I'll see you in the next video.
gm-gm can you guys hear me yeah you hear me
Jake can you hear me yeah I can hear you
can you hear me okay so Jake maybe do
you want to rejoin the call
yeah Jake can you hear me now I'm back
sorry about that that's all good how are
you doing I'm doing great how are you
good thank you for asking so I'm very
excited to have another AMA today my
name is Shin and the community manager
at the Arpetrum Foundation today we're
very happy to have Jake from hook
protocol to join us for the AMA so Jake
why don't you start with a short
introduction of yourself first could
you tell us a bit more about yourself
the project and the team please yeah
absolutely so I'm Jake I'm one of the
co-founders of hook protocol we're a
team of about six people based mostly in
the US and Argentina and hook has been
building in the NFT finance and
specifically NFT derivative space for
the last two years we started out
originally with a covered call options
protocol on ETH mainnet and now we're
really excited to be launching hook
Odyssey which is a synthetic options and
perps decks that is built on a custom
Arpetrum orbit chain nice I'm actually
curious to learn more about the journey
of the project so how did hook started
how did you guys get here totally so I
mean hook started kind of towards the
end of the last bowl you know in the NFT
market when we were kind of looking at
the market and said well what would
really help NFTs get to the next level
is if you could basically earn yield on
your NFT positions and a great way to do
that at the time especially in DeFi
generally on fungibles was actually to
write covered call options so hook
built a protocol then that allowed users
to write covered call options and others
to buy the options essentially kind of
generating you know generating the
possibility to make you know an outsize
reward if they were right that the price
was going to increase and then we also
built several iterations of that
protocol to help improve liquidity and
make it available to more users we're
really proud to be the first protocol
that that created a call option on a
crypto punk and I think you know we did
a lot of other like really cool
innovative stuff there however our
biggest challenge with the call options
protocol was basically continuously
finding people to write the options
because fundamentally it turns out in
NFTs there's the kind of difference in
persona or the type of user that wants
to write option to kind of earn yield
on their NFT versus trade those options
is very different so we were
essentially trying to attract two
different user groups what's really
exciting about the synthetics that we're
working on today is that we no longer
have to do that and perps are in a way
much simpler you know a much simpler
instrument to trade so we think that
this is kind of the natural evolution at
next step and we feel really really
excited you know going in to the kind
of current market conditions that's
really cool but um you just now you
mentioned something about Odyssey could
you maybe tell us a bit more about that
and and just for those that just joined
by the way the Odyssey is not the same
as arbitrums campaign Odyssey just
gonna make sure we don't confuse it too
but yeah Jake tell us a bit more about
Odyssey yeah absolutely so Odyssey is a
order book based perps and options decks
that is built on an arbitrum orbit chain
so I guess importantly Odyssey kind of
operates with synthetic instruments like
perpetual features which you know many
of you guys are probably familiar with
and you know we kind of take the
benefits of you know kind of the
volatility and excitement of the NFT
market and then you know bring
derivatives that are kind of the best in
class inside DeFi or on other decks is
into into kind of one place so it's you
can think of it as like you know the
next generation decks and that's built
specifically for NFTs nice when you said
Odyssey is built on a arbitrum orbit
chain and that chain is hook chain right
I was like reading your medium article
yeah that's that's exactly right so when
you deposit into Odyssey we you know we
allow you to pause it from arbitrum of
course but also many other chains kind
of under the hood what happens is you
kind of connect to an arbitrum orbit
chain and there's a ton of advantages
from a user perspective of having that
immediately you'll notice that the
experience is really fast you because of
the orbit technology and the kind of
predictability of the operating cost
we're able to make users never have to
pay any gas fees and then we also allow
for these kind of signatureless
transactions internally on chain where
you know you can interact with the
protocol without having to open up your
meta mask you know every single time you
want to make a trade and also
importantly without having to
transmit or trust some third-party with
you know your private keys so it kind of
is a cool blend of stuff on the user
side and then on the technology side we
also unlock a lot of really important
benefits the first that was critical to
us given the volatility in the NFT market
is we can guarantee that liquidations
will be performed quickly and in an
orderly matter because you know in the
arbitrary orbit chain and we have good
visibility into what's happening on the
sequencer versus you know using the kind
