Kamino 2.0: Brand new Borrow / Lend market on Solana

Summary

In this insightful conversation, Marius, co-founder of Camino and Hubble, discusses the evolution and challenges of building decentralized stablecoin protocols on the Solana blockchain. He delves into the importance of liquidity in stablecoin scaling, introduces Camino's yield optimization strategies, and reflects on Solana's resilience through tough times. Marius also shares his perspectives on the broader potential of crypto as a foundational technology for various applications, emphasizing the unique advantages of Solana's high throughput and low fees for future innovation.

Takeaways

• 🚀 Marius, the co-founder of Camino and Hubble, discusses the journey and developments of these projects on the Solana blockchain.
• 💡 Hubble is a stablecoin protocol on Solana, designed to address the need for a decentralized stablecoin and the challenges of scaling it with liquidity.
• 🔄 Camino was created to optimize liquidity for different trading pairs and has evolved into a yield vault strategy protocol with various yield optimization strategies.
• 📈 Camino has introduced new strategies including auto expanders for minimizing loss and auto drifters for trend-following in Solana-based liquidity pools.
• 🛠 The Creator Vaults feature allows users to create their own vaults with custom settings, potentially acting as decentralized fund managers.
• 🏞️ Camino Land is an upcoming feature, a fully rewritten borrow land market with automations for leveraging assets and hedging positions.
• 💡 The importance of liquidity for stablecoins is emphasized, as without it, even the best-designed stablecoin is rendered useless.
• 🔑 The challenges of scaling a stablecoin are highlighted, including the need for robust liquidity mechanisms and the difficulty of achieving it.
• 🌐 The discussion touches on the broader implications of centralized stablecoins, such as regulatory scrutiny and counterparty risk, and the need for decentralized alternatives.
• 🤖 The potential of AI and automation in crypto, especially in the context of Solana's low fees and performance, is acknowledged as a promising area for future development.
• 🌟 The Solana community's resilience and the leadership of figures like Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal are credited for maintaining conviction during challenging times.

Q & A

What is Hubble, and what problem does it aim to solve in the Solana ecosystem?

Hubble is a stablecoin protocol on Solana that allows users to mint USD against a basket of tokens including Soul mol, Stak Soul, wrapped Bitcoin, and wrapped ETH. It was created to address the need for a decentralized stablecoin and to tackle the issue of liquidity, which is critical for the utility of a stablecoin.

Can you explain the role of Camino in relation to Hubble?

Camino was launched as a protocol to optimize liquidity for different trading pairs, essentially born out of the need to scale Hubble. It has since evolved to have multiple use cases and is currently a yield vault strategy protocol, allowing users to deposit tokens and optimize yield by depositing them in different dexes.

What are the challenges faced when scaling a stablecoin, according to the discussion?

Scaling a stablecoin involves challenges such as maintaining liquidity. Without liquidity, people cannot swap the stablecoin for other assets, rendering it useless. Additionally, there are technical issues like interest rates, collateralization ratios, and liquidation mechanisms that need to be finely tuned.

What is the significance of liquidity in the context of stablecoins?

Liquidity is crucial for a stablecoin because it allows the stablecoin to be easily swapped for other assets. Without sufficient liquidity, the stablecoin cannot function effectively within the market, limiting its utility and adoption.

What are the new strategies that Camino has introduced to improve its yield optimization?

Camino has introduced fully onchain market-making strategies with onchain rules for rebalancing, an auto expander for minimizing percentage loss, especially for stable coins, and an upcoming feature called auto drifter, which is designed to track the price of a state Sal effectively, optimizing for fees without incurring percentage loss.

What is the purpose of the Creator Vaults feature in Camino?

Creator Vaults allow anyone to create their own vault with custom settings. Users can set it up, and a set of bots will rebalance and manage the strategy, collecting fees. This feature enables users to become degen managers and invite others to deposit into their strategy, allowing them to earn fees from those deposits.

What is the concept of 'Camino Land' that is being introduced?

Camino Land is a fully rewritten borrow land market with a lot of automations on top. It allows people to leverage Loop Soul to go long or short on any asset they choose and use previous strategies as collateral, effectively enabling leveraged farming on concentrated liquidity pools.

How does Camino address the issue of impermanent loss that occurs in liquidity pools?

Camino does not directly solve the issue of impermanent loss, which is an inherent risk in providing liquidity to pools. However, it offers automations and predefined strategies that users can employ based on their market views to manage this risk to some extent.

What is the significance of having a strong community and leadership in the Solana ecosystem?

A strong community and capable leadership are vital for driving the protocol forward, rallying support, and ensuring technical literacy to address issues as they arise. This combination of skills is crucial for the successful scaling and adoption of the Solana blockchain.

How does the interviewee perceive the current state of the Solana ecosystem and its potential for growth?

The interviewee is optimistic about Solana's potential, highlighting its ability to scale, the strength of its community, and the credibility of its leadership. They believe that the ecosystem is correcting past negative narratives and is on a positive trajectory, with an emphasis on building ready-to-use products for consumers.

What are the broader implications of building on a blockchain with high throughput and low fees, as discussed in the interview?

Building on a blockchain with high throughput and low fees allows for rapid iteration and real user feedback, which is crucial for product development. It also opens up a wider design space for new products, as developers face fewer restrictions and can focus more on achieving product-market fit.

