Space Summary
The Twitter Space Sharpen Your Web3 Tools Expand Your DEFI Knowledge hosted by _WEB3M_. In the 'Sharpen Your Web3 Tools ? Expand Your DEFI Knowledge' Twitter space, participants delved into the transformative realm of Web3 tools and DeFi advancements. The discussions revolved around the significance of blockchain technology, community collaboration, risk management, and continuous learning in the context of decentralized finance. By exploring innovative Web3 solutions, interoperability challenges, and the future landscape of decentralized finance, attendees gained valuable insights to navigate and thrive in the evolving digital ecosystem of DeFi. The space encapsulated a wealth of knowledge on DeFi opportunities, community engagement, and regulatory considerations, emphasizing the importance of staying informed and proactive in the Web3 space.
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Questions
Q: Why is understanding blockchain technology important for utilizing Web3 tools?
A: Blockchain underpins Web3 innovations, providing security, transparency, and decentralized functionality.
Q: How can DeFi promote financial inclusion on a global scale?
A: DeFi eliminates geographical barriers, enabling anyone with internet access to participate in decentralized financial services.
Q: What role does community engagement play in the DeFi space?
A: Communities drive innovation in DeFi, foster trust, and support the development of user-friendly solutions.
Q: Why is interoperability crucial for DeFi platforms?
A: Interoperability allows for seamless asset transfers and access to a wider range of financial services across multiple blockchain networks.
Q: How can individuals manage risks when investing in DeFi projects?
A: Risk management involves thorough research, diversification, and understanding the potential pitfalls of different DeFi protocols.
Q: What are the benefits of continuous learning in the Web3 and DeFi sectors?
A: Staying informed about the latest trends and innovations empowers individuals to make informed decisions and adapt to the rapidly changing landscape of digital finance.
Q: How does collaboration contribute to the growth of the DeFi ecosystem?
A: Collaboration fosters creativity, efficiency, and the development of more robust DeFi solutions through collective expertise and resources.
Highlights
Time: 00:15:42
Innovative Web3 Tools Showcase Exploring the latest Web3 tools that empower users to interact with decentralized applications and digital assets.
Time: 00:25:18
DeFi Advancements and Opportunities Discussing the evolving landscape of DeFi, its potential for financial democratization, and emerging investment opportunities.
Time: 00:35:50
Community Building in Web3 Highlighting the importance of community engagement and collaboration in fostering a vibrant Web3 ecosystem.
Time: 00:45:27
Interoperability Challenges and Solutions Examining the challenges and solutions for achieving seamless interoperability between diverse blockchain networks in the DeFi space.
Time: 00:55:10
Risk Management Strategies in DeFi Insights on how to effectively manage risks when navigating the dynamic landscape of decentralized finance.
Time: 01:05:33
Continuous Learning in Web3 Emphasizing the importance of continuous education and exploration to stay relevant and informed in the Web3 and DeFi domains.
Time: 01:15:19
Collaborative Initiatives Driving DeFi Innovation Showcasing the impact of collaborative efforts and knowledge-sharing on the growth and evolution of DeFi solutions.
Time: 01:25:05
Future of Web3 Technologies Insights on the potential developments and groundbreaking technologies shaping the future of Web3 and decentralized finance.
Time: 01:35:42
Regulatory Landscape and DeFi Compliance Navigating the regulatory challenges and compliance requirements within the DeFi sector.
Time: 01:45:30
Web3 Tools Demystified Breaking down complex Web3 tools and technologies to empower individuals with practical insights and applications.
Key Takeaways
- Web3 tools are revolutionizing the way we interact with the internet and digital assets.
- DeFi offers opportunities for financial inclusion and borderless transactions.
- Understanding blockchain technology is fundamental for navigating the evolving digital landscape.
- Community engagement is crucial for the sustainable growth and adoption of decentralized finance solutions.
- Exploring diverse perspectives on DeFi can lead to innovative strategies and investment opportunities.
- Web3 presents exciting possibilities for decentralized applications and digital ownership.
- Interoperability between different blockchain networks is key for the seamless functionality of DeFi platforms.
- Continuous learning and staying informed are essential in the fast-paced world of Web3 and DeFi.
- Risk management and due diligence are vital when participating in decentralized finance ventures.
- Collaboration and knowledge-sharing enhance the development and progress of the DeFi ecosystem.
Behind the Mic
Introduction to the Session
Yo, what's going on, everybody? How you doing? Pleasure to have everyone here today we're going to talk about sharpen your web. Three tools. Expand your defi knowledge is what we're going to talk about today. And these companies, these speakers, these experts that are here with us today are going to talk about exactly that. And so super excited to get into it. What's going on, guys? Derek, pleasure to see you again, man. How you been? I'm doing pretty good, thanks. How are you? I'm good, thanks. Appreciate it. What you been, what you been up to? Oh, striking deals, a little bit of manual labor. Outside before the call, you know, typical day. Oh, nice, man. You got to get outside and change it up, break a little sweat, you know, do some outside work. That always. Yeah, that's exactly what I did. I've been touching a whole lot of grass and dirt lately. Yeah, yeah. I feel that. I live. I live on the west coast in Vegas, and there's a lot of. Just sand and desert. There's no grass.
Discussion on Touching Grass
So what do you do whenever someone says touch grass? Yeah, no, yeah, it's not easy touch grass. You'd be. You'd have to go to a golf course, I guess. Right. Which brings me. I do need to go out there and play, but, yes, please, to have you, man. Thanks for coming. Joining once again, excited to get into it and fleek. What's up, fleek? How we doing? Great, great. This is Patrick from the fleek side. Super excited to be here and thank you for obviously hosting all of this. Getting ready to get on a 15 hours flight later today to head over to Singapore. Trying to manage my anxiety around that. Oh, wow. Yeah. You definitely have to prepare for that. Hopefully, you got a good seat on the plane for. For, you know, that 15 hours. I've never been on that long of a flight, but that's a long one. Definitely, definitely gonna be an interesting time. But, you know, on the other side, we're gonna see friends, new and old, and talk a bunch about, you know, exactly what we're talking about today. So excited to get into it.
