Hey, what's up, everyone. My name is AJ Wright's crypto.
Welcome to Algorand unfiltered. I could not be more excited to get into today's show.
I mean, the past couple of interviews, I mean, we've had the pleasure of interviewing
John Allen Woods, Stacey Warden, but today, today, this one is special. If you're already in Algorand,
algo fam, excuse me, of course, you're familiar with the big names, you know, the founder,
the CTO, the CEO, but trust me, they are not the only rock stars in the band.
The insider scoop at Algorand is made up of an entire community of people all over the world.
And there are more unsung heroes in the ecosystem than most people would think.
And the best part is, today, we get to talk to not one, but two of them introducing to the stage,
Min and Yeet, how are you doing today?
Hi, hi, doing well, happy to be here.
Hi, it's great to be here.
Sorry, AJ, I think I didn't hear you.
Is she having connectivity problems?
Ah, you're back. I didn't hear you earlier.
Oh, okay. I was so I asked if you could give a quick intro for the audience,
for anyone who doesn't know who you are, and what your role is in the Algorand ecosystem.
Of course, of course. Hi, everyone. So, my name is Min. I lead ecosystem here at the Algorand
Foundation. You know, what that means is getting builders to come and build on Algorand.
It is making sure that we support the folks that are building on Algorand,
it's looking for gaps in our ecosystem that we need to fill, you know, and it's looking
for new opportunities to grow. So, it's like a mix of a lot of things, and it's fun.
Awesome. Love it. Love it. Yeet, what about you? What is your role? And quick intro.
Yeah, my name is Yeet, and I am the CTO of Perovolt. Before Pera, I worked on mobile
applications and FinTech projects for a long time. But since five years, I'm working on Pera,
and it's a long time. I remember the day mainnet has been launched, and the day we added support
for ASA prices, and the day when we passed the 1000 ASA limit across the network. And it's been
a long and fun journey, and I'm still working like it's the first day. I learn new things every day
and work on exciting features. I love it. I love it. So, of course, you know, at some point in
this conversation, we will talk about the Pera wallet and everything, you know, specifically
that you're working on. But before we do that, I do want to kind of zoom out and get a feel for
where you stand, you know, take the temperature of the room, if you will. I mean, look, look
at what's happening right now. The crypto market is putting up record numbers, especially, I mean,
this is pre-having price action, pre-having price action. The Bitcoin outflows are ridiculous.
The ETF inflows also ridiculous. Retail is ravenous. It's no secret that the next
life-changing bull run is certainly coming, and it's on its way. In your opinion,
starting with Yeet first, what is different about crypto this time compared to last bull run?
Yeah, I think both the projects and users are more mature at this point. In the previous bull run,
people invested in projects without knowing anything about them. A catchy name, a nice logo,
and then advice from one of their friends were enough. At this time, I noticed a more extensive,
knowledgeable user base. Of course, there will be users who act with very limited knowledge,
but I think at this time, the real world usage will impact the decisions of a significant portion
of the users. And I think this is where modern layer ones like Algorand will have better visibility.
We are seeing many projects like an F ticket or other projects who use Algorand's unique
functionalities. And I think this is the advantage of Algorand. And in Algorand,
the transactions are almost instantaneous. We cannot revert them. And if you see a transaction
on the explorer, it's done. So I think that's the most important difference, and it will be very
important for Algorand as well. No, I completely agree 100%. Man, what about you? What is different
about crypto this time compared to the bull run last time?
Yeah, I mean, I totally agree with Yeet. I think we are emerging as a more mature
industry as a whole, because we have one more bear, one more bull under our belt.
I think also, I just kind of look at a couple different factors too. If you look at the
amount of money that's been coming into the overall web-free crypto ecosystem,
unlike the last time where there was like tremendous hype and astronomical money coming in,
it feels like there's a rebound, but there's more caution. So I think I was reading some numbers
where there was $650 million that came into investment dollars that came in in January.
And that is a nice rebound, but it's only 3% higher than 2023. So I think that just kind of
gives you a sense of the investors are still being pretty measured. And then the other thing,
I think that's really big different, and this is maybe a little bit calling out the obvious,
but the institutional money that's coming in is something that was not seen in the last bull run.
And I think it gives a bunch of credibility, and it legitimizes us as an industry.
And then the last piece, very similar to what Yeet was saying, is I think
just like the innovation that we're seeing is a lot more across the board. Like last time it was NFTs,
it was D5. Now we've got stuff around infrastructure, the restaking stuff, the social stuff,
faircaster, we got interoperability. We have people working on the modular blockchain,
like celestial. There's just so much more, I think, range that's happening. So I think
it's just all very healthy and super exciting to see.
Yeah, I mean, no secret about it, crypto has matured. The entire industry has matured night
and day, I would say, like the rate of progression has sped up as well. If you look at how far
technology has came, like video games from the early 90s to now, I mean, it's completely,
we've come a long way from Pac-Man. And I feel that's a good analogy for crypto,
no doubt, not to mention with the Bitcoin ETF getting approved, the institutional,
they're really seeing the returns already with the ETF getting approved when it did
and Bitcoin's price since the ETF got approved. And then we start seeing rumors about Jeff Bezos
selling stock to buy Bitcoin. I mean, the entire narrative has completely changed.
And I feel like this coming bull runs me much different story than the last one for sure.
So I do want to follow up with a similar question about Agaran specifically.
