Fireside Chat with Stani Kulechov: The Opportunity Driving Stablecoin Adoption

GM GM that works oh man I just asked Julian if we were going to have a fire spit but uh we don't no fire we don't fine it's fine it's fine it's fine okay stany thank you for being with us this afternoon uh last time I saw you it was at Etc you just come from one day because you just had a kid yeah um con to thank you how has it been so far being a father being being a father in rip tree um very good it's it's um quite I have a lot of respect for um parents who are who are here and and traveling to conferences and working in crypto um it's definitely um not an easy thing but it it changed my perspective quite a lot um you know sometimes I just put my work aside and say like D5 will be there tomorrow as well or there might be a war room where I'm changing diapers at the same time so it depends on the day well I'm I'm glad you thinking this way like uh being able to go to sleep and be like hey well hopefully the protocol will still be there tomorrow did it also change your perspective on what you're building and what impact you want to make yes maybe from a perspective of kind of like a what you want to um leave for the future and and what's relevant um but also thinking about other Generations as well so I've been so far building um quite a lot products for myself so ironically um our protocol um I'm person a power user and I I I basically build in a way uh with our team and and brainstorm features that really um goes into my own personal use as well and and trying to kind of like a think and and build um for similar user types and you know having kids kids actually helps quite a lot to think about like you know what future Generations actually want and and might need and and thinking about like what what what kind of behavior um they have obviously my kid is too young to um AP into any kind of a yield forms um have to wait for a few months more um but you know yeah it's it's interesting to follow what younger Generations um are doing and what's important because we're effectively we're not really building a financial system for ourselves um we probably will use it for for some time and we will govern decentralized Finance but end of the day uh what's important is that what are the future users are going to do um I personally for example I think the fin fincial uh um system that I'm living um definitely isn't designed for me um I've never had a bank loan in my life and I applied um and I moved from one country to another um and applied mortgages and never have been granted but in defi uh things are different more permissionless so so definitely there's a lot of um thinking in my my head about you know what uh what we should build for for future users and so your kid will need a stable coin built on top of a that's the the mindset right now mindset is um thinking kind of like what's most beneficial for the a users um and a is uh fascinating community and our ecosystem because we have a really great Community we do a lot of uh things in the of AOW um you know there is direct service providers that are contributing you know if you are doing some sort of um some sort of a web pre Services risk management um or any kind of U similar activities that help uh the Dow or the the protocol itself you can um be contracted directly by the Dow but at the same time you know we have users and uh more and more i' I've been thinking about um what's the most important thing for the users so for example with the idea of of of go um main idea was to solve liquidity crunches for the um okay of the protocol effectively um so thinking always users for first is the way to create a community in my opinion so we are like three four four months five months after the creation of go oh the release of go yes roughly and it's uh I check I checked the price before starting jumping on on the on the stage it's 0.95 to a dollar uh what about the dpeg was it intended well that's an interesting interesting topic because um whereas um yeah you can see go currently under Peg uh what I call it is a growth Peg um and what I mean by that is that you know the Ava Community actually decides um you know what they want to set the interest rates uh we as the team and the company uh we we just build software and there's other software contributors um in the ecosystem as well and and everyone is doing great job on on upgrading the protocol and bringing new features and in terms of go um and the parameters for example decided uh was to set an interest rate that isow lower than the market rate um and it's actually has been quite um calculated um decision and and coordination um mainly because it's really hard to actually grow a stable coin um I actually got a first feeling how it uh how it f feels and how it might have felt in the early days of the um maker D Community as well but especially because effectively what a protocol is it's a um Market where you can supply digital assets um you can earn yield and you can borrow against your assets and obviously the main benefit is the calization um and then if you have a um decentralized exchange you can actually use the liquidity from a decentralized exchange to boost strap um a stable coin so our perspective comes more from our power is the collateralization but you can't really use a stable coin um as a collateralized asset in the beginning so our kind of like a way of going to the market and and finding growth is is with the um interest rate what that is lower what the AA users were actually getting at that time um and still currently in the market and that way we got grow by just our existing users swapping from existing stable coins to to go well to be honest we also so um go passports which had a ra ticket and some a [ __ ] and we sold like 300 of those so like there's bunch of things that we're we're doing as a community to to grow go and there's like 35 million something go in circulation yes and that's the kind of like a borrow cat limit so there can't be more um go for now unless the a dow decides to increase that uh borrow cap so the only way to get go is now through an open market so looking back over those months is after the launch like what did you feel like you did right and what did you feel like you did wrong for for any a copy in the room that would like to launch their own token no I've really noticed that there's a lot of Builders here um and a lot of familiar faces that are are are actually like um building decentralized finance and also trying to Envision what's the future of of money and I think something we realize is that I wouldn't put too much pressure or thinking about you know what the what the general G def public things you know because in most cases they're not the users um and usually when I was seeing like um discussions about the