Fireside Chat With Ink Protocol I Andrew Koller & Kartik Talwar at Pragma Denver 2025

[Music] all right we are ready for our next session and that is going to be a fireside chat with Andrew who is the founder of ink and we're going to talk about all the things that ink protocol is excited about so without further Ado please welcome Andrew on stage Andrew I'm excited to be uh chatting with you here um there's a lot of Buzz going on around what in's been doing and uh I want to kind of just have the audience understand a bit more about the backstory here and uh I want to start off by asking what made you start Inc and what was the goal behind Kraken taking on this initiative yeah so for those that don't know Inc is um an optimistic L2 that was spawned by Kraken and our focus is entirely on bringing Kraken clients on chain that was like our our big motivator at the beginning we actually didn't start with an L2 we started experimenting with zero knowledge proofs um and bringing clients into like permissioned pools that could be only Kraken clients on chain um and that was U that was well over a year ago actually even before coinbase announced base so we were experimenting with like okay we see the trend that's happening how do we just get more users on chain and start blending the world between off off chain and onchain and naturally kind of took this course of instead of just creating like a single kind of zero knowledge proof like product that people can start like going on chain with why not build out a whole ecosystem uh centered around Defi and so we decided to spawn something called Inc and then um make make an L2 I do have one question how many so we have over 14 million clients on Kraken what percent do you think have ever withdrawn from Kraken just in their entire lifetime in their entire life yeah I'm going to guess 10 almost it's it's only about 20% wow so um we have a lot of like on the centralized side there's a ton of opportunity to educate people on on what more you can do on chain and that's why we think like Inc is like the perfect um you know backed by Kraken and and having kind of like our ethos put into it it was a a perfect ecosystem for us to build and and get more clients on chain that's awesome so kind of jumping into what that ethos is tell us kind of how you talk about what Inc is to somebody who's uh in this case a centralized exchange user that has not ever kind of moved AET off stain or uh somebody who has now option of 100 plus L2 to pick from uh what makes it unique so being blunt like on the technical side it is an optimistic L2 built on the super chain right so we are limited in what we can actually push which I think is to our benefit so that we can actually focus on these experiences um that make it really easy to use and get get on chain so our whole goal is basically just full abstraction everything about crypto abstracted and make sure that you're when you're on chain you're it feels like a centralized experience that you're you know basically on some kind of like Cipher Punk Neo Bank where you have access to all your finances in one click and then if you want to you know have your savings account that goes into yield or I don't know you want to get into more the fun gaming side you you can just easily move around and do things seamlessly um so I think what sets it unique though is that Kraken has been around for over a decade in we have this long-standing reputation of security and being really true to crypto and emphasizing that you shouldn't be blocked on what you do with your finances and you should do be able to do that in somewhat of a private way um and we think um obviously we're very crypto aligned so like we we just wanted to make that that experience really easy with crypto does that mean you're in addition to just kind of having this chain out there and maintaining it and giving the the best uptime and security guarantees you're also going to be introducing products that you're building on chain for the users yes and that's um that's actually the Strategic choice for using um the op stack is we really didn't want to have to build out a whole team that's like really heavily focused on the protocol we wanted to be able to put our resources into building our own products and and making our own um applications on chain and then also our own kind of like portals to get on chain um and make it really easy so majority of inc's resources is on the product build that's awesome and I think that's how it should be uh infrastructure should uh fall into the solve Now problem category um mostly out of curiosity when you were deciding between what stack to build this on and uh kind of ultimately landed on using super chain and the op stack uh what kind of were the other considerations and other candidates in terms of like the features you were anywhere from aiming for or wanted to get and how was that decision made and uh kind of what was factored in so we we tried everything under the sun um we went to we we were internally we're running test Nets on arbitrum ZK sync optimism everything um we really enjoyed the features of every single one like obviously ZK you can go back to the L1 instantly um optimism you got a you know there's that 7-Day window still if you're just doing it kind of like the vanilla way um and then arbitrum was awesome because of stylus and you could write arbitrary rust or C++ in in a contract we had a lot of uh we're a rust first company at Kraken so we had a lot of internal experiments around that but ultimately it came down to kind of like you know hard decisions on network effects and then what kind of road map we we vibed with the most and we really uh we started contributing a little bit to the interop ability stuff early on um and so we really latched on to optimism's Vibe what they were shipping and we wanted to kind of go all all in on that that's awesome um as part of this kind of experiment um how do you think about General L2 optimizations that you can still make on ink here like do you kind of care about having higher gas than the rest of the super chains or a lower block time or any other considerations so yeah even though we're limited on on the protocol side um the these all the different side cars and everything you can run on an L2 we're definitely experimenting with so we want to get down uh to the 250 millisecond block time because I think that's going to be kind of a commoditized thing like a year from now everybody's going to be um you know around that that area um ignoring Mega they'll be way faster than that but it's yeah so running like commit boost or working with um Kuby on the gataka side and and like kind of exploring around you know how do we get to that to those 250 millisecond block times and then also on the the security side you know we are centrally running the sequencer right now and so we do in that stage before we get to decentralization right now we have a huge