Layer 1 Stage | Infra Ain't Easy: Connecting the Multi-Chain World

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1. 0:10

   uh hello everyone good morning yeah good morning to all the survivors of the after party yesterday uh yeah so as uh as the MC already mentioned we are starting off pretty heavy in the topic with the topic of infrastructure and why it ain't easy uh and yeah I would like to uh introduce myself and the panel and the panelists will introduce themselves so I'm I'm glb dka I'm from Green

2. 0:33

   Greenfield Capital we are the European based European based crypto VC um we also run our own valid dator so we try to support the our Port course in various ways including running and providing infra for for them and uh yeah I would like to the panelists to introduce themselves let's start with Chris sure hey good morning everyone Chris sharp I'm CTO at block demon uh hello everyone um uh Louis from octopus network uh octopus is uh I say a

3. 1:08

   complimentary infrastructure in near ecosystem with Ser application specific blockchain by providing share security and inability support hi everyone good morning I'm talita I'm part of the cor one uh infrastructure provider so basically specialized in dator nodes we run 47 networks nowadays so I think this panel is something that's very relevant to uh to start discussing as the multi chain

4. 1:41

   Road uh takes over hello everyone uh good morning exciting to be here uh my name is yir klepper I'm a co-founder and CEO at lava Network in lava we building a modular infrastructure layer uh that can support any RPC API in any chain okay awesome it's it's great to have you guys um yeah so let's let's let's dive into the qu into the question to the topic right away so the first question is like we are in an increasingly modular increasingly

5. 2:13

   fragmented blockchain world we have right now large debates around the modularity like the modular blockchain stack versus the the monolithic stack as well as the number of L1 is uh and as well as l2s is constantly growing so I mean that definitely possesses a lot of uh a lot of challenges for infrastructure providers so I I was wondering how how do you guys deal with that increasing number of connections

6. 2:39

   because I mean all of these layers and modules they need to be interconnected with one another and that creates friction so as wondering how do you in your company kind of deal with that and then what challenges do you believe this fragmentation uh poses towards like the users of these protocols or your protocol uh your company uh let's start with maybe Chris yeah it sounds good um

7. 3:01

   you know we have distinct lines of business obviously we have our nodes business and I would answer the question differently there than I would for our API business for on the Node side of things um really automation automation automation making sure that we can get updates apply patches and stay current so that um you know these networks are are as secure and as as operationally functional as possible on the API side

8. 3:25

   of things um you know really building building things from a platform perspective and making sure that as new protocols come come on board where there are similarities there's less and less work for us to do over time um on the wallet side of things um again it comes comes back to then building off of the you know the work that we've done on the API side of things so for our Universal API once we've added a protocol there it

9. 3:49

   should then become much easier to integrate from from a wallet perspective so that's kind of our our approach and then I would say finally um you know just staying very current with uh evolving uh Technologies you know whether they're you know shared uh sequencer networks or or other kinds of things that you know effectively make um make some of the the the the bridges the exchanges the dexes the the defi stuff

10. 4:14

    you know sort of communicate with one another more seamlessly makes sense what about you guys L okay uh so uh I think we are still uh in the process of uh let's say blockchain exposion and uh in the in the coming years we will see um hundreds if not thousands public chain uh app chain middleware chain excusion layer da layer but in not not necessarily I will not name this trend as fragmentation it's

11. 4:50

    about exploration since uh we uh there is only uh very few use case has been Pullen to be relevant in terms of web or open web we need to explore much more uh field to make web a real thing and and and be frankly we don't know what's the next killer app and the first thing we need uh a lot of different uh different infrastructure uh that Diversified blockchain or even some some other things Beyond blockchain such as neutral

12. 5:36

    uh some uh sematic and orbit this kind of decentralized infrastructure to make additional uh use case happen in the decentralized uh contest and but uh but uh uh if there are let's say thousands of blockchain it's not that secary since uh considering how many device tcpip has been connected with together if we providing we have a open uh comprehensive standard on inter ability we are we will be okay that that is why

