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CeFi to DeFi: Hybrid Finance Migration
Recorded: May 8, 2024 Duration: 1:03:58Space Recording
Full Transcription
Can you guys hear me? Testing, testing.
All right, okay, I'm actually using the laptop for these spaces.
Oh, Twitter works for laptop right now.
All right.
All right.
Okay, I think the IntenX account is here.
Maybe just give him the speaker role.
Then we can do a quick mic check.
Okay, I think all the speakers are here.
Do you guys want to do a quick mic check?
Then I think we can start.
Yeah.
Hello, everyone.
Hey, hey, Levi.
All right.
How's it going?
Hey, going great.
I'm excited for this AMA.
Just had a long day today.
Okay.
Okay.
I guess we can just get started now since all the speakers are here.
Hi, guys.
I'm Edmund.
I'm part of the Mental DeFi team.
Today, I'll be the host for today.
And for the speakers today, we have two speakers of our projects that I am really a big fan of.
So we have Seraphine from Athena, as well as Levi from IntenX.
So maybe we can start with a round of introductions for Seraphine.
Yeah, guys.
How's it going?
Yeah.
Seraphine, Pedagraph of Athena.
We are big friends with Mantle, big friends with IntenX.
We've been doing a bunch of cool shit lately, so excited to share that in this AMA.
Okay.
Okay.
Next, shall we have Levi do a quick round of introductions?
Sure.
Yeah.
I'm Levi, founder of IntenX.
We're a perpetual DEX on Mantle, Base, and Blast.
And we're using an intent-based architecture from Sim to deliver perpetuals in a new way on-chain.
And yeah, we're working with Athena with USD Collateral and building some pretty cool stuff around that.
So look forward to the space with two of our good partners here.
Okay.
Thanks for the introduction, Levi.
So for today, I think a lot of the topics we will be speaking about this will be a focus on a hybrid finance migration.
In recent times, you have seen that there's a lot of crossover between centralized entities like exchanges as well as decentralized applications, and I think it's getting more and more popular.
Internex and Athena are both protocols that have also embraced this new change and have been integrating with centralized entities to actually form a hybrid of DeFi as well as centralized
I would say centralized exchanges to allow users to have greater UI and UX for their experience on-chain.
So maybe moving on to the first question, can you explain the shift from CeFi to DeFi and what has been driving the trend for hybrid finance migration?
Maybe we'll start with Seraphim.
Sure.
I think it's a great topic to discuss and it's quite controversial, but I think if you look back a couple of years, like 2020, 2021, there was this idea that we can completely shift on-chain and just do everything there and never touch centralized infrastructure.
And I kind of believe that too, for some time until I just kind of face the reality and kind of puberty kicked in and I grew up basically, because at least if you look at this point in time, when you look at perps training, for instance, 95% of the volume is happening on violence, OKEx, Bybit, you know, if you look at people providing market-making prices, it's typically professional firms.
If you look at stablecoin-like products or synthetic dollar products, most of them tend to be a bit more centralized.
So at some point you just realized something with DeFi isn't quite there yet to enable adoption.
It will at some point, but at this point in time, in 2024, tapping into CeFi is like a very powerful way to scale.
And kind of, that's kind of what we've been doing in Athena.
We take EVE, we take Bitcoin, we Delta hedge it.
That is, we price out, sorry, we hedge the price by shorting Bitcoin and EVE perps on centralized exchanges.
And because centralized exchanges just have so much more depth than DeFi, we can scale this thing to $2.3 billion quite easily.
We wouldn't be able to do it if we just use DeFi.
It's just the reality, if you want to scale and grow in a lot of ways in DeFi, you kind of need CeFi.
I don't think that's going to be the case forever.
Like eventually DeFi will grow and become more prominent.
But at this point in time, if you want to grow, I think CeFi is a great partner to have.
All right, thank you, Seraphim.
Okay, maybe can we have Levy, maybe provide your thoughts for that.
So can you explain the shift from CeFi to DeFi and also that what's driving the trend for the hybrid finance migration between the two?
Yeah, like Seraphim, I do think ultimately the future of finance is on chain and that's, you know, why we're building here.
But there is, you know, a huge intermediary step to go through with any technology where there's a mix.
And that's where this hybrid style kind of comes in.
And yeah, I mean, DeFi 1.0, let's say, was entirely on chain and isolated.
And I think at the end of the day, you know, that's a closed economy, like you can only trade with yourself.
And that's where you need to open up to more interaction with like CeFi and other platforms.
So whether that's through arbitrage, market making, you know, intent based swaps or perps like ours or products like the Athena stablecoin.
I think that trend just continues as DeFi matures.
And like Seraphim said, you know, most of the liquidity for perps derivatives is on the centralized exchange platform.
So you can either try to do like, you have a chicken and egg problem to kind of recreate that on chain.
Whereas if you leverage a hybrid system like us through a solver network, then we could just tap into that liquidity right away.
And actually be that bridge from, you know, centralized exchanges to decentralized exchanges.
And then as over time, more and more trade shifts on chain, that's where, you know, we can get into the exact like on chain settlements.
And I think that trend actually continues into the future, not, you know, just from migrating from like centralized exchange trade.
But I think even tapping into like tradify markets, you know, if you were to ever trade derivatives for, you know, stocks or Forex or anything on chain, like inherently you need to tap into that traditional world.
Right.
So, yeah, I think that's, that's pretty well the future DeFi, at least for the middle term, let's say, or medium term.
Okay.
