2024: The Year of L2s

For example, when it comes to decisions on protocol spending, right, or rather DAO spending, right, development spending, you can't really put that in code, right?

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This is subjective decisions, subjective, according to discussion and the vote, right, decisions to be made.

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As for things like, let's say, interest rates or LTVs or collateral factors and other stuff, those are becoming more fully on chain in a way that those things don't need the semantics to be discussed.

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You can obviously discuss all of those things openly, right?

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And you should, and you should contemplate, but they're becoming more on chain.

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But conceptually speaking, the governance layer is exactly as you would see it everywhere.

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More efficient in some cases, less efficient in the other.

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Overall, it's not as big as Mantle by any means, not as big as the biggest DeFi DAOs like Aave.

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But I would say participation levels in some cases were even higher.

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But later on, as we all know, as protocols mature, evolve or just stay alive, doesn't really matter, right?

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Governance apathy grows.

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And that's normal, right?

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It's always like that.

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People and attention and likes prefer new shiny things.

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So other things that were there and they're a bit more mature go less viral in terms of participation, which is just natural.

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Yeah, we definitely know best.

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I mean, we've operated our governance layer for, you know, more than two years now.

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So definitely apathy is one of those things we always try to try to overcome.

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But but it's been really great seeing a lot more activity later, you know, lately in in our proposals, a lot more voters and so on.

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So it's great to see, you know, participation from community side.

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So bring in the.

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What did you do anything special to make that happen?

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Or it just happened because, like, the interest in L2s came back and who actually making them?

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Are these people asking for grants?

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Are these protocols willing to integrate or like you just generally have very random proposals without a single, let's say, overarching theme?

0:25:07 - 0:25:11

Oh, Brian, want to take that as a community manager?

0:25:11 - 0:25:12

Yeah, I think.

0:25:12 - 0:25:28

So the majority of proposals that we see that are successful come from, you know, people who are close to the core team or part of the core team, and they're working with other, you know, ecosystem participants like Shriram folks at game seven back in the day in the bit out days.

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So there's a lot of work behind the scenes to get a proposal sort of in a place where it's ready to move to that next stage of voting.

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So the voters who sort of turned out at the end of the year, I think, turned out based on the narratives of us, you know, Mantle as a community building a new exciting product, which is Mantle Network.

0:25:52 - 0:26:15

So at the beginning of the year we had, you know, as we were sort of transitioning the brand coming from the BitDow days, we had, I think it was under like 500 voters on the proposal that sparked that first governance activity of the year in January 2023, you know, all the way to November when we have like over 12,000 voters.

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So I think, you know, excitement around the network, real products being built, you know, having this, this token, which has expanded utility as a, you know, native gas fee token.

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Yeah, I think generally just everybody, what we saw is, is this, this excitement around the focus of building new, new products, for sure.

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Yeah, and our original concept was like fractional growth type of method.

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So we, we wanted to spawn up these kind of sub-DAOs, call them sub-DAOs, and, and this, then those sub-DAOs start creating products and, and growing into their own kind of vertical of, of specialty.

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But I think we, we, we didn't see as much, as much maybe success as we, as we wanted with that approach.

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And, and I think it wasn't until Mantle Network was, it was created that community members also started seeing real results, right?

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Okay, now, now, you know, our decisions are actually, the results are seen very, very quickly.

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So the voting actually matters.

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And I'm actually personally very, very proud of like the, the work we did in 2022 when, when the, again, the back and forth with, okay,

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are we going to make an L1, a Cosmos, Cosmos SDK chain, or are we going more of the like Ethereum aligned, aligned path and create an L2 with, with like this new cutting edge modular design with, with eigenlayer.

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So, yeah, personally, very, very proud of kind of that.

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I think that that was when our governance process worked for the first time.

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I felt like, yes, this is, this is a real governance now.

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This is great.

0:27:59 - 0:28:04

Anyway, so, so going back to L2, L2 kind of topics here.

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So, first of all, congrats on, you've, you've announced some Gearbox v3 things.

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And what I'm hearing is, well, and for audience members, so Gearbox right now is only on Ethereum.

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It's an L1 protocol, correct?

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So, now what I'm hearing is like, there's quite a bit of appetite for your kind of core contributors and community members to, to enter L2s and, and kind of find a new home or like expand, expand your home to, to L2.

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So, can you talk a little bit about that?

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Like, why is that?

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What, what are you looking for in L2s and, and just kind of generally like, well, yeah, what's the vibe?

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Why L2?

0:28:49 - 0:28:50

Yeah, good point.

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Oh, a lot of things to get into.

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First of all, thanks for your governance insights.

0:28:54 - 0:28:58

Sounds very cool and happy to hear you're getting more traction with that, deserved.

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Okay, back to Gearbox now.

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So, let's start with the fact that what it helps do.

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It is, first of all, let's start with v3.

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Why v3 in the first place?

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v2 was launched more than a year ago.

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It went to 100 million TVO or above, actually, which was pretty decent with fully organic demand on the leverage side because people genuinely like leverage.

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Surprise, surprise.

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There was one of the issues where to be able to add new assets, to be able to add new farms and everything else, a lot of, a lot of risks started appearing.

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Because when you look at something like an asset that isn't ETH or isn't the biggest stablecoin farming curve, for instance, right, you have to have collateral limits in place, you have to have limits on the individual accounts for leverage, right, and a bunch of other things that needed to be done for security purposes.

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So, v3 wasn't a new spaceship per se, it solved a bunch of other things to be able to give Gearbox the possibility to deploy on L2s to add new assets.

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So, now that is fixed.

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V3 currently, and again, just on Mainnet, launched with the ability to margin trade.

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So, essentially, you can leverage trade into ETH, Bitcoin, short them, loan them, and a few other assets, but not as perps.

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You do it fully with spot assets, fully with organic leverage.

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You have no funding rates, you are trading against global DEX liquidity, so be it Uniswap, Curve, Balancer, and whoever else, right?

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So, that is the benefit that you are essentially, you are kind of margin trading on an AMM, rather than perp DEX having their own books and funding rates.

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So, it brings a lot of advantages the way Gearbox does it.

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Now, as to why L2s, right?

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L2s is because, well, the most obvious one is to open positions which are smaller in size and in more fancy assets, you need to be on L2,

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because on the main chain you have to, you are required essentially to have a very high minimum borrow limit to make sure that the liquidation fee,

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usually it's between 2% to 5%, right, can pay.

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And if you are only taking the $1,000 position when you are liquidating it, how much you are going to take from the collateral, right?

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Very tiny.

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So, L2s are basically a necessity in that sense.

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It's not just about the gas fee for users, which you can abstract with intents and shit like that, right?

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But it's really just about having low enough collateral limits for normal users to be able to participate in it.

