Blockchain Defi Future: Dinis Guarda Interviews John Nahas, Chief Business Officer At Ava Labs

In the latest episode of the Dinis Guarda Podcast, John Nahas, Chief Business Officer at Ava Labs, discusses the future of blockchain and Decentralised Finance (DeFi), focusing on how Avalanche’s multi-blockchain platform is transforming industries and enabling financial inclusion globally. He highlights the potential of DeFi in bridging the gap for underserved populations and the importance of creating purpose-built blockchains.  The podcast is powered by Businessabc.net, Citiesabc.com, Wisdomia.ai, and Sportsabc.org.

John Nahas is the Chief Business Officer at Ava Labs, the company behind the Avalanche blockchain. At Ava Labs, he drives strategic partnerships and international expansion in key markets including Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. With a strong fintech background, having raised $18M and secured 43 licences at Onsa, he blends regulatory insight with innovation. 

During the interview, John discusses Avalanche’s community and business ecosystem:

"Our community is not just the people who follow the price of the token, but the companies, developers, and builders that are really engaged with Avalanche.

The promise of Web3 is the free flow of value. We are building the foundational infrastructure that supports and enables any business, any use case, any innovation.

Avalanche is many blockchains, many assets. It’s a highway system. We have our own chain, decentralised, very inexpensive, and fast."

What is an Avalanche?

John emphasises how Avalanche sets itself apart by providing a platform with multiple blockchains:

“Avalanche is a platform that allows for the distribution of blockchain technology into any industry, any business, any use case, any asset, and any innovation. We have separated ourselves by really focusing on the use cases and the solutions that blockchains provide.

I don't really believe the token is there yet, the economic side is not as mature, you have disconnections between ecosystems, what's happening within them and the token price.

But we allow many other systems to be built, bringing in different use cases. You can add infinitely scalable lanes for different needs.”

Comparing Avalanche Protocol with other blockchain models, John says:

“Bitcoin is a single blockchain with a single asset. Ethereum and others are single blockchains with many assets. Avalanche is many blockchains, many assets. Whereas Ethereum now is a settlement layer, L2(s) are for general use. Avalanche provides infinitely scalable chains that are customisable for any business use case.

In Avalanche, institutions, enterprises, governments, gaming, and DeFi can all work within the same network. We don't force our clients to fit within parameters, but offer flexible solutions customised for their needs.

Existing blockchains are like ‘here’s a solution, now fit your asset on top of mine.’ An avalanche is the opposite. We look at how we can give you technology that’s customisable for your business.

First-generation blockchains just try to shove everything into one box, with their token being the product. But we look at it differently; we want to enable purpose-built, application-specific blockchains, interconnected like the early internet. 

The future of blockchain is not about launching a general-purpose blockchain and seeing what sticks. It’s about creating interconnected, purpose-built blockchains that meet specific needs. The world doesn’t operate on one chain; it needs many, and we’re bringing them together seamlessly.”

DeFi: A means of financial literacy and inclusion

John discussed the transformative potential of Decentralised Finance (DeFi) in providing financial access to underserved populations globally:

"DeFi is definitely going to spread, and it's going to spread to the places that are in need of financial applications and tools and are lacking them.

The countries that are in need of development are usually the first adopters of a new technology. The rate of adoption of mobile phones in Africa, Latin America, and East Asia skyrocketed because those people didn't have a traditional phone line, so they didn’t have to gradually add cell phones.

In Africa, there was a big gap in banking. There's no local community banks on every corner like in the western world, mobile banking was the first kind of banking people understood.

I believe crypto, for as much as it's heralded as new technology, actually is the opposite. I think we have an elitism problem in this industry.

We like our seed phrases and our mobile wallets and our jargon. Those platitudes are actually things that we take for granted. And it's somewhat condescending and also exclusionary.

We need to create a system where you can have this DeFi sit on the back end. So, if I'm sending money or earning money in stable coins, which is the closest thing I think we have to a killer app, digital dollars, but also we need to expand that to digital local currencies and FX.

If you have a mobile app, that app is a wallet. Stop calling it a wallet. Just call it a mobile app. In the app is a wallet.

You can have your dollars in there, and you could say to yourself, 'I want to have 10 in petty cash and 90 I want to earn interest.’

You hit a button. You earn interest. And that should deposit your funds into an a or a bank or whatever, depending on the chain or depending on the application, you can provide liquidity, and you can earn interest at a higher rate than a bank will give you.

DeFi allows for anybody to contribute, anybody to have access to their own value, to earn on their own value, and to trade.

If I’m in Southeast Asia and I want to own some gold, but I don’t want to buy physical gold, I can buy tokenised gold. With that, there’s education and trust. We need to know that these applications are secure and safe.

DeFi opens up the possibility of finance to anybody for any use case across the globe instantaneously. There’s no T+1, T+2, like the traditional rail. Swift was built 50 years ago. We still have not changed the plumbing on how money moves in the world."