4 Unstoppable Protocol【DAO TOKYO 2024】

Transcript

[Applause] all right so um so let's just get it started u thanks for coming I'm sh unfortunately not in a position on the slide but um yeah I'm doing BD lead and maybe finance and we'll get started from Quick introduction of each other then T please sure uh GM um I'm TJ from laage uh we are basically a um spot margin liquidity layer but I guess we're probably more well known for our platform which is um which allows people to trade meme coins on Solana uh at up to Forex leverage so we support over 500

meme coins at and we're adding like new ones like every day um so if you're mean coin Traders check it out um we have also just launched our coins program I'll pass it over hey I'm Mark from sin futures for those of you who aren't familiar sin Futures is a decentralized derivatives exchange uh we're deployed on blast base um and we're expanding to some new chains as well uh one of the things that makes us unique is we offer permissionless listings for Purp which means anyone can come and list and trade any erc20 token with leverage long or short uh we're doing about 500 million to a billion in volume a day uh and I'm

happy to be here to share the in future story and my thoughts on just Defi and Dallas hi everyone my name is PL and I'm a co-founder of tokens site and tokens site is a self- custodial Dex trading platform what we do is provide uh like easy and efficient Dex trading over 12 chains at the moment we're expanding fast and we provide this through a uh Dex trading Qi which is a trading terminal and we also have a tegram trading bot and we're mainly focus on enabling uh trading on on new chains but

also supporting the uh the major most popular chains all right then let's just um start discussing about like the key difference between like dine and C um as you we've seen like we've got trading platforms on defi but you know um historically it's known that defy has a lot of challenges so um what's your take on like pros and cons of trade on like C fs and d and so what be sort of key challenge that D5 have right now so shall we get started with blo then yeah yeah sure so I think there are

many differences and many similarities between Defi and CI trading mainly um the landscape is a bit different when it comes to spot and and features defi it's much like spot trading is much more broad where features are in my view are are a bit lagging behind and um D5 C5 volumes are are a bit uh are a bit different in in this area and uh there are kind of differences is that on on texes everything is is centralized everything is in one place and it has

its own features it's uh the ux is like like the trading QX is is great it's very efficient it has a deeper liquidity while the main uh the main cons are that like not your keys not your coins like they like they they have control over your coins and and pretty much there are a lot of things that that can that can go um wrong with this like Tex is getting hacked they they censor your account they're not available everywhere in the world so it's uh not very

permissionless and U on on the other on the other hand on on on dexis it's it's in my view it's a bit the opposite the ux is not that great it's getting better but there is still Gap and that's mainly because you I mean there are different kind of platforms but if we take for example Unis Swap and dexis uh it's the ux is a bit hard you need a wallet you need more technical uh knowledge on how to operate then you have blockchain nuances gas costs and things like that but you you have your your your coins your basically you own them and if you don't use them yourself other people

can't take them uh easily so so that pretty much yeah I completely agree um I think most people look at dex's for two main reasons one is the most powerful part is the non-custodial part right like you mentioned not your coin not um not your what was it again not your keys not your coins um that's extremely important because the user has full ownership of what they're doing and it's fully onchain which means you trust the code not the people um there's still a lot of room for improvement in defi though I think the biggest is a lot of people

still go to CI because the quite frankly the user experience is still a little better and there's many reasons for that right I mean being fully onchain there are some limitations in terms of like the efficiency and then there's limited liquidity still I think we're starting to see more institutional liquidity enter defi space but still if you're like a major Trader I think it's still challenging to trade on M D5 platforms we're starting to see that change especially with improvements in infrastructure so as we see like these new l1s and l2s come up that are really creating much more efficiencies for the daps that are built on it I think the gap between CI and defi is going to

close um the other thing that I think defi really enables is just the permissionless nature of everything right you no longer have to rely on a centralized team to let's say list tokens you know Unis swap offers permissionless trading for and listing and trading on the spot side and we're trying to enable that on the per side so this just means ultimately we let the markets decide what gets listed and what gets traded I think this level of kind of democracy in the space is one of the true advantages of defi yeah um I totally agree um and I

actually come from Trap five so there's trap five and then CI and then defi um I think ultimately um the reason why we trade is because we want to make money and then the second reason is want we don't want to lose money um so there's only two reason so to me I I think it doesn't really matter like um what F we trade on but the problem with um CI um which personally experienced I still have some fund that is supposed to be recovered from um some exchanges I'm not going to name them uh but um the the the memory I I viy remember is um when there were news about certain exchange going

