Berachain - Cypherpunks, Consumers, Conglomerates, Cults - TOKEN2049 Singapore 2024

all right we're so cozy Michael let's kick this off um so first thing I think probably most people know bear chain have heard of it maybe showed up to a club once or twice um but let's let's just Ki things off for those that don't know uh let's just draw bear chain in in your own words yeah for sure all righty so um there are bears this might be evident but bear chain itself is an evm identical L1 powered by proof of liquidity and what it really does at the end of the day is it allows liquidity to S serve as a source of security for the chain and to power the applications that are built on top of it and one of the things that I think a lot of people think about when it comes to Bear chain is the lore around the Bears I mean look at look at the stage right now uh let's talk about the lore you know how would you describe kind of the the combination of lore uh into the ecosystem yeah I I think that like there's uh there's two camps there's those that have a little bit of an idea of like the founding story of bear chain and what led to a a man on a be mask up here um others are just like oh it's another VC chain blah blah blah you know I hear both sides um the the funny part is that bar chain was actually a very much a series of happy accidents um we did not intend to build a blockchain we intended to make a funny nft collection of bears smoking weed um that kind of evolved out of control very quickly uh but I also think that that like altruistic entropy or like that uh that that wonderful happen stance of weird events and the lack of of you know um engineering or the lack of like attempts to manufacture something is actually what has served us the best over time so bear chain started for complete shits and giggles in the summer of 2021 by accident um in which my co-founder POA and I basically you know released 100 nfts of bears with bongs aptly named The Bong Bears uh and a number defi discords um you know think like Olympus fra curve alchemics Etc and we're just like hey guys got some fun Bears over here we've seen a bunch of nfts happening in the last little while let's see what happens if we we try to run with something and you know to our surprise they ended up selling out really quickly we had a whole bunch of people who were sort of like large in the ecosystem start adapting adopting them using them as their profile pictures and we ended up with this weird Confluence of like the farle in the far right curve and that on one side we just had people who were like haha funny bear with a bong I will buy this on the other hand there are people who are like okay we've seen these guys in these discords they understand defund they understand what's going on broadly you know maybe there's something more here and it turned out there was a little bit more because we got those Bears to multiply over time into more and more collections basically rewarding the initial holders while increasing distribution and what we ended up doing very much by accident was building a community of thousands of holders of bare smoking weed um that were on one hand you know quite defi Savvy very onchain as a as a whole but on the other hand risk on enough and and lacad isical enough to engage in the these you know multiplying be games and uh I think after long enough we chatted with the community we did the thing where we actually talked to users and developers which is at at times a foreign Concept in crypto uh and found that there were actually problems that we could solve in the existing chain landscape we thought to ourselves right now there's very much a a lack of incentive alignment across liquidity and security at the chain level there is billions of dollars sitting in validator sets on ghost chains with 10 milon tvl is there a way that we can actually allow a to enable b as opposed to having them you know pitted against each other can we turn liquidity into security can we give applications a reason to exist in a new ecosystem and can we allow the chain to actually be in service of its applications and uh that lore along with a lot of bar related is what has God in us here today that's awesome so you just touched on like three or four things that I definitely want to talk about but let's start with one of them uh initially which is the concept of the correlation between community and Excellence I think of when when I think of community there's a couple of really good examples in crypto where you have the coal-like following that defines the community that defines success the Excellence of the chain and I think that you guys perfectly embody that but describe a little bit about how you guys think about community and maybe the chicken and egg problem of is it Community or Tech that comes first which one matters more but you have to have both to do well but Le let's talk through a little bit of Community Development yeah for sure I I think the most important thing about Community is like U maintaining authenticity right I think that you I think there's a there's a long and and sorted history of teams that have tried to incentivize communities into action with Promises of Alpha and airdrops and all these different ways in which they're going to reward them um but I actually think the best way to actually have a community uh come together and and the most important thing is to make people actually believe in something right to find something that feels real tangible approachable uh and and something that could play a positive role in their lives um I know that sounds kind of corny but I also believe there's an element of truth to it right I think a lot of people do things for one of three reasons they're trying to get laid get paid or have fun and I think that we index on many of these things hopefully a lot of the the last one of having fun but like you know no no issue with the others um and I think that when we think about how the bear chain Community has been built it's been a a matter of like planting seeds and letting people who have good intentions run with them it's never been us saying hey go throw this event or hey go build this application or hey go do this it's been hey this person's pretty cool you know let's talk to them let's give them ideas let's bounce things around let's let's create a fun environment in which people