Interchain communication was going to become very very important. And I think, you
know, anyone with a you know, a reasonable computer science background will understand
that no single blockchain can possibly handle all the trendsit if we put everything on
chain like it's just it's just not doable. And so that problem would have
to get solved at some point. You could you could say, well,
maybe we can deal with that later. And I think some people did take
that approach, and so many ecosystems now like you know, Avalanche, Avalanche,
Polygon, you know, the layer twos. Everyone has a different approach
now to trying to solve this problem. But I think Derek you who is
the founder of the Moonbeam project, could see. He had the foresight to
see, hey, this is something that should be tackled earlier because it will
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more about Uphold, please visit the link in the description. Welcome to the
Thinking Crypto podcast. I'm your host, Tony Edward and with me today is
Aaron Evans, who's the head of operations at the Moonbeam Foundation. Erin great
to have you on. Yeah, thanks for having me, Tony, happy
to be here. Eron. I'm excited to learn about Moonbeam. We were
talking before the recording. I've heard about Moonbeam over the years. I've covered
news around Moonbeam. I spoke to Mike Larrenton about his investment in it,
but I never got a chance to do a deep dive, so I'm hoping
to get that today. So really great to have you on. Before we
get into all things Moonbeam, tell us about yourself, where you're from and
what's your professional background? Sure, yeah, no, So I am based
in Ottawa, Canada. I come from a software engineering background and I've been
in software engineering, building engineering teams and platforms for the last i don't know,
twenty five years. Prior to getting into Web three, I ran a
engineering organization for a SaaS platform and Web two. I was a global communications
platform and had you know, software that offered solutions like this, you wouldn't
have heard of them. But they produced like a you know, video conferencing
and so forth. And so I had a team of about one hundred and
fifty undred and seventy people up until about four years ago when I moved over
to getting into Web three and started up the web the Moonbeam Foundation. So
what was your first encounter or Bitcoin? What was your aha moment. And
in addition, why did you want to come work in this space? Yeah,
so I think for me, so I kind of watched really from the
sidelines. I was really busy at my old thing, running this this like
global platform with like data centers around the world, and always kind of was
interested in bitcoin, but I guess I was super convinced, you know,
about crypto and so forth. It had its ups and downs, and you
know, I mean, coming from a where we're building platforms that do tens
of thousands of transactions per second, you know, and you kind of look
at the scale of these of blockchain platforms are kind of like, gee,
I don't I don't know if it's going to work. But I think really,
you know, in some of the like I don't know if there was
really ever an aha moment for bitcoin, but I think I really started to
get it when I was exposed to ethereum and seeing the potential of when you
add that additional smart contract so you can actually do some programmatic things on the
chains that allow you to do more advanced use cases and so forth. I
think, you know, there's been you know, I think one of the
things just I think that everyone in that if you buy into Web three has
to kind of go through at some point, is you know, the realization
that you know, what is value is just like a social agreement, if
you know, people sort of have to kind of believe it has value.
And that sounds strange, but at the same time that is really all it
is, Like why did we think gold had value or money or whatever else?
And so I think, you know, I think for anyone in the
space who is committed to the space, they've they've you know, had to
overcome that realization. And you know, that happened for me, you know,
probably four or five years ago or something like that. I think what
really attracted me to the space was that even when when we were getting started
with our communications platform, you know, in like I don't know, twenty
two thousand and six, I think it was or something like this, we
were just four guys, but we looked at the space and the incumbents and
we saw how there was it was ripe for disruption, and in other startups
that I've been a part of before, that was always sort of a central
thing. We just wanted to, you know, be this disrupting force.
And I think Web three is a has the potential to be a massive disruptive
force, and the energy and the enthusias as in that, you know,
it's just contagious and I and I really that really attracted me to the space.
And I had some friends that were I have worked with previously that we're
we're we're in the space and doing some cool things and asked me to kind
of get involved, and you know, I sort of I jumped at the
chance. Now you mentioned, you know, the social acceptance, right that
we all accept okay and believe in this thing or this asset, and then
it becomes, you know, the norm everybody in society agrees upon. Okay,
this is Bigcoin's digital goal. And but let's talk about ethere in for
a sec. So you have that layer of this social agreement, you have
maybe the software element, right that people are using this software it has utility,
and then maybe Metcalf's law and network effects. Do you view it in
from all those three perspectives as well? And is there anything else that you
know you're like, yeah, and this other factor as well. Yeah,
I mean I think it's all of those things, you know, I think
it's it's interesting just when it is like a utility token as well, just
that you know, it's just a unit you're buying units of compute and so
forth, whereas bitcoin being more of the digital gold. So there's different kind
of ways to value it. I think one thing that's interesting, you know,
is that traditionally anyway, I think the lower in the stack you are,
the more commoditized thing has become. So in some sense, the idea
that you know, some of these things like ethereum and so forth should just
continue to go up and value kind of is you know, I have a
little bit of trouble sort of getting over that sometimes, whereas with it's it's
a little more obvious with something like bitcoin, and then but lately things just
seem to be getting a little bit even over the top with some of the
mean points and so forth, where you know, okay, I guess this
thing has value, but you know, it just starting to feel a little
bit like, you know, I think, what is it to financial nihilism
or something? I think is the term that people have been been using lately,
and just a lot of people, you know, trying to get in
and then you know, you know, musical chairs not be the last one
to get out. And I think, you know, I don't know.
