Hi everyone, this is Pankaj from Hypersign team and welcome to the spaces on Indian Web
SQL system and the launch of much awaited Jhagrath testnet.
That is the V2 of our testnet and the final version of the Hypersign Identity testnet.
Thank you all for joining, there was some hiccup in the beginning, I don't know last spaces got
ended without just in one minute, so we had to start in new spaces, hope people will join
I welcome all the speakers to the spaces and we have with us Ayush Ranjan who is founder
of Huddle01 and then Santosh Panda who is founder of Foundership, Prasanth who is founder of
Speron, Vikas Singh who is founder of NFTN and Nilotpal who is founder of Symboid.
So before beginning I would like for each of these speakers to briefly introduce themselves
We can start with Santosh sir.
Fantastic, I think we still have Ayush and Prasanth, everybody do, yeah I think Ayush
Hi everyone, thanks for having me, thanks for having me Pankaj, thanks for having me in
the whole team and congratulations on the Prasanth launch.
Quick introduction about myself, I am one of the co-founder and CEO of Huddle01, we are
a people powered communication network with a three-pronged approach, an app layer which
looks like Zoom and Google Meet but built in a completely weird peer-to-peer fashion,
we have an SDK which looks like Agora but completely built in a web 3 bit native manner
and third is a protocol that means you don't need to use centralized servers and you can
use your own laptop to basically run these nodes.
So this is required for improved performance, privacy and creates a new bottom-up economy
We've been building this for the last three and a half years now, four years and that's
how I've been knowing Prasanth, Santosh and all the other people for a long time now
because it really helps having founders and like-minded people who you can share all your
learnings, all the failures, all the success.
So yeah, very happy to be here and congrats again.
Thank you Aish, thank you so much and I've seen your journey also from the very beginning
and you know in middle of the, what do you say, the peak of beer market you were still
building and you were raising funds, you were able to raise funds and today Huddle01 is a
completely successful company and revolutionizing how peer-to-peer communication can look like
or moving towards peer-to-peer communication.
Thank you for doing that.
Santosh, do you want to go ahead and…
So absolutely congratulations guys, you know, this is what makes the ecosystem fantastic
with the launches and awesome people being on the space and deep diving to learn and share.
I think that is what motivates all of us and especially me and I've been a founder for
long and then that got inspired to come back and work with founders and that's the genesis
of starting our foundership, Web3, an emerging tech accelerator that I've been doing since
2021 but I've been a founder for a long time, started in way back in 2008 and ran a company
for 12 years and always been sort of in a big, big sort of influencing to many people
to start up and I've been a coder, tech guy and then an entrepreneur and now being
with founder every day, every night to ensure that they are able to overcome their challenges.
So that's a quick brief about foundership and so happy to see I use Prasanth and Vikas
whom I know for a long time now and as we deep dive, you would see how much of creativity
and the kind of work that we are doing, you know, in the ecosystem is definitely proud
of these folks and many more and we will deep dive.
I will not take a lot of time here but that's the quick intro.
We know the kind of support you offer and you've been, you know, working in this space
and adding more and more people to the space, spreading the awareness and helping developers
and early teams get on to the journey of building and then launching the products and raising
funds, the whole spectrum altogether.
Prasanth, do you want to go next and introduce?
Prasanth, thank you so much for having us here and again, before I even proceed, congratulations
Prasanth team for achieving this great milestone.
I think I am DID Baniya, whose name is here, but mostly Vikram, like we have been working
together for a very long and it's good to see where you guys are now.
Like I was one of the early supporters at DID as well.
So yeah, kudos again to all of you.
Now coming to myself, like what we are trying to do at Sveran, our aim is very simple.
So we did multiple couple of pivots here and there, we tried to understand the market,
we tried to time the market, but there were multiple times when we failed in timing the
But as we kind of grown, the focus at Sveran was to make infrastructure more seamless
and easily accessible and that is what we are up to.
So if you kind of look at today, we just recently launched our compute platform for everyone
And the compute is very simple, it is different from any other compute providers out there
or compute decentralized network out there.
It basically uses and leverages Akash open source provider's code and we have extended
that code to solve one of the major problem of the trust.
Because if you kind of look into compute, we don't have trust into the computer system
because most of the time you run validators, you learn a lot of compute logic which you
don't want other to kind of see and that can only happen over a system which is secured
and which is well audited and everything.
And that is where we are on that.
Recently, we have done a very good job, the entire team has pulled off one thing
very crazily good is how about spinning a validator via TGBot.
And that concept really took a fly from our side.
And today we are very proud is like we can add hundreds of validators each and every day
whenever we want without facing any interruption on the scaling side.
And we are driving the demand wire making it simpler for anyone to run the nodes via
The next step is again going to be more around onboarding more Web2 folks into Web3 and
it's start utilizing and pushing compute infrastructure from Web3 to Web2 side.
So that is what we are trying to do and that is where we will be pushing this year forward.
Prashant, you are truly making Web3 decentralized, most of the Web3 companies still run on like
computation is still running on AWS or Google Cloud side, but you are shifting that and
that's very inspiring to see.
Vikas, do you want to go next and introduce yourself?
And again, I think it's a very massive feat, what Vikram and team has achieved.
All the names are, I think, Indian.
And yeah, about me, I'm Vikas Singh, I'm the CEO and co-founder for NFTFN.
NFTFN essentially is trying to create a new kind of financial ecosystem, which we generally
see on the commodities as well as on the cryptocurrencies.
So we are trying to create derivatives market for NFTs.
We think that long tail assets have a future where like a lot of values will come in and
it will once the escape velocity of enough spot volume will be there, I think in these
long tail assets, these long tail assets will immediately require these kind of derivatives
where people can speculate and they would love to actually go 10X, 50X, bonkers X.
So these kind of markets are very much required to provide much more liquidity, stability in
price and we end up wanting, we want to actually become the gauge of NFT market so that people
do not have to go anywhere else except NFTFN and the North Star is actually to get listed
on CBOECME someday, yeah.
And by being the most compliant one, yes, that's all.
Bringing stuff with us, like most interesting to me at least is, you know, bringing options
and futures trading into decentralized world.
It is there, but it's very limited right now.
