DeFi by Design EP#121: Why We Are Excited About Berachain

Transcript

welcome back to the rollup High Roller Community as always nothing on the rollup is to be construed as Financial advice we are just an Educators in the defi space toss us a quick like give us a share a repost send it to a friend who may want to watch this and finally give us a sub or a follow it means the world to help support credibly neutral educational content in def5 we're here to educate Empower and enrich you and let's jump in welcome to D5 by Design we talk all things blockchain and cryptocurrency while striving to educate Empower and enrich welcome back to the D5 ban podcast on today's episode of Animal Planet we have two penguins and a

talking bear named smoke um we got Rob part of the baram Rob GM GM yes I I am part of the Bara famam uh I am a penguin but I'm I'm also a bear so on this episode of Animal Planet we have uh we have some crossover species um and I think that's uh particularly relevant to the modular thesis as um there's no longer monolithic animals or chains all we have is modules and mindsets um and our esteemed guest Smokey um on the show today Smokey welcome Jim guys thank you for having me we got ourselves a whole L do over here so I love to see

it it lit and you're the smoking de be which is a guy that they have national parks in the states telling you not to litter is is that where you your name came from yeah I'm just trying to avoid onchain garbage honestly man um I think that uh when we were when we were starting be we were all like you know we should kind of like have fun bear adjacent names and I just thought Smoky the Bear was kind of funny so you know gotta prevent forest fires gotta prevent RS all the fun stuff along the way man you know what I think I told just on the live stream too and something that that uh that just been learning more and more recently about branding and and per to your Smokey the Bear is I feel like you guys have done

such a good job of like embracing this like uh this like gesture Vibe of like just having fun on chain with your homings and like car that position against all the competitors like there's all these different competitors that are competing on like cost speed throughput decentralization and like be change just like dude like we have the best memes I think that you know I'm hoping that we can differentiate a number of those angles too but I also do think that a lot of this an kenion economy thing at the moment for better for worse um space is definitely rapidly maturing but I think a lot of folks on chain um share a relatively similar demographic uh and have been like raised in this like internet era where you know you can you

can sort of have fun with things a little bit more right for again for better for worse right so um I think that we really do try to have like what we've you know often referred to as like a bit of medic chosen horse internally which is to say like you know lots of fun and a good time on the outside and generally to be honest on the inside as well um but you know basically wrapping uh wrapping up on the inside a whole bunch of good Tech and a whole bunch of you know useful design and tokenomics that help they push things to the next level a little bit definitely yeah the uh I like to think of uh not to get too far off track but the ETF that recently got approved as somewhat of the Trojan Horse it's just kind of like small steps of adoption

that you know ultimately lead to like that that last Domino of the the entire uh global economy happening on chain totally man and I think that like you know making things accessible goes a really long way um I think that you know there's times where you'll see a deck you'll see something it's like okay we're like a a ZK and then like add another acronym then like there like there's some circuits and there's like some AI in there like a I think someone actually tries to to parse the idea and they're like what the [ __ ] am I looking at um and perhaps the future of the space does have a lot of these things under the hood um but I actually think uh abstracting away some the complexity does tend to to be productive um because you know I think one of the things that

we've said a bunch internally is perhaps an unfortunate truth this space is like people don't read right people don't read people don't like to do math uh when you look at the vast majority of users people like to look at something and be like okay do I understand this like really quickly and that's also one of the things we've been you know working towards as much as possible with be chain like how do we make this you know rockable in second how do you make these things easy to grasp right I salana has has done a great job of doing that for example it's like okay there's like Fast trans fast and cheap transactions good ux right like you know I think that there's it's it's really important to make things B size and digestible um and I think that you know having a little bit of fun along the way

can can very much do so yeah and you can dive further into that uh as we start with this H assis holistic scope of kind of how you guys um kep the check this AA of I guess mysteriousness similarly with kind of building behind the scenes but also just like this like raving Community like what are some of the the the the key takeaways from building that you have especially through through the bear as to how to keep the community so uh engaged um you know and just kind of get on the positioning and branding side of things just have had in that differentiation like what would you say were some key takeaways that you've

learned through the process leing up to test net now uh you know that you could share with other builders for you know how they could really position um you know what they're doing and um build their communities inal right uh which you guys have yeah no thank you man um I think it's it's an interesting one we we've tried to think a lot about it in retrospect because even as we expand we have to think a lot about like you know how do you maintain that edge or how do you maintain that that organic feeling because I think as as Quest platforms start rolling out and as airdrop farmers and yada yada yada all start like you know coming out of the Woodworks um it's really easy to to lose that authenticity um I think that a lot of it comes down to having the right pillars in the

community especially um I think that like you know chain link is probably one of the you know groups that we you know tip our hats to the most or or take some degree of inspiration from in terms of how they did it and that they have very cool Tech um and some that you know Powers the majority of of useful onchain noway are a very meaningful portion of it but they also just had like the most autistic Community possible which was beautiful like they didn't care if price was up they didn't care if price was down um they were just like yes I may lerate right and um I think that you know when when we try to go in retrospect all that there's no substitute for actually like spending time with the community and I know that's a little bit like corny slash that people are like oh Community just a

mean you can for Community blah blah um and listen I think it is highly affected by Price action I don't think that any one is you know oblivious to that fact um I do think that uh you know actually spending time with these folks um you know understanding who they are what they're motivated by what their life stories are so on so forth can go a long long way um and what it comes down to more than that is identifying you know those pillars within the community that can form their own subactions right um so people who really identify with the vision which I think can also very much be hard in in crypto at times because it's just in many cases a a hot rolling ball of money um you know going from from center of attention a and Center attention be um and and finding those groups that

can like you know basically act as nodes within your own ecosystem right your community is own funky valid intercept so you know you have people who will will pop up and effectively you know end up creating their own tribe and I think that gets really powerful um and one of the reasons I thought a lot thought like you know chain link in that same manner is you know people know about like the the OG Community guys that chain link like you know they're they are not unknown like you know Rory and some of those folks but um when you ask the community about like who is a lead they will throw like seven to 10 different names at you of like just people who had their own like massive followings right like chain link God before you became chain L God as Blaster so on so forth um

