Why Solving Is The Biggest Onchain Opportunity In Crypto with Catalyst

Transcript

this just the most Alpha packed conversation we'd had so we're early as as hell in this basically they're going to be like wow this is really really helpful thank you Jim I'm not doing anything about this except I might tweet about it what's going on guys welcome back to the rollup welcome to a chain abstraction paloa where we just wrapped up an epic one-day marathon in the heart of New York City diving deep into chain abstraction with some of the top teams in crypto trust me this series is packed with insights laughs and a few surprises you won't want this shout out to Omni Network for helping to put this together with their upcoming main net soon targeting the interoperability and ux problem that we're currently facing in the ethereum and majra ecosystem we really enjoyed this series and looking

forward putting all this content out there let's jump right into today's episode after a quick word from some of our awesome Partners who make this possible welcome to the ignition Mantle's newest campaign to liberate the growth power of Bitcoin fbtc ignition has officially begun with a total token supply of over 2,000 fbtc with a tvl of over50 million right now you can go on the fbtc website to see all of the featured campaigns saking opportunities and liquidity pools where you can utilize fbtc on chain today for some of the best yields available on l2s the ignition Sparkle campaign can be found at

fbtc ongoing dampa welcome aboard on our journey into the singularity this is the endgame road map for fracks and fractal the new L2 out of the frax ecosystem that is totally based on fractal scaling fraxel is a modular L2 blockchain built by fra with modular and fractal scaling in mind fractal scaling is based on the mandal BR set of fractal images and it explains how l2s become l3s and the entire app chain life cycle goes through its Evolution the frax ecosystem is made of some of the

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into the singularity all right let's kick it off uh with this tweet TW from a couple days ago uh it was a chat GPT screenshot it got what like like 10 m views or something upstair I'll show the tweet on my on the uh on the video here yeah it was like n like 8.8 million or something like that that's nuts yeah yeah I mean I I didn't I didn't that was like the most low effort thing I've ever and what did the chat GPT thing say uh it was like a 9911 joke okay it was like why 6 ofra to 7 and gpg is like cuz 789 and then like the response is like why is 10 parid and it's like cuz it was in the middle of 9/11 okay um and it's like it's like I actually tried it um did it say that yeah it did say that

really yeah yeah and so who which open AI person or anti- competitor wanted you to put that out no no one I just I just thought it was funny anthropics like paying him like post his fud like well so like like Cloud had like it it had like a really similar joke or something cloud cloud had one where it was like oh like I can make like a 911 joke or I can make like a a registered six offender joke or something like that you want to make it worse yeah yeah more like cerebral about it it's like which joke do you want me to make right yeah but like you have the style on Twitter like it's different than a lot of other kind of Founders in a space where you've got like this brand

around uh I don't know if it's satire and humor and like relevancy like you do a good job of being relevant like I don't know I have a question that's like how can other Founders learn to be a good poster which is like a silly question but I feel like you've done a good job of like building a presence and I don't know like kind of I I want to Nuance it how did it start how did you get the because you have what like 40,000 followers or something yeah like 38 I think yeah like how did you get the ball rolling on it initially so it really started when like I like joined crypto um well honestly it's like when when I joined Ripple like my job like I had to like make a a Twitter account and I I just like made one I was like you

know I follow like a bunch of like like Ripple execs and I follow like a bunch of just like General like like CT like people um and I never really like did anything with it but then like when I left Ripple I was like really really craving to like just like be a part of the conversation uh Austin and I like worked at Ripple together and I I don't know if I ever told you this but I was like I feel like we're kind of just like on like the periphery like we're all like looking at all at Ripple or like at yeah yeah no entirely we're like barely on the periphery more like on an island like a 10hour fly like what's going on over there we're like that like um like play's like like G shs Shadows what's going on over there in crypto uh so I

