Panel I What the Fragmentation I Pragma Sydney 2024

[Music] right we are all set up for our next panel and for this panel i' like to get my slides back and uh introduce our four amazing panelists we're going to talk about well the title of the panel is WTF we're going to talk about what the fragment uh obviously as you've detected there's a there's a big theme here around how to deal with the cross world and how we see a lot more things getting more and more complicated and we're going to talk about the things that we can do to mitigate them what kind of problems it raises and and how we kind of think about solving them and the panelist here are four amazing people uh we're going to bring on susitha who is the engineering faculty lead of the University of New South Wales Donna is the chief Community officer of sonar AA is the co-founder flu toop and moderating this conversation with Priscilla who is the founder of spark Innovation so please give all four of them a massive Round of [Applause] Applause yeah it's quite interesting and funny that uh when we decided to choose a topic of a fragmentation for today we actually choose to fill a gap because no one was about to speak about fragmentation and just listening to uh the other person we realize that it's quite an interesting topic for for anyone so yeah what the fragmentation WTH so why do we actually want um to speak about blockchain fragmentation and uh etherum pration is actually a topic it is because of silos there's hundreds hundreds of layer ones of layer twos of bridges Securities around and um how do we fix it can we actually fix it we decided to break down this conversation in three steps so one on the issue and impact how actually frag mation affect things who are impacted what are impacted two the fix is it temporary can we fix it and three the exploration of the frontier and we will be quite futuristic and we will actually share some really good golden nuggets but before we dig in we are very lucky and fortunate to have a great panel today um yeah so cryptographer uh researcher uh breast a wide bran of uh knowledge and experience and um before we dig in we will just have a round of presentation so can you please uh tell me a bit more about yourself one of your project how did you actually hand up into the space me yeah yeah oh please Ida you can stop hi everyone my name is Ida um today I sit here as the co-founder and the chief legal officer for fluidity money um fluidity money is essentially is an incentives based layer a middle layer in the blockchain um you have heard so far that liquidity is an issue um for tokens in the crypto world so fluidity what it does is that it promotes liquidity it incentivizes due to to just move your asset wallet to wallet so that's in the nutshell that is what we are building um we are going to launch our second project on that so watch the space it's called superp position and um it's very exciting I am also the um uh in the founding team for w which is the largest gaming guild in Southeast Asia um and also the co-founder for reinvent which is basically a real world asset project where we tokenize IP assets and basically create a yield on the depth from it I'm also um the president and of women in blockchain Asia and how do I end it up here um uh really by chance really um five six years ago I don't know anything about blockchain um I tried to go back into law after a year or a couple of years of uh taking time out to be with a young family and I stumbled into blockchain at that time six years ago blockchain was very open very embracing and they just welcome anyone I'm one of them uh I came into it not knowing anything I fell in love with the space I love the fact that because I was an m&a lawyer I work for banks where everything is centralized everything is hidden the the motivations and I work for banks the motivations of the lot of the financial sector is to basically to maintain the them and us um and one of the ways to do it is to close the transparency blockchain exposes it blockchain puts everything out there and you can't actually hide it um I love the fact that you can enter in this space with as little as $50 $10 um as opposed to in the um traditional Market where you need to have a credit worthiness and and you have to pass a ticket size so um and I stayed on I love the technology I love the people and I ended up building a few stuff here which I just shared so really that's how it is so really glad to be here and thank you for having me hi I'm sushmita and I'm the uh engineering lead uh for if cyber in unw Institute for cyber security and for those of you who don't know about unsw it's an University Research and teaching University and we are very big on Tech um I'm also an academic in the school of computer science and engineering I'm a cryptography researcher and uh naturally the transition for me into blockchain was you know very obvious I would say um so what I do in general um I built cryptography protocols and Primitives and one of the use case is blockchains so some of the things that I'm really interested in are building um CK proofs um mostly on um trying to improve the proof generation phase um I'm also interested into building more fun fundamental stuff like um uh commitment schemes which are again very uh important Primitives um uh for blockchains in this space I'm very much interested um and I work a lot um nowadays on U Quantum safe cryptography and I feel that's actually going to be one of the important things um to go forward with um and uh I'm also very passionate about teaching and mentoring um I do have a group of uh students and I also interact uh with