Outlines

00:00

🤝 Introduction and Hubble's Genesis

The video begins with an introduction to Marius, the co-founder of Camino and Hubble, and a discussion about the overdue nature of his appearance on the podcast. Marius expresses gratitude for the invitation and shares his journey, from being aware of the Co in 2021 to joining and working on Hubble, a stable coin protocol on Solana. The protocol allows users to mean USD against a basket of tokens, addressing the need for a decentralized stable coin. Marius highlights the challenges faced in scaling a stable coin, particularly the issue of liquidity, and introduces Camino, a protocol designed to optimize liquidity for different trading pairs, which was born out of the need to scale Hubble.

05:00

💡 Camino's Development and Future Strategies

The conversation shifts to Camino's recent developments, with Marius detailing the three pillars of improvement: enhancing strategies, introducing auto expanders for stable coins to minimize loss, and the upcoming auto drifter for trend-following algorithms. He also discusses the Creator Vaults, allowing anyone to create their own vault with customizable settings, and the imminent release of Camino Land, a fully rewritten borrow land market with automations for leveraging Loop Soul to trade assets and optimize strategies as collateral.

10:02

🔄 Camino's Core Product and Market Adaptations

Marius explains the core functionality of Camino, which involves creating vaults deployed on concentrated liquidity pools, and the automation of staying within profitable ranges to maximize fee earnings. He acknowledges that while Camino offers predefined strategies, users must still choose the best vault based on their market views and risk appetite. The discussion also touches on the challenges of scaling stable coins and the irreversible nature of transactions in crypto, setting it apart from traditional finance.

15:05

🌐 Solana's Journey and Marius' Conviction

The discussion moves to Solana's journey, with Marius sharing his initial attraction to Solana due to his desire to write in Rust and the potential he saw in Solana's technology. He talks about the challenges faced during the bear market and the skepticism from VCs and the community, and how Solana's team, especially Toly and Vitalik, played a crucial role in maintaining conviction. Marius reflects on the importance of having a credible team that can rally the community and navigate technical challenges.

20:06

🛑 Solana's Recovery and the Power of Narrative

Marius discusses the recent positive shift in Solana's narrative and the community's vigorous defense on social media platforms. He attributes the change to the community's resilience and the correction of negative perceptions. The conversation highlights the importance of narrative in crypto and how a positive feedback loop can attract developers and funding, creating a conducive environment for growth and innovation.

25:10

🚀 The Broad Potential of Crypto and Solana

The final part of the conversation explores Marius' excitement about the broader potential of crypto beyond trading, envisioning it as a technology layer that can unify assets on a single ledger. He expresses enthusiasm for the possibilities of tokenization, DeFi, and the integration of AI with crypto, emphasizing the importance of low fees and the digital-native nature of crypto for such applications.

30:11

🔚 Conclusions and Future Outlook

The video concludes with a reflection on the importance of product-market fit and the potential for Solana to serve as an interface for AI actions. Marius and the host express optimism for the future of crypto and Solana, discussing the possibility of increased velocity of TVL and the unique opportunities presented by the technology. Marius shares his Twitter handle for further engagement and looks forward to checking in on progress in the coming year.

Keywords

💡Hubble

Hubble is a stablecoin protocol built on the Solana blockchain. It is designed to maintain a peg to the US dollar by utilizing a basket of tokens such as Soul mol, Stak Soul, wrapped Bitcoin, and wrapped Ethereum as collateral. The protocol aims to address the issue of liquidity, which is critical for a stablecoin's utility and functionality. In the video, Marius discusses the challenges faced in scaling a stablecoin and the importance of liquidity in its success.

💡Camino

Camino is another protocol developed to optimize liquidity for different trading pairs, which was born out of the need to scale Hubble. It evolved into a yield vault strategy protocol that allows users to deposit tokens and earn yield by optimizing their deposits across various decentralized exchanges (dexes). Camino is highlighted in the script as a solution to improve liquidity and create multiple use cases beyond just supporting Hubble.

💡Liquidity

Liquidity in the context of the video refers to the ability to easily convert an asset into another without affecting its price. For stablecoins, liquidity is crucial because without it, users cannot swap the stablecoin for other assets, rendering it less useful. Marius emphasizes the challenge of achieving liquidity for Hubble and how Camino was created to address this issue.

💡Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

DeFi, or decentralized finance, is an umbrella term for financial services that operate on blockchain technology without centralized control. In the video, both Hubble and Camino are discussed as part of the DeFi ecosystem on Solana, offering innovative ways to handle stablecoins and yield generation in a decentralized manner.

💡Stablecoin

A stablecoin is a type of cryptocurrency designed to minimize price volatility by pegging its value to a stable asset, often the US dollar. In the video, the creation and scaling of a stablecoin like Hubble are discussed, highlighting the importance of mechanisms such as interest rates, collateralization ratios, and liquidation to maintain its stability.

💡Yield Vault

A yield vault in the context of DeFi is a smart contract that automates the process of yield farming, allowing users to deposit funds to earn interest or other tokens. Camino operates as a yield vault strategy protocol, offering different vaults for stablecoin, Sol-only, or volatile tokens with various customizations.

💡Impermanent Loss

Impermanent loss is a term used in DeFi to describe the potential loss incurred when providing liquidity to a liquidity pool, especially when the price of the pooled assets changes. In the video, Marius mentions that Camino does not solve impermanent loss, which is an inherent risk in providing liquidity to DeFi protocols.

💡Solana

Solana is a high-performance blockchain platform known for its fast transaction processing and low fees. It is the underlying technology on which both Hubble and Camino are built. The video discusses the challenges and advantages of building on Solana, including its ability to handle complex DeFi applications.

💡Tokenization

Tokenization in the video refers to the process of representing assets on a blockchain, which can include financial instruments, real estate, or even art. Marius discusses the potential of crypto to unify all kinds of assets on a single ledger, allowing for a wide range of applications and interactions.