just like really wanted to be involved and so like I I just like wanted to make a name for myself I want people to know me I want to like get involved with like nfts and like get involved with Defi and stuff like that and the easiest thing to do and I still think the easiest thing to do is just like Yap right but it's like provide value so for me it was like data it was like okay yeah I'm going to like look at like coin Gecko and like just like analyze like a few Trends or look on trading View and like write a bunch of like bull cases or be cases for like various projects and stuff like that so that kind of got like my like initial like hook and then like Dows and like nfts like really took off like spring of like 2021 and so I just like

really lean on that I was like like yapping super hard about like Dows I was like DS is the future of human coordination yeah right um what happened to DS by the way they're still around like they're getting like corporate rated now right is it is it humpy you guys see this was it compound that this happened to recently I don't I didn't pay atten see that comound had that governance Ville to went through yeah like there's this guy humpy or maybe a collective or something they they did this with aura before where there was like a truce established because he came in and tried to like corporate ra with compound think made Tok back or like yeah yeah Okay cool so you're writing a lot yeah yeah yeah and then

well like on the Dow piece like I I like tweeted a couple weeks ago was like what what's going on with d like I thought that was like the coolest thing ever and everyone's like oh like we're still doing you know with any of those posts people are like we're still doing D stuff you're just not paying attention and it's like a bunch of people like like sh like their projects and stuff but like the general theme that I got was like it's kind of like in the background but like there are people that are like trying to move the needle like op is always trying to do some interesting stuff with Dows arbitrum at the time had that like very controversial gaming fund vote um you know there's always like Cosmos Hub proposals that are happening so like uh there was like still D stuff it's just

kind of like it has embedded itself into like the day-to-day operations of of some of these like more mature protocols yeah exactly yeah it just doesn't it's not as sexy as it was cuz it's just something that we do now yeah versus like this holy new thing that was like not you know not within the confines of like the law or something right which was like silly to think of but also like that was partially of the whole value prop like the tokens and the governance was all all sort of build these kind of multinational kind of systems you know and I I I think we're going to see like a research into that it's like I think uh like Katherine woo from archetype just joined like y sty and like there's been some like big highes on like the Dow side so it'll be interesting but

anyway that was kind of like my Niche I probably rolled that to like 10K maybe like 15K followers at that point I joined a as a product manager or like head of um like experiments uh and then my Niche started shifting like I stopped talking more about like these other things I still talked about it and I I I was just like talking about like building things like I was like Hey like I we buil together this like funny enough like open source IP ke thing right with the pretty timely with today's announcement yeah um and like it was like the repo or like we did this like uh like this data thing that shows all the interest rates of all the liquidity protocols uh on like Avalanche and polygon etc etc right so it's like I

started posting all these like really small things like basically just being like a discount like Georgios um and like that kind of like built me to like 20 something and then when I left a I became like a interoperability Apper and like I think that's like kind of what got me to so yapping yapping nonstop with some value not just like complete chip hosting yeah yeah I people people want value right like but they also appreciate authenticity vulnerability personality like appreciate especially in crypto yeah people will always like enjoy something that's funny but like they're not going to follow you from it right like they want to follow you if you're like consistently like giving something to them what would you say has been the best like value ad or best kind of um outcome that you've experienced

due to kind of having a personal brand just in the space in crypto in life like you know there's people out there watching who have like Brands who don't who are you know trying to grow like what what are it been to some of the positive outcomes um yeah I was going to make a joke but uh where it's like oh like I have way less free time in a conference right it's like I can't I can't even like walk to go to the bathroom popular without someone like grabbing my hand being like hello you know not like bit of an exaggeration um no I mean like Network and like reputation is like really helpful like those are just like the core foundational pieces it's like I know people that other people want to know and I have like a reputation that

people like you know I like I have a good reputation with like good qualities right that I'm like a builder and I like know things about like things right and you can like Leverage that in a number of different ways like how that's manifested for me is like early on uh it was like job offers right it was like I I kind of just this is this sounds very disconnected but it's like I job offers just like appeared right like I would go about my life and I get a DM and be like brother join me you know join me like this comp this token no interview tomorrow and I'm like okay I I'll take a call at least right like make sure it's not a