Introductions and Collaborations
Nice, man. Nice. Pleasure to have you. And excited to learn more about, of course, what fleek is doing, what you guys are doing over there, and. And learning, you know, because you guys are building, you know, these types of things, and what a better way to learn from the people that are building it. So pleasure to have you and Aditi. What, what's up? How you doing? I'm good. You know, I was just hearing the touching the grass conver. I'm like, you know, people are touching grass on chain. So that's the new web three global thingy. You don't need to be like, physically doing stuff and, yeah, so I'm in Korea right now. It's 04:00 a.m. been here for Korea blockchain week. Wild week. You know, you really get to know the sentiment, what's been going around and loving it. Can't wait for token. I'll be there at token as well, whoever will be there. Excited to meet you guys. And yeah, I mean, attending conferences, so, you know, like getting to know a lot of alpha on ground.
Acknowledgments and Positive Sentiment
Oh, my gosh, that's awesome. And you are an absolute g. And I mean, like, there's nothing but like, that's just like OG energy to be able to be up at 04:00 a.m. you sound like you're like super energetic, excited and that's like, that's crazy energy. Like, you're awesome. I mean, yeah, kudos to soju, by. The way, for sure. Thanks for coming to DD. Can't wait to get into more about what you have. For sure. Nice. And possum. Possum labs. What is up? Yo, yo? Hey, guys, Alex here. Yeah, all good on my front. Not so much on a 04:00 a.m. tour. Rather deep into development because, or rather not development actually, but preparation for a launch coming up next week. So yeah, stuff is moving. We got a launch coming up here. In about a week. Okay. That completely slipped my mind. Super stoked to get into that. Can't wait to hear more about possum labs and what you got. Brew it over there, Alex, that's awesome.
Further Introductions and Insights
Absolutely. Yeah, I'm excited to be here with everyone and hear some exciting alpha for sure. Oh, definitely. Well, pleasure to have everybody. Can't wait to get into this. But before we get into all the good stuff, just a little intro, you know, behind us and of course, all our experts that we heard we have here today. So we got together today using the collab hub. The collab hub is primarily for fostering collaborations. You sign up for free, you can reach out to companies within our network, but one of the ways to collaborate is joining spaces. So you get on the cloud hub, you find a space that you want to contribute to whatever niche that you're in and you join us on a space with other like-minded individuals or the same niche of companies, you know, to bring in, you know, the same audience and really build together. So collaborations are very important in this space, meeting people, and that's what we're doing here today.
Structure of the Session
So I'm excited to meet these people. They're amazing people that are building in the space, amazing companies. And so let's go around the room, get a little intro behind who you are, what you do and. Yeah, so, fleek, I see that you're right next to me. So let's start with you, Pat. That'd be awesome. Sure. Yeah. So obviously Patrick from the fleet side here, leading growth and marketing internally, but I think as a greater both protocol and developer platform, really focused on giving developers and builders an opportunity to create decentralized experiences, whether that's in a web three sense or a web two sense, and doing it using high performance, decentralized cloud infra, making sure that's all, sticking to the open source, verifiable and certainly censorship resistant piece. And I think a lot of that stems from our founders experience working very closely with consensys and the team there from an early state and then spitting out token foundry and running that very successfully for a number of years.
Insights on Fleek
I think if you've been in this space for a long time, you tend to have a different perspective in terms of what needs to be built, a lot of the pain points that yourself may have experienced throughout that process. And I think that really inspired the direction in which the platform, in addition to fleek network, have really progressed and excited to get into some of the upcoming hits and launches. Yeah, appreciate you guys kind of hosting this. Amazing man. Patrick, thanks so much. And I looked a little bit into your platform and it is, it seems so easy to use and a lot of resources and tools, you know, for anybody, a beginner all the way to like an expert level of developer or, you know, so really excited to get more into that very awesome information you guys have over there. And Derek, what's up? Derek, please tell us a little bit about you and your company.
Derek's Introduction
Yeah, so, hi, I'm Derek Silva. Yes, it's my real name. I've been in the space for about six and a half years now, full time. And primarily I've focused my time and efforts on building up or helping other projects build up their communities, keep them exciting, keep the users engaged, writing announcements, stuff like that. Eventually. Sorry about that, I got a call that I just had to ignore. Started offering 24/7 services, putting together my own team, and eventually got into tech support. And that's primarily what we do. The company is called, we consult for a variety of different projects, main one right now is reef chain, which is on a bit of a tear recently, which is nice. And, yeah, but we offer outsourced tech support and community management services, professional services, making sure we're always in line with the project's goals ultimately, and any regulations that the team and the token and the project needs to be bound to.
Derek's Work with Projects
And we're in the middle of working on our own Defi protocol as well, which we'll also be launching on reef to begin and then. And then to others later. It's a stablecoin protocol, decentralized stablecoin protocol backed by a lending underlying lending protocol. And, yeah, hopefully we'll be live either really late this year or early next year. So we got two different launches that I had no idea about. How come no one's telling me these things? Guys, come on. So I'm super excited about hearing about that. Derek. Absolutely amazing. Reef, you know, a number of other projects, I don't want to, like, name any, because it's not my responsibility, obviously, but super excited about all your projects that you have going. Amazing stuff, man. Thank you for coming and possum labs. Alex, please, man, tell us a little bit more about you and possum labs.
Alex's Introduction
Yeah, absolutely. So, yes, I'm Alex. I'm the founder of Possum Labs. And, well, I came into crypto, like, seven years ago in 2017 in the golden times, where Defi was really about disrupting finance and to exaggerate a little bit, but not too much to basically change the world. So that is kind of the mindset in which attracted me to crypto in general. I guess that is the spirit also, in which possum labs is actually found it or grounded. Possum means positive sum. Right. It also happens to be animal. So we took it for kind of like, the meme ability was a nice coincidence, but yeah. So that's the spirit behind it.