a lot of our uh students at the University um and encourage uh um building in this space that's from my side thanks thanks well that's an entry uh my name is Donna I am uh the founder of iswi blockchain Academy where we onboard businesses into the ecosystem safely also uh co-founder of the defi Collective uh where a hub of VCS Builders um kohs Traders you name it there are so many smart people in our Guild uh much more smarter than me so I get to ask all these dumb questions and they answer it for me so uh but also I'm here to represent Sona and Sona is a decentralized web 3 iOS system um we're actually out there uh building uh the Technologies to make defi easier so onboarding people into uh the ecosystem um without having to you know have the the stifle or of the uiux so that's mean yes thanks for this round we are actually quite right um glad to be here today uh and we love marketing but also to show that there's a space for everyone including for women actually having techn so if you feel that you're in that situation uh you're not alone and you're welcome in the space so let's dig in first [Music] question amazing panel what do you see what do you see being one of the main fragmentation problem and as you are at it you can also let us know how you actually uh see this issue uh being addressed and we will start with Dona oh thanks um so liquidity fragmentation okay in this space I see its primary forms like there's two primary forms and the first is uh single or single chain fragmentation and what that is is it occurs when uh liquidity is spread across multiple protocols uh within the same blockchain take Unis Swap and pancake swap so both are dominant protocols which accumulates a significant portion of the chains liquidity causing smaller protocols to struggle and to compete um hence this well uneven distribution uh can impact the efficiency of the overall ecosystem in a single chain yes that's yeah so liquidity fragmentation shush what U what is your take so we have been talking about fragmentation in the last um session and um naturally decentralization brings um in uh fragmentation so it's it's quite obvious um uh the type of uh fragmentation that I really um I feel is quite interesting is to see a look into the tech side of things um because there's so many protocols so many Al algorithms uh so many implementations available that uh you know they should be working together in some way but they aren't and I think it's a good and bad thing like you know we have been talking about um having modularity um at the same time we are we are also being having this fragmentation which also in improves I think in some way um having a diversity and also you know encouraging competitive but at the same time it also brings in a lot of challenges when it comes to Tech and let me give give a couple of example so if you think of say uh signatures for example and if you are aggregating signatures and if you have to aggregate signatures multiple types of signatures for something it could be a big problem right and uh similarly if you think of a number of chains that are operating as of now how would you how would These Chains talk to one another one another what would be uh you know the challenges that come in with these uh cross-chain communication think of very s simple example and uh the previous talk uh we just you know we had this uh discussion around swaps uh so Atomic swaps for example if you if you have if one of the chains have htlc support the other one does not how would you do that in the first place so these are some of the questions and challenges that fragmentation brings and again think of the talk um you know earlier from today about audits uh blockchain Audits and so so if you have a number of security protocols it also brings in questions around how to have product audits for each and everything so fragmentation would on one side have that you know competitive Spirit amongst us in the ecosystem at the same time it brings uh challenges uh around interoperability in the design uh specification technology and so on and another example that I would like to um uh talk about say for example to the tech audience here so if you are looking into say hash you know ZK proofs and say for example um uh proofs that are uh ZK friendly proofs so what would be your choice is it posidon or maybe mimc or something of that sort that you would like to have have in your protocol and then the question comes around how do we build around this how does the tech support goes on how do we uh have all these things coming together and uh in in one place so um there's fragmentation we all understand there's uh the the good things about fragmentation but again you know for for for those of of us who are developing um it's also the question around what to choose what not to choose how to integrate different things together um so for me I always find it very funny because um without fragmentation and l1's l2s l3s blockchain itself has always consistently trying to solve the trama issue and we couldn't um so I always find it really odd and funny because when vitalic bararan wrot uh about uh the creation of uh rollups it was talking and solving one of the issues on blockchain which was scalability and speed so the idea was basically you roll up you execute um and you um you you do the um settlement orders in a different layer and then you spit it out back to the L1 layer and therefore by doing that you reduce congestion and reduce cost that was the idea but by in so doing it splits that's how it started it splits the thing and from there we have this conversation where we are now we saw even before this