💡Decentralized Application (dApp)

A dApp is an application that runs on a blockchain rather than a centralized server. In the video, the development of dApps on Solana is highlighted, with a focus on creating user-friendly products that can leverage the platform's scalability and low fees to provide a better user experience.

💡Crypto Advocacy

Crypto advocacy in the video refers to the active promotion and defense of cryptocurrency projects, particularly in online discussions and social media. Marius talks about the importance of advocacy in shaping narratives and correcting misconceptions about Solana and its capabilities.

💡AI Integration

The potential integration of artificial intelligence with blockchain technology is mentioned towards the end of the video. Marius expresses optimism about the possibility of using crypto platforms like Solana as an interface for AI applications, benefiting from the digital-native nature of blockchain and low transaction fees.

Highlights

Introduction of Marius, co-founder of Camino and Hubble, and his journey to joining the Solana ecosystem.

Hubble is a stable coin protocol on Solana, designed to address issues with scaling a decentralized stable coin.

The importance of liquidity for a stable coin's utility and the challenges faced in achieving it.

Camino, a protocol launched to optimize liquidity for different trading pairs, was born out of the need to scale Hubble.

Camino's evolution into a yield vault strategy protocol with various yield optimization features.

Discussion on the announcement of a leveraged stable coin by Jupiter and the potential risks and innovations in stable coin design.

The significance of having credible leaders in the blockchain space and the role of Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal in Solana's growth.

Marius's perspective on the challenges of scaling a stable coin through liquidity and the lessons learned from Hubble's journey.

Innovations in Camino's strategies, including fully on-chain market making and auto-expander features for yield optimization.

The introduction of Creator Vaults in Camino, allowing users to create their own vaults with customizable settings.

Upcoming features in Camino Land, a reimagined borrow land market with automation for leveraged positions and strategies.

The value proposition of Camino in automating yield farming strategies and managing impermanent loss.

Reflections on Solana's journey through difficult periods and the community's resilience in the face of challenges.

Marius's personal experience with Solana's development and the decision-making process during Solana's dark periods.

The role of community and leadership in the success of a blockchain protocol, with a focus on Solana's recovery and growth.

Marius's outlook on the future of crypto and the potential for Solana to serve as an interface for AI applications.

The importance of velocity in TVL and user activity as indicators of a healthy blockchain ecosystem.

Closing thoughts on the potential of crypto to unify assets on a single ledger and the opportunities it presents for various industries.

Transcripts

[Music]