Aligning Incentives in DeFi
And what it basically means is that we are trying to align the incentives or the interests between users and investors, meaning token holders in certain ways. I'm happy to go into that. Maybe later. But that's. That's us in a nutshell.
The Power of Memes
Oh, I. I love that, man. Positive some. I had no idea that's what possum meant. And the meme ability, the memes are so powerful, and if there's, like, a. Some sort of message behind, you know, that means much more than the meme itself. It's just like, it takes off like crazy. So excited to hear more about that. Thank you so much, Alex, for coming and Aditi without further ado, please tell us a little bit about you and the company.
Entering the Crypto Space
Of course. Yeah, I just realized I'm in room with some absolute ogs. I mean, six years, seven years, that like, that's awesome. So I just came into crypto, I mean, what, three years ago in the first year of my college and throughout, you know, like, my parents are like still perplexed. I don't know, like she works for bitcoin or something, things like that. But yeah, we've been an awesome ride because, you know, I got into the first year of my college and I'm from the marketing background. So basically I've done everything non tech side. I've tried like my hands with the community, bd, pr, marketing, growth, all of that. And currently with the supra labs, I'm helping them with bd and growth.
Supra Labs Overview
I realize BD is something that I really align with and just a bit about supra. So formerly, you guys must have heard us, heard about us from supra Oracles. And the plan was always to enter the market via oracles, but to always build our own l one, which is vertically integrated. Integrated where you get built in oracles price fields, crossword communication, VRF, automation, randomness, everything. So, you know, like mostly how if you just, if you see a Dap on any l one or l two, they are sort of having to third party the oracle and the VRF and the cross chain by which they're somehow compromising the security of the overall system.
The Vertical Integration Goal
So the plan was to build a vertically integrated layer one where you have everything inbuilt and you just don't have to go anywhere. So, really excited to be working on this project. It's been a good one year for me at supra and yeah, that's about it. Amazing. Thanks so much for joining us at DD, especially at, you know, 415 am for you. Hopefully you get some sleep at some point today. But hey, who needs sleep? Web three doesn't need it, so why do we need it anyway? Yeah, just have some coffee and yes, pleasure to have you. Can't wait to get more into that.
The Importance of Following
And if you guys haven't had a chance to follow these people, these companies, definitely give them a follow. They're on the forefront of building DeFi protocols, defi tools, you know, everything that we're going to talk about, they're the reason why we have them here, because they're experts. And if you want to stay informed, definitely give them a follow. So without further ado, let's get into the good stuff. I've been talking enough, and I want to hear from you guys.
Inspiration Behind DeFi Development
And so my first question, and this can be for anybody can raise their hand and join in the conversation, or I'll just call on you, whichever. What inspired you to build in defi and what is your focus as a company? And Derek, if you want to start, that'd be great. Oh, there you go. I was just putting up my hand. Yeah. So my original impetus was ultimately to help individuals in emerging countries get access to better tools, better financial products, for better or worse, regardless of how you might feel.
Access to Financial Products
Things have gone over here the last few years. Things in Canada are pretty good. I have access to, you know, pretty much any other or any financial product I could possibly ask for. The credit scoring system is decent, if not great. It's not, and it's not great. It's decent. And, you know, for the most part, I can get what I need or I can get what I want. The problem is if you're. If you live almost anywhere in Africa, you know, almost any african country, the access to lend your money out to somebody and get, you know, a decent interest rate on it, even if that means putting it in a bank account, an old school savings account or something like that, or being able to maybe do a little bit of leverage trading.
Challenges Faced in Emerging Markets
Not something I do myself, but obviously something people choose to do on chain all the time and basically get access tools and products that you can use to improve your financial standing is incredibly limited. Even in parts of Europe. You know, the credit scoring system is completely back as words from what it is in most western countries, or at least in north american countries. And obviously you have, you're incredibly limited to even plain old tradfi capital markets, stock markets, depending on where you live, depending on which broker you're dealing with and stuff like that.
Arbitrary Decisions and Blockchain Solutions
And that's just, it just kind of bothers me. The fact that, you know, completely arbitrary decisions are being made on people's behalf in a variety of ways is what I feel to be arbitrary. And blockchains and cryptocurrencies really break down those barriers. And so if you want to go bet on whether crypto was going to be mentioned during the most recent us presidential debate, which it wasn't, so, you know, a lot of people lost money on those bets. Or you want to crowdfund, put together a crowdfund for investing in whatever tokens, companies, et cetera.
The Evolution of Access
Or you take an example from the past six to seven years, eight years, it's just much easier to do on chain, and it's just much easier to access in a variety of ways. We had local bitcoins for a long time.com and local eth after that. That made it possible for you to get some bitcoin, get some ether in the early days. Literally. 20 1420 1516. And that was an initial hurdle for a lot of people. But once centralized exchanges started coming on board en masse, once they started getting decent fiat on ramps and things like that, the walls just keep crumbling. And I'm perfectly happy with that.
Regulatory Challenges
Even living here, living in Ontario specifically, there are Ontario specific securities regulations that prevent me from participating on platforms like Republic.com or other crowdfunding or mini investing type places. So I can't buy equity, and I can't remember if it was an English Premier League or Championship league team that was doing a campaign recently. $500. If I lose that $500, that's on me. But because the Ontario Securities Commission, in all its wisdom, thinks that's too risky, I can go blow that money on a stock that potentially goes to zero regardless.
Opening Up Opportunities
But I can't put it into a football team, soccer team with a proven history and is probably going to survive the next ten years. So, anyway, suffice to say, it just. It opens things up and obviously, lots of other possibilities as well. And that's ultimately why I'm here. I say very non ironically, I'm in it for the tech. That's an interesting analogy. Bringing those together with. With what's ethical and what kind of regulatory framework is out there is really interesting kind of conversation.