Yeah.
I think I fully agree with both of the points that both of you raised.
Centralized exchanges really offer like deep liquidity for a lot of the DeFi apps that should tap on.
And I think increasingly we are seeing more and more decentralized apps trying to reach out to centralized exchanges and to actually start to integrate, to allow DeFi users to actually have access to similar services that are shown on like centralized exchanges as well.
And I feel that this is like the first step towards that, the meshing of like decentralized finance with, as well as a centralized finances form from like centralized exchanges.
And like this, I think we will have gradual spill over effects in the long term towards even like traditional markets once I think our space mergers further.
So moving on to the next question is, what do you think hybrid finance migration actually entail?
And why is it significant for today's financial landscape?
So why is the migration to DeFi crucial for the future of like financial services?
Maybe we start with Levy this time?
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
So I think there's a lot of things that we all kind of know, you know, the whole self-custodial permissionless aspect of DeFi just enables free markets to form very efficiently, reduced friction, which comes with, of course, reduced fees.
And I guess speaking to our application specifically, which is the perpetuals derivative product.
We can actually have these on-chain bilateral trade agreements between traders and solvers between two parties essentially that are, you know, airtight and isolated with margin from both sides, smart contract based liquidations.
You know, that's one really great for security, but also you eliminate counterparty risk.
And like we saw with the FTX blow up and, you know, continued FUD on centralized exchange platforms.
And we even see it in the traditional finance world, right, where big players are blowing up.
I think that security of actually having your funds on-chain, you know, knowing who your counterparty is, knowing their solvent and not having to trust them, not having to trust a third party auditor, a credit rating agency, not, you know, regulations or regulatory bodies.
You can just trust the smart contracts.
So I think that's why it's significant and that's why, you know, DeFi will win at the end of the day.
It's just more efficient and on so many levels, like individual level, but also on a systematic level.
All right. Thank you, Levi.
Okay. Moving on, passing on the question to Seraphine.
So what does hybrid finance migration entail to you?
And also, why is it significant in today's financial landscape?
Yeah, you can see a lot of these financial giants are talking about DeFi.
And I think, well, if you look at Larry Think, he's talking about cost cutting.
You can automate so many processes, uh, five, eight, five, 80% of your personnel.
And Larry Think is like, fuck. Yeah, I'm doing this.
I can be even more competitive with my ETFs. Right.
All these funds like Fidelity and Franklin Templeton are thinking the same, like just fire a bunch of people, uh, decrease the fees, keep the dominance in the financial markets.
A lot of them are also thinking from the perspective of like, now we can lodge all these ship coins on these chains, uh, and people are going to trade them to death and generate even more fees for us tokens.
We could never list in the actual centralized exchange.
Like, you know, if you look at Coinbase, uh, if you look at the, uh, the okay expert free wallet, which is a phenomenal wallet, you can trade all these Solana shitties from there.
Uh, even though it looks like a centralized exchange experience is quite great.
And for LKX is obvious, uh, this is a kind of a massively expands the realm of tradable instruments, which you can't do on a centralized exchange setup.
So that's why DeFi is so crucial because you could just trade a lot more stuff.
Um, you can fire a lot more people and, um, it's just the bottom line essentially in terms of profits for a lot of these firms.
Um, for us, it matters not just because of that, but also because ideologically it's aligned, but I think that it's nicely aligned with the kind of pragmatism of these firms trying to kind of achieve the bottom line results they want to get.
So, uh, and the funny thing is it, but it moves both ways.
Like DeFi is becoming more CFI-esque, but again, also CFI is becoming more DFI-esque.
Like the fact that okay, X has a WIPP wallet without KYC, where you can trade everything you like.
It's quite incredible.
Right.
The fact that Coinbase has got an actual chain.
We can trade the bald guy meme token.
Like, come on, that's just insane.
Right.
So it just shows that everything's moving somewhere to somewhere in the middle, which is quite cool.
Yeah.
It's been a while since I, someone mentioned bald.
But yeah, I agree.
I think, I think the current migration of, and interactions between both CFI and DeFi is an interesting one to watch, especially since we get to see, um, centralized exchanges actually embracing probably more a degen culture that we see on, on DeFi and vice versa.
We can, for the DeFi side, we can get to tap on the deep liquidity that's provided from all the centralized venues.
So moving on to the next question is, um, how do you think, um, DeFi approved, uh, capital efficiency compared to trading on traditional finance systems?
So I eat all the centralized exchanges.
Shall we start with Levy?
Yeah, definitely.
I do think a lot of like the interoperability composability plays a huge role into this, right?
Where, um, even, even with like liquid stake derivatives, you know, you could take that, uh, which has yields, you know, you could put it into an LP, which has yields.
You can then do different things with that LP.
You can use it as maybe collateral somewhere else.
I think just that composability, um, and that open nature of DeFi really creates the capital efficiency where, you know, if you have assets on finance, you know, you can only do things on finance.
You can't really take that outside.
Um, so that alone is, is really big compared to like CeFi and when it comes to, you know, hybrid systems, I think they also present a huge capital efficiency over, let's say traditional and like pure on-chain DeFi protocols.
Uh, one of the examples that we have is we've compared, you know, our capital efficiency at intent X to, um, AMM styled X's like GMX and the efficiency is about a hundred X on, uh, open interest to TVL ratio.
Uh, so, you know, we have significant capital efficiency improvements over pure DeFi, um, uh, let's say protocols.
