Speaker 1: Hey, folks, we're recording at chain links smart Con event
Speaker 1: and joining me is Ashpompati, who is the head of
Speaker 1: ecosystem at app Toss.
Speaker 2: Ash.
Speaker 1: Great to be doing this in person with you, man.
Speaker 2: I can't believe I get to do it again.
Speaker 1: Tony, Yeah, we spoke earlier this year. Lots of great
Speaker 1: things happening with ap toss. But for the folks who
Speaker 1: don't know you, tell us a bit about yourself in ap.
Speaker 2: Toss one hundred percent. So ap toss was actually a
Speaker 2: blockchain that was incubated at Meta to move value across
Speaker 2: a billion user super ap economy. It's spun out and
Speaker 2: has been in market for about three years and since
Speaker 2: then has been a leading blockchain and driving stable coin
Speaker 2: movement DeFi and now investing in infrastructure bring the next
Speaker 2: billion user apps on chain now.
Speaker 1: One of the great features of ap tooss it's super fast.
Speaker 1: How are you guys able to achieve this speed?
Speaker 2: So I think it goes back to what I said before,
Speaker 2: which was the technical thesis around what a blockchain needs
Speaker 2: to do was always built from a first principle's perspective
Speaker 2: that it needs to support metas billion user app economy
Speaker 2: out of the box, speed was a non negotiable, but
Speaker 2: also security which came with it move the smart contract
Speaker 2: programming languages. I think we've both seen several hacks in
Speaker 2: market over the years, which is maybe the cost of
Speaker 2: business of being in this space. But for the technical
Speaker 2: team at that firm where it was originated, that was
Speaker 2: a non negotiable. In order to move billions and trillions
Speaker 2: of transactions across the world, you needed a premier security language.
Speaker 2: So embedded within app toss is to move smart contract
Speaker 2: programming language, so not only cheap, highly secure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, as far as usability and use cases,
Speaker 1: I read recently that stable Flow integrated app toss and
Speaker 1: that's going to allow put a transfer of more stable coins.
Speaker 1: Tell us a bit about that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that was an amazing launch and I think
Speaker 2: part of an example of how Bottom's up technical thesis
Speaker 2: driven building can actually reduce friction. I believe on that
Speaker 2: one it was through an integration through not only ap toss,
Speaker 2: but near and through the intense network. With that, I
Speaker 2: think it's natural in terms of stable coins finding the
Speaker 2: best path and the most efficient path, and smart users
Speaker 2: making that as a default choice. Even though AP toss
Speaker 2: is less mature as an ecosystem, especially with stable coin
Speaker 2: integration versus some of the legacy players. We've already seen
Speaker 2: unbound growth, which tells us that smart users, when they
Speaker 2: have a dollar on X chain versus Y chain, the
Speaker 2: one that's faster and more efficient and secure, they will
Speaker 2: default choose. And so that is a huge signal for us,
Speaker 2: and we're going to push a lot by multiples in
Speaker 2: terms of growing that usage.
Speaker 1: I also recently read that Calshi is now supporting aptoss's
Speaker 1: USDC native USDC and the apt token.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, so, I think one thing from a foundation perspective,
Speaker 2: or a foundation that's supporting a permissionless network like aptoss,
Speaker 2: is to make sure that users can access assets on
Speaker 2: your network as well as stable coins on your network,
Speaker 2: no matter where they are.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So you know, we knew. I think last time we
Speaker 2: talked about NFTs, NFTs evolved into meme coins. Meme coins
Speaker 2: are evolving into prediction markets. So for us, our goal
Speaker 2: as a foundation is to make sure where ubiquitous acrosshol
Speaker 2: services and culsh is an amazing platform.
Speaker 1: You use the word ubiquitous, and that's where blockchain has
Speaker 1: to go. Right where it's running through the rails, through
Speaker 1: the markets, the financial system, pop culture, society. But people
Speaker 1: don't necessarily need to know, just if they are sophisticated
Speaker 1: enough to know, Hey, I can choose the aptass blockchain,
Speaker 1: but the idea of speed and usability is the key, right,
Speaker 1: I completely agree.