scam uh and then so that's like job offers and it's like fundraising right it was like oh Gym's raising I I'll probably take a call right from like angels and then like funds yeah cool yeah super cool um so you you mentioned that you Yap interoperate a lot um you're one of the most intelligent people that I know for interoperability so I'm super excited to have some more time here to chat um yeah yeah for sure actually ke no it wasn't KY it was Noah Noah no somebody mentioned a really good quote today right of Jims they they called you Jimmy Chang oh it was uh David it was David D polygon oh Silverman yeah and he gave a really good

quote about kind of something that you said at majer Summit which I thought was interesting I can't exactly remember it but it was about solvers but you went on this crazy just it was funny though that's how his mind works yeah it's it's been a long day um let's do some Yapp in there on the state of kind of interoperability we've been talking a lot about chain attraction today I think like the main thing that I'm curious to to chat to you about is your perception of uh the the evolution of solving and of this kind of like intent Centric interoperability landscape so I know that we have a cross right now that's like functional from a user perspective but like like where we at right now with the state of solving and solvers and like what trends are you seeing just like broadly let's start like where are

we at with cross chain interoperability with regards to solving Sol yeah can I can I answer your question first with like going like way back kind of let's go takeing the most interesting Direction you can take us wherever you I don't know if it's the most interesting but it's the most helpful for me uh so like I think it's funny where like in 2021 when like all these like alt L1 started popping up like polygon Avalanche and you know salana there was a really big obsession with like Bridges um where it was like purely like a mint and burn like Bridge right or like a WRA Bridge right and so that's where we saw like kind of all the issues

with like multi-chain sln Swap and uh Wormhole kind of like come down a couple years down line but it was just like there was like that piece right but it was like all we had so it's like we we had to use it um and then there was kind of like the 2022 to like end of last year like push on like AMS like arbitrary message bridges that like layer zero kind of push where they're like they're like Mitten burns like no like we'll pass messages right it's like tokens like no it's arbitrary data I feel like they all rebranded it they all had like shipped Bridges and then they try made this like pivot like no no no it's it's yeah yeah

it's like why constrain yourself to money when it could be all of information yeah right it's like the Tam has grown way larger so everyone was like it's like that Toy Story meme where it's like oh like any swap I don't want to play with you anymore and like then you like you know everyone started rebranding with like Wormhole X messages and you had like hyperlane and axlr um and and and that kind of became really popular and I think at the beginning of this year like the Overton Windows almost gone back to Bridges right they're like oh like arbitrary message Bridges like like you guys are basically all doing the same thing right right like there's modular security and sure sometimes it's point to point sometimes it's Hub and spoke but the end of the day it's like you're passing messages you have some configurable security or

you know trust like trust minimization underneath it right right whether it's like like clients DK like clients or a committee or blah blah blah what have you right and so that became kind of known quantity and then we go back we're like oh no now bridges are really interesting because like now we have this like very robust like verification layer right so now like it's it's it's hardened enough where like we really need to talk about like where you don't really need to like think too difficultly or like um like be be really scared about like the original like Mitten bur Bridges but like we kind of like reinvent them right and so that's where we are now with solvers and Tents right cuz that is a basically a reimagination of like the old idea using kind of the A&B Tech as a foundation

right and so of course we have a cross that was basically first we had Unis swap X now we have a ton of different projects right we have synapse which was also like OG bridge and has now like morphed um we have relay we have Orbiter and you speak to a lot of these teams yeah and a lot of the solvers themselves that're kind of like more lowkey yeah solvers are pretty lowkey right yeah yeah we you know Mafia we we find them under the Rock and we pull them out okay yeah and how have those conversations been going they're good they're good they're scary you know it's like no not that scary they're not like that secretive really but it's like it's really is like if you know you know what do you guys talk about um with solvers yeah I mean I just talk about pain