all right so I'm here today with Marius

the co-founder of Camino and Hubble this

is well overdue welcome

Marius thank you thanks for having me

yeah it's a pleasure to have you on I

can't believe uh it's taking this long

but we're here now um and let's just

tell the the listeners like firstly what

is Hubble what is Kino and then we'll

get stuck into like what you guys have

been shipping

lately uh yeah yeah um by the way yeah

thanks for inviting me we were just

speaking early that I I was aware of the

Co in in 2021 and when I joined when I

did um the first on a breakpoint and

that's when we were we started working

on Hubble um and I was thinking

hopefully one day I can get to this

podcast but and like now it is I made it

but um yeah the Hubble is basically a

stable coin protocol in in Solana uh you

can mean USD against um a basket of

tokens Soul mol uh Stak Soul um wrapped

Bitcoin wrapped eth and U yeah you can

just use it across Defi and um it it

kind of started in in 2021 as as an idea

um we thought some needs a decentralized

stable coin and as we launched in

2022

we we saw all sorts of issues with

trying to scale a stable coin and one of

the issues was um liquidity you know if

you have a stable coin that you can me

and you have the nice mechanics of

interest rates and uh you know

collateralization ratios Etc um

liquidation mechanisms Etc it's it's all

really nice and good but if you don't

have liquidity if people can't swap that

stable coin for something else then it's

basically useless uh a a stable coin the

hardest thing about the stable coin is

the liquidity um and there are all sorts

of issues with it um and we found the

way to solve that by launching another

protocol called Camino which aims to

optimize liquidity for different trading

Pairs and um essentially Camino was born

out of a need to scale Hubble and then

it just took a life of its own and has

multiple other use cases um so just to

to double down on Camino know is uh at

the moment is a yield VA strategy uh

strategy protocol so you can deposit

tokens and it optimizes yield by

depositing them in different in

different

dexes um you can have stable only yield

vaults you can have Sol only yield

vaults and you can have volatile volts

with all sorts of

customizations um and more things are

coming soon but that's that's later but

at the end of the day it's kamino is

like the yield Vault page um one of the

main y Vault pages in

got you I'd like to just quickly um D

diverge us a little bit uh I'm just

curious we're we're chatting right after

breakpoint and there was a lot of a lot

of news out of breakpoint it was really

an incredible event um and I'm just

curious to get your take on I think that

Jupiter announced a like leveraged

stable coin a stable coin which is

collateralized by like Leverage Soul or

something around that do you have any

like just a quick take on that and what

your thoughts are then I wish them the

best of luck it's uh um that it's

basically what I said before I think we

need stable coins we definitely need

decentralized stable coins um I just saw

recently that circle is is thinking to

do IPO in 2024 which is going to bring

even more regulatory scrutiny so

basically every single person that uses

usdc or has usdc or takes us collat in

the protocol every single one of them

has basically the US government as a

counterparty uh and they have

counterparty risk with the US government

so I definitely think we need good

stable coins and if you can if you can

stable coins essentially are um a

synthetic asset that that try to mirror

the price of USD right so they can the

easiest way to do it them is to back

them by Fiat because they have perfect

redemption in Arbitrage so you don't

have price

fluctuations uh but then that creates

like a risk with the who whoever

whichever Bank holds that is your

counterparty

um and you can do it in a decentralized

way and a ton of mechanisms have been

tried and because you have to do

something very complicated you have to

do quite a lot of trade-offs and what

Jupiter is proposing is as far as I

understand um they haven't released a

lot of documentation about it but

basically a stable coin which you can

meant against um some s a soul position

and that s position can be just so or it

can be some kind of like looped Soul

versus a Stak Soul

um so that's fine I mean it's it doesn't

really matter what you back it by uh as

long as you can have some liquidation

mechanisms and you can ensure like

whenever things go bad you can liquidate

it the the hard thing about any stable

coin is scaling it and scaling it

through liquidity and uh I'm really

curious to see how they going to do that

of course they're like the front page of

Solana right that's what who Jupiter is

um and that's good for customer

acquisition for retail acquisition for

all sorts of things

but scaling a stable coin or like

growing some liquidity pool is quite uh

challenging and um we tried to do this

for about two years we learn a lot from

from the process I hope I want to see

how they approach it yeah for sure but

it's I don't wish this on my I don't

wish this on it's not an e basically

yeah well not quite but even Dy had a

very very very hard time do it and there

was like an extremely P dependent

Journey that they took to manage to grow

Dy and um people look at D and they say

oh it's just easy I'm just gonna do a

stable coin back CDP because it works

but that's not why D works it's not

because it's a CDP it works for

completely other reasons yeah got you I

mean I think stable coin episode you

know it's a whole multi hour discussion

in itself and and I think one one like

minor point to drive home for people who

were maybe a bit less familiar with how

stable coins work and and what you sort

of alluded to is that like if it is um

say Circle for example where they have

like collateral say in a bank somewhere

then um you have a greater risk not a

risk but like there's always the

possibility that your assets can be

frozen on chain whereas like a a truly

decentralized stable coin where the

assets are all on chain um you

potentially and often you know you won't

have that risk um which is is is why you

might here like more di hard crypto

people say that they prefer like

a I guess die but a die was then calized

by a lot of usdc at some point I'm not

sure what the latest um data is there

but but so that that's why you might

hear like old Bitcoin people or or old

ethereum people be like no I prefer like

you know a bit riskier onchain staes um

okay so that that stable coin uh

Alleyway um out of the way let's trat a

bit more about Camino because I know

that's what you guys have been focusing

on a bit more lately in terms of like

the development um shipping so what have

you guys shipped uh

recently this year we have released um

kind of let's call it like in three

pillars we've improved the the types of

strategies we offer um so we have

basically fully onchain uh Market making

strategies um that have onchain rules

based on which they they

rebalance um uh we have something very

interesting it's going to come so you

can basically people do it themselves

but there's something called like the

auto expander which can um rebalance and

minimize perent loss it's really

interesting works very very well for

stable coins uh and also something that

we're about to release called autod

Drifter which tracks very well the price

of a of a of of a state Sal so when you

have a Sol State Sal pair solo Sol pair

solm Sol you have like really nice like

Trend following algorithm that optimizes

for fees but doesn't Inc perment loss so

like we spend a lot of I'm improving

this and we think these two strategies

are going to be like core backbone of

future products of Camino um we worked

on another product which we released

about three months ago called The

Creator vaults so now anyone can go to

Camino and create their own Vault choose