Speaker 2: You know, I think we're kind of in our middle
Speaker 2: child phase, you know, where we look a little funky.
Speaker 2: We kind of like music we probably won't like for
Speaker 2: a long time. Sure, and we're very tribal. But I
Speaker 2: think when we talk about an everyday consumer, right, whether
Speaker 2: it be your wife or my father, they don't have
Speaker 2: time to think about this stuff or even subscribe to
Speaker 2: a quote unquote technical religion.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: They want something that is usable, they want something that
Speaker 2: is reliable, and they want something that either gives them value,
Speaker 2: make them money, or save them time. And so I
Speaker 2: think that's where applications built on blockchains will need to
Speaker 2: head towards. And we're already seeing that with founders looking
Speaker 2: to build now, which look very different than founders who
Speaker 2: wanted to start building in twenty twenty, which look different
Speaker 2: than twenty seventeen. These are founders who have scaled enterprise
Speaker 2: and consumer businesses should come from traditional tech backgrounds who
Speaker 2: are ready to make their foray into entrepreneurship, and for them,
Speaker 2: they look at scaling businesses as an outcome. And so
Speaker 2: I think we're starting to see that start to graduate
Speaker 2: a bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right. You know, I look back at twenty
Speaker 1: twenty eight and I been here since twenty sixteen, and
Speaker 1: the amount of adoption we're seeing. You know, there's once
Speaker 1: the okay, crypto native firms are building technologies, but now
Speaker 1: TRADFI traditional tech companies if you want to call them,
Speaker 1: that are now coming in. And on that note, I
Speaker 1: read that Indian telecom giant Reliance Geo is partnering with apptoss.
Speaker 1: Tell us about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, these are the kinds of efforts
Speaker 2: that take a lot of time. When you think about
Speaker 2: the scale of a company like Reliance Geo, the biggest
Speaker 2: telco provider and not only in India but in the world,
Speaker 2: And when you think about the amount of foresight a
Speaker 2: firm like that and the executives within the firm have
Speaker 2: to have to believe in Web three technology. You have
Speaker 2: to ask the question of what is the actual urgency
Speaker 2: behind it? And business need sure, and the business need
Speaker 2: is Web three at its core. Not only is it
Speaker 2: better rails for trading or moving a dollar, but for retention. Yeah,
Speaker 2: which completely shifts the advertising market, which is heading towards
Speaker 2: a trillion dollar year market by twenty thirty. Wow, some
Speaker 2: of us don't realize that when you compare it against
Speaker 2: trading fees on chain. Sure, right, So they're a firm
Speaker 2: that understand. Now the next question is once you understand
Speaker 2: that what technology can actually support your billion plus user
Speaker 2: use case? You can't just use any sort of SaaS
Speaker 2: rights to be reliable. Your users can't have a second
Speaker 2: of disruption otherwise they'll churn out, which affects your business absolutely.
Speaker 2: Supercent users churn out, you affect your business big time.
Speaker 2: And so naturally they came to aptos and said, well,
Speaker 2: you guys are the best and fastest and you can
Speaker 2: actually support this, so let's work together.
Speaker 1: That's pretty incredible. That's a big one. I mean, the
Speaker 1: largest heelcom company. And what are you seeing as far
Speaker 1: as the vision that these companies have. Are they looking
Speaker 1: to use blockchain in different ways, create reward tokens or
Speaker 1: like you mentioned, keeping customers and how are you thinking
Speaker 1: about it? And I don't know if you can share
Speaker 1: the details here, but as much as you.
Speaker 2: Can, yeah, I mean I can share how they're thinking
Speaker 2: about it, because I used to work at a company
Speaker 2: that thought about this like YouTube a lot, right, which
Speaker 2: is how do you in line incentives with your users
Speaker 2: in the most efficient and economical way that's value add
Speaker 2: for your business and also value add for their time spent.
Speaker 2: I think right now we've had pretty archaic ways of
Speaker 2: doing this. Advertising monetizing eyeballs, creating so much friction so
Speaker 2: you can convert them to subscription. Then they're paying subscription
Speaker 2: and they question, why do I have to pay this?
