Building Up Blockchains for Mass Adoption

The crypto ecosystem is growing There's more traction from developers There's more traction from traditional Institutions and big Brands but to Really go mainstream it needs to be easy Fast and inexpensive which is pretty Easy right Okay so to talk to us about how easy it Is we'll have Mo shake from app to slabs Grace Terrace of polygon and Anatoly Jacovenko from Solana labs and please Welcome back to the stage moderator Jackie melineck [Music] Thank you Hey everyone uh hopefully you're not Tired of this familiar face I am back again as Karine mentioned with Anatoly from Solana Grace from polygon And mo from Aptos Labs uh honestly I Think this is a banger of a panel and You guys should all hang out because Very rarely do I feel like you get major Blockchains together on stage I don't Know if you guys feel that way but I do I feel like it's like you get it like Pepsi and Coke together you know they Don't want to be in the same place but They'll do it you know uh but on that Note I feel like a big conversation I've Had over the past 12 months is Multi-chain integration and what does Multi-chain basically mean it's Basically what the word says multi-chain

Getting different blockchains to work Together for the greater good so to Start I'd love to hear how all three of These blockchains are kind of you know Going towards that multi-chain world or Do you prefer to just be your own Blockchain and forget everyone else Sure I guess I can go first Um I I do think it's a multi-chained World for sure but before I get into That I think we just had a breaking Announcement on how that's actually Coming to life Coinbase pay just integrated with Petra Making payments available within the Aptos ecosystem as seamless as possible So if you want to on-ramp or on-ref and You know play around with Fiat within That space it's easier than ever And I think that's a good point to to Transition into into a multi-chain world I mean we are in a multi-chain world I'm Here with my fellow panelists that have Been building uh before Aptos has been Building and I think we're starting to See the Deep work that all of us have Done really come to fruition Um you know Aptos is a layer one Blockchain similar to you know Solana And you know we think of course you have To focus on Innovation at the layer one But that Innovation should be distinct And different from everything else out There

Together there can be some value Accretion that can you know ultimately Have multiples and Order magnitude Effects Creator over time And that's starting to happen it's Starting to happen from all the years of Work that we've been doing Sushi swap just announced an integration With Aptos is a perfect example An evm based D5 protocol amm that's been Building for many years realized they Want to actually improve on the existing Pro protocol they can't do that where They are today and so they're exploring New homes and so the first non-evm chain That they integrated with Aptos and so This is a great marriage between you Know people that have been building in Previous ecosystems now taking full Advantage of Aptos and so you know by Focusing on layer one Innovations you Are able to attract Talent that's been Building into space for a while and Bring that multi-chain world to the to The Forefront Wonderful I love the fact that we start With molten chain world this is uh get Along this is this is great I mean I am So happy to be here with these two Leaders next to me as well it's um It's a it's a it's a very complex but Yet very collaborative world that we're Living in multi-chain world makes it uh Much easier for us to start moving the

Technology forward at polygon Labs we Believe in definitely a world that is Multi-chain and it is where we're Heading as polygon 2.0 will actually Come forward so we are building an Ecosystem of multi-chains that will be Interoperable and this is some like Keywords that were actually kind of Still working towards and and making Sure that we prepare the infrastructure For this uh for this interoperability as It is also compatibility making sure That each chain offers a use case that Is well prepared for that particular Chain and I feel like that's where the Users will have better possibilities to Interact in a blockchain of space or in A web 3 space but not thinking about how Do I Bridge a assets to this network Versus this other network but just going There and having that sort of seamless Con continuity within the network we Call it a uh unlimited block space so With that Um ckvm is uh the product that I'm Actually lead of and it's that's the one That is the Genesis of all these Products that are coming together within A polygon to create that multi-chain World we have the layer twos which is The the the uh the layer that we are Concerned about we are actually a Scaling solution for ethereum And but I'm happy to be to understand

