Hello, everybody. This is Steve, the head of BD at Cellar Network. We will be starting
the AMA with MetaVault Trade. Just a moment. Okay, I think we can start now. Hello, everybody.
This is Steve, you, the head of BD here at Cellar Network again. Today, we have a special AMA
with one of our partners, MetaVault Trade. Maybe we can start by introducing ourselves.
Again, I'm Steve, and today we have our guest, Steve, one of the co-founders at MetaVault.
Hello. My name is Steve Tu. Yes, I'm the co-founder and one of the co-contributors of MetaVault.
Nice to meet you. Excellent. Before we start, I think for some of our new listeners, I'll give
a quick intro about Cellar Network. Afterwards, I'm sure our audience will love to learn a little
bit more about MetaVault, so we'll get right into it. So, Cellar, we're a blockchain interoperability
platform. We enable one-click user experience accessing tokens, DeFi, GameFi, NFTs, governance,
privacy solutions, and more across multiple chains. So, this means developers can build
Interchain native dApps using the Cellar Interchain Messaging SDK. We have a number
of projects that are already using that to gain access to efficient liquidity,
coherent application logic, and shared states. And many of our users enjoy Cellar-enabled dApps
that will give them the benefits of multi-chain ecosystem diversification and the simplicity
of a single transaction UX. So, now that I'm done promoting my side, we'd love to hear
some of what Steve has been working on at MetaVault.
Yeah, nice. Thank you, Steve, for your intro. Yeah, we at MetaVault, we are building DeFi
Hubs backend as a service for multiple other products. We are utilizing Cellar Network on two
parts. One is a token bridging of our own token from Polygon to ZK Sync. And another side,
we're using as a back-end, as a back-up for interchain opportunity for communication
for perplexed aggregator we have built. So, we're using for cross-chain messaging for the
keepers. Let's say a user wants to open a trade on linear, and this needs to be settled
on Arbitrum, because there's the best liquidity at the moment. We are using Cellar for the messaging
for the keepers. On the other side, we are building perplexed aggregator aggregation modules,
DeFi Hubs, and other crypto-related stuff for not only MetaVault, but also for large partners
like Quixel. Excellent. I will be bouncing off some of the questions that I have listed already
for you. But, Steve, could you tell us, because I normally speak about 10 to 20 different projects
on a weekly basis as a main infrastructure provider in Web3, and we come across various projects from
various locations in almost every corner of the world, and many DEXs, many DeFi projects
that we speak to, could you maybe share with us some motivation behind how you got to where you
are with the project and what your team composition looks like?
Yeah, our team is multicultural. Let's say this, we have developers from China, from Romania,
Hungary, Turkey, Germany. Some of the DEXs are from India, also from Australia, US-based. So,
it's very mixed up. It's not only the crypto, the dev team, also the bt team is very mixed
on our side, so that we have first of all multi-time zone coverage, which is very important
in crypto, because let's say I'm sleeping in Europe and something happened during the Asia time,
somebody needs to be active at this period to help insert bug figs or when the vulnerability
happens to monitor the systems. On the other side, also the connection. A Chinese developer team
can hire in China for you, if you need resources. A Turkish developer can make this in Turkey,
so you have multiple resources in case you need additional team members. So,
it's mostly beneficial to have a multicultural team behind. And also how we came to the point
we are at the moment. Yes, our team is mostly coming from the not crypto, it's more likely
coming from the gambling industry. And that crypto is very common because due to restrictions,
regulation issues, we mostly use crypto for let's say bypassing a lot of restrictions and some
use restrictions. So, for this, our entry in crypto was very early, 2013-14.
After this, we saw also usage generally for us to be involved in crypto. So, we decided as a
large team that part of the team will dedicate itself to try to build DeFi products and then
looking how we can merge or use logics from gambling in crypto and crypto for gambling,
for example. That's how we are working actually with, let's say back end as a service,
that we are not only competing with other protocols, we are building with them together because
in sport betting, for example, it's normal common that the sports books
working together to hedge their risks and not compete with each other. So,
that's how we are actually working. So, we are not competing with other DeFi products,
we are working together with them to solve liquidity issues, for example.
I don't need to attract more liquidity when my partner have already exceeded that.
So, that's utilization and getting most of it out what we can do.