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That's one.

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Second one, of course, is other ecosystems, other L2s, Mantle specifically.

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They offer interest and opportunities with regard to new farms, new assets and new other things, right?

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People, traders, they love new stuff, right?

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A lot of trading is like if you run any, if you ask any exchange CEO, when are you making your money?

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They will all tell you we're making our money in the first three days of a listing and then you can pretty much delist the asset.

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That's how it works.

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All of that money is made on primary listings.

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So, when you're able to offer people something new very soon, it just gets more interesting.

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So, that is good for the gearbox as well, right?

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But again, we usually cannot come to, not usually, we never able to come to ecosystems first because we build on top of other protocols, on top of other AMMs, on top of other farms.

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So, we integrate whatever an ecosystem already has.

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And that was one of the reasons why we weren't able to come to L2s before is because we needed to have those collateral limits in place.

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Now, since we have them, it's about sorting what are the most interesting opportunities for users potentially that require the least amount of time to integrate them and then integrate them and deploy.

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That's long story short, I guess.

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Did I fully get into what you were asking or missed any part?

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Yeah, 100%, 100%.

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So, in terms of your L2 strategy going forward, are you thinking of establishing a home and one or two L2s or are you going to go massively multi-chain?

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Like, what's your strategy with kind of how you approach each L2?

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I think there are two replies to that.

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One is product related, just blatantly product related.

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Another one is more community vision ecosystem development way, right?

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And two of them kind of coincide with each other depending on what type of product it is.

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Let's take Gnosis's CowSwap, right, or OneH, an aggregator.

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I'm not sure there is much community sense behind it, right?

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It's not something you engage in as a way to put money in, right, to make money on.

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It's a service.

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It's a very clean, clear service, right?

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Of course, there is brand recognition.

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So, it's good when it has a community.

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But otherwise, people, it's about prices, right?

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With aggregators, I want to get consistently the best price, the fastest execution, the lowest gas fees, right?

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Very straightforward.

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With protocols that are related to lending, that are related to, I don't know, farming, that are a bit more intricate,

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I feel like there is a big community play behind them because you have to get into the details of each one of them, right?

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Every one of them is different, and there is more of a community ecosystem play there.

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So, if you come with a lending protocol as a new one to a new chain, the community will probably tell you,

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go pack your bags or I get away from here.

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Because if you are not spending time with the community and contributing back, whatever the hell that word means,

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then I don't think it's going to be very successful.

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And we have seen it with everybody who is not Uniswap trying to go to other chain is having a much harder time compared to people

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or projects that were on that chain from the start, right?

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And that's because the community and the holders of that base asset are more aligned with them.

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Again, whatever the hell that word means.

0:34:41 - 0:34:44

It's a lot of words for Gaze, right, these days.

0:34:44 - 0:34:50

Yeah, so our strategy, because the product is very intricate, there needs to be time to educate users,

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potentially LPs, traders, farmers, right, on what the hell your box is.

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So, it is simply impossible to deploy on many chains at the same time.

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There needs to be work done with the community, with the ecosystem, to get acquainted there,

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and to integrate whatever stuff there is, right?

0:35:06 - 0:35:08

We cannot just do it in one week, sadly.

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We already tied and chained developers to their chairs, not as a way of BDSM, but simply to make them work harder.

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Trust me, even that didn't help.

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Like, there still needs to be more time.

0:35:18 - 0:35:24

Yeah, so I think from one chain to another, it would take a few weeks, I would say even two months, minimum, right?

0:35:24 - 0:35:27

Minimum two months to be in one chain before jumping to another.

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Otherwise, you just, you wouldn't be able to do it neither physically nor conceptually nor, how do you say, ecosystem-wise development.

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That's one.

0:35:39 - 0:35:43

So, no, I think that's it, right? I mentioned a few things. There wasn't one, there was three.

0:35:43 - 0:35:53

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I think also, interestingly, from like ecosystem building perspective, from an L2 perspective, it's also, you know, our decision.

0:35:53 - 0:36:14

There's many thoughts about this internally also between core contributors of Mantle, but, you know, we have made the decision to, you know, try to focus more on like what makes Mantle special and like trying to, you know, borderline incubate and supports the products that are, you know, natively on Mantle and consider Mantle their home.

0:36:14 - 0:36:36

I think like from an ecosystem building perspective on L2 is when, you know, when you are the 17th L2 to integrate with a certain DeFi protocol, it's just like there's less stuff to be proud of and less stuff to claim that, hey, this specific DeFi protocol makes Mantle, for example, special, right?

0:36:36 - 0:36:55

So from our end, it's always, I mean, not always, but usually that's why we decide to support the ones that are really like, okay, they want to establish home at Mantle and then, okay, now we're part of the same family and we get married and now this is a long game at this point.

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Of course, there's a lot of, I think, interop solutions eventually where things won't go that way.

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So for example, this whole, yeah, this whole trend with like Velodrome to Aerodrome on base or Trader Joe and now Merchant Mo on Mantle, I think it works for now.

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I think eventually, however, we'll, of course, like, we'll come up some effective, safe interop solutions where maybe like the user doesn't even know which L2 they're interacting with.

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But for now, we're definitely, we're kind of prioritizing the native applications.

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I think that's a very good strategy that way, because indeed, when, ideally, you don't want to be the fifth deployment of that protocol, right?

0:37:43 - 0:37:50

It just doesn't add you that much. Unless you see them not as a protocol for community, you just see them as a service, right?

0:37:50 - 0:37:56

As something baseline people will trust and use. I think probably only Uniswap is at that level, right?

0:37:56 - 0:38:03

If you compare anything from DeFi, I don't think anybody is even close to having that brand that would be like, okay, I just want Uniswap, right?

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I just want that shit and I'm going to use only that. Everything else, every other chain has fully different.

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Subjective opinion, of course.

0:38:11 - 0:38:17

Yeah, to some extent, I agree. I think maybe Aave is like close, close second there.

0:38:17 - 0:38:25

But every chain has different Aave as well at the same time, right? Like every, what do they do? The Gnosis chain did their own, right?

0:38:26 - 0:38:31

Optimism has what, Aave? No. Arbitrum doesn't for sure, I think. Arbitrum has their own.

0:38:32 - 0:38:36

So yes, conceptually, brand-wise, they are not small at all. They are big and great guys.

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But I don't think it's just at the same level. Anyway, I don't want to really argue about that.

0:38:43 - 0:38:46

Cool. Elbron, do you want to go into some LobsterDAO stuff? Questions?

0:38:47 - 0:38:52

Yeah, yeah. Let's rewind back to the beginning where we were talking about LobsterDAO a bit.

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Maybe for anybody who wasn't here, we can just do the TLDR again.