their own settings and then you just set

it and there's like a set of bots that

basically rebalance and take care of of

that strategy running and it just

collects fees It rebalances Whatever

settings you choose and at the same time

if you want to if you're like a fund or

hedge fund or like a you have you're an

influencer and you have ideas you can

invite others to deposit into your

strategy and you can basically collect

some fees from that so people can invest

into you can kind of become like a like

a nonchain manager um so there's a

self-surface process there and but the

last and the biggest thing that we are

about to release is Camino land which is

um a fully Rewritten borrow land market

with a lot of automations on top that

would allow people to leverage Loop Soul

which is something we discussed earlier

leverage Loop s to GTO Sol or to mol we

allow people to go long short by opening

um a collateral or borrow position

against whatever asset they choose and

it will allow people to take all of

these previous strategies we discussed

as collateral so let's say you have like

so GTO s and makes 10% a year you'll

take that as collateral and you can

borrow against it and mint more of it so

essentially like the old style leveraged

farming but on concentrated liquidity

pool not on like you know all style amm

pools um and yeah that's basically the

thing we about releases like in a week

or two yeah got you I just want to make

sure we're bringing everyone along from

the for the for the ride um because I

know there's some newer people in the

ecosystem and sometimes I get messages

being like you know is there like an

introduction to something and so um so

the the core Camino product and correct

me if I'm wrong here is like you you

create vaults

um and then the vaults are deployed say

on like Ora on the clmm pools um and the

value like the big value ad there is

that when you normally deploy to a a

concentrated liquidity pool um you set

the range and you have to manually reset

the range otherwise when it goes out of

range you essentially don't earn any

fees so you know your your your level of

profitability is like the amount of your

expertise and your execution in ensuring

that you stay in the in range to earn

fees and if I and if I understand

correctly like what communo does is it

it automates staying in range as well as

possible to ensure that you earn maximum

fees and I'm guessing that those

products you mentioned a bit earlier um

they're like sort of optimizations to

ensure that your yield is as high as

possible when you're when you're in the

vault is that about

right uh yeah um you know the thing is

there's no free lunch really like you

can't really optimize for Max yield

because you know you don't know in which

direction the market moves so

um you can maximize for Max yield to do

as much liquidity on the current price

range as possible but if the market

moves against you when you hold some

inventory then you incur a loss on that

and then if you rebalance essentially

you're you're buying you're buying

higher or you're like selling selling

cheap you know so um Camino doesn't

really

uh solve that that's something that

nobody can really solve you know you

have to do hedging Etc what Cino does is

just creates automations for people to

decide how to use how to how to create

their own strategies based on what

Market views they have and we have some

a set a set of predefined strategies

that are optimized for specific things

uh but at the end of the day the people

have to still choose what vault is best

for them you know there's like low risk

vaults that are basically stable coin

exposure only there is so only vaults

that are set un forget Soul yield vaults

only but there are strategies that can

earn much more fees they have like a

good Revenue stream let's say you have

like Sol usdc the most traded pair in

salana and um that one can print really

good fees but Solana is a volatile asset

so if they catch you on the wrong side

you can incur a loss and that's called

inferent loss uh Cino can't solve that

you know nobody not even any Market

maker can solve that that's just love of

the market you know was it bankor or one

of the ethereum they tried to solve that

and I think in the end it didn't work

very well not at all yeah if you don't

if you don't know what impermanent loss

is we won't cover it here but you should

look it up and you should understand it

before you deploy into a

pool yeah and basically these vaults

they're like automated strategies you

can they have different risk profiles

they work for different um um markets

and different appetites but because we

have new now we're launching Hino land

which is basically a generic borrow L

Market you can um either increase your

exposure to these vaults um if you want

to optimize that yield or more

fees um and you can also hedge them so

for for example uh you have some usdc

soul Vault and basically have soul

exposure right if Soul goes down they

catch you on the wrong side because your

half of it is usually in s andan you

incur price um uh price risk on on the

on the Sol on the soul asset and then

but you can short it you can basically

borrow soul to deposit to your LP so on

on your overall position you have short

Soul exposure and you have long Soul

exposure so then you can achieve some

sort of hedging um for for your position

so in that case kind of you can try to

neutralize the market uh risk while

still collecting fees um it required

some automation there um also you can

also do it manually but basically now

these two Primitives which have like

long short you know long any asset short

any asset uh LP and make fees from

volume now when you combine them you can

have all sorts of combinations that can

uh give basically like very def savy

people something good um but also it

opens up the possibility for automating

it out of the box so give people like

straight out of the box like delta

neutral

positions so am I also able to say

deploy into Camino and then lend out the

pool tokens for example EX in the in the

Borland no uh those it's there's no real

motivation for it we don't know if

there's any I don't know who would want

to borrow it from me that's basically

yeah you can let it what about um what

about uh like are you able to say mint

usdh against the pool

tokens yeah you'll be able to yeah yeah

okay so you'll be earning you'll be

earning the yield on the two pool tokens

as well as then on the USD if you are

lending that in in the

Borland but you're borrowing USD so

you're not lending it ah yeah I see see

so you're paying interest rate when you

borrow ah okay okay interesting um yeah

there'll be lots of there'll be lots of

fun to play around with the borrow level

once it goes live I'm sure um okay and

and just before we move on because I'm

curious to get your take on like salana

more generally and and how you've held

conviction in Solano through the dark

periods before we go there I'm just

curious as we cap off like Cino um who

who do you see as like the the main user

of communo are they more advanced sort

of professionals or is it also

retail yeah you know we um thought a lot

about this I definitely do think that

for def Savi users this is the perfect

product um if you're someone that you

have to really understand all of these

risks and you have to to be able to

consciously you know go there knowing

what to expect um which is kind of

something similar to to like Finance you

know like not all of my friends just

thinking like in real world like not of

not all of my friends just buy stocks

and ETFs or like two we NASDAQ leverage

dtfs like very few of my friends really

do that and the people that do that they

know what they do they've worked in

finance before they specifically search

for this sort of thing um that's a

perfect user for for Camino um but there

are also like very like low risk you

