The Modular Rollup Thesis with Initia

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 what's going on guys welcome back to the rollup um here today with Rob and our boy Zan who's rocking the hudy penguin in the background Zan where'd you get that thing I just picked it up at um toys of R Us for Christmas I bought a bunch of them from my family members and they

don't even know it's crypto related just cute little plushy that's how we proliferate yeah did any of them sign on to the world um I think a couple did the scan and then lost after there got lost but it'll happen yeah I think they're trying to make it easier yeah nice man well you have quite an interesting background as far as coming into crypto um obviously you're a giga computer programmer scientist bro um not sure if you addressed yourself as that but here I am so um yeah i' love to give your uh our our community just kind of a a short and sweet about um how how you got here more or less and um kind of

what you're working on for sure so I um went to school in the US um I'm originally from Canada but I studied computer science and business um stayed a bit to do my masters in CS and then that was around Co time and obviously the bull market was popping off then so spent a lot of time in evm land just coining farming yams you know having a good time and I was looking to come into crypto from a builder's perspective since I was a software engineer in web toand but I was getting bored you know making a widget or

building a small little piece of infrastructure within a large company um and wanted to do something a bit more interesting and crypto has always just been so entertaining like aside from the fact that we're building the new internet and monetary policies and like rails um it's just such a fun environment to be in like six months ago all of us were betting on hamster racing like there's nowhere else that that is going to happen and so I uh I fell in love with the idea of app chains and the belief that you can vertically integrate what you're building into the entire Tech deack and

so Cosmos ecosystem at the time was like the one of the biggest pushers of that narrative and so I joined terara as a smart contract developer um back in the day to learn early and figure out what it's like to build in this space so as a smart contract Dev um I helped build out a few DBS within the ecosystem and then I left to start my own project within the cosmo space um unfortunately we shut that project down um shortly after we launched it and that was when there was massive draw s Just Happening throughout crypto whether that was the terror collapse the FTX collapse like 3ac genesis you know was

hitting the fan and um it was a little would have been a bit irresponsible to launch something without understanding the full ramifications of what was going to happen so it took some time to reflect figure out what I wanted to do next um and I really understood that there was many problems that we saw within the cosmos ecosystem that were proliferating like fragmentation um there's many different maintainers for the same pieces of infrastructure um all these different wallets like various types of bridges for the same tokens um and it just created like a pretty complex user experience and fundamentally it was pretty difficult to spin up a cosmos

chain you have to bootstrap a validator set you have to inflate your token Supply to pay out to these validators you have to maintain a bunch of infrastructure like IBC relays and and this was around the time that modularity and rollups as a service were starting to pick up we saw like the op stack which was an incredibly simple way of building application chains building rollups on ethereum um come to light but the problems with it still reflect some of the problems we saw within Cosmos you don't really have um fungibility between these rollups you need to talk to thirdparty service provider providers when it comes to figuring out who's

going to be your instant Bridge provider what about Oracle access you can only use the evm which we all know has some problems um and essentially me and Stan who's also part of the founding team at inisha decided we wanted to build this a full in-depth solution to these problems that we had seen in the past while allowing teams to spin up new app chains much more easily like you can do in the OB stack but ensuring all these problems were solved from day one and so that's how we started putting together inisha yeah very cool and today Anisha is solving these problems helping

developers launch their app chains how how do you imagine AB chains will will reshape this landscape how how do you how do you envision this will change the world essentially yeah I think this is one of the parts that modularity touches on in general and just the belief that you can have full flexibility and customization of what you're trying to build and allowing you to vertically integrate into your text deack through an app chain really lets you build the most powerful applications that can exist rather than that just being focused on the smart contract layer but it also really helps with things like scalability if we're ultimately trying to reach you know billions of users