It's only spot that we see on decentralized exchanges, but you're bringing futures and
options into decentralized world.
And last but not the least, I would like Nilodpal to come and introduce them, Simvoy Tan himself.
Hey, thanks guys, thanks for inviting.
I think we are pretty close to the hyper sign team anyways.
Just let me know if you can hear me because I was having some issues logging in a couple
Can you guys hear me loud and clear?
So I think one of the closest to the entity team right now because they are being accelerated
by us at this point, and we are literally helping them out with kind of the global market
A little bit about me, being in the space since quite some time, almost 2015, 16, started
the first company with a couple of other co-founders in 2017, 18.
The coin was obviously like, we got incubated by Binance back in 2018, then after that
got backed by pretty much all the decent VCs of the space, including Coinbase, Electric,
Barrington, NGC, all the likes.
Again, that was pretty much in the donkey's days back like 2017, 18.
Launched the token back in 2020 on Binance Coinbase.
The token is called Pawn, Marlin was the name of the project.
2020 is when I kind of wanted to go back to my previous space, which was obviously
I was earlier in the IB space, so again, went back to investments.
For me and another partner of mine, he was the CMO and the co-founder at Harmony, we both
came together, started a fund, which was called Momentum 6, and we've been going on for the
We have done about 250 plus investments in the vector space, very early in most of the
ecosystems, Metis, Avalanche, Polygon, I was one of the very early investors of Polygon
as well, invested in most of the Indian projects, including the likes of Persistence
by Konami, and over time, we have been kind of investing in Indian ecosystem as well.
So the team has obviously been a mix of Indian and the Western world, because like the Momentum
6 fund kind of combines of people who comes from US, Canada, Korea, and me from India.
So I kind of obviously bring the whole Indian flavor to the projects that we invest in.
And over time, we have kind of scaled grown as a team, as a vertical, we are still struggling,
we are still kind of striving to be one of the better funds in the space, still striving
to kind of add more value to the ecosystem.
So now we have multiple verticals, M6 as a venture, which is obviously kind of quite known
We have got the research hubs, we have got about three different research avenues that
we kind of maybe pull and drive narratives for different projects that we eventually kind
One of them is called M6 Labs, one is Renoded and one is called Crypto Illuminati.
And then we have also got this whole accelerator that we are kind of supporting projects with
So which is called Symbiote, which I'm kind of representing today over here.
And again, like happy to say that NTT is one of those projects which we super value and
we feel like they have a long way to go here.
I love the team, love the grid that they've been showing throughout the beer market.
I think the time has come to kind of rise and shine and we are all there to kind of
So that's pretty much it from me short intro.
I think we can take it to the bigger discussion now.
I just want to add one thing, like nobody has pushed me more than you know, in terms
of understanding the market dynamics, especially from, you know, marketing angle also.
I just really want to thank him for this.
This was a mindset change.
I was just a builder before, but from since, you know, we have spent a lot of time in Dubai
and meeting initial days was just like listening to him.
Why being a Dejan is also important and because that's like the half of the crypto economy.
So just being a builder doesn't work.
We have to have the right narrative.
So he has helped me change my thought process about building product in crypto space specifically
So I just want to thank from that perspective.
Vikram, you want to talk a little bit about Jagrath also?
So once we announce, then I can share, you know, OK, OK, cool.
So I will, on top of my mind, I will throw some questions at you guys and then any of
Mostly we will focus on Indian Web 3 ecosystem and how it has been, how it is growing or
what is the regulatory framework around it or what's happening in the space basically.
So first question on top of my mind is like the what do you guys think of the current state
Like some of the points I want you guys to focus on is one is 30 percent tax on trading
that has been there for a while.
Looks like people have already priced that in and everyone is OK with that.
More recently, there was a ban on international exchanges that happened, you know, likes of
Binance, OKX and many more.
So I wanted to understand from you guys, do you guys see it as a boon or a bean?
Like, is it for the good of the Indian ecosystem or bad on short term?
We can think of it as good for the Indian exchanges, right?
They are getting all the volume that got offloaded from international exchanges.
But it goes to these guys now and they are doing some amazing marketing campaigns also
around it. But on the longer term, is it actually good or bad according to you?
Like what's happening in the regulatory framework in the space?
So I would love to jump in and quickly add the value and then all the other panelists
So I don't operate from India anymore.
So if you if you the reason I made this statement, I believe some of you also don't
operate from India anymore, is because of the same reason.
Now, if you if you look at it as a is a good part or as a bad part, it's up to the
government. But the moment we left India, the for for for some reasons and those
reasons were also one of the taxes and other things as well and other angle around
it as well. So just imagine if we are leaving and if if you can see like a lot of
founders, I also started in the country who has been building into the India.
And it is if you kind of look at a very high level, it is draining out the brain,
like the people who are behind all of these thought process, they are looking for
different places to kind of go out and they are not like they are avoiding.
They want to avoid any kind of taxes.
It is just that there's something called unnecessary tax.
Like you are just trying to kill the industry and you tax it heavily.
And that is not at all accepted by anyone because we all are putting our efforts
hard and soul, our time, everything.
And it doesn't make any sense.
Now, coming to the specifically to the exchanges and the part which you have
mentioned, like, is it really good to be very honest?
And when we pitch victory, we pitch as a global market.
Companies are startups from the day one.
If you kind of look at as well, we have people from Korea, Japan, China, US
and all across the world.
And we never stop anyone coming into our community and becoming
the part of the community.
So that basically means like just by just promoting Indian
company companies inside the Indian ecosystem.
If you look at the the angle of the nationalist approach, then it is very good.
But if you look at the three approach, it is not good because it doesn't
represent the the thoughts and the process which led us here so far.
In a space which is open market for everyone to participate and network.
But again, exchanges are very different here because they have a lot of data
of yours, so they should regulate as per the the laws of the country
So I don't have any comments on the exchanges.
So the exchanges are fine.
They should be a little bit certain kind of regulation because
but the taxes should not because these exchanges, they don't they don't take
So for me, exchanges should be come and exclude me
because those are also one of the one of the cleanest way to do a lot of
criminal activities as well.
So for me, yes, it is both like it is good as well as bad.