points earlier like for me like I'm just really interested in like seeing the space evolve and I think you know we have these like intent based Bridges the ones I talked about they're kind of trying to solve it on like the orderflow lens they're like okay like you know like we'll just give you this flow you mean like these solvers right and the solvers take it and then they are they're having their own issues and so You' seen this like next group of projects pop up um and we can like down the like chain abstraction stack but basically they're trying to like solve solver problems right so they're like uh like Ever Clear is a good example right it's like oh like rebalancing is an issue for solvers like of course right and so I talk to solvers I I listen to their problems and basically think about

like okay like if we're moving towards like a chain abstracted future like and these solvers are becoming like increasingly important like what are ways that we can like a like help them and B make more solvers right cuz obviously a big issue with relying on offchain actors is the centralization vector um and so that's basically like the extent in which we have conversations yeah but it's funny cuz it's like you'll go to a like an intent protocol right like the the new bridges yeah yeah we just call them intent protocols for the sake of uh plating them um uh and and we say like oh like which solvers are you working with and they'll be

like the top ones yeah yeah so like how did you pick them up from under these rocks like where you find them just got to ask man yeah I think that's where the Deep Network comes in it's like you see the addresses on chain there's a website intense markets WTF it's from like intent. markets yeah you see all the addresses I was like who who is who are these shadowy solvers I mean it's no different than like looking at Builders you're like oh Jared from Subway like I build who are these right and then or like Titan and then you like find them they're actually like you know like just eating sweet Green in New York they're real human right ausome was asked an

interesting question earlier about like whether synchronous composability and block building is building for the users's benefit or the solver's benefit like do you see some of these projects that are like building for user experience and thus sacrificing the experience for solvers or vice versa or are like is improving the solving experience also improving the user experience I think it's a ladder okay like if you look at it from like a first principal's perspective like the user will always have the same experience it's just a function of how expensive it is and a function how expensive it is goes down to the solver experience right so if you have a solver if if you have a a protocol where like the user gets their money immediately but they have to

pay like you know like like 20% for it like that usually means that like the cost has been been passed from the solver onto the user where they're like locking their funds for like 24 hours and they're like well the cost of having my funds locked up for that long is this 20% margin maybe a random specific question but what we've seen in the block building Market is some Builders are subsidizing blocks with their own funds to gain market share do you imagine solvers might do the same thing maybe I I haven't seen that to be the case right now like this is a far less mature market and so realistically like it's like the tens right that's kind of my understanding of like people who are actively solving out there yeah i'

probably say like two dozen to three dozen like in total what's your prediction on the expansion of that is it going to be there's going to be hundreds or is it going to be like individual solvers for different niche of clusters of chains or clusters use cases I think it's going to play out really really similar to like me Searchers where you have this like short tail and there's probably going to be like five of them that take like 8 order flow like base arum optimiz yeah yeah and then you have a lot of long tail all like the app chains random app CH you like you'll have different teams specializing in different like Stacks or different Ras providers when they launch the chain different types of risk parameters as well yeah precisely I don't know if it's going to shake out on a chain by Chain basis it might even

shake out on like a use case basis where it's like oh like we're really good at nfts yeah uh we can like price nfts in a very very efficient way we're really really good at like meme coins so it might actually come down to like what the actual assets are being touched but I think like a by Chain by Chain is a helpful like puristic right now okay how do how do we get exposure to the the the the the bullish thesis of the expansion of solvers intense like how does one Catalyst yeah like like disclosure I've been working with Catalyst for some time me too me too we we yeah so disclosure I've known Jim that's all I got um but like yeah how does like how does one like like

this seems like it's going to happen right so like I don't know if how do I get exposure to this but like how do I how do you contribute can can can I be a solver can I participate in a network like you know how does an average person or even a team building the space how do they get be a part of this I think right now solving is like the Wild Wild West okay um like if you're like Savvy enough to just like understand basic like asset pricing mechanics and you have like like $115,000 really you think that's all it takes to get started here I think so wow you're not going to win a ton of routs