opportunity to be able to add some of those security features where developers can optionally choose like what kind of like and kind of dials they put in their contracts or assertions so that if there sleep and all of a sudden there's a transaction in the me pool that drains I don't know a liquidity pool for1 million it'll autop pause the contract and not execute that um so on the security and then the block time efficiency I think that's what we're we're looking for and those are are pretty good uh pretty good nice to not even great to haves not even nice to haves [Music] um in terms of you kind of brought up sequencers and uh and uh managing kind of uh the the execute or the rollup pieces here um how do you as Kraken in this case think about what does it mean to run a sequencer and what does decentralization means here and uh kind of what are some of the levels here where you you'll feel comfortable this being open versus kind of one party running this and what's kind of the security mindset on this we were I think this was in January we were the first um besides op mayet we were the first chain to get to stage one with the permissionless fault proofs so that's always been core to our ethos and we actually set set up the whole um kind of like foundation and structure of of how the L2 is offered in a decentralized way so that we can prepare for not being the sole operator of the sequencer um but we're going to be working heavily with with optimism and with the wider community on the based in Native sequencing kind of talks that are going on um which could get a little spicy with you know like people that have their own visions of like the super chain or something but I think it'll be all um harmonious at the end but um yeah we're we're constantly thinking about stage two how do we make sure that we have some kind of network that anybody can run you know their own validator it's just uh I think we're more of like a year or so out um from being able to execute on that but that's top of mind like I think with Kraken ethos We Care like we Jesse our our founder constantly says um on Twitter like don't hold your fund funds on exchanges that ethos goes over to Inc and we want to make sure that we we kind of mirror that and say like yeah we are going to be decentralized don't trust us to run the sequencer even though right now yes um but I think with our security practices they're pretty damn good um so it um you know we'll be decentralized I think over a year and I think given kind of how early you are you're two months into the launch um you're going to need that ramp up anyway just to sort of see everything in anywhere from run into edge cases or just how people are using the chain so uh that's actually pretty exciting that this is already uh something in the works um when you think think about ink as a as a network do you have a specific thing that you would like people building on it to focus on is it going to be defi heavy or does it not matter as long as you kind of have this option for people to kind of park or just use a different L2 like what's kind of the pitch to developers or in general um users here it's definitely defi um so anything around like per de's dexes the kind of typical kind of like Tech tree that's there for for defi we definitely want to work with you and and build with you I think we have the unique opportunity with all of our institutional clients and and the big clients on Kraken that are really hungry for some kind of home that's backed by Kraken um so you know we have a lot of loyal customers that really love you know like again our ethos and and just have been with us for a very very long time and so they're looking to help fund projects we're looking to help fund projects um and yeah it's basically anything in the tech tree of of defi there's there's some instit tions that also want to help Inspire some Builders to like maybe make an aggregator that has optionality to get into Kraken order books in some way like if there's a better route that goes over to Kraken um or there's some combined liquidity of onchain and offchain we definitely want to see um some ideas come from there that's a very kind of interesting um uh point you've made and uh I think I just picked it up with this you've mentioned this a couple times in the answers but is it my is it a correct understanding that a lot of Institutions want to be on chain but they are hesitating because they're worried about security of their assets and and is that kind of the reason why those institutional clients are more excited to be on Inc because they're effectively getting that additional level of trust and and reputation or are there some other factors in and kind of what's stopping them from trying something else it's a good question I think they have a lot of complexity um most of the time they need like a qualified custodian to be able to execute things on their behalf but does that apply to the chain though doesn't apply to the chain yeah um I I have heard I I think this varies in every jurisdiction right but I have heard some institutions have to go through like a heavy regulatory approval just to use a new chain um or just to like use an asset that has been issued on a chain then they have to kind of go through approval to be able to do that um so that's one complexity the qualified custody piece is another complexity but the ones that do get comfortable with using like anosa safe um on chain yeah they they do kind of pick favorites um and you know some are more mercenaries I think that they'll just they don't care they'll go anywhere but there there are some that have that intense loyalty and and are looking for you know people that talk about security or talk about the ethos and um you know just want to understand that the contracts so that they're interacting with are safe but also the chain operator is is safe as well um but the institutional topic I think I think they just have so many complexities around how they operate um but if we can make them like a more comfortable environment then great I think that's a pretty good win because ultimately that's what we're trying to bring in in the first place and uh if they can uh get more comfortable through somebody they trust um that helps everybody they can they can live harmoniously with with the Deens it's like it's totally fine and we can make a good environment for both it's yeah I don't think it's a war going on it's just it's just one of them exists on chain the other ones don't that's that's what it is um one other thing I'm kind of curious about is um obviously seeing an exchange launch a chain is not a new thing uh Finance started this thing a few years ago we've seen a lot of other exchanges do this Bas being a recent one um as you were kind of thinking about these things I'm kind of curious to to know to the extent you're willing to talk about this what were kind of some of the lessons that you learned from how