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XTalks: Privacy-Enabled Crypto & Defi: Next Meta?
Recorded: April 30, 2024 Duration: 1:08:01Space Recording
Full Transcription
Hello.
Just a sound check.
Can everyone hear me?
I can.
Can you hear me?
Perfect.
Yes.
I can see some people requesting to speak.
I'm going to improve requests.
Perfect.
As we go.
Anyone who's meant to speak or would like to speak, please send us a speaking request.
We will be approving it shortly.
I'm on it.
So, I'm trying my best.
You're doing a great job, Anna.
We appreciate it.
Yay.
So, yeah.
We'll just give our speakers a few extra minutes.
Yeah.
Just so that we can get them up on stage.
And then we'll kick this thing off.
Castle of Blackwater already got his hands up.
Oh, their hand up.
Sorry.
I don't mean to be offensive.
In case if it's a female or anyone else.
I don't know.
Oh, my God.
I think I've already been offensive enough in these spaces.
I apologize.
Anyways, if you would like to speak, you can step in any time.
There are no particular house rules in terms of like, if you want to grab the mic, grab the mic.
We are happy for you to express yourself as much as you want.
It's very safe, these spaces.
So, yeah.
I just want to say hello to everyone and just do a mic check here.
Can you guys hear me?
Yes.
We can.
Perfect.
Hi there.
Hello.
All right.
I think we got just a few.
Yep.
We can hear you loud and clear.
Awesome.
Stop digital as usual.
It's nice to see you.
Hey, guys.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Hello.
That is a morning for you.
It's a night for me.
Yeah.
It's in there, actually.
Perfect.
It's about 6 a.m. over here in bright and early.
Wow.
Wow.
It's all good.
Dedication.
Dedication, man.
Hey, I'm going to join on my desktop.
My phone's going to be problems.
I'll be back in one second.
Sorry about that.
Yeah.
Call.
Call.
Don't worry.
Don't worry.
Very good.
We're going to wait.
We're going to call.
Hello.
Hello.
Hello.
There's a stark contrast between times, because over here in the UK, it's like 2 p.m. right
now.
So basically noon.
Where about in the UK are you?
So I'm around Nottinghamshire at the moment.
Oh, right.
Yeah.
Lovely.
I used to live in Manchester.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Well, you weren't that far away from here, honestly.
No, no.
Very close, actually.
Multiple.
You can say hi if you would like to.
Yep.
Hello.
5 p.m. for me.
Hello.
That's a good calling.
Where are you?
Are you in Asia?
I'm in Dubai.
In Dubai.
In Dubai, yeah.
Okay, cool.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nice.
Did you go to Token 2049?
I didn't go to the event.
I just went to all the side events.
Did you enjoy it?
It was a bit crazy with the rain.
Oh, yeah.
I went to the office every single day during that week of the rain.
Everyone thinks I'm mad, but I drove to the office every day through the rivers.
Wow.
It was fun.
Well, you might have a good car.
It's not too bad.
I'm driving right now, so I apologize if there's any background noise.
Don't worry.
I have my son in the back of the car, so if you hear someone screaming, it's not me.
I'll mute myself if he starts screaming, don't worry.
Good to know.
I want to ask, is anyone here going to attend the London Blockchain Conference?
That's going to be happening on the, I think, 21st of May.
That's when it starts.
We have a couple of team members in London, so maybe some of them will join.
All right.
Guys, this space is so safe.
You can definitely connect to each other.
If I need to assist you in any way in terms of connecting people to each other, I'm happy
to do so.
Because these spaces were set up not just to have educational experience for everyone and
bring in some awareness to non-Christian community, but also it's been set up to connect already
existing projects to each other, and, you know, it's just a, it's all around very good networking
space.
So, yeah, I'm happy to help, happy to assist.
Also, like, Cody, whenever he speaks, whenever I'm not taking the mic away from him, he always
reminds everybody that, sorry, Cody, I know, just stop giggling.
Yeah, basically, we keep reminding people that drop your links in comments, chill your project.
We are happy for people to pick up on it.
We are happy to, you know, share the space, actually, truly share the space.
And it's very important for us to see something blossoming, some partnerships, some friendships
after our spaces.
So, that's the whole goal, apart from educational, obviously, purposes.
But, yeah.
Cody, what do you reckon?
Do we have everyone on the spaces at the moment?
I think we've got everybody, and I think you did an excellent job explaining the platform.
So, good job, good job.
Save me some time.
I'm with Dove.
I'm early, early morning as well.
So, yeah.
It's nice having you go through it.
But...
I know.
I know you're not a morning person.
Even though it's evening for me.
So, it's 10 past 8 at the moment.
So...
Yeah.
I went to bed probably about three hours ago.
So, yeah.
It's all good.
Took a power nap.
We're good.
We're good for this one.
I'm on my first can of Red Bull for the day.
So, we're definitely...
Great breakfast.
Yeah.
I think we need to get Red Bull as a sponsor on our X-Talks AMA series.
That's for sure.
And not a breakfast advice for anyone.
Not an advice.
By all means, please don't do it.
Hey.
I live off of Red Bull, Pop-Tarts, and Lucky Charms.
So, I think that's a breakfast of champions for sure.
Any nutritionist just turned around in their bed and hated it.
But we move.
We're good.
Crypto space never sleeps.
Yeah.
Exactly.
So, with that being said, hi, everyone.
My name is Cody.
I am the Chief Experience Officer here at Layer 1X.
As Anna put, this is a free platform that we've put together to not only unite different
chains, block projects, and crypto users across all the various chains out there, but also
a platform where you can come in and basically share what you're working on, share your knowledge,
expertise, and everything in between.
We have a great lineup of panelists today, and we are excited to get into today's topic, which
is on privacy and everything in DeFi.
So, we'll be diving a little bit more into that.
Before I get started, let's make sure that everybody takes just a quick second to share
the link to this space.
