Ask An Expert: Dhawal Shah on the Role of DeFi in Ukrainian Aid

Jun 17, 2022

Dhawal Shah, co-founder of Frontier, elaborated on the role of DeFi (decentralized finance) on the future of the financial world - and specifically conflict in Ukraine - during the latest installment of Valhalla Private Capital’s Ask An Expert series, which discussed Web3, the metaverse and its impacts on investors and startups alike.


Speaking with
Mark Mitchell, Edmonton Chapter President at Valhalla Private Capital, Aly Madhavji, managing director at Blockchain Founders Fund; and Jeffrey Manner, general partner at Weave VC; Dhawal attempted to dispel the “hype, skepticism and confusion” surrounding the DeFi ecosystem.


While this ecosystem had a “simple but very strong” use case by the end of 2019 - with a +137.23% annual increase in Total Value Locked in 2019 alone, according to
DeFi Rate - Dhawal maintains its purpose today is “not just restricted to a few finance-related apps”.


“At least 15 countries around the world are trading in cryptocurrencies for their various day to day commodities,” Dhawal explained before remarking upon the “biggest fundraising movement in the world”, which took place via DeFi to support the people of Ukraine amid rising tensions with Russia.


“They launched a crowdfunding campaign and they've already garnered $20 million by just running a simple campaign,” he continued.


At the time of writing, the campaign has reached $22million worth of digital assets, according to
The New York Times.


Nadya Tolokonnikova, a member of  Russian protest band Pussy Riot -  which is working with crypto collective
UkraineDAO - told the outlet: “Blockchain allows us to scale our efforts in a way that wasn’t possible for us before.


“The old ways of raising money sometimes are really slow and just clumsy,” they concluded.


This viewpoint is maintained by Dhawal, who hailed the “permissionless and transparent” nature of DeFi, while Jeffrey Manner remarked that it is “necessary” to rethink traditional financial systems “in a fully decentralized way”.


‘Ask An Expert’ contributor
Aly Madhavji, also explained “the essence of NFTs” during the event.


Do you have a question about angel investing? Get in touch with Valhalla Private Capital via our
contact page.


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