OpenBuild x Hyperlane 专访: 深度解析 Hyperlane 如何引领多链互操作新范式！

Transcript

Hello guys, I'm Vivian and today I'm representing the uh open build community to do the interview with the CTO of Hyperlane. So could you do a brief intro about yourself like your background and what brought you to crypto? Hey, thanks for having me. Um yeah, so my name is Nam uh Nam Chu. I'm one of the co-founders of Hyperlane. Like I'm like yeah leading the technical side of things. Um we've been doing that for 3 years. Um how I got into crypto was uh I guess now 6 years ago. Um my best friend he started working as a first employee on Cello. And so at the time I just moved to San Francisco and I was like

hey I don't know what to do next. And to be honest I was kind of like a little bit weirded out by crypto but I remember meeting the team and I was very excited about the team and that's kind of how my uh yeah journey started in crypto. Interesting. So like because right now you are building hyperlink you uh you mentioned for more like three years right? Yeah. So could you do a brief intro about hyperlink and uh your original uh intention and also the vision um behind the project? Yeah, I think the vision behind hyperlane kind of got based on this idea of um right like there's going to be many chains out there, right? Like when I was at Cello um right like one of the

kind of uh we launched mainet and then what we realized was like oh how do users come to cello right like they need a way to come from other blockchains uh and so that's obviously what bridges interoperability protocols are for and uh we just kind of like as we look at the market we just realized look there's going to be many many more chains right like I think in like yeah 2018 2020 everybody kind of thought like oh there's going to be like one blockchain to rule them all right um one L1 that's why everybody is trying to raise to build like these L1s. But I think we were lucky that we realized that yeah, like I think for crypto to fulfill its vision of being this kind of like the decentralized application infrastructure, you need like a lot more block space, a lot more block space than

a single blockchain can provide. And so in that world of many blockchains, what becomes very important is how these blockchains talk to each other. And so that was more that's what motivated us to work on Hyperlink. Um and actually by extension what we realized is you know like even at the time there were like what like maybe like 10 or 20 blockchains that were pretty big right? Uh and that's what a lot of interoperability protocols of that generation think thought about right like hey how do we build an interop protocol for like 10 or 20 or 30 or even 50 chains but like we just believe in a world of like yeah many thousands of chains and so in that world you can't have a single service provider basically connect all of these chains right like the same with the internet right like we don't have a single like networking

provider for all of the internet what you need is you need like a open uh permissionless protocol that like when you launch your own blockchain when you bring up right like your new server you can get connected to this wider network of like blockchains and that's what we've been focusing on with hyperlink got it so actually this remind me about the cosmos I think yeah so they have the kind of the similar thesis right and the so the like the communication between different chains are really important nowadays and yeah so if you like if you want to introduce hyperlink just in one sentence like to your grandmom uh why What would that be? Oh man, it's difficult. I feel like my my parents still don't really know what I do, but

let me try. Yeah. So, I think so. Hyperlane is a um a uh open and permissionless, that's an important part, permissionless interoperability framework that basically allows uh chains and asset issuers to connect to whatever chains they want um kind of like by themselves and if they want to use a service, they can use our service as well. Got it. And so talking about the like the crosschain bridges uh there are some like challenges that people are really focusing on like the security liquidity and also uh interoperability. So uh how hyperlain address those issues.

Yeah, I think the thing uh that definitely we realiz as well at 3 years in is um interrupt is a pretty hard problem, right? like it's effectively a subset of the generalized Oracle problem where just like the remote data is just a blockchain and not just an arbitrary ser data. Um and yeah like I think like the Oracle problem it's very hard to solve it. Um and so from our perspective, it just requires a lot of like infrastructure and abstractions to make it easy to use while recognizing that like security is very hard, right? Uh and so one of the kind of like key uh approaches that we've taken is that we know that there's no such thing as the single best way of like verifying like a message from an origin chain. There's

going to be very different ones, right? Like maybe right now we start with a lot of like valader based systems, right? like where like you have specific entities that you trust that basically say that something happened on a remote chain. Uh but also there's a lot of like obviously very good research about like ZKbased approaches rollups in general. Um and so we just believe that those will take time. Like there's a lot of research, a lot of money going into those. And uh what we wanted to build is like a framework to allow developers to basically build once and then as these kind of like innovations occur with these different mechanisms, they can just switch out the like security module as we call it. Uh and so that basically allows independent innovation at the app layer from the innovation layer, right?