It's free to do, and we encourage you to do it because it helps everybody get the word
out about this great topic that we're going to be talking about.
Plus, we want to make it worth our panelists' time for coming here and participating in today's
episode.
Likewise, be sure to follow each of the panelists as well.
A lot of these guys are great speakers when it comes to their knowledge and expertise, and
so I highly recommend them.
We see a lot of familiar faces, but we also see a lot of new people as well.
So, we're definitely looking forward to getting to know them just a little bit more.
So, with that being said, let's just dive in.
If you'd like to start, Inna mentioned that from a house rules, there's just a couple of
things.
You know, one, just be mindful to each other.
This is a safe space, as she's talked about.
Likewise, we don't do anything formal.
Thanks to X Spaces, half the time I can't even see your hands raised, so just feel free
to jump in.
Likewise, if you can't hear, feel free to jump off and jump back on and request to speak
again.
That usually helps clear the audio issues that most people face with X.
And so, crossing our fingers, we don't get rugged today.
Gotta love X Spaces, so if you want to complain, file that off to Elon Musk.
I'm pretty sure you'd love to hear about your complaints about X Space.
So, just some of the bar house rules there, but let's start off by having everybody just
give their 30-second elevator pitch, telling us a little bit about yourself, who's behind
the handle, as well as your project.
My favorite part.
Actually, my favorite part.
So, guys, take the mic.
Don't hesitate.
Don't be shy.
Go for it.
Cool.
I can go.
Can you guys hear me?
Quick mic check.
Yep.
Very good.
Hey, guys.
My name is Dub Digital.
Been in the space for about 10 years.
Crypto native.
Love crypto.
Been in for a very long time and love to talk everything crypto.
So, I'm head of PR at PlayerChain, which is a multi-chain blockchain game infrastructure
that's going to be launching Avalanche subnet in the next month or so.
Testnet is a couple of weeks away, and we're looking forward to that.
You can really think of our concept as a decentralized multi-chain arcade, more or less.
And we're providing tools to lower the barrier for Web2 players and Web2 developers to come
to Web3 by providing APIs and toolkits.
But I'm looking forward to the topic.
Very interesting conversations always.
Hello.
Welcome back.
Cody, do you want to go next?
I think it's Will.
Will is like mute, unmute, unmute, unmute, unmute.
Will, go ahead.
Sorry about that.
Yeah.
I think I'm Will.
I'm the ecosystem growth manager at Oasis.
Oasis is a confidentiality and privacy-focused layer one network.
We recently launched our confidential EVM called Oasis Sapphire.
So, as you can imagine, I think about how confidentiality and privacy fits in the DeFi
on almost a daily basis.
So, thank you guys so much for having this space and creating this space for us to have
an interesting conversation on this topic.
I guess I'll jump in here, if that's okay.
I'm Cole.
I'm one of the co-founders of Elixir.
We are a modular DPoS network that's built off-chain power and order book liquidity on pretty much
every perpdex, from like DYDX to Vertex to even ones on non-EVM chains like Bluefin.
So, yeah, I've been in the space since 2016, wrote the first DeFi-focused newsletter for Forbes back when I was in college in late 2019.
Worked at a couple of funds, mostly did a lot of angel investing, and yeah, I think that's about it.
I can jump in.
Hey guys, Akshay here.
I'm the head of marketing for a company called Kana Labs.
And I'm also the core contributor for a small organization called ZK Monk.
We are a community of ZK developers, researchers, and general enthusiasts.
I personally take it as my mission to dumb down what's happening in the ZK space to non-techies, right?
Because the developers here tend to, you know, speak a lot of things about ZK and go heavy on the jargon which non-techies like us don't understand.
So, I do my best to dumb down a few things so that the general retail market also understand what the ZK space is all about.
And yeah, I do advise a couple of startups with their GTM and growth as such.
Thank you for having me.
I'm so sorry to interrupt.
Not interrupt, but like to have a little post-speech.
I'm going to insert my two penny, basically.
We actually have ZK space scheduled in a couple of weeks, which will be very good to attend as well, to speak and also listen to because what the fuck is ZK?
Okay, that's how we call the space for the future reference, guys.
Yes, I'll hop in.
I'm Steve, one of the core contributors at Multipool.
We're building a fully on-chain order book decks.
So, unlike DYDX and some of these other guys where they have on-chain execution, but off-chain or in their own private chain order book, we're actually doing the entire order book fully on-chain.
So, you could even interact with our smart contracts directly without using a user interface at all.
Fully trustless and decentralized.
We have our Fjord LBP next month, leading into TGE right after.
Testnet should be in the next few months, leading into mainnet right after.
Awesome.
Cool.
I'll jump in if that's all right.
Hey, guys.
Yeah, nice.
Hey, guys.
Jeff here from Amplify, founder of Amplify.
Amplify is an AI ML-powered cross-chain liquidity management protocol.
So, we look to unify liquidity across the top nine EVM chains, which makes up 80% of the total TVL.
We plug and integrate in with a number of the top protocols.
And basically, users deposit their assets in our platform.
And our machine learning algorithms rebalances or other rebalances those assets across various pools and various protocols to generate a higher, more stable, de-risked APY over time.
And we've done our alpha release, which is great.
Our beta should be released in a couple of days, all going well.
So, yeah, delighted to be here.
Thanks so much for the opportunity.
Awesome.
Are you also Irish as well?
I am indeed.
I'm Irish, but I'm actually living in Manchester, believe it or not.
So, there you go.
Oh, funny enough.
Hey, how good.
Pipe me.
Let's go.
Evening.
Evening, fam.
I'm sorry.
GM, of course.
Sorry for misconvenience, because it's almost 8 p.m. here on Phuket, Thailand.
And I'm happy to join today's AMA.
I'm in Phuket as well.
Wow.
Let's meet and drink some beer or something.
Bloody hell.
I'm in both avenues.
Okay.
DM me, please.
I'll be.
