139. Interviews: Yuval Rooz, CEO of Digital Asset & a special announcement from Simon Taylor
May 14, 2020
auto_awesome
Yuval Rooz, CEO of Digital Asset, discusses the shift in focus to smart contracts and DAML. They highlight the importance of interoperability and opportunities beyond fintech in a post-coronavirus world.
Digital Asset focuses on developing distributed applications and improving operational workflows beyond financial services through their interoperability protocol and DAML tool.
The current crisis has accelerated the need for digitizing manual processes and emphasizing the importance of interoperability for blockchain and distributed systems in creating a connected digital ecosystem.
Deep dives
Digital Asset's focus on innovation in distributed applications
Digital Asset aims to bring innovation to distributed applications by providing a uniform way to develop distributed applications. They believe that various elements of distributed systems, such as distributed workflows and distributed identities, can be brought together to create better operational workflows and improve productivity in various industries beyond financial services. They offer DAML as a tool to develop distributed applications, which allows developers to choose the technology that is right for them at any given time. Additionally, Digital Asset is working on an interoperability protocol that will enable atomic transactions across different ledgers, whether they are distributed or centralized.
The impact of the current crisis on the need for digitization
The current crisis has highlighted the risks associated with manual processes in financial services. Business continuity plans usually involve moving operations to alternative physical locations, but working from home has never been a part of those plans. This crisis has accelerated the need for digitizing manual processes and removing data silos. Digital Asset sees this as an opportunity to further their goal of providing better access to and flow of data. They emphasize the importance of interoperability for blockchain and distributed systems to ensure that different ledgers can seamlessly communicate with each other and create a connected digital ecosystem.
Digital Asset's future goals and ambitions
Digital Asset's main focus in the next 12 to 18 months is to continue developing robust integrations and mature the interoperability aspect of their platform. They are actively working on an interoperability protocol that will allow developers to write distributed applications once and deploy them on different ledgers. They are also excited about the Open Sesame project, which aims to provide a distributed system as a service offering for developers. Digital Asset believes it is essential to deliver on their promises and bring real production-ready solutions to the market, rather than just generating PR hype. They are committed to enabling developers to build distributed applications quickly and efficiently.
The broader impact of blockchain and distributed applications
Digital Asset believes that the value of blockchain and distributed applications goes beyond financial services. They see potential in industries such as healthcare, insurance, IoT, and any field that deals with complex workflows, identities, and privacy. Blockchain technology can provide better operational workflows and enhance productivity in these domains. Digital Asset also highlights the importance of ensuring the interoperability of different blockchain platforms and creating a connected digital ecosystem to fully capitalize on the benefits of digitization.
In a special episode of Blockchain Insider, Simon Taylor is in conversation with Yuval Rooz, CEO of fintech company Digital Asset. Yuval became CEO of the fintech company in 2019 and since then has shifted focus to smart contracts and DAML. We kick off the episode with the reasons for this change, the importance of distributed ledger and power of DAML. Moving onto the bigger picture issues in blockchain, Yuval and Simon also discuss the importance of interoperability as governments move towards central bank digital currencies and the opportunities for DLT applications beyond fintech and financial services in a post-coronavirus world.
But first, we hear a special announcement from host Simon Taylor about the current COVID-19 pandemic and the future of the podcast.
Small business financial services are only 1% finished. Our latest research examines the Jobs to be Done and cultural insights on what US business owners need, and the digital services that will help them meet their goals. Download the research for free by heading to bit.ly/digitalsmb.
If you enjoyed the show, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review!