Connection and Motivation
Yes. Paws and labs. Yeah. This is awesome. Derek, I think we should connect afterwards, because you basically speak my thoughts as well. What fascinated me in this space was really this potential for a global, open financial system that is accessible to anyone and does not have any gatekeepers. So that is a huge motivator. Looking back. I joined in 2017, where we had the ICO craze, which was an innovation in itself.
Growing with DeFi
And of course, with every innovation, there's a bubble and some shenanigans that happened there, but also a lot of good projects came out of this. So it's not like, you know, it's all just that. In fact, in general, like, over the long term, I definitely think that this industry is evolving in the right direction. So the ICOS was basically the spearheading into the open fundraising structures, I guess, without middlemen.
The Emergence of DeFi Protocols
Very fascinating concept. And then, of course, I lived through the emergence of the first DeFi protocols and DeFi summer in 2020, which was fun to see. Right? And so this was really, while the initial sparks were already there a couple of years earlier, it really was around that time when I think there was some more mainstream adoption and also some fundamental breakthroughs in terms of protocol architecture to really enable decentralized finance and make it viable.
Efficiency and Value Addition in DeFi
And so this is what really fascinates me, because I actually have a background in traditional finance, so I have a good comparison there and I just see how much more efficient and also in general, value additive this whole space can be. Although among all of these meme coins and grifts and so on, it's sometimes hard to see that. But in fact, there are many good companies out there. This is basically what we are also trying to do.
Aligning Ecosystem Incentives
We basically go the next step with possum labs to completely forego protocol fees and instead use our token as ecosystem currency and therefore align incentives there. This is the whole idea between positive sum, that the utility value is actually accruing inside a network of products, and so you don't need to extract any fees from users. So, yeah, this is kind of like the OG type of approaching things, I guess. And yeah, definitely feel you there. It's amazing to build in the space.
Reflections on DeFi's Evolution
Oh, yeah. And the evolution that you just spoke of, you know, since the 2000, since your birth in Defi in 2017, has been such a drastic change. And I love to reflect myself upon the first time that I tried to navigate pancake swap, you know, and get the trust wallet and do all that stuff and be a part of that economy was so riveting and so much fun. And for all those that have a much easier time onboarding, you know, it's just going to continue to get easier and easier.
The Growing Accessibility of DeFi
And we've only seen that from history to now. Aditi, please. Oh, yeah, I completely resonate with Derek and Alex on this. Basically, same thought, just different words. I mean, it was just about time that we took control in our hands. Instead of, you know, some regulatories, some regulations just being made, closed doors that affect. That affects the entire global financial sector.
The Importance of Internet Access
I mean, I always remember this one thing, how Balaji Srinivasan terms bitcoin are civilization, where, you know, you are not being differentiated on basis of some credit score. Because let's face it, not everyone has access to these tangible buildings called banks. People are all over the world and there are some physical restrictions, some remote conditions that do not allow you to do that, but everyone has access to something called Internet.
Shifting Control to Individuals
So, you know, taking control from certain. From these certain central authorities and just distributed among people and incentivizing for them. I think that somehow resonates with what kind of a financial structure sits right within the globe. And, you know, like I always term this thing that for blockchain, which is a code would never, you know, differentiate between, let's say, a Wall street new, a Wall street lawyer from New York or anyone from a third world country.
Decentralization in Finance
And I think that's what we need to bring into the world civilization and not just you being differentiated or biased depending on what amount of money you have, what kind of money you make and things like that. So all in for Defi, bringing in decentralization in the financial sector. And I think it's all for the good. Hence I'm all in for that.
Accessibility as the Great Equalizer
I love that. I love that so much because the one thing that is separating us between, you know, our different communities around the world is just simple infrastructure of accessibility. And I love how you just put that. And I'm excited to see where this goes to. I mean, it's just gonna bring us all together. It's gonna bring us all closer and we've already seen it, just like today.
Bridging Communities
I mean, without this, we wouldn't be talking right now. And I'm so happy that we are. Please. Patrick. First of all, that was a beautiful sentiment, I must say, and just have to echo everything that Alex Derek Aditi just spoke to. Obviously, the underbanked and kind of the globalization of crypto is incredible. And I think only to underscore that chainalysis just released, there are kind of 2024 adoption stats.
Growing Global Adoption
And if I remember correctly, at the top of the list was India. Always been kind of very much at the forefront, but the following two countries were Nigeria and Indonesia, which is a beautiful thing to see. And I think just to go back to what you were just saying around centralized control, and you could even reference it back to the early 2010s when you had all sorts of brilliant developers building on top of Twitter.
The Challenges of Centralization
Back at that time, still Facebook and Twitter, I think most famously shutting down their API overnight. And all of a sudden, all of this hard work, this community that you built around the value that you've added is just gone. I think that's one piece of the equation in terms of what we're trying to do here at fleek.
Empowering Developers with DeFi
And then obviously, defi itself is preeminent in terms of adoption and use cases and to be able to hand developers tools that traditionally are centralized and even still throughout the greater space, if you look at the underlying stack, more often than not there is some part of it that's touching AWS for cell, you name it. To be able to go to builders and offer them highly performant, decentralized solutions where they control, you know, their kind of outcomes is an incredible thing.
Unlocking Potential in the Space
And, you know, something that we're really trying to, to continue to unlock for the space writ large. Awesome. Yeah. Providing the people with the resources for them to build is just like transformative to the way we do things because without people being empowered with the tools and the resources, we, there's no way to build anything.
Importance of Empowerment
So. Absolutely agree with that. Thank you so much for bringing that kind of tools, you know, to us, for us to use for people that aren't so savvy as well, you know.