Yeah, I will.
Okay.
Sorry for interruption, but go for it.
Of course.
No worries.
Yeah.
And talking about Fight Me, we are cooking the Web3 browser fighting game, of course.
And under we, I mean Neki.
Neki is a huge game developer.
Web2 game developer.
Well known for Shadow Fight.
I don't know.
Vector.
And right now, we are cooking a PC slash console game spine.
And yeah.
Fight Me is the first Web3 game we are trying to deliver to the players.
And we are looking forward for mass adoption of our Web2 players army, because our game has
been installed more than 1 billion times worldwide.
And yeah.
The global game launch is scheduled.
I don't know.
Maybe in the late June or maybe in the early July.
And right now, we are starting to prepare for the upcoming means.
So, I think it's the perfect time for you to click on this follow button, because we're
going to bring the game to this space.
And it's going to be lit.
That was a great shill.
I love that.
All right.
Who else do we have left?
A good man.
Cole.
All right.
I'll go next.
Okay, Cody.
Yay.
Go for it.
It's Cole Cody, by the way.
There's two clans.
Cole Cody.
Correct.
There's two clans that clash with each other inside our game, one of which is Coco, the
other one is D.
But regardless, this is Django speaking.
I've been listening in to you guys.
You are absolutely vibing.
I like it a lot.
Coco Cody is building the next Fortnite.
It's extraction shooter, third-person extraction shooter game based in a magical world of Coco
Cody.
Check us out.
Obviously, I don't want to show too much.
Other than this, I would like to say that personally, I'm very much a privacy-oriented
person, so I am looking forward a lot to today's topic and looking forward to what we can discuss
together.
All right.
Is that everybody?
Did we get everybody covered?
I think I'm the last one.
All right.
Sounds good.
All right.
So, hello, everyone.
This is L.M. from Castle of Blackwater.
So, Castle of Blackwater is a social deduction game where players are split between three
factions and they use a variety of skills in their arsenal in order to locate and vote
out the killers.
What we bring into the space is essentially we noticed that a lot of pay-to-earn games were
heavily over-monetized and as such, players were not being engaged enough or they would
lose interest after a while.
So, instead, we focused on creating a very engaging game and then we employed new smart
monetization methods in order to get players to want to dive in deeper into the lore and
the game itself while also not feeling like they're being abused for their money.
So, we also have a game night event coming every week.
So, I would suggest that you follow us, join our Discord and, you know, hope in and gain
some rewards.
That's it for me.
Awesome.
Awesome.
Well, thanks, everybody.
We had Sam join us.
He is one of our Layer 1X's community mods and he will be helping us co-host.
So, welcome, Sam.
Great to have you.
Hey, everyone.
I wish I had as much energy as our Swiss Army knife, Ina, and the person from Fight Me.
Sorry if I forgot your name.
But, yeah, I'm the community manager for Layer 1X.
I'll be silently in the background looking at the questions.
So, if you have any questions, use the comment section and I'll bring those up towards the
end of it.
Let's kick this one off and have some fun.
Oh, good.
For sure.
So, yeah, hopefully everybody that's listening to these intros definitely...
We just...
Yeah, sorry.
We just pulled Pavel on the next stage.
He should be able to speak now.
We have two more speakers to introduce themselves, but something is happening.
There you go.
Pavel, you should be able to speak now.
100%.
He's connecting.
So, yeah.
Sorry, guys.
Obviously, Twitter spaces are acting up as much as it usually does.
So, apologies for all the...
And Rivals, I hope I pronounced it correctly.
Rivals also wants to speak and I'm trying to approve it.
I'm doing my best way to go.
Yeah.
Hi, everyone.
Sorry.
My microphone is acting up.
I just got it to work finally.
My name is Pavel.
I'm from a project called ZKM.
We are building a interoperability network using ZK Proofs as a messaging system.
So, we don't need a blockchain to sit in between two different blockchains.
We also act as a interoperability solution, essentially communicating different messages across different L2s.
And then that's how we also unify liquidity by utilizing the native Mint function of those L2s to essentially make sure that, you know, you don't receive like a derivative token, which then you have to swap and all that complicated stuff when dealing with cross-chain transactions.
Awesome.
I love it.
Rivals, if you can't accept the request, will you try dropping out and dropping back in of the AMA?
I think that usually helps as well.
Okay.
Well, while we're trying to get them up on board, yeah, let's kick this off.
So, thanks, everybody, for joining.
If you haven't already, please retweet this XSpace episode.
I will definitely love you forever.
If you guys can do that, it's your guys' support that allows us to keep going with this.
So, definitely, definitely share this out.
Again, for those that are just joining, I'm the Chief Experience Officer.
My name is Cody.
And today we are talking on privacy within DeFi and blockchain as a whole.
So, let's kick it off with the first question while we wait for Rivals to basically get back up on stage here.
So, let's see.
Let me jump over to this.
Sorry, guys.
I've got too many tabs open here.
Let me jump over to this one.
I can jump in on that.
Go for it.
One of the main things that people don't know about Ethereum is that actually there's only four relays.
And there's no really incentive for you to set up your own relay.
So, when people think Ethereum is extremely decentralized because all of your validators are decentralized and they're distributed,
at the end of the day, there's four relays.
I think there were five before and now it's dropped down to four.
But where everything goes through.
So, I think it would be, it's actually an extremely centralized network that could be compromised by those four entities that own those relays, essentially.
And the reason it's, there's no incentive for anyone to set up a relay is because there's zero financial incentive to do it.
You don't get paid for being one of the relays.
So, there's a lot of costs in setting up infrastructure.
And you don't get paid anything.
So, I think that the answer, I guess, on Ethereum, for example, is very, very easy.
Because it's essentially in the hands of four people.
A lot of people don't know that.
But it is essentially in the hands of four people.
Great.
Anybody else have anything they want to add to that?
I think I'm going to jump in on that as well.