But in terms of basically exchanges, it is good like India has taken that step.
But for retail users, no, it is not at all good.
If you're taxing them, if you're taking that step, just go ahead and
put a normal tax like you put on any stock exchange companies.
I think Prasanth talked in a very sort of an entrepreneurial way, right?
I think anything ban is not required as such
if there are clarity in terms of regulation.
So I think what we are doing is we kind of delaying it,
you know, by taking such decisions.
But look, you know, the global market is such a sort of stage
where there are lack of clarity in many, many places
and or many countries as such.
So I think from a pro point of view, as Prasanth talked about it,
this definitely gives a good opportunity for our Indian exchanges
to really, really take the game to the next level.
You know, yes, in the unfortunately, such a beautiful technology
have been kind of sort of mapped it to say, oh, you cannot trust it.
Oh, there are a lot of scam and all that.
So I think this is an opportunity for Indian exchanges to go back
to the consumers, to the traders, to the people, to the believers, right?
To say that, hey, you are trusted.
And fortunately, we don't have any cases of anything large scam
and anything as such where people have been cheated or looted.
So we are a much better country in terms of having safety in it.
And I think this gives an opportunity for the exchanges
to really up the game 100X and bring more people.
I think what web ecosystem need is bring more people.
But on the contrary, banning those exchanges which are not from India
also takes away the fact that, you know, your market size
could have been bigger because they were also equally contributing
and they had a large number of consumers.
So I think we are we are going to have some plus, some minus here.
It's an end in the sort of spirit of globalization and spirit of web three.
Right. Because we all been looking at it as a not as a country
specific tech, but it's a tech for the future.
It's a tech for the, you know, for the generation to come.
So I think on that sort of philosophy, we are missing it out
by having this sort of call.
And in a way, you know, in a way, this also kind of way to stop
if there are probable support systems that was there
from those exchanges for the developers or for platforms or protocols,
because you are kind of you would your your decision making
is going to be saying, hey, should we be doing should we be taking a look
to see if there are going to be better regulations?
Are we going to be allowed?
You know, all those decisions are going to be delayed
in terms of their participation in the Indian ecosystem.
So I think definitely some plus, but I don't know exactly how much a plus
definitely a lot of minus. That's for sure.
I'm sure India is such a big market.
All the exchanges should comply with some sort of KYC
and as even Prasanth talked about it to ensure that the consumer's rights
are protected and we have a very fair ecosystem
for everybody is what I'm looking forward
because that's the only way we can thrive as you know, as a country,
we can thrive as a country to produce a lot of new innovations out of here
and have access to a large market.
And similarly, others are most welcome.
The best and the best products are going to win.
The best and best communities are going to win.
It's not just one, you know, takes all kind of approach at all.
And especially in Web 3, where we are,
you know, where all of us in that philosophy
to say that the market is yet to start, right?
We have a lot of things to create and create
trillion dollars of economies ahead.
So I think those are the sort of top pointers.
And yeah, I will let others sort of, you know, say their mind maps.
Yeah. Thank you, Santosh.
I'd like to go next on this.
And I have an interesting story on this to share in terms of,
I think regulation as a GTM is something we can consider it as a GTM strategy.
And it has been a brilliant GTM strategy, if you think about it in that sense.
And is it a boon or a bane?
This is how I got a good understanding of it.
So this is not surprising.
If you even see in US, this has been happening for a long, long time.
I'll share a story of Epic Systems.
Epic Systems was an EHR based company, electronic health record company.
And in 2007, the founder of Epic Systems essentially made a huge kind of donation
in the campaign of Barack Obama.
And once Barack Obama came into power in 2008, this is how I understood what is
called a B2G, business to government.
So where the campaign which Obama ran after becoming the president was all the
hospitals who accommodate EHR, this electronic health records, as a system in
their own health care, they will get $40,000 each.
So all the hospitals frantically ran towards that.
And basically everyone started using EHRs of Epic Systems.
And that's how Epic became a multi-billion dollar company.
And essentially was able to wipe out all the other EHRs to the market.
Now, again, it is a great GTM strategy for Epic.
Who learned these things.
And these things are also gone into the whole.
There's a very good talk by Bill Gurley, who was also an early investor of Uber, who
talked about it. It's called 2851 miles.
I saw this talk live when I was in Los Angeles and I learned that, OK, this is
how regulation is used as a go-to-market strategy.
So, yes, regarding and then there's a very good quote by one of the American
economists and he got a Nobel Prize for that regarding this thing as well.
His name is George Stigler.
He mentioned that that as a rule, regulations is acquired by the industry and
is designed and operated for its own benefit in that sense.
So, yeah, I think this has been happening for a long, long time now.
What has happened right now in the way Indian exchanges have used this
marketing cabinet is brilliant.
Now, having said that, it will lead to Indian exchanges coming back on the map.
Great sign. But regarding in the open markets, what will lead to happen is
something we have to see, because the markets have become much more thinner
now. So we have to see that what will be the rate now and all the other
things. So, yeah, I think that's why I want to share the story of this.
So, yeah, we have to wait and watch what happens now.
OK, I'll take a stab at it as well.
So I think, first of all, I think these are not banned.
I'm not OK. First of all, I'm not going to sound like I'm speaking on
behalf of the government, but I was just thinking just to add things from the
perspective that I don't I don't think it's a ban right now.
They have they have asked them to actually comply with the Indian
government laws and stuff.
I think it's more from the KYC perspective.
Also, I had a word actually with one of the leading exchanges person
that what does this government step would mean for you guys?
Like, is it asking you or pushing you to source the liquidity within the local
market that is India, or is it like completely saying, boss, like either
you kind of establish a partner where like as a body, all of the exchanges
today have a body like all of the Indian exchanges combinedly today are
So maybe this whole body can represent one of the exchanges as a designated
partner, which will essentially source liquidity from outside so that Indian
government actually understand whether from where actually this liquidity is
So I think the government generally put this much effort when they really,
really wanted to understand the market completely.
Otherwise, we have seen the knee-jerk reaction from the government in
2018 when they immediately just said that they pulled the banks from the
exchanges and they mentioned that was nobody will facilitate the banking
services to these exchanges.