but you will make money for sure but how do you is there like a I know I I know colani is building like a ux I think to like put your money in to be like I want to solve collaboratively with other solvers is there anything like that today where you can like like how do I start let's say I have 10K how do I start being a solber [Music] cartey is your home for app specific rollups at the forfront of developing new tools and platforms that enhance the capabilities of blockchain Technology ctei enables applications that are flexible and built to scale build on a full Linux environment and use

traditional software librar but in blockchain development go to cy. that's cy. to learn more about building your own app chain today Everclear is pioneering the clearing layer the clearing layer can almost be thought of as splitwise when you go on a trip with friends but for the blockchain what I mean by that is when users are sending cross chain messages there's often times fillers and solvers who have balances left on different chains that they need to rebalance and reset their positions this is where evercar comes in evercar is pioneering a collaborative approach to the chain abstraction future and they are willing to work with inoperability

Partners solvers and other providers in the space to build a interoperable and Cher abstraction future check out Everclear ever clear.org and welcome back to the L up I would go on intent. markets I would see like all the different Protocols are being supported and I would see like I would just observe like which solvers or like who is like winning the most and like like what their margins look like basically and like see if like you can provide something better yeah okay yeah interesting or honestly honestly like this is huge Alpha I would just ping the teams of the of the intent protocols I would be like yo I I want to solve like

tell me something to solve cuz realistically when they you yeah absolutely when you expand in New Markets um like it's not like you expand in new markets and there's like a bat signal where every Sol is like oh my God God like time to go to this new chain right it's like there's there's a lot of like groundwork imagine that lifestyle you new chain Lodge today boys get up so like if you're if you're like Scrappy and and you're like fairly like well-versed in like the technicalities of running a solver uh efficiently right um and you're also like fairly good at like pricing assets um um and again you don't have to be like one person you be like two three people like you go to these teams like they're realistically going to be like yeah we want to be on like this new chain like we're not we

don't have a solver for this yet is catalyst doing this is catalyst going and trying to find solving opportunities or how how are you because you've identify this this opportunity you obiously well vered like how are you trying to capitalize on on kind of growing your your your project in your business like within this space I would say like any project that's interested in solving or interested in providing like a chain abstracted experience for us users should definitely be paying a lot of attention to solvers right now um and so for us because we see this as very much a like the necessary step towards like the endstate experience that we want to

have at scale we spent a lot of time thinking about solving helping solvers uh and uh what it looks like in the scale of you know thousands of chains what it looks like to bring on more solvers uh decentralized in solvers or lowering the bar to be a solver is really important so that's like we spend a decent amount of our time thinking about those problems is lowering the bar to entry and decentralizing the Sol network is that just like basically taking dominance away from winter at this point like effectively or like the big five like you're saying is it just like is it picking different routes is it trying to compete directly with them like what is the what is the path to

democratized solving as we know it today I mean winter mut great like realistically if you're just like a hobbyist you're not going to beat winter MW on the two things I talked about right like you're not going to beat them on running a really really efficient solver you're not going to beat them on like at pricing assets so you're less interested in like playing in that field right so just down Fields basically yeah yeah so it's like well known that like winterm solves like basically all the order flow for for dbridge like if you're a hobby solver you're just not going to go there right um but with that said uh winter mute has a really really

high bar of what they deem as a good opportunity for them to solve right uh and so if they see like um you know new like these like new L3 like Ras chains they're going to say like no that's really not interesting and so that could be something where new solvers are are building are are finding themselves and it's it's not like barbell right like it's not like oh winterm gets all the juicy stuff everyone else gets like this long tail like $5 a day no there's actually like a very very juicy like middle area where it's like oh like no one's solving like even like even right now like no one's solving like mantle to arbitrum yeah like and that's like so

we're early as as as hell in this basically yeah yeah this basically looks like Mev in like 2020 it's just the most Alpha packed ation we have this is pretty good I guarantee you no one's going to do anything with this I guarantee you they're going to be like wow this is really really helpful thank you Jim I'm not doing anything about this except I might tweet about it it's cuz it's hard it's hard what I was asking like how do I do it like I have 10K how do I do this you know that's like the question yeah I mean I can go back that and be like yo at the very tip of like the Peruvian Andes it's just like a ton of gold like are people actually going to be like yeah you know I'm just going to fly out and I'm just