Speaker 2: I don't even use this anymore. I have ten different subscriptions.
Speaker 2: So I think advertised like large companies with a swath
Speaker 2: of loyalists but also a broad consumer base. Think I'll
Speaker 2: see this about to happen In terms of fragmentation, the
Speaker 2: ad models isn't going to work. CPMs are going to
Speaker 2: go down. Big brand advertisers are going to less ROI
Speaker 2: because of dilution. Subscription people are overindated with subscription service.
Speaker 2: They literally cannot afford it, and so they say there
Speaker 2: must be a better way. So I think for them,
Speaker 2: they're looking at blockchain and web three incentives as a
Speaker 2: layer to rechange advertising, sure more stickiness with the user,
Speaker 2: and put more money in their pocket by using the
Speaker 2: app micro transactions for subscription services. So imagine if I
Speaker 2: could pay ten cents or a penny every time I
Speaker 2: watch versus have a choice of do I pay twenty
Speaker 2: bucks on Amazon Prime foret?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Right? And so I think this is how they're thinking
Speaker 2: in terms of the smart businesses. And the other thing
Speaker 2: I would say is we still have not yet seen
Speaker 2: the Fortune fifty companies. The C level execs in their
Speaker 2: boardroom say what about crypto alongside AI? And that I
Speaker 2: think will start to happen very quickly, especially as things
Speaker 2: like the Genius Act being passed and the Clarity Act.
Speaker 2: Once those things happen, every Fortune and fifty firm will
Speaker 2: not only say in their boardroom what are we doing
Speaker 2: with AI? They will say what are we doing with crypto?
Speaker 1: And speaking of Fortune and fifty, I don't know black
Speaker 1: Rock fits in this. So they're king of the hill
Speaker 1: in the finance world in many ways. They expanded their
Speaker 1: Biddle money market tokenized money market fund on app toss
Speaker 1: tell us about that what that means for a chain
Speaker 1: like app TOSK.
Speaker 2: So I think one thing with our history obviously based
Speaker 2: on how we originated, but the technical principles that we
Speaker 2: put around the network on security, the emphasis that naturally
Speaker 2: inclines towards institutions right. Institutions want trust, they want to
Speaker 2: know there's a team behind the network that's well funded,
Speaker 2: that in perpetuity can support the needs of a network,
Speaker 2: and they want to make sure there's a high level
Speaker 2: of security. On one hand, you could look us look
Speaker 2: at us as a controversial bet for institutions because we're
Speaker 2: not eth we're not Salana, we're moved, we're a new
Speaker 2: ecosystem entirely. On the other hand, you could look at
Speaker 2: them as saying that's the bar for innovation that needs
Speaker 2: to happen for us to actually invest in networks. Sure,
Speaker 2: So I think with the Biddle Fund, who's been a
Speaker 2: long time partner with us, it's been incredible to work
Speaker 2: with them, and they truly believe in the mission on
Speaker 2: ap toss.
Speaker 1: You, I think addressed this in our interview earlier this year.
Speaker 1: But I want to make sure folks are aware of
Speaker 1: how the building is happening on app toss. Is it
Speaker 1: a layer two is it subnets? Like how can Blackrock
Speaker 1: or somebody else if they want to create a private
Speaker 1: aspect on app tooss, how can they do that?
Speaker 2: So, you know, when we think about RWA's, it's a
Speaker 2: pretty broad term, right. It can include stable coins, it
Speaker 2: could choose credit products, it can include tokenized funds, and
Speaker 2: so I think for us we have coverage across all
Speaker 2: those things. What we are excited to see is the
Speaker 2: real world utilization of those assets. We're already seeing it
Speaker 2: with stable coins, We're already seeing it with private credit
Speaker 2: markets where credit is being extended by protocols, to emerging
Speaker 2: markets for micro loans, or we even just had a
Speaker 2: new company, Creator five come to ap toss who raise
Speaker 2: fifty million in debt financing to help loan creators and
Speaker 2: artists wow stables so that they can create and not
Speaker 2: get locked into bad distribution deals. I need to contact them, Well,
Speaker 2: I'll send, I'll send, I'll send to you them. They're
Speaker 2: backed by the biggest MCNs and everything. Oh, so we're
Speaker 2: seeing like tremendous utilization and opportunity and specific sectors of RWA's,
Speaker 2: and I think there's more to come outside of that
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: What do you think about the tokenization race that's happening
Speaker 1: for stocks, gold, I'm hearing real estate and even like
Speaker 1: you know, somebody's money market, funds and bonds and so forth,
Speaker 1: and what do you see that market by twenty thirty or.
