That's the time and and effort and know how to get involved deeply in governance.
I believe it's possible to do that on the test net for developers who are just trying
it out right rough and then they can kind of push it forward as needed.
That's how we recommend everyone get started.
I'll toss the next question over to Ben.
So Ben, I got a question for you.
How do you approach growth at Noves and how does Alchemy help you build efficiently?
How do you think about that?
So right now our strategy around growth is really to just lead by trying to deliver value
for people wherever we possibly can.
So we have a lot of different outlets for our data.
We have an integration that we built with BlockScout so we can bring nice user friendly descriptions
and some value flows and stuff like that into their UI if a change just turns it on.
We've got a Chrome extension that anybody can install that'll bring our data into other block
explorers even if we haven't already done an integration.
We've got a MetaMask snap.
So there's a lot of different ways that we're just trying to get better data into people's hands
and to kind of, I guess, open up their eyes a little bit about like what's possible if we just insist on having better data to start with.
And we kind of believe that if we lead with that and we lead with showing people what's possible that that's going to lead to a lot of growth for us.
So it's kind of our current strategy.
I liked what Rob said about kind of focusing your energy on the things where you're really able to make a difference or where you're really the expert.
And when we first started building Novez, we were exclusively focused on improving sort of the quality of data, the understanding of the data, the enrichment, and we rapidly bumped into this problem where we couldn't get the raw data that we needed reliably.
Like the landscape of providers to get access to data from different chains is pretty messy.
And one of the things I think that we really like about Alchemy is that we have a very reliable product.
You know, places where we're able to use Alchemy RPCs or something like that, we just know we don't have to worry about it.
Whereas a lot of times we get into some of these newer ecosystems or chains that have just launched or whatever.
And it can be really difficult just to get an RPC that actually gives you back what you want at a reasonable throughput and all that kind of thing.
So especially, especially lately with this kind of change in direction to, to expand the chain offerings and stuff like that a lot faster.
That's been, that's been really nice for us.
In addition to the fact that, you know, working with the Alchemy team has been great.
We've got a pretty good relationship and it's nice to have people that are serious about what they do and able to get on things pretty quickly.
Yeah. To, to piggyback on sort of what you were saying there.
It's something I think about a lot is like, it's interesting how you almost need to wait for the space to get to a certain point before you can launch things.
If you go off and build stuff on your own island and then all of a sudden, like you come out with this new thing, but it like the space hasn't gotten there yet.
Like people aren't ready for it.
And I think it's interesting that you guys bring up this sort of trade off space of being too innovative, but really knowing what to focus on.
Right. What is the thing that you are an expert at?
And that's super interesting trade off space to highlight.
Yeah, we, you know, we had to spend some time and energy building some tech and capabilities to basically cope with less well functioning infrastructure and to be able to sort of bridge between some different things.
And it's not really part of the problem space that we wanted to solve and it's not really the thing that we want to be spending our time and energy on.
But, you know, our, our, our other option is that we've just got to wait until other people improve it.
And that's not something that we're really willing to do.
So we kind of had to spend time on things that aren't so central to our mission, but are, but are necessary for us to get there.
So, yeah, that makes a ton of sense.
And then, and then you get to be the pioneers, the innovators in that space.
So what excites you about the partnership between mental and alchemy?
Can you tell us a little bit about that?
I think my number one, I guess, area of excitement is that no longer do all of the developers who are coming to Mantle and building on Mantle asking about alchemy.
So I can, I can sleep better.
Since, since we started, since we launched a little over a year ago, this, you know, this is a more or less a weekly request.
Uh, both from, uh, you know, new developers and new products, uh, projects, um, looking to build on Mantle as well as, as, uh, our existing ecosystem.
So, uh, that honestly, that is my, uh, that's, I'm very excited about that.
Um, but I think of course, like in a more, more, uh, serious, uh, point of view, I think, I think just alchemy is a, you know, tier one infrastructure provider.
I think very robust, uh, like it's, it's, you know, the piece of the stack that's perhaps the most important, uh, for an L2 ecosystem.
Um, like all of your kind of, uh, auxiliary tooling, SDKs, APIs, all of that.
I mean, people, people already know you guys, so I don't need to shill alchemy here too much.