0:38:56 - 0:39:05

So what is LobsterDAO? And yeah, I mean, let's just start there. So what is LobsterDAO? And give us a little bit of that history.

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LobsterDAO is just a research chat where people discuss stuff.

0:39:11 - 0:39:18

They don't trade there because it seems like the chat has bad karma for anybody who wants to be a good trader.

0:39:18 - 0:39:24

As soon as they join the chat, they start only losing money. Well, okay, I guess that's the entry price, even though it's free.

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Discussing economics, governance, some models, a little bit of ethics, whatever it means these days.

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Technology also, but not like hardcore code, right?

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Because like discussing hardcore code is a bit difficult for literally 99.9% of people to follow.

0:39:41 - 0:39:47

So whenever people do it, everybody else is like, listen, I mean, good for you, but this is really like not our thing.

0:39:47 - 0:39:52

So just imagine an open research chat where you could discuss everything except rugs and trading.

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And this is why people like it because most of the open communities are there to show you stuff.

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Here, there is no agenda to show you stuff.

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So yeah, and usually it's not rocket science to do that.

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It just requires a lot of moderation.

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And I've had no life since I was born, and I guess other admins as well.

0:40:12 - 0:40:16

So imagine you have an army of 20 incels moderating and keeping the chat clean.

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And then it works.

0:40:20 - 0:40:24

So I'm curious, who are the moderators?

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How do you guys go about onboarding and deciding who's the sort of community leader and somebody who can take on that role to protect sort of ethos of the chat?

0:40:34 - 0:40:44

The people who have been there kind of from the start, it was back in the days it started with Bantec and Klim from Bayern, as well as Vasily, back before he was the one in P2P and Lido.

0:40:44 - 0:40:48

Michael Ygorov was literally from the first early days.

0:40:48 - 0:40:55

Andrei Kronija was there up until he got more silent a year ago or so, but you never know when he comes back.

0:40:56 - 0:41:03

And a few other people in from mostly, I would say not even projects, but rather like people who just have been around for a while.

0:41:03 - 0:41:12

Every second one of them ended up on the project, right, by chance, or because, like, if you are in space, you need to either be a VC or project, right?

0:41:12 - 0:41:13

You kind of don't have any other role.

0:41:14 - 0:41:16

So, yeah, that's what happened.

0:41:16 - 0:41:17

So it was very organic.

0:41:18 - 0:41:19

Nobody knew there is no payment for that.

0:41:19 - 0:41:25

Just people have been chatting all the time, and then you can see they care and bring value and contribute, and then, yeah, they can be admins.

0:41:26 - 0:41:27

Not like admins gets you anything.

0:41:27 - 0:41:35

Like, it's just, you know, those memes about, I'm a Discord mod, like, oh, yeah, you're a Discord mod, wow, big man, that kind of style.

0:41:37 - 0:41:39

That sounded really freaking weird.

0:41:39 - 0:41:40

I apologize for that.

0:41:41 - 0:41:44

Yeah, I just keep laughing here while I'm muted.

0:41:44 - 0:41:56

So, yeah, one of the, like, again, give a little glimpse of Lobster Dao, like, anecdote here.

0:41:58 - 0:42:11

I think, I actually joined very, very late, and quite soon after I joined, I think somebody was, like, asking for, you know, I think they were looking for a job at Aave, like, going back to Aave.

0:42:11 - 0:42:17

And they pinged the chat to ask, like, hey, does anyone know anyone at Aave?

0:42:17 - 0:42:20

Like, I want to, I'm looking into, like, interviewing or something.

0:42:20 - 0:42:24

And then Stani immediately, immediately responds, saying, like, hey, just DM me.

0:42:25 - 0:42:29

But that's also, like, very interesting, and kudos to you guys.

0:42:29 - 0:42:32

I mean, you have, like, 25,000 members maybe in the main chat.

0:42:32 - 0:42:40

And still you have these, like, absolute, you know, DeFi OGs responding to questions and having conversations.

0:42:40 - 0:42:42

And I think, like, I mean, Al Brian knows this best, right?

0:42:42 - 0:42:46

Like, we have, you know, big community and so on.

0:42:46 - 0:42:48

But it's so tough.

0:42:48 - 0:42:49

Like, that work is so tough.

0:42:49 - 0:42:51

It's so noisy and so on.

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And definitely a lot of conversations that are, you know, impossible to manage.

0:42:57 - 0:42:59

So, yeah, kudos to you guys for doing that.

0:43:00 - 0:43:01

But also, like, a question.

0:43:01 - 0:43:11

Like, how do you keep the OGs interested when there's, like, such a massive, massive community and the community is so active?

0:43:12 - 0:43:14

I think, yes, thank you.

0:43:15 - 0:43:16

That's thanks to all the admins.

0:43:16 - 0:43:18

I do only, like, a small part of work.

0:43:18 - 0:43:19

Everybody else is contributing a lot to that.

0:43:19 - 0:43:26

I do like it that, let's say, Michael Yegorov and, let's say, Dan Robinson, right, and a few others come in still in chat.

0:43:27 - 0:43:32

I think the reason why is because there is no alternative in terms of, like, non-their-own-projects chats, right?

0:43:32 - 0:43:35

There is – Vitalik at some point tried to do Nakamoto.

0:43:36 - 0:43:37

Remember that thing, right?

0:43:37 - 0:43:40

Like, it was mid-barrel, so approximately similar time.

0:43:40 - 0:43:44

But then six hours in, he realized you kind of need to moderate an open public chat.

0:43:44 - 0:43:46

So they closed it immediately.

0:43:46 - 0:43:52

As soon as they opened it, it was quite funny that they didn't realize the obvious downside of something like that.

0:43:53 - 0:43:57

Makes you think about Ethereum staking rates, right, and the staking limits.

0:43:57 - 0:43:58

Like, guys, that was pretty obvious.

0:43:59 - 0:44:00

But please, Vitalik, keep pumping my back.

0:44:01 - 0:44:03

Anyway, back to the topic.

0:44:05 - 0:44:11

Yeah, so the absence of other alternatives, and people still want to chat about different topics, right?

0:44:11 - 0:44:19

And they kind of – like, a Curve finance founder probably kind of chat about Maverick inside his own chat would be a bit weird, right?

0:44:19 - 0:44:22

And people would be like, huh, this is not really tribal of you.

0:44:22 - 0:44:23

So I guess that is one thing.

0:44:24 - 0:44:25

I'm not saying he does it.

0:44:25 - 0:44:26

I'm just giving an example.

0:44:27 - 0:44:32

And the other thing is many people are just afraid to chat because they know they'll get bad.

0:44:33 - 0:44:33

So it's kind of funny.

0:44:33 - 0:44:37

It's not very good for open participation because many are just afraid.

