What Will the NextGeneration of Crypto Killer Apps Look Like? | KBW2023

[Applause] hello ladies and gentlemen uh thank you so much for uh warm welcome um and my name is John Park I run a company called a41 which is a validator company and blockchain infrastructure company based in solsoft Korea and I would like to uh toss over the mic to Jordie uh who's a who's a chief chief Alchemist at mental hi everybody um so yeah I'm Jordi I'm working very closely with mantle mantle is a layer to built on ethereum and I spent a lot of time not so much on the developer side but more on trying to think about the user side the apps um where are we going from here like you know we had an amazing Bull Run 2021 was was probably the peak and a lot of good stuff came out of it and a lot of bad stuff as well and now uh it's so exciting to actually be a part of you know the layer 2 Wars as we'll talk about and uh trying to think about capturing users and capturing the right developers and the right teams and it's a fascinating topic I I have a lot of uh interesting discussions every day and I'm I'm sure we'll get into some of uh some of the strategy side um but yeah Alchemist basically means you know trying to bring a little bit of magic to uh to the space you know we have a lot of people that want to use crypto they're very excited about it I meet a lot of enthusiasts and we need to kind of get there in terms of giving them you know sustainable and great apps to use yeah and um Jordy you just mentioned magic and also L2 Wars so let's get right into it I mean it's uh Alchemist in the L2 Wars it sounds like a sounds like a good wording right um so out of like I think blockchain or crypto industry so far has had so many narratives and so many discourses uh whenever we had bull market or even bare market right and I think for the past um throughout this year I think um there were so many l2s that were popping up and ZK was another like trending idea as well but um when mental uh came up like I was like also questioning myself what would mental do in order to excel itself in order to differentiate itself from all these l2s that are coming out saying that they're different how how is mental different and how would you win this L2 War yeah I think there's going to be multiple winners but you want to be one of the good ones right so um you know hasib has this Infamous uh uh concept of blockchains As Cities and I think l2s are cities in a way and we already see you know something like base is has certain characteristics you know it's attached to maybe the US the US users um we've seen a lot of rug pulls there even in the first days which San Francisco I you know I used to live there and I've seen you know your car get smashed every three days don't leave anything in um even like sunglasses it's gone at the same time San Francisco has this like amazing kind of creativity that comes out of the out of the chaos so we saw something like friend Tech which was a totally New Concept for social fi uh which you know everybody else now is is taking notice and trying to figure out is this going to be a trend like you know where do we go from here and and it kind of arrived in in a place like San Francisco like like base which is based there um and we have a lot of other uh l2s coming up I would say most of them are focusing like on ZK Tech you know they got a lot of hundreds of millions of funding from VCS to really kind of hone in and build build the VC build like the tax site um mantle is quite different so we're very much focused on like the user the community and and the Dow and kind of like having this like treasury incentive that you can use and it's a modular uh chain it's the first modular chain which basically means you can take kind of like the best of what everybody else is doing so all the ZK guys you know polygon is they have some incredible I've talked with s deep about the stuff that they're building and they have some great technologist here some of the top ZK guys in the space and Linea you know you kind of go down the list it's great we'll kind of like Let Them Fight their War as to who has the better you know ZK provs and the better uh pieces of the technology and then we can just take that put it into the modular chain similar to how how we've kind of chosen for the data availability layer um to you know make fees a lot cheaper for the users you don't need data availability on ethereum on dl1 um you know there's there's much cheaper fees if you if you don't do that for users the gas is lower um so ultimately like the vision is to focus more on the apps and the users and create that experience and when I think about cities like you know you guys kind of choose where to live maybe some of you live in Soul some some of you live in other cities I personally live in Singapore is quite similar to you know Tokyo or soul in some ways and the reasons I live there and I think is the reasons you know people choose which blockchain to use is you know know number one security we've seen so many rugs and so many uh scammers and you know every chain and it's kind of sad to watch like you have something like salana which you know was in 2021 I don't know if did you use Solana yeah so we all I think we all probably use Solana all of us was in the space because it was it was so exciting it was like an alternative L1 it was very cheap fees they have all these cool