Rostyslav Bortman is Head of Blockchain Development at IdeaSoft and founder of ETHKyiv Community. He is one of the main faces of the global and Ukrainian Web3 development and a driving force behind crypto community development.
He has developed many outstanding Web3 products, while this year’s Ethereum hackathon in Kyiv organised by him and his team was attended by Vitalik Buterin – his keen friend and a dedicated colleague.
We talked about the future of the Ethereum market and ecosystem, and the Web3 sector in Ukraine and its specifics.
How did you find yourself in blockchain development? What attracted you to the Web3 industry?
Smart contracts. In 2016, my professor at the university came to me and offered me a topic for my thesis – ‘Smart contracts on Ethereum’ or something like that. I agreed. Since then, I couldn’t tear myself away from Solidity and Ethereum – I was completely taken by the concepts of decentralisation and the absence of intermediaries.
At the Incrypted Conference 2024, Vitalik Buterin noted that Ukrainian Web3 developers have made significant progress in creating innovative solutions. What do you think about this and how do you see the contribution of Ukrainian developers to the global development of blockchain?
At starters, there are different ways to contribute: to build a profound product with a good foundation that will go mainstream and have a direct impact on the development of Web3, or to be a developer in a team that builds the future of Web3, or to contribute to open-source communities.
Of course, among the cool teams in Web3, you can often find Ukrainian developers who build cool things in a team, and that’s very cool. However, we don’t see a massive number of Ukrainians developing products that go mainstream. We still need to work on this.
I think that the Ukrainian Web3 community is just starting to develop. As the organiser of the largest hackathon in Ukraine, I can say that we still have a lot of work to do on the culture of building startups. People are focused on earning money and don’t want to take risks, express no desire to build something of their own, because outsourcing provides stability.
My team and I intend to change this – to build a culture of hackathons in the country, because I am convinced that this is one of the most effective ways to show developers that building your own product is awesome. It will take time for people’s mindsets to change, and for Ukrainians to start influencing global blockchain development with their products.
Do you think Ukrainian startups can compete internationally in the field of Web3 and blockchain technologies? And if so, how?
Of course they can. The Web3 market is global, and it does not matter in which country it is built. First of all, the product use case, UX, is important. Anyone who makes a cool product that people need can compete in this market.
‘Build something people need. Build a dead simple experience,’ – Jesse Pollak.
Over the past few years, a lot of Web3 projects with Ukrainian roots have emerged. Are there any Ukrainian blockchain development projects you can mention?
Global Ledger. I also like Trustee Plus – it is simple, convenient, and solves the problem of consumer payments. HackenProof.
It is also important to note that the concept of success is different for many people, so I am only speaking about the ones I personally like.
You are the founder of the Kyiv Ethereum Community. What are the biggest achievements of this community? How do you think it has influenced the development of the blockchain ecosystem in Ukraine?
We have been organising meetups since 2021. We have already held about 25 different events. We have collaborated with BNB Chain, Scroll, Diia education, and many others. You can see all our events here – kyivethereum.com.
Recently, we organised ETHKyiv, which was attended by Vitalik (Buterin) and three other people of the Ethereum Foundation (and many other guests of various cool Web3 protocols). We managed to get such giants as EtherFi, Scroll, Intmax, Zero1, Circles, The Graph Builders Dao, and others as sponsors. Also, 123 hackers visited the location offline and took part in the hackathon.
We raised $8000 for the FPV-drones for the Ukraine Armed Forces (UAF). And all this despite the war.
In your opinion, what role does the Kyiv Ethereum Community play in the development of the Ethereum ecosystem?
I believe that the strategy of developing local communities around the world is the right one, because only local leaders, not the global Foundation, can have the greatest impact on people from specific countries.
The role and influence depends not on me, but on the community. I alone can do little, but we are doing everything in our power to create favourable conditions for the development of the Ethereum community in Ukraine – gather cool founders, visionaries, and leaders.
You are one of the founders of ETH: Kyiv Hackathon. In your opinion, how do hackathons and developer conferences contribute to the development of the Ethereum ecosystem? What are the main challenges you can identify in organising a hackathon?
Let’s start with the sad stuff. I am the one and only organiser of ETHKyiv 2024 (with my Kyiv Ethereum team, of course). Sergiy Sevidov was formally a co-organiser, but, in fact, he did not fulfil his duties and did not take any part in the organisation of this event. Therefore, calling him one of the organisers would be unfair to the team that was involved in the organisation.
Unfortunately, it turned out that he controls the ethkyiv.org domain and social media, in which our team made absolutely all publications related to the ETHKyiv hackathon. He refuses to give up the social media and the domain (although he has nothing to do with Ethereum in Ukraine and did nothing to develop it, his only goal is to use the ETHKyiv name), because he wants to hold some of his own events there and claim ETHKyiv 2024 as his own to sell it to sponsors and partners. My team and I have already turned this page and created new social media.