0:44:37 - 0:44:41

Like, they just come in and, like, shit, I just need to do everything but not post any message.

0:44:41 - 0:44:43

They, like, low-key mute themselves.

0:44:44 - 0:44:47

That helps, but sometimes people are afraid to chat.

0:44:47 - 0:44:50

But, again, it's the other side of it.

0:44:50 - 0:44:52

There's too many people chatting, so you just choose one or the other.

0:44:53 - 0:44:59

So they're afraid because they get banned, so you basically threaten everyone that, you know, if you –

0:44:59 - 0:45:02

People face, like, when they hack it, like, oh, even they also joined Lobster.

0:45:02 - 0:45:04

I never said anything because they're afraid to get banned.

0:45:04 - 0:45:05

Like, every second person actually says that.

0:45:05 - 0:45:07

Like, that's actually very useful.

0:45:07 - 0:45:13

That makes life of admins much easier because people know as soon as they chat, like, there is a high chance they get banned and don't want to get banned.

0:45:14 - 0:45:19

There is no agenda to threaten people, but it just happened kind of.

0:45:19 - 0:45:19

I don't know.

0:45:21 - 0:45:21

I see.

0:45:22 - 0:45:22

I see.

0:45:22 - 0:45:22

Yeah.

0:45:22 - 0:45:24

L. Brian taking notes here.

0:45:25 - 0:45:25

Yeah.

0:45:25 - 0:45:29

Like you say, as soon as we sell the coin, we see you on chain, and then we're going to come bash your knees out with the bat.

0:45:30 - 0:45:32

Like, yeah, I never sell mantle anymore.

0:45:32 - 0:45:33

I just only buy.

0:45:33 - 0:45:42

So the secret to successful community management is just, like, enforce fear, spread fear.

0:45:42 - 0:45:43

It's what works.

0:45:44 - 0:45:45

Make sure people don't talk.

0:45:46 - 0:45:50

The same way as having a good relationship inside the family, right?

0:45:50 - 0:45:51

It's just – I'm kidding.

0:45:51 - 0:45:51

I'm kidding.

0:45:52 - 0:45:53

That was a joke.

0:45:53 - 0:45:53

That was a joke.

0:45:54 - 0:45:55

Don't do that.

0:45:55 - 0:45:55

Same.

0:45:55 - 0:45:55

Same.

0:45:57 - 0:45:57

Cool.

0:45:58 - 0:45:58

Yeah.

0:45:58 - 0:46:00

Very, very interesting.

0:46:00 - 0:46:00

Yeah.

0:46:00 - 0:46:04

I'm definitely, like, every day I'm looking into the conversations.

0:46:05 - 0:46:11

I always look into – LobsterDAO has a very cool kind of TLDR chat that's, like, a separate, I think, bot or something.

0:46:11 - 0:46:14

Or maybe it's moderators who are kind of summarizing.

0:46:15 - 0:46:16

I actually don't know.

0:46:16 - 0:46:16

I'm summarizing.

0:46:17 - 0:46:18

I've been doing it for four years.

0:46:18 - 0:46:21

I don't know if it's a person anymore or it's a bot.

0:46:21 - 0:46:22

I actually don't know.

0:46:22 - 0:46:24

And, yeah, big thanks to them.

0:46:24 - 0:46:26

If they're a bot, it's true thanks to AI.

0:46:27 - 0:46:29

The more you please AI, the less likely they're going to kill you, right?

0:46:29 - 0:46:30

But, yeah, it is great.

0:46:32 - 0:46:32

Well, yeah, yeah.

0:46:32 - 0:46:41

It's, like, a summary, like, daily summary of what was discussed at LobsterDAO in a separate chat that was, like, really, really useful and interesting for me always, yeah.

0:46:42 - 0:46:46

Anyway, so, yeah, super excited to kind of continue being active there.

0:46:47 - 0:46:55

Anyway, so let's go back to kind of some of the maybe L2 topics and maybe some prognosis for, you know, what's to come.

0:46:55 - 0:46:57

Before that, though, let's review last year.

0:46:57 - 0:47:01

So what's your take on 2023 in general?

0:47:01 - 0:47:08

Like, we, of course, like, started deep in the bear markets and things ended up in a different place.

0:47:08 - 0:47:12

But what was your kind of personal experience in the bear market?

0:47:16 - 0:47:17

Depression.

0:47:18 - 0:47:18

The world is ending.

0:47:19 - 0:47:19

And, no.

0:47:21 - 0:47:25

It wasn't my first bear market, so I expected this one to be a bit longer.

0:47:25 - 0:47:28

That's why I'm coping that I didn't buy enough now.

0:47:29 - 0:47:29

That's one thing.

0:47:30 - 0:47:31

No, expected it honestly to be longer.

0:47:32 - 0:47:41

I wouldn't say it got any bad at all because this time the funding rounds were much higher for many projects, so everybody still was rich enough on cash.

0:47:41 - 0:47:43

Not as much as you guys, obviously.

0:47:45 - 0:47:48

You just have the treasure of every single project combined.

0:47:48 - 0:47:50

That's not even funny.

0:47:51 - 0:47:53

That's almost sad for me, not for you, obviously.

0:47:53 - 0:47:55

But, yeah, the hackathon still continued.

0:47:55 - 0:47:56

People continued building.

0:47:57 - 0:47:59

There wasn't, like, just an outflow of people too much.

0:48:00 - 0:48:01

I feel like it was totally fine.

0:48:02 - 0:48:04

So, honestly, I didn't feel it that much.

0:48:04 - 0:48:09

It was more quiet, but Gearbox was at the stage where it was in between V2 and V3.

0:48:09 - 0:48:20

So, because we knew that was going to take a while, there wasn't any point feeling depressed that there was not much traction because, as it turns out, DeFi, even after bull market, still has no traction.

0:48:21 - 0:48:24

So, that didn't change that much, right, 2023, 2024.

0:48:24 - 0:48:28

Too many jokes, but I wouldn't say there was anything special to single out.

0:48:28 - 0:48:30

There was a lot of infra projects, right?

0:48:30 - 0:48:40

A lot of attention to infra, a lot of high valuations on infra, almost no new applications because everybody went to where the fundraising money was, which was, surprise, infra.

0:48:40 - 0:48:44

And now things might change, given money is a bit easier.

0:48:45 - 0:48:45

Yeah.

0:48:46 - 0:48:47

Don't know what else to say.

0:48:47 - 0:48:47

How do you feel?

0:48:48 - 0:48:49

What do you feel I find special?

0:48:50 - 0:48:57

I mean, my history is in product building and kind of product research and so on.

0:48:57 - 0:49:00

Like, I am, by nature, I'm a builder.

0:49:00 - 0:49:05

I love being part of product teams and contributing in various ways.