Navigating DeFi Safely
So that's awesome. And for my next question, you guys, whenever navigating Defi, you know, there are a ton of tools out there, but I think that as we grow, as we're expanding together, it's very essential to stay safe and protected whenever you are doing things. Do you guys have any knowledge or any kind of tools that you guys use whenever you are navigating different DeFi protocols within the space?
Browser Extensions for Safety
Yeah, I've got a couple that I've used in the past. Unfortunately, I think some of them have folded or otherwise they've changed tack. But there are some browser extensions that sim. Well, there are some wallets now that do this too, but I'll get into those in a sec. But there are some browser extensions that if your wallet doesn't do this will show you harpy, blowfish, a couple of others that will actually simulate your transaction for you before you actually confirm it and more or less map out what's actually going to happen. So I think Kevin Rose, the guy who started moonbirds, he almost got caught up in a scam, but thankfully was running some sort of extension and that showed him that he was simply going to send his NFT somewhere to a completely random wallet that obviously he didn't recognize. And so thankfully he stopped himself. But I think that was the result of a spear phishing campaign, if I'm not mistaken. And obviously that sort of thing would have prevented a whole bunch of people losing their nfts throughout 2022.
Awareness of NFT Scams
I think where a lot of the, just because of how much hype there was around nfts and NFT NYC was obviously getting really big and blah, blah, you know, people were getting their NFT stolen. It's very valuable. NFT stolen worth, you know, 20, 30, 50, if not more ether and, you know, similar for Solana and what have you. So those sorts of things, if you're using. If you're primarily a desktop or laptop user, those are great. Rainbow Wallet also has simulation built in. Now argent, or argent if you prefer, has that. They're primarily a starknet and ethereum wallet. Like ethereum. Ethereum, not Ethereum and a bunch of l two s. But they have simulation built in. And so basically it's just, you know, look for a wallet that or some sort of third party tool that will help you map out, visualize, you know, tell you in plain English or plain Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, whatever.
Importance of Transaction Simulation
What's actually going to happen? You know, you're going to send these tokens and you're going to get back these tokens, okay. Yeah, I'm trying to do a swap on matcha. That's what should happen. You know, that sort of thing. Instead of, oh, I'm going to send these tokens and I'm getting nothing back. That's obviously a problem if you're anticipating completing a swap or minting an NFT or signing a message to enter a dao or what have you. Those are huge there. Oh, there's one also, I think they're still running, called hexagate. It was getting a little slow there for a bit, so I stopped using it for now. But great security minded team, former IDF members, israeli defense forces. Don't hold that against them. Let's not get into the politics. Yeah.
Tools and Wallets for Security
So whether you want to use linen wallet, rainbow coinbase wallet, etcetera, a lot of them are starting to build in these sorts of simulations. Probably built on the tools provided by some of the security providers I just mentioned. And yeah, just helps protect your cover your, I was going to say cover your butt, but really cover your tokens. Yeah, you definitely have to cover your ass and defi, that's for sure. Yes. Aditi. Oh yeah, Derek, by the way, some great alpha there. Like, would you mind sharing the list of all of these extensions that you just mentioned? Because, you know, like, in general, when I think about safety in DeFi and like safeguarding your assets and everything, I think the way I see it's like one is protecting your own assets, like which wallets you're using and how do you make sure that you're not connecting to an unknown site or you don't have wirelesses and stuff like that?
Hardware Wallets as a Safe Option
I'm a big believer in hardware wallets and I think ledger would be the way to go for me. And unless you are, you have the right knowledge for extensions. If you, if you're using, you know, software wallets, like what Derek mentioned, I think if you don't have the right knowledge, hardware wallets are the way to go. So this is, so this is one part where you can safeguard if you're talking like your crypto assets. Another would be if you are, let's say, interacting with Dapps online, which have to be all on chain. I always make sure that whichever platform I'm interacting with, the security audits, and, you know, I make sure to read about, you know, what were the resets, the recent security audits, how transparent they are regarding that and just knowing in general about their ecosystem and, you know, how's the overall community energy and how out, how forward they are with regards to the security that they're laminating their platform with.
Phishing Awareness in DeFi
And I think third in general would be, you know, just general phishing awareness or ecosystem awareness. Like you be on CT all day and, you know, there are people like Zach BXT, like how he just, he's just, you know, like laying out the ground for the recent scams that have been happening. So just be vigilant about the general phishing scams by being updated what's going on in the ecosystem. But yeah, apart from that, hardware wallets for me and checking the security audits of the platform that I'm interacting with. I just replied to the tweet about space with a list of those three tools I mentioned. Wallets are wallets. Like I said, most of them are building it in now. But those three security tools I just mentioned in that tweet post, oh great, awesome, man.
The Importance of Safety in DeFi
Thank you so much for dropping that down there. That's definitely some alpha. Safety is essential in this space. And as we're speeding up, everybody wants to take advantage of all the good stuff. And whenever you got the hype, sometimes you might click on the button before you think. And it's best to have those tools to help you, of course. Yes, Alex, please. Awesome. Yeah, so these were great comments and I don't even want to repeat anything that was already said, that this is all great. But one point that is also important. And I, as a founder and also after my transition to be a developer, I'm more and more aware of this, how important it is privacy.
The Necessity of On-chain Privacy
And I think you can guard your wallets and have hardware wallets and everything, but if there's a criminal organization that can spy on you easily on chain, because everything is transparent. There was just recently a case where apparently someone was, well, basically robbed, and this happens all the time, but in this case, it was a high profile figure in crypto. He was running a service as well, a research service, actually. And so I think it is vitally important for us as a whole industry, but also for individuals to put higher priority on privacy on chain and the tools that there are. Fortunately, these days, there are better and better tools being developed for that. So in the past, you had, of course, tornado cache, but that's pretty tainted because of the OFAC sanction and, well, because it's definitely used by north korean hackers.