And I think two years went into the dark and a lot of frenzy happened in
the back offices of all these exchanges.
So I think government this time is really, really trying to streamline the
process. Of course, they want to bring everything in the embed of their
understanding as well as and this is from the perspective just from the
I think they just want to keep a trace onto the liquidity that is being
sourced. Otherwise, we all understand who's the who's the I would say
liquidity provider behind the scene.
The second one is 30% text.
I think we all agree we are unanimous on this point that 30% text was
like a butchering text because and that too with the 1% TDS was
essentially just like making everybody to double think whether they
want to actually trade on these centralized exchanges or they would
want to actually opt for the decentralized one.
I actually love and it's a it's a very it's a it's a coincidence.
I happen to be at a bank today and actually for a simple printout and
and a stamp, I have to make two to three visits to the bank.
And I was actually listening to a gentleman there who's just struggling
to get their own money from an NRE to NRO and an NRO to NRE account.
And which was like bonkers to me and I was listening to it and I was
thinking all of these things like why the finance is so broken.
These are the reasons that we have gone to a level that everything is a
state, not a state, I would say, but so controlled that people need
so many permissions just to ask their own money.
So trading 30% tax on trading vis-a-vis flexibility to move your own
money vis-a-vis the banks that is the bands that is or I would say
the government where they are pushing the offshore exchanges to actually
comply to this whole thing.
I think this all leading to just one thing.
They just want more clarity how the liquidity is being sourced.
And if it is being sourced, is it being sourced from the white or
let's say maybe miners would be the thing.
So how they can actually trace back to the original origination of
these money and eventually track down this thing so that they have
absolute control over it.
I think that's where the government of India is trying to do.
And the other thing that I generally feel is this India is such a
strong country from the internal consumption perspective.
They can still, I would say just from the cryptocurrency
perspective, they can still be okay if they do not fan the
wave of this cryptocurrency.
Of course, they are pretty big on the blockchain side, but I
don't think that they are going to push any narrative coming out
from any of these exchanges for the centralize, I mean, for at
least the use of the cryptocurrency in a more legit way.
So I think, yeah, please go ahead.
I think this is one topic which is pretty close to everyone.
We all being Indians, but many of us are staying outside.
Like I think Prashant also said, even I've been kind of staying
outside of India for almost like four years now.
So not too close to the Indian ecosystem as such, but obviously
like have been following all that's happening around.
And this is a debate, which I've been kind of doing to myself and with
all my friends since 2016, 17, that how will this whole thing
Because India has always been conservative when it comes to finance.
It's not so easy, the way we think, because at the end of the
day, what crypto does, it kind of breaks the barriers of, breaks
the country barriers when it comes to movement of money.
And that is certainly a problem when it comes to the
like a friend said that the Indian guy was not able to do NRO
So when we have such kind of broken awareness about finance, and
then you're talking about all of a sudden moving money here and
there across the globe, which has never happened in the past,
the LRS limits being breached here and there when you're
moving money from one exchange to the other, because you
don't even know where the clouds operate.
So it's definitely a thing which Indian governments are
finding difficult to kind of adjust with and even eventually
kind of accept at the end of the day, because it's not easy in
the end of the day, because for them, they have to literally
think about the overall population, not just about a
chosen few set of people.
And at the same time, as I think many of us already said,
and I would just like to echo that for technology to evolve,
some kind of a framework has to be built, some kind of a
sandbox have to be provided, which I think the government is
But from their point of view, or if I think about it, the
withdrawals has always been a problem, like withdrawals from
one exchange to the other has always been a problem, because
it's like I'm moving money from India to US with no LRS
limits, it's always a crazy thing in their eyes, and they
cannot all of a sudden change laws, it will take time for
laws to evolve, it will take time for obviously a country
of like with so many people, right?
And secondly, like, again, the 30% tax, it's quite clear that
government doesn't want people to be 24 seven involved in this,
they don't want people to the retail people to kind of fall
prey to all these, all the manipulations that happens in the
market, we cannot deny that there are no manipulations that
definitely a lot of manipulations that happens.
So I think the government obviously has that vision where
they want to kind of curb as much rates as possible till the
time they are fully clear on how to figure out a roadmap.
But the problem is it will take a lot of years, because if you
think about it, doing something for the for such a big
economy, for, for just an asset class, which is not even 2%
of the global GDP is a big deal, right? And for Indian
government, they have to think about it. So from government's
point of view, I think they are just buying time, that's
how I see it. And from our perspective as builders,
obviously, we have to kind of work around. So that's what we
are all doing, like we're trying to figure out our own
jurisdictions, geographies to work from. Unfortunately, it's,
it's a small segment, still, we are a small segment, and we'll
have to work around until the time we become big enough where
we have some kind of a significant stake in the
overall economy, overall game, and then possibly some of the
rules will become in our favor as well. So I'm still like, I
think still like five to 10 years down the line, we might
have something more concrete, but I don't see anything coming
up too favorable in the next couple of years, because I've
seen this, like I'm literally seeing this for the last nine
years, nothing major has happened. And I don't see in
the next one or two years also something major is going to
happen, because we are still not there, it will still take
another seven, eight years minimum, if not more, for
something concrete to happen where the global boundaries are
kind of shrunk, and obviously, the money flows can happen
seamlessly, which we are absolutely not there yet. So yeah,
that's why I believe like, that's how I see it.
unfortunate for some, like for the government, they're just
buying time, and that's what it is. So yeah, that's my
So much perspective, and like it's to see the whole picture
from a macro view, and then some of you explaining it in
detail, and then the perspective, global perspective,
it's so nice to have insights from all of you. So another
topic I wanted to touch upon is the funding into the web three
or blockchain space overall, right? So the number of deals
and the total value has been declining from 2020. It was on
peak on 2021, then it has been reducing. And now there is
again, some what do you say number of deals, less number of
deals, but value is increasing. So how do you see the global
VC money flowing into the blockchain space? First on the
global level, and then for India specific, and if there are
some of the founders who are looking to raise money or some
community members or builders in this spaces, anything you can,
you know, shed light upon for how to go about it, how to look
at raising money, how to reach VCs or, you know, like if you
seeing overall VC sentiment being moving to positive now, or is
it still? Do you think so? It's still very, what do you say
negative from a large VC funds perspective?