And then compared to order books, uh, we also have efficiencies just in the way we structure the trade because we can tap into existing liquidity.
Um, then, you know, we can leverage products like Athena stable coin, um, which yields, you know, over 15% APR and actually take that yield and do further things on our platform with it.
So, uh, I think this is where the capital efficiency in DeFi comes into play.
And it's kind of clear to me that with the advent of, you know, projects like Athena and like intent X, that the shelling point in DeFi has moved.
And those that leverage these, these hybrid systems will just outperform those who are stuck in DeFi, uh, 1.0, like by order of magnitude.
Yeah, I fully agree.
I think that the hybrid systems will have a pretty unfair advantage against, um, I would say DeFi that still remains in the traditional mindset whereby they have to focus on decentralization.
And they, they refuse to let tap on the advantages offered by all the centralized, um, venues.
So, um, okay.
Passing on the question to Seraphim as well.
So how, how do you think, um, DeFi improved capital efficiency compared to traditional finance systems like central assets changes?
Yeah, I think in terms of capital efficiency per se, like, I feel like CeFi still beats us in many ways in terms of liquidity, uh, providing prices and such.
But, um, I do agree with what was mentioned before, where composability is a key factor that we have, that TrackFi doesn't.
If you take Athena, you could do it yourself if you really want to, right?
You take Bitcoin, you don't hedge it, but you can't tokenize it.
You can't like, uh, take that position and borrow against it and do a bunch of cool stuff you can do in DeFi.
So composability and building things on top of each other, it's kind of a cool, um, use case that TrackFi doesn't.
But I think at the core, we are like this really cool permissionless casino.
And that's what TrackFi doesn't have.
Like you can't just create an internet coin from a meme, you know, um, and because of that, you have entire communities jump, you know, occurring from nothing.
And there's insane trading going on just out of nothing, pretty much in a permissionless way.
TrackFi doesn't have that.
You need to get listed.
You have to get like, uh, there's a bunch of infrastructure, legal work around creating something that's liquid.
And we don't have that constraint.
And I think that's like probably the biggest value adds, um, at the end of the day, just being able to do that.
Yeah, I fully agree.
So, um, the current meshed up between DeFi and CeFi, I think we'll have, um, pretty interesting developments in the near future.
Uh, I think this is just the beginning of, of, um, protocols on DeFi starting to tap on the advantages of centralized exchanges and also bringing these advantages to a larger audience.
Um, I think one, uh, one group of audience that, um, probably are struggling to, uh, get KYC on the centralized exchanges to get access to centralized exchanges.
And this crossover will really benefit them in terms of like having accessibility towards, um, the stuff that is offered on centralized exchanges.
So, uh, moving on to the next question is, um, what are the, what do you think are the long-term benefits for users and the ecosystem from transitioning to a more decentralized financial model?
Um, yeah, I think, uh, as I mentioned, the liquidity is a big part of it at the moment, liquidity is just much better centralized venues, but also distribution simply like, uh, like, I don't know if you followed guys, but like yesterday we announced that, uh, you'd be able to access USD for Bybit and everybody lost their minds because they know Bybit's got millions and millions of users that DeFi doesn't.
Right.
Um, so just looking at CeFi as a retail facing distribution partner compared to DeFi, which has like five users, half of them are probably in the space, um, is a big kind of, uh, value adds, just being able to tap into that user base.
And it just comes down to because, uh, you know, CeFi actually focuses on retail users.
Um, they don't have to pay gas.
Uh, they're trying to make the experience as smooth as possible.
Whereas DeFi, I tried to register today in fantasy on blast.
I wanted to fucking shoot myself because it's just like too much work.
So, uh, yeah, it's definitely crucial in terms of distribution.
I fucking hate it.
I can't do it.
I had to go on blast and bridge and shit.
It's just, it's just bloody.
People, people love fantasy.
I bet it's great.
I just can't fucking, I can't do this guys.
Yeah.
I actually have quite a few people shilling me fantasy.
Uh, I'll probably check it out soon, but I haven't had the time.
Let me know what you think.
Cause I'm struggling here tonight.
I don't know.
Okay.
Okay.
Moving on, moving on to, to, to, to Levy.
Um, so, uh, what, what are the long-term benefits for users?
And, uh, the ecosystem from transitioning from a more decentralized,
to a more decentralized, um, financial model.
Okay.
Um, yeah, uh, to Sarah comes, uh, point.
Like I do think there are things that centralized exchanges do well.
And that's, um, you know, kind of the reason to run an operation.
Like we do for us specifically, we kind of give traders and users the best of both worlds.
So at our exchange, they get self-custody permissionless access security.
Um, they can eliminate their counterparty risk and still receive the liquidity and kind of
pair availability from those centralized exchanges.
So the benefits are really clear.
And I think in this case, it's worth like talking about the risks, right?
Because we actually take a lot of the risks away from the users and pass that onto the solver.
So the solver is the market maker.
Who's kind of connected to these centralized exchange platforms.
And that solver is just a much more sophisticated and capable entity to handle those risks.
And one good example is our solver, you know, they have an institutional account with, with
Binance and they actually use a third party custodian.
So they've eliminated their custody risk at a centralized exchange in a way that a normal trader or a normal user
couldn't do.
And they also have all of the information to kind of manage their funds, right?
If they get some information that maybe Binance is insolvent, right?
They can remove their funds, manage their positions and in a way that like retail can't.
So it's a very clear win-win in the system that we're building.
So I guess that's like one long-term benefit.