Now, to answer your question:
I believe that hackathons have a direct impact on the development of Ethereum in Ukraine, because I think that developers are the main asset of the ecosystem. That is why our main mission is to onboard Ukrainian developers to Ethereum. As for conferences, I can’t answer because my main focus is on builders.
There was an incredible amount of difficulties, but this would be a story for an hour. There were a lot of problems with contractors and the amount of coordination, communication, management of all the details, such as on Taikai network and elsewhere, involvement of sponsors, hackers, judges and speakers, and media publications. This story deserves a separate publication.
Over the past few years, a lot of blockchains and protocols have emerged in the Web3 space, such as Base, Whitechain, or Near. In your opinion, what impact does this have on the Web3 market and blockchain development?
Base has a very good impact on Web3 because they are developing a culture of builders around them and promoting the message that building is cool. They’re focused on developing consumer apps, which is the right thing to do, in my opinion, and I think that’s Base is where we’re going to see a lot of cool innovations in Web3.
How do you see the future of such a diversified Web3 market? Would an oligopoly of a few large networks be better?
I’m an ETH Maxi, so it’s hard for me to think about that. There are so many new and interesting things happening in Ethereum every day that I simply don’t have enough time to follow other ecosystems.
However, I think that other blockchains are likely to take some market share, but Ethereum will remain the undisputed leader. For me, Ethereum’s principles are closer to my heart. That’s why I’m here, and most of the people in the community are here as well. And I think that’s what makes Ethereum the best.
With the deeper integration of blockchain technologies into finance, do you think DeFi will be able to displace traditional, centralised banking? Is the DeFi infrastructure suitable for large-scale financial transactions?
Currently, consumer payments are one of the biggest issues that are a priority in the industry, including, for example, Base (I wrote about it here). I don’t think that DeFi will replace centralised banking in the coming years, but I think that step by step, it will become more convenient and popular, the number of users will grow, and strategically, in the future, we will have some hybrid systems with the ability to completely abandon traditional centralised banking if necessary.
With the launch of Ether ETFs and rumours of Solana exchange-traded funds, is it possible to bring tokens of other blockchains to the stock markets? Does the blockchain industry need such a tendency?
I don’t think we will see a Solana ETF in the near future. There are objective reasons for this.
Firstly, the SEC (US Securities and Exchange Commission – author’s note) considers Solana a security. Secondly, the funds own 12% of SOL (or more, I don’t know the exact figure, but it is a significant disadvantage). Thirdly, if we talk about the classic path to ETFs (as was the case with BTC and ETH), Solana still needs 2-3 years to go all the way.
As for other assets, I think that the cryptocurrency market has to become much more mature first, because now all these memecoins and assets with no meaning and billions of dollars in capitalisation look very strange.
NFTs have seen better days in terms of popularity. Do you see any potential in this technology? How can NFTs be used to unlock their full technological potential?
NFTs are not going anywhere, but not the NFTs that everyone has heard about in 2021. NFT is a token standard that will be and is already being actively used in RWA (Real World Assets). They will tokenise everything they can with NFT. From real estate to items in virtual worlds and games. I have no idea what will happen to NFT monkeys.
In your opinion, which sectors of Web3 development can become trends in the near future?
Account abstraction, SocialFi, decentralised messengers, consumer apps (including payment apps), cross-chain interoperability, GameFi.
You used to teach your own course at Sigma Software University. So, how do you assess the role of such educational initiatives in training new specialists for the Web3 and blockchain industry?
I believe it is very important. As far as I know, the situation in Ukraine is not very good.
I would really like to see us move faster and have more enthusiasm. If anyone wants to run Solidity courses, remember that we will always support you. Come, let’s talk.
I like the example of Argentina – they have integrated Ethereum and Solidity into the school curriculum in Buenos Aires. I think we should move in this direction – I have already texted to several of my friends on this topic.
In your opinion, how do you convey the benefits of blockchain technologies or a particular Web3 project to the masses?
Build something that people need. Build dead simple experiences. Create applications that people use, that’s all. They (masses – author’s note) will come to you. Someday, freedom of speech will become a very important aspect, looking at what is happening in the world now. So I think that the demand for decentralisation, security, and censorship resistance will grow.
How do you see the Web3 industry in 5-10 years?
This is a very difficult question. I think there will be a lot of applications that will go mainstream and users will not even know that they are Web3-based. I think that during this time, the main UX problems will be solved and we will be able to find killer use cases in the industry. I think we will see the same mass adoption in the next 10 years.
What motivates you the most to continue working in this field?
I am keen on the principles of decentralisation, censorship resistance, self-custody, etc. I like to remove trust from where it shouldn’t remain. I like to remove intermediaries and automate the conditions in smart contracts. I believe that this is the future, and we are moving in the right direction in general. I like being involved in this, and I am grateful for it.
People are also motivating. Such a concentration of incredibly smart, open-minded people is very incentive.