down there's not much you can do you can ping your friend at the exchange you can ask around hey is it safe and some of them will be like hey get your money out ASAP and then others will tell you it's perfectly safe I just came from their office like there's no way for you to even verify anything with defi I mean most of us probably cannot verify anything because we are not um like smart contract gurus here but we can probably ask our cousin hey can you check the code is the money still there or like um we don't really have to fully trust some guy um who's running an exchange like a curly hair guy or anyone like that um

to um see whether our money is still there or not right so I think that's like the simple thing those are the key difference like the noncustodial part of defi which I think is really important the whole reason why we in the blockchain like um trading crypto besides making money is we also care about things that are decentralized permissionless as what Mark said uh what we can trade what we cannot trade should not be decided by like some guy who um is earning fees because um they want to allow you to only trade certain things so the censorship and also the non-custodial I think is really important um but um so as I think as soon as def um I think we're all here

working on building better ux to um make it better trading experience on defi as soon as that can catch up um I don't really see any reason why CI um should still be used thank you thank you personal opinion all right um I think you know we all touched like um sort of like ux challenges that defi trading platform have right now but what do they think is like really needed to fill the gap or even like D5 trading go further than like C5 what do you expect like Mark already touched sort of um some infrastructure advancements but

what other the pieces that are missing right now then maybe Mark can you start yeah just adding on to the need to increase efficiency across chains um just so that we can compete with CI at a comparable level uh liquidity is the other big one right right now the liquidity is fragmented across chains across protocols and so it's really interesting to see like what kind of Innovations will come out like we're already seeing liquidity aggregation through things like l3s um so I think the the big thing is trying to unify the liquidity so that we our markets have can have just as much depth if not more

than CI with all of the advantages of defi right so I would say efficiency and uh the liquidity is the two things that are kind of holding back defi right now but the industry is definitely getting closer to solving it um the way we approach it is you know there was like when D5 first came out people were all in on amm and now it's like onchain order books and we see that there's a balance to have both right so for us we took this approach and we said okay how do we marry an onchain order book with a concentrated liquidity amm for the purpose of boosting liquidity and efficiency um the amm for example gives us a lot more flexibility in the tokens we list so we can support a lot of longtail assets that historically have

very thin liquidity while the order book side gives a very CI like experience for some of the majors pairs that are traded on the platform yeah I I agree with with that uh I I also think efficiency is there is a a big up there but also I think accessibility and abstracting Away blockchain uh nuances is is also very important it's still the practice where for example new users come in they like they need a metamask account they need an they they go to create an EA uh and uh with with with that experience uh like not a great trading

ux can be uh can be achieved and um how we are looking uh to solve this is through uh more secure more powerful uh accounts where people kind of it it's still in a way um like they're they Pro and of course but people deposit the money into a into a vault which is uh which is a secure uh wallet where they they control they fully control their their their coins but it can be uh automated uh so people don't need to care about

approvals uh and uh other blockchain nuances and also I think account obstruction um in different uh way of form can can help with this to create more powerful uh use cases uh and uh I I I think mainly mainly that and the Gap as uh Mark said is is getting uh is getting closer people tend to appreciate uh uh dexis and permissionless uh stuff more lately uh I think this is uh more because of the uh easier uh token launches like M mem coins things like that are easily uh

launched on on chain and the speculation is there first and then goes to different Sexes yeah um I guess the um I I actually personally only use D5 mostly uh and I do think that the Simplicity of like a swap is actually not too bad like one click and you swap stuff but I guess there's a lot of these peripheral tools um that could be improved for example we build something like a position viewer and a lot of people gave us feedback to see oh I can see my p&l of the swap now um which they can easily I guess there tools out there that can allow them to

do this um say for UNIS swap but uh but on our platform um things like that people do appreciate they can see how much they're earning or losing um um so there are still things um other things that we have encountered on defi we're building on Solana there was one period of time where no one can do any trade the network was too congested um can't really think of um a scenario like that um for for more like CFI like centralized platforms and also things that weird things that people would do like they would click five times and they end up doing four trades um because they want just wanted to get a trade through um on the Solana Network so I think they're they're definitely um both

like lowlevel infrastructur things that we need to fix as well as the liquidity the ux um that we uh need to work on together but I I I really think that this uh these things are coming all together yeah we're making very good progress yeah yeah thanks so um absolutely liquid maret right and if you're talking about liquidity some people mentioned uh on boarding of like institutional um Traders need to happen right um so what is your take on sort of um onboarding institutional U tra is if you're willing to do it and if you are what is your strategy probably Mar again