And so that's kind of been like a I would say key key focus of ours. And then the second one is like I mentioned the permissionless angle which basically is like right like if you launch a new chain like let's say you launch Vivian chain today right like you now need again connection to right like the existing uh uh users on on different chains and right now a lot of other of our competitors they're basically like right like you have to find a BD team they will probably charge you a lot of money for it and so hyperlane is basically that this completely open completely permissionless protocol that like you can deploy Vivian you deploy hypade into VC chain yourself and get connectivity. Uh and again that's kind of like mirrors I would say the like open approach of the internet right

where like you don't need to talk to somebody to get connected to other computers. So actually I think you mentioned permissionless a lot right so um do you going to like sacrifice the user experience to achieve um permissionless? Yeah. So this is I think the thing that maybe uh you know we sometimes struggle with communicating because um like just because it's permission right like uh like basically we we we know we want to keep it always permissionless right like like if you cannot find a way to talk to us or for whatever reason we like don't find a way to talk to you like you should be able to do it yourself. But that being said, we very much right like have a service

that we do for people right like where the user experience is basically like you come to us you tell us like hey here's Vivian chain and we actually do all the work for you right and so it's very similar to let's say right like I don't know like kubernetes right like you can go to Google and Google does everything for you but if you want to you can host kubernetes yourself right the same with like if you build like a nextjs app right like yes you can host it yourself but verscell does everything for you and so we think there's kind of this good like two-sided way of thinking about it where like hey in the in the happy case the service does everything for you but you know that like if you ever right like feel like hey we're getting bad or like we are like charging

you too much money you can host it yourself okay got it I think so this is the reason why uh you like to mention yourself as a tool instead of the applications right yeah yes again it's this weird thing where like I think um right like we want to basically be like it's similar to like a SAS product for example right where like you don't even have to talk to us you click a button you get it right but I think what's important right like because interop is like a very important base layer and so what's important is that like people know that like if they don't like their service provider they can move away from the service provider right like you what you don't want to get in this situation where you're like a vendor locked right into like a particular provider and then

you're just at the mercy of their business decisions and so that's why we kind of keep emphasizing the permissionless angle right is that that's that's why we use blockchains in the first place, right? Like like you can deploy an application onto Ethereum and nobody can stop you, right? Like nobody can like impact your product experience, but like with a lot of interop providers, right? Like you use their service and then if they don't like you, they could just kill your application, right? And that's just like very and from our perspective very anti this space. And so that's why we emphasize the permissionless angle so much.

Got it. And so there's actually a bonus question. Um so actually um so a lot a lot of people talking about the intent bridge uh like across right and as I think they also collaborate with unis swap so unis swap x so what's the difference between like uh you guys and those kind of uh intent bridges because they've always mentioned like they are the fastest and also the like the lowest phase bridge. Yeah, we've been um we've been spending a lot of time with Intense. Um I'm sure we maybe get into it later. We've been working with um yeah the Ethereum Foundation and others on the open intense framework. But maybe before we get into that, I think fundamentally

speaking, right, like Hyperlane kind of started as a message bridge, right? So basically like and typically what it's used in a token bridge context is that like a there's a smart contract which receives a message to then basically mint a new token. uh and then you can write like build liquidity bridges with like onchain liquidity pools on top of it. Uh intents are kind of a way to basically offload a lot of the responsibility to a solver who kind of like fills the user intent and then the solver gets repaid later. Um and like I think one big benefit from that is is that the solver can basically take on the finality risk right versus like in message bridges it's the like underlying uh security module that has to like absorb that finality risk. And so intents have this kind of potential to be like a much faster and potentially

even nicer user experience because as a user you don't have to specify basically which path you want to take. You just say like hey I want this asset on that chain and like the solver does it for you. Um I think yeah intense are super interesting which is why we've been working with uh on open intense framework. Uh but they also have like one kind of like pretty large downside which is that you require this like off-chain actor in the form of the solver to do a lot of work. And I think, you know, I've been spending a lot of time um in this kind of product category and yeah, definitely finding those solvers is like a very underappreciated task.

Okay, got it. And maybe we can like we talked about the technical part and maybe we we're going to talk about the marketing part. Um so like compared to the other bridges like wormhole and layer zero so you guys u feels like more technical driven right and haven't put so much efforts on their marketing side uh especially in the ape area so and Chinese community are really concerned about like your upcoming marketing strategy and also the the road maps. Yes, I think you know it's a it's a it's a common feedback that we get and like you know some people might even say like that's good feedback in the sense that like you know you generally want to be I guess like solid tech and like bad

marketing then maybe in the inverse but um yeah we definitely recognize that especially in Apac I think we have a lot of like room for improvement of like awareness especially right like I think uh last year when I went to a token in Singapore there's definitely like a lot of folks that I've talked to that were like, "Hey, I like really wish I heard about you like 6 months ago when I started talking with some of these other providers." Um, and so yeah, like I think uh you know, we're mostly based uh out in New York and London. And so I think it's definitely like somewhat of a far uh travel for us, but we yeah, part of why I'm here, part of why we're talking is definitely uh a recognition that yeah, we need to do better here. I think we we think this especially this

permissionless angle right of allowing builders to get connected without having to again talk to the BD teams of western projects I think is a very nice value prop but it's only a value prop if people know about it uh and so yeah hopefully some of the things that we have in the pipeline um help um yeah h Hyperlane and builders on top of hyperlane get more exposure to I think the AP pack and Chinese market um and um yeah but honestly if people have feedback we will happy to hear Yeah. So like you mentioned a lot about the builders, right? And so do you have any like specific plan of how you guys going to incentivize builder in the future?