um go Peg usually they are from other stablecoin um teams which is great because end of the day we're one big Community but the main thing that is really important is um your users and what benefit you're doing and whether you're doing the right thing so I think we're focusing quite a lot um on building a community but what's also equally important is to think about who are the users and and why they need um a stable coin um even if there is existing stable coins out there and what are the benefits for the users um and for the a protocol example you can actually have more uh control by the AA Community to issue more liquidity directly into the protocol bringing benefits um bringing also more predictability to interest rates um so we our our approach was purely more from the um user pers perspective than actually um more kind of like what what we can solve generally but the vision is bigger so the vision is about um how we can actually um reinforce the infrastructure with decentralized finance and stable coins and actually get stable coins into actual usage because um a lot of folks that are using uh stable coins are obviously early adopters um people in in in in our community here um but the next question is then like how we actually get uh more uh stable coins into real usage as well to average people so if we sum up like taking a step back at the a ecosystem you have the landing protocol okay that's what you're known for uh you have aoi a game based on the a IP uh there's a lens protocol social network let's say um you have a well RAV which is like event lifestyle um thing you have a stable coin now it it kind of is a lifestyle I've seen people you know traveling for that too do you do you see go as a way of uh uh like ruling them all uh like bringing everybody together um in this ecosystem of application that are tending to get out of the web tree Niche um it's hard to say at this point because um I mean the a protocol has um uh product Market fit to some extent and so there's um there are people for example that will will be they are willing to pay for they are paying for um the utility that the AA protocol provides um and w't be happy necessarily that if if that kind of facility will not exist um as a user um but then again go is very um young in fact I call it l go because you know it's still a small stable coin um and even we have a big Vision where it should go and where decentralized Finance not just a but everything should go um in the future um it's really hard to tell what it's actually going to break in and it boils down to a bigger question is that uh web Tre in general um you know it it's in a state where a lot of people actually comparing to you know the the com boom um I think we're kind of like even maybe like 10 15 years um before that stage in the evolution of web 3 basically where we're trying to actually like like we have the hardware um we have the operation system um and we're trying to figure out the interface how do we interact with the blockchain so basically what we're think is that um we're the in the era of trying to figure out how to build a personal computer for the blockchain that anyone can actually use and have an interface um so it's that kind of early and you can see it because you know um if you talk about stable coins with your um nonpr friends you know they they don't have any idea what you're talking about and and and normal people as well but I do believe that um the way that we could get more growth is that we start to see more um I would I would not say only transaction but if we see more um trading of goods and services on chain and using um the blockchain as a way to reflect these transactions uh whether through payments or rwas um we can actually get closer to to growing um the gross domestic product onchain gross domestic product and that grows the economy um of web Tre more would that would that come from uh building a new form of Shopify or would that come from having your own credit C to expose go to the messes it's really hard I mean there's really brilliant people working now on getting you know kind of like a decentralized backend um using decentralized backend and decentralized finance and then attaching card services that you can actually pay everywhere with a card and that's um very exciting but it's really hard to actually get um adoption um in in in physical places and some somewhat I could see that uh we might get even faster adoption in digital spaces um but buying and selling you know Digital Services or digital Goods or using the blockchain for those kind of settlement so I think that might be where um we'll see a bit more faster adop option and I think just the kind of like a missing part is the um interface what I was say mentioning about and and just to say what I mean by the interface is that you know we all that are building decentralized Finance you know we're kind of like a you know more of like a backend you know developers and uh we're building infrastructure and like what's missing is is like a really good endtoend products that have really good experience and design and are something that's you know normal people can actually reflect to and lot of the infrastructure is still being built like the account obstruction and uh whatnot but we're we're getting closer to a point where you don't need to build anything any infrastructure in decent Finance in fact to build a defi product you will probably focus more on the application itself and and the experience and that's why I think it's probably the best time to build uh defi products because you don't need to care about um the protocol level and and trying to figure out how to make it secure and you know competitive because you can just focus on getting users and keeping those users by Building Products that they love I think there's a a slight Paradox on on that front because when you when you talk about having a mean of exchange or having a cryptocurrency a stable coin however you want to put it that is widely used for the consumption of Digital Services and digital Goods uh you at the same time considering like who who are the people buying those type of of services and goods and it's mostly people from developed countries with mature Financial systems so people that already have lots of means to access those kind of of services and goods while at the other end of the spectrum uh we often hear things about oh yeah adoption in Argentina is great because it's too inflationary or in Turkey is getting lots of inflation as well so adoption is supposed to be here as well um and yet you can imagine that there is probably less consumption of digital good and Digital Services in countries that are struggling with all the topics um would you uh would you hope for uh a mo modern country mature country switching to blockchain