it's just like it's about having those figures that emerge naturally and that you sort of help I'd say nurture into like pillars of the community and also making sure you have a good grasp on who those folks are and um Ure that they're you know uh constructive forces for good because it's just as easy to have a bunch of like you know really shitty folks do the same thing um so I guess you think of it as a curation process more than anything else um and I think along the way it's you know trying to find ways to add value or drive value to people right whether that's keeping them informed about cool things so that is you know sharing you know little bits of information to flow around that you're exposed to um just generally try to be helpful I feel goes a long way as well

and good communities are go through that um and then I think a lot of it also comes from the initial curation right uh a lot of the you know group that formed a chain sort of came out with a number of these different like defi 2.0 ecosystems um so the groups from like curve and like alchemics and oh and so on so forth like they all they all served as that initial user base or be holder base if you will um and they were used to like just Ming the [ __ ] of things and like futing their own bags and just generally being lacad deal and I think that having that at the core of the community actually helped us massively um I think that if we had gone ground up um you know without that of initial user base toam to grow out of

and have like you know guide culture it could have been much much more difficult I love the the sentiment you described around the community and how each member of the community it it's they're they're funky validators and I think that that is that's a very interesting mental model to think about how the uh kind of the beacons and each individual within the community they they play very similar roles to kind of like gossiping to other nodes um and how each each member of the community is a node in that funky community validator set um and there a lot of parallels that that we could draw there no big time like I I honestly hadn't thought about it before then I

was like it's actually not the worst mental model for it right like um they they do they they carry a massive role within the network they got you know they have peer peer interactions they sometimes take down the network um and they got to update their priories every now and then so you know there's there's definitely some some overlap very cool and to Double C don't like how you guys like were able to amass like this community and and and also intertwine these Vibes across different sets um you mentioned you know a few other projects that the bar chain Community spawned from what was what's you know how did you kind of like pick up members of each of those communities how did you bring all of those pre-existing projects and communities

together yeah I I think it was like at the time this was the summer of 2021 U my co-founder pop and I were spending a lot of time in number of these different like project discords and servers just like honestly in some case just [ __ ] around and having fun in other cases discussing you know just speculating on various nonsense right and I think that when you find enough like you know Kindred Souls kind of thing then um it it becomes a little bit easier to Rally them around a certain cause now I remember at the time we were like we really thought the parallel was super cool still do I think they're doing a lot of really good things like the the nft game um and we were like you know it could be kind of fun to just like have fun with something in the nft space and

see where it goes um and really was not that serious and and pop like all right let's make a 100 jpex of be smoking weed and see what happens um and I was like I so we thenly raffled them off in some of these different discords um and you know I think there was overlap among those communities as well so it's easy to you know see someone from oh and then the practice G and they're like oh you know this this sort of go us one to one right um and I think that uh that streaming those groups together really uh came together relatively naturally right um it was folks who were both you know risk on enough to not give a [ __ ] about like eating like what was 0069 eth at the time at at a you know at nftf a be

smoking weed um but we were also like okay maybe this could turn with something a little bit more interesting given its roots um but yeah there there really were no plans for the chain there was no plans for the rebasing out of te's or whatever was off the gate out of the gates it was just like okay let's [ __ ] around find out and see what happens um so I think that that curation that happened over time was part was just largely because we were already having fun in certain communities um and by you know sort of by by Nature um it became logical for for those groups to to be dragged along yep yep I think that totally makes sense um do you guys have a name for your community just the beas just the Bears man I think that you know we've been playing around with that

you know Bearer Brigade kind of thing more recently I think that there's there's something to that um I wouldn't say that it's like locked as of the up but I think there there's something there you don't want to be you want to be easy and approachable um I think we've seen a lot of like funny other things spawn up recently there's like people being like Mina momies um then there's like Tia something else that I won't say um but there there just like there's been some good some good uh you know alliteration memes so I've also been thinking about that like is it barab Bates I don't know but there there's definitely something in the mix Banger yes so so digging a bit a bit deeper into um like kind of the tech here um if yeah

and and uh I I I like I also like the mental model and kind of like the learning uh mechanism of these like uh bite-size um pieces uh of of these models um yeah if we look at like uh like bar chain Twitter bio there's I I pick out three bite-sized pieces of information that we can kind of like put together the be chain um so the three are evm equivalent L1 two is built on the cosmos SDK and the third piece is that it's powered by proof of liquidity um you mentioned that one one of the uh communities that was

kind of like part of be chain origin story was own um so I'd like to I'd like to start with proof of liquidity and and then yeah these other bite size uh pieces of information in in sequence yeah for sure man um so is it most helpful of I just sort like dive in and explain how how P Works effectively like what proof of liquidity really is definitely yes awesome yeah so proof liquidity as we see it's effectively a variant on delegated proof of stake um and it's it's not uh it's not super complex or super funy I think the best way to think about it is that it's really meant to align incentives between liquidity and security at the protocol level um so how that works in application is that effectively the only

way to earn the staking token and our governance token of be chain which is called bgt or the be governance token a little bit on the notes um is by first doing the work providing liquidity to a set of core Primitives um and over time any smart contract that's approved by governance that's built on be chain um so the way that works is that the chain itself you know has a full you know evm environment that you can deploy whatever City smart contract on um but there's also a couple you know very basic defi Legos that are built into the chain um this is effectively a you know a an ambient liquidity Dex a um Perpetual Futures Vault and a stable coin lending Market um and users can basically LP in in in you know these three things off the bat and you eligible pools across

these three services um which are meant to be there on one hand to you know attract a missal liquidity but on the other hand to to bootstrap security um and to ensure that any of these sources of of generation of the staking token are safe um as opposed to from a third party uh contract um so you basically LP in those and you receive the bgt turb there's no way to Market by bgt um there's no way to go on binance and and just get a bunch of bgt you have to do the work by providing liquidity to the ecosystem in order to earn it um and the way that we see that is there's a whole bunch of different ways of of playing it but it's effectively you know you are turning your liquidity into a form of security without sacrifice in that same liquidity your your liquidity

remains useful it is providing value and and adding value to the onchain ecosystem but in turn it is allowing um you know security to be added to the chain itself in the form of that bgt token Generation Um and I think that that is really what what makes Pro liquidity pretty exciting um and that in order for there to be security there must be liquidity um and then if you think about you know sort of how that evolves of for time um a lot of what we think about uh with within bechain is you know how do we actually have a reason for applications to exist on our Network I think that it's so so easy to you know spin up a random unv2 fork or like you know an Al Fork whatever it is and just dump them somewhere and you know try to like farm for Grants or be