You know, we can pass on the risk to someone who can manage it better.
And, you know, retail shouldn't have to deal with the risks of like centralized exchange solvency.
Right?
So yeah, that's one advantage.
And then there's also challenges with it, which I'm sure we'll get to as well.
Yeah, I fully agree.
I think centralized exchanges and the risks associated with them is something that is a black box.
So a lot of the average users will not be able to actually gauge the risk.
But custodian services will actually help to manage it much better than what we currently have.
I think FTX itself was a good example of no exchange is actually too big to blow up.
So it's always good to have a professional party that in the asset intermediary to actually manage the risk for the users itself.
So I'm speaking about hybrid finance involving.
So what do you think are the challenges and the opportunities that it presents?
And probably you can also touch a bit on potential future use cases that you see between the DeFi and SeFi having integrated with each other.
Maybe let's start with Levi.
Yeah, there's a real pushback to kind of taking a hybrid approach, I've found.
And like, even when we integrated USDT, I had a ton of, you know, inbound concerns come in, which are all valid because at least in its current state,
USDE may present more risks than like USDT or USDC, which is kind of has Lindy.
It's been here for a while.
And I think the idea that any risk is bad and has to be avoided is kind of flawed as a principle.
There's risk in everything.
And it's a matter of like how you're managing that risk.
Is it minimized, controlled?
And what is the return you're getting for that risk?
And I think that's the appropriate question to be asking, not like, hey, there's a risk.
This is a no go.
So like the benefits are really clear from my perspective for, you know, USDE integration, but also for,
for IntentX, we've had a lot of questions too, from investors, builders, users, like, hey,
you know, the solver is actually operating on a centralized exchange.
Like, isn't that a risk for you?
And it is, yes, but that risk is managed, right, by the appropriate party to manage that risk.
And what we get in return is so great.
So I think there's kind of like a negative stigma or perception around systems that do integrate with centralized exchanges.
But that will change over time as DeFi matures and people actually see the tangible outcomes from these models, right,
and what we're actually getting in return for that.
And then the opportunity, yeah, the opportunity is huge.
It's massive.
It's, you know, 10 to 100x efficiencies over existing systems.
So that's the order of magnitude improvement that we're all after.
Okay, I'm passing on the question to Seraphim.
So how do you see the role of hybrid finance evolving and what are the challenges and opportunities that you see it presents?
Yeah, I think, generally, as long as it's UX positive, it's probably a positive thing.
There's two risks that, inherent to CeFi, that I guess people should be concerned about.
The first one is, you know, user funds could just blow up like FTX did, just, you know, just actual loss of funds,
which is back to the whole industry as a whole.
And that's where you need more transparency, you need more proof of reserves, some other side, perhaps.
But the second, I think, which is the more important bit is, like, freedom and censorship resistance of the blockchains themselves.
If a centralized exchange like Coinbase, which is in the States, has a 33% stake over, let's say, Ethereum, then it's obviously a problem because they can be directly told by the SEC or authorities to, like, fork the chain or try to censor certain transactions.
So I think anything beyond that is kind of fine. But when it comes to the actual, like, blockchain validation aspect itself, that's where centralized exchanges are kind of potentially a dangerous thing.
In terms of everything else, like adding liquidity, custodian assets and all that stuff is probably fine.
It's just a UX improvement for users.
So, yeah, I think DeFi is just going to stay around. We just need to make sure that DeFi user experience is good, that CeFi eventually outsources lots of things to DeFi because it's more efficient.
And that way, CeFi is just like a front end. It's just a funnel into the actual infrastructure, which is us, DeFi.
Yeah, I kind of agree with this point, especially, like, speaking to a few protocols that are so interested in integrating with DeFi.
CeFi platforms. So I think one current theme that we see going on right now is that a lot of the DeFi protocols are actually trying to get integrated with CeFi earned products.
So earned products are basically, like, the attempt from, like, CeFi sites, CeFi platforms to actually provide yield for the users through, like, sticking their coins, through, like, doing launch pools.
And I think a lot of that is also available for DeFi, but probably the DeFi site has less censorship.
It has, I guess, more, they are more open to smaller players using them, and they also offer, I would say, considerably higher yields.
So having a crossover whereby we get the deep liquidity of centralized platforms, along with, I guess, a bit of the DGEN stuff that's going on with DeFi,
allows users to have a better mix of both the securities of centralized exchanges as well as the fund from having this access to all the services through DeFi.
So moving on, let's touch on a hot topic that has happened.
So, Athena, we will focus on you for now.
So can you touch a bit on the USDT listing on Bybit?
And how does this move alter the landscape for your users as well as the market?
Yeah, so this is the big one. We've joined the exclusive club of USDT and USDC, which is super nice.
So basically, the gist of it is, soon on Bybit, you're going to be able to have trading pairs versus USD, which are fee-less.
Second, you're going to be able to use USD as collateral when you trade perps like E for Bitcoin.
And USD is going to be a part of the EARN program on Bybit.
And the reason why this is cool is that suddenly we can access millions of new users.
And a lot of these institutional funds that have Athena, our USD token, can finally kind of earn back some of the funding.
Because when you think about that, if you're long E perps on Bybit, you're paying the funding most of the time.
If you use USD and you get some of that organic yield back, you're basically offsetting it.
So it's like a, I hate to say it, but it's kind of a no brainer, at least in a good market.
And I'm hoping that will lead, will be the beginning of a process where lots and lots of centralized exchanges and fintechs and wallets and such will start to integrate us because it's just better for the users, right?
