Vladislav Ponomarev, the CEO of Broxus, spoke to us about the challenges that his company faced, as well as the products that they managed to create thus far.
Blockster: Introduce your company, product, and audience?
Vladislav Ponomarev: We are named Broxus. We are a blockchain developer, and we are designing a variety of products in the DeFi area. Broxus is doing a lot of things, such as DEX wallets, cross-chain bridges, different specialized tools, and also some products for easy integration for different blockchains.
Blockster: What products do you have on offer currently?
Vladislav Ponomarev: Our flagship product right now is the TON bridge which is a cross-chain bridge that delivers transactions between Ethereum, Binance, Polygon, and TON. Apart from the bridge, there are also some revolutionary tools that allow for the possibility of things like hidden payments of gas fees, which is something that nobody did before, as far as we are aware.
Blockster: Is there currently demand for such products?
Vladislav Ponomarev: Yes, we saw growth in demand as soon as we launched the product, we managed to reach a TVL of $13 million in under two weeks since the moment the bridge was launched, and we had to put a cap on top of it because we were not yet ready to handle such large amounts. We even had to ask investors to be patient and wait for the bridge to be released. The cap was removed as soon as that was done, and we are now targeting significantly higher amounts.
Blockster: What were some of the greatest challenges that you encountered along the way?
Vladislav Ponomarev: We are currently operating a very promising and powerful blockchain. Its name is Everscale, and the greatest challenge appeared to be the fact that the chain is not yet well-known, such as the likes of Ethereum or BSC. However, Everscale has a lot to offer, including infinite scaling, high transaction throughput, very cheap gas prices, and more. Basically, any dApp can host its business logistics on this blockchain and benefit from cheap fees. We have seen that the awareness of the blockchain is slowly increasing, so we hope to see that continue in the near future.
Blockster: What did you do to make your product better than your competitors’?
Vladislav Ponomarev: We have dedicated a lot of time and effort to development, and we have a team of very capable engineers who were handpicked from the market to create one of the strongest teams in the market. We also try to use the best technologies and to constantly research what is being done in the DeFi sector, what new breakthroughs are there, adapt some good technologies to our needs, and alike.
Blockster: Do you have any advice on how to pick the right people for crypto and blockchain?
Vladislav Ponomarev: Hiring is a challenge, as the market is overheated and most developers are hunted independently for the prices they are asking. However, on the other hand, developers are starting to face situations where they participate in some scammy project which reflects badly on their resumes. In other words, they have to be very cautious about the projects they are working on, just as much as projects have to be cautious when selecting developers.