know crypto adjusted right risk uh um

products that someone that could be we

want to double in could also take

advantage so you able to do stable only

vaults that's fine um so Lon Vols that's

going to be okay and also just lending

out if you have there's going to be

people borrowing on this market and

creating demand and creating interest

rate for lenders so if you want to just

purely lend uh that's also going to be a

lowrisk investment for people that are

less like crazy Advanced defa users got

you I like how you said crypto

adjusted crypto

adjusted yeah

it's at the end of the day crypto is

definitely um you know there's some risk

and I think the bank list gu say we're

on the frontier so you have to take that

into

mind yeah like uh I mean it's the same

kind of the problem with crypto and the

the risk in crypto is that everything is

irreversible right so uh um in tdfi if

there's some issue like I think we saw

like a few years ago when like the

London uh Stock Exchange or like Metal

Exchange they had like some crazy price

fluctuation someone like had like

extremely bad debt someone had like was

making a lot of money they just reversed

the transactions you know they were like

whatever we're not going to count this

shut off the market for two days people

complained okay go talk to uh our

lawyers and that was it you know but in

crypto if anything goes bad it's

irreversible you you can't undo the

transaction

and the guy just leaves immediately goes

Bridges to ethereum goes to tornado cash

and you know you never hear from him

again you know so it's just completely

different Wild West situation what's

going on in crypto when it comes to R un

and this is my segue unless he is

running an exchange that starts with f

and ends with X and then he goes to jail

for a very long time um so let's talk

about uh salana through the dark bare

period um and I'd love to hear like

maybe what initially sold you on

building on salana and then like

what how you maintained your conviction

through the last two

years um I mean there was no like strike

of inspiration when I joined Sana uh I

just wanted to write trust to be honest

I come from a C++ background and I just

had it with C++ I I just could not take

anyone C++ and I just wanted to write

some Rust and I saw the S hakon and 2021

there was like a season hackaton and I

started writing some Ras and I just

loved it and and then like thoughts came

to my mind what how is this what does it

mean what's the implication is it

interesting of course there was a raging

bull market and that that definitely

helped you know and um and I at that

time I was talking to some guy on

Discord who was in trfi for a very long

time and he was sharing like his

thoughts about Sana that it's really

good for hyper inquest trting it has

order book books everything that you see

in eth uh slow the slowness the problems

the fees make things prohibitively uh

expensive or actually technically

impossible and uh he just sold me on SOL

but I was I didn't have any maximalism

because I didn't have like any

preconceive Notions about the chains

so um there were like a few boxes that

got checked in in my mind and I was like

okay this is very cool I'm just going to

explore it and

um and then you just like uh with my

co-founder decided to to build it and um

we launched and then about I think in

may like hell started unleashing we had

like uh well even before that s had like

outages and you just had like

liquidations so uh the the the chain

went down you had um the mango ha Happ

at some point Luna yeah mango haw soana

moranga ha s went down then the

FTX and then s went down again and

that's kind of like last Black Swan and

it was just pure pain um yeah because

let's say people were dunking on you and

when they dun on you you know it's like

um it's a bad market so you can't really

prove them wrong you know and then

um

um the the the users were leaving and it

was really unclear to know if the users

were living because Sol was bad or the

users were living because it was just a

bare market and there was nothing

interesting to do on chain so it was a

period when basically every single VC

and it was like also the L2 narrative

right so it was a period when every

single VC was asking have you considered

going to arbitrum have you considered

being on building on an L2 why are you

still staying on s Everyone is leing

Sana there people who are like just not

finding Sana and uh Cosmos there was

like uh

Sana uh L2 on Cosmos you know so there

were like

Alternatives uh there was Su Aptos there

was just all sorts of things that

basically looked way better than salana

on from a public perception point of

view and nar's point of view and um we

just every after every single call we

had with the VCS with other chains

trying to you know convince us we just

basically sat down and we thought um we

just took it from from Basics you know

we

said um there's no there's just no chain

that can do what has done

um if you want to have like a proper

chain you need something like sonan like

parallel State machine um good

synchronization between

nodes um that can Scale based on

internet speed and and Hardware I think

that's just basic I mean I I go by those

assumptions and then if anyone is going

to try to do what did similar they will

have to run the same issues they will

have their own Growing Pains of like go

running into all sorts of like

unexpected edge cases when the network

is scale so I was like there's no point

to start something earlier just because

it's similar but has not had a prise

because they would run into their own

issues and actually that happened like I

think upos or sui actually had their own

outages because they were starting to

scale

so right yeah but at at that point

nobody really knew you know so you were

kind of counting on your first principes

thinking and the last point was

um who are the who are the teams that

would push the protocol forward or from

these other Alternatives and um there's

just simply nobody credible U apart from

toly and vitalic I just don't seem to

see any single leader that can rally a

community and also be

technically um extremely um literate or

like expert to be able to push it when

stuff happens so you know when son had

the scaling issues in 20 2021 with the

spam with the nft spam they came up with

quick on the spot you know they were

there was like no fluffing around you

know they and they implemented it

immediately so you really need someone

that is has a combination of skills and

there's just extremely few people that

do that and are like um you know chain

leaders and uh we just thought like okay

we spoke with this guy but um he's not

toally like we can't they will not be

able to bring a community together and

you also need a community because you

need Builders you can't have just like a

nice chain with VC money uh but no

builders that are because the builders

have to be inspired you know and you

also need someone to to R that's just

crypto and um these was these are all

the things that were going through our

minds and every single time we were like

just on the edge like just completely

unsure because s was just it was a tough

time for being in s we were like I don't

know we just have to wait it out let's

just give it six more months let's give

it one more year and then we'll make the

decision again and

in the past few months we started seeing

that um that just fud narrative correct

and uh feel good again uh so that it was

really

difficult yeah it it felt I think the

early months of this year if you were

deep in the salana community it it was a

strange um cognitive dissonance I think

maybe of the term like it was a strange

feeling because everything you would

read on Twitter from outside of that

core community was so out of date and so

incorrect it it felt like you were way

ahead of the curve and you had Alpha but