And that means we can put like USD into the hands of more than like millions of users rather than 13,000 that we have today.
So, yeah, it's pretty cool.
Oh, we're probably a good, a good example for that, because that's exactly what we're doing.
Yeah.
Yeah, I gotta give, actually, I need to mention that the first guys that like realized that you should use USD as collateral were Intentex, like the OGs, friends of Athena.
So like the first Pubdex actually came up with that.
So you guys did it before Bybit.
So there you go.
Okay.
I think maybe diving deeper into some of the points that you mentioned just now.
So you mentioned that there could possibly be like feeless trading.
Does this mean that the USD yields from Athena will be passed over to the users for using Bybit and Intentex as well?
Of course, we see that most of the yield now for Athena is focused on SUSDE, right?
But USDE is the one that is being integrated on Bybit.
Does that mean that Athena will still pass on the yield for USDE on Bybit and Intentex?
Or how would this work?
Yeah, it most likely will.
And the reason is quite simple.
So SUSD is just an easy way for anyone to be able to get the organic yield.
But I don't know if you know, but for example, between like, as in the audience, because you obviously know it, Ed, but we've done a reward share agreement between Lido and Mantle a year ago.
And the idea was that the Lido Dow accrues some yield in their treasury, and they share that with Mantle in the kind of a kind of a one to one, one on one way, kind of a revenue or reward share agreement.
So USDE will work the same way, even if Bybit people are not actually having SUSDE, but USDE, we can still take all that yield that's being earned in the background and just send it to Bybit pretty much.
So, um, it's just a more kind of a streamlined way of doing it rather than SUSDE.
But yeah.
So my point is, yes, people will be able to earn organic yield, even if, even though they got USDE, because we're going to distribute the yield in the background and abstract in the way.
Yeah.
I think that that's a pretty interesting development, especially coming up from Athena, because I think having the, the yield from, um, USDE being passed onto the platform.
It opens a lot of, um, new, I say, possibilities for the, for platform and especially for the DeFi platforms where there is a greater composability.
So there's, there'll be a better, I would say, um, capital efficiency for the users to actually use the USDE over other stable.
I would say other more OG stables like USDC as well as USDT, whereby most of the profits are kept for themselves.
So, um, maybe, um, for Athena side, maybe you can share future plans and also what can users actually, and investors actually expect from Athena.
Um, we see that you've integrated with, um, Internex as well as Bybit right now.
So, um, what's next?
Is it more centralized exchanges or what, what alpha do you have for us, Seraphine?
Yeah.
I can't say too much.
Uh, yeah, the lawyer yesterday was like, Seraphine from now on, you fucking keep it shut.
So I'm going to keep it shut, but like, but yeah, we're trying to, we have an aggressive roadmap in regards to distribution in general.
So we're trying to, um, to get that done.
Um, as I've said on the previous one, we're doing cross chain stuff.
It's just taking ages because of the backlogs and such.
And also since the funding went down, obviously TVL like stabilized around 2.3 billion, and we want to keep growing this to like 10 billion.
So, um, trying to figure out, uh, very strategic ways of, uh, getting there.
So I, and I think, uh, yeah, we're looking at a lot of kind of other blockchains and work capitalized ecosystems that can get us there.
So, um, and yeah, generally just, um, kind of new campaigns, uh, kind of, uh, we work a lot with Pendle, so we're going to keep working with them.
Um, we got Carrack integration recently where you can use USD as a restaken asset, which is quite cool.
So, um, but yeah, the big focus is on distribution.
I can't say too much, but we're definitely like, that's the name of the game for Dina at the moment, distribution, large players, um, big TVL tickets.
Okay.
Yeah.
I guess we can, we will just wait, wait and see that what, what Athena comes up with.
I think you guys have been pushing the boundaries on pretty hard in terms of your integrations, especially with like Pendle and also like with the newly integrated with Carrack.
Um, it's really interesting for, for the users every year to watch to see how actually this develops.
So, um, yeah, probably you can only wait until your legal allows you to, to share faster the alpha.
And, uh, yeah, maybe we will speak again soon.
So, um, moving on to let's focus on intent X right now.
So maybe for Levi, maybe can you share some insights on your recent launch on the mental network and, and are there any significant milestones, uh, that has happened and also any numbers that you would like to share with the users?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, immediately we just hit a $2 billion in total trade volume.
Uh, actually I believe today or yesterday.
So that was like our big milestone and it's been cool to see the acceleration of that.
I, it took us around four months to hit 1 billion.
And I think it's less than two months after that.
Now we're at, uh, two.
Uh, two.
So that's really great to see the acceleration.
And then mantle, we launched just under three weeks ago and we've done almost 250 million in volume there already with 2 million in USD deposits.
Two and a half thousand users.
And, uh, we do have a number of incentives programs running with M and T and we've distributed over 35,000 M and T already.
So that's a really great reception and adoption for mantle.
It's a pretty significant to us as a mantle native project.
And we have a ton of stuff, uh, like project related features that are going to be based on mantle, including our TGE staking incentives and more.
So yeah, we really look forward to continuing our growth here and then also collaborating with more mantle projects like Athena, where it makes sense.
Yeah, I actually used Internet platform quite often, and I was one of the early users when you guys deployed on base.
So I think one, one thing that I noticed is that there were a lot of, um, small UI improvements over time and the OIs have been growing pretty steadily.
So, um, it's been quite an enjoyable experience, um, uh, using InternetX.