worldwide it doesn't particularly make sense to do all this on one Central system um execution should be split out into various different layers and so at NL we're trying to make sure that this is possible and done in the mo light most lightweight way while giving developers the freedom to do what they need to do but also ensuring from a ux perspective users don't have to deal with you know the uxx hurdles that would come with having hundreds of blockchains in the future um and that's why at initia what we essentially wanted to do was rebuild the entire architecture stack from end to end so that means initia layer one uh optimistic rollup

framework that's built in the cosmos SDK so it's essentially VM agnostic Layer Two implementations that are a full-fledged Cosmos SDK chain so you can use any parts of a cosmos module like native account abstraction offz um skips po module you can change your gas fees you can Port something like osmosis or dydx but also ensuring that teams that come from various smart Contracting Frameworks are able to take advantage of what we're building so we integrated the movm um the evm and wum BM on top of these layer twos so teams can pick whatever smart Contracting framework

works best for them and then not only have we rebuilt the entire architecture stack we made sure to rebuild the product stack as well because when you're building a piece of infrastructure developers are not your only customers ultimately your end customers are the users and so we need to make sure that for them using these products is as simple as possible and that means what does the Explorer system look and feel like what does connecting to wallets and using um wallets in a multi-chain way look and feel like what is bridging around this environment and moving from roll up to roll up um or even extern ecosystems look and feel like yeah I um had a podcast today with

um Kenny from mana and yesterday with this um this fell from seta a provider type of thing and um basically we came to that chain extraction is like the biggest thing for modular blockchains to thrive in the future because if we're going to have so many modular chains like we have to have this we have to have some shared sequencing or shared proving or we have have to have some extremely Lightning Fast Bridges where users don't even have to use them and the ux on applications is like inherent in just like natively inherits those bridges in the back end without that even knowing so you can Bridge from chain to chain or app chain to app chain like you are using an app so if I'm on AO trading pers then I want to move to

like you know like Manta on their AB chain and use a app there like like layer bank I should just be able to just go from that website to the other website and the funds available should be like all encompassing almost like a all-in-one blockchain wallet where then I can just go and use them on man as as well without having to like click a bridge and like do that process obviously the bridge will have in the background but you know I think that like some some way to solve this comes with IBC or at least there's some part of that so curious to hear how you want to implement items Fe into initial sta yeah for sure um but you're exactly right like ultimately the end goal should be chain abstraction people don't

need to know that they're using applications that are built on an initial rollup they just want to be using applications and they should be able to freely flow between them and that's why um building this entire system from end to end was so important because we're not trying to append like a rollup stack to a legacy framework like ethereum instead we have the opportunity to like change the framework um adapt it to solve a lot of these needs and so between rollups and between VMS um all tokens are essentially fungible across inisha and we do this through IBC so in IBC there's pairwise connections when you're moving assets so

if I moved uh usdc for example from chain a to chain B and then chain C versus if I moved that token from chain a to c directly I would technically get two different types of tokens on chain C that's like a a pain in the ass for users for sure and so we want to make sure that when you're moving across rollups U this is not a problem that you face and that's where the initial layer one comes in as kind of a hub so if you're moving from Layer Two to Layer Two what you're essentially doing is moving from a layer two to the initial layer one and then to another layer two but that allows all Source or like final steps of token bridging to come from the initial layer one so you essentially

have fun ibility across these rollups and because every one of these layer twos um has the cosmos SDK underneath that acts as like a shared infrastructure layer so we can have IBC on all of them so directly within move solidity cosm oom you can do IBC transactions you can send these tokens to other layer tws you can do cross uh chain contract interactions it's kind of all out of the box there for you when you spin up a rollup and what this allows us to do is we've just built a really nice front end widget that every application can integrate that just abstracts that entire process in the background so as a

user you're just thinking about depositing assets into this app but what's actually happening is you're doing some bridging yeah yeah that's what I'm saying it's Bas that's that's the future we need Bridges like across is super good and then we need share sequencing as well across like rollups at least across the general purpose funds yeah that creates the best ux for the end user um what's the what's the thesis for settlement like why why choose to build your own settlement Network um and not use something you know with like existing Lindy uh and kind of like existing stake like ethereum or or even like Bitcoin as like

