DeFi Visions: Lukas Schor

In DeFi Visions, a series of video interviews, the 1inch Network talks to the most prominent people in the DeFi space. This post contains the main takeaways from a recent interview with Lukas Schor, co-founder of Safe (formerly Gnosis Safe).

Lukas was first exposed to crypto in 2016 when watching Vitalik Buterin’s video about Ethereum. Then, after “meeting different people connected with crypto and observing a lot of money flowing into the market,” he decided to get involved himself.

Lukas believes quite extraordinary ideas can be realized in DeFi. “I remember a group of people that used a DAO based on Safe to bid on the first printing of the US Constitution at Sotheby’s auction. There was a similar case aimed at buying a dinosaur skeleton,” he recalls.

“The idea of making such things a public good and creating a token to govern is quite exciting,” he adds.

Speaking of Safe products, Lukas says that building a protocol using smart contracts to support multi-signature wallets solves the problem of regular wallets with a single private key controlling an account. “It is like having one key to your house. You can’t get into your house by any means as soon as you lose it. Giving the key to a friend, recovering the key or having multiple keys could be a backup option, which we actually offer,” Lukas explains.

“As for the business model, we see Safe as a public good,” Lucas says. “At some point, we will need a monetary aspect similar to Ethereum. Having a model of value coordination is something we are looking into.”

Lukas says he is very optimistic about the prospects for interoperability: “Though we never achieve a perfect one, we are getting further every day, especially during the bull market.”

Still, he is also excited about the bear market, Lukas says, as it is the best time to establish a partnership and define interfaces between components in the ecosystem.

Emphasizing the advantages of DeFi over traditional finances, Lukas singles out inflation hedges. He draws the example of South American countries where “extreme inflation was a driver to crypto adoption.”

“Another nice thing about crypto is its transparency. Currently, DeFi is actually superior in many ways,” he adds.

While regulation remains a hot topic in crypto, there are some valid areas, Lukas says, where regulation is needed.

“[The] first is on/off-ramping and the second one is stablecoins to ensure users that there is a sufficient backing behind,” he explains.

According to Lukas, DAOs can potentially go beyond the crypto space. “I could imagine that WhatsApp or Facebook groups become DAOfied,” he observes. “Also, traditional corporations and maybe even nation states will gradually adopt some aspects of on-chain coordination and governance.”

“We see a lot of adoption, especially in the last two years — every company, from Google to Microsoft, is building internal blockchain teams,” he goes on to say. “They are embracing existing ecosystems.”

Lukas says he hopes that the metaverse will allow for a transition from digital to the real world. “For example, a game where you accumulate points enables you to get access to merchandise or events,” he elaborates.

Speaking of NFTs, Lukas highlights a recent bubble around them. Still, he adds, they help to tokenize different values — financial, emotional, cultural, captured membership or memories.

“Now, we can value utility cases beyond speculation when we see financial foam going down. NFT is a great place to build upon, and I’m quite excited about NFTs in general,” he concludes.

Watch the full interview with Lukas Schor on the 1inch Network’s YouTube channel.