13. 6:17

    we uh uh we we are uh we we we work on IBC I think it's the only open comprehensive inability stack around the place and uh we are about enable IBC on and uh we partner with secret Network to be uh uh to to to launching a real Bridge it it will be the first one uh for Cosmos chain to connect with near y IBC and why we hope IBC will be Progressive and all the blockchain and decentralized infrastructure will be connected with

14. 6:58

    each other in a trustless way understood and with lava how do you handle that increased fragmentation yeah no I think what I can add to uh the important things that was saying here is that uh we see fragmentation in the middleware layers and I think that um uh you know the concept of blockchain being serverless uh towards and sharing the same uh um you know the back end of the same state um within the different uh

15. 7:31

    providers I think what we looking now is the increasing adoption of more and more um uh rollups and uh and blockchains and at the end of the day um Lava is addressing that in three different ways first of all we building a modular infrastructure is something that uh incentivizing the community to take any spake any new upcoming chains and together with our existing amazing partners for example block demon uh we are able to tackle quickly the entry point for this blockchains the RPC and

16. 8:08

    API uh level uh the second part of that is that we creating kind of a incentive mechanism that makes sense that every um every vendor every provider is able to get rewards according to the quality of service and we see that a lot of lockin uh vendors we have today in uh blockchains some some of the contracts were made one year ago even more um you know when when we had all in the bull run and the reality has changed so I think if we are able to be um to give a

17. 8:49

    more flexibility to the chain and focus on RPC becoming a commodity but making it the quality of service the the rewards based on the quality of service um that going to change and scale up much better the world we live in what do you guys think with chus one yeah um I think when it comes to node provider the biggest challenge with the fragmentation of the ecosystem is how you choose the ecosystems that you will

18. 9:22

    support yeah uh it's becoming um mostly impossible I would say to support all layer ones and all decentralized networks that are not even blockchains um so I think this is this would be the biggest challenge and also when it comes to specializing what the service that you offer for example we try to be active on governance so you need not only to run the software of that blockchain or that decentralized network but also to have researchers

19. 9:54

    follow following the ecosystem what is the the particularities of of each ecosystem and the main technical challenges that are being discussed that is completely different in the cosmos ecosystem and in on the eion ecosystem for example so I think this is a a big big challenge for us and I would still like to mention a third one that is the user experience because as a a node provider we although we support 47 networks the user experience is still not the uh as smoothest that it could be

20. 10:28

    in my opinion for examp example when it comes to um the user wants to know how how often the rewards are paid or there are just so many wallets so if you want to if you hold many different assets you have all this uh different systems and different wallets that you need to manage and that you the rewards that you need to claim and restake so I think this is also something that could be improved on when it comes to to Stak

21. 11:00

    yeah I think I think just to add one thing talita just tou a very interesting concept about decentralization and we all believe we all here also for decentralization but I think there is a bit misconception that decentralization bring uh lack of scalability uh much more complexity and you know with something that uh us as first Comer to the ecosystem to blockchain to web 3 uh only two two and a half years ago we see that uh

22. 11:30

    decentralization is the is the tool is not the end goal because obviously at the end of the day if it's on the expans of scalability and complexity it doesn't make any any sense yeah definitely that's not a goal in itself right it's a means to an end uh yeah um from the investor standpoint we often times look at like what modes and what defensibility and stickiness does the project or protocol have and I was wondering like it's pretty guess we know some metrics for like stickiness and

23. 12:02

    mode I guess in terms of like more consumer facing protocols like defi we can look at tvl there's like I don't know active users there's a bunch of a bunch of bunch of kpis and I was wondering what do you in your line of business think like how how do you think about your mode like your stickiness of your users of your clients and then kind of what kpis are you using like what kpis would you think are the most