I think that one of the main issues that DeFi faces in itself is government pressure.
And I think that needs to be a focus.
Because I think that even small things like lawsuits really impact the space and how it develops.
We've seen on the past two years, especially with the SEC just going after the blockchain space and trying to impose regulations.
And we've seen the monetary impact that it's had on that.
So, like the previous person said, the DeFi space relies on infrastructure.
And so, governments could essentially target that infrastructure and cause general pressure onto that.
So, I think that if DeFi is to develop into something more than it is today and, you know, go towards mass adoption, then I think that there's going to need to be some massive consideration when it comes to how the governments will react and how they will attempt to regulate it.
Oh, that's a great take.
You know, another angle to come at it from it as well is, you know, wells.
How can, you know, your wells within your community help dictate or help push some of this narrative as well?
Has anybody had any experience around wells kind of shifting their weight around within projects?
Okay, I will try to jump in on this one.
I'll also jump in a little bit on the previous topic.
I feel like, first of all, these topics that you have just now mentioned, they are very, very broad.
And there's so, so, honestly, so much to talk about.
And I said at the very beginning, at the introduction, that I'm quite a privacy-focused person, individually, personally.
And it's absolutely true.
I'm going to start with a very recent example, and that's Samurai Wallet.
For those who don't know, Samurai Wallet is a wallet that has been on for a really, really long time.
It's a wallet that enables CoinJoin, or just basically a mixing service, decentralized mixing service on Bitcoin.
So, very often for people who actually want to get lost in the Bitcoin network,
to not be able to be traced back where their Bitcoin actually originates from,
they've been using Samurai Wallet for a really, really long time.
And the stats were showing that, honestly, I think below 4% of those transactions were actually being used for illicit purposes.
But the rest, it was just basically people who wanted to preserve their privacy as far as owning Bitcoin.
And obviously, speaking of Bitcoin, you know, this is honestly the biggest network out there right now.
It still dictates everything in crypto.
And just recently, last week, I believe, two of the devs,
so just basically people who wrote code for that wallet that enabled that,
have been taken to custody as it is right now.
One of them is being extradited from Portugal into the U.S.
And the other one has been in the U.S.
And they've been, they will be tried by the U.S. government.
So, in light of you just asked about, like, how can government actually shape the future of decentralization,
this is the best example.
At the same time, the FBI has come out with a number of statements about, you know,
any kind of protocols out there that can be possibly accused of being a money transmitter.
And there has been already, since then, within, honestly, just a couple of days,
the next wallet, which is a Wasabi wallet, have already stopped using,
or they basically came out with a statement that they will be disallowing people from the U.S.
to actually use their service in the wallets.
They pull out their app from the App Store in the U.S., both iOS and Android and so on.
And this is, I feel like, a very fitting example to what the government can do.
Now, I did say about how I'm actually privacy focused,
and this comes back to, like, a really, really long time.
I think one other person earlier has said something about being in crypto since 2013 and so on.
So, crypto originates with the ethos of crypto punk.
You can Wikipedia what that means.
Satoshi himself was one of the OG members of the crypto punk group,
which was basically maybe in part, like, kind of anarchist group.
But this is where the entire crypto space, as we know it today,
with all the thriving ecosystem communities, layer one blockchains, layer two blockchains.
I have heard a number of people here that are building on top of this
and trying to provide extra services, extra use cases and solutions for all the people out there.
But all of this originates from a number of people who were into cryptography
and into the ethos of actually being privacy-preserving and having a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency.
That was the original goal of Bitcoin.
Right now, we have a number of other, you know, maybe blockchains or solutions
that are trying to come up with similar stuff.
And let's be real with this.
The government, specifically the U.S. government,
and right now maybe the EU regulations are coming with similar kind of regulations,
that they don't like it because it's all about control.
When you control the U.S. store or fiat currency in general,
this is when you can control everything what happens in your societies.
And Bitcoin or any other kind of sound money that can be put out there,
it's kind of a threat in one sense to the government, to that control.
And Bitcoin and a number of other cryptocurrencies is just basically putting this forward as a solution
for the masses, for the populace, to actually break away from that control.
And obviously, governments don't like it.
I genuinely believe that this is going to be the future,
that there will be kind of a fight in between.
And the one thing that stands out to me in light of this,
what is happening is that I see a lot of new people who are joining the crypto industry now,
who are joining all of these protocols,
and everybody who is building on top of those blockchains,
are actually not really aware of this, number one.
And number two, not really that much focused on their actual personal privacy.
I feel like, you know, there has been quite a bit of discussion
among the younger audience, like TikTok audience, that kind of stuff.
I'm older, if you didn't figure it out by now.
I'm not that old, but I'm a little bit older.
I'm not a teenager anymore.
But it seems like, you know, the teenage group that is growing up right now,
they don't care about privacy.
They are ready to give it up for any kind of convenience.
And I feel like this is actually a genuine concern to me personally,
and it should be a concern on a larger scale.
And this would be my, like, first thoughts about what you asked about,
in terms of how government is actually shaping
and possibly influencing privacy of people
that are utilizing crypto for any kind of purposes.
Now, about whales and itself,
that obviously is a topic in and of itself.
Another topic about how the proof of stake,
in particular proof of stake blockchains are to an extent rich,
good, richer schemes.
So, as far as they can provide a lot of convenience,
they are always going to compromise on some part.
And very often they compromise on centralization.
I think multiple, you have mentioned earlier about how Ethereum itself
is actually not that decentralized as it paints itself to be.
And that's the case for a lot of other protocols and blockchains out there.
So, I would start with this.
I have obviously, like, a lot of thoughts in my mind right now
that are coming through my mind.
And I feel like these topics are very, very deep
or can be very, very deep.
But there is a lot of speakers out there,
and I don't want to take too much time from the discussion.
Fair enough.
Pick up on the mic, guys.
Don't be shy.
I'll pick that up a bit here.