like hey like you know this is going to fill a mad Li like role in this ecosystem um our goal was really to find a way um for applications building on be chain to be uniquely advantaged or really to have an edge by building there and a reason to exist there um so what that really means actually is that um you know once the chain goes live and you know as user start accumulating bgt Etc um there can effectively be a government's vote at any point in time um allowing for other smart contracts or other pools and network to become eligible sources of bgt yield such said one can basically LP in that pool let's say it's an nft amm let's say it's a social fly platform let's say it's an options Vault whatever it may be uh and actually receive a missions of the form

of the the chaining taking token um as opposed to perhaps just the emissions of the fees of the protocol that they're lping in um so for protocols it's really meant to decrease their cost of you know user acquisition or Capital acquisition and liquidity attraction um and for the chain uh the way that actually works is that the distribution of block rewards across the entire network is set by the validators um which we've never actually you know seen or you know had happened before um so validators effectively each have their own you know set of like what we you could call a cutting board a gauge effectively a pie chart um where they forward their the their block rewards minus their commission um to these liquidity pools across Network so to start it's just you know pools across the decks the purpose lending Market um

but as more and more you know applications launched on the Chain um all these can become eligible so it actually also encourages protocols to work with validators um and to you know basically find ways to boot trap their own liquidity by cutting a deal with the validator and saying hey you know I'm going to give you this amount of my native token um or this amount of you know emissions of some other form in exchange for you directing BDT emissions towards my protocol or my pool in the chainex um so we really think about it as you know an incredibly I think user and protocol Centric chain but giving validators an unprecedented degree of influence around economic incentives and and the actual operations of the chain um and I think the last part that probably you know helps make this go around slake a little more sense sense

is that we of course care a lot about bgt holders because um you know they're the folks who are who have provided liquidity in the first place they're driving a whole bunch of out the network um then and basically any application being powered by the chain has a portion of its fees um being pushed toward bgt holders um so in that manner you know bgt also becomes an asset that is you know useful for people to hold on to uh in terms of basically um you know being bullish on activity flowing through bar as a whole network itself um so ideally over time more and more applications are becoming powered by Cal liquidity and the users who are staking bgt securing the chain um and basically you know delegating to those validators are effectively you know earning fees from the entire Network's operation and the

all the suite of applications that is powered by the chain um and then I think the last part of the equation is that at any point in time your bgt can be burned one way into Bara the liquid gas token of the network you Fally have a set of choices you can either hold your bgt um and by staking with different valuers have an influence on where emissions go across the network and earn fees from the Network's operation and all the applications living on top of it or you can hold a liquid you know token Barett and be exposed to to that and then have that liquidity preference um so it really comes down to whatever people want to you know whichever whichever Choice people want to make um yeah I just rambled a whole bunch at you guys but I hope that made made a high level

sense uh and can help you know break it down as need definitely incredible tokenomics and I'm I'm sure Andy want wants to keep going um on that on that path I just to to make sure that this is an actionable piece that that our listeners can take away yeah um what what what do you recommend like how do you what is the mechanism for for our audience to acquire bgt and then you know you also mentioned how that unlocks this world of possibilities um we talked you you did mention that uh you must provide liquidity to the network um in order to get bgt uh where should they go how the how should we do that yeah for sure um there's a few

different ways you can do that one is you know I think the the simplest or one of the easiest ways to doing that um is the fact we just like lping in the decks right there'll be a few pools that'll be eligible for emissions out of the out the gates um there'll be a pool with some of the majors there'll be a pool with different Stables um there'll be a pool with Bara honey like the network stable coin which is you know one to one cized by usdc Etc um I'm trying to think what else will be relevant there'll be the purp Vault where you can like you know choose to collateralize the using honey again just like the one to one stable coin um so I think all both those are quite easy um and then there's also going to be opportunities within the The

Lending Market at believe upon launch so um the way I would think about it is you know depending on your risk parameter you can hold you know you can hold volle assets like you know W Bitcoin or e or Bara perhaps um and then LP them you know within the decks to to basically be you know exposed to those bgt uh those bgt rewards um you can Cloud R purp you can get involved in the lending Market I think it'll really just be up to Lun risk fanders um and then for application Builders I think you know there's a there's a whole bunch of different ways that they can play on bechain um you know the simplest one is is probably you know basically launching their smart contracts launching their front ends what have you um and then you know lot pushing forward a government's vote saying hey we're

going to give you know X percent of our fees uh to to be to be D takers in an exchange we want to become or and Y percent of emissions perhaps to be D takers in an exchange we want to become eligible for emissions you know within the chain cages effectively uh and then they' try to partner up with different ators to say hey you guys should direct a portion of your block rewards towards us um and I think that that can you know just be super exciting for protocols that are looking to to basically boost strap their liquidity in user base because they'll effect we have Juiced emissions from change itself a while whatever native token emissions they might they might choose to use um yeah and then I think that you know we're we're setting up matchmaking systems and stuff like that as well I said users I

say prim primarily Pro protocols and validators can find ways to work together um and then there'll be sort of a a number of these pages that actually demonstrate uh the yields you know just from the pool activities and you know just from the purpose operating what have the interest rates on the lending markets so on so forth along with that when boosted by bgt yields when when relevant and when does that functionality become available yeah so like that's going to be available like right out the gates um the the per sender lending Market um you know may be turned on by by governance over time um just want to be very careful about how that process is handled um but I think that from our end H to start earning bet very simply with the decks upon main Nets and all the different products are are available on

the testet right now for people to get more familiar with yeah I've gotten word that the arcade mode in the testet excuse me had been a little little bit slammed trend on that thing but I've heard it's quite oh yeah oh yeah yeah there's a there's a you know the honey Mentor which is what allows you to turn your usdc into honey has two modes there's like a simple mode and there's like an arcade mode like a claw machine and stuff just because we thought that'd be kind of fun um so I would recommend giving that a Go Hopefully when things are a little bit jankier less janky I should say yeah cool um so with regards to the dual token design how yeah how how is

