Stakin's CEO and Co-Founder Edoaurd Lavidalle was interviewed by Cybernews about staking and the future of blockchain.
Edouard Lavidalle, Stakin: “Blockchain allows more people to have autonomy over their financial decisions”.
There’s no denying that the pandemic caused disruption across many industries. While some companies were quick to adapt, others went out of business. In a time of chaos and uncertainty, the emerging technology of blockchain offers a new environment for decentralized finance.
To discuss the future of blockchain and the cryptocurrency landscape, we sat down with Edouard Lavidalle, the Co-Founder and CEO of Stakin – a company allowing crypto owners to participate in decentralized governance.
How did Stakin originate? What has your journey been like?
Stakin is a validator service provider for Proof-of-Stake blockchain networks started in 2019. With our products, token holders can earn interests on their holdings and shape the future of the networks in which they believe.
Our talented global team has a strong track record of outstanding execution in Network Infrastructure, Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, and Finance. It is this combination of innovation, intellectual capital, and diversity that enables us to provide distinct and effective services for our clients and partners.
Can you tell us more about what you do? What is staking?
Stakin is an infrastructure operator for Proof-of-Stake (PoS) public blockchains, offering noncustodial delegation services. The company enables PoS cryptocurrency holders to earn interests on their holdings and participate in decentralized governance while remaining in possession of their cryptocurrencies.
Stakin serves institutional crypto players, foundations, custodians, exchanges, and a large community of individual holders. Driven by demand from institutional customers and the community, Stakin provides services for multiple blockchains, including leading ecosystems such as Ethereum, Cosmos, Solana, Polygon, Polkadot, and more.
To answer your question “What is staking?”, it is the process of actively participating in transaction validation on a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain (similar to mining). Anyone with a minimum amount of a particular asset can validate transactions and earn staking rewards on these blockchains. Earning rewards makes holding certain digital assets and staking them so interesting for the blockchain community.
How did the pandemic affect the blockchain landscape?
I believe that as blockchain is not related to physical products or markets, COVID-19 had no damaging effect on the blockchain space but rather raised the demand for blockchain innovation and adoption. COVID-19 highlighted the critical need for blockchain technology by exposing the flaws in our present paradigm. During COVID-19, we saw a high rise in the number of people joining the blockchain space and those who started staking. Now, after the pandemic, we can see that more and more institutions and people are starting to embrace blockchain and its technologies.
What are the main mistakes new cryptocurrency owners make?
The most common mistake we can identify among new cryptocurrency owners is impatience. Impatient newcomers often forget to take the time to dive into networks and their accompanying assets to truly understand what is remarkable about them and how their future will most likely look. In the industry, the phrase DYOR which stands for “Do Your Own Research” is a well-used one that illustrates this flaw as well. As Stakin, we attempt to help newcomers in the space as much as possible by setting up guides and informative articles for them. We also host a monthly podcast in which we give blockchain networks the opportunity to explain how their chain works and what their vision for it is. In that way, we set out to give new blockchain enthusiasts as many easy, accessible tools as possible to make well-informed decisions.
What cyber threats do you find the most concerning at the moment?
At the current moment, the biggest threats for us as a proof-of-stake validator and staking provider would be DDoS attacks or MITM attacks. DDoS is an abbreviation for Distributed Denial of Service, and it refers to a method in which cybercriminals flood a network with so much malicious traffic that it is unable to operate or communicate regularly. The site's usual traffic, also known as genuine packets, is halted as a result.
In your opinion, what cybersecurity tools are essentially both for casual browsing and keeping digital assets safe?
Concerning tools, strong passwords, 2 FA, physical Ledger, Yubikey, multisig vaults, firewalls, and the use of a Virtual Private Network (VPN) are essential to “stay safe.”
What are your predictions for the foreseeable future of blockchain technology?
If trends persist as we have seen them do in the years before, we’re expecting more use of blockchain technology in off-chain use cases, further adoption of blockchain by the global audience, and of course, newer use cases such as DeFi and GameFi will bring revolutionary new solutions, ways to be entertained, to handle finances and more.
What other technology do you hope to see adopted widely?
Stakin specializes in Proof-of-Stake staking services. Validator nodes are operated by the company on numerous Mainnet networks as well as Testnet. In addition to staking, the company is looking into developing DApps on some networks where we operate. In the future, we hope to see further adoption of Proof-of-Stake mechanisms, as well as expansion of interchain bridges and DApps, to ensure more and more people can join the space!
Share with us, what does the future hold for Stakin?
That is a good question. I think we are going to see continued strong growth over the next few years. As a noncustodial staking service provider, we will continue developing our secure and stable node infrastructure to support the growth of PoS blockchains and enable our clients to get superior yields. We are also engaging with other ecosystem participants for potential collaboration, so there might be some exciting partnerships launched in the near future.
Disclaimer: Published by Cybernews. Kindly note that this article is a replica of the interview published by cybernews and this is not financial advice. Staking, delegation, and cryptocurrencies involve a high degree of risk, and there is always the possibility of loss, including the failure of all staked digital assets. Additionally, delegators are at risk of slashing in case of security or liveness faults on some protocols. We advise you to do your due diligence before choosing a validator.
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