0:49:06 - 0:49:11

So, for me, actually, it's a very fortunate position to be in.

0:49:11 - 0:49:15

But I, you know, last year for Mantle was incredible, right?

0:49:15 - 0:49:20

Like, I mean, we launched, I think it was exactly a year ago, actually, Testnet, right?

0:49:20 - 0:49:33

So many trials and tribulations with the launch, but, like, it was very, very exciting, doing something completely new, trying to figure out kind of ecosystem development, developer engagement.

0:49:33 - 0:49:38

But I think for builders in general, like, the vibe was still there, right?

0:49:38 - 0:49:42

Like, I spent so much time in different hackathons and talking to developers and so on.

0:49:42 - 0:49:55

So, like, I think I was always, like, what kept me going for sure is just, like, seeing how optimistic and positive and convinced developers are and constantly learning.

0:49:56 - 0:50:02

So, yeah, for me, I mean, the price movement, the market movement doesn't actually, I don't even think about it, right?

0:50:02 - 0:50:08

The reason, oversharing maybe, the reason I don't really trade is because then I think about trading all the time.

0:50:08 - 0:50:09

Then I get depressed.

0:50:09 - 0:50:10

Then I don't sleep.

0:50:10 - 0:50:16

Then I don't have time for, you know, talking to my wife at dinner type of thing, right?

0:50:16 - 0:50:28

But I think for me, it's a healthier space to just kind of focus on building, focus on ecosystem development and talking to developers and new products and so on.

0:50:28 - 0:50:30

That's always interesting.

0:50:30 - 0:50:39

And I think actually in bear market, that is the healthiest place where, like, there's less noise and you can really focus on what matters.

0:50:40 - 0:50:55

My question to you, though, like, did you intentionally time kind of this L2 narrative and going into L2s and launching V3 with, like, with the market sentiment?

0:50:55 - 0:51:04

Like, did you have to kind of wait and you intentionally did not look into launching an L2s last year because of the market or was it just kind of random?

0:51:05 - 0:51:06

Very random.

0:51:06 - 0:51:07

It's just audits kept piling up.

0:51:08 - 0:51:09

Audits found something, then it was fixed.

0:51:09 - 0:51:13

Then after fixing it, they realized there is a better way to do some other stuff and then blah, blah.

0:51:13 - 0:51:17

The usual development process being maybe overthought a bit.

0:51:17 - 0:51:20

But to do things quality, things take more time.

0:51:21 - 0:51:25

So, no, there wasn't any planning or trying to play with the timing of the market.

0:51:25 - 0:51:35

It just it actually was released sooner than it was supposed to be in a sense that it could have also launched V3 with farming at the same time, right?

0:51:35 - 0:51:36

Like trading and farming.

0:51:36 - 0:51:44

But we just had, OK, let's do it staged, first trading, see how it goes, launch one interface and then launch the second UI when farming is integrated.

0:51:44 - 0:51:46

And that's going to be in a couple of weeks from now.

0:51:46 - 0:51:53

So end of January, we will probably see when alpha V3 stage will be fully over for us on mainnet.

0:51:53 - 0:52:04

And that will be like the time to, OK, now we can put 90 percent of the focus on L2s, meaning deployment configs, everything, oracles, whatever they are on those chains or on Mantle specifically, right?

0:52:04 - 0:52:05

And things like that.

0:52:08 - 0:52:11

Coming back to your point, actually, about trading, just jump into it a bit.

0:52:11 - 0:52:12

Fully agree.

0:52:13 - 0:52:17

Around October, I bought four different coins for a tiny amount, just like to feel something, right?

0:52:19 - 0:52:20

Selected as a narrative.

0:52:20 - 0:52:22

They all went up, obviously, but it wasn't because I was a genius.

0:52:23 - 0:52:24

Everything went up since then.

0:52:24 - 0:52:27

But three days in, I kept checking the price every time.

0:52:28 - 0:52:31

Would be 1% down, I would be crying, not be sleeping.

0:52:31 - 0:52:32

And I'm like, I can't take it.

0:52:32 - 0:52:35

And I just sold it, I'm lost, and then obviously, they are up now, which is fine.

0:52:35 - 0:52:36

Doesn't matter.

0:52:36 - 0:52:37

I just agree with it, it doesn't work.

0:52:38 - 0:52:46

As Andre taught me, Andre was like, mentor is a weird word, like a friend, and explained a few things because he is more senior in stuff.

0:52:46 - 0:52:54

He was like, bear markets are the best times to be friends with devs, and bull markets is when you get rid of devs and you just, because you need to ape into shit.

0:52:54 - 0:52:57

Which he doesn't take his own advice at all, but it is true, right?

0:52:57 - 0:53:06

In bear markets, even as an investor, being friendly with devs helps you realize the trends that are real and that are persistent and that are natural and organic.

0:53:07 - 0:53:09

But in bull market, you really should just dump it all.

0:53:10 - 0:53:14

By dumping it all, I mean all of the aspirations about products and everything.

0:53:14 - 0:53:16

And again, this is just a trading advice, right?

0:53:16 - 0:53:21

I also cannot use my own advice, so I'm just saying that I fully agree with what you said.

0:53:23 - 0:53:27

Well, I actually had no idea about your relationship with Andre.

0:53:27 - 0:53:28

That's interesting.

0:53:29 - 0:53:30

And I love that.

0:53:31 - 0:53:31

Love that quote.

0:53:33 - 0:53:33

Cool, yeah.

0:53:34 - 0:53:38

Let's look into some of the kind of 2024 prospects.

0:53:38 - 0:53:42

So, like, what are you seeing this year?

0:53:42 - 0:53:48

Like, I mean, it can be about L2s, can be about kind of major trends that you think will be working.

0:53:48 - 0:53:52

Of course, you're saying, like, we should break up with our developer friends.

0:53:53 - 0:53:55

We should start.

0:53:55 - 0:53:55

Dump it up.

0:53:55 - 0:53:56

Yes, all right.

0:53:58 - 0:53:59

But, like, what else are you seeing?

0:53:59 - 0:54:03

Like, what should the industry kind of move toward?

0:54:03 - 0:54:05

What are the narratives that will work this year?

0:54:05 - 0:54:12

Cherokee can like this.

0:54:12 - 0:54:14

I honestly wouldn't even be able to tell you.

0:54:15 - 0:54:15

Let me think.

0:54:18 - 0:54:19

Infra will continue being, right?

0:54:19 - 0:54:23

What kind of infra, whether it's Oracle, Zeltos, or some risk-taking stuff or whatever.

0:54:24 - 0:54:24

I don't know.

0:54:24 - 0:54:25

Probably everything to a degree, right?

0:54:26 - 0:54:27

Everything to a certain degree.