Um, I think what is very interesting from ecosystem perspective is like, what kind of growth initiatives can we do?
Like what kind of hackathons, builder incentives, uh, like how do we, how do we onboard even like new web two developers to, to crypto as a whole?
And it's not necessarily just a management alchemy, but like we can, uh, I think we can do a lot of good in terms of adoption and, uh, education and, uh, um, onboarding of, of, uh, as, as many technical people as we can to, to crypto.
Um, yeah, I think, I think that's, that's it for my, my side.
I don't know, John, John, as a developer, if you have any, any other thoughts, uh, uh, in terms of what makes you excited.
I just wanted to jump in on this one.
I mean, I've crossed paths with, uh, alchemy multiple times in my kind of journey when I started learning about web three and kind of pivoting from web two to web three.
And, uh, you know, part of the reason why I'm excited as well as like, um, to work more with like, uh, new and upcoming builders from alchemy university.
I think that's something, uh, we'll definitely look into, um, doing adoption and things like that.
I very much like the, uh, tooling on alchemy.
I think it's something that is, you know, it's one of those SDKs that just work, you know, it's, uh, it's, it's been, uh, here for a while.
A lot of developers are using it.
There's a lot of very nice documentation, uh, in regards to tooling.
Um, so yeah, I think this is what mostly excites me as a, as a builder.
It's like, uh, you know, I can now use alchemy and, uh, sleep very well and knowing that everything is going to be working.
It's, uh, really great to hear you guys here, uh, say such nice things about alchemy and I know the team will really appreciate that.
John, I want to throw this back at you.
So I actually saw a Sozu house.
They were a listener in here a moment ago, and I don't know much about this.
Is this, this is a hacker house that you guys have started.
Can you like, tell us a little bit more about that and maybe how you support builders in the ecosystem?
I mean, I guess also we can, uh, jump on as well because he's the one kind of, he's the mastermind behind Sozu house.
But just from my perspective is that, uh, Sozu house is the concentration of brilliant people.
Um, this is one of the points that excited me about mantle.
And to be honest, it's fair to, uh, kind of point out that Sozu house is not in any way kind of, uh, leaning towards mantle.
So it's a completely agnostic kind of hacker house.
You can build on any chain.
There are many kind of success stories, um, of builders, uh, building at Sozu house and kind of deploying on other chains and, you know, being successful with, uh, other, other protocols.
Um, the, the, the cool thing about Sozu house is that, so say for example, kind of one of my favorite ones was in Vietnam, uh, where I actually met Vir for the first time and got introduced to the team.
Um, it was super cool and super nice where we had like a couple of houses, uh, near the beach side of Vietnam.
Uh, what we did was basically just hack around, do yoga, play chess and things like that.
Uh, just basically building in the space, you know, without the noise of, uh, kind of events, side events, you know, you all, there's so many things going on, for example, at ECC that making, like creating a hacker house is like kind of annoying even.
Um, but yeah, I kind of liked the, the isolation of Sozu house.
It's kind of a, um, you go there and you just build, right?
All you do is build and talk to people who build and have fun.
Maybe I can give a little more context.
So we, well, originally we started Sozu house as, as John said, like this agnostic hacker house program.
Our goal was to get connected to kind of the most exciting hungry builders.
Um, we wanted the, you know, we wanted the, the ones were obsessed with building and innovating and, um, and people who could, you know, really use the, you know, week to 10 days that we usually do this for.
So just kind of hyper-focus on just building a lot of these events that everybody goes to conferences, hackathons and so on.
Um, you know, it's, they're social events.
You go to all the side events and so on.
So like maybe you, you do a hackathon for a day or two and, and focus as much as you can, but ultimately it's a, it's a social event.
And so, so has really like, we, we want to build a home for, for hackers, but then once you arrive at this home, we put you to work.
Right. So you, uh, we do everything we can.
We, you know, we do your dishes, we make your bed.
We, uh, we, we have breakfast together maybe.
And, uh, but basically everything, everything is taken care of and all you need to do is focus, focus on building.
Yeah. Sometimes we do a little kind of activation.
We, we go hiking together.
But other than that, we just, we, we try to create this like builder's paradise, basically.
And we've done this, um, yeah, maybe eight or nine times so far.