You are both on the inside, of course. So of course, I have to ask for the secret
sauce. I know you guys are not allowed to talk price action, but here's the thing, I can, I can.
So let's paint a picture for the audience. So last bull run, the beginning of 2023,
Agaran's market cap was a bit north of $506 million. By April, it was $4 billion,
and by September, it was $12 billion. Let's recap that. Agaran went from $506 million
to $12 billion in nine months back in 2021. I feel like people kind of might sleep on this fact
a little bit. They forget, you know, we have short term memory problems in crypto.
They forget how explosive Agaran was in the previous run. You know, my question is this,
what takes us from point A to point B this time around, starting with Min.
Yeah, well, so I'm going to interpret that question to mean what's it going to take us to
become one of the best blockchains, one of the best ecosystems. Yeah. And so I think
last time around, I guess one of the things I feel like was happening was all the, it was like
the battle of the tech a little bit, right? Like all the layer ones and the roll up and the layer
twos were kind of like trying to stake their, like how they're different and what makes their tech
better. I think this time around, it's not about the tech. Like, no, we're not going to talk about
the tech anymore because you, that is like table stakes, right? You have to have good tech. And
we all know that algorithms got the best. So, you know, we're solid, solid in this, in this,
in this round. But it's really, I think all about finding meaningful real world use cases
that can drive adoption. I think that's what this time around is all about. And what do I mean by
adoption and these real world use cases? I mean, a good example, right? Is travel X. As you guys
all know, travel X is a platform that meant NFT tickets for airlines. What does it mean? So
that's the real world component of it. What does the adoption component mean? When they launched
with their first airline, they, it took them, I think four to six months to get a million
passengers, another four to six months to get 2 million passengers. They signed a second airline
at the end of December. Now they're past 5 million. Like to me, that's adoption, right? That is scale.
And so I think we have, you know, I think we get more projects like that launching on Algorand.
And that is going to prove, you know, it's going to demonstrate that by the way, like
this technology is here to stay. And this is how it's going to be used. And it's going to prove
that Algorand of all the techs of all the later ones out there can really scale to the millions
to the billion. I mean, there are many projects, of course, like this that on Algorand that I can
give examples for. But to me, that that's what it's going to take for us to kind of, you know,
get to get to get to the moon. No, I feel like that's a solid answer.
You have a take on this question? Yeah, I totally agree with me. Like from the technical
standpoint, the apparent advantage of Algorand is time to finality. I think this is this is a big,
big, big advantage. And blockchain entrepreneurs are fighting to solve real life challenges just
like NF ticket. And Algorand short time to finality can be a great distinguish among other
chains, in my opinion. People familiar with other blockchains cannot believe how short the time to
finality is. This even impacts the UI of the applications. On Algorand, we can easily make
users wait to show the final message like your transaction is updated. However, on Ethereum
applications are forced to display an asynchronous information message. They must do this because
otherwise users will need to wait minutes to make sure that the transaction is confirmed.
So I think this is especially important for real life users. An AMM, if the transaction
does not execute or it needs to be reverted, it is fine because users will receive their
assets back. But if you are selling your car and you are not getting your money,
and it's a big problem, not knowing if you receive your money for minutes,
is not a pleasant experience for sure. So I think Algorand has a great advantage
in this journey. I completely agree with you on that. But you know, this kind of perfectly sets
up the next question because some people, unfortunately, they don't agree with you.
I don't know if anybody, I'm sure a lot of people here have heard the interview I did with Stacy
about two weeks back. And that interview was pretty spicy. I'm not going to lie. So I have
to ask some spicy questions in this interview. I'm going to keep it probably not like blazing
challenge, but maybe like a mango habanero around spice level. But you know, a lot of people,
some people disagree with you. I see this narrative on the internet all the time. And
this narrative is that Algorand is dead. Yip, is Algorand dead?
No, I think we are just starting. Like, I see a great traction in the project's life,
like an F ticket. And from the technology side, we are also progressing a lot. We are doing a lot
of improvements. We are discovering the new features of the blockchain. Algorand blockchain is a very
versatile and technically solid blockchain. So we are discovering in the ARC sessions together
with other projects, new use cases from the existing features. It's like mathematics. You can
imagine a lot of things. It's so complex and deep. And we can derive many features. And every day
in those meetings, we discover new things that we can achieve just by using the existing
functionality of the blockchain itself. So I think we are just starting.
I'm with you on that. Minh, what do you think? Is Algorand dead? Is there a pulse?
Is it breathing? What do you think?
You know, if I could respond with an emoji, it'd be that smirky, the smirk emoji. And the reason
why I say that is, you know, like people who say that I think have no clue what's coming at them
this year. You know, as Yip was saying, like, there's so much amazing. And you did this
interview with John earlier this year, just all this amazing stuff coming on the road in the roadmap.
So no, it's absolutely not. But you know, I will say like, I mean, bootstrapping any ecosystem is
hard. And then and then and then add to that, you're trying to bootstrap an ecosystem that's
like doing cutting edge tech, that's like 10 times harder. So I think, like, I'm not gonna
we shouldn't dismiss how like, this is a tough, this is a tough place for us right now. We're
powering through and we're gonna crush it. But of course, you know, there will be misses,
there's going to be losses along the way. You know, we just this year, I know we've,
you know, seen algo explore and NFT explore and algo five, you know, all great, amazing products
that serve this community incredibly well. And for various different reasons, you know,
they've had to shut down. And it's sad, but it doesn't mean that algorithm is dead. You know,
like, in fact, what we've seen is we've seen other projects step up and fill the void,
like, look at alo, you know, look at how beautiful and how slick it is. Look at, you know, folks
just trying to push the boundaries going into other ecosystems, like, I think the the coming
and going of projects in an ecosystem shows that we're not stagnant. And it shows that we're just
constantly reinventing. So, you know, I, you know, again, not at all, not at all.