As far as like, I think you guys started, uh, the recent minigame on InternetX where you, there's like the, you call it the mental blitz, uh, whereby users, uh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like 10 second windows.
And I think I lost most of them.
Yeah.
But pretty fun stuff.
I, I guess for, for, for, for listeners, uh, if you guys have not tried out InternetX or Tina, do give it a try.
And then, uh, you, you will see how much, uh, efficiency they can bring to, to your whole overall experience in the DeFi.
So, uh, maybe the next question for Levi is, um, something that a lot of users have been asking and also been being inquiring about.
So how is, um, TGE shipping up for InternetX and, um, what can users, uh, expect in the near future?
Yeah.
Good question.
The TGE is really kind of at its last legs right now, like in terms of finalizing all of our details.
So we're, we're, we've kind of announced not formally, but people know we're doing an IDO with Mobi HQ.
That's actually going to be their first mantle IDO.
So we're looking forward to that.
And we're also lining up some, uh, exchange listings now.
So it's, uh, it's right around the corner and that TGE then kicks off, you know, the airdrops to the, to the users staking for revenue distributions and also the INTX trader incentives.
So that's going to be a pretty big milestone for us.
And I suppose the alpha for listeners right now is in addition to all of the incentives we have on the platform.
We're also giving away whitelist spots to our users, um, who are on INTX trading now.
So it was important to us to kind of reward our, you know, loyal users and make sure that they have access to that IDO at the lowest valuation possible.
So, uh, there's still a chance to qualify for that by trading.
And then what comes after TGE, we have a whole bunch of stuff in the works.
Um, firstly is, uh, solver scaling.
So we do have the new solver already live on mantle.
They're taking trades up to 50 K positions now.
And with that, you know, as they scale up and take larger positions and are comfortable increasing the OIs we'll see, um, a lot more available, like position size in terms of dollar values.
Uh, yeah.
The liquidity available to actually trade against and even a reduction in spreads.
So that's going to be really big.
And we'll kind of continue to scale.
That's the solver network over time.
But this first integration is really a critical one to hit the next kind of leg of growth.
And then we're also doing, um, complete overhaul of INTX.
So we call it INTX V2.
So we've rebuilt our front end from scratch with a whole bunch of performance upgrades.
We've optimized stuff like load times.
Um, we've also redesigned the entire platform with first class kind of UI.
Uh, so we'll ease that pretty shortly.
And, you know, it's already in development, so it should be out, I'll say within a month or two.
Um, yeah.
And we're, we're also working on a bunch of developer, like developing a bunch of trader tools, funding rate tools, market screeners, et cetera.
So a lot of good stuff still, um, in the pipeline.
Yeah.
I think that there's a lot of features that, uh, you guys are actually working on right now.
Um, I think previously when we first spoke, um, one of the key, the key points that you mentioned to me was that you wanted to make INTX a platform whereby users can, would not have to actually leave the platform.
And then, uh, you guys also choose because of that, you guys chose to launch like spot trading as well.
But, um, I think it's one of the lesser marketed features on, on the INTX, but maybe can you, can you share us, share with us a bit of, uh, details regarding how the spot trading on the INTX works.
And then if there's any plans to further scale that particular feature for, for INTX.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Really good point.
So we did launch a spot trading with Orbs Liquidity Hub and Orbs is also, you know, a strategic partner of ours at a number of levels.
They're also integrating on a solver side for the perps.
Uh, but essentially the liquidity hub product works similar to unit swap X where it's, uh, intent based swaps fulfilled with solvers, uh, that tap into that, you know, liquidity hub that they call it.
And, uh, we actually do that without any hosting any liquidity on intent X.
And that's kind of been our, you know, guiding thesis is like TVL is dead as a metric.
So, uh, neither are like perp side or spot trading side actually uses, you know, kind of dead or stale TVL locked in an AMM.
Uh, so it's, it's a great product.
It works live now.
It gives, I would say as good or better quotes than pretty much any AMMs.
And it obviously gets better if your position size is larger.
Uh, so that's the product that we're going to be pushing a lot more in V2 in terms of like making it a prominent feature on the site, uh, and, and also marketing it a little bit harder.
But, but the end goal is, you know, we want to offer everything.
So we want, you know, through our solver network, we want to tap into every single centralized exchange that there is, pull all of the liquidity that exists for perpetuals.
And then with the intent based swap is offer trading for any asset that exists on the chain.
So yeah, we're, we're, uh, that, that's a great product feature that.
Yeah.
We maybe we don't talk about enough, but, uh, for sure with V2, it'll be more important.
Okay.
Um, sounds good.
Yeah.
I think I've come to the end of the list of questions I have for, for both, uh, Internet X and Athena.
Maybe we can spend like 10 minutes and open the, the, the round of questions to the listeners.
Do you have like, if anyone have any questions for, um, either Levy or, or Seraphine does, um, um, raise your hand and, and then, um, we will give the speaker role to use to ask the questions.
So anyone have any questions for both parties?
Uh, meanwhile, I'm getting wrecked on BDC, my BDC longs.
At least to get some, uh, FNT rebates.
Yes.
But still getting wrecked.
So do we have anyone that have any questions for either parties?
Um, oh, I see we have a speaker.
Yep.
Hello.
Can you hear me?
Yep.
Yeah.
This question is for Seraphine.
So, um, I joined late, so maybe I, I didn't hear what you said, but in general, when you're looking to distribute USTE to different sexes, what, what, what are you looking out for in the sex?