Um, and from every cohort, we, we just, you know, we get to know so many new builders.
Um, we don't, we don't force anyone to build on Mantle these days.
Um, uh, but of course there's a lot of incentives for, for those builders to, uh, to eventually, you know, build their, build their products on Mantle.
And I think from our perspective, like the, the ideal candidate for a social house cohort is a, maybe a developer who, who, you know, perhaps has a full-time job somewhere, but, but they're out of it.
But, but they're at a point of their life where they're very, very interested in becoming a founder.
So that kind of transition from, from a developer to, uh, um, to potentially founder, that's like a sweet spot for someone to just try it out and try, try building a new idea that eventually becomes real after, after social house itself.
So that's kind of, uh, yeah, that's kind of what we're trying to do in the context and the home we're trying to provide for, for builders.
Wow. Okay. So you guys said earlier, you were going to, uh, acquire developers in the space and now you're, you're really revealing your secret strategy.
Uh, I feel like I got a really good glimpse into it. They're going to, you're going to tie, what'd you say? You're going to tie the shoes and you're going to brush, brush our teeth.
No, just kidding. We'll give you a massage. We'll take care of everything.
Yeah. That's, that sounds awesome. It sounds like you guys are really capturing the vibe of like a team that wants to see developers in the ecosystem. And I think that's so huge now. I think we need to attract not only the developers who've been here for so long, but the developers who haven't been in this space before. Right. And really bring them in and, and foster that sort of growth and, and get people, uh, building in the web three space and, uh, mental. So great. Uh,
Awesome. So, uh, I'll toss the next question over to Raf. So, uh, Raf, um, you've been a, a customer of Alchemy for quite some time, infra and products. And as you mentioned in your tech stack, uh, portion here, also recently Tally is an integration partner of Alchemy rollups, which you're super excited about. Um, do you want to expand maybe a little bit more on like what excites you about working with Alchemy as well? I'll toss that over to Raf and maybe anything else that you'd like to share at this point.
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Um, I would say the most exciting thing, but working with Alchemy is that it's not exciting. There's no surprises. Um, Alchemy is so reliable that we don't worry very much about, uh, about downtime, about latency, um, about infrastructure. And I think that's a huge, uh, enabler for anyone building on top of Alchemy because we, uh, know it's infrastructure that we can trust.
And then I think the other, um, so that's my flippant answer is it's not exciting, but I think my, uh, more straightforward answer is that we're really excited about the rollup roadmap, um, because, and, and the rollup as a service product, because, uh, from our perspective, we've really seen how scalability was a huge bottleneck for, uh, for governance use cases, say three years ago, before the rollups were live.
Um, we were out there trying to convince people to do governance and voting on chain.
And it was a huge blocker because there just wasn't enough block space.
You know, there was only enough block space for NFT mints and huge, uh, DeFi transactions and nothing else fit.
But now that the scalability problem is solved, it's been huge for apps and use cases like us, because, uh, you know, once you have tons of block space, there's plenty more people want to do on chain.
Uh, and we've been seeing a bunch of different applications across a bunch of different verticals, um, that need governance and governance is one such application, but also the applications that are not governance, they still need governance.
So we see a lot of work to do as, uh, as you know, there's all this block space and it's our, our, uh, uh, the question to us as collectively us as builders in the space is what do we do with all that block space?
What cool applications can we build?
That's another great way of putting things.
That's another great way of putting things.
And I, I like how you again highlighted that, that fact that we had to like sort of wait for the space to, to get somewhere before we could like move forward altogether.
And, uh, now the big question is what do we, what do we do with all that block space?
Yeah, that's a great question.
Uh, so I'll toss over the next question to Ben, uh, Ben.
So in, in this sort of, uh, idea of what we were just talking about, like what's your take or view of, uh, the current ecosystem of all the chains and rollups, uh, how do you sort of think about all of this?
So that, so that's a great handoff.
Cause I, I think that, um, I'm really excited to see, you know, what, what we can do now that we have, uh, the opportunity for, you know, basically unlimited block space.
And I think that the, the current, um, you know, where outcome is going with the, with the rollups product and, and where we are as a whole in the industry where it's, it's a lot easier and cheaper to, you know, to get your own block space.