I mean, it's it's it's bringing attention. I don't know if if I
if I love it. You know, it's just for you know, when
we're trying to build things, like real things in the space. But so
I think if that that concept can kind of be taken a little bit too
far. But then again, you know, then you got to ask yourself,
who am I to argue? Right, like, you know, like
whatever it is, you know, I feel like the mean cooin thing is
almost more like like a sports team, like you know, you you You're
like, I'm on team you know, Pepe or whatever it is, and
and you know, I believe it in and we're all in this together and
and yeah, so but but yeah, you know that again, going back
to Web three in general, it's it's just fascinating because there's so many it's
not there's finance, there's like psychology, there's you know, political issues and
philosophical and there's so many different aspects that make it a really sort of intellectually
stimulating area to be in as well. Yeah, and to that point,
I have a kind of a love hate relationship with the mean coin situation.
But I've been studying it like trying to figure out what is happening here,
like this is so ridiculous some of these coins, but there's liquidity and capital
coming into it. And then I think I heard raupowe a macro investors say
it's culture in the blockchain. So that's one aspect. But then I think
the other thing is you have a truly global asset class. And I think
of like the stock market in New York Stock Exchange. It's not accessible to
everybody around the world. I don't think people in India and certain countries can
Egypt and whatever. But these tokens, I mean, you have a smartphone,
man, you could be in Egypt, or in Australia or Iceland wherever,
and you've got a good Internet connection you can access it. And then
you have many of these tokens are hardcap in a sense that they have a
limited supply. A lot of tokens are steak. Let's say, for example,
like etherorem, so you have limited supply. And I think it's like
a combination of perfect storm roll all these things that drives incredible value in hyper
speculation. I don't know if you agree with that, Yeah, no,
I mean I think that's interesting. You know, just it is culture,
digitized culture in a way, I think, you know, there's value to
digitized culture. I mean so again like who am I kind of argue with
that, And I guess insofar as it's an instrument that has has value can
be transmitted globally, as you said, there's a lot of liquidity, then
like that's that's useful, right, And I mean I think, you know,
personally, I'm more like, you know, I think stable coins,
for example, just you know, for improving cross border transactions and having those
pools of liquidity to you know, you know, facilitate that but also provide
access to other markets, you know, provide a really good framework for that.
But it really could be anything, right, It's just the prices are
so volatile, so you know, with some of those other things that it
can make it difficult for still stilitating those kinds of things. But yeah,
I mean, you know, as I was saying, you know, I
think the digitized culture, it's that's a very interesting concept and you know,
and and again getting back to what I was saying about, like, yeah,
there's just philosophical questions here that are just very fascinating to think about,
you know, as but you know. I mean there's no question that everyone's
lives were moving more digital, so culture should move digital as well. Right,
And you know, you know if you went back to the you know,
early two thousands or nineties and you said, hey, what should you
know? What shouldn't go to the internet? Right? I mean, like
come on, like everything should move there, and now everything should move to
be like digitally native. Yeah, I definitely agreement there. Now, you
guys at Moonbeam are building incredible Web three technology mean coins aside, Right,
let's talk about real world application and things like that. For those who don't
know, tell us about Moonbeam, and you know what makes it different?
Sure? So Moonbeam is a Layer one blockchain, it's EVM compatible, it's
a it's deployed as a pairachain on Polka Dot, and I think you know
it was launched. We launched in January of twenty twenty two, but the
project been in the works for many years and I think originally the idea was
that we could combine the power of the substrate framework that kind of came from
the Polka Dot ecosystem and provide EVM compatibility, which would facilitate interconnectivity with other
ecosystems more easily and provide you know, an environment that's familiar to many developers
too. But at the same time, leverage substrate technology, and I think
we've largely succeeded. I think you know, we've been called sort of the
gateway to Polka dot UH and and other things of that nature. We have,
you know, liquidity routing from say ethereum into other pair of chains in
the pokea dot ecosystem. You know, the benefits of using the substrate stack.
