In our ‘Banking on Air’ podcast, host Marcel Klimo welcomed Nicolas Arqueros, CTO at blockchain technology company EMURGO. EMURGO provides solutions for developers, startups, enterprises, and governments. It is the core founder of the Cardano protocol and its cryptocurrency Ada, named after the computing pioneer Ada Lovelace.

As CTO of the company, Nic is intimately familiar with blockchain technology in general, and the Cardano protocol in particular. In their conversation, Marcel and Nic discuss Cardano briefly but more importantly discuss the developments in the blockchain space more broadly. What is the state of the 3rd generation of blockchains? Is DeFi (Decentralised Finance) here to stay? What is holding back millions of additional users from using blockchain technology? When will cryptocurrencies be stable enough to compete with fiat counterparts? Where can we first expect blockchain technology to provide value in people’s everyday lives?

Cardano has proven to be incredibly successful as a blockchain protocol, being consistently amongst the highest ranked blockchain protocols by market capitalisation, as well as a main contender for providing a scalable, secure and sustainable general-purpose smart contracting platform that a multitude of industries will build on. The associated Cardano cryptocurrency, Ada, has seen a 10x rise in value in just the last 6 months. 

Tune in to listen to Nic and Marcel, and find out about the latest happenings in this exciting growth market – Available on Apple Podcasts, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Spotify or here:

Full transcript of this episode is available here.

Here’s a rundown of this episode:

• 00:30 Introduction of EMURGO and blockchain
• 02:40 What is Cardano?
• 08:20 Competition of EMURGO
• 10:35 What is DeFi
• 14:30 Products of EMURGO
• 16:00 Cooperation between EMURGO and Vacuumlabs

‘Banking on Air’ is the official Vacuumlabs podcast covering the challenges, opportunities, perspectives and opinions that matter to you and to our community. In this podcast, we are looking under the hood of the changing face of tech: the acceleration in all things digital, the impact of regulation (and disruption), the need for genuine collaboration – and the specter of competitors old and new as it plays out in fintech and financial services around the world.

This podcast is brought to you by Vacuumlabs – and we’re sharing our experience and expertise in creating solutions for the digital journey for professionals, community banks, and fintechs. We believe that the future is in communities when it comes to digital transformation in financial services, and we invite you to join us and our guests over the coming weeks and months.