Now, I'm with you from that. And certainly, fundamentally, from fundamental analysis,
certainly not dead. And from a technical analysis standpoint, I put a video out yesterday on my
YouTube channel about in the top 100, there are 40 for zero cup and handle chart patterns,
where Algorand is one of them. And just for Algorand to get to the breakout point before
the measured move is like a 20 some percent pump, and it's like 100% pump.
If it played out to the measured move that would put it back in like that, that 40 cent range
that it spent a lot of time in 2022. So I think from a fundamental and technical analysis
standpoint, Algorand is certainly alive and well. I mean, I want to follow up with you on
this question. You know, I always try to get, you know, my audience the most,
the most authentic perspective from those who are on the inside.
So, you know, I must ask, like, you know, from being on the inside,
what's like the real inside scoop with Algorand? Like, what's like the constant chatter
between you and your coworkers? Like, what is the main objective you guys are,
and girls are trying to achieve?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can tell trying to get a little spice thrown in here.
But I'm trying, I'm trying.
I love it. Well, look, the real scoop, let's see. Well, this may not be as spicy as you like,
but we're doing this thing internally, the foundation called the knowledge test.
Because, you know, Stacey and I totally 100% and behind us. And I think we all are that like,
it is so important that every single person at the foundation has a really, really,
really deep and solid knowledge of Algorand the tech. And, you know, what I learned from this process
is that like, there are so many people who know this tech so well, the passion, and like,
the passion and just like, how much they believe, how much they believe in the tech really came
through in this process, like something I wasn't expecting, of course, we all like it,
but I just didn't realize the amount of passion. And like, if you talk to somebody like Nikhil,
who's our tech lead in India, he just like when he talks about solutions he's building,
just like the, just the passion oozes out. And, you know, Fred, who the minute he talks about
the consensus mechanism, just like the elegant, you know, he's like floating on air. I mean,
I know this, you know, I don't mean for this to be sound to sound trite, but
much passion there is the people at the foundation feel for this tech.
And I think the vibe is like bullish. Everyone is incredibly bullish. I mean, the chatter,
I don't know, maybe you can you can kind of jump it. I think the chatter is kind of like 50% of it
is sharing just the cool stuff that people in the community are working on and brainstorming
on how do we how do we get that out there? How do we support them? You know, 25% is the cool stuff
that we want to be doing that we want, you know, this ecosystem to be doing. And then the rest is
like supporting each other, you know, when there's five and when there's like that stuff that's
bringing us down. It's just like, everybody's just so supportive. I think, you know, I think that's
kind of the that's kind of how I think about it. The objective. I mean, this is I feel like
everyone is all on the same page when we talk about what we want to do. It's we want this
ecosystem to be successful. Like we want to help entrepreneurs launch unicorns. I think that is
like, that is what we're all I'm single, singly focused on. I love that idea. I would
like to take this knowledge test. I feel like a lot of people in the algo fam would like to take
this knowledge test. I think it should be a public test that you get like 20 minutes
it's time so you can't cheat. And I would be surprised what percentage of the algo fan
passes the test. I would think that the numbers would be surprisingly good.
I'm not gonna lie. So what about you? Like, what's the main goal here? What's the chatter?
So for Pera, it's a difficult question, actually, because Pera is a group of products, actually,
like we have multiple products and multiple challenges. Like we are working and thinking
about different problems of different products. So we have two native applications, the Android
application and the iOS application. These have their own challenges. We have a backend service
that is being constantly updated. We need to follow the blocks, analyze, classify,
and act on them. And the TPS count of Algorand is increasing. So we need to write good code,
high quality code. And we also have the explorer and the public API services that we are
learning to improve. And also we have the asset verification system, of course.
And all of them have different targets and different discussions.
We are also active on ARC discussions. We are trying to discuss with other dApps and wallets
about what we should do, how we should approach to the problems or to the opportunities.
So yeah, it's quite busy, actually. And we are working to position the Algorand
closer to other networks. For example, we are working on the BIP39 support,
HD, HNHD wallet functionality. So we are working on public API endpoints on the backend side
that will facilitate the lives of the developers on the Algorand ecosystem. And Explorer is also
a hot topic among us. We are releasing a new feature every two weeks and gradually improving it.
So we are working hard to make sure that we are the enablers or we are one of the enablers
in the ecosystem that will make other projects shine as well.
No, it's a really good answer there. And if you really understand it, I feel like people that
are like, oh, Algorand is dead. When people say that, I'm like, do you know what they're doing?
Did you read the roadmap? Do you really understand? I think those people should
be the ones taking the knowledge sets. But a couple weeks back, we had a very interesting
conversation about filling the gaps, the gaps in the Algorand ecosystem.
So to address that topic, I will ask you this question. If you could add one new thing
to the new roadmap that just came out, what would it be?
Oh, man. I mean, you know that we have a super jam-packed roadmap, right? You know,
John's not going to let us add anything else. But if you could.