We get you know, built in a very sophisticated built in governments governance
framework. Excuse me, So you know, we do all our upgrades through
governance, and we can do forokless upgrades, which means we can we can
move really quickly. So we do a new there's a new release a chain
upgrade every six weeks, so unlike say ethereum or something like that, you
know, we can we can pivot very quickly. We've also exposed a lot
of the underlying substrate things, such as governance or even more advanced pre compiles
for doing UH transactions in batch or gasless things in in sort of superior ways
and can do on ethereum. So we've exposed those things through the EVM,
and so that's that's sort of been kind of what we've been up to for
the last couple of years, and especially sort of this focus on a on
cross chain infrastructure and connecting different ecosystems. Oh sorry, we've just yeah,
we just had a big you know, update to our roadmap and sort of
a refreshed sort of strategy. And as part of that, you know,
there's big uh uh performance improvements. We're looking at reducing block times from twelve
seconds to six seconds eight eight x throughput by increasing the gas limit of blocks.
But we're also doing a lot of interesting things around account abstraction. I
think we can do a lot better than what you know, some of these
IP standards are are are proposing. Where we've got a project called zk Off
which will allow for onboarding of Web tw users more easily and to have longer
live sessions so that you don't have to get prompted every time you want to
do something a transaction on the chain. So our new emphasis is really around
a more integrated Web three ecosystem where you're not having to like combine different you
know, maybe even you don't want to have separate wild software. It could
be all built into adapt. You want to provide the infrastructure so that DAP
developers can build really compelling experiences that are going to be more easily accepted by
to draw more people in. Now, you mentioned being a power chain via
Polka Dot. Why did you select polka dot specifically? And is there plans
to integrate with other blockchains out there? Sure? Yeah, so I mean
the you know, I mean, it really was the project, the core
project team or something at the Foundation. But I think the reasoning was,
you know, I think I think really they were looking at a couple of
ecosystems, probably Cosmos and Poke doont the reason being that both of those ecosystems
could see that interchain communication was going to become very very important. And I
think, you know, anyone with a you know, a reasonable computer science
background will understand that no single block blockchain can possibly handle all the trendsit if
we put everything on chain like it's just it's just not doable, and so
that problem would have to get solved at some point. You could you could
say, well, maybe we can deal with that later. And I think
some people did take that approach, and so many ecosystems now like you know
Avalanche, Avalanche, Polygon, you know, the layer twos. Everyone has
a different approach now to trying to solve this problem. But I think Derek
you who is the founder of the Moonbeam project, could see he had the
foresight to see, hey, this is something that should be tackled earlier because
it will it will make things easier down the road. As for why pokant
over say Cosmos, I think I think just you know, there are a
variety of reasons, but I think the substrate framework in particular made a lot
of sense. The other thing with with with poke dot is you kind of
are outsourcing the security, right so in the same way that a layer two
is outsourcing security to ethereum. That's what pok doont does. And what is
that that what that allows you to do is focus on what you do best
rather than having to reinvent you know, consensus and and securing doing that sort
of the validation and securing of the transactions, so you can kind of leverage
that. I mean, it just it doesn't make sense to have to build
everything from scratch every time when you're when you're launching something new, right,
you want to stand on the shoulders of giants as much as possible and leverage
sort of that best in breed technology. So the Pokeon people can focus on
the core securing of all the transactions across all the para chains, and we
can focus on providing the best integrated Web three environment for DAPT developers to deploy
too. Yeah, that absolutely makes sense. Tell us about some of the
use cases. What are people building on Moonbeam as a Web three applications,
tokenization of real world assets and so forth. Yeah, so, you know,
we did, In fact, we just announced a large innovation fund which
is going to be primarily focused ten million dollars innovation fund primarily focused on our
WA projects and and gaming as well as you know, probably starting to look
at some other areas is peep in and things of that nature. So we
do have a lot of projects focused on gaming and providing gaming infrastructure, especially
for cross chain use cases. You know, there are even cases where people
are leveraging Moonbeam for some of the marketplace and so forth, or in gaming
infrastructure, but then the games may actually be located on different chains or across
multiple chains. And then we've had a lot of focus particularly in in some
emerging markets, especially Brazil where we've had seen a lot of traction around r
w as servicing that market. And so yeah, there's been a number of
projects. We have actually a bunch of announcements coming up over the next month,
so I can't can't reveal those, but there you know, one for