graphics it was really nice but unfortunately you know the just with FTX and also you know the bridges Wormhole all this stuff it didn't really work out too well hopefully they make a comeback but in the meantime what we've realized is you know if I'm a user I'm going to keep my life savings I want to feel safe like I want to know that there's not scammers trying to like like pull the rug um so that that's you know top of the list security um and then liquidity right if you're if you're opening a nice restaurant do you want to open it in a country that you know the GDP is very low like you don't really have people that can go to Michelin star restaurant um that doesn't make much sense unless you know you're so good that people will like fly over just to have you know come to that City just for your restaurant which uh you know has happened um so liquidity is another one that we focus on and unfortunately yeah again like salana there's some great apps great Builders great developer Community but there's not a lot of money flowing in the system there's a lot of uh stable coins so you have you know something like drift like a great trading app but how much stable coin is there for people to uh to make bets and then briefly like the last thing of course is creating like a simple user experience because a lot of us here you know we conferences we probably know how to use blockchain quite well but if we want to go to like Mass adoption the same number of users that you know let's just stay in crypto let's not even go outside just like what binance buybit like these companies have you do need to make it as simple and clear so a lot of the focus goes there I really like your analogy of all the cities and like l2s um and I feel like you know it's it really does remind me of like Asian cities like the mega cities like Tokyo soul and Singapore like when you compare it to kind of mental because it it has liquidity and um like it is is a usability like you know everything is like you know somehow safe you know uh but when like I I think I kind of wanted to ask you a little bit more when you talked about the data availability uh layer because I think that's where uh mental is a little bit different from other l2s as well and as far as I acknowledge mental has a plan to adopt igen da for data availability availability what was the rationale behind choosing Igan da for mental yeah so you know the igen concept of like reaking and you know using what's a huge amount of uh stake deth you know billions and billions of dollars and using that for Security in in other places is is a concept that you know mantle was one of the probably the first one to kind of partner in in such a strong way with igen and and use that infrastructure that they're building we've seen other uh l2s and some of the l1s that became l2s like CeeLo kind of you know use a similar approach and you know when it comes to security you want as much Capital as possible behind the security that you're using um um and like I said yeah we're we're very focused on security and uh let's also touch upon the liquidity part as well um mental has mental da and uh mental DA has so far a humongous budget to that's designated for and allocated for the ecosystem and Community to grow what's your plan or what's the mental plan uh in terms of how you're going to utilize that liquidity so that you can have nice restaurants yeah we want to have the best restaurants we want people to know that they can build shop here and they will get a lot of liquidity and at the same time also for users like if they come in they want to be you know a part of a lot of transactions happening like there's a very busy Market there's a lot of things to do so uh like you said mantle has the largest um treasury in crypto when it comes to non-native assets so eth and stable coins um there's a very large amount of eth it's almost 300,000 eth and uh similarly like a very large amount of hundreds of millions of of stable coins as well so what we're going to use this for is actually to bootstrap the economy of of the city right uh if you're looking at another L2 I don't see how they can compete with already having a lot of community and liquidity to come in and really try to attract that level of user so right now uh what we basically proposed to the Dow um is basically let's start with an initial 160 150 million of the treasury and start deploying it into the apps that want to be very close with mantle um so there's two categories there's like the ones that will get kind of up to 10 million and the smaller ones that will get up to 1 million and it comes to a sense of how much have we invested in the app how much have we looked into it you know there's a lot of talk about docking should Founders be docked or not docked we don't think that it's that important but it is important that somebody knows who's involved and for us to kind of choose a showcase app and to put like at least an initial 10 million behind the liquidity for that app we do want to know like who is this person like you know what's their background talk to them several times um and as a as an economic committee we make we make the kind of due diligence that's needed in order to say okay let's start with an 8 figure uh deployment into this app and and you know smaller apps will start with 1 million um ultimately this will start using our treasury to as you said