the supposed non-fungible token um how do you plan to make how do you plan to ensure there's no market for that is like in evm Chains you can just spin up a Unis swap market for anything um yeah for sure like is it is it transferable what's the what's the kind of tech behind that yeah you got it it it'll effectively be so be soulbound right so like you know the the way that people will see their bgt is effectively just like a number in their wallet kind of thing we may be able to have like I think a propy ERC ticker as well that that just shows like their their bgt Val um just for ease of of you know keeping an eye on things um but really the token will be sbound and we you know we won't be able to one will not be able to

create like a locked or liquid market for in any manner right okay cool um and then why did you choose Kos SDK and yeah how how has your design choices from I mean [ __ ] and it must have been 2021 when I first heard about bear chain so um or early 22 how have your design choices changed over the time as we've evolved into you know all different types of blockchains and um you know just what's happened over the bear until now how's your how's your how's your you know Vision change yeah for sure I think what we've um what we've probably done most over

time is is air towards you know safer systems especially at the gates um I think there's been times where we had more um you know aggressive goals if you will in terms of how spicy we could make some these products um but you know as we talk to more and more experienced Builders as we B us at more and more things internally I think we also really want to make sure that we um stay incredibly uh cognizant of the fact that we're going to be trying a new thing for the first time in the form of pro of liquidity um and it's important to make sure that we do don't have too many Avenues or risk I'd love to be able to make things cooler and cooler over time whether that be at the text layer whether that be at the purose layer whether that be at you know different

sort of I'd say mechanisms around P um even you know stable coin type stuff but a starv one to make things incredibly incredibly safe um and also incredibly incredibly legal to be very clear um there's there's no fun in in people having to deal with alphabet agencies and that's why we we've tried to take you know every step possible to remain compliant with all the work that we do um you know so we can be sort of bare SW we chain and less serious on the outside but we can also be very serious when it comes to to the stuff that really matters um I think that when it comes to like our vision of of building like on Cosmos evm on Cosmos as a whole um we had a you know a brief brief flirting session with ether and and you know trying to use that as our our library of

choice um but really really found that from say a few different angles we we read some issues just from a quality of life euse point of view um and you know we made we basically made the I'd say the jump at some point and said hey let's let's go and and do what we can to basically um i' say build our own VM from the ground up which is Polaris um and Polaris is effectively our implementation of EV on Cosmos I'm trying to give it a little bit more of a modular structure I'm trying to make sure that we would basically have you know full you know death uh you know gu RPC compatibility um and basically do everything we can to replicate an evm like or an evm equivalent user experience without having to reinvent the wheel because um while we are a Cess

chain from a value logic point of view I very much do see us as an evm you know facing chain if you will uh in terms of our user base in terms of our developer base um and want to do you know as much as possible to make that uh like easier for people to use over time because I think there's already so much friction in terms of you know U BAS basically building in new ecosystems um and we wanted to make sure that from a de toing point of view from an ease of use point of view from you know a familiarity point of view there were things there that people knew whether that be interfaces for some of the core applications that are built into the chain or just broadly the debt environment so you know we we tried um we tried out St with e Min at first and

just found that it wasn't you know the the most ideal option for us um sudden built out plis and it's been exciting to see more adoption of that you know there's teams like Argus and wean cash and a few others and stuff that want to actually use as their VM of choice as well so we're really excited to be you know helping to um to I guess help other builders a little bit um and would love to be able to dedicate more time towards it itself down the road um just right now have been all hands on D with Core bear chain stuff um and then I think that's beyond that we've just tried to make sure that our our apps are are simple and safe and Super Battle tested um so slight improvements or variations of of known designs so we can you know

mitigate as much risk as possible when we're bringing be chain to life because there's just so many different things happening at once and you have to minimize you know attack area for for things to go wrong um just because I think you know if you you've been in the space for the last few years you've seen how many wild hacks and rugs we've seen um and you've seen how you know the tiniest tiniest errors of like 0.0 z z one or whatever on kyber um could result in you know one of the the most known or oldest Primitives uh you know ending up hit right so uh in short I think that we we've AED towards safety and we've AED towards um solving problems that that absolutely need to be solved to ensure that devx and user experience are are optimized um and in the interim just

trying to do our best to uh to make sure that we maintain a very high qual bar of quality in terms of everything we do and the other thing that's probably changed about since the stable coin honey um Honey's have like a few different iterations there's you know one that was going to be more spicy uh and have like multiple different maners of which was going to be collateralized there was another one that was a little more cdps but especially with like you know um legislation and and some of the bills that are that are under consideration at the moment um we want to keep things as incredibly coacher as possible um and moreover just encourage people to find exciting uses for honey as as we expand you know broadly over time yeah it's it it is easier to get a little bit more exotic as time goes on

um it it's tough to kind of like put that Genie back in the bottle if if that's how it starts you got it I think it's a lot easier and especially was the network is decentralized then you know the the you know our initial work or our initial contributions on the soft side really hard what determine the outcomes um it's very much you know what the community tries to push it towards and I think you know as as the core team as a foundation will'll always do everything we can to air on the the side of caution and I think we'll we'll try to recommend the community to do the same um though ultimately we don't have we don't have full control of that or really any control we wouldn't be participating in any of that stuff right so um yeah it'll be it'll be exciting to see but I hope

that it airs towards you know sustainability for the long term very very cool so the the the community is already is already relatively vast um and I think you know it's a common term to say like uh like you know when it's decentralized it always seems like it's kind of like something that um you know we're we're reaching for and never can quite grasp what is that um what does that path to decentralization look like you know it and maybe this this could be phrased in a way that it's like a it's like a a message to the community um because it's ultimately in the and you know what does that path look like and what are some of the milestones and ultimate

goals yeah um it's a good question man I think as as we think about it um things to get interesting over time are on one hand of course making sure we have as decentralized as The Valor set as possible um because I think that does play a massive role especially within the cosmos ecosystem um from a perspective of geography From perspective of alignment you know there's there's your classic statement shops like your figments and your kill and your coin based clouds and so on so forth but you've also got you know different like geographical communities like massive value in Vietnam or Thailand or what have you right um so I think we want to make sure that we have you know a broad variety of people's opinions represented um I think that with the added you know i' say intertwinement between intertwining of of liquidity and security here it's also