0:54:27 - 0:54:39

I think because of capital being easier now and ecosystems being rich and they need to enshrine more app development, we'll at least see a bit more apps that I think will be true.

0:54:40 - 0:54:41

Like, anything app, right?

0:54:41 - 0:54:44

Just anything that users can click, apart from just doing infra, right?

0:54:44 - 0:54:47

So, that probably will be the case this year more.

0:54:47 - 0:54:52

Because infra needs to now fund development of apps to really show that apps are using that infra, right?

0:54:52 - 0:54:55

Like, kind of, you touch my, oh, wait, sorry, that's the wrong one.

0:54:55 - 0:54:58

And you play with, no, that's the wrong one again.

0:54:58 - 0:54:59

How do I say it?

0:55:00 - 0:55:02

You use me, which is good for you, so I help you.

0:55:02 - 0:55:03

Let's put it like that.

0:55:06 - 0:55:07

Anything specific, maybe?

0:55:07 - 0:55:12

Because, again, I'm just going to name the top 10 that every research report mentions, so it's not going to be very unique.

0:55:13 - 0:55:14

Well, yeah, sure.

0:55:14 - 0:55:25

Let's, like, maybe from our perspective and with this current topic of L2s, like, well, what are your thoughts on, like, on the L2 wars this year?

0:55:25 - 0:55:30

Like, I feel like there's a thousand L2s launching at this point.

0:55:31 - 0:55:34

Maybe some fears of fragmentation of liquidity and so on.

0:55:34 - 0:55:36

Interop isn't working still.

0:55:36 - 0:55:43

Like, going from L2 to another L2 is a disaster and is a very bad UX experience.

0:55:43 - 0:55:49

So, like, very interested in your kind of thoughts on the L2 space in this coming year.

0:55:50 - 0:55:55

Like, what will make certain L2s, you know, maybe winners versus losers?

0:55:57 - 0:55:58

Good question.

0:55:58 - 0:56:05

I am a newbie in this answer, so let me try to give you a new perspective because maybe that will be somewhat fresh to you, given you are so much involved in it.

0:56:05 - 0:56:09

As a user, I absolutely hate all of that shit.

0:56:09 - 0:56:10

Like, I absolutely hate everything.

0:56:11 - 0:56:13

I hate switching from one chain to another.

0:56:13 - 0:56:16

I hate knowing that there are different chains and everything, right?

0:56:16 - 0:56:22

So, as a user, we all know that it's great when things are a bit more abstracted, or at least conceptually people say that would be great, right?

0:56:23 - 0:56:24

Conceptually, that would be great.

0:56:24 - 0:56:25

We don't know yet if that will be the case.

0:56:25 - 0:56:28

But then it's the question, right?

0:56:28 - 0:56:31

Like, as infra behind it, how do you differentiate yourself from others?

0:56:32 - 0:56:44

Because I'm not sure exactly a user having all of the actions abstracted for them is possible because every lending protocol is different, every perpdex is different, every farm is different, every asset is different on different chains.

0:56:45 - 0:56:51

I'm not sure within the next three years we will be able to fix the issue of liquidity fragmentation, right?

0:56:51 - 0:56:53

I think we have zero attempt to do it, right?

0:56:53 - 0:56:57

ZKVM has their own standard that they think is going to improve it.

0:56:58 - 0:57:00

Optimist Superchain, right, has a way to say it.

0:57:00 - 0:57:01

ZK Sync as well, right?

0:57:01 - 0:57:02

You guys, I assume, as well.

0:57:03 - 0:57:07

So, it's just like, I don't know, I think by default you are part of that stack that makes it possible, right?

0:57:08 - 0:57:10

But it's still none of that is fully tested, right?

0:57:10 - 0:57:12

So, that part, I don't know how it's going to be solved.

0:57:13 - 0:57:19

So, unless that is solved, I'm not sure that concept of user being abstracted away from chains is even possible.

0:57:19 - 0:57:27

But, again, please treat my words with a high degree of bullshit because I don't know too much of what I'm talking about right now.

0:57:28 - 0:57:30

You're being too humble, too humble.

0:57:31 - 0:57:39

I think it's very stupid how everybody is just throwing money at the problem because it has to stop working at some point, right?

0:57:39 - 0:57:52

Just giving grants is not bad, but literally overbidding each other is just stupid, which I think you guys are doing the correct strategy of trying to differentiate there with community and something unique.

0:57:53 - 0:57:56

It might be much harder to get there, but just throwing money at the problem doesn't help.

0:57:57 - 0:58:00

It helps when people throw money at the problem, right?

0:58:00 - 0:58:08

When they, for example, create meme coins or some other form of shittery which you don't have direct involvement with because that gets people to bridge in and to use stuff, right?

0:58:08 - 0:58:15

That's fine, but throwing money to, let's say, Awe, Curve and Lido just to give them grants, I'm not sure that's going to get you far.

0:58:16 - 0:58:23

At least I wouldn't be doing it if I had a chain, which might be concerning because maybe then that's actually the thing you should be doing if you want to counter trade.

0:58:23 - 0:58:31

It's like reverse Kramer index, but reverse Yvonne narrative index, yeah.

0:58:31 - 0:58:38

And one more thing, I guess, the question is what are those unique things, right?

0:58:39 - 0:58:49

I guess since a chain, a chain less so a DeFi protocol, you know, infra, right, needs a lot of unique dummy users like normal users, right?

0:58:49 - 0:58:58

With $10 or $100, you don't need users of like 100k capital because frankly speaking, capital you already have and you can always repurpose it somehow.

0:58:58 - 0:59:01

I don't know what limitations you have in the mandate, but still you have it, right?

0:59:01 - 0:59:04

You are not, you're not limited by that stuff.

0:59:06 - 0:59:09

So it's about uniqueness and about the social metrics more so.

0:59:09 - 0:59:12

Not about the number of wallets, right, but just the social presence to an extent.

0:59:12 - 0:59:19

So maybe focusing on social fight type of applications is a good thing, at least in Mankell's case.

0:59:19 - 0:59:23

Again, I'm just, I'm talking without knowing much about what you already have in Pi, right?

0:59:23 - 0:59:35

So what about in general from like users, users perspective, like you kind of touched on this a little bit, but like this concept of chain abstraction, right?

0:59:35 - 0:59:45

Like, like sure, everyone is talking about L2 wars and like, you know, trying to, trying to have some differentiate, differentiation in the, in the market from, from, you know, various L2s.

0:59:45 - 0:59:50

But, but then at the same time, we're all working on abstracting the chain away, right?

0:59:50 - 0:59:56

So the user, as you said, like the, you know, you said your words, you hate all this shit, right?

0:59:56 - 0:59:57

Like, you don't want to know which chain you're on.

0:59:57 - 1:00:02

But like, do you think this is a realistic goal?