kind of like the consensus layer or Tender you know what what's the thesis for kind of like uh your own layer one consensus layer yeah so the initial layer one is a cosmos SDK based chain that operates in the move VM um but it does ultimately have tendermint underneath but what building this entire system from end to end allows us to do is just have the flexibility to change how various structures work and how the framework should operate and the initial layer one really is used to pro provide a lot of services directly to these layer tues so one of the advantages of building in a monolithic land for example is that you know that certain aspects like Fiat

on-ramps um oracles um Native usdc and cctp access all those sorts of key Primitives that you might need to tap into are available and in a modular landscape you're not exactly sure if these things will exist but by building this hybrid design our layer one kind of serves these layers 2os to provide these services so every Layer Two through our layer one has Fiat onramp access they have usdc and Native cctp access they have enshrined oracles that they can fetch out of the box um and then they have what we've done on the layer one as well is basically enshrined liquidity so that all these layer twos can tap into one Central

source of liquidity and how we've done that is essentially we have a DEX that's built into the layer one chain um and you whitelist certain LP tokens for example 8020 init usdc or in it eth or in it adom whatever you might want and you can stake those tokens directly with validators and this essentially enshrines liquidity in the layer one but it acts as a interchain router so as you're moving from usdc on one layer two to eth on another layer two since all of those bridgings go through the layer one to preserve fungibility they can just be swapped at the same time so it really um simplifies what this multi-chain

landscape should work like yeah and I brought that that that that's green up I'm sure people had a chance to have a quick look at it um but it basically describes initial with some key key differences um being that like what you just mentioned I realized that enshrined oracles and C cctp are two really really sick parts of the stck that are like slept on and then like now you know bear chain this proof of of liquidity and now kind of your your uh formation of it as well the reason I have etherum there as like my preferred seate layer is just because of the security properties and the

decentralization of it and I got you know people ask me like oh why is it dimension on here Sim like why isn't initia on here and so I posed this thought to you and I I'm curious to hear your kind of uh retort which is I I chose a theem on that because for for modular RS I believe that best part of the stack for theem is simply settlement because then all of the kind of properties of ethereum's decentralized validator set and security are inherited by the rule even if they use a different VM or a different da layer it's still settled to a the which still ensures this kind of legitimacy of sustainability um one could argue that one it's it's a fact that ethereum has

more limity than Dimension Anisha insert L1 here um but what's not what's what's different is there there there's a lot of capabilities which you guys can offer Dimension can offer that ethereum can't because it's kind of nextg tech so I got that POS as a question to you why should I include or why should I change my mind on ethereum as ex said the only worthy settlement layer of uh the modular rollups why should I think about Dimension or why should I think about Anisha or even like I guess like salana or something yeah I think ultimately it just comes down to the valy proposition that you can provide to these layer twos like there's just a slew of problems that you wouldn't be able to address by

building this on top of eum because it's just frankly inflexible um and you're always going to be confined to how the evm operates so building this entire structure from end to end has really allowed us to reshape this system but with new tech coming out like igen layer um ethos stake Etc you can still tap into the properties of ethereum's validator set and ethereum stake to be able to draw some security from those more Lindy systems so I don't think it is uh necessarily A Hard choice between choosing one settlement layer or another settlement layer if security in particular is a concern then there are

solutions that can be put in place to draw security from something that could be seen as more secure yeah what also isy to your first point though like um they'll prefer an alternative VM roll up to ethereum because I still get all the capabilities of that virtual machine even if I'm still settled to ethereum or do I not like if I'm like like eclipse is like anbm Bas roll up if they select it for da and they fed to ethereum that to me is golden it might be golden but um eclipse for example then would have to go and pro contact a lot of thirdparty services

to basically get their ability to move elsewhere like instant bridging oracles usdc access unless they want users to wait seven days and Eclipse can definitely probably do that because they're massive but the vast majority of teams and people that want to launch rollups um might not be able to have that um you know bargaining power and so there are trade-offs to be made um but for the vast majority of cases I think that an all-in-one solution can provide a lot more options and what's also interesting no no worries decentralization it's it's also a matter of progressively decentralizing every settlement like as