First of all, I must say there's a lot to unpack there.
But what I wanted to mention is that technology as we know it right now,
especially in places like China and even in the U.S., right,
like in the New York, which is one of the most surveilled cities in the world,
technology is now moving to behavioral detection.
So, that means, essentially, they detect your actions across a plethora of,
let's say, statistics, and they can then deduce who you are.
So, for example, the blockchain space itself, you know,
we boast the fact that, oh, my God, it's transparent,
you know, that the transactions are not linked to my name.
The thing is, though, that as behavioral detection technology gets even more powerful,
it's able to track your movements across your wallets, etc.,
and then correlate that with the potential actions of millions of people,
and then that way they are able to kind of deduce that it's you.
So, that's an interesting factor because as we move on to DeFi,
like Cocody said, if you have ultimate privacy, you're giving up on convenience.
However, if you compromise on privacy,
then that's where you introduce convenience.
And I think that's a kind of thing that's standing in the way of mass adoption right now
because people, they are so used to just choosing convenience over their own good
to the point where they would much rather give up a huge portion of their privacy
in order to gain convenience rather than be full private
and, you know, potentially have to do some extra steps.
And the best way to demonstrate this is computers themselves, right?
Everybody likes using Google.
I mean, you know, 9 out of 10 people will be using Google Chrome
instead of something like, let's say, Brave, which most crypto users use,
or even their mobile phones, right?
You hear people saying out there that they prefer buying, let's say, iPhones
because they are more secure because you can't touch their settings or, you know,
just in general stuff like that.
I think that that's an issue we have to face towards mass adoption.
It's the fact that we're going to have to sacrifice convenience
and that's going to be a hard thing to get around.
Yeah, I'm a little, not quite sure exactly the question we're responding to right now,
but I'll throw my hat in the ring here.
I like the whole standpoint of how blockchain itself started with privacy in mind.
You know, that's the main reason Satoshi is anonymous, you know,
and that's the same reason forking was built in the, you know,
the inherent code of blockchain.
And that's the reason why interoperability, I think,
is going to be very important moving forward.
It's all about giving people choice no matter what happens.
And it's good to see that in the legal framework,
it's kind of like, you know, controlling blockchains by like some kind of side route,
not directly in its infrastructure, but controlling the founders if they're known.
We've seen that with multiple lawsuits coming down the pike and stuff.
So I like to see the rise of DAOs.
You know, the DAO legal framework is good.
It gives people a chance to separate themselves at least one step away from people finding out
who's controlling it.
Because like it or not, it seems like the powers that be like to control through the legal framework,
so that at least gives some protection moving forward.
Yeah, I just want to share some thoughts that I guess Cody sort of spurred in that I had.
He was talking a lot about like, you know, the fact that it started off as a cyberpunk movement,
but then, you know, current people today don't necessarily,
or the average retail user doesn't necessarily value the same ethos as that original movement.
And I guess my thoughts are that, you know, as our industry develops,
sort of the goalposts often shift.
And a lot of people today, like you said, don't really value privacy as much
because it's not so convenient for them to have it,
especially with the SEC and government reactions.
And I think like the way I've always thought about these sort of things is
it's important that our industry just continues to give more functionality and more versatility
so that we can, you know, I guess we're never going to win the sort of debate about full anonymity
while like illicit things are happening.
So we have to find ways to like enable privacy,
but also enable it in a way that we're also at least demonstrating a best effort
to prevent illicit things from happening.
So things like instead of like having like proof of humanity,
using like ZK proofs and things like that,
where you're not actually giving up any data of yourself,
but you're making sure that, you know, within a DAO,
you're not having some sidewall attack or you're having better voting mechanisms
or, you know, maybe potentially having a DAO that's able to,
for example, expose confidential trading
if it's been shown to be connected to like some sort of illicit activity.
I think this is really how the space is going to move forward
and fight these sort of governmental regulations
is we're going to have to become more versatile
and the sort of functionality that exists in crypto
while still offering privacy at the same time.
Yeah, I guess I just want to share a couple of things.
Interesting conversation here.
I think the battle with privacy is not something that's very limited to Web3, right?
A battle of privacy has been from, I guess, 1980s
when cryptography even was a thing.
So the privacy enthusiasts have been fighting with the government,
I don't know, for more than 30, 40 years.
And we just seeped into Web3 because inherently,
as others rightly pointed out, privacy was inherent.
It was an inherent need for blockchains.
And that's how Satoshi envisioned it as well.
I personally think just to stray off a bit,
privacy in itself is a major side of it
because if you think about it, when we were young,
when privacy was, when we, let's say,
when we asked for privacy,
it was always, you know, frowned upon, right?
Okay, what are you hiding?
What is this?
What is that?
So privacy in itself is a huge psyop, I feel,
which has been going around for a while.
So for that to, you know, change in a fundamental way,
it's going to take some time.
So for example, at least here in India,
a very interesting case that's happening
is the Indian government, you know,
forcing WhatsApp basically to remove end-to-end encryption.
It sounds very crazy, but that's happening right now.
So even for messaging,
if they remove end-to-end encryption,
which is a basic, basic right,
then what are we even talking about,
you know, privacy and all that stuff, right?
So it goes out of the question.
I guess slowly people are starting to realize
the real impact of, you know,
how governments are controlling,
the problems of surveillance.
Again, I'll take another local example.
So India has obviously been pushing CBDC,
as the next big thing.
And they have this concept called programmable money, right?
So basically, they can limit the users,
you know, transaction spending and activity of CBDC
based on their, you know, recent purchases and whatnot.
So you technically don't have control of your own money.
And obviously, cash has been the most private form of transaction known to man.
And this completely,
this so-called interbank digital currency completely removes that.
So, I mean,
the governments have been pushing for surveillance for God knows how long.
And one key aspect is slowly these steps that they take is going to,
you know, this is going to be, you know, reverse start,
which I can see at least from a retail perspective.