1:00:02 - 1:00:17

Like, do you think it's, it's a net positive for, for crypto in general, for, for the user not to even know that they're like, which chain they're interacting with, or even beyond that, not even knowing that they're, they're, you know, the, under the hood, this is blockchain, right?

1:00:17 - 1:00:23

Like maybe they're like, they're having a fully web two type experience and behind the scenes it's crypto, but the user doesn't even know.

1:00:24 - 1:00:28

I mean, do you think that's net positive for the, for the kind of crypto industry?

1:00:28 - 1:00:31

We all prayed for ETF to be approved for the past two years.

1:00:31 - 1:00:32

What are you talking about?

1:00:32 - 1:00:36

We all delegated our values away to the richest bidder.

1:00:36 - 1:00:40

I'm half joking, but it is partly, not partly, but largely true as well.

1:00:41 - 1:00:42

So I don't think it's good.

1:00:42 - 1:00:43

I don't like it.

1:00:43 - 1:00:47

But end of the day, if crypto grows further, Apple is going to make its own wallet.

1:00:48 - 1:00:50

It's not going to give a seat to users right away.

1:00:50 - 1:00:53

And people are just going to be pressing some centralized Apple chain probably.

1:00:53 - 1:00:55

So I don't think there is a way to get out of it.

1:00:55 - 1:01:02

I always thought that there would be like a market, which is like 99 or like 95% that doesn't give a shit, right?

1:01:02 - 1:01:03

But it's still adoption.

1:01:03 - 1:01:04

So our bags will go up.

1:01:04 - 1:01:11

And the 5% of the people who actually care what nodes are running, what code there is, what protocol risks there are, but it's just going to be smaller.

1:01:11 - 1:01:14

However, it's like the same as people who care about privacy, right?

1:01:15 - 1:01:18

You still have like, what is it, 99% to 1% ratio, right?

1:01:19 - 1:01:25

And it doesn't mean that's bad, because if you have a billion people adoption, that 5% is still a huge amount of users, right?

1:01:25 - 1:01:28

So yes, you're going to be a niche, but you're going to be a really huge niche.

1:01:28 - 1:01:33

And the people who care can still always have the option to join that, right, if they want.

1:01:33 - 1:01:41

If they don't want to, and majority won't, they'll just be using Apple Wallet with the inbuilt wallet thingy and then some Apple chain.

1:01:42 - 1:01:44

And those users wouldn't want to have abstraction.

1:01:44 - 1:01:51

So I don't think we can stop the abstraction of chains and abstraction of crypto into even not being a blockchain.

1:01:54 - 1:02:00

I'm not sure you can make a decision to be one or the other, because you're either Apple or you're not, right?

1:02:00 - 1:02:03

So maybe it's like, you know what I can compare this to?

1:02:03 - 1:02:11

So when founders try to do fundraising, they say, listen, everybody is appealing to the lowest denominator who is trading coins and doing all speculation, right?

1:02:12 - 1:02:17

We are instead going to focus on Latin American micropayments and fix the industry there.

1:02:17 - 1:02:21

And then it's like, good vision, big vision, but like, are you being realistic?

1:02:21 - 1:02:24

Like, you have no way to penetrate that.

1:02:25 - 1:02:27

Or, for example, if that market even existed, that one exists, right?

1:02:27 - 1:02:28

But let's say something else.

1:02:28 - 1:02:36

So maybe you should be just doing the crypto narrative type of stuff, because that's where the users are right now.

1:02:36 - 1:02:38

And once you have them, you can always evolve further.

1:02:38 - 1:02:42

Like, for example, Curve is an example to an extent, right?

1:02:42 - 1:02:43

Overly complex.

1:02:43 - 1:02:45

No single user ever is going to use it directly.

1:02:45 - 1:02:47

And I think Curve devs agree with that as well.

1:02:48 - 1:02:54

But because they appeal to so many crypto native users, that still gave them enough of a position that they can build on top of.

1:02:54 - 1:02:58

Whether they'll be able to capitalize on it or not is a different thing, right?

1:02:58 - 1:03:04

But you cannot just say we have a huge vision and just start with something fully abstract that is only usable 10 years down the line.

1:03:05 - 1:03:06

Maybe you should be doing this stuff today.

1:03:07 - 1:03:09

Slowly, piece by piece.

1:03:14 - 1:03:15

Amazing.

1:03:15 - 1:03:20

And, yeah, as we sort of come to the end here, Ivan, thank you so much for sharing all your insights.

1:03:20 - 1:03:22

And I just wanted to ask one final question before we start to close out.

1:03:22 - 1:03:32

So is there anything else you're looking forward to this year, anything you're excited about 2024, piquing your interest, keeping you motivated for the rest of the year?

1:03:37 - 1:03:39

I'm not sure if I can single out anything specifically.

1:03:39 - 1:03:43

There are a lot of great teams now, a lot of great people working on different stuff.

1:03:43 - 1:03:45

So it's nice to see things being solved.

1:03:46 - 1:03:53

Back in the days when I only first saw Ethereum in 2017, I first, like, read the first, like, what was it?

1:03:53 - 1:03:55

The criticism thing about the scalability or something else, right?

1:03:55 - 1:04:01

But then as time goes by, you see that the community is around there and the different developers are fixing different stuff.

1:04:01 - 1:04:09

So I feel I have, like, more of a, how do you call it, generalist, optimistic view on things, right, that somebody is going to fix it.

1:04:09 - 1:04:14

And it's not the illusion of responsibility per se, just that there are enough people that are working on these problems.

1:04:14 - 1:04:17

So, no, I think social apps could be cool.

1:04:18 - 1:04:19

I do love DeFi myself.

1:04:19 - 1:04:20

That's why I'm in DeFi.

1:04:20 - 1:04:28

So I feel like DeFi is something very tangible, usable, and maybe too degen and not very normal, user-friendly, but still it cannot go anywhere.

1:04:28 - 1:04:31

As, end of the day, all of crypto is finance, right?

1:04:31 - 1:04:34

People praying to ETF is because it is about finance, right?

1:04:34 - 1:04:36

So same concept there.

1:04:40 - 1:04:45

No, I guess seeing something, seeing more unique stuff, I guess, as a broad reply, whatever that is.

1:04:47 - 1:04:58

Yeah, and just to harp on this a little bit, I think the one, one of the things I noticed when, like, looking into Gearbox is that, you know, there's this sort of degen user base that you're targeting,

1:04:58 - 1:05:03

but also this lower-risk, more passive user who's maybe just getting into the space.

1:05:03 - 1:05:11

So I think it's cool how Gearbox sort of bridges those two worlds between the folks who are really, like, deep in managing their own positions and such,

1:05:11 - 1:05:16

and those who are maybe looking for passive yield and just starting to explore.