Yes. So this is something that right like we actually just recently announced um last week about um kind of like our plans with respect to the hyper token and right like one of the really key parts um of that plan is what we call expansion rewards. So the idea is that like again in this kind of like open and permissionless network who's creating who's like who's creating the value of that network. It's the builders who are building these applications that use the underlying infrastructure right and like creating these network effects. Um and so as part of the expansion rewards basically both the app builders as well as their users are basically receiving part of their missions um as they are kind of like uh using hyperlane uh messages themselves. Uh and that's not

just for right like that's kind of how we've applied the uh the airdrop retroactively but also how it will be going forward right like every quarter there will basically be distribution that goes towards the applications and the users who use hyperlink the most and that's hopefully like yeah one way of incentivizing basically uh more usage on top of hyperlink. Got it. And so a lot of people just said that uh we've already entered the bare market right and I think u so hypand um raised I think in 2022 just FTS collapsed right yeah so so what's your like are there any like different

strategies between the bare market and bull market yeah I think there there definitely are um you know I as a builder Honestly, um don't like people will kill me for this, but uh I actually prefer a bare market often times because right like there's less distractions, right? In in a bull market, everything is going up and like I think it's hard for people to kind of like tell substance from hype and and I think in a bare market you just kind of like crowd like a lot of the like noisy people kind of like leave. Uh and I think that gives I think yeah less distractions and allows builders I think to build. Uh and so we believe in some ways that like yeah like a bare market um you know can be helpful in that regard. Uh but obviously you're

right um you need there to be enough right like in incentive and activity in the overall market um to um yeah I think have it be interesting for people right like ultimately like interoperability is certainly a category that is very much dependent on like whether people are generally excited about doing stuff on chain um and so definitely eventually we'll need a a bull market but yeah right now there's just so much going on that like honestly sometimes I don't mind like a bit of a slowdown. Um but yeah no I think for for us at hypane I don't think there's like um the bare market it doesn't impact us too much because yeah again for us it's like building tools for developers

but I think like compared to uh last bare market in in 2022 I think during that period people just uh talked about like infrastructure right like layer one layer two bridges um like data availability etc And right now I think people more focus focusing on the application side like you know pump fun meme coins etc. Right. And how do you think about uh these kind of changes? Yeah I mean I think it's great. I think um you know I I think obviously as a I guess infra project a lot of times people always complained about like oh why another infra project and you know as somebody who's worked on a a more

application focused um project before like um the reason why a lot of people worked on infra is because when you were building an app you ended up having to build a lot of infra for yourself right and so that's when you just like learned about the pain of like hey it's actually pretty hard to build an application because this is is not figured out, right? Like interop is not figured out. So like you end up kind of reinventing the wheel a lot. And so yeah, I'm super glad to hear right that like your experience right now is that like actually you know what we're like seemingly out of the interface and there's more and more applications being built. But that's only possible because we've invested all of the infrastructure right that like allow like uh accounts or like uh bridging chain abstraction all of those things to kind of become

much easier for an app developer so that an app developer can only focus on the app and doesn't have to do infrastructure. And as a builder, so um what would you like to say to other builders or builders on the hyperlink? It's a it's a big big question. Uh what do I want builders? I think what do I want builders? I I think what I would want want builders I guess uh maybe to like selfishly for me I would love to hear feedback, right? like basically like hey like as you said I think it would be great if right like app app builders no longer have to think about

infrastructure and like right like a lot of infrastructure should be there for people to build their application but if I'm wrong right and there's actually like a few things that are not there like I would definitely love to know um like I do think there as you said like the last couple years I've seen a lot of investment in infrastructure so that shouldn't be the case um then I think maybe the next yeah I guess actually the the one thing I would maybe tell builders is like uh get feedback from your users as quickly as possible, right? Like I think crypto in general still is a space where like people theorize a lot about like oh this is what people care about or like oh you need this level of security or this level of decentralization but people always forget like oh you still need

right like the UX of things and like um and um yeah I think I you know I I was working in like you know Silicon Valley web 2 things before and like I think what like we had perfected kind of like over the years there is just like this kind of relentless product focus of thinking about like Okay, who has this problem? How are you solving it? How do you communicate kind of the value prop to your users? And I think sometimes web 3 builders are not thinking about this enough, right? Um and so that's what I probably would say like my feedback to build feed uh developers would be like, hey, yeah, like find a way fastest way to basically um validate your hypothesis.

Yeah, I totally agree with that point because I feel like a lot of like technical especially the technical builders uh they sometimes like ignore the what's you users really needs right yeah totally agree and yeah maybe uh the last one is it's not like a question it's more like a challenging okay so we've know that you can speak three different languages but no Chinese right yeah so I can teach you how to say in Chinese we'll come to build on hyper Would you like to try it? Yes. Yeah. Okay. So, it's like hyperl like welcome like hyperl hyperlane build. Oh yeah.

Yeah. Pretty good. Thank you. I think we can just wrap up here. I think this is all of the questions. I think people will know like hyperlink more and also uh you more and I think yeah maybe in the future more builders will build on hyperlink. Yeah. All good. Thank you.