Speaker 2: So, you know, I think I see it as like
Speaker 2: the way I look at it is RWA's minus stables
Speaker 2: are where stables were at three years ago today, And
Speaker 2: so it's still the concept of tokenization in terms of
Speaker 2: should I token this, what's the value of tokenizing this?
Speaker 2: And then what's the roadmap? Right, yeah, what does it
Speaker 2: look like in DeFi across ecosystems? And so I think
Speaker 2: for us, that's how we want to push forward with
Speaker 2: those folks. So by twenty thirty, I look at is
Speaker 2: you know, a user can go collaterize QYZ alone. It's
Speaker 2: something that they're used to and tradify, sure, and go
Speaker 2: use that money, send that money somewhere in an instant
Speaker 2: you know, trade it they have if they're on the
Speaker 2: risk curve. Sure, that's kind of where I see it.
Speaker 2: So I see tokenization as having unlimited upper bound, but
Speaker 2: it will be driven by the real world utilization from
Speaker 2: everyday users.
Speaker 1: Sure. And then we got to figure out if there's
Speaker 1: a market for as certain assets. Right, is there liquidity?
Speaker 1: Even if you tokenize something, is there a market is
Speaker 1: your demand for it?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And there's so many different use cases, right, there's
Speaker 2: there's borrow, lend what assets are good for that? There's trading,
Speaker 2: there's high risk curve trading. You know, there's different types
Speaker 2: of assets that I think work. And I think crypto
Speaker 2: luckily has supercomposability where you quickly learn once in assets
Speaker 2: in market, what has product market fit or signal, unlike
Speaker 2: more traditional standards where there's tons of bureaucratic red tape
Speaker 2: to actually get something live. So I think with this
Speaker 2: administration and their philosophy and crypto and technology, we at
Speaker 2: large we're going to learn very soon. And I'm very
Speaker 2: excited for institutions to come on board.
Speaker 1: Speaking of this administration, a lot of people are chomping
Speaker 1: at the bit to get the Market Structure bill pass.
Speaker 1: We know we have the government shut down now they're
Speaker 1: going to eventually open up. Are you thinking we might
Speaker 1: get it passed by December or Q one of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not a macroeconomist. I'm also not a
Speaker 2: political commentator. But what I would say is this administration
Speaker 2: has shown pretty clearly two things. One they want America
Speaker 2: to be the center of techno optimism, sure, and number two,
Speaker 2: they believe crypto are better financial rails. Yeah, and so
Speaker 2: I think with those two things in consideration, you will
Speaker 2: see high urgency to get those things done. And I
Speaker 2: think it's up to the rest of us to make
Speaker 2: sure we're driving and building products to drive adoption.
Speaker 1: Oh, for sure, we covered quite a few items of
Speaker 1: APTOSK getting adoption. Is there anything else you want to highlight?