Um, I'm really excited for how people are able to experiment and how people are going to be able to try things in ways that they just, they couldn't try them, uh, you know, a year or two ago.
Um, at the same time, I think that I'm a little, uh, trepidatious about the, the, the expanding problem set of the more fractured that data is, the more places that data is, the more that people are.
Uh, you know, doing things in different ways, the harder it is for the other side of this, for users to, to be able to get all their data when they need it, to be able to kind of have a consistent experience.
Because is this tool going to support this chain or is that thing that I'm used to having going to work there.
And there's like all these things that are already a problem and that are just going to be amplified as we move to, you know, 10 X more chains or, or more.
Um, and at the same time, that's, you know, that, that is the opportunity for us, um, to be able to provide tooling and, um, and a system that helps to offer people consistency in their critical data paths.
Um, so that their tools work everywhere and that their accountants can get all the things that they want to have and that people can understand the basics of what they're doing as they move from place to place to place.
And as we see, you know, people building, uh, better, better apps and better tools that sort of hide the front end side of that of bridging tokens and connecting to different chains and all that we're, you know, working hard to come behind and make sure that the, the data access side of that has that same sort of consistency and fluid, uh, fluid kind of thing.
That's awesome. Thanks, Ben. Yeah, no, I'm, I'm, you know, I've always been somebody in the space who's been excited about the use cases that we really haven't seen take off just yet.
Uh, DeFi wasn't super interesting to me to begin with. Uh, it's just, you know, my background and where I come from. I've since come to really appreciate it, but it's super cool that, um, yeah, that you highlight this and, uh, and that there's this opportunity for these things that specifically, as you were saying, that we couldn't do a few years ago,
that now we're able to do today. I feel like that's something that I keep talking about and something that I think is, um, there was all this optimism for what could be built years ago.
And I saw it like coming into the space and then we got hit with this dose of reality, like, Oh no, you can't build that on a blockchain. And now everyone thinks like they have this like vision for what should be on a blockchain.
But now I think that whole system has changed, right? We can build new stuff. We can build stuff that maybe we thought we could years and years ago.
So I'm excited to see that sort of stuff come out and I'm always, I'm always thinking about that. Cool. Um, awesome. So via, I'll talk to somebody, you on the, the topic of mental developers, are there any exciting news or upcoming milestones that you have for, for mental developers?
Um, yeah, unfortunately the, the most exciting stuff that I would like to show a lot here, I can't talk about yet. So let's, let's give it a couple more weeks, uh, perhaps.
Uh, but yeah, I think going back to my point, um, last time, like we, we just celebrated our one year on mainnet. We were really focused on building the core primitives, uh, you know, uh, a lot of DeFi for sure.
Just like the, the, uh, you know, making sure that the, the foundation of the ecosystem works well and is healthy. Um, and now, and now we're kind of, yeah, moving on a little bit to, uh, to put a lot more effort into, you know,
you know, really like supporting really, really early stage builders in innovative, uh, products, good UX and so on. I think like, well, yeah, Ben, you just said there's unlimited block space and somehow still everybody and their mother is, is, uh, launching even more block space into this industry.
Uh, but what ultimately we need is we just need really fun, useful, interesting applications that, uh, you know, that give a reason for people to even use this tech. The tech is beautiful. We all believe in it. We all think it's inevitable, I think. Um, but unfortunately still the kind of the product side of things, the consumer side of things hasn't, uh, caught up. Uh, obviously a lot of ecosystems are, are putting a lot of effort here, but, uh, I still, I'm, I'm not seeing it. Right. Uh, so from our side, what we're doing is we're,
we're going to be putting a lot more effort into this kind of early stage innovation support. So whether it's consumer products, social and culture products, just fun things to do on chain. Um, uh, but also, you know, more on infraside, just better, better UX.
Everybody is also talking about chain abstraction and stuff like that, which is going to be very, very important one way or another to, to figure out, uh, because interop also is, uh, is very problematic. So, yeah. So just, uh, keep an eye out, uh, uh, basically across the board on Mantle, uh, in terms of how builders can be supported.
You're going to see a lot, uh, you're going to see a lot, a lot new, uh, initiatives, uh, a lot new public programs, uh, a lot new, um, you know, a lot more ways to, to get involved. Um, I can say a little, maybe. So there's, um, tons of hackathons online and offline that we're going to be, uh, participating in and organizing. There's a grant program already. That's, that's live. Just, uh, go to mantle.xyz slash grants.
