It’s been a while since Klever’s co-founder and CEO Dio Ianakiara talked in an exclusive interview with Klever.
Of course, it’s completely understandable. In this period of time between his last statements and the new chat we had, Dio has been with his hands full with projects such as the final touches of Klever Exchange, the upgrade from Klever Wallet 4 to K5, and KleverChain, the groundbreaking blockchain for Klever, just to name a few.
Not only that, but Dio is the face, the heart, and the spirit of the company, and in those months, he represented Klever around the world, sealing deals and solidifying partnerships.
With his heavy agenda, we managed to talk a bit between messages, and, as always, his answers were inspirational.
Moreover, he gushes about the team, its achievements, and what will become Klever’s next phase now that we have our own native blockchain.
Maluh Bastos: I would like to start by saying that the very first material that I read about Klever wasn’t about Klever’s numbers or financial success. What caught my attention from the beginning was your history. The testimonial that you gave in the published “From the Slums of São Paulo to Klever CEO – A Personal Life Story of Klever by Dio Ianakiara” got me really interested to be a part of this movement.
But you wrote that piece back in February 2021. I want to know now, more than a year later, what would you add to that article that is fundamental for everyone to know? What happened during that period that needs to be told?
Dio: I do think the article was very short and incomplete. There are many things I would like to add and it will happen in the future. My goal with that article was to inspire people to chase their dreams, look from a different perspective to their problems, invest in self-education and finally work hard to make things happen. In klever words, take ownership of their lives.
Maluh: So much was accomplished in such a short period of time. Do you feel like things are ‘running fast’ for Klever or it is how you expected it to be?
Dio: If we compare it to 2017 when we start with only 6 people, things are for sure running faster now that we have 200+ people working at Klever. Klever has healthy operations and we spend less than we make. We will keep investing to build innovative products and public infrastructure for the internet such as it was with KleverChain.
Maluh: Last year has been a rollercoaster for crypto enthusiasts. While many thought it was just a phase during COVID-19 times, it remained as things got more serious for crypto adoption throughout the world (El Salvador’s situation, China’s FUD, NFTs rising, etc).
What are your thoughts on those changes and transformations around the world when it comes to digital assets and blockchain technology?
Dio: I think people started to realize the potential of blockchain and crypto, but they don’t completely understand it yet. COVID-19 has certainly accelerated the need for new technology and bitcoin and blockchain are just the cases. The world will keep evolving and the GOOD and FUD news will keep coming. Like traditional markets, people love to speculate and they love that crypto is a nonstop 24/7 market.
Maluh: Klever has a great impact on emerging economies, providing the financial freedom many didn’t have before. Does Klever wish to continue improving and expanding to these audiences? What would be the tools to achieve that goal?
Dio: Today, Klever offers easy, secure, and reliable self-custody technology that connects you with the most trusted public blockchains in the world. We will keep improving our ecosystem to attend to new audiences, gain market share and extend our market leadership despite the aggressive competitive landscape.
We need to prove that our public blockchain solution is klever, scalable, and can handle high throughput. Tomorrow, through innovation, Klever will help the unbanked people and onboard users in search of financial freedom.
If we succeed, we will help billions of people have access to fair financial services for the first time in their lives.
Maluh: Let’s talk about the features we have. Klever Exchange was launched in its full form, available for iOS, Android, and the web version last year.
I’ve talked with Rieger, Sobreira, and Baiano about this new product but I want to know from you: what is your goal with Klever Exchange?
What do you want to accomplish with this new trading platform – is it just to provide a new solution in the Klever Ecosystem or are there more reasons to invest in this right now?
Dio: There are many opportunities in the crypto exchange market. It keeps getting more and more interesting and profitable, however, there are many challenges for newcomers and established franchises. As of late, larger players marshal impressive amounts of resources to acquire crypto companies to gain market share.
Many people may think this market is saturated with crypto exchanges, but in reality, it’s only in its infancy. Like the internet boom, crypto and blockchain are technology advancements that humanity needs in order to move forward to a more fair financial system.
Financial services should be free and accessible like public services such as power and water. Public financial services are essential to advance humankind.
When you ask me “What do you want to accomplish?”
Well, we are not here to be the second. Klever Exchange is probably the most advanced spot exchange in the world and we will prove our value as we polish its features in the next 12 months.
If you are a professional trader you know that most exchanges have several issues with performance, support, availability, and bad management. Especially when the market is trending, exchanges aren’t able to handle 10x of their top volume. This means we need a better exchange, an exchange that stays up all the time and is fast as light speed.
The fact the Klever Exchange can handle even 1000x times its current volume is impressive and it will prove itself with time.
Maluh: The Klever Hardware Wallet is on the move as well. Can you talk about this project and how is it important to have our own hardware wallet?
