2020. 

In the identical yr, the NITI Aayog printed a paper on blockchain know-how discussing the worth of the know-how in facilitating belief in authorities and personal sector interactions, evaluating blockchain use circumstances, and extra.

For India to capitalise on such developments, foster blockchain and cryptocurrency innovation, and construct a strong ecosystem of startups concerned within the area, Ram, like other industry leaders, believes a framework for regulation is the necessity of the hour.

“Decentralised consensus is essential to cut back reliance on third-party organisations, comparable to banks, which aren’t resistant to failure. However in India, the blockchain business has seen a tough experience. With the fitting rules, it turns into potential to trace knowledge. But when there’s a ban, scammers or another “unhealthy guys” will work out much more use circumstances for the know-how,” he says, including that he sees similarities between the rising adoption of blockchain know-how since 2009 and the proliferation of the Web for the reason that 90s. 

Becoming a member of the race for blockchain innovation

Ram additionally cites the instance of China, which has been a forerunner in blockchain and cryptocurrency innovation, saying that India shouldn’t miss the blockchain bus and fall behind its rival. 

Extra not too long ago, Bitcoin and most different altcoins have been enduring a bear market as costs fall amidst Bitcoin mine closures in China and potential regulatory scrutiny.

“In China, regardless of such bans, innovation nonetheless thrives. Right here in India, there’s a ton of programming expertise that lends itself naturally to this area. We’ve seen many Indians dwelling elsewhere spearheading thrilling blockchain initiatives in decentralised finance (DeFi). So, it’s crucial that we don’t lose this race,” he says.

Going ahead, Ram is eager to play a component in constructing a multi-blockchain universe. With cross-chain infrastructure options comparable to Router turning into standard, he plans to broaden it into extra blockchains on its mainnet. 

He additionally plans to broaden Dfyn right into a node of a number of blockchains and develop the potential variety of cross-chain use circumstances.

Edited by Tenzin Pema and Saheli Sen Gupta