Obviously, the one thing that we need to solve is
the user experience of privacy applications, right?
When we talk about zero-knowledge proofs,
when we talk about, you know, privacy attestations,
at least for the retail user,
it's not very easy to use, right?
Or easy to understand even.
So obviously, there are some steps that we need to take
to address a few of these fundamental issues.
But I guess, I mean,
slowly we are definitely improving.
And, you know,
we have a lot of powerful voices talking about
or championing privacy,
which is always a good thing.
I just think we need to wait a bit.
Obviously, talk a lot about, you know,
privacy and how that's a fundamental right.
And, you know, take it forward.
Actually, if you don't mind,
first off, I appreciate your local example.
If you don't mind,
if you foresee a situation
where the Indian government
would actually force WhatsApp
to remove the end-to-end encryption,
do you see a situation
where the population in India
would actually move to another app
or another method of communicating
rather than WhatsApp?
I'm assuming that WhatsApp
is the most widely used at this moment.
Yeah, yeah.
So obviously,
WhatsApp is the number one messaging platform in India.
So I personally feel,
when shit hits the fan,
the users will shift to other applications.
Obviously, it will take some time, right?
The end users don't really know
what end-to-end encryption is,
nor do they care
unless something goes wrong to them.
But, yeah, I mean,
we can definitely see a lot of
shift moving to applications
like Telegram and whatnot.
Again, this goes to the point
of user experience.
onboarding on WhatsApp
and, you know,
the network effects
that WhatsApp has
where almost everyone in India,
if they have an Android or a smartphone,
they have WhatsApp in it.
So these two things matter a lot.
So if more privacy applications
have better user experience
and obviously the network effects,
which makes it,
you know,
a much more easier experience
for the users, right?
wherein everyone has that application,
then that is the end goal
is what I feel.
But, yeah, slowly,
it will move to the applications
when we start educating people.
You see, I think this is
a really, really great example, actually.
And I would like to just offer
one comment or take
on this,
what you have just said,
because you have also mentioned
something about
people don't really understand
what end-to-end encryption actually is
or neither do they actually care.
And maybe if they get educated,
then they would be kind of compelled
to switch from WhatsApp to Telegram
or another app,
something like this.
And I feel like, you know,
speaking of privacy and technology,
we have already said
how governments
or, you know,
the governmental institutions
are actually using the technology
in order to track their users.
And what it means with this,
it goes control
of the users and their populace.
At the same time,
we also mentioned
how Satoshi's
or CryptoPunk's vision
was rooted in privacy.
And that's why, you know,
that was like one of the big ethos
or big feature of Bitcoin.
At least that was what it was meant to be.
And I feel,
especially in this group,
people who are attending
these spaces right now,
I feel like it's almost our duty
to educate,
because this is the key point
that is going to go out there
to the masses
and mass adoption,
however you want to call this.
If we here
will be actually educated
in the first place,
understand what are the implications
of actually losing that privacy
in favor of convenience,
then it's our duty
to educate everybody else around us
for them to also understand
what it means,
the privacy.
And I feel like, you know,
even in that sense,
we are speaking about
zero-knowledge proofs
or any other technology
that can actually allow
for having solutions
or having, you know,
any kind of protocols out there
that are going to provide
still a convenience
with preserving the privacy.
There are options,
and we can use
the same kind of tools
that is technology,
including blockchain technology,
including zero-knowledge proofs
and so on
in order to actually provide
any kind of solutions,
be it within, you know,
communication space,
having, like,
communication apps
like WhatsApp
or Telegram
or anything else
that is going to use
and utilize
that kind of proofs.
And I feel like
especially this kind of group
that we are part of right now
is having that kind of weight
that is carrying on
from the old ethos
from crypto punks
and so on
that we can right now
to keep pushing
the solutions
that are both providing,
you know,
more friendliness,
more convenience,
that are still developing
in terms of technology
and at the same time
educating people
to choose the solutions
that are still utilizing privacy
and maybe even incorporating
some of these new technologies
into making sure
that the privacy is preserved.
Yeah, I totally agree
with you on that one.
It is definitely about,
you know,
building true privacy
in crypto
isn't just technically
about all technology.
It's definitely having
that mind shift
among its users as well.
So, yeah.
So with that,
we do have a new speaker.
We had some trouble
getting them up,
but they are up.
Rivals,
do you want to take 30 seconds
and kind of introduce yourself?
Hey, guys.
Yeah, I had some trouble there.
No problem.
All right.
So basically,
at Rivals,
we are building
an AI Intel data layer
and a modular AI app ecosystem, right?
So the idea here
is to create
a great infrastructure
for AI agents
to tap in
and make informed decisions
based on
a really well-structured
and AI-ready
data layer
that we will provide,
basically.
We are also working
with Tonolas
and Axelar
to create this
cross-chain ecosystem.
So the idea
is to be present
on every chain
out there
and for our AI agents
and any other
agents that want
to tap in
into our project
can actually work,
yeah, basically,
as I say,
cross-chain.
So, yeah,
I don't want to take more time
because I know I'm late,
but thank you.
Thank you for this space.
Yeah, no problem.
So, yeah,
we definitely have
a good topic going on here.
I don't want to derail from it,
but I definitely want to
kind of shift
the conversation
a little bit more
to some other areas
of topic.
And I think
it's been hit upon
a couple of times
around, you know,
technology
and things like that.
what are some
what are some good
kind of
groundbreaking technologies,
clever UI solutions,
or even some
collaborative
type of models
that
we could see
or you have seen
emerge
that will make
robust privacy
the norm
rather than
just a niche
interest?
I can probably jump in.
I'll give a shout out
to a couple of projects
that I've come across.
One is
the reclaim protocol.
So reclaim protocol
essentially allows you
to create
zero knowledge proofs
not just
on your on-chain activity,
but these guys
have beautifully
got deep
into the Web 2
space as well
where you can
essentially create
composable
zero knowledge proofs
for your lost
transactions
on your bank account.