24. 12:25

    important for you and then how do fees kind of fit into those because I feel like with infrastructure sometimes you start kind of as a free offer but then over time once you get gain some stickiness you start charging fees which might then make you not as competitive so I was just wondering how you guys think maybe uh maybe we start with uh with octopus oh yeah uh I think apparently uh uh the mode is there for

25. 12:54

    Success uh particles uh for example uh we know that uh their uh eim they get billions of dollars partical Revenue uh a month and but if I F out uh eim it will worth nothing so I think the uh the motor protocol uh is composed of uh two major part one is Network effects uh for example uh octopus Network we facilitate uh the share security from near reinking to uh achain and so there

26. 13:35

    is the provider side if there is more near holder engag with uh raking that will be easier for appin to get cost effective security and if there is more app chain who join this network they will provide uh more opportunity for near Staker to to gain their their their reverse so it's a two side in M have uh apparently have uh Network effects the second part of the mode is about I would

27. 14:08

    say confidence or Fai uh this means you know application developer they choose their infrastructure very cautiously and if there if the infrastructure fail they uh effort will will will will go meaningless and uh so if if an infrastructure whether it's blockchain or or metalware it has been there for years and with good maintenance and uh uh reputation a lot of usage adoption economic activities there we

28. 14:46

    can safely buy that it will exist in the coming years so Lind effects and uh it will give this uh protocal amount to the others got it and with course one how how do you view your mode with towards like the protocols or towards the users well I think cost efficiency is something that will stand out as competition has been increasing a lot on the infrastructure side in the last

29. 15:19

    couple years I would say and also the way that uh the quality of service in general that you offer not only on when it comes to up time of the infrastructure but also everything else that is related to running uh the notes so for example on the research side as I mentioned that is something that we we try to explore uh a lot and although I think what's also relevant when it comes to the fee part is that we have a cost so although the the

30. 15:58

    competition can increase a lot there is a minimum that you need to charge because of your fixed cost in dollars that's basically servers and salaries so yeah I think mostly the cost efficiency would be something that I believe um would um create this uh advantages for for the players in in the infrastructure yeah got it as an another professional node operator Chris yeah sure thanks um so on block

31. 16:30

    team and I kind of would separate it maybe into two broad categories um the first category would be just you know our corporate structure right like we we didn't have to but we have financially audited accounts or ISO certified right and so that is going to be the kind of thing that if you're you know trafi maybe a big Bank um you know really globally that's going to be I think for us something that we look at as as a bit of a moe um uh because you want to make

32. 16:55

    sure that the company you're doing business with today is going to be in business business tomorrow as well right um and and that's something that we didn't have to do but we chose to do and it cost a lot and a lot of time the audits are are kind of kind of hard to do every year but but it's important for us and and our partners on the second side of things I would say uh innovating on the technology side of things um you know we've got an Institutional NPC wallet uh with uh a user experience that

33. 17:21

    allows you to do sort of oneclick staking and if you think about all of the things that are involved in making that work you have to have you know you know for it to be on Prem that's hard for it to be MPC that's really hard and then you've got you know the API that I mentioned earlier that is is sort of servicing that it's available for everyone else we eat our own dog food um so to speak um and and then of course

34. 17:44

    the you know rock solid 49es of of nodes and and everything that's powering those apis and so it's really a series of things that we that we bring to the table we think you know creates a competitive Advantage got it yeah here yeah I think um you know just just to add a bit for um you know how how lava see the picture and you know my personal belief I think we can divide that into four different things we see Community we see uh

35. 18:13

    integration and compossibility uh we see the brands and obviously uh the fee or even the new data primitive that we we thinking now um Community is uh the bread and butter of uh of of the topic right because if you know how to harness the community if you know how to incentivize them um the rest will come right this is why I think most of you here uh and this is why you like to be here and near um the second part is uh integration and uh compossibility and I

36. 18:48

    think what was important for us from the get-go is to make this modular infra that is going to be Plug and Play to every ecosystem in one hand able to support the you know the 1,000 rollup and N chains and at the same time to use the standards so we lava integrated ejs webd um uh coam um and we see that if we give one subscription access to all web 3 basically you know developers is

