Max Kantelia is Shaping the Future of Web3 with Zilliqa Group: A Journey from Engineer to Blockchain Pioneer | S2 Ep. 147
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Hey everyone, welcome back to Founders Story. Today we have Max Cantilia, the founder of Zilliqa Group. And Max, you and I got to spend some time together in Singapore. We had a blast. What an incredible event. And seeing what you all are doing now is just amazing. Really, you've been at the forefront of a lot of emerging technologies like blockchain,

Web 3, Metaverse, others as well. And I know you're also a serial entrepreneur. You were born in Kenya, and I can't wait to hear all these things about you. And I'd like to dive into what was the spark that made you want to be an entrepreneur? By training, I'm actually an engineer. I'm an electronic engineer. I used to work on radar systems on fighter jets. And what I realized is that firstly, I...

wasn't really cut out to work in a large company environment. Secondly, I had a desperate desire to

To be my own boss and to chart my own course. And this was at a time, by the way, when entrepreneurship wasn't so fashionable for young people. So it was quite a brave thing to do age 23, 24 to launch into entrepreneurship. So I've talked to a lot of founders on the show. When they started early, their parents weren't always liking it. Maybe they wanted them to be an engineer and continue. They didn't see them like they didn't see business as a formidable profession.

profession. How were your parents and your family when you told them, I'm going to quit this thing, this sure thing, to do this unsure thing? Actually, my parents were completely supportive. My father was himself a business person, my grandfather before that a business person, and always doing quite pioneering things. So actually, I think my father was quite delighted when I told him I didn't want to

I want to ride up the ladder in some large corporation and instead do something for myself. So actually, I was blessed to have full support, which is unusual, I can tell you. Well, that's great. So you have a family of pioneers, which has led me to you, which you are a pioneer. You've been really at the face of emerging technologies for a while. So why did you see this as something that you really wanted to go into?

So in 2014, I fell in love with the idea of blockchain technology. And yes, that was on the back of hearing how Bitcoin was created on this technology. But I was much more interested in the underlying technology. And at that time, Daniel, I just foresaw a future where, which we now call Web3, we didn't back then. But I foresaw a future where Web3

we could build businesses on top of this technology called blockchain that would be able to do things for consumers that you couldn't do without that technology. And I knew it was going to take a very long time to get there. And then a year later in 2015, I discovered some groundbreaking research on scalability of blockchains at the National University of Singapore.

And with a brilliant, brilliant young professor who actually come from UC Berkeley, not far from where you are today, I think. And he had written some incredible papers on how to scale blockchain technology, how to make it safe and secure. And that really was the initial spark.

for what we call Zilliqa, which is our layer one blockchain and part of the Zilliqa Group of Ventures. So Zilliqa Group is comprised of a few different companies. Yes. If you could, one, go into what are those companies and then also how was it as you scaled your company

Knowing that you can't just do like one thing per se. If you really want to scale and grow, you have to maybe acquire companies, start new companies within the group. How was it as you expanded the group? Well, the first thing to say, Daniel, is that in 2015, I had a vision to build applications for big industry segments using this technology. But at that time, there was no context at all.

because people really didn't know how this technology was going to get used. They had no idea. And so it's always a brave thing to do when you have a vision, but there is no example. There are no case studies.

And to be fair, I actually stuck to my knitting. We built the aim was to build the best technology that we could. It's like building a car engine, but there weren't any roads yet.

And so instead of following what other layer one blockchains were doing, we just kept building the best possible technology that we could. And then I was waiting for that moment when we started to see sparks of utility in the marketplace. And really that took five years because it was only, I suppose, around 2020, 2020.

when we heard the advent of those three letters, N, F and T, that we started to see some real utility or use cases for blockchain. And so at around that time, Daniel, I became really excited because I started to see how we could do things using a blockchain layer that you wouldn't be able to do without it.

And if I may, in very simple terms, for me, Web 1 was about read. Web 2 was about read and write because you now had social media.

Web3 for me is about read, write and own. You can now own assets that sit on this thing called a blockchain and they belong to you. You can be the self-custodian of those assets. This to me is the most groundbreaking thing. And when I tell you, for example, that back in 2021,

There was about $190 billion spent on in-game assets. So young people buying and selling, actually mostly buying in-game assets on social gaming platforms. And those assets didn't even belong to them because these are Web 2 platforms where whoever the owner is of that gaming company owns the asset, not the player or the user.

And so for me in Web3, the fact that you can own these assets and that is completely authenticates ownership is to me, it's very exciting. So I've heard this quote and I'm totally going to get it wrong, but it's like,

like business and the beginning they see you as like crazy and then you become a genius, right? Because your vision is so crazy that people can't understand that it could even be a thing which is like you in the beginning, right? You had this vision, this technology that no one really even understood or knew how to use it, but you had this vision.

And then you become the genius because it becomes more mainstream and usable. How was that journey along that? Because it was many years, it sounds like.

from the vision to now. So how was that process being you were so at the forefront? It was a role. It's been a roller coaster ride, if I'm being honest with you. There are days when you wake up and people are telling you that you are crazy and that actually what you should be doing is just launching NFTs or cartoon characters and creating NFTs out of them.