panel they were talking about the issues of fragmentation because of the split out from there modular monolith L1 building on L2 building on L3 all these things that have been trying but each and every one of them POS the same problem you solve one scalability you cannot solve the other one speed you know it it it goes back to the underlying problem of blockchain so for me um there's a lot to pick on to answer your question um one of um because my projects Lally we built deps we I don't build blockchain okay we built deps that sits on a blockchain which is largely automated by smart contract so that is one of the major major thing because when you build a smart contract that's sits on a particular blockchain it doesn't speak to the other it has um a language that's different then how do you integrated and in order to basically make it more cross chain to make it more um versatile in that sense why is it important because let's face it here majority of us who build deps and build all these things is yes to make um is to actually on the technology side um solve a problem but at the same time at the heart of it is the token the token basically Powers this whole these things so if your token lives and only evolves in one ecosystem without moving to the other well you're in trouble same with exchanges if you push your your token and List It On One exchange and it doesn't exit out to go to another exchange you're in problem composability is needed movement is needed hence liquidity that we're facing today so where are we now with all these problems particularly in this area that I raised up I have heard of cross-chain smart contracts um I'm not sure how many of you heard of it ccip can I just see how many oh know you know better than me then okay so I have heard of it and everything is I I'm not a tag person I've just heard of it I've heard that they're trying to solve it basically on the point on the on the DAP layer part which I just uh explained just now which is basically a smart contract that it is composable and and essentially can talk to multiple chains um I will not sit here and say that I have seen it okay maybe they are but I've just I know that in this space that we're always innovating and uh we are trying to make it better um I don't know and I'm not confident at this stage to St sit here and say that we have solved it with one use case and Tara that's there it works um so yeah I there's a lot of things to to think about so I I would say that for those who are here um who are sitting on um and doing building a project okay uh one of the reasons why you're building a project is that all projects needs to be financed let's let's face it okay you need financing you need all these things VCS come and put money into you because they need your token to be launched it is just a a matter of fact it need for it to be launched and even on that aspect um as I explained your token needs to be able to move from one chain to another chain move from one exchange to another exchange it needs to be able to come in it needs to be able to exit out as far as I know today there's only a few exchanges that allows it to be withdrawn at this pool binance is one of them majority of the exchanges do not have that except for decentralized exchanges so um it's something that we have to keep um building on improving and uh we'll see how the future holds yeah exactly speaking of about Innovation and the new things the new shiny things that actually are on the table I know that shushmita has some uh pet projects she's really interested in we we we try and we said it at the beginning we don't want to be too Technical and too deep but um I would laugh I would love to ask uh each of you to give us just one just one idea on something you have in mind for the future of fragmentation wow one idea like I'm thinking of what's trending in 2024 and I think the universal gateway is definitely something that I like to see um happen more like one entry point one exit point and and how we do that in the tech stack um like looking focusing on charting on layer ones um you know to improve that scalability uh as well as yeah fast finality in terms of you know the validity validity transaction so the speed but uh yeah there are quite a few more but that's my one plus two yeah and that's a good one better ux better UI you know unified type of experience and a good way what about you shushmita so is the question you know we are doing how do how do we tackle around um this fragmentation or is it like we bring in more fragmentation into the ecosystem um so honestly I feel that um fragmentation to some extent um is kind of an unavoidable problem in a blockchain space um because you know there's so many projects so many selling uh points that we all have and it improves the diversity in that ecosystem which makes us more competitive and uh you know I I don't feel that we should somehow you know try to prevent the fragmentation completely it will exist and the other reason it's going to exist and uh it's because you know different regulation are in place so you know think about it the different um geographies have different requirements when um you know these um not only on the tech side of things but also the financial side of things so I don't see an exact solution um to you know where where we could actually stop fragmentation but I would think um taking taking into account uh the different uh the different projects protocols um Technologies um there could be you know some sort of uh you know uh I I'm not too sure like whether there should be some standards that we should come about with in just for for example with other type