Like, how do you pick the sexes?
I know you can't give too much away.
I'm just curious about the factors you're looking in other than risk.
Yeah, I think in this situation, we're not the, like the hot chick that can just pick and choose.
Like the hot chick that can just pick and choose.
We're like more like the older, bold guy who is attractive, uh, from a more platonic way.
So like they look at us and we try to find something in the top five and if they've got interest, we definitely engage.
But, um, I would say there's not that many sexes to really engage in that have this distribution in size.
Uh, they are tend to be the guys that we already trade with.
So Binance, OKX, Bybit, BitGet, um, Deribit as well.
These are the guys we trade with and they tend to have the distribution we need as well.
I'm not, I'm not implying we're doing something with all of them.
I'm just saying that, uh, they tend to account for like 80%, I guess, of all the trading.
So, um, it's a pretty short list to begin with.
Got it. Thanks.
All right.
So do we have anyone else with questions?
Any, any listeners with questions?
Anyone want to ask maybe Serafin questions about like farming with YTs, PTs?
Oh, okay.
Yeah, sure.
Go ahead, Potato.
So it was regarding IntentX.
So I want to know how IntentX is planning to attract the majority of users
from, to Defi, uh, from Sifi to, uh, you know, encourage users to use IntentX or other Defi platforms.
And just last, one more question.
I'm sorry if it's long.
And in terms of listing a token, will there be any criteria in place?
Or is it that anyone can?
And would we be needing a minimum liquidity that we need to stake?
And will the liquidity be logged?
Because we have seen where issues where some people have listed tokens and then they have
pulled with the, where they have liquidity, but they have not logged it.
And they have pulled out with the profits, but the users who have invested have lost a lot of money.
I don't know if my question made sense, but let me know if, uh, you need further clarification.
Yeah, I think I got it.
So in terms of bringing users to Defi and decentralized exchange platforms, there's like two things
that I think simultaneously need to develop, which is one, we need the trading experience
to actually be competitive with centralized exchanges.
Because you can imagine if you're a user on, on Bybit or Binance right now, like you actually
have no reason to come on chain because you could just trade more markets cheaper.
So you would actually be paying more for, for a worse experience.
So I think, um, some of the focus on that has been like a little bit premature and that's why
we were going there out.
We are, which is, you know, one solve the liquidity problem, get, you know, our solvers scaled up to a point where
not only we out-compete everything in kind of DeFi, but also like, you know, now we're competitive actually with
what centralized exchange platforms have.
And that's step one.
And then step two, and I think a lot of projects are actually trying to fill that, you know, fill that hole
with incentives, which we all know are unsustainable.
Like they're, they're great to bootstrap adoption and kind of get you started.
But yeah, that, that has to be resolved first of all.
And then secondly, it's a user experience.
So there's a few things being worked on now, which is instant trades, uh, from the platform SIM level.
Uh, so that's, you know, being able to trade instantly with just a signature rather than an on-chain transaction.
That'll help a lot improve the UX.
And then the other thing that we're developing in-house is an account abstraction solution,
which will then kind of give you a complete centralized exchange like experience.
Uh, so that's like the two major things on product and we are really focused on product.
And, um, once we kind of hit both of those, then yeah, then that's the moment to kind of start like pulling users from other existing centralized exchange platforms to us.
And I think we'll be successful in doing that, um, because of the, uh, you know, inherent advantages that we have.
And centralized exchanges are handcuffed in a lot of ways.
And then our token liquidity, we haven't released details on that yet, but, uh, the, the token will be hosted on a number of, uh, platforms and exchanges.
So, uh, it, it won't be like, you know, ruggable, I guess you could say that way.
Yeah.
We haven't finalized yet or where we're hosting liquidity, for example.
Okay.
Thank you so much for answering.
I just have one last question.
I'm sorry for extend, like, you know, stretching the event, but, and, and I, I'm glad to hear that it's not ruggable.
And the last question was in terms of security, what is implemented on, uh, intent X.
And another question was that I do see like a lot of, uh, DeFi offering incentives where I've seen, see, uh, don't get me wrong, but I, even I do farm airdrops,
but I've seen a lot of airdrop farmers who do register and perform some on-chain actions, but then will never be a long-term user.
How do you plan to like, you know, negate that?
Would you be implementing something like a Git coin or like any type of, uh, system that would ensure that it, that the users would be long-term rather than farmers who are using for incentives?
Uh, yeah, on the airdrop side.
So I guess there's been a lot of different, um, experimentation in airdrops lately.
And, uh, a lot of different ways you can run it and actually distribute the supply.
So we have, you know, almost completely linear distribution in terms of, you know, your, your airdrop amount is correlated to your trade volume.
And that's not really easy to like, you can't really cyble that.
You know what I mean?
It's kind of a proof of work style system, like proof of trade, uh, style airdrop system, uh, which kind of translates into our incentives after the airdrop happens.
And then we have really great mechanisms.
And I encourage you to look into this for staked INTX, which, uh, actually has like kind of a soft best thing within that.
So if you want to actually unstake and sell your INTX, let's say you're an airdrop farmer and you want to sell it, you actually forfeit.
Um, a portion of your holdings to the rest of the stakers.
And so we can combine kind of smart distribution with smart mechanisms that, uh, rewards, you know, actually stakers and long-term holders, um, to, to kind of make the most of it and make it as egalitarian as possible.