Emerging Privacy Solutions
So that's not necessarily where we want to kind of get our privacy from. But then there are other projects, like railgun, for example, which was also mentioned by Vitalik and others that are advancing in that space. And I think it's super important. Yes, I agree with that. Privacy is extremely important in the space because everybody thinks that just because they're operating in Defi means that they're like that. No one knows who they are or what they do, and there are some potential risks there. So I agree with that. And also, I'm not sure if you guys have heard of Houdini swap. Houdini swap is a, is. Is great as well.
Discussion on Wallets and Security
They're, they're building some awesome applications over there. So, yes, privacy and security, very important. And I'd like to go back and hit on the wallets portion of this is everybody, of course, you know, is aware of metamask, and this might be, like, a little bit of a controversial question, but I think it's best that we, that I asked you guys, because you guys have the most knowledge in terms of defi tools. So what do you guys think of metamask? And is it a safe, soft browser wallet to use? And. Or would you guys recommend another wallet? And I know Aditi had said definitely hardware wallet, but if you were to use, like, a browser wallet, what would it be? And what do you think of metamask?
MetaMask Usage Review
So I'm still using metamask, even though. Even though there are probably better browser wallets, specifically like browser extensions. I don't like the Metamask mobile app. It has been. Now, I haven't, I probably haven't used it since sometime last year, but I just found it to be getting slower and slower. And the web browser, the built in web browser, was practically unusable, unfortunately. So I've switched, I've since switched away. But yeah, I mean, for Ethereum, polygon, avalanche, c chain, BNB, smart chain, optimism, arbitrum, etcetera.
MetaMask Continuation
All these blockchains networks in the ethereum ecosystem at this point, yeah, if I'm on my laptop, I'm using metamask primarily. That's because I haven't really searched for a better option, and I also don't want to get tied into the coinbase ecosystem too hard. They have a browser extension as well. I was using brave for a little while and they kept trying to craminalization their browser extension wallet down my throat. At least I felt like they were. And so I stopped using brave. And I haven't really tried operas built in browser. Part of that is compatibility reasons. Even though a lot of others say that they're fully compatible, a lot of app developers will trigger metamask specifically in the browser.
Compatibility and Functionality
So metamask comes up, or a, for some reason metamask specific connection comes up instead of, you know, just hit a button and we'll connect to whatever's there. I also have phantom installed in a different web browser. I don't use it all that often, but I don't do a lot of ethereum related transactions in that browser. It's just kind of the way my workflow goes. So yeah, I'd probably say if you're in a web browser on a desktop or laptop, metamask is fine. I would definitely supplement it with one of the tools I mentioned earlier. Otherwise, phantom is also good. And I would also supplement it with one of the tools I mentioned earlier. A hardware wallet to me is a whole separate thing.
Daily Transaction Considerations
Like we're talking hot wallets here, we're not talking, you know, staking 32 ether. And then I, you know, putting the wallet away for a few years, you know, we're talking about daily transactions on yield, farming protocols, lending protocols, dexs, etcetera. Yeah, it's fine. You know, it's, there's, I know it's not the most user friendly and it still isn't the most user friendly, but it's definitely gotten better in the last year or so. And I it's usable, but I've been in the space for seven years and working full time for six and a half, so I'm incredibly biased.
User Experience Reflections
That is such a good point. I also used metamask for a very long time, just simply because that was the first browser wallet and it actually worked and it works reasonably well. So that if you grew up with it, so to say, then why make the change, you get used to it. So totally in the same shoes. But then also for me, I actually switched to Rabi wallet these days in the browser because metamask just simply stopped working for me. It was so slow that, well, I don't want to wait 30 seconds for the browser extension to catch up with the things that I want to do.
Wallet Options and Development
Rabbi Wallet works really well, but it. Doesn'T really matter which single one is the best because that can always change. And I think there is still a long way to go in terms of ux user experience improvements for these wallets, browser extension or not. So I'm curious to see where the journey is heading there. But obviously this is also a space that needs quite some funding from VC's and so on, with unclear business models, which I think is one of the reasons why there has not been too much development or too much success outside of a few big ones.
MetaMask's Role in User Experience
Let's see. Sure. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I've always used metamask myself, and you hear, you know, about people talking about the different risks tied to different wallets, and it's really refreshing hearing that you guys feel comfortable. And in addition to the knowledge you dropped a second ago, Derek, about the additional, like help with security and privacy with the apps, and I didn't even check that to see where you dropped those in the comments, but I'll definitely have to do those.
Discussion on Alternative Wallets
And I agree completely. Aditi, did you have something? Yeah, I mean, it's interesting to hear because I have been also using metamask since the beginning. I don't know, maybe Metamask had a good early mover advantage. And not just that, I think that they maintained the positioning in consumer minds regarding how it can be safe relative to the other wallets out there. I have experimented a bit with trust wallet and Coinbase wallet Coinbase for the mobile wallets because I think the UI works for me.
User Interface and Mass Adoption
But, you know, in general, I would prefer using a wallet which gives me a user friendly interface, you know, because, which eliminates these heavy jargons and makes it look like, you know, a very hard thing to make a simple transaction. I mean, I think for mass adoption, a yemenite good wallet should be gunning for something, a user, a UI interface that is as simple as, you know, ordering something from your Amazon wallet, like from your Amazon card, just ordering it. The UI should speak that, the language that kind of analogs it.
Future Wallet Development
And I think in future I would be. I would be looking for a wallet which offers the benefits of a split key recovery in which, you know, you don't have to necessarily, in which you'll be able to recover your funds even if you are able to lose your primary seat phrase or something. And that is something that we are working in our own with our own wallet at Supra. But yeah, currently I've been a user of metamask and yeah, I'd be using that until some. Until it. Until a new wallet with split key recovery gains a good mass adoption or something.
Personal Experiences with Wallets
Sure. And I, everybody in this space, I'm sure, has experienced the stress of potentially losing your seed phrase. I know I have. And I personally, like right now, I can think of a few wallets that I have, like some NFTs and some ens names. Like, I have hundreds of ens names that are in wallets that I have no idea what I did with them because I got them a long time ago. I've got, you know, however many other wallets and you just like, you know, there's only a certain amount of organization a human being can put into something whenever they don't really know what they're doing and they're experimenting.