really important that um the validators and the community itself helps new projects um and groups that are new to the ecosystem gets off getting off the ground um and you know away from gatekeeping sort of having like an Insider's Club of sorts right um I think it's very easy for these things to form I think they almost naturally do form under almost any scenario but I don't think that should be the norm I think that should be an exception really right you should do as much as you can to enable new entrance of the ecosystem I think it's a fiscally aligned incentive and I think it's generally a morally or like you know philosophically aligned incentive as well um and then I think that beyond that um it'll be important to make sure that the system remains in a state where it can continue working as as desired which is to say

like can it continue helping to power the best applications and drive value to the users who are in turn inputting value into the ecosystem um so when I think about like decentralization I think about I guess a lot of it from a point of view of incentive design um you want everyone to have you know a vote and everyone to be able to to say as they will um and I do think that a lot of the ways that the network is designed um is effectively set up to like to basically have that as a starting point like even with each validator able to set their own you know set of incentives for how their bgt rewards are distributed effectively which informs the overall State you know reward rates across Network um I think that's pretty cool from a stake decentralization point of view because you can have you know

different validators partner with different protocols different LPS incentivized to delegate to validator A over validator B depending on how much of their stake they're basically or how much their vote they're effectively pushing towards an LP that that delegate may already be you know providing liquidity to versus not right um so I think we tried to bake in as many as many of those edals as possible um and I think a lot of it also comes down to the team being of like bow their head out of things right like I I've often thought about how within my own team like the growth side at barain um I feel like I've done my job if I can step back and you know not have to do like not have to to to say things and or guide the group uh and things continue operating you know as intended or constructively and I

imagine the network has a relatively similar um you know ideal end state which is to say the core team should not have to say hey do this hey do that in fact it should almost explicitly not do so um the core team should be able to say hey guys you know here are the things that upon setting out have been exciting and and where we think the network can be you know most constructive perhaps and in building the future or you know pushing the envelope a little bit um and really in your hands to to do with it as you wish right in terms of Direction and I think that is the whole point of of decentralized governance um I think that for us it'll be really interesting because the people who have that decentralized governance will be the people who were willing to have the opportunity cost and are

willing to do the work of providing their their liquidity which I really think of as its own sort of like public good assorts so um yeah I'm just I'm very curious to see that the games that evolve on bear chain and I'd love to see the community be as responsible as possible as supportive as possible and as welcoming as possible uh to new entrance because if done right I think it can really be the home for cool new stuff lovely let's talk just about that community and the openness and responsiveness with regards to the NS that were um on the market for some time um and now the impis test net so I would love to understand equi primer as to your

thinking with regards to those nfts now as well as how our community can best get involved with being sub by test metet and kind of what the plans are for that yeah for sure um nfts I can't comment on too much but they are definitely you know our root SL where we came from we have a lot of love for the Bears um and you know as we've always said they're they're good jpegs um so you know I've never sold a barar and I don't think I'm going to start anytime soon um to be clear that's nowhere close to financial advice I'm a very bad Trader um I just think that it's uh I like the Bears and I think it's been excited to see a whole bunch of other the other community ecosystem projects pop up um I think it's just always important to make

sure folks also doing their research in terms of what they're you know what they're buying and or what they're getting involved in um because sometimes thees say oh this is going to be like you know ex exposure why exposure when it may not actually be the case so always good to just do their own work there um in terms of the incentivized testet and what's happening there um as you've mentioned the test set is in fact in Z devised um and we want to make sure that you know folks who are participating there um are providing us with on one hand um tons of like really useful uh you know feedback and support from a ux point of view from a Dev experience point of view um we had our own like many private Tesla as well really appreciated the feedback from those guys too um so in short you know

we we care a lot about the the folks who help us and take bets on us at the early stage because it takes a lot of you know time and effort to do different things on the testet whether that's supplying contracts building dashboards we actually just using the damn thing um so you know there'll be a series of quest platforms and and groups that we roll out uh and we also plan on doing a couple of contests or programs internally um there's one that'll probably roll out within you know the next few weeks that'll be um around you know engaging ecosystem applications and projects and you know sort of a fun game over there uh and then there's another couple things we're looking at closer to the end of the test that period um that'll involve a whole bunch of college teams at a competition as well because

we want to be able to to draw in the best talent that's you know perating at universities right now um so in short we think there's a way for everyone to get involved um and we'll eventually see what we can do about people who want to you know syn their own RPC noes Etc and stuff like that um for now it's just a little bit trickier to have uh too many people getting involved there just because you know with h with our Val set limit sizes from on the SDK side um we can only have like you know 100 change nodes right before things get really messy in terms of actual you know validators um but apart from that trying to find ways that everyone can help contribute if they should so wish but yeah tldr if you're a user [ __ ] around mess around the test try the cord apps

and try some of the applications that'll be building on top of it that will be announcing shortly um if you're a developer there's going to be a whole bunch of different initiatives whether that's our incubator program called builda be that we recing else um whether that is you know helping to build a project on the Chain itself that'll be part of the ecosyst down the road um or whether that is you know setting up your own private RPC infrastructure Etc lovely yeah and so that's a the the valid situation is a result of the tender uh kind of model um so even though that you guys are um as Rob said in the bio EDM equivalent you guys will still be running the the validator set normally through like um you know Kepler dashboard for example like just as a as

a Cosmos app chain would right uh so not not necessarily from through a capit dashboard we have sort of like our all like I guess tracker SL like you know think like like like a station type app that allows you to see all the different validators and and you know affec with their setups um and users will be able to interact their chain super like natively on the evm side through metam Mouse Etc um and working on rabby support at the moment and a couple others um but in short like you know it's a it's very much as we think about like evm on the top Cosmos on the bottom so like from or you know evm in the front Cosmos on the back if you want to go build ryer style um you know we we you can interact with it and you know be able to bridge with a with a

very trusted partner that will announce very shortly um on the evm side uh and then you'll be able to you know basically employ classic Cosmos Val launching on the cosmos side this is the L1 mullet that that's exactly it that is exactly L you think you have like the so do you think you have like The Best of Both Worlds that is that kind of the thesis that's a goal that's very much the goal right like I think the way that and and I've been very happy to be vocal about this right um I think the cosmos has had a lot of the right ideas and a lot of the Right End Vision um over time I think it's execution has been absolutely horrible um as in I think it's it's often lacked to degree of leadership I think it's often lack an