example, there's a group out of out of Brazil called Tokenisa that is focused
on tokenizing real world assets and they're doing some pretty interesting stuff. I mean,
you know there's kind of the token is securities obviously that's sort of a
prime example, and you know, for people in Brazil that's really attractive because
you know, if there's concerns around sort of currencies and this kind of thing
or how their assets might be, know, if they want to sort of
protect the value of their assets in the long term, you know, they're
looking for other products and looking at gaining access to international markets, so that
market is right for it. But but just getting back to TOKENESA, I
mean they're doing, for example, in Brazil, I guess there's a lot
of times where citizens will make a claim against the government for various reasons they've
been wronged in some way, and it's at all levels of government. And
there's law firms that specialized in handling these cases. And there's a namepork Precatorious
I think or something. I don't know, it's you know, a Portuguese
name. But what happens is when there's a judgment, it can take like
weeks or months or even years for you to receive your settlement. Some of
these people aren't really well banked or anything like that. So the idea is
to tokenize those liabilities and then they're already a secondary market already exists. People
will sell them at a discount to get the money right away, and then
someone else is holding that that debt that the government owes. And but however,
you know, there's lots of fraud and it's paperwork and difficult to track,
and so they're tokenizing this process. And so that's something that you know
wouldn't really occur to you know, you or I sort of living in North
America, but just you know, a fascinating use case. I mean,
they're they're looking at token real estate and other financial instruments. But I you
know, that's just you know, just the breadth of applications for r w
A is just astounding. And so they they're leveraging moonbeam. I think a
lot of the r w A projects that are deploying a moonbeam are attracted to
the cross chain capabilities because they understand that there's a lot of different markets and
chains and support that they'll want to tap into and connect liquidity from various various
sources. Question for you, Aaron, and this is something I'm genuinely curious
about. As you guys are approaching like Web two companies and you have,
you know, experience in Web two and software and so forth, how are
you pitching them to integrate Web three or to transition to Web three. Yeah,
I mean it's kind of a difficult cell. I mean it can be.
I think there's got to be something you know, in it for them,
and so there are for for enterprise, there can be, and especially
with you know, I think with that r w A is showing, especially
with some of the trade, finance and so forth, a lot of efficiencies
that could be gained. So that's for the finance sector in particular. I
think the more difficult cell is that if you are a more centralized web to
company, you know what's in it for them? I mean they can sort
of say hey to their users. Well, it's data ownership and and you
know, don't you want better data ownership or sovereignty or whatever. But I
mean if they have a good business already then you know, and and and
why give up that sort of competitive mode, right, I mean, if
you're if you're a Twitter or Facebook or whatever, you're not incentivized to to
you know, make that open and let users easily port to other platforms.
So, but I think there are certainly applications in supply chain in in other
areas where there's a lot of efficiencies can be gained and so and and uh
and whether it's just in reducing paperwork or you know, sort of more manual
or clunky things that take longer to settle or that costs more money. There's
also just even things around access to capital and pulling in more capital as well.
As you know, I do think it's going to help a lot in
terms of uh fraud, you know, as as these as these technologies mature.
Yeah, yeah, to your point, like certain industries, it absolutely
makes sense for them to move right away because, like I said, improves
efficiencies and so forth. But I'm curious, you know, as far as
the timeline and then This is a hard question because we saw it with the
Internet and so forth. There's there's a some people may be slow to adopt
this technology, but eventually disruption is going to be at their door, where
maybe a startup or a new competitor comes in and they're doing it better,
and consumers like, oh, I like this better because it allows me to
do all these great things. But these companies which are deep rooted and you
know, they have this stronghold in the market and they're making a lot of
revenue. You know, is it like over the next five to ten years
that maybe we start seeing that transition or do you think it happens sooner?
Yeah, I don't know these things. It is very hard to say.
There's usually some event or or there's some something that sort of very causes things
to happen very quickly. So it could be that, you know, in
the next couple of years, there's a killer use case, or you know,
something that gains network of facts that starts sort of an avalanche. It's
probably going to happen in specific industries, you know, And I do think
like I think is very well happening in sort of the RWA industry now.
But I think you know, even then, like in with with with finance,
there's bound to be some holdouts, right, and I think, you
know, just go like I kind of think of it a little bit.