So we have this thing
called Aadhaar card,
right,
which is the
unique identification
card for the citizens
of India.
So you can essentially
create, you know,
ZK proofs for that,
essentially showing
that you're above 18
or, you know,
customize the information
that you want
to reveal.
They have gone
a step further
and they have
enabled people
to create ZK proofs
based on their,
you know,
Steam rank,
what are the achievements
that they have
if they want
to remain anonymous
and just show,
you know,
what is the required level
to get past this game
or whatever.
So I think
use cases
and,
you know,
interesting applications
like this
will be in the
intersection
of Web 2
and Web 3,
right,
sort of,
you know,
a blurry line
which is the best
place to operate
if you ask me.
And there are
a couple of teams
like, you know,
this project
called DOP.org.
I personally
appreciate them
not for the tech
but because of
the penetration
that they've had
and distribution
that they have had
across the retail users.
They don't go
heavy on jargons.
They don't go heavy
on the tech
but focus on
the value proposition
of privacy applications.
So that's always,
you know,
good to see.
And obviously,
you have a lot
of applications
like RISK0,
sorry,
teams like,
you know,
RISK0
and Aztec
and Zcash
have been pioneering
in this space.
But yeah,
I mean,
I'm personally
focused on these things.
Also,
one other application
or a suite
of applications
which I am
very interested in,
especially with
the advent of AI
going like crazy
is ZKLNM.
that's obviously
a wonderful use case
if applied
and if scaled
well to,
you know,
adapt to the need
of the Web2,
you know,
size and mass,
then I think
that will be
a crazy application,
especially for,
you know,
healthcare institutions
where you have to,
let's say,
train data
on some of the,
you know,
very private
medical information
of patients.
You don't want
to do that
in a public LLM,
sorry,
a non-private LLM,
right,
where the data
is stored on the database
which could be hacked.
You want a natively
private LLM
which encrypts
and hides
the data of,
the very valuable data
you know,
patients and their
information.
So these are
very exciting things
and I personally
feel this will be,
if done well
and if done right,
will make,
you know,
privacy and anonymity
a bit more mainstream.
Yeah,
I would like to second that,
especially the Reclaim protocol.
Reclaim is doing
some really cool things
with their HTTPS,
like,
session keys.
So some of the use cases
that includes
is, like,
the ability to prove
that you're KYC'd
on Coinbase
by signing into
your Coinbase account
and then just sending
as your knowledge proof
like on-chain
or prove that
you're a human
you know,
logging into Uber
and proving that
you've taken,
like,
150 Uber rides
or something like this.
It doesn't need
any sort of
integration.
Like,
they don't need
to integrate with Uber.
Uber doesn't need
to approve it.
It's entirely encrypted
on the user side,
on the client side,
through their session key
when they log into
these apps.
And I think it speaks
a lot to the idea
I was talking about earlier,
which is just increasing,
like,
the versatility
of what's possible.
Like,
with that,
you now have the ability
to now,
you know,
have more civil resistance
in DAOs,
which maybe prevents,
like you said earlier,
whales from,
you know,
pushing their way
around a protocol
if the only thing
isn't just,
like,
you know,
how many tokens
someone has,
but you also have to prove,
like,
some aspect of humanity
and that there's not,
like,
civil resistance.
You know,
because unless you have,
like,
multiple Uber accounts,
you can't,
you can't really,
you know,
have multiple wallets
connected to that same
ZK proof.
Things like that,
I think,
are super useful
and I really like
what the Reclaim protocol
is doing.
I think
in DeFi
there's
Dex on our network
called Illuminex.
They're
the first
confidential cross-chain
Dex,
so you can swap
from Bitcoin
or Bitcoin
will be coming soon,
but right now,
like,
ETH on Ethereum
to BNB
on Binance Smart Chain
entirely confidentially.
and basically,
the only one downside
to the privacy
is that,
you know,
they have this backdoor,
which essentially,
if they ever get OFAC,
if they ever get SEC'd,
they can choose to,
like,
to choose to reveal
someone's wallet,
but until they do,
no one can see
any of those transactions,
while it's not
complete anonymity,
as I think a lot of people
here would like,
it's still,
like,
orders of magnitude,
greater level of privacy
than what is possible today,
and it doesn't involve
any level of custody,
like,
a fixed float
or something like that
did in the past,
while additionally,
also,
like,
having some sort of
game theory,
I guess,
where,
because of that backdoor,
hopefully illicit people,
people trying to do
illicit things,
won't choose to use them
because there's
better options for them.
that's an interesting
aspect to DeFi,
and then I think,
I was just going to say,
in the AI space,
I think Ocean
and DeltaDAO
are both doing
some pretty cool things.
They're taking a bit of time,
but I know,
like,
everyone is waiting,
like,
is hyped about a lot
of these new AI projects,
but I think,
like,
really,
some of the old ones,
the ones that have been
around since 2018,
have been trying to solve
these data privacy
and data marketplace problems
for a long time,
are the ones
that are doing,
like,
really interesting things
and we should keep
an eye on them
as their sort of
productizing comes out.
if you have your hand up,
just feel free to jump in.
All right,
yeah,
so I wanted to add
a couple of things
that we're actually doing
on the privacy part.
our data layer
is going to be fed
mainly from two sources.
One is going to be
third-party applications
with compliance data,
of course,
and the other one
is going to be
from users
that can license
their information
and we have
two main mechanisms
to actually
make sure
that they can maintain
their privacy
and one is
that we are going
to use a DID
with a token
standard ERC-6551,
I think it is,
that it's kind of
a modular NFT solution
where you can
separate your
information
in different models
and state the token
that represents
the model
that you want to share
and the one
that you don't want to share.
if you upload
personal information,
biometrics
or whatever information
you want to upload,
you can select
which specific bit
of information
you want to share
into the data layer
and license it as well.