Speaker 1: And maybe you can tell us a bit about what's on
Speaker 1: your road map.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we can combine the two. Sure. So
Speaker 2: one thing that has been very exciting to see, albeit
Speaker 2: not having the best results for people currently subscribed to
Speaker 2: those products and services, is we have spent this year
Speaker 2: focused on a few things. Number one, we believe exchanges
Speaker 2: should be fully decentralized and users should be able to
Speaker 2: trust them. We also believe the blockchain to support that
Speaker 2: paradigm needs to be as fast as a centralized exchange.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 2: So, two things have happened. Number One, we've pushed our
Speaker 2: blockchain latency, which is basically the lagant between something deciding
Speaker 2: to happen sure down to sixty five milliseconds. Finance is
Speaker 2: at five milliseconds, So we are basically encroaching towards having
Speaker 2: the same latency as a centralized exchange. Wow. On top
Speaker 2: of that will be built this company called Decibel, which
Speaker 2: is a fully decentralized exchange ultimate transparency. You can perpose trade,
Speaker 2: you can spot trade, you can even do multi asset collateral,
Speaker 2: and so that's really exciting. Now why is that exciting? Well,
Speaker 2: Number one, there's tons of purpose exchanges in market, but
Speaker 2: we think the pie is so much bigger than that,
Speaker 2: especially when you add additional services. Number two, you saw
Speaker 2: Black Friday, our version of Black Friday. What happens when
Speaker 2: you have opaqueness in centralized entities, Users get punished at
Speaker 2: the end of the day. So that is a huge
Speaker 2: validation for us that the market needs trusted and reliable
Speaker 2: exchanges that are fully decentralized. The second piece is infrastructure.
Speaker 2: You know, the greatest bottleneck to web thory adoption. Do
Speaker 2: you know what it is? The on ramp data data.
Speaker 2: Right now, data is a huge bottleneck to fully decentralized,
Speaker 2: billion user scale apps running on chain. You dig deep
Speaker 2: enough eventually every blockchain, every DAP uses a centralized cloud service.
Speaker 2: That's one person with one button that can shut off
Speaker 2: everything that owns your important asset, which is data. So
Speaker 2: we're building Shelby. It's hitting dev net, a co build
Speaker 2: with Jump Crypto that is essentially decentralized AWSGCP Azure, which
Speaker 2: allows for Web three incentives. That is no middleman.
Speaker 1: That is so needed.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean you saw with the recent events
Speaker 2: AWS went down and then what happened right after Azure
Speaker 2: went down. Yeah, so it's huge validation in the technical
Speaker 2: roadmap and we're uniquely set up our firm to deliver
Speaker 2: on that. Avery led production engineering at Meta for Libra DM,
Speaker 2: but before that he was scaling systems for what's up
Speaker 2: in Instagram. Anytime a new feature needed to be launched,
Speaker 2: you know what, they'd call Avery. We got to make
Speaker 2: sure this doesn't break. That's his whole team. So we
Speaker 2: are building in the right direction and the market is
Speaker 2: validating the need for these things.
Speaker 1: That's exciting. We're going to have to do an in
Speaker 1: person interviewer at my studio downtown New York when that
Speaker 1: is ready to go. I like that, and that is
Speaker 1: so needed. What are you looking for most to in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six for the industry and so forth.
Speaker 2: I love the institutional narrative right now. What I believe,
Speaker 2: as I believe is true in any technological sector, when
Speaker 2: institutions get excited, is we need hardcore innovation, the aha
Speaker 2: magic moments that AI has had for the last two years. Sure,
Speaker 2: and we need immense consumer adoption and innovation to compound
Speaker 2: upon this institutional interest. And so for me, I'm very
Speaker 2: excited about seeing apps that may not be so relevant
Speaker 2: as they are today but tomorrow start to focus more
Speaker 2: on how are we bringing commerce on chain, advertising, how
Speaker 2: are we changing subscription, how are we changing media and entertainment,
Speaker 2: And so I believe we'll probably see that trending towards
Speaker 2: twenty twenty seven.
Speaker 1: That is another item that I am really looking forward
Speaker 1: to as well, because to your point, you know, I
Speaker 1: go through my normal Web two experience. Where's blockchain? Where
Speaker 1: where's the integration? I know it's a work in progress,
Speaker 1: but I haven't seen it yet. You know, you're mentioning
Speaker 1: like micro transactions and microfez, where is that? You know?
Speaker 1: So sounds like you guys are ahead of the curve
Speaker 1: working on it.
Speaker 2: It's in our DNA. We've always believed this in the
Speaker 2: timing couldn't be better for us.
Speaker 1: Ash, great stuff, looking forward to our next one. Appreciate
Speaker 1: it and uh yeah man, great stuff happening at aptols.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining me.
Speaker 2: Thanks, great stuff happening at Thinking Crypto. Appreciate you man.
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