There's a lot of parallels with the industry I was in previously, which you
know, was was involved in telecommunications as well. So some of the platform
marfering that we had included making phone calls internationally and so forth. And so
you know, you had this new internet based technology way of doing it,
and then you had older like telcos and so forth that were regionally around the
world, and some of them have monopolies and they were not keen to like
move to an internet based service because it cuts into their margins control surveillance maybe
in some cases, and so they would have these holdouts. But so what
we built was a global network where we would carry the traffic and then get
local partners and then have the call sort of pop up there. And that's
kind of what's happening I think with finance stable coins. Cross border settlement is
I mean, we can use things like stable coins to easily move capital digitally
from different parts in the world, but then you can have local banking partners
and local finance, financial institutions in those regions to then deal to handle sort
of the last mile, and there's going to be ones that sort of pulled
out. But I think like as that progresses, what you find is instead
of there being pockets of the digitized things, but like and then the bigger
bubble is like the traditional it's going to invert and the the big you know,
the big sphere will be all digitized and just be little pockets of the
more traditional thing. And I think where that inflection point is, say for
for finance, it's you know, it's difficult to say. I think I
think with just with the the kind of momentum we're seeing with our w as,
I think in finance, we're going to see a sea change over the
next save five years where where clearly it's headed in that direction, kind of
not headed by in the in the reverse. Now you mentioned like Brazil and
some of these other markets are you know, prime for introducing these solutions and
tokenization and world oral assets. But here in the United States, we're seeing
some big institutions are starting to uh test this piloted and go through uh you
know, different or trying different blockchains and so forth. Are you approaching any
of the black Rocks and these folks here in the United States. Uh,
yeah, I mean we've we've been talking to some some partners I think that
are involved. I mean, there are ways to access some of these funds.
So yeah, there's definitely those discussions are ongoing. I think one of
the tricky things, especially with these these tokenized assets like the like the block
black Rock Fund and so forth, is that you know, there are institutions,
you know, it it's sort of you know for accredited investors, it's
for institutional investors and so forth. So while there's a lot of momentum,
there's still a challenge there and that it's not open to retail and you know
it is you know, this is the thing that isn't talked about a ton
but you know it's all you know, kyced and so forth. And then
they're kind of like, well and then from there they're like, well,
once once you have it, it's up to you kind of what you you
do with it, like if you want us to go sell it on this
tokenized thing on secondary markets. But then you know, as part of the
redemption, there's there's if you ever want to redeem, it's like, Wow,
it's back to you got to hand it out, but he's completed KYC
kind of thing, right, So it's you know, I think, and
there's not a lot of transaction volume yet. And though although the TVL is
building, like I said, it's it's mainly institutional, and I think the
the the attraction there is really for for a lot of you know, frankly
a lot of companies in crypto who maybe are you know for a while.
I mean it's difficult, like if you're let's say, or a crypto foundation,
it can be very difficult to get good banking services. It can be
very difficult to get access to treasuries, right, so a token ied treasure
all of a sudden becomes very easy. So you know, we've been we've
been in discussions with some of these you know, partners and so forth,
but usually there's sort of an act from the foundation to you know, deposit
sizable amounts into these funds. Right, it's off in times of tit for
tat kind of thing. And so you know, as I said, we've
been seeing a lot of momentum in Brazil, and I think we're going to
start looking at some other emerging markets where it's it's a little more you know,
servicing the needs of these new markets and opening up new new markets and
capital from from say, you know, less sort of institutional clients, right,
or or or participants, I guess market participants. Now, do you
believe that in Brazil and market emerging markets that this technology might be adopted faster
given that they don't have the red tape or bureaucracy and you know, this
goliath infrastructure that for example, that we have in the United States. Yeah,
I think, you know, Brazil is still I think you know,
they're they're making a lot of doing a lot of work on on on regulatory
in this space. I mean, I think it's important regulation, you know,
I don't know. I'm sure there's a lot of people who don't like
the what I say, but regulation is good, right, I mean,
I think I hope people realize that, like, you know, regulation by
enforcements we've seen is not good. What we need is clarity, right,
and that protects people and you want that and that's going to you know,
because then we're going to have people building things that are building them in a
responsible way. So you can't totally kind of just say, oh, we're
just gonna want to you know, put you know, push away all the
red tape and just you know, so there still has to be that regulation,
there has to be uh proper investor investor protection. But I do think
that they're more motivated and there's a lot more demand and and that comes from
the and so that they will move quicker, I believe, And and a
lot of that is because they just don't have the mature financial rails that you
know, you and I are used to in North America. I mean,
I think a real wake up call, you know, for the Foundation.