can you start yeah uh when I mention in onboarding institutions it's really at this stage in adoption we're probably still speaking mostly to onchain Native crypto native institutions and the reason is I've spent some time talking to like some of the major investment Banks and the general I mean so for compliance reasons they simply can't trade on defi unless they know who their counterparty is right I know some def5 Protocols are experimenting with enabling some kyc and then I've had some recommendations from people asking if we could launch like kyc pools like permission pools right where everyone in within a given pool is is you know their identity is verified

and that would open the door for institutions the challenge is it brings us back to the same issue which is liquidity fragmentation right we already have fragmented liquidity in our general pool So to subdivide that into like these kyc friendly pools um yeah it it it takes away too much of the user experience and then second to that is I think you know think about why we trade in defi right the kyc is probably a big part that's coupled with non-custodial and so I think there's a big like mental barrier to going to defi users today and saying I need you to kyc because then they're going to start saying wait if I need to kyc why don't I just use a

binance or whatever centralized ex I mean I think there are many other reasons to use def defi other than that but I think that's the first thought that most people are going to come up with so I think for us the we've had the most luck working with these Crypton native institutional funds whether it's market makers or uh high frequency trading firms or you know because one of the unique things about defa that maybe people don't think about are the unique onchain Arbitrage opportunities that exist across protocols and across chains and so that naturally brings in the institutions I mean market makers are here because they're trying to make a buck but yeah um I'd say we're still a little far off from like trafi institutional participation

it yeah so uh I I think in in my view what these people care about is mainly security and deep liquidity in in our case what we've encountered with is prop trading firms onchain prop trading firms and we only provide spot spot trading and what they uh they requested was uh Sub sub accounts like that that's many part of their like management strategy and how they to work but mainly they cared about security a lot and the thing is that they also want to participate in like mcoin season and uh other onchain stuff but for I think bigger

institutions the the picture is a bit different yeah I think you're asking the wrong guy because um I mainly focus on like meme coins um so I I I can't really think of any like institutional traders that focus on like trading meme coins but they're probably not that institutional but um I do think that um we we need to figure out ways to allow more of these institutional traders to come into because they the ones that can drive the liquidity and um so I'll be very keen to see how um for example Mark like you guys can figure out some ways to allow this kyc matching

with non kyc liquidity like how how to really get like um some creative solution around that yeah got it um we also love to touch a bit about like you mcoin trading um you know obviously it's pumping but um what is like what are you seeing in the in like mcoin trading you know so you know we discussed a little bit about like is it positive s or no like that kind of thing what's your take on like mcoin trading right now T um I personally don't have a comment uh I guess a personal view on whether mem coin is good or not um in fact I think a lot of coins are meme coins too they just have a company they have some

people behind it it doesn't mean they're not meme right because uh they don't have any audited financials like they're not yeah it's it's just like um I again it goes back to what can we make money with like can we trade this and make money um and I think um one of the biggest use case of crypto is this decentralized um I don't want to use the CW like it's a speculative um trading uh venue where we can trade 247 um that will allow us to um be able to make money anytime anywhere I think that is the um the is still going to be

one of the biggest use case of blockchain so whether it's mcoin now or major coins or or any coins or Bitcoin I I think um yeah I I have really I I I I really don't think there's a huge difference for myself yeah I used to be of the the mindset that Meme coins are like you know like how everyone says it's a trojan horse for web 3 adoption and I generally agree uh it definitely capitalizes on the attention economy it helps form these really tight-knit web three communities and it gives them an outlet I mean it's not just about speculation it gives them like a sense of belonging in web 3 and that's like your entry point for most people but I

think now I'm looking at things like pumped out fun which you know is a great business but it's really it's taking some of the meaning out of the meme coins because I like I started tracking it recently and some of the meme coins that launch on it just because I was curious what's going on and what you notice is it's like it's all pumping dumps right it's 99.9 9% pump and dumps there's no Community behind it like at least like things like Pepe and Doge and sheba they have these longstanding communities have been with them for a very long time platforms like pump on fun I mean yes it's creating some attention for web 3 but ultimately I I actually think it's a bad type of attention and then we're seeing this now with like sun fum uh Sun pump on TR on Tron and so we're definitely getting a