actual direction or like an urgency of sorts um and the ethereum ecosystem has seen these ideas and like mooved relatively quickly on them um whether that be restating whether that be rollups like everything in between right even the modular thesis and opj thesis is starting to play out in in the emerald um and that is really where the devs are that's really where the capital is and that's really where um the degree of attention is is much higher and we talked sort about the attention economy earlier um so I think that the ideal World for for Cosmos is one where Cosmos abstraction actually takes hold and there's Cosmos under the hood but you know people aren't necessarily yelling about it um I can't tell you the number investors I've chatted with over time who've been like oh like Cosmos chain I'm not not too sure about that um and

they were like no never mind evm compatible like oh okay evm chain but Cosmos too nice um I think the way that we've often thought about it is is it possible to get the best of both worlds from a tech stack point of view so you know devs and and capital from the evm side and modularity inoperability from the cosmo side is it possible to get the best of both worlds from a you know liquidity attraction point view right can we effectively serve as this Hub between evm and Cosmos um especially once we have IBC enabled Etc said there's he the greatest total accessible liquidity out of any existing Network at the moment um those are the boxes that we think about checking and those are the areas where we think it makes a lot of sense and I feel like a lot of the

groups that have done really well um as cosmos chains in the last little while haven't necessarily been yelling that they're Cosmos chains like I think Celestia and dydx both good examples of that right um so I think maybe that's the controversial Haun in some Manner and and say too you got it right like they don't talk a ton about being Cosmos but they totally are um and I think each them that made their own you know meaningful advances right so um I think that the the brand itself is a little bit poisonous I think the tech stock itself is quite powerful so know but it's it's it's a good one though because you know you asked the average person about their staking tea for airdrop situation and they don't even think it they I have no idea I mean

obviously they have to go Cosmos to stake but you don't really think of that and similar with say obviously there's in but um yeah that's an interesting design show this um and so I I imagine that you guys could then um you know kind of sift communities from from both right I mean that's exactly it it's it's about you know what is your what's your total addressable market right and um we think there's a meaningful Market on both sides and again transparently I think we wait towards the EPM side and that's why a lot of our a lot of our work to date has been you know sort of trying to cater to that as much as possible um but I don't think it's it's wise to neglect the cosmos Community I

think there's a lot of of exciting stuff happening there um just really bad at drawing the right eyes to it in most cases yeah fair enough um so then when it comes to interrup with regards to EDM and other cos machines is uh I'm not exactly sure the bridging experience for testat so maybe you could tell our users how that works we then kind of I I imagine it'll be somewhat of a seamless experience to get from you know evm to Bara and also Cosmos app chains to barah as well yeah you got it so right now um you know the way that we're looking at things is um we we can't TR disclose yet but we'll have a bridging partner that is super well known and um on all the

the best TVM chains in my opinion um they'll be you know live with us day one it will be on our test n really shortly as well um so it should be super easy to go from Barett to any other chain with that in hand um and then I think that uh you know on the on the you know bridging to Cosmos app change in the entire ecosystem side um we're working to get uh to make sure IBC is enabled as quickly as possible um an interim measure might end up working with like a group like Union bill that can sort of have a little bit like you know IBC and the smart contract kind of thing which I think can be super exciting um not locked in there yet to be clear but definitely discussing sort of collaborations because we don't want to to cut ourselves shy of those sort

opportunities um but uh the goal is really to have in rows from from every angle possible um and then you know if we think about uh if we think about um you know effectively the the IBC side down the road there's even pretty cool opportunities to be able to do things on um uh on on sry on PO and like some of those other ecosystems as well probably not a top priority at the moment but yeah the reason I I paused got distracted there is because I got a message from that saying the group chat for the bridge partner that I mentioned say hey we're live one testet now between all these different test Nets so just let us know when you want us to to rip I was say okay cool nice we are uh we are big fans of Union um over here I

think that the DK based light client bridging from iccd ebm is very powerful um you know what you what you want is is is interrupt uh solution that baked in that is uh that you know that that that removes all the trust assumptions that that some of the models have today um so yeah got it understand how that works it seems like you've got that one figured out um and excited to see some of that happen because from again from the user perspective you got to make it easy um and so of course so that's something that you gotta focus on 100% man and then that's exactly it like we don't want it to be like I think

there are some chains that have been held back by um their accessibility or lack thereof um like I think that in the early days of Kanto you know it was a little bit trickier to get on board there but I think they did a great job over time working with more and more partners with that was you know cnaps zero what have you to to make it easier to access the chain um and I think that you know our goal is to to make that as smooth as possible from day one um especially if folks are coming from different ecosystems yes definitely and I I think we could dive deeper into interal but I have this Burning question that I've been I've been meaning to ask about the evm equivalence because I saw some some community members and some research on on the evm part of bar chain calling it

evm plus or evm equivalent plus what is that what is that like what's the difference between the just playing equivalence and yeah what is that plus yeah yeah it's a good question man um and I think the dev bear will probably give a better answer but I'll give my shot here which is that you know we have all the standard features of a of evm environment in terms of you know being able to drag and drop your slly smart contracts um but then there's also these these things called like stateful precompile so we have built into our evm Polaris um and so which the for pre- compiles basically all you do is to call on Cosmos SDK modules from within the evm so you can call on the bank modules or something like that for example right um You can use these for a number of

different re uh ways you could use this for you know beginning slend to block computation you could use this for you know bridging into oracles down the road there's a whole bunch of funky use cases um many are easier said than done um but we're also pretty excited to see what people can cut up with those uh they sometimes have great devx other times they can be a little bit tricky to work with so it's very much you know at one disposal if they want to interact with something by a free compile or not but I think that's part of what we we refer to as evm Plus in that um you know when we talked to when I I was at you know someone asked him to explain like you know what a saveable prile was why it's exciting for um for Argus you know for

them even clar like it's like a cheat code for the EV you can basically add like a layer of pre-processing um before submitting an actual transaction which I think is kind of cool very cool yeah and it's it's all about the it's about the time to finality is the important part um I wouldn't necessarily say it's about the T I wouldn't necessarily that say that I think it's more like you're actually able to like you're actually able to execute a transaction from evm that's calling upon a module in the on the cosmos SDK side um without having to like you know Bridge from Eco a to Eco B in order to make that happen it's it's sort of happening within the evm but parallel processing within Cosmos and is is it the is it the pre-compile that