can actually try things that are a little bit less conven a little bit more off the beaten path and and stuff that we actually think has a chance of like breaking out and and being accessible to folks uh and I think part of that has been like alongside the bear chain branding right like when you look at our website when you look at Bear chain as a whole it's not meant to come off as intimidating and scary it's meant to be like hey here's a blockchain that people can use bears are approachable but there's actually some really interesting Tech under the hood um and I think that combining that with the community ends up being like this this incredibly high potential Launchpad for just these these Network effects and these fly wheels to take off um as then you know strong people like-minded people who want to perform attract strong people right and I think that if you build a excellent community of folks who are thoughtful motivated hardworking fun just people you'd want to go to Thanksgiving dinner with uh then I think you end up seeing a lot of just um positive externalities in an unintentional manner um and then when you think about that in correlations to the tech I I think that we've seen many groups try to like spin out interesting new technology from academic institution or a leading research firm or a large Enterprise whatever it might be and then say okay let's throw a whole bunch of money at this to try to make people care about it and I think there's actually been very very few examples of that standing the test of time um because For Better or For Worse I believe that blockchains are very much converging on one point in terms of technical thresholds or excellence and that I believe that you know within the next couple of years blockchains will very much feel like you know classic web 2 experiences in terms of ux in terms of usability in terms of just you know Pleasant feelings of use um but actually what they haven't really been differentiated on much yet is is brand is what comes to mind when you think about this chain what defines it what are its principles its values what is you know the ethos of that ecosystem and I think that is where we try to spend a lot more time and I think that's where the community becomes a major Force for good yeah so one of the things I mean and granted the chain hasn't launched yet we're getting close closer um one thing we were talking about beforehand was we're really good in the industry of making these High moments like these things that attract people they come in they they dump tvl they sign up for something get some tokens then run away how do you think about building the authentic staying power of community versus something that might look and feel more like a sugar high yeah I think that there's like very few alternatives to to time and effort right and again kind of corny but the fact of the matter is bartin's been around for almost three years in some shape or form right um and I think that over that time there's been a lot of trust built with those initial community members in fact if you were to look at the first 100 people in the Discord I would say that probably close to a quarter or you know I'd say maybe even approaching a third of them have gone on to start building projects or founding things on the Chain one of the first girls in our Discord Kesha went and founded the bar baddies which has now become like you know a fun Presence at all these events and a great force for women in crypto one of the first dudes has gone and found a project called Goldilocks which raised money from a bunch of good firms like there are so many examples of those initial community members just going out and building exciting new things uh and actually taking something across the line right so I think that to directly answer your question the way that you keep it real and the way that it survives over a long term is is by doing right by the community um not just bending to one's will and saying the community is always right because in many cases they are wrong but I think it's about fairness I think it's about setting expectations reasonably uh and I think it's about trying to ensure that the actions taken by the chain or you know the people guiding the Chain's development are really in service of users at the end of the day and that is really the whole idea of proof of liquidity it's can we put Power in the hands of applications who in turn are really there to help give users wonderful experiences because we can Circle joke over the most inaccessible you know best tech ever for years to come but if we don't build products that people want then it's ultimately all useless right and that's really what be chain is here for more than anything else uh one other thing that has come to mind around the community side is like this importance of a of a hazing or a trauma bonding event right I think almost every chain that has survived the test of time um has had some event where they just get absolutely sucker punched uh so Bitcoin had Mount gaau ethereum had the Dow hack Lana had FTX um you know I think for us there will certainly be something one could perhaps argue that waiting for a chain for three years has been the trauma bonding event but you know I'm sure there's another one down the road uh and I think that just having people that um that care and and you know putting those people on pedestals letting them build their own platforms letting them form their own tribes and letting that you know set of uh you know entropy heavy events carry out in a good way yep bonded through trauma it happens um so one of the things you mentioned earlier and then just now is proof of liquidity and one of the kind of core memes narratives that's going on in the industry right now is all about alignment and I think proof of liquidity is kind of the exact example of how you would become the most aligned with the base layer and the application layer working together collaboratively stakers app developers have incentives perfectly aligned let's talk through a little bit of the nuts and bolts of proof of liquidity how does it work and why do you think it's different I mean we think it's pretty novel and interesting but but how do you think about it yeah of course so the the whole tenant of proof liquidity is that you know in order for an ecosystem like bear chain to flourish right