The movie Foundation was, you know, I mean we'll recall back to uh
March of last year. You know, you had Signature and Silver gad and
you know, a Silicon Valley bank, and all of a sudden it was
like came really became really difficult for you know, for the Foundation to get
banking right. And you know, so then you got a first hand taste
of what it's like to be in some of these other markets where we take
it for granted, and you're just all of a sudden you're like, well,
where, you know, where can we where is a safe place to
part cash or you know, and so you know, this is what people
are dealing with every day. They're just not getting great financial services. And
I think similar to kind of mobile adoption in Africa and Europe, where you
know, instead of building out landlines everywhere and maturing their infrastructure that way,
they leap broad straight to mobile, right, And so I think what you'll
see in these emerging markets is a leap broad straight to kind of blockchain based
financial rails, and and that will cause them to move quicker. I think
just out of a out of a need necessity. Yeah, definitely agree with
you there. I think I forgot to ask you earlier about and you may
have addressed this, but the protocol that Moonbeam uses as a blockchain, we
know there's proof of steak, proof of work and different things out there.
What protocols Moonboom use. And also if you could tell us about the g
l m R token, sure, yeah, so, yeah, great,
I probably should have touched on this before, but yeah, so Moonbeam is
proof of steak, it's a delegated proof of steak model. So and the
Glimmer token JLMR is our utility token. It's the native token of the network.
So think of it as you know, we're in your FRUM compatible chain,
so it's our ethereum. Basically you need it to transact on the network
to deploy contracts, right, so it's the utility token. But it's also
used in the security of the network in this staking process, so as end
users can delegate their steak to a colator, which are essentially block producers,
so they produce the blocks that are then validated by the poke network the Polka
Dot validators, and then the collators themselves bond bond steak in the form of
Glimmer as well to be part of the active set of colators, so that
that can earn Glimmer as a reward, so there's inflation, which you know,
the emissions go to the people delegating their steak as well as the co
leators that are running the nodes. Glimmers also used it for I mentioned our
governance. It is used in the governance process so tokenholders can vote on on
governance proposals and you know, like I said, we use that for protocol
upgrades, also to change chain parameters and to manage you know, opening up
in the Pokedat ecosystem, even opening up a communication channel with other pair of
chains that has to be enabled through governance, and so often another pair of
chain who will want to connect to Moonbeam so that they can have their assets
listed on the DEXes on Moonbeam or in the other marketplaces on Moonbeam, they
will come to our governance and put in a proposal to have a channel opened.
And then you know, and as I said, so Glimmer is used
in the in the governance voting process as well. Now you mentioned there's going
to be some big announcements coming up soon. I know you can't tell us
the details yet, but is there anything else on your twenty twenty four row
map you want to highlight? Yeah, I mean I think you know we
are. We have some excited partnerships announced with like Glacis, which is a
abstraction layer. It kind of sits on top of GMP protocol, so things
like Wormhole, Axelar and so forth. So I think that's pretty interesting because
it provides what what I like to think of is Web two reliability for for
web free. So right now, if you if you're making a cross chain
application, or let's say you know you're bridging stuff from one network to another
as part of your application, you're probably adapt developers are currently relying on one
GMP protocol like wormhole, and if they say there's an issue with it right
then maybe it's you know, the route isn't working right now, Well you're
kind of stuck, right or let's say you know, god forbid it gets
hacked or something like that, right then you have a serious problem. So
you may want to have redundancy. And you know, just going back to
my like you know web two days, I mean we had a global net
work with redundant connections with different providers so that you know, if traffic couldn't
couldn't flow on one, you know, we could we just route it through
another one. And so Glacens provides this layer to be able to do that
to provide redundancy or also even let's say you want to have a higher degree
of security. It might be more costly, but you might have a message
that has to go over two different routes and and agree on the on the
target chain before you accept the transactions. So then that way, you know,
if there's if something's going wrong on one, you know you can you
know, you can avoid you know, potentially catastrophic out outcomes. Cancy is
another one another partnership. So they're very app chain infrastructure team, and they're
also deployed in pokont and Moonbeam is connecting with them to provide kind of liquidity
and access to sort of our our defive venues, uh and other other sort
of infrastructure that then app As I mentioned earlier, it doesn't make sense to
kind of reinvent everything every time, so these app chains can focus on what
they do best and then they can leverage the all the infrastructure that you know,
we've brought to Moonbeam. I think I mentioned the the zkof project already,
but those along with some of the other account abstraction technology that we're investing
in, I think is pretty exciting because you know, as I said,
I think it can really streamline or really improve the user experience when when using
Web three applications. And so there's gonna be a lot of focus in that
area. But just generally, we're also just doing a lot to continually improve
tooling and infrastructure and frameworks and so forth that are available to adapt developers so
they can get going more quickly. Uh and uh, you know, build
faster and again and focus on what they do best. Hmm. That's exciting
and I'm excited for those upcoming updates announcements. Let's talk about the crypto market
at large. Uh, we've seen incredible growth, you know, with the
bigcoin, et apps, crypto regulations seem to be moving forward. What were
your thoughts on the ETF launch and the performance so far. Yeah, I
mean, I you know, to be honest, I haven't been paying super
close attention to the performance so far. But I was surprised. I mean,
I don't know where I like, things changed so quickly, Like I
you know, it was like, oh, it's not happening, it's not
going to be approved. And then I was talking to someone They're like,
no, no, it's going to be approved. And I'm like, you're
dreaming. What are you talking about it? I guess I missed something and
all of a sudden it was approved. It's just just kind of shocking.