well of course what's also interesting is um we're able to use our main token in a much more interesting way so that we essentially give back to these layer twos right rather than if you're building something on ethereum only then ethereum is never really going to give you something in return aside from the security that you might inherit but with inisha we've developed some very interesting economic Frameworks that essentially treat these layer twos as first class citizens um it should be like a a two-way street here so that by using initial Layer Two you're getting rewarded for your usage but your developers and your users and

the people that you need to incentivize to come try out your applications are also getting some of those rewards what what are those like uh those rewards like for our community that's listening and like kind of like these power users on chain like what is available this is um some of our secret sauce please continue I can't be helped when we start talking about rewards they've got 69% on their public test net today I just want to know when token bro wants the air drop there will so this is part of our secret sauce so I can't share too much

about it but that'll be coming out soon TM but what I can tell you is that um you're going to get rewarded for using layer 2 applications nice um and this this public test mean 69% how what's the timeline on that roughly um it's coming sooner than you think I'll tell you that cool nice so like if if if our listeners were to compare Amisha to to a project would Dimension be like a a a different project a different project and product but a similar framework for how they can think about the

idea I think there's definitely some similarities I think um we're focused a lot more on building out the ux stack that comes with this system I think um that ultimately is what's going to lead to a lot of mass adoption that if you can break down the barriers for both liquidity but also users to move around in this environment that's going to be like a huge value prop but also um you know our optimistic rollup framework is VM agnostic and that's why we've integrated all these various VMS on top of our layer tws but for the most part you can think about it having a similar structure um I would say our main competitors in my eyes are Cosmos itself

as an entire ecosystem as well as systems like the op stack makes sense very cool what do you think is like unlocked by using anisha's uh stack to deploy new rollups like what are the elements that are currently lacking in the ux that are overcome by by inisha um yeah yeah like generally the like the yeah the current ux do allow more how does initia allow for bigger ideas more use cases application exactly exactly I think there's uh essentially two answers one

is from the developers point of view and one is from the users point of view for developers um firstly just being able to use additional VMS is is hugely awesome um you know each of these VMS I don't think I'm like a a major proponent of Any Given one I'm a cosmos Dev like through and through but ultimately each of these VMS has various different value propositions and as a developer you should choose either what you're best at or what works best for you and inisha like entire Layer Two stack is is fully completed and built so like you can ask me to join our Clos test net and you can start building and move Cosmos or solidity and that is um very handy the

second is uh it allows you to vertically integrate into your text stack a lot more through the cosmos SDK side so using you know five different Tok tokens or whatever tokens you want for gas ensuring that uh you have native count abstraction so that you can you know sign things gasless or you can sign and delegate your permissions for the next time 10 minutes if you're a game something like that um and then ensuring that there's reduction of choice overload a lot of Ras systems or rollup systems tend to offer so many choices between like Bridges da layers execution environments like um all Oracle access like all these things are are

fundamentally somewhat similar and what we've done instead of saying you can choose between these six different da options or these three Bridges and these four oracles is just integrated one very thoroughly into the text deck so from a developer's point of view you can really just focus on building your application use what VM you like and then you're good to go on the users perspective we're trying to make sure that this entire ecosystem is just seamless to move around right ultimately you want to reach chain abstraction and how can we do that it's making sure that there's no barriers to entry so we have support for every evm signing wallet as well as every Cosmos signing wallet so users can just pull up with their existing wallets

we have that really nice Bridge widget that just Aggregates over all of the routes that you might be doing so from a user's perspective you don't need to ever think about are there two different typ of the same token here that came in from various different Bridges how do I get from one roll up to another how do I get back to ethereum or optimism or you know osmosis that's kind of all just integrated nicely and then ensuring like the Explorer system is really thorough so that you're never lost with your assets and I think a lot of these ux pieces will really tie the entire system together since we are essentially building chain abstraction across thousands of rollups and that's why we