Yeah, being at the forefront of investments, I think we have
been investing throughout the beer and the bull as well. But
I've always told people that crypto is a very risk on risk
of market like like it or not like it. It's a risk on risk of
market. It is a cyclical market. People who have been in the
space for more than a few cycles more than a couple of
cycles, you know, they know exactly how to play the game.
And in such kind of a scenario, everyone who knows and has got
liquidity, they know when to preserve that liquidity and when
to kind of use that liquidity, right. So if you look at the
last two years, it was not at all a surprise, because it was
simply a risk off period for most of the investors. And
that's how crypto markets behave like it's been cyclical
throughout whenever and the halving is kind of a beautiful
way to explain how the cycle works, right for crypto. So it's
absolutely not a surprise why the last two years where, where
right liquidity phases, obviously the founders found it very
difficult to raise money, most of them struggled. And all that
we told them was it's super easy to swim when the tide is
in your favor, it is difficult to swim when the tide is
against your favor. The last two years, they were definitely
against your favor. And if you go by the books, if you go
by the historical records, as we all say that history usually
rhymes, if not exactly repeat. So again, it's happening the
same way, like go back three cycles, we see the same trend
that has been kind of repeated. Bitcoin again, it's kind of
going through its own phase of recovery. As Bitcoin recovers,
the alts recover too, along with Ethereum and the major
L1s. When that happens, eventually the money flows down
to the to the private segments. That's what is again
happening. I think the next one to two years is going to be like
the golden era again for crypto. That's what my belief is very
strong belief is, we have already deployed a lot of capital in
the last two years because we, we usually like to deploy
capital in the founders who are struggling in the bear market
and are actually coming out victorious of that. So we've
already deployed a lot. Now we are going a lot on the
secondary market as well, as far as liquidity is concerned. But
we are definitely deploying again, like the check sizes
have gone up, the investment sentiments have become a lot more
positive. I know so many VC friends who were literally on
vacation for the last one and a half years, they are now
coming back. So yeah, it's definitely a good run, good
market now for, for the founders to kind of find their
feet and again, like struggle, find like literally push all the
waters and make sure that they are able to kind of
capitalize on this run again. Because as I've been saying
repeatedly, that this is always a risk on risk off. So you
need to capitalize the bull phases that you get the short
periods of bull phases that you get. So I think for
founders, I think it's a great year, this one in the
next to build to approach VCs and to be able to kind of
create the brand or the big vision that they have in their
mind and execute them successfully. So that's how I
see it. I'm not sure how others see this. But yeah,
from my point of view, this is what I've been kind of
letting people and I've been kind of seeing in my
Bhankar, just one more point, like, can you please bring
Harthaj and Arul also on the stage? They're here, so we
can get their perspective as well. And maybe now, other
members can add on to it. Maybe Santoshar and Prasanth
Sure, sure. I think fantastic point. Already, Neel
talked about it, you know, in looking at from an
accelerator point of view, we see some amazing
companies were getting built right over the last one
and up years, but it has been tough, toughest, being a
founder earlier, and now an accelerator, I can totally
see why they are struggling and how the market is, why
the way it is. And as Neel talked about, it's hey,
now there is a fantastic time for this year and next
year. All the founders who were quietly building,
struggling, but had strong fundamentals, both in
terms of take and some sort of outlook globally and
had a way to build their communities steadily. I
think they are going to win, right? And that is
how even in the startup world was for the last 10
years, 12 years, you know, 2008 is when I started
started off and then the entire thing crashed for
two years, again in 12, again in 14, again in 16.
So it's almost you can say that the entire
capital industry and capital comes into the
startups in frequencies. It doesn't come all the
time, right? It only, you know, takes a bet,
watches it, makes a correction, comes back again.
And that's the truth even with, you know, with
crypto, because hey, finally, somebody has to
put that risk and then, you know, wait for some
outcomes. So in that sense, anybody who is
building out there, I've been building for last
couple of years, is absolutely going to have a
fantastic time. And when with the bull market,
you would be an amazing team if you have got
all those fundamental strong such as great team,
great co-founders, good thesis, very unique
perspectives and a large market size opening
or a risk that you're taking which is going to
evolve within this bull market, may go down in
the bull market, but again come back in bull
market because there are, you know, as Neel even
talked about, there are investors who are looking
at a scope of saying, hey, what can I gain out
of these startups quick growth, but hey,
eventually over a next two cycle, where are
they going to go, right? And then that's
going to be 10x, then there's an amazing
company that you're going to build right now.
So I think we can put the 22, 23, you know,
behind us and say move forward, look forward
to a lot of deals. We are seeing a lot of
deals coming in and syndicates are being
formed in the last 15 days at the least.
There are so many deals coming out. I am
sure a lot of you as founders and investors
and angels, a lot of angels are here too,
must be getting a lot of deals, you know,
being thrown at your telegram, WhatsApp
and email and whatnot. So I think it's a
great timing ahead. ETF is definitely a
fantastic sort of one. I've been meeting
a lot of my VC friends. They are now coming
back and saying, oh, looks like the market
is back. You know, this is an early voice.
I won't say it has got formed fully yet,
but I think watch out another quarter,
you would see a lot of traditional VCs
from the old world would arrive in the
space. They might not have strong
pieces. They might not have strong
fundamentals like the native crypto VCs,
but hey, more money is welcome as long
as the founders are finding reliable
folks to work with, take their money.
And so I think that's sort of overall
Yeah, I think both Neel as well as
Santosh, I think great answer. I think
it totally resonates with what
Santosh said at the end to take the money
if it's coming to you. So I remember 2021
essentially when the market was at the
at the top of it, you would have seen
that a lot of my, even my friends, a lot
of the people who were in the same
bachelors. So we were part of, we started
in 2020 and we believe that once we
are ready completely, that means once
we have everything built, then we'll
only go for the raise. So we had a naive
belief back in 2020 that the markets
become bull when you are ready. So even
if you are ready, it's fine. You can
basically withstand the market pressure
and you will be able to raise and cut
through that. Those things don't work
is what we understood. And
basically you should always respect the
market, see how the money is
flowing. And what I realized
seeing back was that when all the, not
just the crypto VCs, but actually the
traditional investors, by that what I
mean that the sovereign wealth funds
like Temasek, something like private
equity, guys like Tiger Global, once they
that meant that the market is getting a
lot of attention of people even beyond
the crypto space. What that does is that
that creates a lot of competition and
premium on your valuation at the end
of the day. I think with all the macro
tailwinds right now with Bitcoin,
spot ETFs, which will lead to more
derivatives getting created.