No, but look, the technical roadmap is so solid, like with consensus,
incentivization with peer-to-peer. We're working on all the big important stuff already.
I guess I would sort of think about it from the ecosystem side of things. Like, you know,
what do we need to allow these developers, entrepreneurs, to launch a unicorn on Algorand?
I guess that's how I would think about it, right? And the one area that I'd love for
us as an ecosystem to work on, and I think there's a gap, is just like tools and services
for these developers to more easily build apps. So Algorkit, of course, is the first step. It's
super important. But what's next, right? We also need, I think, really robust infrastructure, like
indexes with public APIs, webhooks, libraries, tools, so that anybody can... So I will give you
this example, and Yeet knows exactly what I'm talking about because we're kind of trying to
help projects and other potential builders do this. It's like, you know, if you want to build an app,
if you want to build something to show like a real-time dashboard of, you know, your USDC
or your algo or your oranges balance for a particular wallet, right now you need an indexer
and then you need to build like a follower and a listener to be able to capture those events when
it happens, and then you can build that dashboard. Like in most, I mean, it's a very simple,
it's a very simple service, but we don't have it. We don't have it. You know, there's a
project called blockstalker.io that actually has a website that lists all these events, but they
don't yet have an API. They're working on it. So of course, maybe we'll have something soon,
but just like simple services like these, you know, really make it difficult, like it
just makes it super easier. It wouldn't make it much easier for developers to build. So I think
those types of things, you know, that I would love to put on a roadmap for us as an ecosystem,
you know, less on the protocol side, but more as an ecosystem.
Yeah, for sure. And you know, I don't mean like, what would you add to the technical roadmap? I
think I should have, I should have framed that question a little bit better, but so Yeet,
I'll frame it better for you. If you could add one thing to the Algorand roadmap, just roadmap,
what would it be? Well, since I know the roadmap, I wouldn't add anything,
to be honest. I had a feeling you were going to say that.
Back roadmap. And actually, I kind of, I think anyone can add to the roadmap, maybe not for 2024,
but the ARC committee is so open to new ideas. And I encourage everyone to read the open ARCs
and also propose new things. Everybody, there's a great sharing culture and everybody is listening,
everyone's ideas. And I think anyone with idea will be, can participate in those discussions.
For example, recently, there was an old ARC and I started to question them why we are not doing
this, why we are not, what needs to be done and people were really open. And now we are
rediscussing that topic and it's going quite well, actually.
Yeah, for sure. For sure. So I kind of want to keep going into the conversation of the gaps
in the ecosystem. I think it's a really strong conversation. So, you know, after this, you know,
I was in Mexico City last week for the karate combat fight and I was let in on a conversation
between Algorand community members, because some of the Algorand community members really like how
Hedera has the karate combat sponsorship, like in the middle of the mat, it says Hedera,
real big, you know, combat sports, you know, it's a big attention getter.
I mean, even VeChain has a UFC partnership as well. And there's even rumors about an
algo fam grappling tournament. I don't know, will it happen? Maybe, maybe not.
But do you think this is a road starting with men? Do you think this is a road Algorand
needs to go down? And if not combat sports, if not combat sports,
what demographic do you think would be smart to target?
It's an interesting question. So I will first preface this by saying, you know, like,
I've done a lot of things, I've done a lot of roles in my past, but marketing is not a role
that I've spent a lot of time on. And I feel like this very squarely sort of fits into
kind of reach, right and audience and all that stuff. So, and as you've heard Stacy, you know,
say we're on the hunt for the perfect CMO. So, you know, that person will have a much
more sophisticated point of view than me. My personal point of view on this is like,
if we like these types of sponsorships are good for reach, like if you just want if you want it
out there, then you can sort of think about, okay, what are the sporting events that have the
most number of audience? What is the right target audience that we want to hit male, female, age,
etc. But I actually think I, you know, I actually think that's the wrong question, like it's the
wrong goal. I think what I would love for us to optimize for is use. This kind of goes back to
my, you know, earlier point around like real world use cases and adoption, like, I think
it's critical to have sponsorships or partnerships that have like a real activation component,
like something that is like really organic and natural to that brand or to that partnership
that like makes you actually do something and interact and use, you know. So, I think that to
me would be the most important thing. And if there's something that makes sense there,
then I would say yes, you know, that's a gap. But I don't know. I don't know right now that
I see that as a significant gap, to be honest. No, for sure. Certainly not an easy question
to answer. But I always like putting those types of questions out there. I'm really fishing for
ideas. You know, I always, I do appreciate when you see crypto companies, you know, sponsor
UFC fights, you know, with FIFA, stuff like that. Everyone loves to see that type of
visibility. Personally, I think there should be some sort of motocross, supercross sponsor for,
you know, I'm a big dirt bike guy. So of course I would say that. So,
so I will keep it moving. I will not keep going on that question. But the next question is a
question I always love to ask in a lot of interviews because I know how difficult,
you know, the crypto industry is in general. So I will start with you. What are the biggest
challenges about being in the Algorand ecosystem? Well, I think the biggest challenge
in the Algorand ecosystem is that the network itself is quite solid. Like the TPS accounts,
like which means the transactions that we are processing per second can be very high.