But that isn't really what I wanted to do. I wanted to build applications for industry. And so I stuck with that vision. And again, it was actually during the COVID years, Daniel, when I started to

really take a deep look at an industry that I'm very fond of, the luxury industry, where I started to talk to heads of big luxury brands about why this technology was going to become really important for them in the future. And of course, at that time, some people listened, some people listened but didn't hear what I was saying.

And then things that I had been prophesizing over the following few years started to actually become true. What do I mean by that? So, for example,

During the COVID years, I would observe my nieces and nephews who would spend five, six plus hours a day on social gaming platforms where their avatar would speak to the avatar of their friends and they would be socializing as they would in person.

but in this virtual world. Whereas people more of my age were happy every few weeks to be able to have a Zoom call with their friends and have a glass of wine. And I saw something then that really got me excited, which was the fact that Gen Z and now Gen Alpha, you're probably one of the two of those I know, started to talk about how for them,

physical and digital were one and the same. They're singular. They are both as important as each other. And that really started to make me very interested in the way that Gen Alpha and Gen Zers were consuming and how they were actually, you know, attending events, listening to music, talking to their friends. And it was in this virtual world that we call the social gaming world.

Do you know today, one in 2.3 people on the planet is a social gamer. And that fact is just, it's extraordinary. But it is becoming more and more true, I would say.

And so what led me to fashion our group of companies as we have is that there are really three components. So our backend component is Zilliqa and Zilliqa 2.0, which we are about to launch on mainnet in the coming months.

I think is a real game changer for many different reasons, but particularly in terms of usability and accessibility. I think it's a real game changer. Secondly, I think that having a front end, and we call our front end business Metaminds, which is actually a...

It's a metaverse or spatial web business that builds beautiful environments for luxury brands, which is something we're doing right now.

And then alongside those two businesses, we have a gaming studio because I think gaming and gamification of experiences with a metaverse front end and a Web3 layer, which allows you to own assets, hold them in your wallet, trade them, sell them, you know, layer DeFi products around that is how all of this really starts to come alive.

Because I can tell you that if you spend more than five minutes talking to a luxury brand about proof of work or proof of state, big yawns happen and they have no idea what you're talking about. But as soon as you have an immersive layer where we are now creating beautiful environments that look like the real world,

then people become very excited about what could happen in the future. So that's the structure of this group of companies. Each of the group companies has its own CEO. They're incredible people and all working together now as an orchestra.

to really help to bring some very interesting use cases to life. - No, I love how you have your mission, your core vision still, and now you have these three companies that come together, like you said, in a synergy, and they each one work together to get to that place. How do you see the future? What are you most excited about in five to 10 years? Because you've seen the future in the past,

And now we're here. So what are you looking at?

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language courses for the rest of your life. Redeem your 50% off at rosettastone.com backslash today, T-O-D-A-Y. What I'm really excited about is, for example, in Singapore, when I met you at TOCO 2049, we announced the beginnings of a partnership with the Cardano Ecosystem.

And it's actually one of the very, very few examples of a layer one working together with another layer one. And for me, people in the blockchain space that behave and act like monopolists don't have a place in this kind of decentralized world. This is a decentralized space. So I'm hoping to see much more interoperability between chains.

It's a bit like saying, you know, when the internet was born, it was a bit like saying, well, I can't, if I have a Gmail address and you have a Yahoo address, we can't communicate. You know, that sort of, it's that kind of thinking.

But I'm pleased to see that players in the space are beginning to think about interoperability, about how people can bridge assets and do a lot more in this kind of blockchain-driven application space. As you know, there are about 617 million wallets out there.

and only 5% of them are actively used. So for an entrepreneur, this is an opportunity. Entrepreneurs jump on data like this and say, "Okay, how do we bring more usability to this space?" And I think that we're seeing it. Blockchains are becoming more scalable.

Transaction costs are absolutely plummeting. I believe that gas fees will have to go to zero at some point. They have to. That means that blockchain projects have to be building things that have utility that can be commercialized. So this is what I'm hoping for. And what I'm really hoping for is that in five to seven years time, just as we saw in the mid 90s when the Internet became a thing,

is I'm hoping that not just Gen Zers and Gen Alphas, but people of all ages will be using applications that have a blockchain or Web3 sitting underneath them, and they won't even know that they're using that technology. That's what I'm hoping for. Wow. Well, you know, the fact that you've been doing this for almost a decade,

And all of the things that you predicted came true. I see in another decade that you and I will have another conversation and we'll be like, Hey, you remember in 2024 when you said this, well now it's coming true. But I'm very inspired by your story, what you've been able to accomplish. Also the fact that you're very global and you guys are in, you know, all these different continents and countries. And like you said, you,

You're really solving a problem, which I think as entrepreneurs, right, like we really seek to solve problems. And that is really inspiring. But if people want to get in touch with you, they want to find out more information about the Zilliqa group, how can they do so? Max at Zilliqa.com.

Or look me up on LinkedIn and send me a message. Well, Max, always great chatting with you. Can't wait to see you at whatever the next event that we get to meet at because I know you speak at like a ton of the great events. I've heard you speak and it's fantastic. So I hope anyone out there, watch Max, check him out, go to the next event, see him and meet him in person. But thank you so much for joining us today on Founders Story. Thank you, Daniel. It's been a pleasure.

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