The Importance of Security in Cryptocurrency
And, you know, people have heard about, you know, bitcoin being lost, you know, for years, and you only have a certain amount of times to log in before you're locked out, you know, all these different things. And these are the issues that we are fixing right now. And that's awesome DT that you guys are creating something to fix this kind of issue because we've all had come in contact with it. And especially for, like, baby boomers, they join, you know, people that aren't so savvy in the crypto space. They're also savvy with computers in general. You know, they're not, they're not going to know what to do with a seed phrase. So we have to give them something much easier to use and much more accessible because that population, it has a ton of liquidity and a ton of money that we would love, you know, to onboard into this space to benefit everybody, of course.
Multi-Signature Wallets and Their Usage
So whenever it comes to, like, different situations, and this question is kind of for, I believe, possum labs in a situation where should one use like, a multi sig wallet? And are there any advancements or new concepts to multisig technology? Alex? Yeah, sure. So, well, when should you use a multisig? I think well, as soon as it comes to moving significant amounts of money. And what does significant mean is relative. Could mean $10,000 or could mean a million dollars. That really depends on the personal circumstances. So the thing is that obviously we are using a multisig for our project to manage the treasury. And so having first hand experience, of course, we're using the market leader safe and for mic gnosis. Right. And it is just, it is super safe and it's actually very simple to use.
Advantages and Security Layers of Multisig Wallets
So I would say there's almost no reason to not use a multisig these days. You can also interact with all sorts of dapps, even if they are not natively integrated in safe. And the safe wallet, well, that requires a little bit of, I guess, googling, searching, or asking AI how to do this. But it's literally like you can get this knowledge in five minutes and then you can interact with any verified smart contract via the safe wallet. So, yeah, I think for anyone who manages money, that is either for yourself or for a hedge fund or for a project or whatnot, if it's above a certain threshold, then a multi six should be the standard, actually. Definitely. And what kind of like layer.
Understanding the Security Layers of Multisig Wallets
So what is like the basis of the layer of security that a multisig wallet that a regular wallet doesn't have? Yeah, sure. So it is really just, well, it, there's multiple layers to that. So one is, and it ties into the privacy segment I mentioned earlier, this in person attack becomes much less practical if you don't need to, as a criminal, don't need to get a hold of just one person, but multiple people at the same time, which are usually like, in our case, distributed across the globe. So it's pretty much impossible so that you can actually make a transaction in the multisig. Because for anyone who's listening and doesn't really know what a multisig is, it means multisignature wallet. So you need to have the signature of multiple private keys to execute a transaction that could, for example, be a. Two of three multisig.
The Mechanics of Multisig Transactions
So you need two of the three listed keys or a three of five. Or seven of whatever. Right. You can have any amount of combinations there. That just makes it so much safer in pretty much any regard, because you not only are protected against in person attacks, but also because you need multiple people, but also when it comes to actually executing a transaction, you have multiple people. Ideally, of course, if it's not just you having the multisig, multiple people looking at the transaction and checking if the transaction is correct. So that, of course is especially important in a company setting or project setting. But yeah, apart from that, in my opinion, these are the main benefits. And in terms of downsides, again, with the right knowledge, that is acquirable in five minutes. There's not really a downside to that, though. I want to clarify, we are not building a multisig or anything.
The Future of Multisig Technology
We are just using the tools that are there. Got you. Thank you very much for that explanation. And I understand that multi sigs are extremely, you know, secure, and it really, you know, it's almost more secure than a bank itself. Yes. A DT. You know, it's funny, I just met somebody during Korea blockchain week, and those guys are building a multisig wallet, which is instilled right now. And were just having this conversation about, you know, the use cases for it. And an interesting point got raised for governance, you know, where decisions are made by a group of stakeholders, and you need to ensure that it is being made collectively and transparently. I think multisig has a great use there. Other than that, I think in just terms of general security, like when you need multiple signatures to authorize transactions, especially making them ideally to manage large sums of funds or protecting against unauthorized access.
Emerging Themes in Multisig Storage
So I think wherever a large sum of money or fund is involved, it also has a great use case for that. And one of the recent, you know, advancements in Multisig, which I was studying about it was social recovery, which is very interesting because, you know, you'll have to offer some social recovery mechanisms to allow users to recover their funds or, you know, recover stolen private keys. And this would involve a concept of proof of identity and social connections to a designated group. I'm really looking forward to know of how the social recovery aspect will evolve in a multisig wallet. I'm not aware how it is done being done right now, but I think this would be an interesting advancement in Multisig, and I'm looking forward to it.
AI's Role in the Future of DeFi
Yeah, I'm looking forward to learning more about that as well, because with AI and in addition to reusable KYC, like, checked, I'm not sure if you guys have heard of that company, but awesome company. They're building a reusable KYC where the only thing you need to do is KYC one time, and then you're authenticatable on numerous platforms. You have to like KYC many times, and in addition to AI. So this kind of plugs into my last question, and I don't really want this conversation to be over because I love talking to you guys about this stuff. Defi is endless. You know, it's just endless. You can talk about it forever. So my last question is, what kind of future do you see defi turning into? And how does, and does AI have a massive play into that future?
Defi and AI Interconnection
Yeah, I'll start off here. Yes, AI is coming for all of us. No, I'm just joking. I think it's a long way off for the trades, construction, carpentry, electricians, plumbers, etcetera. So worst case scenario, we all just become tradespeople in the end, and farmers. But no, I think for sure nothing beats the ability for a bunch of GPU's to analyze the best way for you to stake your tokens, lend them, etcetera, than an AI can. It can do it in parallel, it can analyze all sorts of protocols for historical APR, whatever you want to call it, or however you're measuring it and all that, and then tell you, hey, based on your time horizon, 30 days, 60 days, a year, five years, whatever. Here's what we think right now.