try to win the L2 Wars by attracting um the activity could you uh I think there there will be a lot of Builders or potential Builders who are going to watch this uh later on and could you walk us through a little bit more details in terms of you mentioned about economic committee as well so it seems like there is a lot of process that's involved in the due due diligence process so how would let's say I assume let's assume that I'm a builder that I want to build on top of mental what do I do in order to actually apply for the grant or like could get invest invested by uh mental da yeah so there's two categories that we have one is you know general purpose grants there is a um kind of a big campaign going on now with 20 million MNT tokens that are sort of allowed to be given out to anybody who's participating as a user or as a builder um and you know that's trying to create a concept of what other blockchains are doing in terms of you know just generate a lot of uh user activity and then there's a second path that is unique to mantle that nobody else uh really is doing where we're saying okay you really want to back teams that we know very well that we can we can say okay we're going to deploy 10 million at least into your app we want to know who you are and those teams have to apply for ecosystem funds so these are more like VC backed um Team teams they're not going to be totally Anonymous random you know hackers putting something together so for these ones what we've done is we've done initial past we've said we want to support 30 apps you know we want defi borrow lend we want a money market we want a uh you know some kind of GMX uh per trading uh you know go down the list we we have infrastructure um you know different derivatives different social fi different types of apps and we're opening up to Community to apply for each one some are already taken so I'm you know I'm pretty excited for a lot of the things we have coming in Q4 that's going to be like when sort of like the tsunami comes for mantle because a lot of the apps that have already been um kind of approved have been building and will be deploying um very soon from from September um we have a lot of open slots you know we want somebody to come and build a social f um so those teams can apply uh for ecosystem funds sort sort of like a VC funding we have a lot of VC Partners there's eight or nine of the top VC funds um partnering with mantle so how it works is you want 2 million of funding to kind of start your idea one of the VC funds will put 1 million once they choose you and the ecosystem fund will co-invest 1 million so we have a $100 million uh ecosystem fund that will go towards sort of VC investing in the apps so like you said we've starting to create a a type of city that is you know much more integrated and it's still decentralized you know you know where your money is you can always check it you can withdraw when you need to when you need to withdraw you you have the full kind of transparency that smart contracts have but at the same time you have entire ecosystem that is built around trying to you know direct people in the right applications and in The Right Use cases sorry um I got millions of questions that are popping up in my mind but uh so like it with all these bold ideas like mental Dow creating an Eco fund and Grant um like what do you expect from like Korean market in Apec Market in general like in terms of Builders where would you what what type of areas would you be specifically like or peculiarly more interested in when it comes down to hey let's say there is a drum Park applying to uh mental doubt Grant like what would what would you expect to see from the Korean market and apic Market in general yeah I mean like I said APAC Market is a lot of inspiration uh for mantle in in many deep ways and in the philosophy um obviously we like to partner with uh you know local local Partners like a41 you know we're creating our uh our staking infrastructure both for mantle but also for uh you know the large amount of eth um so one of the exciting things that we're building is our own products in a way that are part of the Dow that are part of the ecosystem so uh instead of using just Lio which we have deployed 40,000 e into Lio uh we do want to have kind of like that it's the largest uh by far right now so we want to have a lot of Stak eth on mantle but the other thing is we're doing with we're creating mantle eth um internally I'm trying to push the name meth M eth um so if you're into lsds watch out for meth uh it's coming it's coming quite soon in in Q4 uh we'll try to do some meth air drops for people and uh this is kind of an example of using the benefits of the economy that we already have and say okay instead of uh us just sticking with Lio we'll create our own liquid sticking derivative ultimately like one of the visions that I I have for the ecosystem is I think defi 1.0 was great for a checking account you have some money like in your bank you want to spend it you want to go trade okay you can just keep it in usdc or usdt uh you can keep it in eth you can spend it and you know do your things I think the next generation is a savings account so a savings account generates interest generates yield and I'm not talking about the you know wacky 40% yields that we were seeing in in the last bull market where you know basically you're either pulling