That's, I hope, it was understandable. Thanks for that, Steve. And I know you touched on
a lot of the benefits of having a decentralized team, especially with the different time zones,
and that we could all work asynchronously. And oftentimes, the teams that I speak to are,
they tend to be smaller teams of maybe sometimes fewer than 10 to 20. The larger ones go up to
about 40 and the super large ones like consensus could be in the thousands or in the hundreds.
So, what has been one of the challenges, would you say, of working in Web3, especially with
all the team members, decentralized? First of all, the developer needs first to understand the risk
of Web3. When you have a Web2 application, it's very easy when somebody is, let's say, glitched up.
You can fix this when you're correcting the backend or your, let's say, your database.
Or, first of all, disabling withdrawals for, let's say, three hours that you check if there's somebody
happened or not. And crypto is almost smart contract based. When something happens, like,
exploit, your money's gone or the investor money's gone. So, you need to understand first of all
that security is a major issue we have. So, when you have good objects and risk management,
after this, we're developing. So, that's the only thing, in my opinion, which, first of all,
you need to teach your developers before they started working at Web3. When they are now that
this risk, you cannot get back what you lose. And Web2, you can't get back what you lose,
because you can simply, you know, make chargebacks or throw a message to your bank and they are
stopping all the transaction from your bank accounts when something was bad. But in crypto,
you know, when your LPs drain, your LPs are done. So, when the developer knows this,
it's normally very good. On the other side, difficulties with a lot of other, let's say,
decentralized team, I don't see anything. When the team is working good together and, you know,
the project management is working good, I don't see any drawbacks of this.
Excellent. And Steve, I know that MetaVault has been running for a few years, I believe, and
as the MetaVault DeFi Hub, you guys have over, I think, getting close to like 85,000, 85,000,
something like that, users, and close to about 2.5 billion in trading volume. That's pretty great.
And it's pretty impressive. Were there any learning lessons that you felt really helped
to the growth of your project? Yes, it's time. You need time and you need to build trust first.
It's mostly, you know, you see sometimes products popping up and then they're getting hyped and
then they're disappearing. And then you see why this guy can make 1 billion volume in one weekend.
I cannot do this. At the beginning, it was, you know, I was thinking this way and after I learned
that mostly it was fake. You know, that was fake volume, fake hype with, you know,
paid KLS and then you see that's not organic growth and not organic volumes.
After this, you understand that this long-term growth, yeah, it's not that high in metrics.
When you compare other platforms, they're making this volume in one day. I can make this too,
you know, when I'm making bad decisions for the LPs or setting up specific liquidity range
for my LPs that I get a lot of arbitrage and a lot of volumes. But in the end, it's not
benefit for the protocol because it will not last or lease for long. So what we learned was that
building straightforward and going forward and building trust first and looking that you don't
have any incidents, you know, you can make a lot of volume. But what brings you when your
protocol gets exploited and you're getting a bad reputation after two months. So now we have
metal wall for two years. We have this volume and we have no, we have never had the incidents
about security breaches or something like this. Kudos to that. I know that, you know, dealing with
other people's assets is quite a responsibility. And I jokingly tell my friends that what I work
is in a, I guess a high risk, almost dangerous for me because all the calls that I do
with bridging integration, I'm doing what a video calls. So I best make sure that,
you know, our security is top notch and none of our users have a bad experience.
And talking about experiences, I know on Metavolt, users can trade a perpetuals on spot, I think,
and they could do, there's a multi reward opportunities there. And it looks like
Metavolt has focused more on a what they call the next level of user experience.
Would you like to talk a little bit more about how you're thinking about user and what,
how to make it easier for the users to actually transact and interact with your application?
First of all, what we saw was you want to provide a lot of products to the users.
This was not very comfortable at the old environment, because let's say for swaps,
you need a dedicated application. Then for perpetuals, you need a dedicated application.
For each, you know, you're pressing on a link and you're getting a pop up with a new
interface. So you need to connect on each of these interfaces again. And, you know,
when you want to go back from perpetuals to swaps, you need to go back and, you know,
or you need to send this user to another website. And, you know, in marketing,
it's the worst decision you can make when you're rooting your user out of your website.
That's normally, nobody does this. So what we built was a DeFi Hub. It's like one,
all in one platform where you can access all the features and assets and everything,
your models, what you want in one webpage. You don't need to go out. You see you're one
time connected, and then you can use swaps, perpetuals, liquidity providing, farming,
everything from one place without leaving the webpage. And after this, we are engaging
the user experience totally with the, you know, UX designers to looking with the metrics,
okay, how much the heat maps is there. We're using analytics programs to see where the user
jumps off of the website, where the, you know, the interface can be engaged with information,
but not too much information because too much information don't help the user. Sometimes
easier is better than more in age information. So we was, you know, it was learning curve for us too
with UX designers and, you know, analytics to see where the heat map, where the user, you know,
jumping off and, you know, you can have a lot of traffic, but when the user don't
interact with you, bring you nothing. So it's more like this.