37. 19:25

    focusing on the building they're not focusing on if they want expand to new blockchains who going to support them and that's lead me to the third point that uh is about the usability the user experience how how easy is to go multi-chain because as you see announcement yesterday uh um Bia for example with polygon and near and there's a lot of integration between the different chains at the end of the day you need to give the the devs the uh

38. 19:55

    flexibility to go between one uh chain in another and you know our vision as a new data primitive says that um if you have the data committed and backed by uh Financial commitments so you can trust it if you have strong partners that already um were an experts in specific ecosystem that's what we're working for with block demon for example uh the scale is inevitable uh and that's my two

39. 20:27

    sense got it um yeah let's let's try kind of a a little bit of a wild angle here uh what it like there's increasing talk right now about like in shrining different services or different infrastructure protocols into the core like base layer one so with ethereum it would be like discussions whether ethereum should implement or like enshrine liquid staking into the core protocol and that would potentially put

40. 20:51

    some of the kind of infrastructure protocols which are higher in the stack under pressure of just maybe like being integrated by respective L ons so I was wondering do like I was wondering does someone of you think that some of your core business you you're running would be in danger potentially long term and how would you and how would you think about this who who wants to take that one well I can take it um on the Node

41. 21:22

    operator side there is one dimension that's uh the more different binaries and softwares you have to run the more complexity and different things that you need to monitor so this is something that this is a dimension that would create an incentive for having more things in the protocol although I also believe that it might be risky because the more complexity you have on the layer one for example the more chance you open for having an attack or a bug

42. 21:55

    that's complex and it's harder to predict and to treat if if something happens so there I I think I'm personally I'm a fan of the protocol minimalism where I think layer one should also should only mostly focus on consensus and execution and yeah so that's my my personal take on that got it um I think we are running a little bit out of time so I just wanted to finish the panel with some uh likely spice it takes so I was wondering if you if you believe something about

43. 22:33

    blockchain infra which is like you believe is not it's not really common sense it's kind of somewhat controversial so let's start with yeah maybe um so you know in the last so when we started we see that there is a natural evolution in blockchain infrastructure everyone at the beginning was running their own nodes um and when blockchain adoption grew up up it doesn't make sense right to scale it up uh second evolution was the centralized

44. 23:03

    provider really reducing eliminating the bar to entry to all the blockchain and I think that the conception now uh that we like to talk about in lava is the modular infrastructure something that as talita said is all about incentives uh some of the investor told me it's like uber for nodes right we all remember all the shared economy uh some of them I support some of them less uh but uh at the end of the day it brought something new it brought

45. 23:36

    something that adapting to the Dynamics of the new world it's adapting to the dynamic of the next uh Bull Run and yeah I think the next the next Bull Run will be all about incentivizing the community in order to help you build a much bulletproof and performant infrastructure okay got it I think we have time for one more controversial take does does anyone want to take it I will take it uh so uh

46. 24:08

    we work on the field of achain application specific blockchain and uh people think that uh Layer Two or layer three will replace app chain since they inherit uh security from layer one but I think the basic contradiction is not uh roab versus is about general purpose versus application specific so for any infrastructure if it's general purpose it can accommodate lot of use case but

47. 24:40

    for any specific use case I can uh make a better infrastructure to fully optimize for this use case so it's up to the developer to choose public chain or app chain and uh the app chain can be let's say another way to uh there's another way for apin let's say build on C SDK to inherit security from layer one and uh it's much mat than Layer Two since all the layer two as there there

48. 25:14

    is a centralized sequencer centralized and centralized pool so I think for any uh application specific Choice uh let's say achain Cosmos SDK would be a a better choice than uh rups so this is my point okay cool yeah I think we are out of time it was it was great having you guys on the panel really pleasure meeting you yeah thanks thanks everyone thank you for listen