of shared you know arbitrary arbitrary one
for example and then we can also take
some of the you know advantages of the
modular technology that you know it's
been coming out like alternative DA for
example to make sure that the gas costs
remain low for users even as you know
you've made that continuous spike that's
really cool um you know there's not not
one of the questions but I'm just curious
personally like why did a team choose to
build a chain instead of launching
Odyssey as an app yeah I think it really
relates back to kind of to those things
so we had a very specific UX that we
wanted to unlock which was you know kind
of easier to do on on a chain and we had
all this control and then additionally
there's kind of specifics about the you
know arbitrary technology that really
gives us kind of an advantage in terms
of the ability to scale over time and I
mean basically just like the ability to
kind of build a great product so we were
kind of excited about those in addition
to you know the UX benefits that's
that's that's really nice to know and
just going back to Odyssey as we
mentioned earlier I was reading the
medium article and it says that Odyssey
is one of the fastest derivative decks
out there I'm just curious to know like
what makes Odyssey so fast so a lot of
it is the arbitrary technology under the
hood another component is the off-chain
order book so you know there's kind of
many other fast perps decks that are
built on our patrim tech so another good
example be vertex and vertex also kind
of shares a similar architecture in that
there's an off-chain order book with
that eventually settles onto a chain and
you know basically this combination has
proven to be really great not only for
kind of speed of interaction speed of
trading but also over time really great
for kind of scaling liquidity because
what ends up happening is as the usage
of the other kind of product category
grows it's much easier for people to
basically be a market maker or to you
know or to kind of take risky position
on the protocol because it can make and
cancel orders very very quickly so it's
almost like a centralized exchange like
experience but on a on a completely you
know permissionless decks nice nice and
I know we kind of cover a bit just now
but it was like more chain wise just now
but I'm curious to know why did a team
choose to build on arbitrum other than
like you've mentioned just now like the
technology the speed but is there any
other reasons or maybe we can expand on
the technology and speed wise as well
yeah absolutely so I mean another core
reason is of course the ecosystem so you
know the arbitrum foundation has been
very supportive of you know kind of like
of our you know participation in the
community and then you know also some of
those folks that often lab had been very
helpful kind of from a technology side
on top of that there's also a lot of like
really exciting things kind of coming
down the pipe inside of arbitrum that
it's specifically really benefit stylus
or sorry over chains one of them for
example is our term stylus so yeah we're
going to be able to basically run a you
know kind of complex portfolio margin
simulation completely on chain which
gives traders you know confidence that
they don't have to trust kind of
centralized third-party to perform their
liquidations but it's just simply not
possible without like the speed unlocks
of the stylus technology even more than
that we're really excited about how much
you know the arbitrum ecosystem has
invested in real security and kind of
advancing as an L2 technology one
example of that is the kind of upcoming
you know bold protocol which again will
allow you know users of you know of hook
chain and users of hook Odyssey to
ensure that you know there is no kind of
fraud taking place you know on the
sequencer and actually be able to
permissionlessly you know contest those
you know those fraudulent transactions
if they were to occur which creates just
much more confidence in the product
itself and you know again today that's
really only possible on arbitrary yeah
for sure so for those of you who don't
know stylus new tech stack pretty
uh created by often labs it's not a
mainnet on arbitrum one yet but it's now
like it will be usable for arbitrum
orbit chains um one of the I guess like
the feature of stylus is that allows
developer to write contract and see C
plus plus rust on arbitrum so like any
EVM channel be even compatible and yeah
so it reduces the cost increase the
speed and that's why it's a great for
projects like hook to use so another
question for you as I'm sure our
audience today is all very curious about
to learn of like the status of Odyssey
since we've been talking about it so
much can you maybe like tell us a bit
more about how Odyssey is going right
now yeah absolutely so right now Odyssey
is in a kind of private preview stage
first access stage where essentially
kind of past users of hook and then
individuals that are kind of involved in
the energy finance ecosystem you know
have access and are kind of you know
putting the you know the product through
it's kind of initial mainnet paces one
of the things that we found you know
from developing these things is that the
issues that we encounter and the type of
you know UX feedback that we get when
people are really trading versus when
they're trading on testnet is