That means there will be more
derivatives, number one. Number two with
Bitcoin halving date coming in
into picture. People like Franklin
Templeton, the hedge funds, they
tweeting about it, they having those
sparky eyes coming into picture. I
good indication that people are seeing
this again. It's similar to that
Burger King KFC when they were
writing hashtag Bitcoin. Those kind of
vibes again getting felt, so I feel a
But as Santosh had mentioned, I think
observing that for one more
quarter, you will be able to get a much
better clarity on how things are
I believe is that this interest rate is
Jerome Powell has made sure that and also
with these elections matter a lot. So
with Biden right now in the picture,
making sure that the interest rates
doesn't go up anymore and remains
constant and even goes down.
That leads to a basically more money
potentially tries to flow towards that
is here assets that can get more yield.
So that again flows from those bigger
level place to the VCs and then to
the CDC, BA and seed level founders.
So as a founder, I think we should be
We should understand and the
Be it safe, staff, equity, token
purchase agreement, whatever you're
doing, you should be good on the legal
cover side of things as well.
And I think you should be just ready
to have a good amount of momentum and
So I think yeah, that's what I'll say.
I'll add on a few points here, you
know, completely second what
Ayush is calling out, right? End of
its its trend is gone. If you try to
beat against the trend, it's almost like
I mean, you could probably win, but you
have to be really powerful to be
So as founders, when you're starting off
during the bear market, it's more
from a personal experience itself,
which is extremely difficult to get the
and the kind of support that otherwise
startup should get during the
during bull markets, right?
So for anyone who's, you know, listening
and thinking about building, et cetera,
get started and be ready out in the
market to raise within the next
so that your basically your raise
gets done before the bull cycle gets
And if you were to start at the
fag end of the bull market,
stating that, you know, let me look
at the bull market and then
look at your friends and say that well,
they've managed to raise and I would
also now start raising and the bull
It's going to be a long arduous
and, you know, somewhere I do see
angel investors and investors, et cetera,
You know, I'll put a controversial
when it comes to how people are looking
at investments or how VCs are looking
within this space, right? Based on
some VC investors in this case.
Compared to web two investors
who typically have some sort of a
Saying that, you know, this is a
direction that we believe in the next
five to eight years that the world is
In web three, that thesis is probably
at best one bull cycle, right? In many
cases, it is probably just about one to
those theses take position. For example,
six months back, RWA was a big thing.
Even now might be it is suddenly
parallelized EVM becomes a big thing
and everyone is looking at that.
And similarly, these these waves keep
happening and only the people who are
able to catch to that wave
are able to raise the funds itself.
And the VCs that I've also seen are
I see this as a trend as well that
instead of a thesis based
investments that the VCs are looking at,
they're looking completely on a return
which basically means that they're no
longer VCs, but they become
highly informed, manipulatable traders.
So, for example, you know, I remember
distinctly speaking to one of the VC
and he showed me his CMC portfolio and
I made the 5x in this particular
project in the last three to four weeks.
And now tell me, why should I invest in
a project which is going to give me
returns after three years?
I don't think any startup can give a
answer to that kind of a question
because then it's a different mindset
probably people who've been in
the cycle, who've been in the
have to clearly demarcate, you know,
that you are either a VC or you are a
And save time for startups perspective,
instead of pitching across to traders, we
should actually be pitching across to
at least a two to three year kind of a
sharpening our focus rather than
everyone calling themselves VC, setting
having a discussion, then figuring out
not something that you can make in
two to three weeks that just doesn't
So, I mean, to summarize it, I would say,
you know, both ways VCs have to
VCs based approach. Trading is great as
well, but traders have to identify
And from a startup perspective, if we are
looking to build and raise,
I don't think there is any better time
The better time is not going to be six
months from now, but it is
Okay. Thank you so much, man.
I just wanted to quickly add on
whatever you have spoken. I truly
understand. I can feel everything.
To be very honest, when we were, I was
on the same journey and we also felt the
people came to me and said, like, you
there is nothing called who is going to
be using DecentEyes Compute and
is there any marketing? If you kind of
seen this, we started with DecentEyes
web hosting. And to be very honest, I'm
calling out on this and we can just
revisit the same thesis again.
We have been building on something
called DecentEyes web hosting, right? So
that DecentEyes web hosting
is still a need of the market. The only
people don't understand it.
Either down the line in next one or two
when these domain players are going to
a lot of domains of a DeFi or somebody's
going to hijack and billions of dollars
in front of the market, I feel that will
again people will start talking about. So
thing. I am on the, again, on the race
And I also want to share some more
perspective around the VCs as well.
So everyone is here in this game to
make money. So everyone has also
responsibility to give back to their
and this I'm saying on the behalf of,
because I've been also talking to a lot
it is not just only as a context
perspective we have to think.
We also have to think about their
When you take a money from somebody
and it is not their money, it is
somebody who has given them money as a
liquidity provider on their side to
invest that into the market
because that LP don't have time to
kind of do all of those things. So
that is how it basically functions.
Now it becomes their responsibility to
give a return, a month on month return
on top of the money which they are put
Now if we and and rightly you have
is if you are looking for a cyclic
kind of money making scheme,
then it would be better to become put
and go and open a new trade on new
perpetual option or derivative option
on penny hands or somewhere else and
you will be able to make that more
rather than investing in the project
and truly agree on that as well.
But there are multiple theses also
which kind of got changed because of
these theses of the traders becoming
They made the money, now they are
investing from their pocket and they
are going with the same thought
process of the cyclical thing
and I think last cycle it changed
when some of the Web2BCs started
and to be very honest, I am very
proud Sveran has taken money also
The reason we took that is because
we realized one thing is even though
some of them are really very good,
they look at four to five years
stream but most of them are like
working on to kind of look into that
and it is also as a fundamental
We also have to understand one more
We also have to keep them a three
Generally we don't give them.