allows that to happen correct correct yeah and so so and so basically you just get that code base from the inner AR like from Union or from um something behind the scenes which the user almost doesn't even realize has happened it's exact I think it's exactly that in that you can choose to call on it or not and then you can choose to use pre compil if you'd like to but you don't necessarily have to it's really just like at one's disposal if they should wish right um so that's why you know UVM plus isn't a bad way thinking about it and I'll apologize in advance to any of our our dad hear this in case I butchered things there but yeah um what what I mean by that is like there's that additional layer that that's an option for people to try out so that's

what took these damn devs so long huh Rob they're cooking devs are doing things indeed they are they are turning the evm into its uh into its its uh faster like next generation it's like evm I mean it's evm plus just like in the name it it pulls in these modules it's like really it's really putting a modular approach on the evm by allowing it to access I think that's the key part here is that you have the evm all all of the standardization and and familiarity that the evm offers um and then you also get the option to access Cosmos

modules you got it right it's a it's plug inpl to an extent if you should if you wish right um You can treat it like a completely normal evm and not think twice or you can be like okayy cool I'm gonna try to actually like you know use this module yeah yeah um very cool so because this Tech is there is is there functionalities to be able to have more depths and um things for users to do onchain that are like vertically vertically integrated within bar chain um like could you have EDM daps Deploy on baring is there going to be daps deployed on barain from um like are they going to be house there going to be

other depths like what's the ecosystem plans look like from testat to mainat um what could users do on bear chain aside from kind of what what you've spoken about you know some BS some markets of things like yeah is this in-house evm dep lending markets kind of yeah yeah ecosystem for sure man um yeah I think we've always been you know very proud of our ecosystem and and all the crazy stuff they've been cooking up um I think that like you mentioned when you think about this from like the the native side um there's effect with these like evm daps SL daps that are in our case are actually built with those free compiles um that are baked into the chain um such like the pers the you know the the ambient liquidity deck and the the stable coin lending Market um but then

there's also folks that are just deploying a a suite a suite of other projects whether that be you know uh you know nft marketplaces um you know nft amm social F products a couple different games that are being deployed at the moment um I'd say more exotic like yield Farmers like I think there's definitely a bit of a defi Edge SL a defi angle um but if you can think of a basic primitive or you know more spicy one there's a pretty good chance it's on bare chain um which is to say you know if you want yield swaps if you want some Fark like you know exotic lending market like you know the the vast majority of things that that people use on other chains that exist in some form or or some combination of it on Bara um so you know we've done our best to make sure

that when we actually come out the gates um we have the ecosystem as built out as possible and that's even like looking at you know I think some the nextg stuff that will really get cool adoption next cycle right whether that is you know stuff for uiux like dream OS that allows you to like basically have all of your different daps on your desktop almost in a desktop like browser um you know for easy accessibility and cross chain use uh or you know stuff like way mod like nextg custody plus like you know hack front running and smart actions for your wallets all that kind of stuff uh it's really just been our goal to to give people um effectively access to anything that they have on other chains natively on bar chain and a good part of that is done through native EOS system and a

good part of that is done through other apps that are looking to deploy with us as you know like their second home kind of thing so let's say a future where we have tons of daps user activity everything is going according to plan May Net's launched where where are you guys comparatively on the spectrum of of different platforms of protocols now are you thinking of barishan as like in a competitor or a uh or a differentiated ethereum to Adam osmosis war in at lineing is it like is it aiming to be some like in the modular St like like

how you personally thinking of like value comparison or um like what realm you guys fit in like what's the Bull and Bear case here yeah yeah for sure um I think you know I I I think it's much more interesting to be in the business of of vertical creation or category creation then then category subscription effectively um and what I'm very interested to see if we can do is just effectively build this ecosystem around proof of liquidity right um and I don't know what what narrative that that that neatly falls into because on one hand there's a you know mod structure um there's a degree of interoperability in terms of the way that we hope to plug into different ecosystems um and there's yeah I Josh from s once had a line that I found absolutely hilarious but kind of

accurate is like you know bear chain is kind of like I layer for shitcoins um which was like kind of good in that like what what we're really re hypothecating as security here is liquidity right where we're using liquidity to bootst or to serve as a form of security um and that can that can take many many different forms whether that be Majors or shitcoins um which is is pretty exciting um it's not necessarily about the quality of liquidity it's about the presence or lack their out um so I I think that in a perfect world down the road we probably exist somewhere between those two narratives of of modularity um reaking with a little bit of interoperability on the back end um but really hope to to form our own category around you know what proof of liquidity looks like down the road like what a

really liquidity Centric change exists looking like um so when I think about our comps um I I don't know what comes to mind most natively but I think that we think a lot about how we can be the ecosystem where people go to build something new cool interesting um and right now when I think about that ecosystem it's probably still arbitrum though I do think that that has been waiting in prominence a little bit over time um I think Bas is is taking some shots in that Arena um I think we'll probably see folks you know just hopping around a lot more of these interesting l2s I'm sure we'll see cool stuff from laad down the road so you know like my my take is that we want to be the place where people go build interesting new things um while of course always noting that it's pretty

tough to to displace e main net and I don't think that's necessarily the goal um I think the goal is to be the the place where people can go to to to win as a new application from from Round Up you set us in the state of Silence very cool yeah it's it's always interesting to hear the uh hear that um kind of your thought process as to where where you're headed because kind of inspires community and everybody else who's involved um kind of digging deeper into that what are the uh immediate kind of uh road map items and things that you have in front of you um you know how are you thinking about this test net and um

you know what is a successful test net uh for you that's a good question man um I think we've got you know our own metc that we're shooting for ternally in terms of you know unique users and the number of transactions and stuff like that I think a lot of it is actually just how much you know we can improve the product um how much snappier we can make the you know some of the different core applications and how we can improve user experience there um make sure it's super easy for people to get involved figure out all the right things from the dev tooling point of view and working out some of those kings um so think those are like some of the core tenants of a successful test net um and then what I will probably care about most is increasing our rate of inbound new