some some like uh you know pool two token and then you have to sell it before everybody else sells it because it's all going to zero I'm talking about sustainable yield so there's two sources of Base yield right there's um stake de uh staking rewards which is about 5% so we want to make the math um kind of like a native currency almost of the ecosystem where you're holding it and it's generating you 5% no matter you know what else is going on then the next step is stable coins so one of the exciting announcements we're not quite ready it's going to be next week uh but we have a um you know first of its kind massive partnership and we're going to be deploying a lot of the um I guess I might as well since we're here I'll say I'll say a little better I can't give you the formal announcement but we'll be deploying a 9 figure sum um of our stable coins you know USC usdt into um the first of its kind retail accessible stable coin that will have the full yield so you can earn 5% yield right now from us treasuries with all the safety and all the legal guarantees and this will be the first time that um this is available to the public so it's not not for us users uh again we're more International and even Asia focused but as an Asian customer you'll be able to say okay here's my eth here's my dollars I'm generating yield on both and then if you're a little bit Degen like me um and maybe some of the people here you can take those assets and actually deploy them into different dii protocols to you know trade or you know do any kinds of speculation as far as you want to take it but at least you're generating constantly like this yield it's a it's a bold initiatives that are being announced today I didn't know but uh um I mean one thing that really strike me uh as astonishing from mental is that when we first discussed started a discussion about the mental uh doing meth I mean I love the naming but I just feel like this so wrong in many ways but um when we first discuss started discussing about meth I was thinking that mental as a as a DA like but like you know because like a lot of people just assume that it's a bit Dow and like bybit token in a way so I was just thinking that you're just going to build your own platform and like use all your e that way but then like I saw like da governance vote that popped up saying that hey we want to utilize Lio and that passed it was really astonishing because if it were actually single entity driven Dow it wouldn't have happened because it's not like you know it's not really best interest for you like in a sense CU you're using other LSP as well so that that really struck me hard and um do you think this type of uh a governance will be continued in the uh in the in the mental as a ecosystem o overall yeah I mean the whole ethos is that it's Dow Le so there's a lot of feedback always in forums you know Lio made a proposal and there were both sides of the story there's obviously people worried about Li already having too much of the market share and whether this is good for ethereum overall so there is you know there's probably competitors of Lido coming in and saying like no don't they already have too much don't don't choose them um for us we want to do what's best for the chain and so you know just like a shareholder you know expects that the CEOs of of their company that they're investing in will will take their um interests at heart similarly we have to say okay if Flo has this very important role it's sort of infrastructure in a way like we need to have a good amount of stake eth as infrastructure for the project um to be able to create like a good defi ecosystem so the ultimately you know we left it open we're we're open to other um stake de derivatives as well we will have meth um and that will be you know an exciting part that we can incentivize with extra yield uh potentially so it's good to to have uh a vibrant ecosystem and that matters more than you know it's my team and not the other team and you mentioned bibit you know bibit is a great partner it's one of many partners we have you know gaming Partners like uh game seven there's there's a lot of different Partnerships um bit is is a is a is a great partner to have because of you know they have the central you centralized user base which is the easiest to get to so you know Define natives we're already there we want to go like the centralized exchanges which is you know people treating crypto for trading and it's fine to do that like you know speculating and people want to get rich and they want to do these things that's fine the fact that they're already used to the concept and they're used to the blockchains makes it so that we can more easily onboard them um you know create a safe Bridge basically from from centralized exchange and we saw that with FTX how they had salana you know they they created that bridge we see that now with coinbase it's a great way to uh to get you know that next sort of of hundreds of thousands of users and uh obviously you know to get to the millions we we'll need to make things very nice and uh easy to use for everybody else yeah I I don't think we have that much time left but I um I mean it's it it is actually like you know my experience is so far have demystified that like you know uh mental as being bybit token is not basically and the Dow has been a driving force behind that and it was amazing to see see