We just tell them hey you know what
this is the cycle we should invest now
and the next cycle you'll be out
and that is where we should be like
more curious and cautious about while
tons of VCs out there and everyone has
their own skin in the game to play
As a founder it's your turn to choose
who you want to choose and work with.
Everyone has their own skin in the game
and everyone wants to play their
cricket game on their own way.
Somebody will go aggressive.
It is you who have to decide.
So choose your bets accordingly and
It is no one is going to give you
You are giving them a favor taking
So be proud of what you do.
But whatever you go ahead and do
just do it with the proud and
you'll be able to nail it.
from whom you take the money.
I think I first of all want to say
Actually I can feel the words
and Prashant almost resonated
Yes and I also want to say
that I second the thoughts
have to have founders at least
have to understand the nuances
by which you can actually
So any money that founders
either in terms of giving
the returns on the equity
somehow in form of liquidity events.
So I think it is definitely
class 101 for the founders
for I think amazing pointer shared.
So I just have one thing to share
because timing is important.
Yes I think it's already discussed.
I just wanted to mention that
the grit and the perseverance
part of the founders have shown
the lot of fellow founders
wrapping up their initiative
I always knew that in my heart
are really really amazing founders
I mean the startups do not die
because of the lack of money
sometimes lack of patience.
took away the patience from them
and eventually they tried really hard
but the one and a half year
that anybody prepare for.
So I think we should definitely cheer
and I'm very bullish to say that
so very hard building something.
and you fell down seven times
the market has been testing.
The market is definitely gonna reward
to the resilient founders
but not just the resiliency part
they have to be really really smart now.
They cannot lose any opportunity
which is coming their way
and just be double thinking
or triple thinking about anything.
I think they just have to
I mean the time that you have taken
almost through the beer market
You cannot build a lot of stuff
You sell things in the bull market.
so that you do not have any
do not ship anything new.
whatever you have been building
I think that's where I will stop.
Can I add one more point?
Actually I connected to Ayush's point
He talked about B2G model.
It works based on the direction
a law is being taken in country.
Now imagine startups working on that
which is basically a long term approach.
Very very long term approach
but then you try to do that in Web3
the cycle is 1.5 years exit.
I need like every VC wants that exit.
In 1.5 years I want that exit.
So folks who are building
in between of these two thought processes
how do we try to also survive build
and also make sure that the thesis
that we started building with
actually we stick to that
but the other point is that money
is going to come from the Web3 VC
which is the easiest part.
So how do you convince both the sides?
So this was my personal learning
I think the beer market teaches everyone.
Our product specifically revolves around
a lot around the government's
Nobody was even talking to us before
and suddenly bigger ID companies
in India from ID government organization
has at least started sharing
their problem statements to us
because they see there is a problem
and this could be a possible solution
but this is always a challenge
that this is a long term play
but as a founder I also have to see
what could be the short term play
where I can get the maximum amount
for the next couple of years.
So this understanding for me
when I started wasn't there
because it was a hackathon project
but over the period of time
talking to different type of people
have come from Web2, right?
So they had a lot of experience
so this gave me some perspective
that we have to be in parallel
which is what Prashant also told like
we can't be just in having our own
what type of VCs we are working with
so if these are type of people
we have to work with then
we have to bring a middle ground
we need funds to survive longer
so yeah I'll stop there thank you
I need to come in for one minute over here
that I would have to drop off right now
because I have a hard stop at 4
but such an amazing panel guys
like this is really good alpha information
coming from all the founders here
I think whoever is listening in
create information source
from Mayush, Prashant and all the others
tune in please for this chat
and I think entity deserves all the accolades
that they are kind of deserving of
I think they're doing really really well
they have actually kind of pulled off
like one of the most ethical founders
thanks everyone for like tuning in
Hypersyme for the opportunity
for such an amazing discussion so far
so I would just have to drop off
Thank you Neerotpal for joining
it was really what do you say
insightful to learn from you
and to summarize you know what
what you guys were talking about
there is a classification between VCs
then there is what do you say
now these are two different things
and founders need to balance both
they're able to raise funds
a lot more goes inside a web3 startup
than a traditional startup
and so quickly we'll move on
so quickly you know we will
I just wanted you guys to talk about
the use of blockchain technology
in traditional world right
so right now to take some examples
from just Indian ecosystem
is a big what do you say use case
that government is working on
it's basically digitizing
the check-in process at the airports
one of the police stations
in a city called as Firozabad
and then routing them to the specific
locations where they should be addressed
so what do you on one side
this is what is happening in real world
and then on the other side
there are people like Jamie Damon
who's found what he said not found
he's talking openly about
how Bitcoin is a hyped up fraud
and maybe blockchain as a technology
and companies like Ethereum
who add more what do you say
more substance to just store of value
could last or could work out
but Bitcoin is a hyped up fraud
according to CEO of JP Morgan
so on these two broad spectrums
like where do you see this space moving
will it be that traditional companies
adopt blockchain as a technology
and that's how it goes further
will start to cater to larger
or traditional world as well
like where do you see this space headed to
I'll just add on my point
and then I have to drop off as well
but great question this one
so it is not a body spectrum
you also have to one more ask
one more question is like
what is the vertical of the blockchain
so the vertical which you have mentioned
is like has a clear cut direct
over a blockchain directly
which is like identification
there is also another layer
is called I think what Arul
is also building around the real
aggregating the hotels across the world
and ensuring the settlement
is being done from the book.com
and the same is applicable
when we look at the blockchain
we are aggregating the data centers
and settling those payment
via the 3 as a technology
so it totally looks into like
what we are kind of talking about
are we really moving towards
how exactly the video communication
the winner into that segment
is the video communication
now the question comes into
their own set of requirements
like how much it is encrypted
there's a lot of auditing
which will go into the background
in a way they are looking for
so these are multiple segments
are solving different problems
what you guys are also doing
around the user identification side
yes we are doing a great job
and again it is still going
but this is my opinion guys
and again thank you so much
and it's always a pleasure
and most of you basically
it has been a great journey
let's make DID go to Hyperson
so and that is what our journey
that is going to be the second thing
so thank you so much guys
to come back to the question