like to call them interwoven because you launch one of these Roll-Ups and you're instantly connected to everything within the system you don't have to deal with all these problems you can just focus on building a good dep and then there's also um something that we like to call Just in Time gas um J gas and that's the the case where you're on a new chain and you don't have the gas fees to pay for transactions this is like a a paino that I often had in the cosmos ecosystem where I would first spend $20 using Axel to bridge my tokens to a new chain and then I wouldn't be able to pay to move those tokens on the new chain then I would have to go to osmosis to buy um the gas fee to send to that chain but I don't

have osmo tokens so I was just kind of stuck and with just in time gas essentially no matter where you are within the ecosystem um your assets from a different Layer Two or the layer one can be swapped through that native Dex on the layer one and sent to the chain you're trying to make a transaction on in the same click so that you never have to deal with this problem again yeah that that is a like very important distinction for uh the ux uh layer uh if if we're gonna like impact like the normal World here and and really reach uh a significant population like like people aren't going to like even know what gas is like I wonder how

long it'll take before uh before we get to a point where like we are totally gas abstracted um and I think that'll coincide with with some significant adoption um I think what's that one of the points on there is by being able to choose your own gas token like these layer two applications can firstly they're like much faster than a layer one but also they can really improve their ux if you imagine like a perpetuals market where you're using usdc as the main coin for all your trading if that layer two just made usdc as gas then users that on board whether that's a Fiat on-ramp or they Bridge

from a different ecosystem they don't need to think about gas in any way shape or form when they're making trades they're just using the exact same balance and just that thought of like having to hold two tokens in your wallet is a pain and so applications can easily solve that on initia yeah and is that through some sort of pay Master type of setup no so in the cosmos SDK you can actually just set multiple fee denominations to be used it's quite simple cool that's B there so many properties of Cosmos that if EVN land had to be so much better and vice versa like a it's like a race to put these all together it was too

early yeah yeah I think what you doing with the alt VM like the alterntive DM modular rle is like by far like the most bullish thing that I've heard in like the launcher modular blockchain stack so quite excited to to see this public test net um and as we kind of wrap up where can our audience find you um who are you is is your name inspired by the show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and where's I went to school in Philadelphia so I was an avid fan of the show of course um but you can find me on Twitter at it's always Onie and then and you can follow inisha at inisha fdn nice I got one more question here

before before we close it out which is that like you're You're Building like this uh this ecosystem and I'm curious like if you if you were to build an application on some some hypothetical ecosystem like what what application or type of application would you choose to build what application would I choose to build um I would actually probably build a a game so I have always been a defi guy and the last projects that I was working on were all def focused applications but I think games are just fun things to do and I've always had this idea that a very PVP focused game where as a layer two there

was like a slew of very PVP games where you could play with other people you could like bet on people and watch them play you could bet on your own matches with other people um would be incredibly fun um just because I play a lot of PVP games myself and I think that sort of ecosystem could be pretty sick and I could just to finalized game yeah like just apply a lot of betting principles on top of these games and then have leaderboards um and like even you can incorporate some friend tech key aspects with inverse bonding curves though so

the later people that buy um pay a lower price essentially and the first people pay the most but those people get like revenues from your betting and your winning so you can really gamble on people as well um but then I could just pull up to Andy you know maybe crush him in like our version of Smash Bros um and make sure I bet all my stack on that according to Rob coding CK is is a doozy so I think he's going to build this for you as long as you give him uh an in it Grant and then I will invite you over to my Dimension budg penguin mansion and then welcome you kick your ass and send you home okay we'll see about that y that

sounds about right yeah um but uh public test net is coming sooner than you think and there's going to be a lot of things to do we've already been working with a slew of applications in all different areas of the stack whether that be defi or gaming and essentially we should have um a lot of fun just from day one on testnet let's go to the Moon thank you for coming on Sir thanks for having me guys cheers