And to work together with other layers Once as I uh as I feel very lucky to Have Aptos and Salon as well here Um I mean to keep things spicy I'll say That there's going to be kind of a Single chain a single execution Environment Um and it won't really matter how many Settlement environments there are kind Of like it doesn't matter where usdc Actually which bank uscc finally settles In but what matters is where like all The peer-to-peer or like Merchant to Consumer transactions occur and Um why why I think that that's a real Possibility is because Like the technology already exists today To basically move all of crypto Transactions and a large portion of Financial transactions onto one single Unified layer one and you know within 20 Years we are going to see a thousand X Improvement in Hardware so we're gonna See a thousand X more capacity on a Layer one that's a single giant atomic State machine so you can imagine that You can fit everything into one place And usually things are cheaper and Faster kind of more composable when They're in one place I'm just being a little spicy I love These folks and working with them but For the sake for the sake of keeping the Panel more it's gonna be Solana then

That's what that this Salon is designed Specifically with that in mind is how do We Basically accelerate the development of The software so it can leverage as much Hardware as we can and kind of ride that Uh Moore's law that doesn't mean that Hardware obviously improves both polygon And your knowledge proofs and layer twos And all these other things but the Vision is that that's kind of all you Need is that kind of scale and you can Increase capacity to the point that you Can fit everything kind of like you know Google search I think is about 40 to 50 000 searches per second I'm sure there's Lots of other places where people do Search in localized environments and Things like that but the top 100 000 Searches per second all occur on Google The rest kind of like the long tail Doesn't matter it's very possible that That's what happens in the future Um so we'll see All right and then looking at kind of The title of the panel is about Mass Adoption and to be honest you know Crypto really hasn't hit that first Billion users I know everyone calls it The next billion but we haven't even hit First so we'll just we'll call it the First billion uh and on that front I Think one of the best ways for that to Happen is by making it more accessible

And understandable in terms of Mainstream adoption and Solana recently Partnered Solana pay partnered with Shopify we've seen polygon partner with Disney Mo you mentioned some of aptos's Partnerships NBC Universal coinbase pay Etc how do you think these Partnerships Have been successful or otherwise Brought you to another audience that you Might have not already had how do you Kind of quantify that Um I'll go first I guess yeah for my I Kind of you know I used to work at a big Company and we did a lot of work in the Innovation team with like lots of Different startups and I don't think That the CEOs or the boards of these Fortune 500 companies are going to care About crypto until they see like at Least you know one to two maybe five Percent of their revenues to be crypto Related and we're just really really far From that so like a lot of these are Basically these early stops trying to Get these companies to figure out how to Run nodes how to do settlement and then Build out use cases so obviously like I'm super excited about Solana working with visa and Visa you Know choosing Solana to to do like Settlement with usdc for cross-border Transactions that's a very powerful Disruptive use case and my hope is that You know they actually start seeing

Their own real revenues impacted by this And then like that kind of opens the Door for everything else but crypto Still like feels like you know I don't Know like when Bank americard launched And there was like a In a small town like we're still in that Stage Um in with regard to like uh consumer Adoption I guess that's me then yeah so Enterprise partnership is big in polygon And this is something that has made us Really just go over that sort of Chasm We have a very good example with Reddit For example the the 16 million Single collectors have been able to use Their avatars and and they have already Crossed that path that we always think You know it's going to be difficult for The first Millions to get in there and They immediately produced 40 millions in Cells for avatars they don't call it Nfts they call it avatars I find that a A first step it gives you a use case it Gives you a the certainty that that People are willing to go there and I Feel like the loyalty programs is still A big thing uh we have a partnership With Lufthansa where we are actually Going into the whole loyalty points and Rewards and especially if with uh multi Multi-company Exchange so therefore payments and and

Other type of tokenizations still is a Big thing we have a good focus with Banks new bank is one of them as well And not not too long ago we did a this Uh really interesting Workshop where we Had three different banks one Um Stock Exchange uh one e-commerce uh Big e-commerce uh company and they all Were absolutely ready to get started They had already their use case in which They would want to use it the the Technology with and they were ready to Start creating that sort of path into it So I feel like we are ready definitely And at polygon we are always welcoming That that those opportunities for sure Um wow so yeah you you raised a great Point there is you know forget about Billions of people there's not one Application that anyone in this room Uses that has one million daily active Users and that's web3 based and that I Think is something to just keep in mind As we think about Innovation happening And so how does that change right Um I do think that distribution from Large Enterprises has been interested They've all dipped their toes they've All experimented in previous protocols But they just don't feel comfortable With the infrastructure being where it Needs to be Aptos was building a blockchain for Billions of people previously known as