the applications should actually benefit from living on the chain and we haven't seen any chain to date that has actually had a sort of a mechanistically I'd say embedded manner of driving value to its apps sure there are Grant programs which I think are mercenary you know for the most part and just encourage bad Builders um and you know there might be you know King making done by the foundation or by certain members of the team um but I think that what proof of liquidity tries to optimize for is to allow those who've contributed the greatest amount of tangible value for the ecosystem to actually have the greatest say in its direction over time um what that means practically is that on bechain um when blocks are produced bgt or the be governance token is emitted um bgt is enti ly illiquid and cannot be purchased on an exchange Dex whatever it might be the only way to earn it is by actually providing liquidity to governance approved or Whit listed sources of liquidity on the Chain so this could be pools in the native decks or a lending Market or a staking pool in a game whatever it might be and over time more and more of these applications as determined by those who have uh contributed liquidity in the first place can be added to the set of venues that can actually receive um receive emissions from the chain itself so what proof of liquidity ultimately ends up doing is reducing customer acquisition cost with these apps increasing Capital efficiency and really driving value towards them and their LPS more than anything else so what I think is really interesting here is that there actually ends up being a bit of an equivalent exchange it's not just the chain subsidizing applications it's those applications then pushing fees or part of their token emissions or some form of value back towards those bgt stakers and the folks who have pushed value to their applications in the first place so we try to make it as full circle and as sustainable as possible and when we think about building a real community and when we think about this idea of alignment you know we see a means of that sustaining so you know I think that the idea of like ethereum alignment has been thrown around a bunch uh and I would argue that the term has become like near you know close to toxic at some points in which it's like oh if you're not ethereum aligned you're a bad person like you know got to be ethereum aligned they're not going to let you in the office type um and on our side you know we we've played with different ideas in the past but I think that what we see ourselves as most in this like alignment Paradigm is app layer aligned and that be chain really is meant to be an accelerant for the application layer um and it's the first chain where the validators and the applications and the users work together to let the ecosystem grow validators are not pitted against their applications they're not trying to extract meev from them they're there to make sure that they succeed they're there to help power them they're there to drive value to them right so we think that that can really open up some cool new paradigms in terms of how ecosystems interact as a whole so going back to the title of the the chat um there's obviously a number of applications tens to hundreds of applications that are building on top of bear chain right now and proof of liquidity seems to be that kind of interesting Beach head that everyone is getting interested in building on bear chain for but how do you bridge the gap between let's say Colts and conglomerates you know you've got the cult following the culture the memes the Riz how do you actually bridge that into institutions conglomerates that also want to use the chain yeah I I think that the answer almost ends up being the same as how we attract like developers or users in that you know I I think that a large portion of the the web 2 industry or these conglomerates that are moving into the space uh they recognize brand value right they recognize salana for many reasons because it it has a brand it has a a real like vibe to it it has the culture and it's something that's gotten in the minds and hearts of people um and I think that you know what we're trying to do is to build something that allows them to recognize a similar feeling from us um not saying that we're trying to to parallel salana but what I mean is you want to be recognizable you want to have something that that sticks out from the crowd um and you want to have proof of the ability to actually convert that into something tangible so on one hand while having you know raised capital from yourselves and brevan Howard and polychain and hack and whatnot and you know Samsung and golden tree and yada y y is is great for us from an Institutional de risking point of view I actually think what's been most interesting is that um you know a lot of these Brands we've interacted with have said you guys seem to understand what it takes to to distribute because you know there's a whole meme like firsttime Founders think about product second time Founders think about distribution I think that a lot of what happens with the Bears dude on stage in a bear mask is distribution uh and and I think that that's also what a lot of these Brands end up looking for uh a fun aside that I've noticed especially as we spend more and more time in in the Asian market is that um as a result of the Bears these a lot of these Brands believe that like we understand IP well which is like really funny because I don't think we're we're quite there yet and I'd love to do more and more with that in the future and I think there's very interesting precedent for how IP can really just spin its own flywheels um but it also is very cool that having the bear as a mascot has meant that these you know Japanese gaming Studios and you know anime houses Etc are like oh yeah you guys already have something that we can work with here uh and that's just been a very you know happy accent of the times yep so I think you know first time Founders think about product second time think Founders think about distribution I think one of the other aspects Bearer chain when we started getting to know you guys was that there's actually a lot of substance behind the mass behind the bear um maybe let's talk a little bit about the team and how you guys are working you know some of the things that are upcoming