And the other thing
is that we're using
fully homomorphic
encryption,
so basically
and these agents
will be able
to process
all this information
while it's still
being encrypted,
right?
that's another way
that we are using
to protect
user privacy.
I'm just going
to jump into that
and,
you know,
you guys obviously
said some really
great stuff,
but I think
that there's one
underlying key point
in there
and it's that
any service
that claims
to offer you privacy,
the people
who are accountable
for it,
they will never
go to jail
over your privacy.
no matter how
the initial
upfront service
they offer,
no matter how
secure or private
it is,
at the end of the day,
if the government
just tries
to come after them,
then
they're basically,
they are going
to give up
your data
instead of just
risking to go
to jail.
so luckily
though,
there is one
team out there
who has been,
you know,
conducting
some effort
to combat
that.
There is this
project called
Zero Knowledge
Network
and essentially
what they're
building is
they have built
a state-of-the-art
mixnet
which,
so let's say
like this,
every day
when you are
on your,
let's say,
desktop
and you are
interacting online,
you are constantly
leaking metadata
and other
private info
which can be
very,
very easily
tracked
and then it
can be linked
back to you
and when that
happens,
your identity
is revealed.
The Zero Knowledge
team has built
a state-of-the-art
mixnet
which is
essentially
anonymous.
It operates
through a
decentralized
network
stake
service
these
servers
are incentivized
through the
means of
two-fold rewards
and essentially
what these guys
are offering
right here
is a
mixnet
in which
your
metadata
is private
so you're
not actively
leaking metadata
and your
browser activity
is constantly
routed
through a
successive
round of
like servers
which means
that you
are able
you know,
in theory
at least,
achieve
maximal
degree
privacy.
So again,
I think
that an
underlying
issue
is that
no matter
how many
VPNs
you use
or private
emails
at the end
of the day
if the
government
comes knocking
those companies
are going to
give you up
right?
Because it's
either that
or there
is jail
and the
question is
you wouldn't
go to jail
for a random
person,
right?
So it's the
same with
these companies.
You can have
the most secure
VPN ever
and you
will still
be found out
if the
government
needs to
or wants
you know,
I think
that the
Zero Knowledge
Network
project
and the
team in
what they're
building
is essentially
something
really,
really
powerful
because
it's one
of those
products
that aims
to offer
you full
privacy
because in
this case
you are
not leaking
any data
and because
it's on the
blockchain
it's really,
really difficult
for the
government
to go after
them or
even hold
them accountable
for all
their actions
because you
are essentially
just,
your activity
is routed
through a
bunch of
nodes and
as such
it's really
difficult to
pinpoint a
source of
responsibility
into that.
I was just
going to say
that's a
great point
that you're
definitely
making there.
We're just
coming up
on the
hour so
I just
want to
make sure
that we're
mindful of
people's
time as
well.
Go ahead
if you
want to
finish your
last thought
here.
The last
thing I
just want
to say
is that
a huge
focus when
it comes
to privacy
you need
to be
aware of
your
metadata.
It's
one of
crucial
aspects.
What
privacy
does in
this space
and what
the privacy
movement
is trying
to do
is taking
control
from the
centralized
entities
and giving
it back
to the
user.
However,
in order
to do
that you
need to
both offer
the user
the tools
to be
able to
operate in
themselves and
you need to
offer the
adequate education
for them to
do it.
I think it's a
really robust
issue but
we are at the
starting phases so
I'm hopeful that
this kind of
thing will
evolve.
Great points
there.
That's
definitely one
thing that
Layer 1x
since we
are a
Layer 1
blockchain
protocol,
we are
focused on
obviously
native
bridge-less
interoperability
between
EVM and
non-EVM
chains but
more importantly
because of
that we
have a lot
of unique
things that
we can do
because we've
built our
own VM
consensus and
oracles in
the sense of
digital identities
and so when it
comes to our
digital identities
we are
definitely
tapping into
the DID
proof of
activity
scoring
to validate
people's data
but more
important the
user owns
the data
because it's
all decentralized
which is
huge and
currently we're
working with
Omchain to
bring 15
million to
20 million
Turkey citizens
official government
issued digital
identities and
it's definitely
one of those
things that we're
focused on at
a Layer 1
level to
provide that
infrastructure of
what you were
just talking
about and so
we're excited to
be on the
forefront of
this kind of
knowledge base
and technology
that's being
built so that
we can pass
that along to
all the other
projects that
are heavily
focused on
making this a
reality because
as we look at
it at the end
of the day
it isn't going
to be necessarily
relied on one
project to
solve it
it's going to
be a
collaborative
effort among
all the
different chains
all the
different projects
to build that
kind of
privacy and
data ownership
across crypto
and web
three so
but yeah
so thanks
we're about
five minutes
after but I
appreciate everybody
staying a little
bit longer on
that on this
AMA we've
definitely had
some great
conversations
this has
definitely been
one of those
topics that I
think we could
definitely dive
into a part
two with so
and if you want
to make note of
that let's
let's try to
get these guys
back again
for round
two and
we'll dive
into some
of these
other topics
as Kokodi
mentioned
could definitely
be a little
bit more
of a broader
topic that
needs some
exploring for
sure so
with that being
said thanks
everybody for
attending
thanks to our
panelists
please please
give them a
big big
follow they
definitely earned
it we've got
some experts
in this space
and they
definitely showed
off their
knowledge and
expertise and
we appreciate
them joining and
taking the time
out of their
schedules so
until next
time next
Monday I
believe we
will be
it's our
next AMA so
please mark
your calendar
for I believe
it's 8 a.m.
eastern standard
time and we
will catch you
then until
then have a
great week
keep working
towards uniting
a la crypto
we'll chat
with you guys
later
thank you very
much for this
opportunity and
yeah thanks
everybody have a
great rest of
your day thanks
guys see you
later
thanks for
having me
thank you guys
bye bye
cheers guys