significantly different so we kind of
view from product development perspective
this early mainnet stage as critical to
you know delivering you know a really
compelling you know resultant excuse me
resultant user experience from here
we're going to continue to open up
access as this refinement has come in
and as as we bring more liquidity online
on the product over the next month and
then finally we'll do a big launch
announcement towards the end of next
month you know that kind of allows a
much wider array of people inside the
community to you know to access the
product so we're really kind of building
for that and excited about that the
early feedback has been really exciting
where people appreciate the speed of the
UX and kind of the you know the power
of this offchain order book that I
mentioned and you know we think that
this is really the right moment inside
NFT finance in a way right where you
know basically people are kind of coming
in and you know interested in NFTs again
and they really need these derivatives
in order to make complex trades and if
you just you just kind of stand back for
a second and think about it this is
actually a really great way to bring NFT
trading to an L2 or L3 like Arboshom
you know NFT traders today are stuck on
mainnet with really high gas fees
really slow transactions really kind of
large minimum position sides like a
whole NFT and you know on top of that
they can only be long and if you compare
that experience to trading you know on
Arboshom you know on a product like
Hook Odyssey where there's no gas fees
near instant transaction confirmation
the ability to go long and short and you
can buy a small fraction of NFT it's
just a much much much better experience
and you know we want to make that
available for people as soon as possible.
When you say no gas fee is the team
like covering the cost for the user?
Yeah so one of the one of the unique
things that we were able to do because
of an orbit chain is that we have really
high predictability in the kind of
operating cost of the chains so what
that means is that we can we can
basically kind of bake in what the gas
cost is to the transaction the protocol
transaction fees and then you know and
then make sure that that you know kind
of you know ends up ahead but from a
user perspective it's way better because
you don't have to pay gas you know a
separate gas and protocol fee on every
transaction. That's really nice like gas
less NFT trading also you said it's
gonna launch go mainnet next month right
end up next month. So we're currently on
mainnet with a product with kind of you
know limited user group we're currently
growing that user group and in fact today
if you would like to try it honestly you
can join the telegram group within our
pin tweet and then or in the hook
protocol pin tweet rather and then we'll
be able to give you access and as we
continue to grow that group we're
preparing for like a broader launch at the end of the month.
Nice nice so guys don't forget to give
like hook protocol follow they're one of
I think they're the fourth listener
right next to Jake's name and also give
Jake a follow if you don't want to miss
out on the launch and it also get their
telegram to get early access. So last
but not least what's next for
what so what's next for Odyssey right
now what can we expect what's next for
hook what can we expect from there. Yeah
absolutely so we're like I mentioned
kind of already in the very late stages
of development our audit is complete
we're already on mainnet and we're
really kind of focused on refining the
UX. Once we do that we're going to
launch a really exciting and center
program along with them you know more
public availability of the product
again towards the end of next month and
then you know we have it a really
exciting roadmap in terms of new market
listings new liquidity strategies new
derivatives products and you know a lot
more that it can't be shared yet that's
going to happen over the next few months.
A lot of this stuff is actually already
built and we just kind of want to release
it one at a time but we think that it
should be kind of just really exciting
to participate in the ecosystem early
because you're going to be able to see
Nice nice very looking forward to that.
Before we wrap up today though Jake is
there anything else you would like to
share with our audience today?
Yeah I mean I think the main thing that
we want to share is the kind of
telegram link that is pinned on the
hook protocol tweet or sorry these are the
hook protocol pinned tweet that will if
you join that group we will be able to
give you access right away and we're
really eager to get it kind of get
feedback and more users from kind of the
arbitrary community. It's super easy to
you know deposit into hook via
arbitrum and again to another arbitrum
orbit chain and we think that this is
the way that a lot of DeFi products
especially derivative sexes are going to
be working in this next cycle.
For sure so guys don't forget to give
Hook and Jake another follow just to
make sure you don't miss out on the
early access and I think that's it for
today's I think we've pretty much cover
everything and thank you so much for
joining us Jake. Yeah thank you for
having us this is really exciting I hope
if you're in Denver I know a lot of the
arbitrum is you have a fun day. You too. Thank you.