I think that's a really excellent point that a lot of projects are really not looking into
because many of us are coming from web two, where there are very good use cases for things
like using heat map, user acquisition, user retention, user nurturing, et cetera, et cetera.
And I think, you know, when you look at the composition of many of the teams,
they're very tech focused and it's almost refreshing to hear projects like Metavolt
paying attention to this because obviously humans or users will end up using the application
and you need to make it as sticky. So kudos to your team for paying attention to that,
especially on the web three, where it almost feels overwhelming and daunting for many of
the users coming on board from web two. So I hope to see some more users engaging on your platform.
One of the things that you also touched on earlier was the relationship that we had between
Metavolt and seller in terms of bridging. Could you tell us about the use case, how
and why people would use a bridge to interact with the different chains that Metavolt is existing?
Yeah, let's explain this way. You have sometimes hardcore, let's say,
polygon guys, they don't reach out of polygon. But on the other side, you know,
you're offering products for CK think, but your main product is, let's say, on polygon.
So these guys want their assets on polygon, they need a bridge to CK think,
let's say, the MVX token from us. So for this, we're using, let's say, seller.
First of all, seller was one of the first bridges on the market and with the state
Guardian network, one of the best and real bridges, I can explain. Yeah,
there was a lot of, you know, multi chain, we don't need to speak about them, you know,
anymore. It was, you know, during the bear markets, one of the biggest hits we can get
in crypto was large bridge exploits, you know, the left liquidity was rocked multiple times,
but seller don't have any incidents and, you know, good reputation, good support from you guys too,
from your dev team, also from the BD team. Every time we have any issues or any questions,
you are answering directly. Also, seller is known, you know, the token is known,
and also the bridge is a known product on the market. It's not a known name, which popping off.
So in this case, user when they want to bridge their MVX token or making any trades on
or aggregator will automatically utilize seller for this.
Thank you. And one of the questions that we wanted to kind of get into was,
you know, you guys have been, you know, very well known on the polygon side as well. So how
has Medivolve evolved from a perpetual DEX on polygon POS to a perpetual DEX aggregator
and maybe as a backend, as a service solution?
Yeah, we started as a GMX for version one, GMX version one for polygon POS. But we saw the,
you know, the issues more and more settled the market get with pertextors,
you're more, you're fighting for liquidity for traders and that. So you may get,
may you have the better trading interface, but the user wants to trade on polygon, for example,
or you want to, you have a user on polygon. He wants, don't you interact on arbitrum, but
you have no liquidity on arbitrum. So it's like, you know, first of all, you are, let's say,
pancake swap, but now you're one inch. One inch solves this issue with liquidity.
Why? Because they're aggregating the liquidity very easy. So they don't have their own LPs. Why
I should have own LPs when I can simply aggregate the liquidity? Because every, every of these DEXs
wants volume and they are fighting for liquidity. Why I should fight too for the liquidity,
when I can simply aggregate the volumes through this already existing liquidity
and the pairs and the platforms on the market. This is why we go from the
own pertext to the per aggregator in the end. It's solving a lot of issues. First of all,
liquidity, pairs, risk management, everything. Excellent. And I'm talking, I noticed that
there's a staking on the platform. Could you tell us a little bit more about that?
Yes, you can stake MDX token and real yield from the platform. We're generating fees from
DEX, aggregation, prep DEX. So we are distributing real yield. So you can stake your MDX token and
benefit from real yield. Also, we have deflationary tokens. So we are using part of the incomes to
burn our token supply. So we have a zero inflation token or beside we are also burning the supply.
Excellent. And one of the things that I noticed working across in the Web3 space and haven't
been here for supporting the infrastructure for what three going on almost four years now,
is we see the constant effort and consistent effort that grows into something more tangible,
like projects like MetaVault. Now, basically, there's a gateway to cross chain DeFi,
where you could trade perpetuals on spot and there's multiple reward opportunities
to take advantage there. So especially during when the bull season is here,
there seems to be a lot more projects putting in the effort to build. So I'm just curious,
as well as our audiences, could you maybe tell us what's next on your roadmap and what we can
expect? Yeah, the roadmap is that we will deploy multiple partner projects. We are the backend
provider for a lot of projects on, it will be on Kakarot on linear, it will be on cover EVM.