because it's easier like because the the fees for using Shopify will be less uh or or or stripe will be uh less if you were using go or something like this I I mean um there is more upside if you can actually there there's more upside if if if you are targeting a developed Market because you can make a lot of impact at the same time and um you can actually create very powerful products but I personally think it works both ways so a lot of the tech that has been um adopted usually happens uh quite often on on develop developed countries and there's a lot of builders that are incentivized to actually build these products and then scale globally but I think it works both ways because you know at the same time Europe is very well known that you know the banking system works to some extent well um in UK you can send funds to you know your friends and family and it's get settled it gets settled um in few seconds so in in places where the infrastructure doesn't exist that's going to be there's going to be more upside for for doing so so I I do think that an approach where you can actually both of the approaches work um and obviously it it really depends on the the end end user product that um what what the developers are are building but I do think that we have a global problem um like significant problem in economy you know and its inflation you know I I read today that the UK was celebrating um that they had 2-year low inflation and that was uh 4.6% you know people are just like they have forgotten that what you know inflation used to be um years ago so um and it's it's not just Argentina and um let's say turkey and and a lot of the regions in also developing U countries but you know in in the Western countries as well um you know people losing savings and people losing money um and it's a it's a big problem so I I I do think that fundamentally building a universal uh Financial system has a lot of a lot of value and what throws economy very well is actually connecting people right so for example just taking examples from history you know when you started to have like trade going between between um cities um in the nordics that increased a lot of um economy and then trading between countries and and global trading increased the economy the internet itself increased the economy um uh quite a well because you could actually buy anything across globally so I think blockchain and decentralized finance will actually make it even easier because you know you are a liquid citizen so you know you can choose to use of a protocol you can choose to use um something else and you know to to make that swap is is very easy you just go to another frontend and connect your wallet and move your funds and I think if it's that easy it just becomes more efficient to trade and make business and you have less counterpart at risk so that itself helps quite a lot so what I what I hear from what you say is that you are putting more emphasis on building a good protocol with good interfaces that's easily credible and it's at the end of the day delivering a good product for adoption at large rather than focusing on specific regions or specific type of customer I would say I we're focusing mostly on on building the best possible products that the users can have regardless where they are and I think that's great in in in defi because um your Market is global right and if you can increase the financial opportunity across globally and and balance the uh Financial OPP opportunity that's that's that's great but effectively the way we build products in our team we're just trying to think and figure out what users are doing uh what's the the behavior and and how we can actually help them and and what's the feedback loop so I I I think fundamentally we have to go back uh into the mindset of thinking how to build good products and and that's what basically will help us to understand whether there's a product Market fit or there there isn't and if there isn't what's the next St we can actually and try and and and learn from from there so I think it's effectively Going Back to Basics and and trying to build things so in in an inflationary uh environment like uh there is a lot of focus put on uh lending protocol and lending OPP lending opportunities just to protect yourself against the like the the loss in purchasing power that you may have in the future like um on on your end like you personally what is your best bet against inflation yeah it's it's really hard because there isn't like a way to actually um effectively protect yourself um I do think that some of the steps after having access to a stable currency what happens is that you have some sort of access to um Consumer Price indexes but also scaling those are very hard um on a blockchain but that could be one option but effectively it has this kind of like um uh model where you have to just actively be smart about your money and manage them and the good thing about the blockchain and defi is that you know it's transparent and you can build this kind of like aggregators or um money managers on chain in a transparent way so I I think regarding to inflation I don't think anyone is really um can fully protect but at the same time um you can find Opportunities on chain and and make it even more fluid how you can actually protect yourself in in in in the future um but that's why the the situation is bad because we're relying even with stable coins we're relying to Fiat currencies um and the problem with Fiat currencies obviously is that you know they're issued by central banks at their own uh will and and that's very hard to actually uh fight against unless you're backing with with something more uh more like a harder assets yeah I've never voted for a central Banker that's the kind of thing I'm sad about like whenever you have election in France specifically or even in Luxembourg uh you don't vote for a candidate that will tell like I this is the guy I will put at the hand of at the head of the Central Bank um but I like what you say when you mentioned what it takes to be it takes you need to be smart about your money right do you see that as a blocker for uh decentralized finance and Finance in general the the lack of financial literacy uh for some of the users and are you doing anything towards the direction yeah even if you're were hearing uh run stalk for example earlier I I think something interesting he mentioned is that you know Finance shouldn't be like very like a complex thing that you should be scared to manage your funds and your your your wealth um in instead it should be it should feel like a game and I do agree with that point is that you know um we have to find ways that are really easier to digest by the consumers and and find what what is the way to actually um create that interaction uh layer with with with users