they launched and things you like oh we should definitely not do this or we should definitely do this things like what kind of some of the insights that you have effectively had the ability to uh to take in from them being early a few things um so we could have we we launched this thing very early like we accelerated our timeline we were actually going to launch this week but we did it like right before Christmas which was torture but um we did it and we could have even if we were to launch this week we could have still delayed like a year and I think that's like that's a model that um some have done be chain I think was extremely successful doing this like taking a very long time to to get everybody you know like liquidity on board and and all these different partners we could have taken that route but we just wanted to really just get the thing out there and see you know what kind of feedback we get how our messaging evolves as we engage with the community and it's been a lot of fun so far and if you look at you know things that I said back in like October when we announced to now it has evolved right like we are we are listening to people we are you know building and getting feedback doing all kinds of interviews and and just hearing what people uh want so I like the approach we took but it it is hard sometimes you go to sleep at night you're thinking like could we have waited longer and maybe maybe we we've had would have a higher tvl or we'd have more Partners or something if we waited a year but again conversely like I think it's very fun like getting these Partners while we're in the open and and just discussing in the open like hey we don't know what we're doing but like hey do you want to do you want to come build with us and it it's it's been it's just been amazing building these relationships um but then secondly like on the exchange ones um I think there's a huge opportunity for that that user journey in ux I think um as like you know with with Dynamic and with everybody else that are kind of making like a lot of account abstracted things there's a lot of experimentation out there and you can as an exchange and you have like this kind of like ragtag team of of like almost like a little mini startup and a big company you can fall victim to just like having a ton of experiments out there and it feels very fragmented because there's so much new tech you're throwing things out and seeing what sticks um so I think just being a little con concentrated and still doing those experiments but making that user journey is like a lesson from some of the other uh exchanges so it's like you're not just relying on metamask and the kind of typical Journey how do we just you know if you're on Kraken you have one click and it's like this whole world is open to you that's what we're aiming for that's awesome and and I guess like one one thing that um I kind of constantly see as a theme is um people don't realize that the best way to improve a product is putting it out in front of people and uh that's kind of the developer mindset that's also like the startup mindset and and you choosing to wait a year only kind of hurts your chances of getting to that right conversing point of what people actually want or what works and what doesn't so uh I'm actually very happy to hear that you were able to launch two months before before timeline um on that note how has it been how have the last few months been and uh what are kind of something things that you noticed or uh the feedback you've gotten so far barely any sleep um but uh yeah we just have like a lot of a lot of people that really feel that they want like a a home right they they want uh they want to like build their new protocol um so we have many people that are working with us that aren't going to be here until like Q2 or Q3 and you know they just kind of say like hey we really like Kraken we really like the ethos we like the the things you guys are pushing and um this kind of like one-click defi experience you want to make from The Exchange and um they just want to build with us and so like like you said like if we had waited a while um I don't know if we would have gotten that that kind of you know Talent OR these people just wanting to chat with us and and jam and and Vibe um so it's been you know I wear mini hats uh I I was just an engineer so like I'm in all kinds of BD calls like it feels like hundreds a week but it is awesome just connecting with with everyone that wants to build wants to have a new home U wants to bring the liquidity to Inc and um there's just a ton of stuff in the pipeline and I I I can't wait to see like you know a year from now like just looking at all the stats um looking how people are managing their wealth and I think there's an important thing in it too of like we're leaning into in the last few months like just having fun again on chain you know like you can have fun doing yield you can have fun like doing things Beyond just meme coins and um I think we're we're cooking up some fun stuff not investment advice uh so maybe my last question to you U is kind of like a personal note as as a founder of Inc and taking this on um what kind of are you worried about right now and what are you uh excited about the most over the next year or two worried about um I think it's the it's like almost the same answer for worried and excited the based in Native sequencing discussions um I think that'll get a little heated for a while a lot of people are signaling that this is the the route to go um maybe for the audience why would it be heated because somebody gets displaced or yeah I think maybe some people's road maps get displaced um and you know I'm not going to name many names but like it could interrupt maybe some multi-year plan that you had and now like the whole Community is kind of coalescing over this new um push for for how like maybe we do sequencing on l2s so I think that could just be a little little heated but it it is protocol development in the open so like it's natural that's going to happen so that that worries me but it also excites me I I think um there's opportunity here yeah there's a ton of opportunity and then like maybe broader um the bybit thing definitely sucked um I think uh it it is kind of like obviously everything like we're talking about price at an ethereum conference where it always goes down at an ethereum conference but um it it's not something we should concentrate on but it it definitely is like it's just a sore side or sore you know spot on our side on on the industry much like the FTX thing um so like hopefully in the coming decade there's less and less of those but it is what it is I mean it's crypto well I think we can ASM totically trying to get that to zero so let's let's hope for that World um Andrew thank you so much for this amazing chat and uh feel free to uh talk to Andrew if you have any questions thank you let's give a big round of applause [Music]