Sukesh Tedla Podcast Transcript
Sukesha Tedla joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies. Home of The Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Sukesh Tedla. Sukesh Tedla, CEO, and founder of Kryptos is a seasoned entrepreneur with a remarkable track record as a three times founder in the blockchain industry. His journey began with co-founding the Telos Foundation, where he played a pivotal role in scaling the Telos Blockchain known for its innovative governance and scalability.
As chairman of the Swedish Blockchain Association, Sukesh has been a key advocate for blockchain adoption across Europe, influencing policy and fostering collaboration within the industry. At Kryptos, Sukesh’s visionary leadership drives the mission to democratize Web3 finance. He is spearheading efforts to establish a standardized financial data protocol for decentralized finance, positioning Kryptos as a leader in the crypto tax solutions and a pioneer in the Web3 space.
Well, good afternoon, Sukesh. Welcome to the show!
Sukesh Tedla: Glad to be here, Brian. Thanks for the option to you.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. I really appreciate it. And I know sometimes traversing the globe can be challenging with whether it’s a connection time zone, whatever it is. So, I appreciate you making the time hailing out of the great country of Sweden at the moment.
So Sukesh, jumping into your first question here. Your journey in the blockchain industry has been remarkable, especially as a three times founder. Can you share what initially drew you to the blockchain space and how your experience with Tellus Foundation shaped your entrepreneurial path?
Sukesh Tedla: Yeah, for sure. I think first coming, like, before coming into blockchain, like, I’ve been in the tech space, and I come from a tech background as well with a master’s in telecommunications. And so. Being in Sweden, we’re like coming from telecom background. I ended up working at Ericsson and then with that experience, like with the tech experience, like that kind of like initially got my attention into like blockchain and crypto technology, because like, it’s all about like the decentralized and the new way of infrastructure for the finances and economy and everything.
So that brought me into the space and soon after the innovations that’s happening back in like, this is 2016, 2017, the early days of blockchain and Bitcoin becoming mainstream. That’s when I actually had the opportunity like to be part of this new networks and new blockchain networks that were being created at the time.
So that’s how I started like Telos network. I was one of the co-founders there. And this was back in 2018. And then after that, like we worked on telos for quite a, yeah, it’s been six years now. I was mainly taking care of all the operations related to finance and liquidity and All the operations related to that.
So that kind of like led me into identifying some gaps fundamental gaps in the industry when it comes to finance and managing your finances as a business, as a per there are huge gaps in the industry. It’s a 2.5 trillion industry right now, but there are like a lot of fundamental financial issues that needs to be resolved.
So that kind of led me into. founding Kryptos, yeah, more than two years back now. And that’s kind of like my journey so far.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. I appreciate the, the, the backstory. Of course, blockchain I, I believe can solve a lot of issues. There’s a lot of use cases for that. And. If you didn’t already know Sukesh our publication here is built on Web 3 as well.
We duplicate our Web2 content to Web3. So, love this space, really do love when we get to talk a little bit about blockchain on the podcast. So, thank you. And Sukesh, Kryptos is on a mission to democratize Web3 finance. Could you elaborate on what this mission entails and how you envision Web3 changing the landscape of global finance?
Sukesh Tedla: For sure. So when it comes to Web3 finance, right, so we are it’s a vast ecosystem out there and there are a lot of use cases, a lot of things happening in regards to payments, international payments, and Lending, borrowing, a lot of different activities happening when it comes to finance, but our key focus with Kryptos is focused on financial data and the use cases derived from the financial data specifically.
So, in traditional finance, you have a ton of use cases today and like financial data standards and financial data frameworks in different jurisdictions. In AU, we have. Open banking in the U. S. I think it’s coming right now. Open banking standards and yeah, adoption of that. So essentially multi-billion dollar companies like Plaid and Credit Karma or all these different use cases are built on this fundamental technology based on aggregating a lot of financial data, aggregating a lot of payments infrastructure, banking infrastructure into simple developer tools.
So, what we are doing at Kryptos is essentially the same thing, but we are focused on Web3. So today in Web3, there are a lot of blockchains, a lot of exchanges, a lot of platforms where people can interact with these assets and trade these assets and create new types of innovations. But when it comes to the fundamental aspects of finance, like tracking all this data.
Is not like structured today, and that’s what we’re trying to solve. So because we have so many different standards, so many different innovations happening at a rapid pace, what we’re trying to do is basically create a protocol in a way where we standardize all the data from these different blockchains into one standardized format, which can be consumed by different sorts of applications Transcribed Ranging anywhere from portfolio tracking to doing complex tasks like accounting, tax planning, insurance providers, and all these different use cases, which are not possible today because there is lack of data.