And since we are a wallet application, we need to parse everything. We need to parse every
information. We need to classify them, arrange them and store them. Thankfully, the Algorand
indexer is working quite good so far and and it is catching the TPS. But the code that we are
writing, it should be, it should match the same level. Otherwise it falls behind. So I think this
is the biggest challenge because the capacity and the capability of the network is very high
and we need to adapt ourselves to that. And it's a bit difficult because for some
long periods, the TPS cannot be very high but for days it can be very high. So we always need
to be careful about what we do and how we do. I think the biggest challenge is at the technical
side and it is this issue. Other than that, I don't see any difficulties. It's a great project
to work on. For sure. You have a take on this one?
You know, a little bit. I think one of the things that I've noticed, and again, these ecosystems
are so hard, but one of the things that I've kind of noticed is that we can also be a little
self-isolating sometimes as an ecosystem. We kind of dig into the choices that we've made and
we sometimes take ourselves out of the game a little bit and, you know, this is a little topical
because, you know, Yeet and Bruno and I have been talking about this for a while and we're working
on this. So, for example, you know, we have a 25-word C phrase versus 24, which is what
everybody else uses, right? We call wallet addresses as accounts, everybody else has a
different schema. And what we've kind of, you know, what happens in those cases is like,
you know, we don't get to participate in some of the sort of happenings and progress that
the other ecosystem is making. And so I think we sometimes can sort of be resistant to kind
of changing how we do things just because there were very good reasons why we did them in the
beginning originally, but we, you know, we don't really want to change. And so, like adopting a
24-word C phrase is going to allow for better multi-chain wallet support, right? If we were
to take on, and by the way, you know, I know I've mentioned before we're working on this,
you know, by adopting the sort of the HD wallet schema, we're going to be able to be
much more open. It's going to open us up to be able to interoperate, to be more interoperable,
excuse me, with other ecosystems, right? Like these are things that are just really important
for us. And so I think like a challenge, but also a motivation, I think for us is like,
how do we stay relevant? How do we make sure we keep our unique, you know, USP, right? That's
what they call it in marketing. How do we keep our USP, but stay relevant with where the whole
industry is going? And we should use that as our kind of like guiding motivation, you know,
into the future. Sorry, my mute button was not unmuting there. I mean, sorry about that.
100%. So, you know, you did kind of touch on that in that answer there. And I do want to
kind of delve into the para conversation. So just for anybody in the audience who,
you know, might be new, might not know what the para wallet is, do you want to fill them in?
Yeah, definitely. So I think many people already know what para is, but for people who don't know,
para is a non-cost to deal wallet. I am sure many potential users are confused with this term,
even non-cost to deal wallet. What does non-cost to deal mean? And how it is different than Binance,
for example. We see this question frequently on our support groups, and this is a frequently
misunderstood topic. We, para, or any other non-cost to deal wallet, like MetaMask,
we cannot have access to your account. So that is the key difference, in my opinion.
So even if we wanted to, we cannot move a single elbow from your account.
This is technically impossible. You own the keys of your account, and you have full control to it.
I don't want to go into details of public and private keys at the moment, but
we can think para as a physical wallet that keeps your cash and cards. Para wallet,
we just keep your keys to your account. We do not see your key. Even if you enter your
mnemonic keys to para, the application does not send the keys to our servers. So they are
kept in your device, encrypted, so no one except you can utilize your keys to make operations on
your behalf. And I think this is extremely important. Also, one question that people
can be confused a little bit, people especially who are used to centralize the exchange.
The assets that you hold, like NFTs, etc., are not stored in the wallet. These assets are
registered to the account at the blockchain, and the wallet application only holds your keys.
So if you lose your phone or decide to use another wallet application,
as long as you back up your keys, you will be fine. So para is just an application, or a tool,
or a computer program, let's say, that lets you use your private keys when you're required.
And while doing that, we are trying to be as user-friendly as possible,
to give users as much clarity as possible. So this is what para is, according to me.
I think that's a very rock-solid answer. So I do want to keep it rolling here.
Min, what features are you most proud of in the para wallet, and why?
Oh, I mean, this is maybe a little lame. I'm kind of proud of the overall wallet as a whole. Like,
it is so slick. The UI, and I just remember my first experience on para was just,
I was blown away that this is a non-custodial wallet. You expect a Web2 experience in a wallet,
you never get it, and you get the Web2 experience on the para wallet. And I come a little bit from the
wallet world when I was at blockchain.com, and we had a non-custodial wallet, and we had a
custodial wallet. The challenges of making that UI slick for a non-custodial wallet,
where everything has to happen on the client side, it's really real and significant.
So I think the fact that Yeet and the team solve this and just build such a beautiful
UX for this wallet, I'm incredibly proud of that.
Yeah, I mean, bullish for sure. I mean, I jump back and forth between Para and DeFi. I actually
hold some things on Para and some things on DeFi, and both amazing wallets. I will give it to you
on that. Yeet, I want to ask, what's the worst feature on para wallet?
This is a difficult question. Actually, not really difficult. I know, and I'm sure many
of our users already know that we experience connection problems from time to time, especially
with dApps. And we did lots of improvements, and now it's better. But the underlying technology
that we are using, which is wallet connect, is not great, especially in mobile to mobile
connections. When the dApp is open in the mobile app, a mobile device, and when the Para is on
the mobile device as well. So we are thinking to improve it, not thinking, but planning, actually.
It's a difficult task, and we are we are willing to make it right this time, and make it in a way
that will be open to all wallets. So we are working on that. This is the part that
that is bugging me at night, basically.
