Next-gen Consumer DeFi: Building for OGs and the Masses

Captions as YouTube publishes them, usually machine-generated, so product and people names can be misheard.

1. 0:10

   Thank you. Uh thanks everyone. Uh I've jokingly said this is going to be the least technical talk of this entire conference. So please bear with me. Um yeah, so my name is Alan. Um the current uh CEO and project lead at Thor Swap. Uh and soon Metro, which is a new brand application we're launching. So yeah, I'm here to really talk about uh not the tech side of things, but really how we

2. 0:33

   can use the tech for for users. Um so bit bit of a context around Thor Swap. So we we were founded back in DeFi summer originally as the front end for Thor Chain. Uh and a lot of people would know us as you know one of the OG Bitcoin Dexes. So for the first time you could do crosschain between Bitcoin like native Bitcoin and Ethereum and then soon any other chains. Um today we are a

3. 0:57

   uh leading aggregator um supporting uh six crosschain protocols uh including near and intense and uh right now I mean this number is constantly growing. We're launching in you know sooie pretty soon. Um so 27 chains and we aggregate you know tens and thousands of longtail assets. Uh we've done close to like uh 4.6 six billion in volume over the years and uh uh a bit over a year ago we spun off our back end uh and it's now its own

4. 1:24

   team called swapit so that's also one of the main distribution channels for near intense so if you use ledger like trust wallet uh bigger wallet you know like the major wallets are near intense like the swaps is uh provided through swapkate API um yeah so it's a bit of a uh view there of what swap looks like today. Um, and so basically at the core of what we do is trying to solve the multi-chain problem

5. 1:54

   because people mention the phrase like multi-chain uh is the future for a long time but for us is it like multi-chain it should be now but the biggest barrier has always been you know centralized exchanges always had better UX you know for users because essentially they abstract away the concept of chains. So um for a lot of crypto users they are onboarded through centralized exchanges for the first time and they just never have the concept of chains because you can swap Bitcoin to Ethereum to Salana

6. 2:21

   you know directly. Um but obviously the we all know the trade-off is uh you know you don't have like privacy uh there's always the custodial risk and you know every cycle there's one big major uh blow up and you know nobody's really too big to fail. Um but you the also pro the other problem is actually using um assets like native bitcoin is very difficult on chain. Uh so traditionally there's a lot of like reliance on wrapped bitcoin and synthetic versions of bitcoin. Um and obviously that also

7. 2:50

   comes with counterparty risk because you know one bridge hack can just wipe out you know your your underlying you know um asset. Um so the result of that has always been um often users are siloed into ecosystems and you know we see that bitcoin uh dominance this cycle has remained above 60%. So essentially more than half of crypto is stuck on bitcoin and it's not really being utilized or it's being utilized like offchain. So

8. 3:16

   liquidity is not flowing as as much as it should be you know onchain. Um and obviously like I said with that you know users like they lose self-custody relying on these off-chain solutions. Um so over the years you know this is not the tech technical breakdown I see but just a few examples over the years there's been many post and executed solutions to solve this problem you know we started off like atomic swaps being quite popular um but you know peer-to-peer models very hard to scale

9. 3:44

   without constantly available liquidity um so last you know defy summer brought along unis swap um and chain which essentially unis swap but crosschain um which brought retail like liquidity on chain Um but it needs TVL right and with t with with ammin models you know imperent loss um has been a big thing and uh and it kind of over time you know users have become like quite sensitive towards that um and also chain integration actually it's quite complex

10. 4:14

    um so with the you know rise of near intent like intent based models like RFQ models um uh that has actually really like you know uh grown the the crosschain sector um over the past like a year or year or two um especially through for example the one click API which which we use um essentially it's like you have atomic swaps but there's al always professional market makers acting as silvers on the other side to fulfill your swaps so that just means you know you you have your quotes can be executed um like you know in a very fast

11. 4:46

    and efficient way and adding new chain support and new asset support it's you know make it's become a lot easier um there's another way you know this quite popular race uh model um which is you know there's many names for it but like essentially with chain abstraction models like hyperlquid um that's a different model where you you would have to deposit the funds onto the execution layer and then swap and then withdraw

12. 5:10

    right so it's kind of like essential exchanges without KYC if you will um and I think for us uh that model is uh you know you essentally you're still not trading the underlying assets until you withdraw so for now what we building is very much focused on kind of like in the middle where um between AMM models and intent based models, users can always get what they want, you know, in a single transaction between their own

13. 5:31

    self-custody wallets. Um so we on for swap we integrated near intense like late June last year and it's been a real game changer for us. So we we've done over 300 million in volume in under six months. Um and also you know the interrop interoperability aspect like I mentioned it allowed us to double the amount of new chains we integrated um you know last year versus 2024. Um so

14. 5:56

    now today actually is the leading um provider by volume on on swap. Um but again so this is where I kind of go back to the consumer thing. Everything I just said you know it's for this conference right but to be honest our users don't really care. Like that's the truth of it. you know, there's every cycle, every year, there's new like very popular words. Um, you know, like often when we tweet, we have to mention like, oh, it's it's interop, it's, you know,

15. 6:23

    multi-chain, crosschain, omni chain, all this stuff. But users really, they don't really care. That's up to us. Like our job is to kind of actually offer the rails that are safe and secure for them. And then um what they actually care about is self-custody and the access to the underlying assets.

