Projects
![]()
No projects found
Investors
New
DAO Treasuries
DATs
Lend / Borrow APRs
Chains
Categories
Spaces
AMA with Professor Ndiaye
Recorded: Oct. 28, 2024 Duration: 0:43:57Space Recording
Full Transcription
I'll see you next time.
I'll see you next time.
I'll see you next time.
I'll see you next time.
I'll see you next time.
Hello, everyone.
We're going to start in just one moment.
I'll see you next time.
I'll see you next time.
Awesome.
Hey, guys.
Welcome to our AMA with Professor Nijaye today.
We are going to start in just one moment.
I'll see you next time.
I'll see you next time.
Awesome.
Awesome.
Okay.
Okay.
Welcome, everyone.
This is Professor Nijaye.
Welcome.
Thank you for having me, Cameron.
It's great to be here.
Hi, everyone.
Thank you for having me.
Thank you for having me, Cameron.
It's great to be here.
Hi, everyone.
Definitely.
Definitely.
So, Professor Nijaye.
So, Professor Nijaye, we're going to basically go into his background.
He's a NYU Stern macroeconomics professor.
And basically, he's joined CORE as a research advisor.
And we're going to discuss on like local fee markets, blockchain sustainability, as well
as some economic models.
And I'm going to allow Professor Nijaye to open up and kind of share his vision for CORE's
economic sustainability.
Great.
Thank you for having me.
So, first of all, a disclaimer.
So, I am Professor Nijaye.
I am a researcher.
And so, this conversation, none of it is financial advice, legal advice, life advice, et cetera,
or an advertisement.
So, I am an assistant professor at NYU Stern.
I do research in macroeconomics and public finance.
And I've been interested in blockchain work as well.
And the reason why is that as many of the things that you see in public economics, in
government, in how we design a lot of policies actually look very similar to what happens in
the blockchain space.
So, you have public blockchains.
They need to set fees.
They need to decide which transactions will be included, et cetera.
And so, that's what got me excited when I had conversations with contributors at CORE.
They were interested in my research and thinking of blockchain design questions where there are
many questions now and in the future.
the future.
So, when I have written these papers and they're really like the innovative nature and experimentation
with engagement with research to see how we can implement some of these.
ideas coming from economics into blockchain space.
And so, that's how I see this advising role in collaboration to continue and with CORE foundation.
To you, Cameron.
Oh, sorry.
I was muted.
Sweet.
Are you able to share more on the research interests of like macroeconomics and public finance
economists?
Great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I can now expand more in detail after that first intro.
Yeah.
So, some of, you know, so as a macroeconomist, the way I think of, and a public economist,
the way I think of a lot of blockchain questions are really, so you are in this fintech space,
where there are engineers doing some fantastic work, developers, but you need to also think
of as well, the economic incentives.
And we know that the economic incentives matter, for example, in terms of rewards that the different
parts play, the rewards that they get, whether we are in some sort of a proof of stake environment
or different consensus mechanisms.
But also another part where I've done most of my work now is on fees.
Fees start mattering, so you have essentially the different types of fees, some on which you have
more of no guidance on the fees part, where it's essentially people just set prices that they are
willing to pay to get their transactions through, but they don't have much guidance
on what they should pay.
And you have more of the, what many others have embraced in the following more of these minimum prices,
like in the case of EVM type of blockchains.
And so what I started looking at was really to understand once blockchains mature, they need to think through the question of congestion.
And thinking through the question of congestion, you need to think of how do you set these prices.
So some of my earlier work and first work on this is on looking at how you should design these fees in the first place.
So that's kind of, that's something to kind of build for the future.
Think of once more congestion comes into play.
And some of my latest work, which interests core foundation a lot, is thinking through whether something more can be done.
And which is idea of around local fee markets.
And the motivation is we know, like, you know, the blockchain space has been around, but not so long that we even have, we already have examples.
We are still at the point of solving issues related to kind of how the pipe works and how the pipes work.
And in 2022, there was, for example, on the Ethereum blockchain, more than two hours for which it was congested because there was one particular contract that was congested for a very long time and nothing else was going through.
So the idea is to think of now, how do you really try to understand that there might be some applications for which that you might find them valuable and not just have them have the network congested?
How can you do some sort of execution where some of those situations, like, for example, native transactions or parts of the type of transactions for which there is no much context.
They are not contested. How could those be priced differently?
For example, maybe you say you want to have a core token to be transacted easily while everything else, even if there can be some congestion down the line.