The DM Libre blockchain and we knew the Reliability issues and the performance Issues and the cost issues of existing Protocols was just not there for Billions of users for Facebook And so you know when we went out there With our protocol we realized this is Something unique and special that we Offer in the market And so you know we realized all these Different use cases Of course it's amazing to see web3 Builders and developers get excited but They haven't been able to break through Yet we've seen hints of product Market Fit in some applications but nothing That actually has been sustainable for Long term This is where leaning into Enterprises Makes a lot of sense and so when we have Conversations with folks like MasterCard On how do you start building the next Generation of financial infrastructure Well you need identity and credentialing To work and you needed to work for Billions of people and so that's Something that we're working on with uh With MasterCard and we're excited about That When we think about all the different Challenges that things like AI are Facing having verified information being Able to share data to create new Democratized AI models Microsoft chose

Apptos for their AI initiatives and That's been amazing to see months of Work to get them to to get over the Finish line and so when you need these Large Enterprises you now start to get You know not only millions of app users But potentially billions of users using Web3 without having to even realize it And NBC as you mentioned Jaclyn is a Great example of that we launched a Movie with them where ticketing was made Available through playing a game that Game led to prizes that someone won and Those prizes were strong signal for NBC To say hey Moe likes this you know Dracula based game and he can get Tickets to a movie theater uh to that Movie because we have better signal There and they can offer me incentives Directly while I'm playing this game I'm Winning uh what is an nft it's being Stored in a wallet and no one knows Right I don't need to know that all this Is happening at the back end and so for Us you know aptos's perspective is the Tipping Point will come when all this Web3 infrastructure gets abstracted and Obfuscated completely to the background And that's what we're starting to see With everyone starting to pick Aptos and We're really excited about that and and I would agree I think um with what Totally said you know it's hard to tell Where we are with the landscape today

You know there's no clear winner and so Working with Enterprises for someone Like Aptos starts us to get to that path Of distribution at scale without people Realizing it I would Our partnership is a win and I'm not Specifically saying any of the ones that Any of you mentioned because I'm not Inside the companies or foundations of How that looks for you guys but which Industries or companies do you think Crypto companies and blockchain Foundations should stay away from that Maybe you've you know had conversations With or worked with and you've felt like This is not a value add they're not Ready yet or they just don't want Anything to do with this There were a lot of use cases I think That were like Uh very much Consulting driven like Tracking salmon on blockchain from 2017 And I think if you look at the use case And you strip away like can you just run Us in a database you kind of quickly Realize that like that's doesn't have Enough of like of a hook to actually Depend on a public permissionless chain And then it's not going to to work or Deploy so you kind of you have to Analyze those I think honestly the Industry has gotten a lot better with Its uh attempts to build credible like

Um Pro you know credible things that get To Market to Consumers and I haven't Really seen as many of those as they Were like really really popular in 2017. I I would argue that it's not that they're Not the right companies or you know sort Of thing it's a it's probably is this Technology Really there to cater to that particular Use case and I feel like that's uh That's one of these the the great Problems that we we were discussing and Confronting and the answer to that was To create an environment or an ecosystem Where you would have multiple chains That could be very specific to Particular use cases and so the problem Of like And we really we're really not great for You because we're totally decentralized Or because you need uh to comply with a Certain uh particular conditions and Maybe have uh some specific compliance Uh that are regulatory based and and and They are important you know I'm talking About maybe the fintech That problem was solved with uh with What we have now a cdk which is a chain Development kit which is it's Essentially a validium or a uh a CK Roll-up that has a data being stored Separately so it is a very efficient Fast and cheap

Network or a protocol that can adjust Itself to this particular needs so I Don't think there is a such thing as These companies or not right these Companies don't get the technology that They need and that's where the problem That we are fixing You're curved up I mean tracking salmon on chain 2017 that's a that's a good one Um and and I do agree with that um that I think another popular use case That was difficult to come come to Market was real world assets or Tokenization And in 2017 that world felt pretty Impossible I founded a startup focused On that specifically And that industry requires a lot of you Know stakeholders being brought along The journey right anyone from issuing Those assets to under underwriting and Issuing those assets to ultimately Distributing those assets trading them And then of course everything that Happens Beyond Um uh the issuance and and post-trade Settlements Today however I think we're starting to See good signs of that evolving real World assets has become a massive theme And it's not only because all these Stakeholders are now willing to come Across on the journey but they're