1:05:16 - 1:05:18

So, yeah, kudos to you.

1:05:18 - 1:05:19

Hope to bring it to Mantle.

1:05:20 - 1:05:21

Yeah, thank you for pointing that out.

1:05:21 - 1:05:23

Hope to bring it to Mantle this year.

1:05:23 - 1:05:26

End of key one or beginning of key two.

1:05:26 - 1:05:30

I think then when it's technically Gearbox, we'll be ready to be on the roll-up in general.

1:05:32 - 1:05:35

Yeah, I guess a few DAO votes here and there is still needed, right?

1:05:35 - 1:05:36

That's, can't avoid that.

1:05:37 - 1:05:38

There needs to be coordination with that.

1:05:38 - 1:05:41

But, yeah, no, coordination is the wrong word.

1:05:42 - 1:05:42

Decision-making.

1:05:43 - 1:05:44

All of that at the same time, let's say.

1:05:45 - 1:05:46

So, yeah, let's see how it goes.

1:05:46 - 1:05:48

Would be exciting to see that happen, hopefully.

1:05:48 - 1:05:49

Let's see how it goes.

1:05:49 - 1:05:50

Amazing.

1:05:50 - 1:05:51

Amazing.

1:05:51 - 1:06:01

And is there anything else you wanted to, any upcoming announcements, things you want to draw people to, things you're working on, things that are coming up at LobsterDAO or Gearbox in the coming weeks before we close out?

1:06:02 - 1:06:05

With LobsterDAO, everybody is welcome to join and read.

1:06:05 - 1:06:07

Probably don't try to chat right away.

1:06:07 - 1:06:14

Just read and, like, if you share something that's very, extremely interesting and you are not shilling your bags, that's always welcome.

1:06:14 - 1:06:31

As for Gearbox, so, yeah, full mainnet version essentially should be end of January, which will have trading with pure spot assets, meaning much lower risks and no funding rates, as well as farming on some of the interesting curve and the convex pools.

1:06:31 - 1:06:36

And, yeah, that's basically a setup to be able to go to layer twos later during the year.

1:06:36 - 1:06:37

That's the goal.

1:06:37 - 1:06:44

So, yeah, happy to answer any questions, async, whoever, or, like, I mean, in the chats, if anybody still has something to ask.

1:06:47 - 1:06:48

Awesome.

1:06:49 - 1:06:51

And just a few announcements here on the Mantle side.

1:06:51 - 1:06:55

So, Eigenlayer ME3 staking opens on January 29th.

1:06:55 - 1:06:57

I know a lot of folks are waiting for this.

1:06:57 - 1:07:04

So, if you have questions about it, feel free to join us on Discord and we'll do our best to help you find the answers.

1:07:04 - 1:07:05

And then Merchant...

1:07:05 - 1:07:08

By the way, about that, sorry, just to...

1:07:08 - 1:07:09

Yeah.

1:07:09 - 1:07:12

It's only open for three days, I think.

1:07:12 - 1:07:14

So, yeah, put that on your calendar.

1:07:14 - 1:07:21

It's January 29th at, I think, 12 p.m. Pacific time.

1:07:21 - 1:07:24

But it's a very short period when the restaking is open.

1:07:24 - 1:07:26

So, yeah, put that on your calendars.

1:07:27 - 1:07:28

Do you have an explanation of why?

1:07:28 - 1:07:30

I'm just curious, unless you kind of talk about it.

1:07:30 - 1:07:32

Just curious, like, why the short window?

1:07:32 - 1:07:33

It's not bad if it's a short window.

1:07:33 - 1:07:35

Just curious, like, what's the idea?

1:07:35 - 1:07:43

That's up to Eigenlayer, but I guess they cannot stop the inflow, which is a good problem to have, yeah.

1:07:43 - 1:07:45

Ah, I see. It makes sense.

1:07:45 - 1:07:48

No, that's really cool that it's a possibility for math holders.

1:07:48 - 1:07:51

I mean, it's also, like, of course, like a security measure.

1:07:51 - 1:07:58

They don't want 100% of crypto TVL to go to Eigenlayer right away.

1:07:58 - 1:07:59

That would be a disaster.

1:07:59 - 1:08:02

So, yeah, it's, I think, security reasons.

1:08:03 - 1:08:04

Fair enough. Thank you.

1:08:04 - 1:08:05

Sorry for interrupting.

1:08:07 - 1:08:08

All good.

1:08:08 - 1:08:12

Yeah, so if anybody's interested, again, that's January 29th to February 2nd.

1:08:12 - 1:08:15

Just a short window there.

1:08:15 - 1:08:18

Other ecosystem announcements and sort of news.

1:08:18 - 1:08:21

Merchant Mo just reached 25 million TVL.

1:08:21 - 1:08:26

I think Fusion X just reached 250 million in volume as well.

1:08:26 - 1:08:30

So congrats to these teams that are continuing to build and get user adoption.

1:08:30 - 1:08:35

And then the Mantle Treasury just crossed $3 billion in managed assets.

1:08:35 - 1:08:39

So, yeah, we're growing.

1:08:39 - 1:08:41

The community is growing.

1:08:41 - 1:08:45

And I think we're all gearing up for a super exciting 2024.

1:08:45 - 1:08:50

Not only for Mantle, but for Gearbox, for LobsterDAO, for the broader ecosystem.

1:08:50 - 1:08:54

So thank you, everybody, for taking the time to join.

1:08:54 - 1:08:57

And thank you for everybody who asked community questions.

1:08:57 - 1:09:02

We didn't directly ask any of those, but they're sort of woven in to some of the questions in here.

1:09:02 - 1:09:03

All right.

1:09:03 - 1:09:04

Thanks so much, Veer.

1:09:04 - 1:09:13

Thank you, Ivan, for dropping so many insights and, you know, your sense of humor into this conversation this morning.

1:09:13 - 1:09:14

Appreciate you guys.

1:09:14 - 1:09:18

Thank you very much for inviting and sorry for the technical issues at the start.

1:09:18 - 1:09:22

And, yeah, glad to hear that some of the jokes landed.

1:09:22 - 1:09:24

Appreciate it.

1:09:24 - 1:09:25

Thank you, Ivan.

1:09:25 - 1:09:26

Thanks, O'Brien.

1:09:26 - 1:09:27

Thanks, Jay.

1:09:27 - 1:09:28

Thanks.

1:09:28 - 1:09:29

Thanks, all.

1:09:29 - 1:09:30

Cheers.

1:09:30 - 1:09:31

Bye-bye.

1:09:31 - 1:09:32

Cheers.

1:09:32 - 1:09:33

Bye.

1:09:48 - 1:09:49

Bye.

1:09:49 - 1:09:50

Bye.

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