And I think there's been a lot of speculation around is this for political reasons
or but I think and then you know, there was recently the uh,
you know, we found out that the SEC is sort of dropping its case
against consensus. You know, I think for that, I think the SEC
just probably realized that they didn't want another embarrassment of sort of losing a case.
But yeah, really was surprised, taken by surprise. I mean you
would think like that they could put it off. I figured they would.
I figured the SEC would just try to punt as long as they could to
try to try to defer. But like I said, I haven't really been
paying a ton of attention to the inflows. I mean, obviously the market
hasn't been great as of late for a number of reasons, macro reasons,
I think, And you know, now we're headed into summer, so it'll
be interesting to see. I don't know if Ethereum has the same brand awareness
with more traditional investors that you know, like like I think most traditional investors
are aware of bitcoin and that was probably, you know, huge excitement for
them. But so yeah, that'll be interesting to watch it play out for
sure. Yeah, it's it's pretty crazy. And I'm saying, I know
you're in Canada, so I don't I don't know how much you're keeping up
with what's happening in the US. But also there's been like a one to
eighty from many Democrats who were aligned with Elizabeth Warren against crypto, and many
Democrats are now working with Republicans to get bills through the House, which will
provide clarity. You know, you mentioned earlier that regulations are needed that that
are balanced, you know, protect consumers but allow innovation. You know,
how's Canada looking. I know you guys have had spot ets for a while,
but you know, regulation wise, do you feel you have the clarity
there? I think it's coming, I think, and and you know,
I do pay very close attention to kind of what's going on in the US
for sure. Yeah, we have had spot ets for quite some time,
and I think think clarity is coming. I think Canada tends to be it
has to watch sort of a fine line. I think they've been more progressive,
but at the same time, we all want to be too out of
alignment with what's going on in the US. I mean, the US being
like, you know, the massive trading partner for Canada is very important,
and so they don't you know, they don't want to really rock the boat.
I think too badly either. But you know, I think there is
There hasn't been any kind of enforcement. I think they're just sort of a
little bit taking await and see approach. Like I don't think there's been really
progressive, a really progressive approach like we've seen in Europe, which I think
is just you know, I think what they're trying to do in Europe,
I think is is really great because they're sort of leading the way. It's
kind of not awesome from the US perspective, and I think it's a real
missed opportunity. I think Europe realizes that, you know, they missed the
boat kind of like with with the Internet and uh, you know, back
in the sort of early two thousands, and as a result, you know,
all the huge technology companies are based in the United States. So I
think they see an opportunity with the US not really making strong moves to to
take advantage of that and and move a lot of the innovation and perhaps some
of the move the balance of power potentially with Web three over there. But
I do think we're starting to see some signs, like you said, this
the buy when you see these bipartisan bills, and I think it's pretty disappointing
that, you know, Joe Biden like vetoed what was a bipartisan effort,
you know, I mean with Congress can't seem to get anything done right,
and so you know, you've got this thing where you actually have both parties
coming together to get something done. Like I don't know, I was you
know, I found that kind of kind of disappointing, But you know,
I guess we'll see. I think there's a there's a lot of open questions.
I'm glad. It does seem like people are finally engaging. And I
don't know how much of that is politically motivated, just from you know,
sort of Trump's recent announcement that he embraces crypto and maybe maybe the maybe the
Democrats feeling like they need to you know, there's some portion of the vote
that could could make the difference in certain jurisdictions. But anyway, regardless,
it's great to see some progress being made. Yeah, it's fascinating because I
don't think anybody saw these coming, and you know, you have a presidential
candidate talking about crypto and but I guess the reason that Donald Trump made that
move is is just the binding and administration under Elizabeth Warren's guidance was so on
the other side of the spectrum, like they weren't even neutral. It's just
like I'm building an anti crypto army, Like why it's just a technology.