Can't cannot sleep because of those connectivity. I'm sure you guys will iron it out. I do want to
take a second to do a little teeny bit of housekeeping here. There are 130 people
listening to the live space. Thank you all for being here. We really appreciate it. Make sure
you smash the like button and retweet the space while we're still early in the show here to
try to get more people in. Also, for anybody who's watching this on YouTube a couple days later,
this was originally a Twitter space, just so you know. Also, there will be a giveaway,
an algofam giveaway at the end of the space. So don't go anywhere. Six lucky people in the
audience will win $50 in Algorand. So make sure you stick around to the very end so we can give
some Algorand out to some of the viewers. So awesome. So, you know, so, man,
so say someone, you know, downloads the Para wallet, you know, for the first time.
Can you walk us through the user journey of someone first getting set up with their Para
wallet, just in case there's any beginners in the audience?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, so, you know, when you sign up, so we've actually made,
as it was saying, you know, we've been constantly making these improvements. So when you download
a Para wallet, you know, you basically enter in, you can set up, you can create a wallet.
And then, you know, there is a question, there's like the 25 word seed phrase that you have to write
it down. And in fact, for those of you who recently updated your, your app, you will notice
that we now allow users to skip that seed phrase. And that was something that we did. And then,
of course, we, you know, remind you, if you did skip, we remind you to back up your wallet
after the after the process. But the idea there really is to kind of how do we reduce
the friction for somebody for a new user signing up for a new user entering into the ecosystem.
So once you get through that seed phrase part, you know, you have your wallet, and you can
kind of check out the rest of the ecosystem, whether it's through our discover page,
which features the other apps in our ecosystem, DeFi app, our governance, NFTs and our governance
page. And then, you know, of course, all the other, you know, the NFTs and NFTs, etc. So
it's a way really for everyone to discover the the algorithm ecosystem through para. And then,
of course, we also have as you sign up, after you've signed up, we also have a way for users
in non restricted countries for users to be able to purchase algos and purchase
and actually do swaps as well. And the purchasing of algos is via a third party, I think that's
important to call out because again, we are a non custodial wallet, you don't know who you are.
And so we, we partner up with folks that are compliant, that can service these functions
in the country that you live. And then for swap, we of course work with vestige to facilitate
the swap as well to give users a better, better spread for their swaps and the pairs.
So you know, we really do prioritize making that journey a super easy, just a couple of clicks
that you can, you can have a wallet ready to go on para.
Well, I think that's great. It's certainly a pretty seamless setup process there. Not, not,
not hard to get it going. You know, I mean, this is, this is a question I've been really
excited to ask you. I'm not going to lie. How have you seen the role of para in the ecosystem
evolve over the years? Yeah, well, maybe it's a better question for you.
Yeah. I think since I was, since the beginning, I can answer this question very easily.
So in the beginning, this was a technology preview app. So it was an app that was allowing,
that was showing the users what the, what are the capabilities of the algorithm network
as the network became more competent. We added more features, but at some point we changed our
role and we said, okay, we need to, we need to focus on user experience and make sure that
this is a great wallet for a new newcomer user. So I think the first change of role was this.
We added many features for example, and these features are difficult to implement features.
For example, showing the NFTs as a gallery for all accounts,
showing all accounts at the homepage in one go. These are, these are difficult things to implement
and many wallets choose to implement otherwise. But since we were aiming to be the wallet of the
beginner users, we invested in that area. After arriving at some point in the user experience,
I think now we are seeing another change on our approach and we are aiming to increase the
adoption of Algorand by helping other devs, by showcasing the network itself. And also,
as always, having a great UX. For example, I think that was a, for example, we are open source
and open license. We are, we turned off the web wallet, but also open sourced it and open
licensed it. So yeah, we want to see more people building on Algorand and we are trying our best
to do. No, and I certainly agree with you. Like with pair, when you go in there, you can see,
oh, I can do this in here. I can do this in here. It connects you to the rest of the Algorand
ecosystem. That is my favorite part of the para wallet personally, myself, but I do want to
continue this. Maybe I'll start with men on this one. How does the para wallet plan to address the
evolving needs and security concerns of the community? I know the, the my algo hack,
the my algo hack a while back, that was a kind of a sore thumb in the algo community.
Do you have any concerns about security and how can we ensure that something like that
won't happen again? I love how you're going to, uh, you ask the non-technical person about the
security. And so I'm going to say, yes, we're always concerned about security always because
we have yeet and the team really looking at it all the time. Well, I was going to ask that
with the both of you, but obviously I'm trying to alternate the guests, you know, I'm trying,
I'm trying. I mean, I think the my algo hack is a wake up call, but it shouldn't have been right
because security should always and has always been the forefront of, you know, will we prioritize
for applications in our ecosystem, in any ecosystem, right? Like I think, I think it's
really important. So I will say, and I'll let you kind of answer the more specifics around how we
want to be, you know, um, how we want to be, you know, preventing and thinking about security. But
for me, the, the way that we are thinking about it is, um, we need to prioritize what are, what are
the most important things to us in para. And if security is what's important, then we need to put
our resources against security. And to be honest, you know, I know there's been kind of, you know,
varying feedback on this. That's one of the reasons why we had to shut down the web wallet for para.