right if somebody would have asked
if somebody would have told me
that hey you can order food
or anything will be delivered
Amazon is already existing
and there are so many ideas
everything almost everything crashed
what we see as big basket
right and a lot of people
hey you have been doing a SAS
is that when a technology arrives
getting getting innovative
right or in a medium scale
but it's always going to be
technology always going to attract
or the most likely segment
where it can make an attempt
you know I don't think Web2
without mobile arriving as such
right when the mobile arrived
everything just went 100x
the consumption went 100x
and everything well started
we can't live without technology
I think the similar phase
in a consumer side of the story
I think business side of the story
there is a need of decentralized web
is not operating that way right
for the sake of saying it
which is where Hurdle is going on
technology problem statement
which Hurdle is looking at
at the side of hotel booking
I came from an event industry
where multi-billion dollars
are created at the secondary sale
are more likely to happen
because web 2 had its own
it has given some sort of experience
we are now going to get there
and giving that experience
whether we're talking about
and arriving at the consumer space
we are seeing similar trend of
you know hey my mom doesn't have to ask
all those form factors are coming into play
and form factors cannot be coming on the day one
lot of people debate about it
saying oh how come it's not happening
because it needs that many
that many number of people
yes this is going to work
here is the time to bring it
right account abstracts let's say
or Solana coming out you know
and talking about saying hey how easy
is my tech stacks to develop it right
so all those factors are going to come
back and start impacting various
so it's not a matter of whether it's
going to happen or not happen
take my what is going to happen
because that's how the optimist time
and saw everything in back in 2007
so everything in the last 12 years
hey you cannot be coming to India and
building a business startup in 2008
everybody laughed at me in 2008
and look multi-billion dollar
and evolution in this space
and we are going to get there
but I think the very very near ones
going to become the big craze right
I think there are small little things
and they will all join together
and didn't that happen in web 2
when the notifications came in in mobile
everything started looking
we have all the technology in place
to get this done at a scale
we are getting there right
and hence those solutions
which are there immediately
they're going to be called
for example I can simply log in
10001 and get the same experience
right so at the end of the day
I as a running as a business
I'm not I'm going to be least bothered
because I'm going to only look at experience
and you know accessibility
while I'm using for my business use cases
so I think it's just a matter of time
I'll add a little bit of flavor
there were two phases of evolution
if you see what internet did
what was already existed right
which means that you already
but it digitized that delivery
to move money from one account
that is one stage of evolution right
and then there was another stage of evolution
which frankly did not exist in the past
for example if someone in 2000
completely outlandish right
but that digital presence
are going to bring number one
and then there is also going to be
which never existed right
what else is going to exist
so there is going to be both
existing businesses will evolve
on what web3 has to offer
and completely new business models
obviously you know Bitcoin
is one of those early use cases
we've not even thought about
the future will be for sure
very nicely put Santhosh and Narul
that are being built in isolation
building different lego blocks
and that's when the user experience
there will not be a talk of web2
and it will just be the product
so yeah I wish you were saying something
I know I just wanted to add
I think both what Arul and Santhosh
we actually started Huddle01
the initial idea on the product level
it's good to have a peer-to-peer
video conferencing platform
and then we had this whole concept
of the SDK and the protocol
and we're just starting it out
the idea was pretty simple
that we'll build a peer-to-peer platform
which has a better privacy
but then we since we're in India
in India privacy is not at the forefront
is is essentially the cost things
we added a layer of recordings
so Zoom used to give 1 GB of recording
in Huddle01 we used to give 150 GB
of recordings free on Filecoin
and then we went to all these bigger players
in the edtech industry in India
so that hey you know what
we know that you spend a lot of money
and use this as a cloud storage
something like Filecoin and IPFS
because that makes the cost things
and it made a lot of sense right
like for them the cost things becomes better
for them as well as for us
because we get a new client
and it's a good foot in the door for us
but what we realized was that
but the timing was not right
what's the usability level at that time
if you need to just store things on Filecoin
it was not as straightforward
and the whole scenario there
so yes I think we have to move
very incrementally into these things
and this is what we realized
that that's why we changed our strategy
that instead of targeting
using these web3 primitives
to go after the web2 market right away
but the timing might not be matured
so let's basically attack on the primitives
use the primitives to attack on the market
who understands and appreciate it
for example the web3 bold in itself
what farcaster is doing for example
trying to go after what lens is doing
in the social network space
because that model is very
because that's what they appreciated
and that's where you can create a beach head
and you can have a good retention
a lot of people will use it
and though the retention will not be
will not be as much as it will be
if you convert one web2 client
but at least you'll be able to
basically survive that whole phase
till that usability becomes
much more accessible and better over time
I think same I think which
you guys were also talking about
where the B2G model is difficult
to have DID for a government
but what's the sales cycle like
and how when will they accept it
I think that's a different ball game altogether
but when is something where
we need to create a beach head
so that once retention becomes certain
then over time we'll be able to
and to the whole nation states altogether
it was passed earlier this year
we have suddenly started to
receive interest from government entities
suddenly just because of this law now
now people are taking this identity
and digital identity management seriously
because there is a fine of
mismanaging the customer data
so it's crazy to see how things evolve
I guess we have ran over time
and sorry for taking all of your times
it's very interesting to listen to you guys
and your first-hand experiences
but I guess we should close it now
in eight minutes from now
so if you have any last remarks
otherwise we can close this one for now
and all the best to HyperSign
it's always been awesome to hear
folks talking from the ecosystem
the only last line is keep building
and keep building in the right direction
Thank you so much for having me
and congrats for the launch
I'll be listening to the next spaces as well
and I was very happy to be here
for people who are listening
I think it was a great information flow
and if I would have listened in 2020
I would have been able to escalate
in terms of how we're building things
so whatever cues you can take
you should definitely take from here
and yeah all the best team
and yeah looking forward to the next stages
thank you very much for coming
we will just after this call
you know what we have built
I will share that link with you
please have a read through it
to have any sort of collaboration
please feel free to reach out to us