of technology that happens uh but at this point I think that our ecosystem is kind of um it's a kind of a healthy thing for the ecosystem but maybe I'll talk about one thing that's is going to bring in more fragmentation into it and that is because of um the quantum safe Technologies so we now have a lot going in this uh space most of the things that we see around us are not Quantum safe um and it is going to you know we'll see more fragmentation with uh chains which are supporting Quantum safe versus those who are not supporting Quantum safe Technologies and very simple for for for example a very um nice example is that um we do have ethereum you know um having this proposal of veral trees which has kgz commitments which are which I love I mean I love kgz commitments but you know the quantum safe version I mean I would love to see a Quantum safe version and one of the projects that uh I am involved in is with the quantum safe um building Quantum safe Technologies and um protocols that could be integrated ated um in the blockchain technology and uh going forward how do we integrate these um Tech these uh protocols and Primitives into um existing Chains would be something I would be very interested to look at and that would need an extra amount of work so you know I've been here since morning and um uh this is something that was not being touched by someone so I felt I would also bring into the room think of it as a you know next um interesting project that you can uh think of there's already a lot going in the ecosystem uh but I would say like we are we are still we have still to do a lot in this space thanks Su that's uh I don't know how I'm going to compete with that but anyway um uh I love about humans basically we can talk about talk blockchain technology and everything like that but behind it there is a human being that does all these things and we're all humans what I love about the space is the Innovation that comes out from it I'm in Defi and out from this space all these problems we just mentioned to you fragmentation and working in silos and all these challenges out from all these things it gave birth to a new ecosystem out from the ecosystem it gave birth to new opportunities out from their own New Opportunities it gave birth to new Services New solutions for example if you think about it as we innovate and how to try to find to move a token to another token we're not there yet but as we continuously innovate it gave birth to what is known as custody someone's got to hold all these assets and custodies it before it being pushed to another chain that is the new opportunity and that is the new services that came out from this out from custodies and all these things it gave birth to another service another solution which is known as aggregation of tokens because if you think about it I'm like a money lender I take all um no not money lender money exchanger I take a lot of currencies from everyone I house it everything like that it sits in my treasury for some time I might as well use it and I can aggregate it into multiple chains and yield from it and that's the thing that came out from this so did did all these things did all these things occurred the day when the tech when we all sat down and started to build I don't think so I think when we built it we wanted to solve it but out from it humans people are beautiful because this is our mind we're creative we then saw that hey there's something we can do about this there is a solutions that we can build from this there is a service that we can actually pump up from here and all these things are now you are seeing that is coming up so um and and and and that's what I think that it is going on but to actually challenge the space to have it more unified why is it important because our liquidity is low why is our liquidity is low not many people play in crypto for going to say let's let let's let's admit that okay the people who plays in crypto plays in blockchain plays in tokens are the same people who whom you see today yesterday and probably tomorrow again okay that the same people so if you start splitting it segregating it isolating it building little uh little protocols you're actually making it worse so you need to unify it that is why it's important you need to unify it and more importantly is that the average Joe okay the average Joe only likes to do two clicks and he gets crypto he doesn't like to connect to a wallet go into a platform and then go into another UI in order to transfer the token go to a platform to know how to swap it and things like that they don't they don't get it you need to create something that is easy for them to move it's not just the UI and ux that need to be improved but basically the infrastructure basically needs to why is that is so important because if you want to grow liquidity issue right if you want to grow crypto you got to make it easy and you got to unify that and then these are the two areas that we all watching this year that is going to bust this one is gaming because gaming is a language it's a universal language add a token into it add the digital assets into it how is it going to move watch that space sorry and it's quite and it's quite profound if you really hear it because we all actually fight for decentralization and it's exactly what we said at the beginning about silos we all want to fight for decentralization because it's so important for us but I would like to maybe or we would like because it's what we discussed just now leave you with that question does it actually work is decentralization working yeah and that's it for us thank you so much so thank you great panel