You know, one, there are a lot of vector attacks for web wallets in general, but two,
it also just takes the resources away from us to be able to really say we're going to dedicate
and focus on the security for our mobile wallets, right? So like this idea of focusing on specific
products is so important to us at para right now. I think, you know, that to me is how we're
going to emphasize, you know, the security element of it as well. For the non-technical person,
I felt that was a rock solid answer. That was a rock solid answer, man. All right. I catch it.
What are your concern? Do you have any concerns about security? And how can we ensure something
like the my algo hack won't happen again? Yes, you can be comfortable because I have
concerns over security. So I am worrying about the security and our team is worrying about the
security. So, yeah, it was a very sad event and it impacted users. It impacted the chain itself
and also it even impacted our roadmap. For example, we were not prioritizing leaking functionality in
the wallet because we were thinking that it was a complicated feature for most of the users,
but we had to implement it immediately as soon as possible. So what we do, first of all,
I think we are open source and being open source is a great thing. Everybody can read our code
and people read our code and they have great suggestions. For example, I want to shout out to
the fly team. When they saw a slight vulnerability in the code, they immediately wrote to us
when they noticed it years ago. And they said, hey, we are implementing this differently. Maybe
you may want to do that as well. And we changed it. And this is only possible because we are open
source. And the whole ecosystem is basically working for us. And the second thing that we do
is that we are audited, of course. We have regular audits. And the third thing is also
more important than everything, I guess, which is we are slow. We are not rushing. We are not
rushing anything. Sometimes our users say, hey, this feature was meant to be delivered two weeks
ago. Why this didn't arrive? Yeah, but we are trying to be careful about it because we have a
huge responsibility. I'm coming from a mobile and backend development background. And normally,
mobile applications are just a phase for the backend service. But on non-custodial wallets like
Para, the mobile application carries all the responsibility. So we should be careful. And
we are careful. We have a small team. We are using the security best practices. We have monthly
security meetings. So we are taking this very seriously. And so far, everything is great.
rock-solid answer on that for sure. The my algo hack, that was kind of like an animal of its own.
That whole thing took on a life of its own because people thought that Algorand got hacked.
And we all had to jump up and down and explain. No, no, no, no. It's a third-party wallet that
just has an unfortunate name that made everyone look silly. And yeah, I'm very glad to hear that
you guys are taking it as seriously as you are. Obviously, you want people to feel safe,
especially in a decentralized non-custodial space. You want to have that peace of mind.
And I'm certainly glad that you guys provide that. Got a couple of questions left here.
And I think this might be my, I have a bone to pick, okay? I have a bone to pick. And this is
probably the, I've been looking forward to asking this question. Min, I'll start with you.
There's a two-part question, all right? How will Para help drive adoption to Algorand? And I
ask this because it drives me crazy. It drives me crazy when I find out how many people hold
their Algorand on Coinbase. Why should they be on Para instead?
Good question. Good question. So how do, so how we want to drive adoption for Algorand is,
to me, it's not related to where people are holding their Algos. Yeah? And the reason for that is
because you go to Coinbase, you buy Algos, and then what? And then maybe you can scroll through
the news. There's nothing for you to do once you're on Coinbase and you hold Algos. That is
completely different on Para. You send your Algos from Coinbase to Para, and then you can
participate in governance, and then you can check out what folks is doing, and you can get yourself
an NFD. There's just so much more that you can do. And to me, that's the power. And so how we want
Para to be driving the adoption is like, you know, he and I, and Jack and a few others,
he even brings from me this. Like, how do we, there's no place for people to go to to just
find out everything that's happening in the ecosystem. Para can be the place, right? There's
no, you know, like, what if we just like have, you know, if folks want to reach an audience of
Algorand users, they go to Twitter? What if they just come to Para? And you know, like, we can be
the center where all the news happen, all this sort of distribution and reach into the folks in
the ecosystem can happen. That was not an intended pun. People in the ecosystem can happen, right?
So I think that's how we see Para's role in really driving the adoption of Algorand. And
it doesn't matter, you know, how people or where people hold their algos, because the experience
on Para is going to just drive, I believe the, it's going to draw them into Para.
No, I completely agree. I completely, because you know, it's like one thing is going to hold it,
hold it on Coinbase, like, cool. We're done. We're done here. Or you can actually be involved
in the ecosystem and, you know, see everything there is to offer Yeet. Do you have an alternate
answer to this question? What do you think? Yeah, I think my answer will be very similar. I think
having algos on a central exchange is cool, but it's not fun. At the end of the day,
these people cannot use any services built on top of the Algorand. However, they should come
to Algorand and they should, they should carry their algos to their own wallets and use
many great projects on top of Algorand. They can discover NFT marketplaces, learn about NIV
artists, creating great artwork, and discover many DeFi tools. At the end, it's an entire
ecosystem. So yeah, I think they should install Para ASAP. Great answer. Great. And so we have,
I have one more question for each of you, and then we will get to the giveaway. I know a lot
of people must be excited for that. We do have 140 people listening to the Twitter space live,
to all the people watching, listening to the Twitter space, make sure you smash the like button.
If you win the giveaway and you don't have the like button smashed, you lose. So there you go.
I'm kidding. No, but really. So I'll start with Min. Are there any upcoming features or
partnerships for the Para wallet users, for the Para wallet that users can look forward to?
So can I answer that in two ways? And I hope I'm not kind of stealing the thunder from me.
Send it. This is kind of like whoever goes first gets to kind of win, you know, so sorry.
