Radix DLT: CEO Piers Ridyard in an interview about smart contracts and Y Combinator

Radix DLT: CEO Piers Ridyard in an interview about smart contracts and Y Combinator

In an exciting interview, Piers Ridyard, CEO of the decentralized network Radix DLT, talked about his “wild ride” through the world of smart contracts and Y Combinator. In conversation with Cryptonews Podcast host Matt Zahab, the CEO talked about his experiences with Ethereum, selling ETH and joining Radix. Ridyard explained the principles of the project and how it goes beyond the usual to ensure the safety of users' funds.

According to Ridyard, the interview covered the following topics:

• Die Gründungsgeschichte von Radix DLT.
• Das Erfolgsrezept von Y Combinator: Die Tonlage setzen und das Geschäft auf eine höhere Ebene bringen.
• Radix verwendet eine deutlich einfachere Programmiersprache als andere Blockchains.
• Radix fungiert als Spiel-Engine für DeFi: Es ist wesentlich schneller, Anwendungen darauf zu erstellen.
• Wie die Radix Wallet die Benutzererfahrung mit Kryptowährungen verbessert.

Ridyard gave a wide-ranging and diverse interview, which can be viewed above. Alternatively, here is one:

A wild ride through smart contracts and Y Combinator

Ridyard began the interview with his background. He described his experience with Y Combinator as “a wild ride.” First, he joined the Ethereum community very early on and was very interested in smart contracts. Back then, smart contracts were still new and everyone was wondering what they could create with them. Ridyard believes that most of these ideas will come true, it's just a matter of timing.

However, he had something specific in mind: “One of the obvious use cases for smart contracts to me was insurance.” Ridyard initially played around with the idea of ​​automatic insurance. Since he had no knowledge of insurance, he first contacted “a number” of insurance companies to understand their problem area. He talked to them about blockchain and they told him about insurance. “So I spoke to some of the senior people at some of the biggest insurance companies in London.”

However, at the time, the crypto sector was very different and incapable of enabling automatic insurance. In particular, there were no stablecoins. They could only use ETH as collateral, but that didn't work. As a result, Ridyard developed the concept of Surematics: a way to create smart contract-based deals for large syndicated insurance contracts. It should enable programmatic cash flow control, set insurance criteria and much more.

He applied to Y Combinator and was accepted. Y Combinator showed him that there can be many excuses, but if you want to be successful, you still have to meet the appropriate requirements. That changed his perspective from that point on.

In parallel, Ridyard “played around with other blockchain technologies” as he realized that Ethereum had some problems. He eventually came across the Radix platform and became friends with its founder, Dan Hughes. He then decided to build Surematics on top of Radix.

Mining on the Genesis Block

In July 2015, Ethereum created its “Genesis Block”, i.e. the first block in a blockchain. Ridyard participated in mining on the Genesis Block. More specifically, he had already set up the mining equipment before the launch of the Ethereum mainnet.

He explained: "I think we probably mined around the top 50 blocks. So it was a really strange entry for me because I started from a place of complete skepticism." When he first learned about Ethereum from a friend, he wondered if any of them should invest. Finally he told his friend it was a scam and not to buy it.

A few months later, Ethereum began testnet mining, and “I was looking at it completely the wrong way.” After extensive research, he discovered that they “just needed a lot of GPUs.”

Before Ridyard delved into the crypto world, he had manufactured consumer electronics for the Apple market. So mining was exactly in his area of ​​expertise. They bought “a lot of hardware” and started mining on the testnet. Then they continued mining on the mainnet.

Ridyard has been there for many Ethereum “firsts.” After starting mining, he dabbled in smart contracts, invested in a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) known for the DAO hack, and participated in the debates about whether Ethereum should be forked.

In the meantime, he sold most of the ETH he had mined. "I think we mined about 10,000 ETH in about three months. But the irony was, if we had just invested the money we spent on the hardware in Ethereum, we would have made about five times that from mining."

Still, Ridyard wanted to buy his first house, and he had enough money from mining to make a down payment. There was another irony here that hurt. It took six months to complete the home purchase. During this time he could have bought the house in cash.

On the other hand, he had stored his ETH in different wallets. When he opened one of them, which used to contain around $300-500 of ETH, he found that the value had increased to $20,000. “I think the thing I learned from this is to never sell your ‘moon bag,’” Ridyard said. "Always make sure you're always holding something. But yeah, Ethereum has definitely been good for me."

The core of Radix

Ridyard emphasized that he was “much more” excited about Radix’s technology than the insurance application. The three key points of Radix that the team has been working on are scalability, developer experience and tools, and user experience.

The company took time and thought about how to make the programming language user-friendly. They talked to about a thousand developers for about two years. They knew the syntax had to be “super simple.” The team improved the programming language until “developers immediately understood it” after going through the documentation. “They spend an hour reading them and then they say ‘I understand how to build Uniswap, I understand how to build Aave’.”

They released the programming language at the end of 2019, and it has done “incredibly well” since then.

They also worked hard on what the user experience (UX) should look like. The team wanted to change the way people think about wallets. A wallet isn't just a place where you store your money - it's your portal to Web3. It is the place where they interact with Web3. “And without that making sense, without users understanding that, it can’t be used,” Ridyard argued.

No nonsense on Radix

Radix is ​​considered a no-rug-pulls, no-nonsense place. However, Ridyard emphasized that it is always possible to deceive someone. The point is to assume that everyone at every level of the system is evil. This ensures that everything is based on the lowest possible trust and maximum user information.

To achieve this, two important measures are taken: putting in place as many protections as possible and making every interaction readable to the user so they know what they are signing.

What Radix offers is transparency that ensures greater security. Users can see information about the type of token issued to them in their wallets. The backers of the tokens cannot hide the rules associated with the token, and Radix allows users to see when they are not actually interacting with the real Uniswap application.

In addition, there is always a guarantee. If a user clicks “Confirm” and the transaction fails, the smart contract created by the app ensures that the swap guarantees are enforced. "But if you are surrounded with a 'naughty' one, they will simply take your tokens. Radix doesn't allow that. The guarantees are then enforced at the ledger level. So even if I sign it, they couldn't steal my money because for the transaction to be successful, they would have to return to me the minimum guarantee that the transaction enforced in the first step. And if that's not possible, the transaction fails," Ridyard concluded.

About Piers Ridyard

Piers Ridyard is the CEO of Radix DLT, a decentralized network that enables developers to develop quickly without the constant threat of exploits and hacks. Radix will reward improvements and ensure that scaling never becomes a bottleneck. Ridyard also founded and exited Surematics, a Y Combinator company, and was involved in mining Ethereum's Genesis Block in July 2015. He graduated from the University of Manchester and the University of Law and has CFA Level 1.