16. 6:39

    Um which is why uh today I'm really uh proud to introduce our new um um brand and app we're launching called Metro which is a renewed focus on delivering you know these solutions for consumers. Um so why why the name Metro right? So the inspiration came to me when I think really think about like what it is uh in our daily lives that we you know in terms of UX we interact with that's actually quite similar to to you know managing assets crosschain and that's essentially just like you know traveling right so if you if we imagine

17. 7:08

    blockchains as countries and tokens as cities or stations if you will um you know like flying here from New Zealand to San Francisco like I go I use like Booking.com or Expedia you know all these apps and it's basically going from point A to point B Right. So the providers could be airlines, they could be um you know different modes of transportation but end of the day this is something that users are actually

18. 7:31

    very intimately familiar with and it's it's always very intuitive to them right and um so for us it's really about you know and you know once you get to the station you know if you want to stake on the chain or whatever it could be like oh I'm booking accommodation or something right so I think this is not like web 2 has actually solved a lot of these user UX problems it's just we've become so familiar with like the way web 3 does things that um often the

19. 7:56

    onboarding process and just you know adding features on top um has caused a lot of UX friction. So yeah that's kind of the inspiration and and our ethos when we building metro. Um so oh yeah like I mentioned the goal here is really to uh have a unified um DeFi app that um that offers essentially trust and trustless systems. So we will integrate you know self-custodial decentralized solutions um whether it's swaps or staking or anything of the sort

20. 8:24

    um but really try to give that you know user experience even better than central exchanges if possible because that's the way we can actually like get users to you know use onchain. Um and for us since we've been around for 2021 like we believe native bitcoin is going to stick around. Um, so our goal was al also focused like you know try to connect the liquidity rail to and from native Bitcoin. Um, and yeah like I mentioned

21. 8:49

    really trying to build like design for the users and not necessarily the tech. Um, so I'll just give one simple example because the the time is really short here. So this is a chart that we've been sort of like updating over the years on door swap uh which is basically each time we add a chain you can see like there's so many wallets we have to support five. I stopped updating this like early 205, but we it's gone

22. 9:11

    ridiculous over the years, right? Um, so the, you know, we did a survey last year of the users and the number one complaint was they don't want to juggle like five different wallets, you know, and it's just so complex. Um, and it's, you know, a lot of new users, they also don't understand like, oh, this is before MetaMask added Bitcoin support, but they're like, why can't you use, you

23. 9:28

    know, connect Bitcoin from a MetaMask? I use Metam Mask for years. Um, and so you have to teach them, you know, this this every single time, right? Um so with Metro what we've built is um our own native embedded wallet uh using combination of uh key store and uh pass key to secure the file but it's completely uh like local so that's like a balance where I think there's solutions now where it's you know it could be stored on server somewhere or

24. 9:52

    just use your email right I think for us self- custody is still like super super important and it's kind of fundamental to how we want to like onboard users onto crypto in general um but we want to make it as smooth as possible So as you can see this is kind of like you know you got to save your seed and so secure it obviously but once you do you have access to all the chains that we support um and you can just unlock your wallet you know um in one click um from that

25. 10:18

    point onwards and I think this is kind of the zy guys you know I've seen a lot of tweets and this is just one example of where I think general users and we talk about like why retail is not here or all of that stuff it's it's become very complex to navigate all the chains all the ecosystem and all the apps so I like we we saw we see Metro kind of sitting, you know, within uh the the middle of blockchains, the different protocols and having access to tokens,

26. 10:44

    right? And uh yeah, like there's many designs for where super apps might be going, but I see you know dexes and dabs becoming like wallets is like multi chain is already built in and wallets are becoming uh decentralized protocols as well. So um that's kind of where the intersection will be and it's really us to for for us to do the best job we can to kind of make sure that we can distribute these products to users. Um

27. 11:08

    so this is an example of once you created your wallet uh like what a swap might look like. So you could also unlock it using your phone. It almost like a two-factor, right? So uh and the the point of all this is like we basically have to beat the centralized exchanges in terms of like how fast you can log in, do a swap and get the asset, right? So yeah, with this with our built-in metro wallet, you can, you know, get your quote. Uh we'll find you the best provider by speed, by, you know, time of execution and yeah, it

28. 11:39

    just it just works. That's basically what, you know, crypto is supposed to be, right? You know, if you want to know who the providers are, you know, uh why like, you know, the tech behind them is, you know, is is working, you could. And that's for experienced users. But it's our job to basically um consolidate you know the the best decentralized rails possible so that we can actually you know do our job um which is give them

29. 12:05

    the best support possible and make sure the security and and uh of their assets is is always you know um uh safe. So yeah unfortunately that's that's that's me. I'm running out of time but uh yeah so I believe the future of crypto is onchain and metro will take you there.

30. 12:21

    Um thank you. Um, so yeah, I'm actually um proud to announce I'm sh we're shadowdropping the open beta for Metro today. So we just like turned off our closed beta access. So if you could go to metro.exchange, you could actually give it a try like right now. So yeah, and you can that's how you can reach me. Thank you.