it but um some people here in the room may be asking since you have brought it up like you know how would it be different from Lio like you know why is mental trying to have its own product then how's meth different at I mean at least for now how how is mental team Imagining the the staking liquid staking platform to be a little like how is going to be different from like uh Lio and other LSPs that are on the market so that it could be one of the driving force to make mental to become the winner of the l2s so there's more utility than what Lio can bring that you can potentially create for your own tokens that you're supporting you can create a lot more accessibility you can potentially you know use things as gas you can say okay you want to use meth for gas instead of eth so you can earn yield while you're while you're holding your gas token that's something that we'll explore these are the types of things that you know are harder to to do when it's someone else's um LS LSD um or as it's called now LS p p okay they keep changing it's LS and then LSP so um the idea is to kind of be creative make a make a fun and exciting environment for people that's safe but also has like real yield you're actually putting some of your financial life on a blockchain you want to get returns for it and you know if you want to speculate you can you can go down the Spectrum you know we have like a maau option if you if you want if that's your thing and and you want to go down the route if you want a safer option I mean you know we can briefly just mention Anor for example you know I was kind of very vocal around the time of uh of terraluna and the thing Anker got right back then was it made such a simple accessible product that got you know a ton of people in unfortunately because the the underlying base was not secure but the thing that they did right is basically you don't have to like learn all this mumbo jumbo blockchain all this stuff it's just you know put your money here earn earn yield now the yield was unsustainable and you know the the base currency was a problem trying to imagine what it's going to be like to make like a a safe version of anchor almost if I should say where you're you're generating yield off of us treasuries and off of like organic chain activity um that's something that is worth creating you know a native infrastructure for like math like the um the USD token that is is soon coming out I think um the competitive edges that mental holds or boast on top of other l2s is the spirit of experimenting I think a lot of the l2s are having pretty much the similar Playbook I would say uh from a from a like from a vantage point of uh just a not operator or a blockchain infrastructure provider but um um with that in mind um where would these uh like people in the audience will be able to learn about mental how is it different from other l2s uh and like what are the resources they could tap into CU you introduced yeah so right now there is we've just started a few days ago kind of like the you know airdrop phase in in essence which is sort of a introduction to the chain um so there's you know nft collection called citizens of mantle that people can try to get Whit listed for there are soulbound tokens that you you can basically attach to your wallet that will start tracking your activity so as you're doing things on chain uh you know the more things you do and the more tasks you you complete you start uring points which will eventually kind of you know participate in uh in the airdrop that that's that's being planned um this is sort of like an introduction all the exciting things are just starting now so the reason why a lot of people haven't heard like you know as much about mantle as let's say uh arbitrum uh is because you know we've deployed mainnet very recently and a lot of the kind of killer apps haven't really you know they're sort of beginning now to uh to appear and um I think over the next months there will constantly be announcements in apps and it'll be very exciting so if people want to join they can get their soul B nft and start participating any last remarks that you want to give to the Korean audience and Korean market yeah uh I mean the Korean market is I think a great fit in general for for mantle they they want the experimentation and they want something new and something different um they've probably been burned a little bit with some of the things in the past so they they can appreciate the safety that that can also be brought and um yeah we will we will make sure that both liquidity and security are prioritized I think we're going to see a lot of cities popping up soon like in the L2 area and I hope to see the mental as the one of the Cosmopolitan and the mega City uh out of all the ls and uh thank you so much for all the audience who was uh who gave valuable time for us and uh thank you Jordy for coming all the way to Korea from Singapore and uh spending time with us and sharing all the mental story and uh you're staying here until the end of this week right I'll be here till the end of the week yeah um like if anyone sees Jordy please say hi and uh ask him about mental or our podcast I have a podcast now steady Lads you can watch that as well thinkk thank you so much thank you so much everyone right thank you once again ladies gent please give a big round of applause for Jordy and also um John for amazing job