going to mine gold it's like realistically some people just won't right no no understandable um okay one one kind of implication of what the sounds like is uh do you think okay basically you're making the argument that Bridges have now evolved or rebranded into like intent protocols right um but uh we do have some there is this like Market out there of solvers and presumably they are willing to solve for any of these do you think that any of these uh intent protocols or Bridges will be able to build a network effect or like win in a sense or will they all be like commoditized long term because the same people providing the services that they are exposing to users are the

same behind the scenes and those solvers will just like fill orders anywhere vertex Edge is now live on say Network SE users can now trade 50 plus spot and per markets with the unified order book liquidity of vertex Ed across arbitrum blast mantle and say the next 6 weeks 850,000 say tokens will be up for grabs as trading rewards every single week exclusively on say join vertex on say Network now on vertex Edge that's vertex protocol.com yeah that's the scary part about like

looking into the future of this where you want to think about what is like a point of differentiation and what is a mo um so like when we look at all these intent-based Bridges um like they're like what I said like they're effectively offering order flow to and from various like uh chains that they're connected to right and they may have some like nuances in terms of you know like what assets they could like solve for or like what the like solver integration path looks like but end of the day it's like they're like they have they're bringing distribution to solvers um and that is like they're not they

don't have a moat really necessarily so is that scary or good though for like it's scary as a project it's good as yeah it's scary like if you're like building an intent based right um and so that's why you see a lot of them move moving towards like different U like parts of the stack where they think they can like derive more value right that's why ever CLE is ever clear now instead of connects they realized that like their design was not future proof and it was much better to be in the rebalancing game right and across feels very similarly with across V3 they're like hey like we're going to

standardize this like signature order flow top layer we're going to like provide this like filler as a service solver as a service like middle aay but our bread and butter is this like liquidity that and the Uma Oracle that allows for like you know uh reimbursements happening in like a 4H hour 6-h hour Cadence right uh and that's like where the bulk of their money will be made yeah interesting um I mean I can see that being good for the space long term at large though but it is interesting to think about the implications for projects focused on this in the short term here yeah yeah definitely especially because like yeah so it's like if you're like realistically like there's four ways

that you can Pro try to monetize if you're intent based Bridge one I just talked about you're going to like move like lower in the stack and something that's like sticky and monetizable uh the second piece is that you can have exclusive solver relationships which you know we see live right now um like we're just like hey like we have like the most goated solver like they're never leaving us because exclusivity right because laws legal contracts um and and we're just going to like provide the best pricing um the third uh reason is just brand right they're like you're going to love using us because we just got the Vibes right like Unis swap like UI kind of energy um and then the fourth piece is um like um like they're they're just going to be

like charging for those routs right like which which is tough because like that becomes like a race to the bottom where it's like if you go on like synapse or if you go on like uh like chain flip you always see this like protocol fee and you're like oh like that is definitely a margin that can be erased yeah right yeah it is uh this is something I I love The Vibes in the chain abstraction space right now everybody's super collaborative kind like down and chat about whatever talk like very transparently about their learnings but like in the back of my head I'm definitely thinking like okay who gets squeezed like who really like is going to be able to capture value in this like long term what layer of the stack uh is that going to like be possible at so it's interesting to hear

your perspective that like no what is processing a ton of the volume today probably is not the value capture layer uh or one of the like layers that can capture more value in the chain abstraction stack at large yeah yeah definitely and and I do want to preface that like I'm talking about chain abstraction from like a intent based side and there's like the wallet like chain abstraction layer that looks slightly different although I I I mean like top of my head I think the mechanics probably looks pretty similar it's just like where the relationships fall right is like is it the protocol with the orderflow or is it the wallet that has the customer relationship with their UI yeah well awesome Jim thank you for the alpha today and for coming out

it's been a it's been a great conversation Good Vibes and cool information so thanks yeah yeah thanks for having me on guys yeah sweet nope