Willing to come across on that Journey Because all the pieces are there money Is on chain with things like stablecoin You just saw PayPal launch there's over The summer and that's a very strong Signal for all of us and you're starting To see trillion dollar asset managers Tokenizing money market funds and Portfolios and that's a very strong Signal and so you know I would say what Was once not possible and not a good use Case has probably leapfrogged and become A massive use case and you know we're Very fortunate to have some of these Trillion dollar asset managers working And tokenizing real world assets on Aptos And I feel like a major thing nowadays Is the need for a killer use case in Crypto it's a conversation I have all The time and I'm sure you guys do too Especially about building on your own Chains and we talk about real world Assets that's a category that some People think maybe that killer use case Do you think it will come from a crypto Company or a traditional company that is Using crypto or blockchain technology That then creates their own use case That would bring on mainstream adoption Is that question making sense yeah Um I generally focus on crypto native Companies to be the disruptors Um you know maybe because of my you know

Spend my career at Qualcomm the stuff That I'm excited about are things like Deepen like helium And Hive mapper so These are Purely crypto token incentivized Networks that deploy physical hardware And are able to to kind of put all of The magic of crypto you have Decentralized ownership you have crypto Economics and incentivize like people to Go do something and then that ties to Consumer value like a five dollar data Plan you know for from Helium that to me Is like the most disruptive magical Thing when all that stuff comes together I think it's really hard it would be I Don't know nearly impossible I think to Convince a telecom to do that even Though that seems like they should know How to do that too Um and it's going to take like a small Crypto Scrappy startup to go prove that Out Um but once that once it's proven out You know like I think you know they have A lot of smart work folks working for Them they'll they'll also figure out how To replicate that in-house I I agree I definitely agree I think the Uh the the next wave of disruption is Definitely going to be within the crypto I I feel like there isn't a uh an Appetite to for for traditional Companies for what two companies to

Change too much their business model and And I I understand I understand it has Already been proven and they are Successful in the way that they are I Don't think that that the need is so Much in that space but it would be in The in the crypto and I mean ethereum Already is a good example of how it has Natively created this this sort of uh Audience and and this sort of Attraction Right I mean none of us would not be Here it wouldn't be here because this is Where we are and I feel this is just Getting bigger you know the audience uh That we are catering to is is just get Larger we have bull markets we have bear Markets we clean up we bring people back Again it's uh it's kind of like the the Cycle that we go through but uh Definitely it will come from uh from Crypto companies Um so I think we've been we've been Waiting for some of those web3 native Crypto companies to Um showcase billion user applications We haven't seen them yet we've seen very Strong signs in product Market fit Signals again and I think you know for For Aptos we want to continue supporting Those projects through Foundation grants Or giving them a path forward without Having to go through the necessary web 2 Journey And I think that that La that decreased

Friction will ideally help these Projects come to Market faster today Compared to web 2 projects Um However I think you know maybe I'll give The spicy take on this question we do Feel that there is You know interest in Enterprises that's Bubbling up in a very aggressive way in The background it may not appear that Way today but there are companies that Are building some very interesting Products that you know I'd love to talk About in the future but I think a good Analogy uh to pay attention to is Companies have disrupted themselves in The past right I mean we're here at Disrupt now think about it oh you know Um think about Netflix right they used To mail DVDs to your house and they Realize this doesn't work and you know Experimented with brittle infrastructure Unknown technology and took a shot at Streaming Bolt and now all they do is streaming it Would sound ridiculous to have a DVD Mail to my house Um and so large Enterprises are Absolutely willing to disrupt themselves And you know for us we are that Infrastructure as Aptos that they're Experimenting with that will be in my View some of the the agents for Disruption Within These companies and

Themselves that allowed them to exist in The future in fact I would say that Maybe even more than 25 percent of their Revenue might come from our technology Bottom line Improvement and and Inefficiency management may also come From this technology and so things like Interoperability and composability end Up being features for a lot of these Companies and how they exist in the Future so we're very excited about Enterprise adoption yeah I think on that Note similar to what you're saying about PayPal and the reason I asked that Question is you know as someone who Covers this industry I want to be Optimistic that it will come from a Crypto company but there's also the Chance that someone like PayPal or Reddit who already have millions of Users uh will be the ones to do that we Saw Reddit launched some digital digital Collectibles I can't even say it because All I say is nfts and it ended up with Millions of wallets you know and PayPal Launched their stable coin and we're Still seeing how that will develop but On that front it also comes with a bit Of red tape I would call it I talked About this on the last panel but Obviously the regulatory environment Exists and I have to ask you guys about This how is that kind of impacting the Way you operate your businesses both in