it was like such it was publicly

available and you know anyone who did a

bit of checking and would just use the

chain could see that the product was

working really well um and that the

community was very strong and it feels

like in the last month or two it's

starting to kind of drop and maybe that

information asymmetry is starting to

close but you know we we'll we'll go

into that shortly because it's been

pretty vigorous on Twitter lately um but

that's really good to hear uh that that

that conviction is sort of you feel it's

paid off and I I completely agree and I

think one thing that's is really not um

not talked about enough

is like everyone talks about how good

toly is as a like a technical leader and

and how important you know his te his

technical chops have been to like the

DNA of salana being around you know

being as fast as possible you know what

does he say like Global State at the

speed of light but I think that one

thing which is perhaps a little bit

underrated is also his like personality

and his ability to be like a bit above

the argument like even when I talk to

people on the east side they always say

like even if they don't like some of the

the popular like M or popular people in

Sal they say like I totally respect toly

though like that and that's something

that people always say and I think it's

the same with um vitalic as well you

won't find many anyone in salana

community who says vitalic is's like you

know anything negative about vitalic

especially after he wrote he wrote that

very generous tweet at a very like you

know difficult time in the Sal history

so I think yeah just want to double down

on the fact that I think like also

toally as a as a leader is very unique

um and that kind of help it sounds like

a cult cult thing to say but I think

that that really does help yeah it's a

bit man I mean it's crypto you know so

the thing is that everyone is like

everyone has an onine like a Twitter

Persona um there's a it's like a Town

Square you know you're not

like there's a lot going on so these are

the effects that we see like cult-like

mentality her

mentality um and humans are suble to

that full stop right I mean that's

that's religion that's people get

religious about like Apple versus

Android and all every anything which is

like a large few brands people tend to

Rally around so it's not super

surprising but and and that kind of also

seg Segways us nicely into the next

topic which is you know we have kind of

come through a dark period and now I

think people in the Sal community feel

pretty confident and they've been sort

of pushing back very vigorously in the

in the Twitter space um and we're seeing

a lot of like vigorous debate should we

say between you know eth eth Maxis quote

unquote and salana Maxis maybe as well

um what's your take on on this like

current moment on the timeline How would

how would you read

it um I think it's so um Yeah so

basically you know like back in last

year so didn't have like a a good

Advocate or like good vocal Advocates uh

people would just dun on you and there

would be like no rebattle you know and

it would be like um you'll lose easily

and that that that affects you you you

mentally because you're if you build a

protocol or if you work in Sana your

exist existence or like a lot of your

life depends on that you know so there

was a lot of um pay pain and like um

violence against son community and um we

had people like M that actually started

speaking out and

um it it um encouraged others to do so

and then that created a Snowball Effect

and um it's kind of what's happening

right now the the big clash between S

and E people is that um to some extent

is is correcting bad narrative that

people intentionally do it on Twitter

like you know I I saw this like um uh

you know Twitter is like if you if you

try to analyze startups from like the

seven s point of view like Tinder being

lost for example then Twitter is rough

you know like people go on Twitter to

just rant you know so it's just the N

nature of the space to do that and

people just go to Twitter to to to to

talk uh to dump their their thoughts and

um but a lot a lot of it is kind of

trying to do some Revenge because we've

been dunked on so unfairly you know for

the past year that it's it's you have to

like redeem yourself a little bit by

claiming your wins you know and um and

the price speaks you know and you have

like this like such an easy um narrative

right now that you can just easily dump

on the on the people that are on the

wrong side of it and um yeah it's kind

of a bit of redemption a bit of like

trying to convince people but at the end

of the day it's something that

it's I think it's like extremely

reflexive um like you have

to believe it or like make it happen um

through um convincing people

so the more you speak and the the more

you talk to people the more people you

can convince the more devs join the

community the more VCS believe in it the

more VC funding funds devs and it's a

positive feedback loop and that feedback

loop you have to Kickstart it you know

otherwise it's just downward spiral

which is what what happen happened the

year before so now we just turn it

around and goes the other direction so

you have to keep the momentum and it's

important for for Solana to have this

great Community because it creates all

of the positive effects uh so to one

extent he like okay let me just go and

run but to another extent he just makes

complete business sense to do it to to

bring people to build on Sana so that's

kind of what's Happening yeah and

there's like you know just like guilty

pleasures of dunking on you know like

bad takes yeah yeah I think I mean we

all know this if you've been in crypto

for a while you know that narratives are

super important um and so you know if a

certain narrative is continually being

perpetuated which is in which is

inaccurate it you can say just build but

it's very difficult to build long term

if there's really negative narratives

constantly around around what the chain

that you're building on um so you know

we've had like a good a good few weeks

and obviously if you're in salano it's

been a very good few weeks I think um

we've had a good few weeks in crypto

like bitcoin's been doing quite well uh

I'm curious to get your take like as we

are potentially I don't want to call it

yet but as we are potentially coming out

of the bare Market um like which parts

of crypto are you still excited by and

like maybe you can even think about this

question like if you weren't working in

Hubble and Cino like where would you

then Focus

otherwise

um I think I I think crypto um people

don't really see see of it as more like

just a technology that is just a wrapper

on top of the entire world so crypto is

not just like shitcoin trading it can be

everything it's just another technology

layer on which you can put a lot of

things um so it can apply to everything

right so I think generally crypto is

just a huge design space right imagine

you just have the internet and you can

do things you can be can do it for

gaming or you can do it for like you

know build Uber so I think crypto is the

same um

I think and I think it's the same way

how we we finally were able with the

internet to bring all the data in one

place um with crypto we can bring all

the Assets in one place right because

crypto is just one giant Ledger where

all the all the assets are recorded

right so um you you'll be able to have

all kinds of assets tokenized on a

unified Ledger um and they can mean

different things if it's like some

Financial thing you'll be able to do

like dii on it uh if it's some like art

thing you'll be able to do nfts uh or

you can just do real estate I think it's

huge wide design space and I think

people are working on all verticals to

improve that from tokenization and legal

point of view to one onboarding to like

wallets um and and defi stuff and I have