builders that want to build new things um I care a lot about you know basically trying to form as many these Network effects or flys as possible uh to bring folks who can actually help you know push the bar forward a little bit into the ecosystem because I think that is really the toughest thing to do I think it's it's easy to find a random team of devs and say hey go build this that we've seen before um but for our ecosystem you know I don't really care for that that much um I care a lot more about what we can do to effectively find a group that will um build something new on the chain that they have the opportunity to build somewhere else um but didn't and and chose to build with us and and to actually have like you know to help curate as many of these

what I consider super adapts as possible um applications that actually find a degree of adoption that bring them uh into a new chain ecosystem and bring new users into that new chain ecosystem so I think GMX did this for arbitrum I think dfk did this for Harmony in the past like def kingdoms before it blew up I think FR Tech did that for Bas before that kind of like did its thing too so to be clear there's a there's not a strong history of these having a lot of like longevity but I think that with the right design and enough shots on net it's entirely possible to have that it is interesting to see GMX survive where these other have maybe not had the same uh same and to be fair like I think each

some like had like I think you know TSK had the whole like lock Jewel thing becoming liquid and then that kind of just like killed the tokenomics model and then like front Tech like racer just like disappeared or something off socials and then like people just I don't know it and there was a whole bunch of stuff that seemed to go down there on on the the social Optics front um that I think may have you know not contributed as well but I think it was a great launch and like had a a ton of people engaged and was very well suited for a CT audience um but like in short I I don't think that those failed because of necessarily the product itself I think they were both quite avoidable um and I think that if you look hard enough there's probably lots of other examples

of things that actually like you know Drew people into a new ecosystem um and then I think that's what we want to optimize for it's like oh you want to try using this app it's on bear chain and you got to hop over and then I really do see a chain as the sum of its parts right the sum of the applications that are bu on top of it um so it's our job to enable applications to to build the best stuff are there any wild dreams you have of what's possible to build on bar chain because of the the tech stack that you guys have that is not possible on on existing chains with with other Frameworks I think a lot of it a lot of the ideas I have rely on uh constant flow of liquidity that can be used to to fuel some sort of Leverage to be quite

honest now that may be a good or bad thing um because I like you know I I I think that one of the cleanest sources of pmf in an onchain environment is leverage on shitcoins um I don't know if that's a good thing to say but like I I I just think that is what a lot of people want SL care about in some manner so I think a lot I think a lot of those systems where you can have a flywheel that's effectively Juiced up by by bgt and the ability for that um you know system to be consistently ring in rewards while paying out those liquidation fees Etc to be takers could probably compound harder than than many many other ecosystems so for that in in the in the you know back Breer yeah those leverage

mechanisms are quite useful for the defense out there um you got I ask you know I I asked to try to like Inspire like those who are listening who are Builders um and you know maybe they love the community they love the culture and and they enjoy the memes but you know they don't want to just copy pasta some some compound onto bar chain and they really want to embrace uh the innovations that that the Innovative Tech that that you've put together um yeah yeah no 100% man appreciate it and I think there's um I there's definitely angles that that are that have yet to be see you know yet to have been fully played out that we'll

see on be um I expect to see some funky stuff in the nft f space I still don't think nft borrow L has been done right um I still don't think that like social fly has been figured out quite un uh so you know while these aren't necessarily areas that are you know uniquely powered by barar Chain stack off the bat I do think that they're areas where you can actually get what people tend to lack the most which is users and liquidity out the gates very quickly um and that's where I think we hope to to carve a bit more for Edge as well got it yeah that that is most most on the nose of what I was asking about um essentially like yeah like if you had an infinite amount of time um and you you

know you were able to build bar chain and then kind of like build the like what applications would you choose to build on top of it oh man um yeah in terms of existing applications or just new stuff anything your wild that's a good question man I don't know if I have all the answers to that off the top but I do think that there's a number of things that have been that have moved in the right direction that we'd like to see um I'm definitely sele things Sim about defi so um one idea that I've been playing with a bunch recently that I I think may actually be achieved through the work of like some of the different groups that are they are starting to build in the space like ritual or you know OAS Etc um is actually what happens at the intersection of they in crypto I think

that's like in most Cas is very corny and just like a [ __ ] narrative to be clear um but I do think that like there's a world where there's a a super of sorts that exists that sort of like an AI powered like yield farmer um that you know effectively takes into account you know one's risk parameterization or one's you know desired risk level um a whole bunch of different inputs from the actual different contracts that one might deposit into whether that be the distribution of the holders or you know fluctuations in apy over time uh or you know the actual source of that yield whether it's fees whether it's just emissions yada yada Y and actually helps to autocycle like pool of capital like beyond what one can accomplish in Like Ur vaults Etc um in response toet market conditions you know prices of other

similar tokens so on so forth like I think something like that um if done properly could you know be like such a cool application to build um and especially on you know in approv liquidity environment where there's so many different applications that would have different changing yields as a result of vs voting for application a versus application B in terms of their emissions um so you know that's something that I would love to to see exist on beishan and I'm starting to talk to one or two groups about about cooking something up that Angle now epic I'm super Keen to see some of these things come to play these uh money games if you will are really really cool participating and also just a lot to play out as we kind of coming the wrap up here just want to

give our community some insight as to what they can expect for from bear chain for 2024 um so what can we expect yeah man yeah yeah you got it um you should expect a couple more fun campaigns or activities over the testet and if you're you know application Builder or death I think that you should definitely um keep an eye out for ways you can get involved um because there will be opportunities and um you know colleges should also keep an eye out because we're you know signing them up day by day for something cool um and then I think that you should expect a main that um this year and I won't give an exact time but we're looking at you know Q2 time frame um and we're hoping to just knock it out of the park and um you know break some some

dreams into reality I think uh it was really funny to see the number of folks are like holy [ __ ] it's real When we dropped Tesla um and also folks i' hopefully enjoyed our like you know half serious half anime outro video um and uh you know we just hope to top that for main that that's a that's the goal asked and answered be chain is real when main net 2024 you got it man epic Smokey thanks so much for coming on man so much fall yeah cheers I'm always around and for folks who want to H me up my my Twitter DMS are open and normally pretty good at respond to them and if not then yeah I'm sure there's a way to find me on TG or something love it thank you so much

Smokey awesome