They were so crazy about it, so it almost forces the other side and
say, oh, okay, you're negative about it, I'm going to be
positive about it. Right. It's look, the game of politics has been
played out here, but it's so fascinating that out of nowhere this wind of
crypto and the politics just started picking up, right, Yeah. And you
know, it's really too bad because I think, like with Elizabeth Warren and
the school are so anti crypto. I think there's just a lack of understanding,
right, I think that, you know, I think I don't know,
at least in my mind. I think what a lot of crypto is
about is like sort of fair access to markets. You know, I think
a lot of this should change. I mean, there's there's so many in
traditional finance, you know. I mean we talked about MTV and front running
and stuff. I mean there's like whole industries like built around front running retail
investors in traditional finance, right, and you know, it's really a minority,
like you know when you look at the you know, on the on
the blockchain side. I mean, it's so rigged in the traditional finance toward
the people who have like have direct access, and there a lot of a
lot of instruments, financial instruments that you know, as a retail investor,
you can't get access to. And I think crypto has the promise to kind
of open up those markets. And so really it should be something that,
at least in my mind, that like Democrats should be championing for. I
think, you know, just like I was saying before, it's important to
have clear regulation to protect investors. I mean, I think, you know,
scams exist in any industry. I think unfortunately we get you know,
we're a big target right now, but it's wherever the money is, Like,
there's going to be scams, right and if you don't have good regulation
that fosters innovation, but also ensuring that there are good players in the industry
that are sort of following the rules. I mean, if you have those
standards, then you're going to see less fraud and scams and so forth.
So that's the best way forward. And I wonder if part of it is
I think I've heard Elizabeth Warren talk about this, it's almost like, you
know, they don't have full control or understanding this lack of knowledge, but
also this is kind of a blind spot for them, and they are in
addition to world other governments around the world building CBDCs. Right, they want
to take a fiat currency and put it on the blockchain. And I wonder
if part of it is just try to slow this industry down so that they
can get some control over it, maybe via the money supply. Maybe because
they're worried that people are leaving how should I put it, They're leaving the
normal rails, payment rails and so forth and going to stable coins and going
to I can send you some bitcoin right now. I don't have to send
you usd or a Canadian right. You think part of it is that,
and maybe I mean, look, I do think that there is some probably
you know, well founded concern that like even even if like a ton of
US dollars get digitized, that that could there could be some swan event that
like completely rocks the US dollar. I mean, that's something that people need
to look take a close look at. And I think their right to kind
of do that analysis and maybe say, oh, slow down a little bit.
But personally, I don't think cdbc's are the way I mean, I
think you know, there's there's obviously, you know, uh, concerns around
surveillance and yeah, and privacy and so forth, and so I think I
think, you know, the weight that I look at it is more like
banks, for example, are not governance government agencies, and so if you
think about it more like I think we'll probably see branded stable coin instruments that
are used for commerce, and so they're sort of they're the issuers, they're
holding the dollars. But then we can programmatically, we can use like software
to like make these systems more efficient, to do cross border settlement and so
forth with these branded ones, and they'll probably be some you know, larger
players like you know, Circle I think is well positioned, but I think
we'll probably see some of these, like you know, maybe the JP Morgan's
of the world or Golden or or large banks even get into issuance and using
that. And I think that's the way and because people you kind of need
to you know, steparate those things, like there's the actual like money itself,
and then there's the digitized versions, and then there's people that are sort
of managing that. And I think that creates a better separation of powers so
you can get the benefits of it without putting it all the control with with
the government. Yeah, all right, and I got some wrap up questions
here for you. First, if you could create your own metaverse, what
would the theme be? Well, I mean, you can see I'm a
big Star Wars fan, but I don't know, I'd probably get in trouble
with Disney, you know. So, but I do some sort of sci
fi space theme. You know, I'm a big fan of like also the
Expanse Universe. I don't I don't know if you're familiar with that one,
but yeah, you know, a space sci fi based theme for sure.
Yeah, I'm same thing. I love space and the idea of space exploration
that I love Star Wars, so that would be mine as well. Rapid
Fire favorite food. I gotta go with fro Speed. Favorite musician or band.
I guess all time? You two favorite movie? I think I might
know the answer. Oh well, actually might surprise you too to pin down
a one star Wars So, actually, Shah The Shoshank Redemption is my favorite
movie. It's a great movie. Favorite vote tough one. I'm gonna go
with a classic, The Count of Monte Cristo. I read it a long
time ago and just really stayed with me. It's one of those classics.
Nice and uh I also I think I may know the answer to this as
well. But what's your hobby outside of work? Well, again, I
might surprise you. I'm snowboarding. You know, living in Canada, you
got to find something to do in the winter, for sure. Aaron pleasure
chatting with you man, and I'm excited for the updates coming up from Moonbeam.
Thank you so much for joining me, No, thank you so much
for having me. It was it was a real pleasure.