We will be provide the front and the back end and getting allocations from this. So we are moving
away from on-branded products to co-branded products. Let me explain this way like a franchise.
So we are like McDonald's and giving on-branded McDonald's branches out.
So the roadmap is really cross chain now. A lot of chains will come and we have a lot of
requests from partner projects and also from the chains. They want native hubs, let's say,
on Neom. It's a Solana-based EVM. Kakarot will be the stock that EVM version.
Linear, all known now, yes. Consensus EKVM. Manta Pacific, Astra EVM, I hope with
Krixo best partner, we will launch soon or PEP aggregator. So there's a lot of things coming
from metal world and general for the other partners. It's amazing. So we have now finished
everything that we can deploy very fast aggregator and deploy the partner products very fast. And
now it's time to, let's say, harvest the fruit we planted over the last two years.
Yeah, and this is one of the questions that I always have in mind because sometimes certain
communities are very drawn to certain ecosystems like Polygon is with games, DeFi is still a lot
with Arbitrum and Ethereum. So how did you guys determine which chain to expand to? Was it
specifically where there's a lot more liquidity users? Or if you could share a little bit of
your thought process, I'm sure we would have really appreciate that.
Yeah, let me explain this way. We are looking for a lot of metrics. First of all, the already
existing community of the chain. Secondly, which technology this chain is utilizing?
Do they have the experience as a team? We can see this with the ecosystem generally,
how they build this. When you have a chain, we don't even have a sub graph or let's say Oracle
from the start, you know that the team is not able to run properly a chain. So when you're
looking on scroll or linear, you saw the chain launched everything for the ecosystem was there.
Premium RPCs, oracles, a lot of wallet connections. So you know, as developer, I have no environment
issues later. So what brings you the best chain is the cheapest chain when your user cannot
onboard any funds to this chain because you have no bridge. For let's say this way,
we have a lot of chains now popping off, which don't even have a native bridge,
or they don't partner with worth fully bridges like seller. So from there we know, okay,
this chain will not be good even when they have a treasury or want to provide any grants. So
when we don't get any user or we don't see any perspective to gain users on this chain,
we will not deploy that. But let's say on Astra linear or Manta, we know they have already
run multiple chains or they are linear consensus, you know, meta mask. They know what they are doing
in disguise. So it's not hard to understand that this is the way you need to go.
Yeah, thanks for the insight. And I couldn't agree with you any less because, you know,
whenever we look at a potential partner to integrate, one of the things that we pay
a lot of attention to is doing our due diligence, and the team behind it for obviously for security
reasons, and we don't want any of our users getting rug pulled, or having a bad experience
whatsoever. So I think a lot of the points that you talked about the different metrics
are very relevant to us as well. And then we typically also look into the founding team
and any potential investors to get a much better feel for who we're dealing with. And then
certainly that all those bringing all those pieces together helps us to see the bigger picture
of who they are. So absolutely couldn't with you any any less. And the other thing is,
lastly, what is the best way for someone listening today to participate or experience Metavolve?
Yeah, the best way will be first making a swap or exploring the website Metavoltrade,
or joining our Twitter and looking what news we are publishing or what's coming up.
That's what normally we are doing at the moment.
Excellent. So I think we are pretty much at towards the end of the question. Steve,
if you're gracious enough, would you have a minute or two to take some questions from our listeners?
Sure, sure. I'm open for questions. Excellent. If any of our listeners have a question,
please raise your hand. One of the things that though I should for tell us that we can't
talk about prices of tokens. It's a little bit more speculative there. So if there's any
questions with integrations or tech or planning on the product, feel free to raise your hand
and we'll get it answered. Okay, we might have a little bit of a shy audience, but
Steve, is there any last words that you'd like to share with us today?
Looks like we might have some technical difficulties. But if there are any
other questions, I'd like to thank everyone for attending our AMA today. And thank you again,
Steve. Steve, if you could hear us and speak, please let us know if there's any parting words
from you. Okay. All right. I think this is it. Thanks everyone for attending the AMA with
our partner, MetaVault Trade. If you want to learn more about it, you can find them on
Twitter or x is at MetaVault Trade. And you could also visit them online called metavault.trade.
And so thanks again for everyone for joining and attending today. Appreciate it.
Thank you and take care. Bye.