there's a lot of substance there yeah man um you know the team stays lowkey but but every now and then hop in the spotlight um most of us have had backgrounds either most of us have been building or scaling companies for the better part of our lives right so my background was first in healthcare biotech and Drug Discovery my co-founder Papa's background was in medical devices we studied engineering at the University of waterl we've sort of seen our time and then they've also worked in v as in VC and has helped deploy Capital into meaningful deals for a long time and have also been in and out of crypto since 2015 but we are by far you know the least competent members of the team at Le at least I am um we're supplemented by a number of folks who have been in and out of the industry and who have just had ridiculous amounts of scar tissue that allow us to keep on doing our our jobs with the right guard rails and help us fill in those blanks and and I think the biggest sort of uniting factor that I've seen is selecting for people who don't need a job um I think that the the way that a lot of the team has come together is there's a number of past Founders there's a number of people who have built and exited companies um there's people who have chips on their shoulder who are incredibly competitive uh and take extreme ownership or accountability of whatever they want to do uh and I think that there's also a lot of folks who just like want to win really bad uh and I think that it's very tough to to put that into exact words because it's not just about the pedigree it's not like oh I spent this many years at at Stellar or at polygon or at Ripple or whatever it might be it's like oh I'm someone who has that dog in them to a ridiculous extent uh and I think that that is um tough to empirically categorize but very easy to recognize when you see it enough times uh and I think that what we've really tried to do is to not compromise on that in in the slightest and that if there's someone who we think is holding down the group they're cut um and I think the goal is that every time we bring on a new team member they're there to increase the average quality of the team such that over time more and more and more we just Trend towards Excellence right right couldn't agree more um last question last minute let's let's talk through some of the apps they're building on be chain uh there's some pretty interesting ones that are uh that are up and coming but let what are some of the most favorite ones that you you've been following oh man I I got to pick favorite kids um the ecosystem has been such a pleasure to work with uh you know like just for context right there's over 300 applications building on be chain that's kind of a meme because there was always lots of apps on some chains but out of those I actually believe there's like 50 to 60 very high quality teams and I believe the market thinks so as well because there's already been about $75 million in Venture Capital invested into the ecosystem prior to launch right um so on one hand I think there's like this uh there's there's probably a barbell in that on one hand there's very funky cool new defi stuff and there's stuff that people would Now call consumer which I think is a horrible word but I would just say it's like you know crypto that people might be able to use so on the defi side there's very cool ideas like exponents and concrete for example um exponents allows you to effectively directionally incentivize long or shorting of tokens with purpose for the first time so you can actually basically have like almost like Community Wars so you could have a bonk whiff pair and have people bribing you to go long on Bonk short on whiff vice versa which I think will open up some very fun new games in in the altcoin space um there's teams like concrete Finance which I've always been incredibly impressed by uh Oxford surgeon turned three uh 72 VP turn deep DJ building credit default swaps on chain and advanced interest rate derivatives and structured process products launching natively on be chain um there's groups that are then on like the wackier most fun consumer set of things uh that I am very excited to see proliferate there's for example over under which is building computer vision powered um you know automatic odd generation and betting on Twitch streams so something that could very easily reach hundreds of thousands of users and have deep cultural fits uh there's puff paaw which has recently seen some notoriety in their quit smokingvape to earn dpin model um the team has shipped tens of Millions Vapes in the past and is incredibly competent has been killing it on The Branding side uh there's a a company called stable hold that'll be joining us soon uh or as I call the Horse Hedge Fund uh that'll be very fun that'll involve tokenizing um you know a horse's winning a staples's winnings along with breeding rights to horses in the future which we think will be incredibly interesting there's uh there's one that we can't decide whether to call it jerk to earn or Ur to earn that'll be on the the sexual fde in space I don't think I need to explain that one much further um and uh there's one that I think will be uh you know absolute cream of the crop called frequency which is an L2 built by repeat founders of Virgin Galactic gaming Etc um who are bringing tens of millions of users and actually player liquidity on chain and for the first time building an L2 to Bear chain that allows you to effectively cross-pollinate players between different applications coming onto the network uh including ones that have you know tens of millions of existing web to users so we see all these as incredible funnels to just bring so much value to the Beer ecosystem and of course they're supplemented by a number of just like the very strong bar native defi apps like infrared Kodiak gummy Uh and countless more so we are just I don't know we're very fortunate to have our Builders I don't know how I could find a better group I'm going to keep trying but I might not be lucky uh and uh you know we just do our best to help them win that that's our job we're not supposed to be the main characters we're just supposed to be in the bleachers helping alongside I love it well I think the takeaway is be chain full culture all kinds uh well with that thanks so much this has been great on to the next one