So really, these are issues to kind of build and be resilient for the future so that blockchains can be sustainable, so that core can be sustainable.
And these are ideas that, you know, I'm very happy to see the whole core team is very excited to explore these and think of how to build for the future and to end to think of these very important questions.
And finally, in terms of like when you say macroeconomics, I think there is overall the broad picture that sometimes might be missing in kind of more the technically oriented people thinking that essentially the way in which fee management is essentially the role of a blockchain in terms of how they manage this revenue management.
And there are different approaches sometimes motivated without too much thought for thought and research behind them.
These are some of the questions that as a research interests me and also align with what core is building towards.
Yeah. And what other than like local fee markets and like these gassing pricing efficiencies kind of drew you towards core to be a research advisor?
Sorry, can you reformulate that question? I didn't catch it all.
Yeah, I was just saying, like, outside of like gas pricing and local gas pricing efficiencies and local fee markets.
What what are the are some other kind of pivotal things that drew you to core and kind of sparked your your excitement as far as being a research advisor for core?
Yeah. So yeah, there are, you know, plenty of research questions, I think.
So one of the things I think also is the main killer application that has emerged for blockchain so far has been stable coins, which we can say that they have been they are in wide use around and they have also a lot of demand in emerging markets.
So one of my early interest in also looking at blockchain research, first of all, came from me coming from an emerging market coming from Senegal and also going in Nigeria and seeing how people use, you know, do on chain transactions.
And so really thinking of how financial inclusion was really what really motivated me first and foremost and that, you know, my line of research macro and public economics was really aligned to it.
Now, in terms of that, so I think stable coins is one killer application and really the business of stable coins has changed in the time where interest rates were higher.
The main sources of revenue they were having was just this kind of regulatory arbitrage of just holding treasuries and having a yield on that.
Now, with the times changing interest rates being much lower, these stable coins are still the killer application.
And now the way to think about how these stable coins could still gain get how can they be integrated with with the potential that they can have other sources of revenue, which would be related to how, for example, if they are used essentially.
Right. How what would be a share of transaction, like, for example, MasterCard or Visa, they set it to three percent.
Right. For blockchains efficiency. Right.
The goal is to have it much lower, but that being some sort of revenue.
So those are questions, for example, that that I'm researching and that aligns with the course thinking around these issues and how may potentially they can be implemented someday.
Other questions also I'm looking at is really about thinking of the long long term and building for the future in that in this building for the future.
When DeFi takes off, there are questions around MEV mitigation.
So MEV means maximum extractable value, how certain transactions can be captured by others.
And also in terms of like having more of this work, this line of work on predictability of gas once transaction congestion comes in looking at, for example, how these applications can have futures markets where they can pay for gas ex ante before the fact and not.
And not and that not be under the burden of use, especially for stable coins, for example, and really thinking of those as the source of usage that could drive a real value.
So, yeah, so I think this line of work is really aligned into these type of issues that can help, you know, blockchains be the next really real place of sustainable and long run innovation and growth and beyond where the area it currently is.
Like we have seen over the last two years, some of the promises from AI materializing with applications, I think in the blockchain space and for core as well, there are still some of these fundamental questions to resolve and then to get there.
Right. It's like when you think of at the time of the time of thinking of between TCP and IP, how do we have those communications?
Those are still some of the issues to resolve and there is much needed research and to be applied.
That's what I'm excited to do with and also to collaborate with core to see how this research can be implemented for their uses.
Awesome. Very good points. And with like the state of things right now, where do you think we're headed and where do you kind of see the future of blockchain and where do you think that core is going to stand as far as decentralized model that core has and how do you see that economic model evolving?
Yeah. So the interesting part in core when I so why I accepted to collaborate with core and join as a research advisor is that there are a lot of Bitcoin is has shown its test of time and one key asset that has around.
And one of the limitations of Bitcoin is that its lack of smart contract capability and smart contract capability is what could allow the potential to build companies on the Internet and in a decentralized fashion.
And so I see this idea of having that has merit, you know, the idea of core of thinking of block and using it in repurposing it to to give security to core and in its hybrid consensus model.
So and I think when we come to that, we are not going to be in a situation at least for people, you know, realistically that who are not interested in prices of things at the front of the moment, but in the long term that the blockchain price will not be able to just be exponentially growing, especially because of the rewards that the operators, the miners are going to be slashed in half.
So there needs to be some sort of long term rewards coming from the actual those companies that are built on on it.