no idea what other use cases there are

but I think more and more will be will

be will be created because it's just

like one giant unified

computer um

yeah

so I'm just excited about the whole

thing like I just think there this's

like a whole economy is created on a

unified Ledger like you're finally able

to break down this fragmentation and

just unify the entire or like a the

entire world on a single database or

like a single Ledger that there's

nobody's nobody controls and you can

just deploy code and do something with

it um so I like all of it of course uh I

really like I Finance I think it's just

some passion I used to work in finance

for quite a few years and um I like the

math of it and like the it's for me it's

interesting I think it's like a useful

um support system for the world economy

you need Finance because otherwise you

go back to

barter uh but a lot of things are are

cool I just don't want to work on that

so I still I want to work on defi really

like that yeah got you I mean shout out

to for example the the sling wallet team

I mean some of the consumer facing apps

at breakpoint we've seen nothing like

that I think on other chains it really

just it's good to finally see the only

possible on salana starting to become

more and more true and I hope that

continues over the next six months and

year

um look Mar this has been such a

pleasure to have you one last thing

sorry yeah yeah about this thing this I

just realized this the other day uh when

I when I saw like this like the latest U

One latest podcast from

um Austin validated one um I think um

and I just realized like nobody this

just not one single person in Sana

working on scaling nobody is building

scaling Solutions nobody's like

stressing out about oh I can only do 5

TPS let me just optimize that you know

um and taking that as an excuse to do

one year of engineering uh resources on

like some scale in thing or on on L2 or

something nobody's complaining about

that I mean there like issues on the

edges but everyone is doing grinding

towards product Market fit like

everyone's trying to put out ready to

use products for consumers or for

whatever whatever consumer whatever uh

target market they have and I think

that's huge because you can finally do

iteration and real feedback and on

boarding you have a positive feedback

loop you know you don't have like a you

you deploy something and then you run

into uh fees or scaling problems and

because of that you have to like spend

another year and the customer you lost

him you know um it's it's also just like

from a product manager perspective like

your design space for new products is is

more open you don't you you have less

restrictions in terms of what you can

ship um completely agree and I think

that's actually a really good point I

mean I was at ECC recently or not

recently a while back and you were as

well and I I think you'll probably agree

that like it was actually surprising how

many projects were in some way related

to infrastructure or scaling or Etc um

and not focused on end users um and so

yeah we we'll definitely have to see how

that how that sort of plays out in the

next two years you know do salana teams

are they able to just iterate much

faster towards getting you know product

Market fit um and we'll see I mean I've

seen people even yeah um I've seen some

e people highlighing this problem as a

potential you know potential problem

that there's too much like um there's

too many sort of development questions

that are not related to actually

shipping the product um and and the more

app chains and different l2s there are

the more that that may becomes more

complex but we'll have to see how it

play plays out over the next uh year or

two it definitely seems like a plausible

um I mean it's already an issue we'll

see how how they take how they sort of

but imagine right you're not you're not

well now like the f is behind and

hopefully everything is good and look

like we're losing that and I think just

there's a lag behind you know like user

people perception and the actual

technical blah blah but I think you'll

no no longer have drop off because of

the chain of of or because of fees you

just no longer have that drop off so

that means you have way more data points

and feedback from real users about uh

how to iterate on your product and I

think that's huge I don't think and like

for example you look at like if uh

um um protocols and they you think that

oh they have five billion in them that

means they have Chief product Market

field but actually there's like just a

few whales that got R from like e um you

know uh mooning uh how do you have how

and it's a product market for like those

very few like retive group of people but

s can completely onboard everyone and uh

you you can it's just a whole new design

space so let's just see what what people

come up with and here it's worth

mentioning um I think it was Ben spango

who highlighted like a different way of

looking at the chain in terms of usage

like rather than considering pure tvl

total value locked which is like the

amount of um capital or the amount of

value which is locked inside protocols

to think about like the velocity of that

of that tvl and like how much how often

it's essentially kind of changing hands

and moving around and like at the end of

the day would you rather have a chain

with a lot of tvl but not much actual

activity or a chain with less tvl but a

high amount of activity because it's

very useful for the people who are who

are you know using that chain um so

that's definitely another one to keep an

eye on and now you've just reminded me

um I was going to do the outro but now

you've just reminded me that um I'm also

very very bullish on the possibility of

crypto in general and salana even more

so to be to become like

a an interface for AI to then perform

actions and and in that in that

situation I think you really value like

low fees I mean already people who would

be making like trading Bots for example

I'm sure that they value like low fees

because it that's that's more money in

their pocket essentially um and if you

think about like if you're running

multiple different sort of AI for

certain use cases that are automated

then I'm sure again that like if you're

looking at the profit profitability at

the end of the month the fees will will

be a big factor and crypto lends itself

nicely to AI because it is digital

native you don't have to worry about

like kyc and different you know credit

card charge backs Etc but we'll see like

the very early days there we'll see um

how that how that plays out as

well yeah um I can see how you can

deploy different models on chain but

they're still really heavy so I'm not

fully sure for I know that filecoin has

made a lot of progress

here

um they basically like filecoin is like

this they were like just storage right

and then they launched an L1 so now they

have Smart contact s and there's those

sort of things they're trying to do with

respect to data so I think they're lend

nice to AI itself as well I'm not a huge

AI expert myself I'm a big user but I

don't no me neither me neither we're

just we're we're just doubling at BAC in

that one so Marius it's been a real

pleasure if folks want to follow on

Twitter uh you said it before the show

started you've been doing some

posting lately so um if folks want to

see those posts where can they find

you um there's a Twitter called Y2K a

PPA Y2 Kaa um and uh what you see there

is take it to a grain of salt with a gra

of salt yeah and otherwise I'm sure you

can you can find Kimo and Hubble also on

X or Twitter however you prefer to call

it again Marius it's been a real

pleasure I'm really glad we finally got

to have this conversation um and we can

check back in next year and see how

things are coming

along yeah thank you I'm actually really

happy this finally happened see you next

year

she