for us it's it's purely like we want to just you know design things better and and make them make our applications more relatable um easy to use and you know defi applications in general should be easier than than um more traditional uh banking applications and money application and actually in some parts they are like you know if you are in a permissionless environment it's really easy to onboard you connect your wallet it's that easy versus doing a you know kyc uh in in the long uh form uh but getting into that uh an environment where you know you have cryptographic assets um that's the hardest part to actually the the the the onboarding part so there's sort of stuff to still to build but that's why like as I mentioned like I'm excited about defy now because you can focus on that like a super unique experience and those will be the bigger companies actually and the bigger brands of of defi that are able to um nail it but from um from a web two perspective from a mid space perspective uh in order to to uh educate someone on finance or in order to give an advice to someone on finance you need to be a financial advisor you need to be you need to have a license you need to be wearing a suit or having a meeting in and showing only assets that are uh vested and and blue blue checked and so on um like it doesn't take anything to do a web tree based advice um I I mean about the education if and going back to the products because I know there's a lot of billers here and and thinking how to um how to solve and and program money um I just think that you know if applications are really good enough you know and you've done a lot of user testing and you have listen to the users and trying to figure their paying points um you you need less of that education so it's kind of a journey for you um going into defy and achieving your goals um but I do think some amount of Education is important and I do think that um over Generations the way we uh feel about money and finance changes all the time and there's lot of reasons for that so for example um um previous generations you know they work hard on a day-to-day and gave their funds to someone who actually had better understanding about markets who could read the markets who could understand what's happening in the global economy um but for example today especially thinking about myself I grew up on online right um so I I basically got information access things I could read about that didn't exist in libraries um or or school for example and I had the direct access to information so your um kids in the future probably have the same experience growing on chain you know so they actually see everything that is happening on chain transparency and can make better decision so that kind of a situation where um the normal um average um kind of um people that um are out there and less um maybe are doing less financial decisions they can actually make better decision than previous generations because of the information that is available and I think that's the frustration that comes maybe from my generations and and probably the upcoming ones um that you know you're smart enough to manage your money and you have also social component there as well because you see how other people are managing funds on chain um and and you want to do it yourself or you can delegate as well but um definitely like the way we um think about Finance has changed quite a lot so I would have loved to ask you some question about the real world asset you know it translates uh into this maybe Bridging the experience between the old generation and New Generation inside def at large but I I'm seeing the the timers saying we are out of time is it is that we are the time I think we have 23 minutes yes okay um so yeah okay so I I agree with what you said between being able to manage your own money and uh and and the perspective from the older generation uh so do you see a way to bridge that with the reward asset initiative that you may have at a or do you expect to be listing also um real word asset as a in your in your lending protocol at some at some point we've done some experimentations so there's uh a wonderful team called centrifuge which we created with them together a real world asset mod Market um with the credit that they issue on chain and that was um quite exciting experience as a separate um a protocol Market um but also there's I I I could in I could see more and more treasuries bearing on chain at the same time and and maybe also seeing real world assets backing um go as well but it it really depends on the appetite of the community and the AV how much they want to actually um have real world assets also um backing um go um but yeah in general it's it makes a lot of sense to combine these two worlds and reflect value that is um offchain um and get it into onchain an environment where it can be traded and programmed um efficiently so I do think that's that that will happen at some point but go is still small so it's still little go so let's not forget about that um and at some point that point comes where real world asset becomes uh important for for the a a ecosystem system so let us have um let's let's have go grow up and eventually rep soon that's that's what we can uh we can wish for the the near future of uh of a I think yes I I think so and um how many of you have already um go that's actually quite good um how many of you have ra ticket it's equal amount did you all buy a Go pass who has a Go pass oh that's cool that's nice so that's like that's actually like you're using go to buy stuff um that I think that's very fascinating no it's super cool but it's it's it's near stuck in the web tree Niche i' love I love uh for uh someone to uh like on board with no wallets and get go and then do something like from someone from outside of the of the of the web free space just looking at the the rooster for a and say like I want to see the DJ how do I get into this party oh it's a crypto body I don't have a wet what is a wet we we actually have um we did together with rad radio a a kind of um collab where you can actually tip the DJs tonight with go and that's pretty cool um you know I I wanted additional things that you could do with go in dve but our team said like you need to shut up like there's so many things already um but that's that's a real reality like we like we should start using things we build you know and you know support each other and I think that's where we get at least really um interesting um circulation within our community I can't wait for having people trying to uh uh bribe the bouncer at their entrance of Ravi saying like I just tip the DJ let me in yeah if you pay higher gas all right um I think we're at those time so well thank you a lot sty for for this fire side chat I than so much thank you [Applause] everyone