And so I think that's where I see this defy based on blockchain, what people call BTC phi as a potential opportunity to to to build this.
And because Bitcoin was the first mover and it's the one that tends to capture most of the the the liquidity, it's it's a great space to use as a as a foundation to build on top what core is.
So that's where I see I think this space going now and in this space there are the challenges engineering challenges as there are many economic challenges and many of the in fact questions we think as engineering challenges are economic challenges.
So, yeah, so, yeah, so I think I see this defy defy that emerges on block on Bitcoin as an interesting space, a space to evolve a space that can use certain applications that will certainly be with a combination of other technologies.
technologies like AI where you can have applications where we can solve the issues around scale scalability to have micro transactions where banking can be possible for people in emerging world.
Those are some of the places where I see this as a window of opportunity.
And do you think there's any room for like collaboration with policymakers on some of these things?
And do you think research researchers from blockchain organizations would be able to collaborate with policy policymakers to potentially develop any strategies that would be helpful in mitigating some of these issues?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So as a researcher, I would say first and foremost that if you are someone who's a public what is called public economist, your questions is or are thinking of designing other types of things, which is like fees.
So let's say taxes or public systems.
Often your interlocutors are less open to new ideas and open to experimentation like the innovative space that is blockchain, which I think moves very fast and it's great.
So in that regard, I think there is a gap between what happens in practice and what policymakers do.
Now, I think my place as a researcher and others is to bring these innovations to solve some of the blockchain issues to show its merit and its use to show help core develop things that people will use.
And that will convince the regulators that actually these are things that actually people are using, that are finding benefit from, that are able to participate in banking, to participate in the financial sector as well.
So those are, I think, very places where fruitful collaborations can happen and that can convince the regulators.
So that's a lot of companies that are like the most part of the organization and what are the most part?
So, so we know, what the things that they are raising is.
Correct.
Great.
Sweet.
And were there any other points that you feel like we should touch before we turn it over to the audience for audience questions?
Yeah, I think, you know, I'm very, I wanted to just maybe do some sort of closing remarks in this first part.
yeah like so as you know as a researcher it's great to see a decentralized organization that
is at the same time interested in product development but also engagement with research
and I think that can make an important difference and engagement research is really being focused
on what is at the forefront of at the frontier and I'm all I'm available to ask any questions
the developers users have within my line of expertise and to answer any questions related
to blockchain economics etc awesome so for anyone in the audience if you'd like to ask any questions
related to professor Nijalye's research or I have any questions related to this AMA feel free to ask
those in the comments section that's attached to the Twitter space or you can request to come up and
speak if you'd like to speak you can also raise your hand
all right uh big E I've selected use the
speaker yeah GM um good day um co-viewless um good day um uh
Kotoshis in the house and the AMVU uh professor um um I feel that this a you know hope I'm audible
yeah you're good okay okay okay uh yeah so it's it's great to be here um uh I've heard the professor
speak I think he's a great man of expertise and in his own um endeavor and I believe he's doing so well
him coming to um this wonderful ecosystem is a great privilege which I'm so happy about um you know
it's not just only just about core it's about you know bringing more experienced expertise to see how
far we can you know spread across and is is is a great thing to it's a great day to be here seeing
the TVL scale up to over 600 million and I I feel that this blockchain this ecosystem is doing well so um
um this year alone I think um the BlackRock um the capitalist venture they've um invested so much in
tokenization of assets and AI related projects and protocols so my question to um about the lie um there's a whole lot going on around the world um how do you see the
the bridge of you know merging tokenized assets and all this AI related infrastructure integrating it in the blockchain space
let's look aside just the normal traditional um system of you know finance the banking system and everything
yes we can say is a bit old and kind of um you know is is is just that traditional system
well the future is this AI tech is more of the revolutionized um system into being integrated with blockchain
so how how do you see um especially for Africans okay because I know you are an African as well
so the tokenized tokenization of assets and AI related uh uh tech
being integrated with our traditional finance so how do you see that uh growth or scale up in you know
Africa of today so I just want to hear your submission uh one of my wonderful um friend or colleague
in the space is here to give us uh you're welcome um so professor please if you can just give your submission to it thank you
okay thank you that's a great question um yeah like uh
I mean we know that the digital economy is is in a very small portion of African economies and that's one of the
the reasons why I'm um excited to kind of contribute broadly in this space and also with core um the
one of the challenges right is you like you know um uh these land titles are not digital um those are