And we have this, um, what's called builder grants. And that's for the more kind of innovative, uh, prototype stage, uh, projects that we're happy to support. Um, Sozo House, of course, uh, we, we're going to be likely doing one in DEF CON. So keep an eye out. Uh, Sozo House, I think is listening to this, uh, this space. So just go ahead there and follow the account and you're going to hear some, uh, some updates and, and, uh, applications for, for Sozo House. Um, uh, we're working with some
accelerator partners working on kind of vertical specific accelerators and, and geography specific, uh, uh, uh, uh, accelerators and so on. Even, even thinking about, uh, launching our own, um, eventually. Yeah. We really want to make sure that, that developers have a path to kind of graduating from just being a hacker to building something that's real and impactful for the, for the industry. So, uh, so supporting these, these builders on all sorts of things from,
from, from the initial kind of, uh, touch point of them getting to know us, uh, helping them build, uh, eventually perhaps getting a grant, uh, eventually us helping them with marketing, with tokenomics, with fundraising, even liquidity support, uh, from our treasury, um, and, and eventually, uh, potentially eco fund investment from, from our side and even, even kind of help on the token listing side of things.
So again, we, um, we, um, we have this unfair advantage of being very close to Bybit. So like, uh, although we can't promise anything, of course we, we have, um, uh, we have, you know, prioritize, prioritize access to, uh, Bybit listing, which for a lot of projects is, uh, of course, very important. Um, we're also running a lot of different campaigns for builders. Um, something in the past that was pretty interesting was Mantle Journey, which was, uh, this kind of retroactive program for, uh, for, for, for users and builders on Mantle.
And that was, uh, uh, I think that was, uh, depending on the price of, uh, the token, it was about $20 million of, of rewards. Um, but we're also running, um, many other campaigns right now. There's AI Fest. There's, I think the gaming campaign just, uh, just ended. There's also a DeFi campaign that's, that's coming up. And a lot of those things, um, you know, there, there's tons of incentives for, for builders. Um, so yeah, uh, I think, um,
um, if you just follow the Mantle account, you follow Sozu House, you follow Mantle Devs, you'll, you'll find out about a lot of, uh, um, a lot of new things that are coming and new, new programs to, to join. Um, and of course, follow me and John, because we, we give you all the alpha sometimes before the official accounts.
Jeez. That was just a jump very quickly on. That was a lot of alpha dropped there by weird. I don't know. I'll probably have to re, re, re listen to this space.
Uh, but yeah, you know, um, just to head on to that, if you're a person, uh, a brilliant person building beautiful apps, uh, please, you can just literally hit me up on DMs and, uh, we can work together and to see how I can support.
And, uh, the other thing is, um, Bangkok. We are going to be sponsoring East Global Bangkok. So, you know, if you have an idea, come there and we can chat more. I'll definitely be there.
We will be there and everyone else as well. And the last thing is other than builders, we are trying to support community organizers as well. So we have our, um, community lead listening.
Oh, Brian, I know you're there. Um, so yeah, if you're trying to organize community events and meetups and things like that, uh, we will have a program very soon. It's going to roll out very soon.
So yeah, please stay tuned to Mantle, Mantle Devs, and Sulu House.
Man, that was crazy. Veer was like, I can't reveal too much. And then said a bunch of really exciting stuff. So I wonder what the stuff he couldn't reveal was.
You know, now I'm like, what is it? Uh, that was awesome. Uh, super excited. I'm going to leave this space, uh, just incredibly excited today, ready to go out and change the world. Hopefully a lot of other developers in the space are that excited as well.
Uh, you know, there's a lot of CTAs here. So definitely build on Mantle, on Alchemy, uh, build a DAO, you know, you can put it on Testnet, on Tally before you actually see it live.
If you need to make sense of your data, you can check out Novez. Uh, so, uh, and, you know, follow all the people in this space. You've heard, you've heard from some really great speakers today. Uh, definitely listen to them for all the alpha that's going to be coming out this way.
And thank you all for joining me in this space today. Take care, everybody.
Thank you. Thanks everyone.