And that’s what we’re trying to solve because in the Web3 finance space physically. And while doing that, one of the fundamental things we’re also addressing by, Aligning with the ethos of decentralization is that we’re basically open sourcing our standards and we’re allowing other developers to build in accordance with this standard and creating a whole ecosystem where users can request new integrations.
Developers can build integrations. And everyone benefits in the ecosystem at the end of the day with sharing financial data securely and getting different services. So, we’re creating a whole vibrant Web3 fintech ecosystem in a way.
Brian Thomas: Thank you, Sukesh. I appreciate that. And I know there are a lot of challenges in the financial industry.
You know, I’ve had a few guests recently on the podcast, talk about some of those challenges. And I’m glad that you’re bringing a platform where you can standardize that and also use something that is immutable and something that is reliable and secure. So, I appreciate you sharing that. And Sukesh, you are spearheading the efforts to establish a standardized financial data protocol for decentralized finance at Kryptos.
Why do you believe the standardization is crucial for the future of DeFi? And what impact do you foresee it having on the broader blockchain ecosystem?
Sukesh Tedla: Yeah, I think this is one of the fundamental reasons we started with this was of course, due to the challenges that we, that I personally faced when I was working leading all the financial aspects of Telos, right?
So, this is not just my, our problem within that, within Telos, but this was a problem, like throughout the industry even today, like if you go to like, Venture capital firm or like a big corporation in Web3, they’re still tracking all their assets in Excel sheets, which doesn’t make any sense in 2024.
So, if we do the comparison again with the traditional finance, we have these standards for almost a decade right now, and we have companies like Plaid in the us who’s a $14 billion company that’s basically. Are the fundamental payment rails of the infrastructure, financial infrastructure for a ton of other billion-dollar companies in the US.
So, all of this was possible because of the standardized data that these platforms are offering like Plaid or Tink. These companies are offering in traditional finance. So with the standardization, like the innovation in fintech, like really took over at a rapid pace, but whereas in web three, what’s happening today is because the industry is growing at a super rapid pace, but whereas when it comes to the fundamental tools, when it comes to the standardization of the data and all this infrastructure is not growing at the same pace, which makes it super challenging for any newcomers to the industry or the traditional level.
Investors from the traditional space to come into the new web three industry without having access to these fundamental tools just makes it super difficult for them. So, if we want my, our vision, when we started Kryptos is to like, okay, we want to bring a billion, billion people into the web three space.
Like, how do we do that? We need to have this fundamental tool set. We need to have this fundamental infrastructure when it comes to finance and that’s what we’re trying to do. Our technology with our protocol, we’re trying to enable these thoughts of use cases so that those use cases will actually bring people or enable people to feel comfortable within the Web3 space, essentially.
So that’s what we’re trying to do.
Brian Thomas: Amazing. Thank you again. And I know you’re working hard to build this platform to again, make. Defy more mainstream and also bring everybody into the mix, no matter where, what your economic status is. So, I appreciate that.
Sukesh looking ahead, what are some of the key trends and developments in blockchain and web 3 that excite you the most? And how is Kryptos preparing to lead in these areas?
Sukesh Tedla: I think with the direction right now, I mean, like, in Web3 as a lot of you know, like, the trends keep on changing, like every other month. So, well, in my opinion, I think as we are seeing more and more real-world adoption these days and more Web3 and crypto becoming mainstream I think that’s really exciting for us.
And what we are really excited about personally is like a lot of these real-world assets that are being brought on to like on chain and blockchain based infrastructure. I think it’s going to improve a lot of Efficiencies in the system and eliminate a lot of these like, yeah, not really needed bureaucracies or processes in the traditional systems.
So, I think that’s quite exciting for us to see the direction that the industry is going and with more and more mainstream brands and reputed organizations coming into the space. I think we will see more of that. And we also see the, the regulation yeah, is catching up in a way. So, I think that’s also exciting for us, especially for a business like ours.
If, if it’s a much-regulated industry, we see more, more and more adoption, which means more and more people using the standards as well, because regulation and standards kind of like go hand in hand in a way, so it really helps us as well.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. And we are seeing an adoption of that, especially in the regulatory space.
There are still some people that are kind of waiting this out. But we do, especially the governments, but we do see some adoption starting. We see some people that are in the. Regulation space or compliance space or even tech space diving in and helping those that are in there. So, I really appreciate all the work and the pioneering that you’re doing in this space.
I think it’s awesome and more power to defy. And it was certainly a pleasure having you on today. And I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Sukesh Tedla: Yeah, sounds good. Looking forward to it.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Sukesh Tedla Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