No, but I think there are two things. The features that we're most excited about
are not features that are going to be visible to the users. And I think I'll maybe let Yeats kind
of, you know, go into the details of this, but it is the bedrock of how we want our wallet and our
ecosystem to be interacting with other ecosystems and other wallets. So I think you can kind of
guess where I'm going with that. So that, to me, that is something I'm super excited about. And
that's something that I think everybody should be excited about to look forward to. But again,
it's not really visible. And then there are, there actually are very cool partnerships that are
coming that we just cannot yet disclose. I know all the alpha people want to know, but
there's going to be some cool stuff coming, you know, so keep your eyes open for them. So that's
the that's maybe I'll head it over to Yeats to kind of talk a little bit about the features.
Yeah. So, yeah, as me said, I think the biggest thing that we are working on
is a heavy factor on how we store data in Para, which will allow us
to add support for HD wallets, basically. HD wallets is a system that is respected
and applied across the blockchain ecosystem. And Algorant was a little bit outside of this
system. Now we are heading towards that approach, which will reduce the number of mnemonics
that people need to secure. I mean, not the count of mnemonic keys, but
in short, people will be able to create multiple wallets from the same mnemonic
keys, multiple account addresses from the same mnemonic keys. So it's a very important change,
in my opinion. And another one is ARC 12. I am really excited about this feature because I think
this feature is a key improvement in the Algorant ecosystem, which offers a way
to solve the optimizations without losing the spam protection. We are working with other ecosystem
members like NFD, DeFly and the Algorant Foundation developer team. And Joe from the Algorant team is
has created a great infrastructure to solve this problem. And I think it will be great news
before future 2024. And it will be a great improvement for the new users on the Algorant ecosystem.
Great answer. Wow. We ran through those questions, all of them in 57 minutes. I feel like we timed
that interview very well. I feel like we did a really good job. I was concerned,
the first couple of ones I did were one-on-one interviews. And this one, there was like,
there's two people. So I had to, I think I timed it good. I'm very proud of that. I feel like we
had a really great interview. And thank you so much for being here. Really, really appreciate
your time. Very grateful to be able to have the honor of interviewing today. Thank you so much.
I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you so much for having us.
Awesome. So now it is time for the giveaway. So what I want to do is I'm going to give the,
I'm going to give the audience a second here because I was going to pick the giveaway winners
right from the space, but now I decided to pick the giveaway winners from the like button.
So you have 60 seconds, 60 seconds to race over there. There's only 65 people that have
liked it so far. So, you know, and six people are winning pretty good odds, pretty good odds
for the light gang. So I'm going to give them, you know, a couple seconds. I'm going to burn some
time here to, to get them on over there. And now, so what I'm going to do is men,
I'm going to, I'm going to need you to give me, because, you know, this is Algorand,
right? So I have a completely perfect verifiable random function here is the perfect, perfect
VRF. And I need you to give me a number, three numbers between one and 10.
I'm the perfectly random VRF.
Oh, okay. All right. Ten, seven, three. All right. Ten, seven, three. Now,
ye verifiable random function here at work. I need three numbers between one and 10.
Okay. So now I'm going to go over here to the, I'm going to read, get a refresh here.
Real. I clicked out of it. Like, okay. I'm going to come back. I'm going to get a fresh refresh
to, so everyone that smashed the like button on the space has a chance.
Oh, look at that. It jumped from 66 to 97. You see that?
See that little bit of incentive goes a long way in crypto Twitter.
Uh, love to see it. All right. So there's 97, 37 repos. Big thank you to everybody who stuck
around to the end of the space. And we do have these six numbers in front of me, verifiable
random function. So, um, instead tens, I'm going to go 10 from the top one, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine, 10. All right. So we have my guy at striker crypto.
Striker, crypto. I'm writing it down. Tripto two. Congratulations. You have won $50 in Algorand
after that we have seven, uh, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, uh, at glork glop.
Congratulations to my guy glork glop. That's a great name. By the way,
he might get extra algo from me just because I really like his name, uh, glork glop out here,
killing it. And then number three. So three from him, uh, at Willie brave, Willie brave, uh,
winning $50 in Algorand. Congratulations to him. And then we have, uh, each numbers were two,
eight, five. Uh, we have Reed Myers, 18 Reed Myers, 18, and then eight. So eight from him,
one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. We have at foodie city game. What a name foodie
city game. All right. $50 in Algorand to my foodie city game friend. And now the final
number is five down from foodie city game. One, two, three, four, five runs.hill algo.
He says I'm new here at that's a crazy, I'm just going to screenshot his name.
Cause I am not writing down that at name is way too complicated. So there you go. We have given
out six winners have won $50 in Algorand. Thank you for sticking around to the end. Appreciate each
and every one of you. We did do it completely random, completely random verifiable random
functions over here on Algorand. I absolutely love it. I mean, and thank you guys and girl,
I, I hate when I say the guys, thank you all, excuse me for being here. I really,
really appreciate your time. Maybe we'll do this again sometime. We'll circle back in a couple
of months. And if there's any new updates or anything, I'd love, I'd love to be a part of it.
I really like what you guys are doing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for having us.
And this has been fun. Appreciate it. All right. Well, we are signing off here on
Twitter. Thank you guys and girls, everybody. Thank you. My name is AJ, right? Crypto,
get rich or get wrecked. Later.