The states and globally I I can take this one first I mean I'm Surprised I'm not falling asleep I just Got back from Singapore Um I'm keeping you awake that is true The energy from this crowd I was in I Was in Singapore last week I was in Hong Kong the week before and in Korea uh the Week before that and so you know the Amount of people at these conferences The people that we meet at the Enterprises that are U.S based that end Up showing uh showing face in Asia has Been unbelievable And so you know I I don't know You know where we are today and I know We were kind of chatting about this Backstage You know you have to look at the crowds You have to understand where the world Is moving Um and you know for us it's very Exciting that we're seeing all this Activity in Asia but of course you know We're a Bay Area based company and you Know a U.S entity and so we would love To see a lot of that activity uh be Happening here just as well just as much Um so you know we are optimistic there Are things that we think are again good Signals and tea leaves to read uh but Right now I don't think the world is Waiting for places where there's Question marks they're going to where

They're seeing a lot of activity and you Know fortunately for us it's it's in uh In Asia right now Uh from our side we're a very regulatory Friendly team So we're we understand where we need to Go and we're very Global as well So we make sure that we are providing The infrastructure that is right for Those applications to be compliant and I Think that's that's what we put the most Effort we are protocol and we we try to Decentralize as much as possible all the Operations within the protocols but Those are centralized are very clear They have clear guidelines on how that Centralization takes place and and who's Responsible for what so from our side uh You know we're we're we're always very Friendly with with this stuff and it Doesn't really impact our business Um I wrote a op-let about this that was Polish and Fortune I mean like I think Frankly U.S is seeing its Edge in Innovation and crypto Um Electric Capital published a report Where they saw that the share of Developers that are working on crypto Dropped from like 40 to 20 in our own Hackathons we've even seen like a worse Drop we went I think from something like 40 percent of participants being from The us now being closer to 10 in the Latest one and that's simply because

There's no clear regulatory like path For any us developer to do anything in Crypto right now so it's like a very Very frustrating experience because All the best you know like Some of the best Engineers are in the US US has been like you look at the top Innovative companies in the world I Think the top five are all United States Based and there's no reason why that Shouldn't be the case for crypto as well So really unfortunate and um some Promising signs is there are two bills They're not perfect being worked through Congress I hope that within like a year Or so maybe if not this year then next Year something gets passed and then we Can actually go back to building All right yeah I think it'll be Optimistic on that front it seems like We're going to get some uh regulatory Clarity but to wrap things up let's say Each of you could be the CEO of one of The other blockchains on stage which one Are you picking and why You can't pick your own Ethereum a good answer I can't I I I'm gonna say both I like to be I Like it because there's two worlds in Here that uh that I can think and be Very well leveraged and that they've Offered a very good set of benefits that That can be really used for mass Adoption so I I actually will be very

Happy to have both of this uh controlled Under my power you went from Diplomat to Like monarchy That's how you start to take it all Along one you could pick one I like Grace pick two oh oh oh I would pick Polygon I think the investment in like Zero knowledge VMS has been really cool To see play out that's we you know my I Can't focus on everything so like Solana Is focused in a particular path for Optimizations I would love to have also Been able to do 10 other things and ZK Is one of those things that's a complete Nerd snipe and very fascinating and just Kind of like miracle that it works today In any in any way No it's easy for me I I mean I started Off my career at consensus Um in the web 3 world and so been a big Ethereum fan I still am today Um and you know obviously have a lot of Respect for what polygons has done for That community Um and you know I think what I love About polygon is they're actually Looking at what we're building and Implementing it we issued something Called block STM Which polygon helped Help helped uh kind of take to the Forefront and adopt as well Um and it led to some improvements so You know I think there's this amazing Synergy that we've already been I love

That yes and um and yeah we're very Proud of uh of that so thank you awesome A lot of polygon love up here today Mo Grace Anatoly thank you so much for Taking the time to talk and thank you to Everyone for listening in been wonderful Thank you [Music]