And another thing that we have going for us is we don't have, like, there's still a bit of friction in trading, uh, cause it's all on chain and there's no like API access to kind of just like, you know, watch trade positions back and forth.
Uh, so our users have been overwhelmingly organic, like our trade volumes.
Uh, so it is real users, uh, who are trading.
It's not, you know, people farming a ton.
Yeah.
I think those things will really help us.
Okay.
Thank you so much for answering my question.
And that's it for me.
Okay.
Potato.
Okay.
Maybe one last question before we call it a day.
Does anyone else, um, want to ask either parties a question?
So any questions for Levi or Serafin?
Sunshine should get the speaker role here in just a moment.
All right.
Sunshine.
All right.
Sunshine.
All right.
Sunshine.
You have the speaker role.
Yep.
Yep.
Yep.
I can hear you.
Sunshine.
You have the mic.
You can unmute yourself.
You're still muted.
Maybe, uh, John crypto is coming up now unless sunshine.
You want to ask your question?
Yep.
Sunshine.
Yeah.
Hello, everybody.
Yep.
Okay.
Can you all hear me?
Yep.
We can hear you.
Go ahead.
Okay.
Uh, do I have some new questions in here to answer, but these questions go to instant X.
Hope you can hear me.
Yep.
Yep.
Yeah.
So I, I want to ask what the mechanism, the mechanism, the sources and goods of the project.
Sorry.
It's a bit hard to hear.
Could you repeat the question?
Okay.
I just want to ask the mechanism and the, um, the mechanism behind the sources and goods of the project.
Oh, I see.
Oh, I see.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So yeah.
The actual solver operations.
So how, how it works is we have solvers who are market makers on the platform and they, there's some noise from the mantle account.
Okay.
Is it possible to mute please.
Okay.
Okay.
So, uh, market makers will essentially, uh, stream quotes to the front end, similar to how an order book would work, except in an order book, the market makers place maker orders.
Right.
Um, and then you as a trader or a taker could come and take that trade.
Um, instead they stream quotes, which are a soft commit from the market maker saying, okay, I can provide you this assets or this pair at this price.
Then as a trader, if you're happy with the quotation, you can actually submit an intent, uh, to trade, um, or to enter a trade to that solver.
And, uh, this is not importantly, like the quotation process has already been complete because of that automatic kind of like streaming of quotes to the user.
Then the user sends the intent with the collateral to make the trade, the solver can kind of pick that up on chain.
They can hedge themselves at a centralized exchange, uh, which is what's happening now.
And that's how they tap into that liquidity.
So if you, for example, want to go along a hundred BTC on chain, the solver will be your counterparty to that trade, which means the solver, uh, is short 100 BTC.
Right.
It's kind of like a one-to-one, uh, bilateral trade agreement.
Then the solver can hedge themselves on the centralized exchange by going long a hundred BTC.
Uh, then they are Delta neutral and in a trade with you.
And, and essentially you and the solver pay one another profit and loss.
Based on the price movement.
Uh, and both sides have to manage their lateral.
So they don't get liquidated because there's kind of liquidation rules built into that contract.
And then the solver also has to manage their capital.
You know, if, if there's profits on chain, that means they're losing off chain.
They have to rotate some of that, some of those funds to stay solvent.
So that's kind of in a, just how it works.
And yeah, the, the advantages are really that, that super high capital efficiency, because unlike an order book, the market maker doesn't have to commit funds in maker orders.
Uh, they could just pass through quotes for every asset that essentially they can get liquidity for.
And that's how we're able to offer, you know, 274 pairs now.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
And one more question.
Okay.
What will that, that, that gives the intense blockchain, um, always spread the rate and hatch of the blockchain per second?
What is that?
Sorry.
Okay.
Like I, the question.
Okay.
Let me come again.
Sorry.
So what's the fuel, the, what fuels the intense blockchain and also this, the, the speed rates and hatch of the blockchain per second?
Okay.
Okay.
So the chain, yeah, we're, we're live on mantle, for example.
So we're actually using the mantle network to settle the trades.
And essentially your trade intent goes through as a transaction on chain, but the payload data and the collateral, and then the market maker will see that trade actually come on chain.
And then they could fill it in another on chain transaction.
That's the current iteration.
And, and yeah, the speeds are kind of limited by that underlying network.
So it's the block times are like two seconds, right?
It'll be two seconds to kind of process your intent.
And then two seconds to fill it from the market maker side, a plus or minus, whatever time is needed from the market maker to hedge the operation.
Oh, I hope that answered it.
Yeah.
I think I answered it pretty well.
Okay.
Yep.
Thanks for the questions on sunshine.
Yep.
I think we have come to the end, but I think before we actually ended off, Brian, would you like to provide the, the, the code for the giveaway?
Yeah, absolutely.
Thanks everybody for listening through and thanks to all the speakers here and everybody who asked questions.
So on question, we have a raffle for our events.
So you can enter by putting in the secret password for this event.
And that password is intent X E N A. So it's all lowercase, no spaces.
It's I N T E N T X E N A. And, um, you can find the link to that quest on the announcement for, uh, this AMA.
Um, so head over to the mantle Twitter and, uh, you'll find that in the thread there.
If you have any questions about that, feel free to join us on discord and I'll be happy to assist you.
Thanks everybody.
Okay.
Uh, thanks everyone for listening in and thanks, uh, Levi and, um, Seraphine for taking the time, time out to join us for this AMA today.
Okay.
Thanks everyone.
Bye.
Bye.
Host
Mantle
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Mantle Staked ETH