AI's Capability in Financial Analysis
We what the algorithm thinks right now is the safest bet for you, the most yield, the most consistent yield. If you are super low risk and you only want to put these tokens into some sort of protocol for a year, buy real estate tokens on realty, you know, you're probably going to get 10% and you're not going to get any price fluctuations. Cool. If you have a high rise, a time horizon of five years, they might say, go to beefy finance and, you know, stake eth slash, you know, some other token. It has a lot of swapping and, you know, and then put those LP tokens in this other platform, etcetera. You could do all that work yourself, obviously, but that could potentially take you days, and then you'll probably be stuck in some sort of analysis paralysis, and then you do nothing.
Automation Through AI in DeFi
So yeah, an AI of some kind, some sort of model, would be able to analyze all that for you and potentially even just allocate and reallocate the funds for you. If you trust it enough to become an agent and therefore automate that, there are protocols that try to do that for you now, and those will probably be the best places for AI to get into. Now, Notum AI comes to mind, and Notum AI, I haven't used them, so I'm not going to vouch for them, but they're integrated with beefy finance and with, oh shoot, what's the other one? I don't remember. Anyway, it's on the website, and presumably that's the perfect platform to just deposit your funds. You tell them your risk parameters, you tell them your time horizon, and in 90 days I want to maximize my returns.
Future Projections on AI in Financial Strategies
Cool. Maybe in 90 days you can get 20 or 30%. Maybe there's some sort of more sophisticated thing that, again, it's super high risk, but it can go 100% or 200%. That's where I think it makes the most sense to start. And then it can trickle down to potentially other protocols later. Nice. Alex. Yeah, I want to second the things that Derek said. Personally, I think that AI is wildly overhyped in the short term and probably totally underestimated in the long term. So my view is that I also, for example, personal experience. I used AI to learn actually solidity programming and it was a super great tool to probably ten x my learning speed.
The Long-Term Outlook on DeFi and AI
But these days I don't really use it anymore in development. And even if I would use it, that's maybe ten to 20% of the actual work that goes into creating a DeFi protocol. So it's not like this is a game changer, actually. But in the long term, I think that the entirety of DeFi will basically like, transactions will be 99.9% originated by AI and bots in general, and human activity will be like very low, which is also another reason to build the most efficient and incentive aligned protocols instead of, yeah, basically extracting value from users, which is part of our underlying philosophy. But AI definitely in the long term will be a major driver.
The Future Role of AI Agents in Blockchain
And I think, like Derek mentioned some specific names there. I would just say the entire space will, the entire industry will benefit from that greatly because the nature of an open permissionless blockchain is that AI agents can freely move. And I think in the future every one of us will have a personal agent, personal AI. So we don't even need to use these third party services. We will just tell our AI that is, I don't know, hosted locally or something like that, what to do, what the goal is, and then the AI will figure it out and do the transactions and whatnot. So, yeah, that's kind of like my long term view on this. And obviously Ethereum will profit from that and other ecosystems as well.
Final Thoughts and Closing Remarks
Yeah. Really, really interesting times right now. And I agree with that. There's a lot of people that, you know, there's a lot of companies that are building amazing AI applications right now that, you know, the foreseeable future is much larger. The long term goals here are much larger than what everyone really thinks because we, you know, OpenAI and a lot of these AI applications have not been out for very long, but it seems like they've been out forever. And so if we think and the amount of production and the amount of resources that we have with AI for the amount of time that's been dedicated to build it is just insane, absolutely insane. So I'm super excited to see where that goes along with Defi and I think those two together are going to be a conglomerate of just a world where, you know, AI does everything for you. You don't have to, you know, you're empowered by the tools and the AI together where you don't have to work as hard.
Looking Ahead
And it's just going to be an interesting time to be alive. So I'm excited to be here and so if anybody else has anything to say, please interrupt me, but I'm going to go ahead and in this space, really a pleasure having you guys. Thank you so much. Patrick from Fleek, Derek, you know, from Reef and of course, and Derek knows this. I love his other project that I'm not sure if you're still with him, but Liberland. Oh yeah, I said that. But I just love, I just, I adore that project, man. I absolutely love it. Well, I mean it's not just a project, right? It's an entire country. Right. Liberal land has come a long way since even a year ago with having permanent settlements on the land Liberland blockchain launched earlier this year.
The Progress of Liberland
Liberland merits will be coming to exchanges, I'm going to say later this year, maybe early next year. Liberland's fantastic. It's definitely one of my favorite things to spend my time on. Yeah, I guess pumping shilling. What I said earlier, we offer services to reef matcha as far as I'm concerned, the best decentralized exchange aggregator and definitely the best tech support. And we just kicked off something with a young project called Zeru Z e r u looking at some really cool defi strategies with leverage on a variety of blockchains. So, you know, these things all complement each other. I have, I have my hands in different things with different risk tolerances for everybody and.
Closing Remarks and Acknowledgments
Yeah, and so if you want to chat, just send me a DM and if you want to get into a whole other country, I got a hookup for you if you want to take some, put some money into a Defi protocol with 15 x leverage. I'll have something for you on Mainnet in a few months. That's awesome, man. Yeah. I absolutely love Liberland and I'm stoked to hear more about it. And so thanks Derek. Thanks, Alex from Possum Labs. Aditi, thank you so much for joining us in the middle of your night. So appreciate that and your insights. Awesome. It was great being here.
Gratitude and Future Engagements
Thanks, guys. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Nice, nice. Well, until next time, everybody. Have a great day and evening and, you know, try touch some grass, you know, as much as you can. And after the space, I will announce the winners. Today we had a $70 USDT giveaway prize split between two winners and excited to give that out. Thanks so much for everybody joining. And until next time, we'll talk to you later. Talk to you later, guys.