little too like shilly with this kind kind of stuff but I think if mem coin's done right it does give like an outlet for the normies or like the the kind of foundation for like Mass uh adoption right just to capture their attention get them in the space and then they start learning about different chains wallets and different kind of uh layers of the web 3 ecosystem so I think it's still net positive but I do think we're trending in the wrong direction yeah I I view mem coins are very interesting speculative products which found really good product Market fit in

my opinion because they're like they're very popular people like to to trade them and it like the tooling around that got really advanced in a way and uh really um like narrowed so as Mark mentioned pump do fun I don't View it as uh good or or bad I think it's like just a tool and people use it in a different uh ways uh think it started really uh with like like major mem coin season with mainly with telegram telegram trading Bots and then it got more sophisticated that people can also

easily launch mem coins and then other people can can trade there I think it's a bit overheated uh environment right now because there is so much Supply and not that much of a demand but I think long term uh they'll they'll they'll stay for for sure and I think uh uh people will create uh other use cases and our tooling and that U pump do fun will will will stay but people will like will work on its deficiencies and see how it can be more beneficial for the uh for the one side for the other side of

the of the market place not just for the people that launch these coins but also for the people that want to participate and and buy these coins yeah just uh quickly adding to that the you know I think about pump out fun a lot and I think the biggest problem is that if pumped off fun is this entry point for a lot of new users they come in they see these stories of people making 1,000x 10,000x whatever it is and they start buying they get rugged once they get rugged twice they're like okay it happens it happens they re get rugged like a fifth sixth time they're done with crypto for now right they're like I'm done with this this is like this is a scam and then to get these people back into web 3 is going to take a lot of

work and so I feel like if we keep going this way then we have this new wave of users who get like turned off by crypto for some time and it's going to take a lot of work to like win them back over yeah I totally get it like you know it's kind of bit hard harsh way to start learning about crypto right so uh what do you think would be the sort of ideal situation about like mem coin trading as sort of you know Mark mentioned it's good way to sort of enter the like we three environment and sort of learn what is it like but at the same time if you know um get lacked two mods then that will definitely turn off but you know

what do you think would be the ideal environment for that for maybe Mark can you start oh ideal environment uh I don't know so we list memes uh like per pairs with memes but even though we support it on our platform I would say for most average users they should trade with limited leverage if they can just because you could trade with 10x leverage even or even 5x leverage for meme coins is quite High uh because of the volatility I'd say most meme coin Traders are probably better off just buying and holding um even if it goes to zero but um yeah and then memes again like for us the way we

leverage memes is we're the first to list a lot of the mem coins that you see on Bas and so the purpose markets at least and so it brings a lot of like attention to some of our bigger pairs so we see it as like a user acquisition strategy they come for the memes and they stay for like the rest of the platform got it got it thanks I think we are getting close to the end so um maybe we can go one up round of like what is your take on like Dow like what what what does it mean like what this decentralized means for uh your project can you black can you install it um yeah

so in in our case uh we are not uh let's say fully a a DA uh but we have a pretty big Community I would say we long term we would uh like to look into that um uh future where we decentralize more and more kind of things but it's uh like I think like Dows are really good tool for coordination and uh communication as well uh so long term I I think it it really brings value but also it's not

for for everything I would say not not everything should be at all Mark yeah I think the North Star for most projects building in this space especially for defi uh certainly for infrastructure is become a d right it's that path to decentralization distribute governance uh ownership to the different stakeholders whether it's you know um your users community members even in early supporters uh the challenge with Dallas is though like there are a lot of challenges but the biggest one is probably participation so you still have very small percentage of communities

participating I mean some of them delegate uh so I think we need to fix that if we're going to get to this like idealistic uh future where everything is governed by the community but Dows are important because it's what sets us apart from our centralized counterparts right if we set up a dow properly and we if we execute it properly this protocol sin futures for example will live on beyond our team meaning if our team disappeared one day for whatever reason it should still be able able to operate within the Dow Community becomes Unstoppable right yeah um yeah I totally agree with that um I think I'll just keep it very

short um I think a lot of people are using da because they don't want to go to jail like that's probably the biggest use case right now but um yeah if it's done right um only if it's done right then I think that will be very long-term value and it's not easy to do it right so I think it's probably not enough time to talk about all my thoughts on like how to do it right but yeah I guess the key thing is don't go to jail thanks um I think that's it for this session do you guys have anything to add okay cool um thank you very much everyone and thank you all the three