Dio: I can start this with Alan Key’s quote “People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.“
I love my ledger wallet however it is very very slow and does not provide me with the features that are present in the Klever Wallet App. I usually have many issues finding tokens because they are never there. I do have issues signing transactions and adding new apps.
In Klever Labs we had an idea of a hardware wallet and its software was for sure the amazing Klever Wallet App.
Imagine if you could have a hardware wallet with Klever security, speed, and support for 20,000+ tokens, and 20+ blockchains.
Imagine if you could use your Klever Wallet app connected with your hardware wallet and sign transactions at unprecedented speeds using a Bluetooth Hardware Wallet.
It is a Klever Hardware Wallet called KleverSafe.
Maluh: The Klever Wallet App seems to be like the Klever “baby”. It’s so cherished by everyone and it has improved a lot since its launch – and now with Klever 5 on its way, more will come. What are your first impressions of the product since you launched it? Has it met your expectations?
Dio: When I compare Klever 4 and Klever 5 I can say Klever 5 will be at least 100 times better since its architecture carries the result of 5 rebuilds from scratch. The state-of-the-art crypto and blockchain wallet.
Versions 1, 2, 3, and 4 were necessary evolutions to reach the Klever 5 maturity.
All things in Klever 5 are made with a long-term view on the user experience, performance, scalability, and maintainability.
If there’s one app that can handle millions of simultaneous users it’s Klever 5, our competitors are not ready for it.
Klever 5 will be your ultimate wallet for the next 20 years.
Maluh: One of the new features will also be Klever’s NFT Marketplace. How do you feel about this whole new universe of consumption and what are Klever’s plans to attend this new segment?
Dio: The NFT marketplace is booming, and what a surprise for 2021. Let’s take Devikins sales numbers as an example. Over 3M USD sales in less than 24h. A huge growing community that doesn’t stop buying digital assets that will live forever in public blockchain networks.
KleverNFT.com is our solution for a decentralized NFT marketplace. It’s still in beta, however, it can handle thousands of concurrent transactions and was battle-tested with devikins.com sale.
As we grow we look for innovative artists, brands, and influencers to collaborate and create NFT for their communities in a more fair way maintaining their royalties. Klever NFT will be the top hub for NFT’s.
Maluh: Finally, Klever has its own blockchain system. Can you elaborate on the importance of having a native blockchain and the challenges the team faced to make this project happen?
Dio: I think the first challenge was to convince the team to make it happen. It was a challenging moment because we wanted to make KLV stronger and independent from other networks. At the same time, our team was not happy with the current crypto and blockchain landscape.
After many years in this industry you notice that there’s a lot of misinformation out there, you get to know what blockchain works and what blockchain doesn’t, how open source teams work, what are the issues with teams, Ethereum, Tron, Binance, Bitcoin and so on.
We have a vision of a blockchain that is governed by a true community, one blockchain that we can trust and develop innovative solutions for people around the world.
We need a blockchain that can offer true opportunities for people that are unbanked and make it cheap at the level of nano transactions.
We need a blockchain that startups and enterprises around the world can develop digital solutions and trust the klever network behind their own sidechains.
Creating a new blockchain is a massive challenge in all aspects.
First, because of the huge amount of resources that are necessary to deploy and maintain such an ambitious project and operation.
Second, find consensus, recover network failures, manage developers, and so on.
Since the blockchain code cannot be changed it’s necessary to run extensive tests on the network before the mainnet launch.
Anyway, we were limited by third-party technologies to build our own products, services, and applications. Limited by high fees, the lack of communication from blockchain foundations, and limited by major exchanges who were reluctant to list our utility token KLV.
KleverChain is here to remove all those limitations.
Maluh: Last, but not least, what’s the message you want to pass on right now to the Klever community that has been extremely important to our growth?
Dio: I think our dreams would never happen without the Klever community’s support. Klever community is an open-minded community that always helps us to create the best crypto and blockchain products in the world.
I would like to thank the Klever community and say that 2022 is the year of consolidation of our technology. This means that the Klever ecosystem will be entirely connected and working at full speed by the end of 2022.
The next 12 months we will be delivering 8 new products:
- Klever Blockchain API (Cross-Chain Wallet Management)
- Klever Kustody API (Cloud/Hosted Custody)
- Klever Banking API (Crypto banking for apps and games)
- Klever Explorers API (Cross-chain Explorer)
- Klever Exchange API (Klever Exchange API)
- Klever Bots API (Klever Exchange Bots API)
- Klever XTL API (Manage Multiple Exchanges)
- Klever Data (Blockchain Analytics API)
All products are included on Klever OS SDK with support for 20,000+ tokens and 20+ top blockchains. Klever OS Launch is set to Q3 2022.