things that could be NFTs um if uh governments can uh supervise the background uh and they can
the we know that those applications are possible we know that um we can you know land titles is are
important anywhere because you can I see that you know you're from Nigeria um I know a bit myself about
Nigeria but you can sell your land to someone and attend other people sell it um so having one source
of uh authentication is is uh is important now we know that these applications are there and they are
possible tokenized assets are possible um some of the challenges are that they are not picking up yet
okay and one of the reasons why they are not picking up yet was is solving these issues around
efficiency around how you can at scale make sure that you can have many land titles on millions that
you can have allow them to chain hands uh easily that you can allow them to be integrated with other
things in the real economy as well those are some of these still very foundational challenges that I think
uh are you know there is a lot of research going on with also
uh engineers implementing to try to resolve these issues of uh scalability um but yeah it's a very
big potential because like people say uh there is uh 10 trillions of wealth in uh Africa uh don't code
me on the number but just that they are locked into the land or in people okay and so um I think also what
smart contracts bring and what is really the put the possibility to expand new markets and create new
market and that's where this type of work is useful to think of how to solve the issues the bottlenecks
around this so that they can pick pick up and they can take off uh and uh yeah so it's good to have core
working on these issues
uh did you want to add another point biggie
there's not another point it's just uh maybe i can't you know i i love this um you know um answer to
to my question and um it is it's good to see um great developments happening right now because the
theme for this boron is adoption massive adoption and in as much as we want to you know have massive
adoption we try as much as possible to help a whole lot of persons or you know people to understand this
this ecosystem and the the new revolution of blockchain tech and what it can do and sometimes
we have the difficulty of you know helping people to understand that this thing is actually real
because um people keep saying it's they don't see it like oh is is it a mirage we can't hold it we can't fiscally
you know take hold of it but it's just there so my my question comes with it twists because i feel that maybe you
you're that kind of bridge between the real world itself when it comes to what we can see and you know
blockchain itself in terms of um you are very well educated and one way or the other you can see
government institutional bodies and infrastructures and everything and all of that so my question is how do you
feel that maybe government itself can find a way to you know embrace blockchain tech okay embrace it
um there's a project that i'm following um i've been you know campaigning for them called co-custodian
they're a native or they're building on call um they try as much as possible to have physical offices
for people to know that okay yes we are building this particular tech we are real these are the places but
some people still have these skeptical reasons to believe that well they can just come and you
you know use that office of a thing and be like a mirage what kind of infrastructure do you think that
the government can you know give as a boost for this adoption for everybody to you know fall in love
integrate uh blockchain tech and make it well adopt because i know you will be doing a whole lot of research
in uh before called our ecosystem i'm also a psychologist you know we try as much as possible
to study and see how we can you know solve problems when it comes to human behavior and the rest so
it's a very key thing so how do you feel that government itself or institutional bodies can you know
set up maybe structures or policies to make sure the ecosystem is both is friendly for both the users and
you know everyone so everybody can be good as well so that's just it thank you yeah thank you
uh that's a great question and it's a mixture of answer answers um so let's be very
focused and let's talk about let's say the case of nigeria since it's an example i think you're very
interested in um so nigeria's was doing this guided peg for a long time and it exchange when it was lifted
the exchange rate dropped and the value of the naira dropped by 70 percent now people want to find other
venues and they went and use uh blockchains they used core and other uh alternatives now the answer to
that my view is not regulation of saying oh i'm gonna force people to not use this in fact uh you
are making us hard damage to people and i think nigeria showed it nigeria banned uh you know crypto for a
while and then bring it back and i don't know now even where it stands so there is a lot of like flip
flopping on this issue um so i think really uh you know i think it's for the people to show like in you
know that hey look we are not criminals we are just uh serious people doing work and hedging uh and using
our basket of currencies that we value that we want to use to uh keep our purchasing power and i think
that's a very sane and reasonable direction and they would be more and more convinced
as uh there are going to be uh use cases uh that can be useful to them and if you know they can see
that they can buy their coffee uh you know using core i think that's a that's a that's a very uh strong
signal um now right now i think there is a lot of short-termism uh that they have and that the uh that they
just need more education and conversations and people showing them that um you know i am not
this there is nothing criminal in this this is we're using it uh to because we don't we cannot have
access to bank accounts that if i'm someone who is a small uh entrepreneur in senegal or in nigeria i
can bring my money to the bank and if i ask for a loan the bank will tell me hey i can bring uh 100 000
