Welcome to the Findora ‘DeFi Spotlight’ series, which focuses on the innovative and inspiring developers that are building a next-generation of decentralized finance technologies. We take a look at projects which are aligned with our goals and vision: to create better, high performance and scalable applications using blockchain.
Today, we have a chat with Dhawal Shah, Chief Business Officer of Frontier.
Hi Dhawal, great to chat with you in our DeFi Spotlight Series. What is your prediction for DeFi in 2021?
DeFi will continue to flourish in a cross-chain environment. Several blockchains are working hard to attract developers to their chain, such as Solana, Polkadot, Algorand, Avalanche, Binance Smart Chain, and of course Ethereum. A lot of innovative projects are expected to launch in the coming quarters.
A booming crypto market that has $1.2 Trillion in market cap and another 35+ Billion locked in DeFi, this year couldn’t have had a better start. This will of course bring a lot of positive attention to all the new projects coming up. Retail investor interest level is at an all-time high, and this will continue to positively impact the wider ecosystem, driving further adoption.
Do you believe that DeFi projects that have tokens do better than those that don’t? Why or why not?
Yes, DeFi projects with tokens tend to perform better as the tokens can be used to incentivize users for using a particular platform. Users are able to relate more to a project if they are able to hold its (utility and/or governance) tokens and participate in the decision-making process.
Are you open to building on other blockchains besides Ethereum? What influences your decision to build on other blockchains?
It’s no secret that one of the biggest stumbling blocks at Ethereum is the very high gas fees and also the low TPS. Hence, we see a lot of grants being awarded to developers for building on other chains. At Frontier, we believe a multichain DeFi ecosystem can and will co-exist.
What are some things that you look for when creating alliances and partnerships and why?
We look for synergy in what a product is building, and we are sensitive towards not having any DeFi products that would not interest or excite our user base. An ideal partnership would be where both partners have a vested interest in the success of the product. A like-minded team that has strong leadership and a vision for DeFi, would be an ideal partner.
What are some things that you have learned in founding your company?
When Frontier was founded, DeFi wasn’t as trendy and popular as it is today. What we learned as a team is that we should keep progressing towards our vision rather than worrying about the larger space. Never ever ever give up, we did not give up, despite facing unsurmountable challenges and not being able it right in the first place, our team kept on persevering and shipping out various updates.
Do you have any advice for people who are looking to start a DeFi company?
The time is now for DeFi and to quote Victor Hugo: “No force on earth can stop an idea whose time has come. You are in the right space and we would love to share our findings with you.
What is Frontier?
Frontier is a chain-agnostic DeFi aggregation layer. To date, Frontier has added support for DeFi on Ethereum, Binance Chain, BandChain, Kava, and Harmony. Via StaFi Protocol, Frontier will enter into the Polkadot ecosystem, and they will also put vigorous efforts towards Serum. Frontier introduces the concept of wallet composability to DeFi via TxLink, enabling applications like Trust Wallet, Coinbase Wallet, MetaMask, Fortmatic, imToken, or any web3 mobile wallet which supports EIP-681 to interact with all of Frontierʼs native integrations. Users can download Frontier on the App Store or Google Play.