sefar 100 000 naira collateral and i will lend you 100 000 okay so which is like they lend your own money
so because with the lack of a full and with the shallow a banking sector uh it's important for
people to have alternatives and i think kind of um uh the people are using them anyway and i think
it's hard in practice to to to to to to to to to to ban it uh so they are harming uh their uh own
citizens i think rather than the the opposite um now yeah i think also it comes with uh researchers um
broadly like with their independence of a researcher showing hey these are uh what could be done these
are what are useful things that can be built and solving the issues around building these uh that's
easier uh convincing so it's like now uh everyone i think we're talking about regulating ai but no one
is talking about banning ai um i think that time would for blockchains will come uh today we are
getting innovations left and right but over the coming years it is possible that more and more
issues get resolved and more and more great applications get built
uh awesome uh we appreciate the questions um we are a little bit past time so uh professor
if you want um to answer one more quick question we can do that otherwise we can get to closing thoughts
i will answer one last question if there is although i'm happy to give my closing thoughts
if anyone wants to ask one more quick question uh we can you can uh raise your hand and uh yep
uh well i'll just maybe give this one to um i just know his thoughts um i just want to know how do you
feel um coming on board on called our ecosystem how do you see the development so far because um i've
been a kotoshi ever since um the satoshi app when we started mining it on satoshi app and when i read the
white paper and so what they are trying to you know give us um btc yeah give a big boost for the btc
miners and you know create a kind of incentivized economy and call happen to you know um be a part
of me it went live on my on maynet on my birthday which happens to be january 14th so and uh is b is
is a very great family but i just want to know your thoughts for just the very few days you've you know
gotten the news how do you feel within this unique btc5 blockchain yeah so i think like i said in my
main or my opening remarks yeah i think uh bt5 btc5 is is an application of opportunity because
um a lot of questions now emerge in some of in what will happen to uh bitcoin that bitcoin needs to
uh gradually move to fees but that does won't happen overnight right that the miners right now they have
a lot of competition so for example the hardware it's specialized but it's pretty uh substitutable
to other hardware that has other demand so people have demand for uh this hardware now for
ai applications and so on we have seen some miners actually you know go have to default so we cannot
expect just that you know things you know and that's not my interest as a researcher that oh things are
going to go to the moon and bitcoin gonna keep doubling or multiply by 10 every few years that
at some point you know the all exponential all scaling laws at some point they plateau
one that happens and that is not that is going to happen at some point and it's good to build for
that years and i what i really appreciated why i'm very uh i do due diligence and why why i was very
peculiar in accepting collaborative score is that there is a long-term vision to uh not to manage the
way in which they emit and inflate their currency and that um there is a 181 year horizon of emission
rates and i found that model very interesting and the uh what i wanted to say also on the bitcoin part
is that at some point you know miners will have to increase fees that already blocks the issue when
you have high fees also use it right so it it kind of leads to hoarding and kind of just idle like gold
so i think having this smart contract capability on bitcoin which is the largest asset class in the space
uh to build companies on the internet is a place of opportunity and core is being one of the uh the
protocol at the forefront of this and that's why i find it's exciting to apply the research and solve
the issues that core has so yeah so i think that's uh you know what in a very practical sense uh for me
um why it's a place of avenue uh and you know and as long as you know it continues being like this about
some very clear value proposition practical sense you know if you know a researcher doesn't need to
shield and tell them they'll just tell needs just to say okay this is the space how big it is these are
the issues how to resolve it and when those got resolved there is value that can be built that's
my point of taking it yeah it's very stressful congrats welcome on board that will be all thank you
thank you biggie uh very fruitful conversation uh was there any uh closing uh thoughts or remarks you
wanted to add to that uh professor nijaya i think those are um those are good for closing remarks i
think everyone in the core contributors i'm really excited to see uh people who are excited to engage
with research to apply research to be value driven and fundamentally driven that is very important and
that's what excites researchers to really uh think of how we can solve real issues so that uh real
problems can be solved so that the millions of people who are unbanked around the world can be banked
that's what got me interested in crypto in the first place and uh talking with people at core i find that
that's a value that resonates with them but there is this is work in progress and that i look forward to
to contributing as a researcher to that work and uh do my best to make that work succeed and when that
work succeeds with resolving real issues everything else would be resolved that's my point of view on
this thank you very much for having me amazing thank you thank you for your time thank you for everyone
that uh asked questions and uh took the time to attend today's ama um stay tuned for updates and our
timelines and uh yeah we'll have an ama soon take care everyone
